Sermons Part 5

Ah, yes, Lord! I can see two things, and two only: Thy righteousness, my sinfulness, these and nothing else.

But we must look not only to G.o.d's righteousness: we must look to His fatherly goodness also. We have beheld the heinousness of our sin in the mirror of His holiness; we must now behold the grace of our forgiveness in the light of His love, His fatherly love. And have we not full and perfect a.s.surance that His love will never fail us? What else is the meaning of His great, His inestimable gift to man of His only-begotten Son, to take His flesh upon Him and to die for us? By the infinity of His gift He would show us that His love is infinite also--nothing less; and we do Him a wrong, a cruel wrong, if we approach Him as a taskmaster, as a tyrant, as "a hard and austere man;" we blaspheme His fatherly goodness. Have we sinned, and shall we go to Him as to a taskmaster? What consolation, what forgiveness, what hope of either here? Nay, rather we will seek Him as the prodigal son sought Him; we will go to Him as to a father; we will address Him as a Father; we will betake ourselves to Him with a child's penitent heart, with a child's trusting soul, with a child's yearning embrace, and He will have compa.s.sion on us, will hasten to meet us, though we may be yet a great way off, and we shall be locked once more in His everlasting arms.

Do you think, can you think, that the sense of His infinite love will make you reckless, will make you indolent, will make you presuming?

Did love, true love, truly felt, ever have this effect? Nay, just in proportion as you appropriate it, as you realise it, it will quicken, it will stimulate, it will purify, it will inspire you; it will transform your whole being into its own perfections from glory to glory. G.o.d's love is the beacon star in the sky, arresting, attracting, guiding, luring us forward on the heavenly path; the love of Christ--not our love for Him; but His love for us--the love of Christ, constrains us, binds us hand and foot, and drags us onward with the cords of a man. The publican did see this, at least in part.

He saw G.o.d's righteousness in all its tremendous majesty, and he abased himself before it; he saw G.o.d's fatherly love only dimly as yet, but yearned for it. Therefore, though he was yet a great way off, G.o.d ran to meet him; and so, notwithstanding his sin, he went down from the temple that day "justified rather than the other."

One more thought is suggested by the parable. Prayer is the test of character. So it was with this Pharisee and this publican; so it must ever be, from the nature of the case. Prayer is the confronting of self with G.o.d; prayer is the communing with G.o.d; prayer is the laying bare of the soul before G.o.d. Thus prayer proves the realities of a man's being. As a man prays, so he is. He who has learned to pray aright has learned to live aright. The first and the last lesson of our lives, the first and the last desire of our hearts, the first and the last pet.i.tion on our lips must be with us, as it was with the disciples of old, "Lord, teach us to pray"; and to the old question the old answer will be vouchsafed now, as then, "Our Father, which art in heaven." "Our Father." The sense of G.o.d's Fatherhood, as manifested in Christ, flooding our hearts, and dominating our lives--this is the beginning and the end of all theology; there is nothing before and nothing after this. Therefore, holy Father, we beseech Thee for Thy dear Son's sake, teach us all, this night and ever, to pray; teach us to know Thee, the only true G.o.d, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent; teach us so to pray that we may be found among the company of those faithful people who wors.h.i.+p not a G.o.d of their own making, not a taskmaster, not a tyrant, not "a hard and austere man," but wors.h.i.+p Thee, "wors.h.i.+p the Father in spirit and in truth."

OUR CITIZENs.h.i.+P.[14]

"Our conversation is in heaven."--PHIL. iii. 20.

A better translation is "Our citizens.h.i.+p is in heaven."

We are all proud of our country. We delight to think of ourselves as belonging to a land on which whoever sets his foot is free. We reflect with satisfaction that we are citizens of a great empire on which the sun never sets. We feel that we have derived a very real advantage from our position; the glory of our past history is somehow reflected upon us. We think with pride of how freedom has "broadened slowly down, from precedent to precedent." We cherish the recollection too, of the most glorious scenes in our history, as if, somehow, they were part and parcel of ourselves. We feel as of one family, with its long roll of ill.u.s.trious statesmen, generals, men of science,--our Shakespeare, Bacon, Newton, Wellington, Nelson, Hampden, Pitt, Canning,--that these are our fellow-citizens. Their renown is our renown. It is a great thing to extend our range of view beyond ourselves, beyond our own households, our parish, and our own neighbourhood, and yet to feel that there is a bond of union still; that we are members of a great family, citizens of a great kingdom, unique in her great world-empire. The inspiration of this thought, which the recent Jubilee celebration has emphasised, makes us higher, n.o.bler, larger than ourselves. It drives out all the pettiness of character and all the narrowness of view. True patriotism is a very n.o.ble and enn.o.bling sentiment. To be ready to do and to suffer, if need be to die, for our country, what broad elevation of soul is there not in a temper like this?

St. Paul felt all this. He was proud of the city, of the nation to which he belonged. He was proud of the city in which he first saw the light. We cannot mistake his tones here. "I am a citizen of no mean city." This Tarsus, in which he was born, stood second to none as a seat of learning in his time. He was proud, also, of his nationality.

Here, again, we cannot mistake the feeling which underlies his language. "Of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin." "Are they Hebrew? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I." He, too, was the son of the patriarchs; he, too, was the heir of the promises; he, too, had his portion among the twelve tribes that served G.o.d day and night. Was he not descended from the one favoured tribe which had given its first king to Israel, which had remained faithful to the house of David when all the others revolted; which ever marched in the van of the Lord's host when the armies went out to battle? "After thee O Benjamin!" No taint of foreign admixture had sullied the purity of his blood. He was "an Hebrew of the Hebrews." No concession to foreign excitements, and no relaxation of national rites, had ever compromised his position. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Of all these things he might well be prouder than the proudest. Albeit he paused and kept down all his pride; he counted all as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. And lastly, he was proud of his position as a member of that great empire which stretched out her hand into every clime, and carried her citizens into all quarters of the globe. Here again his language tells its own tale. "They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, ... and now do they thrust us out privily." "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?"

Yes; it was a magnificent privilege this, that a man, whosoever he might be, could claim the immunity, the protection, the deference which was everywhere accorded to a citizen of Rome; to feel that he was a solitary, homeless wanderer, and had nevertheless at his back all the power, and all the prestige, and all the majesty of the mightiest empire that the world had ever seen. But however natural, and in some sense justifiable, may be this pride in ourselves, or in St. Paul, we are reminded by the text that he and we alike are citizens of a far larger, wider, more magnificent, more powerful, more enduring empire. For which we have every reason to feel, not indeed pride, not self-satisfaction, not vainglory, but perpetual thanksgiving, and benediction to the Author and Giver of all good things. Our citizens.h.i.+p is in heaven.

"Our citizens.h.i.+p." In the familiar version the word is rendered "conversation," _i.e._, "walk of life." But it means very much more than this; it points us out as members of a commonwealth, citizens of a polity, subjects of a kingdom, in which we have special interests, special responsibilities and functions. So, again, the Apostle tells the Ephesians, now converted from heathenism to the knowledge of Christ--"Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints."

"Fellow-citizens with the saints." You and they, bound together as members of one great nationality, with common duties, common sympathies, common aims, citizens of a kingdom of which the n.o.blest and most powerful earthly empires are only faint types and shadows, a kingdom which shall never end. Yes!

"Two worlds are ours, 'tis only sin Forbids us to descry The mystic heaven, and earth within, Plain as the sea and sky."

And so we need to strive this day to pierce through the veil, that so we may realise this our heavenly citizens.h.i.+p.

On this festival of All Saints, before all other days in the year, we are invited to enter into the Holy City, to dwell on the glories of the unseen world, to commune with the beatified servants of G.o.d of all ages and all countries, and to gather inspiration and truth and refreshment for our daily tasks in life; to pierce through the veil, the dark impenetrable mist which shrouds the unseen world. Yet ever and again this veil is lifted for a moment, ever and again we are made to feel, by some startling occurrence, how narrow is the screen which separates the seen from the unseen, the material from the spiritual, the world of time from the world of eternity. Ever and again the stern monitor death rises up an unbidden guest, an unwelcome spectre in the midst of our worldliness and self-complacency, scaring us with the suddenness of the apparition. Mystery of mysteries, when valuable lives are suddenly cleft asunder, while so much that is worthless, and worse, is spared. Mystery quite insoluble if this were all, if the region beyond the grave were a mere vacuum; if men were dust and nothing more; if there were no immortality, no heaven, nothing to live for, nothing to work for, nothing to die for. Warnings these, solemn and thrilling, if only we have ears to hear, that this life is not our true life, that here we are strangers and pilgrims, that heaven is our only abiding house, that we are fellow-citizens of the saints.

"Fellow-citizens of the saints." Think for a moment how much is implied in this. What a vast a.s.semblage, what a glorious companions.h.i.+p is that in which you and I, with our frailties, our shortcomings, our self-seeking, our worldliness, our distrust, our faithlessness, are fain boldly to claim a place! All those glorious spirits, venerable patriarchs, righteous kings, rapt seers, glorious psalmists, who lived and wrought and suffered in the ancient days in the hope of a better promise; men "who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ... of whom the world was not worthy;" all those apostles and teachers who, kindling their torches at the sacred fire, the glory of the Eternal Son Himself, carried the light of the gospel into all lands, giving up everything for Christ, offering to lose their lives, that by losing them they might find them. All these martyrs and doctors of later ages who handed down the sacred treasure through successive generations, amidst the fire of persecution and the confusion of barbarism and the darkness of idolatry, rejoicing to be devoured by hungry lions and to die at the stake. Polycarp, calm and brave as his flesh quivered in the flame; Chrysostom, with his flowery eloquence; Augustine, with his piercing insight and force,--these share, too, in this glorious company whose names live in history. And others, true saints of G.o.d, though they appear not in the calendar of any Church; men and women from the rigour of whose lives succeeding generations have their inspiration and strength; all whose holiness and purity, whose courage and self-sacrifice, whose gentleness and meekness, whose loving charity have been a never-failing fountain of refreshment to the weary pilgrim in the thirsty wilderness of the world. And others, too, there are whose memories shall perish not, though they have left no name in history, but whose brows, nevertheless, G.o.d Himself will crown with a halo of everlasting glory.

Poor, despised, unknown artisans and peasants, weak women and feeble children, martyrs in the martyrdom of daily life, saints in the saintliness of homely duty, throngs innumerable of every nation and kindred and people and tongue, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, standing before the Throne of G.o.d, and serving Him day and night in His temple.

And others again there are, unknown to the world, but well known to you and to me, saints of our home, of our school, of our college, of our workshop, of our office. Voices which were silent years ago mingle in our ears still, the hands crumbling in the dust have left a pressure that is still felt, the eyes long since glazed in death ever now and again are bright for us. The mother at whose knees we lisped our infant prayer, the child whose innocent prattle soothed our cares and sweetened our lives, the husband or wife who was part of our existence, the friend "more than my brothers are to me," whose n.o.bleness and purity, whose unselfishness was the good genius and the pole star of our lives. These all are there, with these we hold communion, with these we walk and talk once more to-day as of old.

This is the citizens.h.i.+p of which the text speaks, of which the day reminds us, more glorious beyond comparison than any earthly society which eye hath seen or of which ear hath heard. For these manifold and great gifts of which the season reminds I beseech you this afternoon give a worthy thankoffering. No, that cannot be, that is impossible, but if not worthy, at all events large and liberal.

And what fitter object can I set before you than the support of a society whose sole aim is the enrolment of citizens into the kingdom of G.o.d, the enlargement of the communion of saints? The jubilee year of our sovereign's reign is the jubilee year of this society. It was only in the process of formation when our Queen ascended the throne; one of her earliest acts was to give her name as its patron. It was a right queenly act, for of all the blessings for which during the half-century the nation has poured forth its thanksgiving at the Jubilee festival, surely none has been greater or more enduring than those which have been conferred through the instrumentality of this society.

For what was the state of things at the beginning of this period?

Enormous arrears of spiritual work to be overtaken; everywhere great ma.s.ses of people in our large centres absolutely beyond the reach of Church ministration; the population about to increase "by leaps and bounds." During these fifty years the society has made not less than 21,000 grants to poor parishes here and there, the amounts being on an average about 50. It has paid out in this way more than 1,000,000.

And this sum has been met by 1,000,000 from contributions coming in from elsewhere; so that through its beneficent agency not less than 2,000,000 have been contributed for the increase of clerical ministration in the poor and populous districts of the land.

But these 2,000,000 are far from being an adequate standard of its beneficent effects. The planting down of an efficient clergyman in a poor district means the revival of Church work there; means, frequently, the erection of a church and schools; means the creation of a new parochial machinery. And thus the work of this Society is borne through in a thousand various ways which it is impossible to reckon up or to tabulate.

But you will ask, What is it doing at the present moment? If its operations have been thus effected in the past, does it still maintain its efficiency? I am glad to be able to give this question an answer which none can gainsay. It never was doing a greater work, nor as great a work, as at this very time. It gives grants to more than 850 curates; these grants amount to more than 56,000 per annum, and this sum is met by about the same amount from other sources. Thus more than 100,000 a year is expended directly through its instrumentality to the ministerial staff of the Church. But it is not only the extent of its operations which const.i.tutes its claim on the support of all loyal churches. The principle also of this administration demands their allegiance. I do not desire to say one word of disparagement about other societies which are const.i.tuted on a broader or a narrower base.

All are welcome; all are doing good service. There is work enough and to spare for all. But this a.s.sociation appeals to loyal English churchmen by the very fact that its foundation principle is neither wider nor narrower than the Church it represents. It imposes no tests which the Church does not impose; it requires no a.s.sents which the Church does not require. Within its limits the individual opinions of the clergymen count for nothing; the needs of the parish are all in all. But if it has this paramount claim on all loyal churchmen, surely it appeals to none more strongly than to the churchmen of this great city. No diocese draws so large an amount from it as this of Manchester; I believe I am right in saying that no city receives more material aid from it; and remembering this I cannot think that you will lay yourselves open to the charge of spiritual ingrat.i.tude, of all ingrat.i.tude the worst. Let there, then, be a liberal response to the appeal this afternoon, liberal in the sense that every giver will feel his gift; that it will cost him some real sacrifice.

At this season, when we are especially called to glorify G.o.d in His saints, you cannot afford to be n.i.g.g.ardly. Such n.i.g.g.ardliness drags you downward, and is never more out of place than when you are attempting to lift up your souls to dwell in the heavenly city where Christ sits enthroned at the right hand of G.o.d. Ever, indeed, you need to be reminded of your heavenly citizens.h.i.+p amidst the cares and turmoil of life. It is with you as with the law-giver of old when he descended from the mount. The radiance will vanish from your countenance only too soon as you mingle with the busy crowd below. And you too, like Moses, will need to reappear ever and again at the mountain of G.o.d, that, standing face to face with the Eternal Presence, you may gather once more in your city the rays of the invisible glory.

AMBITION.

"I can do all things through Christ that strengthened me" [+Panta ischuo en to endunamounti me+, "I have strength for all things in Him that empowereth, enableth me"].--PHIL. iv. 13.

Ambition, the love of power, the thirst after influence--its use and its abuse, its true and its false aims--this is no unfit subject for consideration from a University pulpit.

Ambition in some form or other is an innate craving of man. All men desire power, they cannot help desiring it. The desire is as natural to them as the desire of health. Power and influence occupy the same place socially that strength and vigour of limb do physically. Other desires, though veiled under various disguises, resolve themselves ultimately into a love of power. Knowledge is power. The cultivated intellect has a command of the resources of the universe. The selfish exaggeration of this feeling is a testimony to the underlying fact.

The self-satisfied soul congratulates herself that she is

"Lord over nature, Lord of the visible earth, Lord of the senses five."

She communes with herself--

"All these are mine, And let the world have peace or wars 'Tis one to me."

Again, money is power. A man desires wealth, not for the sake of the stamped metal or the printed paper in themselves. These represent to him a command of resources. The miser, indeed, by base indulgence forgets the end in the means. In his own domain he resembles the spurious mathematician to whom the letters and symbols are all in all, who sees in them so many counters and nothing more, who is blinded to the eternal relations of s.p.a.ce and number which they represent. But traced back to its origin, the miser's love of money is a love of power.

Ambition, emulation, rivalry plays a highly important part in the education of the world. We cannot shut our eyes to its splendid achievements. In politics, in social life, in mechanical inventions, in literature and art, its stimulus has produced invaluable results.

If ambition has been the last infirmity, it has also been the initial inspiration of many a n.o.ble mind. If by ambition angels fell, by ambition men have risen. It has heightened their ideal and drawn them upwards from lower to higher. If it is chargeable with the worst evils which have devastated mankind, it must be credited also with the most splendid advances in human progress and civilization.

Ambition has its proper home in a University. Ambition is the life of this place. What would Cambridge be without its honourable emulations, its generous rivalries? Body and mind alike feel the stimulus of its presence. Remove this stimulus, and the immediate consequence will be torpor and degeneration and decay. The athletic ambitions and the scholastic ambitions of the place, each in their own province, are indispensable to its health and vigour.

To one who, revisiting the scenes amidst which the best years of his life were spent, asks himself what topic may be fitly handled in this pulpit, the subject of ambition will naturally suggest itself. The University has lived through a period of exceptional restlessness and change during the last three decades--change far more considerable than during the preceding three centuries. Yet the spirit and life of the place are unchanging. It is the ceaseless orderly march of a mighty army moving forward. Cross it where you will along the line, the gesture, the tread, the uniform, is the same; the faces only are different. It is the broad, silent, ever-flowing river, changeless, yet always changing. Wave succeeds wave; you gaze on it at intervals; not one drop of water remains the same; and yet the river is not another. The main currents of University life are the same now as thirty years ago. Its moral and social condition is mainly, we may say, the resultant of two divergent forces, its friends.h.i.+ps and its emulations. It is the latter alone that I purpose considering this afternoon.

I speak to you, therefore, as to ambitious men. Those only are beyond hope who have no spirit of emulation, no craving after excellence--those only, in short, who are devoid of ambition. I invite you, therefore, to be ambitious. Only I ask you to purify your ambition, to consecrate it, to direct it through worthy channels and to worthy aims. I desire to show you the more excellent way.

If, indeed, ambition has achieved splendid results, it can only have done so by virtue of splendid qualities. It must contain in itself true and abiding elements, which we cannot afford to neglect. Thus it involves a love of approbation. This cannot be culpable in itself. As social beings, we have sympathies and affections which lie at the very roots of our nature; and the desire of approval is inseparably intertwined with these. Who would blame the child for seeking to win its mother's good opinion? But the principle cannot be limited to this one example. It is co-extensive with the whole range of our social relations. The end sought is commendable. Only it may be discredited and condemned by the means taken to attain it; as, for instance, if we disguise our true sentiment, or withhold a just rebuke, or connive at wrongdoing, or sacrifice a n.o.ble purpose, for the sake of standing well with others. It is then, and then only, that the praise of men conflicts with the praise of G.o.d. Again, ambition implies a spirit of emulation. Neither is this wrong in itself. If it were, this University would stand condemned root and branch. Emulation is not envy; emulation is not jealousy; emulation does not seek to injure or rob another. An apostle avows it to be his aim to "provoke to emulation." This provocation--this stimulus of comparison and contrast--is an invaluable influence. We measure ourselves with others; we see our defects mirrored in their excellences; our ideal is heightened by the comparison. Thus there gathers and ferments in us a _discontent_ with ourselves--not indeed, if we are wise, with our capacities, not with our opportunities, not with the inevitable environments of our position, but with the conduct of that personality which is free to discipline, to mould, to direct, to develop our endowments. This dissatisfaction with self is the mainspring of all high enterprise and all moral advancement.

But the chief element in ambition is the pursuit of power. The consciousness of power gives a satisfaction quite independently of the exercise of power. Whatever form the power may take--whether intellectual eminence, or social influence, or physical strength, it is a thing which man desires, which he cannot help desiring, in and for itself. It is a seed of G.o.d's own planting--a germ of splendid achievements, if rightly trained and cultivated. It is only culpable in its excesses and deviations. By our very const.i.tution we feel a happiness in making the best of ourselves, as the phrase runs--in developing and improving our faculties, irrespective of any ulterior results. But a faculty improved is a power gained.

Brothers, I desire before all things to kindle in you a lofty ambition to-day. Therefore, I have striven to justify ambition to you as G.o.d's very precious gift. I wish--G.o.d helping me--to inspire you with that inward dissatisfaction, that discontent with self, that ceaseless, sleepless craving after higher things, which gives you no rest day or night, because it pursues an ever-receding goal. I would stimulate in you that high spirit of emulation which, fermenting and seething in your hearts, impels you to unknown enterprises. I ask you to pray for power, to pursue power, to grasp at power, with all the force and determination which you can command.

How can I do otherwise? Are not you the men, and is not this the season, for the handling of such a topic?

Are not you the men? Who among you has not felt, at one time or another, the spark of a divine fire kindling within you? Who has not yearned with an intense, if momentary, yearning to do something worthy, to be something worthy? Youth is the hey-day of hope, of enthusiasm, of lofty aspiration. You have felt that there was within you a latent power, a heaven-born capacity, which ought to work miracles, if it were not clogged by self-indulgence, or cowed by timidity, or choked by sloth and indulgence.

Are not you the men? As I have said to such audiences before, so I say to you now. You do not know, you cannot know, with what reverence--a reverence approaching to awe--older men regard the glorious potentiality of youth, in all the freshness of its vigorous life, with all the promise of the coming years. Our habits are formed; our career is defined; our possibilities are limited. The wide sweep of moral victory, still open to you, is closed to us for ever. But what triumphs may you not achieve, if you are true to yourselves? What instruments may you not be in G.o.d's hands, if only you will yield yourselves to Him--not with a timid, pa.s.sive, half-hearted acquiescence, but with the active concentration of all your powers of body and soul and spirit?

And again I ask, is not this the time? The first volume of your life's history is closed. A clean page lies open, and with what writing shall it be filled? This is the great crisis of your life. These earliest few weeks of your University career, with which perhaps you are trifling, which you are idling thoughtlessly away, are only too likely to determine for you what you shall be in time and in eternity. It is the great crisis, but it is also the signal opportunity. Thank G.o.d, this is so; for the two do not always coincide. As the great break in your lives, it is the great season for revision, for repentance, for amendment, for the strong resolve and the definite plan. The old base a.s.sociations must be abandoned; the old loose habits must be cured; the old indolence shaken off; and the old sin cast out and trampled under foot. Never again will such a magnificent opportunity be given you of rectifying the past; for never again can you reckon on the leisure, the privacy, the aids and environments, needed by one who is taking stock of his moral and spiritual life.