{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_37527/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_37527","id":"gutenberg_37527","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37527","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Sermons, English"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Colin Bell, Chris Pinfield and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  _THE CONTEMPORARY PULPIT LIBRARY_\n\n\n  SERMONS\n\n  BY THE LATE RIGHT REV.\n  J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L.,\n  LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  NEW YORK:\n  THOMAS WHITTAKER,\n  2 AND 3, BIBLE HOUSE.\n  1890.\n\n\n\n\n  CONTENTS.[1]\n\n                                                          PAGE\n\n  BETHEL                                                     1\n\n  THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN HEAVEN'S PATHWAY                 17\n\n  THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AN ARGUMENT IN FAVOUR OF\n    CHRISTIANITY                                            29\n\n  THE VISION OF GOD                                         43\n\n  THE HEAVENLY TEACHER                                      55\n\n  CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.   I.                           65\n\n  CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.  II.                           83\n\n  CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. III.                          100\n\n  WOMAN AND THE GOSPEL                                     116\n\n  PILATE                                                   129\n\n  THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN                            145\n\n  OUR CITIZENSHIP                                          157\n\n  AMBITION                                                 170\n\n\n\n\n_Sermons_\n\n  BY THE LATE\n  RIGHT REV. J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L.,\n  LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBETHEL.[2]\n\n \"Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.\"--GEN.\n xxviii. 16.\n\n\nAn unobtrusive, unimpressive scene, almost indistinguishable, even to\nthe curious eye of the archaeologist, \"in the maze of undistinguished\nhills which encompass it\"--with nothing to attract the eye, and\nnothing to fire the imagination; large slabs of bare rock traversed by\na well-worn thoroughfare; \"no religio loci, no awful shades, no lofty\nhills.\" So is the site of Bethel described by the modern traveller.\nYet this was none other than the House of God; this was the very gate\nof heaven.\n\nAn unimpressive scene in itself, but appearing still more commonplace,\nwhen contrasted with the famous shrines of heathendom--the rock\nfortress of the Athene, or the pleasant groves of Daphne, or the\ncloven peak of Parnassus, or the sea-girt sanctuary of Delos. No\nbeauty, no grandeur, nothing of loveliness and nothing of awe, nothing\nexceptional of any kind which can explain or justify its selection.\nWas there not ground for the wanderer's surprise on that memorable\nnight? Why should this one spot be chosen to plant the foot of the\nladder which connected heaven and earth? Why in this bleak wilderness?\nWhy amidst these bare rocks? Why here of all places in the world? Yes,\nwhy here?\n\nThe paradox of Bethel is the paradox of the Gospel--is the paradox of\nGod's spiritual dispensations at all times. The Incarnation itself was\nthe supreme manifestation of this paradox. The building up of the\nChurch was the proper sequel to the Incarnation.\n\nLook at the accompaniments of the Incarnation. Could any environment\nof circumstances well have been imagined more incongruous, more alien\nto this unique event in human history, this supreme revelation of\nGod's wisdom, and power, and beneficence? An obscure corner of the\nRoman world--an insignificant and down-trodden race, scorned and hated\nby the rest of mankind--an ox-stall for a nursery, and a carpenter's\nshop for a school--what is wanting to complete the paradox? Yes, there\nis still one feature to be added to the picture--the crowning\nincongruity of all--the felon's death on the cross. Said not the\nprophet rightly, when he foretold that there should be nothing lovely\nin His life and circumstances, as men count loveliness; \"no form or\ncomeliness;\" \"no beauty that we should desire him\"?\n\nAnd the same paradox, which ruled the foundation of the Church,\nextended also to its building up. The great statesmen, the powerful\ncaptains, in the kingdom of God were fishermen and tent-makers. Never\nwas this characteristic incongruity of the Gospel more signally\nmanifested than in the preaching of St. Paul at Athens. Have we ever\nrealized the force of that single word with which the historian\ndescribes the impression left on the Apostle's mind by this far-famed\ncity? Gazing on the most sublime and beautiful creations of Greek art,\nthe masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles, he has no eye for their\nbeauty or their sublimity. He pierces through the veil of the material\nand transitory, and behind this semblance of grace and glory the true\nnature of things reveals itself. To him this chief centre of human\nculture and intelligence, this--\n\n        \"Eye of Greece, mother of arts\n    And eloquence,\"\n\nappears only as +kazeidolos+, overrun with idols, beset with\nphantoms which mislead, and vanities which corrupt. Art and culture\nare God's own gifts, legitimate embellishments of life, even of\nworship, which is the highest form of life. But if culture aims at\ndisplacing religion, if art seeks to dethrone God,--why, then, in the\nhighest interests of humanity, be it our prayer that the sword of the\nbarbarian and the axe of the iconoclast may descend once more, and\nsweep them ruthlessly away. There was, at least, this redeeming\nfeature in ancient art, that it gave expression to whatsoever sense of\nthe Divine lay buried in the heathen mind. But art and culture, which\nstudiously ignore God--what can be said for these? In this one word\n+kazeidolos+ lies the germ of that fierce and protracted\nstruggle of Christianity with Paganism, which ended indeed in a\nsplendid victory, though not without inflicting many a wound on\nhumanity of which the scars and seams still remain. Notwithstanding\nthe merciless scoffs of a Celsus and the biting sarcasm of a\nJulian--the Apostle's words were verified in their literal truth.\nStrength was made perfect in weakness. God chose the foolish things of\nthe world to confound the wise, aye, and the uncomely things of the\nworld to confound the beautiful. The things which are not, brought to\nnought the things which are.\n\nSo then in its accompaniments, not less than in its main idea, this\nincident at Bethel is a type of the Gospel of Christ. This exile, the\nrepresentative of the Israel after the flesh, prefigures a greater\noutcast and wanderer, the representative of the Israel after the\nspirit, the representative of the whole family of man. This ladder\nreared up from earth to heaven, whereby angels ascend and descend,\nwhat is it but the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, wherein God is\nmade man, and man is taken up into God? This it is which establishes\nthe title of Christianity as the absolute and final religion of the\nworld--this indissoluble union of the human with the divine--this one\nonly adequate response to the deepest religious cravings of mankind.\nHence the Church has ever clung with a tenacity of grasp, which\nshallow hearts could ill understand, to this central idea, the\nindefeasible wedlock of heaven and earth in the God-man. And to those\nwhose sight is purged by faith, to those who are gifted with the eye\nof the Spirit, the vision of Bethel will be vouchsafed with a far more\nexceeding glory: \"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall\nsee heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon\nthe Son of Man:\" on the Son of Man: yes, and on thyself too, O man,\nfor thou art one with this Son of Man, one with the Father in Him.\n\n\"Gifted with the eye of the Spirit,\" I say; for in vain the heavens\nare riven asunder, and the glory streams forth, and all things are\nflooded with light, if the capacity of vision be absent. Only the cold\nbare stones beneath, only the midnight gloom overhead, only the\ndreary, monotonous waste around, these and these alone are visible\notherwise. We have been saddened, perhaps we have been disconcerted,\nas recently we read the dreary epitaph which sums up the creed of a\nbrilliant man of science not long since deceased--a hopeless,\nsoul-less, lifeless creed, to which his own very faculties and\nacquisitions appear to us to give the lie. We have been saddened\njustly; but why should we be disconcerted? God be thanked, the most\nabsolute childlike faith has not unfrequently been found united with\nthe highest scientific intellect. We in this place have never yet\nlacked bright examples of such a union, and God grant we never may.\nBut what right have we to expect it as a matter of course? What claim\ndo the most brilliant mathematical faculties, or the keenest scholarly\ninstincts, give to a man to speak with authority on the things of the\nSpirit? Are we not told on authority before which we bow that a\nspecial faculty is needed for this special knowledge; that \"eye hath\nnot seen and ear hath not heard\"; that only the Spirit of God--the\nSpirit which He vouchsafes to His sons--knoweth the things of God? And\ndoes not all analogy enforce the truth of this lesson? One man has a\nkeenly sensitive musical ear, but he is colour-blind. Another has a\nquick eye for the faintest gradations of colour, but he cannot\ndistinguish one note of music from another. Does the imperfect eye of\nthe one know any haze of uncertainty over the hues of the rainbow; or\nthe obtuse ear of the other disparage the master works of a Handel, or\na Mozart, or a Beethoven? _Here_ is a mathematician who sees in a\nsublime creation of imaginative genius only a tissue of unproven\nhypotheses; and _here_ is a poet, to whom the plainest processes\nof algebra, and the simplest problems in geometry, are mere barbarian\ngabble, conveying no distinct impression to the brain, and leaving no\nintelligible idea on the mind. Judge no man in this matter. To his own\nmaster he stands or falls. But judge yourselves. Yes, spare no rigour\nand relax no vigilance when the judge is the criminal also. Believe\nit, this spiritual faculty is an infinitely subtle and delicate\nmechanism. You cannot trifle with it, cannot roughly handle it, cannot\nneglect it and suffer it to rust from disuse, without infinite peril\nto yourselves. Nothing--not the highest intellectual gains--can\ncompensate you for its injury or its loss. The private prayer\nmechanically repeated, then hurried over, then intermitted, and at\nlast dropped; the devotional reading found to be daily more irksome,\nbecause suffered to be daily more listless; the valuable moral and\nspiritual discipline of the early morning chapel, gradually neglected;\nthe unobtrusive opportunities of witnessing for Christ by deeds of\nkindness and words of wisdom suffered to slip by,--these, and such as\nthese, are the unfailing indications of spiritual decline; till disuse\nis followed by paralysis, and paralysis ends in death; and you are\nleft without God in the world. And yet when again--you young men--when\nagain, in the years to come, can you hope that the conditions of your\nlife will be as favourable to this spiritual self-discipline as they\nare now? Where else do you expect to find in the same degree the\nopportunities for private meditation and retirement, the daily common\nprayer and the frequent communions, the inspiring and sanctifying\nfriendships, the wholesome occupation for the mind and the healthy\nrecreations for the body, every appliance and every aid which, if you\nwill employ them aright, neither disusing them nor misusing them, will\ncombine to build up and to perfect the man of God? Choose ye, this\nday. To you, more especially, I appeal who have recently commenced\nyour residence here, and to whom, therefore, with the changed\nconditions of life a heightened ideal of life also is suggested. This\nis the momentous alternative. Shall your life hereafter be typified by\nthe barren rocks and the monotonous waste, hard and dreary, if nothing\nworse; or shall it be illumined within and around with the effulgence\nof God's own presence, so that--\n\n    \"The earth and every common sight\n      To you shall seem\n    Apparelled in celestial light,\n      The glory and the freshness of a dream\"?\n\nA dream? nay, not a dream, but an everlasting reality, eternal, as\nGod's own being is eternal.\n\nThere are two ways of looking on the relations between the things of\nthis life and the things of eternity. A false and a true. The false\nway regards the one as the rejection of the other. They are\nreciprocally exclusive. The avocations, the interests, the amusements\nof daily life--nature and history, poetry and art--these are so many\nhindrances to the heavenly life. Every moment given to work is a\nmoment subtracted from prayer--thus the inward life becomes a constant\nreflection upon the conditions of the outward. This is the spirit\nwhich of old peopled the desert with anchorites; the spirit which in\nall ages, though under divers forms, has made a religion of\nselfishness. This is the voice which cries, \"Lo, here! and lo, there!\"\nthough all the while the kingdom of heaven is within us, in the very\nmidst of us. The true conception is the reverse of all this. Its ideal\nis not a separation, but an identification of the two. It takes its\nstand on the old maxim _laborare est orare_. It strives that its\nwork shall be prayer, and its prayer shall be work. Nature and history\nto it are not the veil of God's presence; they are the investiture of\nGod's glory. And, therefore, to it is vouchsafed the vision of grace,\nand comfort, and strength, as to the patriarchs of old. The solitary\nwanderer along the dreary thoroughfare of this life lays himself down.\nHe has nothing but the bare stones beneath for a couch, and nothing\nbut the midnight sky overhead for a tent. He closes his eyes for a\nmoment; and the whole place is flooded with glory. Ah! the Lord was in\nthis place, though he knew it not; but he knows it now--knows it in\nthe access of strength, knows it in the promise of hope, knows it in\nthe celestial voice and the ineffable light. All the common interests\nof life--the associations, the amusements, the cares, the hopes, the\nfriendships, the conflicts--all are invested with a dignity and an awe\nunsuspected before. Reverence is henceforth the ruling spirit of his\nlife. This monotonous round of commonplace toils and commonplace\npleasures is none other than the House of God. This barren, stony\nthoroughfare of life is the very portal of heaven.\n\nTo read these hieroglyphics traced on nature, on history, on the human\nsoul--to decipher this handwriting of God wheresoever it appears, and\nwhere does it not appear?--is the ultimate and final study of man. All\nhistory is a parable of God's dealings; and we must learn the\ninterpretation of the parable. All nature is a sacrament of God's\nbeing and attributes, and we must strive to pierce through the outward\nsign to the inward meaning. To realize God's presence, to hear God's\nvoice, to see God's visage,--let this be henceforth the aim and the\ndiscipline of our lives. So at length we shall pass from Bethel to\nPeniel--from the palace courts to the presence chamber itself. We\nshall see God face to face. It is a vision of power, of majesty, of\nawe unspeakable; but it is a vision also of purification, of light, of\nstrength, of life. The blessing is won at length by that long lonely\nwrestling under the midnight sky. The fraud, the worldliness, the\nself-seeking is thrown off like a slough. All is changed. Old things\nhave passed away. The supplanted rises from the struggle, the\nsupplanter rises no more, but the Israel, the Prince, who has power\nwith God and with men. Shall not Moses' prayer then be our prayer,\n\"Lord, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory\"?\n\n\"Show me Thy glory.\" Where else shall this glory reveal itself if not\nin the studies of this place? These properties of numbers, these\nselections of space, these phenomena of light, of heat, of energy, of\nlife, of language, of thought, what are they? Individual facts to be\nrecorded, arranged, tabulated, marshalled under several heads, which\nwe call laws, and having so called them, with a strange\nself-complacency and contentment fold our hands, as if nothing more\nwere to be done, as if by the mere imposition of a name we had\ncrowned them absolute sovereigns of the Universe? Or are they\nmanifestations--partial, indeed, and needing to be supplemented--of a\npower, a majesty, a wisdom, an order, a beneficence, a finality, a\noneness, a One, who is shown to us as the Eternal Father in the\nrevelation of the Eternal Son? Can we afford to look down from the\nserene heights of modern science and culture on the untutored Indian,\nwho saw God's face in the shifting clouds, and heard God's voice in\nthe whistling winds? Nay, was there not a truth in this childish\nignorance which threatens to elude the grasp of our manhood's wisdom?\nWas it altogether a baseless dream in those stoic Pantheists, who\nendowed each several planet with an animating spirit of its own?\naltogether a wild fancy in those Christian fathers assigning to each\nits particular angel, who should whirl it through space and hold it in\nits course? Was it not rather a Divine instinct feeling after a higher\ntruth? Human life cannot rest satisfied with the science of phenomena\nalone. It needs to supplement science with poetry. And the true, the\nabsolute, the final poetry is the recognition of God the Creator and\nGovernor, of God the all-wise and all-powerful, of God the Father, the\nRedeemer, the Sanctifier, of God the eternal love. \"Blessed are they\nwho have eyes to see,\"--thus to them\n\n    \"The meanest flower that blows can give\n    Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.\"\n\nThoughts of immortality, of wisdom, of light, of love.\n\n\"Show me Thy Glory,\" where else again shall His glory be seen, if not\nin those friendships which are the crowning gift of University life?\nThis intimate communion of soul with soul, this linking of heart with\nheart, is it merely a matter of human convenience, of human\npreference, or has it a Divine side also? This love, this devotion,\nthis reliance of the weak on the strong, this reverence for a nature\npurer, nobler, more upright, more manly, more unselfish than your\nown--what is its meaning? It is a precious, unspeakably precious, gift\nof God, you will say--far beyond wealth, or fame, or popularity, or\nease, or any earthly boon of which you can conceive. Yes, but it is\nmore than this. May we not call it in some sense a sacrament, a sign\nand a parable of your relation to your Lord? You are awed--no other\nword will express this feeling--you are awed with the honour done to\nyou by this friendship. You do not talk much about it--it is too\nsacred a thing--but you do feel it. You confess to yourself day and\nnight your own unworthiness. And yet, though you strive to be worthy,\nyou would not wish to feel worthy. The very sense of undeservedness\ninvests the gift with a bountifulness and a glory which you would not\nforego. The fountains of your thanksgiving would cease to flow freely\nif you claimed it as a right; and it is a joyful and a pleasant thing\nto be thankful. Apply this experience to the infinitely higher gift of\nChrist's friendship, of Christ's sacrifice. Herein lies the power of\nthe Cross--which men called and still call weakness--the power which\nawes, inspires, energises, which elevates the heart and sanctifies the\nlife--herein this feeling of boundless thanksgiving arises from this\nsense of absolute undeservedness. For is it not true, that those will\nlove most to whom most is given and forgiven? So then this your\nfriendship is found to be none other than the House of God. The Lord\nis in this place, and happy are ye if ye know it.\n\nOnce again; look into your own soul, and what do you find there? Yes,\nye yourselves are the temple of the living God. He is there--there,\nwhether you will or not. Through your reason, through your conscience,\nthrough your remorses and regrets, through your capacity of amendment,\nthrough your aspirations and ideals, He speaks to you. You are His\ncoinage. His image and superscription are stamped upon you. Aye, and\nHe has also re-stamped you, re-created you, in Christ Jesus by the\nearnest of His Spirit. If it be true of your body that it is fearfully\nand wonderfully made, is it not far more true of your soul?\nHenceforward you will regard yourself with awe and reverence, as a\nsanctuary of the eternal goodness. You will not, you dare not, profane\nthis sanctuary. Here is the true self-respect--nay, not self-respect,\nfor self is abased, self is overawed, self veils the face and falls\nprostrate in the presence of Infinite Wisdom, and Purity, and Love\nthus revealed. Surely, surely the Lord was in this place--in this\npoor, self-seeking, restless, rebellious soul of mine, and _I_, I\nthought it a common thing, I went on my way heedless, I followed my\nown devices and desires, I knew it not.\n\nIn conclusion, I have been asked to plead before you to-day a cause\nwhich it should not require many words of mine to enforce. The\nBarnwell and Chesterton Clergy Fund appeals to you year by year for\naid. Of all claims this (I say it advisedly) should be a first charge\non the liberality of members of the University. These populous and\ngrowing suburbs are created by your needs. They are chiefly peopled by\ncollege servants and others for whom you are responsible. Zealous\nclergy are willing to work for the work's sake in these districts\ncommonly for stipends which no one could call remunerative--sometimes\nfor no stipends at all. And yet it is still the same old story which I\nremember years ago. There is still the same difficulty in meeting\ncurrent expenses; still the same fear lest the spiritual machinery\nshould be impaired for lack of funds; still the same precarious\nhand-to-mouth existence, of which we heard complaint in years past. Is\nit quite creditable that matters should go on thus? In a thousand ways\nyou all, some directly, some indirectly, you all are reaping,\nmaterially, intellectually, or spiritually the fruits gathered from\nthe liberality of past ages? Will you not make an adequate return?\nSteady, continuous subscriptions are needed. A liberal response to\nthis day's appeal is needed. The Fund is largely dependent on the\nproceeds of the University Sermon. Not less than a hundred pounds will\nsuffice to meet all requirements. Will you not give it this day,\neither in this church, or in contributions sent afterwards to the\ntreasurer? Think not that you hear only the poor words of the preacher\nin this appeal. Christ Himself pleads with you. Christ's own words\nring in your ears, \"Ye did it, ye did it not, to _Me_.\" Ah, yes,\nthe Lord was in this place--in this weary pleading of the preacher, in\nthese trite commonplaces of spiritual need: and _we_, we knew it\nnot. God grant that you may know it in time. God forbid that He should\never say to you, \"I knew you not.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN HEAVEN'S PATHWAY.[3]\n\n \"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying,\n Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.\"--LUKE v. 8.\n\n\nTo those who search the Scriptures, not because in them they think\nthey have eternal life, but because in them they trust to find\nhistorical difficulties, this account of St. Peter's call has seemed\nto reward their search. The narrative indeed, is simple and\ninartificial in itself; the incidents follow in a natural order; the\ntraits of character are wonderfully realistic and lifelike. There is\nconfessedly an air of truthfulness about the whole story; but\nhow--how, it is asked--can this account be reconciled with the\nnarrative given in St. John's Gospel? There we have a wholly different\nstory of St. Peter's call. His brother Andrew is a scholar of the\nBaptist. The Baptist points out Jesus to Andrew and to a\nfellow-disciple. They follow Jesus; they are accepted by Him; they\nlodge that day with Him; they are convinced that He is the Christ.\nAndrew takes his brother Simon to Jesus; Jesus receives him. \"Thou art\nSimon, the son of Jona. Thou shalt be called Cephas.\" This account\nalso is perfectly plain, but how can the two be harmonised? \"Have we\nnot here,\" it is said, \"two irreconcilable narratives--in fact, two\ndistinct legends of the call of St. Peter?\"\n\nI have more than once remarked that the apparent moral contradictions\nof the Bible are often its most valuable moral lessons. A similar\nremark will apply to its apparent historical contradictions.\nUnderlying these is very frequently a subtle harmony, which eluded us\nat our first hasty search. The two accounts are after all not\ncontradictory, but supplementary, the one to the other. So it is here.\nRead St. Luke's narrative carefully, and it will be apparent that this\ncannot have been the first meeting of St. Peter with our Lord. I say\nnothing of the healing of his wife's mother, for, though this is\nrelated earlier in St. Luke's Gospel, yet it is plain from the\nnarrative in the other evangelists that it is not related here in\nchronological order.\n\nBut what are the facts? These fishermen have been toiling throughout\nthe night; their labour has been wholly unrewarded, though night is\nthe proper season for plying their craft; and now in the bright glare\nof the morning sun--now when, after the ill-success of the night, it\nwould be perfect madness to expect a haul--now they are suddenly,\nimperiously bidden to put out again into the deep sea, and to let down\ntheir nets. And the command is obeyed. There is the lurking misgiving,\nthere is the tacit remonstrance; but there is prompt obedience\nnotwithstanding. \"Master, we have toiled all the night; nevertheless,\nat Thy word I will let down the net.\" \"_At Thy word._\" Who is\nthis, that this most unreasonable demand meets with such ready\nacquiescence? Is it possible that He can have been a mere passing\nstranger, or a mere casual acquaintance? How could His advice have\nbeen entertained for a moment when He told an experienced fisherman to\ndo what a fisherman knew to be utterly foolish and futile? The\nnarrative itself, I say, implies some previous knowledge of our Lord\non St. Peter's part. He would never have acted as he is represented\nhere as acting unless he had believed, or, at least, had suspected,\nthat there was a more than human power and intelligence in our Lord.\nIn short, the narrative of St. Luke presupposes the narrative of St.\nJohn. Jesus speaks to Peter now as one who has a right to command. The\nincident in St. John gives the personal call of Peter; the incident in\nSt. Luke gives his official call. On the one occasion he is\nrepresented as a disciple and a follower; on the other occasion he is\ndeclared an apostle and a teacher. \"From henceforth thou shalt catch\nmen.\"\n\nBut I did not select this text with any special purpose of discussing\nhistorical difficulties. Such discussions, indeed, are necessary when\nthey are forced upon us, but they only distract the mind from the\nmoral and spiritual lessons of the Scripture. Nor, I think, is the\nlesson in the text difficult to extricate. All history teaches by\nexample, and the Scriptural narrative is the intensification of\nhistory. The miracles of our Lord are not miracles only. They are most\nfrequently acted parables also. And have we not here a parable of the\nmost intense pathos and of the widest application?\n\n\"Master, we have toiled all the night, and we have taken nothing.\"\nWhat is this but a true, painfully true, image of the efforts, the\nstruggles, the futilities, the despairs of humanity; not in isolated\ncases, here and there only, of disappointed hopes and unrealised aim,\nbut with thousands of men and women who are born into this world, and\nlive and labour, and suffer and die, without securing any substantial\nand enduring good, simply because they have lived and died apart from\nGod, who alone survives the decay of time, and alone can give\nsatisfaction to the immortal spirit of man?\n\n\"We have toiled all the night.\" Yes; we see it now--now when the\nmorning light of eternity has burst upon our aching eyeballs. We have\ntoiled all the night. There was darkness above and around us; there\nwas toil of hands and toil of heart; there was the struggle for\nsubsistence; there was the race after wealth and honour; there was the\neager pursuit of phantom goods. We had our pleasures and we had our\npains. We had our failures and we had our successes. Yes, our splendid\nsuccesses as men counted them--as we were half tempted to count them\nourselves. But we have taken nothing. Our successes are as our\nfailures; our pains are as our pleasures, now. In the all-absorbing\nabyss of time we have taken nothing, absolutely nothing--nothing which\ncan escape the jaws of the grave, nothing which will pass the portals\nof death. We stand alone, stripped of everything, alone with God,\nalone with eternity.\n\nYou pursued wealth, and you pursued it not in vain; you determined\nthat your career should be a success, and a success you made it. You\nsurrounded yourself with every material comfort; you added to these\nsubstantial appliances all the embellishments and all the refinements\nof life. What then? Did they give you the satisfaction you hoped for?\nCould you feel that there was any finality in such aims and\nacquisitions as these? No. The hope was better after all than the\nrealisation; the prospect was brighter than the attainment. You were\nrestless, discontented, craving still. There was a hunger of soul,\nthough you would not confess it--a hunger of soul, which rejected and\nloathed these husks. And now where are they, and what are they? Or you\npursued honour and fame, and men lavishly bestowed upon you that which\nyou so eagerly sought, till you seemed at length to have all, and more\nthan all, that you had set your heart upon. But still there was no\ncontentment, because there was no finality. Dropsy-like your craving\nonly grew with the gratification. Each fresh draught of applause\ncreated a fresh thirst. Every imagined slight, every unintentional\nneglect, every trivial rebuff, was a keen agony to you. You had only\nincreased your sensitiveness; you had not secured your satisfaction.\nOr, again, you had set your heart on human love, God's greatest boon\nif you use it without misusing it, if you subordinate it to his Divine\nlove. Your human affections, your human friendships, were everything\nto you. In the buoyant hopefulness of youth, in the solid security of\nmiddle age, it seemed as though these must last for ever. But soon\nenough the painful truth dawned upon you. The march of life began to\ntell on your comrades in the journey. One dropped at your side, and\nthen another. The ranks were visibly thinning, and there was no one to\nstep in and take the vacant places. First the mother at whose knees\nyou had lisped your earliest faltering prayer; then the friend who\nshared all your counsels, who was more than a brother to you; then the\nwife whom you cherished as another self; then the little daughter\nwhose innocent childish talk had solaced you in many a grievous hour:\nso, one by one, they fell away, and you are left gradually alone and\nmore alone; they leave you when you need them most, and at length in\nthe vacancy of your solitude you make the bitter discovery that though\nyou have toiled all night you have taken nothing--you have taken\nnothing at all.\n\nA short time ago we laid in the vaults of this cathedral the last\nmortal remains of one[4] who has achieved for himself a foremost place\namong the masters of his art in our own age. It was fit that his bones\nshould lie here, side by side with more than one famous brother\nsculptor who has gone before him--side by side with the most\nillustrious names in the sister art of painting; with Reynolds, whose\neasy grace in the delineation of human portraiture stands quite\nwithout a rival; with Turner, who has succeeded as no other painter\nhas succeeded, in any age or country, in reproducing on canvas the\nsubtle play of light and shade, the ever-varying aspect, the depth,\nthe infinity, of external nature; with Landseer, too, our most recent\nguest in this our artists' resting-place, whose genial and vigorous\nrepresentations of the lower animal life have invested it with almost\na human interest, and, so doing, have taught us many a suggestive\nlesson of humanity and kindliness. Side by side, too, with England's\ngreatest architects, and Wren, their prince, whose genius needs no\nword of eulogy here, for his monument is above and around us. Such a\nplace of sepulture well befitted such a man. It is our tribute of\nrespect for noble gifts nobly used. It is our expression of\nthanksgiving to God, who thus endows His servants that they may employ\ntheir endowments to exalt and to embellish human life.\n\nBut one thought cannot fail to strike us here. We may remember that\nthe great conqueror of modern time, when it was suggested to him to\nperpetuate some signal incident in his triumphant career by an\nhistorical picture, asked how long the work would last. He was told\ntwo or three centuries--perhaps, under favourable circumstances, five\ncenturies. This would not satisfy his devouring ambition. This was not\nthe immortality of fame which he had designed for himself. He must\nhave a more enduring memorial than this. Compared with the canvas of\nthe painter, the marble of the sculptor is long-lived indeed. The most\nenduring of human works are the works of the sculptor's chisel. The\nstern granite features of the Pharaoh who befriended Joseph and the\nPharaoh who persecuted Israel may still look down on the land which\nthey ruled with an iron rule between three and four thousand years\nago. The winged lions and winged bulls on which the contemporaries of\nShalmanezer and Sennacherib may have gazed in awe, in the royal\npalaces of Assyria, still confront us in our national museum with the\nsame weird look, unchanged though all else has changed, surviving\nstill, though a hundred generations of men have been born, and lived,\nand died, meanwhile. And it may be that in the centuries to come, some\ncurious explorer will exhume, from the grass-grown mounds of this\nruined city, a work of art bearing the name of him whom on Friday last\nwe bore to an honoured resting-place--perhaps the effigy of a prince\nwho flourished in a remote epoch of the past, when England was still a\nnation, and who sank into an untimely grave amidst a people's\nmourning. And thus the sculptor's fame will have a second lease of\nlife.\n\nBut after all, thirty centuries are but as three--are but as three\nyears or three days--compared with eternity. Napoleon's ambition was a\nperverted instinct, but it was an instinct, nevertheless. Man feels\nthat he was not made to die; he will not consent to die. This thirst\nfor enduring fame, what is it but an echo, a mocking echo, of an\neternal verity? Yes, he will live. The materialist may tell him that,\nwhen the eye and the ear are dissolved into gases and decomposed into\ndust, it matters nothing to him with what honours men may adorn his\nmemory, with what praises they may celebrate his name. He, too--his\npersonality, or what he was pleased to call his personality--is\ndissolved, is dissipated, is gone; but the materialist never yet has\nbeen able, never will be able, to persuade mankind. The natural\ninstinct of man revolts against the assumption; and the ambition of\nthe Christian, the ambition for eternity alone, expresses truly this\ngeneral instinct of man. To labour for the good things of this world,\nto labour for fame in the coming centuries, what is it, after all, if\nour views are bounded by this narrow horizon? Why, then, like the\ndisappointed fishermen of the Galilean lake, we have toiled all the\nnight long, and, for our pains, we have taken nothing.\n\nAnd this change--this conversion, if you will--comes sometimes, it may\nbe, despite ourselves, but comes--remember this--comes most often in\nanswer to some act of obedience, to some surrender of self-will on our\npart. We may complain; we may demur; we may distrust. We have toiled\nall the night, and have taken nothing; but we recognise the\nauthority of the Divine voice, and we force ourselves into\ncompliance--\"nevertheless, at Thy word.\" The command is general: it\nhas come to all alike,--\"Let ye down your nets.\" But, like Peter, we\nspecialise it, we adopt it, we appropriate it to ourselves: \"I will\nlet down the net.\" And so we do what seems hard and unreasonable; we\ndo what we have never done before.\n\nAnd the response--the response to this obedience--is a light flashed\nin upon our soul, a double revelation, a revelation of mixed pleasure\nand pain, for it is a revelation at once of the sin within and of God\nwithout. The marvellous bounty of God's grace dazzles and astounds our\nvision, and, in our perplexity of heart, the despairing, craving,\nforbidding, yearning cry is wrung from our lips, \"Depart from me!\nDepart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man!\"\n\n\"Depart from me, O Lord.\" I know it all now. I see my sin, because I\nsee Thy goodness. Yes, I have beheld Thy holiness, Thy purity, Thy\ntruth, Thy grace, Thy love, and I have been stunned with the contrast\nto self. The brightness of the light has intensified the blackness of\nthe shade. Depart from me, O Lord! what can I have in common with\nThee?--I, so selfish, so vile, so sin-laden, with Thee, so merciful,\nso righteous, so holy. In very deed, Thy ways are not as my ways, and\nThy thoughts are not as my thoughts. Depart from me, O Lord! This\n\"fear of the Lord\" is, indeed, the \"beginning of wisdom.\" This\nconsciousness of sin is the true pathway to heaven. The saintliest of\nmen have ever felt and spoken most strongly of their own sinfulness.\nThe intensity of their language has provoked the sneer of the\nworldling--has been an evidence here of their own conviction that,\ndespite their pretensions to holiness, they are no better than he,\nperhaps somewhat worse. But they know, and he doth not know, what sin\nmeans and what God means, and so the despairing cry is wrung from\ntheir agony, \"Depart from me, O Lord.\"\n\n\"Depart from me, O Lord! And yet not so, Lord.\" Even while Peter is\nspeaking his gestures belie his words. His lips implore Jesus\ndespairingly to depart, but his eyes and his hands entreat Him\npassionately to stay. \"Not so, Lord, for how can I endure to part with\nThee? In Thy presence is hope, is light, is joy. Lord, to whom shall\nwe go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Depart from me? No; it is\nfor the godless to say, 'Depart from us, for we desire not the\nknowledge of God.' It is for the unclean spirits to rave against\nThee--'Let us alone, Thou Jesus of Nazareth! What have we to do with\nThee?' But I, I have everything to do with Thee. I am created in the\nimage of God. I have a ray of the Divine light, a seed of the Divine\nword, within me. And like seeks like; therefore I yearn after Thee,\ntherefore I am drawn towards Thee, therefore I stretch out my hands to\nThee over the wide chasm of sin which yawns between us. Depart from\nme? Nay, rather abide with me. Teach me, absolve me, purify me,\nstrengthen me. Take me to Thyself, that I may be Thine and Thine only.\nAbide with me, for the day of this life is far spent, and the night\ncometh when no man can work. Stay with me now and evermore, and so\nfulfil Thy gracious promise: 'If a man love Me and will keep My word,\nMy Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode\nwith him.'\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AN ARGUMENT IN FAVOUR OF CHRISTIANITY.[5]\n\n \"They are Thy people and Thine inheritance.\"--DEUT. ix. 29.\n\n\nIt is related of a certain royal chaplain that, being asked often by\nhis sovereign to give a concise and convincing argument in favour of\nChristianity, he replied in two words--\"The Jews.\" It is this subject\nwhich I offer for your consideration this afternoon--the history and\ncharacter of the Israelite race as a witness to Christianity. The\nsubject is certainly not inappropriate at this season, when the\ncommemoration of the great Pentecostal Day is fast approaching, to\nwhich all the previous history of the nation had tended, which\nsubstituted the dispensation of the Spirit for the dispensation of the\nLaw, and expanded the religion of a tribe into the religion of\nmankind. It is, moreover, forced upon our notice by that remarkable\nchapter in Deuteronomy which we have heard this afternoon, and which,\nby prophetic insight, brings out with singular distinctness the\nprominent character and subsequent career of the race. Only reflect\nupon such expressions as these:--\"Go in to possess nations greater and\nmightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven\";\n\"Understand, therefore, this day that the Lord thy God is He which\ngoeth over before thee\"; \"The Lord thy God giveth thee not this good\nland to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked\npeople\"; \"Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I\nknew you.\"\n\nRead these passages in the full light which thirty centuries of the\nnation's history have thrown upon them. Study this contrast between\ntheir character and their achievements as it unfolds itself in all\ntheir subsequent history. Consider, on the one hand, not only the\nfirst conquest of Canaan to which the words more immediately refer,\nbut the succession of far more brilliant victories over the great\nnations of the world, culminating in that most magnificent triumph of\nall--the triumph of Christianity. Consider, on the other hand, not\nonly those early murmurings and idolatries in the wilderness to which\nthe language more directly points, but that long catalogue of\nrebellions of which the subsequent history of Israel is made up, and\nwhich reached its climax in the martyrdom of the Lord of Life. Set\nthese one against the other, and you will confess that the utterances\nof Deuteronomy are wonderful anticipations of the future, succinct\nepitomes of centuries yet to come. You may question, if you will,\nevery single prophecy in the Old Testament, but the whole history of\nthe Jews is one continuous prophecy, more distinct and articulate than\nall. You may deny if you will every successive miracle which is\nrecorded therein, but again the history of the Jews is, from first to\nlast, one stupendous miracle, more wonderful and convincing than all.\n_Here_ you have a small, insignificant people--stiff-necked,\nrebellious, worthless; _there_ you have the most magnificent\nspiritual achievements--the most signal moral victories. What\nconclusion can you draw, except that which is drawn for you in the\nwords which I have read: \"The Lord thy God is He that goeth before\nyou\"?--\"They are Thy people and Thine inheritance, which Thou\nbroughtest out by Thy mighty power and Thy stretched out arm.\"\n\nLook first at the capacities of the people themselves. They had no\nremarkable gifts which might have led us to anticipate this unique\ndestiny. They had no intellectual qualities of a very high order like\nthe Greeks--vivid imagination, subtlety of thought, aesthetic taste; no\npolitical capacity like the Romans, no organizing power or faculty of\nlegislation which might secure for them the ascendency over the\nnations of the world. They were, moreover, a stubborn, exclusive,\nintolerant people--an unpractical people, without the power, or at\nleast the will, to adapt themselves to the institutions, the feelings,\nand the prejudices of the people with whom they were brought in\ncontact. They were believed, in consequence, to cherish an universal\nhatred against the rest of mankind; and they, in turn, were hated by\nall--hated, not with the hatred of an admiring envy, but the hatred of\na supercilious scorn. Of all the tribes on the face of the earth the\nJews, we should have said, were the very last to ingratiate themselves\nwith the other races of mankind, and to lay the civilised world at\ntheir feet. And now turn from the people themselves to the land of\ntheir abode. Certainly this does not enable us to solve the enigma.\nPalestine does not occupy a large space in the Christian's\nimagination; for it is a very minute, insignificant spot in the map of\nthe world. It is, moreover, incapable of expansion, for it is bounded\non all sides either by sea or mountain ranges, or by vast and\nimpracticable deserts. To a great extent all this country is\nmountainous and barren, and even this meagre and unpromising territory\nis not all their own. The sea-coast would have been valuable to a\npeople gifted with commercial instincts. With commerce they might have\nextended their influence; but from the sea-coast they were wholly\nexcluded. The Phoenicians on the north and the Philistines on the\nsouth occupied all the most important harbours; and this territory of\nthe Jews was so unexpansive, so barren, so unpromising that they were\nplaced at a still greater disadvantage when compared with the\nsurrounding people. The Jews are surrounded on all sides, and by the\nmost formidable neighbours. On the one side by Egypt, a country of the\nhighest fertility, the foremost military power in the world, with an\nancient civilisation which dated from a period long before the birth\nof the father of the Israelite people, whilst it stood foremost of the\nhuman race in works of art in its day. Who was Israel, then, that he\ncould withstand Egypt? There, again, on the other side, was another\nmighty empire, first Assyria, then Babylon, the only rival of Egypt of\nthe ancient world. In these places they had the same advantage of wide\nplains of exceptional fertility, a high and remote civilisation, an\narmy of tremendous strength, and a centralisation under an absolute\nrule, with all the resources which a great and vast dominion could\ncommand. As Persia succeeded Babylon, and as Babylon succeeded\nAssyria, so Persia--far more mighty and terrible--overruns and\nconquers all Western Asia. Egypt itself falls. Palestine is a mere\nspeck, surrounded by the huge dominions of the Persian monarch. What\nchance has Israel against such terrible neighbours? Must it not be\ncrushed and ground to atoms and annihilated by its foes? But, at all\nevents, it might have been supposed that, however stubborn and\nimpracticable they were in their attitude towards others, they would\nat least be united amongst themselves--that they would be loyal to\ntheir country, that they would be faithful to their laws and\ninstitutions, that they would be true to their God. This internal\ncohesion would give them strength to resist--this absolute harmony\nwould win for them an influence that would compensate for the superior\nadvantages of their more powerful neighbours. But what do we find as a\nmatter of fact? Their national history is one continuous record of\nmurmuring, of rebellion, of internal feuds, of moral and spiritual\ndefection. They have no sooner escaped from their Egyptian bondage,\ntheir necks still bearing the scars of the tyrants' yoke, than they\nfall into shameless idolatry. The worship of the golden calf is only\nthe type and presence of still more guilty lapses in centuries yet to\ncome; the revolt against Moses and Aaron only the type and shadow of\nthe rebellious spirit to which Israel rose in the distant future.\nAgain and again the religion of Jehovah is effaced, or almost effaced,\nfrom the mind of the nation. Again and again the hideous idolatries of\nMoloch--idolatries cruel, profligate, and shameless--supplant the\nworship of the Lord of heaven and earth. And the political condition\nof the nation is not one whit more hopeful than the religious. When\nunity alone can save the people then there is disruption. The Ten\nTribes are severed from the House of David, never to be united again.\nThe power of one kingdom is spent in neutralising the power of the\nother. This is a concise history of the race during the period from\nthe disruption to the captivity. The career of Israel, from first to\nlast, is a running comment upon the words, \"Not for thy righteousness\nor for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess the\nland,\" for \"ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that\nI knew you.\" Not once or twice only the Mighty Archer has strung His\nweapon and pointed His shaft, and His aim has been frustrated by\nIsrael's disobedience. His chosen instruments have been snapped in His\nhands, starting aside like a broken bow. Indeed, the history of Israel\nis quite unique in the chronicles of nations. The chronicles of other\nnations record the qualities as well as the crimes of the people whose\ncareer they commemorate. They praise their patriotism, their prowess,\ntheir manifold virtues, their magnificent achievements. But the Bible,\nthe chronicle of the Jews, is one uninterrupted catalogue of sins and\nshortcomings--one long bill of indictment against Israel. One only is\ntrue, one only is faithful, one only is victorious; for he fears not\nthe nation, but the nation's God. So then, however we look at the\nmatter, there is nothing which affords ground for hope; and when we\nquestion actual facts, we find they correspond altogether to those\nexpectations we should have formed beforehand from the character and\nposition of the nation. Never has any people lived upon the earth who\npassed through such terrible disasters as the Jews. Never has any\npeople been so near to absolute extinction again and again, and yet\nhave survived. Again and again the vision of the prophet has been\nrealised. Again and again the valley of the shadow of death has been\nstrewn with the dry bones of carcases seemingly extinct. Again and\nagain there have been seasons of dark despair, when even the most\nhopeful, challenged by the Divine voice, could only respond, \"O Lord\nGod, Thou knowest!\" But again and again there has been a shaking of\nthe dry bones--the bones have come together, bone to bone; they have\nbeen strung with sinews and clothed with flesh; breath has been\nbreathed into them, and they have lived, and have become an exceeding\ngreat army. Think of those many centuries of Egyptian bondage, when\nthe life of the nation seemed to have been strangled in its infancy.\nReflect next on that period in its youthful career, when it is\nfighting its way inch by inch, and struggling for very existence in\nPalestine, doing battle with nations greater and mightier than itself,\nand with \"cities fenced high up to heaven.\" Look forward again, and we\nsee its fate during the manhood of the nation under its king, the land\nnow divided against itself and overrun by successive invaders. As of\nold so now again, but in a far more terrible sense, Israel finds\nhimself face to face with the Anakims and with those great empires of\nthe East before whom he appears but as a grasshopper. The end was\ninevitable. For a time Israel was a plaything in the hands of those\nterrible neighbours, tossed to and fro between two powerful\nrivals--Egypt on the one side, and Assyria and Babylon on the\nother--till at length, in a moment of victory, he is swept away, and\nhis place knows him no more. Could anything seem more hopeless than\nthe revival of the nation from the Babylonish captivity? Yet from\nBabylon, as from Egypt, Israel returned. A new lease of life was\ngranted, and with it there followed a new lease of disaster also. His\nold fate pursued him still. The saying was fulfilled which had been\nspoken by the prophet: \"That which the locust hath left hath the\ncanker-worm eaten, and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the\ncaterpillar eaten.\" He was rescued from the fangs of Babylon only to\nbe food for the Assyrians. He was drawn from the feet of the Assyrians\nonly to be devoured by the insatiable Roman. And yet all the\nwhile--and this is the remarkable fact to which I ask your\nattention--amidst calamities the most overwhelming and suffering the\nmost intense--exiled, enslaved, trampled under foot, only not\nannihilated--all the while he was hopeful, was jubilant, was\ntriumphant still. He was always dying, and behold he lived. Century\nafter century prophets had declared, in no ambiguous terms, that\ndespite all these adverse appearances, despite all these wearisome\ndelays, Israel had a magnificent future. The nations might rage, and\nthe kings of the earth might do their worst--they were powerless\nagainst Israel's destiny. A sceptre should rise out of Jacob which\nwould subdue the world, and a King should sit on David's throne before\nwhose footstool all the nations of the earth should bow. A standard\nshould be set up in Zion around which all mankind should rally.\n\"Behold thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations\nthat knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God,\nand for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee;\" \"The sons\nof them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee, and all they\nthat despised thee shall bow themselves at the soles of thy feet;\"\n\"Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the\ncurtains of thine habitation; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and\nstrengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand\nand on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the\ndesolated cities to be inhabited.\"\n\nAnd these hopes--these extravagant hopes--were more than realized. A\nKing _did_ rise out of Jacob to whom all the nations of the\ncivilised world have rendered homage such as no sovereign received\nbefore or after--the homage of their heart, the homage of their lives.\nAt the call of Israel the Gentiles flocked to the standard set up in\nZion. From far and near, the cultivated Greek, the proud Roman,\nAssyrian and Egyptian, master and slave, are flocking around that\nstandard. From east to west, from the ancient civilisation of India to\nthe barbarous islands of the Pacific, Israel has dictated its\nsentiments, its belief, its morals, its laws and institutions to the\nnations. An influence far deeper, far wider, far more tenacious has\nappeared from that despised, insulted, down-trodden people than was\never achieved by the splendid literature of Greece or the historic\nempire of Rome. These are not theories, but facts--facts which some\nwill attempt to explain away, but facts which none can deny.\n_Here_ is the prophecy--_there_ is the fulfilment. The prophecy is\nnot a single isolated prediction of ambiguous meaning, but large\nand clear, written across the whole history of a nation from\nmargin to margin. And the fulfilment corresponds to the prophecy; it\nis legible to all men, because stamped on the face of the world. Is\nthere not here the manifestation of Divine providence? Do we not\nrightly claim the Jews as the principal witnesses to Christianity, or\nshall we set all this down as mere accident, a freak of fortune, a\nsuperficial correspondence without any essential connection? Shall it\nbe regarded as mere accident that, within a few years after the\nappearing of this King who has thus gathered the Gentiles to His\nstandard, Jerusalem is destroyed, and the nation scattered to the four\nwinds of the earth--that the polity of Israel for ever ceased, that\nthe Temple shook, and that revival was rendered thenceforward\nimpossible? Shall we say that it is mere argument that for eighteen\ncenturies--a period as long as that which elapsed from the\nproclamation of the law by Moses to the fulfilment of the law by\nChrist--this state of things has remained? Or should we not rather say\nthat in this coincidence also there is a Divine significance--that He\nproclaimed with no uncertain sound the obituary of the old order and\nthe commencement of the new--that God's seal is stamped upon the\ncharacter of the Church, whereby Israel after the Spirit is\nsubstituted for Israel after the flesh? Do we ask what it was which\ngave the Jewish people this toughness, this vitality, this power? The\nanswer simply is, \"They are Thy people and Thine inheritance, which\nThou broughtest out by Thy mighty power, and by Thy stretched out\narm.\" It was the consciousness of this close relationship with\nJehovah, the omnipotent and ever-present God--it was the sense of\ntheir glorious destiny, which marked them out as the teachers of\nmankind. It was the conviction that they were the possessors of\nglorious truths, and that those truths must in the end prevail,\nwhatever present appearances might suggest--this was the secret source\nof their strength, notwithstanding all their faults, and despite all\ntheir disasters. Do we ask again how it came to pass that, when Israel\ncalled to the Gentiles, the Gentiles responded to the call and flocked\nto its standard? Here, again, the answer is simple--\"Because of the\nLord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel.\" The Gentiles had\neverything else in their possession, but this one thing they\nlacked--knowledge of God, their Father; and without this all their\nmagnificent gifts could not satisfy--could not save them. Therefore,\nwhen at length the cry went forth, \"Ho! every one that thirsteth, come\nye to the waters,\" they hurried to the fountains of salvation to slake\ntheir burning thirst. Culture and civilisation, arts and commerce,\ninstitutions and laws,--no nation can afford to undervalue these; but\nnot only do all these things soon fade, but the people themselves fall\ninto corruption and decay if the Breath of Life be wanting.\n\nAnd as with nations, so with individuals. We may cultivate the\nintellect to the highest pitch; we may surround ourselves with all the\nluxuries and refinements of civilisation; we may accumulate all the\nappliances which make life enjoyable; but the time will come when\nthese things will fail to sustain us. It may come in some season of\nbereavement, in the hour of sickness or of loss. It may come in the\nfailure and decay of powers. It may come in the pains of our\ndeath-agony. It may come--and this is the most solemn thought of\nall--after we have passed the confines of the grave. But come it must\nsooner or later; for we are children of God, and we cannot with\nimpunity ignore or deny the Father of earth and heaven. There only is\nrest and peace; there only is true life for the soul of man.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VISION OF GOD.[6]\n\n \"And they shall see His face.\"--REV. xxii. 4.\n\n\nIt is related of the greatest of the Bishops of Durham that, in his\nlast solemn moments, when the veil of the flesh was even now parting\nasunder, and the everlasting sanctuary opening before his eyes, he\n\"expressed it as an awful thing to appear before the Moral Governor of\nthe world.\"\n\nThe same thought, which thus accompanied him in his passage to\neternity, had dominated his life in time--this consciousness of an\nEternal Presence, this sense of a Supreme Righteousness, this\nconviction of a Divine Order, shaping, guiding, disposing all the\nintricate vicissitudes of circumstance and all the little lives of\nmen--enshrouded now in a dark atmosphere of mystery, revealing itself\nonly in glimpses through the rolling clouds of material existence,\ndimly discerned by the dull and partial vision of finite man,\nquestioned, doubted, denied by many, yet visible enough now to the eye\nof faith, working patiently but working surely, vindicating itself\never and again in the long results of time, but awaiting its complete\nand final vindication in the absolute issues of eternity--the truth of\nall truths, the reality of all realities, the one stubborn steadfast\nfact, unchangeable while all else is changing--this Presence, this\nOrder, this Righteousness--in the language of Holy Scripture, this\nWord of the Lord which shall outlive the solid earth under foot, and\nthe starry vault overhead. \"They shall perish, but Thou remainest, and\nthey all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou\nfold them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy\nyears shall not fail.\" \"All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of\nman as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower\nthereof falleth away--but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.\"\n\nIt is no arbitrary conjecture that this was the dominating idea of\nButler's life. Early and late it is alike prominent in his writings.\nIn the preface to his first great work, his volume of sermons, he\nspeaks of \"the Author and Cause of all things, who is more intimately\npresent to us than anything else can be, and with whom we have a\nnearer and more constant intercourse than we have with any creature.\"\nIn his latest work, his Charge to the Clergy of Durham, he urges the\n\"yielding ourselves up to the full influence of the Divine Presence:\"\nhe bids his hearers \"endeavour to raise up in the hearts\" of their\npeople \"such a sense of God as shall be an habitual, ready principle\nof reverence, love, gratitude, hope, trust, resignation, and\nobedience;\" he recommends the practice of such devotional exercises as\n\"would be a recollection that we are in the Divine Presence, and\ncontribute to our being in the fear of the Lord all the day long.\"\nThus his death-bed utterance was the proper sequel to his life-long\nthoughts. The same awe-inspiring, soul-subduing, purifying,\nsanctifying Presence rose before him as hitherto. But the awe, the\nsolemnity, was intensified now, when the vision of God by faith might\nat any moment give place to the vision of God by sight. Not unfitly\ndid one, writing shortly after his decease, compare him to \"the bright\nlamps before the shrine,\" the clear, steady light of the sanctuary,\nburning night and day before the Eternal Presence.\n\nIn the strength of this belief he had lived, and in the awe of this\nthought he now died. This conviction it was--this sense of a present\nrighteousness, confronting him always--which raised him high above the\nlevel of his age; keeping him pure amid the surroundings of a\ndissolute court; modest and humble in a generation of much pretentious\ndisplay; high-minded and careless of wealth in a time of gross\nvenality and corruption; firm in the faith amidst a society cankered\nby scepticism; devout and reverent, where spiritual indifference\nreigned supreme; candid and thoughtful and temperate, amidst the\ntemptations and the excitements of religious controversy; careful even\nfor the externals of worship, where such care was vilified as the\nbadge of a degrading superstition. Hence that tremendous seriousness\nwhich is his special characteristic--that \"awful sense of religion,\"\nthat \"sacred horror at men's frivolity,\" in the language of a living\nessayist. Hence that transparent sincerity of character, which never\nfails him. Hence that \"meekness of wisdom,\" which he especially urges\nhis clergy to study, and of which he himself was all unconsciously the\nbrightest example.\n\nAnd what more seasonable prayer can you offer for him who addresses\nyou now, at this the most momentous crisis of his life, than that\nhe--the latest successor of Butler--may enter upon the duties of his\nhigh and responsible office in the same spirit; that the realisation\nof this great idea, the realisation of this great fact, may be the\nconstant effort of his life; that glimpses of the invisible\nrighteousness, of the invisible grace, of the invisible glory, may be\nvouchsafed to him; and that the Eternal Presence, thus haunting him\nnight and day, may rebuke, may deter, may guide, may strengthen, may\ncomfort, may illume, may consecrate and subdue the feeble and wayward\nimpulses of his own heart to God's holy will and purpose!\n\nAnd not for the preacher only, but for the hearers also, let the same\nprayer ascend to the throne of heaven. In all the manifold trials and\nall the mean vexations of life, this presence will be your strength\nand your stay. Whatsoever is truthful, whatsoever is real, whatsoever\nis abiding in your lives, if there be any antidote to sin, and if\nthere be any anodyne for grief, if there be any consolation, and if\nthere be any grace, you will find it here, and here alone--in the\never-present consciousness that you are living face to face with the\nEternal God. Not by fitful gusts of religious passion, not by fervid\noutbursts of sentimental devotion, not by repetition of approved\nforms, and not by acquiescence in orthodox beliefs, but by the calm,\nsteady, persistent concentration of the soul on this truth, by the\nintent fixing of the inward eye on the righteousness and the grace of\nthe Eternal Being before Whom you stand, will you redeem your spirits\nand sanctify your lives. So will your minds be conformed to His mind.\nSo will your faces reflect the brightness of His face. So will you go\nfrom strength to strength, till, life's pilgrimage ended, you appear\nin the eternal Zion, the celestial city, wherein is \"neither sun nor\nmoon, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light\nthereof.\"\n\nLet this, then, be the theme of our meditation this morning. Many\nthoughts will crowd upon our minds and struggle for utterance on a day\nlike this; but we will put them all aside. Not our hopes, not our\ncares, not our burdens; nothing of joy, nothing of sadness shall\ninterpose now to shut out or obscure the glory of the Presence before\nWhom we stand.\n\nNot our hopes, though one hope starts up and shapes itself perforce\nbefore our eyes. It will be the prayer of many hearts to-day that the\ninauguration of a new Episcopate may be marked by the creation of a\nnew See; that Northumberland, which in the centuries long past gave to\nDurham her Bishopric, may receive from Durham her due in return in\nthese latest days; that the Newcastle on the Tyne may take its place\nwith the Old Castle on the Wear, as a spiritual fortress strong in the\nwarfare of God.\n\nNot our cares, though at this season one anxiety will press heavily on\nthe minds of all. The dense cloud, which for weeks past has darkened\nthe social atmosphere of these northern counties, still hangs sullenly\noverhead. God grant that the rift which already we seem to discern may\nwiden, till the flooding sunlight scatters the darkness, and a lasting\nharmony is restored to the relations between the employer and the\nemployed.\n\nNot our burdens, though on one at least in this Cathedral the sense of\na new responsibility must press to-day with a heavy hand. If indeed\nthis burden had been self-sought or self-imposed, if his thoughts were\nsuffered to dwell on himself and his own incapacity, he might well\nsink under its crushing weight. But your prayer for him, and his ideal\nfor himself, will shape itself in the words which were spoken to the\ngreat Israelite restorer of old, \"Not by might, nor by power, but by\nMy Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.\" In this strength only, before you\nas before him, will the great mountain become a plain.\n\nTherefore we will lay down now our hopes and our fears, our every\nburden, at the steps of the altar, that, entering disencumbered into\nthe inmost sanctuary, we may fall before the Eternal Presence.\n\nThe vision of God is threefold--the vision of Righteousness, the\nvision of Grace, the vision of Glory.\n\nI. The vision of Righteousness is first in the sequence. Righteousness\nincludes all those attributes which make up the idea of the Supreme\nRuler of the universe--perfect justice, perfect truth, perfect purity,\nperfect moral harmony in all its aspects. Here, then, is the force of\nButlers dying words. Ask yourselves, Can it be otherwise than \"an\nawful thing to appear before the Moral Governor of the world\"? You\nhave read, perhaps, the written record of some pure and saintly life,\nand you are overwhelmed with shame as you look inward and contrast\nyour sullied heart and your self-seeking aims with his innocency and\ncleanness of heart. You are confronted--you, an avowedly religious\nperson--in your business affairs with an upright man of the world; and\nhis straightforward honesty is felt by you as a keen reproach to your\ndisingenuousness and evasion, all the keener because he makes no\nprofession of religion. Yes, you know it; this is the very impress of\nGod's attribute on his soul, though God's name may seldom or never\npass his lips. And if these faint rays of the Eternal Light, thus\ncaught and reflected on the blurred mirrors of human hearts and human\nlives, so sting and pain the organs of your moral vision, what must it\nnot be, then, when you shall stand face to face before the ineffable\nRighteousness, and see Him in His unclouded glory!\n\nIt is a vision indeed of awe, transcending all thought; a vision of\nawe, but a vision also of purification, of renewal, of energy, of\npower, of life. Therefore enter into his presence now and cast\nyourself down before His throne. Therefore dare to ascend into the\nholy mountain; dare to speak with God amidst the thunders and the\nlightnings; dare to look upon the face of His righteousness, that,\ndescending from the heights, you, like the lawgiver of old, may carry\nwith you the reflection of His brightness, to illumine and to vivify\nthe common associations and the every-day affairs of life.\n\nNot a few here will doubtless remember how an eloquent living preacher\nin a striking image employs the distant view of the towers of your own\nDurham--of my own Durham--seen from the neighbourhood of the busy\nnorthern capital only in the clearer atmosphere of Sundays--as an\nemblem of these glimpses of the Eternal Presence, these intervals of\nSabbatical repose and contemplation, when the furnaces and pits cease\nfor the time to pour forth their lurid smoke, and in the unclouded sky\nthe towers of the celestial Zion reveal themselves to the eye of\nfaith. Let this local image give point to our thoughts to-day. \"Unto\nThee lift I up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold,\neven as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and\nas the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, even so our\neyes wait upon the Lord our God.\"\n\nII. But the vision of Righteousness is succeeded by the vision of\nGrace. When Butler in his dying moments had expressed his awe at\nappearing face to face before the Moral Governor of the world, his\nchaplain, we are told, spoke to him of \"the blood which cleanseth from\nall sin.\" \"Ah, this is comfortable,\" he replied; and with these words\non his lips he gave up his soul to God. The sequence is a necessary\nsequence. He only has access to the Eternal Love who has stood face to\nface with the Eternal Righteousness. He only who has learned to feel\nthe awe will be taught to know the grace. The righteous Judge, the\nMoral Governor of the World, is a loving Father also, is your Father\nand mine. This is the central lesson of Christianity. Of this He has\ngiven us absolute assurance, in the life, the death, the words, and\nthe works of Christ. The incarnation of the Son is the mirror of the\nFather's love. What witness need we more? Happy he who shall realise\nthis fact in all its significance and fulness. Happy he on whom the\nlight of the glory of the Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God,\nshall shine, he who shall--\n\n    \"Gaze one moment on the Face Whose beauty\n        Wakes the world's great hymn;\n    Feel it one unutterable moment,\n        Bent in love o'er him;\n    In that look feel heaven, earth, men, and angels,\n        Distant grow, and dim;\n    In that look feel heaven, earth, men, and angels,\n        Nearer grow through Him.\"\n\nYes, it is so indeed. All our interests in life, the highest and the\nlowest alike, abandoned, merged, forgotten in God's love, will come\nback to us with a distinctness, an intensity, a force, unknown and\nunsuspected before. Each several outline and each particular hue will\nstand out in the light of His grace. Thus we are bidden to lose our\nsouls only that we may find them again; we are charged to give up\nhouses, and brethren, and sisters, and father, and mother, and wife,\nand children, and lands--all that is lovely and precious in our\neyes--to give up all to God, only that we may receive them back from\nHim a hundredfold, even now in this present time. Our affections, our\nfriendships, our hopes, our business and our pleasure, our\nintellectual pursuits and our artistic tastes--all our cherished\nopportunities and all our fondest aims must be brought into the\nsanctuary and bathed in the glory of His Presence, that we may take\nthem to us again, baptized and regenerate, purer, higher, more real,\nmore abiding far than before.\n\nIII. And thus the vision of love melts into the vision of glory. So we\nreach the third and final stage in our progress. This is the crowning\npromise of the Apocalyptic vision, \"They shall see His face.\" The\nvision is only inchoate now; we catch only glimpses at rare intervals,\nrevealed in the lives of God's saints and heroes, revealed above all\nin the record of the written Word and in the Incarnation of the Divine\nSon. But then no veil of the flesh shall dim the vision; no\nimperfection of the mirror shall blur the image; for we shall see Him\nface to face--shall see Him as He is--the perfect truth, the perfect\nrighteousness, the perfect purity, the perfect love, the perfect\nlight. And we shall gaze with unblenching eye, and our visage shall be\nchanged. Not now with transient gleams of radiance, as on the lawgiver\nof old, shall the light be reflected from us; but resting upon us with\nits own ineffable glory, the awful effluence--\n\n    \"Shall flood our being round, and take our lives\n    Into itself.\"\n\nOf this final goal of our aspirations--of this crowning mystery of our\nbeing--the mind is helpless to conceive, and the tongue refuses to\ntell. Silent contemplation, and wondering awe, and fervent\nthanksgiving alone befit the theme. Even the inspired lips of an\nApostle are hushed before it. \"Beloved, now are we the sons of God,\nand it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He\nshall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is\"--we\nshall see Him as He is.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HEAVENLY TEACHER.[7]\n\n \"He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you.\"--ST. JOHN xvi.\n 15.\n\n\nThe death of Christ was the orphanhood of the disciples. I am not\ninventing a figure of my own when I say this. It is the language which\nour Lord Himself uses to describe their destitute condition. In our\nEnglish Bible He is made to speak of leaving them comfortless. The\nwords in the original are: \"Leave you orphans\"--\"Leave you desolate,\"\nas it is translated in the Revised Version. They would be fatherless,\nmotherless, homeless, friendless--at least, so it seemed to them--when\nHe was gone.\n\nNo condition of life excites so keenly the compassion of the\ncompassionate as the helplessness of the orphan. It is not only that a\nchild is deprived, by its parents' death, of the means of subsistence;\nits natural guardian, teacher, friend is gone. Henceforth it is a waif\non the ocean of the world. In no respect different was that void which\nthreatened the disciples when the Master's presence had been\nwithdrawn. They had left all--authority, home. They had forsaken\nparents and friends, and He had become Father and Mother, and Sister\nand Brother to them. They had given up houses and land, and He was\nhenceforth their home. Their dependence on Him was absolute. Whatever\nof joy they had in the present, and what of hope they had for the\nfuture, were alike centred in Him. They thought His thoughts and lived\nHis life. And now this communion of soul with soul, and of life with\nlife, must be ruthlessly severed.\n\nThis was the terrible shock for which Christ would prepare the minds\nof His disciples. It was not only the void of earthly hopes scattered\nby His death; but their Teacher, their Guide, Spirit, Friend, Christ,\ntheir Father was withdrawn. The voice which soothed must be silent,\nand the eye which gladdened must be glazed, and the hand which blessed\nmust be stiffened in death. Christ lay buried--lost for ever, as it\nwould seem to them. What joy, what strength, what comfort could they\nhave henceforth in life? They would stake their whole on Christ, and\nChrist has failed them. Surely, never was orphanhood more helpless,\nmore hopeless, than the orphanhood of these poor Galileans.\n\nIt was to prepare them for this terrible trial that the promise in the\ntext was given. He must go; but another shall come. They should not be\nwithout a teacher, a guide; one Advocate, one Comforter would be\nwithdrawn, but another would take His place. There would be a friend\nstill, an adviser ever near to take them by the hand, to whisper into\ntheir ears, to prepare, to instruct, to protect, to fortify, to guide\nthem into all truth. Another comforter. Yes; and yet not another.\nThere would not be less of Christ, but more of Christ, when Christ was\ngone. This is the spiritual paradox which is assured to the disciples\nby the promise in the text--\"He shall take of Mine, and show it unto\nyou. All things that the Father hath are Mine; therefore, said I, He\nshall take of Mine and shall show it unto you.\" Another, and yet not\nanother. It was not Christ supplanted, not Christ superseded, not\nChrist eclipsed and quenched, but a larger, higher, purer, more\nabundant Christ with whom henceforth they should live. It was not now\na Christ who might be speaking at one moment and the next moment might\nbe hushed, but a Christ whose tongue was ever articulate and ever\naudible--Christ vocal even in His very silence. It was not now a\nChrist who was seen at one moment, and the next was concealed from\nview by some infinite obstacle, but a Christ whose visit no darkness\ncould hide and whose touch no distance could detain. It was not a\nChrist of now and then, not a Christ of here and there, but a Christ\nof every moment and every place--a Christ as permeating as the Spirit\nis permeating. \"He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you.\"\n\"Lo, I am with you alway! I am with you even to the end of the world.\"\n\nHe is not lost, then. This is the promise which Christ gives to His\ndisciples on the eve of His departure to console them for their loss.\nHis departure was more than necessary. It was even expedient, it was\neven advantageous for them that He should go. Did not the Saviour say\nthis? Nothing would have seemed more improbable in the anticipation\nthan that the death of Christ should have produced the effect it did\nproduce on His disciples. We should have predicted weakness,\ndepression, misery, scepticism, apostacy, despair; and yet what was\nthe actual result? Why, all at once they appear before us as changed\nmen. All at once they shake off meaner hopes; all at once their nerves\nare fortified, are lifted into a higher region. On the eve of the\ncatastrophe they are hesitating, fearful, sense-bound, narrow in their\nideas. They are, we might almost say, \"of the earth earthy.\" And on\nthe morrow they are strong, steadfast, courageous, endowed with a new\nspiritual faculty which bears unto the very salvation of salvation.\nHitherto they have known Christ after the flesh. Henceforth they will\nknow Him so no more.\n\nTo know Christ after the flesh! What would we not have given to have\nknown Him after the flesh? What a source of strength it would have\nbeen to us, we imagine, just to have listened to one of those parables\nspoken by His own lips; just to have witnessed one of those miracles\nof healing wrought by His own hand; just to have looked one moment on\nHim as He stood silent in the judgment-hall, or bleeding on the cross!\nBut no! It was expedient for us, as it was expedient for the first\ndisciples, that He should go away. It was expedient for us; otherwise\nthe Spirit could not come.\n\nTo know Christ after the flesh! Did not the disciples know Him after\nthe flesh, and did they not forsake Him? Did not Thomas who doubted\nand Peter who denied know Him after the flesh? Did not the Jewish mob\nwhich hooted and reviled, and the Roman soldiers who scourged, know\nHim after the flesh? What security was this knowledge after the flesh\nagainst scepticism, against blasphemy, against apostacy, against\nrebellion? Seeing, it is said, is believing. Yes, and hearing, too.\nBut it is the seeing of the spiritual eye and the hearing of the\nspiritual ear--the eye that beheld the heavens open and the Son of Man\nstanding on the right hand of God: the hearing of the glory when He\nwas called into Paradise, \"unspeakable words which it is not lawful\nfor a man to utter.\"\n\nTo know Christ after the flesh. Why should we desire to know Him after\nthe flesh? It was just to unteach the disciples themselves, whose\nknowledge was only after the flesh, that Christ went away, because so\nlong as they were possessed of this knowledge, the Paraclete could not\ncome, could not take up His abode in their faith. Thus, this is the\nwork of the Spirit, as described by our Lord, in the text to us, as to\nthe disciples of old. The Spirit offers not less of Christ, but more\nof Christ; for in the place of the Christ who walked on the shores of\nthe Galilean lake, who sat on the brink of the Samaritan well, and\nshed tears over the doomed city--instead of such a Christ we have a\nChrist who is ever present to us; a Christ of all times and all\nplaces; a Christ who traverses the universe--an Omnipotent Christ.\n\nLook at the explanation which our Lord Himself gave to the prophets:\n\"He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you.\" How so? Why of\nChrist, and Christ only? Has the Spirit nothing else to teach us? Hear\nwhat follows: \"All things--_all things_--that the Father hath are\nMine; therefore, said I unto you, He shall take of mine and shall show\nit unto you.\"\n\nAll things! Yes; all history, all science, all aggregation of truth in\nwhatever domain, and whatever kind it may be. \"Think you,\" He seems to\nsay--\"think you that My working is confined to a few paltry miracles\nwrought in Galilee? The universe itself is My miracle. Think you My\nwords are restricted to a few short precepts uttered to the Jews?\" We\nmake foolish distinctions. We imagine we erect a barrier within which\nwe would confine the Christ of our own imagination; but the Christ of\nChrist's own teaching overleaps all such barriers of ours. We are\ncareful to distinguish between knowledge and revealed religion. We\nseparate Christ from the former and we relegate Him to the latter; but\nthe Christ of Christ's own teaching is the Eternal Word, through whom\nthe Father speaks. We draw the rigid lines of demarcation between\nscience and theology, between religion and language, but the Christ of\nthe people is the hand of the Father not less in science and language\nthan in religion and theology. We have our distinctions between the\nsecular and the spiritual, as if the two were antagonistic. We must\nnot use a saying of Christ, as if it taught that our duty to Caesar was\nsomething quite apart from our duty to God; as if, forsooth, it were\npossible for us to have any moral obligation to any man, or body of\nmen, to any child, which was not also an obligation to God in Christ.\nBut the Christ of the Gospel claims sovereignty over all alike--over\nthat which we call secular not less than that which we call spiritual.\n\"All things--_all things_--that the Father hath are Mine;\ntherefore, I say, He shall take of Mine, and show it unto you.\"\n\nWe speak sometimes of the revelations. Yes; revelations, indeed, not\nmerely of inanimate processes, not merely of blind laws, but\nrevelations of the eternal world, of the Eternal Son through whom the\nFather works. Therefore, as Christians, we are bound to look upon\nthese as Christ. Therefore, if we are true to our heavenly schooling,\nthe Spirit will take up these and show them unto us. \"He shall take of\nMine, and shall shew it unto you.\"\n\nAre we diligent students of the lessons of history? Do we delight\nto trace the progress of the human race from the first dawn of\ncivilisation to its noonday blaze? To disclose the obscure past of the\ngreat nations of the earth? to mark the development of the arts of\ngovernment? to follow the ever-widening range of intellect? to discern\nthe stream of human life broadening slowly down with the force of\nages?\n\nThen let us see the kingdom of Christ not less in the progress of\nhistory than in the laws of science. He was in the world, and the\nworld knew Him not. He was the true Light that lighteth every man--the\nLight ever brighter and clearer till it attained its full glory at\nlength in the Incarnation. Therefore the school of history is also the\nschool of the Holy Spirit, for it is the setting forth of Christ. \"He\nthat hath eyes to see, let him see.\" \"He shall take of Mine.\"\n\nIf you have traced Christ's footprints in the processes of Nature; if\nyou have heard Christ's voice in the teachings of history--then,\nsurely, you will not fail to see and hear Him in your own domestic and\nsocial relations. That pure affection which has been to you a fountain\nof benediction; that friendship which has been the crowning glory of\nyour life--can you think of it apart from Christ? If you do not find\nChrist here, assuredly you will seek Him in vain elsewhere. What was\nthat truthfulness, that purity, that unselfishness, that devotion\nwhich attracted you to the broken light of the Great Light, a\nreflected ray from the Central Sun Himself? Yes, the Spirit took of\nChrist and showed it to you when, through that affection, through that\nfriendship, He held up to you the nobler, because a more God-like,\nidea of life. \"He shall take of Mine.\" He shall bring all things to\nyour remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you.\n\nLast and chiefest, for the crown of all these--these rays through\nforest and mountain--of all other lessons, He shall set before you the\nfull Sun. He shall teach you the lesson of Incarnation. He shall show\nunto your soul the tremendous importance of that statement which comes\nfrom your lips as time after time you repeat your creed: \"He was made\nman.\" He shall teach you the lesson of the Passion. He shall remind\nyou day and night of the paramount obligation which it lays upon you.\nThink--yes, think and think, and think--of that word till the love of\nChrist shall constrain your whole being, shall bind you hand and foot,\nand lead you captive to the will of God. He shall teach you the lesson\nof the resurrection, emancipating, purifying, strengthening, exalting,\ntill he makes you conformable thereunto. Then you will rise from the\nsepulchre in which you have lain many days, will breathe the pure air\nof God's presence once more, will sit at meat when you are risen;\nwhile, though in the world, you will be no longer of the world;\nnotwithstanding all disabilities and weaknesses you will live--live\neven now as faithful citizens of the kingdom of heaven, which is\nrighteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.\n\nNOTE.--These Sermons are printed from reports.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.[8]\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nIn the lectures which I addressed to you this last year, I took as my\nsubject the early history of Christianity while it was still\nunrecognised by Roman law, and, therefore, treated as an enemy of the\nState. On this occasion I purpose to trace the stream a little further\nfrom its source, when Christianity has forced itself into recognition\nand become the predominant religion of the empire. The struggle\nbetween Christianity and Paganism has entirely changed its outward\ncharacter. The only weapons which the Church could wield at a former\nepoch were moral and spiritual. She is now furnished with all the\nappliances of political and social prestige; yet these, however\nimposing, and to some extent serviceable, are not her really effective\narms. She can afford to be deprived of them for a time, and her career\nof victory is unchecked. Her substantial triumphs must still be won by\nthe old weapons. The source of her superiority over Paganism is still\nthe same as before--a more enlightened faith in the will of the\nunseen, a heartier devotion to the cause of humanity, a more\nreverential awe for the majesty of purity, a greater readiness to do\nand to suffer. The change has been as startling and as sudden as it\nwas momentous. All at once the Church had passed from hopeless,\nhelpless oppression to supremacy and power. For several years after\nthe opening of the fourth century the last and fiercest persecution\nstill raged, Christians were hunted down, tortured, put to death with\nimpunity and without mercy. The only limit to their sufferings was the\nweariness or the caprice of their persecutors. Yet before the first\nquarter of this century has drawn to a close the greatest sovereign\nwho had worn the imperial diadem for three hundred years is found\npresiding at a council of Christian bishops discussing the most\nimportant questions of Christian doctrine as though the fate of the\nempire depended upon the result. In the short period of fifteen years\nwhich elapsed between the death of Galerius and the Council of Nicaea,\nthe most stupendous revolution which the pages of history record had\nbeen brought about. We cannot wonder that the contemporary heathen\nfailed altogether to recognise its completeness and its permanence.\nEven to ourselves, who look back at the struggle between Christianity\nand Paganism from the vantage ground of history, it is difficult to\nrealise the suddenness of the transition. To those who lived in the\nheat of the conflict, and whose estimate of relative proportions was\nnecessarily confused by the nearness of this position, it was\naltogether unintelligible. The one thing which most astonishes us in\nheathen writers at this period is their blindness to the real\nsignificance of the change. They ignore it, or they make light of it;\nthey speak of Christian sects, of Christian offices and Christian\nrites, in a tone of cold indifference where they think fit to mention\nthem at all. Obviously they look at Christianity as a phenomenon which\nit may be curious to contemplate, but which has no great practical\nmoment for them; they do not realise it as destined to mingle\npermanently with the main stream of human life. Christianity to them\nis still a mere Syrian superstition which has become the fashion of\nthe day, as so many other superstitions have been before it, and, like\nits predecessors, will pass away when it has had its fling. The truth\nis, that the revolution was not really sudden, though it seemed so. In\nits social and political aspects, its victory was almost\ninstantaneous, but essentially it was a moral revolution; and such\nrevolutions are ever gradual: they provoke no notice because they are\nnoiseless; they advance patiently and silently, step by step; and then\nonly when the work is done do indifferent spectators discover that any\nwork has been going on. Their true type is that temple of God in whose\nbuilding neither hammer, nor axe, nor tool of iron was heard, because\nthe stones had been brought thither ready hewn for the building.\n\nIn this course of lectures it is my design to discuss the fall of\nPaganism and the triumph of Christianity in the Roman empire; but\nobviously this subject is too large for adequate treatment within the\nspace of three short lectures. I am obliged, therefore, to limit it in\nsome way or other; and it seemed to me that I could not do better than\ntake the reign of Julian the Apostate as the central feature in the\npicture, and group around it such other facts as may be required to\nexplain its significance. There are many advantages in this mode of\ntreatment. This Paganism was never exhibited to more advantage than in\nthe person of this, its greatest and most energetic champion. High\npersonal character, no common intellectual gift, great military\nrenown, supreme political power, perfect knowledge of his adversary,\nabsolute and unflinching devotion to his own cause--all these united\nto make Julian the most formidable antagonist which the Church ever\nhad, or might be expected to have. His career showed what Paganism\ncould do, and what it could not do. The ability of the champion only\nexposed the helplessness of the cause. And again, a full blaze of\nlight is poured upon this one man and this one reign such as rarely\nfalls to any period of ancient history. Julian himself, devoted\nfriends, impartial critics, sworn foes, heathen and Christian,\northodox and Arian--all have contributed to the completeness of the\nportraiture. This strange character, half philosopher, half fanatic,\nthe most wary of dissemblers, and the most Quixotic of adventurers,\nstands before us with a distinctness of feature which leaves nothing\nto be desired.\n\nIn order to understand the man and the epoch it is necessary to take\nup the course of history more than half a century before he ascended\nthe throne. The starting-point in our review of events is the most\nremote province of the empire--the island of Britain. On the 25th of\nJuly, 306, Constantine was proclaimed Emperor by the Roman Legionaries\nat York. \"Oh, happy Britain,\" says a heathen panegyrist, not then\nforeseeing the stupendous results, \"Oh, happy Britain! that it has\nfirst seen Constantine as Caesar.\" This was the commencement of a long\nreign, extending over more than thirty years--the longest in the\nannals of Imperial Rome since Augustus. In the interval of three\ncenturies which separated these two remarkable men, no emperor had\nreigned who deserved to be considered great as they were. And their\nlives are linked together in another way. The one reign saw\nChristianity cradled in the manger; the other witnessed it seated on\nthe throne. On October 27th, 312, some two miles from the walls of\nRome, where the Great North Road crosses the Tiber, was fought the\ndecisive battle of the Milvian Bridge. The routed army with its\ncaptain and rival Emperor, the heathen champion Maxentius, perished in\nthe waters of the Tiber, and Constantine entered the Imperial\ncity--the stronghold of Paganism--in triumph. On June 15th, 313, was\nsigned the great charter of religious toleration--the Edict of Milan,\nissued in the joint names of the Emperors Constantine and Licinius. By\nthis edict Christianity was recognised as a lawful religion. The\nsacred places, and the property which had been taken from the\nChristians during the great persecution were restored to them once\nmore. Every man was allowed henceforth to adopt any form of worship\nwhich he might choose. On the 25th of July, 325, the anniversary of\nhis accession and the inauguration of the twentieth year of his reign,\nConstantine, then sole Emperor, brought the Council of Nicaea to a\nclose. He had been present at several of its sittings, and throughout\nhad exerted himself to the utmost to secure unanimity. By a higher\ninspiration, yet not without his instrumentality, the deliberations of\nthe assembled Bishops resulted in the Creed which was to be henceforth\nand for ever the basis of unity in the Church.\n\nBut, meanwhile, what was Constantine himself? It is strange that,\nnotwithstanding the prominent part taken by this Emperor in the\nestablishment and consolidation of the Church, historians have been\nfound to doubt the genuineness of his conversion, I do not think that\nthe facts justify any such hesitation. For the sincerity of his\nChristian profession we have two guarantees, which, combined, must, I\nthink, be regarded as conclusive. It was gradual, and it was\ndisinterested. It was gradual. I shall say nothing here of his\nmiraculous conversion, of the fiery cross in the heavens, with the\ninscribed words, \"Hereby conquer,\" which is said to have appeared to\nhim shortly before the battle of the Milvian Bridge. What truth\nunderlies this story we shall never know; but, judging by his public\nactions, we trace a gradual advance towards a more distinct reception\nof Christianity. His father Constantine had been a believer in one\nGod. He had extended his protection to the Christians when they were\npersecuted by his Imperial colleagues. This Monotheism and this\ntoleration descended to Constantine, as it were, by inheritance. For\nsome years after his accession he appears not to have advanced much\nbeyond this point. On the triumphal arch erected in Rome to\ncommemorate his victory over Maxentius, and which still spans one of\nthe approaches of the Forum, his success is ascribed to the\nsuggestions of \"the Divinity.\" Such language is exactly what his\nfather, who was not a Christian, might have used, what heathen\nphilosophers did use again and again. This vague expression, \"The\nDivinity,\" is repeated several times afterwards in Imperial edicts.\nThere is as yet no personal profession of Christianity. The Edict of\nMilan puts the Christians on the same political level as the Pagan. It\ngives them no advantage; but, by degrees, his language becomes more\nexplicit, and his legislation more directly favours the Christians.\nThe Council of Nicaea is the climax of aggressive ascent. Again it was\ndisinterested. As a mere question of worldly policy, I think it can\nhardly be doubted that Constantine acted very unwisely in embracing\nChristianity. His Christian subjects were still a comparatively small\nminority--an aggressive minority it is true, but not a dangerous\nminority if properly handled. They would have been won over to a man\nby frank toleration as they had been won over to his predecessor,\nAlexander Severus, and to his father, Constantius Chlorus. They asked\nnothing more than this. But by the further step of declaring himself a\nChristian he had nothing to gain and very much to lose. He alienated\nthe heathen subjects, while his Christian subjects were devoted to him\nalready. Indeed, as a matter of fact, it is quite plain that his\nconversion did lead to much disaffection, and that he was greatly\nhampered by it. Take an instance of this. The secular games, the great\nfestival of thanksgiving for the prosperity of Rome, recurred,\naccording to Roman usage, at long intervals of about one hundred and\nten years. They were celebrated with great pomp and magnificence, and\naccompanied by elaborate propitiatory sacrifices to the tutelary\ndeities of Rome. They had been kept last under Severus, and the time\nhad come for another celebration. But year after year of the long\nreign of Constantine passed, and no notice was taken of them. No\nomission would have wounded more deeply the sensibilities of the\nRomans than this. The heathen historian Zosimus, writing a whole\ncentury after, ascribed all the woes that had befallen the empire to\nthis one fatal neglect. Again, during his second and last visit to\nRome, the Capitoline games were celebrated. A main feature in the\nceremonial was a procession along the sacred way to the Temple of\nJupiter on the Capitol, in which the Emperor himself was expected to\ntake a part. He flatly refused. Looking down from his residence on the\nPalatine Hill as the magnificent train wound round its foot, he broke\nout into expressions of ridicule and contempt. The senate and people\nwere mortally offended. On one occasion, probably during this very\nvisit, his statues were pelted with stones. This insult was reported\nto Constantine by some indignant courtier. The Emperor passed his hand\nacross his brow. He had a strong sense of humour. \"Strange,\" said he,\n\"that I did not feel hurt.\" But he did feel hurt, nevertheless; hurt\nin dignity by this insolence of the Romans, and a new capital arose on\nthe shores of the Bosphorus in protest against the outrage. Christian\nConstantinople was his revenge on heathen Rome. \"He made himself a\nGreek,\" said Dante, \"to leave Rome to the Pope.\" Doubtless the Papal\npower grew more freely when the shadow of the Imperial presence was\nremoved; but the Pope was not in Constantine's mind, and the immediate\neffect was a deadly side-thrust at heathendom. Rome, the stronghold of\nheathen sentiment and worship, languished rapidly from this time.\nPaganism had been stabbed in the heart.\n\nBut while the sincerity of Constantine cannot reasonably be doubted,\nhis inconsistency is quite beyond question. The fact is that he was\nhalf a Pagan to the end, and, as Niebuhr has truly said, we do him a\ngrievous wrong if we judge his actions by a purely Christian standard.\nIn this respect he was only like many of his contemporaries. In that\nage of transition the best heathens were half Christians, and not the\nbest Christians were half heathens. The semi-Paganism of Constantine\nis matched by the semi-Christianity of Julian. I am not concerned with\nthe moral inconsistencies of this Emperor. The sins of Constantine\nwill not condemn the truth of Christianity, any more than the virtues\nof Julian will re-instate the errors of Paganism. Constantine is\nallowed on all hands to have been temperate in his habits and chaste\nin his life; but the domestic history of this great Sovereign was\ndarkened by one horrible tragedy. About twelve months after the\nCouncil of Nicaea, in which he had borne so conspicuous a part, the\nRoman world was horrified by the report of three murders in the\nImperial household. The Emperor's eldest and favourite son, Crispus--a\nyoung man of highest promise--an idol of the public; his little\nnephew--a bright, engaging boy of twelve; his own wife, Fausta, the\nmother of his three younger sons, were ruthlessly put to death. What\nwas the secret of this tragedy we shall never know. It seems most\nprobable that the son was implicated in some dangerous conspiracy,\nthat the nephew was an unconscious tool of the conspirators, and that\nthe wife, having goaded the husband in the first flush of his anger to\nextreme measures against her stepson, herself fell a victim to the\nviolence of his remorse when the revulsion came. There were, we may\nsafely say, circumstances which might extenuate these horrible crimes;\nthere could be none which could justify them. A dark, indelible stain\nrests on the memory of Constantine.\n\nBut if the moral inconsistency of Constantine is the more shocking,\nhis religious inconsistency is the more bewildering. In his recently\nbuilt capital he erected a statue of himself, which exhibited a\nstrange medley of the old and the new, and which may well serve for a\ntype of his career as a sovereign. The Emperor was represented as a\nfollower of the Deity, whom he himself had adopted as his patron in\nthe old days of his Paganism--the Deity whom his apostate nephew ever\nregarded with special reverence; but in the aureole which encircled\nthe head the rays took the form of the nails, the instruments of\nChrist's passion. It was believed that at the base of this statue\nConstantine had placed a fragment of the true cross. It is also stated\nthat in this same place was deposited the palladium--the cherished\nrelic of Pagan Rome, which AEneas was said to have rescued from the\nflames of Troy, and which Constantine himself stealthily removed to\nhis new capital. It is just the same with his legislation. Thus we\nfind almost side by side, promulgated within two months of each other,\ntwo Imperial decrees--the one enjoining that Sunday shall be set apart\nas a day of rest; the other providing that when the palace or any\npublic building is struck by lightning, the soothsayers shall be\nconsulted as to the meaning of the prodigy, according to ancient\ncustom, and the answer reported to the Emperor himself. When, indeed,\nwe see this juxtaposition of Christianity and Paganism, we are\nforcibly reminded that Constantine was one and at the same time the\nsummoner of the Nicene Council and the chief Pontiff of heathenism.\nThus, at one moment, he was preaching sermons to his courtiers and\ndiscussing dogmas with his bishops; and, at the next, he was issuing\norders for the regulation of some Pagan ritual. The same fountain\n_did_ send forth sweet waters and bitter. And this incongruity\nheld him captive to the last, even beyond the gates of death. In his\nnewly built eastern capital--Christian Constantinople--he was buried\nby his own directions in a church amidst the memorials of the\napostles, and \"the equal of the apostles\" was the title accorded to\nhim by common consent. In his forsaken western capital--heathen\nRome--he was, as a matter of course, deified, as his Imperial\npredecessors had been deified, as he himself had deified his own\nfather Constantius; and by virtue of this apotheosis he took his rank,\nnot only with an Augustus or a Trajan, but with a Commodus and a\nCaracalla among the gods of Olympus. A strange blending of incongruous\nelements. And yet, whatever may have been felt of Constantine's life,\nhowever much of Paganism may have alloyed his Christianity hitherto,\nwhen the end came there was no more halting between two opinions.\nFailing health to one who was endowed with a singularly robust\nconstitution came as an unmistakable sign of the approaching change.\nThe warning was not lost upon him. The increased fervour of his\ndevotions was noticed by all. On one occasion he spent a whole night\nin the church praying. Strange to say, this zealous theological\ndisputant, this foremost champion of the truth, had not hitherto been\nbaptised. He was not even a catechumen. But now, when he felt himself\nsinking, he eagerly pressed that baptism might not be delayed. This\nwish was granted, and the rite was administered. This done, he\ndevoutly expressed his thanksgivings for the mercy vouchsafed to him,\nand his readiness to go at once on his last heavenward journey. He\nrefused again to assume the Imperial purple, and, so arrayed still in\nthe white robe of his baptism, he was laid on his couch to await the\nend.\n\nOn the 22nd of May, 337--it was Whit Sunday, the appropriate festival\nof the newly baptised--about noon, the great Emperor breathed his\nlast. He was succeeded by his three sons--Constantine, Constantius,\nand Constans. The three princes were scarcely seated on the throne,\nwhen the Imperial family became again the scene of a horrible tragedy\nas shocking as that which had left so dark a stain on their father's\nlife. The soldiers rose up and massacred not less than nine princes of\nthe blood--the brothers and nephews of the deceased Emperor. Nearly a\ncentury later an untrustworthy historian gives currency to a story\nthat Constantine himself had directed these massacres, having\ndiscovered that he had been poisoned by his brothers. For this\nshameful libel on them and on him there is absolutely no foundation.\nAll the circumstances are against it, and it may safely be dismissed\nas a foul calumny. More specious is the view that the new Emperor\nConstantius, then a young man of twenty-one, was implicated in the\nmassacre; but it was done, if not by his direct orders, at least with\nhis tacit connivance. But, however this may be, the incident has a\nvery direct bearing on the subject of these lectures. In this carnage,\nbesides the three Emperors themselves, two children alone escaped. The\nother members of the Imperial family perished to a man. The survivors\nwere the two sons of one of Constantine's brothers, Julius\nConstantius; Gallus, a boy of twelve or thirteen; and Julian, a child\nof six or seven, of whom we shall hear much hereafter. Their father\nand their eldest brother were amongst the slain.\n\nOf the three brothers who divided the empire of Constantine we are\nconcerned only with one--the eldest, Constantine, and the youngest,\nConstans, perished in two successive revolutions. The middle and\nsurviving brother, Constantius, united again all the dominions of his\nfather under his sceptre. He alone left his mark on the history of the\nChurch. He alone shaped the destinies and swayed the feelings of his\nrelative, Julian. It is worth our while to form a closer acquaintance\nwith this man, who was the evil genius of his cousin and ward.\nConstantius had not inherited the towering strength and commanding\nmien of his father. He was under the average height, with a long body\nand short, bowed legs. His complexion was very dark, his hair smooth\nand glossy. He had prominent and keen eyes, recalling the piercing\nglance which his father Constantine had cast around on the assembled\nBishops in the Council-hall of Nicaea, and which never failed to strike\nawe into the beholders. The crimes of Constantine were those of a\nstrong, impulsive, half-barbarous nature. The crimes of Constantius\nwere due to cold calculation and to indifference to the commonest\nclaims of humanity. He was cautious to excess, sparing of his rewards,\nand backward in his confidences. He was mean, selfish, suspicious\nalmost to fanaticism, shrinking from no cruelty when his fears were\nalarmed. It is noticed as characteristic of the man that when borne\nthrough the streets of Rome on a triumphal chariot he was seen,\nnotwithstanding his short stature, to bend his head as he passed under\neach archway. Yet he was not a man without redeeming virtues and some\nreal ability. Like his father, he was temperate and just, so that,\nnotwithstanding his many enemies, scandal itself was forced into\nsilence. He could be sparing of rest and prodigal of labour when the\ninterests of the State demanded it. He was gracious, too, in his\ndemeanour, and with many--as even his cousin Julian is obliged to\nconfess--bore a reputation for clemency. He sustained the honours of\nhis Imperial rank with a dignity which never forgot itself, while he\nshowed a contempt of mere vulgar popularity which even unfriendly\ncritics described as magnanimous. Of his disastrous influence on the\nreligious sentiments of Julian I shall have to speak hereafter. For\nthe present I confine myself to the part which he took in determining\nthe relative positions of Christianity and Paganism in the empire.\nUnlike his father Constantius, he had been brought up a Christian from\nhis infancy. His doctrinal views were very distorted, his moral\nconduct was often a gross libel on the Gospel; but where it was a\nquestion between Paganism and Christianity the sympathies of the\nEmperor were exerted wholly and undisguisedly on the side of the\nlatter. On the whole, therefore, there is less of heathenism in the\npublic memorials and the official acts of this reign than in the\npreceding. The Pagan emblems diminish; the Pagan enactments in the\nStatute Book are fewer. But still Constantius, like Constantine,\ncontinues to hold the office of supreme pontiff, and this necessarily\nleads to an official complicity in the rites and institutions of\nPaganism. In this capacity he issues edicts for the service of heathen\nsepulture, for the repairing of heathen temples, for the support of\nheathen priests. When, a quarter of a century later, the heathen\norator Symmachus pleaded the cause of expiring Paganism before the\nEmperor of his day, he appealed to the example of Constantius, who,\nthough himself possessing a different faith, respected the ancient\nrites, and provided for their due maintenance out of the public\ntreasury. But avarice often over-leaped the bounds which the Imperial\nlaws prescribed. The sacred name of the Gospel was again and again\nprofaned during this reign by spoliation and violence, just as under\nour own Tudor Kings the cause of reformation was sullied by the\nselfish rapacity of the nobles. The Court of Constantius was beset\nwith greedy and unscrupulous adventurers; and knowing the private\nsympathies of the Emperor, they would not be slow to seize the\nopportunities where any real or reported scandal of Paganism gave a\nhandle for interference. Such opportunities would not be rare. Thus\nPaganism held on, still maintained and protected by law, but exposed\nto occasional outrages from individual violence, when, by a sudden\ncatastrophe, it found itself seated once more on the throne.\n\nOn the 3rd of November, 361, in the twenty-fifth year of his reign,\nConstantius died. The event was altogether unexpected; he was still in\nthe prime of life, only forty-five years of age. Temperate habits and\nvigorous outdoor exercises had kept him in perfect and unbroken\nhealth; but he was seized with a fever, and sank rapidly. There was\nonly time to send to Antioch for the Bishop to administer that\nsacrament, which is ordained as the inauguration, but which, with him,\nas with his father, was the consummating act of his Christian\nprofession. Immediately after his baptism he expired. His cousin\nJulian, the only surviving Prince of the house of Constantine, was his\nunquestioned successor. Thus Christianity, having wielded the Imperial\nsceptre for more than half a century, was again deposed. Of the\neducation and the apostasy, of the reign and work of the new Emperor,\nI hope to speak to you in my two concluding lectures.\n\n\n\n\nII.[9]\n\n\nIn my lecture last Tuesday I passed under review the two long reigns\nof Constantine and Constantius, comprising altogether a period of\nfifty-five years. We were thus brought to the accession of Julian.\nWhat, then, was the change wrought in the relations of Christianity\nand Paganism during this period? Most persons, I imagine, would answer\nwithout misgiving that Christianity had been established on the ruins\nof heathenism. This answer, however, would be wholly inaccurate.\nPaganism was in no sense disestablished, and Christianity was only in\na very limited sense established. Paganism was still the official\nreligion of the empire. Whatever might be the individual faith of the\nsovereign, yet, as the head of the State, he was still the chief\nrepresentative of heathenism, both in life and in death. In life he\nwas the supreme pontiff, the fountain head of authority over all the\npriests, temples, rituals, throughout the empire; in death the\nrepresentation was transformed from earth to heaven. By his apotheosis\nhe became a patron divinity of Rome. A pagan calendar is still extant\nin which all the festivals of the deified Constantine are duly\nrecorded. Now there was not and there could not be any such alliance\nwith the State on the part of Christianity. However strong might be\nthe Emperor's personal sympathies; however much he might mix himself\nup in the internal affairs of the Church; whatever privileges or\nimmunities he might extend to the clergy,--yet officially he had no\nrecognised position, officially he was a Pagan still. When, therefore,\nit is said that Paganism was disestablished and Christianity\nestablished in its stead, the position of affairs is entirely\nmisconceived. The personal religion of the sovereign had nothing\nwhatever to do with the official religion of the State. In modern\ncountries, for the most part, the two coincide, and it is well that\nthis should be so; but there are some exceptions. England under James\nII., and Saxony at the present moment, are cases in point.\n\nBut while Paganism was in no sense disestablished, Christianity might\nbe said to a certain extent, though only to a very limited extent, to\nhave been established side by side with it. The principle which in our\nown day has been called \"levelling up,\" had been partially adopted.\nChristianity was not only tolerated as a lawful religion, but some\npolitical privileges had been extended to it. Thus, for instance, one\nenactment of Constantine exempts the Christian clergy from certain\nonerous duties, while another secures to the Pagan priests this same\nprivilege. In this respect the two religions are put on exactly the\nsame footing. Here is a case, if not of concurrent endowment, at least\nof concurrent immunity, which comes to the same thing.\n\nThe fact is, that both Christian and heathen writers were interested\nin representing the change effected by the early Christian emperors as\nmore complete than it was. To the Christian writer it was a point of\nhonour to clear them from any stain of complicity with Paganism. To\nthe heathen writer, wise after the event, the memory of those princes\nwas naturally odious, and to exaggerate their hostility to the gods\nwas to deepen the stain on their characters. But we have fortunately\nother witnesses quite free from suspicion. The coins, and the\ninscriptions, and the decrees, tell a very different tale. They show\nthat in all essential respects Paganism, at least in the West, was as\nfree to develop itself as before. They reveal to us temples built,\npriesthoods established, sacrifices offered, as hitherto; they exhibit\nthe name of the Emperor connected with the worship of Jupiter the\nPreserver, of Mars the Champion, of Hercules the Conqueror, of Sol the\nInvincible. Hercules is still the preserver of Caesar, and Sol is still\nthe companion of Augustus. They show that the worship of the Lydian\nCybele still flourished on the hill Vatican, and the worship of the\nPersian Mithras was still maintained in the vaults of the Capitol. All\nthis it is necessary to bear in mind if we would understand the true\nposition of Julian. It is quite a mistake to suppose that he had to\nbegin _de novo_, and to re-establish Paganism. It still held the\npolitical vantage ground, however much it had lost in social prestige;\nand if it had had any inherent vitality at all, its work of\nrestoration could have been as successful as in fact it proved futile.\n\nWhat, then, was the real nature of the injury which this half-century\nof Christian supremacy in the person of the sovereign had inflicted on\nPaganism? First of all, the Imperial legislation, while it protected\nand even fostered the central institutions of Paganism, zealously\nassailed some outlying works. On two points especially it was\nuncompromising. It rigorously proscribed divination, and sternly\nrepressed certain special rites accompanied by licentious orgies. In\nneither respect, however, did it go beyond what during the Republic\nand under the early emperors had again and again been held necessary\nto secure the safety of the city and the morals of the people. But\nhowever justifiable, according to heathen precedents, this legislation\nof the early Christian emperors had proved a fatal blow to heathendom,\nfor it was just here that the ardour of popular religion had\nconsecrated itself. The patient energy, the suggestive mysticism, even\nthe immoral orgies of the Oriental religions, had been found to have\nan irresistible attraction, and the ancient rites of Greece and Rome,\nwhich seemed cold and passionless by their side, were deserted for\nthese new favourites. They were, it was true, only the buttresses of\nthe old polytheism. The original structure of Roman and Hellenic\nworship was untouched; but when the main building was crumbling with\nage the removal of these ancient supports which had shored it up was\nfatal, and it fell by its own weight.\n\nBut, secondly, the erection of a new capital was a not less deadly\nblow to Paganism. Rome was the central fortress of heathendom: to\nwithdraw from it the Imperial Government was to deprive it of its\nammunition. After the building of Constantinople, Rome still remained\nthe formal official capital of the empire; but, practically, its\ninfluence was gone. It no longer guided deliberation; it simply\nrecorded results. And not only was Paganism materially weakened by\nthis transference, but at the same time Christianity was delivered\nfrom its fetters. Constantinople was a Christian city from the\nbeginning. Paganism had here no prescriptive claim and no\ntime-honoured prestige. So long as the Imperial Government remained at\nRome, it found itself inextricably entangled in Paganism. Constantine\nhad felt its merciless strength, and the foundation of a new capital\nwas his escape from it.\n\nYet, after all, such weapons as these would have been quite\nineffective, if Paganism had possessed any inherent vitality. The grip\nof death was already upon it before the arm of power was raised\nagainst it. It was as when, after long centuries, the tomb of some\nancient king is laid open, the stately form, and the majestic\nfeatures, and the royal robes are exposed to our view. For the moment\nhe seems to be living still as he lived in history; but we look again,\nand we see only a handful of dust. Sealed in its sepulchre, the corpse\nmight have preserved its outward form for ages still; but the air and\nthe light were poured in upon it, and all at once it crumbles away.\nPaganism was confronted with Christianity, and it vanished.\n\nThe infancy of Julian had been dabbled in blood. His earliest\nrecollections would carry him back to the time when fathers, brothers,\nuncles, cousins, all had fallen in one indiscriminate massacre. From\nthis carnage he and his brother Gallus alone had escaped; he himself,\nso he believed, because he was too young to be feared, and his brother\nbecause he was then a sickly boy, and seemed not to have long to live.\nThe odium of this foul crime, whether justly or unjustly, rested on\nhis cousin, the Emperor Constantius. If Constantius had not directly\nordered it, he was thought to have connived at it. Certainly he had\nbeen on the spot, and, whether for want of power or for want of will,\nhe had not prevented it. The courtiers and attendants attempted to\npalliate his cousin's guilt to the child Julian. They represented to\nhim that Constantius had been deceived; that he was unable to restrain\nthe savage outbreak of the soldiers; that he suffered fearful pangs of\nremorse; that he attributed to this crime all the misfortunes of his\nafter life. It seems plain from this account that the spectre of this\nghastly massacre haunted Julian's childish memory. He could not but\nfeel that the bare sword was hanging over his own neck.\n\nJulian was left an orphan before he was seven years old. His mother\nhad died a few months after his birth. His father had perished, as we\nhave seen. For some years after the massacre, he appears to have\nresided at Constantinople. Of his brother Gallus we hear nothing\nduring this period. Julian himself was placed under the charge of an\nold family servant--a Scythian, Mardonius by name, a strict and\npedantic disciplinarian, but also a man of culture, as the sequel\nshows. Mardonius taught his pupil to keep his eyes fixed on the ground\nas he took his walks. He led him always to and fro to school by the\nsame way, knowing no other himself, and preventing the lad from\ndiscovering any other. He strictly prohibited him from going to the\ntheatre or the circus, and altogether filled his mind with a distaste\nfor the popular amusements of his age. We hear nothing of\ncompanionship, nothing of outdoor exercise, nothing of the\ncheerfulness and the sympathy which are equally necessary with the\nmoral discipline and the intellectual training for the proper\nexpansion of child's faculties. Julian was not like other children.\nWhatever may have been his natural disposition, his education had\nnever allowed him to be a boy. Human nature, more especially childish\nnature, must seek relief somewhere from hard conventional restraints.\nWhere all the usual outlets are closed, the buoyancy and the\nenthusiasm of the child will devise some means of escape. The paradise\nof Julian's childish existence was made up of two things. First, his\ntutor Mardonius was an enthusiastic admirer of Homer. If he prevented\nhim from playing in the field he took him to the leafy islands of\nCalypso, to the Cave of Circe and the Gardens of Alcinous. With a less\nintelligent child this might have bred a feeling of disgust; but\nJulian was quick, imaginative, absorbing, and here was field for his\nsensibility. And, again, though his walks might be confined to one\ncity, and to one street in that city, yet no bounds could shut out the\nglories of the heavens above. We have Julian's own authority for\nsaying that his childish imagination was profoundly impressed by their\ncontemplation. \"From my earliest days,\" he wrote long afterwards, \"a\nstrange yearning after the rays of the God, the Sun God, sunk into my\nsoul; and thus from the time I was quite a little child, when I looked\nat the light of heaven, I was beside myself with ecstasy, so that not\nonly would I look eagerly and fixedly on the sun, but at night also,\nwhen there was a cloudless and clear sky, I gave up everything at\nonce, and was rivetted by the beauties of the heavens, no longer\nunderstanding anything that any one spoke to me, nor giving heed to\nmyself what I was doing.\" These, then, were the two bright spots which\nrelieved the gloom of his childish life--the literature of Greece and\nthe contemplation of the heavens. How large an influence these early\nmemories had on his later apostasy, it will not be difficult to\nimagine.\n\nThis went on for some years with slight interruptions, and then there\nwas a complete change. It was apparently about the year 344, when\nJulian would be thirteen or fourteen years old, and Gallus eighteen or\nnineteen, that, by the Emperor's orders, the two brothers were carried\naway to Macellum, an imperial castle in the mountain districts of\nCappadocia. There they spent the next six years of life in strict\nretirement. What may have been the reason of this change we are not\ntold, but we can easily suspect. Gallus was now growing up to manhood.\nHe was tall, well made, and handsome, with flowing auburn hair; not\nunlike his uncle, the great Constantine, as we may infer from the\ndescription of the two men. The suspicious temper of Constantius might\ntake alarm lest this young man should become the centre of\ndisaffection and treason. But, however this may be, the seclusion was\ncomplete. Julian speaks of it as banishment. To himself it was the\nworst kind of banishment. He was banished not only from the city and\nthe court, about which probably he knew little and cared less, but he\nwas banished also from his books and his teachers. The two brothers\nsaw no one of their own rank; their domestics were their only\nassociates. Gallus was no companion for Julian. He had no literary\ntaste; notwithstanding his handsome looks he was coarse and violent,\neven ferociously brutal, in his disposition, as the sequel shows. The\ntreatment of Julian during this critical period of his life must have\nbeen altogether injurious to the healthy development of his character.\nA cramped boyhood almost certainly produces a one-sided manhood.\n\nAt length, after six years of seclusion, the brothers were again set\nfree. What was the motive of Constantius--whether he considered that\nthey had been sufficiently restrained, or whether some conscientious\nscruples found their way into his heart--we cannot say. Gallus and\nJulian were summoned to Constantinople. Soon after this a formidable\ninsurrection broke out in the West, and Constantius found it necessary\nto associate some one with him in the cares of the empire. Accordingly\nGallus, then twenty-five years old, was nominated Caesar, and appointed\nto the command of the East. The appointment was most disastrous. Now\nthat he was free from control, the innate ferocity of his disposition\nrevealed itself. He has been compared, and the comparison does him no\ninjustice, to a bloodthirsty tiger, who has broken through the bars of\nhis cage, and, enraged by long confinement, fiercely attacks every one\nwho comes in his way. Complaints of his savage, turbulent\nadministration came thick upon the ears of Constantius. There were\nalso rumours of a disloyal conspiracy on the part of the new Caesar.\nConstantius might, perhaps, have forgiven the misgovernment; but the\ntreason could not be overlooked. Gallus was recalled, stripped of the\npurple, and put to death without a hearing. Constantius had dyed his\nhand once more in the blood of Julian's kindred. Julian was left alone\nin the world, confronted by the tyrant. This happened in the year 354.\n\nBut while the caged passions of Gallus had sought compensation in this\nsavage outbreak, the caged intellect of Julian was running riot in its\nown way. For a time he seems to have enjoyed comparative freedom. At\nConstantinople, at Nicomedia, at Pergamos, at Ephesus, we hear of his\nattendance on philosophers, on rhetoricians, on teachers of all kinds.\nThe jealousy of Constantius could look with complacency on his\nphilosophical and literary ardour. An ungainly, enthusiastic,\nunpractical scholar was the last man whom he need fear as a rival. It\nwas during this period of turbulent, energetic, unreflecting,\nintellectual activity that the change came upon him. Whatever might\nhave been the religious feelings of his boyhood, it was only now that\nPaganism asserted its power over his mind. The incident that decided\nhis apostasy is eminently characteristic of the man and of the period.\nIt happened in the year 351, the same year as that in which Gallus was\ninvested with the purple, when Julian himself was twenty years of age.\nIn the course of conversation one of his teachers happened to speak of\nMaximus, a famous philosopher, whom he described as possessing great\nnatural gifts, and as accompanying his teaching by demonstrations.\nJulian's curiosity was excited. He demanded an explanation. He was\ntold that on one occasion Maximus, in the presence of the speaker and\nothers, had burnt a grain of incense in the temple of Hecate and\nchanted some mysterious hymn, when suddenly they saw the statue of the\ngoddess smile upon him. On their expressing surprise, he told them\nthat they should see a greater marvel than this--the torches in the\nhands of the goddess should burst out into flames of their own accord.\nHe had scarcely said the word when the lights burst out from the\ntorches. \"Stay with your books,\" said Julian, \"and I wish you joy of\nthem; I have found the man I have been seeking for.\" He sought out\nMaximus, and was initiated in his philosophy and his magic.\n\nThis grotesque and unnatural combination was, as I have said,\ncharacteristic of the man and of the age. In earlier times philosophy\nand popular superstition were deadly foes, but in face of Christianity\nboth the one and the other had learnt their weakness, and this unequal\nalliance was patched up. The new Platonist philosophy adopted not only\nthe mythology of Greece and Rome, but the nature-worship and the magic\nof the East. A true theology must appeal at once to the intellect\nwhich demands a reason for its allegiance, and to the religious\ninstinct which is conscious of dependence on a higher power.\nChristianity recognises both these claims. Greek philosophy appealed\nto the one faculty; Pagan religion to the other. Thus divided they\ncould do nothing, though the alliance was formed. It was well\nconceived, but it was impossible, because it was a fundamental\nviolation of truth. Julian, the champion of heathendom, advanced to\nslay Christianity with philosophy in his right hand and superstition\nin his left, and both weapons shivered in his grasp.\n\nJulian was a Pagan now, but he carefully concealed the change. During\nthe next ten years, until the death of Constantius, this cloak of\ndissimulation was never thrown aside. The immediate outward effect of\nhis conduct was a stricter attention to the services of the Church.\nThe old fable, said his heathen friend Libanius afterwards, was here\nreversed, and the lion was clothed in the ass's skin. Only one or two\nmost intimate friends were in the secret, but it was more widely\nsuspected. Ardent Pagans began to look to him as the future restorer\nof Paganism; old prophecies were banded about that Christianity was\nsoon to come to an end. One such oracle fixed the limit of 365 years\nfor the worship of Christ. The term was fast drawing to a close. I\nshall not undertake the task of arraigning Julian as before the bar of\nthe Eternal Righteousness. All such attempts to anticipate the verdict\nof the Great Judge must be as vain as they are presumptuous; but it is\ndue to the nobler features of his character--and these were neither\nfew nor insignificant--to dwell on the extenuating circumstances of\nhis case. And surely no man's education was more faulty, or more\nlikely to produce a disastrous revulsion. Christianity was associated\nin his memory with everything that was gloomy, terrible, repulsive.\nIts champion, in his eyes, was his most deadly enemy, Constantius, who\nhad shed the blood of his nearest kinsmen, and who was ready at any\nmoment to shed his own blood when the occasion might demand. Writing\nof himself at a later date in apathetic allegory, he describes himself\nas a youth who, looking back upon the mass of evil that had befallen\nhim from his own kinsmen and cousins, was so astounded that he\nresolved to throw himself down to Tartarus, but was rescued by Helios,\nthe Sun God. This throws a flood of light on the personal influences\nwhich coloured his views of Christianity, and finally led to his\napostasy. Moreover, the form of Christianity which was presented to\nhim was not calculated to impress him deeply or favourably. The\ncoldness of asceticism would take no firm hold of his ardent and\nenthusiastic nature. Its representatives, the Arian bishops, would not\nrecommend the cause; the exceeding bitterness of theologic controversy\ncalled down his contempt, and the superstitious reverence for the\nbones of the martyrs aroused his disgust. In the allegory to which I\nhave already alluded he speaks of himself as a child covered with\nfilth and dirt, on whom the Sun God at length took pity. Whatever rays\nof light had burst the gloom of his earlier life were associated with\nthe glories of nature.\n\nWhile this strange revel of philosophy and fanaticism was going on in\nhis mind, Julian visited Athens--Athens at once the home of Greek\nliterature and the sanctuary of Pagan idolatry. No place more\ncongenial to his temper could have been chosen than this. Here it was\nthat he fell in with two devout Christian students, Gregory and\nBasil--names destined hereafter to be famous in the history of the\nChurch. Gregory has left a description of the future emperor as he\nappeared at this time--a speaking likeness we cannot doubt. The\nconvulsive movements of the shoulder, the half-scared, half-frenzied\nglance of the eye, the grotesque contortions of the face, the\ntumultuous, hesitating speech, the loud, immoderate laughter, the\nrestlessness of the whole man from head to foot, seemed to Gregory to\nbode no good. Much of this was natural to Julian, but much, also, may\nhave been due to the consciousness of the secret seething within his\nsoul. We know what Gregory did not know--that Julian was a Pagan\nalready when he was discussing Christian topics with Christian\nstudents.\n\nBut Julian's studies were rudely interrupted. Constantius again found\nthe burden of the empire too heavy for his shoulders, and again he\nresolved to divide it. Julian, very reluctantly on his part, was\nappointed Caesar, and charged with the administration of Gaul. He was\nnow twenty-five years of age. The courtiers of Constantius laughed at\nthe new Caesar, and certainly the appointment did not give any fair\npromise of success. But this enthusiastic philosopher, this student\nrecluse, soon showed that he had in him the making not only of an able\nruler, but also of a consummate general. In vain the flatterers of\nConstantius ridiculed Julian's petty triumphs, as they were pleased to\ncall them; in vain they dubbed him a scribbling Greek. Campaign after\ncampaign added to his reputation. His administration of Gaul was\nunmistakably brilliant. So matters went on for five years, till the\njealousy of Constantius brought about a crisis. An ill-judged attempt\nto withdraw Julian's best Gaulish troops produced a mutiny; the\nsoldiers proclaimed him emperor, and he accepted the title. Having\nassumed the imperial purple, he marched to force his recognition on\nConstantius; but he was saved the peril of an appeal to arms. Fever\nanticipated the conflict, and carried off Constantius opportunely.\nJulian was now absolute emperor, master of himself and master of the\nworld. He could throw off the mask at length; he was free to carry out\nhis long cherished design for the restoration of Paganism. With what\nenergy, with what devotion, with what fanaticism, with what futility\nhe worked for this end it will be my business in my next and\nconcluding lecture to describe.\n\n\n\n\nIII.[10]\n\n\nThe history of Julian has been employed as an apologue by more than\none writer when satirising some religious reaction of his day. A\nwell-known living theological critic of Germany uses it as a cloak for\nan attack on the late King of Prussia, and English clergymen under the\nreign of James II., assailing the religious tendencies of the King,\ndenounced him as another Julian the Apostate. Such comparisons may\nserve their immediate purpose, but they are almost always misleading,\nand may be very unjust. I think, however, that we may, with advantage,\ncompare this Pagan reaction in the Roman empire under Julian with the\nPapal reaction in England under Mary. The two sovereigns, indeed, have\nlittle in common except their manifest sincerity, but the general\nrelations and the ultimate effects of the two movements are not so\nvery dissimilar. They both interposed after a very decided\npredominance of the opposite cause; they both were a return to the\nforms of the past; they both involved a reversal of the traditional\npolicy of the reigning house; they both were short in duration, but\nresolute, uncompromising, energetic in action; and they both proved\nutterly futile in the result, because they were unsupported by any\ndeep feeling in the mass of the people. So far as they produced any\neffects at all, they served only to nerve the energies and reassure\nthe confidence of their antagonists.\n\nJulian was now thirty years old when the death of Constantius left him\nsole master of the Roman empire. In stature he was rather below the\naverage height; his frame was muscular and strong; his shoulders were\nunusually broad; his neck was thick and arched; he had a bright and\npiercing eye--the family characteristic which was so remarkable in his\nuncle Constantine; the upper part of his face, the brow, and the nose\nwere fine and well chiselled; his mouth was too large, and his lower\nlip hung disagreeably. He wore a rough, pointed beard, the usual\nappendage of philosophers. Of his personal appearance he was\nstudiously careless. It would almost seem as though the courtly\ndignity and scrupulous neatness of his cousin Constantius had produced\na revulsion in him. He ostentatiously vaunts his unpolished manner and\nhis slovenly habits. He was signally undignified in all his gestures.\nOf his excitability and his restlessness of manner I have already\nspoken. He was a hurried, reckless talker. His tongue, we are told,\nwas never at rest. His energy was enormous. During his administration\nof Gaul, when his days had been spent in the anxieties of government\nor in the toils of war, he would sit up half the night studying or\nwriting. When he became Emperor his energy seemed only to increase.\nThe great purpose of his life, the restoration and reform of Paganism,\nwas now definitely before him, and he worked at it with a\ndetermination which never slackened. Into a short reign of eighteen\nmonths he crowded an amount of work which probably no sovereign has\never surpassed. He had on his shoulders the undivided weight of a\ngreat empire; he was preparing for a difficult and dangerous campaign;\nhe was busied with the hopeless task of restoring an effete religion;\nhe was writing hither and thither to the representatives of\nheathendom, scolding, stimulating, encouraging; and yet he found time\nfor a vast amount of literary work besides. He corresponded with\nrhetoricians and philosophers; he composed orations and hymns in\npraise of heathen deities; he wrote a lengthy and elaborate attack on\nthe Christian religion, and threw off light squibs on his\ncontemporaries and on his predecessors. If his one fatal act of\napostasy had not perverted and spoiled everything, he might have\nranked among the greatest of princes. As it was, he has no claim to\nthe title of greatness. He did nothing which has lived, because he did\nnothing which deserved to live. He left nothing, absolutely nothing,\nbehind which has tended to make mankind happier, or better, or wiser.\n\nJulian, if his own account may be believed, assumed the imperial\ndiadem with the greatest reluctance; it was forced upon him by the\nsoldiers before he knew where he was; and yet there is reason to\nbelieve that his coyness was in great measure affected. It is quite\nclear that he was already possessed of the idea of a Pagan\nrestoration, and that he considered himself as having a special call\nfrom his gods for this work. The Genius of Rome, we are told, appeared\nto him in a vision. He reproached the reluctant Caesar with having so\noften driven him from his doors, and threatened to depart for ever if\nhe were excluded this time. Thus warned, Julian responded to the call;\nbut he still continued to dissemble. We read of his praying to\nMercury, of his receiving admonitions from Jupiter; we are told of his\nconsulting auspices and using divination in private; and yet on the\nfestival of the Epiphany, many months after he had been proclaimed\nEmperor, we find him entering a Christian Church, and there solemnly\noffering up his prayers to Almighty God. His heathen biographer and\nadmirer assigns as the reason, that he might secure the allegiance of\nhis Christian subjects. The strange thing is that neither Julian, nor\nJulian's friends, seemed to think any apology needed for this\ndissimulation. Much, indeed, should be forgiven to one who, from early\nchildhood, had been driven by the cruelty of his lot to shield himself\nunder an impenetrable reserve; but it is hard to understand the moral\nblindness which fails to see that this flagrant violation of truth had\nneed to sue for forgiveness. Those martyrs whom Julian derided and\ndespised held it a glorious gain to sacrifice life and all things\nrather than consent even to a momentary act which might be interpreted\nas a denial of their faith. I need not ask which is the loftier\nspectacle of the two.\n\nBut indeed Julian, notwithstanding the many noble features in his\ncharacter--his justice, his moderation, his strict temperance, his\nunsparing energy--was wholly wanting in those higher graces which are\nthe crown of the Christian character. He was egotistical in the\nextreme; his self-consciousness rarely, if ever, deserts him; he will\nlet all the world know that he is a model philosopher; he is always\nthanking his gods that he is not as other men are. Even when he\nsatirises himself his irony is only a veil--a very thin veil, which\nrather suggests than conceals his self-complacency. He is always\nstanding before the mirror, always soliciting the admiration of\nmankind. Of the childlike humility which is the main portal to the\nkingdom of heaven, he knows nothing. And yet with all this\ndissimulation and all this acting we should do the man a gross\ninjustice if we imagined that he was insincere. Of his sincerity in\nthe work which he undertook he gave every proof which it is possible\nfor a man to give. He showed himself ready to spend and be spent for\nit. This strange combination of the enthusiast and the dissembler, of\nthe fanatic and the philosopher, may be very difficult to realise; but\nthere can be no doubt that they did unite in the person of Julian. In\nthis spirit Julian applied himself to his task.\n\nThis task was two-fold. He must depress Christianity, and he must\nreanimate and reform Paganism. In his relation to Christianity he\navowed himself on principle favourable to absolute toleration. \"I do\nnot wish the Galileans,\" he wrote, \"to be put to death or to be beaten\nunjustly, or to suffer any other wrong. We ought rather to pity than\nto hate those who are unfortunate in matters of the greatest\nimportance.\" How far this was the genuine dictate of his heart, and\nhow far it was suggested by principles of expediency, we cannot tell,\nbut at all events he could not persuade himself to apply his principle\nfrankly. He restored a heretic bishop because his restoration would\ncreate divisions among Christians, and expelled the orthodox\nAthanasius because his presence was a tower of strength to the Church.\nThe letters of Julian on this occasion betray the weakness of his\nposition. He has absolutely nothing to allege against Athanasius\nexcept that he had taught men to treat the gods with contempt, and\nthat he had dared to baptise Greek ladies of rank--in other words,\nthat he was highly successful as a Christian missionary. Having no\nargument, he descends to abuse. He scolds the Alexandrians that\npetition him to rescind the decree of banishment: he reviles\nAthanasius himself; he calls him an impious villain, a vile Manichaean.\nHe responds to their petition by expelling him not from Alexandria\nonly, but from the whole of Egypt. Altogether there is a marked\ndeterioration in Julian's character from the time when he becomes his\nown master. He had plainly supposed that he should carry everything\nbefore him: he had imagined that he had only to proclaim toleration,\nand his subjects would be as enamoured of Paganism as he himself was.\nHe was grievously disappointed. He found in Christianity a strength, a\nvitality, a resistance for which he was not prepared. He found in\nPaganism a feebleness, an irresolution, an indifference, an utter\nabsence of self-sacrifice, which contrasted strangely with his own\ndevoted enthusiasm.\n\nIt is infinitely tragical to contemplate his gradually descending from\nthe high level on which he took his stand at first to mean devices of\nall kinds--more tragical than though he had boldly taken up the sword\nof the persecutor at once. He would not desert his principle of\ntoleration; he never ceased to enunciate that to the last; but he\nwould connive at violations of it. Pagan outrages on the Christians\nwere condoned or gently rebuked. When assaults on their life and their\nproperty were reported to him, he would say, flippantly, these\nGalileans--so he always called them--ought not to resent the\nopportunity of being made martyrs when they prized martyrdom so\nhighly; that they had no just cause for complaint in being condemned\nto poverty when poverty was so loudly extolled in their Lord. But,\nindeed, Julian showed unmistakably by one enactment that toleration\nwith him was not an inviolable principle. An edict was issued by him\nforbidding any Christian to give instruction in Greek literature under\nany circumstances. The reason assigned was that, as they did not\nbelieve in the gods of Homer and Hesiod, they were not fit expositors\non these points. \"Let them go,\" wrote the Emperor, \"to the churches of\nthe Galileans, and there expound Matthew and Luke.\" Among those\ncondemned to silence by this decree were not a few of the most\nillustrious teachers of the age. It made a profound sensation at the\ntime. It was most severely criticised by Julian's own heathen admirers\nat a later date. \"It deserves,\" writes one, \"to be buried in eternal\nsilence.\" To what further lengths the intolerance of Julian might have\ngone as he realised more and more the bitterness of failure if his\nreign had been prolonged, we can only conjecture; but the descent was\nsufficiently rapid to suggest that, soured by disappointment, he\nmight, had he lived, have been found at the last among the most\nrelentless of persecutors.\n\nBut while he was thus employing every artifice to depress\nChristianity, he was also straining every nerve to reanimate and\nrestore Paganism. \"He was,\" says his heathen panegyrist, Libanius,\n\"the best of priests as he was the first of Emperors.\" He valued the\ntitle of Chief Pontiff, we are told, more highly than the dignity of\nEmperor. As Chief Pontiff he made his influence felt throughout the\nempire, reopening temples, restoring privileges, reinstituting\nsacrifices. No deity and no rite in any corner of his dominions\nescaped his vigilance. Whether it was the worship of the Phrygian\nCybele, or of the Apis at Memphis, or of the Daphnian Apollo at\nAntioch, his interest was equally unflagging. He was everywhere\nadvising, coaxing, threatening, goading into activity, where he could\nnot fan into enthusiasm. And not content with thus exercising his\nofficial superintendence, he was most assiduous in his own personal\nservices. In season and out of season he would ply the bystander with\nquestions as to his religious belief. In season and out of season he\nwould dispute against the Galileans. Wherever he went the altars\nsmoked with victims. He would offer sacrifices of a whole hecatomb at\nonce. He ransacked land and sea for rare birds and beasts, that he\nmight offer them in sacrifice to the gods. At Antioch his soldiers\nwere constantly seen borne away from the temple through the streets,\ngorged and intoxicated, after the revelry of these religious\nfestivals. All kinds of divination, by flight of birds, by the\ninspection of entrails, by the sound of waters, by oracular responses,\nand by Sibylline books, were diligently sought out.\n\nEvery charlatan who pretended to some new secret of soothsaying was\nwelcomed by him. Strange to say, all this fervour of devotion did not\nrecommend Julian to his heathen subjects. It shows the hollowness of\nPaganism at this time that his conduct was met either with ridicule or\nwith condemnation. The common people called him in derision a victim\nbutcher, and not a sacrificial priest. It was sneeringly said that if\nhe had returned triumphant from his Persian expedition the whole race\nof cows must have become extinct. The devotion of the Emperor found no\nresponse in the mass of his subjects.\n\nBut Julian was not only a restorer, he was also a reformer of\nheathendom. Whether he was conscious of the difference or not, the\nPaganism which he had set up as his ideal was quite another thing from\nthe Paganism which had been handed down from the past. He strove to\ngraft the morality and the organisation of Christianity on the stem of\nheathendom. The priests of Paganism were merely the performers of\ncertain rites, the depositories of certain mysteries. They had no\nmoral, or educational, or philanthropic conscience. The Christian\nclergy, on the other hand, over and above their duties in the public\nservices of the Church, were expected to be also the pastors and\nteachers, the guides and examples, the ministers of comfort, and the\ndispensers of alms to their flocks. Julian attempted to infuse this\npastoral element into the Pagan priesthood, to which it was wholly\nforeign. In the letters which are extant the priests are enjoined by\nhim to abstain from the theatre or the tavern; they are forbidden to\nengage in any degrading occupation; they are required to see that\ntheir wives, and children, and servants attend regularly on the\nservice of the gods; they are told to imitate the grave demeanour and\nthe benevolent hospitality of Christian bishops. \"It is shameful,\"\nwrites the Emperor, \"that the impious Galileans should support our\npeople as well as their own.\" Such a conception of the priest's office\nmust have surprised Julian's correspondents. They had not bargained\nfor anything of the kind.\n\nBut, with all his efforts, Julian made no real advance. There were, in\nlarge numbers, apostasies when he apostatised, just as there had been\nconversions when Constantine was converted; but these insincere\nadherents from fashion or self-interest are the weakness, not the\nstrength, of any cause. Julian could not have deceived himself. He saw\nnone of the self-sacrifice which is the only evidence of genuine\nreligious conviction. He upbraided the crowds who flocked to the\ntemples, not to worship the gods, but to applaud the Emperor.\n\nAnd now the end was fast approaching. About Midsummer 362, Julian took\nup his residence at Antioch, where he spent nine months preparing for\nhis Persian campaign. This sojourn aggravated his disappointment. The\npeople of Antioch did not take kindly to their sovereign. Before long\nhe had succeeded in making himself equally unpopular with both the\ngreat sections of the community. At Antioch, where Christianity had\nfirst obtained its name, the Christians formed an exceptionally large\nfraction of the whole population. They would not be predisposed\nfavourably towards an apostate, and his injustice only served to\nconfirm their hatred. A fire broke out in the temple of Apollo of\nDaphne, and it was burnt to the ground. Without any adequate reason\nhis suspicions fell on the Christians; he put the suspected persons to\ncruel tortures, but elicited no confession. Thus foiled, he ordered\nthe principal church of Antioch to be closed and razed to the ground.\nThe attitude of the Christians was one of stern defiance. Under the\nwalls of the palace, along the streets of the city, wherever the\nEmperor would be likely to hear, were chanted the words of the\nPsalmist--\"Confounded be all they that worship carved images, and that\ndelight in vain gods. The idols of the heathen are silver and gold,\neven the work of men's hands. Eyes have they and see not. They that\nmake them are like unto them, and so are all they that put their trust\nin them.\" Nor was he more fortunate with the heathen population. He\nand they were co-religionists, but his Paganism was not their\nPaganism. The theatrical exhibitions, the festive orgies, the dancing\nand the revelry, these were the very soul of religious worship to\nthem. He despised all such things. They ridiculed the officious\ndevotion with which he hurried from temple to temple and from altar to\naltar, present at every festival, and participating in every rite. He\ntook his revenge by satirising their ungodliness. He told them at the\ngreat festival of their patron god, the Daphnian Apollo, he had\nexpected to see costly victims smoking on the altar, but found there\nonly one miserable goose, the solitary offering of a poor priest.\nIndeed, he was doomed to disappointment on all sides. One great\nproject which he entertained at this time was the rebuilding of the\ntemple of Jerusalem. It was not that he loved the Jews, but that he\nhated the Christians. So he entered into communication with the Jewish\npatriarch, and the work was commenced. The ruined walls were\ndemolished, the foundations of the new building begun; but as the\nworkmen penetrated underground, great globes of fire burst out from\nthe earth and drove them back. Again and again they renewed the\nattempt; again and again they were repulsed. The project was\nrelinquished and the temple remains unbuilt to this day.\n\nThus irritated and disappointed, Julian left Antioch and commenced his\nmarch. At his departure he vented his anger against the offending\npeople by declaring that he would not enter the city again, but on his\nreturn he would go to Tarsus instead. He was as good as his word. He\ndid return to Tarsus; but he returned there a corpse. Disastrous\nomens, we are told, thronged upon him. During his march on Hierapolis,\nas he entered the city, a portico suddenly gave way, and crushed fifty\nsoldiers under its ruins. At Davana a huge stack of straw fell, and\nsmothered to death as many more. At Carrhae, the fatal scene of the\ndefeat of Crassus, he was troubled with sinister dreams. At Circesium\nhe received letters from Sallust, the Prefect of Gaul, entreating him\nto suspend the ill-omened expedition. Here, too, was an apparition of\nsinister augury. The corpse of an executed criminal was found lying\nacross the path. At another place an enormous lion confronted the\nsoldiers across their path. He was shot by them, and presented to\nJulian. It portended the death of a king, but on the question what\nking was meant there was a division of opinion. The Etruscan\nsoothsayers considered it a disastrous sign; the philosophers\ninterpreted it favourably. The next day a soldier named Julianus was\nstruck down by lightning. This omen again was differently explained.\nThe soothsayers and the philosophers took opposite sides.\n\nArrived at the scene of conflict, the Emperor, after obtaining some\nsuccesses, offered a magnificent sacrifice--ten fine bulls--to Mars\nthe Avenger. The omens were unmistakably sinister. Julian was\ndisgusted with the ingratitude of the god, and called Jupiter to\nwitness that he would not sacrifice to Mars again; \"nor,\" adds the\nhistorian, \"did he belie his oath, being carried off prematurely by a\nspeedy death.\" These prodigies, with others, are related by a Pagan\nwho accompanied the army. Christian writers add an incident of which I\nsee no reason to question the proof, and which certainly deserves to\nbe true. Julian's common taunt against the Christians was their\nworship of a dead man. While preparing for his expedition at Antioch,\nhe fell into dispute, after his manner, with a Christian whom he met\naccidentally, and said mockingly, \"What is the Son of the carpenter\ndoing now?\" \"He is making a coffin,\" was the prompt reply. The Son of\nthe carpenter was making a coffin--a coffin not for Julian only, but\nfor the Paganism of which Julian was the champion.\n\nIt is not necessary for me to follow out this expedition to its\ndisastrous issue. It is sufficient to say that Julian was inveigled,\nsurrounded, pierced by a spear from some unknown Persian or Saracen\nhand. He perceived at once that he was mortally wounded. His words at\nthis moment are differently reported. According to one account, he\ncried out, \"Oh, Galilean, thou hast conquered!\" Another story relates\nthat he took the blood welling from the wound in his hand, and flung\nit up towards the sun, his patron god, with an imprecation--\"There,\ntake thy fill.\" Neither saying, perhaps, is reported on sufficiently\ngood authority, but either would accord well with the disappointment\nand irritation which marked the closing scenes of his life. He\ninquired what was the name of the place. It was a small village called\nParthia. He had been forewarned long ago that in Parthia he should\ndie. He had supposed that the famous country of that name was meant.\nWe are reminded by this incident of an English sovereign lying on his\ndeath-bed in the famous chamber at Westminster, which still bears the\nname of Jerusalem. \"It hath been prophesied to me many years I should\nnot die but at Jerusalem, which vainly I supposed the Holy Land.\"\nWithin a few hours Julian had breathed his last. He died on the 26th\nJune, 363, being not yet quite thirty-two years old, and with him\nperished the last and best hope of Paganism. Less than twenty years\nafter, the Emperor Gratian refused the title of Supreme Pontiff. This\nwas the first overt act of disestablishment. Then blow followed blow\nin rapid succession. Paganism was first disestablished, then\ndisendowed, then prohibited; yet it still continued to linger on till\nat length it was buried in the grave of the empire. St. Augustine's\n_City of God_ was the paean of victory over the enemy slain.\nJulian's work had been found like a child's castle elaborately piled\nup of sand on the brink of the ocean. The rising tide advanced\nsteadily, inexorably, relentlessly, and no traces of the structure\nremain.\n\n\n\n\nWOMAN AND THE GOSPEL.[11]\n\n \"And He took the damsel by the hand.\"--MARK v. 41.\n\n\nIn selecting this text I have no intention of saying many words on the\nactual scene itself. The raising of Jairus's daughter attracts our\nattention by its vivid narrative, and by its intense human pathos,\nwhile the two foreign words, summing up the interest of the story,\nlinger strangely in our ears, impressing it effectually on our\nmemories. Nor, again, do I purpose speaking of its direct theological\nimport, whether as an answer to human faith, or as a manifestation of\nthe Divine power. In this latter aspect this is one of three signal\nmiracles, the anticipations of Christ's own resurrection. It claims,\nand it has received, the most earnest study, both in itself and in\nrelation to other incidents of the same class.\n\nThese more obvious aspects of the text are beside my present purpose.\nI wish to-day to treat it from a wholly different point of view.\nChrist's miracles have always the highest spiritual significance. They\nare not miracles only, but parables also. The Messiah's kingdom would\nhave achieved comparatively little for mankind if it had brought\ndeliverance to the captive in a literal sense only. A far heavier and\nmore galling bondage would still remain--the bondage of sin. Physical\nblindness is only a type of moral blindness; Christ's healing power in\nthe one case is the pledge of His healing power in the other. The\npalsy of the body symbolises the palsy of the soul. If the paralytic\nis bidden to take up his bed and walk, this is before all things an\nassurance to us that Christ is able and willing to heal the paralysis\nof the soul. From this point of view the words of the text are full of\nmeaning to all who are met together to-day. \"He took the damsel by the\nhand, and said unto her, Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise. And\nstraightway the damsel arose, and walked; and they were astonished\nwith a great astonishment.\"\n\nNeed I remind you that this is the earliest miracle of raising the\ndead recounted in the Gospels? Two others follow. The widow of Nain\nand the sisters of Bethany receive back their dead. But the one was a\ngrowing youth, the other was a man of mature age. The young woman was\nChrist's first miracle of resurrection. On her was wrought first this\nstupendous miracle. For her was won this earliest triumph over death\nand hell. Is not this a significant fact in itself, but especially\nsignificant for you, for it proclaims the fundamental principle of the\nGospel charter? It announces that the weak and the helpless in years,\nin sex, in social status, are especially Christ's care. It declares\nemphatically that in Him is neither male nor female. It is a call to\nyou, you women-workers, to do a sister's part to these your sisters.\nChrist's action in this miracle is a foreshadowing of His action in\nthe Church. The Master found woman deposed from her proper social\nposition. The man had suffered not less than the woman by this her\nhumiliation. Jew and Gentile had conspired together in an unconscious\nconspiracy to bring about this disastrous result. The Hebrew Rabbi and\nthe Greek philosopher alike had gone astray. It is the recorded saying\nof a famous Jewish doctor that the words of the law were better burned\nthan committed to woman. It is an opinion ascribed to the most famous\nAthenian statesman, that woman had then achieved her highest glory\nwhen her name was heard amongst men least, either for virtue or for\nreproach. A moral resurrection was needed for womanhood. It might seem\nto the looker-on like a social death, from which there was no\nawakening, but it was only the suspension of her proper faculties and\nopportunities, a long sleep from which a revival must come sooner or\nlater. It was for Him, and Him alone, who was the Vanquisher of death,\nwho has the keys of Hades--for Him alone to open the door of her\nsepulchral prison and resuscitate her dormant life and restore her to\nher ordinary place in society. When all hope was gone, He took her by\nthe hand and bid her arise; and at the sound of His voice and the\ntouch of His hand she arose and walked, and the world was astonished\nwith a great astonishment. We ourselves are so familiar with the\nresults, the position of woman is so fully recognised by us, it is\nbearing so abundant fruit every day and everywhere, that we overlook\nthe magnitude of the change itself. Only, then, when we turn to the\nharem and the zenana do we learn to estimate what the Gospel has\nachieved, and has still to achieve, in the emancipation of woman, and\nher restitution to her lawful place in the social order. To ourselves\nthe large place which woman occupies in the Gospel and in the early\napostolic history seems only natural. To contemporaries it must have\nappeared in the light of a social revolution. The very opening of the\nGospel is charged with Divine messages communicated to us through\nwoman--Mary, Elizabeth, Anna; women attend our Lord everywhere during\nHis earthly ministry. The sisters, Martha and Mary, are set before us\nas embodying the two contrasted types of character, the practical and\nthe contemplative. To a woman, and to a woman alone, is given the\npromise of an undying hope beyond the glory of the mightiest earthly\nprinces. Of her it is said: \"Wheresoever this Gospel is preached in\nthe whole world, there shall this which this woman has done be told as\na memorial of her.\" To a woman were spoken those gracious words of\npardon most tender and compassionate, the consolation and the stay and\nthe hope of the penitent to all time: \"Her sins, which are many, are\nforgiven, for she loveth much.\" Women are the chief attendants at the\ncrucifixion, and the chief ministrants at the tomb. Woman is the first\nwitness of the resurrection; and as it was in Christ's personal\nministry, so it is in all the Apostolic Church. In the first gathering\nof the little band after the Ascension, women are found assembled with\nthe apostles. This is a foreshadowing of the part which they are\ndestined to play in the subsequent narrative of the history of the\nChurch. Cast your eyes down the salutations in the Epistle to the\nRomans. There is Phoebe, a deaconess of the Church of Cenchrea,\ncommended as having been the succourer of many, among others of the\nApostle himself. There is Priscilla, who with her husband had laid\ndown her neck for his life, to whom he himself not only gave thanks,\nbut all the Churches of the Gentiles. There is Mary, who bestowed much\nlabour upon him and others; Tryphena and Tryphosa, who laboured much\nin the Lord. There is Persis, to whom the same testimony is borne.\nThere is the mother of Rufus, who had also been like a mother to\nhimself. There is Julia, and there is the sister of Nereus. A long\ncatalogue to appear in the salutations of a single epistle!\n\nTurn again from the Church of which St. Paul knew least when he wrote,\nto the Church of which he knew most. Witness his relation to his\nbeloved Philippian Church. He addresses himself first to the women who\nresort to the places of prayer among the individual women with whom he\ncame in contact. At Philippi we read of Lydia, his earliest hostess in\nthis city, of the damsel from whom he cast out a spirit of divination,\nand then of Euodias and Syntyche, women who laboured with him in the\nGospel; and indeed we know more of the women at Philippi than we know\nof the men.\n\nBut it was not only this desultory, unrecognised service, however\nfrequent, however great, that women rendered to the spread of the\nGospel in its earliest days. The Apostolic Church had its organised\nministrations of women, its order of deaconesses, its order of widows.\nWomen had their definite place in the ecclesiastical system of those\nearly times, and in our own age and country again the awakened\nactivity of the Church is once more demanding the recognition of the\nfemale ministry. The Church feels herself maimed of one of her hands.\nNo longer she fails to employ, to organise, to consecrate to the\nservice of Christ, the love, the sympathy, the tact, the self-devotion\nof women. Hence the revival of the female diaconate in its\nmultiplication of sisterhoods. But these, though the most definite,\nare not the most extensive developments of this revival. Everywhere\ninstitutions are springing up, manifold in form and purpose, for the\norganisation of women's work. There has been, and there is still, a\nshameful waste of this latent power, boundless in its capacities if\nonly fostered and developed. The famous heroines of womanhood will\nnecessarily be few. It is rarely women's part to save a city or guide\na church. Only at long intervals on the stage of the history of the\nworld appear such women as Joan of Arc; but here and there God raises\nup an exceptional heroine to do exceptional work, which a woman alone\ncan do, or do so effectually, for her age and country. But generally\nit is in the quieter, less obtrusive, more homely, and more womanly\nway, that she is called to test her power, certainly not less real or\nless beneficent, though it may be less striking, than the power of\nman. She is a mother in her own household, her own kindred, her own\nparish, her own neighbourhood; the guide, the helper of man. Yes; a\npriestess and a prophetess to the young, the sick, the frail and\nerring, the poor and needy--needy whether of spiritual or bodily\nhealing. It is the province of the Church, when acting by the Spirit\nand in the name of Christ, to develop the power of women, to take by\nthe hand and raise from its torpor that which seemed a death, but\nwhich is only a sleep; and now, as then, revived life and beneficent\nwork will amaze the looker-on--\"they were astonished with a great\nastonishment.\"\n\nAmong the most recent developments of the work of the Church of Christ\nyour Girls' Friendly Society has taken a foremost place. I would say\nin all sincerity, that when I read your last report with profound joy\nand thankfulness, I was impressed, no less by the completeness of your\nideal, than by the variety and expansion of your work. I do not say\nthis to commend; this is not the time or the place for commendation.\n\"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give the praise.\"\nYou will not be content, will you? you will not be content, if you are\ntrue to your ideals, with holding out the hand of loving sympathy in\nyour own home and neighbourhood to a humble sister needing a sister's\ncare and guidance? Your love will follow her about that she may never\nbe lost sight of. It is a trite complaint that in this day the old\nrelations between master and servant have vanished, or almost vanished\naway. The bond is no longer one of reciprocal loyalty, but of common\nconvenience. Hence it is liable to severance at any moment in the\nfeverish, ever-restless, fluctuating conditions of modern life. It was\nimpossible that these relations should remain unchanged while all else\nwas changing. The domestic servant or the shop girl has no longer a\nfixed home; she is a wanderer on the earth. It is just here that the\ncatholicity of your plan should step in and counteract the evil. It is\nyour part to realise this catholicity. When a girl once enrolls herself\nin your numbers, she is _yours_; everywhere, whithersoever she\nmay go, the friendly eye will rest upon her; the friendly hand will be\nstretched out to her wheresoever she may be. She will find everywhere\na home, because she will find everywhere friends. You cannot set this\nideal before yourselves too definitely, or strive to realise it too\nearnestly.\n\nDo you ask how your work may be truly effective? I answer you in the\nwords of the text; \"He took the damsel by the hand.\" There must be an\nintensity of human sympathy, and there must be an indwelling of the\nDivine power. The lesson of the miracle which I have taken for my\nstarting-point involves both these ideals. The current of womanly\nsympathy must flow out deep and strong and clear. Is not this the\ntypical meaning of Christ's action in the text? The touch of His warm\nhand restores the circulation and revives the life in those pale,\nmotionless, death-like limbs. We want sympathy here, sympathy first\nand sympathy last--sympathy reflecting, however faintly, Christ's own\nboundless compassion and love. The cold, mechanical formalism of the\nrelieving officer will not suffice; the haughty assertion of\nsuperiority, the condescending patronage of the fine lady will be\nworse than nothing. You must be a sister to your sisters, treading in\nthe footsteps of your Brother, Jesus Christ. Is not this also the\nmeaning of those words which He utters to the girl lying helpless\nbefore Him? He speaks to her not in the Greek, the conventional\nlanguage of outward life, but in the Syriac, the true language of the\nfamily and the home. It pierces her, notwithstanding her death-like\nslumber. He speaks to her, as He speaks to us all, with the voice of a\ndirect personal love. This is always the language of Christ's words,\nthe language of Christ's Gospel,--\"How hear we every man in our own\ntongue wherein we were born?\"\n\nAnd over and above all this, animating, inspiring, sanctifying your\nhuman sympathies, there must be the consciousness of the Divine\npresence, the sense of the Divine energy, in your work. You will apply\nyourself to it with a strength not your own; the power of the living\nChrist will thrill through you. Is not this the interpretation of the\nsymbolic action, \"He took the damsel by the hand\"?--He _Himself_,\nand not another. \"Not I, but Christ in me,\" will be the inspiring\nmotive of your work, as it was in St. Paul's. _His_ hand must\nguide your hand; nay, His hand must replace your hand, if the touch\nshall raise the damsel, and restore her to a better and a happier\nlife.\n\nAnd restore her it will; this intense human sympathy inspired by this\nconsciousness of the Divine indwelling. It never has failed yet, and\nit never can fail to work miracles of resurrection and healing, in her\nhelplessness, in her temptations, in all her struggles and\nperplexities, her bodily wants, and her spiritual trials. It will be\nto her comfort and strength and hope; it will throb her with the pulse\nof an awakened life.\n\nBut I have spoken hitherto as if these helpless girls whom you\nbefriend were the sole counterparts of Jairus's daughter. I have\nregarded them as only the patients whom Christ's awakening hands raise\nfrom their death-like slumbers. Is this an adequate representation of\nthe case, think you? Are there not others even more needy than they of\nthis beneficent movement? Are we not taught on the highest authority\nthat it is more blessed to give than to receive? But, if so, have we\nnot a truer antitype of this damsel whom Christ raised in these\nbefriended girls? Yes, Christ has taken them by the hand, and has\nrevived them, has awakened them from the heavy, death-like slumber of\na selfish, self-contained being. Christ has shown them the beauty and\nthe power of sympathy, and it has been to them the throbbing of a new\nlife. Surely it is not only the daughters of ancestral lineage and of\nNorman blood, not only a Clara Vere de Vere, who are sickening with\ndisease, and who need Christ's healing hand; is there not in the home\nof the professional man many a daughter and many a sister on whose\nhand time hangs heavily, whose life is wasting away, fretting with\nfeverish excitement, or sunk in self-indulgence and apathy, weary of\nself, and weary of others? How shall they wake up from their barren\nmonotony and death-like existence? Sympathy, active sympathy for\nothers; this, and this alone, can restore them. Mothers, train your\ndaughters early to think for others, to care for others, to minister\nto others. Be assured this will be the most valuable part of their\neducation. This heaven-born charity is the sovereign antidote to all\nthe ills of womanhood. Is it some secret sorrow gnawing at the heart,\nsome outraged feeling, or some harrowing bereavement, or some actual\ndisappointment? Merge and absorb it in active solicitude for others.\nIs it some fierce temptation which shamed you, and each fresh struggle\nseems to leave you weaker than before? There will be no room for this\nif you devote yourself to the needs of others. All sin is selfishness\nin some form or other. Forget sloth; this is the best safeguard\nagainst temptation.\n\nI appeal confidently to all those who have made the trial to say\nwhether this medicine has healed them where all other medicines have\nfailed? And, why, why? It is Christ's own love constraining them; it\nis Christ's own touch thrilling through their veins; hence they mark\nthe resurrection--\"He took the damsel by the hand; and straightway she\narose and walked.\"\n\n\n\n\nPILATE.[12]\n\n \"Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth?\"--JOHN xviii. 38.\n\n\nSt. John is especially distinguished among the four evangelists for\nhis subtle delineation of character. We do not commonly remember--it\ncosts us an effort to remember--how very largely we are indebted to\nthe fourth gospel for our conceptions of the chief personages who bear\na part in evangelical history, where those conceptions are most clear\nand distinct. If we analyse the sources of our information, we find\nagain and again that while something is told us about particular\npersons in the other evangelists, yet it is St. John who gives those\ntouches to the picture which make it stand out with its own\nindividuality as a real, living, speaking man. The other evangelist\nwill record a name, or, perhaps, an incident; St. John will add one or\ntwo sayings; and the whole person is instinct with life. The character\nflashes out in half-a-dozen words. \"From the abundance of the heart\nthe mouth speaketh.\" So it is with Philip, with Thomas, with Mary and\nMartha, and with several others who might be named. This vividness of\nportraiture is our strongest assurance, if assurance were needed, that\nthe narrative was indeed written by him whose name it bears--by the\nbeloved disciple and eye-witness himself. For, observe, there is no\neffort at delineation of character; there is no delineation of\ncharacter at all, properly so called. The evangelist does not describe\nthe persons whom he introduces; they describe themselves. The\nincidental act, the incidental movement or gesture, the incidental\nsaying, tells the tale. That which he had heard, that which he had\nlooked upon and his eyes had seen, that which his hands had handled of\nthe Word of Life--that and that only he declared.\n\nPilate furnishes a remarkable illustration of this feature in St.\nJohn's gospel. Pilate is the chief agent in the crowning scene of\nevangelical history. He is necessarily a prominent figure in all the\nfour narratives of this crisis. In the first three gospels we learn\nmuch about him. We find him there, as we find him in St. John, at\ncross purposes with the Jews. He is represented there, not less than\nby St. John, as giving an unwilling consent to the judicial murder of\nJesus. His Roman sense of justice is too strong to allow him to yield\nwithout an effort. His personal courage is too weak to persevere in\nthe struggle when the consequences threaten to become inconvenient. He\nis timid, politic, time-serving, as represented by all alike. He has\njust enough conscience to wish to shake off the responsibility, but\nfar too little conscience to shrink from committing the sin. But in\nSt. John's narrative we pierce far below the surface. Here he is\nrevealed to us as the sarcastic, cynical worldling, who doubts\neverything, distrusts everything, despises everything. He has an\nintense scorn for the Jews, and yet he has a craven dread of them. He\nhas a certain professional regard for justice, and yet he has no real\nbelief in truth or honour. Throughout he manifests a malicious irony\nin his conduct at this crisis. There is a lofty scorn in his answer\nwhen he repudiates any sympathy with the accusers. \"Am I a Jew?\" There\nis a sarcastic pity in the question which he addresses to the Prisoner\nbefore him, \"Art Thou the King of the Jews? Art Thou, then, a\nking--Thou poor, weak, helpless fanatic, whom with a single word I\ncould doom to death?\" He is half-bewildered with the incongruity of\nthe claim; and yet there is a certain propriety that a wild enthusiast\nshould assert his sovereignty over a nation of bigots; so he\nsarcastically adopts the title. \"Will you that I release unto you the\nKing of the Jews?\" Even when, at length, he is obliged to yield to the\npopular clamour, he will at least have his revenge by a studied\ncontempt. \"Behold your King! Shall I crucify your King?\" And to the\nvery last moment he indulges his cynical scorn. The title on the cross\nwas, indeed, unconsciously, a proclamation of a Divine truth; but in\nits immediate purpose and intent it was the mere gratification of\nPilate's sarcastic humour. \"Jesus of Nazareth.\" Could any good thing\ncome out of Nazareth? \"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.\" He\nhas sacrificed his honour to them, but he will not sacrifice his\ncontempt. \"What I have written, I have written.\"\n\nBut it is more especially in the sentence which I have chosen for my\ntext that the whole character of the man is revealed. The Prisoner\nbefore him had accepted the title of a King. He based His claim to\nthis title on the fact that He had come to bear witness of the truth.\nHe declared that those who were themselves of the truth would\nacknowledge His claim. They were His rightful subjects; they were the\nenfranchised citizens of His kingdom.\n\nStrange language this, in the ears of a cynical, worldly sceptic, to\nwhom the most attractive hope of humanity was a judicious admixture of\nforce and fraud. \"Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth? And when he\nhad said this he went out.\" The altercation could be carried no\nfarther. Was not human life itself one great query without an answer?\nWhat was truth? \"Truth\"? This helpless Prisoner claimed to be a King,\nand He appealed, forsooth, to His truthfulness as the credential of\nHis sovereign rights! Was ever any claim more contradictory of all\nhuman experience, more palpably absurd, than this? \"Truth\"? When had\ntruth anything to do with founding a kingdom? The mighty engine of\nimperial power, the armed sceptre which ruled the world, whence came\nit? Certainly it owed nothing to truth. Had not Augustus established\nhis sovereignty by an unscrupulous use of force, and maintained it by\nan astute use of artifice? And his successor, the present occupant of\nthe imperial throne, was he not an arch dissembler, the darkest of all\ndark enigmas? The name of Tiberius was a byword for impenetrable\ndisguise. Truth might do well enough for fools and enthusiasts; but\nfor rulers, for diplomatists, for men of the world, it was the wildest\nof all wild dreams. \"Truth\"? What was truth? He had lived too long in\nthe world to trust to any such hollow delusion. He had listened to the\nceaseless din of philosophical disputations till he was weary of them.\nThe Stoics, the Epicureans, the Platonists, all had their several\nspecifics which they vended as truth. All were equally sure, and yet\nno two agreed.\n\nHe had witnessed, certainly not without contempt, and yet not altogether\nwithout dismay, the rising flood of foreign superstition--Greek,\nSyrian, Egyptian, Chaldean--which threatened to deluge the city and\nempire, and destroy all the ancient landmarks. Could he believe all or\nany of these? In this never-ending conflict of philosophical dogmas\nand religious creeds, what could he do but resign himself to\nscepticism, to indifference, to a cold and cynical scorn of all\nenthusiastic convictions and all definite beliefs? \"What is truth?\"\n\nAnd yet as he turned away, neither expecting nor desiring an answer to\na question which he had asked merely to end an inconvenient\ncontroversy, some uneasy misgivings, we may well suppose, flashed\nacross the mind of this proud, sarcastic worldling, that he was now\nbrought face to face with truth as he had never been brought before.\nThere was a reality about every word and action of this Jewish\nPrisoner which arrested and overawed him. The calmness with which He\nurged His claims, the fearlessness with which He defied death, the\nimpressive words, the still more impressive silence, the manifest\ninnocence and rectitude of the Man, if he saw nothing more--these\ncould not be without their effect even on a Pilate, steeped as he was\nin the moral recklessness and the religious despair of his age. At all\nevents, he would serve the Man if he conveniently could.\n\nBut there had been also a nobler element in Pilate's education than\nmoral scepticism and religious unbelief. He was a Roman governor, and\nas a Roman governor he was an administrator of Roman law. It was their\nappreciation of law, their respect for law, their study of law, far\nmore than anything else, which gave its greatness to the character of\nthe Roman people. Even in the most degraded ages of their history, and\nwith the worst individual types of men, this is the one bright spot\nwhich relieves the gloom. It is the nobler prerogative of law to set a\nstandard clear, definite, and precise. I have no concern here with\nother obligations to the law which as Christians we are bound to\nacknowledge, though, speaking before the chief representatives of\nEnglish law and justice, I cannot fail to be reminded of them this\nafternoon. But this exhibition of a moral standard is a gain which it\nis hardly possible to over-estimate. The standard will not always be\nthe highest. From the nature of the case it cannot be so. Law deals\nwith some departments of morality very imperfectly; with others it\ndoes not attempt to deal at all. But still, whenever it is felt, and\nso far as it penetrates, it creates an ideal, and begets a habit which\nwill not be powerless even with the most indifferent and reckless of\nmen. So it was with Pilate. Theological scepticism had eaten out his\nreligious principles to the very core. Unscrupulous worldliness and\nself-seeking had shattered his moral constitution; but though his\nprinciples were gone, and his character was ruined, still he was\nhaunted by some lingering sense of professional honour; still the\nmagnificent ideal of Roman justice and Roman law rose up before him,\nand would not lightly be thrust aside. He pleads repeatedly for\njustice against the relentless accusers. Three times he declares the\nPrisoner's innocence in the same explicit words--\"I find no fault in\nHim.\" Once and again he strives to shift the responsibility from his\nown shoulders to theirs. \"Take ye Him and judge Him according to your\nlaw. Take ye Him and crucify Him.\" But his efforts are all in vain.\nThey will have none of this. The deed shall be done, and he shall do\nit.\n\nIt was not the first, and it would not be the last time that Pilate\nfound himself in conflict with the Jews. For ten years he was governor\nof this turbulent, intractable people. This was an unusually long\nperiod of office under an Emperor like Tiberius, who was constantly\nchanging his provincial governors from mere suspicion and distrust. It\nmust have cost Pilate no little trouble to steer his course so long\nand so successfully, without foundering either on the suspicions of\nhis jealous master here or on the bigotry of his stubborn subjects\nthere. And yet he was constantly wounding the religious\nsusceptibilities of the Jews. At one time he shocked them by bringing\nthe military ensigns with the effigies of Caesar within the walls of\nJerusalem; at another he persisted in setting up some gilt shields,\ninscribed with a profane heathen dedication, in the palace of Herod\nwithin the holy precincts. In both cases he drove the Jews to the\nextreme verge of exasperation. In both cases he exhibits the same\nsarcastic and defiant scorn which is apparent here. In both cases\ntheir obstinate zeal or bigotry triumphs, as it triumphs here, and he\nis forced, in the end, to retrace his steps and to undo his deed.\n\nSo, then, this was only one brief episode in a protracted struggle\nbetween Pilate and the Jewish people. Doubtless, it seemed at the time\nquite insignificant compared with those other and fiercer conflicts in\nwhich he was engaged. It is passed over in silence by contemporary\nJewish writers. It concerned the life of a single person only; it was\nsettled in a single night; and yet it involved nothing less than the\neternal destiny of all mankind.\n\nAh, there is a terrible irony in God's retributive justice, which so\nblinds a man to the true proportions of things. A single moment may do\na wrong which centuries cannot repair. It is a dangerous thing to defy\nthe truth. The majesty of truth is inviolable, and he who insults it\nin a moment of recklessness can never forecast the consequences. Time\nand space and notoriety are no measure of importance here. The most\nimportant criminal trial on record in the history of mankind was\nhurried through in two or three short hours, under cover of night and\nin the grey of early dawn.\n\nThis is the great lesson of Pilate's crime. He was surprised by the\ntruth; he found himself unexpectedly confronted by the truth; and he\ncould not recognise it. His whole life long he had tampered with\ntruth; he had despised truth; he had despaired of truth. Truth was the\nlast thing which he had set before him as the main aim of life. He had\nthought much of policy, of artifice, of fraud, of force; but for truth\nin any of its manifold forms he had cared just nothing at all. And his\nsin had worked out its own retribution. Not truth only, but the very\nTruth itself, Truth incarnate, stood before him in a human form, and\nhe was blind to it; he scorned it; he played with it; he thrust it\naside; he condemned, and he gibbeted it. \"Suffered under Pontius\nPilate,\" is the legend of eternal infamy with which history has\nbranded his name.\n\nSo it is always. The Lord appears suddenly in His temple--in the\nshrine of the human heart and conscience; suddenly--at a time and in a\nform which we least expect. The truth visits us very frequently under\nthe disguise of some common event, or some insignificant person. It\nsurprises us, perhaps, in the accidental saying of some little child,\nor in the insidiousness of some mean temptation, or in the emergency\nof some trivial choice. It stands before us at once as our suppliant\nand our king. We fail to see its majesty veiled in its humble garb. We\ntreat it as our prisoner when, in fact, it is our judge, and may\nbecome our gaoler. We flatter ourselves that we have power to condemn\nor to release it. We have no fault to find with it, but still we\nreject it; we crucify it; and before three days are gone it rises from\nits grave to bear eternal testimony against us. We could not see the\ntruth, because we ourselves were not of the truth. Here in this\njudicial blindness is the warning of Pilate's example. Like is drawn\nto like: like only understands like. The truth is only for the\nchildren of truth.\n\nWe must not, however, unduly narrow the sense of truth and of\ntruthfulness. When our Lord called Himself the truth--when He declared\nthat the truth should make us free, He meant very much more than is\ncommonly understood by the word. Veracity is, indeed, truth; but it is\nonly a small part of the truth. A man may be scrupulously veracious,\nstrictly a man of honour; he may always say what he believes; he may\nalways perform what he promises; and yet he may not be, in the highest\nsense, true. He may be the slave of a thousand unrealities. A genuine\nchild of truth is very much more than a speaker of the truth. He is a\ndoer of the truth, and a thinker of the truth, and a liver of the\ntruth. He is frank, open, and real in all things. Reality is the very\nsoul of his being. He cares for nothing which is hollow, shadowy,\nsuperficial. Popularity, wealth, success, worldly ambition, and\ndisplay are essentially unreal, because they are external, because\nthey are transient. Therefore, he estimates them at their true value.\nThe devotion of scientific men in pursuit of scientific truth wins our\nhighest admiration. It is not without a thrill of national pride that\nwe have just bidden God-speed to the gallant company which has started\nfor the Arctic seas. To face untold hardships and possible death in\nsuch a cause is a worthy and noble aim, for these are realities. But\nobviously there are truths of far higher moment to the temporal and\neternal well-being of man than the laws of electricity, or the causes\nof the Aurora, or the fauna of the Polar seas. Whence came I? Whither\ngo I? What is sin? What is conscience? Is there a God in heaven? Is\nthere a providence, a moral government, a judgment? Is there a\nredemption, a sanctification, a life eternal? These are the momentous,\nthe pressing questions which a man can only shelve at his peril.\nChrist is the answer to all these questions. Therefore, He is the\nverity of verities. Therefore, He claims for Himself the title of the\ntruth as His absolute and indefeasible right.\n\nAn incapacity to see the truth, when thus presented to us in its\nhighest form, may arise from different causes. It may spring from\nbigoted partisanship, and religious pride, and obstinate formalism, as\nin the case of the Jews; or it may spring from cold cynicism, and\nworldliness, and dishonesty, as in the case of Pilate. These two\nconspire to crucify the truth. As we sow, so also shall we reap.\nPilate's life had been stained in untruthfulness. His government had\nbeen an alternation of violence and artifice. His aim had not been to\nrule uprightly, to rule generously, but to rule at any cost. He must\ncalm the suspicions of his jealous master, and he must quell the\nturbulence of an unruly people. Whatever means would conduce to these\nends were to him legitimate means. Uprightness, honour, frankness,\ngenerosity, truth--what were these to him? He had no belief in them,\nand why should he practise them? He projected his own motives into his\nestimate of mankind at large. He read the characters of others in the\ndistorted mirror of his own consciousness. Human life, as he viewed\nit, was false from beginning to end. It was, after all, the reflection\nof his own falsehood which he saw. He was ever looking out for the\nunrealities of existence. He had no eye for its realities. Men's\nconvictions were their foibles: men's beliefs were his playthings.\nUntruthfulness, cynicism, distrust, scorn, had withered his soul. They\nonly will find the truth who believe that the truth may be found.\nPilate had no such belief. He had gone through life asking, half in\nbitterness, half in jest, \"What is truth?\" He had asked it now again,\nand the question was fatal. Pilate's temper of mind is a very real\ndanger in an age like ours. Let us beware of thus jesting with truth,\nlest some time, like him, we crucify the truth unawares.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.[13]\n\n \"Two men went up into the temple to pray.\"--LUKE xviii. 10.\n\n\nThe teaching of the gospels is, in large portions, a teaching by\ncontrast. This is the case, to a certain extent, in the historical\nnarrative, but it is especially so in the parables of our Lord. Thus\nwe have the contrast of the two brothers in the parable of the\nProdigal Son; the contrast of the two sons in the parable of the\nfather's vineyard; the contrast of the rich man and the beggar in the\nparable of Lazarus and Dives, and the like; the right and the wrong\nway of acting are figured, are embodied, are personified in two\nliving, acting men. So it is here; the right and the wrong spirit in\nprayer, the right and the wrong attitude towards God, are set before\nus in portraits of imaginary men who might very well have been real\nmen. If you had gone up to the temple any day, and watched the\nworshippers there, you might very likely have seen the counterpart\nboth of the one and of the other. But there is not only a contrast in\nthe parable, there is also a paradox, a surprise; the ordinary\nestimate of worth is set aside; the judgment of God overrules the\njudgment of men; the praise is given where men would give the blame,\nand the blame is given where men would give the praise. The object of\nthe parable is to correct, to cancel, to reverse human judgment.\n\n\"Two men went up into the temple to pray.\" The place is the same, the\ntime is the same, the object is the same; only the characters of the\ntwo men are widely different. To which will you give the preference?\nCould any pious Jew have doubted about his answer to this question?\nWould you yourself have doubted if you had been a Jew and lived in\nthat age? Let us look more narrowly at these two men as they stand\npraying within the sacred precincts. Here is the one, a Pharisee. The\nsect to which he belongs is eminently religious, eminently patriotic;\nthe law of God is their study day and night; their daily life is\nregulated on the strictest principles; they are the recognised leaders\nof their countrymen, their religious teachers and their political\nguides; they are regarded as the great bulwark against foreign tyranny\nand heathen idolatry; they have altogether the confidence of the\npeople. And he is an eminently favourable type of the sect. It is not\nenough that he avoids gross and flagrant crime; that he is upright in\nhis dealings with his fellow-men; that he respects the sanctity of the\nmarriage vows;--he goes very far beyond this: he fasts regularly, he\npays tithes scrupulously, he prays fervently after a manner, as this\nincident shows; not a suspicion is breathed against the truth of his\nstatements as he thus describes himself. No doubt they were strictly\ntrue; the very point of the parable depends upon their accuracy. What\nmore, then, would you have than this? Now, turn to the other\nworshipper, the publican. What a contrast we have here! The publicans\nwere hated, despised, loathed by the Jews. There was only too much\nreason for all this hatred and contempt. The publicans were so called\nbecause they farmed the public taxes. The Roman masters let out the\ncollection of the taxes for so much to the publicans, and the\npublicans made what they could by the collecting. Hence their position\nwas unsatisfactory from first to last. Though Jews themselves, they\nwere the representatives of the Roman masters of Judea. They thus\nreminded their fellow-countrymen at every turn of the galling yoke of\na foreign tyranny, of a heathen tyranny, too. This made matters worse.\nReligion as well as patriotism was grievously compromised by them.\nThis was bad enough; but this was not all. From the manner in which\nthey contracted with the Roman government they were tempted to\nextortion and fraud. Their profits depended on petty acts of insolence\nand overreaching, and there is every reason to believe that, as a\nclass, they did yield to their temptation. It might be said that their\nhand was against every man and every man's hand was against them.\nRemembering these facts, we are able the more truly to honour a\nMatthew or a Zaccheus, towering far above the moral standard of their\nclass. And the man before us--what shall we say of him? He had yielded\nto these temptations. Just as in the case of the Pharisee, so in the\ncase of the publican, there is every reason to accept as strictly true\nhis description of himself.\n\nAs I have said before, the very force of the parable depends on the\ntruth of this statement. He, doubtless, had been extortionate; he had\nused his position and his power to oppress and defraud his\nfellow-countrymen. He was, perhaps, conscious, besides, of other\ngrievous sins--not specially sins of his class, but sins of himself,\nsins of mankind. There can be little doubt that when he beat upon his\nbreast, when he bewailed his sinfulness, when he entreated God's\nmercy, he had on his conscience some heavier weight than the ordinary\nsins and short-comings of the ordinary respectable and religious man.\nWhat, then, shall we say? Who will waver between these two men? Who\ncan for a moment hesitate to rank the Pharisee higher than the\npublican? And yet it is our Lord's judgment--it is God's own\nverdict--that this man, this publican, this sullied, sin-stained, but\nwithal penitent man, went down to his home justified rather than the\nhighly respectable, highly respected, highly religious Pharisee. The\nanswer is this--to know God is the beginning and the end of all\nwisdom; to know God is to think truly, is to act truly, is to live\ntruly. Now, the Pharisee did not know God; he was altogether at fault\nin his ideas of God; he was on the wrong line, and however far he\nmight go on that line he would be no nearer to God. On the other hand,\nthe publican had taken the right direction; he might be still very far\nfrom a thorough knowledge of God; but his ideas of God, however\nimperfect, were right as far as they went. Let us look into this\nmatter a little more closely.\n\nThere are two ways of regarding God. We may look upon Him as a\ntaskmaster, or we may look upon Him as a righteous Father. The first\nway is hopelessly, irretrievably wrong; the second way alone will lead\nus to Him. We may look upon Him as a taskmaster. What then? He sets\nbefore us a definite piece of work to do. If we do it, well and good;\nwe escape blame; we get our pay. It is give and take; certain things\nare to be done, and certain other things are to be left undone. There\nthe matter ends. This is what is meant by justification by works. It\nis a mere question of bargaining. We treat with God as a workman would\ntreat with an employer of labour; we look upon Him as one of\nourselves, a little more powerful, a little more exacting, a little\nmore stern, but still as one of ourselves--a man, magnified indeed,\nbut a man still, with whom we can stipulate and bargain and haggle\nabout the amount of work to be done. That is the error, the fatal\nerror, of the man in the parable who hid his one talent in the earth.\n\"I feared thee, because thou art an austere man\"--not, \"I loved thee,\"\nnot \"I reverenced thee,\" not \"I worshipped thee,\" but \"I feared thee.\"\nIt was apprehension, it was dread--nothing else; no affectionate\nyearning, no childlike outpouring of the heart, no seeking after the\nFather's embrace. \"Thou art an austere man\"--a hard man; yes, a\ntaskmaster, and a rigorous taskmaster, too. \"Lo, there thou hast that\nis thine\"--not a little more, nor a little less--\"thou hast that is\nthine.\" \"Nay, everything is Mine. Heaven and earth are Mine; infinite\nrighteousness and infinite truth, and infinite purity and infinite\nlove, are Mine. Thou canst never give Me that is Mine.\" And so it is\nwith the Pharisee in our parable, though the type of character is\nsomewhat different. Fasting is enjoined, therefore he fasts; tithes\nare commanded, therefore he pays tithes. Not a moment is deducted from\nthe fasting, not a penny is withheld from the tithes. He will be all\nsafe; he does his work and he claims his pay. Of those boundless\nreaches of mercy, of truth, of love, which lie beyond all definite\nprecepts, all specific duties, he thinks nothing and he knows nothing;\nof the infinity of God, he is wholly ignorant; of God's absolute\nrighteousness, of God's limitless goodness, he has not a thought;\ntherefore he is satisfied; therefore he despises others. If he had\nany, even the faintest, conception of these, he could not be so\ncomplacent, he could not compare himself advantageously with others.\nTo him who sees this infinity of God boasting is altogether excluded;\nhe is fain to call himself an unprofitable servant. Ah, yes! it all\nsprings from that one original root of falsehood, that perverse, fatal\nidea of the relations of man to God--so much pay for so much\nwork--haggling between employer and employed--conflict, in an\nexaggerated form, between capital and labour once more.\n\nBut the true way to regard God is to look upon Him as a righteous\nFather, to see His righteousness first, and then to see His fatherly\nlove. To see His righteousness, the awe, the beauty, the majesty, the\nholiness, the glory of His righteousness! Have we caught only a faint,\ntransient glimpse of it? What then? What becomes of our righteousness,\nour merit, our self-satisfaction, our self-complacency? What\nmiserable, besmirched, filthy tatters do the very best of them seem if\nonly for a moment the skirts of His glistening raiment have crossed\nthe field of our vision, the glory of Him who is clothed in\nrighteousness. Do we thank God, can we thank God now, that we are not\nas bad as other men are? Nay, thank Him for His opportunity, thank Him\nfor His mercy, thank Him for His forbearing patience, but thank Him\nnot where thanksgiving is a mere cloak of self-complacency. No; you\ncannot compare yourself with another now; you see only your own sin,\nyou can measure only your own unworthiness now, or, rather, it appears\nfar beyond measuring to you. Your righteousness and this man's\nunrighteousness, your good and this man's evil--what difference is\nthere between them in the presence of God's infinite holiness, that\ngreat leveller of all human gradations?\n\n    \"For merit lives from man to man,\n    And not, O God, from man to Thee!\"\n\nAh, yes, Lord! I can see two things, and two only: Thy righteousness,\nmy sinfulness, these and nothing else.\n\nBut we must look not only to God's righteousness: we must look to His\nfatherly goodness also. We have beheld the heinousness of our sin in\nthe mirror of His holiness; we must now behold the grace of our\nforgiveness in the light of His love, His fatherly love. And have we\nnot full and perfect assurance that His love will never fail us? What\nelse is the meaning of His great, His inestimable gift to man of His\nonly-begotten Son, to take His flesh upon Him and to die for us? By\nthe infinity of His gift He would show us that His love is infinite\nalso--nothing less; and we do Him a wrong, a cruel wrong, if we\napproach Him as a taskmaster, as a tyrant, as \"a hard and austere\nman;\" we blaspheme His fatherly goodness. Have we sinned, and shall we\ngo to Him as to a taskmaster? What consolation, what forgiveness, what\nhope of either here? Nay, rather we will seek Him as the prodigal son\nsought Him; we will go to Him as to a father; we will address Him as a\nFather; we will betake ourselves to Him with a child's penitent heart,\nwith a child's trusting soul, with a child's yearning embrace, and He\nwill have compassion on us, will hasten to meet us, though we may be\nyet a great way off, and we shall be locked once more in His\neverlasting arms.\n\nDo you think, can you think, that the sense of His infinite love will\nmake you reckless, will make you indolent, will make you presuming?\nDid love, true love, truly felt, ever have this effect? Nay, just in\nproportion as you appropriate it, as you realise it, it will quicken,\nit will stimulate, it will purify, it will inspire you; it will\ntransform your whole being into its own perfections from glory to\nglory. God's love is the beacon star in the sky, arresting,\nattracting, guiding, luring us forward on the heavenly path; the love\nof Christ--not our love for Him; but His love for us--the love of\nChrist, constrains us, binds us hand and foot, and drags us onward\nwith the cords of a man. The publican did see this, at least in part.\nHe saw God's righteousness in all its tremendous majesty, and he\nabased himself before it; he saw God's fatherly love only dimly as\nyet, but yearned for it. Therefore, though he was yet a great way off,\nGod ran to meet him; and so, notwithstanding his sin, he went down\nfrom the temple that day \"justified rather than the other.\"\n\nOne more thought is suggested by the parable. Prayer is the test of\ncharacter. So it was with this Pharisee and this publican; so it must\never be, from the nature of the case. Prayer is the confronting of\nself with God; prayer is the communing with God; prayer is the laying\nbare of the soul before God. Thus prayer proves the realities of a\nman's being. As a man prays, so he is. He who has learned to pray\naright has learned to live aright. The first and the last lesson of\nour lives, the first and the last desire of our hearts, the first and\nthe last petition on our lips must be with us, as it was with the\ndisciples of old, \"Lord, teach us to pray\"; and to the old question\nthe old answer will be vouchsafed now, as then, \"Our Father, which art\nin heaven.\" \"Our Father.\" The sense of God's Fatherhood, as manifested\nin Christ, flooding our hearts, and dominating our lives--this is the\nbeginning and the end of all theology; there is nothing before and\nnothing after this. Therefore, holy Father, we beseech Thee for Thy\ndear Son's sake, teach us all, this night and ever, to pray; teach us\nto know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast\nsent; teach us so to pray that we may be found among the company of\nthose faithful people who worship not a god of their own making, not a\ntaskmaster, not a tyrant, not \"a hard and austere man,\" but worship\nThee, \"worship the Father in spirit and in truth.\"\n\n\n\n\nOUR CITIZENSHIP.[14]\n\n \"Our conversation is in heaven.\"--PHIL. iii. 20.\n\n\nA better translation is \"Our citizenship is in heaven.\"\n\nWe are all proud of our country. We delight to think of ourselves as\nbelonging to a land on which whoever sets his foot is free. We reflect\nwith satisfaction that we are citizens of a great empire on which the\nsun never sets. We feel that we have derived a very real advantage\nfrom our position; the glory of our past history is somehow reflected\nupon us. We think with pride of how freedom has \"broadened slowly\ndown, from precedent to precedent.\" We cherish the recollection too,\nof the most glorious scenes in our history, as if, somehow, they were\npart and parcel of ourselves. We feel as of one family, with its long\nroll of illustrious statesmen, generals, men of science,--our\nShakespeare, Bacon, Newton, Wellington, Nelson, Hampden, Pitt,\nCanning,--that these are our fellow-citizens. Their renown is our\nrenown. It is a great thing to extend our range of view beyond\nourselves, beyond our own households, our parish, and our own\nneighbourhood, and yet to feel that there is a bond of union still;\nthat we are members of a great family, citizens of a great kingdom,\nunique in her great world-empire. The inspiration of this thought,\nwhich the recent Jubilee celebration has emphasised, makes us higher,\nnobler, larger than ourselves. It drives out all the pettiness of\ncharacter and all the narrowness of view. True patriotism is a very\nnoble and ennobling sentiment. To be ready to do and to suffer, if\nneed be to die, for our country, what broad elevation of soul is there\nnot in a temper like this?\n\nSt. Paul felt all this. He was proud of the city, of the nation to\nwhich he belonged. He was proud of the city in which he first saw the\nlight. We cannot mistake his tones here. \"I am a citizen of no mean\ncity.\" This Tarsus, in which he was born, stood second to none as a\nseat of learning in his time. He was proud, also, of his nationality.\nHere, again, we cannot mistake the feeling which underlies his\nlanguage. \"Of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin.\" \"Are\nthey Hebrew? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I.\" He, too,\nwas the son of the patriarchs; he, too, was the heir of the promises;\nhe, too, had his portion among the twelve tribes that served God day\nand night. Was he not descended from the one favoured tribe which had\ngiven its first king to Israel, which had remained faithful to the\nhouse of David when all the others revolted; which ever marched in the\nvan of the Lord's host when the armies went out to battle? \"After thee\nO Benjamin!\" No taint of foreign admixture had sullied the purity of\nhis blood. He was \"an Hebrew of the Hebrews.\" No concession to foreign\nexcitements, and no relaxation of national rites, had ever compromised\nhis position. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Of all these things\nhe might well be prouder than the proudest. Albeit he paused and kept\ndown all his pride; he counted all as loss for the excellency of the\nknowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. And lastly, he was proud of his\nposition as a member of that great empire which stretched out her hand\ninto every clime, and carried her citizens into all quarters of the\nglobe. Here again his language tells its own tale. \"They have beaten\nus openly, uncondemned, being Romans, ... and now do they thrust us\nout privily.\" \"Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman,\nand uncondemned?\"\n\nYes; it was a magnificent privilege this, that a man, whosoever he\nmight be, could claim the immunity, the protection, the deference\nwhich was everywhere accorded to a citizen of Rome; to feel that he\nwas a solitary, homeless wanderer, and had nevertheless at his back\nall the power, and all the prestige, and all the majesty of the\nmightiest empire that the world had ever seen. But however natural,\nand in some sense justifiable, may be this pride in ourselves, or in\nSt. Paul, we are reminded by the text that he and we alike are\ncitizens of a far larger, wider, more magnificent, more powerful, more\nenduring empire. For which we have every reason to feel, not indeed\npride, not self-satisfaction, not vainglory, but perpetual\nthanksgiving, and benediction to the Author and Giver of all good\nthings. Our citizenship is in heaven.\n\n\"Our citizenship.\" In the familiar version the word is rendered\n\"conversation,\" _i.e._, \"walk of life.\" But it means very much\nmore than this; it points us out as members of a commonwealth,\ncitizens of a polity, subjects of a kingdom, in which we have special\ninterests, special responsibilities and functions. So, again, the\nApostle tells the Ephesians, now converted from heathenism to the\nknowledge of Christ--\"Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but\nfellow-citizens with the saints.\"\n\n\"Fellow-citizens with the saints.\" You and they, bound together as\nmembers of one great nationality, with common duties, common\nsympathies, common aims, citizens of a kingdom of which the noblest\nand most powerful earthly empires are only faint types and shadows, a\nkingdom which shall never end. Yes!\n\n    \"Two worlds are ours, 'tis only sin\n      Forbids us to descry\n    The mystic heaven, and earth within,\n      Plain as the sea and sky.\"\n\nAnd so we need to strive this day to pierce through the veil, that so\nwe may realise this our heavenly citizenship.\n\nOn this festival of All Saints, before all other days in the year, we\nare invited to enter into the Holy City, to dwell on the glories of\nthe unseen world, to commune with the beatified servants of God of all\nages and all countries, and to gather inspiration and truth and\nrefreshment for our daily tasks in life; to pierce through the veil,\nthe dark impenetrable mist which shrouds the unseen world. Yet ever\nand again this veil is lifted for a moment, ever and again we are made\nto feel, by some startling occurrence, how narrow is the screen which\nseparates the seen from the unseen, the material from the spiritual,\nthe world of time from the world of eternity. Ever and again the stern\nmonitor death rises up an unbidden guest, an unwelcome spectre in the\nmidst of our worldliness and self-complacency, scaring us with the\nsuddenness of the apparition. Mystery of mysteries, when valuable\nlives are suddenly cleft asunder, while so much that is worthless, and\nworse, is spared. Mystery quite insoluble if this were all, if the\nregion beyond the grave were a mere vacuum; if men were dust and\nnothing more; if there were no immortality, no heaven, nothing to live\nfor, nothing to work for, nothing to die for. Warnings these, solemn\nand thrilling, if only we have ears to hear, that this life is not our\ntrue life, that here we are strangers and pilgrims, that heaven is our\nonly abiding house, that we are fellow-citizens of the saints.\n\n\"Fellow-citizens of the saints.\" Think for a moment how much is\nimplied in this. What a vast assemblage, what a glorious companionship\nis that in which you and I, with our frailties, our shortcomings, our\nself-seeking, our worldliness, our distrust, our faithlessness, are\nfain boldly to claim a place! All those glorious spirits, venerable\npatriarchs, righteous kings, rapt seers, glorious psalmists, who lived\nand wrought and suffered in the ancient days in the hope of a better\npromise; men \"who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought\nrighteousness, ... of whom the world was not worthy;\" all those\napostles and teachers who, kindling their torches at the sacred fire,\nthe glory of the Eternal Son Himself, carried the light of the gospel\ninto all lands, giving up everything for Christ, offering to lose\ntheir lives, that by losing them they might find them. All these\nmartyrs and doctors of later ages who handed down the sacred treasure\nthrough successive generations, amidst the fire of persecution and the\nconfusion of barbarism and the darkness of idolatry, rejoicing to be\ndevoured by hungry lions and to die at the stake. Polycarp, calm and\nbrave as his flesh quivered in the flame; Chrysostom, with his flowery\neloquence; Augustine, with his piercing insight and force,--these\nshare, too, in this glorious company whose names live in history. And\nothers, true saints of God, though they appear not in the calendar of\nany Church; men and women from the rigour of whose lives succeeding\ngenerations have their inspiration and strength; all whose holiness\nand purity, whose courage and self-sacrifice, whose gentleness and\nmeekness, whose loving charity have been a never-failing fountain of\nrefreshment to the weary pilgrim in the thirsty wilderness of the\nworld. And others, too, there are whose memories shall perish not,\nthough they have left no name in history, but whose brows,\nnevertheless, God Himself will crown with a halo of everlasting glory.\nPoor, despised, unknown artisans and peasants, weak women and feeble\nchildren, martyrs in the martyrdom of daily life, saints in the\nsaintliness of homely duty, throngs innumerable of every nation and\nkindred and people and tongue, clothed with white robes and palms in\ntheir hands, standing before the Throne of God, and serving Him day\nand night in His temple.\n\nAnd others again there are, unknown to the world, but well known to\nyou and to me, saints of our home, of our school, of our college, of\nour workshop, of our office. Voices which were silent years ago mingle\nin our ears still, the hands crumbling in the dust have left a\npressure that is still felt, the eyes long since glazed in death ever\nnow and again are bright for us. The mother at whose knees we lisped\nour infant prayer, the child whose innocent prattle soothed our cares\nand sweetened our lives, the husband or wife who was part of our\nexistence, the friend \"more than my brothers are to me,\" whose\nnobleness and purity, whose unselfishness was the good genius and the\npole star of our lives. These all are there, with these we hold\ncommunion, with these we walk and talk once more to-day as of old.\nThis is the citizenship of which the text speaks, of which the day\nreminds us, more glorious beyond comparison than any earthly society\nwhich eye hath seen or of which ear hath heard. For these manifold and\ngreat gifts of which the season reminds I beseech you this afternoon\ngive a worthy thankoffering. No, that cannot be, that is impossible,\nbut if not worthy, at all events large and liberal.\n\nAnd what fitter object can I set before you than the support of a\nsociety whose sole aim is the enrolment of citizens into the kingdom\nof God, the enlargement of the communion of saints? The jubilee year\nof our sovereign's reign is the jubilee year of this society. It was\nonly in the process of formation when our Queen ascended the throne;\none of her earliest acts was to give her name as its patron. It was a\nright queenly act, for of all the blessings for which during the\nhalf-century the nation has poured forth its thanksgiving at the\nJubilee festival, surely none has been greater or more enduring than\nthose which have been conferred through the instrumentality of this\nsociety.\n\nFor what was the state of things at the beginning of this period?\nEnormous arrears of spiritual work to be overtaken; everywhere great\nmasses of people in our large centres absolutely beyond the reach of\nChurch ministration; the population about to increase \"by leaps and\nbounds.\" During these fifty years the society has made not less than\n21,000 grants to poor parishes here and there, the amounts being on an\naverage about L50. It has paid out in this way more than L1,000,000.\nAnd this sum has been met by L1,000,000 from contributions coming in\nfrom elsewhere; so that through its beneficent agency not less than\nL2,000,000 have been contributed for the increase of clerical\nministration in the poor and populous districts of the land.\n\nBut these L2,000,000 are far from being an adequate standard of its\nbeneficent effects. The planting down of an efficient clergyman in a\npoor district means the revival of Church work there; means,\nfrequently, the erection of a church and schools; means the creation\nof a new parochial machinery. And thus the work of this Society is\nborne through in a thousand various ways which it is impossible to\nreckon up or to tabulate.\n\nBut you will ask, What is it doing at the present moment? If its\noperations have been thus effected in the past, does it still maintain\nits efficiency? I am glad to be able to give this question an answer\nwhich none can gainsay. It never was doing a greater work, nor as\ngreat a work, as at this very time. It gives grants to more than 850\ncurates; these grants amount to more than L56,000 per annum, and this\nsum is met by about the same amount from other sources. Thus more than\nL100,000 a year is expended directly through its instrumentality to\nthe ministerial staff of the Church. But it is not only the extent of\nits operations which constitutes its claim on the support of all loyal\nchurches. The principle also of this administration demands their\nallegiance. I do not desire to say one word of disparagement about\nother societies which are constituted on a broader or a narrower base.\nAll are welcome; all are doing good service. There is work enough and\nto spare for all. But this association appeals to loyal English\nchurchmen by the very fact that its foundation principle is neither\nwider nor narrower than the Church it represents. It imposes no tests\nwhich the Church does not impose; it requires no assents which the\nChurch does not require. Within its limits the individual opinions of\nthe clergymen count for nothing; the needs of the parish are all in\nall. But if it has this paramount claim on all loyal churchmen, surely\nit appeals to none more strongly than to the churchmen of this great\ncity. No diocese draws so large an amount from it as this of\nManchester; I believe I am right in saying that no city receives more\nmaterial aid from it; and remembering this I cannot think that you\nwill lay yourselves open to the charge of spiritual ingratitude, of\nall ingratitude the worst. Let there, then, be a liberal response to\nthe appeal this afternoon, liberal in the sense that every giver will\nfeel his gift; that it will cost him some real sacrifice.\n\nAt this season, when we are especially called to glorify God in His\nsaints, you cannot afford to be niggardly. Such niggardliness drags\nyou downward, and is never more out of place than when you are\nattempting to lift up your souls to dwell in the heavenly city where\nChrist sits enthroned at the right hand of God. Ever, indeed, you need\nto be reminded of your heavenly citizenship amidst the cares and\nturmoil of life. It is with you as with the law-giver of old when he\ndescended from the mount. The radiance will vanish from your\ncountenance only too soon as you mingle with the busy crowd below. And\nyou too, like Moses, will need to reappear ever and again at the\nmountain of God, that, standing face to face with the Eternal\nPresence, you may gather once more in your city the rays of the\ninvisible glory.\n\n\n\n\nAMBITION.\n\n \"I can do all things through Christ that strengthened me\" [+Panta\n ischuo en to endunamounti me+, \"I have strength for all things\n in Him that empowereth, enableth me\"].--PHIL. iv. 13.\n\n\nAmbition, the love of power, the thirst after influence--its use and\nits abuse, its true and its false aims--this is no unfit subject for\nconsideration from a University pulpit.\n\nAmbition in some form or other is an innate craving of man. All men\ndesire power, they cannot help desiring it. The desire is as natural\nto them as the desire of health. Power and influence occupy the same\nplace socially that strength and vigour of limb do physically. Other\ndesires, though veiled under various disguises, resolve themselves\nultimately into a love of power. Knowledge is power. The cultivated\nintellect has a command of the resources of the universe. The selfish\nexaggeration of this feeling is a testimony to the underlying fact.\nThe self-satisfied soul congratulates herself that she is\n\n    \"Lord over nature, Lord of the visible earth,\n      Lord of the senses five.\"\n\nShe communes with herself--\n\n                \"All these are mine,\n    And let the world have peace or wars\n      'Tis one to me.\"\n\nAgain, money is power. A man desires wealth, not for the sake of the\nstamped metal or the printed paper in themselves. These represent to\nhim a command of resources. The miser, indeed, by base indulgence\nforgets the end in the means. In his own domain he resembles the\nspurious mathematician to whom the letters and symbols are all in all,\nwho sees in them so many counters and nothing more, who is blinded to\nthe eternal relations of space and number which they represent. But\ntraced back to its origin, the miser's love of money is a love of\npower.\n\nAmbition, emulation, rivalry plays a highly important part in the\neducation of the world. We cannot shut our eyes to its splendid\nachievements. In politics, in social life, in mechanical inventions,\nin literature and art, its stimulus has produced invaluable results.\nIf ambition has been the last infirmity, it has also been the initial\ninspiration of many a noble mind. If by ambition angels fell, by\nambition men have risen. It has heightened their ideal and drawn them\nupwards from lower to higher. If it is chargeable with the worst evils\nwhich have devastated mankind, it must be credited also with the most\nsplendid advances in human progress and civilization.\n\nAmbition has its proper home in a University. Ambition is the life of\nthis place. What would Cambridge be without its honourable emulations,\nits generous rivalries? Body and mind alike feel the stimulus of its\npresence. Remove this stimulus, and the immediate consequence will be\ntorpor and degeneration and decay. The athletic ambitions and the\nscholastic ambitions of the place, each in their own province, are\nindispensable to its health and vigour.\n\nTo one who, revisiting the scenes amidst which the best years of his\nlife were spent, asks himself what topic may be fitly handled in this\npulpit, the subject of ambition will naturally suggest itself. The\nUniversity has lived through a period of exceptional restlessness and\nchange during the last three decades--change far more considerable\nthan during the preceding three centuries. Yet the spirit and life of\nthe place are unchanging. It is the ceaseless orderly march of a\nmighty army moving forward. Cross it where you will along the line,\nthe gesture, the tread, the uniform, is the same; the faces only are\ndifferent. It is the broad, silent, ever-flowing river, changeless,\nyet always changing. Wave succeeds wave; you gaze on it at intervals;\nnot one drop of water remains the same; and yet the river is not\nanother. The main currents of University life are the same now as\nthirty years ago. Its moral and social condition is mainly, we may\nsay, the resultant of two divergent forces, its friendships and its\nemulations. It is the latter alone that I purpose considering this\nafternoon.\n\nI speak to you, therefore, as to ambitious men. Those only are\nbeyond hope who have no spirit of emulation, no craving after\nexcellence--those only, in short, who are devoid of ambition. I invite\nyou, therefore, to be ambitious. Only I ask you to purify your\nambition, to consecrate it, to direct it through worthy channels and\nto worthy aims. I desire to show you the more excellent way.\n\nIf, indeed, ambition has achieved splendid results, it can only have\ndone so by virtue of splendid qualities. It must contain in itself\ntrue and abiding elements, which we cannot afford to neglect. Thus it\ninvolves a love of approbation. This cannot be culpable in itself. As\nsocial beings, we have sympathies and affections which lie at the very\nroots of our nature; and the desire of approval is inseparably\nintertwined with these. Who would blame the child for seeking to win\nits mother's good opinion? But the principle cannot be limited to this\none example. It is co-extensive with the whole range of our social\nrelations. The end sought is commendable. Only it may be discredited\nand condemned by the means taken to attain it; as, for instance, if we\ndisguise our true sentiment, or withhold a just rebuke, or connive at\nwrongdoing, or sacrifice a noble purpose, for the sake of standing\nwell with others. It is then, and then only, that the praise of men\nconflicts with the praise of God. Again, ambition implies a spirit of\nemulation. Neither is this wrong in itself. If it were, this\nUniversity would stand condemned root and branch. Emulation is not\nenvy; emulation is not jealousy; emulation does not seek to injure or\nrob another. An apostle avows it to be his aim to \"provoke to\nemulation.\" This provocation--this stimulus of comparison and\ncontrast--is an invaluable influence. We measure ourselves with\nothers; we see our defects mirrored in their excellences; our ideal is\nheightened by the comparison. Thus there gathers and ferments in us a\n_discontent_ with ourselves--not indeed, if we are wise, with our\ncapacities, not with our opportunities, not with the inevitable\nenvironments of our position, but with the conduct of that personality\nwhich is free to discipline, to mould, to direct, to develop our\nendowments. This dissatisfaction with self is the mainspring of all\nhigh enterprise and all moral advancement.\n\nBut the chief element in ambition is the pursuit of power. The\nconsciousness of power gives a satisfaction quite independently of the\nexercise of power. Whatever form the power may take--whether\nintellectual eminence, or social influence, or physical strength, it\nis a thing which man desires, which he cannot help desiring, in and\nfor itself. It is a seed of God's own planting--a germ of splendid\nachievements, if rightly trained and cultivated. It is only culpable\nin its excesses and deviations. By our very constitution we feel a\nhappiness in making the best of ourselves, as the phrase runs--in\ndeveloping and improving our faculties, irrespective of any ulterior\nresults. But a faculty improved is a power gained.\n\nBrothers, I desire before all things to kindle in you a lofty ambition\nto-day. Therefore, I have striven to justify ambition to you as God's\nvery precious gift. I wish--God helping me--to inspire you with that\ninward dissatisfaction, that discontent with self, that ceaseless,\nsleepless craving after higher things, which gives you no rest day or\nnight, because it pursues an ever-receding goal. I would stimulate in\nyou that high spirit of emulation which, fermenting and seething in\nyour hearts, impels you to unknown enterprises. I ask you to pray for\npower, to pursue power, to grasp at power, with all the force and\ndetermination which you can command.\n\nHow can I do otherwise? Are not you the men, and is not this the\nseason, for the handling of such a topic?\n\nAre not you the men? Who among you has not felt, at one time or\nanother, the spark of a divine fire kindling within you? Who has not\nyearned with an intense, if momentary, yearning to do something\nworthy, to be something worthy? Youth is the hey-day of hope, of\nenthusiasm, of lofty aspiration. You have felt that there was within\nyou a latent power, a heaven-born capacity, which ought to work\nmiracles, if it were not clogged by self-indulgence, or cowed by\ntimidity, or choked by sloth and indulgence.\n\nAre not you the men? As I have said to such audiences before, so I say\nto you now. You do not know, you cannot know, with what reverence--a\nreverence approaching to awe--older men regard the glorious\npotentiality of youth, in all the freshness of its vigorous life, with\nall the promise of the coming years. Our habits are formed; our career\nis defined; our possibilities are limited. The wide sweep of moral\nvictory, still open to you, is closed to us for ever. But what\ntriumphs may you not achieve, if you are true to yourselves? What\ninstruments may you not be in God's hands, if only you will yield\nyourselves to Him--not with a timid, passive, half-hearted\nacquiescence, but with the active concentration of all your powers of\nbody and soul and spirit?\n\nAnd again I ask, is not this the time? The first volume of your life's\nhistory is closed. A clean page lies open, and with what writing shall\nit be filled? This is the great crisis of your life. These earliest\nfew weeks of your University career, with which perhaps you are\ntrifling, which you are idling thoughtlessly away, are only too likely\nto determine for you what you shall be in time and in eternity. It is\nthe great crisis, but it is also the signal opportunity. Thank God,\nthis is so; for the two do not always coincide. As the great break in\nyour lives, it is the great season for revision, for repentance, for\namendment, for the strong resolve and the definite plan. The old base\nassociations must be abandoned; the old loose habits must be cured;\nthe old indolence shaken off; and the old sin cast out and trampled\nunder foot. Never again will such a magnificent opportunity be given\nyou of rectifying the past; for never again can you reckon on the\nleisure, the privacy, the aids and environments, needed by one who is\ntaking stock of his moral and spiritual life.\n\nWho would not shrink from the responsibility of addressing you at such\na crisis? And yet I speak boldly to you. Do I not know that though the\nhand of the swordsman is feeble, yet the weapon itself is\npowerful--keener than any two-edged sword? Am I not assured that\nthough the preacher's words may be feeble, faltering, desultory,\nwithout force and without point, yet God may barb the ill-fledged,\nill-aimed shaft, and drive it home to the heart? It is possible that\neven now the live coal from the altar may be brought by the winged\nseraph's hand, and laid on the sinful lips. I have undertaken to\nglorify the power of God, and to hold it up to you as your truest\ngoal. How can I hope for a hearing, if I begin by distrusting it where\nI myself am concerned?\n\nIt is here, then, that I bid you seek and find the true aim of your\nambition--in realising, appropriating, absorbing into yourselves,\nidentifying yourselves with this power of God. It alone is\ninexhaustible in its resources and infinite in its potency. There is\nno fear here lest the conqueror of a world should sigh and fret\nbecause nothing remains beyond to conquer. If the craving is infinite,\nthe satisfaction is infinite also. Star beyond star, world beyond\nworld, will start out into view as your vision grows clearer,\nspangling the moral heavens with their glows. +Panta ischuo+,\n\"I can do all things.\" +Panta humon+, \"All things are yours.\"\nYes, but this promise of limitless strength has its condition\nattached--+en to endunamounti me+, \"In Him that empowereth me;\"\nyes, but this pledge of universal dominion is qualified by the sequel\n+humeis de Christou+, \"Ye are Christ's.\"\n\nHow can we better realise this power of God than by taking St. Paul's\nstatement as our starting-point? The Cross of Christ is \"the power of\nGod.\" The Cross is the central revelation of God. The Cross has not\nunfrequently been preached as a narrow technicality which shocks the\nconscience and freezes the heart. It thus becomes a mere forensic\nsubtlety. But the Cross of Christ, taught in all its length and\nbreadth and height and depth--the Cross of Christ taught as St. Paul\ntaught it--the Cross of Christ, starting from the Incarnation on the\none side, and leading up to the Resurrection and Ascension on the\nother, contains all the elements of moral regeneration and of\nspiritual life.\n\n(1) It is first of all a lesson of _righteousness_. It is the\ngreat rebuke of sin, the great assurance of judgment, the great call\nto repentance. Think--no, you cannot think, it defies all\nthinking--yet strive to think, what is implied in the human birth, the\nhuman life, the human suffering, the human death of the Eternal Word.\nAsk yourselves what condescension, what sacrifice, what humiliation\nis involved in this. Summon to your aid all analogies of\nself-renunciation which history records or imagination suggests. They\nwill all fail you. No reiteration of the finite can compass the\ninfinite. You are lost in awe at the contemplation. And while your\nbrain is reeling with the effort, try and imagine the awe, the\nmajesty, the glory of a righteousness which could only thus be\nvindicated. Then, after looking upward to God, look inward into your\nown heart, and see how heinous, how loathsome, how guilty your guilt\nmust be, which has cost such a sacrifice as this. God's\nrighteousness--your sin,--these are brought face to face in the Cross\nof Christ.\n\n(2) But, secondly, while it is a denunciation of sin, it is likewise\nan assurance of pardon. If the infinity of the sacrifice has taught\nyou the majesty of God's righteousness, it teaches you no less the\nglory of His mercy. What may you not look for, what may you not hope\nfor from a Father who has vouchsafed to you this transcendent\nmanifestation of His loving-kindness? \"He that spared not His own Son\n... how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?\" Is any\none here burdened with the consciousness of a shameful past? Does the\nmemory of some ugly school-boy sin dog your path, haunting and\nparalysing you with its importunity? You feel sometimes as if your\nwhole life were poisoned by that one cruel retrospect. Brother, be\nbold, and dare to look up. I would not have you think your sins one\nwhit less heinous. But if God's righteousness is infinite, so also is\nHis mercy. The Cross is reared before your eyes in this moral\nwilderness, where you are dying, where all are dying around you. Dare\nto look up. The bite of the serpent's fang is healed; the venom\ncoursing through your veins is quelled; and health returns to the\npoisoned soul. Yes, and by God's grace it may happen that through your\nvery fall you will rise to a higher life; that the thanksgiving for\nthe sin forgiven will consecrate you with fuller consecration; and\nthat the acute moral agony through which you have passed will endow\nyou with a more helpful, more sympathetic, more loving spirit, than if\nyou had never fallen.\n\n(3) But again, the Cross of Christ is not only a condemnation of sin,\nnot only a pledge of forgiveness; it is likewise an obligation of\nself-sacrifice. \"God forbid,\" says St. Paul, \"that I should glory save\nin the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.\" But what next? Not \"whereby I\nam saved in spite of myself,\" not \"whereby I am spared all personal\nexertion,\" but \"whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I to the\nworld.\" This conformity to Christ's death, this crucifixion of self\nwith Christ, always forms part of the doctrine of the Cross in St.\nPaul's teaching. The dying with Christ, the being buried with Christ,\nis the absolute accompaniment of the atoning death of Christ. We\ncannot be at one with Christ unless we conform to Christ. The work\ndone for us necessitates the work done by us. The potentiality of our\nsalvation--of yours and mine--wrought through the Cross of Christ can\nonly then become an actuality, when Christ's death is thus\nappropriated, realised, translated into action by us--by you and by\nme. But it remains still the work of God's grace. Human merit is\nabsolutely excluded still, as absolutely as by the baldest and most\nunqualified doctrine of substitution.\n\n(4) Fourthly and lastly, the Cross of Christ is a lesson of the\nregenerate and sanctified life. Dying and living, burial and\nresurrection, these in the Christian vocabulary are correlative ideas.\nThe Crucifixion implies the Resurrection and the Ascension. The\nraising up on the cross demands the raising up from the grave, the\nraising up into heaven. The lifting up of the brazen serpent in the\nwilderness is a symbol alike of the one and the other. And as with\nChrist, so also with those who are Christ's. \"If we died with Christ,\nwe shall also live with him.\" Those only can be made conformable to\nChrist's resurrection who have been made conformable to His death. The\npower of His resurrection is the counterpart to the power of His\ncross.\n\nHerein, then--in the Cross of Christ--resides this power of God which\nis offered to you as the true aim of your ambition, inexhaustible,\nomnipotent, infinite. Will you close with the offer? Then reverence\nyourselves; believe in yourselves; consecrate yourselves.\n\nReverence yourselves. Begin with reverencing this your body. Reverence\nit as God's handiwork fearfully and wonderfully made. Contemplate it;\nyes, contemplate it with awe, if only for its marvellously subtle\nmechanism. But reverence it still more as the consecrated temple of\nGod's Spirit. Do not neglect it; do not misuse it; before all things\ndo not defile and desecrate it. Young men, the problem of social\npurity is thrown down for your generation to solve. Will you accept\nthis challenge? The conscience of England is awakening to the terrible\ncurse. To redress the crying social wrong, to raise womanhood from\ndegradation and shame, to hold up to reverence the idea of a pure,\nchivalrous, manly manhood,--this is the crusade in which you are\ninvited to enlist. Will you, as consecrated soldiers of the Cross,\nclaim your part in the glory of this campaign? If so, the work must\nbegin now, must begin in yourselves. There can be no success against\nthe foe where there is disaffection and mutiny in the citadel.\n\nBelieve in yourselves; yet, not in yourselves as yourselves. Believe\nnot in your strength, but in your weakness. Believe in God who dwells\nin you. Give full rein to your ambition. Trust this power of God. It\nwill not stunt or mar, will not crush, will not annihilate your\nnatural gifts--your social endowments, your political instincts, your\nintellectual capacities. It will only elevate, harmonize, inspire,\npurify them. Trust this power. There is nothing, absolutely nothing,\nwhich you may not do, if you will only trust it. +Panta ischuo+,\n\"I have strength for everything,\" everything in heaven and earth. You\nhave youth, health, vigour, enthusiasm, hopefulness, everything on\nyour side now. Seize the great opportunity which can never return.\n\nConsecrate yourselves. Empty yourselves of yourselves, that you may be\nfilled with God. Yield yourselves to Him, not with a passive\nacquiescence, a sentimental quietism, but with the earnest, energetic\ndirection of all your faculties to this one end. A period must still\nintervene for most of you before the active independent work of life\nbegins,--a period of discipline and waiting. Only by patience will you\nwin your souls. But the self-dedication must be made at once, and it\nmust be complete. Half-heartedness spoils the sacrifice. Postponement\nis perilous. The opportunity despised turns its back on you for ever.\nConsecrate, consecrate yourselves, body and soul and spirit, to God\nnow, this night.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[1] _These sermons are printed from reporter's notes._\n\n[2] Preached at Cambridge, Oct. 23rd, 1881.\n\n[3] Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral on Sunday Afternoon, September\n6th, 1874.\n\n[4] Mr. Foley, R.A., sculptor.\n\n[5] Sermon preached in St. Paul's Cathedral on Sunday, May 21st, 1876.\n\n[6] Sermon preached in Durham Cathedral on the Occasion of his\nEnthronement, on Thursday, May 15th, 1879.\n\n[7] Preached in St. Peter's Church, Bishop Auckland.\n\n[8] Delivered at St. Paul's Cathedral, Tuesday evening, November 4th,\n1873.\n\n[9] Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral, Tuesday evening, November 11th,\n1873.\n\n[10] Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral, Tuesday evening, November\n18th, 1873.\n\n[11] Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, Thursday, June 19th, 1884, on\nthe anniversary of the Girls' Friendly Society.\n\n[12] Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, on Sunday Afternoon, May 30th,\n1875, before some of Her Majesty's Judges, the Lord Mayor, and members\nof the Corporation of the City of London.\n\n[13] Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, February 1st, 1884.\n\n[14] Preached at Manchester Cathedral, at annual meeting of Additional\nCurates Society, on Tuesday, November 1st, 1887.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPrinted by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.\n\n\nTranscriber's Note: In Table of Contents, ditto marks replaced by text\nthey refer to (\"Christianity and Paganism\"). Italics indicated by\n_underscores_ and transliterated Greek by +plus signs.+ \"Gallas\"\nchanged to \"Gallus\" on page 79, \"Constantine\" to \"Constantius\" on page\n93, and \"god\" to \"gods\" on page 112 (c.f. BCP Psalter xcvii. 7).\nPunctuation errors corrected on pages 39 and 128. Spelling errors\ncorrected on page 80 (\"fanactism\") page 104 (\"consciousnes\") page\n148 (\"evey\") and page 170 (+eu+). Different spellings of\napostasy/apostacy, and inconsistent hyphenation elsewhere, have been\nretained. Illustration on title page is decorative emblem.\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Sermons","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":41713}