{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_44291/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_44291","id":"gutenberg_44291","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44291","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Church of England -- Sermons","Sermons, English -- 20th century","World War, 1914-1918 -- Sermons"],"text":"Transcriber's note:\n\nText enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\nSmall capital text has been replaced with all capitals.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: titlepage]\n\n\n\n\n  The Potter and the\n  Clay\n\n  By the\n\n  Right Rev.\n  Arthur F. Winnington Ingram, D.D.\n\n  Lord Bishop of London\n\n  The Young Churchman Co.\n\n  484 Milwaukee Street\n  Milwaukee,       Wis.\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n                                  I.\n\n  CHAPTER                                               PAGE\n\n     I. THE POTTER'S VESSEL                                3\n    II. THE SPLENDOUR OF GOD                              15\n   III. GOD THE KING OF THE WORLD                         27\n    IV. MISSIONARY WORK THE ONLY FINAL CURE FOR WAR       40\n     V. GOD THE CHAMPION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS                 57\n    VI. THE KNOCKING AT THE DOOR                          75\n   VII. IMMORTALITY                                       91\n  VIII. THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM                           108\n\n\n                        II.--TO THE CLERGY\n\n     I. MESSENGERS                                       123\n    II.  PHYSICIANS                                      145\n   III. FISHERS OF MEN                                   160\n\n\n                           III.--TO GIRLS\n\n      WHAT A GIRL CAN DO IN A DAY OF GOD                 179\n\n\n                            IV.--TO BOYS\n\n      THE EFFECT OF THE HOLY GHOST ON HUMAN CHARACTER    199\n\n\n                                  V.\n\n      THE WAR AND RELIGION                               213\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nAnother year, and we are still at War! But we must not mind, for we\nmust see this thing through to the end. As Mr. Oliver said in his\nletter on \"What we are fighting for,\" published this week: \"We are\nfighting for Restitution, Reparation, and Security, and the greatest\nof these is Security.\" He means security that this horror shall not\nhappen again, and that these crimes shall not again be committed;\nand he adds: \"To get this security _we must destroy the power of the\nsystem which did these things_.\"\n\nNow it is clear that this power is not yet destroyed, and to make\npeace while it lasts is to betray our dead, and to leave it to the\nchildren still in the cradle to do the work over again, if, indeed,\nit will be possible for them to do it if we in our generation fail.\n\nThis book, then, is an answer to the question asked me very often\nduring the past two years, and very pointedly from the trenches this\nvery Christmas Day: \"How can you reconcile your belief in a good\nGOD, who is also powerful, with the continuance of this desolating\nWar? How can we still believe the Christian message of Peace on\nearth with War all around?\"\n\nIt is with the hope that this book may comfort some mourning hearts,\nand bring some light to doubting minds, that I send forth \"The\nPotter and the Clay.\"\n\n                                               A. F. LONDON.\n\n  _Feast of the Epiphany_, 1917.\n\n\n\n                             I\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE POTTER'S VESSEL[1]\n\n  [1] Preached at St. Giles's, Cripplegate. The argument in this\n  sermon, stated shortly during dinner-hour in a City church, is\n  developed at length in the lecture which comes last in this book.\n\n     \"Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will\n     cause thee to hear My words. Then I went down to the potter's\n     house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the\n     vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the\n     potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to\n     the potter to make it.\"--JER. xviii. 2-4.\n\nI suppose there is no metaphor in Holy Scripture that has been so\nmuch misunderstood and led to more mischief than this metaphor of\nthe potter and the clay. Do not you know how, if any of us dared to\nvindicate the ways of GOD to men, again and again we were referred\nto the words of St. Paul: \"Who art thou that repliest against GOD?\nShall the thing formed say to Him that formed it: Why hast Thou\nmade me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same\nlump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?\"\nAnd so the offended human conscience was silenced but not\nsatisfied. There is no doubt that the monstrous misrepresentation\nof Christianity which we call Calvinism arose chiefly from this\nmetaphor; and few things have done more harm to the religion of the\nworld than Calvinism. Those who believe that GOD is an arbitrary\ntyrant who simply works as a potter is supposed to work on clay,\nirrespective of character or any plea for mercy--how can such a\nperson love GOD, or care for GOD, or wish to go to church or even\npray? You cannot do it!\n\nThus there sprang up in some men's minds just such a picture of GOD\nas is described by that wonderful genius, Browning. Some of you\nmay have read the poem called \"Caliban on Setebos,\" in which the\nhalf-savage Caliban pictures to himself what sort of a person GOD\nis. He had never been instructed, he knew nothing; but he imagined\nthat GOD would act towards mankind as he acted towards the animals\nand the living creatures on his island; and this is a quotation from\nthat poem:\n\n    \"Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him.\n     Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.\n     Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs\n     That march now from the mountain to the sea;\n     Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,\n     Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.\n     Say the first straggler that boasts purple spots\n     Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off?\n     Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,\n     And two worms he whose nippers end in red;\n     As it likes me each time, so I do: so He.\"\n\nIn other words, his picture of GOD was that of an arbitrary tyrant\nwho rejoiced in his power, who did what he liked, who enjoyed\ntormenting, who would have looked down in glee upon the pictures\nthat have so touched us in the paper of a woman, as she taught a\nBible-class, killed by a Zeppelin bomb; and most touching of all of\nthe little child who, with the stump of his arm, ran in and said:\n\"They've killed daddy and done this to me.\" These things stir our\ndeepest feelings; but such a GOD as Caliban pictured his Setebos to\nbe would have rejoiced at them and laughed to see them.\n\nNo wonder that this picture of GOD which has grown up in some\nminds produces absolute despair. People say, \"If GOD is like that,\nwhat is the good of my doing anything? GOD will do what He likes,\nirrespective of what I do.\" Or, again, it produces a spirit of\nfatalism: \"I'm made like that! It's not my fault.\" Like Aaron when\nreproached about the golden calf--\"I cast the gold they gave me into\nthe fire, and there came out this calf.\" And all this produces in\nthe mind of mankind a kind of rebellion--nay, a hatred of GOD (\"I\nhate GOD,\" said a man once to me)--which makes it quite impossible\nfor any religion or trust or desire to pray to exist in the human\nsoul. It is well worth while, then, to run this metaphor of the\npotter and the clay back to its source.\n\nHere in Jeremiah is the original passage about the potter and the\nclay. Now if you read for yourself this passage in the eighteenth\nchapter of Jeremiah, you will find an absolutely different picture\ngiven. If you go with Jeremiah to the potter's house you find a\nhumble, patient man at work dealing with refractory clay, patiently\ntrying to make the best he can out of it, and when he is defeated in\nproducing one object he makes another. If he cannot make a porcelain\nvase he will make a bowl; if he cannot produce a beautiful work of\nart he makes a flower-pot.\n\nThe potter has three things to notice about him. First of all, there\nis his patience. Then there is the fact that he is checked in his\ndesign by the clay at every moment. He has no arbitrary power; he\nis checked because he has to deal with a certain substance. And the\nlast beautiful thing about the potter is his resourcefulness; he has\nalways got the alternative of a second best. Though something has\nwrecked his first plan he has got another. This is the picture of\nGOD, these are the characteristics of GOD which we are to carry away\nfrom the potter and the clay.\n\n1. Now just see, if this is so, what a tremendous light this throws\nupon the war. There are many to-day who do not think things out\ndeeply, who look on this war as the breakdown of Christianity\naltogether. They say: All we have been taught, why, look how vain\nit is! Here are seven Christian nations at war and dragging in the\nrest of the world. All you have taught us about GOD, all you say\nabout Christianity, is shown to be futile. We see the breakdown of\nChristianity indeed.\n\nBut wait a moment. Look at the potter and the clay, and see if you\ndo not get some light from this. Here is the Potter, our great GOD;\nthe great Potter knows what is in His mind; He has in His mind a\nworld of universal peace. He is planning a porcelain vase in which\nthe world is at peace. He meant men to be all of one mind. He made\npeople of one blood to be of one mind in CHRIST JESUS. That is\nclearly His plan, His design, and we do well to pray for--\n\n    \"... the promised time\n     When war shall be no more,\n       And lust, oppression, crime,\n     Shall flee Thy face before.\"\n\nThat is His plan, that is His design, and some day He\nwill see it accomplished. \"He shall see of the travail of His soul\nand shall be satisfied.\"\n\nMeanwhile, because He acts like a potter, He is defeated again and\nagain by the character of the clay, for He will not run counter\nto the free will of the individual or of a nation. If a great\nand powerful nation deliberately turns back from Christianity to\nPaganism, if that nation deliberately declares regret that it took\nup Christianity in the fourth century, if it has adopted the gospel\nthat Might is Right, if the people turn to Odin as their ideal\ninstead of to CHRIST, they defeat the plan of the great Potter; and\nso He cannot have the porcelain vase of universal peace. You have no\nright to blame GOD; it is the work of the Devil. GOD is hindered at\nevery moment by the Devil and all his works; you cannot therefore\nblame our great and glorious GOD for the defeat of His design. The\ngreat Potter is not to be blamed because of the refractoriness of\nthe clay.\n\nBut here comes the splendid resourcefulness of the great Potter.\nAlthough He cannot get out His first design of the porcelain vase of\nuniversal peace, He is not defeated. He has got a second-best; He\nwill have a beautiful bowl of universal service--a people offering\nthemselves out of sheer patriotism for the service of their\ncountry. And that is what He has produced to-day. Who would have\nthought that five millions of men would have volunteered to fight\nfor their country? Who would have thought that every woman would\nfeel herself disgraced if not doing something for her country as\nnurse, physician, or in a canteen? Why, the spirit of service abroad\nto-day among men and women is something we have not seen in our\ncountry for a hundred years. The great Potter, then, has produced\nsomething from the clay; He has produced the beautiful bowl of\nservice. Let us thank Him for that!\n\n2. But it is not only upon the war that the picture of the potter\nand the clay throws such light; it also shows what we have to\ndo with our country. There are some people who imagine it is\ninconsistent to say two things at the same time. People blame me for\ndeclaring two things in the same breath. One is that we never have\nhad such a righteous cause; that we are fighting for the freedom of\nour country, for the freedom of the world; that we are fighting for\ninternational honour, for the future brotherhood of nations; we are\nfighting for the \"nailed hand against the mailed fist.\" But, on the\nother hand, are we to speak as if we had no faults of our own? Are\nwe to take the tone of Pharisees and say, \"We thank GOD we are not\nas other men, even as these Germans\"? We have to admit that we have\ngrave national sins ourselves, and if we want to shorten the war we\nhave to put these national sins away. That is why we are going to\nhave a national mission this autumn, and we are preparing for it now.\n\nThe Church is going to preach this great national mission,\nand--please GOD--our Non-conformist brethren will fall in on their\nown lines and do the same. We have great national sins, and we have\nto put those away if we would shorten the war. What a disgrace it is\nstill to have a National Drink Bill of 180 millions! What a disgrace\nit is that we have not yet more thoroughly mastered immorality\nin London! What shame it is that still there is so much love of\ncomfort, and that there are people making all they can out of the\nwar!\n\nWe have to get rid of all this; we must have the spirit of sacrifice\nfrom one end of the nation to the other. We have to ask the great\nPotter to remake the country, to give the Empire a new spirit.\nWhy was it that, when I had myself pressed a Bill to diminish the\nlicensing hours on Sunday from six to three--a harmless reform,\nyou would have thought--to give the barmen and barmaids a chance\nof Sunday rest, that was shelved in the long run? Why was it that\nwe could not raise the age for the protection of girls even to\neighteen? There is much to be purged out of our country, and there\ncould be no greater calamity than for this war to end and England\nstill to be left with her national sins.\n\nTherefore the great Potter must remake us. He may have to break\nsome nations to pieces like a potter's vessel. It is possible for\na nation to be so stiffened in national sins that there may be\nnothing for it but to break it in pieces. We pray GOD that we may\nnot be so far gone as that, that we may still be plastic clay in the\nhands of the Potter. That is our prayer, that is our ideal, to be a\nnew England, a new British Empire, and that GOD may use us as His\ninstrument in freeing the world.\n\n3. But--and let this be my last word--we ourselves _individually_\nmust be re-created. Have you ever thought, brother or sister,\nthat the great Potter had a design for you? That, when He planned\nyou, He planned a devoted man who would be a powerful influence\nin the world; that He planned you, my sister, to be an example of\nattractive goodness. How many people have you brought to CHRIST? How\npowerful a witness do you give in this city? Suppose that you, who\nwere meant individually to be powerful instruments in GOD'S hand,\nvessels He could use, have become middle-aged cynics, or sneer at\nthe religion you profess to believe in, there is only one thing\nto be done. You must get back to the design the great Potter had\nfor you. We have all some reason to admit that we have been marred\nin the hands of the Potter, and to ask the Potter to make us into\nanother vessel as it may seem good to the Potter to make us. In this\nthere are only two conditions--to look up and to trust heaven's\nwheel and not earth's wheel.\n\n          \"Look not thou down, but up!\n           To uses of a cup,\n    The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,\n           The new wine's foaming flow,\n           The master's lips aglow!\n    Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?\"[2]\n\n  [2] Browning. \"Rabbi Ben Ezra.\"\n\nWe have to realise this, that we can be remade, that GOD'S power\ncan do anything; but that we may go on for ever as we are unless we\nreally put ourselves in the hands of GOD. What, then, I ask every\none of you, is to take the clay of your nature with the prayer,\n\"Just as I am, without one plea,\" and place it in the great Potter's\nhands, that He may re-create you into the man or woman GOD meant you\nto be. Nothing can more effectually shorten the days for our boys in\nthe trenches.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE SPLENDOUR OF GOD\n\n     \"O GOD, wonderful art Thou in Thy holy places: Thou wilt give\n     strength and power unto Thy people. Blessed be GOD.\"--Ps.\n     lxviii. 35.\n\n\nAt the great Convention of all the clergy of London in Advent, 1915,\nwe saw reasons for thinking that what the world had been losing\nsight of was the _majesty_ of GOD; the lowered sense of sin, the\nneglect of worship, the uppishness of man, the pessimism of the day,\nand the querulous impatience under discomfort, are all signs of the\nloss of the sense of the majesty of GOD.\n\nBut I want now to go farther than this; I want to prove that the\nonly way to revive praise, hope, peace, sacrifice, and courage, is\nto revive a belief, not only in the majesty, but in the splendour of\nGOD. It was said not long ago that even good Christians believed\nall the Creed except the first clause of it.\n\nBut if we leave out the first clause, \"I believe in GOD,\" see what\nhappens.\n\n1. Prayer becomes unreal. It is only a delight when it is felt to be\ncommunion with a very noble and splendid person.\n\n    \"LORD, what a change within us one short hour\n     Spent in Thy presence can prevail to make!\"[3]\n\nis only true if that short and glorious hour is spent with an\ninspiring and glorious personality. When, like Moses, our faces\nshould shine as we come down from the mount.\n\n  [3] Trench.\n\n2. Praise becomes practically impossible. Sometimes we say, \"We\nreally must praise GOD more.\" But we cannot _make_ ourselves praise,\nany more than we can move a boat by swinging up and down in it.\nWe must pull against something to make it move. What we want is\nan adequate idea of the splendour of GOD. When we come in sight\nof Mont Blanc or Niagara, or when we hear of some gallant deed on\nthe battlefield, we say \"How splendid!\" quite naturally. We shall\npraise quite naturally when we catch sight--if only for a moment--of\nthe true character of GOD, or believe He has done something great.\n\n3. Religion, which means something which _binds_ us to GOD, becomes\nan uninspiring series of detailed scruples about ourselves.\nSelf-examination is most necessary; but it was well said by an\nexperienced guide of souls that, \"for every time we look at\nourselves, we ought to look nine times at GOD.\"\n\nDo some of you feel as I speak that your religion does not help you;\nthat, while you have not given up your prayers, or coming to church,\nit is rather a burden than a help, or at any rate not such a help as\nit might be? It is because you have lost sight of the splendour of\nGOD.\n\n4. Or, again, are you suffering from depression? You hardly know\nwhy, but everything seems to go wrong; you seem oppressed with what\nold writers called \"accidie.\" Your will has lost its spring; the\nnote of your life has lost its hope and its joyousness. You drag\nthrough life rather than \"rise up with wings like an eagle\" or\n\"run,\" or even \"walk.\" This is all because you have lost faith or\nnever had faith in the splendour of GOD.\n\n5. Or, on the contrary, you are busy from morning till night,\nand you are too busy for prayer or church; you are immersed in a\nthousand schemes for making money for yourself or for your family or\nfor the good of mankind. And yet, with all your business abilities,\nyou don't inspire people; you are conscious of a want yourself, and\nother people are more conscious of it. It is simply that you are\nwithout the one thing which matters; you are the planet trying to\nshine without its sun; you are ignoring the splendour of GOD.\n\nI. For consider how splendid GOD is! These writers of the psalms\nhad many limitations. They had a very inadequate belief in the life\nafter the grave; they knew nothing about the Incarnation; they had\nno Christmas Day, Easter Day, Ascension Day, or Whit Sunday, to\ninspire them. But they are bursting with glorious song, because of\ntheir sense of the splendour of GOD. \"Before the mountains were\nbrought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, Thou art\nGOD from everlasting, and world without end.\"\n\n1. He is splendid, first, in His wonderful _Power_. I should not\nthink of arguing with you as to the existence of GOD; although, to\nany thinking mind, the marvellous intricacy of the whole creation,\nfrom the largest sun to the smallest insect, demands a Thinking\nMind; the thunder of the four hundred million consciences of mankind\ndemands a Righteous Person. And a Creator who is at once wise and\ngood is a GOD. No! it is not only His existence which should mean so\nmuch to us, but His astonishing power.\n\nI remember when I was at Niagara being taken down to the great\npower-station, and through that power-station the power of Niagara\nFalls lighted, among other things, the whole of the great province\nof Ontario so that the solitary worker in some small town was\nworking with the light from a great power-station which he had never\nseen, and in which he only, perhaps, partly believed.\n\nBut think of the Power-Station which works the whole universe; which\ngives the light to twenty million suns which have been counted and\nGOD knows how many which have never been seen, and yet which gives\nstrength to the boy far from home as he leaps across the parapet\ninto the battle. Well may another psalmist cry: \"O GOD, wonderful\nart Thou in Thy holy places: Thou shalt give strength and power unto\nThy people. Blessed be GOD.\"\n\nAnd, surely, even if there were no other characteristic of the\nsplendour of GOD, this ought to encourage us more than it does. To\nbelieve that in prayer you are in touch with unfathomable strength;\nthat if you co-operate with GOD you have at your disposal His\nunrivalled and incomparable power--this ought to put heart into the\nmost timid. We understand what Archbishop Trench meant when he said:\n\n      \"We kneel how weak; we rise how full of power!\"\n\n2. But the power of GOD is really only the beginning of it. The\nnext characteristic of the splendour of GOD is in His _Generosity_.\n\"Thou openest Thine Hand, and fillest all things living with\nplenteousness,\" says the psalmist. You could scarcely get a more\nbeautiful description of the open-handedness of GOD, and the ease\nwith which GOD showers His gifts upon the world.\n\n(_a_) When you come to think of it, there is no explanation of man's\npossession of life, except the open-handedness of GOD. He simply\n_gave_ him life, and there is nothing more to be said about it.\nIt is at present still a scientific truth that \"Life only comes\nfrom life.\" Life has never been yet spontaneously generated. When\nmen thought they had succeeded in creating life, it was discovered\nthat some previous germ of life had been left in the hermetically\nsealed vessel. But even if, in the years to come, some sort of life\nwas produced from apparently dead matter, would it really have any\nbearing on the age-long belief that this free, joyous life of man\nand animal has come from GOD? When you ask why He gave life, there\nis only one answer: That so many more living, sentient beings might\nsun themselves in the sunshine of His own happiness, He opened His\nHand and life came out.\n\n(_b_) But He was not content with giving life. He gave all the\ncolour of life; He painted the most glorious world out of the\nriches of His marvellous imagination; every variety of flower;\nevery plumage of bird; every species of tree--often brought to the\nbest by the slow process of evolution. He gave it all; He flung it\nout in all the exuberance of delight in what was \"very good.\" He\ngave colour to our own life. He gave us our warm friendships; our\nkeen intellectual interest in problems; the love of mother, wife,\nhusband, father, child. He flung it all out, like a joyous giver;\n\"He filled all things living with plenteousness.\"\n\n(_c_) But not content with this life, He had another ready when this\nwas over. He knew the boys wanted life, and that this life would not\nbe enough to satisfy them, especially if they died early; so He had\nanother ready for them. And here, again, another psalmist dashes in\nwith his word of praise: \"He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest him\na long life, even for ever.\"\n\nThis is our glorious hope to-day. It is only when we have grasped\nthe splendour of the generosity of GOD that we can really appraise\nthe meanness of man.\n\nNearly all the ills of our life on earth--the poverty, the class\nhatred, the wars--come from an unfair grasping at an unfair share of\nthe gifts of the generous GOD.\n\n    \"They ask no thrones; they only ask to share\n     The common liberty of earth and air,\"\n\nsome poet sang of the gipsies.\n\nGOD gave plenty of land, and plenty of water, and plenty of air,\nand if the New Testament motto had been followed, \"Having food and\nraiment, with these we shall have enough,\" the generosity of GOD\nwould have been mirrored in the generosity of man.\n\n3. But even this marvellous power and generosity would not excite\nthe passionate love of mankind, but for His _Humility_. Power may\nonly awe; the merely generous Lord or Lady Bountiful, kind as they\noften are, are sometimes felt to do it in a spirit of patronage and\nself-pleasing; they like to be thought bountiful and kind, and have\ntheir reward in the grateful looks and even obsequious demeanour of\nthe recipients of their bounty. But it is Christmas which really\nstirs the blood. That this powerful, generous Being should manifest\nHis power and shower down His gifts was wonderful; but that He\nshould give Himself--this was sublime! This is what stirred heaven\nto its depths--\"Glory to GOD in the highest!\"\n\nThe crowning splendour of GOD was His Humility. He was great when He\nsaid, \"Let there be light, and there was light.\" He was mighty when\nHe opened His Hand and filled all things living with plenteousness.\nBut He was greatest of all when He lay as a babe in the manger. Well\nmay the adoring Christian look up at Christmas and salute this third\nrevelation of the splendour of GOD:\n\n    \"Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown\n     When Thou camest to earth for me....\n         Oh, come to my heart, LORD JESUS:\n         There is room in my heart for Thee!\"\n\nII. What, then, ought this belief in the splendid power, generosity,\nand humility of GOD to produce in us?\n\n1. It must produce Praise. It must make us say: \"Praise GOD in His\nholiness; praise Him in the firmament of His power.\"\n\nYou have caught sight of Mont Blanc and you have seen Niagara, and\nyou say quite naturally, \"How splendid!\"\n\n2. It produces Hope. War, slaughter, misery, can't be the end, if\nsuch a GOD exists. It may be inevitable from man's lust, ambition,\nand greed; but it can't be the end--if GOD'S people work with GOD:\nthere must be a kingdom coming at last in which dwelleth, not\nambition, tyranny, or cruelty, but \"righteousness, peace, and joy in\nthe HOLY GHOST.\"\n\n3. It produces Peace. Once believe in the splendour of GOD, and\nyou get \"the peace of GOD, which passeth all understanding.\" \"Thou\nwilt keep him,\" says the prophet, \"in perfect peace, whose mind is\nstayed on Thee.\" The world is not out of GOD'S Hand, as some people\nwould persuade us, nor any individual in the world. \"The very hairs\nof your head are all numbered,\" and \"ye are of more value than many\nsparrows.\"\n\n4. And it produces answering Sacrifice and Courage. What we want\nto-day is \"the warrior's mind,\" which gives and does not heed the\ncost, which fights and does not heed the wounds; and we can only be\nnerved for this by the splendid self-sacrifice of GOD Himself.\n\nIf man is GOD'S child, then it must be a case of \"Like Father, like\nson,\" and the splendour of GOD must be answered by the nobility of\nman. To know such a GOD is to live, to serve such a GOD is to reign;\nwith such a faith, death loses its sting, and the grave its terrors.\nFor to die is to pass into the presence of One who has shown Himself\npowerful and generous and humble. And the response of the grateful\nsoul, with ten times the conviction of the psalmist, when he thinks\nof what happened on Christmas Day, will be the same words uttered so\nmany thousand years ago:\n\n\"O GOD, wonderful art Thou in Thy holy places.... He will give\nstrength and power unto His people. Blessed be GOD.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nGOD THE KING OF THE WORLD[4]\n\n  [4] Preached in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, in connection\n  with the Annual Conference of the National Union of Women Workers.\n\n     \"GOD is my King of old; the help that is done upon earth He\n     doeth it Himself.\"--Ps. lxxiv. 12.\n\n\nGOD is either non-existent or His existence is the greatest fact in\nthe universe. Either the secularist is right, and there is nothing\nbut the strong hand and the keen brain of man and woman to better\nthe condition of world, or, if there be a Person who created the\ngreat blazing suns that we call stars, whose imagination is so vast\nthat He controls the movements of history, and yet whose knowledge\nis so detailed that the welfare of the smallest child in a great\ncity is of infinite interest to Him, then the existence of that\nPerson is the greatest fact in all the world. No question is so\nurgent as what He thinks about a problem; nothing is so vitally\nimportant as to know what His mind is, for instance, as to the issue\nof a great war. No one is quite so foolish as the man or woman who\neither plans his or her own life, or who propounds schemes for\nthe improvement of the world, without taking the greatest Fact in\nall the world into account, or keeping in touch with what must be\non this hypothesis the ultimate Source and Fount of all power and\nthe Mainspring of all energy. If there be such a Person at all,\nthe wires might as well expect to convey a message apart from the\nelectric current as for the human instrument to avail without GOD.\n\nNow, I think it is quite likely that among so many busy people,\nwhose brains are all full of practical schemes, there may be some\nwhose minds may have but little hold on GOD, and may be troubled by\ndoubts, such as I remember my own mind was in the days of my youth.\nAfter all, one mind is very much like another; and in speaking to\nwomen I have long learnt to speak as if I was speaking to men, and\nin this I never found myself very much astray. If I tell you, then,\nhow the reality of GOD gradually dawned upon one mind, it is only in\nthe hope that through what may be similar clouds of vagueness and\ndoubt the light may shine upon another.\n\n1. I think undoubtedly that _Nature_ was, and always will be to\nmost minds, the first help. It does seem more and more impossible\nthat the ordered universe can have been produced by chance. To use\nan illustration I have often used, especially on Sunday afternoons\nat the open-air meetings in the parks of East London, if a box of\nletters cannot throw themselves into a play of Shakespeare because\nthere is clearly the mark of mind in the play, how little credible\nis it that the atoms of the universe have thrown themselves into\nthe universe as we see it to-day! We feel inclined to add to the\ntrenchant questions in the Book of Job the further question: Who\nwrapped the atmosphere round the earth and made life possible, and\nstopped the friction? Was the beauty of the earth the surprise, or\nthe gift to His children of a Being with a beautiful mind? Can the\nordered course of the silent stars be produced by any amount of\njuggling with chance out of the atoms of the world? In other words,\nNature drives us not only to GOD, but to a very strong GOD and a\nvery present GOD. If the great astronomer Herschel is right, and\nevery atom has the appearance of a created thing and every law of\nNature requires, as he says, the continual application of force, we\nare \"up against\"--to use a cant phrase of the day--we are up against\nthe most powerful Person the world has ever known. To swing the\nsmallest planet on its orbit is beyond the power of the greatest\nsuperman ever present to the brain of a megalomaniac. But to swing\ntwenty millions of blazing suns, and to swing them every day and\nevery night, and to swing them, as far as we know, for millions of\nyears, requires a Person of surpassing strength and most present\npower, for it is clear that of this wonderful thing which is done\nupon earth every day and every night \"He doeth it Himself.\"\n\n2. But if the philosopher Kant was right in saying that the first\nthing which filled him with awe was the starry heavens without, he\nwent on to say that the second was the moral law within. And if the\nminds of you women are like my own, the path of the discovery of\nGOD lies next through the _conscience_. What is it, this indistinct\nknocking, this voice, which though it can be stilled can never\nbe silenced? If it is only a product of mingled self-interest\nand heredity, as some would uphold, why does it persistently\nurge us, sometimes in almost bitter tones, against our immediate\nself-interest?\n\nWhy must the boy leave his brilliant prospects and put himself under\nthe bullets and shells in the trenches? Why must the mother let him\ngo? It is only a shallow thinker, I believe, who can remain long\nunder the impression that the \"categorical imperative,\" as Kant\ncalled it, or, as we might say, this insistent, imperious voice,\ncan be produced by any process of evolution at all. It speaks like\nthe voice of a person; it argues like a person; it refuses to be\nsilenced like a person. And the argument is more than justified\nthat, if there is a Person who made the world and still carries\nit on, it is more than probably the same Person who is speaking to\nus in conscience. The fact that by His warnings and encouragements\nHe clearly cares so much for righteousness is a standing witness\nthat the Person who swings the stars is more than a strong and\nclever devil, which the author of the material universe alone might\nconceivably be, but a Person with a passion for goodness. Otherwise,\nas Dr. Chalmers said, He would not have placed in the breast of\nevery one of His children, of every one of His created beings, a\nreclaiming witness against Himself.\n\nWe have come, then, a good way out of sceptical vagueness when we\nhave arrived at a Person of appalling power, and yet of equally\nappalling righteousness, who is thundering His will through every\nconscience in the world, as though standing in the midst of the\nuniverse and striking at the same time four hundred million gongs;\nnot leaving it for someone else to do, but doing it Himself.\n\nBut, alas! we are still far from loving Him, for indeed He is still\nfar from being lovable. Love is the only thing which we cannot\ncommand at will and which we cannot give at will; and the world\nwould be in a sorry plight so far as loving GOD is concerned, if\nnothing more had been done by GOD than this.\n\n3. After all, there are many things which might make us inclined\nto hate this immensely strong and righteous Person. With all His\nstrength and with all His righteousness, there is a terrible amount\nof suffering in the world. The old question that some of your\nchildren may have asked you who are mothers has far more in it\nthan appears upon the surface: \"Oh, mother, why does not GOD kill\nthe devil?\" The world is filled with injustice and cruelty, and\nespecially so to-day. Ypres Cathedral and the Cloth Hall, as I have\nseen with my own eyes, are in ruins. So are thousands of homes in\nBelgium, France, and Poland, and yet not one single thing was done\nby the innocent inhabitants to deserve this fate. Who is going to\ngive life again to the hundreds shot in cold blood in Louvain and\nAerschott and elsewhere, and seen shot by one of the clergy of the\ndiocese of London; or honour again to the outraged women and girls;\nor restore the dead children--born and unborn--to the mothers who\nlost their children in the last Zeppelin raid? Where is the GOD of\nthe fatherless and of the widow? It is all very well to say, \"It is\nGOD in His holy habitation.\" But why does He sit up there in His\nholy habitation while such things are being done upon earth? Is He\nreclining, as Tennyson pictured the ancient gods,\n\n    \"On the hills, like gods together,\n     Careless of mankind\"?\n\nhe may stay there; but if he does, who is going to love him? whom\ndo we love in england to-day? is our popular hero the man who, while\nhe remains safe in the shelter of his home, suggests that someone\nelse should go and do something to save the country? for myself, if\ni thought god was like that, i should not love him. browning, with\nthat piercing insight which has helped so many, puts the matter in a\nsentence. is it possible, he asks in that great argument contained\nin the poem \"saul,\"\n\n    \"Here the parts shift,\n     Here the creature surpasses the Creator?\"\n\n\"Would I suffer for him that I love?\" cries David, as he looks with\nlove and pity on stricken Saul. \"Would I suffer for him that I love?\nSo wouldest Thou, so wilt Thou.\" And it is an argument that no petty\nquibbles can affect. For instance, if the boys in the trenches every\nday and every night so give their lives for their friends; if the\nmother every day so loves the world that she gives her only begotten\nson, and GOD either cannot or will not, then man is greater than\nGOD; then the creature surpasses the Creator; the parts in the great\ndrama have changed indeed.\n\nAnd that brings us straight up to the New Testament, expecting the\nvery story--yes, asking for the very chapters--to carry on the great\nwitness of Nature and of conscience. And there we find the story\njust as we should expect, only more so. To use Archbishop Temple's\nphrase, the character depicted in the New Testament educates our\nconscience instead of merely satisfying it. It is a more glorious\nexhibition of the character of GOD than we had any right to ask, and\nall carried out personally by Himself. The help that was brought\nto earth, He brought it Himself. And just as, on a gloomy day,\nwhen bright sunshine bursts through clouds, it changes everything,\nso this revelation changes everything. It does not do away with\ndifficulties; it lights them up. It does not do away with suffering,\nbut lights it up. It is quite another thing to suffer or to see\nsuffering if GOD suffered. \"Then I can feel the bullet tear out my\neyes and still believe,\" as a young officer to whom this happened\nstill believes. It does not do away with the crime of the men who\nhave wantonly produced this unnecessary war, and who have trampled\nunderfoot every law of chivalry and humanity in carrying it out.\nBut it does give great inspiration to those who die for what has\nbeen called the nailed hand against the mailed fist. \"As CHRIST died\nfor the salvation of the world, my two boys have died according to\ntheir lights for the same cause. May I not think\"--asked a Colonel\nwho lost both his sons in one week--\"that CHRIST counts them as His\ncomrades in arms?\"\n\nAnd what that thought did for him it will do for others. It does\nnot do away with the inequalities of human life, but like a trumpet\nnote it summons every man and woman to come and rally round Him who\nsprang into the midst of them and gave His life, and who, while\nemploying human minds and hearts for His work, means that the help\nthat is done upon earth He doeth it Himself.\n\nWhat, then, has all this to say to a conference of women workers? It\nsuggests a warning, and flashes an inspiration to you. It suggests\na warning. It is possible that the keenest, ablest women, like the\nkeenest, ablest men, may make a mistake which might more clearly be\nseen to be ludicrous if it were not so common, that they imagine\nthey can accomplish great things without GOD. History is strewn\nwith the failures of those who have made this tragic and hopeless\nmistake. Many humble and noble souls who in infinite distress have\nfound faith impossible have been really in touch with this wonderful\nand righteous and loving Person without knowing it, and have left\nbehind them on earth the work which GOD did through them, and who\nacknowledge now in a clearer atmosphere that the work that they had\ndone He did it Himself. But the merely busy men and women, the man\nor woman who deliberately believes like Nebuchadnezzar: \"Is not this\ngreat Babylon that I have built by the might of my power, and for\nthe honour of my majesty?\" have been the failure, the laughing-stock\nof the world; they have been out of touch with the Source of all\npower, and wisdom, and grace, and the world, when they have passed,\nwill be the same as it was before.\n\nBut if it suggests a warning, what inspiration, dear sisters, it\nflashes before you! not so much to do something you have never\ndone before, but possibly to do it in a different spirit; for the\nfirst time in your life, perhaps, to be consciously fellow-workers\nwith GOD, to come again and again to GOD, and to fill yourselves\nwith great heartfuls of His power and love, to unite yourself in\nsacramental union to Him who came to seek for the lost, to lift up\nall work into a new atmosphere, and to find a joy in it which the\nworld can neither give nor take away.\n\nThat is the glorious prospect which opens out before us all. GOD\nhas no favourites; He is the same for all, and invites all to join\nin the great comradeship which changes life. It is the chance of\nour life to accept His offer. \"The help that is done upon earth He\ndoeth it Himself;\" and as you find the reality of that help at your\ndisposal more and more, day by day and year by year, you will look\nup as trench after trench is taken in a power obviously not yours,\nto gladly acknowledge: \"Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but to Thy\nname give the praise.\"\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nMISSIONARY WORK THE ONLY FINAL CURE FOR WAR[5]\n\n  [5] Preached in Westminster Abbey on Advent Sunday.\n\n     \"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for\n     the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the LORD, as the\n     waters cover the sea.\"--Isa. xi. 9.\n\n\nIt is with a pathetic wistfulness we hear described by the prophet\nthis Advent picture of the reign of peace, in which the wolf is\nto dwell with the lamb, and the leopard to lie down with the kid,\nand the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and the\nsucking child to play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child\nto put his hand on the cockatrice' den, and in which the special\nfeature of the holy mountain was to be that they should not hurt\nnor destroy. For we look round after nineteen hundred years of the\nreligion which was to bring this \"peace on earth and good will\namong men,\" and we see an outpouring of more blood and an outbreak\nof viler passions than has been seen in this world for a thousand\nyears.\n\nOne can little wonder that the cynics scoff, and those who refuse\nor fail to look below the surface speak openly of the breakdown of\nChristianity, and that some of the most earnest and loving of GOD'S\nchildren are deeply moved and disturbed. Is this beautiful picture a\nWill-of-the-wisp? they ask. Is it a mirage in the desert? or are the\nlonging eyes of GOD'S children some day to see it realized?\n\nI. \"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain.\" And\nfirst we see Belgium stabbed in the back and ravaged, then Poland,\nand then Serbia, and then the Armenian nation wiped out--five\nhundred thousand at a moderate estimate being actually killed;\nand then as a necessary consequence, to save the freedom of the\nworld, to save Liberty's own self, to save the honour of women and\nthe innocence of children, everything that is noblest in Europe,\neveryone that loves freedom and honour, everyone that puts\nprinciple above ease, and life itself beyond mere living, are banded\nin a great crusade--we cannot deny it--to kill Germans: to kill\nthem, not for the sake of killing, but to save the world; to kill\nthe good as well as the bad, to kill the young men as well as the\nold, to kill those who have shown kindness to our wounded as well as\nthose fiends who crucified the Canadian sergeant, who superintended\nthe Armenian massacres, who sank the _Lusitania_, and who turned the\nmachine-guns on the civilians of Aerschott and Louvain--and to kill\nthem lest the civilisation of the world should itself be killed.\n\nAnd no doubt for many to-day this belief in Christianity is\ntrembling in the balance; the world seems to have returned to the\nprimitive chaos of paganism from which it came.\n\n    \"There's nothing left to-day\n     But steel and fire and stone.\"[6]\n\n  [6] Kipling.\n\nBut this awful nightmare only besets those who fail to look below\nthe surface. Two small publications will help those who are in\nthis frame of mind; one is an excellent lecture by the Dean of\nWestminster (Dr. Ryle), entitled \"The Attitude of the Church towards\nWar,\" and the other a brilliant little book by the well-known\nAmerican writer, Owen Wister, called \"The Pentecost of Calamity.\"\n\nIn the first it is clearly shown that, although Christianity and War\nare ideally opposed to one another, and although when the world is\nwholly Christian there can be no war, yet the writers of the Bible\nand the Fathers of the Church have always held that, until that\nideal time arrives, a Christian man might have to go to war.\n\nIn the New Testament itself, as the Dean points out, we must balance\n\"They who take the sword shall perish by the sword\" with the words\nfrom the lips of the same Divine Teacher, \"He that hath no sword,\nlet him sell his garment and buy one.\"\n\nLater on, Christians are found in the Roman Army in increasing\nnumbers, and St. Ambrose's and St. Augustine's words quoted by the\nDean may be taken as typical of the teaching of the early Church.\n\"The courage which protects one's country in war against the raids\nof barbarians is completely righteous,\" says St. Ambrose (\"De\nOffic.,\" i. 61). And St. Augustine says (\"Ep.,\" 227): \"Provided\nthey are really good men, those who are fighting are unquestionably\nengaged in the pursuit of peace, even though the quest be prosecuted\nthrough bloodshed.\"\n\nAnd in Mr. Wister's brilliant essay, after a delightful picture of\nGermany as it appeared to be on the surface in June, 1914, with\nits efficiency, its comfort, its culture, and after especially\ndescribing a delightful children's festival in Frankfurt to\ncelebrate the bicentenary of Gl\u00fcck, he then portrays the awful\nhorror which seized him and all the educated Americans who had\nlearnt to love their holiday in Germany, when the wild beast\nsuddenly appeared from among the flowers, and, to use his own words,\nmade his spring at the throat of an unsuspecting, unprepared world.\n\n\"Suppose a soul arrived on earth from another world, wholly ignorant\nof events, and were given its choice, after a survey of the\nnations, which it should be born in and belong to. In May, June, and\nJuly, 1914, my choice,\" he says, \"would have been, not France, not\nEngland, not America, but Germany.\n\n\"It was on the seventh day of June, 1914, that Frankfurt assembled\nher school-children in the opera-house to further their taste and\nunderstanding of Germany's supreme national art.\n\n\"But exactly eleven months later, on May 7, 1915, a German torpedo\nsank the _Lusitania_, and (this was the awful revelation) the cities\nof the Rhine celebrated this also for their school-children.\"\n\nHe then gives the Prussian creed, sentence by sentence, compiled\nfrom the utterances of Prussians, the Kaiser and his Generals,\nprofessors, and editors, of which I can only quote these sentences:\n\n\"War in itself is a good thing. GOD will see to it that war always\nrecurs. The efforts directed towards the abolition of war must not\nonly be termed foolish, but absolutely immoral. The peace of Europe\nis only a secondary matter for us. The sight of suffering does one\ngood; the infliction of suffering does one more good. This war must\nbe conducted as ruthlessly as possible.\"\n\nNow, I do not quote this (and you will find four pages of similar\nsayings) to stir up unchristian hatred of the German race, many\nof whom as individuals would repudiate such sayings as their own\npersonal belief, but I do it to defend Christianity. I only heard\njust before coming here, in the home of one of the many mourning\nfamilies I visit, that a son who had died in Germany testified in\nhis last letter to the great kindness with which he had been treated\nin hospital.\n\nSuch teaching as this is not Christianity; this is the spirit of\nAntichrist. You, poor brother and sister, who are allowing your\nfaith to be shattered by the war--you are not looking deep enough.\n\nOnly one nation wanted war, as the pathetic want of preparation of\nevery other nation proves to demonstration; only one nation has set\nat naught the Christian principles which have slowly been gaining\nground in the conduct of war; and only one spirit has produced the\nwar, and that a spirit avowedly and in so many words passionately\nopposed to the Spirit of the New Testament.\n\nAnd, therefore, it is the grossest injustice to lay the blame on\nreligion for what has been produced by its avowed opposite, and to\ntalk about the breakdown of Christianity for what is due to the\nrevival of avowed paganism.\n\nII. But I can imagine my distressed brethren saying: \"The answer is\ngood as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Why, after\nnearly two thousand years, has Christianity not progressed farther?\nWhy is not the world more completely Christian? Why was the wild\nbeast left among the flowers? Nay, why is the wild beast still so\nactive in our midst? Why did the Drink Bill of our country go up\neight millions in the first six months of 1915? Why have the scenes\nin the streets of darkened London been worse than they have been for\ntwenty years? You do not meet me fully,\" he says, \"when you prove\nthat it was not Christianity which produced this war; what _I_ want\nto know is why it was not strong enough to stop it.\"\n\nAnd my answer shall be given to that, not in anger, but in sadness:\n\"And have you during this last twenty-five years fought the wild\nbeast yourself in this great city? Have you yourself practised\nstrict self-denial to the point of sacrifice, in dealing with the\ndrink question, to help the weak brethren for whom CHRIST died? Have\nyou crushed down the wild beast of lust in yourself, and grappled\nwith the haunts of vice, as many in London have done for twenty-five\nyears? Have you seen that there is a Mission Church among every\neight thousand people as they have come into London, and given of\nyour substance to plant one? Have you done your best to see that\nevery sailor that goes from our ports is a Christian, and that every\ntrader who trades throughout the world, and every bank clerk who has\nbeen to work in Berlin or Paris, lives up to his religion? Have you\ngiven every available penny to spread the Gospel, the failure of\nwhich you now deplore, throughout the world? Or have you spoken of\n'sending money out of the country,' of the uselessness of Christian\nservants, and repeated the travellers' tales about Missions of those\nwho have never visited a missionary station in their lives, when you\nhave been asked to support Mission work abroad?\"\n\nThen, until you have done that, I refuse you the right to speak of\nthe weakness of the religion which you have failed to support. It is\nonly promised that \"they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy\nmountain\" when \"the earth is filled with the knowledge of the LORD\nas the waters cover the sea.\"\n\nBut what if we have never really attempted to fill the earth\nwith the knowledge of the LORD? What if we have only very feebly\nattempted to know this ourselves? What if, as a consequence of\nspending less than a million a year on Foreign Missions, we are now\nhaving to spend five millions a day on a war made necessary by the\nneglect of our Christian duty?\n\nNo one believes more absolutely than I do in the righteousness of\nthe present war; as I have said a thousand times, I look upon it as\na war for purity, for freedom, for international honour, and for\nthe principles of Christianity. I look on everyone who fights for\nthis cause as a hero, and everyone who dies in it as a martyr; but,\nat the same time, I believe that if every Christian throughout the\nworld had fully risen to his responsibilities and had fully lived\nup to his Christianity, for the last hundred years, we might have\ndone more to avert it. You cannot say more than that. Slavery was\nundoubtedly as much opposed as war to Christianity, but it took\neighteen hundred years to abolish that; it may take another eighteen\nhundred years to abolish war. We must not hurry GOD, but we must not\nfail to help Him; we can hasten the kingdom. It is no good praying\n\"Thy kingdom come\" by itself; we must also make it come, and the\nonly sure way to make the kingdom come, and with the kingdom the\nextinction of war, is to spread throughout the world the knowledge\nof the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.\n\nWe were beginning to find this out before the war.\n\nA striking pamphlet by Canon Holland, \"The White Man's Burden,\"\nhas been published by the great Society which for two hundred years\nhas tried, amidst much indifference, apathy and discouragement, to\npropagate the Gospel throughout the world. He showed how our skilled\nand devoted Governors and statesmen throughout the world found after\na time that their ability and hard work reached a point at which\nthey could go no farther.\n\nFor instance, quite naturally their system of education broke down\nthe old beliefs of India; quite naturally the ideals and ideas of\nfreedom and personal responsibility which they taught produced a\ndesire among individuals also to be free, and a longing in every\nnation to realise itself. The great statesman rubbed his eyes; he\ncouldn't quarrel with this result of his own teaching. But who was\nto bind this transformed nation with new cords? where was he to\nfind the new restraints to take the place of the old ones which had\nbeen broken through from sheer life and vigour? Where were the new\nwine-skins to hold the new wine?\n\nAnd, pathetically, even before the war such men were turning to\nthe religion which they had been partially taught at their public\nschool, but which in their blindness they had half despised, as\nhaving no bearing on a practical workaday world; but, lo! practical\ncommon sense had broken down; could the secret be, after all, in\nwhat they had heard in their Confirmation preparation, in that\nschool sermon to which they had only half attended, in the prayers\nwhich they had said rather as a matter of form ever since they were\ntaught them at their mothers' knees?\n\nFrom end to end of the world the revelation was coming, and, as one\nof those who has borne this white man's burden, Lord Selborne, in\nhis preface to the pamphlet, endorses what it says. There is only\none set of rules which will hold the new nation, and only one set of\nwine-skins which will hold the new wine; and that is the rules of\nGOD'S Commandments as interpreted and extended in the New Testament,\nthe Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount; and the only wine-skins\nwhich will hold the new wine are those produced by the Gospel of\nthe Incarnate, Risen, and Ascended CHRIST, with the miracles which\nHe worked believed, and the Sacraments which He gave accepted and\nused. \"Let the new wine be put into new wine-skins, and both are\npreserved.\"\n\nAll this was before the war. But since the war began, just as you\nsee against the dark thunderclouds the brilliancy of the sunshine,\nwhich even lights up those clouds and turns them into a glory and a\nradiance themselves, so all that was chivalrous and noble in Europe\nhas suddenly leaped to light. Christianity has been rediscovered.\nCensors have been converted by reading soldiers' letters. Many a\nman who professed himself an atheist has now seen what Christianity\nreally means. \"Even an atheist must have believed if he had seen\nmy father die,\" wrote a young officer of a father who was buried\nyesterday. \"Could you sing me a hymn?\" asked a young officer, dying\nin the last battle, of the chaplain, who in the very thick of the\nshells and the bullets was at his work. And, with his arm round him,\nthe chaplain sang with him \"JESU, Lover of my soul,\" until he died.\n\nIn this great Day of GOD, things are beginning to appear as they\nare, and not as they are represented. \"Greater love hath no man than\nthis, that a man lay down his life for his friends.\" That simple and\nsincere Christian, the Czar of Russia, went to the heart of things\nat the beginning of the war, when he gave that as the motto of the\nwar to his troops; and every boy since then, who, as depicted in the\npicture entitled \"The Great Sacrifice,\" has laid down his life, with\nhis dead hand resting on the foot of the crucifix, has sealed with\nhis life the great saying of Sir Henry Newbolt:\n\n    \"Life is not life to him that dares not die,\n     And death not death to him that dares to live.\"\n\nIt comes round, then, to this: the Advent picture is not a mockery;\nit is not a mirage in the desert; it is a true picture let down from\nheaven to cheer us to-day with a prophecy of what some day shall be.\n\nLet that picture at once encourage us while it shames us.\n\nAs we watch it, away with all those foolish old sayings about \"not\nbelieving in Foreign Missions,\" \"sending money out of the country,\"\n\"converting Whitechapel and Bethnal Green before we attempt China or\nJapan\"; for the knowledge of the LORD--before war can be no more--is\nto cover the whole earth as the waters cover the sea.\n\nBut, on the other hand, let it encourage us:\n\n    \"Far out of sight while sorrows still enfold us\n     Lies the fair country where our hearts abide,\n     And of its joys is nought more wondrous told us\n     But these few words--We shall be satisfied.\"\n\nWe may behold the land, although it may seem at present \"very far\noff.\"\n\nOnce crush for ever the revived paganism, which perhaps for the last\ntime has challenged the supreme claim of Christ to His own world;\nwhen that is in the dust, once astonish the world by the beauty of\na chivalry and Christian manhood which shall be seen by contrast to\nbe as day compared to night, and light to darkness; once \"placard\nCHRIST\" through every tribe in Africa and Asia, and preach Him\neffectively in every island of the sea; and as the last hand slipped\ndown in death the flagstaff of the Black Flag at Omdurman, so shall\nthe last hand at last be lifted, in this world, of one man against\na brother-man in fratricidal strife, and the great picture shall be\ntrue at last:\n\n\"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain\": for at\nlast the earth is filled with \"the knowledge of the LORD, as the\nwaters cover the sea.\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nGOD THE CHAMPION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS[7]\n\n  [7] Preached in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Day, 1915.\n\n     \"O LORD, Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to\n     another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the\n     earth and the world were made, Thou art GOD from everlasting and\n     world without end.\"--Ps. xc. 1, 2.\n\n\nThe story is told of Archbishop Temple that as he was walking away\nfrom the House of Lords, after the defeat of the Bill he had brought\nin for the advancement of Temperance, some well-meaning person was\nendeavouring to comfort him in his natural disappointment, although,\nneedless to say, he was himself as strong and brave and confident\nas ever. Was he looking, asked the questioner, to the verdict of\nposterity? No. Was he looking to the gradual change of public\nopinion? No. Was he looking to a verdict in another House which\nwould influence the opinion of the house which he had just left? No.\nWhat was it he looked to, then? \"I look to GOD.\"\n\nIt was the answer of a true, brave, and believing Christian man;\nif the GOD of the Christians exists at all, He is so strong and so\npowerful and so wise that to be on His side is worth all other aid\nin the world, and to defy GOD, apart from its blasphemy, is the most\ncolossal mistake which can be made.\n\nThere is a sense, of course, in which the cynic was right when he\nsaid that GOD is on the side of the strongest battalions, for the\nraising of those battalions means a self-sacrifice and a self-denial\nwhich GOD honours and recognizes; but to imagine that those\nbattalions by themselves represent GOD, and can be used successfully\nto further causes which GOD has beforehand denounced and proclaimed,\nis to make, in the long-run, the mistake of the ages.\n\nNow we are keeping Trafalgar Day in a most critical week of the\ngreatest war waged in the world for a thousand years. I have visited\nthe long battle-line mile by mile in Flanders. I have also seen the\ngrey Dreadnoughts watching, watching, watching day and night; it is\nidle bluster for the enemy to say that the ships of the Fleet are\nhiding from them; they know only too well where to find them when\nthey want to meet them. As in great Nelson's day, the Fleet is the\ngirdle of the Empire; the seas which Nelson swept are clear to-day;\nnot an enemy flag dare show itself from one hemisphere to the other;\nunder the mighty \u00e6gis of the Grand Fleet, transports in hundreds\ncarry troops all over the world, food-ships pour in from every\nport; even when the submarine danger was formidable there was no\nappreciable slackening of the wonderfully brave mercantile marine,\nand now that the Navy has that peril, too, well in hand, men sail\nthe seas to-day, except for the necessary restrictions with regard\nto contraband, with greater freedom and security than they sailed\nthe seas long after the Battle of Trafalgar.\n\nIn this great conflict on what are we to found our hopes? To\nwhat are we to look? Are we to trust only to the strength of our\nbattleships and the perfect training of our sailors? Are we to\nlook to the new armies produced with such marvellous skill by Lord\nKitchener's patient hand? Are we to look to the three millions whose\nservices will be asked for, and no doubt offered, in the next six\nweeks? No doubt we are to look to all these things; GOD does only\nhelp those who help themselves. But, standing before you as your\nBishop, I tell you frankly that my belief in the final victory of\nour arms is founded on something far beyond these things. I am full\nof unshakable confidence and hope, because, like Archbishop Temple,\nI look to GOD. I try to say with the psalmist every morning:\n\n    \"And now, LORD, what is my hope?\n       Truly my hope is in Thee.\"\n\n    \"LORD, Thou had been our refuge from\n     one generation to another.\"\n\nNotice I do not claim that GOD is some tribal deity who with partial\nfavouritism supports our side; but I claim, with the great Lincoln,\nthat we are on the side of GOD.\n\n1. I do so in the first place (and this comes out the more clearly\nthe more you study the previous history of the question), because\nthis is a wantonly provoked war, planned and desired and finally\nlaunched by one Power, and one Power alone--that is, Germany.\n\nNow, if GOD is a God who \"makes men to be of one mind in a house,\"\nif He made of one blood every nation in the world, and meant them\nto dwell at peace together; if the teaching of CHRIST is really the\nteaching of GOD'S own SON--then the nation which wantonly plans and\nprovokes war, and war on such a scale, must be against GOD.\n\nYou have only to read two such books as \"J'Accuse,\" said to be\nwritten by a German, and \"Ordeal by Battle,\" by Mr. Oliver, to\nsee that this is no idle assertion or party statement, but the\nliteral truth. If I mistake not, \"J'Accuse\" will be for all time\nthe accusing finger of the civilised world pointing at Germany as\nNathan pointed at David, saying, \"Thou art the man\"; and as to\n\"Ordeal by Battle,\" while it suggests many political questions which\nI should not think of discussing here and now, as to why we were\nso unprepared after the warnings given us, the fact stands out as\nplainly as daylight that Russia, France, and Great Britain one and\nall made every effort short of national dishonour to keep the peace.\n\nThis, then, is my first ground for claiming that we are on the side\nof GOD. Those who wantonly provoke war act against GOD, and those\nwho honestly try to prevent war act on His side. But this is only\nthe beginning of the matter.\n\n2. There has always, up to now, been a kind of chivalry in war\nwhich has lighted up the more terrible aspects of it. All through\nhistory there have been bright flashes of this chivalry even\namong non-Christians: the conduct of Saladin in the Crusades, the\nchivalrous bearing of the Black Prince to the captured French King,\nand many similar incidents, testify to the fact that you need not\ncease to be a Christian or a gentleman because you have to fight.\nMany of these laws of chivalry were embodied by the great Christian\nnations in the Hague Convention; certain modes of warfare were not\nto be allowed; women and children must be tenderly and chivalrously\ntreated; the wounded of the other side must be treated as fallen\ncomrades; the dead must be decently buried; the Red Cross must be\nrespected; civilians must be spared; the rights of neutrals guarded.\n\nNo one can doubt that GOD must have approved of such humane\nregulations, for they are all founded upon the New Testament; they\nare a softening, and a valuable softening, of the horrors of war.\n\nAll other nations began the war by scrupulously respecting them:\nMr. Stanley Washburn, who has closely followed the Russian armies,\ndescribed the kindness and consideration which they displayed to the\npeasantry of Poland; our own soldiers have never even been accused\nby the enemy of violating any of them, and one of the Generals at\nthe Front told me with pride that, though his great brigade had been\nout from the beginning, no accusation of injuring a French woman or\ngirl had been brought against a single member of it.\n\nBut, on the other hand, while time shall last the iniquities\ncommitted in Belgium by the Germans, as attested by Lord Bryce's\nCommittee, will ring through history; the very invasion of\nBelgium itself was a breach of international faith. A friend of\nmine saw with his own eyes, while a prisoner among the Germans,\nforty civilians shot in cold blood in one town alone; the gallant\nCardinal-Archbishop Mercier has recorded a damning list of other\nmurders in his famous charge. The sinking of the _Lusitania_ will\nalways stand out as one of the greatest crimes in history, although,\nif I am not mistaken, the judicial murder of a poor Englishwoman[8]\nfor harbouring some poor refugees will run it hard in the opinion\nof the civilised world. There is one thing about that last incident\nwhich perhaps was not taken into account by those who perpetrated\nthe crime: it will settle the matter once for all about recruiting\nin Great Britain; there will be no need now of compulsion.\n\n  [8] This was preached the day after the judicial murder of Nurse\n  Cavell.\n\nI wonder what Nelson would have said if he had been told that an\nEnglishwoman had been shot in cold blood by a member of any other\nnation; he would have made more than the diplomatic inquiries which\nhave been made by a great neutral nation into this crime, right\nand proper as those inquiries are. He would have made his inquiries\nwith the thunder of the guns of the British Fleet, and pressed the\nquestion home with the Nelson touch which won Trafalgar, as indeed\nour Fleet at this moment is only too ready to do. But is it possible\nthat there is one young man in England to-day who will sit still\nunder this monstrous wrong?\n\nThere is a famous old rhyme which has come down from the time of\nthe imprisonment of the seven Bishops who risked their lives for\nthe liberties of Britain, as, please God, the Bishops of to-day are\nstill prepared to do:\n\n    \"And shall they scorn Tre, Pol, and Pen,\n       And shall Trelawny die?\n     There's twenty thousand Cornish men\n       Will know the reason why.\"\n\nThe spirit of Nelson must indeed have died out of our young men,\nwhich it certainly has not, if the answer is not the same to-day;\nthe three millions of new recruits asked for will be there. Why was\nshe put to death? Why was she murdered? Three thousand thousand\nEnglishmen--ay, and Scotsmen and Irishmen, too--will know the reason\nwhy.\n\nMy second reason, then, for trusting to GOD is that, according\nto the whole revelation of His character and will, His curse is\non the nation, however disciplined and efficient, that tramples\nunderfoot and openly defies the laws of chivalry which once relieved\nthe horrors of war; and that His ultimate blessing must be upon\nthe nation or nations which, however foolishly unprepared, and\ntherefore, for a time, suffering from the want of preparation, in\nthe main are fighting for the weak against the strong.\n\n3. But if this is the negative side what about the positive? I am\nalmost ashamed to ask and answer the question in public again, \"For\nwhat are we fighting?\" If we are fighting for the freedom of the\nworld, for the right to live for the small nations of the earth, for\nnationality against pan-German tyranny, for international honour as\nthe essential condition of a future brotherhood of nations, then the\nGOD who has been the refuge from generation to generation of the\ndown-trodden and oppressed, who planted in us the love of liberty,\nand who has been the champion of the free, must be the God on whose\nside we are to-day.\n\n4. We are right, then, to look for victory and help to a GOD who\nthrough one generation to another has shown Himself a lover of\npeace and chivalry and mercy and liberty, against a delight in war,\nagainst brutality and massacre and tyranny; yet we should have\nill-read the lessons of Trafalgar Day if we were to stop here.\n\nNelson never dreamt that GOD was on his side in the sense that\nhe could relax for an instant his vigilance, or ruin his whole\nsettled plan by impatience, or win a final victory without the\nself-sacrifice and trust of the nation behind him. If we do look to\nGOD, then we must remember this bracing fact that \"GOD helps those\nwho help themselves.\"\n\nIt is a far-reaching saying that the children of this world are in\ntheir generation wiser than the children of light; certainly it is a\nformidable fact to be faced that for a thoroughly bad cause, carried\nout in a thoroughly bad way, the authors of this greatest crime\nin history have succeeded in evoking from the hard-working people\nof Germany, who are under the impression, doubtless, that they are\n\"saving the Fatherland,\" a far more universal spirit of organised\nand efficient self-sacrifice than in the most glorious cause ever\nentrusted to man has yet[9] been evoked from all in these islands.\nIt was one of our great statesmen who truly said that he feared\nwhat he called the \"potato spirit\" in Germany more than all their\nguns and shells--the spirit, that is, which was content with potato\nbread, content to make any sacrifice, if only their cause would be\nvictorious; and it is unwise as well as ungenerous not to recognise\nthe gallantry with which both the individual sailors and soldiers of\nthe enemy have fought.\n\n  [9] This sermon was preached in 1915. There has been a great\n  improvement in 1916.\n\nTo look to GOD, then, puts a great responsibility upon those who do\nso; it means to rise to the level of the sacrifice of GOD. If it is\ntrue that, as you will remember, another great English statesman\nonce quoted on a famous occasion, \"Who sups with the devil must\nhave a long spoon,\" then, Who fights with GOD must have a high\nstandard. Is this a time, asked the prophet of the trembling Gehazi,\nto receive oliveyards, vineyards, menservants and maidservants? Is\nthis a time, we may ask to-day, to haunt night clubs[10] or to spend\nseparation allowances in drinking? Is this a time to ignore Sunday\nand turn your back upon GOD's House of Prayer? Is this a time to\nspend anything which can be saved for the nation on personal comfort\nor extravagant dress? The nation that looks to GOD must come back to\nGOD; it must come back to GOD at once and come back to Him for good;\nit is a question whether we at home have yet as a nation deserved\nthe victory which our righteous cause demands. The sailors of the\nFleet have deserved it; the soldiers in the trenches have earned\nit; and when the nation at home has equally deserved it, all will\nreceive together their well-merited reward.\n\n  [10] Shortly after this night clubs were abolished.\n\n5. But more than this; those that look to GOD must definitely and\npersistently seek GOD's help. How many of those here to-day pray\nearnestly and persistently to GOD for help and grace? How many plead\nin the greatest service of all the one Great Sacrifice, once offered\nfor the sins of the whole world?\n\n    \"Look, FATHER, look on His anointed Face,\n       And only look on us as found in Him;\n     Look not on our misusings of Thy grace,\n       Our prayer so languid and our faith so dim:\n     For, lo! between our sins and their reward\n     We set the Passion of Thy SON our LORD.\"\n\nHow constantly the faith of our fellow-countrymen amounts to little\nmore than a vague Deism, instead of a living faith in an Incarnate\nCHRIST. They are learning more than that in the trenches, and I hope\nalso that the same truth is being revealed to those who remain in\nthe broad sea. These beautiful lines, entitled \"CHRIST in Flanders,\"\nthe Editor of the _Spectator_ gave me leave to reproduce in the\ndiocesan magazine:\n\n    \"We had forgotten You, or very nearly--\n     You did not seem to touch us very nearly.\n       Of course we thought about You now and then,\n     Especially in any time of trouble:\n     We knew that You were good in time of trouble--\n       But we are very ordinary men.\n\n    \"And there were always other things to think of--\n     There's lots of things a man has got to think of--\n       His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife;\n     And so we only thought of You on Sunday--\n     Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday--\n       Because there's always lots to fill one's life.\n\n    \"And, all the while, in street or lane or byway--\n     In country lane, in city street or byway--\n       You walked among us, and we did not see.\n     Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements--\n     How _did_ we miss Your footprints on our pavements--\n       Can there be other folk as blind as we?\n\n    \"_Now_ we remember, over here in Flanders--\n     (It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders)--\n       This hideous warfare seems to make things clear.\n     We never thought about You much in England--\n     But now that we are far away from England,\n       We have no doubts, we know that You are here.\n\n    \"You helped us pass the jest along the trenches--\n     Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches--\n       You touched its ribaldry and made it fine.\n     You stood beside us in our pain and weakness--\n     We're glad to think You understood our weakness;\n       Somehow it seems to help us not to whine.\n\n     \"We think about You kneeling in the Garden--\n      Ah, GOD! the agony of that dread Garden--\n        We know You prayed for us upon the Cross.\n      If anything could make us glad to bear it,\n      'Twould be the knowledge that You willed to bear it--\n        Pain--death--the uttermost of human loss.\n\n    \"Though we forgot You, You will not forget us--\n     We feel so sure that You will not forget us--\n       But stay with us until this dream is past.\n     And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon--\n     Especially, I think, we ask for pardon--\n       And that You'll stand beside us to the last.\"\n\nWhat it comes to is the old truth which we have learnt from Foreign\nMissions--the centre must be converted by the circumference; it is\nthe self-sacrifice of its Mission work abroad which has saved the\nChurch from \"fatty degeneration of the heart\" at home; it is the\ngrowing change of mind among the defenders of our country which must\npermeate and ennoble the country itself.\n\nDo I look to GOD? But I could only see Him in CHRIST, for He says\nHimself--and it is either the greatest blasphemy or the greatest\ntruth in the world--\"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man\ncometh unto the FATHER but by Me.\"\n\nTrafalgar Day, 1915, then, should be not only the turning-point\nof the world's history, but the inauguration of a new Britain.\nIf the war stopped at this moment, should we really be a changed\nnation?--would not the old miserable internal disputes break out\nagain?--might we not again be as we were in July, 1914, on the verge\nof civil war in Ireland, of a revolution among women, and of the\ngreatest industrial strike of modern times? I come back at the end\nof so many months of the war to the picture which I tried to hold\nup to London in its first week--\"Facing the war is drinking the\ncup\"--\"The cup which My FATHER hath given me, shall I not drink it?\"\nWe have to repeat the very words of our LORD Himself.\n\nHave we drunk the cup, and drunk it to its dregs? Only then will the\nangels come and strengthen us for victory; we shall deserve victory\nthen, and we shall be ready for it, for the cup which we shall drink\nwill be the cup to which the SON of GOD Himself put His lips, and\nthe courage and fortitude of Gethsemane leads on to the overwhelming\nvictory of Easter Day.\n\nIt is then \"Our Day\" in an even deeper sense than those mean who so\nrightly ask our alms to-day for those splendid sister societies of\nSt. John and the Red Cross. Of course we shall pour out into their\nlap, for the sake of our wounded heroes at the Front, all that we\ncan; but it is \"Our Day\" because it is the day when the nation is\ntested to the roots of its being. \"If thou hadst known, even thou,\nin the midst of this thy day, the things which belong unto thy\npeace, but now they are hid from thine eyes.\" They are not hid from\nour eyes yet; it is still Our Day; but let it pass, and it has gone\nfor ever.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE KNOCKING AT THE DOOR[11]\n\n  [11] Preached at St. Mary's, Bryanston Square, at a service for the\n  Church-workers of the Deanery.\n\n     \"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear My voice\n     and open the door, I will come and sup with him, and he with\n     Me.\"--REV. iii. 20.\n\n\nI will come unto him and sup with him, and he with Me. I think\nsometimes that we dwell in our Advent meditation too exclusively\non the thought of the coming Judgment. Of course we have to dwell\non it. \"Behold, the Judge standeth before the door.\" A tremendous\ntruth that is. \"Behold, the Judge standeth before the door.\" There\nis going to come a time when the door will come down with a crash,\nand we shall be face to face with the Judge. And this affects\nevery single period of our lives. We sometimes imagine that we are\ngoing--dare I say the word?--to _dodge_ the Judgment. Not at all;\nwe are going to look into those Eyes like a Flame of Fire, and every\nman will give an account of himself before GOD. And every day is\nmaking up the Judgment. Every thought, every word, every act, every\nservice, every decision we make, it all goes into the judgment, it\nall goes into the verdict. And when the Judge who stands before the\ndoor comes inside, He registers the verdict and the sentence we have\nbeen preparing all our lives. We go to our own place--the place that\nwe have prepared for ourselves.\n\nNow that is a tremendous thought, and it is one that we cannot\npossibly ignore. What is a person, what is a Church-worker, to do\nwho realises that the Judge standeth before the door? What am I to\ndo when I realise that He stands before the door of my heart? The\nanswer can only be: Ask Him in as the SAVIOUR, before He comes as\nthe Judge that is to be.\n\nI want now to take with you another kind of Advent--may I say a more\ndelightful kind of Advent?--that is, the Advent of JESUS CHRIST\nHimself into the soul. \"Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and\nif any man will hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to\nhim and sup with him, and he with Me.\" It seems at first sight too\ngood to be true, when you think who JESUS CHRIST was--the LORD of\nAngels, the SON of GOD, the supreme Captain of the heavenly host,\nthe most perfect beautiful Character that ever lived--that He is\ngoing Himself to come. Think of it--that He is going to come within\nme, within you, to live there, to dominate your consciousness,\ndominate your mind, your life, so that you will speak with His\nwords, think with His thoughts, judge with His judgment; that He\nwill live in you. It seems almost too much to believe; and yet this\nis precisely the thing which, when we study the New Testament,\nwe find is promised, not only in this passage, but in St. John's\nGospel. \"My FATHER and I, We will come unto him and make Our abode\nwith him.\" St. Paul's favourite motto is: \"CHRIST in you the hope\nof glory.\" CHRIST in you, through the HOLY SPIRIT. He, of course,\nbrings JESUS with Him. It is said in St. John's Gospel: \"He is\nwith you, but He shall be _in_ you.\" And when I speak to a number\nof Confirmation candidates, I believe it is perfectly true to say\nbefore the Confirmation: \"He is _with_ you, but He shall be _in_\nyou.\" For that is the great gift of Confirmation, the falling of the\nHOLY GHOST. \"Then laid they their hands on them, and the HOLY GHOST\ncame upon them, for as yet He had fallen on none of them.\"\n\nThere is no doubt that this tremendous gift is the special promise\ngiven by Christianity. CHRIST wants to live in me. He wants to come\ninside. He stands outside the door, but if I ask Him He will come\ninside. And notice, secondly, that this tremendous promise is not\nmade to a few selected people. You might suppose that it was meant\nfor a few Sisters of Mercy, very devoted, who live their lives\namong the poor, or to a few particular saints among the clergy.\nBut you all have this promise. This tremendous promise comes in\nthe midst of the message to the Church in Laodicea, the people who\nwere neither cold nor hot, the people who were uplifted when they\nought to have been humble, the people who had to be chastened and\nrebuked that they might be made humble, the people who had not a\nchance of overcoming in their own strength--in fact, people just\nlike you and me. And it is just because we know this, that I have\nto give this message of love to you. It is just because we know\nthat we are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm--the churchwardens,\nworkers, sidesmen, Sunday-School teachers--it is just because we are\nconscious, and because we know that we do want chastening, that we\nmay be perfected and purified; in fact, it is just because we are\nlike the people to whom that message was given that we need to pay\nheed to the warning of the message. CHRIST says: \"I stand at the\ndoor and knock, and if any of you will open the door and hear My\nvoice, I will come in and sup with you, and you with Me.\"\n\nAnd, therefore, you see, that sets us thinking, does it not? as to\nwhat this knocking at the door can mean. Is it possible, you say,\nthat CHRIST has been knocking at the door, and I never knew it was\nHe who was knocking? The whole thing is wonderfully symbolised\nat the consecration of a church. Perhaps you have not seen the\nconsecration of a church. The Bishop, representing JESUS CHRIST,\nknocks three times at the door, and says: \"Lift up your heads, O\nye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of\nGlory shall come in.\" The churchwardens and sidesmen say: \"Who is\nthe King of Glory?\" And the Bishop outside replies: \"The LORD of\nHosts. He is the King of Glory.\" Then the doors are flung open,\nand the Bishop enters, symbolising the entrance of CHRIST into His\nChurch. That happens every time a new church is consecrated in the\ndiocese of London or anywhere else. Who is the King of Glory? Who is\nHe? Is it possible that He has been knocking at my heart and I have\nnever known?\n\nHow does He knock? 1. First of all, and perhaps most commonly, by\nwhat we call _smiting the conscience_. You notice we use the very\nwords in our popular language which represents knocking--smiting\nthe conscience. Is it possible, for instance, that even now some\nof you have been conscious that you are not what you ought to be,\nthat your life is not what it ought to be, that there is something\nwrong with you? People sometimes come to me and say: \"Bishop, I\nwant to see you. I am not right. There is something not right with\nme; something tells me I have not done my work as I ought. There\nseems to be something between me and GOD.\" Well, you must cherish\nthat smiting of the conscience. Do not ignore it or despise it. It\nis the knocking, knocking at the door, of JESUS CHRIST Himself.\nThere is not a doubt about it. Sometimes He knocks the door very\nloudly. Sometimes His knocks are soft, just like taps. When some\npure-hearted boys or girls are going to be confirmed, it is a very\ngentle knock that CHRIST makes at the door of their young hearts.\nHe feels sure they will attend. He does not have to rouse them by\nloud thundering knocks. He comes quietly because that heart is made\nfor JESUS CHRIST, and JESUS CHRIST is made for that heart. And\ntherefore at a Confirmation of well-prepared candidates it is lovely\nto think how He comes up and knocks at the young soul, and the soul\nrecognises the knock, and says: \"Come in.\" No loud knock is wanted.\nWe were meant to grow up with \"our days bound each to each by\nnatural piety.\" CHRIST, who has taken us up in His arms at Baptism,\nis made to come gently, quietly, and happily, into the young soul\nat Confirmation. There is not meant to be some great break in our\nlives. We are meant to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our\nLORD and SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. But if there comes this knocking,\na smiting of the conscience, I do pray you to remember that it is\nmeant in love, that it is CHRIST who wants to come within us.\n\n2. Sometimes the knock is a very heavy one, the heavy dull knocking\nof a _great sorrow_. I have seen a great deal of it, when people\nhave lost their dear ones in this Great War. One who had lost the\nlight of her eyes said to me the other day: \"I somehow feel nearer\nGOD in spite of it all.\" No doubt in that heavy, sad knock at the\ndoor you can hear JESUS CHRIST'S own knocking. He may come into the\nsoul through the sorrow in a way in which He has never come when\nall is right and bright and happy. If some of you have heard that\nheavy knocking at the door, do not think GOD has forgotten you and\nforsaken you. Rise and open the door, and CHRIST will come into your\nsoul in a way in which He has never come before in all your life.\n\n3. Sometimes it is the quick happy _knocking of joy_. Someone\nwrote to me the other day that he had had a great joy. All the\ndarkness seemed now to have cleared away. He said: \"I see my path\nin the light of GOD'S love.\" There was the quick knocking of joy,\nand CHRIST came in with the joy. The clearer knock of joy was the\nknocking of JESUS CHRIST.\n\n4. Sometimes it is _some friend_ who comes into the life, some\ninfluence, perhaps a parish priest, who knocks at the door. Perhaps\nonly too unwillingly at first you open the door, and you find that\nin the parish priest who comes you have found your best friend on\nearth, and he by his coming in brings CHRIST to you; he brings Him\nwith him, and he leaves Him with you, if he is a faithful steward.\nIf the parish priest is a faithful steward, he leads you to the\nMaster. Then, perhaps, the sudden call comes. I have seen this\nhappen to many young soldiers. I lately spent two months with those\nwho were just going out--they are now in the trenches. They crowded\nin every evening to have a talk or they lay down on the ground and\ndrank in every word at some Church Parade service. I could see, as\nI watched their faces, that they were hearing the call of their\ncountry to risk their lives, their all. It brought them near to\nJESUS CHRIST. In the knocking of their country's call JESUS CHRIST\nknocked, and I believe there are many fighting in the trenches now\nevery day borne up by a faith they did not have until this summer--a\nbelief in the immediate presence of their SAVIOUR with them. It\nwould not have happened but for this sudden necessity of facing the\nordeal of their lives.\n\nIs it possible that all these things, or some of them, have\nbeen happening to you--or something different that I have not\nmentioned--and you have never recognised it as yet as being what\nit is, JESUS CHRIST knocking at the door? Now what are you to do?\nWhat are any of us to do, for I am just one among you? It seems\nclear there are three things that we are bound to do, if this great\nmiracle (and it is nothing else) is to take place. The first thing\nis to listen for and recognise the voice of JESUS CHRIST outside the\ndoor, that we may be ready and prepared to open the door. And do you\nnot think that the reason that many of us never hear JESUS CHRIST'S\nvoice is that we never listen for it, that we have no quiet time,\nthat we have provided no time for meditation and prayer? We are too\nbusy. We get up in the morning just in time to start off for our\nwork; we never have this quiet time, or only a very few moments to\nthink, in which the voice will be heard.\n\nNow, I cannot tell you how much I believe in what I call _listening\nto the voice of God_. We pray, indeed--we all of us pray. But it is\nthe ten minutes after prayer that matters, it is the ten minutes'\nlistening to what He is going to say back, and often we do not give\nthat time at all, and so we never get the answer. Is it not fair\nto say that some of you Church-workers just kneel down for a few\nhurried moments, and then are up again from your knees, off to\nsome duty on earth, and that possibly a few minutes each day would\nconstitute all the time we devote to listening to the voice of GOD?\nIf that is all, can you wonder when you take your Sunday-School\nlesson that it is rather dry, or that your mission sermons do not\nseem to have much inspiration about them, and gradually the voice\nof JESUS CHRIST fades away and becomes very vague? You do not give\ntime. Do not tell me that in the twenty-four hours you cannot find\ntime for the most vital thing in this world. We are only here for a\nfew passing years. Five minutes after death it matters more than I\ncan say--these quiet times in our lives, they are worth more than\ngold, quiet times when we listen to the voice of GOD. After death\nhow still it is!\n\n    \"I hear no more the busy beat of time,\n     Nor in me feel the fluttering pulse nor faltering breath.\"\n\nOne moment will not be different from the next in the stillness and\nquiet of Paradise. And in the quiet of the other world how much we\nshall regret having had so few quiet times on earth! Why, one of\nthe very busiest merchants in the City used to be very regular at\na daily service. I said to him once: \"How can you find time, you,\none of the very busiest merchants in the City, to attend daily\nservice?\" He said: \"I am so busy I must go to the daily service.\" He\nfelt his business would simply sweep him away if he did not get a\nquiet time. And Mr. Gladstone, you will remember, kept his Sundays\nin unbroken quiet, waiting upon GOD during the very busiest period\nof his life. Without it he would have lost the quiet and strength of\nhis soul. Therefore make your first resolution. \"I will listen to\nwhat the LORD GOD will say concerning my soul.\" \"Speak, LORD, for\nThy servant heareth.\" If you want to have strength and happiness in\nyour spiritual work, wait upon God. And in the silence you will hear\nthe voice of JESUS CHRIST; you will hear His knock.\n\nThen, when we have heard the voice and recognised the knock, the\nnext thing to do is to open the door. How simple that sounds, does\nit not? and how difficult it often is! Picture some who have had the\ndoor of their souls closed tightly for years. You have to prise the\ndoor open, and you have to break down the fixed habits of the man\nwho has never prayed except for a few moments or two in his life;\nhow hard he finds it to reverse the habits of a lifetime! Someone\nwho has an old quarrel, through jealousy or something else, with\nanother worker--how hard it is to forgive and begin all over again!\nBut it has got to be done, the door has to be prised or forced,\nbecause if CHRIST is to come in we have to open the door--that is\nour part in it--and CHRIST _will_ come in. And if only we realised\nhow eager He is to come in, and what a power He has to change the\nheart and control the thoughts and purify the conscience, we should\nall want Him to come, and we should not spare any time and trouble\nto get the door open.\n\nAnd when He has come in, notice this wonderful phrase: \"I will sup\nwith him, and he with Me.\" He does not come in as a transient guest\nto stay for a little while, and go away, but He comes on a permanent\nvisit, to take up His permanent residence. And although we should\nnot have dared to use the words ourselves, the words \"I will sup\nwith him, and he with Me,\" describe the most delightful friendship.\nDo you desire His presence? How often do you come to Holy Communion,\nhow carefully do you prepare for the great gift of the presence of\nJESUS CHRIST in your soul? Why, I would press this on you, that the\nsupping with JESUS CHRIST and He with you which takes place in the\nHoly Communion is the most glorious moment of your whole day. The\nfirst Christians never thought of spending Sunday without going\nfirst to Holy Communion. It was the special service on the Lord's\nDay. It may be that some of you who used to be regular have drifted\naway from this way of receiving the presence of CHRIST into the\nsoul. We know no better way for cherishing the presence of CHRIST in\nthe soul than being regular at Communion. The humblest communicant\ncomes away from his Communion with the thought: \"CHRIST lives in me;\nI live, yet not I, but CHRIST liveth in me.\"\n\nWill you, then, take from me these three thoughts, Listening,\nOpening, and Cherishing the Presence: Devotion, Consecration,\nCommunion? And if you do, I tell you what will happen to your\ndeanery. It will gradually become the most Christian fellowship in\nLondon. You will be drawn to one another in a way in which you never\nhave been before. We want more unity in every deanery, so that the\nparishes may take an interest in one another, and that all Church\ngatherings may be keen and well attended as by a band of brothers\nand sisters.\n\nThis service now may be the beginning of a new life for the deanery,\nnot only of a new fellowship, and of far greater devotion in your\nwork, and of a joy which you never had before. Christmas in war time\nis not going to be a merry Christmas for any of us. But there is no\nreason, if we understand what happiness means, why it should not be\na happy one. If these three lessons are taken home, you will as a\ndeanery and individually and as parishes have a joy which the world\ncan neither give nor take away.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nIMMORTALITY[12]\n\n  [12] Preached at the Parish Church, Camden Town.\n\n     \"JESUS said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he\n     that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:\n     and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.\"--ST.\n     JOHN xi. 25, 26.\n\n\n\"Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.\" If a man\ndie, shall he live again? There is no time in our history when that\nhas been a more pressing question than it is to-day. Men are dying\nin hundreds. I can think myself of some as dear to me as if they\nwere my own sons, whose bodies are lying to-day in some Belgian or\nFrench grave. And I spend much of my time in going to comfort the\nwidows and the mothers. If a man die, shall he live again? I wonder\nwhether you have ever read or heard read this little poem called\n\"The Army of the Dead\":[13]\n\n  [13] By Barry Pain. Published in the _Westminster Gazette_.\n\n    \"I dreamt that overhead\n     I saw in twilight grey\n     The Army of the Dead\n     Marching upon its way,\n     So still and passionless,\n     With faces so serene,\n     That scarcely could one guess\n     Such men in war had been.\n\n    \"No mark of hurt they bore,\n     Nor smoke, nor bloody stain;\n     Nor suffered any more\n     Famine, fatigue, or pain;\n     Nor any lust of hate\n     Now lingered in their eyes--\n     Who have fulfilled their fate,\n     Have lost all enmities.\n\n    \"A new and greater pride\n     So quenched the pride of race\n     That foes marched side by side\n     Who once fought face to face.\n     That ghostly army's plan\n     Knows but one race, one rod--\n     All nations there are Man,\n     And the one King is God.\n\n    \"No longer on their ears\n     The bugle's summons falls;\n     Beyond these tangled spheres\n     The Archangel's trumpet calls;\n     And by that trumpet led\n     Far up the exalted sky,\n     The Army of the Dead\n     Goes by, and still goes by.\n\n    \"Look upward, standing mute;\n         Salute!\"\n\nAnd will they live again? I think that what chills our faith, and\nforms really the only argument that they will not live again, is\nthe dead appearance of the dead. I am perfectly certain it is that\nthat chills the faith of hundreds. The dead look so dead. There is\n\"no voice nor any that answers, nor any that regardeth,\" and all the\nattempts, foolish, often even mischievous, to reach those in the\nother world have ended in utter failure. And, therefore, when we\nare facing the dead appearance of the dead, we are facing the only\nargument there is that they do not live again.\n\nI want to say now one or two things that I hope will help you to\nhave a happy view of death, to make you absolutely certain that when\na man dies he does live again.\n\n1. And, first of all, remember how _deceptive are appearances in\nNature_. We might be absolutely certain, might we not? if we did\nnot know to the contrary, that this earth was quite still. It does\nnot seem to move in the slightest degree, but we really know that\nthe earth is travelling at the terrific speed of nineteen miles a\nsecond through space--nineteen miles every second. It does look,\ndoes it not? as if the sun was going round the earth quite quickly.\nBut actually the earth is going round the sun. Again, when you blow\na candle out, it does seem as if you really put it out. But do you?\nIt is just the one thing you do not do. You do not blow it out. The\nforce in the flame passes into another form. The conservation of\nforce or energy is one of the great truths of science. You do not\nblow the candle out at all. Therefore even from this lowest ground\nthere is nothing whatever in science that makes it improbable that\nwhen a man dies he shall live again. But you may go farther, without\nleaving what we are taught by scientific knowledge. A man's body\nis changed every seven years. Yet the man does not change. I look\nback and remember myself perfectly well as a boy who went to a\ncertain school. And yet not a fragment of my present body went to\nthat school. There must be someone in me that persists, that goes\non when the body changes. If I were to cut off my hand I should\nstill be myself; if I were to cut off my arm, my leg, still I should\nremain. And so if the whole body goes, I am still myself. If we\nhad not anything more than this, we could not prove that men live\nafter death; but there is nothing whatever in the whole teaching of\nscience to _disprove_ that we do. You might, for instance, notice\nthat an instrument in a room is perfectly silent, but that may be\nbecause he who has been playing upon it has gone into another room.\nThere would be no argument in the silence of the instrument for the\nnon-existence of the player. I say that because one of the most\ntouching incidents in my life was when a poor little girl said to me\n(I have often quoted this): \"I feel so afraid of death. I seem to\nsee it coming down on me like a great shadow.\" For a moment or two\nI prayed for the right word to say to her, and it seemed to come to\nme, as it does come at these moments, from the HOLY SPIRIT. I said\nto her: \"You would not be afraid if I were to come and carry you\ninto the next room.\" \"No,\" she said, \"I should not.\" \"Well, then,\"\nI said, \"would you be afraid if someone ten thousand times kinder,\nand with ten thousand times more strength, should carry you into\nanother room?\" When I next saw her she was dead, with a smile on\nher face. If the player has gone away into the next room, no wonder\nthe instrument does not sound. And therefore, if the body seems\ndead, it only seems dead because the owner of the body has gone into\nthe next room. It is said in the hospital, as the nurse comes out\nfrom behind the screen: \"He is gone.\" He is gone--quite so, he is\ngone--therefore no wonder his body looks dead.\n\n2. And this becomes all the more certain when you notice that ever\nsince man has existed _he has always believed_ and felt perfectly\ncertain that he is going to survive death. This is one of the great\ninstincts in humanity. Such convictions always point to some great\ntruth that corresponds to them. For instance, the prayer instinct\nin man demands GOD. It has been beautifully said that, just as\nthe fin of the fish demands the water, and just as the wing of\nthe bird demands air, so the instinct of prayer in man demands\nGOD. Man is a praying animal. He always has prayed, and that great\ninstinct of prayer demands satisfaction. He always has believed he\nis going to live after death, and the very fact that that instinct\nhas been planted in him everywhere demands that he shall. There is\na very touching story in ancient literature about the great Greek\nphilosopher Socrates. Although he knew nothing about CHRIST or the\nChristian revelation, he had a long conversation, recorded in one of\nthe most ancient writers, before he drank the fatal poison, hemlock.\nAlthough he had not the Christian revelation, he gave all the\narguments necessary to make everyone around him certain that five\nminutes after death he would be the same as five minutes before.\n\n3. And this becomes all the more certain when you consider the\n_character of GOD_. People often do not realise how much the\ncharacter of GOD is bound up with this question of immortality. No\ngood man would implant a living instinct in a child's nature and\nthen love to tantalise and disappoint it. No good man would do it,\nor think for a moment of doing it; and do you suppose GOD would? Let\nme read you the first portion of a beautiful letter which I have\nreceived from one of the highest in the land, who lost her husband\nlast year, and has lost her splendid son this year in battle. She\nwrites: \"Dear and kindest friend, Lord Bishop--I have lingered in\nthanking you for your letter, because it was so precious, and is\nalways beside me to inspire and comfort. England has gone forth\n'obedient unto death' in the honour that befits her, and we must try\nand be worthy. It does not seem lonely, for they have gone in good\ncompany, that great band of brave, shining knights who have given\nall.\" That beautiful trust inspires the \"Farewell of the Dead,\"\nwhich was written during the early weeks of the war:\n\n    \"Mother with unbowed head,\n       Hear thou across the sea\n     The farewell of the dead,\n       The dead who died for thee.\n     Greet them again with tender words and grave,\n     For, saving thee, themselves they could not save.\n\n    \"To keep the house unharmed\n       Their fathers built so fair,\n     Deeming endurance armed\n       Better than brute despair,\n     They found the secret of the word that saith,\n     'Service is sweet, for all true life is death.'\n\n    \"So greet thou well thy dead\n       Across the homeless sea,\n     And be thou comforted\n       Because they died for thee.\n     Far off they served, but now their deed is done\n     For evermore their life and thine are one.\"\n\nNow, do you suppose--this is to me an absolutely irrefragable\nargument--do you suppose that GOD would have planted the love of\nthat son in that mother's heart, and given her that faith, and then\nmean to disappoint her? All I can say is that, if He does, He is\nno GOD I could love, nor that anyone could love. The world is in\nthe hand of some foul fiend, who loves to disappoint and blast the\nhopes of his children. That is not the GOD of the New Testament. No,\nour LORD says something very touching about that. He says: \"In My\nFATHER'S house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have\ntold you.\" \"I would have told you.\" I would not have let you live\nall your lives and see your sons die, and your husbands die, and\nthen disappoint you. \"If it were not so, I would have told you.\"\n\n4. And so we are prepared--you see now why I chose that particular\ntext--we are prepared for _the great revelation when it comes_. Even\nscience has prepared us. This great instinct of the soul, that it\nwill live again, has prepared us. Our belief in a good GOD prepared\nus. We were all ready to hear it, and at last it comes from heaven.\n\"I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though\nhe were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth\nin Me shall never die.\"\n\nAnd now we have got it. It has been all led up to; we were all\nprepared for it. We could not have been certain till we were told it\nby One who came from heaven. This is the Christian religion. It is\nno miserable half-and-half Gospel about a good man that once lived.\nThat view of JESUS CHRIST has nothing to do with Christianity. The\nSON of GOD came Himself from heaven.\n\nThat is the Christian religion. And, having come from heaven,\nHe knows what is in heaven. And He speaks with the certainty of\nknowledge: \"In My FATHER'S house are many mansions. If it were not\nso, I would have told you.\" And \"I am the resurrection and the life:\nhe that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and\nwhosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.\"\n\nAnd, mark you, to prove it, to get the whole truth this morning, not\nonly for your own selves, but for the mourners who abound in our\nmidst, and must abound more and more as the weeks pass--to prove\nthis doctrine that He rose Himself from the dead, we must have the\nfull gospel of Easter. Alas! a new theology has been whittling away\nthe faith of some in this country. But the old doctrine of Easter\nwas this, \"David saw corruption, but He whom GOD raised up saw no\ncorruption.\" And as He died and was buried, so He rose again. Why do\nwe keep Sunday, do you suppose, if there was no Resurrection? Why\nnot keep as the sacred day Friday, if nothing happened on Sunday? If\nCHRIST did not rise on that day, why do we have at our Eucharists\nthe Body broken and the Blood shed? How could any people enshrine\nin their Eucharistic service the tokens of a shameful death unless\nthe body buried had risen again? How did the Cross get to the top of\nthe dome of St. Paul's? Why should we have the old gallows erected\nover the finest city in the world, unless it was the symbol, not\nonly of death, but of glorious resurrection?\n\nTherefore, we have not got to put our reason behind our backs in\nbelieving that He who said \"I am the resurrection and the life\"\nraised Himself from the grave. It is with our reason as well as with\nour hearts that we say, in answer to the question, \"If a man die,\nshall he live again?\" \"Yes, thank GOD, he has never really died.\"\n\n5. And what sort of life is it going to be on the other side of the\nveil, the veil which hides this unseen world? Those young men who\nare dying are not always specially religious. They come to church\nsometimes, and some come to Communion. I had from the front the\nother day an account of how two hundred and fifty of the Artists'\nCorps received the Communion before they went into battle. But,\nstill, we know many of our soldiers are not what we should call\nspecially religious men. What, therefore, are we to think of the\nlife awaiting them on the other side of the veil? Well, I will tell\nyou what I think. I pin my faith to this: JESUS CHRIST knows them\nthrough and through. \"JESUS beholding him loved him\" was said of\none young man. JESUS beheld all these boys of ours, all these young\ncomrades, and He loved them. And He knows what kind of life they\nwill enjoy, and He prepares them for the life that is for them. He\nhas something for each that they will be fit for, when, strengthened\nin character and purified in soul, they are ready to inherit the\nkingdom prepared for them. You can trust them with Him, you can\ntrust your boy to CHRIST, who understands him better than you do.\n\nWhat shall we have in the other world which will correspond to what\nwe have here? One thing at least that we shall have is memory.\nYou remember, in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Abraham says\nto Dives: \"Son, remember.\" \"Son, remember.\" Resolve to lay up\nsomething in your life here to which your thoughts will turn happily\nand find pleasure in, in the quiet times beyond death. In that\nstillness there must be no bitter quarrels to remember, no bitter\njealousies, no unkindnesses. Make to yourselves, while here, friends\nfrom your use of the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when it\nfails those friends may receive you into everlasting habitations.\n\nAnd then with memory will come love, all the old beautiful love and\nfriendship which makes us so happy here. But, mark you, the right\nkind of love--not lust. \"Love is the fulfilling of the law,\" says\nSt. John.\n\n    \"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,\n       But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;\n     Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,\n       Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done.\"[14]\n\nThe two are absolutely different. Love thinks of the interests of\nthe loved one, and is full of self-control and self-restraint. But\nlust only thinks of self, and is unbridled and unrestrained. Love\ngoes on into the other world.\n\n  [14] Shakespeare.\n\n    \"They sin who tell us Love can die;\n     With life all other passions fly,\n     All others are but vanity.\n     In heaven Ambition cannot dwell,\n     Nor Avarice in the vaults of hell.\n     Of lust these passions of the earth,\n     They perish where they have their birth,\n     But Love is indestructible.\n     Its holy flame for ever burneth.\n     From heaven it came, to heaven returneth;\n     Full oft on earth a troubled guest,\n     At times deceived, at times oppressed,\n     In heaven it finds its perfect rest.\n     It soweth here in toil and care,\n     But the harvest-time of Love is there.\"[15]\n\n  [15] Southey's \"Curse of Kehama.\"\n\nTherefore cultivate here in your Church life, in your home life,\nthis wonderful, pure, beautiful thing, this love which will last for\never. \"They sin who tell us Love can die.\" And, above all, keep that\nlove pure, absolutely pure and true. Let nothing be substituted for\nit which calls itself love, but which is not love. Then with this\nlove, this unselfish, disinterested love, the prayer instinct goes\non. Do not be afraid of thinking of and praying for your dear boy\nin Paradise; pray for him. Do you suppose the mother in Paradise\nceases to pray for her son here? You know that, in the old beautiful\nprayers of the Church for her dead, we pray that GOD will give them\neternal rest and peace, and that everlasting light will shine upon\nthem. That prayer instinct that lies so deep here goes on behind the\nveil. They are praying for us there as we are praying for them here.\nAs St. Augustine says so beautifully, \"The Church above loves and\nhelps its pilgrim brothers.\"\n\nAnd, then, one thing more must go on--energy and activity of soul.\nCan you imagine a man like the late Archbishop Temple doing nothing\nfor ever and ever? No. The greatest rest is delightful exercise\nof the faculties of the soul. And there must be in that other\nworld work for those who have been active here below. Such souls\nwhen they are taken from us are being promoted to some work that\nthey are specially fitted to do by the experience which has long\nworked itself into their souls. I think of two cases of Christians\nsuffering patiently week after week, one for thirteen, the other\nfor fifteen, years. The beautiful patience being worked into their\ncharacter will be wanted in the other world.\n\nThen, again, man is born for a Church. He is born to worship here\nin companionship with others. I hope that this church will be every\nSunday morning as full as it is now, that you will more and more\njoin in the fellowship of the saints, and that you will more and\nmore learn to love this spiritual home, and to cheer one another on\nin your spiritual lives, and so be ready, when the time comes, to\nworship in the other world with angels and archangels, and all the\ncompany of heaven. Lift up your heads and the hands that hang down,\nall ye mourners! For death is not that miserable, terrible thing\nwhich some people think it is. We are born into the other world as\nquietly as we are born into this. And the other life there is full\nof happiness, full of love, full of joyous and beautiful activities.\nAnd so, when we are called upon to die, it will only be a gentle\npassing from life here to life there, and from the fulness and the\nhappiness of this life to the still deeper fulness and still greater\nhappiness of the life of the world to come.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE PEACE OF JERUSALEM[16]\n\n  [16] Preached in Westminster Abbey at the consecration of Canon\n  MacInnes as Bishop in Jerusalem.\n\n     \"O pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love\n     thee.\"--Ps. cxxii. 6.\n\n\nThere is no place in the world to be compared to Jerusalem, if you\nconsider its romantic position, its historical interest, and its\nspiritual significance. What a relief it is to breathe its mountain\nair after the hot plains of Egypt! On what a glorious position it\nstands, more than two thousand feet above the sea, surrounded by\nhills even higher than the hill on which it stands itself! Truly,\nstill \"the hills stand about Jerusalem\"--a true image of the way the\nLORD stands about His people.\n\nBut it is not the romantic position of Jerusalem which gives it\nits chief claim to fame, but, even more, its marvellous history.\nReally, to uncase Jerusalem, to dig down from one Jerusalem to\nanother, to be able to explain the history which would attach to\neach layer of it, would be to unravel the history of the ancient\nworld. Volumes have been written, and will continue to be written,\non this entrancing theme; but suffice it to say that the man who\nstands, say, at the centre of the Temple site of Jerusalem is\nstanding on one of the most historic spots in the world.\n\nBut, after all, when one is speaking in a Christian church at the\nconsecration of a Christian Bishop, it is neither of these things\nwhich makes Jerusalem absolutely unique. The Seven Hills of Rome and\nits Forum might compete with Jerusalem from the point of view of\ngeography or history. No! it is the supreme fact that here, and here\nalone, on the world's surface, in Jud\u00e6a and Galilee, the feet of the\nSON of GOD actually trod the earth, which makes Jerusalem unique.\nRightly has Palestine been called ever since the Holy Land. When the\nguardian of the traditional site of the Ascension points out to you\nthe spot which the feet of the LORD last trod before He ascended\nbehind the cloud, of course you know that such tradition is too\ndetailed to be necessarily accurate with regard to the actual spot;\nbut that His feet _did_ tread the earth about that spot, that He\n_did_ walk over the Mount of Olives, that He _did_ agonise somewhere\nnear those trees in the Garden of Gethsemane, that on one or other\nof those skull-shaped mounds He _did_ die for the sins of the whole\nworld, that either at the traditional site or somewhere near He\n_did_ rise again from the dead--this it is that makes Jerusalem\nthe joy of the whole earth. With ten times the depth of meaning\nwith which even the ancient Jews could say it, the Christian will\nsay: \"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her\ncunning; yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth.\" \"O pray for\nthe peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee.\"\n\nI. The consecration, then, of a Bishop of the great Anglo-Catholic\nChurch, who is to live in Jerusalem, is an event which concerns\nthe whole of Christendom, and especially every branch of the\nAnglo-Catholic Church throughout the world; for it is clear that\nsuch a Bishop in Jerusalem has three great and important functions\nto discharge to the whole Christian world:\n\n1. In the first place, he has to represent worthily, by personal\nconduct and by reverent and dignified ceremonial, the great branch\nof the Catholic Church to which he belongs. All branches of the\nChurch meet at Jerusalem; several have their altars by the Holy\nSepulchre. How can the other branches of the great Catholic Church\nlearn what is the teaching and the practice of the Anglican branch\nexcept from the Bishop who represents her there, and from the\ncathedral over which he presides? If the Bishop himself has no\ndignity, no influence, no \u03c3\u03b5\u03bc\u03bd\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2, among all those dignified and\ngrey-bearded Patriarchs who represent other Churches, the Church of\nEngland will suffer in the opinion of the whole Christian Church. If\nthe cathedral church is poor in worship, feeble in life, unspiritual\nin tone, the Church of England loses caste among the Churches of the\nworld. If, on the other hand, the Bishop and his cathedral worthily\nmaintain the best traditions of the ancient and apostolic Catholic\nChurch of England, then will the representatives of other ancient\nChurches gladly acknowledge that \"the LORD is with her of a truth.\"\n\n2. But not only has the Bishop in Jerusalem to be a worthy witness\nto the doctrine of his Church, and in his cathedral to display a\nwinning example of its ceremonial and worship, but he also has to\nrespect and foster the spiritual life in the ancient Churches of the\nEast. He is to be no proselytiser, seeking to take away members of\nother Churches to form his Church; he is rather the kindly brother,\never ready to lend a hand to fan the embers of spiritual life in\nother Churches, or to rejoice in the fervent glow on other altars\nbesides his own. No Bishop would be a fit Bishop in Jerusalem who\nhad not some knowledge of the history of the ancient Churches of\nChristendom, an interest in their varying liturgies, and a deep\nrespect for their history and the special significance each has in\nthe life of the Catholic Church. On the other hand, that Bishop\nwould have a peculiar glory in his episcopate who most succeeded by\nbrotherly sympathy and inspiring example in stimulating life in an\nancient Church, where, perhaps, life was running low, or was able\nto send up the sap once again through the fibres of an apparently\nwithered tree.\n\n3. But his efforts must not stop there. The Bishop in Jerusalem\nmust be a missionary. If from the first the Gospel was to spread\nthroughout the world, \"beginning at Jerusalem,\" Jerusalem must never\ncease to be a missionary centre. There must be no faithless despair\nas to the eventual conversion both of Jews and of Mohammedans; the\ngreat heathen tribes of the Shellooks and the Dinkas of the Upper\nNile, up to which the diocese, with its centre at Jerusalem, at\npresent extends, even though it must be exercised for the most part\nthrough the presence of an assistant Bishop in Khartoum, must feel\nthe missionary zeal of the Bishop in Jerusalem. Every missionary\nagency within thousands of miles must be certain of his fatherly\ninterest. I have visited myself nearly every mission station from\nEl Obeid, five hundred miles beyond Khartoum, to Beyrout, and seen\nhow greatly was appreciated the genuine interest of even a passing\nBishop; but those mission stations must feel sure of the interest of\nthe Bishop whose \"sedes\" is at Jerusalem, and above all, of course,\nthose must feel sure of it whose missions are connected with our own\nChurch. Few people can have visited the magnificent mission hospital\nof the London Jews' Society in Jerusalem, which is said to be the\nfinest mission hospital in the world, or seen the devoted work of\nthe representatives of the Church Missionary Society in Cairo, or\nwatched the mission schools of the Hosanna League on the Lebanon,\nwithout being proud of the missionary zeal and spiritual efforts of\nour own Church.\n\nII. But on a day like this we are at liberty to see visions and\nto dream dreams, and one can imagine missionary efforts which\nhave their centre at Jerusalem on a far more extensive scale than\nany which have been possible as yet--missionary efforts which may\ninclude the revival of the ancient Churches of Asia Minor, the\nlinking up with the work done by the Archbishop's Mission to the\nAssyrian Church, and a far more complete subjugation to CHRIST of\nthe Lebanon district, to which Canon Parfit's and Canon Campbell's\nschools seem to point the way.\n\nSuch, then, seem to be the possibilities and prospects of a Bishop\nin Jerusalem, and we are encouraged to raise our hopes high to-day,\nfirst by the wonderful blessing which has been granted to the work\nof him who is laying down the pastoral staff, wielded with so much\ntact and love and winning influence by Bishop Blyth for a quarter\nof a century; and, secondly, by the experience and attainments and\nstanding of him who this day takes up the pastoral staff which\nBishop Blyth lays down.\n\n1. And first with regard to Bishop Blyth himself. It was said\nto me in Jerusalem of the Bishop, by one who has long been the\nsuperintendent of the Church missionary work in Palestine: \"He\nhas laid a splendid foundation on which a success can be built.\"\nFew can realise, who have not been at Jerusalem, the dignity and\nbeauty of St. George's Cathedral, which Bishop Blyth has built,\nand the charm of the daily services in it, morning and evening, at\nwhich the choir consists of the delightful Syrian boys and girls\nwho form the schools. I have never seen boys more like English\nboys in their keenness for games (they were quite invincible at\nfootball) and their general manliness of tone, and under the gentle\ntutelage of English ladies the Syrian girls are being trained to\nbe well-mannered, and capable teachers, whom I frequently found\nteaching either in Palestine, on the Lebanon, or in the schools of\nEgypt and the Soudan. But, in order to understand the influence\naccumulated by Bishop Blyth during these long years of residence\nin Jerusalem, you had to visit with him the Patriarchs of other\nbranches of the Church; everywhere you found him trusted and loved;\nto come with his introduction was to be welcomed by all the ancient\nChurches of the East, and it is certain that, just as it was said\nof Livingstone that \"he left the door open in Africa for all the\nwhite men who should come after,\" so it is certainly true that\nBishop Blyth has left behind him, among all the representatives\nof the ancient Churches of the East, open hearts into which his\nsuccessor can enter. And we are glad to think that we still have the\nBishop resident with us here in London, to give us his counsel and\nadvice.[17]\n\n  [17] The Bishop only lived a few weeks after his successor's\n  consecration.\n\n2. And then, with regard to his successor, he is no tyro going out\nto learn his work for the first time; he is already one of the\nbest-known missionaries in the whole of the nearer East; he has\nfor years been the superintendent of the Church missionary work in\nEgypt and the Soudan; he has had the control of many workers, and\nhas had, moreover, thousands of pounds passing annually through his\nhands. He is a good Arabic scholar, and can not only take services,\nbut can speak and preach freely in Arabic, and what that means in\nthe East every traveller knows. His long experience of dealing with\nthe Coptic Church in Egypt, and the great respect in which he and\nhis colleague, Mr. Gairdner, are held in it, are a certain guarantee\nof the respect and loving reverence with which he will treat the\nother ancient Churches of the East; and he has himself assured us,\nin words which have been printed and circulated, that, so far from\nwishing in any way to alter the simple and beautiful service in St.\nGeorge's Cathedral, he will love to fan and foster the flame of\ndevotion which will always burn, it is hoped, more and more brightly\nat the central shrine of the Anglo-Catholic Church in this city of\nJerusalem, which is itself the cradle of the Christian Church.\n\nIt is therefore, dear brother, with very high hopes and many earnest\nprayers we send you forth to-day. The horizon is clouded at present\nwith the heavy clouds of war; CHRIST'S work will be crippled for a\ntime, and further extension for a time will be impossible; but when\nthe great clouds of war have, in the mercy of GOD, rolled away, and\nthe Sun of Righteousness has arisen with healing in His wings, and\nChristianity has been proved to be more than ever essential to the\nprosperity and well-being of the world, then we believe that _you_\nare singularly fitted in the providence of GOD to avail yourself of\nthe mighty opportunity which will open out.\n\n\"O pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love\nthee.\" There will be many who will pray for its peace from to-day\nmore fervently than ever, and they will uphold your hands as they\npray it, as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses; and if, as we\nbelieve from the bottom of our souls, GOD will hear that prayer,\nthen Jerusalem shall once again be built as a city at unity with\nitself, and from the farthest bounds of the earth there shall come,\nat least in spirit, \"turning their faces thitherward,\" more and\nmore every year, the converted, thankful and adoring \"tribes of the\nLORD.\"\n\n\n\n\n                                     II\n\nTO THE CLERGY\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nMESSENGERS[18]\n\n  [18] Given first at Chiswick Parish Church to the Clergy of the\n  Rural Deanery of Hammersmith; afterwards to the Chaplains of the\n  Fleet, 1916.\n\n\nThe Eyes of Flame[19] are resting upon us; we do not want to get\naway for a moment from that thought as our central message. But get\naway from the idea that \"the Bishop is asking us to come for a Quiet\nDay.\" As I believe events have proved, it is JESUS CHRIST Himself\ngoing round the diocese in the power of the SPIRIT. Wonderful things\nhave happened on these Quiet Days. Men have been so struck to the\nheart that they have resigned their livings; they have seen what\nthey ought to have been, and with the aid of the HOLY SPIRIT, before\nthe Eyes of Flame, have contrasted that with what they are. If it\nis JESUS CHRIST coming round, then we cannot be too quiet on such\na Day in listening to His voice all the time. It is therefore with\nthe Eyes of Flame resting upon us and with the prayer \"Speak, LORD,\nfor Thy servant heareth,\" \"I will hearken what the LORD GOD will say\nconcerning me,\" that we will think over three things that we are\nexpected to be. And the first is a _Messenger_. You will remember\nthat, when we first stood before the Bishop for ordination, we were\ntold of a great treasure that was committed to our care. We have\nspent much time thinking over that treasure.[20] We were reminded\nthat we were to be messengers, watchmen, stewards. Now we will\nsimply take the title \"messengers.\"\n\n  [19] See a former volume, \"The Eyes of Flame\" (Wells Gardner, Darton\n  and Co., Ltd.).\n\n  [20] See \"The Church in Time of War,\" pp. 51-70: \"The Treasure\n  Committed to our Trust.\"\n\nLet us picture the messenger; let us forget the tame surroundings\nand monotonous features of the life we lead, and picture ourselves\nas real living messengers. We might take one of our despatch-riders.\nFew things are more really splendid than the way the undergraduates\nof Oxford and Cambridge are doing most of the despatch-riding at the\nfront--our own boys, we may say, have been carrying the despatches\nduring this campaign. It is very dangerous work. One of the boys\nwhom I have known all his life is now a despatch-rider in the war,\nhaving to take these messages at any cost. Everything depends upon\nthe despatch getting there. The whole brigade will be cut to pieces\nif the despatch is not sent there. They only send despatches for the\nmost urgent reasons. There the despatch-riders are in the darkness,\nthreading their way through all the great holes made by the shells,\npushing on to take the despatches. They are messengers with a\nvengeance, taking their lives in their hands, realising the vital\nimportance of getting their message through.\n\nNow, I am going to take a particular messenger because his character\nand life are very carefully described to us in detail by one of our\ngreat poets. I think it will come home to us more if I can describe\nthe picture of the messenger of Athens given us by Browning in that\nwonderful poem \"Pheidippides.\" It may be more familiar to some than\nit is to others. I will just sketch Browning's picture. Pheidippides\ntells how he started on a mission of absolutely vital importance,\nand the whole problem was to get to Sparta in time to get help. He\ndashes off, and stands before the Spartan Senate.\n\n                                        \"Persia has come!\n    Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth;\n    Razed to the ground is Eretria; but Athens, shall Athens sink,\n    Drop into dust and die--the flower of Hellas utterly die,\n    Die with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid,\n          the stander-by?\"\n\nIt is a matter of absolute life and death, and that is the first\nthing about the messenger I want you to notice. Either he got there\nor he did not; either he persuaded them or he did not. He gave his\nmessage, though he did not succeed in persuading Sparta to undertake\nthe needed help. The fate of his country depended entirely upon his\neffort. There is something glorious in his absolute devotion to his\ncountry. Then, when he had given his message, he waited for the\nanswer, and he is described as quivering with eagerness:\n\n  \"The limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood.\"\n\nThat expresses the keenness with which he waited for the answer. And\nthe answer, which, as you remember, was an evasive one, counselling\ndelay, is thus characterised by Pheidippides:\n\n  \"Athens, except for that sparkle--thy name, I had mouldered to ash.\"\n\nThen, having done everything he could, he dashed back to tell them\nat Athens that Sparta was not coming. We see the utter abandonment\nof the messenger:\n\n    \"Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!\n     Yet 'O Gods of my land!' I cried, as each hillock and plain,\n     Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again.\"\n\nThen comes the moment of his life. In the midst of the hurry and\nrace he suddenly comes face to face with his god--the great god\nPan. In all his hurry and haste and keenness he hushes himself in\na moment, to listen to what the god has to say. Very touchingly\ndescribed that is. Then, when he has received the message for\nhimself, for his nation, once again he is off.\n\n                \"I ran no longer, but flew.\"\n\nAnd he stands before his people, and he gives them the full message\nwhich the god had given him, with all its warning and all its\ncomfort and hope and good news. When that is done he fights on the\nMarathon day. And then, when the victory is won, he thinks of what\nthe god has promised him, and he thinks to\n\n    \"Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,\"\n\nand live with her for the rest of his life.\n\n    \"Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:\n     So, when Persia was dust, all cried: 'To Acropolis!\n     Run, Pheidippides, one race more!'\"\n\nTake the news to Athens! He takes it, and his great heart bursts\nwith the joy of the news.\n\n       \"Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed.\"\n\nHe sealed his message with his death.\n\nNow, there is the messenger, and we have to think over the different\npoints about that messenger, to compare our motives to-day with\nwhat they are expected to be. (1) Take first of all his realisation\nthat his message was _a matter of life or death_. I wonder whether\nsome of us are slipping away from that--slipping away from the\nawe of that first sermon, slipping into little moral essays or\ninterminably long discourses? Are we still men with a message?\n\nOne of the tremendous revelations in London, after twenty-six years\nof life and work there, is the death-struggle that is going on\nin every human soul. And even now, as Bishop, I find that every\navailable five minutes is taken up by the needs and struggles of\nsome individual soul in the diocese of London. In your parishes it\nmust be just the same. Upon that message you are going to give on\nSunday morning or evening depends perhaps the salvation, or perhaps\nthe condemnation, of some soul.\n\nAnd if we once get into the way of preaching simply interesting\nlectures--interesting to ourselves--which we have thought out in our\nstudies during the week, we have lost the sense of having a message.\nOne of the most distinguished men then in the Church said to a\nyoung preacher sadly: \"You seem to preach as if you have something\nto say, and I only preach because I _must_ say something.\" Well, if\nwe are drifting into getting up into the pulpit because we must say\nsomething, without realising the temptations and struggles of the\nsouls in front of us, we have lost our message; we are no longer\nmessengers.\n\n(2) And then, secondly, what about the old keenness? Am I able to\nsay \"the old keenness\"? One honest brother came to me one Quiet Day\nand said: \"I have never felt keen at all.\" He could not speak of the\nold keenness; he had never had it. He wanted it. The keen messenger\nstands quivering like Pheidippides:\n\n  \"Except for that sparkle, thy name, I had mouldered to ash!\"\n\nThere stands the true messenger quivering with the keenness of his\nmessage. What has happened to us if we are no longer keen about our\nmessage?\n\n(_a_) Is it because we have really ceased to believe it? I say that\nbecause during this past year I have had some who have openly said\n(the realisation of it has come to them during the day) that they\nhave largely slipped away from their real belief in JESUS CHRIST\nas the SON of GOD. They started reading Higher Criticism or German\ntheology. Of course, we must read very varied kinds of books; we\nhave no right to be afraid of reading anything that will enable us\nto help the laity in their difficulties. But these brothers had\nbeen reading too many of these books speaking of our LORD as only\na man, in which we are told that \"He was mistaken in supposing\nthis,\" or, \"No doubt He was under the impression that this was\nthe case\"; and they have slipped away from their belief in JESUS\nCHRIST as the SON of GOD. Their faith has really for a time gone;\nthey have not got a message, because they do not believe in the old\nmessage. They would have said of such a meditation as we have had\ntogether on the Book of Revelation: \"How do we know St. John ever\nwrote it?\" And if we meditated upon our LORD'S last prayer in St.\nJohn's Gospel, they would say: \"How do we know that we have the\nwords of the LORD'S last prayer?\" Thus their minds are really in\ndoubt all the time, so that at last nothing really speaks to them\nat all. Now, what I advise is a careful study of the writings of\nsuch a man as Dr. Swete. He tells us that in that last prayer of our\nLORD we have, through the medium of St. John or the writer of St.\nJohn's Gospel--he believes it was St. John--as nearly as you can get\nthem, the actual words of our LORD'S prayer. I am not taking any\nparticular case, but only trying to illustrate a state of mind. If\nyou are losing your message because you are ceasing to believe it,\nthen all the salt has gone out of your ministry till faith comes\nback. If you face it, and find it is so, ask our LORD, who has come\nto speak to us now, to restore to you your belief in Him once again,\nso that He shall be to you the centre of the universe, and you will\nbe really in a position to say again, as you once did,\n\n    \"How sweet the Name of JESUS sounds\n     In a believer's ear!\"\n\nThen you will be able to preach again.\n\n(_b_) Or is it that the fault is not so much intellectual as moral,\nand there is really something between you and CHRIST--something\nwhich is making your message appear unreal, because there is\nsomething in your life which contradicts your message? It has been\na very blessed thing that a number of men have seen what that thing\nis during these Quiet Days. Is there anything in your life which\ncontradicts your message? I remember hearing--it was not in this\ndiocese--of a priest who did not dare to speak to his young men and\nboys about certain things, because his own conscience reproached\nhim. That is the sort of thing that makes your message sound hollow\nwhen you get up to deliver it, in the pulpit or in the Bible-class.\n\"Search me, O LORD, and seek the ground of my heart, prove me and\nexamine my thoughts and see whether there be any way of wickedness\nin me, and lead me in the way everlasting.\" This must be our prayer.\nIf we say that to our people, we must say it to ourselves, and get\nit put right, though it may be like plucking out the right eye or\ncutting off the right hand. When it is put right your message will\nring true again.\n\n(_c_) Or is it what you may call \"middle-aged low spirits\"? Is it\nsomething like accidie. Dr. Paget describes that dreariness of\nfeeling that comes over some in middle age. \"You cannot expect that\namount of keenness from me at my age,\" a man says. I think of three\nmen myself--Bishop Wilkinson, Bishop King and Canon Body--who were\nto the last day of their lives as keen as when they started. So when\nyou think of these three men, it cannot be middle age or old age\nthat really produce this accidie. I dare say it would be equally\ntrue of Mr. Simeon or Mr. Wesley, but I only happen to know of\nthese three men, who were like fathers to me. They were as keen up\nto the day that they died as ever they were in their lives. Bishop\nWilkinson's last words before he died--an address to a committee of\nhis Prayer Union in his diocese--were the same burning words that\nhad fired the rich people of Eaton Square and the miners of the\nNorth.\n\nWell, if it is not middle age or old age, must be ourselves who are\nto blame. Therefore let us ask for a revival of our keenness, and\nnot put down the want of it to old age or middle age. Of course, it\nmay be that a man--I want to be quite frank about that--a man has\nbeen too long where he is. If you knew how much prayer and thought\nI personally give to this matter, how anxious I am to move men\nwhen I see a move would be for their good, you would realise how\ndistressing it is to me to keep a man in one place when he would be\nmuch better moved, or promoted to a living. But the simple fact is\nthere are not enough livings to go round. I want you to realise how\nurgently we at the centre feel the danger of men getting stale or\nbeing kept in one place too long. But it is not from the man's point\nof view that we ought to look at it. He may pray to have a change.\nBut while he is there he is the messenger to the people, who are\nconstantly changing. There is a new population constantly coming in.\nHe must be there ready for them. And those who remain in the parish\nare still depending upon him. He is their messenger; he must not\nlet them suffer because he is tired of his particular post. I cannot\nimagine any of those three men, whom I knew so well, in the least\nletting the keenness of their message be diminished because they\nthought they ought to be moved somewhere else. A man may feel very\nsad because he cannot do more, but he must not let his work fall\noff, although he may be praying that in GOD'S providence he may have\na change.\n\n(3) Then comes the waiting before GOD for the message. Pheidippides\nbowed his head even in the heat of the race, bowed his head and\nlistened. And, you know, one of the things we have certainly found\nout lately is that the great fault of the Church of England is not\nlistening. We pray, but we do not wait for an answer. It is the ten\nminutes after prayer that matters. It is listening for the answer to\ncome back. One of the reasons why English clergy need a Quiet Day is\nthat they are not good listeners to GOD. We talk to Him, we even,\nas someone has said, chatter to Him like little children chatter to\ntheir parents, but we do not listen for the reply. We must listen\nfor the reply when we speak to God. We must wait for our message.\nIt must be renewed every day. What is the message that I am to take\nto the people? Rearrange all your time so that you may have time\nfor listening. That has been crowded out. It is not a question of\nhow many visits you can make in a day, but of the atmosphere you\ntake with you on those visits, and the atmosphere depends upon the\nprevious \"waiting upon GOD.\" Then when you go on your visit the HOLY\nSPIRIT opens the door of the heart of those to whom you go.\n\n(4) Then notice, fourthly, the abandonment of the messenger. I am\nsure St. Paul really loved the picture of the runner. Do you notice\nhe is always going back to it? The runner flung aside his cloak,\nwith his eyes fixed on the goal, like Pheidippides the messenger;\nthat is exactly what he did: he flung everything away for speed\nand alertness, in order to be there in time--the one thing that\nmattered. Do you not think that it may be true that we have become\ntoo comfortable as messengers? May it not be that we have lost the\nalertness and keenness and the mobility of the messenger? We have\njust settled down into our comfortable homes and creature comforts.\nThey hinder our movements, and we do not run with the alertness of a\nmessenger of GOD. Of course, we have to be part of a great system,\nto have parishes, to settle down in a certain place, and to secure\nthat no one is neglected in the parish. But we must remember, we\nclergy of the Church of England, that we are not working for a\nparticular parish or country only, but for the whole world. We must\nnot rest content in being a stolid yeomanry, who can only fight\nin our own country, but we are to be a mobile alert force for the\nconversion of the world. We ought to be entirely and absolutely\nindependent of our comfortable homes, of our comfortable way of\nlife. It is good to go into camp and be content to stay there for\na couple of months. We ought to feel that having food and raiment,\nwith these we shall have enough. That love of comfort is a great\ndanger; it greatly hampers us in our task and in our alertness as\nmessengers.\n\nAnd, again, if we are a mobile army for the world, we ought to be\nready to go to any part of the world to which the SPIRIT of the LORD\ndirects us. It often happens that the SPIRIT catches away some young\ncurate, and he is found in some unpronounceable place in Japan or\nChina. He is there because the SPIRIT has taken him there. Therefore\nwe have to question ourselves very strictly to-day, it seems to me,\nas to whether we are detached enough to be messengers, or whether\nwe have got clogged by mere custom and the comforts of life, so\nthat we do not move quickly enough. Or again, we may be hampered\nin our movements by the demand for a full Catholic service for our\nown solace and comfort. Those men at the front who are receiving\nthe Holy Communion before the battle have little barns for their\nservice, with flickering and guttering candles. When they come home\nthey will tell us they have never had such a Communion service\nin their lives as those they had with their comrades. Honestly I\nconsider it is right to have, if we can, a beautiful service which\nuplifts our souls, to give our people all the Catholic privileges\npossible. But we ought not to be dependent upon it; we ought to\nrecognise that the heart of the thing is also in the poor barn and\nthe guttering candle. We all ought to be content to do without many\nthings that we have now, if only we may be allowed to carry our\nmessage to the ends of the earth.\n\n(5) And then, when he comes, he is to give the full message.\nPheidippides stood before his people and gave it all, the warning,\nand the comfort and the inspiration. Do not leave anything out. One\npart is as important as another. He gave the whole rounded message,\nand we must be careful to do the same. We must be careful not to let\nthe Gospel consist of one doctrine only--for example, the Atonement.\nThe Atonement is a part of the Gospel--a glorious part of it--but\nit is not the whole message by any means. There is the Gospel of\nGrace. We are saved by the death of CHRIST, but we are saved by\nGrace and the means of Grace--the power in the water of life to\nrefresh the soul that is pardoned, and the beautiful sacramental\nteaching handed on to us. The prodigal comes back, and he receives\nthe robe and the ring, and the home, and the feast, and the shoes\nfor service--all these things. The prodigal of to-day wants them\ntoo; the FATHER'S kiss--the outward and visible sign of the FATHER'S\nlove; the ring in Confirmation, the robe in Baptism, the home in the\nChurch, the feast--the Holy Communion--the shoes for service. You\nhave got to tell them about everything. You have no right to say of\none doctrine: \"This is the whole Gospel.\" We must teach the Gospel\nof the Resurrection and the Ascension as much as the Atonement, and\nthe Church's Sacraments as well. Therefore we have to ask--have\nwe not?--whether our teaching has degenerated into some little\nshibboleth, which we keep repeating over and over again. We must be\nmessengers of the whole message, and we must see that we are giving\nthe message in its fulness, or else there may be souls unsaved who\nmight be saved by the very part of it which we leave out. We might\nbe astonished if we catechised our people as to what we have really\ntaught them in ten years. Have we simply given them a series of\nmoral exhortations, or the same part of the message, year after\nyear, and not the whole message?\n\n(6) Then, lastly, we must seal the message with our lives. \"Do you\nreally mean to say\"--I believe it was a girl who asked the question\nwhen present for the first time at an Ordination Service--\"do you\nmean to say that every clergyman I have ever met has been through\nthat?\" Well, apparently we do not always give the impression that\nwe have. The messenger has to seal the message by his life, and by\nconduct consistent with such a trust, but also he has got to seal\nit, if necessary, with his death.[21] Pheidippides died\n\n               \"In the shout for his meed.\"\n\nThere ought to be no hesitation about going to infectious cases if\nwe are called to do so. I am always quoting what Bishop King told us\nin one of his pastoral lectures. He was warning us against being\nnervous or having presentiments. He said: \"I had a presentiment that\nI should die when I was twenty-six. And, sure enough, after I was\nordained, the smallpox came to the parish where I was working. I had\nto go to the patients, and I had to sit up with them, and bury one\nmyself. 'Here,' I thought, 'is my presentiment coming true; I am\ntwenty-six.' But,\" he said to us in the lecture-hall, \"I am here,\ngentlemen, this morning.\" Therefore we should make it a rule that\nwhat little risk there is in our profession we should take, after\nseeing to all needful precautions. And if it be so that we die in\nthe course of our duty through some epidemic, we shall die at our\nposts, and be doing what a messenger ought to do.\n\n  [21] In giving the substance of this address at a Quiet Day for\n  the chaplains of the Grand Fleet this summer, I felt the touching\n  appropriateness of this illustration, as no less than sixteen naval\n  chaplains had lost their lives during the war.\n\n    \"'Well,' cried he, 'Emperor, by GOD'S grace\n       We've got you Ratisbon!\n     The marshal's in the market-place,\n       And you'll be there anon\n     To see your flag-bird flap his vans\n       Where I, to heart's desire,\n     Perched him!' The Chief's eye flashed, his plans\n       Soared up again like fire.\n\n    \"The Chief's eye flashed; but presently\n       Softened itself, as sheathes\n     A film the mother-eagle's eye\n       When her bruised eaglet breathes:\n     'You're wounded!' 'Nay,' his soldier's pride\n       Touched to the quick, he said:\n     'I'm killed, Sire!' And, his Chief beside,\n       Smiling, the boy fell dead.\"\n\nThat was a young soldier, a messenger, who came to tell Napoleon of\nthe success of his arms. It is called simply \"An Incident of the\nFrench Camp.\"[22]\n\n                  \"Smiling the boy fell dead.\"\n\nDear brothers, if we are called to seal our message with our lives,\nmay GOD give us grace to do so!\n\n  [22] Robert Browning.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nPHYSICIANS\n\n\nWe have thought over, or tried to think over, our r\u00f4le as\nmessengers. Now--by that sort of rapid change which these titles\nput before us, and this illustrates the extraordinary variety and\ninterest of our work--we have got to picture ourselves in the sober\nmien of physicians--physicians in a ward, good physicians, celestial\nsurgeons. We must put away the picture of the rapid, eager, loyal\nmessenger, and remember that there is a side to our message quite\ndifferent from this, without which our service as messenger might\ndegenerate into mere preaching. We have much else to do besides\nthat. We are house-surgeons, physicians in a great ward of patients,\nand that ward is our parish; and upon our training, patience, and\nskill, will depend the safety and welfare of all this multitude of\npatients. They are all entrusted to our care. But what should we\nthink, for instance, of a surgeon out at the front, if, with a great\nmass of wounded to be attended to, nobody ever asked him to come,\nbut left him in a tent without a call? It would not be a very strong\ntestimonial to his skill or standing or people's belief in him. And,\ntherefore, we have to ask ourselves this fresh home question: If in\nour ward we are not called in, may it not be that the people do not\nbelieve in us, or trust us, or think we are sufficiently trained to\nbe able to help them?\n\n(1) And that brings us, of course, to the whole question of training\nfor the ministry. It is really humiliating when you think of it.\nNo one is allowed to be a physician or surgeon, not even to begin\nas one--certainly not to have any sort of responsibility--unless\nhe has had at least five years' course of continuous training. And\nsometimes we think a year or two at a University or a Theological\nCollege, not necessarily both, quite enough training to become\nsurgeons and physicians of the soul. I do think the Church ought to\nback up the Bishops in the efforts they are making to remedy this\ngreat contrast. Five years' incessant training for those who treat\nthe body, and a hasty two years considered sufficient for the more\ndifficult task of surgeon and physician of the soul!\n\nTherefore do back us up in our difficult task of trying to get a\nbetter-trained ministry. If the parish priest only theoretically\nbelieves in it, and is quite upset if his curate is ploughed in\nthe examination, and writes and begs that he at least may be let\nthrough--I am only giving an illustration of dozens of letters I\nhave received--that sort of thing does not help us. It is no good\nmy speaking to you anything but true words; that sort of thing does\nnot help us to keep up what should be the standard of our trained\nministry. We must remember that the real examination comes in our\nparish. When we arrive there, it is the people who really examine\nus, and if, when they have got to know us, they find that we are\nnot worth calling in to minister to their souls--well, it is not\nthe fault of the people, it is the fault of the training and the\nwant of skill of the physician. And if some were ordained quickly\nowing to poverty--and GOD knows it often is owing to poverty: many\na man would be only too thankful for another year in a theological\ncollege--that is the fault of the Church. The Church must supply\nthe money if the men cannot. We have an efficient Board, in the\ndiocese to-day, of responsible men choosing out candidates. And if\nthe Church were a little more generous in its support, we might have\na really adequate supply of clergy. We have not got by any means\nthe full number which the Church needs to-day to send all over the\ncountry.\n\n(2) The second essential thing is self-knowledge. \"Physician, heal\nthyself,\" is an old saying. Of course, I am not speaking from a\npedestal, but simply sitting among you, and speaking to myself as\nmuch as to you. The words I believe CHRIST is saying to us all are,\n\"Physician, heal thyself\"--that is to say, we must see what is wrong\nin our own lives and works; otherwise we cannot have the insight\nto heal others. We do not know how to do it, unless we have cut\ndown into our own souls. The man who has done that is the man who\nreally knows. It is only the man who is frank enough to look below\nthe surface and see the wickedness of his own heart who is the one\nwho can deal with other people. The HOLY SPIRIT, who alone knows us\nthrough and through, may bring us to a deeper self-knowledge to-day,\nwhich will make us very much better physicians. If we heal ourselves\nfirst, we shall know how to heal others.\n\n(3) Then, thirdly, to carry out this great task we must know our\npeople one by one. Here is a great difficulty. A parish priest may\nhave ten thousand people in his charge, but how difficult it is\nfor him to know each one! He must do it--though, of course, partly\nthrough others. He must have a system. I do not think a parish\npriest ought ever to be wholly inaccessible to any part of his\nparish. He must have his curates working for him, but the priests\nwho work with him must have a system by which the vicar himself will\nknow when he is wanted. I am sure every parish priest feels that\nhe must be ready for any emergency. It is not easy to escape from\ncouncils and committees, but he should be ready with the surgeon's\nknife whenever he is wanted all over his great ward. He must not\nleave it wholly to anyone else, so long as he is responsible. In\norder to know the people, he must be up to the last day of his\nlife a visitor. I hold it to be an absolutely wrong view of the\npastoral office to say: \"I can sit in my cassock in the church, and\nthe people know where I am, and they can come to me if they like.\"\nOf course, it is a very good thing to have times when we shall be\nin church, and when the people will know that we are there. There\nis (let us say) the daily service at a time which everybody knows;\nthey can catch us after the daily service, and see us as we go away.\nWe make it known we shall be pleased to see them after Mattins and\nEvensong. And we have a time before the great festivals when they\ncan come to prepare themselves for the great services. All that\nis wholly to the good. It is good for the house-surgeon to have a\nplace where his patients can come and see him. But something else is\nwanted. He must be ready to go out and see them when they are ill,\nand find out what is the matter with them. What should we think of a\nphysician who had always the same regimen and the same medicine for\neverybody? It used to be a joke, I remember, at a great school at\nwhich I was, that the doctor gave us all the same physic. It was no\ndoubt a libel on him. But certainly such a method would be a fault\nin the case of the spiritual surgeon; souls would die under such\ntreatment. We have to ask ourselves: Are there any patients dying\nunder my hand, in my ward, because I have not taken the trouble to\nreally heal them, because I am not going down deep enough, because\nI am not finding out what is the matter with them, because I am not\nreally acting the part of physician, still less that of a celestial\nsurgeon?\n\n(4) And then, when we have got the people to trust us so that they\nwish us to go to them, or they come to us with their troubles and\ndifficulties and sorrows, we must have for our people the patience\nof the good physician. If we have known and benefited by the\npatience of our own physicians of the body when we have been ill,\nand have realised how patient they are, if some of our best friends\nhave been the doctors, the physicians, and surgeons, who have\nattended to us, we, too, have got to show the patience of the good\nphysician to our people. We have no right to give a sarcastic answer\nbecause a particular parishioner seems to be beyond the limit. We\nmust imitate the patience of JESUS CHRIST. The old story of \"Quo\nVadis?\" is told in different ways. One version is that, as St.\nPeter was, in a fit of impatience, leaving Rome, our LORD met him\non the way, and he, Peter, asked Him whither He was going. The LORD\nanswered that He was going to Rome to be crucified again because\nPeter had left his post. Another version of the same story is that\none of the disciples was asked where he was going, and he said: \"I\nhave lost patience with such and such a man.\" The LORD said: \"I have\nhad patience with that man for forty years.\" Whichever way you put\nthe story, the point is that we have no right to be impatient with\nour people. Why _should_ we be impatient? Think how patient He has\nbeen with us all this time. We must have, then, the patience of the\nGood Physician. Let me speak to the younger clergy, nearly all of\nwhom I have ordained myself. Do you remember that when you were\nundergraduates you were not particularly keen when someone came in\nto speak to you for your good? Perhaps you were a little impatient.\nAnd, perhaps, after all is said and done, the young men of the\nparish feel very much the same when you come in and want to talk to\nthem for their good. I think sometimes we forget that the young men\nof the parish are very much the same as we were as undergraduates,\nand that if they do not come on at once to the Bible-class or want\nto be confirmed, they are not very much worse than we were at their\nage. Therefore we must pray for more patience with them. Someone had\npatience with us, or we could not have been here in the ministry at\nall. Someone bore with all our waywardness, and with hopefulness\nbrought us on to something better. We shall never do anything\nwithout patience. It is the patience of CHRIST that will win them at\nlast, and they will say: \"Thy gentleness has made me great.\"\n\n(5) But, then, while we are patient, we must not be afraid of\nspeaking the uncomfortable truth. I mean, there is such a thing as\nbeing too kind--too kind in the sense that we are afraid to speak\nout, to cut down, as it were, with the surgeon's knife. You remember\nthe Celestial Surgeon of Stevenson:\n\n    \"If I have faltered more or less\n     In my great task of happiness ...\n     If beams from happy human eyes\n     Have moved me not; if morning skies,\n     Books, and my food, and summer rain,\n     Knocked at my sullen heart in vain:--\n     Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take,\n     And stab my spirit broad awake.\"\n\nSomething of what he means is, I suppose, humorous. What he means\nis that something must pierce below the surface, something must\nget home; anything is better than faltering in our great task of\nhappiness, being dead to the blessings of life that GOD gives us.\nSometimes we have to stand up and say: \"Thou art the man.\" \"It is\nnot lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife.\" We have got to\nsay this whenever there is occasion for it. We have got to speak\nout for the sake of the man's soul. It is not easy, but we must be\nprepared to do our part as celestial surgeons. There is many a man\nwho has lived to bless his parish priest for telling him the truth\nabout himself. He has been very angry at first, and full of bluster,\nbut thankful afterwards. We must never be afraid to be celestial\nsurgeons in the sense of doing the best for our patients.\n\n(6) Well, then, directly you have done that, be ready to pour in the\noil like the Good Samaritan. There he is, delightful man, putting\noff his business to look after the poor man, and we are to remember\nto our shame that the priest and the Levite had passed by him. Pour\nin the oil of sympathy. It seemed a very little thing to repeat that\ncommonplace bit of comfort to the mourners; often you may hesitate\nto write that letter to the tenth man or woman who has lost his or\nher boy in the war. That letter, written in love, is like the oil;\nit comes as a healing balm. You have poured in loving sympathy.\nYou cannot have too much of it to give away. The good physician is\nfull of pity even while he uses the drastic medicine, and the best\nsurgeon is wonderfully patient. \"When I lost my boy, when he hung\nbetween life and death, then I found out what my parish priest was\nlike,\" people should be able to say. If we have not got sympathy,\nand cannot pour in the oil, where are we? The world expects us to\nbe kindly, loving, sympathising, sacrificing physicians in times of\ntrouble and sorrow.\n\n(7) And then, once again, do not forget the after-care. We have\n\"after-care committees\" for our children when they leave school,\nbut we _are_ an after-care committee for all our people's souls.\nOur LORD understood all about after-care. When He healed the little\ngirl, He commanded that something should be given her to eat. He at\nonce thought of her needs. He wanted to strengthen her after the\nstrain that she had gone through.\n\nAnd that brings us to the beautiful work of our guilds. There need\nbe no particular kind of organisation, but we must in our parishes\nlook round and see that everyone has what he wants--see that men and\nboys, women and girls, are looked after. When they are cured, have\nwe provided that something should be given them to eat, something to\nstrengthen them? Do we carry out the after-care which every good\nphysician and surgeon always displays?\n\nI always remember, from my East London days, a little pamphlet\nwritten by the present Bishop of Southwell. It was called \"From\nMarriage to Marriage.\" It made a great impression on me at the time.\nI cannot remember all he said, but the point is this: We were too\nmuch inclined to imagine that everyone had to go through a dreary\ncourse of falls and rescues. But if we really shepherded the little\nchild from the moment he was born, it would be different. Let us\nbegin with the young couple. From the time they leave the church\nwe have to look after them. And then, when their child has come,\nwe have to take care of that little child and shepherd it from\nthe very start. If we do not do that, we have left out our most\nimportant work. There is a great deal of work upon which we are\nengaged--_e.g._, rescue work--which would not be on such a gigantic\nscale if we had real after-care committees thoroughly at work in the\nChurch from the time the people are married.\n\nWe must examine ourselves to-day, then, very strictly from the\npoint of view of being good physicians: \"What about my parish? Are\nmy people dying under my hand, through my carelessness or want\nof skill? Are there any whom I do not know or who do not know me\nbecause I have not won their confidence? Do I visit them as much\nas I can, and find out what is the matter with them? Am I treating\nthem with loving patience, and yet with frankness and courage and\ntenderness, looking after them right on to the end?\" When the\nApostles healed a man they gave us the true spirit in which to do\nit. \"In the name of JESUS CHRIST rise up and walk.\" Not in their own\nname, not in their own power, but in the name and power of JESUS\nCHRIST. They did not try to be popular people and make people like\nthem; they had but the one idea, to make it perfectly plain that the\npower of their LORD was present to heal; and the result was that\nthe man leapt up, stood, and walked, and was seen afterwards in the\nTemple walking and praising GOD. If in our healing work we keep\nout the idea of self, and work as good physicians and celestial\nsurgeons in the name of CHRIST, the effect of our work will be\nthat we shall see numbers in the parish, perhaps paralysed before,\nwalking and leaping and praising, not us, but GOD.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nFISHERS OF MEN\n\n\nWe have meditated upon our work as messengers, and then on our work\nas physicians and surgeons; but the duties given us are so various\nthat it ought to make us feel how extraordinarily full of interest\nour work is. Every faculty of the mind and spirit is wanted for this\nwonderful work. We are called sometimes stewards representing the\nMaster to the people of the world, looking after the menservants and\nthe maidservants, foraging for the food of the household and giving\nit out. Then another time we are watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem,\nwalking up and down watching over the city and blowing the trumpet\nwhen the danger comes, continually holding up our hands in prayer.\n\nWe do our work as messengers running with a message, as physicians\nand surgeons going up and down the ward, and then suddenly we hear\na voice ring, as it were, from heaven: \"Follow Me, and I will make\nyou fishers of men.\" Here we have quite a different picture--the\nwind-swept deck of the fishing-smack in the teeth of the tempest.\n\"Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.\"\nWe are fishers fishing for men. What a different picture from the\nothers! And I think we ask, rather sadly, some of us, who have been\nworking night and day, whether we are successful fishers of men. We\nsay: \"Master, we have toiled all the night and taken nothing.\" I\nhave this huge parish of ten thousand people to look after, and what\nis the result of my work among them? Have I been a successful fisher\nof men? And that makes us, of course, ask ourselves in a day like\nthis: \"What is the secret of successful fishing? If I have toiled\nall the night and taken nothing, and all the day and taken very\nlittle, what ought I to do? My time is getting on; the evening will\ncome, my fishing will be over. Can I not discover in the presence of\nmy LORD to-day what He would have me do different from what I have\nbeen doing, that I may bring to His feet a greater harvest of souls\nthan I have ever brought yet?\"\n\n(1) And the first secret of successful fishing is _variety of\nmethod_. There are some of us, no doubt, who do fish on our holidays\nin the literal sense, and we know how again and again in the salmon\nrivers we have tried fly after fly. And yet in our fishing for\nmen we often tie ourselves down to one monotonous kind of method,\nnever thinking of varying it. But if we have found one method\nfail, surely we might try another. Why should we be tied down to\none particular humdrum method if it has been tried for years and\nfailed? Of course, there are certain things which must be the same.\nWe have no right to complain for a moment of what some people call\nthe monotony of Mattins and Evensong for ourselves. Mattins and\nEvensong are not at all monotonous. I remember thinking, when I made\nthat promise which everyone makes when they are ordained, of obeying\nthe Prayer-Book and saying Mattins and Evensong every day, that it\nwould be a kind of slavery to me. But, on the contrary, I find it\na chain that binds me about the feet of GOD. The lessons in these\nservices are four \"letters from heaven\" every day, as Canon Liddon\ncalled them. We have spent an immense time in Convocation--nine\nyears--in considering what variations in the authorised services\nof the Prayer-Book may be admitted, and we have almost agreed upon\na supplementary book which will give an immense variety to the\nservice: a great many more antiphons, a rewritten preface to the\nConfirmation Service, the Marriage Service carefully revised, and\nsome things definitely sanctioned for the Church at large which we\nhave used under provisional sanction in this diocese. We hope to\nhave the new supplementary book out at the end of the war. Think,\nfor instance, of the Psalms. Has not the Great War revealed to us\nthe depth of the Psalms--\"the war-songs of the Prince of Peace,\"\nas they have been called. The war has given to many a new meaning\nwhich we never saw before. And think of all the needs of the sick\nof the parish, and our personal needs, all to be woven into these\nbeautiful services which we use every day, and which seem to bind\nus to the feet of GOD. If any of you have drifted away from your\nregular use of Mattins and Evensong, or if you have not started it\nin your own churches, make a resolution to start it from to-day.\nWhen your people hear the bell ring, that will tell them that at any\nrate the clergyman is at his prayers.\n\nOf course, we do not want our beautiful services to be altered in\nsubstance; but we may have variations sanctioned by authority. In\nfishing for men we are not bound by one method. If we find that\none method does not succeed, we must try another. I have already\nsanctioned in the diocese a shortened form of Evening Service.\nFor those not reached by services in church we must have open-air\nservices. People will listen at the windows in the little square or\nstreet in which they live. There must be, too, special services for\nsuch organisations as Boy Scouts and Church Lads' Brigade. For the\nordinary Sunday-School we are now able to have new methods provided\nby experts for the diocese. Then, if the Sunday-School system does\nnot seem to suit your particular parish, try catechising in church.\nI am only suggesting--it is not for me to lay down this or that rule\nas to what is to be tried. My point is this: With the HOLY SPIRIT\nguiding you, and with the inventiveness of love, you will be able to\nbring out of your treasure things new and old. Although one of the\noldest things in the world, the Church is yet the youngest. We never\ngrow old, and, acting with the inventiveness of youth, we ought to\nbe thinking out new plans and new methods all the time; and while I\nam speaking upon the inventiveness and freshness of the successful\nfisherman, I need not say that I shall be only too happy to sanction\nalmost any new experiment you may wish to make in fishing for men,\nif you will submit to me the prayers you think of using, and if\nI think the suggested method consistent with the teaching of the\nChurch to which we both belong.\n\n(2) Then there must be, too--every true fisherman knows this--a\n_ripple on the water_ for fishing, best of all a light breeze in\nthe morning. That means that it is a fishing-day. And do you not\nknow what I mean when I say that there seems to be no ripple on\nsome parishes at all? The whole of the surface of the parish seems\nas dull as ditch-water--no ripple, no fish. If there is no sense of\nexpectancy, no keenness, no enjoyment, no happy spirit, among the\nworkers, there will be no fish. I would like you to ask yourselves\nwhether there is such a ripple in your parish, or whether it is\nall very dull and dead. And I would like to ask anyone who seems\nto recognise that there is nothing going on, and that there has\nbeen no catch, yesterday, to-day, or the day before, to ask himself\nif he cannot go back and create a ripple in the parish. When you\nthink over how that ripple is to be created, of course, it can\nonly be by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT brooding over the waters,\nas He originally brooded over the waters and brought cosmos out of\nchaos. I believe the chief way, if I may reduce the metaphor to\nprosaic terms, the chief way must be by constantly praying for the\nparish and the people, that the HOLY SPIRIT may come and stir the\ndulness by creating a spirit of expectancy and a joy in the work.\nWhen you are obviously enjoying your work yourself, and making the\nSunday-School teachers and the workers enjoy it, you may expect a\nripple in the parish. Joy in the work is a most attractive thing.\nThere must be the joy throughout the parish, among clergy and\nworkers; the curates and the Vicar must be at one, with no friction\nbetween them, and they and the workers a real band of brothers and\nsisters all fishing in the same waters. Pray very earnestly for\nthis. I shall not bring in more at this point about the necessity\nfor intercession. Remember that it is the parish priest who is\nperpetually praying for his people individually, and teaching his\npeople to pray, who is the most successful. In my experience it\nis the praying parish that has a ripple on the surface. I see a\nwonderful quantity of fish caught in a parish of that kind.\n\n(3) Then think what is the cord or line by which the fish are\ncaught. \"I will draw them with the cords of a man,\" by human\ninfluence, by _personality_. Now this question of personality is\na very difficult one. Dr. Newman is said to have stated that he\ndreaded personal influence. Well, of course, it is quite easy to\nsee what he meant. He dreaded such personal influence in religion\nwhich is used to make people simply like us or to draw them to\nourselves and to leave them there--that is to say, he dreaded\na misuse of personal influence. So misused, no doubt, personal\ninfluence is a dangerous thing. But that does not alter the fact\nthat people are drawn to CHRIST by personal influence, and that we\nmust use our personal influence if we are to be successful fishermen\nfor CHRIST.\n\nAnd that brings me to this personal question: Is there anything\nin ourselves that puts people off? I wish to be perfectly frank.\nIs it not a fact that we clergy sometimes do put people off by\nour manner and appearance? Even the smallest thing is important\nif it is going to spoil the line or cord that is to draw people\nto CHRIST. I believe we put off people more than we know by\ncarelessness about our appearance, or manner, or matters of that\nkind. So much depends on us that we cannot take too much care of\nour personality. We should see to it that when people meet us they\ncan see the attractiveness of goodness in us, and be drawn to our\nLORD because they are first attracted to His representative. And do\nask yourselves--I might seem to be personal if I went into details:\nIs there anything in my manner that is spoiling CHRIST'S work so\nthat He cannot fish with me, cannot draw others through me? Is it\nbecause I am not humble enough, or is there something in me, some\nunattractive feature or characteristic, that is spoiling the fishing?\n\n(4) And then, of course, there must be the _hopefulness of the\nfisherman_. The true fisherman is nothing if he is not hopeful.\n\"Master, I have toiled all night, and caught nothing; nevertheless,\nat Thy word I will let down the net.\" The true fisherman never\nknows when he may be successful; he is always expecting something\nat the last moment, and he manages to infuse hopefulness into his\nfellow-workers; he hopes that there is going to be good fishing in\nthe day or the night. I had a rather touching illustration of the\nvalue of hopefulness in a little hospital near where I was spending\na holiday. Five sisters, friends of mine, who really managed the\nwhole hospital, sent a telegram from the village asking if I\ncould come and see one of the young soldiers, whom they could make\nnothing of. He was absolutely in despair. He had lived a bad life,\nand I think it was the presence of these five good girls who were\nnursing him that made him feel the contrast between his life and\ntheirs, with all its purity and goodness. The contrast brought him\nto repentance. Still, he thought it was too late to change. He could\nnot be forgiven. I went to the hospital. There he was, a young man\nabout twenty-eight, really in despair. It took me a long time to\nget any hope in him. At last, when he had gone into his whole life,\nand I had given him absolution, and had a prayer with him, I saw a\nsort of hope come into his face. The change was extraordinary. He\nsaid: \"Will you pray with me again, Bishop?\" In all my experience\nI have not very often been asked like that to pray again with a\nman. They are generally shy, and satisfied with the first prayer.\nI prayed with him a second time. He wrote me afterwards a charming\nletter, asking me to send him a Bible and Prayer-Book, which I did.\nWhat that man wanted was hope, nothing but hope; he was in despair\nabout himself. \"GOD shall forgive thee all but thy despair.\" We\nshall never catch a man like that unless we can infuse into him that\nglorious hope which we have ourselves. I persuaded him that he was\nnot too late, and he was saved by hope.\n\nNow do let us carry back the hopefulness of the fisherman to our\nparishes, whatever may have happened in the past. Many of you have\nbeen in your parishes very many years, and no doubt sometimes you\nhave felt very despondent. Start again to-morrow as if you had just\nbegun. Though you have toiled all the night and perhaps caught\nnothing, cast your net on the right side of the ship, and the next\nfive years will be the most fruitful years your parish has ever\nhad. People will notice a different spirit about yourself. Try a\ncompletely new method, and you will have a wonderful success. There\nwill be a ripple on the water which there has not been before. Be\nhopeful about it, and then, if you have to stay on in the same\nparish five or ten years more, it may be a wholly different story\nfrom what it has been up to now.\n\n(5) In the next place, a successful fisherman must have a _very\ndeep faith_. Of course, the ordinary fisherman must have some sort\nof faith. The good fisherman believes certain things all the time\nhe is fishing. He believes in the laws of the wind, studies them,\nand acts according to them. He sets his sail according to them, if\nhe is fishing in the sea, and he knows that he must do so if he is\nto reap of the unfathomable harvest of the sea. He believes in all\nthese things, and on a stormy coast he must be a man of great faith,\ndealing with great unseen movements and powers all round him. He\nlearns their laws, and he knows that if he acts according to those\nlaws he is successful as a rule. But do you not see that we are\njust like that ourselves? Really we are in touch with all kinds\nof unseen powers and movements. We have to believe, for instance,\nin the salvability of every soul in the world; we have to believe\nthat every soul is meant for the Gospel, and the Gospel is meant\nfor every soul. We have to believe in that man in the worst slum\nof our parish; we have to realise that the Gospel is fitted for him\nand he is fitted for the Gospel. No one has ever been found yet who\ncould not be made into a bit of a saint in time. And the Gospel,\ntremendously deep as it is, is also so simple that the simplest\ncan understand it. That is the wonderful thing about it. We have\nto believe in it--intensely believe in it; we have to believe in\nthe wonderful power of these tides of the SPIRIT sweeping round a\nparish and working wonders; we have to believe in the influence of\nthe unseen wind that blows over it and to pray often: \"Come from the\nfour winds, O breath, and breathe upon them.\"\n\nWe are, as a matter of fact, working amidst unseen and tremendous\nforces. We talk about the power of GOD. The power of GOD! Why, He\nkeeps the whole universe going, twenty million suns always moving on\nthrough space. He alone knows whither they are going. Twenty million\nburning suns! look at the power of that; think what power that\nalone implies! and then think of the saving power of one drop of\nblood shed upon the Cross, when you consider Who it was that hung\nthere. Think, again, of the wonderful influence, the downrush of\nthe SPIRIT: some of you have seen it in missions; we believe in it\nat every Confirmation. We are really in touch with most tremendous\npowers. If we had more faith we should be better fishermen.\nTherefore we do want a stronger faith in our LORD Himself, always at\nthe heart of our work, a real living faith in a living LORD with us\nall the time.\n\n(6) And then, sixthly, we must fish for men _one by one_. Of course,\nwe can have great concerted movements. I shall never forget a\nmidnight march through Westminster at half an hour after midnight on\na Saturday night. We swept like a net, bringing quite twenty young\nmen out of every public-house. As we counted them in the church\nschool, we could see that most of them were three-quarters drunk.\nWe could see what would be prevented if the public-houses of London\nwere shut earlier, as, indeed, they now have been during the war. It\nhas benefited Russia greatly that she has abolished the whole vodka\ntraffic. We could not take pledges that night from those men: they\nwere not in a condition to make them; but the Church of England,\nwith all her great organisation, ought to be able to prevent that\nsort of thing, and catch these souls one by one. Here comes in\nthe need of personality; we must talk to each of these young men,\nprovide somewhere else where he may spend his evenings, and remember\nthat you can only catch fish one by one.\n\n(7) And the last point of all is that, to be successful,\nthe _fishing-fleet must be kept together_. You really are a\nfishing-fleet, and not merely individual fishing-boats. When a\ndeanery is kept together, it shows a brotherhood, a cohesion, which\nis a very beautiful thing to see. To a large extent you are such,\nbut, still, even the best-worked deanery can resolve to work more\ntogether than they have done, in happy co-operation, the clergy\nand people of each parish taking an interest in another's parish,\nrejoicing in its successes and praying for it in its troubles. If\nthe whole deanery meets regularly for united intercession, this must\nhave a great effect upon the mission work in the district. It must\nhave an effect also upon mission work among the heathen for the\nChurch at home to feel part of the same fishing-fleet as the Church\nabroad, the workers in one ship beckoning to their partners in the\nother ship to come and help them.\n\nWell, then, take back with you these simple thoughts which I am\ntrying to put before you as your Bishop and fellow-priest. Pray\nto be made more keen, more alert, more active and enthusiastic\nmessengers. Pray to be skilful, patient, thorough, good physicians,\nand kinder celestial surgeons. And, perhaps above all, pray to be\nhopeful, faithful fishermen; go out together as a fishing-fleet\non the great ocean, believing in all the possibilities which lie\nbeneath the surface; realise the presence of your Master directing\nfrom the shore the whole fleet. And then at the end of all things,\nin the morning of the great day, you will have a harvest of souls to\ndraw to the shore to His feet.\n\n\n\n\n                                 III\n\nTO GIRLS\n\n\n\n\nWHAT A GIRL CAN DO IN A DAY OF GOD[23]\n\n  [23] An address to two thousand girls in Nottingham.\n\n\nWhen I think of all the vast influence exercised by those in this\nhall, I feel inclined to say what Bishop Selwyn said in the midst of\nEton Chapel--\"You can turn the world upside down.\"\n\nBut, before I say anything of my own, I want to emphasise what\nhas already been said to you, with regard to the influence at\nthe Front of those who are here at home. As I went down behind\nthe firing-line in 1915, and held seven or eight services a day,\nbefore each service began I invariably said one thing from end to\nend of the line. I said: \"I have come here, boys, before we have\nany service, to bring you the love from home of your mothers, your\nsisters, and your sweethearts.\" And you saw the soft look that came\ninto those boys' faces while the guns were firing--and sometimes\nan aeroplane was guarding the service for fear the Germans should\nnot be able to resist a target of four thousand men, and a Bishop in\nthe middle--you would know what they think of home, and how you have\ngot the heart of the Empire in your keeping. One of the boys who\nhas died the death of honour wrote home to his mother: \"I have come\nhere, mother, for one purpose--and that is, that you and the sisters\nshall not be treated like these Belgian women have been.\"\n\nI am going to put the message at the very highest at once. I have\nnever found young people fail to rise to it. I am going to put upon\nyour lips, as your resolution, no less a resolution than was on the\nlips of our Lord Himself, our great High Priest, just before He went\nto His own death--\"For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also\nmay be sanctified in truth.\" I say High Priest, because I am going\nto put this one single thought before you as describing the function\nwhich girls are to discharge in a Day of GOD, and that is, they have\ngot to be priests of GOD.\n\nNow, that may seem to you a strange thing to say, but before I have\ndone I shall have failed indeed if you do not believe it. I am\nalways trying, in London, to unite all the great Christian bodies in\ncommon action. We fight as one family, side by side, against evil,\nsin, intemperance, and impurity. Every year all the denominations\nin London elect me chairman of the London Temperance Council and of\nthe Public Morality Council, and it is by focussing the whole of the\nChristian thought of London that we are as strong as we are, when\nwe tackle night clubs, and living pictures, and other abominable\nevils, and destroy them in the name of the LORD. I say that because\nI believe fully that if everyone understood what the teaching about\npriesthood was it would take away much misunderstanding, and I\nbelieve would join together many Christian bodies divided to-day.\n_There is only one Priest in the Universe, and that is_ JESUS\nCHRIST _Himself_. But He says Himself that the Church is His body.\nTherefore, the whole of the Church is the body of a Priest. Those\nof us who are called priests are ordained as organs of a priestly\nbody. We act in the name of the body, and therefore the idea that\nwe are setting ourselves up above this or that person is wholly\nwrong, because we act as organs, as hands and feet--as it were--of\na priestly body. And mark you, the Church is the great company\nthroughout the world of all baptized persons, baptized by whoever\nbaptizes them.\n\nIf you think that out, you will see what a powerful idea this idea\nof priesthood is. Have you ever seen a priest ordained? I wish\nsometimes, though I am afraid you would fill the whole dome of St.\nPaul's Cathedral, that you could come some day and see what to me\nevery time is a most touching sight: you would have seen those young\nmen, thirty perhaps, as were there at a recent ordination, brought\nup before the Bishop, who has other priests standing round, and then\non the head of each, as he kneels in front, we all lay our hands,\nand I say, \"Receive the HOLY GHOST for the Office and Work of a\nPriest in the Church of GOD.\" A young girl said once, \"Do you mean\nto say every clergyman I see has been through all that?\" But now,\nif that is so, why do I look round on you and say you are young\npriests of GOD? Why? Because you are part of this priestly body. You\nare joined to the one great High Priest, and therefore you, whom GOD\nknows one by one, are known and named and called. Of course in the\nChurch Confirmation is the ordination of the lay priest, and if you\nare confirmed, I am going to tell you five things you are expected\nto do.\n\n1. The first is to be _girded_. I have more to do in my life, and\nnaturally so, with young men and boys than I have with girls and\nwomen, but that very reason gives me an added authority in speaking\nto you, because I know what their difficulties are. I speak,\nconstantly, to as many young men as there are of you girls; I say,\nknowing what difficulty they have at their age to control their\npassions, that it is like ruling a horse. A horse is a splendid\nservant, but a vile master. When you have got the bit in your\nhorse's mouth and the reins in your hand, a horse is a splendid\nservant; but let him off at full gallop, with the reins round your\nfeet and the bit in his teeth, then he is a terrible master. So it\nis with the boys. They have got to be on the horse with the reins of\nGOD's Commandment in their hands, and the bit of self-control in the\nmouth, then their bodies are glorious servants. What you young girls\nas priests have got to do is to help those boys and young men in the\nvery flower of their lives not to do anything which is afterwards a\nstain upon their conscience. You can rally round them and, if you\nare young priests, can help them.\n\nThere are three things of priceless value a young girl has on her\nside in doing this. The first is her natural modesty. Why are we so\nafraid of bad companions breaking down a girl's modesty, and why\nare we so afraid of rough horseplay soiling the purity of her soul?\nBecause it is spoiling her first great gift, her first great power.\nIt is just that naturally beautiful modesty a girl possesses with\nwhich she is meant to help every young man. That modesty is meant\nto help her to be self-controlled, and to help him to be so too.\nThen she has a most wonderful power of self-sacrificing love. I say\nto the young men, \"Never take advantage of the trusting love of a\ngirl\"; but to you I say, you have that beautiful power of true love.\nIt is that power of sacrifice and self-sacrificing love which is\nyour great asset to the world. Never soil it, and never spoil it, or\nlet it be dragged down by anyone. And you have a naturally religious\nnature. Those three things, those three splendid things, you have\ngot with which to gird yourselves. Allow anyone to rob you of them,\nand you have lost your strength. Keep them and you have the first\ngreat quality of a true priest of GOD. Gird yourselves with modesty,\nunselfish love, and natural and supernatural religion.\n\n2. And when the young priest has so girded herself, the next thing\nshe has to do in discharge of her priestly office is to _offer up\nevery day an oblation of prayer and praise to_ GOD. He is looking\nfor it every day. Do you remember the story contained in a poem by\nBrowning of a cobbler boy who used to praise God at his work every\nday? He was wafted away to another sphere, and there was silence in\nthe workshop, and GOD said, \"I miss my little human praise.\"\n\nMake then your second resolution, that, having girded yourself, you\nwill never fail to offer to God this sweet incense of prayer and\npraise, and do it perfectly openly. Don't be ashamed of it being\nknown you do it.\n\nIn \"Studies in a Devotional Life,\" Canon Peter Green tells us how\nhe shared a room in a little hotel in South Africa with two men,\nwho looked like brigands. Not liking to say his prayers openly in\ntheir presence, he slipped outside, and said them on the veldt,\nonly to find on his return the \"bearded ruffians,\" who proved to be\nCornish miners, kneeling in prayer themselves. This so impressed the\nwriter that, when on one of the South African expresses he had to\nsleep in the same place as three postmen, he overcame his shyness,\nand said his prayers openly. Next morning, one of the postmen, an\nold choir-boy who had forgotten to say his prayers for a long time,\nconfessed that the clergyman's action had shamed him, and he would\nbegin again that day. So the simple influence of one example ran\ndown the line.\n\n3. Your third duty, and I get to love it more myself every year,\nis not only to pray for yourselves, but to _plead for others_. On\nmy prayer-desk, there are two or three hundred intercessions for\nmothers, whose sons are at the Front, and for the boys themselves.\nWhat a beautiful task it is to intercede for them in turn, so many\na day! We are promised that our prayer shall be heard, your prayer\njust as much as mine. Begin with intercession for fathers and\nmothers, brothers and sisters, people you are next to at your work,\nyour parish, or the church you go to, and so on, extending right out\nto the boys at the Front. Pray to GOD for victory; don't be ashamed\nto pray for victory in a glorious, a righteous cause like this. Pray\nthat all this may be overruled for the spread of GOD's kingdom in\nthe world. And always pray for the lonely missionaries, so often\ndisheartened, so tired, so far away. And mind you, if you have not\nbegun doing all this, you are going to begin. When I went down to\na parish which had not been very efficiently worked, I collected\na number of girls into a club, and got them to come for their\nfirst service. I had just become Rector of Bethnal Green, and the\ncommittee of the club wrote: \"DEAR RECTOR,--We think it our duty to\ninform you that in our opinion our club service was a _success_, and\nwe beg you to have such a service for us every month _until further\nnotice_.\"\n\nWell now, those girls were starting their religious life; but when\nI go down now I find what I started as a little, tiny thing grown\nand grown and grown; those people whom I spoke to first are now\ngrown women. It all goes on if you once make a good start. Therefore\ndo take up, if you have never taken up before, this process of\ninterceding. I am organising all the children in London this year in\nintercession for the war, and when we pour in a million children's\nprayers, is it not going to be a power which is going to bring down\nthe blessing of Heaven on our cause?\n\n4. Then we come to the fourth task of the priest.\n\nThe fourth work of a priest is to consecrate or _dedicate himself\nevery day_. I do ask you to realise, as every day comes, what\npossibility there is in a day. There was a young Bishop who was\nconsecrated the other day; I think he was the youngest Bishop\nconsecrated. I knew him very well, and I had just one minute to\nwrite a note, and I wrote this, and he told me afterwards it had\nbeen more help to him than anything that had been sent to him.\nTherefore I pass it on to you: \"Take one day at a time,\" I said,\n\"and trust the HOLY SPIRIT to see you through.\" Now I believe that\nthat is the real secret of spiritual life. Take one day at a time.\nDon't worry. Don't be thinking of all kinds of difficulties in\nfuture. Take one day at a time, and trust the HOLY SPIRIT to see\nyou through. Dedicate every day and consecrate every day. Think\nover those whom you are going to meet during the day. Be prepared\nbeforehand for the special temptations and difficulties of that\nparticular day; remember that no day will ever come again, and that\nevery day has to be lived out as a young priest of GOD. If every\ngirl in Nottingham dedicated or consecrated herself every day like\nthat--taking one day at a time, and trusting the HOLY SPIRIT to see\nher through--why, there would be a power of strength in this city\nwhich would astonish the world.\n\n5. Then we come on to the fifth great priestly task of _service_.\nI was talking to a little boy of nine. His mother had turned his\nbeautiful home into a hospital for wounded soldiers. She herself\nwas girded, dressed as a nurse, and the little fellow was in bed,\nrather seedy that day, and I sat down on his bed at his mother's\nrequest to have a chat with him. He said: \"I love, Bishop, having\nthe soldiers here; we cannot go back to our old life after the war.\"\nThere is nothing so good as a life lived out in service, every day\nhelping other people, and, if we are going to carry nothing else\naway, we are going to carry away this, that there is nothing so\nvaluable as service. Even the lad's mother, a rich woman, who had\nserved for ten months as a nurse, said: \"Had I only known, Bishop,\nwhat to do before, I should have done it. This ten months has been\nthe most delightful service to me I have ever had in my life.\"\nHow can you girls, working girls many of you, serve in your daily\nlife? All the work you do for the nation in the great factories of\nNottingham, done honestly and straightforwardly, as young priests,\nwith no bad language or bad stories allowed amongst you, is all\nrecognised, and all blessed as part of your priestly service. But\nyou can do more than that. I find again and again that in London the\nbest Sunday School teachers, the best girl guides, the best members\nof the League of Honour there, are hard-working girls. Their service\nhas gone beyond their professional work, and they also use their\nleisure time at home. They are the best girls at home their mothers\never had. I remember a father saying to me: \"Mr. Ingram, I'm not\nmuch of a churchgoer myself\"--he did not come at all, as a matter\nof fact--\"but I will say this, that my boy as does go is the best\nboy I have got.\" What we want them to say about the girl who goes to\nchurch or chapel is: \"She is the best girl we have got at home, the\nmost willing, the most satisfactory, and the most loving.\"\n\nThere, then, you have the five priestly functions to discharge, and\nyou have got to discharge them \"_for their sakes_,\" as well as for\nyour own.\n\nFor whose sake?\n\nFirst for the sake of the boys, who are dead. There is a beautiful\npoem about the other world, which was given me the other day, and\nwhich I pass on to you in the hope that it may bring a little cheer\nin the dark night to any present who have lost their brothers, any\nmothers who have lost their sons.\n\n    \"Lest Heaven be for the greybeards hoary,\n       GOD, who made boys for His delight,\n     Goes in earth's hour of grief and glory,\n       And calls the boys in from the night.\n     When they come trooping from the War\n     Our skies have many a new gold star.\n\n    \"Heaven's thronged with gay and careless faces,\n       New waked from dreams of dreadful things.\n     They walk by green and pleasant places\n       And by the crystal water-springs;\n     Forget the nightmare field of slain,\n     And the fierce thirst and the strong pain.\n\n    \"Forget? GOD smiles to see them merry,\n       For His own SON was once a boy;\n     They never shall be old and weary,\n       But of their youth shall have great joy,\n     And in the playing fields of Heaven\n     Shall run and leap, new-washed, new-shriven.\n\n    \"Now Heaven's by golden boys invaded,\n       'Scaped from the winter and the storm;\n     Stainless and simple as He made it\n       GOD keeps the boy's heart out of harm.\n     The wise old Saints look down and smile,\n     They are so young and without guile.\n\n    \"Oh, if the sonless mothers weeping,\n       The widowed girls, could look inside\n     The Country that hath them in keeping\n       Who went to the Great War and died,\n     They'd rise and put their mourning off,\n     Praise GOD, and say, 'He has enough!'\"[24]\n\n  [24] Katharine Tynan.\n\nSecondly, it is for the boys who will come home that you have your\nfive priestly functions to discharge. They will come home very\ndifferent to what they went out. I saw this wonderful transforming\npower as I went down the lines. Boys came out of the trenches, with\nthe mud upon their puttees, knelt down and asked me to confirm\nthem, thirty at a time (of course they had been previously prepared\nby the Chaplains).\n\nMany came to other services. They sang \"When I survey the wondrous\nCross,\" while the guns thundered close by, with a reality which\nit was impossible to mistake. Are they coming back to irreligious\ngirls, to careless sweethearts, careless sisters who neglect their\nreligion, to girls who would drag them down? No. Let us have here\na country and a Church worthy of its defenders, to which they can\nreturn. Let us have such a work going on at home, side by side and\nstep by step with what is going on in Flanders and the Dardanelles,\nthat when they come back they may find a changed England at home.\nFor their sakes you must sanctify yourselves--for the sake, too, of\nthe little sister who looks to you as her model and her example.\nYou have more influence over her, perhaps, than anyone else in the\nhouse, except her mother. For her sake be a priest of GOD, and--I\nsay it without the least sense of immodesty--also for the sake of\nthe children who are to be. I speak to-night to the future mothers\nof the children of Nottingham, and it makes all the difference to\nthe young mother, as she looks round her children, and, when they\ngrow older, tries to influence her growing sons and daughters,\nwhether she can look them in the face without shame and without a\nblush, and is only asking them to do what she tried to do herself\nbefore she was married. For the sake of the children to be, exercise\nthis glorious priesthood. If you do you will ennoble Nottingham by\nyour action. You will make it a city set upon a hill; and \"a city\nset upon a hill cannot be hid.\"\n\n\n\n\n                              IV\n\nTO BOYS\n\n\n\n\nTHE EFFECT OF THE HOLY GHOST ON HUMAN CHARACTER[25]\n\n  [25] Preached in Marlborough College Chapel. The text is based upon\n  the report taken by the _Marlborough Times_, kindly lent for this\n  purpose.\n\n     \"For he was a good man, and full of the HOLY GHOST and of\n     faith.\"--ACTS xi. 24.\n\n\nI need not tell you, not only how much I look forward to my\nMarlborough day, but also how much I have thought as to what message\nI would give you. When I think of the many to whom I have preached\nat Marlborough year by year, of the three hundred now dead, of the\nhundreds more who are fighting, and of the fact that many of those\nto whom I am speaking would soon, if the war went on, be in the\nthick of it, I realise what a very solemn thing it is to come down\nto Marlborough and give a message to my old school.\n\nI will tell you what made me choose this message. The fact that\nWhitsuntide this year comes on the same day as St. Barnabas' Day\ngives me a subject, the most solemn subject I have ever taken\nat Marlborough--viz., the effect of the HOLY GHOST upon human\ncharacter. St. Barnabas was one of the most attractive characters in\nthe New Testament, an example of attractive goodness. He was such a\n_gentleman_ in all he did, and therefore, if we could have produced\nin us, by the HOLY GHOST, the wonderful character that the HOLY\nGHOST produced in St. Barnabas, we might have that description used\nof us; just think what it would be for men to say of us--\"He was a\ngood man, full of the HOLY GHOST and of faith.\"\n\nWhat, then, is the effect of the HOLY GHOST upon human character?\nYou might say, \"But do we have the falling of the HOLY GHOST, too?\"\nWhy did we have that hymn this morning, \"Our blest Redeemer, ere\nHe breathed\"? I was asked to choose the hymns, and I chose that\none because it so beautifully describes the indwelling of the HOLY\nGHOST on your Confirmation day, and that is what makes the School\nConfirmation the crowning event of the year. At Confirmation you\nhave the falling of the HOLY GHOST in exactly the same way as\nhappened in the early Church. Yesterday, for instance, I confirmed,\nunder the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, two hundred and thirty\npeople of all ages. \"What is the effect of the HOLY GHOST upon human\ncharacter?\" Some people imagine that what is called \"doctrine\" has\nno practical value. But is this true?\n\n(1) The first thing that the HOLY GHOST does is to _convict the\nworld of sin_. He shows people what they really are. You may have\nheard of the National Mission of Repentance and Hope, and wondered\nwhat it was. I will tell you. I have just come from a tour round\ntwenty-four dioceses in support of that Mission. I do not for one\nmoment understand by that Mission that we do not believe we are\nfighting GOD's battles in the war. I believe that those three\nhundred Old Marlburians who have fallen in the war have died as\nmartyrs. I believe the world is being redeemed by precious blood\nagain to-day, and that that precious blood is being mingled with\n_the_ Precious Blood. I believe also that the freedom of the world\nand the national honour are being saved to-day by the precious blood\nof our sons and brothers. It is, therefore, not because we do not\nbelieve we are doing the right thing in this war that we are engaged\nin this Mission; it is because we believe we are called to save\nthe freedom of the world, and the national honour, and to see the\nNailed Hand prevailing over the Mailed Fist, that we have to repent.\nAdmiral Beatty said, in effect, that we should never win the war\nuntil the nations came back to GOD, and it is Lord Roberts (peace to\nhis ashes, and glory to his memory!) who, just before he died, said\nwe had got the men, the ammunition, and the guns now; what we wanted\nwas the nation on its knees. And it is to bring the nation to its\nknees, back to GOD, that is the great object of the National Mission\nof Repentance and Hope. A messenger in connection with that Mission\nwill very likely be sent down to Marlborough.\n\nMeanwhile let the HOLY GHOST do His work. He is _the_ great\nMessenger, _the_ great Missioner. Ask the HOLY GHOST to show you\nyourselves as you really are. It is the hardest thing in the\nworld to see this (easier for a boy than a grown-up man), but we\ncannot get on in the spiritual life unless we are shown ourselves\nas we are. If a light is shown into a darkened room, the dust is\ndiscernible on the furniture, and stains are seen where it was\nthought no stains were; and we cannot carry out the teaching of the\nGospel, and cast the beam out of our own eye, until we have seen it.\nAll progress really begins with humility.\n\nWe must therefore let the HOLY GHOST show us ourselves as we are.\n\"What does GOD think of me?\" should be the first question we should\nask ourselves, and the HOLY GHOST will give us the answer. But that\nis only the first thing the HOLY GHOST does. If He left us there,\ncontemplating our stains, our infirmities, and our sins, it would\nnot be much of a message of a Gospel of Hope.\n\n(2) No, the next beautiful work of the HOLY GHOST is that He takes\nCHRIST and shows Him to us. I paid a touching visit the other day\nto an old clergyman who, some people would have said, was past his\nwork. He was ill and in lonely lodgings, and I went to see him. The\nold clergyman gave me a great lesson. Instead of complaining, of\nsaying that he had been a failure, had been neglected and passed\nover, he said: \"I hope I shall live a few years longer, Bishop,\nto preach the glorious Gospel.\" There he was, lonely, ill, passed\nover by the world, yet feeling the great joy of simply preaching\nthe glorious Gospel. We are apt to get mechanical about our\nreligion. Even in the lovely service here at Marlborough, we are\nsometimes--very often, perhaps--wandering in thought, and inclined\nto become mechanical in our religion. The HOLY GHOST makes it\nliving. He takes of CHRIST, shows Him to us, and makes the whole\nthing real. Therefore, our second prayer should be that the HOLY\nGHOST will make religion a reality to us, make us understand the\nglory of the Incarnation, that GOD actually came to earth in mortal\nform, for our sakes.\n\n(3) Thirdly, the HOLY GHOST is the Comforter. He comforts us and\nhelps us to comfort other people. I remember, when I was at\nMarlborough last year, that I had several boys in to see me, one of\nthem a little fellow who had lost his father in Gallipoli; and I\ntried to comfort him. The HOLY GHOST is the only Comforter. When one\ngoes to a mother, as I have done, who has lost, perhaps, three sons\n(and in this connection we at Marlborough shall always think of the\nfather and mother of those three splendid sons, the Woodroffes), one\nis at a loss to say anything; one cannot comfort them oneself, but\nhas to depend upon the higher power; and my experience is that the\nHOLY GHOST brings the Balm of Gilead, which no earthly agency can\nproduce, a heavenly balm of comfort for the mourners which enables\nus to go out and comfort others. There is no comforter better than\nthe younger boy of a family, who, filled with the HOLY GHOST, goes\nhome in the holidays to comfort his father and mother in the loss of\nan older son.\n\n(4) But, of course, the old words \"comfort\" and \"comforter,\" as\napplied to the HOLY GHOST, meant far more than we call \"comfort.\"\n\"Comfort\" in the case of the HOLY GHOST, means far more than\nsympathy; it means fortitude, courage, inspiration. The comfort of\nthe Comforter always strengthens; mere sympathy sometimes weakens.\nWe have got to bring home the bright view of death, to produce a\npride that \"my boy, my brother, my husband, should have died.\" I\nbelieve that we have not anything like a bright enough view of death.\n\nIt is the Comforter that can make us believe that. It is the\nComforter that can breathe fortitude into the splendid mothers and\nwives of England, and to the lads in the trenches, up to their knees\nin mud, facing danger every moment, that can bring fortitude to the\nnation; and it is the task of the Church to breathe fortitude to the\nnation to go on until the end.\n\n(5) The HOLY GHOST has two more beautiful things to do for us, and\nis always ready to do them. The first of these is to guide us. The\nother day I heard the hurrying footsteps of a layman coming after\nme in the street as I was walking to a meeting. The layman, who\ntold me that he was a churchwarden of one of the churches in the\nDiocese of London, and had never spoken to his Bishop before, asked\nfor a message to give in an address. I gave him the same message I\nhad given to a young Bishop some months before[26]: \"Take one day\nat a time, and trust the HOLY SPIRIT to see you through.\" This is\na great truth, and one which I will pass on to you, as you leave\nthis place to take up your work in the larger world outside. I\nremember having asked a rich clergyman, at the beginning of a Sunday\nafternoon, whether he would go down and take a very poor parish in\nthe East of London, where there was no money and the credit of the\nparish was very much shaken. He did not at first seem inclined to\ngo, and, thinking nothing more about it at the time, I went into St.\nPaul's Cathedral, and preached upon the text, \"Led by the SPIRIT of\nGOD.\" In the evening I received a pencilled note from the clergyman,\nstating that he had been in the Cathedral, that he was led by the\nSPIRIT of GOD to go to the parish. He went, and splendid work he\ndid there. There is not one of you who need be left to your own\nguidance; the SPIRIT of GOD will lead every one, and guide you all\nyour lives.\n\n  [26] Mentioned on p. 189.\n\n(6) The sixth thing which the HOLY SPIRIT does for you is to pray\n_in you_. It is not very easy to pray. I expect many of you get a\nbit disheartened about your prayers; you kneel when \"Preces\" are\ncalled in dormitory, and get up feeling cold and dead, and that it\nis sometimes rather a matter of form. Prayer does not depend upon\nfeeling; we ought to pray in the belief that the HOLY GHOST will\npray in us, and in that way GOD calls to GOD, the deep calls to\nthe deep, and the smallest boy in the School is able to share the\nsupreme energy of GOD.\n\nYou see, therefore, that this doctrine or truth about the HOLY GHOST\nis the most practical thing in the world. Resolve to-day that you\nwill really make your bodies temples of the HOLY GHOST. The boy\nwho is filled with the HOLY GHOST will be the merriest boy in the\nSchool and the pluckiest at games; he will always be chivalrous and\nunselfish, and there will be a something about him, besides, that\nwill really breathe the presence of the Heavenly Spirit, who dwells\nin him. You must have a little more spiritual ambition, and all of\nyou make your prayer that you may be, like St. Barnabas, \"good men,\nfull of the HOLY GHOST and of faith.\"\n\n\n\n\n                                        V\n\nTHE WAR AND RELIGION\n\n\n\n\nTHE WAR AND RELIGION\n\n\nIt was not until I had had a little correspondence with the\nSecretaries that I decided upon the subject for my address as \"The\nWar and Religion.\" I was very anxious not in the slightest degree\nto violate any canon expressed or unexpressed with regard to the\nsubject of these addresses, and I think I can assure any in this\naudience who may have their doubts upon this matter that they will\nleave the hall without having their consciences offended in the\nslightest degree, even if they may profoundly disagree with the\nconclusions to which I may come. And I am encouraged in saying\nthis by a little incident which occurs every year. I am Visitor of\nQueen's College in Harley Street, founded entirely by the influence\nof Frederick Denison Maurice, and it is my pleasant duty to give\nthe girl members of it an annual address. My subject, at their\nspecial request, is always Religion; and although quite a large\nproportion are Jewish girls, I find that they look upon me in after\nlife as quite as much their friend as the others, and come to me in\ntheir troubles, and they prefer that I shall speak to them out of\nthe deepest convictions of my heart, rather than offer them some\ntrite and colourless observations which mean nothing.\n\nAfter all, there is great truth in the proverb that \"the shoemaker\nshould stick to his last,\" and it cannot be entirely without\npurpose that apparently about once in five years an ecclesiastic is\nbrought on to the scene here in his plain and sober raiment amid\nthe glittering galaxy of Generals and actors and scientists and\nother distinguished men who in other years fill this distinguished\noffice. I have this summer had the high privilege of visiting\nevery battleship, battle cruiser, and most of the smaller ships\nof the Grand Fleet of Great Britain, and the thousands of sailors\nI addressed instantly caught the idea that of course I came to\nrepresent \"Religion.\" I told an East-End story which appealed at\nonce to the lower deck, so many of whom come from places like\nBethnal Green, Poplar, Stepney, and similar localities at Portsmouth\nand Chatham. A rather shy East-End curate, on knocking at a door,\nheard a voice from the wash-tub at the back ask in a shrill voice,\n\"Well, Sally, who is it?\" and was rather depressed to hear Sally\nshriek back, \"Please, mother, _it's religion_.\" But, as I told\nthe sailors, my invariable advice to such a man is this, \"Don't\nbe ashamed of representing religion; you were not dressed in a\npudding hat and a dog collar and a long black coat to talk about the\nweather.\"\n\nI make no apology then for plunging at once into the question\nof \"_The War and Religion_.\" It is very striking to notice the\ndifferent way in which the War has affected different minds with\nregard to religion. While I have had some poor young widows throw\ndown their Bibles and (for a time) give up their prayers when their\nhusbands were killed, I have found others who in their sorrow have\nfound the comfort and force of religion for the first time; again,\non the battlefield, while some express themselves coarsened by the\n\"beastly work,\" as they express it, which they have to do, others\nwrite, \"Nothing does any good out here but prayer and trust in GOD;\nwe all feel it. War is a great _Purge_.\" Or again, \"There are no\natheists out here; there are few of us who do not put up a prayer in\nthe trenches.\"\n\n1. Let us look then first at the _case against religion_, and then\nthe special _case against the Christian religion_ as deduced in many\nminds by the existence of the present War.\n\n(1) I take Religion, as the word implies, to be a TIE _which binds\nus to someone_, and I am further assuming that to have any religion\nworth the name, that \"Someone\" must be good and just and Righteous.\n\nWell, now, can we not easily see what a strong _prima facie_ case\ncould be made out against the existence of a really strong and good\nand Righteous Supreme Being in the light of the appalling suffering\nand the at present unpunished wickedness on a gigantic scale which\nis being witnessed at the present time.\n\n\"Why did GOD ever allow the War? and if there is a GOD, why does\nHe not stop it?\" is a question which is dinned into my ears from\nmorning to night by anxious mothers and even by men who have not had\ntime to think very deeply over the mystery of GOD's dealings with\nmankind.\n\nFor nine years I used Sunday by Sunday to lecture and answer\nquestions in the great East London Victoria Park. I can imagine\nthe questions they are asking now. \"Either He _cannot_ or He will\nnot\"--this was always the favourite dilemma on which they sought\nto impale me about the suffering in East London. \"Either your GOD\n_cannot_ stop it or He will not.\" \"Either He is a tyrant who gloats\nin it all or He is a weak ruler who has no control of His world.\"\n\nAnd these questions, which were difficult enough to answer then,\nare intensified in their point to-day. It is difficult to select\nout of the horrors which have passed before our eyes one worse than\nanother, but probably the most hellish thing done on earth in the\nlast five hundred years has been the attempted extermination of the\nArmenian race; even as described in the restrained pages of Lord\nBryce, it has more tragedy than any battlefield, for there at least\nmen die in the heat of battle for what they think a great cause, but\nhere, in cold blood and with every circumstance of bestiality and\nlust, women and children were slowly done to death. And yet _\"GOD\ndoes nothing_.\" This is the accusation. No thunderbolt comes from\nHeaven; the brave Russians do something to avenge the hideous crime,\nbut GOD--where is GOD? He is like the ancient gods described by\nTennyson--\n\n    \"On the hills, like gods together,\n     Careless of mankind,\"\n\nand all this cry from sinking ships and praying hands is to Him\n\n    \"A tale of little meaning,\n     Though the words are strong.\"\n\n(2) But if the case against religion at all is strong owing to the\nWar, still more is the War supposed to be fatal to the _Christian\nReligion_. Here into the world it came two thousand years ago with\na great flourish of trumpets about \"Peace on earth, good will to\nmen,\" and what is the result?\n\nAfter two thousand years, the bloodiest war which has yet taken\nplace on earth; waste of treasure beyond counting every day, and\nwaste of something much more precious than material treasure, the\nprecious blood of the best manhood of the world. I have received\ntheir broken bodies into my own arms in the front dressing stations;\nI have consecrated the graveyards where their dear bodies lie. I\nknow that tens of thousands of those who would have been the fathers\nof the future race of mankind are lying beneath these little crosses\nin Flanders or Gallipoli, and that many a maiden will die childless\nto-day, because those who would have been husbands in the fair days\nof peace are buried now in a soldier's grave.\n\nAnd all this--and here lies the bitterness of the\naccusation--started by the great Christian nations of the world. The\nMohammedan Turk joins in as the war goes on, but then only under\nthe influence or domination of a Christian Power. \"Could you ask,\"\ncries the triumphant opponent of the Christian religion, \"for a\nmore complete proof of the breakdown of your Christianity than the\nspectacle of Europe to-day?\"\n\nII. It is clear then that we who stand for religion, and especially\nthose of us who stand for the Christian religion, have got our work\ncut out for us to-day to answer these accusations. I want the men\nand women whose work lies largely in other spheres to enter into our\ndifficulties. We are asking people not only to pray, but to pray\nmore earnestly and with greater faith and hope; we are not sitting\ndown with Buddhist resignation under the inevitable. \"If it rains,\nit rains, and if it doesn't rain, it doesn't rain,\" was represented\nto me as the philosophy of the Indian troops whom I had the honour\nof entertaining for a week in my grounds at the Coronation of King\nEdward VII. On the contrary, we are in the midst of a great National\nMission of Repentance and Hope; we have the fullest intention of\nwinning the nation to GOD; we are adopting as our text the saying of\nthat grand old man, Lord Roberts, \"We have the guns now, and the men\nand the ammunition; what we want now is _a nation on its knees_.\"\n\nWe have indeed our task cut out for us, and I hope that it may\nat least be of some intellectual interest, if not some spiritual\nprofit, to the thinking men and women here to hear the arguments\nupon which we rely.\n\n(1) In the first place, _we definitely repudiate the picture of GOD\nas the arbitrary ruler_ who can do exactly what He likes; at least\nwe repudiate this as the revealed picture of the way in which He has\nwilled to act in His relation to mankind.\n\nProbably the passage in the Bible which has given the greatest\ncolour to this idea, and which certainly is largely responsible for\nthe distortion of Christianity which is associated with the name of\nCalvin, is the picture of the Potter and the Clay. \"Shall the thing\nformed say to him that made it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not\nthe Potter power over the clay, to make one vessel unto honour and\none into dishonour?\" This is the passage from St. Paul's writings\nwhich is most widely quoted in this connection. At the first blush\nthis seems to confirm our worst fears; but when we trace this\nillustration of the Potter to the original passage in Jeremiah we\nfind an absolutely different picture; the potter is a patient,\nresourceful person who, so far from having arbitrary powers over\nthe clay, is being defeated at every moment by the refractoriness\nof the clay with which he has to deal. He attempts to make, let us\nsay, a porcelain vase, but the clay will not respond to his efforts;\nthere is a flaw in the material, or the clay is not of the kind to\nmake such a design possible; he starts again with his \"Gospel of\nthe second best,\" and this time he succeeds in making a humbler but\nuseful bowl. Or again, in the course of his work, something goes\nwrong, and \"the vessel becomes marred in the hands of the potter\";\nbut even now he is not defeated; he tries again--to use the words of\nJeremiah--\"_he makes it again another vessel, as it seems good to\nthe potter to make it_.\" This is the real picture of the potter, and\nit is a touching picture when you consider that it is meant for all\nages to describe the dealings of GOD with the human race, of which\nwe ourselves are members.\n\nOf course, the question entirely hinges upon what GOD meant mankind\nto be. We used to discuss this question in East London Sunday after\nSunday--\"Did He mean mankind to be like clocks, bound to go right,\nlike puppets who would dance to the strings which He pulled; or did\nHe mean them to be what we call human fallible men, who might go\nright or wrong, but who in any case had the freewill to do either?\"\n\nAnd it is a striking testimony to the common sense of a great\nworking-class audience that, while they started with a predilection\nin favour of being made to go right, after an afternoon's discussion\nthey invariably came to the conclusion that with all its risks it\nwas better to be men and women; that forced goodness was no goodness\nat all, and that if GOD did wish to have as His companions in\neternity companions worth having, He could have done nothing less\nthan endow them with freewill.\n\nNow, if this is so, it is obvious that the metaphor of the Potter\nand the Clay has a great bearing on the question of \"_The War and\nReligion_.\"\n\nLet us assume, as we are bound to do, that the first design of the\nGreat Potter was a porcelain vase of universal Peace. He made men\n_of one blood_ in every nation of the earth; he loves to make men\n\"of one mind in a house.\" Work and trial were to be part of man's\nlot, but not War. The idea that War is in itself a glorious thing\nmay be the doctrine of Treitschke or Bernhardi, but cannot, I\nbelieve, be found in the Bible.\n\nThis, then, is His first design, but the clay will not take this\ndesign. There is a stubborn element in human nature determined upon\nWar; there is a \"throw back\" to Paganism with which the Potter has\nto reckon. It is not His fault. To coerce, to crush Freewill is to\ncrush His own Image in mankind, to make any kind of freely chosen\ngoodness impossible. He must give up for the time, with what regret\nwe can never know, His first design. He may see of the travail of\nHis soul _one day_ and be satisfied, but, for the present, He must\nbring in the \"Gospel of the second best.\" He will bring good out of\nthis evil; He will produce a bowl of unselfish service. The devil\nmakes the War, but GOD will turn the devil's own weapons against\nhimself, for He will produce a spectacle of unselfish service such\nas the world has never seen before.\n\nAnd that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we are looking at to-day,\nwhat we are seeing portrayed daily before our eyes. We have never\nseen such a sight in our time before. With an unselfish devotion\nwhich has been the admiration of the world, the young men have flung\nthemselves into the battle. To take our own nation alone, to imagine\nthat five million men would have freely offered themselves for\nservice would have been thought incredible in the year in which Sir\nIan Hamilton delivered the interesting address to you, which I have\nread, on \"National Service.\" Nor is it only the young men; there is\nnot an idle young woman in London to-day, and I do not suppose there\nis in Birmingham; and as for the children, a little boy of nine\nshall speak for them. Asked whether he minded his beautiful home\nbeing turned into a soldiers' hospital, he replied, \"I _love_ having\nthe soldiers here, Bishop.\" _We can't go back to our old life after\nthe War._\n\nEven, therefore, without going further, as we are bound to do\npresently with the special teaching of the Christian religion, this\nconception of the Potter and the Clay relieves our minds of its\nworst fears. God _does_ care for His human children; this slaughter\nof one man by another is not according to His first or even His\nultimate design. He does not stop the mischief any more than He will\npick off with His Hand obstacles placed to-night in the path of the\nScotch express. He will not stop the wreck of it by main force, but\nmeanwhile He is not inactive. The moulding Hand is hard at work;\nmonuments of fortitude in matrons and wives, glorious specimens\nof unrivalled courage in their sons and husbands, issue from the\nworkshop every day, and, to use the words of the Psalmist, \"The\nfierceness of man turns to GOD's praise.\"\n\nIII. But now we have a more formidable task, and that is to meet\nthe charge that the very existence, and especially the virulence of\nthe War, constitutes a _breakdown of historic Christianity_. I have\nalready admitted the force of the _prima facie_ case which can be\nmade out to sustain this argument, but a singular circumstance may\nwell make us pause before we follow this specious, but, as I hope to\nshow, shallow argument.\n\n(1) _Japan_ has always held a very detached view with regard to\nChristianity. Owing to local circumstances for a time a persecutor,\nour great ally soon became too enlightened to follow a policy of\npersecution, and when, later on, an alliance was concluded with\nourselves, a natural admiration for the great Western Power which\nhad become its ally led to at least a respectful attitude towards\nthe religion which that ally at heart nominally and officially\nprofessed.\n\nThen occurred the War, and here you might have expected the\nintelligent and clear-sighted watcher from a distance to have\ndiscovered the _flaw_ in the religion which its great ally\nprofessed. It is an open secret that it has had the precisely\nopposite effect; never were the Japanese more favourably disposed to\ngive a hearing to Christianity than they are to-day, and the reason\nis not far to seek.\n\n_They saw a great nation act up to the principles of the religion it\nprofessed._\n\nIf in those critical hours when the decision hung in the balance\nwe had decided to abide in our sheepfolds and hear the bleating of\nthe flocks; if we had decided to remain encircled by the silver sea\nand the mightiest navy in the world, and watch at a safe distance\nBelgium ravaged and the coast of France harried by the German\nFleet, Japan would have assessed at its proper value the Christian\nsentiments which we officially professed.\n\nBut when it saw its great ally, practically unprepared, in the\ncause of the weak against the strong, in the cause of international\nhonour, to defend the freedom of the world, fling itself into the\nbattle, then it bowed its head in respectful admiration of a nation\nwhich did not wholly in vain profess to follow One \"who, though He\nwas rich, for our sakes became poor,\" and who, again, to use the\nstriking phraseology of St. Paul, \"being in the form of GOD, thought\nit not a thing to be snatched at to be equal with GOD, but made\nhimself of no reputation and took upon the form of a slave.\"\n\nIt may seem a paradox to say it, but Japan was clear-sighted enough\nto see the truth of it, that with all our inconsistencies and\nimperfections, the good old British race never did a more Christlike\nthing than when, on August 4th, 1914, it went to war. And surely\nJapan was right.\n\nThe fallacy of the argument with regard to the breakdown of\nChristianity from the War lies in the words \"_Christian nations_.\"\n\n_Is_ a nation a Christian nation which adopts as its governing\npolicy a pagan doctrine? There may be plenty of individual\nChristians _in_ the nation, as no doubt there are, thank GOD, in\nGermany, but no one who has ever cursorily studied Treitschke or\nBernhardi, or the utterances of the governing class of Germany, who\nhave imbibed the teaching of such leaders of thought, can imagine\nthat the nation which has prepared for this War for forty years,\nwhich has prayed for this Day and longed for it, is really in this\nsense a Christian nation.\n\nWe are getting tired, terribly tired--at least I am--of hearing of\nthese wretched men who have succeeded in indoctrinating a great and\npowerful and efficient people with a virus which has turned them\ninto a curse instead of a blessing to the world. I only bring them\nin as part of my defence of Christianity. I say it is a _monstrous\nmisuse of language_ to talk of the breakdown of Christianity when\nwhat has produced the War is the _exact contrary to Christianity_.\nThere is no such precise contradiction to the doctrine of the Cross\nas the doctrine of the Superman; there is no such absolute contrast\nto the principles of the New Testament as the German War Book.\n\nYou can say, and justly say, that in failing to convert the German\nnation, Christianity has so far failed in its world-wide mission,\nand this I readily admit; but so has it failed at present to convert\nthe wild tribes of Central Africa and the millions of Chinese. All\nthat we claim is that the principles of Christianity, _when accepted\nand lived up to_, change the face of the world; and we Christians\nprotest in the strongest way that a nation which avowedly acts at\na great crisis on anti-Christian principles is not in this sense a\nChristian nation at all.\n\n(2) But we go further than this; the progress of the War has opened\nthe eyes of other watching neutral nations besides Japan, as to the\nvalue of Christian principles in the _conduct_ of War.\n\nNo one, I suppose, would deny that the whole idea of the Hague\nConference, and the rules which it issued for the conduct of War,\nwere a product of Christianity. It was thought two years ago that,\nwhile the Christian religion might not have so far progressed in\nthe world as to render War impossible, at least that it would never\nbe disgraced by the murder and violation of women and children, by\nill-treatment of prisoners and non-combatants, and the sinking of\ninnocent merchantmen and trawlers.\n\nJust as in the origin of the War Christianity justified itself,\nso it has done in the _conduct_ of it. Mr. Washburn has described\nthe humanity with which the great Russian advance in Poland was\nconducted--not a church damaged, except by accident, not a civilian\ninjured; whereas, while the world lasts, the names of Louvain,\nAerschott, _Lusitania_, Cavell, and Fryatt will cry shame on the\napostles of mere Kultur.\n\n(3) But, on the other hand, let it not be supposed for a moment that\nI am speaking _as if our own nation had no national sins_ to repent\nof and no open sores to cure in this great Day of GOD.\n\nI am myself \"Chief of the Staff\" of the great Mission of Repentance\nand Hope which has already begun.\n\nShort-sighted people ask to-day, \"If we have a righteous cause,\nwhat have we to repent of?\"--but the true answer is, \"_Because_ we\nhave a righteous cause, _therefore_ we must repent.\" I have spoken\nof metaphors from the Old Testament, but there is a fine simile to\nwhich I have not alluded, the simile of the _polished shaft_. \"He\nhas made me like a polished shaft; in his quiver hath He hid me.\"\nI fully believe that we are such a polished shaft in the Hand of\nGOD to-day; that He feels down for the polished shaft which He has\nprepared by years of discipline and dearly bought freedom, in order\nthat He may save through us the Freedom of the world; but _what\nif we break in His Hand_, as nations have broken before? What if\nour drinking habits, curtailed, it is true, for a time by drastic\nregulations, but still producing a drink bill of 181 millions, what\nif the ravages of lust in our nation, as shown in the statistics\npublished by the recent Commission, what if the constant neglect of\nGOD Himself, so rot the polished shaft that it breaks in the Hand of\nGOD?\n\nIt was not a Bishop--it was one of our leading Admirals--who\nwrote: \"Until England is taken out of her self-satisfaction and\ncomplacency, just so long will the War continue. When she looks out\nwith humbler eyes and prayer on her lips, then she can begin to\ncount the days towards the end.\"\n\nIt is to bring the country back to GOD, _because_ it has a righteous\ncause, which is the object and aim of the National Mission, and I\nbespeak for it your co-operation in Birmingham, as well as your\nearnest prayers.\n\nWhat we aim at is a new England, a new British Empire after the\nWar, with all its old characteristics, with its old humour, and\nits love of life, its vigour and its brightness, but sober, pure,\nGOD-fearing; and beyond the Empire we look for a new Heaven and a\nnew earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.\n\nWhy for ever shall we have bitterness between class and class? Why\nfor ever, when this accursed Prussian spirit of militarism is laid\nin the dust for ever, shall we have the constant menace of War? Why\nshould there not grow to be a spirit of brotherhood in the world,\nwhen not only class and class, but nation and nation, shall agree to\nshare the good things with which GOD filled the kindly earth which\nHe has provided as a home for His children?\n\n(4) But it would be impossible to leave the subject of the War and\nReligion without alluding to the part religion plays in throwing _a\nbright light on Death_. I have no doubt that I am speaking to many\nto-day who have given their best and brightest in this greatest\ncause ever fought on earth, who, to paraphrase the famous words\nof Ruskin, \"will never see the sun rise without thinking of those\ngraves it first gilds in Gallipoli, and who will never see the\nflowers bloom in spring without thinking over whose dear bodies\nbloom to-day the wild flowers of Flanders.\" When I, an unmarried\nman, think to-day of my own spiritual sons, dear to me as if they\nwere my own boys, who have month by month gone to their death, or\ncome home maimed for life, it is almost more than I can bear, and\nI can do something more than merely sympathize with the father and\nmother who have given one, two, three, and I have known even four\nsons in the same cause. I do more than sympathize: I feel with them;\nI suffer with them.\n\nAnd so with all the young widows whose life's hopes have been cut\nshort in an instant. I live in the midst of the mourners every day.\nBut could I do any good, ladies and gentlemen, _without religion_?\n\nI am absolutely certain that I could not. It is a mistake, even with\nreligion, to speak as if death was not death, and pain not pain. One\nof the most touching things ever said to me was this: \"We come to\nyou, Bishop, because _you do not underrate human sorrow_.\"\n\nUnderrate it! Why! my wonder and admiration is that they bear it as\nbravely as they do. Never again to have the cheery letter; never\nagain in this world to see the dear face; never again to feel the\nloving arms around them and the strong embrace.\n\nBut, while religion does not pretend to do away with pain and\nsorrow, it is the one thing which makes it tolerable, which lights\nup the darkness of death.\n\n\"As CHRIST died for the world, and my two boys have died in their\nhumble way for the world, may I not consider,\" wrote a brave Colonel\nwho had lost his two boys in one week, \"that CHRIST looks upon them\nas His comrades in arms?\"\n\nI need hardly say what my reply was. Why! to my mind, the world is\nbeing redeemed by precious blood again, and this precious blood\nmingles with _the_ Precious Blood which flowed on Calvary, and\nbecomes part of the redemption of the world.\n\nNothing really cheers the mourners as much as to feel that their\nbeloved ones have made a noble sacrifice, and have not made it in\nvain. And with that, religion brings in the blessed hope, nay,\ncertainty, of _seeing them again_.\n\nHow many have I cheered this year with Miss Katharine Tynan's poem\ncalled \"The Flower of Youth\"?--\n\n    \"Lest Heaven be for the greybeards hoary,\n     GOD, who made boys for His delight,\n     Goes in earth's hour of grief and glory,\n     And calls the boys in from the night.\n     As they come trooping from the War\n     Our skies have many a new gold star.\"\n\n                 *   *   *   *\n\nThe poem is too long to quote in full, but it ends with these\nbeautiful lines:\n\n    \"Oh! if the sonless mothers weeping,\n     The widowed girls, could look inside\n     The Country which hath them in keeping\n     Who went to the great War and died,\n     They would rise and take their mourning off,\n     Praise GOD, and say, '_He has enough_.'\"\n\nBut we have no certainty of this without religion, and, as I\nam conscientiously bound to say myself, without the _Christian\nreligion_.\n\nIt is very interesting and very helpful that scientific men, one of\nwhom is so leading a light in Birmingham, believe that on scientific\ngrounds they have reason to believe in an existence beyond the\ngrave, and in the continuity of personality. It used to help me\ngreatly in contesting the assertion that all scientific men were\nopposed to all the tenets of religion; but as one who has often to\nbe with the dying, as well as the mourners, I should like to bear\nwitness to the extreme value of the belief in a real resurrection\nfrom the dead, such as the Christian Church has commemorated for two\nthousand years at Easter.\n\nI should feel it quite out of place, of course, to argue with regard\nto its truth here and now, but to a simple mind--and, of course,\nreligion has to be adapted to simple minds throughout the world,\nwhich largely outnumber subtle ones--a single great _Event_ has ten\ntimes the power of any amount of theory; and there cannot be a doubt\nthat it is a belief in the Central Fact of the Christian religion\nwhich is as a matter of fact redeeming the world of mourners from\ndespair to-day--nay, more than that, filling them with a bright and\nradiant hope, and a glorious fortitude to hold on with the courage\nof their own soldier sons or soldier husbands \"until the day dawns\nand the shadows flee away.\"\n\nWell then, I must just leave the matter there. I have never written\nsuch a long address in my life, and don't expect ever to do so\nagain; but then it is only once in one's life one has the honour of\nbeing President of the Birmingham and Midland Institute.\n\nI hope that I have made at least my main points clear. We who\nstand for Religion are not afraid of a discussion on \"The War and\nReligion.\" We do not for a moment think that the War has disproved\nthe truth of Religion, and still less of the Christian Religion;\non the contrary, we believe that it has demonstrated its value and\nbrought into clearer light its hidden depths; and we go further--we\nsay, that if War is to cease, we must have not less but more\nreligion, for we hope to see an old prophecy one day fulfilled,\n\"They shall not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountains, for the\nearth shall be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters\ncover the seas.\"\n\n\nPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR WELLS GARDNER, DARTON AND CO., LTD.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nMinor typographical errors have been corrected without note.\n\nIrregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as\nprinted.","title":"The Potter and the Clay","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":43772}