{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16856/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16856","id":"gutenberg_16856","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16856","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Schools & Universities","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Teaching & Education","Christianity","Church of England -- Sermons","Sermons, English"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1905 James Nisbet and Co. edition by David Price,\nemail ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nSERMONS AT RUGBY\n\n\nBy the Rt. Rev. JOHN PERCIVAL, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF HEREFORD\nSOMETIME HEADMASTER OF RUGBY\n\nJAMES NISBET AND CO. LTD.\n21 BERNERS STREET, LONDON.  1905\n\n[Title page: title.jpg]\n\n[Photograph of John Percival: john.jpg]\n\n\n\n\n INTRODUCTORY NOTE\n\n\nThis little group of Rugby Sermons is to be taken and read as being\nnothing more than a few stray chips from the workshop of a busy\nschoolmaster, brought together by a kindly publisher, and arranged as he\nthought best.\n\nThey represent no body of continuous doctrine.  In one case the subject\nmay have been suggested by the season of the Christian year; in another\nit was the meeting or the parting at the beginning or the end of a term\nthat suggested it; or more frequently some incident in the school life of\nthe moment.\n\nSuch, indeed, almost inevitably is the teaching of a schoolmaster,\nengrossed in the training of the boys committed to his charge and growing\nunder his hand towards the destiny of their endless life.\n\nTo those boys, and to the masters, my colleagues, and to other fellow-\nlabourers--some gone to their rest, some still doing their appointed\nwork--I dedicate this brief reminder of our common life in days of happy\nfellowship.\n\nJ. HEREFORD.\n_July_ 1905.\n\n\n\n\n I.  RELIGIOUS PATRIOTISM.\n\n\n   \"Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself. . . . O pray\n   for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.  Peace\n   be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces.  For my\n   brethren and companions' sakes I will wish thee prosperity.  Yea,\n   because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek to do thee\n   good.\"--PSALM cxxii. 3, 6-9.\n\nAs we draw near to the end of our summer term, when so many are about to\ntake leave of their school life, there is sure to rise up in many minds\nthe thought of what this life has done for them or failed to do, and of\nwhat the memory of it is likely to be in all their future years as they\npass from youth to age.\n\nAnd it should be our aim and desire, as need hardly be said, that from\nthe day when each one comes amongst us as a little boy to the day when he\noffers his last prayer in this chapel before he goes out into the world,\nhis life here should be of such a sort that its after taste may have no\nregrets, and no bitterness, and no shame in it, and the memories to be\ncherished may be such as add to the happiness and strength of later\nyears.  And if, as we trust, this is your case, your feeling for your\nschool is almost certain to be in some degree like that which is\nexpressed in this pilgrim psalm.  Its language of intense patriotism,\nsteeped in religious feeling, which is the peculiar inspiration of the\nOld Testament Jew, will seem somehow to express your own feelings for\nthat life in which you grew up from childhood to manhood.\n\nIndeed, the best evidence that your school life has not failed of its\nhigher objects is the growth of this same sort of earnest patriotic\nenthusiasm.  Do you feel at all for your school as that unknown Jewish\npilgrim who first sung this 122nd Psalm felt for the city of his fathers\nand the house of God?  \"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall\nprosper that love thee.  For my brethren and companions' sakes I will\nwish thee prosperity.  Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God I\nwill seek to do thee good.\"\n\nExperience shows us that those English schools have been the best in\nwhich this feeling has been strongest and most widely diffused; and that\nthose are the best times in any school which train up and send forth the\nlargest proportion of men who continue to watch over its life, and to\npray for it in this spirit: \"For my brethren and companions' sakes I will\nwish thee prosperity.  Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God I\nwill seek to do thee good.\"  On the other hand, if this feeling is weak\nin any school, or among the former members of it, or if it assumes\ndebased forms, as sometimes happens, we see there a sure sign of\ndegeneration.  He who, having grown up in any society like ours, is\npossessed by no such love for it, and stirred by no enthusiasm for its\ngood name, and no desire to do it good, and to see good growing in every\npart of it, such an one has somehow missed the chief blessing that his\nmembership of his school should have brought to him.  He may have been\nunfortunate, or he may have proved unworthy.  The atmosphere of his\nschool life, and the associations amidst which he grew up, may have been\nsuch that the best thing he can do is to shake himself clear of them and\nforget them.  To such an one his school time has been a grave and\nlifelong misfortune; and it is the condemnation of any society if there\nare many such cases in it.\n\nIt is, however, exceptional in English life for men who have grown up in\na great school to be stirred by no glow of patriotic feeling for it.\nWhatever their own experience of it may have been, they are not\naltogether blind to the things that constitute its greatness, and they\nlove to hear it well spoken of.\n\nBut the quality of their patriotism will depend very much on the quality\nof their own life; so that the task we have always before us is to be\ninfusing into our community such a spirit and purpose, as shall infect\neach soul amongst us with those higher aims, and tastes, and motives,\nwith that hatred of things mean or impure, and that love of things that\nare manly, honest, and of good report, which distinguish all nobler\ncharacters from the baser, and which are produced and fostered, and made\nto work strongly in every society that has any claim to good influence.\n\nSeeing, then, that a man's patriotism is to a great extent the expression\nof his personal life, how instructive is this picture of the patriot\nwhich the 122nd Psalm sets before us.  We see thus first of all how he\nfeels the unity of his people--their one pervading life, and himself a\npart of it, though possibly far away--\"Jerusalem is built as a city that\nis at unity in itself: thither the tribes go up.\"  Those were times when\nIsrael suffered from division of tribe against tribe, times when the\npulse of common life hardly beat at all, times of isolation or of\njealousy; but the true patriot in Israel, as everywhere, was always\npossessed by the intense feeling of the oneness of his people under one\nLord; and whenever this feeling fails, we look in vain for the higher\nforms of common life.\n\nBut we note, too, this Psalmist's passionate personal devotion to the\nobject of his patriotic love--\"They shall prosper that love thee\"--\"For\nmy brethren and companions' sakes I will wish thee prosperity.\"  Who can\nread unmoved these noble and generous outpourings?\n\nWe see, moreover, how his feeling expresses itself, as true love always\ndoes express itself in the desire to do good to its object, and, above\nall, how it breathes the spirit of moral and religious earnestness.  \"Yea,\nbecause of the house of the Lord our God I will seek to do thee good.\"  If\never you desire to test the sincerity and the worth of any love you bear\nto person, place, institution, or society, you have only to turn to this\nPsalm, and see if these words fit your thoughts, desires, and\nendeavours--\"They shall prosper that love thee--For my brethren and\ncompanions' sakes I will wish thee prosperity--Yea, because of the house\nof the Lord our God I will seek to do thee good.\"  Here are the notes of\ntrue patriotic feeling--personal love, public spirit, sanctified by moral\nand religious purpose, desire to do good.  These are the qualities which\nare the salt of all societies, and it is by virtue of these that they win\ntheir good name, if they do win it.\n\nIn the history of our own school we can point to abundant illustrations\nof this truth.  I will mention one only, familiar to those who know our\nhistory.  \"I verily believe,\" wrote a School-house boy to his friend\nfifty-three years ago--\"I verily believe my whole being is soaked through\nwith wishing and hoping and striving to do the school good, or, rather,\nto hinder it from falling in this critical time, so that all my cares,\nand affections, and conversation, thought, words, and deeds, look to that\ninvoluntarily.\"\n\nSuch was one of your predecessors as he sat here Sunday by Sunday, a boy\nlike any of you.\n\nHe was eager to follow those friends who had preceded him to Oxford as\nscholars of Balliol; he was keenly interested in all intellectual\npursuits; he turned for his daily pleasure to literature or history; but\nalongside of it all, or rather through it all, underlying it all, giving\nearnestness and fervour, the true unselfish quality, to it all, there was\nburning in his heart a consuming zeal for the good of his house and\nschool.  \"For my brethren and companions' sakes I will wish thee\nprosperity.  Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek to\ndo thee good.\"\n\nIt was through the spirit and the lives of such as he, growing up here,\nand leavening all the life around them, and then going forth in the same\nspirit, to live the noble and earnest type of life elsewhere, that the\nname of Rugby School became honoured among schools, and this chapel came\nto be looked upon as a sacred home of inspiring influences; and it is\nonly through an unfailing succession of such Rugbeians--growing up here\nin the same spirit, and going forth endowed with the same character and\nthe same purpose--that this honourable name, this tradition of good\ninfluences, can be perpetuated.\n\nAnd, if we desire to see how close this is to the spirit and the work of\nour Lord, how it is, in fact, one manifestation of that spirit which is\nthe saving influence in human life; we have only to turn from the text\nwith which I started to that with which I may conclude, from the Psalmist\nmeditating on the city and temple of his heart's affections, to the\nSaviour, as He drew near to the Cross, praying for His disciples--\"Father,\nthe hour is come. . . . I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have\nfinished the work Thou gavest Me to do.  I have manifested Thy name unto\nthe men whom Thou gavest me out of the world.\" . . . \"And for their sakes\nI sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified.  Neither pray I for\nthese alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their\nword.\"\n\nThe only change we see as we step from the Psalms to the Gospel, from the\nJewish pilgrim to the Saviour whom we worship, is that religious\npatriotism has expanded into the love of souls, the love of Him who laid\ndown His life to save us from the power of sin and death.\n\nIt was for you and me that Christ was praying; and His prayer for us will\nbe answered so soon as it inspires us to follow in His footsteps, so that\nwe too, as we kneel before God each morning, each night, and think of our\nduty to those around us, may be able to say, in these words of His, which\nare at once a prayer and a consecrating vow--\"For their sakes I sanctify\nmyself, that they also may be sanctified.'\"\n\n\n\n\n II.  THE CHILD IN THE MIDST.\n\n\n   \"And He took a child and set Him in the midst of them: and when He had\n   taken him in His arms, He said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one\n   of such children in My name, receiveth Me: and whosoever shall receive\n   Me, receiveth not Me, but Him that sent Me.\"--ST. MARK ix. 36, 37.\n\nIt is one of the characteristics of our time, one of its most hopeful and\nmost encouraging signs, that men are awaking to higher and purer\nconceptions of the Christian life and what it is that constitutes such a\nlife.  We are beginning to feel, as it was not felt by former\ngenerations, that the only true religion, the only Christianity worthy of\nthe name, is that which aims at embodying and reproducing the spirit, the\nthought, the ideas of the Saviour.\n\nThrough and underneath all ecclesiastical and mediaeval revivals, and all\nvagaries of church tradition or of ritual, this feeling seems to be\ngrowing with a steady growth, that the real test of a man's religion is\nthe evidence which his life affords of the Christ-like spirit.  And this\ngrowing feeling gives an ever-fresh interest to the words and the\njudgment of the Lord on all matters of individual conduct and daily\nintercourse; so that if we are possessed at all by it, the Saviour is\nbecoming more of a living person to us, and we ask ourselves more\nfrequently, more earnestly, with more of reality and more of practical\nmeaning in the question, how He would judge this or that side of our\nlife, whether our conduct is in harmony with His spirit, and whether the\nstandards of our life fit at all with His teaching and injunctions.\n\nAnd how full of new meaning every familiar chapter of the Gospel becomes\nto you, if you are once roused to this kind of feeling; if you are\nfeeling all the time, here is the spirit which should be dominating my\nown life and determining it, here are the thoughts, ideas, and views of\nconduct which should be mine also.  How does my common life fit with all\nthis?  And it is with something like this feeling in your minds that I\nwould ask you to consider the text I have just read to you.  \"Jesus took\na child and set him in the midst of them.  He took him up in His arms and\nsaid, Whosoever shall receive one of such children in My name, receiveth\nMe.\"  And while we are considering it, let us notice also that in St.\nMatthew's narrative there are two other very emphatic expressions.\n\"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not\nenter into the Kingdom of Heaven\"; and \"Whoso shall offend one of these\nlittle ones that believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone\nwere hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.\n. . . Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say\nunto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My\nFather which is in heaven.\"\n\nHere, then, is the child taken up by Jesus and set in the midst; we know\nnothing more of him but this one thing, that he represents to us our\nLord's Divine love of little children, and His high estimate of\nchildhood, as the mysterious embodiment of that character and those\nqualities which bring us close to the Divine life.\n\nBut this is quite enough to make us listen to the lessons of thought and\nwarning and hope, which Jesus expounds to us as He stands with the child\nin His arms.  His words may very well set every one of us thinking about\nour own life and conduct.  We look at this scene--the disciples standing\nround, their hearts occupied, as ours are apt to be, with their own\nambitions, rivalries, and jealousies, and Jesus in the midst with the\nlittle child; and we cannot mistake or misinterpret the lessons He\nteaches us, the lessons which welled up in His heart whenever He saw, or\nmet, or took up in His arms, and blessed a little child.\n\n\"Let every child you meet,\" he clearly says to us, \"remind you that if\nyou desire to be My disciple and to win a place in My kingdom, you must\nfling off selfishness, and put in its place the spirit of service and\ntenderness.\"  \"He that would be first must be servant of all.\"  \"You must\nhumble yourself as this little child.\"\n\nAnd then He adds the blessing and the warning:--\"Whoso shall receive one\nsuch child in My name receiveth Me; but whosoever shall offend one of\nthese little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged\nabout his neck, and he were cast into the sea.\"\n\nWe may pause for a moment to consider what it is in childhood, what are\nthe gifts, qualities, characteristics of the child, that drew from our\nLord this special love and care and these injunctions to His followers.\nWe do well to bear them in mind, because He has declared with such\nemphasis that we have no part in His kingdom unless we retain or recover\nthese gifts.  And we should bear them in mind, because of the blessing\npromised to those who help to preserve these qualities in others.\nReceive, help, cherish, or protect a child, make the way of goodness easy\nto him, and shield him from evil, and Christ declares that inasmuch as\nyou have done it to the least of all His little ones, you have done it\nunto Him.\n\nOn the other hand, offend any such child, that is to say, hinder, or\nmislead, spoil or degrade him in any way; do anything to rob a child of\nany of these Divine gifts, rob him of his innocence, or trustfulness, or\nhis guileless heart, and sow the seeds of evil habits or tastes in their\nplace, and you know the denunciation or curse which the Divine voice has\nlaid upon you for your evil deed.\n\nA child, then, is, as it were, a living symbol of that which draws to us\nthe love of Christ, and we cannot doubt that he is so by virtue of his\ninnocence, his obedient spirit, his guilelessness, or simplicity of\ncharacter, his trustfulness, and by all the untarnished and unspoilt\npossibilities of goodness in him.\n\nIt is in the blessed endowment of such gifts as these that the little\nchild looks in the face of Christ, and is embraced in the arms of His\nlove.\n\n And these are, or they once were, your gifts.  As you love the better\nlife, and hope for good days, hold them fast and cherish them, or if any\nof them be unhappily lost, let it be your endeavour to recover it.\n\nAs we contemplate such a scene as this in our Lord's life with the little\nchild in the midst, and listen to the Saviour's words, all the commands\nand injunctions to keep innocency, to keep the spirit of obedience, to\nkeep a guileless and trusting and loving heart, gain a new force.  They\nseem to speak to us with new voices; for if the true life, the life that\nhas in it the hope of union with Christ, must be a life endowed with\nthese gifts, whether in youth or age, what a blessed thing it will be for\nyou if you have never lost or squandered them.  We cannot too soon learn\nthis lesson; for if under the influence of any wrong motives, or\nfollowing any wrong ideals, or misled by any bad example, you go astray\nand rob your young life of these divine gifts, no man knows how, or when,\nor where you will recover them, and become again as a little child.\n\nAnd if we turn our thoughts from our own separate personal life, and look\nfor a moment at our duty as members of a society, how this picture of\nChrist embracing the little child, and blessing those who receive or help\none such, should stir us to new and keener interest in social duty!  Does\nit not carry in it, this example and teaching of the Lord, does it not\ncarry in it the condemnation of a great many of our traditional notions\nabout our duty to the young?  We see the Lord's tenderness and love and\ncare for the little child; we see how He values the childlike qualities;\nand how He enjoins the nursing and the cherishing of these.  If, then, we\nhave really learnt the lesson which He thus presses upon us, we shall\nfeel something like reverence for every young life, as it begins its\nperilous and uncertain course on the sea of man's experiences; and with\nthis feeling we shall be eager to help and protect such lives whenever we\nhave the chance of doing it, and we shall be very careful to do them no\nwrong.\n\nBut when we turn from the Gospel and these thoughts which it stirs in us\nto our common life of every day, does it not rather seem sometimes as if\nthis teaching of the Lord were all a dream and had no reality?  And yet\nthere is hardly one of us but would confess that, having once seen this\nrevelation of the Lord, we are put to shame if, as happens sometimes, a\nyoung soul comes amongst us endowed with these very gifts of innocence,\nand high purpose, and trust, and promise of all goodness, which so won\nthe Saviour's heart, and is met, when he comes, in school or house, not\nby care, or sympathy, or guidance, or protection, as of an elder\nbrother's love, but by experiences of a very different sort.  You would\nagree that it is a shame to us if such an one comes only to find the\nmisleading influence of some thoughtless or bad companion, or to have\nheld up before him some bad tradition as the law which should rule his\nlife here.\n\n I have known--which of us in the course of years has not known?--such\ncases in our school experience.  A child has come from a refined and\nloving home, but only to meet with roughness or coarseness; and instead\nof retaining those gifts and qualities of childhood, which are the\ngodlike qualities of life and meant to be permanent, he has been led to\ngrow up utterly unchildlike, depraved, debased, hardened; and there is no\nsadder sight to see than a growth of this kind.  And if you have ever\nseen it; if you have ever noticed the falling away from childlike\ninnocence to sin, from purity to coarseness, from the open, ingenuous,\ntrusting spirit to sullen hardness, from happiness to gloom, you know how\nterribly in earnest the Saviour must have been when He denounced that woe\non any one who causes such debasement of a young soul--\"Whoso shall\noffend one of these little ones, it had been better for him that a\nmillstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of\nthe sea.\"\n\n\n\n\n III.  THE BREVITY OF LIFE.\n\n\n   \"I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night\n   cometh.\"--ST. JOHN ix. 4.\n\nThere are few things more commonly disregarded by us in our early years\nthan the brevity of our life through all its successive stages, and the\nfleeting nature of its opportunities.\n\nIn childhood we are almost entirely unconscious of both these\ncharacteristics of life.  Indeed, it would hardly be natural if it were\notherwise.  That reflective habit which dwells upon them is the result of\nour experience, and comes later.  It is enough for a child if he follows\npure and safe instincts, and lives without reflection a healthy,\nunperverted life, under wise guidance and good teaching.  Growing in this\nway, free from corrupting influences or the contagion of bad example, and\npoisoned by no bad atmosphere, he develops naturally towards a manhood\nwhich is rooted in healthy tastes, affections unspoilt, and in good\nhabits.  Thus you see what the very young have a right to claim at the\nhands of all their elders--that they should be careful not to mislead\nthem, and should see that they live in pure air, and feed their growing\ninstincts and activities in wholesome pastures.\n\nDuring the stage of earliest growth it would be a sign of unhealthy\nprecocity if a child were much occupied with the continuity of things, or\nthe close union of to-day with to-morrow, or of all our thoughts, acts,\npleasures, and tastes, with the bent of character which is being silently\nbut surely formed in us; and it would be equally unnatural if his\nthoughts were to dwell much on the essential shortness of our life, and\nthe flight of opportunity which does not come back to us.\n\nIt is part of the happiness, or, I fear, it must be said sometimes, part\nof the pain of early life, that the time before it seems so long.  The\nday is long with its crowded novelty or intense enjoyment, or possibly\nwith its dreary and intolerable task-work; to-morrow, with all its\nanticipations of things desired or to be endured, seems long; and the\nvista of years, as they stretch through boyhood and youth, manhood and\nage, seems to lose itself in the far distance of its length.  So, viewed\nfrom its beginnings, life is long.\n\nBut with the approach of manhood all this begins to change.  As we grow\nout of childhood our self-conscious and reflective life grows; and thus\nthere rises in us the feeling of moral responsibility never to be shaken\noff again.  Not, however, that we should leave all our childhood behind\nus.  It hardly needs to be said that there are some characteristics of\nour earliest years which every man should pray that he may retain to the\nend.  Unless he retains them his life becomes a deteriorating life.\n\nAnd first among these is the reverential or filial habit.  This deserves\nour careful attention, because we sometimes see an affectation of silly\nand spurious manliness, which thinks it a fine thing to cast it off.  This\nreverential or filial feeling, which is natural to the unspoilt and\ntruthful nature of the child, is preserved in every unspoilt manhood;\nonly with a difference.\n\nIt is raised from the unreflective, instinctive trust in a father's\nguidance or a mother's love to that higher feeling which tells us that,\nas is the child in a well and wisely ordered home, so is each of us in\nthat great household of our heavenly Father.  This spirit of true piety,\nwhich uplifts, refines, strengthens, and gives courage to manhood, as\nnothing else can do, is the natural outcome and successor of a child's\ntrustfulness, as we rise through it to the feeling that we are\nencompassed by a Divine consciousness, and that our life moves in a holy\npresence.  Or again, we pray that we may not lose that simplicity and\nfreshness of nature which is at once a special charm of childhood, and,\nwherever it is preserved, the chief blessing of a man's later years.\n\nThese qualities and characteristics of our infancy--trust, filial\nreverence, freshness, simplicity--are not qualities to be left behind,\nbut the natural forecast of that religious spirit which is the highest\ngrowth of maturity, and our own safeguard against the hardening and\ndebasing influences of the world and the flesh.  And this was the\nSaviour's meaning when He said, \"Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom\nof God as a little child shall in nowise enter therein.\"  And if there is\none thing more than another that constitutes the special curse of any\ndepraved influence acting on young lives, it is that it robs the later\nlife of these childlike qualities which are the gifts of God to bless us\nin youth and age.\n\nBut assuming that we bear all this in mind, and hold fast to these\nfundamental gifts, and so escape those lower and baser forms of life\nwhich we meet all about in the world, spoiling the manhood and\nembittering the age of so many men, we cannot forget the essential\ndifference between mature years and the years of early growth.\n\nAs we grow towards manhood our life necessarily loses its childlike and\nunreflecting spontaneity in the ferment of thought, desire, and passion,\nand in the light of experience; and therefore it becomes a matter of no\nslight importance to estimate the value of that which we hold in our\nhands to-day, the nature of the web which our conduct is weaving, and the\nfateful character of any mistake in the purposes, notions, ambitions, or\ntastes that are, as a matter of fact, fixing the drift and direction of\nour life.  But to do this amidst all the daily temptations of life is not\nalways an easy matter; and it is certain that we shall not do it if we do\nnot fully recognise, while our life is still young and unhampered, the\nimportance of these two very obvious reflections, which, in fact, resolve\nthemselves into one, that our time is essentially short, and that our\nopportunities are very fugitive.\n\n In one sense, no doubt, there is a long stretch of time before most of\nyou.  As yet hope has more to say to you than memory.  Some of you will\nlook back on these early days from the distant years of another century.\nYour life's journey may extend far away over the unexplored future, and\nmay in some cases be a very long one; but, although this is possible, we\nare not allowed to forget that it is always precarious--unexpected graves\nare constantly reminding us how short may be the time of any one of\nus--how the night cometh.\n\nBut it is not merely of the literal shortness of our time, or the\npossible nearness of death, that our Lord's words should set us thinking,\nwhen He warns us that the night cometh, and we must work while it is day.\n\nIf we measure our life by the things we should accomplish in it, by the\ncharacter it should attain to, by the purposes that should be bearing\nfruit in it, and not by mere lapse of time, we soon come to feel how very\nshort it is, and the sense of present duty grows imperative.  It is thus\nthat the thoughtful man looks at his life; and he feels that there is no\nsuch thing as length of days which he can without blame live carelessly,\nbecause in these careless days critical opportunities will have slipped\naway irrecoverably; he will have drifted in his carelessness past some\nturning-point which he will not see again, and have missed the so-called\nchances that come no more.\n\nBut even this is only a part of the considerations that make our present\nlife so precious; for this is only the outer aspect of it.  What makes\nour time so critically short, whether we consider its intellectual or its\nmoral and spiritual uses, is that our nature is so very sensitive, so\neasily marred by misuse, and spoilt irretrievably.  The real brevity of\nthe time at your disposal, whether for the training of your mind, or for\nyour growth into the character of good men, consists in this, that\ndeterioration is standing always at the back of any neglect or waste.\nDeterioration is the inseparable shadow of every form of ignoble life.\n\n   \"Our acts our angels are, for good or ill,\n   Our fatal shadows that walk with us still.\"\n\nLeave your faculties unused and they become blunted and dulled; leave\nyour higher tastes uncultivated and they die; let your affections feed on\nanything unworthy and they become debased.\n\nTo those who do this it may happen that whilst, so far as years go, they\nare still in all the freshness of youth, they are already dying that\ndeath to all higher capacity which is worse than any decay of our\nphysical organism.  Such an early death of higher tastes and faculties,\nand of hope for the future, is sometimes effected even before schooldays\nare over.  And the mere possibility of such a fate overhanging any of us\nshould stir us like a trumpet-call to take care that we do not surrender\nour life to any mean influence, and that we are very zealous for all that\nconcerns the safety of the young.\n\n\"I send out my child,\" I can imagine the parent of any one of you having\nsaid, \"to be trained for manhood; I send him to his school that his\nintellect may be cultivated, his moral purpose made strong, and that all\ngood and pure tastes may be fostered in him; but it is dreadful to think\nthat instead of this he may, by his life and companionship there, be\nhardened and debased, or even brutalised; he may become dead to the\nhigher life even before he becomes a man.\"  Seeing, then, that there is\nthis possibility of death even in the midst of life--a possibility, we\nwould fain hope, seldom realised in this school, but still a\npossibility--shall we not be very careful, men and boys alike, so to do\nour part in this society, so to shelter the young and strengthen the\nweak, and to keep the atmosphere of our life a pure atmosphere, that\nevery sensitive soul which comes amongst us may grow up here through a\nhealthy and wholesome boyhood, and go out to the duties and the calling\nof his life, strong, unselfish, public-spirited, pure-hearted, and\ncourageous--a Christian gentleman.\n\n\n\n\n IV.  THE INFLUENCE OF TRADITION.\n\n\n   \"Making the word of God of none effect through your traditions: and\n   many such like things ye do.\"--ST. MARK vii. 13.\n\nSuch was our Lord's word to the Pharisees; and if we turn to our own life\nit is difficult if not impossible for us fully to estimate the influence\nwhich traditions exercise upon it.\n\nThey are so woven into the web of thought and opinion, and daily habits\nand practices, that none of us can claim to escape them.  Moreover, as\nany institution or society grows older, this influence of the part which\nis handed on from one generation to another tends to accumulate; so that\nthe weight of it lies heavier on us in an old place than in a new one,\nand it is obvious that there is both loss and gain in this.\n\nA good tradition is a great help and support, giving a strength, or\nfirmness, or dignity to our life which it would not otherwise have had.\n\nWe often see or feel the value of such a tradition as it acts upon the\nmembers of a family, or of a college, or of a regiment, or of a school.\n\nAnd this influence of a tradition, inasmuch as it has become impersonal,\nand rooted in the general life, is apt to be very persistent, so that the\nman who establishes a good tradition anywhere begins a good work, which\nmay go on producing its good results long after he himself is in his\ngrave.\n\nMany of you must have felt the power of such an influence, handed on to\nyou as if it were a part of your inheritance, when thinking of a brother,\nor father, or other relative or ancestor, who by some distinction of\ncharacter, or by some inspiring words or some brave or generous act, has\nleft you a good example, which seems somehow to belong to you, and to\nstir you as with an authoritative call to show yourself worthy of it.\n\nSimilarly in a society like this school you can hardly grow up without\nsometimes being stirred by the tradition of the noble lives that have\nleft their mark upon its history.\n\nSo a man's good deeds live after him, and become woven as threads of gold\ninto the traditions of the world.\n\nAnd we are equally familiar with traditions that are bad, and with their\npestilent influence; for we are constantly made to feel how much of the\ngood that men endeavour to do is thwarted, counteracted, or destroyed by\ninfluences of this sort, and how weak and imitative souls are entangled\nin the network of traditional influence as in a spider's web.  Tradition,\nin fact, represents to us the accumulated power of past lives as it acts\nupon us from the outside, just as what men call heredity represents this\nsame influence in our own blood.\n\nAnd we have seen that this power may be, and often is, a real advantage\nand support to our life.  We feel also that as the Divine light shines\nstronger and steadier in human affairs the traditional influence of each\ngeneration ought to become more and more helpful to those that follow.\n\nAnd yet, you observe, the Saviour gives us no encouragement to depend\nupon those helps that tradition might bring us.  On the contrary, His\nlanguage shows how dangerous He felt the influence of tradition to be.\nHow are we to account for this?  His strongest denunciations are reserved\nfor the Pharisaic party; and yet a historian would describe them as in\nmany respects the best elements of Jewish life.  They were earnest,\npatriotic, religious, many of them wise and holy men; but their judgment\nwas held in bondage by the influence of tradition, and in this lies the\ncardinal defect of their life.  They had set up between their souls and\nthe spirit of God a sort of graven image of ritualistic observances, and\ntraditional usages and interpretations.  They depended on externals, or\nwhat came to them from the past or from the outer world, and their eyes\nwere blinded, and their hearts hardened against every new revelation.\n\nThus they stand before Christ, blocking His path, the very embodiment of\nthat power which closes the soul against those inspiring and purifying\ninfluences that come from direct communion with God.  They block the\nSaviour's path, because this personal communion is just what He\nrepresents to us--the direct revelation of the Spirit of God in man.  He\ncomes to reveal the Father to each of us, and to make us feel the\npresence of the Divine creative Spirit in every separate human life; and\ntill we feel this personal illumination we have not realised the\nmanifestation of the Son of God.  But the Pharisee with his continual\nreference to tradition, his multiplication of external observances, and\nelaborate ritual, his reliance upon usage and external authority, knows\nlittle or nothing of the personal illumination by the direct influence of\nthe Spirit of God upon our spirit.  Hence this absolute and fundamental\ncontrast between Jesus and the Pharisees.  They represent two opposing\nprinciples in life.  And it is this that gives such intensity to the\nwords He addressed to them: \"Ye have made the word of God of none effect\nthrough your traditions\"; and it is a universal warning--never out of\ndate.\n\nIf the spirit of traditional usage and influence holds the citadel of a\nman's life, the spirit of Christian progress cannot gain an entrance.\n\nThat is the lesson which the Saviour presses upon our attention by His\ndenunciation of the Pharisaic usage, habit, and attitude, and it is\nhardly possible to overestimate the importance of the lesson, because\nthis same spirit of Pharisaic tradition is constantly laying its hand\nupon every human institution, and it has contributed to every abuse or\nperversion that has taken possession of the Christian Church.\n\nOur life is, in fact, a continuous struggle between the two principles\nhere represented.  Which is to prevail in it, and fix its character--\ntraditional custom, or personal inspiration?  Are we to follow the world\nwith its conventions and laws, or to live in personal communion with God?\nThe tendency of our life will be determined in one direction or the other\naccording as we surrender our will to the rule of traditional notions and\nusages, the power of the external world, or as we seek for direct\nillumination of mind, conscience, and spirit at the Divine sources of\ntruth and light.\n\nHere, then, we have a principle to guide us in our relation to the\ntraditions amidst which we live.\n\nWe do not expect to get away from them; we never dream of escaping from\nthe influences of the external world, whether of the past or the present;\nbut to move safely among them, we must have learnt and adopted this\nprimal lesson, that no tradition, and no external practice or custom, has\nany authoritative claim upon us, simply from being established as a\ntradition or a custom.\n\nAnd as we stand amidst all the conventions and practices that have come\ndown to us, we should be able to say of every one of them--\n\n\"Every good tradition, and every wholesome and beneficent usage, I accept\nthankfully as part of the inheritance which good, or wise, or brave men\nhave left as their legacy for my use and assistance; but it is my bounden\nduty to measure them all by the standard of God's unchanging law: by it I\nwill prove them; I will use them or reject them according as they fit or\nfail in this measurement, and I will not be brought under the power of\nany of them.\"\n\nWhether, then, we think of our separate personal life or of our life in\nits social relationships, we must think of it in this way if we are to be\nin any real sense followers of Christ.  Each of you, as he steps into the\nworld, is not merely an inheritor of certain accumulations of life and\ntradition, which he should follow as a matter of course.  He is not born\nto tread a certain track of conduct or behaviour because others have\ntrodden it before him, following it without thought like the sheep on the\nmountain, or like the ants as they travel from one ant-hill to another.\n\nYour estimate of your life should be fundamentally different from this.\nYou are primarily a child of God, illumined by direct communion with the\nSpirit of God; and your first duty, therefore, whenever and in whatever\nplace or circumstances you may chance to be, is not to follow this or\nthat tradition or usage which may meet you; but to stand up and show that\nyou are God's child, and therefore a judge of all traditions or customs,\nand not their slave.\n\nThis is the revelation which Christ declares to us as the one first\nrequisite of the Christian life.  So you see the Christian man's attitude\ntowards all traditions or customs is that of independence; his thought\nand his judgment are as free in regard to them as if they were newly\nborn.  He is, in fact, bound to judge them according to their deserts;\nand no society can hope to prosper unless this is recognised, so that\nevil customs may not corrupt the common life.  It is the danger of such\ncorruption that makes the Saviour denounce the traditional habit, and\nsummon His followers to live by the rule of close personal communion with\nGod.  Thus the life that goes forward and rises to higher and yet higher\nlevels is always a life of new revelations, a life which is being\nillumined and illumined afresh by those flashes of Divine insight, and\nstrength, and courage, which come to men only as they came to the Lord\nHimself in the secret communion of prayer and meditation, and through\nthat independence of spirit which arises from the sense of God's presence\nto guide us and to uphold.\n\nTake your own case.  If you are living here simply according to\ntraditional rules, doing this or that because, as you may be told,\neverybody does it; accepting standards of conduct and rules of practice,\nbecause, as you understand, or, as some one undertakes to persuade you,\nthey have always been so accepted, why, then, you are growing up to be\none of that never-ending succession of men who are the Pharisees, the\nopponents of the Christ, in every generation, who live with tame\nconscience in any sort of company, and perpetuate the bad traditions of\nthe world.\n\nBut if you listen to the call of Christ, and have truly learned to feel\nthat the only real man's life is that which you live with the light of\nGod's law shining upon it, then, as a matter of course, you will rise\nsuperior to the influence of any tradition or custom, no matter what its\nauthority may seem to be.\n\nAnd it will indeed be a happy thing for you if you grow up with that God-\ngiven strength of character and purpose which can treat all traditions,\nand all usages, or fashions, or customs as things that should be\nsubordinated, and should not rule us, as things to be used by us if they\nhelp us to a better life, but to be flung aside and rejected, if they\ncontradict the voice of God in our hearts.\n\n\n\n\n V.  VAIN HOPES.\n\n\n   \"And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the\n   dead, they will repent.  But he said, If they hear not Moses and the\n   prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the\n   dead.\"--ST. LUKE xvi. 30, 31.\n\nIt is by no means uncommon for any one who is living a life which does\nnot satisfy his own conscience to console himself with the fancy that if\nonly such and such things were different around him he would be a new\nman, filled with a new spirit, and exhibiting a new character.  But is it\nso very certain that this would be the case?\n\nSuch persons are apt to dream of some goodness or some virtue which under\nother circumstances they would make their own; and there are, in fact,\nfew conditions more dangerous than that of this class of dreamers,\nwhether among boys or men.  To all who may be tempted in this way, our\nLord's words in the parable come with a very significant warning: \"Nay,\nfather Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will\nrepent.  But he said, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither\nwill they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.\"\n\nWhen insidious and delusive hope would draw us on and beguile us in any\nsinful way, whispering that God will some day send special gifts and\nmessengers of grace to inspire us with new life, this is his plain\nanswer: \"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be\npersuaded, though one rose from the dead.\"\n\nAnd hardly any one can say that he is altogether free from this tendency\nto lean upon the future with vain hopes, and is in no need of the warning\nwhich this text conveys to us.\n\nIn serious moments, when the mind is calm, and neither passion nor\nappetite is stirring, we feel how good a thing it is to have crucified\nthe flesh and to be living close to Christ; but when we are within the\nfiery circle of trial or temptation, when sinful desires arise, or\npassions are strong, or solicitations to evil are subtle and enticing,\nthen we are only too ready to catch at any hopes about the vague future.\nTo the unstable and incontinent, to those whose nature is weak while\ntheir conscience is not dead, this hope is a dangerous temptation,\nbeguiling them with the suggestion that some day there will open before\nthem an easy path to that virtue or self-denial to which the way is too\nrough at present.  \"Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from\nthe dead, they will repent.\"  By-and-by, they say, as they dream about\nthe future, God will lay His hand upon them; the Holy Spirit will touch\ntheir souls with new life; they will receive in some inscrutable way new\npower, and in the exercise of this power they will cast off the bondage\nof sin or weakness; but how and by what means this great and necessary\nchange is to be brought about they do not stop to think, and meanwhile\nthey yield to worldly or fleshly appetite, trusting vaguely to an\nuncertain future for some Divine gift.\n\nIf you look into the thoughts and habits of your life, some of you may be\ncompelled to acknowledge that this case is not unfamiliar to you.  So men\nsometimes dally with a temptation, and linger beside it, courting its\ncompany, instead of flinging it away from them, as the snare of the\ndevil, because of some secret hope that by-and-by God will place them out\nof the way of it, or give them some new strength against it, which as yet\nhas not been given.  How easy it is for us to entice ourselves in this\nway out of the narrow path of present duty into the tangled wilderness of\na weak and sinful life, from which escape becomes every day more\ndifficult.\n\nAnd this enticement along the ways of sin being so easy, it may be\nhappening to some of you.  You may feel that, judged even by your own\nstandard, which is more likely to be too low than too high, your life is\nsomehow unsatisfactory; your better instincts may be telling you that you\nwere born for something higher, purer, stronger than what you are or have\nbeen; and you are cherishing the hope that it will be different with you\nsome day; your circumstances, you think, or your occupation, or your\ncompanionship will have changed, and so you fondly imagine that you\nyourself will be sure to change, as if your soul were just a weathercock\nthat answers to every changing breeze.  So perhaps you hope that some\nhabit of self-indulgence or idleness will drop off, or some evil temper\nbe eradicated; and whilst all this vague and mischievous dreaming goes on\nyou yield very likely to some besetting sin, making no serious effort to\nget away from it now, and you yield all the more because of this\nmisleading hope that some day you will be touched by a supernatural hand,\nand will rise up to a regenerate life.  And yet our reason tells us that\nall this is the very essence of self-deceit, and that such dreams and\nhopes are the devil's most subtle temptation.  This kind of vain hope is\nbased on a complete misconception of the nature of our conflict with sin,\nand the way to escape from it.  To think thus of spiritual gifts and the\ngrowth of the spiritual life, is to follow a very dangerous delusion.  It\nwas just such a misunderstanding that is expressed in the hope of Dives\nabout his brethren: \"If one went unto them from the dead, they will\nrepent.\"  Their ordinary daily teachings, he seems to say, the voice of\nMoses and of the prophets, the examples of good men around them, the\nwarnings, the exhortations, these, being so familiar, may not have\nstartled them out of their sin; but if only one were to go to them from\nthe dead, some messenger of strange voice and aspect, who had seen hell,\nand could paint its horrors, then surely the course of their life would\nbe checked and changed, and their spirit would wake up in them, and they\nwould sin no more.  But to all this comes back the stern warning of the\nDivine answer: \"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will\nthey be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.\"\n\nAnd we may profitably consider what this means in its application to our\nown life.  Such a warning is evidently meant to remind us that the\nmystery of sin in human life is not to be got rid of by any such reliance\non vague hopes.  This mystery of sin in the heart and life, misleading,\nweakening, dragging us down, means in fact the subtle, poisonous,\ncreeping power which evil inclinations exercise over a weak and depraved\nwill.  Are we, then, to trust to some sudden visitation from above, for\nwhich we make no preparation, to break down or overthrow a power of this\nkind?  On the contrary, the words of this parable stand here to declare\nto us that it is nothing less than perversity and folly in any man to go\non either defiling his nature, or degrading it, or even neglecting to\nstrengthen and support it, under this delusion that some day the breath\nof Heaven will sweep it clean or give it new vigour.  And your own\nexperience is in exact accordance with these parabolic warnings of the\nSaviour.  You know that your moral and spiritual nature is now at this\npresent time undergoing a process of continual and momentous change, that\nevery day, or week, or month leaves its mark upon it; and that your\nsoul's life means not waiting for some angel of God's providential grace\nto visit you and carry you up into a new air; but it means that you are\nweaving the web of your unchangeable destiny by your use or abuse of the\ngifts of God that are in your hands to-day.\n\nBorn into the world with the taint of inherited corruption in us, as also\nwith the germs of pure affection and high instinct and purpose, we have\nto take care for ourselves and for each other that the taint does not eat\nout the good, by growing into sins of boyhood or of youth, or by\nhardening into depraved habits in our manhood.  If we let our youth take\nan unhappy downward course, whether in taste or habit, every day puts\nsalvation farther off from us, because every day any fault which is\nindulged or nursed tends to grow deeper and more inveterate; and yet,\nforgetting this, how many, while their early years are running to waste,\nnurse the vain hope that some day they will receive the sudden baptism of\na new birth.\n\nSo, then, instead of vaguely trusting, any of us, to the hope of what\nsome future call or help or happy visitation may do for us, let us obey\nthe Divine injunction, which, when rightly understood, is very pressing,\nurging us, as we hope to see good days, to be very jealous of our present\nlife and its tendencies; let us do this, standing always firm and\nimmovable in the things that are pure and of good report.\n\n However it may be in some other matters, in this matter of our moral and\nspiritual life, the greatest, the most important, the most serious thing\nof all, it is almost invariably true that the child is father of the man,\nand we feel that we have no right to expect it to be otherwise.  In our\neveryday consideration of life, we recognise all this: we speak of growth\nin character and formation of habit as facts which no one would ignore,\nand which cannot be overestimated.  But to acknowledge these, and at the\nsame time to trust that God will hereafter arrest any stream of sinful\ntendency in us which we ourselves do not attempt to stop now, is to add\npresumption to sin.\n\nWhen we speak of Heaven and Hell, we have in our thoughts the vision of\nthose ultimate points towards which the diverging courses of men's lives\nare slowly tending day by day.  And the question rises: \"On which of\nthese lines is my life travelling at the present time, and towards which\nside of the impassable gulf?\"\n\nAt present we know that the way of Christ is still open before us, and\nthat He calls us with a voice which never grows weary; but we feel\nequally that the future is dark, if we waste or misuse the present, and\nwe do not know how long the heavenward path may be as open, or as easy,\nas it is to-day.  For the question is not a question of God's untiring\npatience or the never-failing love of Christ.  It is not how long will\nHis Spirit continue to strive with us, as it has striven hitherto,\nthrough the care and love of parent or friend, through the exhortations\nor efforts of a teacher, or the example of a companion, or in a thousand\nother ways.  The question is rather whether it is not folly to expect\nthat God will send upon us some other more powerful regenerating and\nstrengthening influence, if we are now neglecting all this care and love\nand patient striving on our behalf.  \"If they hear not Moses and the\nprophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.\"\n\nConsider these things while life is fresh, and good influences are\npresent with you.  Whatever our faults may be, they all come under this\none rule, that to-day is given us to win our freedom from their power--to-\nday and not to-morrow.  The question which is pressed home through the\nwarning of this parable is thus a very plain one: \"What is my future hope\nor prospect, if I let this or that particular sin lurk and linger in my\nheart, feeding upon me every day, and growing stronger in consequence?\nWhat if I do not resist any fault that has a hold upon me?  What if I do\nnot pray to be delivered from it?  What if I do not flee from it?\"\n\nIf you hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will you be persuaded,\nthough one rose from the dead.\n\n\n\n\n VI.  WHAT DOEST THOU HERE?\n\n\n   \"And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, and he said unto\n   him, What doest thou here, Elijah?\"--1 KINGS xix. 9.\n\nThere is a sound of rebuke in these words.  They seem to imply that the\nlonely mountain of Horeb was not the place in which God expected to find\nsuch a servant as Elijah, and that there should be no indefinite\ntarrying, no lingering without an aim in such a solitude.\n\nAs you read the familiar history you see how the record of the prophet's\nretirement and his vision in Horeb is a record, first of all, of reaction\nafter fierce conflict; it exhibits the picture of a strong man in a\nmoment of weakness ready to give up the hopeless struggle, crying to God,\n\"It is enough, now, O Lord, take away my life;\" and then it shows us how\nGod dealt with him in that solitude; we hear the Divine voice pleading in\nhim again, bearing its Divine witness, putting its searching questions,\nteaching him the universal lesson that despondency, weakness, solitude,\nshrinking and retiring, if they have any place in our life, are only for\na time, and must not be allowed to rule in it.\n\nThat Divine vision which came to Elijah in the recesses of the mountain\nis, in fact, the voice of God summoning him back to the duties that were\nwaiting for him, and the renewal of his strength for the new work he had\nto do.  And the interest of such a vision never fails, because, like\nElijah, all men come to times when they too lie under the juniper tree in\nthe wilderness longing to be set free from the burden which is too heavy\nfor them, be it the burden of some call, or work, or duty, or of\nresistance to some temptation, or the struggle against sin or vice.  It\ncomes to all of us, and not once only, but many times over, this hour of\ndarkness; and it will continue to come so long as the flesh is weak.  And\nit is at such moments that a man is the better for going with the prophet\ninto this Horeb, the mount of God, making Elijah's vision his own vision,\nand renewing his strength, at the same Divine source.  How often it\nhappens to men, to boys, to all alike, that they flee into the desert,\naway from the post of present duty, away from the face of difficulties\nwhich they cannot or will not stand up against, away from the moments of\ntrial and discipline.  And, seeing that our life is not and cannot be a\nsolitary thing, seeing that the pulsations of each individual's life are\ncreating other pulsations which answer them back in other lives, we know\nnot where or how many, whenever we thus shrink away from our duty, when\nwe turn our back upon it, or despond about it, when we become deaf to the\nhigher calls, we are, in fact, crying to God to be relieved of our\nservice to Him and to our fellows.  And it is a happy thing for our life\nif He does not answer us according to our cry, and let us go into the\nwilderness, and leave us alone there.\n\nThis voice, following us with the question, \"What doest them here?\" is\nthe evidence that God has not abandoned us.\n\n\"What doest thou here, Elijah?\"  How often must this voice have followed\nthe monk into his solitude, refusing to be silenced, piercing through all\nthe false notions about a man's relationship to his fellow-men, warning\neach soul that it cannot separate itself from the great tide of universal\nlife.\n\nAnd the voice comes to us, the same warning voice of God, whenever we\nstand aloof and let the tide around us run on anyhow, as if we didn't\ncare how it ran, or whenever in obedience to any impulse, whether of\nselfishness or of timidity, we try to persuade ourselves that some duty\nmay be left alone.\n\n\"What doest thou here, Elijah?\"  The quality of our life depends on the\nanswer we give to such spiritual questioning day by day; for the Divine\nvoices are never silent.\n\n\"What doest thou here?\"  The voice cries to us when we linger in the\nneighbourhood of any sin, or when we waste our opportunities in some form\nof idleness, or when we stand by in cold or timid indifference, refusing\nhelp or consolation to any soul which seems to need it.\n\n\"What doest thou here?\"  It is possible that some of us hardly like to\nshape our answer in plain words lest we might have to say: \"I am here\nlingering in my present way of life, not because I feel it to be the\nright way, but because it is the easy way, and I cannot bring myself to\nface the harder and more manly course of duty.  I hear the voice; I\ncannot get away from it; it haunts me with its inquiries, when my heart\nis hot within me, as it is sometimes, while yet I am burying the light\nthat is in my soul.\"  If it should be so with any of you, consider, I\npray you, how by such hanging back you strengthen the force of evil in\nthe world and weaken the good.\n\nAs the hour of reaction, weakness, flight, came to Elijah, so we must\nexpect it to come to any of us; but the aim and purpose of our life\nshould be that in such an hour we may be able to answer our Heavenly\nFather when He questions us, as Elijah was able to answer: \"I have been\nvery jealous for the Lord God of Hosts.\"  If we live as those who are\njealous for God and His law, letting it be known and felt that we are\nthus jealous for His honour, not one of us could fail to make the life\naround us in some degree better, brighter, happier.\n\nIt is in this way that he who is strong and true makes truth and honour\nand uprightness stronger in those beside him; it is in this way that he\nwho is industrious, as a duty, makes industry more prevalent; it is in\nthis way that he who shows his hatred of impurity makes the atmosphere\npure in his society.\n\nAnd in so far as any of you are acting in this way you are doing a\nprophet's work, and you, too, may claim to have been jealous for the Lord\nGod of Hosts.  So the youngest boy and the oldest man may become fellow-\nlabourers--[Greek text]--fellow-labourers in the harvest-field of God,\nand it is a great privilege to claim.\n\nBut the blessing of it is greater still.  Very often, if you are known to\nbe thus jealous, even your presence will banish sin, silencing the evil\ntongue, strengthening the weaker brother, and making the sunshine of a\nnew life to shine all round you.\n\nBut what if sometimes you feel that you are not equal to all this? if\nwhen the voice cries, \"What doest thou here?\" you have no answer to give?\nIt is good for us in such a case to turn and see how God dealt with His\nprophet, how He made him come forth and stand on the mount before him.\nThe Lord passed over him, revealing His presence in the wind, the\nearthquake, and the fire, revealing it yet more intimately in the sound\nof the still small voice.  So He sent Him out again with a new\ncommission; and so we, too, may learn our lesson, if we care to learn it.\nAnd the lesson is this, that God renews our wavering strength, that He\nlifts up our drooping spirit, and opens our dull eyes and gives us afresh\nthe hearing ear, by communion with Himself.  In the solitude of the mount\nof God, through the symbols of His power, and in the sound of the inner\nvoices, in meditation, in prayer, we may find those refreshing influences\nwhich give us new strength, new thoughts, new notions of God and duty,\nand send us out afresh to do His work in new service to Him.\n\nWe may follow His teaching to Elijah a little further.  The new message\nto him began, \"Return on thy way\"--do such and such things.  The new\nmessage is, in fact, just as always, a new call to old duties--\"Return on\nthy way.\"  And so it is for you and me.  After the vision of God comes\nthe plain and homely work to do, as we walk in old ways, and have to meet\nall our old dangers and difficulties.  Has any one of us ever shrunk from\nany post of duty in life, or strayed from any straight course?  Then if\nGod has in His mercy visited us with the warning call, \"What doest thou\nhere?\" or laid the call of a new message upon us, it is almost sure to\nhave been a call to return and take the straight path, or to take our\nstand at the deserted post.  And if it should ever happen to us that the\nduty which looks too hard is, as indeed it happens very often, some duty\nof our social life, should we feel as if the world were against us, and\nwe were standing alone, let us not forget God's word of final\nencouragement to his prophet, \"Yet have I left me seven thousand in\nIsrael who have not bowed to Baal.\"\n\nIt is a word for all time.  If ever you are fighting for the good, and\ngrowing weary in the fight, the thought may rise in you that you seem to\nbe fighting alone, and that everything is against you, just because you\ncannot see the seven thousand who are in the same ranks, and on your\nside.\n\nIn the darkest hour of Israel's history we are thus told of an indefinite\nmultitude who had stood firm in the faith of their fathers, untouched and\nuntainted by adverse influence, and the recollection of it should serve\nto strengthen and encourage every individual who is really jealous for\nthat which is good.\n\nLet us, then, take the warning, and nurse it as a gift of God, and go\nforward where duty calls us, sometimes faint, it may be, and sometimes\nweary, but still pursuing.\n\n\n\n\n VII.  PRIVATE PRAYER, AND PUBLIC WORSHIP.\n\n\n   \"And, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath\n   day.\"--ST. LUKE iv. 16.\n\n   \"He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there He\n   prayed.\"--ST. MARK i. 35.\n\nThese two texts set before us our Saviour's habit in regard to public and\nprivate spiritual exercise; and they suggest to us the question, What\nhave we, on our part, to say of these two elements in our own life?  These\ntexts, we bear in mind, represent not something casual or intermittent in\nthe life of our Lord.  They stand in the record of it as a typical,\nessential, inseparable part of His habitual practice.  What we have to\nremember about them is that, whereas all men recognise in the life of\nJesus the one unique example in human history of a life which is morally\nperfect and immaculate, if we were to take these out of it, the customary\nshare in all common worship, and the private, separate communing with\nGod, it would be an altogether different life--different in its attitude\ntowards the common life of ordinary men, and different in its own quality\nand influence.\n\nWe might still admire--nay, we could not but admire--all the beauty of\nmoral qualities, the purity, the sympathy, the love and self-devotion of\nit; but it would have lost its spiritual atmosphere.  It would no longer\nbe for us the life of the Divine Son, recognising and ready to share in\nall our attempts at worshipping the Father, however poor they may be, and\nliving through the separate life in daily communion with Him.\n\nHere then is His practice, written for our guidance, given that we may be\nstirred by it to aim upwards, inviting us to set our own practice side by\nside with it, and see how it looks in such a juxtaposition.  Let us\nglance for a moment at each of these texts separately.\n\nAs regards the one which I have taken from St. Mark--\"He went out, and\ndeparted into a solitary place, and there He prayed\"--we have only to\nturn over the pages of this Gospel and note, as we go, the similar\nallusions, and we feel that we have here what is in fact an incidental\nglimpse into the habitual practice of His secret and separate life.\n\nIn this passage we read that He departed into a solitary place, and there\nHe prayed; in another by-and-by that He departed into a mountain to pray;\nand then again that He spent the whole night in prayer; and we see all\nthis not in some crisis of His life, but as a part of that which\ncorresponds to the common daily round in your life or mine.\n\nAnd the inference to be drawn, the lesson to be learnt from it, is, I\nthink, sufficiently obvious.\n\nThis secret separate devotional exercise of the soul was His habitual\nspiritual food.\n\nIt was thus that He recruited His moral and spiritual forces, those\nforces of the spiritual life which constitute at once the beauty, the\nattraction, the power of His character, and His divine and awe-inspiring\nseparateness.\n\n And as we read and consider, the thought must surely be pressed upon us\nthat if He needed these exercises, these secret and silent hours, what\nshall we say of our own lives?\n\nAnd what do we expect to make of our moral and spiritual character unless\nwe too are careful to cherish under all circumstances some such recurring\nmoments in our round of life and occupation, at which we retire into the\nsanctuary of separate communion with God the Father?\n\nYou may take it as a moral certainty, proved by all experience, that\nunless you hold to a fixed habit of thus bringing your life into the\nsecret and separate presence of God, in private prayer and thought, you\nincur the risk of sinking to any levels that happen to be the ordinary\nlevels, and of drifting with any currents that happen to prevail.\n\nIf we turn now from this to the other text--that which refers to His\ncustomary attendance on public prayer and at the common meeting--\"He\nwent, as His custom was, into the synagogue\"--the questions suggested are\nvery pertinent and practical.\n\nJust consider the circumstances under which, as we are told here, \"He\nwent, as His custom was, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.\"  The\nearlier part of the same chapter tells us of His fasting and temptation\nin the wilderness, of the commencement of His public mission, and his\nreturn to Nazareth.  And, on His return, this is what we are told of\nhim--\"He went, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.\"\n\nThus we see Him, fresh from the great crisis of His early manhood; the\nlong, protracted struggle of His soul in the lonely wilderness; the\nsubtle voices of manifold temptation; the hardly won victory and the\nministering angels; all this we must suppose to be still flashing across\nHis vision, as the scenes of any such crisis must always continue to\nflash through the quivering and responsive organism of the soul.\n\nIf ever any man might have claimed to need no longer the customary\nworship of common men, it was surely Jesus, as we see Him here on this\noccasion, with the breath of His own heart-searching worship still upon\nHim, and the light of new revelation burning in His thoughts.\n\nAmong all the significant and instructive parts of the Saviour's example\nthis is not the least instructive; that on this occasion, as on all\nothers, he went as a matter of regular custom into the synagogue on the\nSabbath day, thus putting the seal and stamp of His own practice for all\nof us who believe in His name upon the duty of joining in habitual and\nstated spiritual exercises.\n\nHad the Lord's example been different in this respect, how easy it would\nhave seemed to set up a string of what we should have called sufficient\nreasons.\n\nThe old-fashioned routine, it might have been said, of synagogue worship,\nwith its mechanical dulness and its mistaken interpretations of God's\nword, its shallow and superficial and tedious traditional commentaries,\nits formalism and vain repetitions; all this, whatever might have been\nits value for the ordinary unenlightened Jew, how could it have been\nnecessary and what profit could there have been in it for the divinely\ngifted Son of man?\n\nSo it might have been argued; so indeed it would seem men who consider\nthemselves enlightened sometimes argue in support of their own neglect of\nthe religious life.\n\nBut it may well make us more than doubtful as to the issue of any such\nneglect, when we see the mind of Christ thus exemplified in His habitual\nobservance.\n\nWe all recognise His moral and spiritual superiority.  Whether His spirit\nhas taken possession of our spirit or not, He stands out as our\nundisputed guide to the practice of a good life.\n\nIn vision, in insight, in purity, in stainlessness, in all that we\nreverence in human life and that good men strive to attain, we have no\nmodel to set beside His example.  All the more, then, this fact deserves\nour notice, and calls us to follow Him, that we find Him, as His custom\nwas, in the synagogue on the Sabbath day.  He was there Sabbath after\nSabbath listening to the provincial teacher, worshipping with the village\nlabourer, praying with the ignorant and the foolish, there as a matter of\nlife custom and for His soul's benefit.\n\nI have said that it deserves our notice; but more than this--it should be\ngraven on the minds of the young, so that they may never lose the\nimpression of it, so that it go with them through all their years of\nmanhood, to preserve in them the devotional and reverent habit.\n\nIt is indeed good for all of us to think of Him there in that primitive\nand unattractive house of God, listening to the rude Galilean accents,\nand bowing His head in the habitual worship of that obscure community.\n\nI do not think it is possible for us, unless we are quite indifferent\nabout our moral and spiritual condition--unless, that is, we have low\nnotions about our life, a low aim and a low standard--to be unaffected in\nour practice by this example of the Lord.  We can hardly believe that\nthose exercises of the spirit which were so fruitful in His life will\nfail to bear their fruit in ours also.\n\nWhat have we to say as we picture Him with all the great thoughts of His\nnew work swelling up in His soul, the divinely appointed teacher of new\nwisdom and new faith, the bringer of new light among men, the voice of a\nnew world, and yet, being all this, at the same time, and as a means for\nworking out His mission more completely, a regular and devout worshipper\nin a village house of prayer?\n\nIf it should ever happen to any of us that we come to fancy we do not\nneed such common prayer, or that because of defects in public worship we\ndo not profit by it, does not this example of the Saviour rise up and\nrebuke us?  Yes, you may rest assured, if that day ever comes to you,\nthat you are in danger of drifting away from the great saving tides of\nthe human spirit into some shallow or artificial stream of your own time\nand generation.  But, on the other hand, it is a happy thing for our life\nif, growing up in the habitual use of time-honoured spiritual exercises,\nwe have truly learnt to know by our own experience, as by the example of\nthe Saviour set before us in the Gospel, that they are the support and\nsafeguard of all that is highest and purest and best in us, if only we\nare careful to use them with sincerity and reverence.\n\n\n\n\n VIII.  AN UNANSWERABLE QUESTION.\n\n\n   \"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?  Not one.\"--JOB xiv.\n   4.\n\nThis is one of those simple questions which, by their very simplicity and\ndirectness, set us thinking about the importance of our personal life.\n\n\"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?\"  But all our common life\nis somehow the outcome of our separate individual lives--of your life and\nmine.  Therefore how important it is in the common interest that each of\nus should look above all things to his own life and its character, for\nthis will determine his contribution to the life of his society.\n\nNearly all men are keen about the reputation of their society, about the\nname it bears, about the way in which men think and speak of it.\n\nThus you are no doubt sensitive, almost every one of you, about the good\nreputation of your school or your house, or any society with which you\nmay happen to be closely connected or identified.\n\nAnd this is a healthy and praiseworthy feeling.  It would indeed be a bad\nsign if such a feeling were wanting or weak in any society.\n\nBut I am not sure that we keep it before us--all of us--as clearly as we\nought to do, that this reputation of the society is simply the outcome of\nour separate lives and habits.\n\nThe reputation is the reflex of the life; hardly ever, perhaps, an exact\nreflex, very often a distorted reflex with this or that feature\nexaggerated; but yet always a reflex.\n\nThe reputation you bear is the impression made by your common life on the\nminds of those who see it from the outside, or who hear men's talk about\nit.\n\n And we do well to be sensitive on such a subject; but we do still better\nif we bear in mind that this common life is what comes out of our own\nlife, and is the result of its contact with that of our neighbour.\n\nAnd with this thought in our minds we feel how searching and how directly\npersonal is this primitive and childlike question, Who can bring a clean\nthing out of an unclean?\n\nSocieties, especially young societies, are very impressible, and their\ncharacter--the quality, that is, of their life--is fixed by prevailing\ninfluences, which show themselves in fashions, habits, and tendencies, in\nthe common types of thought, or taste, or behaviour, or conduct.\n\nThis is obvious enough to every one; but what we do not seem always to\nconsider is the extent to which these influences or fashions have their\norigin, so far as our own society is concerned, in our own lives.  They\nare, in fact, in the main the general outcome of our separate lives.\n\n Do you, then, think of yourselves--this is the practical question to\nwhich these considerations lead up--as sources or centres of such\ninfluence, contributing your personal share to this common life?\n\nIt may make an immense difference to all your thoughts about your common\nhabits, and your standards of daily conduct and duty, if you remember\nthis ancient saying, that no man can bring a clean thing out of an\nunclean.  And so I have to ask you to consider a little how the common\nlife of this society is dependent upon your life.\n\nEvery individual acts upon the life of the community around him as a\npower or influence in it.  This seems so obvious when mentioned as hardly\nto deserve the mentioning, and yet in practice we are very apt to\noverlook it.\n\nYou and I, all of us, without any exception, are endowed with some share\nof this power.\n\nIn this respect, as in other ways, there is, of course, every possible\ndifference in degree between one and another, between the strong and the\nweak, between those who are conspicuous and those who are obscure; but\nthere is no other difference.\n\nEvery one of you possesses some share of this mysterious, and undefined,\nand immeasurable gift of influencing his neighbour's life.  Every sin\nthat may have a root in your heart is acting, though you may not think of\nit or intend it, as a pestilent influence outside your own life; every\nvirtue you exercise may be causing similar virtues to take root and grow\nin some one near to you.\n\nThe tone of the society or life around you is, in fact, just the sum and\nexpression of such individual influences as these.\n\nWe may not be able to trace all the various and multitudinous germs or\nseeds of such influence as they flow out from us in our daily round of\ncommon life; but we are conscious that each and every single soul, all\nthrough its earthly course, in the family and in the outer world, from\nyouth to age, is, in fact, a sower scattering these germs of good or evil\nunceasingly.  We know, also, that when they are once scattered they\ncannot be gathered up again.  They are yours to scatter--these seeds that\nyou are adding to the common life--and you are responsible for the fruit\nthey bear; but having sown them, you are powerless afterwards to prevent\nthem from bearing fruit after their kind in other lives.  Once launched\nin the air around you, they spread their contagion of evil or their\nstimulus to good, their savour of life or death.\n\nThe mere suspicion of this undefined power over other lives which is\ninherent in our own life should surely make us very careful about it.\n\nIt gives a new sense of personal responsibility; it lays its hand upon us\nto check us in any vice, or folly, or sin; and it is a stimulus to every\nvirtue and to all good purposes.\n\nBut the thing which of all others it is perhaps of most importance for us\nto remember about it is that this stream of our personal influence which\nflows out of our life is a double stream.  It is of two kinds.  One part\nof it flows unconsciously, whether we think of it or not; it streams out\nfrom our personality as sunlight from the sun.\n\nThe other is that which we exercise by some conscious effort of the will,\nand with some deliberate purpose or intention.\n\nNow, in the case of most of us, this tide of unconscious influence\nflowing from us without any deliberate or set purpose on our part, our\ninvoluntary contribution to the common life, is far more powerful for\ngood or for evil than anything which we ever do by way of active purpose\nto influence another's life, and this because our unconscious influence\nis the reflex on the outer world of what we are in ourselves; it is the\nprojection, or shall we say the radiation, of our own life, its tastes,\ntempers, habits, and character, upon the lives around us.\n\nWhat we do or intend to do, what influence we endeavour to exercise, is\nvery likely to be at the best intermittent, but this door of involuntary\ncommunication between every man's life and his neighbour's life is always\nstanding open; and so it comes about that your life, whether public or\nprivate, is of more importance to others than anything else about you.\n\nAt a time when so many things contribute to fix men's thoughts on\nexternals, and we are all tempted to think more about our work than about\nour life, more about what we are doing or intending to do, than of what\nwe are in ourselves, these considerations assume an unusual importance.\n\nMoreover, in a society like this, where you live so close to one another,\nand so much in public, there is a special reason for giving to such\nconsiderations some special attention; and the thought suggested by this\nworld-old inquiry--Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?--becomes\na very direct warning to look well to our separate life, and take care\nwhat sort of unconscious influences it is spreading around it.\n\nA moment's reflection will remind you how quick and strong such\ninfluences may easily prove, independent of all intention or desire on\nour part, or even in spite of our deliberate wishes or hopes.  One man is\ncareless or irreligious, and his weaker neighbours catch the infection of\nhis example; another indulges in some bad habits of language or conduct,\nor he is addicted to some low taste, or he lives by some low standard,\nand this or that companion is drawn down to his level; and so the evil of\nhis life takes fresh root in another life, and it gets into the air, and\nit is impossible to predict the limit of its influence.\n\nOr, on the other hand, one man is intellectual or refined in his tastes,\nand by merely living in a society he creates an atmosphere of intellect\nor of refinement around him; or, it may be, he is earnest and courageous,\nand others are drawn to admire and imitate, and so he proves a centre of\ncourage and earnestness.  Such is the solidarity of your life, as men\ncall it, and there is no escape from it, or from the responsibilities\nwhich it lays upon you.\n\n As the tree is known by its fruits, as men do not gather grapes of\nthorns, as the same fountain does not send forth sweet water and bitter,\nso we have to remember, when we think of the tides of unconscious\ninfluence that are continually streaming out from us, that they are\nwholesome, or the reverse, according to the character of our secret and\nseparate life.\n\nThrough them any one of us may become to his neighbour or his friend a\nsavour of life unto life, or of death unto death.\n\nThere are sure to be many in such a congregation as this who have visions\nof the good they hope to do; and there is a spirit of native generosity\nin almost all which makes them shrink from the thought of doing harm to\nanother soul.\n\nWell, then, in this thought of your influence, conscious and unconscious,\nyour first and constant prayer will surely be: \"Create in me a clean\nheart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.\"\n\nThe effective servant of God is always the man who has been prepared and\npurified by the vision of God in his own soul.\n\nIf, then, we desire to contribute some good to our society and no evil,\nwe must take care to keep our hearts open to the cleansing influences of\nthe spirit of holiness, so that no habit of sin shall cast its dark\nshadow around us, or vitiate that atmosphere which is inseparable from\nour personal life.\n\n\n\n\n IX.  SOWING BESIDE ALL WATERS.\n\n\n   \"Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.\"--ISAIAH xxxii. 20.\n\nThese words form part of a great prophetic vision.  The prophet is\nstanding among his countrymen like a watchman on the walls of Jerusalem.\nAnd far away, as he looks, the distant horizon of his stormy sky is\nbright with Messianic hopes, but around him the shadows lie dark and\nheavy.\n\nIt was his destiny to speak to a people whose ears were dull of hearing\nand their hearts without understanding; but he never lost the conviction\nthat the holy seed of God's spirit was alive in them.  Amidst all present\ndiscouragement he lived in the hope of a brighter and better day, when\nthe eyes of those around him would be opened, and their hearts changed,\nand a new spirit would take hold of them, and righteousness, peace,\nprosperity, and gladness would prevail.  And no man's life is worth much\nwhich is not inspired by some such hope.\n\nWhat Isaiah saw immediately around him was sin and moral blindness.  What\nhe saw immediately in front of him was the consequence of these in woe\nand desolation.  \"Year upon year,\" he cries, \"shall ye be troubled, ye\ncareless ones: thorns and briers shall come upon the land of my people:\nuntil the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness shall\nbecome a planted field.\"  But in the day of that outpouring, the heart of\nthe people would turn and be uplifted, renewed, and purified, the\nwilderness would become a planted field.  And this thought brings him to\nthe final outburst of the text I have just read to you, which is a\nblessing on those true Israelites who realised the high calling of God's\npeople, and were inspired to fulfil it, sowing everywhere and always the\nseeds of Divine influence.  The whole vision is highly instructive, for\nit is the vision of what occurs again and again in all human history; but\nit is of this blessing with which it closes that I desire to say a word\nor two to-day.\n\nAmidst all the threatening and discouraging symptoms of the national\nlife, Isaiah turned to the bright vision of those servants of God whose\nfaith should never fail, and in whom there should be no variableness, and\nno wavering.  \"Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.\"  Sow your seed\nof good influence, he seems to say to them, in good times, in bad times;\nsow it in this place, and in every place, sow it in the wastes of the\nmoral wilderness, sow it in the face of every enemy, sow it in faith and\nhope and without fear.  It is on them he depends to prepare for that\nhappier season when the wilderness of the spiritual life around him\nshould become as a planted field; and with prophetic insight he perceives\nthat it is on such as these that the Divine blessing always rests.\n\"Blessed are they that sow beside all waters.\"  It is a text to be taken\nwith us whenever any change comes over the circumstances of our life.  If\nwe are changing from a life of rule or discipline to a life of free\nchoice, from school to home, from boyhood to manhood, this blessing\ndeclares that there should be no change in the attitude and purpose and\naim of life.\n\nIt is another way of saying that the laws which should guide our conduct,\nand the principles which should inspire and direct us, are of universal\napplication; that they know no difference of time or place, and that if\nthey bind you here they should bind you everywhere.  And simple and\nobvious as this may seem, it is not altogether an easy truth to carry\ninto practice.  \"Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.\"  Your seed\nfield is not here or there only; it lies on every side of you, and in all\nplaces; it spreads into the future farther than your eye can travel, and\nit will extend itself before you as you go; and the reality and vigour of\ngood purpose in you will be determined by your recognition of this truth.\n\n Let us consider it with reference to our own case at such a time as\nthis.\n\nThere are always growing up here in every generation those who feel a\npride in their school, and in the spirit of it, who strive honestly and\nearnestly to sow in their society the seeds of manliness, and\ntruthfulness, and good tone, and purity.  It would soon go very ill with\nthis or any other society if it were not so.  And those who grow up in\nthis way are continually leaving us in their turn, and they will remember\nwith affection the place of their high purposes and earnest and manly\nefforts.  They go out into a new world, and travel along other streams;\nand blessed are they, if they continue faithful, sowing still beside all\nwaters.\n\nBut every change brings with it some element of risk.  There is nearly\nalways something of surprise to us in the new forces that confront us in\nany society which we enter as strangers; and the first feeling that rises\nis sometimes a feeling of our own weakness or insignificance.\n\n In such a case it is well if we have realised beforehand that our laws\nof conduct should not vary, and that the call of God, which we have\nrecognised once, is a call which never ceases, and which no circumstances\nshould make inaudible.\n\nWhen we approach any change we all need this kind of warning; because\nthere are so many things in our life which we are apt to allow our\ncircumstances to regulate for us.  Experience tells us only too plainly\nhow much we depend upon the influences that are around us, and how often\nwe fail to carry with us the strength we have gained in one field when we\npass over to the next.  With the holy we learn in some degree to be\nourselves holy; with a perfect man we too are able to walk perfectly; but\non the other hand, in our imitative way, as the scene changes, we\nsometimes find ourselves learning frowardness with the froward,\npractising indifference with the indifferent, if not actually slipping\nwith the vicious into some vicious way.  There is always some risk of\nsuch changes; and it is always well for us to be taking care that our\nbetter life has its root in our own heart and spirit, and that we do not\nwear it as a garment suited to the society in which we happen to be, and\nchange it for the worse, if there comes any corresponding change in\noutward influences.\n\nHence it is that at these times, when we are about to separate, these\nwords of Isaiah come to us with a very appropriate reminder: \"Blessed are\nye that sow beside all waters.\"\n\nTo those who are leaving our society to begin a new life elsewhere, as to\nthose of us who go in the hope of returning by-and-by, they are charged\nwith the same lesson.  They bid us all alike take care and see that what\nis good in our present life has become our own personal and permanent\npossession, independent of surroundings; that it has sunk in some degree\ninto the fibre of our character; that it is settled in us by conviction\nand principle, to guide and direct us everywhere, and is not merely a\ncircumstantial garment, a sort of livery of this or that particular\nplace, which will slip off us as we leave it.\n\nMany of you have learnt, I feel sure of it, to feel during these your\nschool days, the satisfaction of living here a true and worthy life; you\nhave tasted of that pleasure which the careless, the indifferent, and the\nsinful hardly taste at all, the pleasure that dwells with the\nconsciousness of earnest effort and sincere striving after the best\nthings within us.  The love of Christ may have taken hold upon you; the\nassociations of your school and its inheritance of great and good\nexamples, or the sense of honour may have stirred you; the feeling of\nyour closeness in life to those around you, and of the strong currents of\nmutual influence, may have opened your eyes to what you owe to your\nneighbour and to the claims of social duty.  Some one of these causes, or\nit may be some other cause, may have given you strength and power to walk\namongst us in the narrow way of good habit and good influence.  And\nwherever this is so, we thank God.  But the question to-day is, What\nassurance do you feel that this will continue?  When we go elsewhere,\nwhat habits, what tendencies, what fixed bent of spirit and character\nshall we exhibit?  Knowing as we do how strongly the forces of the outer\nworld will act upon us, it is never a useless warning which bids us take\ncare that in new spheres we do not forget our old principles, or lay\naside any good habits.  \"Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.\"\n\nWe have learnt to look upon certain laws of conduct and feeling, certain\nduties, certain standards of life, as beyond dispute, and fundamental.  If\nso, they are also of universal application; and we should hold them as\nthings which are altogether independent of the customs, traditions, or\ntone of any society into which we may go.\n\nIt is probable that some of you may find this doctrine not altogether\nfree from difficulties before many weeks are over.  You may find\nyourselves young and apparently uninfluential members of some society in\nwhich the standards of life are low, and you may be tempted to think,\nunder the pressure of surrounding opinion, that you are not called upon\nto set up or display any standard of your own; and there is always a\nchorus of voices ready enough to echo any such tempting suggestions.\n\nBut if ever you are tempted thus to let slip the things you have learnt\nand accepted, the voice of Isaiah should prove a help and a safeguard.\nAnd its exhortation is supported by the respect and admiration you feel\nfor any one who has the courage to stand alone in such a case, true to\nhis rooted convictions.\n\nAnother word may be added.  We met, a great many of us, this morning at\nthat table to which men do not come unless they entertain the purpose of\ntreading in the footsteps of Christ, and of nursing His Holy Spirit in\ntheir hearts.  As we lifted up our hearts there, as we ate of that bread\nand drank of that cup, as we prayed to be kept safe from the sins that\nmost easily beset us, as we sealed in each other's presence the\nresolutions which are to direct our steps in safe paths, it was not of\ncircumstances or places that we were thinking--it was the vision of\nChrist our Saviour that was before our eyes, and we pray that this vision\nmay remain with us.  When we think of all our diverging paths as we\nseparate just now, and of the uncertainty how many of us may meet again\nin that far horizon, and how many may have wandered out of the way in the\nwilderness, we do not doubt that we shall often need the strengthening\ninfluence of this vision of Christ, if we, too, hope to inherit the\nblessing which is reserved for those who are faithful under all\ncircumstances, and who sow beside all waters.\n\n\n\n\n X.  THE PRESENCE OF GOD.\n\n\n   \"And Jacob awakened out of his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in\n   this place; and I knew it not.\"--GENESIS xxviii. 16.\n\nThese words indicate the beginning of a new life in the patriarch Jacob.\nThey tell us of the moment when, as it would appear, his soul awoke in\nhim.  And they surprise us in some degree, as such awakenings of\nspiritual capacity often do; for Jacob's recorded antecedents were not\nexactly such as to lead us to expect the dream and the vision, and the\nawakening which are described in this passage.\n\nHe had cheated his brother out of his father's blessing; he was leaving\nhis father's house in consequence, to avoid this brother's threatened\nvengeance; and as he slept at Bethel he dreamed his dream of the ladder\nset up on earth and reaching to heaven; and he saw the angels ascending\nand descending, and the Lord standing above it, and he heard the Divine\nvoice charged with promise and with blessing: \"I am with thee, and will\nkeep thee in all places whither thou goest.\"  This, taking it in all its\nparts, is a very surprising narrative; and the point in it on which I\ndesire to fix your attention for a moment is this, that this vision\nstartled him into a new consciousness--\"Surely the Lord is in this place;\nand I knew it not.\"  It was the beginning of a new life.\n\nThat vision, we may be sure, never entirely faded.  He was never\nafterwards the same man he had been before it.  It had awakened the\ndivine capacity in him; and it remained with him as a constant reminder\nof the presence of God in his life, to protect and to inspire him--\"I am\nwith thee, and I will keep thee in all places whither thou goest.\"  Such\na voice as this in a man's heart gives his life a new quality; it puts\nhim in a new relation to all common things.\n\n We may well believe that it was this more than anything else which drew\nJacob apart from the common heathen life around him, from that day\nonwards.  It was this which, in spite of all his weaknesses, defects, and\nfailures in life and character, gradually raised him to a different\nlevel.\n\nIt was this which finally culminated in transforming him from Jacob the\nsupplanter to Israel the prince of God.\n\nSo far as appears, he had gone out from his home, as so many go forth in\nall ages, a dull soul, though with latent capacities, his thoughts bent\non securing his personal safety and his worldly success.  But he woke in\nthe desert after that vision, with the seeds of the new life rooted and\ngrowing in him.\n\nIt is this moment of awakening on which I desire to fix your\nthoughts--this moment of his transfiguration; when he saw and felt a\nheaven above him, and yet very close, with its ladder of angelic\ncommunication, which he had not _so_ seen or felt before; the moment when\na new consciousness flashed through his soul, and illumined unsuspected\nchambers in it, stirring new thoughts and new aspirations.  He woke up to\nbe a new man henceforth, moving in a new presence, and having always in\nhis ears the voice of a Divine call.\n\nDo you ask why I dwell on this familiar history, or desire that you\nshould contemplate and realise this change in the young man Jacob?  It is\nbecause there is just the same soul, the same capacity of higher life in\nevery one of us: in some it is awake already and transfiguring their\nlife; in others still latent, sleeping, undiscovered.\n\nI dwell on it because it makes and will make all the difference in the\nworld to your life whether in your case this capacity is awakened or not.\nThis, then, is what I have to postulate as giving a value beyond the\npower of words to describe to every soul amongst us.\n\nIt bids us recognise and keep always before us that in every common life,\nof child or man, even in the most worldly or the hardest, the most\nfrivolous, the most cynical, the most sensual, or the most degraded,\nthere is latent, it may be altogether unfelt and disregarded through long\nyears, giving no sign of its presence, it may be, it often is, overlaid,\ntrodden down, even at the point of death, but still there, this living\nsoul with all its possibilities.  It is within every one of us, stamped\nwith the image of God, and charged with unimagined possibilities.\n\nAnd it must be obvious that the whole difference between any two lives,\nbetween your life and your neighbour's life, may depend on this awakening\nof the soul in one of you and its not awakening in the other.\n\nOf the two brothers, Esau and Jacob, I suppose we are all drawn at the\noutset to Esau; our heart goes out to him, as we read, the impulsive, the\nimpetuous, the affectionate, and we feel a corresponding dislike of\nJacob's craft and cunning, and selfish calculations.  There can be no\ndoubt, we say, which was the meaner character to begin with.\n\n But neither is there any doubt why it was that it came to be written,\n\"Jacob I have loved, but Esau have I hated.\"  The one was just the child\nof the world around him, yielding to its temptations, living by its\nstandards.  The soul in him never awoke, so as to transfigure his\nthoughts and purposes.  The other is a man of Divine visions, inspired\nwith the sense of a Divine presence and a Divine purpose directing him.\n\nNowhere do we see more clearly than in this narrative how great a change\nmay come to any of us, if the unawakened capacities of our soul are\ntouched by the breath of some uplifting inspiration.\n\nAs we read of this contrast between Esau and Jacob, and their destinies,\nwe feel--and we feel it all the more because Jacob to begin with seems to\nbe made of such common clay--we feel what a transforming power in a man's\nlife this awaking of the soul may be.\n\nA life which is without the inspiration that takes possession of us in\nthe moments of this awakening, and is consequently without these visions\nthat flash before the soul as it awakens, a life that is not deeply\nstirred by spiritual hopes or Divine thought, or the call to new duty,\nremains in one man a selfish and worldly life, in another a frivolous, in\na third a sensual life.  But the very same life--and here is the\npractical value to us, here is the hopefulness of such considerations--the\nvery same life, when the breath of God's spirit or His penetrating voice\nhas stirred and roused the soul in it, is felt to be transformed.  The\nman is born anew.\n\n\"There is nothing finer,\" some one has said, \"than to see a soul rise up\nin men, which amazes the very men in whom it rises.\"  They are surprised\nto find that these new capacities were in them, unnoticed through their\ncareless days, yet in them all the time.  This birth of the new life,\nwith all its promise of new tastes, new ambitions, new thoughts, new\npurposes, may indeed come to you without your feeling all at once how\ngreat a thing it is.  At first it may be nothing more than some vision of\nthe possibilities of your life, or some electric flash of new\nconsciousness that runs through you, or the sharp pang of remorse for\nsome sin or some neglect, or the flush of shame or repulsion as you think\nof something or other in your life, or the glow of some good resolution\nto begin some new life or new duty, or take some new turn, or pursue some\nnew aim.  You hardly think perhaps of this as the awakening of your soul.\nIt may never have occurred to you to think of it as being just as sacred\na thing as was Jacob's vision at Bethel, as being indeed the work of the\nsame Divine spirit.\n\nBut let us consider it a little further.  Whatever it is that is thus\nstirring in your heart, it comes and it comes again; it lingers in your\nthoughts and feelings; it haunts, it impresses and awes you; it rises\nbefore you suddenly and stops you from some sin, or, if it fails to stop\nyou, it turns the pleasure for which you craved into wretchedness; or it\nencourages and consoles you in some hour of weakness or sorrow.  I\nsuppose there is hardly one of you who has not had some such experience\nas this.  And if you ask.  What is it?  It is, I repeat, the awakening of\nthe soul in you--nothing less than this--and happy is it for you, if you\nrecognise that it is the soul striving to win its proper place in the\nregulation of your life.\n\nWhen Moses saw the vision of the burning bush, and suddenly felt himself\non holy ground; when Elijah heard the still, small voice calling, \"What\ndoest thou here, Elijah?\" when Saul, on his way to Damascus, fell to the\nground conscience-smitten, crushed, blinded, rebuked; when the child\nSamuel heard the Divine voice calling to him in the darkness of the\nnight;--in each case it was the awakening or the reawakening of the\nsoul--the uprising of the spiritual capacities, the vision of the higher\nlife--and so exactly with all of _you_.  Are you not sometimes conscious\nof the uprisings in you of a spirit calling upon you to recognise the\nangels' ladder that connects _your_ life also with the heaven above us?\n\n If so, there is this further thing to note about such moments of\nexperience.\n\nThis feeling of some spiritual capacity in you, this call to some higher\nview of life and duty, this uprising of the moral sense and the repulsion\ntowards the lower forms of life which comes with it--this is God's\npersonal gift to us, and we pray that you may possess it early; for it is\nnot only a new consciousness, it is itself a new power in your life.\n\nYou cannot have it, feeling its presence and hearing its suggestions, and\ndebase your life in any way, as you might have done, but for its\npresence.  It is so very true that, in the life of the Spirit, looking up\nmeans lifting up.  As the plant turns to the sun, it grows towards the\nsun; as it looks up to the light, it grows towards the light; so it is\nwith us.  We feel that we are sons of God, and we tend to become so.\nThrough some influence or other, we awake to a vivid consciousness that\nGod has created us in His image, endowed us with Divine capacities, and\nthis consciousness becomes a purifying and inspiring force in our life,\nand it is a new life in consequence.\n\nPray that such influences may prevail around you here, and that you may\nhold them fast until they have blessed your life.\n\n\n\n\n XI.  \"MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER.\"\n\n\n   \"So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one\n   of another.\"--ROMANS xii. 5.\n\nThere are some moral and spiritual truths which it seems to be almost\nimpossible to impress upon the practical life of the world, although they\nmeet with a sort of universal acceptance.\n\nMen agree with them, they re-echo them, they applaud them; they do\neverything, in fact, but exhibit them as the moving, inspiring, and\nguiding truths of their daily practice.\n\nAnd among these I fear we must still class that one which is expressed in\nthe text I have just read, a text which sets forth the fundamental fact\nthat whatever else Christianity may teach, it teaches as one of its first\nand principal lessons that a Christian man has to live in Christ for his\nneighbours.\n\n If such a text means anything, it means that Christianity is essentially\na religion of society, that it sets before us social claims as standing\nbefore all other claims; that, starting from the Divine Sacrifice as the\ncentral fact of human life, it was intended to root out of our hearts the\nnoxious weed of selfishness by the power of the Divine love, and to build\nup the organisation of men in their common relationships upon this new\nbasis.\n\nIt may sound somewhat strange to speak at this time of day of what\nChristianity is intended to do, rather than what it has done already.\n\nBut it is even more strange to read the teaching of the Sermon on the\nMount, and all the other words of the Lord; all the lessons of His life\nand His sacrifice; the history of the first generation of Christians; the\ndescent of the Spirit upon them; and the teaching of the apostolic\nbrotherhood--to remember that all this is our accepted faith; that it has\nbeen the faith of one generation after another for eighteen hundred\nyears; that we grow up in this faith, live in it, and die in it; and at\nthe same time to contemplate side by side with it all the elements of the\ncommon life, all the rules and customs of society, all the standards of\nconduct which ordinary men take as their measure of daily duty and\npurpose.\n\nThus, whilst on the one hand Christian influences, and all the changes in\nthe world's life which are due to them, fill us with wonder and\ngratitude, the failures of Christianity are scarcely less impressive.\n\nWhen we consider the ordinary run of men's lives, so different for the\nmost part in spirit, and in aim and guiding rules, from that type which\nthe New Testament sets before us, it would almost seem as if to the\nmajority their religion was not a ruling and dominating principle,\npervading this present life, but only an _ideal_, shedding around us a\nglow of indefinite hopes and possibilities, an ideal hardly to be\nrealised, laid up somewhere in the heavens--[Greek text].  These\ncontrasts between the revelation of the Gospel and the standards of the\nChristian world have always troubled the most earnest spirits in every\ngeneration.  Some of you remember, no doubt, how this contrast between\nChristian profession and the life of selfish sin and waste flashed into\nfierce poetry in one such spirit of the last generation, who grew up in\nthis school.\n\n   \"Through the great, sinful streets of Naples, as I passed,\n   With fiercer heat than flamed above my head\n   My heart was hot within me, till at last\n   My brain was lightened when my tongue had said\n   Christ is not risen.\"\n\nAnd men who are truly in earnest about faith and life, and who are\nperplexed and distressed by the contradictions and insincerities that\nmeet them, must often be moved as he was.\n\nAnd yet, when we look closer, and consider that the battle of spiritual\nprogress has this peculiarity attached to it, that it has to be fought\nover again, in every generation, and in every separate individual soul,\nthe result is less surprising.  Remembering this, we do not expect the\nvictory of the last generation to save us from defeat or failure.\n\n And this has to be borne in mind equally in regard to the continuous\nlife of societies and to our own separate lives.  Thus in such a society\nas this, if our predecessors uplifted the standards of conduct,\ninculcated high principles, and inspired their generation with a strong\npervading spirit, this should make it easier for us to do likewise; but\nit does not insure our doing it.  All this higher life will die in our\nhands if the same regenerating spirit is not alive and working in our\nhearts also.  So, again, your individual victory over sin in the power of\nthe Spirit in you, does not save my life from having to fight the battle\nfor itself and win its own victories.\n\nSo that, however perplexing the phenomena of life may seem whilst we look\nat them in the mass or from the outside, if we read the Gospel of Christ\nas a message to our own souls a great deal of the perplexity disappears.\nAnd it was with this personal message that Christ came, and there is no\nhope of our understanding His mission, or of living in the light of His\ntransforming spirit, if we think of it in any other way than this.\n\nThe purpose of His revelation is to crucify the selfish instinct in us,\nand to rouse us to the life of self-devotion, to the idea of consecrated\nenergies; and this being so, all Christian life is of the nature of a\nwarfare; and a warfare which begins afresh with each generation of men;\nbecause selfishness, with all its tribe of attendant appetites and\npassions, springs afresh in every single soul, and is nurtured,\nstrengthened, cultivated, by so many of the conditions of life.\n\nIf, then, the Spirit of Christ is really to prevail in our life, it must\nbe by effecting our emancipation from selfish instincts, and rousing in\nus the spirit of devotion to the good of other lives.\n\nIn proportion as you diminish selfishness in your own life or in any\nother, by fostering generous affections and cultivating the spirit of\nsocial duty and religious aspiration, by walking in the footsteps of\nChrist and living in the light of His presence, you are laying the only\npossible foundation of any lasting progress, you are following the one\ntrue method by which the mystery of sin is to be overcome.\n\nWe may wonder that this should be so difficult; for of selfishness we\nshould say that we all dislike it.  In its grosser forms we repudiate it.\nThe very word is one which we articulate with a certain accent of\ncontempt.\n\nBut when we come to its refined and subtle workings in our nature, when\nwe think of its Proteus-like changeableness, its power of assuming the\nvarious guises even of duty or religion; when we reflect how it can\nclothe itself in the choicest garb of art, or science, or divine\nphilosophy, we find very likely that we are always in danger of being\nenslaved by it.\n\nAnd we do well to pray in all sincerity that grace may expel our\nselfishness; for indeed the influence of true religion is to be gauged by\nthe extent to which this prayer is being fulfilled in us.  The fulfilment\nof it is what we mean by the regenerate life.\n\n I need not ask you how you feel in the presence of any character which\nyou recognise as cleansed from all taint of selfishness, a character,\nsoftened, refined, purified, inspired, consecrated.  I would rather ask\nwhether you know of any personal influence to be compared with that of\nsuch a character.\n\nAnd if, as I anticipate, you would answer that there is none like it, I\nwould ask you to bear in mind that this influence may be yours.  You are\ninvited by all the highest calls within and around you to make it yours.\n\"What is the aim and purpose of his life?\" is a question which men are\njustified in asking about us; and they are justified in passing their\nverdict upon us by the answer which our life gives.\n\nDoes he live for himself, they will ask, for his own pleasures, his own\ndelights, be they coarse or refined, his own indulgence, his own\nparticular interest?  Is there anything of the spirit or enthusiasm of\nsacrifice visible in the ordinary tenor of his actions?\n\n The world, this Christian world, is full of those concerning whom the\nanswer to such questions can only be a distinct negative; and yet we know\nthat in all such characters, whether in youth or age, Christianity is a\nfailure.\n\nTherefore we shall accept it as our primary duty, the purpose of our\nexistence as a Christian school, to train up men who shall be penetrated\nby the spirit of unselfishness, possessed by the feeling that their lives\nare to be consecrated to the common good.\n\nSocieties differ very widely in the type of character they impress.\n\nHere and there we see a society, here and there a school, which has\nsomehow acquired the power to stamp on those who go out from it a certain\nimpress of nobility.\n\nThey go forth like the knights of our famous English legend--imperfect no\ndoubt and erring, but each one of them inspired with the consciousness\nthat his life is a holy quest.\n\nThere are other societies and schools among them which seem to possess\neverything but this one power.\n\nWhat, then, are we to say of our hopes?  What is to be the mission of our\ngeneration here?  Shall we contribute anything to raise the common type?\nOr shall we drift on as the world drifts, a little better, or a little\nworse?\n\nShall we not rather pray and hope as we begin once more to weave the web\nof mutual influence, that you may grow up here not altogether like the\nherd of common men, but emancipated early from the life of selfish\ndesire, feeling the spirit of Christ within you, remembering your\nbaptismal vows, with eyes open to heavenly visions, and not disobedient\nunto them?\n\n\n\n\n XII.  THE SOWER AND THE SEED.\n\n\n   \"A sower went out to sow his seed.\"--ST. LUKE viii. 5.\n\nIt is significant that the first of the Saviour's parables is the parable\nof the sower, that the first thing to which He likens His own work is\nthat of the sower of seed, the first lesson He has to impress upon us by\nany kind of comparison is that the word of God is a seed sown in our\nhearts, a something which contains in it the germ of a new life.\n\nIt is no less significant that He returns so often to this same kind of\ncomparison for the purpose of impressing us always with the primary fact,\nthat our relationship to God, the Father of Spirits, in other words our\nspiritual condition at the present moment, our hope for the time to come,\ndoes not depend upon some body of doctrine, but on our having received\ninto the secret places of the heart the seeds of a new life.\n\nThis is suggestive of a great many considerations which touch our life\nvery closely; but I will not turn aside to them at this moment, as my\ndesire is to fix your thoughts for the present on this one fundamental\nthing, that the principle of moral and spiritual life in you is a seed,\nand as such it is endowed with a power of independent separate growth; it\nwas intended to grow in you.\n\nThe sower casts his seed upon the earth and goes his way, and, once sown,\nit springs up and grows, as Jesus said in another parable, \"he knoweth\nnot how.\"  This, then, is the truth which He is impressing on our\nattention, when He speaks of His revelation as a seed, a seed to be sown\nby hands which have no control over it except to sow it.  The soul of\neach and every one of us is a seed-field, and the seeds of new life and\npurpose should be growing in it.\n\nAs we recall the other parable of the seed growing secretly, recorded in\nSt. Mark's Gospel, we feel even more strongly how the essence of all our\nlife is in seeds of influence.  \"So is the Kingdom of Heaven as if a man\nshould cast seed upon the earth, and the seed should spring up and grow,\nhe knoweth not how.\"  It grows in us mysteriously we know not how.\n\nAnd I am not sure that we all, indeed I think it likely that we do not\nall, take it home to our thoughts with sufficient seriousness that this\nmysterious growth in the thing sown implies a mysterious vital power or\nforce which is inherent in it.\n\nI call it a mysterious vital power, because all life is a mystery to us.\nThe very thought of life lands us in mystery, in mystery which defies\nanalysis.  We know that all the life in us and around us follows certain\nlaws, as we call them, the life of plants, the life of animals, the life\nof man, each following its own laws after its kind, and that is all we\nknow about it.  We can observe its action, its uniformities, its\nsequences, and variations, but beyond this we cannot penetrate its\nsecret.  It grows mysteriously, we know not how.\n\nBut this much we know, that no life is spontaneously generated.  The\nscience of our day has demonstrated it, as we believe, beyond dispute,\nthat you cannot create life out of dead matter.  All life comes from some\nantecedent life.  Wherever you see life of any kind, you know that there\nmust have been before it some form of life which was its parent.\n\nYet again, the scientific investigator points out another suggestive\nfact, that the lower creature does not of its own lower nature expand\ninto the higher, but that life is lifted up and grows by the infusion of\nsomething higher than itself.  So, too, we believe that the Spirit of God\ntouches with its mysterious power the dead souls of men; it transforms\nthem, it uplifts them, they are born again.  They are roused and stirred\nto new capacity by the touch and inspiration of this Divine life.  This\nis what is meant when it is said that if any man be in Christ he is a new\ncreature.  He has received into his nature this mysterious gift, or\nrather this seed of the new life.\n\nSuch is the Christian doctrine of the new birth, or of the life-giving\nbreath of the Spirit, or of the sowing the seed of Divine life in us.  You\nmay describe it how you please, if only you take due note of this, that\nin proportion as you realise or accept this truth as in any way\nintimately connected with your own personal life and conduct, all the\ncommon things around you acquire a new importance, and I might even say\nsome touch of sacredness, because they are felt to be strewn with these\nseeds of influence which God is sowing around us, with a hand that never\nrests, through all our years, in uncounted ways.\n\nThis seed of new life which is to save you from the power of sin and the\nflesh and give you new aspirations, purer tastes, stronger purposes, need\nI remind you how it is sown, in what manifold and various ways?  It must\nbe within the personal experience of some of you to testify how your\nmeetings in this chapel every morning may sow it.  One day it falls on\nyour heart in some word of some hymn or prayer, or in some thought or\nfeeling which flashes through you, or some pricking of conscience for no\nother knows what sin or fault, or in some new resolve.\n\n Sometimes it is found that a passing word of a preacher sows it (it is\nin this hope I preach to you), or again it is sown in the common ways of\ndaily life, by the reading of some book, or by the word or example of a\nfriend, or by some casual sight or experience.  We remember how the seed\nof an unresting and beneficent life, a life devoted to the good of the\npoor and the suffering, was sown in Lord Shaftesbury by the shocking\nsight of a pauper funeral when he was a boy at Harrow.  So it may be sown\nin your hearts you know not beforehand when or where, to grow up and bear\nfruit an hundred fold.\n\nThe wind bloweth where it listeth--so is every one that is born of the\nSpirit.  You never know what Divine seed it may deposit in your heart at\nany moment; but this you do know, that if the word of Christ be true,\nwhenever this gift of life comes to you it is a new birth.\n\nAnd there is all the more mystery and sacredness about our common life\njust because we never know how or when these seeds may fall upon our life\nto bless it, and because men are often altogether unconscious of the\nbeginnings of their growth in them.  Some seed of good influence falls\ninto the soil of their heart, and seems to lie there buried in the winter\nof neglect or waste.\n\nThus some men may carry the seeds long and far, not knowing the power or\nthe potency of the life that is in them; but some day they strike root\nand grow and bear fruit in new convictions, or in new desires and\npurposes; and this may be the case with any one amongst us, and hence it\nis natural that we should press the question on ourselves and on each\nother--What are you making of those seeds of higher life which have been\nsown in you by your mother's love, by your father's words, by all the\nlessons and influences of such a place as this, seeds which are falling\naround you continually, and may possibly be trodden down or overlaid?\n\nAs we look at these parables of the Lord telling of this sowing and this\ngrowth of seeds, they bring it home to us very forcibly that the only\ntrue test of life in Christ is growth in Christian graces.  And this\nbrings us to a consideration of grave practical importance.  It bids us\nbe very careful to distinguish between seeds of life taking root in the\nheart and springing up into new activities, and mere waves of impression.\nThe seed springs up and grows in you, the wave merely flows over you,\nlifting and moving you for a moment, and then leaving you as before.\nThus, and it is a warning which is not unneeded in our day, a day of much\nemotional religion, there is all the difference in the world between a\nreligion of moods and a religion of growth.  The one is the plaything of\nthe winds, the other is rooted in Christ.\n\nThus I am brought to two reflections, one on the function and aim of the\npreacher, the other the duty of the hearer of God's word.  The\npreacher--and the same might be said of every master in such a society as\nthis--the preacher has to think of himself primarily and chiefly as a\nservant of Christ charged with the duty of sowing the seeds of spiritual\nlife in your hearts.  And the thought that the Saviour has revealed to us\nseeds of life which have this regenerating power in them, and that in Him\nwe see what possibilities of growth there are in these seeds--this is our\nconstant encouragement.\n\nThe sower's hand may be feeble, and his sowing may be awkward, or\nhalting, or uncertain, but there is a Divine force or possibility in all\nseeds of truth, or purity, or right feeling which he scatters among you,\nindependent of his sowing, and he never knows in what soul some seed may\nlodge and germinate and grow up and bear fruit here and hereafter, even\nto the endless life.\n\nSo we believe that every work of good influence, whether of man or boy,\nwill prosper, because we remember it as a part of God's providential law,\nthat His seed if sown grows of itself, mysteriously.  And we need not\nwonder at the mystery, for it is the Spirit of God which is in the seed;\nand it is ready to swell and grow and bear new fruits as it lodges in\nyour heart.\n\n Through and in that seed of good influence it is God Himself who is\nworking in you.\n\nSuch, as we learn from the word of Christ, such, as we see it exemplified\nin His person, is the mystery of the Divine life in the hearts of men--not\nin some other lives, but in your life and mine.\n\nBut this only leads us to another vital question--a question which I\nleave with you for the present, and to which we may return another\nday--What is your share of active duty in regard to these seeds of good\ninfluence and good purpose that are sown in you; what are you doing, and\nwhat are you intending to do, to secure that they shall be bearing some\nfruit in your own daily life?\n\n\n\n\n XIII.  THE LENTEN FAST.\n\n\n   \"This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer.\"--ST. MARK ix.\n   29.\n\nYou remember the narrative from which I have taken this verse.  Jesus, as\nwe read, had just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, and when\nHe was come to the multitude, a certain man besought him saying, \"Have\nmercy on my son, for he is lunatic and sore vexed, and I brought him to\nThy disciples, but they could not cure him.\"  Then Jesus rebuked the\ndevil, and the child was cured from that hour.  Thereupon His disciples\ncame to Him with this inquiry--\"Why could not we cast him out?  And He\nsaid to them, Because of your little faith.  This kind can come forth by\nnothing, but by prayer;\" or, as our Authorised Version has it, \"by prayer\nand fasting.\"\n\n Here, then, we have set before us a very striking and significant\ncontrast: the contrast between the spiritual power of Jesus fresh from\nthe Mount of Transfiguration, and the want of such power in His\ndisciples, who represent to us the common life of the multitude and the\nplain.  His reply to their question was clearly intended to suggest to\nthem the cause of their spiritual feebleness.  Do you wonder at your lack\nof power over the diseases of the soul?  \"This kind can come forth by\nnothing, but by prayer.\"  Now, this suggestive answer is very appropriate\nfor our consideration at the present time when we are approaching the\nseason of Lent, which has been observed century after century as a\nspecial season of fasting, prayer, and penitence for sin, through all the\nChristian Church.\n\nWhen we think of these weeks, it is reasonable to believe that such\nobservance, so universal, so long continued, must have satisfied some\ndeep need of the heart, especially as it is not based on any particular\ndogma.  And this incident in the Saviour's life, and these emphatic words\nof His, may help us to a clearer understanding of the value of such\ntimes.  They declare to us the principle of the spiritual harvest, that,\nin the spiritual life as in all else, we reap as we sow.  They are\nintended to convey to us this plain lesson, that if any of us give little\nthought, attention, or effort to that side of our life which we speak of\nas the spiritual, if there is in our daily habit and practice little real\nprayer or self-denial, or devotion, little communing with God, little\nendeavour to live in the spirit of Christ, and if, this being so, we find\nourselves weak or vacillating in our struggle against sin or evil,\nwhether in our own life or in society, there is nothing surprising in\nsuch a result.\n\nIt is in our religious life just as in everything else--spiritual\ncarelessness or neglect must mean spiritual weakness.  In all other\nmatters we look for results in some proportion to our efforts.  As we sow\nwe expect to reap.\n\nHere, for instance, in your daily life, if you wish to excel in any\nparticular game or pursuit, you practise it with diligence.  You know\nthat, without such practice or concentration of effort upon it, any\nexpectation of excellence is simply foolish.\n\nIn your school work you recognise the same conditions.  Intellectual\ngrowth may seem sometimes to come slowly, in spite of all your efforts;\nbut it comes with certainty if you persevere, and it is equally certain\nthat it hardly ever comes at all to those who use no effort.\n\nIf, then, you look for progress or distinction, you know that you must\nfix your thoughts upon your work, and practise industry, and, above all,\nthat you must cultivate a love of learning, so that your mind lingers\nover it with some sense of enjoyment.\n\nYou do not expect a harvest where you have not sown.  And it is just this\nsame law which you recognise and accept in other matters that our Lord is\nhere declaring to us as the law of spiritual power.\n\nDo we desire to cast any evil influence or any weakness out of our life?\nDo we ask despairingly how it is that we have not been able to cast it\nout?  Our Lord's answer comes to us in these emphatic words--\"This kind\ncan come forth by nothing, but by prayer.\"\n\nIn other words, if we really desire that our soul shall be cleansed and\nstrengthened, we must surrender it to Him in prayer and self-denial, in\nspiritual exercises and communion, that He may cure it of its sin or its\nweakness, and inspire us with new life.\n\nPrayer and fasting are in this word of His the symbol of all special\nexercises of the spirit, as it strives to get free from the burden of the\nflesh and to come nearer to God; and without such exercises, He presses\nit on us if we stand in need of such reminders, we cannot hope for any\nharvest of spiritual strength.\n\nAnd we can hardly have failed to notice how His own practice corresponds\nwith His warnings and injunctions.\n\nBefore He began His ministry we read of His forty days' fast in the\nwilderness; and at every turn, in the course of it, we read again and\nagain incidentally of His constant withdrawals into privacy with God.\n\n His short life on earth was a life of spiritual ministry.  All the\ncommon things of life were to Him so many illustrations of some spiritual\nlesson of the Father's love and care, or of man's dependence on Him.  In\nevery voice of the world there was the undertone of some spiritual\nsuggestion.  So that we might say--Surely His days were one unbroken\ncourse of spiritual work and communion, and He could need no special\nseasons or exercises; but His example teaches us a different lesson.\n\nAs if to bring it home to us beyond all possibility of doubt or question,\nthat the most devoted, the most active, and most powerful spiritual\ncharacters, will always be those whose communion with God in private\nprayer and exercise is most constant and intense, He Himself was\ncontinually withdrawing for such communion; and there are no more\nsuggestive passages in the Gospels for our guidance than those incidental\nreferences which tell us, as if by chance, giving us passing glimpses\ninto the unrecorded portions of His life, how on one occasion He retired\ninto a mountain apart to pray, or how on another he spent the whole night\napart in prayer, or how he was in a desert place apart in prayer.\n\nThese withdrawals of Jesus into the solitude of the desert or the\nmountain, these hours in which He was alone with the Father, are but\nanother name for those exercises of prayer, fasting, meditation,\ncommunion with God, without which, as He tells His followers in the text\nI have read to you, it is not possible to eradicate from the soul those\ninfluences of sin which destroy its harmony and undermine its strength.\n\nThese withdrawals were His times of spiritual refreshment; and by His\npractice He declares to us His need of them.  And if in His case they\nwere necessary, much more are they necessary for you and me, entangled as\nwe are amidst all the varied influences of our common life, and with\nnatures prone to sin.\n\nHence it is that the Church has set apart this season of Lent to come\nround to us year by year as a season of special thought and prayer and\nself-denial.  Many other times and seasons come to us laden with the same\nspiritual influences, and to be used by us as times of reflection,\ninspiration, purification, and strengthening.  This is the purpose which\nthe quiet of these recurring Sundays should be fulfilling in our lives,\nor our gatherings for Holy Communion.\n\nAnd once and again there comes to us in the course of life some time or\nseason which is sure to make its impression upon our soul as having\nbrought us in a special sense into the presence of God, and within the\novershadowing influences of His Spirit.\n\nSo it may happen to us that some family bereavement, the death of father\nor mother, of brother or sister, or child of our affections, draws us\naway from the world into a closer communion with our Father in Heaven, a\ncommunion which is never entirely lost again or forgotten.  So, too,\ncomes the season of confirmation, as to many of you just now, with all\nits thoughts, feelings, prayers, and resolutions.\n\nAnd it is a happy thing for our life when any of these seasons leave an\nindelible mark upon our memory and our spirit.\n\nBut as we think of these words of Jesus, \"This kind goeth not out but by\nprayer and fasting\"--the question for each of us here to-day is, what\npractical daily meaning we hope to give to this season of Lent which is\nto begin on Wednesday.\n\nLet us not fancy that we can allow such seasons to come and go, year by\nyear, giving them no thought or attention, without some corresponding\nloss.\n\nThe voice of humanity, and the experience of centuries, the practice of\nholy men, and the example and the words of Christ Himself, have all\ntestified to the need there is for the spiritual observance of such\ntimes, if men are to keep their soul alive in them--and who are we that\nwe should venture to set ourselves against such overpowering testimony?\n\nLet us rather address ourselves seriously to making these weeks a time of\nsome special exercise or discipline such as our life may need.\n\n There is hardly one of us but will confess, if he thinks of the matter\nat all, that the world is too much with us; that its influence is too\nstrong upon us; that we are too ready to conform to its ways and follow\nits indulgences.  And such a confession is equivalent to an\nacknowledgment that we need these Lenten seasons.  And if with this\nfeeling in our hearts we use the coming weeks with any definite purpose,\npraying to be rid of some temptation or weakness, or to be endowed with\nsome strength, or to be supported in some good purpose, we are sure to\nrecognise with thankfulness, when the time is over, that it has indeed\nproved a time of some dislodgment, that some temptation or habit has\nfallen away from us and left us free, so that some new spirit or purpose\nhas begun to grow in us.\n\nWe shall, in fact, be conscious, as the weeks go on, that a new life of\nnew tastes and new satisfactions has sprung up, as the first fruits of\nour prayer.  If we doubt the need of such exhortations as these, let us\nreflect for a moment--Does it not sometimes happen to us that our souls\nare only too like the soul of that sick child in the Gospel?\n\nGood instincts, and intentions, and tendencies, are clearly felt and\nrecognised, but they are fitful, weak, and intermittent.  Another spirit\nseems to lay hold of us and carry us whither it will.\n\nIf in any sense this can be said to be your case, then remember, that\njust what the Saviour's healing word was to that child, sick and\npossessed, as He met it on His way from the Hill of Transfiguration, and\nbreathed over it the spirit of the higher life, reducing the chaos of the\nsoul to harmony, and bringing reason out of madness, and freedom out of\ndemoniac possession, these holy seasons of time-honoured observance may\nbe to your soul, if you use them reverently, and as God's appointed means\nfor your growth in the Spirit.\n\n\n\n\n XIV.  GOD'S CURSE ON SIN.\n\n\n   \"Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to\n   his ways, saith the Lord God.  Repent and turn yourselves from all\n   your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.\"--EZEKIEL\n   xviii. 30.\n\nThese words of Ezekiel may be understood as expressing in the prophet's\nlanguage what the Book of Deuteronomy expresses in such denunciations as\nthose which were read to us the other day in the Commination Service.\n\nThey correspond also to the warning of St. Paul when he says--\"Be not\ndeceived; God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also\nreap.  He that soweth to the flesh shall reap corruption; and he that\nsoweth to the spirit shall reap everlasting life.\"  Or again they\ncorrespond to that question which is put to us in the Epistle to the\nHebrews--\"If every transgression and disobedience received a just\nrecompense and reward, how shall we escape?\"\n\nThus we find in the Pentateuch, in Ezekiel, and in the apostolic writings\nthe representatives of three very different stages of religious\nenlightenment, all teaching us in effect the same lesson, to remember the\nrecompense that sin never fails to bring upon him who commits it.  As we\nlisten to the curses of Deuteronomy on one sin and on another, and then\nread the language of Ezekiel or St. Paul, we are conscious of a\ndifference in the modes of thought and expression.  The thought of the\napostle is separated from that of the lawgiver or the prophet of the Old\nTestament by the new revelation and the sacrifice of Jesus; but yet\nunderneath all differences their judgment on every sinful act or habit\nremains spiritually the same.  They all alike bid us, when we think of\nour sins, to think also of the inevitable punishment which rises behind\nthem like their shadow; and to bear in mind that the root of the whole\nmatter is the one incontrovertible and never-changing fact of human life\nthat as you sow you must expect to reap--he that soweth to the flesh\nshall of the flesh reap corruption.\n\nNow, inasmuch as your early years are the seed-time of your life, these\nstern reminders that if you sow any sin in your soul you will some day\nreap its curse, that God will judge you every one according to his ways,\nall this is very appropriate for your consideration.  And you are likely\nto be all the more serious about your present life and its habits,\ntastes, and purposes if this thought really takes possession of you, that\nthere is in fact a very close analogy between the life of the soul and\nlife around us in the outer world, and that every seed we sow in it grows\nafter its own kind.\n\nIn the region of animal or vegetable life you see and recognise this law\non every side.  You trace it sometimes as the law of improvement by\nculture, sometimes as the law of degeneration.\n\nYou cultivate and tend a garden or a field, sowing, planting,\neradicating, and the growths of flower or fruit improve in proportion to\nyour care; but leave it to itself and the weeds choke it, and the very\nfruit degenerates; your rose becomes a dog-rose--it reverts, as men say,\nto a lower type.\n\nSo exactly is it with your own life; so long as it is grafted into a life\nhigher than your own, so long as good purposes are being sown in it and\ngood habits cultivated, and the bad weeded out and the Spirit of God\nbreathes through it, it is growing nearer to the Divine type; but neglect\nit, or follow sinful impulse or low taste, and it becomes like the garden\nof weeds; degeneracy begins at once, it is changing to something worse,\nit is reverting to a lower type.\n\nThis is a way of expressing it which is sufficiently familiar to you.  But\nthis is only our modern way of looking at those facts of life which were\neloquent to men of earlier times as the curse of God.\n\nAs, then, it is undoubtedly true that--\n\n   \"Our acts our angels are, for good or ill,\n   Our fatal shadows that walk with us still,\"\n\nthese stern warnings which our Lenten services hold up before us are of\nthe greatest value.\n\nKeeping before us this law that in every region of life it is the\ntendency of everything to bear fruit after its kind, we shall feel that\nwe can hardly impress it too deeply upon our minds that there is no sin\nwhich we commit but will assuredly return upon our own heads.  The\nIsraelites in the Old Testament saw the hand of God thus visiting their\nsins upon them in many ways.  They thought of Him as smiting them for\ntheir sins with consumption or with fever, with plague or mildew, or the\nsword of the oppressor.  These are not our expectations.  We have learnt\nthat it is not with such visitations that God punishes us for our sinful\nindulgence or neglect, but that He does it with a punishment which may be\nless obvious but is often more ruinous than these.\n\nNeglect the opportunities of good with which He strews your path in early\nlife, let some sin strike its roots in your heart and take possession of\nit, and the curse of God for that neglect or that sin will overtake you,\nno doubt of it; coming not perhaps as the Israelite on Mount Ebal\nexpected it to come for any sin of his, but coming, you hardly know how,\nas the change for the worse, the sinking to lower levels of thought, and\ntaste, and aim, and practice, the reversion to lower types, which is the\nend of neglect, coming as the creeping and insidious growth of the power\nof sin working ever stronger in us as the natural fruit of indulgence.  So\nthe curse of that ancient Jewish law turns out to be a terrible and\nunchanging truth, written in a law which is never obsolete and grows not\nold, a law which calls on us for our Amen! as it cries to us equally in\nthe language of Divine revelation and of the latest scientific discovery:\n\"Sow neglect,\" it says, \"and you will reap deterioration; sow sin, and\nyou will reap corruption.\"\n\nThis vision of the ultimate results of evil is a very ugly one, put it in\nwhatever shape you will, and we are naturally somewhat loth to look it in\nthe face.  We would rather not think of any sin of ours as entailing such\nconsequences.  This conception of Divine justice or retribution embodied\nin the action of unbending laws and declaring that death is the fruit of\nsin, and that death must come of it, this is no doubt a conception which\ninspires awe.  We shrink from it; we hardly dare to say Amen! to its\ndread utterances.  We should like, it may be, to shut our eyes to the\nfact and dwell rather on the thought that our God is long-suffering and\nof great kindness and of tender mercy.  It is more soothing to think of\nlove than of retribution, or of the arm that shelters or upholds us than\nof the hand that smites; but the real question should be--\"Is it true,\nthis declaration that as we sow we reap, that the wages of sin is death,\ndeath of faculty, death of hope?\"  It is foolish to blink the sterner\naspects of life.  The fruit of such blinking and turning aside is very\noften the very thing we do not like to think of--indulgence and its\nretribution.  Divine love and goodness and long-suffering cannot occupy\ntoo much of our thoughts and prayers; for it is through these that the\nheart is touched, and the spirit is fostered in us, and we awake to the\nnew life in Christ.\n\nBut if we shrink from contemplating that law of Divine retribution, which\nworks in men's lives side by side with the law of mercy and love, it is\ntime for us to ask ourselves--\"How is it that I thus shrink from the\nthought of these penalties?\"\n\nThere is indeed one sense in which we naturally shrink from the thought\nthat the wages of sin is death, even while we acknowledge that it is so.\nIt is inexpressibly sad to dwell on the infinite mass of sin which is\ndaily bearing its bitter and deadly fruit in the world, and propagating\nitself after its kind; to think of the untold number of darkened or\nmisguided souls that have sown to the flesh, and are going in consequence\ndown to failure and death, blighted, corrupted, ruined.  From this\nthought we naturally turn to the thought of God's mercy, and pray that He\nmay yet sow the seeds of new hope in the dismal waste of such lives.\n\n But it happens to us, I fear sometimes, that this thought of God's curse\non sin sends a chill through the heart, and we shrink away from it,\nbecause of our own unregenerate life, because of the fascination which\nsinful impulse or habit exercises over us.\n\nIf the warning voice of our Lenten Commination Service has convicted any\none of us of this motive for shrinking from its stern sentence, it has\ncome to us as a true messenger of the God who has no pleasure in the\ndeath of him that dieth.  We need the voice of these threatenings,\nbecause the heart has such a great power of self-deception in it.  Men\nfind it so easy to thrust away into the dim background of their thoughts\nall the dark but sure consequences of present sins, treating them as a\ndebt which will come up no doubt for payment some day, but may be put\naside just now.\n\nAnd one virtue of our stern plain-speaking Lenten services is this, that\nthey will not allow us to forget that fated reckoning day--they put us,\nwhether we like it or not, face to face with the sure consequences of\nsin; and they compel us to listen to the question--\"What is the choice of\nthy life?\"\n\nFor you will bear in mind that we read all these decrees of Divine law\nwith our eye fixed on our own life and not on our neighbour.  They are\nmeant to help us to judge ourselves, and not some other person; they lead\nus to penitence and not to criticism, so that our readiness or our\nunwillingness to meet and to weigh them, and to respond to them with\ndefinite prayer and penitence, may be taken as an index of our religious\nsincerity, and of our readiness to consecrate our lives to the service of\nour Saviour Christ.\n\nAnd it is well for us that we should ask ourselves these questions; for\nif indeed it is true that every transgression and disobedience shall\nreceive its just recompense and reward, how else shall we escape?\n\n\n\n\n XV.  THE CONFLICT WITH EVIL.\n\n\n   \"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.\"--ST.\n   MATTHEW vi. 13.\n\nIt is good for us sometimes to stand still for a moment and consider our\nuse of very familiar words.  And this petition may appropriately\nillustrate our need of such an exercise.\n\nIt is on your lips every day.  Every Sunday you offer it you hardly know\nhow many times, in private and in public prayer: \"Lead us not into\ntemptation, but deliver us from evil.\"  And the moment you stop to think\nabout it you feel--who does not?--that it is a very solemn and moving\npetition if you offer it before God in sincerity, and with an honest\ndesire to be kept out of the way of sin; but it becomes a fearful mockery\nif it is offered with unclean lips, or by one who is living in any sort\nof sinful practice, either secret or open.\n\nAnd yet, as we all know, it is possible to do this, making the prayer\nmere lip service, under the influence of daily custom.  This, then, is\nthe question it suggests to us whenever we stop to think about it: How\nfar are we endeavouring to keep our lives in accordance with the spirit\nof such a petition?  \"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from\nevil.\"  Most of you, I can well believe, would not voluntarily or\ndeliberately step out of your way to meet a temptation, or to seek any\nevil course of life.  You would not do it of your own free choice, or in\ncold blood, as we say.  This, at any rate, is your own feeling about sin,\nwhether the feeling is consistent with your life or not.  As you\ncontemplate any low form of life in another, you recognise its ugliness\nand its degrading character, and you call it very likely by the name it\ndeserves.  If, then, you find yourself involved in any sin, in spite of\nthese feelings, and although you take this daily prayer upon your lips,\nhow comes it to be so?  How comes it that you remain in this pitiable\ncondition?\n\nYour answer is, perhaps, that temptation comes upon you unawares, and\nthat it takes you by surprise; or it seems to watch for some moment of\nforgetfulness or weakness; or you fight against a temptation, but still\nit clings to you as if it had a life of its own and were independent of\nyou; or you are drawn into sin you scarcely know how; or you are driven\ninto it by some one whom you fear although you despise him; or it seems\nto you to be in the very air you breathe.  And although such answers\nexplanatory of a life of sin or waste are no real excuse for it, they are\nvery often quite true.  If it were not so, the devil would not be the\ndangerous enemy that he assuredly is to our spiritual life; our risk of\nfailure in our battle with sin would not be so great as experience shows\nit to be.  We must therefore expect that temptations to sin will\nsometimes come upon us quite by surprise and at unlocked for moments, and\nthat some temptations will linger and cling to us with a hateful\npersistence; you must be prepared also to find that some companion may\ndraw you towards a sin, or a bully may endeavour to drive you into it.\nYour life is a happy one if it is free from all such risks, but you\ncannot count upon such freedom.  So that, if any one begins his life\nthinking that his conflict with evil and its manifold temptations is\ngoing to be an easy one, he begins under a dangerous delusion, and he is\nlikely to end in some disastrous failure.\n\nYou desire, let us hope, to keep your soul unstained by evil ways.  If,\nthen, you remember that to secure such a stainless and unpolluted life\nyou have not only to fight with some external enemy now and then, but\nagainst dark and insidious powers of evil which seem to start up around\nyou and in the very citadel of your heart unawares, and that except\nthrough a constant sense of God's presence in your life you cannot hope\nto keep free from their influence, this feeling should give reality and\nearnestness to our daily prayer to be delivered from the evil.\n\nAnd, indeed, this feeling that our life is set in the midst of many and\ngreat dangers is one of the first requisites for its moral safety.  It\nstands beside us with its warning, whenever a temptation to some sin\nbesets us, reminding us that, no matter how pleasant or attractive the\ntemptation may seem to be, or how trifling the sin that it suggests, it\nis in fact an outpost of a great army, whose name is legion, and that we\nshould hold no parleyings and have no dealings with it, for it breathes\ncorruption, and it brings degradation and death behind it.\n\n\"_Obsta principiis_\" may indeed be said to be a warning specially needed\nby us in regard to every kind of temptation.  But we may go further than\nthis.  Our safety from particular sins depends very often and very\nlargely, at a critical moment, upon our general attitude and feeling\ntowards sin in every shape.\n\nIt must be acknowledged, I think, that most sins which lay their hold\nupon us and master us, or struggle long and hard for the mastery, make\ntheir first entrance into the soul so easily, because they find it swept\nand garnished for their reception, and its doors wide open.  With\nreference to this you have only to reflect on some chapter of your own\nexperience.  Has it never happened that, when some wrong or sinful act or\nthought or speech was first presented to you, it stirred a feeling of\nshrinking, or strong dislike, or fear, or uneasiness, or, it may be,\ndisgust; but instead of listening to that warning voice, and spurning the\ntemptation utterly, as your feeling bade you do, you were attracted\nsomehow to turn and gaze upon it.  You knew it to be sin, but you felt no\nrepulsion.  Your soul was not garrisoned and defended by any strong sense\nof the hatefulness and deadly influence of all sin as such; so if you\nfled from it it was with a backward look; and then you allowed yourself\nto think of it in others, or you lived on friendly and familiar terms\nwith those who were stained by it; possibly you even jested about it; you\nlet your thoughts feed upon it; you expressed no stern disapproval of it;\nyou allowed the atmosphere of your life to be tainted by it; and at last\nyour adversary the devil, having rejoiced to see his wiles thus gathering\nround you, saw you slip or plunge into the sin, and go one great step\nnearer to becoming his bondslave--just as some foolish bird, fluttering\nthis way and that instead of spreading its wings for a heavenward flight\ninto the pure and safe upper air, might plunge into the snares of the\nfowler.  And yet all the while, although you were living this weak and\nvacillating life, which is the seed-field of sin, you were praying to God\nevery day--\"Lead us not into temptation.\"\n\nIf we remember any such experience we may at least gather from it some\nlessons of safety and strength for the time to come.  It reminds us first\nof all how vitally important is our general attitude towards every form\nof sin and its allurements.  On this attitude it very often depends\nwhether your life is to be comparatively free from pitfalls, or whether\nit is to be beset with dangers at every turning.  If by your attitude and\nbehaviour you cause it to be felt that sin is hateful to you, and that\nyou are sincere when you pray that God may keep you from all evil, a\ngreat many of the temptations that would otherwise make your life\ndifficult and dangerous will shrink away abashed; or if the tempter\nventures to assail you, he will do it half-heartedly when he sees that\nyou repel him with a whole-hearted repugnance.  It is this attitude even\nmore than individual acts which fixes the tone of a society.\n\n When there is no prevalent sense that there are those present who\nmaintain this attitude of hatred and contempt for sin and everything that\nbreeds or fosters it, the tone, as men say, becomes low, or lax, the air\nbecomes corrupt, and life in such surroundings becomes full of peril.  If\nthe good are timid, shrinking, showing no positive fervour, no zeal for\nvirtue, and no moral indignation against evil influence, then the bad in\ntheir society will lift up their heads and walk boldly.  But when, on the\nother hand, they who are in their hearts convinced of the sinfulness of\nsin, and of the infinite mischief that may arise out of any form of it,\nare not ashamed to show it by their attitude, they cause the base to hide\nitself in its proper darkness, and they create an atmosphere around them\nin which temptations lose a great deal of their force and strength.\n\nLet this, then, be your feeling about your life--that when it is assailed\nby any sin, that sin is not something isolated or insignificant; it is\nnot something which may be indulged or accepted, as if it had no relation\nwith other sins; it is a part of an infinite brood of evil; and that if\nyou admit it within the circle of your life, or tolerate it in the air\nyou breathe, you never know where its pestilent germs may fall, and\nbreed, and multiply, and what mischief may come of it.\n\nIt is this feeling of the mysterious vitality of sin, and the subtle\nkinship of one form of sin with other forms, and its destructiveness when\nit seizes on a life or poisons an atmosphere, that helps us more than\nanything else to feel the force and the intensity of the Saviour's prayer\nfor us: \"Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast\ngiven Me.  I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but\nthat Thou shouldest keep them from evil.\"  It is this same feeling of the\nspreading, insidious, infectious and destructive nature of sin that makes\nus echo this as our first and most earnest prayer for all we love, that\nGod may keep them from evil; and it is this that makes us value so highly\nand recognise with thankful hearts every example of a pure and strong\nlife, which gives inspiration and strength to those around it.\n\n\n\n\n XVI.  SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS.\n\n\n   \"As it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes\n   that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear.\"--ROMANS\n   xi. 8.\n\n   \"Blindness in part is happened to Israel.\"--ROMANS xi. 25.\n\nIt is a sad and painful reflection, and one which is continually forced\nupon us as we read the New Testament, that the long training and\npreparation of the Jews brought them at the last not to the acceptance\nbut to the rejection of Jesus.\n\nThey had been taught, generation after generation, that they were the\ncalled and chosen people of God.  Psalmists and prophets had enriched\ntheir life with the outpouring of their moral and spiritual revelations,\nand fired their hopes with promises.  They lived in the expectation of\nthe Messiah who was to complete these revelations of the God who had led\nthem and taught them ever since the days of their Egyptian bondage.\n\nYet, when this crowning revelation came to them, they could not even\nrecognise it.  The Son of God \"came unto His own and His own received Him\nnot.\"  As St. Paul expresses it in my text, while grieving for them with\nall the intensity of his fervid affection, their life was overgrown with\na sort of spiritual dulness.  They were suffering from a sort of\nossification of the spirit, so that the last and greatest revelation of\nGod could make no impression upon them.\n\nBut this picture of the Jews rejecting and crucifying their Saviour, and\nunable to appreciate or to receive the gift of new life which was offered\nto them, blind to its beauty, unattracted by its charm, is not only one\nof the saddest sights in history, it is very instructive for every one of\nus, because it is charged with warnings that are never out of date.  For\nthere is no individual life, and no society, that is not liable to drift\ninto a similar dulness of vision, and so to reject or disregard what God\ngives for its enlightenment.  The great critical events in the world's\nhistory, the events that make epochs in the consciousness of men, are not\ndifferent in kind from those of our own obscure lives.  They are, as it\nwere, our own familiar experience, written prophetically and written\nlarge.\n\nSo the blindness that happened to Israel, and arrested their spiritual\ngrowth, may be happening no less to any of us.  As God gave them the\nspirit of slumber, so it may be with our lives.\n\nAnd the very thought of our possible risks in this respect is valuable to\nus.\n\nTo be conscious that in regard to any of the higher and better things of\nlife our eyes may possibly be growing dim, and our ears dull of hearing,\nand that God may be pressing upon us gifts of great price which we are\ntoo dull to see or to accept--if our soul is sufficiently awake to feel\nthis, then the very feeling may of itself be the germ of new life in us.\n\n And it is very certain, on the other hand, that if we are altogether\nwithout any such feelings there is a risk, which even amounts to a\nprobability, that the hardening or deadening influences of custom and\ntradition will sooner or later degrade our life.  And if it should be\nasked,--How comes it that we are so liable to be affected by this dulness\nof spirit and of general habit?--we have to reply that it is because of\nthe sensitiveness of the human soul to surrounding influences.\n\nIt is because our souls are so receptive, so imitative, and in\nconsequence so easily perverted, darkened, blinded, or misled.  I suppose\nwe are all of us conscious of this sensitiveness of the moral and\nspiritual nature; we should all say, if questioned, that we are quite\naware of it, and that no one would dispute it.  The soul of every child\nor man, we should say, is a fine and delicate and sensitive instrument,\nwith the possibilities in it of we know not what Divine harmonies, but\neasily spoilt.\n\n And yet, when we look at all the common and traditional ordering of\ndaily life, whether in our educating of the young or in the influences\nthat we allow to prevail among young and old, it would seem sometimes as\nif this thought of the soul's sensitiveness had never dawned upon us.\nWhen we once really grasp this thought, or, let us rather say, when this\nthought has once really fastened upon our mind, and fixed itself there,\nso that it remains with us, and goes about with us; and when, in\nconsequence, we come to feel how easily any soul may be perverted, or\nrendered hard or dull; in one word, how easily it may be degraded; then\nit follows that we look with new eyes on many things, many customs, many\ninfluences which the unthinking hardly notice, or notice only to\nmisjudge.\n\nIn the light of this feeling of the soul's sensitiveness, the thoughtful\nman is very often intolerant of things which to others seem of little\nmoment, because he sees how they are tending to dull or deaden the eye of\nthe soul, or to pervert or to kill its finer instincts; and how, in\nconsequence, though tradition may have given them a sort of spurious\nconsecration, or the world in its blindness may have come to honour them,\nthey are in fact laden with mischief to the general life.\n\nIt was the thought of this sensitiveness of the soul to external\ninfluences, and of the ease with which any bad influence, or bad custom\nor practice or fashion, perverts common lives, and of the untold mischief\nwhich is consequently latent in it, that winged the words of a well-known\nwriter when she protested, some years ago, against what she designated as\ndebasing the moral currency.\n\nThat writer was thinking primarily of vulgar jesting on great subjects,\nwhich should stir us to admiration and reverence, and so debasing men's\ntastes.  She had in her mind the class of persons who have the art of\nspoiling things that are noble or beautiful by their vulgar handling of\nthem; and of the mischief which is done by such persons to public taste\nand tone and character.\n\n But we may widen the reference.  Whosoever, in anything that concerns\nthe conduct of life, spreads low notions, or drags down men's opinion or\ntaste, thus helping to pervert ordinary minds from those higher aims and\nmotives and those reverent views of character and life which should be\ncherished for our common use and service, is debasing the moral currency.\n\nHere, then, we have a very practical question for our consideration and\nanswering.  \"Is there anything in my life\"--so the question comes to us\nin our self-examination--\"which could be so described? any influence,\nspreading from my conduct, of which men might truly say that it also is\nhelping to debase the moral currency?  Is there to be seen in it anything\nthat tends towards the lowering of common standards? any misuse of things\nsacred or holy? any foolish or vulgar estimate of the higher things of\nlife?\"  And if we are in any doubt how to put these questions in a\nconcrete and practical shape, we have only to remember how any one who\nhelps to lower any standard of taste or conduct is debasing the moral\ncurrency of life; how, for instance, all those are debasing it who\nsubstitute any wrong notion of honour for right notions of honour, or who\nput roughness and coarseness in place of manliness, or who set the\nfashion of cynical judgments on good and bad characters.\n\nOr we might take an illustration from what is, unhappily, a very common\nelement in English life: the habit of gambling sport.  Wherever this\nhabit spreads, in any class of society, from the highest to the lowest,\nits effect is invariable; it undermines integrity, it hardens the heart\nand debases taste, and is the willing handmaid of other vices.  Moral\ndegradation is its inseparable companion.  Therefore, if you mix in it,\nor share in it, or give any adhesion or countenance to it, which helps,\nas men say, to make it respectable, and so to spread its influence, you\nare debasing the moral currency.\n\nOr take another common case.  You are familiar with the poet's\ndescription, \"And thus he bore without abuse the grand old name of\ngentleman.\"  That is a noble thing for any man or boy to have said of\nhim; and there is not one among you who does not desire always to be able\nto claim that name as his own.\n\nBut, wherever we go in the world, how many men there are who claim it and\nyet debase it by ignoble use!  They help to spread the notion that a man\nmay be a man of low morality and still a gentleman; that his\ngentlemanliness may be a mere varnish of culture and manners, a thin\nveneering having underneath it only meanness, or coarseness, or\ncorruption; and that, notwithstanding this, he may still claim to be\ncalled a gentleman.  Those who spread such doctrines are debasing the\nmoral currency of English life.  And it should be the mission of schools\nlike this, and of those who grow up in them, to pour upon all such\npersons the contempt which they deserve, and to restore the currency of\ncommon life to something of Christian purity.\n\n Remembering, then, how sensitive the soul is, and how easily by example,\nor conduct, or fashion it may be so perverted as to lose its clear vision\nand higher aims, its pure tastes and ennobling emotions, we have to make\nit our ambition and endeavour that our life may be kept free from such\ndebasement.\n\nBut, if we are to succeed in this, we must make it our daily prayer that\nthe God of our Lord Jesus Christ will enlighten the eyes of our\nunderstanding, and give unto us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in\nthe knowledge and love of Him.\n\n\n\n\n XVII.  A NEW HEART.\n\n\n   \"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within\n   you.\"--EZEKIEL xxxvi. 26.\n\nIn the beautiful and suggestive dream of Solomon, which is recorded in\nthe third chapter of the First Book of Kings, God appears to him, saying,\n\"Ask what I shall give thee\"; and Solomon's answer is, \"O Lord, I am but\na child set over this great people, give me, I pray Thee, a hearing\nheart.\"  And God said to him, \"Because thou hast asked this thing, and\nhast not asked for thyself long life, nor riches; behold, I have done\naccording to thy words.  I have given thee a wise and understanding\nheart, and I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both\nriches and honour.\"  And the record of this vision was clearly meant to\nindicate that the supreme gift of the wisest of men was the hearing or\nunderstanding heart.  On the other hand, there is nothing against which\nour Lord in the Gospels utters stronger warnings than that dulness or\ndeadness of spirit which is described as having eyes that see not, and\nears that are dull of hearing, and hearts that do not understand.  And in\nillustration of this we read how, while the crowds throng or press upon\nJesus, it is the stricken woman who, with soul sensitive to His\ninfluence, feels the virtue come out of Him though she only touches the\nhem of His garment.\n\nThus we are warned to beware lest that should come upon us which was the\nruin of the Jews, dulness or deadness of spiritual faculty; and we are\nexhorted to pray for and to cherish the hearing heart, the soul that sees\nand feels spiritual influences, and is sensitive to every high call.  And\nif your soul is thus open and receptive, it is marvellous how full the\nworld becomes to you of Divine voices.  They come upon you unexpected,\nunsought, sending through your heart some illuminating flash of surprise,\nso that you wonder at your previous dulness; they strike you with the\nsudden shock of some new knowledge or insight, and make you feel, as\nnever before, the true nature of your daily conduct or your duty and your\nrelation to other men; or they come as the unresting presence of some new\nthought, which, once roused, haunts and troubles you with questions which\nyou cannot answer, or feelings which you cannot get rid of.\n\nWhen the soul is roused in this way we see and feel the hatefulness of\nany sin that may have tempted or beset us; or we contrast our own life\nwith that of those whose lot is so much harder than ours, and we are\nstruck with shame at our selfishness, or waste, or our indifference to\nthe privation, and sin, and suffering that are all around us in the\nworld.\n\nOr sometimes these Divine voices in our ears bring it home to us how much\nwe are losing out of our life's higher possibilities, if from sinful or\nselfish habit, from dulness of spirit or lack of sympathy, we cut\nourselves off in thought and feeling and interest from the great needs,\nthe great sorrows, the great pulsations of the larger world.\n\nBut why, you may ask, do I dwell on all this?  It is because these are\nthe true Advent voices for us, coming as they do to rouse us out of\nnarrow preoccupation, to open our eyes to the sinfulness of sin, to make\nus feel that the self-centred, isolated, self-seeking life is a life of a\nlow type, and to stir us with social and religious interests and\nenthusiasms.\n\nThese calls that come to you, whether invited or not, and that stir your\nheart, speaking to you out of the multitudinous life of the time you live\nin, are like the watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem, which never hold\ntheir peace day nor night.\n\nThis ferment of higher life within us and around us, these voices of the\nSpirit in us, as it struggles to lift us out of the region of fleshly\ninfluences, is renewed in every generation and in every single life.  If\nyou hear no such voices, if the phenomena of life make no such impression\nupon you, if you are deaf to all these calls, and care for none of these\nthings, then it is clear that your soul is not yet awake in you; you are\nliving with a dull or darkened heart.  It is a sort of cave life, or\nsubterranean life, you lead in such a case, a life of lower rank and\nlesser hopes.\n\nYet these voices from above, that come as the witness of the Divine\nSpirit with our spirit that we are the children of God, never fail us.\nThey do not belong only to times far off.  We are not to think of them\nmerely as enshrined in the Bible and peculiar to it; but as living voices\nthat are speaking to us to-day out of the depths of the Divine life, in\nwhich our life is sustained.\n\nBut we have always to bear this in mind, that the Divine voices speak to\nmen with most stirring effect in every generation when they speak to them\nthrough the pressing needs of their own day.  To the Jews the voice of\nGod came in the inspired language of their deliverers and prophets--in\ntheir unceasing warnings, and their impassioned appeals, and their\nrevelations of new truth.  To the first generation of Christians these\nsame voices came in the shape of strong Advent hopes.  Many things\ncontributed to lift the Apostles and their followers nearer to God than\nmen of ordinary times.  They had seen the Lord; they had lived in His\npresence; they had gone through much tribulation; the tongue of fire had\nrested on them; the Spirit had taken full possession of them; but we\ncannot read the New Testament without feeling that the most stirring, the\nmost regenerative influence in their society was the vividness and\nintensity of their Advent hope.  Their expectation of the Lord's return\nlifted them out of the temptations of the world and above the trials of\nit.  It took hold of their active powers, and made them new men.\n\nTheir Advent expectation was not the vague, half mystic, half sentimental\nmovement of the heart, which just touches the lives of so many Christians\nduring our Advent seasons, while it does not really alter any of their\nearthly concerns.\n\nChrist was very near to the Apostolic Christians.  As the eastern sky\nbrightened every morning they felt that it might be the light of His\ncoming; they thought of Him as only hidden from them by the neighbouring\ncloud.  They looked for Him to return at midnight, or at the\ncock-crowing, or in the noonday, and none could say how soon.  And so it\ncame to pass that this expectation made those first believers, those\nhumble followers of Christ, those Galilean fishermen, those obscure\nprovincials, instinct with that great life which lifts men above the\nworld, and constitutes them a new power in it.\n\nOur lives are largely influenced by the thought of slow development; but\nwe miss a great deal of the secret of all higher life if we forget this\nwonderful exaltation of the poor and ignorant and obscure by this gift of\nthe Spirit and the inspiration of Divine hope.  It was not by any method\nwhich we could have forecast that those men found out this charm which\ntakes the heart captive and regenerates the life.  In their presence we\nfeel the force of the prophet's words, \"Not by might nor by power, but by\nMy spirit, saith the Lord.\"\n\n But then there rises the question, How are these Divine influences to\nbecome powerful in us also?\n\nOn the one hand, we are conscious that as we live involved or entangled\nin the worldly life, or in any form of external life around us, the\nspiritual part of us slumbers or is overlaid.  It loses its practical\npower over our thought, our feeling, and our conduct--our lamp goes out.\nWhilst on the other hand we are conscious that the special form of Advent\nexpectation which inspired and possessed the first generation of\nChristians is gone from us past recovery.  We see clearly enough as we\nread the New Testament what that first generation expected, and how the\nexpectation transformed their lives; but we see also that they were\nmistaken in their hope, and that God's providential plan proved to be far\ngreater than their human conception of it.  What, then, are our Advent\nhopes?\n\nThere are two things which we should keep clear in our minds concerning\nthem.  One, that they must be based upon our feeling of the living\ninfluence of Christ and the working of the Holy Spirit; and the other is\nthat the voices of the Spirit must come to us out of the needs of our own\nlife and of the time we live in if they are to lead us to practical\nissues.  When we look out upon the world and its life we feel that Advent\nhopes must take some new form if they are to preserve reality and to be\nfulfilled.\n\nWe see decaying faith in some quarters, and selfishness growing where\nfaith decays; we see ignorance and want and all their crop of sin and\nmisery deep-rooted in the life of every city; and the prospect which\nthese things suggest, the problems that meet us as we think of them,\nmight well fill us with misgiving.  And they would indeed do so were it\nnot for the fact that the revelation of such things brings with it\nanother revelation also; it seizes on men's souls and stirs them as with\na Divine summons.  And thus we have these hopeful signs for the future\nrising around us, even where things look darkest, that the great problems\nof humanity are felt in our day to be above all things its social and\nreligious problems.  And seeing that the aspirations of the time--the\nfeelings, the purposes, the aims, and hopes that lift men--grow out of\nthe needs of the time and the problems of its life, we look forward--we\nhave good ground for looking forward--to a generation of men who shall be\ndistinguished by religious earnestness and by social enthusiasm.\n\nBut if this be so, what will your share be in this coming life?  The\nSpirit of God, as we now understand it, comes to us with calls of this\nkind.\n\nIf you would hasten the Advent of Christ in your own soul and in the\nsouls of others, you must discard selfishness, you must rise above self-\nindulgence, you must prepare to merge yourself in the social life, for\nthe social good; seeing that the growth of this good is the only sure and\ncertain sign of the coming of the Lord.  So, then, the Angel of the\nAdvent is thus calling us.  The future before you is big with social and\nreligious issues, and the Spirit of Christ is brooding over it, and you\nand such as you are to be His chosen instruments in helping forward these\nissues.\n\n\n\n\n XVIII.  SPIRITUAL POWER.\n\n\n   \"And behold I send _the promise of My Father upon you_; but tarry ye\n   in the city of Jerusalem until ye be _endued with power from on\n   high_.\"--ST. LUKE xxiv. 49.\n\n   \"Ye shall receive _power_, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon\n   you.\"--ACTS i. 8.\n\nTo-day we are celebrating the last of the series of historical festivals\nwhich mark the springtime of our Christian year.  And without this one\nthe rest would leave us with a sense of incompleteness; for we should be\nwithout its gift of the abiding and indwelling Spirit, and the fulfilment\nof the last promise.\n\nWhat, then, are we learning of its practical lessons, and gathering into\nour life?  We have read the Pentecostal narrative, and others that\nillustrate it.  We have sung Pentecostal hymns.  We have joined in\nspecial prayer for the light of the Holy Spirit to shine in our hearts,\ngiving us a right judgment; and if we are led to ask, \"To what purpose is\nall this?\" the answer is to be seen in the texts I have just read to you,\nthe burden of which is the gift of power from on high.  Do we not\nrecognise this as the end of the New Testament revelation?  And do we not\nacknowledge that this revelation fails, so far as we are concerned, if it\ngives us no such _power_?  It is, indeed, in considering this power of\nthe Spirit that we touch to the quick the real influence of religion in\nthe practical life of men; for experience shows that it is possible for a\nman to be endowed with almost every other gift and yet to lack this\none--this indwelling gift of the Holy Ghost the Comforter.\n\nOur life is filled with almost everything we could ask or require to\nenlighten us or to guide and direct, and yet it fails sometimes.\n\nIt may be failing in some of us here to-day, just from want of this\nDivine spark, this influence of a Spirit from above taking up His abode\nin us, burning and shining in our hearts so as to purge our affections\nfrom sinful taint and purify our tastes, lifting up and enlarging our\ncapacities, and rousing our energies--in one word, fusing all our life\ninto a new form with its refining power.\n\nAnd the question of all questions for each of us to consider is, \"How am\nI to make my life the home and embodiment of this power from above?\"  If\nwe turn to our Lord's own example, or to the life of Paul or any other of\nHis followers, or to any life we have known and felt to breathe around it\nthis same power of the Spirit, some things become at once very obvious\nand clear to us.\n\nThat supreme example and those lives declare that whoever desires to have\nhis soul purified and invigorated, to be charged with this Divine\nelectric influence, must have something of separateness and independence\nin his life; he must feel himself as not merely one of a crowd moved by\nthe desires, aims, hopes, tastes, and ambitions which may chance to\nprevail around him, but as a separate soul in direct communion with the\nSpirit of God.\n\nBut if we are to realise this in our own life, it means that our times of\ndaily prayer, whether in private or in public, are times at which we lay\nopen our secret life to the Divine presence and influence; it means that\nwe give some real thought and meditation to this presence of God in our\nlife, and that we thus feed our souls continually on wholesome spiritual\nfood.  It is in this way that men's lives become in a real sense the\ntemples of the Holy Spirit, and the influences of sin fall away from\nthem.\n\nBut the hindrances that are always acting to undermine or destroy any\nsuch spiritual power in us are manifold, and seldom far away from our\nlife.\n\nThe world outside is always with us and acting in this way, distracting\nthought, setting up its own standards, drawing us into its channels, and\ndeadening the Spirit in us.  This is one of the inevitable conditions of\nlife as you will have to live it, and the man who is in earnest\nrecognises it as a paramount reason why he should never drop out of his\npersonal practice the habit of separate prayer and communion with God.  Or\nagain, we may, and often do, let these hindrances grow up within us\nthrough our own fault, and quite apart from any active influences of the\nouter world.\n\nWe contract a dulness of spirit, so that spiritual things have no\ninterest and faith has no living power in the heart; and all this very\noften not because any person, or anything outside of us, can be said to\nhave led us away and entangled us, but simply because we have taken no\npains to keep our life within the range of spiritual influences; we have\nlet prayer slip out of it; we have lived in no spiritual companionship;\nwe have done nothing to keep our soul alive in us.  This is how men\nchoose the lower life, and surrender their birthright out of pure\ninertia, so that they lose their spiritual capacity.\n\nBut worst of all hindrances to the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit in any\nlife is the harbouring of sensual appetite or craving, passion, or\nindulgence.  No man can expect the Holy Spirit of God to make its home in\nsuch unclean company.  It is on this account that there is nothing which\nso soon grows to depraved habit, to God-abandoned state, as sensual\nappetite; nothing which so rapidly dulls the higher affections in the\nheart and saps all the finer elements of life.\n\nTherefore, when we are thinking of God's gift of the Holy Ghost, and of\nspiritual power as the saving and uplifting influence in our soul, we do\nwell to reflect a little on those hindrances which will be fatal to all\nsuch power in us, if they are allowed to take possession of our life and\nto prevail in it.\n\n We do well to reflect in this way, because such reflection will make us\nvery careful against harbouring or encouraging any of these fatal\nhindrances, and careful also against any other form of spiritual waste.\n\nThere is no surer guide to a right use of all liberty than this\nreflection upon the power of the indwelling spirit in us, and the things\nthat add to it or destroy it.\n\nRecognising that this Spirit, which, in the language of your confirmation\nprayer, is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel\nand ghostly strength, the Spirit of knowledge and true godliness and of\nholy fear; recognising that this Spirit, with its sevenfold gifts, is the\nsaving element in all free life, you begin to look with fresh feelings on\nall your leisure hours, on all your hours of liberty, when you are\nreleased from task work or supervision, when your life is what you\nyourselves are making it, and you begin to consider whether these times,\nas you spend them, are indeed times of growth or, it may be, of waste,\ntimes of genuine freedom or of slavery to some form of lower life.  When\nyou think of this Holy Spirit of God as a power in every good life, it\nbecomes a very real question what and of what sort is the _power_ that is\nholding sway over you in your leisure hours.\n\nThis is indeed a question which never sleeps, and to-day we ask, What is\nyour Whitsuntide answer to it?\n\nIf there be any one to whom such a question is not yet a matter of living\nconcern, it is the purpose of this Pentecostal festival to rouse him to\nnew thoughts about it.\n\nIf there be any older person in this congregation who lets his years slip\nfrom him, not caring or forgetting the importance of it, and not striving\nto leaven all his hours of work or leisure with the thought of this\nindwelling Spirit from above; or if there should be any young boy who, in\nutter thoughtlessness, or from perversity or coarseness, or any induced\ndepravity of taste, allows any evil spirit to bear rule in his life, our\nprayer for such an one to-day is that the baptism of fire may descend\nupon his soul, and the power of a new spirit be felt in it.\n\nAnd indeed there is not one of us but needs to come at such a time with\nthis same prayer for his own life; for our own experience is too often\nvery like the vision of Ezekiel.  Under the influences that come between\nus and the Spirit of the living God, our soul is in continual danger of\nbeing like the prophet's valley of dry bones, which lay lifeless,\nunmoved, till the breath of the Lord breathed over them, and the breath\ncame into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an\nexceeding great army.\n\nSo we pray that our life may prove responsive to these influences of the\nPentecostal season.  And the first response it gives is when it rises up\nin the consciousness of the Spirit of God as a living power in the heart,\na power to drive out evil, and to inspire and strengthen us for what is\ngood.\n\nAnd if, under the inspiring associations of this historic and holy day,\nyou feel your soul touched with a new spirit or consciousness rising up\nin you from the grave of its own dead self to new desires and new\nthoughts, and a new sense of the living nearness of the Holy Ghost the\nComforter, then you know--and you need no prophet to tell you--that the\nPentecostal gift has not failed, and there is good hope that you will not\nspoil either your youth or your manhood with any form of ignoble life.\n\n\n\n\n XIX.  SANCTIFIED FOR SERVICE.\n\n\n   \"We are labourers together with God; ye are God's husbandry; ye are\n   God's building.\"--1 COR. iii. 9.\n\nIn this passage St. Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for that spirit of\nparty which was dividing them into followers of this or that teacher and\nso destroying their unity in Christ.  You do not belong, he says, to Paul\nor to Apollos; _we_ have no claim upon you; ye are not to be called by\n_our_ name: you are _God's_ husbandry, and _God's_ building, not ours; we\nare but labourers in His service and ministers for your good.  Therefore,\nsee to it that you live as one society in Christ Jesus, discarding all\ndivisions, factions, and party passions and watchwords, imbued with one\nspirit.  It is a noble exhortation to unity of life and purpose; but we\nmay notice in it more than this.\n\n As Paul himself disclaims all personal merit--as he presses it on their\nattention that neither is he that planteth anything nor he that watereth,\nbut God that giveth the increase, he is unconsciously exhibiting to us an\nexample of that rare humility which is characteristic of all the greatest\nand most effective workers; whilst in the vivid and expressive metaphors\nof my text--ye are God's husbandry, God's building--he makes us to feel\nthe value and the dignity of each human soul.\n\nIt would be interesting to dwell on these calls to unity of life in\nChrist, and the close connection between such unity and the spirit of\nhumility; in fact, we might say, the absolute necessity of the spirit of\nhumility and self-forgetfulness in individuals if there is to be unity in\nthe society.  And we might apply the thoughts with much profit to our own\nsocial relations, for they are never out of date; but I desire to turn to-\nday to that which is suggested by these descriptive metaphors, the value\nand dignity of each human life.\n\n St. Paul pressed it on these Corinthians that their souls were nothing\nless than the seed-field of which God Himself was the Husbandman, or the\ntemple built by His hand; and they could hardly have listened to such\nlanguage without being stirred to take care how they sowed in that field,\nor without feeling the consequent value of their life in the sight of\nGod.\n\nIf they were thus the objects of the Divine care they could not be\nthought of as insignificant units in a crowded city; or as living an\nobscure life which was of no particular importance, as they might\notherwise have been tempted to fancy, as we are still sometimes tempted\nto think about an individual life.  This picture of each life amongst us\nin its relation to God, as His seed-field or His temple, is a continual\nreminder that where a human soul is concerned there is no such thing as\ninsignificance or obscurity.\n\nAs St. Paul thought of that little company--a company small and obscure\nto the outward eye--what he saw in them was the temple of the Holy Ghost,\nand the spiritual life that was breathing there was a Divine life; and\nthis intense conviction of the value of each soul and each society and\nits consequent sanctity was a never-failing inspiration to him.\n\nThrough it he saw in every one who listened to his words, as he went from\ncity to city, a man created and endowed with a Divine mission and Divine\ncapacity, if they could only be roused.\n\nIt transformed every soul that crossed his path, so that he looked on\nlife with new eyes.  The common crowd had a new interest for him, the\nsuffering poor, the downtrodden slave, the heathen in his blindness, the\ndegraded sinner.\n\nAnd it has been so with all the great servants of God; out of this\nfeeling the love of souls has grown in men.\n\nBut this feeling of the value of each individual life, because of the\nDivine element and presence in it, is a peculiar gift of the Christian\nrevelation.\n\nIn the ancient pagan world a man's life was of little account; it is out\nof the Bible that this new thought has come that every soul has in it an\nindefinite element of Divine possibilities, and is therefore of value in\nthe sight of God.  It is by virtue of this contribution to our thought\nthat the Bible is truly described as the Great Charter of human rights,\nand as the source of the great stream of charity and self-sacrifice, of\nthat enthusiasm of humanity which more than all else separates and\ndistinguishes our life from that of heathen antiquity.\n\nIt would indeed be difficult to point to any one single thing which makes\nso great a difference between the quality of one man's life and another's\nas the presence or absence of this feeling about the value, the\npossibilities, the sanctity of each individual soul.\n\n\"Let man estimate himself,\" said Pascal, \"let him estimate himself at his\ntrue value, honour himself in his capacities, and despise himself in his\nneglect of those capacities.\"  Yes, if a man is once brought to this\ncondition that he feels the greatness of the ends for which God has made\nhim, and that he estimates his life by the possibilities of growth that\nare in it, and by the thought of the Divine influences that work in it;\nand if he despises himself for neglect of these capacities or\npossibilities and of these influences, he has awoke to a sense of the\nfirst word of Christ and His Apostles.\n\nYour soul is God's seed-field, God's building; we are labourers together\nwith God.  Such a description of each individual life is very significant\neverywhere, and not least in such a society as ours.\n\nTo us who are here in this society as masters they are just a parable of\nour own life; setting forth to each of us what should be his estimate of\nhis own work and aim and purpose, exhibiting to him his field of work\nwith the Divine light on it, and interpreting to him his own endeavours\nas a fellow-labourer with God, hoping to contribute in some degree\ntowards the filling in and completing that Divine plan, that ideal\npicture of the life of every one of you which is in the heavens, and\nwhich in imagination he sees as a thing some day to be realised, and the\nrealisation of which, or its failure, may largely depend on his own share\nin our life and work.  It is this feeling that every heart contains the\ngerm of some perfection that makes our life so profoundly interesting,\nand, it may be added, our responsibilities for the cultivation or neglect\nof any such germ or capacity so serious and engrossing.\n\nBut to you, too, these apostolic suggestions about the Divine influences\nat work in each heart, and the value of each life in God's sight, and the\nDivine voices claiming to be heard in it, should be quite as stimulative\nas they are to us.\n\nThey have in them the germ of all striving after purity and goodness, and\nof all hatred of sin, and enthusiasm for the uplifting of social life.\n\nThe words of Paul to his Corinthian converts may furnish you with new\ninterpretations of your own daily life and duty.\n\n If they were God's husbandry, or God's building, are not you?  If the\nSpirit of God dwelt in them, how does He not dwell likewise in you?\nstriving for your growth in holiness and good purpose, and for your\nsalvation from sin and its defilements, as he strove for theirs?\n\nAnd if it was good for every man in that Corinthian community to be\nwarned how he built upon the foundation of life that had been laid in\nChrist; if it was good for them to be reminded that every man's work\nwould be made manifest, and that the fire would try it, of what sort it\nwas; it is good also for us, masters and boys alike, to remember that we\nare living under the same law, and that we should take care lest haply we\nbe found to be working against God.\n\nThat Epistle of St. Paul's was written in pain and anguish of heart.  The\nseeds of Christian life which he had sown among them, the purifying\ninfluences of the Holy Spirit which were working among them through him\nand his fellow-labourers, all these ought to have produced fruits easily\ndescribed, such as peace and love, and purity, and good works; but\ninstead of these, and threatening their destruction, there had sprung up\ndissension and strife, party spirit, self-conceit, and gross sins which I\nneed not name.\n\nIn all this there was grief, disappointment, bitterness; for did they not\nprove that his work was threatened with failure?\n\nYet in all that storm of feeling his chief exhortation is this reminder\nof the dignity of their calling.  In the midst of all their sin and\nfailure, though he does not spare rebuke and warning, he always aims at\ninspiring them by uplifting.  And we know that this is the true method,\nbecause there is nothing which exercises an influence so strong to uplift\nand purify as the feeling of our kinship with the life above us, and that\nwe are degrading our life when we forget this or ignore it.  And herein\nis the value of this word of his that God is dwelling and working in us.\n\"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, that the Holy Ghost dwelleth\nin you, and that God's temple is holy? and if any man destroy the temple\nof God, him shall God destroy.\"\n\nLet us then begin again our common life with a determination to bear in\nmind the possibilities and the sanctity of each separate soul that comes\namongst us.\n\nLiving in crowds, we are apt to forget this; and, forgetting it, some\ntreat their own souls as if they were of no value, and some the souls of\nothers, and so the work of sin and waste goes on from generation to\ngeneration.\n\nBut in our best moments, in our times of serious thought, if we have been\nonce enlightened, we can never again cease to feel the dignity and the\nvalue of each human life.\n\nWhen we think of God's care for us we feel it; when we think of the\npossibilities He has ordained for us we feel it; when we think of the\nendless life that lies before us we feel it; above all, we never fail to\nfeel it when our thoughts revert to any life that has been snatched away\nfrom us.  Some of you are thinking to-day of the master whose home is\ndarkened by the presence of the angel of death.  You think of her whom\nGod has taken, who was moving among you not so long ago, as your tender,\nconsiderate, and helpful friend.  It may be that you were not\nuninfluenced by her self-devotion and holiness.\n\nWhen you think of such an one you feel no doubt about the value and the\nsanctity of each human life.\n\nWell, then, transfer this feeling to your own life, or to the life of the\nboy who sits beside you, or who lives as your companion.  In the purpose\nof our common Father, your lives also are destined for holy uses.\n\nTo remember this may be a safeguard against temptation or sinful habit;\nit may inspire you with a new feeling of the value of _all_ the lives\naround you, and a new sense of the duty you owe to the good life of this\nsociety in which God has placed you, that you may prove a vessel of\nhonour sanctified for His service.\n\n\n\n\n XX.  HE THAT OVERCOMETH.\n\n\n   \"He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God,\n   and he shall be My son.\"--REVELATION xxi. 7.\n\nYear by year as at this time, when the week of our Saviour's Passion and\nDeath is just in front of us, and the shadow of His Cross is falling over\nus, one generation after another of the boys of this school gather here,\nand in the face of the congregation, young and old, they take upon them\nthe vows of a Christian life.  So we met last Thursday, and your vow is\nstill fresh upon a great many of you, as indeed it can hardly fail to be\nfresh in the memory of every one in this congregation who has ever taken\nit.  Let us pause for a moment and repeat its plain words.  You have\ndeclared your faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy\nGhost, the Father, the Redeemer, the Sanctifier of your life.  You have\nvowed that you renounce the devil and his works, that you renounce\ncovetous desires, that you renounce the carnal desires of the flesh, so\nthat you will not follow nor be led by them.  And you have vowed that you\nwill keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk in them all the days\nof your life.  And you take this upon you, let us hope, in sincerity and\nhonesty of purpose.\n\nAnd, if so, the text I have read to you declares God's promise, if you\npersevere, just as another text in the same chapter declares that into\nthe City of God there shall not enter anything that defileth or worketh\nabomination or maketh a lie.  This, then, is the promise--\"He that\novercometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall\nbe My son.\"  But as we think of this and look forward, we have to\nremember that this life to which you are dedicated is not an easy matter.\nIf you are to succeed in it, you have to think of it always as a life\nunder a vow, as in fact a consecrated life, consecrated by your own\npromise and profession.  And this is a great safeguard if you bear it\nalways in mind.\n\nIt is indeed the first condition of safety from the attacks and the\nimpulses of sin, this consciousness which you will carry about with you,\nthat you are self-dedicated--that there was a day on which you said \"I\nwill\"--so that if you are to be true to your profession and declared\npurpose, you will strive to keep near to God in the spirit, and you will\nhave no dealings with the devil and his works, and you will resist all\nthe degrading solicitations of the flesh, and will live in the atmosphere\nof things that are pure and of good report.\n\nTo have conceived such a purpose as this, to have opened your heart to\nits influence, to have lived in it even for a little while, to have felt\nits purifying and strengthening breath upon your soul even for a few\nweeks, may be enough, as some of you know very well, to lift your life up\nto a new level, so that it becomes and is felt by you to be a quite\ndifferent life from what you lived before--a life of new thoughts, of new\nnotions about what is good or what is evil, about the degrading character\nof sin and the misery and hatefulness of it, as also about the happiness\nof a life that is inspired by good aims and purposes, and is free from a\nsense of God's wrath upon you for some low standard of conduct, or some\nsinful appetite or passion.  If you have once felt the influence of this\nchange in your heart, you know the difference henceforth between the\nhigher life and the lower, the life that is clinging to God, however\nfeebly, and is in the way of salvation, and the life of sin which will\ninevitably end in degradation and in death.\n\nBut this life in Christ to which you are dedicated is not an easy one;\nlet us not suppose it.  It is a noble life, and every one who strives to\nlive it is doing something to ennoble his society; but it is not an easy\nlife.  It is never so represented to us in the Bible.  There is a sense\nno doubt in which our Lord invites us to see how easy is His yoke\ncompared with the yoke of sin--but He Himself calls upon every believer\nto take up his cross and follow Him.  That call may bring to any of us\nnot peace but a sword.  St. Paul sets the Christian life before us as a\nrace to be run with patience; as a conflict which will sometimes be very\nhard.  In St. James we see it as the discipline of sore temptation, and\nin St. Peter it is the fiery trial that is to try us.\n\nAnd again, in the Revelation of St. John, we have this picture of\nblessing only to those that endure, and to those who have not defiled\ntheir garments, and those who have come through great tribulation.\n\nAnd all our personal experience confirms this language of Holy Scripture,\nreminding us, as it does, how hard it is for an individual to keep in the\nnarrow way of the spotless Christian life, and how it is still harder to\nstamp the mark of Christian purpose upon a society.\n\nYet these are the two things to which God is calling us.  These you have\nin fact vowed that you will strive after; and if you are unfaithful in\neither respect, if you give up your effort for an easy, drifting life,\nyou are letting go your confirmation vows; and whereas you were intended\nto be the salt of your society, your salt will lose its savour.  To\nconsider this just now may save some of you from discouragement and some\nfrom waste and failure.\n\nMen are stronger to meet their difficulties if they know that they have\nto meet them or else to fail and sink.  And so it will be with you.  You\nwill be more likely to go forward strong in earnest purpose, strong in\nthe strength which God supplies, if you bear it in mind that, as St. Paul\nwould have expressed it, we are appointed unto these trials; and that a\nsoldier of Christ must expect to have to endure hardness; and in fact\nthat it is a law of our spiritual life that one of the chief roots of all\ngrowth in strength and goodness is suffering.  We grow through trial and\nsuffering to true manhood in Christ.\n\nSo, if you look at your own life and experience, you will find that some\nsuffer through a sore struggle with their own temptations, or their own\nweaknesses--their desires, their appetites, their fears, or the habits\nthey have contracted, and their struggle may be so hard that it needs all\nthe grace of God to keep them firm in their purpose.  Some again suffer\nnot from internal but from external hindrances.  Companions may be\nagainst them, or a low public opinion may be against them, and they may\nfeel as if they could hardly stand firm in isolation, or under suspicion,\nor mockery, or enmity; and some may suffer because the conscience around\nthem is depraved, and they feel too weak to fight against it, though they\nknow and acknowledge its depravity.  But however hard may be the fight\nthere should be no discouragement, if only you are able still to say in\nall honesty that you are holding fast to the good purpose which you\nuttered in your confirmation vows.  Two quite simple warnings may\nsometimes do us great service--one, is that we are very apt to exaggerate\nthe forces against us.  They seem very strong when we are feeling weak;\nbut they sometimes break up and disappear if they are met with a little\ncourage.  And the other warning is this, that we sometimes let ourselves\nsink and drift into sinful ways or moral cowardice, by neglecting the\nhelps which God gives us for the strengthening of a good life in us.\n\nThus if we neglect real prayer, or do not seek the support of good\ncompanionship, if we take no pains to live in a good atmosphere and\namidst good surroundings, if there is little of devout thought or\nhabitual worship in our life and still less of Holy Communion, if we thus\nallow ourselves to drift out of the range of the higher moral and\nspiritual influences, our vows are forgotten and our good purposes fade\naway, our will becomes weak, and the world with all its temptations is\nvery likely to overcome us.\n\nFeeling the infinite issues that hang on such considerations as these,\nlet us carry about with us the inspiring and invigorating call and the\npromise contained in the text with which I began this sermon--\"He that\novercometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall\nbe My son.\"","title":"Sermons at Rugby","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":36615}