Sermons on National Subjects Part 4

Take, for instance, a common example; as long as anyone is a faithful husband and a good father, the law does not interfere with his conduct towards his wife and children. But it is when he is unfaithful to them, when he ill-treats them, or deserts them, that the law interferes with its "Thou shalt not," and compels him to behave, against his will, in the way in which he ought to have behaved of his own will. It was free to the man to have done his duty by his family, without the law--the moment he neglects his duty, he becomes amenable to it.

But the law can only force a man's actions: it cannot change his heart. In the instance which I have been just mentioning, the law can say to a man, "You shall not ill-treat your family; you shall not leave them to starve." But the law cannot say to him "You shall love your family." The law can only command from a man outward obedience; the obedience of the heart it cannot enforce. The law may make a man do his duty, it cannot make a man LOVE his duty. And therefore laws will never set the world right. They can punish persons after the wrong is done, and that not certainly nor always: but they cannot certainly prevent the wrongs being done. The law can punish a man for stealing: and yet, as we see daily, men steal in the face of punishment. Or even if the law, by its severity, makes persons afraid to commit certain particular crimes, yet still as long as the sinful heart is left in them unchanged, the sin which is checked in one direction is sure to break out in another. Sin, like every other disease, is sure, when it is driven onwards, to break out at a fresh point, or fester within some still more deadly, because more hidden and unsuspected, shape. The man who dare not be an open sinner for fear of the law, can be a hypocrite in spite of it. The man who dare not steal for fear of the law, can cheat in spite of it. The selfish man will find fresh ways of being selfish, the tyrannical man of being tyrannical, however closely the law may watch him. He will discover some means of evading it; and thus the law, after all, though it may keep down crime, multiplies sin; and by the law, as St.

Paul says, is the knowledge of sin.

What then will do that for this poor world which the law cannot do-- which, as St. Paul tells us, not even the law of G.o.d given on Mount Sinai, holy, just, good as it was, could do, because no law can give life? What will give men a new heart and a new spirit, which shall love its duty and do it willingly, and not by compulsion, everywhere and always, and not merely just as far as it commanded? The text tells us that there is a Spirit, the fruit of which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; a character such as no laws can give to a man, and which no law dare punish in a man. Look at this character as St. Paul sets it forth--and then think what need would there be of all these burdensome and expensive laws, if all men were but full of the fruits of that Spirit which St. Paul describes?

I know what answer will be ready, in some of your minds at least, to all this. You will be ready to reply, almost angrily, "Of course if everyone was perfect, we should need no laws: but people are not perfect, and you cannot expect them to be." My friends, whether or not WE expect baptized people, living in a Christian country, to be perfect, G.o.d expects them to be perfect; for He has said, by the mouth of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, "Be ye therefore perfect, as our Father which is in heaven is perfect." And He has told us what being perfect is like; you may read it for yourselves in His sermon on the Mount; and you may see also that what He commands us to do in that sermon, from the beginning to the end, is the exact opposite and contrary of the ways and rules of this world, which, as I have shown, make burdensome laws necessary to prevent our devouring each other.

Now, do you think that G.o.d would have told us to be perfect, if He knew that it was impossible for us? Do you think that He, the G.o.d of truth, would have spoken such a cruel mockery against poor sinful creatures like us, as to command us a duty without giving us the means of fulfilling it? Do you think that He did not know ten thousand times better than I what I have been just telling you, that laws could not change men's hearts and wills; that commanding a man to love and like a thing will not make him love and like it; that a man's heart and spirit must be changed in him from within, and not merely laws and commandments laid on him from without? Then why has He commanded us to love each other, ay, to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us, to pray for those who use us spitefully? Do you think the Lord meant to make hypocrites of us; to tell us to go about, as some who call themselves religious do go about, with their lips full of meek, and humble, and simple, and loving words, while their hearts are full of pride, and spite, and cunning, and hate, and selfishness, which are all the more deadly for being kept in and plastered over by a smooth outside? G.o.d forbid! He tells us to love each other, only because He has promised us the spirit of love. He tells us to be humble, because He can make us humble-hearted. He tells us to be honest, because He can make us love and delight in honesty. He tells us to refrain ourselves from foul thoughts as well as from foul actions, because He can take the foul heart out of us, and give us instead the spirit of purity and holiness. He tells us to lead new lives after the new pattern of Himself, because He can give us new hearts and a new spring of life within us; in short, He bids us behave as sons of G.o.d should behave, because, as He said Himself, "If we, being evil, know how to give our children what is good for them, much more will our heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to those who ask him." If you would be perfect, ask your Father in heaven to make you perfect. If you feel that your heart is wrong, ask Him to give you a new and a right heart. If you feel yourselves--as you are, whether you feel it or not--too weak, too ignorant, too selfish, to guide yourselves, ask Him to send His Spirit to guide you; ask for the Spirit from which comes all love, all light, all wisdom, all strength of mind. Ask for that Spirit, and you SHALL receive it; seek for it, and you shall find it; knock at the gate of your Father's treasure-house, and it shall be surely opened to you.

But some of you, perhaps, are saying to yourselves, "How will my being changed and renewed by the Spirit of G.o.d, render the laws less burdensome, while the crime and sin around me remain unchanged? It is others who want to be improved as much, and perhaps more than I do." It may be so, my friends; or, again, it may not; those who fancy that others need G.o.d's Spirit more than they do, may be the very persons who need it really the most; those who say they see, may be only proving their blindness by so saying; those who fancy that their souls are rich, and are full of all knowledge, and understand the whole Bible, and want no further teaching, may be, as they were in St. John's time, just the ones who are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked in soul, and do not know it. But at all events, if you think others need to be changed by G.o.d's Spirit, PRAY that G.o.d's Spirit may change them. For believe me, unless you pray for G.o.d's Spirit for each other, ay, for the whole world, there is no use asking for yourselves. This, I believe, is one of the reasons, perhaps the chief reason, why the fruits of G.o.d's Spirit are so little seen among us in these days; why our Christianity is become more and more dead, and hollow, and barren, while expensive and intricate laws and taxes are becoming more and more necessary every year; because our religion has become so selfish, because we have been praying for G.o.d's Spirit too little for each other. Our prayers have become too selfish. We have been looking for G.o.d's Spirit not so much as a means to enable us to do good to others, but as some sort of mysterious charm which was to keep us ourselves from the punishment of our sins in the next life, or give us a higher place in heaven; and, therefore, St. James's words have been fulfilled to us, even in our very prayers for G.o.d's Spirit, "Ye ask and have not, because ye ask amiss, to consume it upon your l.u.s.ts"--save our selfish souls from the pains of h.e.l.l; to give our selfish souls selfish pleasures and selfish glorification in the world to come: but not to spread G.o.d's kingdom upon earth, not to make us live on earth such lives as Christ lived; a life of love and self-sacrifice, and continual labour for the souls of others. Therefore it is, that G.o.d's Spirit is not poured out upon us in these days; for G.o.d's Spirit is the spirit of love and brotherhood, which delivers a man from his selfishness; and if we do not desire to be delivered from our selfishness, we do not desire the Spirit of G.o.d, and the Spirit of G.o.d will not be bestowed upon us. And no man desires to be delivered from his own selfishness, who in his very prayers, when he ought to be thinking least about himself alone, is thinking about himself most of all, and forgetting that he is the member of a family--that all mankind are his brethren--that he can claim nothing for himself to which every sinner around him has an equal right--that nothing is necessary for him, which is not equally necessary for everyone around him; that he has all the world besides himself to pray for, and that his prayers for himself will be heard only according as he prays for all the world beside. Baptism teaches us this, when it tells us that our old selfish nature is to be washed away, and a new character, after the pattern of Christ, is to live and grow up in us; that from the day we are baptized, to the day of our death, we should live not for ourselves, but for Jesus, in whom was no selfishness; when it teaches us that we are not only children of G.o.d, but members of Christ's Family, and heirs of G.o.d's kingdom, and therefore bound to make common cause with all other members of that Family, to live and labour for the common good of all our fellow-citizens in that kingdom. The Lord's prayer teaches us this, when He tells us to pray, not "My Father," but "Our Father;" not "my soul be saved," but "Thy kingdom come;" not "give ME," but "give US our daily bread;" not "forgive ME," but "forgive US our trespa.s.ses,"

and that only as we forgive others; not "lead ME not," but "lead US not into temptation;" not "deliver ME," but "deliver US from evil."

After THAT manner the Lord told us to pray; and, in proportion as we pray in that manner, asking for nothing for ourselves which we do not ask for everyone else in the whole world, just so far and no farther will G.o.d HEAR our prayers. He who asks for G.o.d's Spirit for himself only, and forgets that all the world need it as much as he, is not asking for G.o.d's Spirit at all, and does not know even what G.o.d's Spirit is. The mystery of Pentecost, too, which came to pa.s.s on this day 1818 years ago, teaches us the same thing also. Those cloven tongues of fire, the tokens of G.o.d's Spirit, fell not upon one man, but upon many; not when they were apart from each other, but when they were together; and what were the fruits of that Spirit in the Apostles? Did they remain within that upper room, each priding himself upon his own gifts, and trying merely to gain heaven for his own soul? If they had any such fancies, as they very likely had before the Spirit fell upon them, they had none such afterwards. The Spirit must have taken all such thoughts from them, and given them a new notion of what it was to be devout and holy: for instead of staying in that upper room, they went forth instantly into the public place to preach in foreign tongues to all the people. Instead of keeping themselves apart from each other in silence, and fancying, as some have done, and some do now, that they pleased G.o.d by being solitary, and melancholy, and selfish--what do we read? the fruit of G.o.d's Spirit was in them; that they and the three thousand souls who were added to them, on the first day of their preaching, "were all together, and had all things common, and sold their possessions, and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need, and continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their bread in gladness and singleness of heart, praising G.o.d and having favour with all the people." Those were the fruits of G.o.d's Spirit in THEM. Till we see more of that sort of life and society in England, we shall not be able to pride ourselves on having much of G.o.d's Spirit among us.

But above all, if anything will teach us that the strength of G.o.d's Spirit is not a strength which we must ask for for ourselves alone; that the blessings of G.o.d's kingdom are blessings which we cannot have in order to keep them to ourselves, but can only enjoy in as far as we share them with those around us; if anything, I say, ought to teach us that lesson, it is the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Just consider a moment, my friends, what a strange thing it is, if we will think of it, that the Lord's Supper, the most solemn and sacred thing with which a man can have to do upon earth, is just a thing which he cannot transact for himself, or by himself. Not alone in secret, in his chamber, but, whether he will or not, in the company of others, not merely in the company of his own private friends, but in the company of any or everyone, rich or poor, who chooses to kneel beside him; he goes with others, rich and poor alike, to the Lord's Table, and there the same bread, and the same wine, is shared among all by the same priest. If that means anything, it means this--that rich and poor alike draw life for their souls from the same well, not for themselves only, not apart from each other, but all in common, all together, because they are brothers, members of one family, as the leaves are members of the same tree; that as the same bread and the same wine are needed to nourish the bodies of all, the same spirit of G.o.d is needed to nourish the souls of all; and that we cannot have this spirit, except as members of a body, any more than a man's limb can have life when it is cut off and parted from him. This is the reason, and the only reason, why Protestant clergymen are forbidden, thank G.o.d! to give the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to any one person singly. If a clergyman were to administer the Lord's Supper, to himself in private, without any congregation to partake with him, it would not be the Lord's Supper, it would be nothing, and worse than nothing; it would be a sham and a mockery, and, I believe, a sin. I do not believe that Christ would be present, that G.o.d's Spirit would rest on that man. For our Lord says, that it is where two or three are gathered together in His name, that He is in the midst of them. And it was at a supper, at a feast, where all the Apostles were met together, that our Lord divided the bread amongst them, and told them to share the cup amongst themselves, just as a sign that they were all members of one body--that the welfare of each of them was bound up in the welfare of all the rest that G.o.d's blessing did not rest upon each singly, but upon all together. And it is just because we have forgotten this, my friends--because we have forgotten that we are all brothers and sisters, children of one family, members of one body--because in short, we have carried our selfishness into our very religion, and up to the altar of G.o.d, that we neglect the Lord's Supper as we do. People neglect the Lord's Supper because they either do not know or do not like that, of which the Lord's Supper is the token and warrant. It is not merely that they feel themselves unfit for the Lord's Supper, because they are not in love and charity with all men. Oh! my dear friends, do not some of your hearts tell you, that the reason why you stay away from the Lord's Supper is because you do not WISH to be fit for the Lord's Supper--because you do not like to be in love and charity with all men--because you do not wish to be reminded that you are equals in G.o.d's sight, all equally sinful, all equally pardoned--and to see people whom you dislike or despise, kneeling by your side, and partaking of the same bread and wine with you, as a token that G.o.d sees no difference between you and them; that G.o.d looks upon you all as brothers, however little brotherly love or fellow-feeling there may be, alas! between you? Or, again, do not some of you stay away from the Lord's Supper, because you see no good in going? because it seems to make those who go no better than they were before? Shall I tell you the reason of that? Shall I tell you why, as is too true, too many do come to the Lord's Supper, and so far from being the better for it, seem only the worse? Because they come to it in selfishness. We have fallen into the same false and unscriptural way of looking at the Lord's Supper, into which the Papists have. People go to the Lord's Supper nowadays too much to get some private good for their own souls, and it would not matter to many of them, I am afraid, if not another person in the parish received it, provided they can get, as they fancy, the same blessing from it. Thus they come to it in an utterly false and wrong temper of mind. Instead of coming as members of Christ's body, to get from Him life and strength, to work, in their places, as members of that body, they come to get something for themselves, as if there was n.o.body else's soul in the world to be saved but their own. Instead of coming to ask for the Spirit of G.o.d to deliver them from their selfishness, and make them care less about themselves, and more about all around them, they come to ask for the Spirit of G.o.d because they think it will make themselves higher and happier in heaven. And of course they do not get what they come for, because they come for the wrong thing.

Thus those who see them, begin to fancy that the Lord's Supper is not, after all, so very important for the salvation of their souls; and not finding in the Bible actually written these words, "Thou shalt perish everlastingly unless thou take the Lord's Supper," they end by staying away from it, and utterly neglecting it, they and their children after them; preferring their own selfishness, to G.o.d's Spirit of love, and saying, like Esau of old, "I am hungry, and I must live. I must get on in this selfish world by following its selfish ways; what is the use of a spirit of love and brotherhood to me? If I were to obey the Gospel, and sacrifice my own interest for those around me, I should starve; what good will my birthright do me?"

Oh! my friends, I pray G.o.d that some of you, at least, may change your mind. I pray G.o.d that some of you may see at last, that all the misery and the burdens of this time, spring from one root, which is selfishness; and that the reason why we are selfish, is because we have not with us the Spirit of G.o.d, which is the spirit of brotherhood and love. Let us pray G.o.d now, and henceforth, to take that selfishness out of all our hearts. Let us pray G.o.d now, and henceforth, to pour upon us, and upon all our countrymen, ay, and upon the whole world, the spirit of friendship and fellow-feeling, the spirit which when men have among them, they need no laws to keep them from supplanting, and oppressing, and devouring each other, because its fruits are love, cheerfulness, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, honesty, meekness, temperance Then there will be no need, my friends, for me to call you to the Supper of the Lord.

You will no more think of staying away from it, than the Apostles did, when the Spirit was poured out on them. For what do we read that they did after the first Whit-Sunday? That altogether with one accord, they broke bread daily; that is, partook of the Lord's Supper every day, from house to house. They did not need to be told to do it. They did it, as I may say, by instinct. There was no question or argument about it in their minds. They had found out that they were all brothers, with one common cause in joy and sorrow--that they were all members of one body--that the life of their souls came from one root and spring, from one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the light and the life of men, in whom they were all one, members of each other; and therefore, they delighted in that Lord's Supper, just because it brought them together; just because it was a sign and a token to them that they did belong to each other, that they had one Lord, one faith, one interest, one common cause for this life, and for all eternity. And therefore the blessing of that Lord's Supper did come to them, and in it they did receive strength to live like children of G.o.d and members of Christ, and brothers to each other and to all mankind. They proved by their actions what that Communion Feast, that Sacrament of Brotherhood, had done for them. They proved it by not counting their own lives dear to them, but going forth in the face of poverty and persecution, and death itself, to preach to the whole world the good news that Christ was their King. They proved it by their conduct to each other when they had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, as every man had need. They proved it by needing no laws to bind them to each other from without, because they were bound to each other from within, by the love which comes down from G.o.d, and is the very bond of peace, and of every virtue which becomes a man.

XI--ASCENSION-DAY

And Jesus led them out as far as to Bethany; and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pa.s.s while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem, with great joy; and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing G.o.d--LUKE xxiv. 50- 53.

On this day it is fit and proper for us--if we have understood, and enjoyed, and profited by the wonder of the Lord's Ascension into Heaven--to be in the same state of mind as the Apostles were after His Ascension: for what was right for them is right for us and for all men; the same effects which it produced on them it ought to produce on us. And we may know whether we are in the state in which Christian men ought to be, by seeing how far we are in the same state of mind as the Apostles were. Now the text tells us in what state of mind they were; how that, after the Lord Jesus was parted from them, and carried up into Heaven, they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem, with great joy, and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing G.o.d. It seems at first sight certainly very strange that they should go back with great joy. They had just lost their Teacher, their Master--One who had been more to them than all friends and fathers could be; One who had taken them, poor simple fishermen, and changed the whole course of their lives, and taught them things which He had taught to no one else, and given them a great and awful work to do--the work of changing the ways and thoughts and doings of the whole world. He had sent them out--eleven unlettered working men--to fight against the sin and the misery of the whole world. And He had given them open warning of what they were to expect; that by it they should win neither credit, nor riches, nor ease, nor anything else that the world thinks worth having. He gave them fair warning that the world would hate them, and try to crush them. He told them, as the Gospel for to-day says, that they should be driven out of the churches; that the religious people, as well as the irreligious, would be against them; that the time would come when those who killed them would think that they did G.o.d service; that nothing but labour, and want, and persecution, and slander, and torture, and death was before them--and now He had gone away and left them. He had vanished up into the empty air. They were to see His face, and hear His voice no more. They were to have no more of His advice, no more of His teaching, no more of His tender comfortings; they were to be alone in the world--eleven poor working men, with the whole world against them, and so great a business to do that they would not have time to get their bread by the labour of their hands. Is it not wonderful that they did not sit down in despair, and say, "What will become of us?" Is it not wonderful that they did not give themselves up to grief at losing the Teacher who was worth all the rest of the world put together? Is it not wonderful that they did not go back, each one to his old trade, to his fishing and to his daily labour, saying, "At all events we must eat; at all events we must get our livelihood;" and end, as they had begun, in being mere labouring men, of whom the world would never have heard a word? And instead of that we read that they went back with great joy not to their homes but to Jerusalem, the capital city of their country, and "were continually in the temple blessing and praising G.o.d." Well, my friends, and if it is possible for one man to judge what another man would have done--if it is possible to guess what we should have done in their case--common-sense must show us this, that if He was merely their Teacher, they would have either given themselves up to despair, or gone back, some to their plough, some to their fishing-nets, and some, like Matthew, to their counting-houses, and we should never have heard a word of them. But if you will look in your Bibles, you will find that they thought Him much more than a teacher--that they thought Him to be the Lord and King of the whole world; and you will find that the great joy with which the disciples went back, after He ascended into heaven, came from certain very strange words that He had been speaking to them just before He ascended--words about which they could have but two opinions: either they must have thought that they were utter falsehood, and self-conceit, and blasphemy; and that Jesus, who had been all along speaking to them such words of wisdom and holiness as never man spake before, had suddenly changed His whole character at the last, and become such a sort of person as it is neither fit for me to speak of, or you to hear me speak of, in G.o.d's church, and in Jesus Christ's hearing, even though it be merely for the sake of argument; or else they must have thought THIS about His words, that they were the most joyful and blessed words that ever had been spoken on the earth; that they were the best of all news; the most complete of all Gospels for this poor sinful world; that what Jesus had said about Himself was true; and that as long as it was true, it did not matter in the least what became of them; it did not matter in the least what difficulties stood in their way, for they would be certain to conquer them all; it did not matter in the least how men might persecute and slander them, for they would be sure to get their reward; it did not matter in the least how miserable and sinful the world might be just then, for it was certain to be changed, and converted, and brought to G.o.d, to righteousness, to love, to freedom, to light, at last.

If you look at the various accounts, in the four gospels, of the Lord's last words on earth, you will see, surely, what I mean. Let us take them one by one.

St. Matthew tells us that, a few days before the Lord's ascension, He met His disciples on a mountain in Galilee, where he had appointed them to await him; and there told them, that all power was given to Him in heaven and earth. Was not that blessed news--was not that a gospel? That all the power in heaven and earth belonged to HIM? To Him, who had all His life been doing good? To Him, in whom there had never been one single stain of tyranny or selfishness? To Him, who had been the friend of publicans and sinners? To Him, who had rebuked the very richest, and loved the very poorest? To him, who had shown that He had both the power and the will to heal every kind of sickness and disease? To Him, who had conquered and driven out, wherever He met them, all the evil spirits which enslave and torment poor sinful men? To Him, who had shown by rising from the dead, that He was stronger than even death itself? To Him, who had declared that He was the Son of G.o.d the Father, that the great G.o.d who had made heaven and earth, and all therein, was perfectly pleased and satisfied with Him, that He was come to do His Father's will, and not His own; that He was the ancient Lord of the earth, the I AM who was before Abraham? And He was now to have all power in heaven and earth! Everything which was done right in the world henceforth, was to be His doing. The kingdom and rule over the whole universe, was to be His. So He said; and His disciples believed Him; and if they believed Him, how could they but rejoice? How could they but rejoice at the glorious thought that He, the son of the village maiden, the champion of the poor and the suffering, was to have the government of the world for ever? That He, who all the while He had been on earth had showed that He was perfect justice, perfect love, perfect humanity, was to reign till He had put all His enemies under His feet? How could the world but prosper under such a King as that?

How could wickedness triumph, while He, the perfectly righteous one, was King? How could misery triumph, while He, the perfectly merciful one, was King? How could ignorance triumph, while He, the perfectly wise one, who had declared that G.o.d the Father hid nothing from Him, was King? Unless the disciples had been more dull and selfish than the dumb beasts around them, what could they do but rejoice at that news? What matter to them if Jesus were taken out of their sight, as long as all power was given to Him in heaven and earth?

But He had told them more. He had told them that they were not to keep this glorious secret to themselves. No: they were to go forth and preach the gospel of it, the good news of it, to every creature-- to preach the gospel of the kingdom of G.o.d. The good news that G.o.d was the King of men, after all; that cruel tyrants and oppressors, and conquerors, were not their kings; that neither the storms over their heads, nor the earth under their feet, nor the clouds and the rivers whom the heathens used to worship in the hope of persuading the earth and the weather to be favourable to them, and bless their harvests, were their kings; that idols of wood and stone, and evil spirits of l.u.s.t, and cruelty, and covetousness, were not their kings; but that G.o.d was their King; that He loved them, He pitied them in spite of all their sins; that He had sent His only begotten Son into the world to teach them, to live for them--to die for them--to claim them for His own. And, therefore, they were to go and baptize all nations, as a sign that they were to repent, and change, and put away all their old false and evil heathen life, and rise to a new life, they and their children after them, as G.o.d's children, G.o.d's family, brothers of the Son of G.o.d. And they were to baptize them into a name; showing that they belonged to those into whose name they were baptized; into the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They were to be baptized into the name of the Father, as a sign that G.o.d was their Father, and they His children. They were to be baptized into the name of the Son, as a sign that the Son, Jesus Christ, was their King and head; and not merely their King and head, but their Saviour, who had taken away the sin of the world, and redeemed it for G.o.d, with His own most precious blood; and not merely their Saviour, but their pattern; that they might know that they were bound to become as far as is possible for mortal man such sons of G.o.d as Jesus himself had been, like Him obedient, pure, forgiving, brotherly, caring for each other and not for themselves, doing their heavenly Father's will and not their own. And they were to baptize all nations into the name of the Holy Spirit, for a sign that G.o.d's Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, would be with them, to give them new life, new holiness, new manfulness; to teach, and guide, and strengthen them for ever. That was the gospel which they had to preach. The good news that the Son of G.o.d was the King of men. That was the name into which they were to baptize all nations--the name of children of G.o.d, members of Christ, heirs of a heavenly and spiritual kingdom, which should go on age after age, for ever, growing and spreading men knew not how, as the grains of mustard-seed, which at first the least of all seeds, grows up into a great tree, and the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches of it--to go on, I say, from age to age, improving, cleansing, and humanising, and teaching the whole world, till the kingdoms of the earth became the kingdoms of G.o.d and of His Christ. That was the work which the Apostles had given them to do. Do you not see, friends, that unless those Apostles had been the most selfish of men, unless all they cared for was their own gain and comfort, they must have rejoiced?

The whole world was to be set right--what matter what happened to them? And, therefore, I said at the beginning of my sermon, that a sure way to know whether our minds were in a right state, was to see whether we felt about it as the Apostles felt. The Bible tells us to rejoice always, to praise and give thanks to G.o.d always. If we believe what the Apostles believed, we shall be joyful; if we do not, we shall not be joyful. If we believe in the words which the Lord spoke before He ascended on high, we shall be joyful. If we believe that all power in heaven and earth is His, we shall be joyful. If we believe that the son of the village maiden has ascended up on high, and received gifts for men, we shall be joyful. If we believe that, as our baptism told us, G.o.d is our Father, the Son of G.o.d our Saviour, the Spirit of G.o.d ready to teach and guide us, we shall be joyful. Do you answer me, "But the world goes on so ill; there is so much sin, and misery, and folly, and cruelty in it; how can we be joyful?" I answer: There was a hundred times as much sin, and misery, and folly, and cruelty, in the Apostles' time, and yet they were joyful, and full of gladness, blessing and praising G.o.d. If you answer, "But we are so slandered, and neglected, and misunderstood, and hard-worked, and ill-treated; we have no time to enjoy ourselves, or do the things which we should like best. How can we be joyful?" I answer: So were the Apostles. They knew that they would be a hundred times as much slandered, and neglected, and misunderstood, as you can ever be; that they would have far less time to enjoy themselves, far less opportunity of doing the things which they liked best, than you can ever have; they knew that misery, and persecution, and a shameful death were before them, and yet they were joyful and full of gladness, blessing and praising G.o.d. And why should you not be? For what was true for them is true for you. They had no blessing, no hope, but what you have just as good a right to as they had. They were joyful, because G.o.d was their Father, and G.o.d is your Father. They were joyful because they and all men belonged to G.o.d's family; and you belong to it. They were joyful, because G.o.d's Spirit was promised to them, to make them like G.o.d; and G.o.d's Spirit was promised to you. They were joyful, because a poor man was king of heaven and earth; and that poor man, Jesus Christ, who was born at Bethlehem, is as much your King now as He was theirs then. They were joyful, because the whole world was going to improve under His rule and government; and the whole world is improving, and will go on improving for ever. They were joyful, because Jesus, whom they had known as a poor, despised, crucified man on earth, had ascended up to heaven in glory; and if you believe the same, you will be joyful too.

In proportion as you believe the mystery of Ascension-day; if you believe the words which the Lord spoke before He ascended, you will have cheerful, joyful, hopeful thoughts about yourselves, and about the whole world; if you do not, you will be in continual danger of becoming suspicious and despairing, fancying the world still worse than it is, fancying that G.o.d has neglected and forgotten it, fancying that the devil is stronger than G.o.d, and man's sins wider than Christ's redemption till you will think it neither worth while to do right yourselves, nor to make others do right towards you.

XII--THE FOUNT OF SCIENCE

(A Sermon Preached at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, May 4th, 1851, in behalf of the Westminster Hospital.)

When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and received gifts for men, yea, even for his enemies, that the Lord G.o.d might dwell among them.--PSALM lxviii. 18, and EPHESIANS iv. 8.

If, a thousand years ago, a congregation in this place had been addressed upon the text which I have chosen, they would have had, I think, little difficulty in applying its meaning to themselves, and in mentioning at once innumerable instances of those gifts which the King of men had received for men, innumerable signs that the Lord G.o.d was really dwelling amongst them. But amongst those signs, I think, they would have mentioned several which we are not now generally accustomed to consider in such a light. They would have pointed not merely to the building of churches, the founding of schools, the spread of peace, the decay of slavery; but to the importation of foreign literature, the extension of the arts of reading, writing, painting, architecture, the improvement of agriculture, and the introduction of new and more successful methods of the cure of diseases. They might have expressed themselves on these points in a way that we consider now puerile and superst.i.tious. They might have attributed to the efficacy of prayer, many cures which we now attribute--shall I say? to no cause whatsoever. They may have quoted as an instance of St. Cuthbert's sanct.i.ty, rather than of his shrewd observations, his discovery of a spring of water in the rocky floor of his cell, and his success in growing barley upon the barren island where wheat refused to germinate; and we might have smiled at their superst.i.tion, and smiled, too, at their seeing any consequence of Christianity, any token that the kingdom of G.o.d was among them, in Bishop Wilfred's rescuing the Hampshire Saxons from the horrors of famine, by teaching them the use of fishing-nets. But still so they would have spoken--men of a turn of mind no less keen, shrewd, and practical than we, their children; and if we had objected to their so-called superst.i.tion that all these improvements in the physical state of England were only the natural consequences of the introduction of Roman civilisation by French and Italian missionaries, they would have smiled at us in their turn, not perhaps without some astonishment at our stupidity, and asked: "Do you not see, too, that THAT is in itself a sign of the kingdom of G.o.d--that these nations who have been for ages selfishly isolated from each other, except for purposes of conquest and desolation, should be now teaching each other, helping each other, interchanging more and more, generation by generation, their arts, their laws, their learning becoming fused down under the influence of a common Creed, and loyalty to one common King in Heaven, from their state of savage jealousy and warfare, into one great Christendom, and family of G.o.d?"

And if, my friends, as I think, those forefathers of ours could rise from their graves this day, they would be inclined to see in our hospitals, in our railroads, in the achievements of our physical Science, confirmation of that old superst.i.tion of theirs, proofs of the kingdom of G.o.d, realisations of the gifts which Christ received for men, vaster than any of which they had ever dreamed. They might be startled at G.o.d's continuing those gifts to us, who hold on many points a creed so different from theirs. They might be still more startled to see in the Great Exhibition of all Nations, which is our present nine-days' wonder, that those blessings were not restricted by G.o.d even to nominal Christians, but that His love, His teaching, with regard to matters of civilisation and physical science, were extended, though more slowly and partially, to the Mahometan and the Heathen. And it would be a wholesome lesson to them, to find that G.o.d's grace was wider than their narrow theories; perhaps they may have learnt it already in the world of spirits. But of its BEING G.o.d's grace, there would be no doubt in their minds. They would claim unhesitatingly, and at once, that great Exhibition established in a Christian country, as a point of union and brotherhood for all people, for a sign that G.o.d was indeed claiming all the nations of the world as His own--proving by the most enormous facts that He had sent down a Pentecost, gifts to men which would raise them not merely spiritually, but physically and intellectually, beyond anything which the world had ever seen, and had poured out a spirit among them which would convert them in the course of ages, gradually, but most surely and really, from a pandemonium of conquerors and conquered, devourers and devoured, into a family of fellow-helping brothers, until the kingdoms of the world became the kingdoms of G.o.d and of His Christ.

But I think one thing, if anything, would stagger their simple old Saxon faith; one thing would make them fearful, as indeed it makes the preacher this day, that the time of real brotherhood and peace is still but too far off; and that the achievements of our physical science, the unity of this great Exhibition, n.o.ble as they are, are still only dim forecastings and prophecies, as it were, of a higher, n.o.bler reality. And they would say sadly to us, their children: "Sons, you ought to be so near to G.o.d; He seems to have given you so much and to have worked among you as He never worked for any nation under heaven. How is it that you give the glory to yourselves, and not to Him?"

For do we give the glory of our scientific discoveries to G.o.d, in any real, honest, and practical sense? There may be some official and perfunctory talk of G.o.d's blessing on our endeavours; but there seems to be no real belief in us that G.o.d, the inspiration of G.o.d, is the very fount and root of the endeavours themselves; that He teaches us these great discoveries; that He gives us wisdom to get this wondrous wealth; that He works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.

True, we keep up something of the form and tradition of the old talk about such things; we join in prayer to G.o.d to bless our great Exhibition, but we do not believe--we do not believe, my friends-- that it was G.o.d who taught us to conceive, build, and arrange that Great Exhibition; and our notion of G.o.d's blessing it, seems to be G.o.d's absence from it; a hope and trust that G.o.d will leave it and us alone, and not "visit" it or us in it, or "interfere" by any "special providences," by storms, or lightning, or sickness, or panic, or conspiracy; a sort of dim feeling that we could manage it all perfectly well without G.o.d, but that as He exists, and has some power over natural phenomena, which is not very exactly defined, we must notice His existence over and above our work, lest He should become angry and "visit" us ... And this in spite of words which were spoken by one whose office it was to speak them, as the representative of the highest and most sacred personage in these realms; words which deserve to be written in letters of gold on the high places of this city; in which he spoke of this Exhibition as an "approach to a more complete fulfilment of the great and sacred mission which man has to perform in the world;" when he told the English people that "man's reason being created in the image of G.o.d, he has to discover the laws by which Almighty G.o.d governs His creations, and by making these laws the standard of his action, to conquer nature to his use, himself a divine instrument;" when he spoke of "thankfulness to Almighty G.o.d for what he has already GIVEN," as the first feeling which that Exhibition ought to excite in us; and as the second, "the deep conviction that those blessings can only be realised in proportion to"--not, as some would have it, the rivalry and selfish compet.i.tion--but "in proportion to the HELP which we are prepared to render to each other; and, therefore, by peace, love, and ready a.s.sistance, not only between individuals, but between all nations of the earth." We read those great words; but in the hearts of how few, alas! to judge from our modern creed on such matters, must the really important and distinctive points of them find an echo! To how few does this whole Exhibition seem to have been anything but a matter of personal gain or curiosity, for national aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, insular self-glorification, and selfish--I had almost said, treacherous--rivalry with the very foreigners whom we invited as our guests?

And so, too, with our cures of diseases. We speak of G.o.d's blessing the means, and G.o.d's blessing the cure. But all we really mean by blessing them, is permitting them. Do not our hearts confess that our notion of His blessing the means, is His leaving the means to themselves and their own physical laws--leaving, in short, the cure to us and not preventing our science doing its work, and a.s.serting His own existence by bringing on some unexpected crisis, or unfortunate relapse--if, indeed, the old theory that He does bring on such, be true?

Our old forefathers, on the other hand, used to believe that in medicine, as in everything else, G.o.d taught men all that they knew.

They believed the words of the Wise Man when he said that "the Spirit of G.o.d gives man understanding." The method by which Solomon believed himself to have obtained all his physical science and knowledge of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop which groweth on the wall, was in their eyes the only possible method.

They believed the words of Isaiah when he said of the tillage and the rotation of crops in use among the peasants of his country, that their G.o.d instructed them to discretion and taught them; and that even the various methods of threshing out the various species of grain came "forth from the Lord of hosts, who is excellent in counsel, and wonderful in working."

Such a method, you say, seems to you now miraculous. It did not seem to our forefathers miraculous that G.o.d should teach man; it seemed to them most simple, most rational, most natural, an utterly every-day axiom. They thought it was because so few of the heathen were taught by G.o.d that they were no wiser than they were. They thought that since the Son of G.o.d had come down and taken our nature upon Him, and ascended up on high and received gifts for men, that it was now the right and privilege of every human being who was willing to be taught of G.o.d, as the prophet foretold in those very words; and that baptism was the very sign and seal of that fact--a sign that for every human being, whatever his age, s.e.x, rank, intellect, or race, a certain measure of the teaching of G.o.d and of the Spirit of G.o.d was ready, promised, sure as the oath of Him that made heaven and the earth, and all things therein. That was Solomon's belief. We do not find that it made him a fanatic and an idler, waiting with folded hands for inspiration to come to him he knew not how nor whence. His belief that wisdom was the revelation and gift of G.o.d did not prevent him from seeking her as silver, and searching for her as hid treasures, from applying his heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; and we do not find that it prevented our forefathers. Ceadmon's belief that G.o.d inspired him with the poetic faculty, did not make him the less laborious and careful versifier. Bishop John's blessing the dumb boy's tongue in the name of Him whom he believed to be Word of G.o.d and the Master of that poor dumb boy, did not prevent his antic.i.p.ating some of the discoveries of our modern wise men, in setting about a most practical and scientific cure. Alfred's continual prayers for light and inspiration made him no less a laborious and thoughtful student of war and law, of physics, language, and geography. These old Teutons, for all these superst.i.tions of theirs, were perhaps as businesslike and practical in those days as we their children are in these. But that did not prevent their believing that unless G.o.d showed them a thing, they could not see it, and thanking Him honestly enough for the comparative little which He did show them. But we who enjoy the acc.u.mulated teaching of ages--we to whose researches He is revealing year by year, almost week by weeks wonders of which they never dreamed--we whom He has taught to make the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, the blind to see, to exterminate the pestilence and defy the thunderbolt, to multiply millionfold the fruits of learning, to annihilate time and s.p.a.ce, to span the heavens, and to weigh the sun-- what madness is this which has come upon us in these last days, to make us fancy that we, insects of a day, have found out these things for ourselves, and talk big about the progress of the species, and the triumphs of intellect, and the all-conquering powers of the human mind, and give the glory of all this inspiration and revelation, not to G.o.d, but to ourselves? Let us beware, beware--lest our boundless pride and self-satisfaction, by some mysterious yet most certain law, avenge itself--lest like the a.s.syrian conqueror of old, while we stand and cry, "Is not this great Babylon which I have built?" our reason, like his, should reel and fall beneath the narcotic of our own maddening self-conceit, and while attempting to scale the heavens we overlook some pitfall at our feet, and fall as learned idiots, suicidal pedants, to be a degradation, and a hissing, and a shame.

However strongly you may differ from these opinions of our own forefathers with regard to the ground and cause of physical science, and the arts of healing, I am sure that the recollection of the thrice holy ground upon which we stand, beneath the shadow of venerable piles, witnesses for the creeds, the laws, the liberties, which those our ancestors have handed down to us, will preserve you from the temptation of dismissing with hasty contempt their thoughts upon any subject so important; will make you inclined to listen to their opinion with affection, if not with reverence; and save, perhaps, the preacher from a sneer when he declares that the doctrine of those old Saxon men is, in his belief, not only the most Scriptural, but the most rational and scientific explanation of the grounds of all human knowledge.

At least, I shall be able to quote in support of my own opinion a name from which there can be no appeal in the minds of a congregation of educated Englishmen--I mean Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, the spiritual father of the modern science, and, therefore, of the chemistry and the medicine of the whole civilised world. If there is one thing which more than another ought to impress itself on the mind of a careful student of his works, it is this--that he considered science as the inspiration of G.o.d, and every separate act of induction by which man arrives at a physical law, as a revelation from the Maker of those laws; and that the faith which gave him daring to face the mystery of the universe, and proclaim to men that they could conquer nature by obeying her, was his deep, living, practical belief that there was One who had ascended up on high and led captive in the flesh and spirit of a man those very idols of sense which had been themselves leading men's minds captive, enslaving them to the illusions of their own senses, forcing them to bow down in vague awe and terror before those powers of Nature, which G.o.d had appointed, not to be their tyrants, but their slaves. I will not special-plead particulars from his works, wherein I may consider that he a.s.serts this. I will rather say boldly that the idea runs through every line he ever wrote; that unless seen in the light of that faith, the grounds of his philosophy ought to be as inexplicable to us, as they would, without it, have been impossible to himself.

As has been well said of him: "Faith in G.o.d as the absolute ground of all human as well as of all natural laws; the belief that He had actually made Himself known to His creatures, and that it was possible for them to have a knowledge of Him, cleared from the phantasies and idols of their own imaginations and understandings; this was the necessary foundation of all that great man's mind and speculations, to whatever point they were tending, and however at times they might be darkened by too close a familiarity with the corruptions and meannesses of man, or too pa.s.sionate an addiction to the contemplation of Nature. Nor should it ever be forgotten that he owed all the clearness and distinctness of his mind to his freedom from that Pantheism which naturally disposes to a vague admiration and adoration of Nature, to the belief that it is stronger and n.o.bler than ourselves; that we are servants, and puppets, and portions of it, and not its lords and rulers. If Bacon had in anywise confounded Nature with G.o.d--if he had not entertained the strongest practical feeling that men were connected with G.o.d through One who had taken upon Him their nature, it is impossible that he could have discovered that method of dealing with physics which has made a physical science possible."

No really careful student of his works, but must have perceived this, however glad, alas! he may have felt at times to thrust the thought of it from him, and try to think that Francis Bacon's Christianity was something over and above his philosophy--a religion which he left behind him at the church-door--or only sprinkled up and down his works so much of it as should shield him in a bigoted age from the suspicion of materialism. A strange theory, and yet one which so determined is man to see nothing, whether it be in the Bible or in the Novum Organum, but what each wishes to see, has been deliberately put forth again and again by men who fancy, forsooth, that the greatest of English heroes was even such an one as themselves. One does not wonder to find among the general characteristics of those writers who admire Bacon as a materialist, the most utter incapacity of philosophising on Bacon's method, the very restless conceit, the hasty generalisation, the hankering after cosmogonic theories, which Bacon anathematises in every page. Yes, I repeat it, we owe our medical and sanitary science to Bacon's philosophy; and Bacon owed his philosophy to his Christianity.

Oh! it is easy for us, amid the marvels of our great hospitals, now grown commonplace in our eyes from very custom, to talk of the empire of mind over matter; for us--who reap the harvest whereof Bacon sowed the seed. But consider, how great the faith of that man must have been, who died in hope, not having received the promises, but seeing them afar off, and haunted to his dying day with glorious visions of a time when famine and pestilence should vanish before a scientific obedience--to use his own expression--to the will of G.o.d, revealed in natural facts. Thus we can understand how he dared to denounce all that had gone before him as blind and worthless guides, and to proclaim himself to the world as the one restorer of true physical philosophy. Thus we can understand how he, the cautious and patient man of the world, dared indulge in those vast dreams of the scientific triumphs of the future. Thus we can understand how he dared hint at the expectation that men would some day even conquer death itself; because he believed that man had conquered death already, in the person of its King and Lord--in the flesh of Him who ascended up on high, and led captivity captive, and received gifts for men. The "empire of mind over matter?" What practical proof had he of it amid the miserable alternations of empiricism and magic which made up the pseudo-science of his time; amid the theories and speculations of mankind, which, as he said, were "but a sort of madness--useless alike for discovery or for operation." What right had he, more than any other man who had gone before him, to believe that man could conquer and mould to his will the unseen and tremendous powers which work in every cloud and every flower? that he could dive into the secret mysteries of his own body, and renew his youth like the eagle's? This ground he had for that faith--that he believed, as he says himself, that he must "begin from G.o.d; and that the pursuit of physical science clearly proceeds from Him, the Author of good, and Father of light." This gave him faith to say that in this as in all other Divine works, the smallest beginnings lead a.s.suredly to some result, and that the "remark in spiritual matters, that the kingdom of G.o.d cometh without observation, is also found to be true in every great work of Divine Providence; so that everything glides on quietly without confusion or noise, and the matter is achieved before men either think or perceive that it is commenced."

This it was which gave him courage to believe that his own philosophy might be the actual fulfilment of the prophecy, that in the last days many should run to and fro, and knowledge should be increased--words which, like hundreds of others in his works, sound like the outpourings of an almost blasphemous self-conceit, till we recollect that he looked on science only as the inspiration of G.o.d, and man's empire over nature only as the consequence of the redemption worked out for him by Christ, and begin to see in them the expressions of the deepest and most divine humility.

I doubt not that many here will be far more able than I am practically to apply the facts which I have been adducing to the cause of the hospital for which I am pleading. But there is one consequence of them to which I must beg leave to draw attention more particularly, especially at the present era of our nation. If, then, these discoveries of science be indeed revelations and inspirations from G.o.d, does it not follow that all cla.s.ses, even the poorest and the most ignorant, the most brutal, have an equal right to enjoy the fruits of them? Does it not follow that to give to the poor their share in the blessings which chemical and medical science are working out for us, is not a matter of charity or benevolence, but of DUTY, of indefeasible, peremptory, immediate duty? For consider, my friends; the Son of G.o.d descends on earth, and takes on Him not only the form, but the very nature, affections, trials, and sorrows of a man. He proclaims Himself as the person who has been all along ruling, guiding, teaching, improving men; the light who lighteth every man who cometh into the world. He proclaims Himself by acts of wondrous power to be the internecine foe and conqueror of every form of sorrow, slavery, barbarism, weakness, sickness, death itself. He proclaims Himself as One who is come to give His life for His sheep-- One who is come to restore to men the likeness in which they were originally created, the likeness of their Father in Heaven, who accepteth the person of no man--who causeth His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, who sendeth His rain on the just and on the unjust, in whose sight the meanest publican, if his only consciousness be that of his own baseness and worthlessness, is more righteous than the most learned, respectable, and self-satisfied pharisee. He proclaims Himself the setter-up of a kingdom into which the publican and the harlot will pa.s.s sooner than the rich, the mighty, and the n.o.ble; a kingdom in which all men are to be brothers, and their bond of union loyalty to One who spared not His own life for the sheep, who came not to do His own, but the will of the Father who had sent Him, and who showed by His toil among the poor, the outcast, the ignorant, and the brutal, what that same will was like.

With His own life-blood He seals this Covenant between G.o.d and man.

He offers up His own body as the first-fruits of this great kingdom of self-sacrifice. He takes poor fishermen and mechanics, and sends them forth to acquaint all men with the good news that G.o.d is their King, and to baptize them as subjects of that kingdom, bound to rise in baptism to a new life, a life of love, and brotherhood, and self- sacrifice, like His own. He commands them to call all nations to that sacred Feast wherein there is neither rich nor poor, but the same bread and the same wine are offered to the monarch and to the slave, as signs of their common humanity, their common redemption, their common interest--signs that they derive their life, their health, their reason, their every faculty of body, soul, and spirit, from One who walked the earth as the son of a poor carpenter, who ate and drank with publicans and sinners. He sends down His Spirit on them with gifts of language, eloquence, wisdom, and healing, as mere earnests and first-fruits; so they said, of that prophecy that He would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, even upon slaves and handmaids. And these poor fishermen feel themselves impelled by a divine and irresistible impulse to go forth to the ends of the world, and face persecution, insult, torture, and death--not in order that they may make themselves lords over mankind, but that they may tell them that One is their Master, even Jesus Christ, both G.o.d and man-- that HE rules the world, and will rule it, and CAN rule it, that in His sight there is no distinction of race, or rank, or riches, neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. And, as a fact, their message has prevailed and been believed; and in proportion as it has prevailed, not merely individual sanct.i.ty or piety, but liberty, law, peace, civilisation, learning, art, science, the gifts which he bought for men with His blood, have followed in its train: while the nations who have not received that message that G.o.d was their King, or having received it have forgotten it, or perverted it into a superst.i.tion and an hypocrisy, have in exactly that proportion fallen back into barbarism and bloodshed, slavery and misery. My friends, if this philosophy of history, this theory of human progress, or as I should call it, this Gospel of the Kingdom of G.o.d mean anything--does it not mean this? this which our forefathers believed, dimly and inconsistently perhaps, but still believed it, else we had not been here this day--that we are not our own, but the servants of Jesus Christ, and brothers of each other--that the very const.i.tution and ground-law of this human species which has been redeemed by Christ, is the self-sacrifice which Christ displayed as the one perfection of humanity--that all rank, property, learning, science, are only held by their possessors in trust from that King who has distributed them to each according as He will, that each might use them for the good of all, certain--as certain as G.o.d's promise can make man--that if by giving up our own interest for the interest of others, we seek first the kingdom of G.o.d, and the righteousness between man and man, which we call MERCY, according to which it is const.i.tuted, all other things, health, wealth, peace, and every other blessing which humanity can desire, shall be added unto us over and above, as the natural and necessary fruits of a society founded according to the will of G.o.d, and declared in his Son Jesus Christ, and therefore according to those physical laws, whereof He is at once the Creator, the Director, and the Revealer?

This was the faith of our forefathers, both laity and clergy--that the Lord was King, be the people never so unquiet; that men were His stewards and His pupils only, and not His vicars; that they were equal in His sight, and not the slaves and tyrants of each other; and that the help that was done upon earth, He did it all Himself.

Dimly, doubtless, they saw it, and inconsistently: but they saw it, and to their faith in that great truth we owe all that has made England really n.o.ble among the nations. Of the fruits of that faith every venerable building around us should remind us. To that faith in the laity, we owe the abolition of serfdom, the freedom of our inst.i.tutions, the laws which provide equal justice between man and man; to that faith in the clergy, and especially in the monastic orders, we owe the endowment of our schools and un