Sermons Part 1

Sermons.

by J. B. Lightfoot.

BETHEL.

"Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not."--GEN.

xxviii. 16.

An un.o.btrusive, unimpressive scene, almost indistinguishable, even to the curious eye of the archaeologist, "in the maze of undistinguished hills which encompa.s.s it"--with nothing to attract the eye, and nothing to fire the imagination; large slabs of bare rock traversed by a well-worn thoroughfare; "no religio loci, no awful shades, no lofty hills." So is the site of Bethel described by the modern traveller.

Yet this was none other than the House of G.o.d; this was the very gate of heaven.

An unimpressive scene in itself, but appearing still more commonplace, when contrasted with the famous shrines of heathendom--the rock fortress of the Athene, or the pleasant groves of Daphne, or the cloven peak of Parna.s.sus, or the sea-girt sanctuary of Delos. No beauty, no grandeur, nothing of loveliness and nothing of awe, nothing exceptional of any kind which can explain or justify its selection.

Was there not ground for the wanderer's surprise on that memorable night? Why should this one spot be chosen to plant the foot of the ladder which connected heaven and earth? Why in this bleak wilderness?

Why amidst these bare rocks? Why here of all places in the world? Yes, why here?

The paradox of Bethel is the paradox of the Gospel--is the paradox of G.o.d's spiritual dispensations at all times. The Incarnation itself was the supreme manifestation of this paradox. The building up of the Church was the proper sequel to the Incarnation.

Look at the accompaniments of the Incarnation. Could any environment of circ.u.mstances well have been imagined more incongruous, more alien to this unique event in human history, this supreme revelation of G.o.d's wisdom, and power, and beneficence? An obscure corner of the Roman world--an insignificant and down-trodden race, scorned and hated by the rest of mankind--an ox-stall for a nursery, and a carpenter's shop for a school--what is wanting to complete the paradox? Yes, there is still one feature to be added to the picture--the crowning incongruity of all--the felon's death on the cross. Said not the prophet rightly, when he foretold that there should be nothing lovely in His life and circ.u.mstances, as men count loveliness; "no form or comeliness;" "no beauty that we should desire him"?

And the same paradox, which ruled the foundation of the Church, extended also to its building up. The great statesmen, the powerful captains, in the kingdom of G.o.d were fishermen and tent-makers. Never was this characteristic incongruity of the Gospel more signally manifested than in the preaching of St. Paul at Athens. Have we ever realized the force of that single word with which the historian describes the impression left on the Apostle's mind by this far-famed city? Gazing on the most sublime and beautiful creations of Greek art, the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles, he has no eye for their beauty or their sublimity. He pierces through the veil of the material and transitory, and behind this semblance of grace and glory the true nature of things reveals itself. To him this chief centre of human culture and intelligence, this--

"Eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence,"

appears only as +kazeidolos+, overrun with idols, beset with phantoms which mislead, and vanities which corrupt. Art and culture are G.o.d's own gifts, legitimate embellishments of life, even of wors.h.i.+p, which is the highest form of life. But if culture aims at displacing religion, if art seeks to dethrone G.o.d,--why, then, in the highest interests of humanity, be it our prayer that the sword of the barbarian and the axe of the iconoclast may descend once more, and sweep them ruthlessly away. There was, at least, this redeeming feature in ancient art, that it gave expression to whatsoever sense of the Divine lay buried in the heathen mind. But art and culture, which studiously ignore G.o.d--what can be said for these? In this one word +kazeidolos+ lies the germ of that fierce and protracted struggle of Christianity with Paganism, which ended indeed in a splendid victory, though not without inflicting many a wound on humanity of which the scars and seams still remain. Notwithstanding the merciless scoffs of a Celsus and the biting sarcasm of a Julian--the Apostle's words were verified in their literal truth.

Strength was made perfect in weakness. G.o.d chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, aye, and the uncomely things of the world to confound the beautiful. The things which are not, brought to nought the things which are.

So then in its accompaniments, not less than in its main idea, this incident at Bethel is a type of the Gospel of Christ. This exile, the representative of the Israel after the flesh, prefigures a greater outcast and wanderer, the representative of the Israel after the spirit, the representative of the whole family of man. This ladder reared up from earth to heaven, whereby angels ascend and descend, what is it but the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, wherein G.o.d is made man, and man is taken up into G.o.d? This it is which establishes the t.i.tle of Christianity as the absolute and final religion of the world--this indissoluble union of the human with the divine--this one only adequate response to the deepest religious cravings of mankind.

Hence the Church has ever clung with a tenacity of grasp, which shallow hearts could ill understand, to this central idea, the indefeasible wedlock of heaven and earth in the G.o.d-man. And to those whose sight is purged by faith, to those who are gifted with the eye of the Spirit, the vision of Bethel will be vouchsafed with a far more exceeding glory: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the angels of G.o.d ascending and descending upon the Son of Man:" on the Son of Man: yes, and on thyself too, O man, for thou art one with this Son of Man, one with the Father in Him.

"Gifted with the eye of the Spirit," I say; for in vain the heavens are riven asunder, and the glory streams forth, and all things are flooded with light, if the capacity of vision be absent. Only the cold bare stones beneath, only the midnight gloom overhead, only the dreary, monotonous waste around, these and these alone are visible otherwise. We have been saddened, perhaps we have been disconcerted, as recently we read the dreary epitaph which sums up the creed of a brilliant man of science not long since deceased--a hopeless, soul-less, lifeless creed, to which his own very faculties and acquisitions appear to us to give the lie. We have been saddened justly; but why should we be disconcerted? G.o.d be thanked, the most absolute childlike faith has not unfrequently been found united with the highest scientific intellect. We in this place have never yet lacked bright examples of such a union, and G.o.d grant we never may.

But what right have we to expect it as a matter of course? What claim do the most brilliant mathematical faculties, or the keenest scholarly instincts, give to a man to speak with authority on the things of the Spirit? Are we not told on authority before which we bow that a special faculty is needed for this special knowledge; that "eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard"; that only the Spirit of G.o.d--the Spirit which He vouchsafes to His sons--knoweth the things of G.o.d? And does not all a.n.a.logy enforce the truth of this lesson? One man has a keenly sensitive musical ear, but he is colour-blind. Another has a quick eye for the faintest gradations of colour, but he cannot distinguish one note of music from another. Does the imperfect eye of the one know any haze of uncertainty over the hues of the rainbow; or the obtuse ear of the other disparage the master works of a Handel, or a Mozart, or a Beethoven? _Here_ is a mathematician who sees in a sublime creation of imaginative genius only a tissue of unproven hypotheses; and _here_ is a poet, to whom the plainest processes of algebra, and the simplest problems in geometry, are mere barbarian gabble, conveying no distinct impression to the brain, and leaving no intelligible idea on the mind. Judge no man in this matter. To his own master he stands or falls. But judge yourselves. Yes, spare no rigour and relax no vigilance when the judge is the criminal also. Believe it, this spiritual faculty is an infinitely subtle and delicate mechanism. You cannot trifle with it, cannot roughly handle it, cannot neglect it and suffer it to rust from disuse, without infinite peril to yourselves. Nothing--not the highest intellectual gains--can compensate you for its injury or its loss. The private prayer mechanically repeated, then hurried over, then intermitted, and at last dropped; the devotional reading found to be daily more irksome, because suffered to be daily more listless; the valuable moral and spiritual discipline of the early morning chapel, gradually neglected; the un.o.btrusive opportunities of witnessing for Christ by deeds of kindness and words of wisdom suffered to slip by,--these, and such as these, are the unfailing indications of spiritual decline; till disuse is followed by paralysis, and paralysis ends in death; and you are left without G.o.d in the world. And yet when again--you young men--when again, in the years to come, can you hope that the conditions of your life will be as favourable to this spiritual self-discipline as they are now? Where else do you expect to find in the same degree the opportunities for private meditation and retirement, the daily common prayer and the frequent communions, the inspiring and sanctifying friends.h.i.+ps, the wholesome occupation for the mind and the healthy recreations for the body, every appliance and every aid which, if you will employ them aright, neither disusing them nor misusing them, will combine to build up and to perfect the man of G.o.d? Choose ye, this day. To you, more especially, I appeal who have recently commenced your residence here, and to whom, therefore, with the changed conditions of life a heightened ideal of life also is suggested. This is the momentous alternative. Shall your life hereafter be typified by the barren rocks and the monotonous waste, hard and dreary, if nothing worse; or shall it be illumined within and around with the effulgence of G.o.d's own presence, so that--

"The earth and every common sight To you shall seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream"?

A dream? nay, not a dream, but an everlasting reality, eternal, as G.o.d's own being is eternal.

There are two ways of looking on the relations between the things of this life and the things of eternity. A false and a true. The false way regards the one as the rejection of the other. They are reciprocally exclusive. The avocations, the interests, the amus.e.m.e.nts of daily life--nature and history, poetry and art--these are so many hindrances to the heavenly life. Every moment given to work is a moment subtracted from prayer--thus the inward life becomes a constant reflection upon the conditions of the outward. This is the spirit which of old peopled the desert with anchorites; the spirit which in all ages, though under divers forms, has made a religion of selfishness. This is the voice which cries, "Lo, here! and lo, there!"

though all the while the kingdom of heaven is within us, in the very midst of us. The true conception is the reverse of all this. Its ideal is not a separation, but an identification of the two. It takes its stand on the old maxim _laborare est orare_. It strives that its work shall be prayer, and its prayer shall be work. Nature and history to it are not the veil of G.o.d's presence; they are the invest.i.ture of G.o.d's glory. And, therefore, to it is vouchsafed the vision of grace, and comfort, and strength, as to the patriarchs of old. The solitary wanderer along the dreary thoroughfare of this life lays himself down.

He has nothing but the bare stones beneath for a couch, and nothing but the midnight sky overhead for a tent. He closes his eyes for a moment; and the whole place is flooded with glory. Ah! the Lord was in this place, though he knew it not; but he knows it now--knows it in the access of strength, knows it in the promise of hope, knows it in the celestial voice and the ineffable light. All the common interests of life--the a.s.sociations, the amus.e.m.e.nts, the cares, the hopes, the friends.h.i.+ps, the conflicts--all are invested with a dignity and an awe unsuspected before. Reverence is henceforth the ruling spirit of his life. This monotonous round of commonplace toils and commonplace pleasures is none other than the House of G.o.d. This barren, stony thoroughfare of life is the very portal of heaven.

To read these hieroglyphics traced on nature, on history, on the human soul--to decipher this handwriting of G.o.d wheresoever it appears, and where does it not appear?--is the ultimate and final study of man. All history is a parable of G.o.d's dealings; and we must learn the interpretation of the parable. All nature is a sacrament of G.o.d's being and attributes, and we must strive to pierce through the outward sign to the inward meaning. To realize G.o.d's presence, to hear G.o.d's voice, to see G.o.d's visage,--let this be henceforth the aim and the discipline of our lives. So at length we shall pa.s.s from Bethel to Peniel--from the palace courts to the presence chamber itself. We shall see G.o.d face to face. It is a vision of power, of majesty, of awe unspeakable; but it is a vision also of purification, of light, of strength, of life. The blessing is won at length by that long lonely wrestling under the midnight sky. The fraud, the worldliness, the self-seeking is thrown off like a slough. All is changed. Old things have pa.s.sed away. The supplanted rises from the struggle, the supplanter rises no more, but the Israel, the Prince, who has power with G.o.d and with men. Shall not Moses' prayer then be our prayer, "Lord, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory"?

"Show me Thy glory." Where else shall this glory reveal itself if not in the studies of this place? These properties of numbers, these selections of s.p.a.ce, these phenomena of light, of heat, of energy, of life, of language, of thought, what are they? Individual facts to be recorded, arranged, tabulated, marshalled under several heads, which we call laws, and having so called them, with a strange self-complacency and contentment fold our hands, as if nothing more were to be done, as if by the mere imposition of a name we had crowned them absolute sovereigns of the Universe? Or are they manifestations--partial, indeed, and needing to be supplemented--of a power, a majesty, a wisdom, an order, a beneficence, a finality, a oneness, a One, who is shown to us as the Eternal Father in the revelation of the Eternal Son? Can we afford to look down from the serene heights of modern science and culture on the untutored Indian, who saw G.o.d's face in the s.h.i.+fting clouds, and heard G.o.d's voice in the whistling winds? Nay, was there not a truth in this childish ignorance which threatens to elude the grasp of our manhood's wisdom?

Was it altogether a baseless dream in those stoic Pantheists, who endowed each several planet with an animating spirit of its own?

altogether a wild fancy in those Christian fathers a.s.signing to each its particular angel, who should whirl it through s.p.a.ce and hold it in its course? Was it not rather a Divine instinct feeling after a higher truth? Human life cannot rest satisfied with the science of phenomena alone. It needs to supplement science with poetry. And the true, the absolute, the final poetry is the recognition of G.o.d the Creator and Governor, of G.o.d the all-wise and all-powerful, of G.o.d the Father, the Redeemer, the Sanctifier, of G.o.d the eternal love. "Blessed are they who have eyes to see,"--thus to them

"The meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Thoughts of immortality, of wisdom, of light, of love.

"Show me Thy Glory," where else again shall His glory be seen, if not in those friends.h.i.+ps which are the crowning gift of University life?

This intimate communion of soul with soul, this linking of heart with heart, is it merely a matter of human convenience, of human preference, or has it a Divine side also? This love, this devotion, this reliance of the weak on the strong, this reverence for a nature purer, n.o.bler, more upright, more manly, more unselfish than your own--what is its meaning? It is a precious, unspeakably precious, gift of G.o.d, you will say--far beyond wealth, or fame, or popularity, or ease, or any earthly boon of which you can conceive. Yes, but it is more than this. May we not call it in some sense a sacrament, a sign and a parable of your relation to your Lord? You are awed--no other word will express this feeling--you are awed with the honour done to you by this friends.h.i.+p. You do not talk much about it--it is too sacred a thing--but you do feel it. You confess to yourself day and night your own unworthiness. And yet, though you strive to be worthy, you would not wish to feel worthy. The very sense of undeservedness invests the gift with a bountifulness and a glory which you would not forego. The fountains of your thanksgiving would cease to flow freely if you claimed it as a right; and it is a joyful and a pleasant thing to be thankful. Apply this experience to the infinitely higher gift of Christ's friends.h.i.+p, of Christ's sacrifice. Herein lies the power of the Cross--which men called and still call weakness--the power which awes, inspires, energises, which elevates the heart and sanctifies the life--herein this feeling of boundless thanksgiving arises from this sense of absolute undeservedness. For is it not true, that those will love most to whom most is given and forgiven? So then this your friends.h.i.+p is found to be none other than the House of G.o.d. The Lord is in this place, and happy are ye if ye know it.

Once again; look into your own soul, and what do you find there? Yes, ye yourselves are the temple of the living G.o.d. He is there--there, whether you will or not. Through your reason, through your conscience, through your remorses and regrets, through your capacity of amendment, through your aspirations and ideals, He speaks to you. You are His coinage. His image and superscription are stamped upon you. Aye, and He has also re-stamped you, re-created you, in Christ Jesus by the earnest of His Spirit. If it be true of your body that it is fearfully and wonderfully made, is it not far more true of your soul?

Henceforward you will regard yourself with awe and reverence, as a sanctuary of the eternal goodness. You will not, you dare not, profane this sanctuary. Here is the true self-respect--nay, not self-respect, for self is abased, self is overawed, self veils the face and falls prostrate in the presence of Infinite Wisdom, and Purity, and Love thus revealed. Surely, surely the Lord was in this place--in this poor, self-seeking, restless, rebellious soul of mine, and _I_, I thought it a common thing, I went on my way heedless, I followed my own devices and desires, I knew it not.

In conclusion, I have been asked to plead before you to-day a cause which it should not require many words of mine to enforce. The Barnwell and Chesterton Clergy Fund appeals to you year by year for aid. Of all claims this (I say it advisedly) should be a first charge on the liberality of members of the University. These populous and growing suburbs are created by your needs. They are chiefly peopled by college servants and others for whom you are responsible. Zealous clergy are willing to work for the work's sake in these districts commonly for stipends which no one could call remunerative--sometimes for no stipends at all. And yet it is still the same old story which I remember years ago. There is still the same difficulty in meeting current expenses; still the same fear lest the spiritual machinery should be impaired for lack of funds; still the same precarious hand-to-mouth existence, of which we heard complaint in years past. Is it quite creditable that matters should go on thus? In a thousand ways you all, some directly, some indirectly, you all are reaping, materially, intellectually, or spiritually the fruits gathered from the liberality of past ages? Will you not make an adequate return?

Steady, continuous subscriptions are needed. A liberal response to this day's appeal is needed. The Fund is largely dependent on the proceeds of the University Sermon. Not less than a hundred pounds will suffice to meet all requirements. Will you not give it this day, either in this church, or in contributions sent afterwards to the treasurer? Think not that you hear only the poor words of the preacher in this appeal. Christ Himself pleads with you. Christ's own words ring in your ears, "Ye did it, ye did it not, to _Me_." Ah, yes, the Lord was in this place--in this weary pleading of the preacher, in these trite commonplaces of spiritual need: and _we_, we knew it not. G.o.d grant that you may know it in time. G.o.d forbid that He should ever say to you, "I knew you not."

THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN HEAVEN'S PATHWAY.[3]

"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."--LUKE v. 8.

To those who search the Scriptures, not because in them they think they have eternal life, but because in them they trust to find historical difficulties, this account of St. Peter's call has seemed to reward their search. The narrative indeed, is simple and inartificial in itself; the incidents follow in a natural order; the traits of character are wonderfully realistic and lifelike. There is confessedly an air of truthfulness about the whole story; but how--how, it is asked--can this account be reconciled with the narrative given in St. John's Gospel? There we have a wholly different story of St. Peter's call. His brother Andrew is a scholar of the Baptist. The Baptist points out Jesus to Andrew and to a fellow-disciple. They follow Jesus; they are accepted by Him; they lodge that day with Him; they are convinced that He is the Christ.

Andrew takes his brother Simon to Jesus; Jesus receives him. "Thou art Simon, the son of Jona. Thou shalt be called Cephas." This account also is perfectly plain, but how can the two be harmonised? "Have we not here," it is said, "two irreconcilable narratives--in fact, two distinct legends of the call of St. Peter?"

I have more than once remarked that the apparent moral contradictions of the Bible are often its most valuable moral lessons. A similar remark will apply to its apparent historical contradictions.

Underlying these is very frequently a subtle harmony, which eluded us at our first hasty search. The two accounts are after all not contradictory, but supplementary, the one to the other. So it is here.

Read St. Luke's narrative carefully, and it will be apparent that this cannot have been the first meeting of St. Peter with our Lord. I say nothing of the healing of his wife's mother, for, though this is related earlier in St. Luke's Gospel, yet it is plain from the narrative in the other evangelists that it is not related here in chronological order.

But what are the facts? These fishermen have been toiling throughout the night; their labour has been wholly unrewarded, though night is the proper season for plying their craft; and now in the bright glare of the morning sun--now when, after the ill-success of the night, it would be perfect madness to expect a haul--now they are suddenly, imperiously bidden to put out again into the deep sea, and to let down their nets. And the command is obeyed. There is the lurking misgiving, there is the tacit remonstrance; but there is prompt obedience notwithstanding. "Master, we have toiled all the night; nevertheless, at Thy word I will let down the net." "_At Thy word._" Who is this, that this most unreasonable demand meets with such ready acquiescence? Is it possible that He can have been a mere pa.s.sing stranger, or a mere casual acquaintance? How could His advice have been entertained for a moment when He told an experienced fisherman to do what a fisherman knew to be utterly foolish and futile? The narrative itself, I say, implies some previous knowledge of our Lord on St. Peter's part. He would never have acted as he is represented here as acting unless he had believed, or, at least, had suspected, that there was a more than human power and intelligence in our Lord.

In short, the narrative of St. Luke presupposes the narrative of St.

John. Jesus speaks to Peter now as one who has a right to command. The incident in St. John gives the personal call of Peter; the incident in St. Luke gives his official call. On the one occasion he is represented as a disciple and a follower; on the other occasion he is declared an apostle and a teacher. "From henceforth thou shalt catch men."

But I did not select this text with any special purpose of discussing historical difficulties. Such discussions, indeed, are necessary when they are forced upon us, but they only distract the mind from the moral and spiritual lessons of the Scripture. Nor, I think, is the lesson in the text difficult to extricate. All history teaches by example, and the Scriptural narrative is the intensification of history. The miracles of our Lord are not miracles only. They are most frequently acted parables also. And have we not here a parable of the most intense pathos and of the widest application?

"Master, we have toiled all the night, and we have taken nothing."

What is this but a true, painfully true, image of the efforts, the struggles, the futilities, the despairs of humanity; not in isolated cases, here and there only, of disappointed hopes and unrealised aim, but with thousands of men and women who are born into this world, and live and labour, and suffer and die, without securing any substantial and enduring good, simply because they have lived and died apart from G.o.d, who alone survives the decay of time, and alone can give satisfaction to the immortal spirit of man?

"We have toiled all the night." Yes; we see it now--now when the morning light of eternity has burst upon our aching eyeb.a.l.l.s. We have toiled all the night. There was darkness above and around us; there was toil of hands and toil of heart; there was the struggle for subsistence; there was the race after wealth and honour; there was the eager pursuit of phantom goods. We had our pleasures and we had our pains. We had our failures and we had our successes. Yes, our splendid successes as men counted them--as we were half tempted to count them ourselves. But we have taken nothing. Our successes are as our failures; our pains are as our pleasures, now. In the all-absorbing abyss of time we have taken nothing, absolutely nothing--nothing which can escape the jaws of the grave, nothing which will pa.s.s the portals of death. We stand alone, stripped of everything, alone with G.o.d, alone with eternity.

You pursued wealth, and you pursued it not in vain; you determined that your career should be a success, and a success you made it. You surrounded yourself with every material comfort; you added to these substantial appliances all the embellishments and all the refinements of life. What then? Did they give you the satisfaction you hoped for?

Could you feel that there was any finality in such aims and acquisitions as these? No. The hope was better after all than the realisation; the prospect was brighter than the attainment. You were restless, discontented, craving still. There was a hunger of soul, though you would not confess it--a hunger of soul, which rejected and loathed these husks. And now where are they, and what are they? Or you pursued honour and fame, and men lavishly bestowed upon you that which you so eagerly sought, till you seemed at length to have all, and more than all, that you had set your heart upon. But still there was no contentment, because there was no finality. Dropsy-like your craving only grew with the gratification. Each fresh draught of applause created a fresh thirst. Every imagined slight, every unintentional neglect, every trivial rebuff, was a keen agony to you. You had only increased your sensitiveness; you had not secured your satisfaction.

Or, again, you had set your heart on human love, G.o.d's greatest boon if you use it without misusing it, if you subordinate it to his Divine love. Your human affections, your human friends.h.i.+ps, were everything to you. In the buoyant hopefulness of youth, in the solid security of middle age, it seemed as though these must last for ever. But soon enough the painful truth dawned upon you. The march of life began to tell on your comrades in the journey. One dropped at your side, and then another. The ranks were visibly thinning, and there was no one to step in and take the vacant places. First the mother at whose knees you had lisped your earliest faltering prayer; then the friend who shared all your counsels, who was more than a brother to you; then the wife whom you cherished as another self; then the little daughter whose innocent childish talk had solaced you in many a grievous hour: so, one by one, they fell away, and you are left gradually alone and more alone; they leave you when you need them most, and at length in the vacancy of your solitude you make the bitter discovery that though you have toiled all night you have taken nothing--you have taken nothing at all.

A short time ago we laid in the vaults of this cathedral the last mortal remains of one[4] who has achieved for himself a foremost place among the masters of his art in our own age. It was fit that his bones should lie here, side by side with more than one famous brother sculptor who has gone before him--side by side with the most ill.u.s.trious names in the sister art of painting; with Reynolds, whose easy grace in the delineation of human portraiture stands quite without a rival; with Turner, who has succeeded as no other painter has succeeded, in any age or country, in reproducing on canvas the subtle play of light and shade, the ever-varying aspect, the depth, the infinity, of external nature; with Landseer, too, our most recent guest in this our artists' resting-place, whose genial and vigorous representations of the lower animal life have invested it with almost a human interest, and, so doing, have taught us many a suggestive lesson of humanity and kindliness. Side by side, too, with England's greatest architects, and Wren, their prince, whose genius needs no word of eulogy here, for his monument is above and around us. Such a place of sepulture well befitted such a man. It is our tribute of respect for n.o.ble gifts n.o.bly used. It is our expression of thanksgiving to G.o.d, who thus endows His servants that they may employ their endowments to exalt and to embellish human life.

But one thought cannot fail to strike us here. We may remember that the great conqueror of modern time, when it was suggested to him to perpetuate some signal incident in his triumphant career by an historical picture, asked how long the work would last. He was told two or three centuries--perhaps, under favourable circ.u.mstances, five centuries. This would not satisfy his devouring ambition. This was not the immortality of fame which he had designed for himself. He must have a more enduring memorial than this. Compared with the canvas of the painter, the marble of the sculptor is long-lived indeed. The most enduring of human works are the works of the sculptor's chisel. The stern granite features of the Pharaoh who befriended Joseph and the Pharaoh who persecuted Israel may still look down on the land which they ruled with an iron rule between three and four thousand years ago. The winged lions and winged bulls on which the contemporaries of Shalmanezer and Sennacherib may have gazed in awe, in the royal palaces of a.s.syria, still confront us in our national museum with the same weird look, unchanged though all else has changed, surviving still, though a hundred generations of men have been born, and lived, and died, meanwhile. And it may be that in the centuries to come, some curious explorer will exhume, from the gra.s.s-grown mounds of this ruined city, a work of art bearing the name of him whom on Friday last we bore to an honoured resting-place--perhaps the effigy of a prince who flourished in a remote epoch of the past, when England was still a nation, and who sank into an untimely grave amidst a people's mourning. And thus the sculptor's fame will have a second lease of life.

But after all, thirty centuries are but as three--are but as three years or three days--compared with eternity. Napoleon's ambition was a perverted instinct, but it was an instinct, nevertheless. Man feels that he was not made to die; he will not consent to die. This thirst for enduring fame, what is it but an echo, a mocking echo, of an eternal verity? Yes, he will live. The materialist may tell him that, when the eye and the ear are dissolved into gases and decomposed into dust, it matters nothing to him with what honours men may adorn his memory, with what praises they may celebrate his name. He, too--his personality, or what he was pleased to call his personality--is dissolved, is dissipated, is gone; but the materialist never yet has been able, never will be able, to persuade mankind. The natural instinct of man revolts against the a.s.sumption; and the ambition of the Christian, the ambition for eternity alone, expresses truly this general instinct of man. To labour for the good things of this world, to labour for fame in the coming centuries, what is it, after all, if our views are bounded by this narrow horizon? Why, then, like the disappointed fishermen of the Galilean lake, we have toiled all the night long, and, for our pains, we have taken nothing.

And this change--this conversion, if you will--comes sometimes, it may be, despite ourselves, but comes--remember this--comes most often in answer to some act of obedience, to some surrender of self-will on our part. We may complain; we may demur; we may distrust. We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; but we recognise the authority of the Divine voice, and we force ourselves into compliance--"nevertheless, at Thy word." The command is general: it has come to all alike,--"Let ye down your nets." But, like Peter, we specialise it, we adopt it, we appropriate it to ourselves: "I will let down the net." And so we do what seems hard and unreasonable; we do what we have never done before.