Henry Allon, pastor and teacher : the story of his ministry with selected sermons and addresses

FROM THE LIBRARY OF

REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D.

BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO

THE LIBRARY OF

PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

Diriaion

/Y8£5

HENRY ALLON D.D

PASTOR AND TEACHER

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in 2013

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Photo : Frank Martyn, Highbury, N

HENRY ALLON D. D

HENRY ALLON D.I)

PASTOR AND TEACHER

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BY

THE REV. W. HARDY HARWOOI)

CASSEEL and COMPANY Limited

LONDON PARIS c~ MELBOURNE

1S94

All. KKIIlTh. RESERVED

PREFACE.

The aim of this volume is simply to present a
picture of the activities of a long and busy life. It
does not profess to be, in the ordinary sense, either
biographical or critical: it is a straightforward
account of the chief events of Dr. Allon's life and
ministry, with such personal references as are needful
to the picture, and such selections from his sermons
and addresses as will, it is hoped, represent the
many sides of his public teaching.

Remembering the prominent position which Dr.
Allon filled, and the great number of people with
whom, during the many years of his ministry, he
came into close association, the materials for a
story of his life are exceedingly slight. The fact that
he wTas pastor of the same church for nearly half a
century, and that the history of that long pastorate
was, speaking generally, one of unbroken peace

vi HENRY ALLON.

and prosperity, made one year much like another
in its simple record of beneficent activities. He
had made no preparation whatever for a biography
of himself, nor are there any signs that he con-
templated such preparation. Many of the friends,
moreover, to whom he would have been likely,
under other circumstances, to write upon subjects
of permanent interest, were those with whom he
was brought into frequent personal contact. The
sketch, therefore, is largely confined to the externals
of the life, with such light upon his work and
character (in the fifth chapter especially) as I have
been able to gather from the testimony of others,
confirming and supplementing my own knowledge.
In the preparation of the volume I have had
the co-operation, which I here gratefully acknow-
ledge, of Mrs. Allon and her family. Its production
has been delayed by the numberless demands upon
my time and strength which the sudden death of
Dr. Allon thrust upon me, and which, for the first
year or more, I found it impossible to satisfy.
Even had I the will or the ability, my position

VREFAGE. vii

would have prevented me from attempting anything
like a critical analysis of Dr. Allon's work and
character. I send out this simple sketch as a
tribute of respect and affection to the memory of
one whom I had learnt to love, and whose suc-
cessor I am proud to be.

W. H. Hauwood.

Unlo)i Chapel, Islington, March, 1894.

Postscript. — The preface to this volume was
written, and the volume itself in type, when the
sudden death of Mrs. Allon added a new and
painful interest to the story. I had written the
words, to be placed on the title-page of the book —

" To Mrs. Allon this volume is affectionately inscribed/'

and I should like the spirit of them to be pre-
served. The deep affection and loyalty of Mrs.
Allon, making her home a home indeed, was one
of the secrets of Dr. Allon's happy and successful
career, and is now the cherished memory of her
children. Since his death she had done all she

viii HENRY ALLON.

could to perpetuate the usefulness of the church
so long associated with his name, and to strengthen
the hands of his successor ; and I gratefully in-
scribe to her memory this brief account of her
husband's wise, earnest, and successful ministry.

W. H. H.

CONTENTS

PAGE

HENRY ALLON: THE STORY OF HES
MINISTRY.

CHAPTER I.
Early Years .

CHAPTER II.
A Successful Pastorate 22

CHAPTER III.

A Many-sided Activity .... .42

CHAPTER IV.

The Ministry Crowned and Ended . . .61

CHAPTER V.

Labours and Characteristics. . . . .64

SERMONS AND ADDRESSES.

The Glory of the Sanctuary

Family Life

The Religious Service of Common Things

Until He Come (A Communion Sermon)

( iirist's Sympathy .

Influence

Religious Solution of Sceptical Thoughts

An Ordination Charge

. Ill

. 132

. U2

. 154

. 164

. 175

. 187

. 199

The Christ, The Book, and The Church . . 220

(Address from the Chair of the Congregational Union, lHf>4.)

The Church of the Future .... 258

(Address from the Chair of the Congregational Union. 1881.)

HENRY ALLON:

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS.

It is a commonplace of the biography of to-day to say
that they whose lot has been cast in the second and third
quarters of this nineteenth century have lived through
the most remarkable fifty years in the history of the
modern world. Whatever may be the interest of their
own personal history they must, if they have taken
any part in public life at all, have contributed some-
thing to a story of varied and inexhaustible interest.
They have been active in a period of almost miraculous
activity. After a long winter and a still longer spring,
with occasional bursts of premature summer, there
came almost suddenly the ripening of the fruits of
many a weary sowing and long waiting. In many
departments, material and spiritual, there has been the
entrance into a new world, of which the former times
had been only a prophecy. A Rip van Winkle, who
should have been lulled to sleep by the calm which
followed the storm of Waterloo, and been roused again
by the cannon of Sedan, might well have supposed

B

2 HENRY ALLON:

that he had been sleeping for five centuries rather
than for five decades, so rapid has been the progress in
many directions.

And of all the changes and developments none
has been more remarkable than those which have
taken place in men's thoughts of God and of life.
It was obviously impossible that men should begin
to live in so much larger a world without some re-
adjustment of their intellectual attitudes; the world
without must have some correspondence to the world
within. But great intellectual changes are not made
without much travail and real heroism. They are
not produced mechanically, but are the fruit of honest
and fearless thought. The problem before many men
in such an age has been how to be free from the yoke
of mere tradition and yet to remain loyal to the truths
by which they lived. Their solution of the problem
has been a cause, as well as a symptom, of much of
the intellectual advance. The spiritual history of
such men, could it be written, would be of the
profoundest interest, and though its most significant
features lie hidden in the secret places of life, it is yet
possible to see something of the processes by which
that history has been produced.

Now, true as this is of all men who have shared in
the intellectual life of the day, it is particularly true
of one who is a public guide or teacher, and most of
all, perhaps, of one who is an intelligent and honest
preacher of the Gospel. Every sincere ministry is to
an extent autobiographical. A thoughtful and observ-
ant congregation will, without any direct communica-
tion, be constantly admitted into the preachers most

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 3

sacred confidence ; they will know him in some
respects better than he knows himself; they will be
able to measure the degree of his progress or other-
wise by methods of which they themselves are hardly
conscious.

It may further be urged, perhaps, without offence,
that the life of a prominent minister in the Free
Churches will furnish a specially striking instance of
this. It is no longer possible for a man in such a
position to live the life of a recluse ; the ties which
bind him to his congregation, being moral rather than
official, can only be preserved by healthy, living
sympathy, and it will be essential to that sympathy
that there should be knowledge of the world and its
doings. If he be a man of any real sensitiveness, the
history of his teaching and work will be in some sort
a reflection of the current life of his day.

There is little doubt that the most striking illus-
trations of this reflection of the general life in the
history of a ministry have been found in provincial
cities and towns ; many names might be mentioned
of Nonconformist ministers whose activity has been
closely interwoven with all the best life of the
community in the midst of which their lot was
cast. While faithfully fulfilling their directly pas-
toral responsibilities, they have been leaders and
helpers in all progressive and preservative move-
ments in the town's life, and their activity has
been largely the measure of the town's progress.
But in solitary instances here and there this pos-
sibility has been exemplified on a larger and an
almost national scale. The public ministry has been
B 2

4 HENRY ALLON:

exercised in connection with some prominent Church,
and the ability and public sympathy of the minister
have brought him into contact with men of many
thoughts and many activities. When the history of
movements with which such a man has been asso-
ciated comes to be written he will not perhaps be
found always to have filled the most prominent
places ; none the less has he borne his share, and
from the standpoint of a religious conception of life
has provided a spiritual barometer for the measure-
ment of the intellectual and spiritual atmospheres
which surrounded him.

Now, useful and important as such lives have
been, their story is often difficult to tell ; their life
has become so interwoven with contemporary history,
social and ecclesiastical, that to write any separate
account of their personal history becomes almost
an impossibility. The man who is identified with
some social or moral revolution, whose story has
been one of constant opposition, and of a warfare,
the only rest from which was the final and lasting
rest — of him much may be said ; but in the case of
the man whose history has been a peaceful evolution,
who has grown with the larger life of the day, his
words and activities, great as they have been, are as
the waters of the stream, not upon rugged mountains,
but after they have become merged in the great river,
watering and fructifying peaceful valleys.

There have been few more distinguished instances
of this peaceful and progressive history* than that
which is provided by the life of Dr. Allon. During
the remarkable history of the past fifty years he

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 5

has occupied a position of growing importance.
The growth of what his colleague, Mr. Lewis, used
to call the " village of Islington " is only an illus-
tration of the general growth on every hand.
The life of London, the sphere of Nonconformist
activity, the ideal of public worship, the multiplied
activities of Church life — in all these directions
there has been an ever-increasing advance, and in
all of them he bore a distinguished part. But so
much of the service that he rendered was merged
in the larger movements — personal fame and honour
being to him of much less importance than public and
private duty — that the actual record which remains is
altogether out of proportion to the importance of the
place which he filled, and the work which he did.

Henry Allon was a Yorkshireman, and was born
October 13th, 1818. His birthplace, Welton, is a
prettily situated village not far from the banks of the
Humber, and within a few miles of Hull. There,
amongst the simple conditions of rural life, were laid
the foundations of the great physical strength by
means of which he wTas able in after years to
accomplish so much without fatigue or illness. It
is a fact of which our reformers may well take note,
that the lives of many of our strongest and most
successful men are rooted in the country. Many
who become prominent and fill high places carry
about with them to the end the atmosphere of
the simple life of some hamlet or village. The
town-bred child may gain something in quickness
and ease of manner ; he certainly loses something
in the lack of the natural memories and vigorous

6 HENRY ALLON:

life which are the fruit of an early and wisely
directed life in rural places. It was impossible to
spend half an hour in Dr. Allon's company without
being sure that the roots of his life were deep
in the associations of some country place. One
or two provincial pronunciations he never lost, and
they added a charm to the vigorous way in which
he spoke, so happy a contrast to the affected manner
which is too often met with to-day. Of his early life
in the village little can be, said ; he outlived most of
his contemporaries, and the traditions which are to be
found are of the faintest; none, indeed, important
enough to record here.

But the love of the village life continued with
him always. The present writer heard him, not many
days before his death, describe in glowing language
the beauties of the neighbourhood, and especially of a
famous glen near the village, and tell again some of
the romantic stories connected with the history of old
families in the district. It was always a delight to
him when in the neighbourhood to visit again the
scenes of his earliest life.

Dr. Allon, like so many successful preachers, came
of parents whom he greatly reverenced. Of his
mother he always spoke with deepest affection and
gratitude, and for his father's uprightness of character
he had the profoundest and most grateful respect.

Mr. William Allon was a builder and afterwards an
estate steward. The first intention was that the son
should follow his father's business, and after the usual
education in the schools which the neighbourhood pro-
vided, he was apprenticed at Beverley. But he was

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 7

really preparing for a very different life work. From
very early days he had shown strong religious suscepti-
bilities ; but it was not until he was fifteen that he
was brought under definite religious influences. Some
Wesley an friends at Beverley induced him to become
a teacher in their Sunday school, and a regular
attendant at their chapel; and through the preaching
which he heard there — that of one young minister
especially, whom he mentioned gratefully .at his
ordination — a Mr. Hobkirk — he was induced at about
seventeen to " give his heart to God." After about
a year's fellowship with the Wesleyans his views of
Church polity and of doctrine underwent some modifi-
cation, and he joined the Congregational church at
Beverley, of which the Rev. J. Mather was pastor.

They little appreciate the value of the religious
revival of last century who suppose that its effects can
be summed up in what is known as the great Methodist
Church. The life of the great evangelical movement
has nowhere been seen more clearly than in the effects
which it has produced upon other churches than that
of Wesley's founding ; and there are many in the
ministry of all the Churches who owe much to the
evangelical fervour which has come from their asso-
ciation at some time with some feature of Methodist
life. Though, with the views of doctrine which Henry
Allon declared himself to hold at his ordination,
it would have been impossible for him to become
a Wesleyan minister, yet he himself, at the suitable
time, made public acknowledgment of the fact that
his chief religious inspirations were derived from
association with Methodist services. To the end of

8 HENRY ALLON:

his life he repaid that debt by friendliness and willing
service, a recognition of which was made by the
presence at his funeral of Dr. Stephenson, the then
President of the Wesleyan Conference. He never
thought of entering the Wesleyan ministry, and was
never even a lay preacher of the society ; but of the
associations and inspiring impulses which belonged
to the earlier days of his religious life he spoke
always with sincerest gratitude.

After joining the Congregational church at
Beverley he became at once an active Christian
worker, teaching in the Sunday school, and leading
what were known as district prayer-meetings. After
much hesitation he was, Avhen about nineteen, pre-
vailed upon by two members of the church who used
to preach in the neighbouring villages, to address
a small congregation, and from that time began
regularly to preach at the village stations, and con-
tinued to do so for more than a year. During this
time .the thought of the ministry was often present
with him, but only as a desirable sphere of work
altogether out of his reach. The remoteness of the
country life which he was living, and his ignorance
of the methods of obtaining entrance to college,
caused him not only to keep secret to himself any
desires which he might entertain, but also to fight
against the desires as longings after the impracticable.

But one of those accidents which are really the
highest Providence was to put within his reach that
which seemed so far from him. By some unexpected
circumstance his business engagement terminated
suddenly at Beverley, and he obtained another

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 9

in Hull. On the morning of his departure he
happened to meet one of the deacons of the chapel,
and told him of his coming change of residence. At
the time nothing was said, but during the day the
deacon held a consultation with his colleagues and
the minister of the church, Mr. Mather, and on the
same evening a formal proposal was made to Mr.
Allon that he should devote himself to the ministry.
That proposal was afterwards enforced by a unani-
mous vote of the church, and by the expressed
opinions of several ministers in Hull and the neigh-
bourhood to whom Mr. Allon was known, and for
whom he had preached. He became for a while a
member of the church worshipping in Fish Street,
Hull, under the pastoral care of the Rev. T. Stratton,
formerly the first minister of the church in Sunderland,
from which Dr. Allon's co-pastor and successor was
long afterwards to come. At his ordination service,
after a very full account of all these events, he went
on to say : —

u I have been thus minute in mentioning these circum-
stances, as it has often been an unspeakable encouragement,
amid various discouragements, and frequent anxieties, to
know whether or not I was in the position which God
would have me to occupy — to reflect that I have not
intruded myself into the ministerial office, but that every
step which I have taken towards it has been solicited by
others. I have always regarded the coincidence of my
own earnest but unexpressed inclinations with the views
and wishes of my pastor and the church as an indication
of the Divine will ; for I have always considered the voice
of the church, in this matter especially, to be the voice of
God, and the most, if not the only, satisfactory call to the

10 HENRY ALLON:

Christian ministry, and especially when it is a response to
strong and cherished inclinations. From these, the provi-
dential circumstances (as I must regard them) which led me
to seek admission to Cheshunt College, and also from the
measure of success with which God has been pleased to
accompany my labours in His cause, I would confidently
trust that I am following His will in thus seeking the
office of the Christian ministry."

His attitude upon this question was characteristic.
Few men were more modest, few more self-controlled.
The mere desire to enter the ministry would with some
men have been sufficient excuse for every possible form
of agitation to secure that end. With most men it
would, at least, have been a subject of much consulta-
tion and conversation ; but he, whose strength made
him afterwards the confidential adviser of so many,
was able to keep to himself that, the utterance of
which might possibly cause an interruption in the
Divinely ordered plan of his life.

No man needs to thrust himself into the Christian
ministry. A mere desire to preach and a zeal
for service are no indication of fitness for this
high office, and many ministers of churches are to
blame, in that they have, on the strength of no
greater qualification, encouraged young men to enter
college who have at once become and have re-
mained to the end a burden upon the churches.
In all the endeavours of to-day to improve the
standard of the ministry, there are needed stronger
safeguards at one point which has been somewhat
neglected — the taking of the first steps into the
ministry. The office is so sacred and is becoming

TEE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 11

so increasingly important that the evidence of a
man's fitness, which is his Divine appointment, should
be overwhelming. If he have not that fitness, the in-
creased college training will only convert him into a
mere lecturer, and ultimately into a fossil. If he have
that fitness, the fuller his training the greater will be
his power for good in the world. Xo power in this
world can make a preacher, but if God have first
made the aspirant one, no equipment can be too great
for so high an office.

It will have been seen from Mr. Allon's deliberate
change to the Congregational order from the Wesleyan
that his choice of the Congregational ministry in pre-
ference to any other was a matter of deep conviction.
It may now be mentioned, since all the persons whose
knowledge could make it a matter of confidence are
dead, that it was also a matter of some sacrifice. A
wealthy lady, representative of one of the old families
of the neighbourhood of his native village, urged him
to enter the Church of England, promising not only to
defray all the expenses of a university course, but also
to secure to him the reversion of a good living which
wus in her gift. He gave, as he was of course bound
to do, respectful consideration to so generous an offer,
the strong claims of which would not be lessened by
the fact that his father was a member and, for some
time, a churchwarden of the Church of England.
Amongst other difficulties, however, he found himself
unable to subscribe to some of the Articles of the
Anglican Church ; and the answer he gave was that
he felt it right to follow his own strong convictions.
To the end his loyalty to those convictions did not

12 HENRY ALLON:

swerve. Though recognising the greatness of the
Church of England, and on terms of the most cordial
friendliness with many of its most distinguished
clergymen, a friendliness sometimes misunderstood by
those who did not know him, he remained always a
firm and loyal Nonconformist, never regretting the
intelligent and deliberate choice which he had made
in early life. He based his choice of Congregation-
alism, he declared at his ordination, upon its purity of
membership, its voluntaryism, its freedom in choice of
ministers and officers, and in form of worship, and
" because its ministers are not required to subscribe
to any human interpretation of the Word of God."

Having thus made his choice, such help as he
needed was not wanting in order to prepare himself
for college. He went for about a year to the house of
the Kev. Alexander Stewart, at High Barnet, assisting
him in a school which he conducted there, and him-
self preparing for his entrance into Cheshunt College.
During that period he preached in the neighbourhood,
and for a while took charge of a village station, and in
due course was admitted a student. The years at
Cheshunt were years of great happiness and con-
tinual industry. He always manifested the deepest
possible affection for his alma mater, and tried in
every way in his power to pay his debt of gratitude
by working on behalf of the college, and securing for
it the sympathy and help of others. He was one of
its most distinguished alumni ; and no estimate of his
life could be complete without due recognition of the
part which Cheshunt College played in the formation
of his ministerial character.

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 13

From every point of view the history of Cheshimt
is one of great interest. It is one of the abiding
monuments of a great movement and of a useful
life. That masterful reformer and pious woman,
Selina Countess of Huntingdon, has left no greater
monument of her own foresight and real earnestness
than Cheshimt College. When, seeing the need for
earnest and godly preachers, she opened the college
at Trevecca, and placed it under the charge of the
holy Fletcher of Madeley, there was commenced an
institution of almost unique usefulness.

There has been at the college, throughout its
history, a succession of wise and good men who
have left their stamp upon students whom they
have trained ; and, if it has not produced a
large number of very distinguished preachers, it
has certainly maintained a record of useful and
earnest ministers, serving in many different branches
of the Christian Church. The preparation which the
Countess made for the continuance of the college
after her death showed both shrewdness and catho-
licity. The property is vested in seven trustees ; the
doctrinal standard is in fifteen selected Articles of
the Church of England, and the students are free to
accept any sphere which may offer for Christian
service and preaching. Though the Connexion itself
has somewhat decreased, and its future is not likely
to be of great importance, here, at least, has been
preserved a vital source of light and influence.

The locality of Cheshimt, as w^ell as its history,
is an inspiration. Standing amidst interesting royal
associations, it still preserves much of the beauty

14 HENRY ALLON:

which must first have made it a place of royal resort.
Placed in the midst — in the very midst — of one of
the richest rose-growing districts, and in its quiet
lanes and old cottages full of suggestions of the past,
it is well suited for the quiet and healthy prepa-
ration for a great life-work. Its proximity to London
gives to its students an opportunity of mingling now
and again in the highest religious life of their day,
and of becoming known to churches which may
require the services of ministers. The group of
village churches round about Cheshunt gives to
them also occasions for preaching and for pastoral
work which must afterwards be of inestimable value
to them ; for the man who cannot speak to a village
congregation is not fit to speak upon spiritual subjects
to any congregation anywhere. In addition to these
advantages, the college at Cheshunt has always pre-
served a high tone of spiritual life. In the midst
of all these advantages, then, was the student life of
Henry Allon spent.

In his studies he was most . diligent, and at one
time during his college course came very near per-
manently damaging his health through excessive
work. How seriously he regarded the work of in-
tellectual preparation for the ministry is illustrated
by the fact — simple in itself — that he would refer to
the special commendation which Dr. Hamilton pub-
licly gave to him after some examination, as one of the
pleasantest and most encouraging facts of his early
career. The course of instruction, though shorter in
those days than it is now, was, as a glance at the
examination papers will sho^v, of a high order, and

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 15

covered wide ground, and no man could pass through
it without hard and conscientious study.

Those were not the least palmy days of Cheshunt
College ; and such men as Dr. Harris, Philip Smith,
and W. Sortain, with his strange, wild rush of eloquent
speech, were a guarantee of the character of its
teaching.

Into the village preaching, as well as into study,
Mr. Allon threw himself with energy; the interest
then formed he continued to show until the end, and
nothing delighted him more in late years than to
be identified with an anniversary or a scheme for
improvement or rebuilding in any of the chapels
round about Cheshunt. His affection for his college
was boundless, and no event of the year was to him of
greater pleasure than its annual festival, which he
attended for fifty years with scarcely a break.

His college course, short as it would in any case
have been, was made shorter by the illness of Dr.
Harris, the Principal, and, coincident with that, an
event which was to have the largest effect upon his
career — his call to the co-pastorate of Union Chapel,
Islington. The Rev. Thomas Lewis, who had been
pastor from 1802, had, in 1835, asked for the services
of a colleague, and for a while was joined by the
Rev. John Watson. Mr. Watson's health, hoAvever,
gave way, and it became needful to look for a suc-
cessor. For a while the search was fruitless, but
in 1843 inquiry was made of Dr. Harris whether
he had amongst his students any who would be
capable of occasionally supplying the pulpit of Union
Chapel. There was one student of whose piety and

16 HENRY ALLON:

ability Dr, Harris had the highest possible opinion,
and of whom he had prophesied that "if he have
health and strength he will outstrip us all." Accord-
ingly, on the 4th of June Henry Allon preached for
the first time in Union Chapel, which was to be for
nearly half a century the scene of his labours, and to
which his spiritual and enlightened ministry was to
give a position of rare importance.

No better account can be given of the origin and
early history of Union Chapel than that contained in
the brief and clear statement which was deposited
in 1876 under the memorial-stone of the present
building : —

" Union Chapel had its origin in the spontaneous
association of a few earnest and devout men, in part
Episcopalians, and in part Nonconformists, who sought
for themselves — the former a more evangelical ministry
than at that time could be found in the parish church,
and the latter some provision for evangelical worship
in addition to the two Nonconformist chapels then
existing in Islington. After worshipping together for
about two years they formed themselves into an organised
church, consisting of twenty-six members, and secured as a
chapel a building in Highbury Grove, now the dwelling-
house No. 18. Shortly after this the Rev. Thomas Lewis,
who had occasionally ministered to them during the
previous two years, was invited to become their pastor.

"The ordination of Mr. Lewis took place in Orange
Street Chapel, Leicester Square, in 1804.

" In August, 1806, the Church and congregation re-
moved to the chapel in Compton Terrace, which they had
erected. On the 30th of that month it was opened for
Divine worship by the Rev. Henry Gauntlett, late Yicar of
Olney, and by the Rev. Dr. Bogue, of Gosport.

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 17

"It was called Union Chapel, to indicate the union in
its worshippers of Episcopalians and Nonconformists. The
Liturgy of the Church of England was used in the morning,
and extempore prayer, after the manner of Nonconformists,
in the evening.

" The Lord's Supper was also administered in two modes,
the Episcopalian members of the Church receiving it at the
Communion table; the Nonconformist members administered
from pew to pew."

This simple statement involves, of course, a great
deal more than it expresses. The necessity for such a
movement is a light upon the spiritual condition of
England at the end of last century and the beginning
of this. It was the time of the first awakening from
the spiritual sleep of many years. The outermost
waves of the evangelical revival were beginning to be
felt, and in all the sects there were evidences of
quickened life. Not only within the borders of the
sects themselves, but in the coining together of the
more spiritual men of all communions, was there
evidence of this fuller life.

There was a growing sense of the folly of the
privileged position which was claimed by certain
official representatives of the Established Church.
Bishop Horsley and his school could not surely be
acknowledged as the only true representatives of
Christ upon earth. The mere fact that in the first
years of this century it was seriously contemplated by
a great statesman to suppress village preaching and to
close Sunday schools shows how jealously any spiritual
activity which was not in official channels was re-
garded. More attention would be paid to a drunken
C

18 HENRY ALLON:

sporting priest who kept within the conventional
bounds than to any spiritual man who in his zeal
exceeded those bounds. With some great and notable
exceptions the clergy of that day were in a wretched
condition — drunken, racing, and non-resident. Men
like Newton and Simeon were in striking contrast to
the general order. It was natural that the Evan-
gelicals of all sections should recognise their essen-
tial unity, and seek to act together for their own
purposes. Thus in 1795 the London Missionary
Society was formed by representatives of Evan-
gelical Churchmen, Scotch Presbyterians, Calvinistic
Methodists, and Congregationalists. Again, in 1804
the formation of the British and Foreign Bible
Society is a witness to the same spirit in the
Churches.

The foundation of Union Chapel was a local
result of that evangelical movement. Islington, with
its numberless churches of £o-day, possessed then
only the parish church and the chapel-of-ease, and
nowhere was there such provision as the more
spiritual section of the people would desire. The
village (one full of interest, both to the student of
literature and to the Nonconformist) felt the force of
the same influences which were at work without ; and
the little church meeting first in 1799 — not 1802, as
was stated in the document quoted above — was only
a microcosm of larger and more public movements.

For nearly half a century the union of the Epis-
copal and Nonconformist elements was maintained,
though the tendency of the congregation was to
become more and more exclusively Nonconformist,

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 19

the spiritual awakening within the Church of England
enabling those who desired a home within the Estab-
lishment to find it there. During that period there
was a general improvement in moral and religious life,
and in an interesting sermon which Mr. Lewis preached
in 1842, he gives, in a review of forty years' pastorate,
a cheerful account of the continuous progress of the
village. At the beginning of that period, Islington, he
says, " was involved in the grossest ignorance and
wickedness," but gradually that stain was removed.
Many new churches and chapels were built; two large
training colleges — one Episcopal and one Independent
— were opened within the parish, and Sunday and day
schools were multiplied. Union Chapel became an
increasingly important centre of philanthropic and
religious activity, and such societies as the Benevolent,
the Maternal, and the Tract societies, started quite
early in the century, are still in full activity.

In indirect ways also the influence of the church's
life began to be felt. The London City Mission was
started in the second quarter of the century by
David Nasmyth, then a member at Union Chapel.
The educational movement which must be for ever,
in spite of narrow attempts at disparagement, asso-
ciated with the name of Joseph Lancaster, found
ready sympathy in the congregation of Union
Chapel. Day schools were erected, and for many
years carried on by the congregation, such children
as needed it being clothed as well as taught at the
cost of the congregation.

For forty years, then, Mr. Lewis had held the
growingly important position of sole pastor of
c 2

20 HENRY ALLON:

the church, with the short interval of Mr. John
Watson's co-pastorate. Mr. Lewis was a man of
great amiability and goodness, though of inferior
intellectual strength to many of his contemporaries ;
but the affection and respect which he inspired
enabled him to fill a position of some difficulty
through many years with scarcely a jar or disagree-
ment.

To share in this work Henry Allon was ultimately
called, and his great place in its after development can
only be understood by thus recalling its beginnings.
His first preaching produced so favourable an im-
pression that he was asked again and yet again.
He occupied the pulpit during the whole of August,
1843, in the pastor's absence, and in September a
most hearty and unanimous invitation was sent to
him by the church and congregation ; and on the
first Sunday of the following year he entered upon
his duties as junior pastor of the church.

There are few more delicate relationships than
that Avhich exists between two co-pastors, and in this
case it was found to be not without its difficulties
and trials. The danger does not lie so much with the
pastors themselves as in the zeal and indiscretions
of their friends. If they could only be left alone to
solve the problem by their own mutual confidence and
co-operation there would be little difficulty ; but good
people, who mean no harm in the world, are apt to
believe the old minister slighted, or the young minister
oppressed, when no such thought has been in the
mind of either. Such dangers from without were
not wanting in this case, but Mr. Allon's wisdom and

THE STOEY OF HIS MINISTRY. 21

self-control were constantly manifested, and by their
means the many difficulties incident to the position
were met and successfully overcome. He entered
upon his duties in January, 1844, and continued
co-pastor until the death of Mr. Lewis in February,
1852.

22

CHAPTER II.

A SUCCESSFUL PASTORATE.

It was in the June of 1844 that Mr. Allon was
publicly ordained to the Christian ministry. The
ordination service was not only impressive in itself,
but derived an added significance from the fact
that it was practically the public recognition of
the change which had gradually been transform-
ing the church from its original character to one
that was purely Congregationalism Dr. Bennett
gave the introductory address in exposition of Con-
gregational principles; Mr. Henry Spicer told the
story of the movement which had led to the pre-
sentation of the call ; and Mr. Allon gave very full
expression to his personal faith in Christ and con-
scious call to His ministry, as well as to his views of
Church polity and Church doctrine. The ordination
prayer was offered by Mr. Sherman, and the charge to
the minister delivered by Dr. Harris, whose relation
to Mr. Allon was almost that of father to son.

Thus much would suffice for account of this service
did it not supply a striking illustration of one quality
which was supremely characteristic of Mr. Allon —
his openness of mind and his capacity for growth.
While, speaking generally, his place must be fixed
amongst the moderate Evangelicals, nothing in his
history is more manifest than his broadening of view
and development of creed.

HENRY ALLON. 23

Though generally throughout his ministry ranked
amongst the orthodox, he was yet especially sensitive
to the effects of the latest knowledge and research.
He did not mistake modes of apprehending and ex-
pressing truth for the truth itself; but, amidst all the
changes of thought and of utterance, he held firmly
to what he believed to be the great essential truths
of the Christian faith.

To those who had the privilege of being taught by
him in the later years of his ministry, the following
extracts from his ordination statement will prove
suggestive. They indicate both the truths which
were present in his teaching to the end and also
those doctrines and methods of stating truth which
he either abandoned or greatly modified : —

" I believe that God requires of all men repentance and
faith as the means of their obtaining an actual and personal
interest in the salvation thus rendered available for all \
and also that the influences of the Holy Spirit are necessary
to produce these by removing the enmity of heart to
spiritual truth. I believe that none would embrace God's
offer of mercy unless inclined to do so by the Holy Spirit.
His great work, therefore, I conceive to be the removal of
the natural aversion to Divine truth. Those to whom the
regenerating influences of the Holy Spirit are given are in
Scripture called the elect ; by which, as I understand, that
as these influences are given by a special act of God, and
are of sovereign bestowment, they are given as the result
of a Divine determination to give them, for a wise Being
never acts without an intelligent purpose ; and as all God's
purposes are eternal, His purpose to give the Holy Spirit is
eternal also ; those to whom He thus eternally purposed to
give the Holy Spirit being called the elect — chosen to this

24 HENRY ALLON :

special grace — not for any inherent accidental difference in
them, but by the sovereign pleasure of God. ... . I
believe that the elect, thus foreknown and predestinated,
are led by the Holy Spirit to comply with the requirements
of the Gospel, and to repent of sin, to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and to strive after and practise holiness.
That when they believe they are justified, by which I
understand not only that their sins are forgiven, but that
they are treated as if they had never sinned, all that by
the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.
And from the nature of the new birth, as also from the
unchangeableness of the Divine nature and purposes, and
from the explicit statement of God's will, I believe in the
assured perseverance of all who are truly born again to
eternal life."

Though these words have the ring of the definite
theology in which he had been trained, it is impos-
sible not to trace in them the evidences of a reserve —
the reserve of an original and independent mind
under forms of expression which had been rather
received as traditions than created out of personal
thought. The closing sentences of the statement,
about to be quoted, were prophetic of what actually
took place in his intellectual history — the growth into
larger outlooks of one who never ceased to be loyal
to what he conceived to be the central truths of
Christianity. There was too much real reverence and
personal piety in his life to allow him lightly to regard
truths which had been to him the source of so much
spiritual strength and inspiration ; but side by side
with that there was the openness to truth of a strong
and original mind. The noblest conservatism in
the history of religion is in personal loyalty of

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 25

character, the truest progressiveness is in the teachable
mind.

11 This is an outline," the statement concluded, " of
what I consider the Bible to teach, as far as I now under-
stand it ; but respecting many truths, perhaps respecting
most, my opinions are necessarily crude and immature. I
trust, however, that by maintaining a humble and teach-
able mind, and by constantly seeking the teachings of
God's Holy Spirit, I shall be kept from serious error, and
shall be enabled to declare to those among whom I minister
what is the mind of the Spirit."

It is that attitude of mind which pre-eminently
qualifies a man to be a helper of others, and which
enabled Mr. Allon to be a spiritual and intellectual
guide to many who were perplexed and in need of
sympathetic and wise treatment. The mere utterance
of dogmas unchanged from year to year in any single
letter of their expression, may present an appearance
of great loyalty to truth, but the wise and helpful
teacher, who shall guide strong souls over the rough
and miry places, must for himself have learned how
to apprehend truth, and express in the language of
personal conviction the truths which he has to teach.
There is no teaching so truly inspired as that which
has been burned into the soul of a man by the fires
of conflict through which he himself has passed.
Growth through conflict is the law of the Christian
life, and evidence of such growth wTas conspicuously
present in the teaching of Henry Allon.

It has been said that the tendency of the life of
the church worshipping in Union Chapel bad been
more and more towards simple Congregationalism.

26 HENRY ALLON :

This fact was recognised very soon after Mr. Allon's
settlement. The advent of the Rev. Daniel Wilson to
Islington parish church had been the commencement
of a new and more active life in the Episcopal Church,
and the attendance of Episcopalian worshippers at
Union Chapel was naturally constantly decreasing. The
settlement of Mr. Allon was felt to be a fitting oppor-
tunity for giving final effect to the necessities which
this change had produced, and within a comparatively
short time the use of the Liturgy, which had obtained
from the beginning, was discontinued, and the Lord's
Supper, which had been observed in the two forms
used by Episcopalians and Independents severally,
was thenceforth observed in the Nonconformist
method only. From that time Union Chapel became
practically what it has since remained, a Congrega-
tional church, though it has always preserved its
character for catholicity and its sympathy with all
kinds of religious activity. In connection with this
change Dr. Allon's own views of the value of extem-
pore prayer may be of interest. He says : "It is
neither the prayer of dead men, nor a past inspiration
of the Spirit ; it may be homely, but it is the expres-
sion of a present, living experience ; it is the imme-
diate teaching of the Spirit of Truth that dwelleth in
the man. Shall the Church presume to ordain that
the Spirit shall never inspire another prayer for
public worship ? Use the past, by all means, but not
so as to forbid the insjoirations of the present. Past
prayers may be useful, as past hymns are, but both in
prayers and in hymns we should be prepared to
welcome every fresh inspiration of the living Spirit."

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 27

In his conduct of public worship there was no
more striking feature than the beauty and reverence
of his prayers. He seemed to enter into the very
presence of God, and those who were in spiritual
sympathy with the purposes of the worship always
found in him a true leader in the act of prayer.
Dignified in expression and deeply reverent in spirit,
his prayers were always a refreshment and an in-
spiration.

In 1848 Mr. Allon was married, at Bluntisham, to
Eliza, the eldest daughter of Joseph Goodman, Esq.,
of Witton, Huntingdonshire, Mr. Lewis officiating at
the ceremony. Miss Goodman was connected with
a family which was — and is still — doing prominent
service to Nonconformity. Of her place in Mr.
Allon's life something is said later. Let it suffice to
say here, that to intimate friends he always spoke
with deepest gratitude of the great help and joy
which his marriage had brought to him.

Mr. and Mrs. Allon took a house in Canonbury,
and there, with some necessary enlargement, they
continued to live until his death. In later years Dr.
Allon would sometimes say, half jestingly, but with
real gratitude, that he had had " one wife, one home,
one church." He could not, perhaps, have retained
the third so long if the first and second had not been
so helpful to him.

But little need be said of the co-pastorate.
On the whole it was a history of slow but sure pro-
gress. At one time the church seemed to be in some
peril of division. The young minister was becoming
increasingly a favourite, while the influence of the

28 HENRY ALLON :

older was a little waning, and there was some fear
lest, through the unwisdom of friends, the church
which had successfully lived through discussions so
serious as those concerning the alteration in church
government and in order of service, should now suffer
because of mere indiscretions. But happily, the
spirit of forbearance and of peace prevailed, and when
Mr. Lewis died all traces of the temporary danger had
passed away.

Mr. Allon at once took his place as. sole pastor, and
from that time onward the record of his ministry is
one of increasing and rarely interrupted success. He
had already become well known in London, and now he
began to be ranked as one of its acknowledged preachers.
In 1852 he was invited to give one of the Exeter Hall
lectures in connection with the Young Men's Christian
Association, taking his turn with men like Thomas
Binney, Gilfillan, Baptist Noel, and others. The
subject wThich he chose was characteristic, entitled,
" Christianity in its Belation to Sects and Denomina-
tions." And in the lecture he pleaded, as he always
pleaded, for recognition of the one great spiritual
relationship to Christ as the only essential to the
Christian life.

In 1853 the church at Union Chapel added to
its already vigorous Home Mission organisations.
Since 1836 a ragged school and mission had been
conducted in Spitalfields, and afterwards in Bethnal
Green, through the inspiration and labours of Mr. J.
Duthoit, a descendant of the Huguenots, with the
desire to benefit the weavers who were settled there.
That mission grew in importance, and has yet among

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 29

its many agencies one of the largest ragged schools in
London. To its operations Dr. Allon always referred
with lawful pride. Its early morning breakfasts for
poor children, its numberless agencies for the good of
the district, were the outcome of the life of the church
at Union Chapel ; and though in late years he was
not able very often to be present at its meetings, he
was full of gratitude for the good which it was doing,
and had perfect confidence in those who conducted
its affairs. His hatred of all self-advertisement often
led to the idea outside that his church was not mis-
sionary in spirit. No church in London has done
more mission and social work in proportion to its
size, and some movements which have recently been
announced as novel have been for years in existence
in connection with Dr. Allon's work.

Not satisfied, however, with this one active agency,
in 1853, as has been said, a new mission or branch
church was commenced on the borders of Hoxton, and
quickly became a centre of great usefulness. Just at
that period the whole Christian Church in England
was greatly exercised upon the question of the public
attendance upon acts of worship. A religious census
had been taken in 1851. The results were not pub-
lished until 1854, but the facts were startling. It
was found that more than five million persons who
might be present at public worship were absent, and
all sections of the Church began to ask why. Mr.
Samuel Morley at once summoned a conference of
leading Nonconformists, and a, discussion was aroused
which undoubtedly heralded a new interest and
activity in Home Mission work. The evangelical

30 HENRY ALLON:

section of the Church of England, led by Lord
Shaftesbury, agitated for a repeal of the Conventicle
Act. The Bill passed the Commons ; but the Lords
first rejected, and afterwards mutilated it. In spite of
that opposition, however, so much freedom was gained
that it was possible to commence a series of united
services in Exeter Hall. Great crowds gathered ; but
by one of those ridiculous claims of authority which
the Church of England seems determined to preserve
for the use of intolerant men, the incumbent of the
parish forbade his brother clergymen to dare to
preach to men within his sacred enclosure. At once
some leading Nonconformists, Mr. Allon amongst
them, offered their services, and for a while the
meetings were continued.

Though Mr. Allon never cultivated what is vul-
garly known as the popular style in preaching, yet no
one could on occasion speak with greater effect at
meetings such as these. His preparation was always
full and laborious. For many years he wrote every
sermon twice before preaching it ; but that very fact
gave him a command of style which, when he was
called upon to speak in ways somewhat out of his
ordinary routine, made him the more effective. Many
who heard him frequently believed that he had powers
for mere popular address which, had he cultivated
them, would have given to him a more distinct place
in popular estimation ; but those very powers which
other men are tempted to cultivate for applause he
deliberately sought to suppress, as unworthy of his
ideal of what a Christian teacher should be.

In the last years of his life, coming from a political

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 31

meeting at which a speech of his had been received
with great enthusiasm, he said, jokingly, to a friend,

" I believe I shall make a demagogue yet." It would,
perhaps, be an impertinence to express the wish that
he had a little more freely used his powers in that
direction; it is, at least, allowable to bear witness
to their existence. Having these powers, there was,
at least, no ecclesiastical barrier in the way of their
use ; and it is surely a matter of some suggestiveness
to those who occupy the high places in the official
Church of this land that such men as Henry Allon, of
the irregular forces, were free to preach wherever men
were willing to hear them, while then our clergy
were (and are still, though to a less extent) bound by
the arbitrary limitations of humanly devised or-
ganisations. Imagine Christ being hindered from
preaching on the sea-shore because it was somebody
else's parish !

In 1855, and during some time following, there was
raging a controversy which had more significance as a
sign of the times than from any question immediately
involved. The Rev. T. Lynch, a Congregational
minister of great personal piety and refinement,
had, during an illness, written a number of hymns,
which were published under the title of " The
Rivulet." The editor of the Morning Advertiser —
Mr. Grant — a paper representing the Evangelicals and
the licensed victuallers, attacked the book viciously,
denying that the poems showed " any evidence Avhat-
ever either of vital religion or evangelical piety." As
the attack continued and increased in bitterness,
fifteen London ministers, who knew Mr. Lynch well,

32 HENRY ALLON i

and greatly respected and loved him, issued a protest
utterly repudiating any sympathy with the attack.
Mr. Allon was one of these — certainly not the least
active. By alphabetical arrangement his name stood
first in the list of those who signed the protest ; and
of the ministers who acted with him there still remain
the Kevs. Newman Hall, J. C. Harrison, Dr. Newth,
John Nunn, and Edward White. The champion of
evangelical orthodoxy, Dr. Campbell, of the Christian
Witness and the British Banner, of course rushed
into the fray, exaggerating the issues, and declaring of
this controversy that " nothing like it had occurred
within the memory of the present generation, or,
perhaps, since the days of the Reformation." For two
years the battle raged in various ways, and the feel-
ings aroused were most bitter and cruel. Mr. Lynch's
defenders were suspected of sympathy with his here-
sies ; and Lord Shaftesbury, whose practical sympa-
thies were so much wider than his theological views,
spoke of the horrid epidemic which had seized upon
some of our brightest Nonconformist divines.

In all this conflict and suspicion Mr. Allon had his
full share. Within his own church, as well as with-
out, he had to face the misrepresentation which his
attitude had brought upon him. He had more to lose
than some with whom he acted, but he was fearless,
then and always, when his convictions were thoroughly
aroused, and was willing to stand side by side on the
pillory with one whom he believed to be wrongly
treated. The position Avhich he took in replying
to one prominent objector is worth briefly quoting.
He says : (: I believe that Lynch has been falsely

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 33

accused and unfairly treated, and as a man and a
Christian I must say so. Whether it were wise or
not to meddle in the controversy is another thing, but
even folly in defence of an injured man is a failing
that leans to virtue's side. I could forgive people
generally for suspecting Lynch, through the oddity
and mistiness of his style ; but this is no excuse for a
critic, much less is it for garbled quotations. . . .
It is sad, indeed, if we cannot discuss differing opinions
without alienated feelings."

After a while the storm died away, having cleared
the air. But conflicts such as this leave scars, which
remain long after the questions at issue have been for-
gotten. Perhaps the doubt, slightly expressed in the
letter, whether it was wise to play into the hands of
the editor of the Advertiser by taking any notice of
his attack, will be shared by those who to-day recall
the controversy. But, after all Christ's protestations
against the tyranny of the letter, it is marvellous
that nothing in the world will produce so much
bitterness and cruel injustice as a dispute about the
meaning of this letter or that, and amid all the sus-
piciousness of narrow-minded people no man of any
independence of thought can hope to escape. It is no
small testimony to the vigour of Dr. Allon's thought
that while now and again he was suspected and
accused of sitting in the seat of the heretical, the
impression left by his whole life is that of an orthodox
and loyal servant of Christ.

Those who heard him in later years could hardly,
perhaps, believe possible such an attack as Dr. Camp-
bell made upon him for the sermon which he preached

D

34 HENRY ALLON s

before the London Missionary Society a few years later.
That redoubtable champion had never forgiven him
for his action in the Lynch controversy, and now
declared him to be the greatest of the neologists.
Mr. Allon wisely, however, took no notice whatever of
the attack.

It was during this early period of his sole pastorate
that Mr. Allon began to find it possible to give
practical expression to his strong sense of the im-
portance of music in worship. When first he went to
Union Chapel the psalmody, according to his own
account, was musically at zero. There was no choir,
and the congregation was led by a precentor, an old
man of seventy. The Union tune-book was used, and
Rippon's and Watts's hymn books. The first step in
psalmody reform was taken in 1846 or 1847, when
the Congregational hymn-book, which had recently
been compiled by Conder, was adopted. In 1852 Dr.
Gauntlett, who had for a little while been conductor of a
psalmody class which had been commenced, and who
had been introduced to the Church by Mr. Puttick,
the secretary of the Sacred Harmonic Society, became
organist also, and did the double duty until 1861.
The psalmody class, which has continued to prosper
since 1847, has had great effect upon the congrega-
tional worship, besides giving performances during
each winter of two or three oratorios, when collections
are taken for local charities. The changes made were
undoubtedly for the better; but Mr. Allon soon
found that the musical provision in the tune-books
then extant was quite insufficient for the purposes of a
worship which could in any sense be called ideal. He

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY . 35

began to form a larger collection of tunes, intending
them to be supplemental'}' to the " Congregational
Psalmist;" but when about one hundred tunes were
ready, he decided to publish them as a separate col-
lection. They form Part I. of the " Congregational
Psalmist,"

About the same time he published a book ol
chants, the congregation commencing to use chanting
in worship — then almost unknown in Nonconformist
chapels — in 1856 or 1857. Not, hoAvever, until 1859
was the choir formed. The history of all this is easy
to tell, but was not so easy to make. Any sugges-
tions by the young minister which seemed to show
any disrespect to the traditions of the past would be
regarded with suspicion ; and nowhere have Mr.
Allon's wisdom and patience been more clearly mani-
fested than in the way in which those alterations
were suggested and carried out. His method was
always to seek to convince the people of the desira-
bility of any proposal which he had to make, until
they themselves would become active in its advocacy.
For want of such discretion innumerable troubles in
churches have arisen, and in all sections of the
Christian Church the only real strength must lie in
securing the goodwill and hearty co-operation of the
congregation generally. During all his ministry at
Union Chapel Dr. Allon aimed at, and succeeded in
securing, that goodwill.

The next few years were years of quiet and steady
advance, and in 1859 the congregation felt that it was
time they should make some recognition of their
pastor's work. So successfully had he laboured that

D 2

36 HENRY ALLON :

the local paper said of him, " Probably there are few
men in the parish of Islington (the largest in England)
more widely known, or more universally esteemed ;
the eloquence of his preaching, the kindliness of
his disposition, and the earnestness with which he
prosecutes his work, are well known to all who are
acquainted with him." A movement was commenced
in the congregation for the presentation of a testi-
monial ; the sum of two hundred and fifty guineas
was subscribed, part of which was spent upon a hand-
some timepiece, and the rest presented to Mr. Allon.
In acknowledging the gift and the uniform kindness
and consideration which the congregation had con-
tinually shown to him, he made some reference to his
sixteen years of association with them. He spoke
then, as he always spoke, with great gratitude of
the loyal service of the congregation, and of the
helpfulness and wise sympathy of the deacons. " Our
history has been that most blessed of all histories, in
which no events have to be recorded — a continuous
course of quiet, uneventful, and continuous prosperity ;
never greater, perhaps, than at the present moment —
the church gradually filled, and for some years our
chief difficulty has been want of accommodation."
The membership of the church had increased from
318 to 693, and its contribution for evangelical pur-
poses, apart from its own ministry, had doubled. Two
mission stations had been opened, and, amongst other
religious agencies, Bible classes, which had been very
successful, sometimes numbering as many as 250
members.

" I have seen many changes among you during

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. :W

these sixteen years ; some of you I have seen growing-
rich, and some — once rich — T have seen grow poor:
dark clouds driven across summer skies, the wintry
wind of poverty biting keenly where the summer
breeze of prosperity once whispered. Some of you I
knew first in budding youth, life in its spring all gay
and verdant to you ; then conjugal ties were formed,
and now children climb your knees, and life has
brought its cares ; and some of you I have seen sink
into the decrepitude of old age, waiting only for the
summons that must soon come. I have seen many a
household circle broken, many a hearth left cold,
many a roof-tree fall ; great changes in home and
heart do sixteen years bring."

These words are characteristic. Mr. Allon's pastoral
relationship was not that of the busybody type — in
and out of the people's houses in season and out
of season ; but at all times of real need and trouble
no sympathy could be more tender, no counsel
wiser. What was true at the end of sixteen
years was still truer at the end of forty-eight
years, and unbounded evidence was given after his
death of the remarkable way in which his ministry
had been bound up with all that was most sacred in
the personal and family life of many members of his
congregation. His real tenderness was not always
appreciated. One minister who knew him well, said
that if he had to choose in time of great trouble be-
tween seeking advice of Dr. Allon and of a minister
in London whose name was almost a synonym for ten-
derness and sympathy, he should without hesitation
have gone to Dr. Allon ; not because he doubted the

38 HENRY ALLON :

tenderness of the other, but because he felt Dr. Alton's
to be that highest form of tenderness, the tenderness
of strength.

The fact to which the pastor had called attention
of the overcrowded state of his church had become
of pressing importance, and the congregation re-
solved upon the enlargement of the chapel. A
generous response was made to the appeal, and the
work was accomplished, many more sittings being
added.

It is memorable that this year of 1861 is that also
in which the great Metropolitan Tabernacle was
opened, and a ministry commenced there which was
in striking contrast with that of Dr. Allon, although
each had its own place in the needful evangelising
forces of London. There is no commoner, but no
profounder error than to suppose that the only evan-
gelisation is that which is known as of the revivalist
type. A thoughtful, progressive ministry may affect
numerically fewer ; but will probably, through the
quality of those whom it affects, produce results quite
as great. Union Chapel was always remarkable for
the number of thoughtful and intelligent men who
found there a spiritual home. If such men were
inspired for Christian life and service, the effect of
the ministry cannot be stated in numbers. Who
shall measure spiritual force, or what part of the
spiritual body shall boast itself over another part ?

It was about the year 1860 that Mr. Allon
began systematic writing and reviewing for religious
journals, though he had, of course, done some fugitive
writing before that date. He wrote largely for the

THE STOEY OF HIS MINISTRY. 39

Patriot, then under the editorship of Mr. T. C.
Turberville. His articles and reviews for that first
year covered a wide ground, as may be seen
from the following subjects : — " Berkeley's Theory of
Vision/'" " Conference on Missions," " Hannah More's
Letters," "Vaughan on the Revision of the Liturgy,"
etc. It was this constant habit of reviewing which
gave to his conversation and preaching so much of
its literary charm.

As education goes to-day, his preparation for the
ministry had not been great. He had been to no
public school or university, and his college course,
much less effective then than now, had been cut
short by his call to L^nion Chapel ; but by constant
and varied reading, and reading often with the special
purpose of reviewing, his strong memory soon became
a storehouse of much general literary information ;
information which his self-confidence enabled him
always to have at command. In the academic sense
he was not a scholar, but in the possession of literary
knowledge and power he had few superiors. If his
literary work took some time from his church, its
members certainly regained something in the breadth
and freedom of style which it brought to his preaching.

About this time Mr. Allon's life was darkened by
an occurrence which left its mark upon all his after
history — the loss of what was then his only son, a
bright boy of four years old. A very tender memory
was left in his life, which would sometimes, in spite of
himself, make itself seen, and any reference to the
loss of children would set the wound bleeding afresh ;
very often the tears in the voice would reveal the

40 HENRY ALLON:

inward thought which was with him. The 3rear 1863
also witnessed the death of his mother, one of those
good, devoted women who dedicate all their strength
to the loyal discharge of the duties of motherhood,
and whose reward is often found in the strong and
useful life of some members of their family.

In 1863 he published a volume of memoirs of
James Sherman, the distinguished Independent
minister, a considerable part of the volume being
founded upon Mr. Sherman's own autobiograplry.
He was happily provided with sufficient materials,
and out of them produced a volume which is not only
a clear picture of the life whose story it tells, but
which manifests a large-sighted and sympathetic
knowledge of contemporary life.

An instance, slight in itself, but significant as a
revelation of character, and as indicating his inde-
pendence of judgment, when judgment was con-
vinced, occurred about this time in connection with
the Shakspere Tercentenary Committee. The good
minister who, finding a quotation from Shakspere
suitable to his theme, prefaced his use of it by saying,
"As one has said whom I will not name in this
pulpit," was only a type of many. Some of these good
souls were greatly offended that the name of Allon
should be found upon the list of the committee for
celebrating the tercentenary, and in local circles there
arose something like a squall of controversy. But
a man understanding the claims of literature and
Shakspere's place in them could hardly refuse to
join in such a national recognition.

The religiousness of Shakspere is now matter of

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. U

common acknowledgment, but we owe something to
the men who had the courage to recognise it in
days when it was less clearly seen by religious men
than now. Mr. Allon stood between praise and
blame ; but the praise was in some quarters qualified
by the reproach that he did not carry his champion-
ship of Shakspere to the extent of attending the
theatre, a deprivation which, for conscientious reasons,
he always imposed upon himself, though to others
he allowed full liberty of judgment.

42

CHAPTER III.

A MANY-SIDED ACTIVITY.

In 1864 there was given unmistakable proof of
the position which Mr. Allon had gained in the
estimation of his brethren in the Congregational
ministry. The Rev. Joshua Harrison had been chosen
as chairman of the Congregational Union for the
year. A severe attack of illness made it impossible
for him to fulfil the duties of the position. Mr. Allon
was therefore chosen to fill his place, and at the com-
paratively early age of forty-five reached the highest
position which his own fellow-ministers had to offer
him. For the subject of his inaugural address he
chose " The Christ, the Book, and the Church," de-
claring his intention to take a wider than any mere
denominational outlook, and to speak of the things
that vitally affect the whole Catholic Church of
Christ. His remarks upon the Book — the Bible —
were not received favourably everywhere, and some
good but narrow souls were scandalised. He de-
clared that the theory of verbal inspiration was un-
tenable, and showed how the defence of that theory
was to put a powerful weapon into the hands of the
enemy. One very prominent layman, in the dis-
cussion which was in those days allowed after the
chairman's address, but has now been suppressed, rose
and said that, after listening to that address he felt

HENRY ALLON. 43

he had been robbed of a dear friend, and should leave
the hall with a poorer Bible than he had brought in
with him. But many have found since then that
it is that poverty which has made them rich, and
that only by unlearning superstitious ideas of truth
have they come to appreciate the real value and
Divine inspiration of the Bible. Amongst the most
earnest of his defenders in the discussion was Mr.
Guinness Rogers, then a young minister in London,
whose attitude greatly touched Mr. Allon, and was
remembered with gratitude to the day of his death.

Upon the question of the Church also he spoke
plainly, demanding that whilst every attempt should
be made to secure ecclesiastical freedom, the Non-
conformist ministry must vindicate its claims by its
character, its culture, and its labours. It was in-
dicative of Mr. Allon's breadth of view that he could
not at such a time narrow his words to any mere de-
nominational question. The Colenso controversy had
been raging for some time : it was the year also of the
publication of " Essays and Reviews ;" and the excite-
ment which " Ecce Homo " had produced had not yet
died away. The ecclesiastical discussions resulting
from the bi-centenary celebrations of 16G2 were still
troubling the sea, and casting up mire, one of the
latest symptoms being the quarrel of Mr. Spurgeon
with the Evangelical Alliance.

Though the address may not have greatly en-
larged the sphere of the discussion, it was yet a mani-
festation of the largeness of thought and breadth of
view which were always characteristic of Mr. Allon.
It is an instance also of the high- water mark of the

44 HENRY ALLON :

thought of the broader Nonconformist ministry of
that day, and as such the address has been included
in this volume.

After the labours of his year of office were over,
arrangements were made by which he was able to
join a party of ministers and others to visit Palestine.
Dr. Stoughton and Dr. Bright are the two ministerial
survivors of the party.

Mr. Allon was peculiarly qualified for the rich
enjoyment which a journey to the East can bring to
the reverent student. His great physical strength
enabled him to endure fatigues and inconveni-
ences as a good many of his fellow-travellers could
not, and his bent of mind prepared him to be a
close observer of the numberless facts of interest
which such a journey could present. One of the
survivors of the party vividly remembers his intense
enjoyment of the whole journey, and the cheerful-
ness and wealth of conversation which made him a
delightful companion. He sent home voluminous
letters, full of exact and interesting description ; but
in these days of many books upon the Holy Land it
is not needful to give more than one or two references.

Nothing in the whole journey seems to have im-
pressed him more than the days which were spent in
the district about Sinai. Of Sinai itself he says,
" There is, perhaps, no place that inspires so much
reverent awe, the associations of which are so thrilling,
the power of which is so subduing." He contrasts the
loneliness of Sinai with the crowded surroundings
and altered character of many places associated with
the life of Christ — Jerusalem, in which " almost

THE STORY OF HIS MIXISTRY. 45

every trace of His sacred footsteps is obliterated ; "
Gethsemane, degraded into " a trim and gravelled
garden, with gaudy flowers in partitioned beds, and
fancy palings around its venerable olives ;" the Mount
of Olives, " the suburb of a great city; " but the peaks
of Sinai are " as when the lightnings of Jehovah
enwrapped them."

But though what he saw of Sinai impressed
him so deeply, there were, of course, more sacred
associations still to a Christian minister ; and his
letter of March 31st begins with these exulting
words : " The dream of my life is realised, and I
have been permitted to enter the gates of Jerusalem,
the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High."

Of a communion service which he attended in the
church at Mount Zion, he says : " To me it was inde-
scribably affecting to break bread in Jerusalem, so near
to the spot where Christ partook of the last Passover
with His disciples, and instituted the Lord's Supper."
Those who recall the deep spiritual reverence which
he always manifested in the observance of the
Lord's Supper will appreciate the intensity of his
feeling. After walking round the city he declares,
" Our impressions of the beauty and grandeur of the
city wrere greatly enhanced. I know no city to be
compared with it. Jerusalem is literally ' beautiful
for situation, the joy of the whole earth.' ' With all
travellers, too, he felt the tremendous distance be-
tween the real associations of Jerusalem and the
lying legends which abound in it.

A visit was, of course, made to Bethlehem ; and,
after speaking of the monkish legends which abound

46 HENRY ALLON :

there also, he adds : " But that we were near the spot,
in the very village, and possibly on the place where
Christ was born, and near which the wondrous star
rested, we all felt ; and that was enough. With
throbbing hearts we felt that here was the greatest
birth of time."

The letters abound with interesting and character-
istic references, and all show the intense enjoyment
which he found in the journey, and the high spiritual
profit which he derived from it.

After his return from Palestine, approaches were
made to him by the publishers of the British Quar-
terly Review, which for many years had been edited
by Dr. Vaughan, with a view to his accepting the
editorship, in conjunction with his friend Dr. Eeynolds.
After some hesitation he took the position, and held
it for twenty years, Dr. Reynolds being compelled,
through pressure of other work, to leave him in sole
charge after some eight or nine years' co-editorship.
The position was one of large opportunities. The
directorship of a review which was the recognised
representative of the most intellectual life of the Free
Churches, offered many possibilities for service, and
the new editors strove to realise those possibilities.
They gathered about them a staff' of writers repre-
senting every school of thought and action, and some
of the articles which appeared became of national
importance.

Mr. Allon did not himself write many of the longer
articles, but some which he did write were of great
interest — as, for instance, one on Sinai after his Eastern
tour ; an outspoken article on the Prayer-Book, with

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 47

special reference to its bearing on re-union; and
others on the Bampton lecture on Dissent, by Dr.
Curteis, on Disestablishment, and on Matthew Arnold
and Puritanism. To the shorter reviews and articles
he contributed a much larger share, and the great
majority of them were from the pens of the two editors.

This work, added to the claims of his own church,
and innumerable claims from outside, made enormous
demands upon his time and strength. Often after a
hard day's work and an evening preaching service he
would, when most men would have been exhausted,
return to his study, and work through the midnight
hours. His robust health enabled him to do the
work of two ordinary men. The common complaints
of students — nervousness and dyspepsia — were un-
known to him. He knew nothing, as many in-
tellectual wrorkers are compelled to know, of whole
days lost because of ill-health, but was able to prose-
cute his work steadily and continuously. No one
who witnessed his vigour in the ordinary engagements
of his church would have suspected the existence of
the many claims which he had to meet in other
directions.

The British Quarterly Revi* w became in several
instances a great force in intellectual and social dis-
cussions. In the first number of the year in which he
became co-editor there appeared an important article
upon attendance at places of worship, pointing out
especially that the increased provision which had
undoubtedly been made since 1851 had been ex-
ceedingly unequal, being much larger in the suburban
belt than in the more needy and populous districts.

48 11 EN BY ALLON:

The article, while it was a symptom of the times, had
undoubtedly also considerable effect upon the future
action of the Churches. On January 21st, 1867, a con-
ference was held at the London Coffee House. Mr. Miall
presided, and on one side of the chairman were some
sixty working men, and on the other a number of
clergymen, ministers, and laymen, amongst them
Dean Stanley, F. D. Maurice, "Johnny" Ludlow,
Thomas Binney, Dr. Mullens, Mr. Allon, Mr. Henry
Spicer, etc. There was no lack of plain speaking,
and in many churches direct action was the result.
Shortly afterwards Mr. Allon gave a special address
on a Sunday evening to working men, and on the
following Wednesday there was held in his lecture
hall a conference upon the subject. The reasons
given for non-attendance were, as usual, very varied,
but the general testimony of the men who attended
was that, if the previous Sunday evening's service,
both in the sermon and in the attitude of the con-
gregation towards visitors, were a specimen of the
ordinary condition of things, attendance would be
much more frequent. The address had given evidence
that Mr. Allon possessed a power for clear presenta-
tion to popular minds of the intellectual reasons for
religious faith, which many of his greatest admirers
regretted he did not more fully cultivate and use.

It may be added that the conferences on this
question showed — what we are sometimes liable to for-
get— that working men are not as a class deliberately
absent from public worship, neither are those who are
absent to be summed up under one particular head.
In every grade absence is to be accounted for by all

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 49

kinds of reasons. This does not, of course, detract
from the value of efforts which are made to discover
the reasons for such absence. New ages demand new
methods ; but one fact will never change — that in the
heart of a man there must be inspired the love of
truth and of God before religion can be manifest in
any act of worship. Any inquiry which neglects to
make that its first test will be sure to come to wrong
conclusions. There is a link needed between absolute
unreligiousness and the enjoyment of public acts of
worship. Experience seems to show that such a link
is successfully provided by the freer services in public
halls, theatres, and the like.

In the interminable and unsatisfactory discussions
and negotiations which took place at this time upon
the education question, Mr. Allon took a considerable
part. In all the movements which the rational Non-
conformist standpoint made needful he was active,
though not always appearing, perhaps, in the forefront
of every agitation. He felt, with many others, gr<
disappointment with the results of Mr. Forster's Act.
In his own words, " The Nonconformists struggle to
win from sectarianism as much of its hold upon
national funds as they can. Their aim is now, as it
has ever been, entirely to prohibit every form of
sectarian teaching at the public expense. In the
British Quarterly Review he strongly demanded such
modifications of Mr. Forster's Act as the position
clearly made imperative. He was willing, as upon a
later question, to separate himself even from Mr.
Gladstone, for whom he had the profoundest re-
verence, rather than be weak upon so important a

E

50 HENRY ALLON:

matter. In the Manchester Conference of 1872,
where the Nonconformists practically broke with the
Government, he took an active and distinguished
part.

No position has been more difficult to the
earnest Christian man than that into which many
have been forced by the controversies upon education.
While seeming to be opposed to religious teaching,
and so giving a weapon into the hands of narrow
and bigoted foes, they have really been contending for
what they earnestly believed to be the most sacred
interests of religion. There is undoubtedly a distinct
loss in all this, but the blame must lie at the doors of
the narrowness which has made such an attitude
necessary at all.

At this time, and not to be dissociated altogether
from some aspects of the education controversy, there
was the growing antagonism to the revival of High
Church ritual and doctrine in the Church of England.
The Bennett decision came in 1872, with its striking
lessons for Nonconformists, and in the monthly letter
which Mr. Allon was in the habit of writing to the
Christian Union of New York he strongly resents the
decision, and describes it as " perhaps the most im-
portant event, so far as the Established Church is
concerned, for some generations."

" Whatever the diversity of the doctrine taught,"
he goes on to say, " the ritual of the worship must be
uniform and non-sectarian. The sepulchre must be
kept scrupulously white, but any kind of dead men's
bones, Sacramentarian, Puritan, or Rationalistic, may
be venerated with it. This is the notable com-

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 51

promise which these wise men of the world have
arrived at, and which they hope may save their
Church. From a present and violent disruption it
may save it ; but from the contempt of thoughtful
and earnest men, and from the disintegration which
inevitably befalls a Church which thus sacrifices truth
to expediency, nothing can save it. The Church has
often been saved by martyrdom, never by com-
promise." In order to appreciate Mr. Allon's position
it is needful always to distinguish between his atti-
tude to the Church of England as an establishment,
and to many of its prominent men as Christian minis-
ters. For want of this distinction he was sometimes
regarded with suspicion by some of his brethren as
not quite loyal to his distinctly Nonconformist views.
No mistake could be greater. He was as staunch and
loyal a Nonconformist as the most eloquent anti-
Church orator. He said again and again, that, strong
in the love of his people, and the possession of a place
for teaching, he would not change places with the
Archbishop of Canterbury.

But he was not so narrow or intolerant as to find
it impossible to appreciate the goodness and sincerity
of men with whom he could not on all points agree.
His friendships with clergymen were many and
sincere. By them he was looked upon as the repre-
sentative Nonconformist. Perhaps few men of his
generation did more to break down the stupid mis-
understanding of Nonconformists which even ye\
sometimes darkens the Anglican mind.

An interesting and, perhaps, amusing instance of
the position which, in the eyes of representative
e 2

52 HENRY ALLON:

Churchmen, Mr. Allon held was supplied about this
time by the Bock In an article entitled " Noncon-
formity Self-depicted," it lamented the disloyalty of
Nonconformists to evangelical truth, though surely it
had material enough for that kind of lament within
the borders of its own Church. It says, " There is a
generally unfavourable impression amongst Churchmen
as to the character of the religious teaching of Dis-
senters." It "had not been forward to take notice of
those rumours," but was now startled by a few sen-
tences in a disestablishment lecture of Mr. Allon's in
praise of some members of the High Church party in
the Church of England.

This sentence specially exercised the Rock : " Per-
haps no living clergyman is regarded by Nonconform-
ists with a more genuine and general reverence than
John Henry Newman." The Bock, in two columns,
lectured Mr. Allon for his ignorance of the evan-
gelical revival in the Church which had begun many
decades before the Anglican revival — an assumption
of ignorance which was altogether gratuitous. The
incident is only Avorth referring to as an illustration
of what was both a strength, and sometimes, perhaps,
a weakness in Mr. Allon's character — his clear vision
for the claims which could be put forward for many
sides of a question. Earnest men who could see
only one side of a question could not appreciate
the calmness of his judgment, or his sympathy with
men with whom he ought, they thought, by every
tradition of his life, to be in perpetual conflict.
The very fact which made him a wise leader and
safe guide caused him to be misunderstood by those

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 53

who can appreciate no service to society save that
of the active and aggressive reformer.

But there is the greatness of a broad mind and
secure judgment which cannot judge all things from a
narrow personal standpoint, but must look upon the
larger field of a general service and a catholic appre-
hension of truth. This was the greatness of Henry
Allon, and explains his strength and also the mis-
apprehension which sometimes possessed the minds
of his brethren with regard to him. Though strong
in conviction, and not in some matters without
prejudice, his attitude was essentially catholic.

To the pastor of Union Chapel, who in 1871 had
received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity
from Yale College, the year 1874 was one of con-
siderable importance. At the end of 1873 he had
completed thirty years of service, and had preached a
sermon upon the experiences of those thirty years,
" Within and Without." The review was one of great
interest. He spoke of the continued peace and
growing prosperity of the church with devout thank-
fulness, and he bore testimony to the fact that no
men " could have more freedom in their thinking or
be more sure of generous and loving appreciation of
their service than the ministers of Free Churches.
For himself, from the days of his youth until now, he
had thought as freely and expressed himself as frankly
as he was capable of doing." He acknowledged then,
as frequently at other times, the loyalty and hearty
co-operation of the deacons and the forbearance and
kindness of the congregation generally. Of the life
without the church, too, he spoke freely ; of the past

54 HENRY ALLON :

thirty years he distinctly and unhesitatingly affirmed
that they had been years of great intellectual and
spiritual progress. " Never in the history of the world
had the pure spiritual truths of Christ's Gospel freer
play and power than they have had in England
since I entered public life. Many evil habits and in-
stitutions still remain, but there is not one of them
that has not desperately to struggle against powerful
social sentiments of righteousness and religion. In-
fidelity is not only, I think, far more limited than it
was, but it is far more reverential, and is often simply
perverted religious feeling. Our social life is purer,
nobler, and more religious than at any previous period
of our history. The progress of the Church itself is
equal cause for congratulation ; its movement, gener-
ally speaking, has been towards a deeper life, purer
light, and greater liberty. By its aggressive zeal it
has done much to repair the negligences of former
generations. One of the most notable changes in
Church life during my own ministry has been the
modified relations of religious life to theological
doctrine. The great dogmas have been simplified
and disentangled from the modes and accretions of
metaphysical theology. Perhaps our chief attainment
in theology has been that men have come to see that
no human creeds can exactly express Divine truths ;
least of all, the creeds of 300 or 1,300 or 1,500 years
ago, when all the conditions of theological knowledge
were comparatively so inferior and immature ; and
they are tearing away the creeds that they may get at
the truth. God speed them in every such endeavour."
He noticed, too, the broader and more sympathetic

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 55

spirit of the Church towards human life. " We have
come to understand that all pure pleasures are part of
the true ministry of life." He also thankfully recog-
nised the greater prominence in teaching of the
love of the Divine Fatherhood, the simple and full
preaching of Christ as the Light and Life of men, the
great breadth and humanity of preaching, the richer
musical service in worship, and the greater social
activity of the church. On the whole he pronounced
it a time of great progress and growth.

Much local interest was created by the review and
the completed period which it marked, and the oppor-
tunity was taken to present Dr. Allon with a cheque
for £1,200 as a mark of affection and gratitude. A
much more important mark of progress and proof of
confidence, however, was the resolve of the church
to erect a new building. The old one had proved
insufficient for the purposes of the greatly increased
congregation, and the resolution was formed to build
an edifice which should be worthy of the enlarged
sphere of work.

An unusual course was followed, which it may be
of interest to record. In addition to the ordinary
instructions to architects intending to submit plans.
there wrere issued notes on some essentials for the
new church from the minister's point of view. When
it is remembered how in some modern church
buildings the preacher seems to be the last thought
present in the architect's mind, it may be useful
to compare Union Chapel with such buildings, and
to trace in its arrangements the effect of these
notes. They are printed here as a fair illustration of

56 HENRY ALLON :

Dr. Allon's high ideals of the mere machinery of
worship : —

" The two great essentials of a Congregational church
building are : — adaptation (1) for Preaching, and (2) for
worship of the Congregation.

" I. Preaching.

" In Congregational services the sermon is longer and
more prominent than in Episcopal services.

"It is essential, therefore, that every person should see
and hear the preacher, without conscious effort. Hence (1)
there must be no obstruction to seeing — of internal sup-
ports, intercepting lights, lights on wrong levels, etc. ; and
(2) the acoustic properties of the building are of funda-
mental importance ; the form of the structure, and espe-
cially of the roof, should be specially considered and adapted
for hearing. The sermon must be heard without strain,
either of the ears of the auditory or of the voice of the
preacher. It seriously interferes with impression for the
hearer to be consciously making an effort to catch the
preacher's words ; and with effectiveness, for the preacher
to be solicitously straining to make himself heard. No
preacher can always speak on the strain through a sermon
of forty or forty -five minutes. It therefore follows (3) that
the preacher must be in vital contact with his hearers.
Eloquence, as has been justly said, is in the audience; the
preacher's inspiration is not his theme only, but also the
manifest sympathy with it — the kindling eyes and interested
countenances of the people. If, therefore, he is separated
from them by any such space as disables him from easily
catching these, his inspiration must be entirely subjective,
and necessarily partial.

" Hence the height of the pulpit and its distance from
the nearest pews on the ground floor, as also in the gallery,
should be reduced as much as possible. The galleries should

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 57

also be constructed at such an angle as will enable persons
in the back pews ensily to see the preacher. In many
churches the preacher sees and is seen by only the front
row.

"N.B. — Sufficient space round the pulpit and table-
pews must, however, be provided for weddings.

"II. Worship.

" (1) Prayer in Congregational churches is not litur-
gical, but extemporaneous. Hence, whatever necessity
there may be for easily hearing preaching, it exists with
still greater emphasis for easily hearing prayer. The
preacher may be loud in addressing an audience ; he who
prays cannot shout in addressing the Almighty. The devo-
tional feeling of the congregation is seriously disturbed and
hindered, when it is necessary to strain the ear to catch the
words of extemporaneous prayer.

"Where liturgical prayer is used, familiarity with the
prayers that the preacher reads renders it much less
important that he should be articulately heard.

"Thus, except during singing, the congregation through
the entire service are dependent upon hearing the words of
the minister.

" (2) Worship is not choral, but congregational.

"No hymn, chant, or anthem is sung in which the -con-
gregation does not join. The idea, very largely realised in
Union Chapel, is that the whole congregation shall sing
from music-books in four-part harmony.

"The choir, technically so called, is therefore only part of
the singing congregation ; its function is simply to lead it.
It should therefore be in it, and of it — under no circum-
stances separated from it. It should be felt in its lead and
control of the congregational song, but not seen or even
heard apart from it. Hence it should be so placed as to be
part of the congregation. The great attainments in musical
worship of the present congregation are, in my judgment, to

58 HENRY ALLON :

be chiefly attributed to this arrangement, and could not be
realised with a separate choir in a choir gallery ; for which,
consciously or unconsciously, the congregation listens. The
choir must, of course, be contiguous to the organ, and in
possible communication with the organist. If by any pro-
jection of the manuals of the organ he can be placed in front
of them, all the better.

"These practical requirements of Congregational ser-
vices are so essential that, however desirable architectural
congruity and artistic beauty may be, they must, in my
judgment, be paramount. Our church buildings are for use,
not for the realisation of conventional ideas, which often
unfit them for use."

Though, perhaps, full consent would not at once
be given to all the propositions of these notes, yet
they undoubtedly supply a link which has too often
been wanting in the erection of churches. The sub-
ordination of everything to mere preaching produced
the plain, unadorned meeting-houses which still
stand here and there as monuments of their day. The
mere Gothic building, however beautiful and adapted
to worship, was largely unsuited to purposes of
preaching. Union Chapel is, perhaps, as successful
an attempt to combine the two forms as it would
be possible to find. After the usual competition
the plans of Mr. Cubitt were decided upon, and on
Saturday, 16th May, 1876, the foundation-stone of the
new building was laid. The occasion was made one of
great public congratulation to the esteemed pastor,
and he was surrounded by the most distinguished of
the Congregationalists, and by many leaders in other
Churches. It will be useful, as indicating Dr. Allon's
attitude towards worship and towards other Churches,

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 59

to give some extracts from his statement read at the
ceremony : —

"This ceremony is neither superstitious nor unmeaning ;

as we intend it, it has a certain religious significance,

both towards God and towards men ; but assuredly we

conceive of no priestly consecration of either place or thing

whereby inherent sacredness is given to it so as to render

any secular occupancy or use a sacrilege. The only sanctity

with which we would invest this place is the sanctity of

holy service and association. In every high and holy sense

we consecrate these buildings to whatever may tend to

God's great glory — to a special service rather than to a

special sanctity."

******

" We gladly avow our identity with all religious men in
the fundamental purpose of this erection — viz., the worship
and service of the one true God, as the gracious and loving
Father of all men whom He has made. We give glad and
solicitous prominence to this our essential oneness with all
men, whether within the bounds of Christian communities or
beyond them, who offer to God a sincere and holy worship
and service, for 'in every nation God hath them that fear
Him and work righteousness.'

"This, moreover, is distinctly ' a house of prayer.' It is
not a theological hall, although theology will have prominence
in its teaching. It is not a mere preaching place, although
here the Everlasting Gospel will bj preached. It is a
'house of prayer,' and the place and power of Divine
worship in it will, I trust, ever justify this as its prominent
designation."

* * * * * *

" We have further to avow a distinctive ecclesiasticism,
modes of Church organisation, worship, and agency, which
make us Congregational ists rather than Episcopalians and
Presbyterians. We offer no apology for this ; we mean by

60

HENRY ALLON.

it no intolerance ; we simply claim and vindicate our liberty
and our preference.

" Finally, we are thankful that the liberties which we
now exercise are legally secured to us. Nonconformist
churches are no longer illicit ; they are as much a recognised
part of the British Constitution, and as sacred in the eye of
the law, as is the Established Church. . . . For this we
are thankful — first, to God ; next, to our martyr forefathers
and their successors, who won for us these liberties by their
suffering and blood; next, to a series of enlightened statesmen,
not always — not often — thinking with us in ecclesiastical
matters, but strong, faithful, and fearless in their battle for
civil and religious liberty, of whom Mr. Gladstone, one of
the most uncompromising of Episcopalians, is among the
most illustrious ; and last, not least, to the personal re-
ligiousness, catholicity, and constitutional honour of our
beloved Queen."

61

CHAPTER IV.

THE MINISTRY CROWNED AND ENDED.

The progress of Dr. Allon's ministry from that time
was one of almost uneventful prosperity. The church,
which proved to be considerably more costly than
was at first intended, exactly fulfilled, in all other
respects, the conditions which had been laid down,
and while perfect acoustically was also of great beauty.
The crowds which from the first filled it showed how
fully the need of the day had been met, and how
possible it was to combine a perfect auditorium with-
out sacrificing beauty of design. In the Jubilee
number of a leading architectural journal, Union
Chapel was given as one of the hundred remarkable
buildings of the century.

The truest monument to Dr. Allon's memory is
Union Chapel. It speaks in many ways of his peculiar
tastes and of the gifts which made his strength for
service. The subordination of the choir and organ to
the congregational worship is significant. Strangers
on entering the building are often puzzled to find
out where either choir or organ is ; and though that
subordination is, in the opinion of some, rather
extreme, it remains a testimony to his strong belief
in the need for absolute congregational worship, as
distinct from any mere deputy work performed by
the choir. The introduction of any mere performance

62 HENRY ALLON :

into the midst of an act of worship was utterly
repugnant to his feelings.

Then the combination of Gothic beauty with the
idea of a preaching place speaks of his aesthetic tastes
adapted to the requirements of public address. Its
ample provision of school-room, class-rooms, and the
like, is significant of his belief in service as a necessity
of the Christian life ; and the very existence of the
structure is an abiding evidence both of his own un-
tiring zeal and of the love and respect which he had
inspired.

In 1877 Union Chapel was the scene of the last
stages in the history of what was known as the
Leicester Conference, and which at the time created
a considerable amount of excitement. Dr. Allon
held strong views upon the point at issue ; but at
the time of the last meetings he was kept silent by
domestic affliction. The Eastern Question, which
about this time was agitating England, was to him
one of very great interest. He preached during the
year 1878 a striking sermon upon the war spirit in
relation to the Russo-Turkish question, and then, as
in his pulpit treatment of all controversial questions,
confined himself to laying down great principles of
righteousness. A story is told of his conversation at
this time with a well-known minister, since deceased,
Avho had got into trouble with his own congregation
for attacking Lord Beaconsfield from the pulpit by
name. He came to London to see Dr. Allon, and
declared that he had only done what other Congre-
gational ministers had done. Dr. Allon replied by
saying that they had contented themselves with

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 63

stating as clearly as they could the great principles
which were involved in the question. The minister
replied, " Ah ! I go rather in the way of the old pro-
phets, like Nathan, who said to David 'Thou art the
man.' " "Yes," said Dr. Allon, "but Nathan did not
go into the synagogues, and there, from that safe dis-
tance, accuse David, but went to David himself; if you
will go to Lord Beaconsfield and say to him what you
said in the pulpit, then we will respect your courage."

In 1881 the Jubilee of the Congregational Union
was celebrated ; and it was universally felt by the
members of the Union that there was no one to
whoin the chair could so suitably be offered for that
year as Dr. Allon. The fact that no man before
or since has twice received this honour is an added
proof of the respect with which he had inspired his
fellow-ministers. His two addresses from the chair
were appropriate, dignified, and inspiring. The one
in the Spring Session was on "Congregationalism;"
that in the Autumn Session, at Manchester, was on
" The Church of the Future," and is included in this
volume. The manner in which he fulfilled the duties
of Chairman in this Jubilee Year made a profound
impression upon the churches. His tact and courtesy,
together with his intellectual strength, made him a
more than efficient representative of a great com-
munity at a time of great publicity.

In this same year a further proof wras given of the
vitality of the church over which Dr. Allon presided,
and of the fruits of his teaching, in the opening of a
third mission station, or branch church, in Station
Koad, Islington. Nothing was more emphatic in his

64 HENRY ALLON :

teaching than the claims of Christian service upon
every member of his church ; he repeatedly, both in
public and private, ascribed its continued unity and
high spiritual life to the fact that it had been always a
working church.

At the time of his death it had — and has still —
about three hundred teachers, in charge of more
than three thousand children, and it included in its
activities every imaginable form of service — gymnasia,
mothers' meetings, young men's associations, Saturday-
night concerts, savings banks, and almost numberless
organisations directly or indirectly religious. All this
was largely the outcome of his direct teaching ; and he
used to say that there were many vacant places in the
congregation at the Sunday evening service which he
was delighted to see, as they were the places of those
who were hard at work in one or other of the missions
of the church.

So busy a man could not possibly give personal
attention to many parts of the church's work; but
he was surrounded by experienced, thoughtful, and
earnest workers, in whose hands he could leave, with
perfect confidence, the management of many or-
ganisations. It was refreshing to hear the gratitude
and real humility with which he spoke of the self-
denying labours of those who thus carried on the
church's work. It is one of the joys and, at the same
time, one of the troubles of a true-hearted minister,
that his name should be prominently associated with
so many good works which he himself cannot accom-
plish. The joy of such association was Dr. Allon's;
but no one was more ready to acknowledge the splendid

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 65

service of those whose works were much less public
than his own.

The remaining ten or twelve years of his life were
largely uneventful : their story being that of the
activities of a large pastorate, and the thousand and
one claims which come perpetually to a prominent
and distinguished minister. The very fact of his
ceaseless industry makes the story of his life more
difficult to tell: touching many movements at many
points, entering into association with many men of
different schools of opinion and spheres of action, he
has left an impression of a man who was uninter-
mittent in all good works. His age and experience,
added to his reputation, caused him in these last years
to be greatly sought after for advice and counsel, and
no small share of his time had to be devoted to cor-
respondence and to the reception of callers upon every
possible kind of business. The number of letters
requiring answers was about thirty a day : and it
would be difficult to state the average amount of
time to which his callers thought they were fairly
entitled.

In common with all busy men, he sought to devise
means of gently hinting to his visitors when they had
remained long enough. One of his most successful
methods was the request, after some time, that they
would post some letters as they passed a neighbouring
pillar-box, some being generally kept in reserve; but
even that did not always succeed, as the visitor would
sometimes take the letters without taking bis leave.
The mention of these needful defences against incon-
siderate visitors must not leave the impression that
F

66 HENRY ALLON :

he received callers unwillingly. No one was more
ready to listen to any story of difficulty or need, or to
help where real help was possible ; but he was apt,
naturally, to become impatient under the persistent
urging of claims which it was impossible for him
to satisfy.

Side by side with these activities of the last
decade of his life are one or two events which need
special mention.

In 1884 he completed a record of forty years'
ministry in the church, and in a sermon specially
bearing upon the fact, spoke again with deepest
thankfulness of the peace and prosperity of the past,
and of the fact that " the tide of their church life
had been an advancing one, and that it rolled in
greater fulness and strength that day than ever it
had done before/' There was naturally some sadness
in his tone ; many familiar faces had vanished ; many
of his contemporaries in the ministry had closed their
earthly service, while he seemed still to be in the
enjoyment of full and matured strength; but the
whole tone of the address was one of gratitude and
of hope.

During these years there was a good deal of dis-
cussion upon the question of the nursing staff* of some
of the hospitals helped from the Hospital Sunday
Fund ; and much feeling was excited against the
sectarian limitations imposed in certain cases. The
subject was thoroughly discussed by the Council of
the Fund, and resolutions defining the extent of
its control were unanimously agreed to. The follow-
ing statement by Dr. Kennedy well illustrates the

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. <i7

position which Dr. Allon held in these public matters,
as well as his own personal courage and the practical
breadth of his views : —

"The part which Dr. Allon took in this matter will
illustrate both the difficulty and its solution. He was the
prime mover in calling the attention of the Council to the
subject ; but he became so fully convinced that the Council
could not interfere with the internal administration of tin-
hospital in matters which did not affect their soundness
financially and medically, that he not only agreed to these
resolutions, but was himself their author, as he did not
hesitate to avow at the public meeting."

The presence and guidance of such a man at such
a time were invaluable. Lacking such leadership,
great and humane movements may sometimes be
sacrificed to narrow views and imperfect judgments.
When, a few years later, the London Nonconformist
Council was formed, Dr. Allon was chosen as its first
chairman, and it was generally acknowledged that no
wiser choice could have been made than of one win
wisdom, discretion, and high standing would be a
guarantee of the serious and exalted purposes for
which the Council had been formed.

In 1887 there was held at Union Chapel a con-
ference, under Dr. Allon's presidency, which at the
time created some interest. The subject was "The
Relation of the Church to the Material Condition of
the Destitute Poor." The conference proved of so
great interest that it was adjourned once and again.
and resulted in the formation of a committee of
inquiry, and in the endeavour to secure upon the
Islington Vestry men who would carry out the most
F 2

68 HENRY ALLON :

humane and practical schemes which were possible.
This device of holding conferences was adopted in the
church at other times, and upon other subjects, and
their usefulness was greatly helped by the genial
wisdom with which Dr. Allon presided.

In October, 1889, there was held in Union Chapel
a great meeting, which was a cause of gratification to
Dr. Allon, only equalled, perhaps, by the ceremony in
1877 at the opening of the present building. On the
former occasion he had been surrounded by men of all
sorts and conditions, eager to show their respect for the
pastor of the church, such as Mr. Gladstone, the Hon.
and Rev. W. Freeinantle, Prebendary Calthrop — always
a valued neighbour and friend — Mr. Tom Hughes, M.
de Pressense, Drs. Raleigh, Mullens, Parker, Stoughton;
close and intimate friends like Dr. R, W. Dale,
Joshua Harrison, J. G. Rogers, Newman Hall, and Dr.
Reynolds; Dean Stanley being absent only because
of illness. The later meeting marked the last stage
in the history of the same building. The tower was
just completed, and it was determined to hold a great
meeting for thanksgiving, and to wipe off the last few
hundreds of the fifty thousand pounds which the
chapel had cost.

Lord Mayor Whitehead, a former worshipper at
Union Chapel, presided, and the speakers, including
Drs. Stoughton, Reynolds, and Dale, Mr. Guinness
Rogers, Prebendary Calthrop, and Mr. H. Spicer, all
testified to the profound attachment which, within
and without the church, was felt towards Dr. Allon.
The amount needed — some £1,200 — was raised in the
meeting, and the reference in the church report of

THE STOEY Ob1 II IS MINISTRY. ^

that year gives fitting expression to the crowning joy
of a long and arduous ministry: '; To our pastor this

outcome of his labours is peculiarly gratifying, and
we desire to record again our affectionate appreciation
of his faithful, loving, and successful service over
long a period."

During the last few years of Dr. Allon's ministry
it was felt that he should have assistance in his minis-
terial work ; but, from various causes, no final choice
could be arrived at. At last, however, the way was
opened for a settlement by a strange series of events,
which were felt by all concerned to be providential.
In 1885, and again in 1886, Dr. Allon had asked the
writer of this memoir, of whose church at Sunderland
his married daughter was a member, to join him in
the work at Union Chapel. The Sunderland church
was at that time, however, practically committed to a
scheme of building and development which made it
impossible to leave it, and up to the autumn of 1891
I had not preached at Union Chapel for five years
or more. At that time Dr. Allon and his deacons
had met with an exceedingly able and promising
student, who would probably prove to bo acceptable
to the congregation, and it was arranged that his
name should be submitted.

Dr. Allon called at Sunderland on his way
home from his holiday in Scotland, and during that
visit he arranged that T should supply his pulpit
on November 8th, when he was to preach at Wor-
cester. The arrangement was suL^ested on the
ground that the settlement of an assistant mini-'

70 HENRY ALLON:

which would probably by that time be an accomplished
fact, would remove the reasons which had so long
prevented me from preaching. But when Dr. Allon
returned from the autumnal meetings of the
Congregational Union at Southport in October, he
was, in spite of the enthusiastic demonstration of
affection which had been given to him there, de-
pressed about the future, and, to the amazement of
the deacons and the congregation, sent in his resigna-
tion, thinking that to be the best course in the interest
of the church. The members of the church were at
once summoned, and by a most enthusiastic and unani-
mous vote determined to ask him to remain in the
pastorate until the completion of his fifty years'
ministry, at the end of 1893, and promised to relieve
him of one service each Sunday, and to look out for a
co-pastor and successor.

This neAv and unexpected development, prompted,
perhaps, chiefly by the depression which ill-health
had produced, of course made the contemplated
arrangement for an assistant-minister impracticable,
and led to the remarkable fact that I was the
first outsider to preach in Dr. Allon's pulpit after
the new arrangement had been made, but as the
result of an agreement which had been come to long
before such an arrangement had been thought of.
After the Sunday's services, meetings of the church
and congregation were called, and I was asked to
join Dr. Allon as co-pastor and successor. The
letters which Dr. Allon wrote conveying the re-
sult of the meeting were full of promises of warm
welcome : —

THE STORY Ob1 ILL* MINISTRY. 71

"The tone of the meeting was most hearty; I might
say enthusiastic. You will, I trust, have no hesitation in
accepting the invitation. I need only for myself say that
I could welcome no one with more confidence, or with
stronger and higher anticipations of help and fellowship.
I trust God has guided us and you ; we have earnestly
sought His guidance. If I know anything of my own heart,
I have no desire but for that which is most for His glory,
and for the good of the church. May His blessing be
richly given to you and to us all."

When the invitation was accepted, the difficulties
which first hindered existing no longer, ho wrote :
"We shall all receive you most heartily, and I shall
sing my Nunc Dimittis with hope and faith." In con-
versation Dr. Allon had declared that he had himself
known so much of the difficulties of a co-pastorate
that he thought he should have grace to avoid its
dangers ; and it is a pleasure to the present writer, who,
for a few weeks only, enjoyed the honour of working
by his side, to testify to the spirit in which he fulfilled
his part as senior pastor. His attitude was rather
that of father to son than of senior minister to junior ;
and had his colleague known nothing of him pre-
viously, the experience of those few weeks would have
been sufficient to show him the tenderness, the
strength, and the unaffected goodness which marked
Dr. Allon's character. In the light of after-event
circumstances which led to this settlement were felt
by all concerned to be so remarkable that their recital
here will not, it is hoped, be regarded as an undue
obtrusion of the writer's personality.

On Wednesday evening, March 23rd, Dr. Allon

72 HENRY ALLON :

presided at the meeting which was held for the
recognition and welcome of his junior colleague ; and
there were one or two references and incidents in
that meeting which have become inspiring memories
to those who were present. He spoke with great
satisfaction and hopefulness of the association with
himself of one towards whom he had long felt both
affection and confidence ; but there was, of necessity,
something of sadness to him in the meeting. It was
the beginning of the end, though none suspected how
near that end was. It was given to few ministers,
he said, to stand as he stood that night, looking back
upon a single pastorate of nearly half a century, and
to be able to say that the history of that period had
been one of continuous and increasing sympathy
between pastor and people. He felt that he had
almost completed his pilgrimage, had entered into the
land of Beulah, and was waiting there.

After acknowledging all the kindness and help
which he had continually received from the deacons
and the church generally, he went on to speak of
the great changes which in these days are taking place
in conceptions of Church life and work ; and with a
sudden flash of the spirit of the young man which
had never died within him, he declared, with strong
emphasis, that he did not fear these changes, but
thanked God for them. He believed that both in
life and doctrine God was leading His people into wider
and greater fields, and quoted, with an enthusiasm
which some who heard it will not soon forget, the
saying of the old Puritan, that " God has ever new
light to break forth from His Word." When the

THE STORY OF II IS MINISTRY. 73

co-pastor, at the end of his statement, had expressed
the joy and honour which he felt in being" able to
accept the call to work with Dr. Allon, and, if it were
(iods will, afterwards to receive from his hands tin
inheritance of the sole charge which he had so nobly
fulfilled for nearly fifty years, Dr. Allon rose, and
with the tears in his eyes, grasped the hand of his
new colleague : that shake of the hand was felt to be
sacramental, and of greater value than many speeches.
The service was of great interest in itself; but was
quickly to gain a new significance, which at the time
was quite unsuspected.

It seemed as if, after the assistance wrhich had
come to him, Dr. Allon had taken a new lease of life ;
he preached with all his old vigour, and on Sunday
morning, April 10, his sermon upon " Comfort in the
Wilderness " was, by general testimony, characterised
by all his old freshness and power. On the Tuesday,
accompanied by Dr. Glover, his friend and medical
adviser, he went to consult Sir James Paget upon
some symptoms which had troubled him, and, cheered
by the favourable report which he received, was full
of life and gaiety at a meeting of ministers the
same day. On the Wednesday he was unwell, but
suspected nothing more than an attack of indigestion ;
on the Thursday the symptoms had not improved,
and he was in some pain, but at his own door, in the
evening, parted from his colleague with one of his
customary pleasant jests, little dreaming that they
would never meet again. On the Friday night he
retired to rest, still unwell, but neither he himself nor
any of his friends suspected any cause for anxiety.

74 HENRY ALLON :

In the early hours of the morning Mrs. Allon was,
however, aroused by her husband's heavy breathing ;
she found him unconscious, and at once called for
help ; he never, however, regained consciousness, and
before the doctor could reach the house quietly
passed away.

His death was a sudden and terrible blow to his
family and to his church — a blow which at first
it was almost impossible to realise ; but when it
became possible to look at the facts more quietly, it
was felt that no sublimer death could have been
desired for him. He, whose life had been so active
and useful, dreaded the day of enforced idleness.
His anxieties about his church had to an extent
been removed ; he had been able to guide the church
to an arrangement which he believed would per-
petuate its usefulness, and then quietly, while still in
the midst of his many activities, he passed to the
sphere of a nobler service. To the survivors there was
something unspeakably sad in so sudden a departure ;
but not one would afterwards have wished it other-
wise. It was a wonderful instance of a completed
life.

The congregations which assembled on the follow-
ing day (Easter Sunday — when a large proportion of
the regular attendants were out of town) were a witness
to the profound feeling which had been created by
the announcement of his death in the evening papers
of Saturday, and were the beginning of a demonstra-
tion of public sympathy and respect which surprised
even some of his greatest friends and admirers. At
the morning service the junior minister made formal

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 75

announcement of the great loss which the church
had sustained, and in the course of his brief address

said : —

" Our thought to-day, then, must be chiefly of the
more intimate bonds which have bound this church and
congregation to him. Much will be said, in fitting places,
of many aspects of his life and service, of Ids gifts of
leadership, of his intellectual wealth and wide learning,
of his catholicity and many-sided sympathies, of his great-
ness as a preacher, of his services to Church music : we
think of him as the pastor, the friend, the man whom we
loved. In many households there will be a blank, as
though one of its own members had been taken : he has
been closely associated with all their most sacred hours.
He has baptised the children ; his voice has spoken the
marriage prayer and blessing; he has stood beside the
open grave of many loved ones whom he has now joined ;
many knew and loved him in their childhood who now
have their own children about them. In forty-eight years
of such a ministry many ties must be formed which are
very hard to break — if we dare to call this breaking : there
will be numberless regrets which will never find a public-
voice, but which will be deep and heartfelt.

" In this church, too, our loss is greater than we can
by any possibility yet realise. So far as any church is
the work of man, he has gathered it, sustained it by faithful
ministry and wise counsel, and inspired others with his own
judgment and energy. He always spoke gratefully of the
loyalty and brotherliness of the officials of this church and
the members generally, and the testimony which he bore
in these walls only a few weeks ago will now be a consoling
remembrance to those who have been associated with him
in the administration of the affairs of this church. I hope
that Union Chapel and the name of Henry AJlon will be
inseparable so long as this building stands."

76 HENRY ALLON :

The funeral service was fixed for Thursday, April
21st, and during the morning an opportunity was
given to any who wished it to look upon the coffin
which contained the body of a beloved pastor and
friend. In the midst of a great bank of beautiful
flowers, sent by many friends and societies within
and without his own church, the coffin rested at the
foot of the pulpit from which he had preached but
a few days before, and during the morning a con-
tinuous stream of people passed before it. Long
before the announced time of service, great numbers
of people were waiting for admission. The personal
friends, and those specially invited or deputed by
public bodies, were admitted by side doors ; and when
the main doors were opened the chapel was im-
mediately filled by a congregation of more than three
thousand people. In addition to the crowd in the
church, it was estimated that in the open spaces in the
immediate neighbourhood no fewer than ten thousand
persons were waiting to show respect to the memory
of one who had played so great a part in the life of
North London. The service was commenced by the
now sole pastor of the church, who, after prayer,
expressed in very few words the sorrow and thanks-
givings of the congregation. Lessons were read by
Dr. Stephenson, President of the Wesleyan Con-
ference, and prayer offered by Rev. Dr. Dykes,
Principal of the Presbyterian College. Addresses
were then given by two of Dr. Allon's oldest and
most intimate friends, Dr. Reynolds and Mr. Guinness
Rogers ; both were profoundly touching in the strong
affection and deep respect which they manifested.

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY.

A few sentences from the address of Dr. Reynolds

must be given: —

" Brothers and sisters in a crushing sorrow, fellow-
sufferers from an irreparable loss, — Awed and heart-struck
we have gathered round this silent but loved form, but we
have already found that we are under the shadow of the
Cross of Christ, where Death has lost his sting. We find
ourselves touching the very steps of the throne of our
Elder Brother, ' who liveth, and was dead, and is alive
for evermore.' The Lord and Giver of Life now speaks to
each one of us the Divine Word : ' He that liveth and
belie veth in me shall never die.'

u We have not assembled to tell the story of our
brother's life, nor to draw even the outline of his surprising
and beautiful pastorate. We will not venture to estimate
his noble character or manifold personality. We are not
attempting here and now to enumerate his titles to our
n-verence, or to recite the great things he did for the
Master whom he loved so well. At this moment I have
neither power nor words to do other than give expression
to our love and our humble hope.

" Have we not reason ? Did any of us wish for a truer
friend or for a wiser counsellor ? In deep sorrow was not
the clasp of his hand and his strong sympathy as much as
human grace could do for us 1 Have we not reason for our
love ? To many of you, and to hundreds and thousands
who have pressed on before him, he opened the door into
the invisible, he gave the right hand of fellowship into
these mysteries of the kingdom of God. He taught you to
understand the meaning of the cross and passion of the
Son of God, and to see the glory of the Eternal Father
in the face of Jesus Christ. He assigned you work in the
church. He saved some of you from utter doubt. He
stood shoulder-to-shoulder with you when you were weak
in faith. He comforted vou in bereavements and losses,

78 HENRY ALLON :

and often and again led you away from and out of your-
selves by larger views of God and His Christ, of His work
and His Spirit.

" Many of the highest visions of God are incommunic-
able ; but others can be conveyed, and our beloved friend
had the grace to make us understand what he had seen,
felt, and handled of the word of life. We love him for his
vision of the Almighty, and for the sympathy with our
dimmer powers which enabled us to believe profoundly
in his experience of the spiritual and Divine, and so to
pass on with him into the Holy Place. All kinds of
personal links united us to him. He lies there in his
last bed with more secrets confided to his loyal breast than
to any father confessor. His fidelity to his friends, his love
of justice, his chivalry, his numberless acts of love to his
brethren, to his people, and to those who had no shadow
of claim upon his boundless generosity, compelled and
inspired our affection.

" Only a month ago, at a beautiful and now never-to-
be-forgotten service, the venerable Paul handed his sword
and his blessing to Timothy. Notwithstanding the pathos
of the words and tones, we all hoped that years of unbroken
fellowship awaited them both ; but without fear he has
passed homewards, and now all the memory of his splendid
career from first to last has become our dear younger
brother's heritage. In its full-orbed beauty and complete-
ness it will be an inspiration for us all.

"There is a great hope in this, too. His departure
from us is not like the falling crash of a great tree to
whose support we had clung fondly while the birds of the
air sang in the branches, but it is rather like the reaping
of a noble shock of corn fully ripe. The reaper of this
golden grain is not Death, but our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself, who had need of these ripe ears, We must be
willing in the day of our Lord's great power. We dare not

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 79

grudge this noble worker and soldier of the faith to the
armies of heaven. He has long been preparing for the

perfect service, for the joy of the Lord. Now he has
entered upon it, with all the deep humility of his nature,
with all the brightness of a hope no longer deferred, amid
the reverence and love of all the Churches of Christ.''

Mr. Rogers, from the standpoint of an unbroken
friendship of forty-three years, bore testimony to the in-
tense lovableness, the true grandeur of character, and
the deep sympathy of Dr. Allon. He was, lie declared,
a broad, large-hearted, liberal Christian. He loved his
own principles, but he was also capable of under-
standing the strength that there was in other systems,
and of honouring those who adhered to them. All
his strength, governed and guided by a warm and
generous heart, made him a mighty power, not in our
own Church only, but in the Churches everywhere.
As a pastor he was wise, tender, and thoughtful,
doing everything with such tact and wisdom that
unity was preserved during this long series of years,
and showing what a wise pastor, guide, and leader of
a united church could accomplish.

At the close of the service, which was marked
by the hearty singing of several hymns of triumph
and thanksgiving, the benediction was pronounced
by the venerable Prebendary Gordon Calthrop. A
procession was then formed to Abney Park Cemetery,
where the body was to be laid at rest. The hearse
was followed by a great number of carriages, and
accompanied by many people on foot, while for the
whole length of the route taken — between two and
three miles — crowds lined the streets. Within the

80 HENRY ALLON:

cemetery an immense crowd had gathered, but so
well was everything managed that there were no
signs of undue confusion or irreverent behaviour.
The service at the grave was, as it was believed
Dr. Allon would have wished it to be, exceedingly
brief and simple, and in the conduct of it the
writer was joined by Dr. Booth, secretary of the
Baptist Union, and the Rev. Brooke Lambert, Vicar
of Greenwich. The great number of public bodies
formally represented at the funeral, and the vast
crowds — large numbers of whom were in mourning
— which gathered wherever any glimpse of the funeral
procession could be seen, were an unmistakable
testimony to the great usefulness and goodness of
the life which had closed.

The place of interment was in the near neighbour-
hood of the graves of many distinguished Noncon-
formists. Drs. Binney, Raleigh, Leifchild, Fletcher,
Hannay, Sir Charles Reed, Mr. Henry Richard — all rest
in that part of the cemetery, but none of their graves
Avill be visited by a larger number of men and women
who come with grateful memories than will the cross
of white granite which now^ marks the last resting-
place of Henry Allon.

Memorial services were held in Union Chapel on
the following Sunday, and in the morning Dr. R, W.
Dale — who had so long been bound to Dr. Allon by
a friendship of peculiar strength and intimacy —
preached the funeral sermon. It was a magnificent
testimony to Dr. Allon's greatness; it reviewed the
conditions under which his life-work had been ac-
complished, and showed how much the various forms

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 8}

of activity demanded of the prominent minister of a
large London church. He had always fulfilled the
spirit of the text which was chosen — " They watch on
behalf of your souls as they that must give account."
The whole of the sermon should be quoted here, but
considerations of space must limit the choice to the
more personal references which concluded it : —

" To attempt this morning, while our great sorrow is
still fresh, any complete analysis of the varied powers
which enabled Dr. Allon to discharge with such efficiency
such great duties, and through so many years, or to give
any adequate account of the various elements which con-
tributed to his energetic personality, is impossible. All
that I can do is to tell you briefly what kind of a man he
seemed to be to one who knew and loved him well.

"He had sound health and physical vigour; for many
years he never knew what illness was; and he had that
delight in labour and those buoyant spirits which are
among the most felicitous endowments of a man who is
charged with heavy responsibilities and whose life is spent
in constant toil. At one time he appeared to me incapable
of weariness. The fibre of his intellect was firm and
strong. He was always eager, alert, and keen. He was
like an ancient Greek, and cared to know things, and to
know all sorts of things, for the sake of knowing them.
His interest was active in all kinds of literature, and there
was no narrowness in his intellectual sympathies ; excel-
lence of every kind tilled him with admiration and delight.

" His mind was literary in its strongest and most
characteristic tendencies rather than speculative ; he was
never mastered, I think, by the imperial fascination of that
great movement of philosophic thought which extends from
Kant to Hegel. But while he craved for no vast and com-
prehensive theory which attempted to resolve into unity
G

82 HENRY ALLON :

the antithesis of the Infinite and the finite, he was always
demanding of himself a reasonable account of his own
beliefs. Within the range of his speculation he was
impatient of confusion, incoherence, disorder; his intel-.
lectual method was rationalistic rather than mystical.
And yet, while he had his own definite beliefs and his own
intellectual method, he had affinities with widely contrasted
schools of religious thought. He was strongly attracted by
James Martineau ; he was also strongly attracted by John
Henry Newman.

" He was a man of strong affections and of deep
emotion. There was passion in him, but, especially in his
more elaborate sermons, it was largely suppressed. It was
different in the discourses which were of a more pastoral
character; in these his emotion w7as allowed to show itself
freely ; in these he moved your heart as well as instructed
your intellect. But in discussing great subjects on great
occasions his powerful understanding seemed to resent the
disturbing ppwer of passion. It was there; you felt its
warmth ; and yet it was only rarely allowed to set his
thoughts on fire ; it showed itself in the increased strenu-
ousness of his purely intellectual activity. It was trans-
muted into intellectual energy.

" But when the intellectual strain was not upon him,
there was not only warmth but flame. He w-as ardent in
his love for his friends. His sympathy was as tender as a
woman's. His emotion was sometimes uncontrollable, and
I have seen it break out into tears. He was large and
generous in his thoughts of men. His admiration for
those whom he honoured was boundless. His delight in
the successes of other men was one of the largest elements
of his own happiness.

;' The regal element of his religious life was the tender-
ness and strength of his personal devotion to our Lord. I
recall times when we were sitting together in his study,

THE STORY OF BIS MINISTRY. 83

and when our talk, moving quietly and without excitement
from subject to subject, drew near to Christ ; and then I
can remember the change that passed upon him : how he
kindled ; how sometimes his joy became radiant • how at
others his voice broke with emotion while he spoke of the
greatness of Christ's love ; how at other times there burst
forth exclamations of victorious faith in the Son of God
who had become Son of man and was Saviour of the world.
This was the ultimate secret of his power. Through all the
confusions and uncertainties of his time his faith in Christ
never faltered ; with growing years his devotion to Christ
deepened, and in Christ's service he found constantly in-
creasing delight. And so it was as a minister of Christ,
loving Christ with a vehement love, that he watched on
behalf of your souls as one that would have to give
account. "

The demonstrations of respect upon the day of
the funeral and on the following Sunday were only
in keeping with the general expressions from many
sources. The large space which was devoted by
newspapers of every shade of opinion to articles and
biographical sketches, and the universal agreement
in recognition of his useful and honourable career
— these, together with the great number of letters
received from all sorts and conditions of men
testified to a widespread influence exerted by his
life and work, the hearty acknowledgment of which
was a profound consolation to those who had loved
him most. It only remains now in a few words to
point out some chief features in his life and work*
and to indicate his strongest personal characteristics.

G 2

84

CHAPTER V.

LABOURS AND CHARACTERISTICS.

Dr. Allon's literary activity through many years
was altogether out of proportion to any lasting work
which he has left behind. In literature, as in other
things, he was a man of ceaseless industry, but his
activities were so numerous and varied that the
definite monuments of his energy are fewer than
would have been expected. He gave, for instance,
an enormous amount of time and labour to the
editorship of the British Quarterly Review, con-
tributing a large number of the shorter reviews and a
fair number of the longer articles ; but such work is
naturally fugitive in its character, and leaves behind
little testimony to generations which follow. It is
to be regretted, from one point of view, that some
of the strength which he gave to literary work
which was of mere passing interest, was not given to
enterprises which might have been more permanent
in their character. There were certain periods of
Church history which had a great attraction for him,
and had he brought to the production of some work
upon one of these periods the literary gift and great
industry which he gave to many smaller matters, it was
in him to have written a book which the world would
not willingly have let die. But if he has left behind
him no book which will take a prominent place in

HENRY ALLON. 85

the literature of this half-century, the published

volumes of his sermons will long preserve their place
as examples of the teaching of a wise and cultured
Nonconformist minister, while his account of the
lives of Dr. Binney and Mr. Sherman will be sought
after so long as the memory of those distinguished
ministers is preserved.

A strong characteristic of Dr. Allon's literary
work was his intense impatience of all that was slip-
shod. He believed that words were capable of giving
the clearest possible expression to the thought that
was in the writer's mind, and he had patiently culti-
vated the power of setting forth in clear and felicitous
phrase the meaning which he wished to convey. It
was his deep sense of the importance of style in all
literary work which caused him, in the early years of
his ministry, to write every sermon twice ; in that way
he gained the mastery of expression which was
afterwards so characteristic of all his work. If in
his literary manner there was a danger, it was, per-
haps, -that of sacrificing force of expression to per-
fection of style ; but the strength of his thinking
generally saved him from that peril. There can,
however, be no doubt that sometimes in the wonderful
finish of his productions there was some loss of
power — a loss which was felt to be all the greater
because the power was in him, had he but let himself

go.

His numerous literary engagements and his broad
intellectual sympathies naturally brought him into
contact with men of many creeds and classes. Literary
men of all schools were heartily welcomed to his

86 HENRY ALLON:

hospitable home, and there were gathered round his
table at times groups of men, comparatively few in
numbers, but presenting a variety as great as could
be found in any house in London. Dr. Keynolds, in
some reminiscences of his friend which were pub-
lished shortly after his death, speaks of two occasions
which recurred to his memory, and which will illus-
trate his large and varied circle of acquaintance. One
party was composed of leading Church dignitaries,
Koman Catholic scholars, Quakers, Nonconformist
advocates, and others, and to them Dr. Allon read the
paper on "Worship" afterwards published in Ecclesia.
The other party was made up of men like Deans Alford
and Stanley, Matthew Arnold, George Macdonald,
and Thomas Binney. Though there were, of course,
other bonds more sacred even than that of literature
between Dr. Allon and many of those who were thus
his guests, his first introduction to most of them was
through literature, and there were many who were
drawn to him by bonds which were entirely literary.

He was a constant and omnivorous reader ; history
was perhaps his favourite study, though in one who
seemed to read everything it is difficult to say
exactly what did occupy the first place. A great
scholar in the academic sense he was not, but of
English literature he had a wide and intimate
knowledge. Poetry he did not read, though in early
years he had himself written much. In fiction he
remained loyal to Scott and Dickens, and regretted
the evidence that Scott was being less generally read.
To see him in his library was to have the best* proof
of his constant love of reading ; the spacious room was

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 87

crowded with books, and the shelves which covered
all the wall-space were filled with books three deep,
while piles of volumes were to be seen at every
possible point — on tables, chairs, the floor — wherever
room could be found for them. But so completely
had his reading kept pace with the growth of his
library, that with scarcely any hesitation he could
put his hand upon any book be wanted, even though
it might have been hidden for years behind two rows
of more recent volumes.

Perhaps the distinctive place which will be given
to Dr. Allon in the history of the Nonconformity
of this half-century will be that of the strong up-
builder and the wise leader of a large and active
church, and the spiritual teacher of a thoughtful
people. The numerous duties which involved in-
creasing demands upon his time made it impossible
for him to undertake what is known as systematic
pastoral visiting, although of that he did more than
some people gave him credit for ; but in any time
of need, when his counsel or sympathy could be
of use, he was at once ready and active. Again and
again have members of the congregation said to his
successor that it was not until they were plunged into
some trouble that they found how great-hearted was
the pastor whom before they had but little under-
stood. In matters of perplexity, matters of business,
matters of public duty, his strength and his wise
common-sense made his advice often sought for by
members of his congregation, and to such approaches
lie always responded willingly.

88 HENRY ALLON :

One exceedingly beautiful aspect of his character
was seen in his attitude to j^oung people who went
to see him with a view to the membership of the
church. Many of them entered his room with
something like fear and trembling, expecting some
hard doctrinal examination — they found him all
tenderness and sympathy, and came out with new
understanding of the man who was their pastor.
In the sick-room and in the house of sorrow the
kindness of his heart was very quickly and delicately
shown. There was little of the ordinary phraseology
that makes speech at such hours often so empty ;
he did not always even offer prayer : there were times
when he thought that that would be comparatively
meaningless ; but when he was leaving the house the
hearty hand-shake and the warm " God bless you "
were felt to be a veritable benediction.

In his pastoral work Dr. Allon was never happier
than in the services connected with the domestic
life of the congregation. His addresses at Baptismal
Services and his conduct of the Marriage Service
were not performances of a mere formal ritual,
but were felt to be personal, hearty, and most real.
Many who remember his conduct of such services
will be glad to recall some of his words. He would
address himself to the bride and bridegroom at a
marriage service in some such words as these : —
"You will not regard this relationship ... as of
trifling importance. Well and wisely has it been said,
' they that enter into the state of marriage cast a die
of the greatest contingency and yet of the greatest
interest in the world;' a lasting felicity or a lasting

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY.

sorrow arc in the power of marriage. Next to your

personal dedication to God you never have and you
never can take any step so deeply involving your
destinies in both worlds. If in all our ways God is to
be acknowledged, pre-eminently should He be so in a
step involving so much that is momentous as this.
You will need to cherish much mutual respect, and
to exercise much mutual forbearance ; where the
purest and highest affection exists this is necessary.
Our poor imperfect nature suffers many moods and
needs constant watch and control, especially in the
thousand little things which make up daily life, and
which chiefly determine its happiness. Let there be
no cause for peevishness or irritability ; Ave see some
— and life presents nothing more beautiful or holy —
who spend a long married life without a jarring
feeling. Let this be the case with you ; resolve from
this day of your marriage that neither by thoughtless
words nor resentful look shall the bright sun of your
married joy be clouded. You will constitute a house-
hold— let it be dedicated to God. Wherever you
have a tent, there let God have an altar. And
through all your course see that ye be helpers of
each other's piety. You will influence each other
much ; see to it that your influence be rightly
directed. Seek eminent personal holiness. Be kindly
watchful over each other's spiritual welfare. Let
there be nothing in your married life, towards each
other and towards God, that you will at last re-
member with erriet"

His work as a religious teacher is best illustrated

90 HENRY ALLON :

by the sermons which are included in this volume.
They have been chosen as instances of the different
aspects of personal and public life with which he con-
scientiously dealt. There was never in him, as has
been said, any attempt at the mere popular preacher.
Indeed, he had a contempt for any mere effort to
win applause ; and that fact, which to many of his
hearers constituted the secret of his abiding strength
and of his growing leadership, was, perhaps, the
reason of his never being ranked amongst those who
are called, with more or less discrimination, popular
preachers. His own personal preference was for the
argumentative and exhaustive style of preaching. He
sometimes said that no man could preach a good
sermon under fifty minutes. It was the natural
verdict of one whose ideal of a sermon was a finished
exposition of some particular text, or a fair and all-
round examination of some special theme. But when
now and again he departed from his ordinary method,
and in one of his delightful studies of some Old
Testament character, or in a passionate appeal to
young men, came a little nearer to the level of
common life, all his hearers, and not least those who
were most attracted by his more usual method, felt
that there was in him a great reserve of capacity.

Perhaps no contemporary of the later years of Dr.
Alton's life held quite the same position in the esti-
mation of Congregational ministers and churches as
did he. To say that by those who knew him inti-
mately he was greatly beloved, and that by all outside
the circle of that intimate knowledge he was re-

THE 8T0BT OF HIS MINISTRY. 91

spected, is only to put the fact in the barest state-
ment possible. His services to the Congregational
churches were numerous, and of almost every pos-
sible character : but no minister, perhaps, was more
frequently called upon to preach at the opening of
new chapels. His sympathy with, and labours for,
the elevation of Nonconformist worship made him
the most appropriate leader in the Dedication Service
of any building for worship, and especially of those in
which an effort was being made to attain the higher
forms ; and as time and opportunity served, he was
always ready to respond to such invitations. Occasion-
ally his visits for such purposes were made the occa-
sion of conferences on the subject of psalmody with
the members of the choir or of the congregation
generally, and often there followed a marked improve-
ment in the service of song in the house of God.
These visits, too, were sometimes occasions of con-
siderable private beneficence. He would find, in his
journeyings about the country, ministers and others
whom he had known in more prosperous days, and
not seldom he came back a poorer man than he went.
As a representative of his order he undoubtedly occu-
pied the first place. If in later years anyone had to
be chosen to represent the Congregational Churches,
or even the Nonconformist Churches generally, Dr.
Allon was one of the first to be thought of. During
his visit to America in 1870, where he preached and
lectured in many places, he was heartily welcomed by
the churches as a representative English Congre-
gationalist.

Tn connection with such organisations as the

92 HENRY ALLON :

Hospital Sunday Fund, the British and Foreign Bible
Society, and other similar societies, his position was
universally felt to be a representative one ; and, not
long before his death, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
having to leave the chair early at some united
gathering in Lambeth Palace, recognised that position
by asking him to take the vacant place. His hand-
some face, his refined manner, corresponded to the
ability and tact with which he fulfilled the responsi-
bilities of such positions. There are some unseen
services that he rendered to the ministers and churches
of his own order which at the time were not always
known in large circles, but which it would be wrong
to pass over now. Perhaps no man ever gave more
financial help and real brotherly sympathy to poor
ministers. A sad story of want, and of battling
with imperfect means, would move him to tears ;
and his was a sympathy which did not expend itself
in mere emotion, but took very practical and helpful
forms. Many a man greatly needing sympathy lost
a good friend when Dr. Allon died.

Perhaps no minister, again, was more sought
after by those of his brethren especially who in
times of perplexity were in need of counsel. Young
ministers of other denominations seeking larger oppor-
tunities than they thought they found where they
were ; ministers of his own order, troubled about
matters of Church government or of doctrine, asked
his advice, and were always heartily helped. The
testimony of Dr. Reynolds at his funeral, that he had
been regarded by many as a father-confessor, was
profoundly true.

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 93

More than once, too, did he come publicly to the
rescue of men who were suspected, and by showing
countenance at critical times to those who were being-
somewhat persecuted, he helped, without doubt, to
strengthen them in their faith and purpose. At the
last autumnal meeting of the Congregational Union
which he attended — that at Southport in LSDJ — the
incident, already alluded to, occurred which happily
emphasised the position he held in the estimation
of his brethren. The chairman mentioned almost
incidentally that it was Dr. Allon's birthday, and at
once the whole assembly rose with a demonstration
of respect and of affection which he found himself
almost unable to bear. It was an illustration of his
modesty that at first he could hardly believe the
demonstration was intended for himself.

One word should, perhaps, be added in acknow-
ledgment of the service which he rendered to Con-
gregationalism in the various committees of which
he w^as a member. His great business capacity and
wide experience made his advice invaluable, and to
many institutions and societies, his beloved Cheshunt
College amongst the rest, he did invaluable service
in this quiet way.

No part of Dr. Allon's work was more widely
known than his endeavours to promote a nobler
service of song in public worship. It is difficult for
worshippers of this generation to realise how utterly
poverty-stricken — so far as the service of praise is
concerned — was the worship of the house of God half
a century ago. The severe repression of everything

94 HENRY ALLON :

which could be suspected of any tendency towards
ceremonialism resulted in a bare and meagre service,
which — however it might satisfy the merely spiritual
instincts of the worshipper — left no room for the
sense of beauty in form or in sound. The long, long
prayer and the slowly sung hymn were the only
outlets for all the possibilities of worship-aspiration ;
and that which, to the spiritual few, might be a
source of inspiration and of strength, was to the
many a stumbling-block and a weariness. But the
great advance in the public taste for things beauti-
ful has been as manifest in the conduct of public
worship as elsewhere, and it is only right that the
names of those who braved the opposition to this
advance should be held in continual honour by the
Church.

There is no need — nor, if there were need, is this
the place for it — to enter upon the discussion of the
relative claims to this honour; but no impartial
observer of the progress of Nonconformist worship
could deny the great influence which, in the earlier
days of the movement especially, was exercised by Dr.
Allon. His hymn, anthem, and chant books were for
a long time very largely used in the Congregational
churches of England, and became models to other
Churches ; and while their use has become somewhat
restricted by the issue of the officially authorised
books of the Congregational Union, they have left
a very deep and abiding mark upon Congregational
worship generally. His volume of hymns for children's
worship is in the front rank of such volumes, and
is still very popular. In the earlier years of his

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 95

work he had the advantage of the co-operation of
Dr. Gauntlett.

It would be impossible to represent Dr. Al Ion's
views on the importance of Church song, or on the
great improvement which has taken place, half so
well or clearly as he himself has done. There are
given here, therefore, extracts from his preface to
the latest issue, in 1886, of his Psalmist Hymnal
— the fruit of many years' labour — and from a lecture
on the subject delivered in 1861, before the improve-
ment in Church song had become so general as it is
to-day.

" The amazing advance of Congregational singing in

English-speaking churches can be fully realised only by
those who can personally remember what, in Parish church
and Nonconformist chapel alike, it was forty years ago.
In the Anglican Church the neglected Hymn has become
prominent in Congregational worship, in the Puritan
Churches worship has developed in aesthetic forms. The
art-music of ritual worship has deepened and broadened
into Congregational song, while the rude fervour of
Evangelical Hymn singing has developed into a higher
art-expression. Both tendencies have thus combined to
produce what is perhaps a more consentaneous and extended
culture of the worship of the congregation than the Church
of Christ has ever known. One effect has been fresh
contributions to the Hymnology of the Church of a very
rich and precious character. It is impossible to exaggerate
the contributions to worship-song of the Evangelical Revival
of the Eighteenth Century — of Watts and Wesley, Toplady
and Doddridge, Cowper and John Newton ; but the deeper
and broader spiritual life of our own age has produced
contributions of equal and more diversified excellence.
James Montgomery and Josiah Conder, Keble and Lyte,

96 HENRY ALLON :

Newman and Faber, C. Elliott and Monsell, Bishop Words-
worth and Bishop Walsham How, George Bawson and
Horatius Bonar, John Ellerton and Godfrey Turing, Bay
Palmer and Bishop Bickersteth, Frances Havergal and
Mrs. Alexander, with many others, have raised our Church
Hymnody to a very high level indeed, and have supplied
congregations with exhaustless stores of worshipping in-
spiration. It is given to no one man or generation to
furnish adequate and permanent expression for the manifold
devotional life of the Christian Church. To this all ages,
all Churches, all individualities, must contribute. The
transitions in religious thought, experience, tone, circum-
stance, and work, which are continually going on, necessitate
fresh modes of devotional expression —

' The old order chang-eth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.'

There are Hymns, the glorious possession of all the Christian
ages, which in their fitness and fulness as expressions of
common Christian life, no changing forms can affect ; and
there are also individualities of religious inspiration and
expression that are born of each generation and address
themselves to it. It is in the latter that the mutations of
Hymnody are seen and felt. Old leaves drop from the
Hymnological tree, and fresh and more affluent foliage
forms. The large proportion in this selection of Hymns
by contemporary writers — nearly one half — will surprise
many.

" Transcendent, therefore, as were the excellences of
Watts and Wesley as hymn writers, many of their composi-
tions have necessarily become obsolete. The forms have
changed in which theological idea embodied itself, and in
which religious life was realised. New fields and modes of
Christian work have become imperative ; new embodiments
of social, family, and Church life have been generated ;

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 97

conceptions of Christian habit and relationship have been
modified: even the suggestive metaphor of one generation
becomes obsolete or ludicrous in the generation following
it. All these things, while they do not affect the radical
elements of Christian life, necessarily change its modes
of expression.

"A Hymn is the inspiration of piety and poetry — both;
and the piety is more than the poetry. It is not too much
to say that, were it an alternative, the devotional purposes
of Hymnody would be better accomplished by the rudest
forms of devotional fervour than by the most perfect
embodiments of poetical genius. Few great poets have
contributed to our Hymnody; while some of the Hymns
that have taken an inflexible hold of the heart of the
Church have been written by men concerning whom almost
all we know is that they wrote them.

"It is to be remembered also that the Hymn Book of the
Church is the manual not of the literary and the cultured
only, but also of the uncultured and the ignorant. .It must
therefore address itself to their modes of apprehension,
unless artistic and literary selfishness is to leave them
uncared for. Not that either good taste or refined feeling
need be violated in the compositions of such an appeal.
We need not have recourse to what is vulgar in order to
secure what is popular and inspiring : but this aim puts a
limit upon over-fastidiousness. If the common people are
to be the care of the Church, its Hymnal must be an
embodiment for their use. The Hymns of the Church,
like the Ballads of the nation, are for popular lyrical use,
and are to be tested not by mere literary canons, but by
their power of devotional inspiration. That is the best
Hymn which has in it the most potent spiritual inspiration
for the greatest number of worshipping men and women.

" The same principles apply to Tunes. Many Tunes that,
tested solely by canons of Musical Art, would be pronounced

H

98 HENUY ALLON:

inferior, have in them — like many ballad tunes — a power of
popular inspiration that would cause their excision to be a
devotional loss. While, therefore, ever seeking, both in
the Hymns and in the Tunes, to avoid what is incongruous,
and to elevate both poetical and musical taste, it has been
felt that the admission of a Hymn, or of a Tune, was not to
be determined by art-canons alone, but rather by its
practical power of popular inspiration.

"Such Hymns have been selected as seemed best calcu-
lated to bring men directly into spiritual communion with God
in Christ, not so much through Theologies, or Sacraments, or
Churches, as through the deep sense of spiritual realities —
the affinities and necessities of their spiritual nature. This
is helped by the spiritual as distinguished from the
ecclesiastical and ritual traditions of past ages. The
problem of a devotional manual is neither unduly to relax
nor to overstrain the associations of the religious life, but
to make all things, past and present, minister to its highest
development."

" It is impossible to exaggerate the practical importance
of a rich and cultured worship-music. It is true that we
worship a spiritual God, who requires of us only a spiritual
service ; but it is true also that we who worship are
sensuous as well as spiritual beings, and that we are largely
dependent upon our sensuous nature for the excitement of
spiritual feeling. If we read the Bible we are greatly
influenced by the beauty of David's poetry, the splendour
of Isaiah's eloquence, and the intellectual force of Paul's
reasoning. If we hear sermons, we are affected by the
eloquence as well as by the orthodoxy of the preacher. If
we pray, our devotions are winged by the fitness and tender-
ness of the words that we employ. So, if we sing, we are
affected by tune as well as by words.

" I would not test Church song by its mere poetry and

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 99

music. These may be of the very highest artistic excellence,
and yet for all purposes of worship be but ' as sounding
brass or a tinkling cymbal ; ' they may possess only the
intellect and the sensibilities. A man may have the most
exquisite enjoyment of both, and his heart of worship
remain untouched. Neither would I test Church song by
mere ecclesiastical usages or traditions, either episcopal or
nonconforming, for these are often as unreasoning and
injurious as the traditions of the Pharisees.

" But I would test Church song by its practical fitness
for inciting and expressing true worshipping feeling — by its
power, experimentally proved, of appealing to that which is
highest and holiest in our spiritual life, of making us forget
self and think about God, of making the love of evil depart
out of us, and of producing godliness within us. That may
be the best form of worship for one congregation which
is not the best for another. Why not recognise in con-
gregations differences of character, education, habit, and
ability] Why should all congregations worship alike?
Why not approve in each that which is the most conducive
to its own worshipping joy ]

" The only uniform canon that I would impose is — that
whatever the form selected, it be the worship of the
people, the united vocal praise of the whole congregation, a
form of song in which every worshipper can easily and
heartily join. We do not sing when we merely listen to a
choir, any more than we preach when we merely listen to a
sermon : the song or the sermon may affect us, but it is the
act of another and not our own. Cod cannot be worshipped
vicariously ; and few perversions of worship are more
incongruous than for a congregation to be Listening while
a choir is performing — than for a worshipper, with his
heart full of praise, to be unable to give utterance to it.
from inability to join in the singing, or else to be checked
in his attempt to do so by the sexton's well-known rebuke :

H 2

100 HENRY ALLON:

' Stop, sir, stop ! we do all the singing here ourselves ! '
In Nonconforming churches, Church song is the only congre-
gational act. The people are preached to, and prayed for,
surely they are not to be sung to as well.

" Whether, therefore, it be choir or precentor, organ or
unaccompanied voices ; whether the rustic pomposities of
the village church, or the artistic slovenliness of the town
cathedral ; whether the barbarous vocalisation of the
' Denmarks/ and ' Polands,' and ' Calcuttas,' of the last
generation, or the skilful combinations of Handel and
Mendelssohn in this ; in these things let every church be
' fully persuaded in its own mind.' I would ' lay upon it
no greater burden than this necessary thing,' that from a
service of worship every form of song be resolutely excluded
in which every worshipper cannot join. Worship is a
sacrifice to God, not to musical art.

" I hold that all debatings about worship-music, whether
it should be chanted psalm or metrical hymn, are simply
absurd. By the A^ail of tradition or of prejudice they cover
up the true point at issue, and make the very worship of
God a badge of sectarianism. If it be conceded that both
psalms and hymns are to be sung, the question is resolved.
If it be a psalm that we sing, we sing it to a rhythmical
tune ; if a hymn, we sing it to a metrical tune. Both are
chants, for ' chanting ' is simply singing, whatever may be
the structure of the music adopted.

" In our uninspired hymnody, God has given us a
precious possession of devotional wealth, the inheritance of
many generations. It has enriched our worship, expressed
our religious emotions, been the bond of our Church praise,
and the joy of our pious homes. It has strengthened us in
great duties, solaced us in great sorrows, and cheered our
dying beds. Next to the Bible, the greatest loss that the
Church could sustain would be the loss of its hymnody.
Germany could do better without Luther's sermons than

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 101

without his songs. England could spare all that her
Doctors have written better than her Evangelical hymns ;
there can be no comparison between the religious power of
dead books and of living songs.

" But precious as our hymns are, we may not exalt their
religious power above that of the inspired Psalms — sanc-
tioned as these are by a millennium of worship in the
Jewish temple ; by the worshipping use of our Lord and
His Apostles; by the almost exclusive use of the Christian
Church for four hundred years, and by their perpetuated
use to the present day ; for from the day in which they
were written to the present day there never has been a time
when they were not the worship-song of the almost universal
Church.

" In conclusion, I have but one canon of Church song
to insist upon. I would not prescribe either its form or its
character, further than to require that it be reverent and
devotional, ' fit for a seraph to sing, and an angel to hear.'
But I do demand that it be, not a choir song to which
people must listen, but a congregational song in which
people may join — a worship, not of priests, but of the whole
church. For this end I regard that as the best worship-
music which in the greatest degree combines simplicity
and beauty, devoutness and fervour."

A few last words must be said upon Dr. Allon's
personal characteristics. At all periods of his life his
appearance was striking, and produced upon the mind
of an observer the impression of a strong man, strong
in intellect as well as in physique. Dr. Reynolds,
describing his appearance in the earlier days of his
ministry, has spoken of "his raven locks, his remark-
able eyes of deep blue, his blanched face, his refined
expression." To this generation, however, the memory

102 HENRY ALLON:

is rather of the silver-grey hair, the handsome mobile
face, which was only seen at its best when lighted up
in the midst of conversation or in the earnestness
of some public address. His mouth was remarkable,
and those who knew him well could tell at once from
its slight movements what emotions possessed him :
sorrow or laughter might be sternly suppressed, but
some revelation was always in the play of the lips.

He had, during the greater part of his life, re^
markably good health ; the disease which asserted
itself during his later years did not, until the last
year or two, interfere seriously with his work, and
then only for one or two comparatively brief periods.
No man who had not great physical strength could
possibly have accomplished all that he was able
to do.

Without intruding unduly into spheres which
have a sacredness not to be lightly touched, it should
be said that nowhere did the character of Dr. Allon
appear stronger or more beautiful than in the privacy
of his home life. That life of freedom from outward
restraint, in which the virtues and defects of character
are most clearly seen, only showed him to be a man
greater and better in himself than in all his outward
activities.

Those who were privileged to see it will not
easily forget his chivalrous behaviour to, and tender
regard for, his wife. Her affection and unselfishness
made his home a place of continual rest and renewal
for his work. Mrs. Alton's early days had been spent
in the midst of striking religious influence, and for
some years, between the death of her father and her

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 103

marriage, she was largely influenced by the strong
character of the late Mr. Potto Brown. The lessons
which she had learned in these early years she
brought to her new position, and they enabled her to
be a true helper to one whose position was becoming
every year of increasing importance. Mrs. Allon
willingly and ably took her share in many of the
organisations connected with the church, but the
chief sphere of her influence was in less public forms
of service ; chiefly in the sympathy and affection with
which she sustained her husband throughout his long
minis try. Her sudden death, just as this volume was
going through the press, called forth many tributes
of regard and affection, and the grateful love of her
children, which no words could exaggerate, bear
testimony to the beautiful spirit of the home.

Dr. Allon was a wise and tender father, seeking
rather to train the judgment of his children than
to coerce their will ; their memory of him is one of
unceasing gratitude and affection. Remembering
the great love which bound him to his home,
nothing has been more pathetic in connection
with his death than the fact that his youngest
and greatly loved son, who only returned from sea
just in time for his father's funeral, sailed again
within a few days and has never since been heard of,
nor has there been seen any trace whatever of the
ship in which he sailed. In the midst of all the
sorrow it was almost a matter of thankfulness that
Dr. Allon had been spared a grief which would have
been all but intolerable, and which undoubtedly
hastened the death of Mrs. Allon. Those who saw

104 HENRY ALLON:

him most nearly and frequently had most knowledge
of his tenderness of heart, and would often see tears
in his eyes at the mention of troubles or kindnesses
of others which had been spoken of largely as a
matter of course. The coldness which some people
thought they saw in him had no existence in a
nearer knowledge.

Owing partly to his physical strength, and chiefly
to his thoroughly healthy nature, Dr. Allon had a
vigorous enjoyment of life. His social powers were
great, and he was never happier than when hospitably
presiding at his own table. One frequent guest has
said that it was interesting to see the skill with which
he would, by a chance question or remark, draw into
the conversation some guest who seemed likely to
be left in solitude. The large and varied circle of
his acquaintance made hospitality a duty; but it
was just as truly a delight. Many distinguished
men gathered in his dining-room. Some few may
be named, as Mr. Gladstone, who was always a
staunch admirer of Dr. Allon, and who, when divided
from him by a still burning question, declared the
separation to have been a real grief to him ; Dean
Stanley, Dean Alford, Dr. (now Archbishop) Maclagan,
George Macdonald, Matthew Arnold, John Bright,
Mortimer Collins, distinguished ministers and laymen
from America, where he had many friends ; and
always, for part of his English visits, his firm friend
Henry Ward Beecher. The host was never, as is the
fate of some, lost in his hospitalities, but always
contributed largely to the enjoyment and profit of
the conversation.

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 105

He had a strong sense of humour, sometimes too
sternly suppressed. No man could perpetrate a
worse pun or tell a better story. He loved a jest,
but never a jest doubtful in character. His part-
ing with his friends was often accompanied by some
apt pleasantry. In his preaching there were occa-
sional glimpses of a quiet humour which perhaps
he might have indulged more frequently with effect.
His hearty laugh at some good story or some inno-
cent jest, was the expression of a healthy and whole-
some nature. He had his favourite stories, which his
friends heard more than once, and perhaps his chief
favourites were those which exposed the emptiness
of the mere cant of religion, for which he had an
unspeakable contempt. One story he invariably told
with much zest, of a man who always saw God's hand
in his success, by whatever means he might have
gained it. The hero of the story was speaking in a
religious meeting, and publicly thanked God for his
success in business, which, he said, began thus : " When
a youth, he was standing by a toll-bar when a gentle-
man drove up, and taking out his purse to pay the
toll, dropped, without knowing it, a shilling to the
ground. The youth put his foot upon it, and when
the gentleman had gone pocketed it. That," he added,
" was the first shilling the Lord sent me, and He has
blessed me ever since." His enjoyment of the joke
was nearly connected with his strong conviction,
which he sometimes preached very earnestly — of the
need of righteousness in business transactions. In
conversation with friends he was exceedingly frank
and outspoken, and was, from this cause, once or

106 HENRY ALLON:

twice involved in misunderstandings and conflicts
which might otherwise have been avoided.

In political and social matters he was a strong
Individualist, and never quite understood the newer
tendencies of to-day. His emphasis was upon indi-
vidual enterprise and character rather than collective
action, and he used constantly to remind others that
the second of these must fail unless the first be
maintained.

In another connection something has been said
of his generosity. Like many good men, he was
harder in theory than in practice. None could say
stronger things of those who, by their own fault, had
become failures in life, but none were more ready to
help the very men whom in theory he denounced. If
sometimes he turned from his door one who, he was
certain, was a mere professional beggar, it was at the
cost afterwards of many self-reproaches. His gifts
were many and generous.

He had some strong and long-continued friend-
ships, the memory of which is a sacred possession to
those who survive. Of these, Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Dale,
Mr. Joshua Harrison, Mr. Guinness Rogers, and Dr.
Newman Hall may be specially mentioned. They
were all friends of many years' standing, and no
greater testimony can be given to his worth than
the words they have spoken of their deep love and
admiration for him.

His habits were exceedingly methodical and
orderly. He kept most careful and exact account of
all the sermons which he preached and places which
he visited, and could always, at short notice, find a

THE STORY OF HIS MINISTRY. 107

paper or book which he required. Method in his
work enabled him to get the maximum of results out
of the minimum of time.

He was a man of great moral courage, though
strangely enough the common sense and breadth of
view with which it was tempered sometimes gave the
impression of one who was supremely a lover of
compromise. No man would speak out more boldly
for what he felt to be true, or more warmly champion
a truth which was attacked, or a man who he thought
was ill-treated.

Finally, he was a loyal and warm-hearted servant
of Jesus Christ. To Him in early days he " gave his
heart," and afterwards his life ; and he has left behind
a record which must long be a gracious memory to
his family, his church, and his friends. He "served
his generation by the will of God."

SERMONS

A^D ADDBESSES.

SERMONS AND ADDRESSES.

[1867.]
THE GLORY OF THE SANCTUARY.

" I will make the place of my feet glorious." — Isaiah lx. 13.

These glowing pictures of the final glory of the
Church are the Apocalypse of the Old Testament,
and they produced upon the Jew the effect that the
Apocalypse of John produces upon us.

The expectation of a golden age has ever been
the imagination and the hope of men. The Bible
presents it in its religious form. It makes this the
light of all our anticipations of the future, the in-
spiration by Avhich all endeavour is animated, all
endurance sustained.

Like other dreams of a golden age, this would be
a mere imagination but for the evidence of Divine
purpose and assurance upon which it rests. Instead
of saying religion dreams of a golden age because it
is the common illusion of men, would it not be truer
to say all men dream of a golden age because of the
traditional religious assurance of it ? Here is the re-
ligious conception of the millennium, set in sublime
spiritual lights, commending itself by its transcendent
spiritual glory and by its practical effects upon
human character and feeling, just as the sunshine is
demonstrated by the light that it diffiises and by the
life that it quietens.

The Babylonish Captivity was a groat civil and
religious darkness: the throne was overturned, the
Temple and its worship destroyed, and the religious

112 HENRY ALLON.

condition of the people was sadly demoralised ; out-
wardly and inwardly it was a dark night of bitter
sorrow and troubled dreams.

In the midst of this condition the prophet unrolls
his apocalypse. He has represented Jehovah as
triumphing over idols, and the Servant of Jehovah,
the Messiah, as triumphing in His sufferings ; and
then, with an urgent cry, almost a shout, he sum-
mons the Church to its spiritual development and
triumph. " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and
the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." Its
scattered children shall be gathered, the favour of
Jehovah shall be upon it, He shall dwell in the
midst of it, and the whole earth shall contribute
to its glory.

As in John's description of the New Jerusalem,
the metaphors employed are largely taken from
the Temple service ; but all resources of physical
nature, of national power, of intellectual genius, of
spiritual grandeur — from the cedar of Lebanon and
the gold of Ophir to the tribute of nations and
the homage of their kings — are laid under contri-
bution for the glorious picture. Lustrous beauty,
affluent grace, spiritual honours, transcendent bless-
ings, are lavishly promised, and are wrought into a
description with which only the vision of the New
Jerusalem can compare.

No wonder that the prophet gathers his singing
robes about him. How could he expound such
glories in prosaic modes of thought, or rejoice in
them but in the words of a rich rhetorical imagina-
tion and in language of poetic vividness, sublimity,
and power ?

It is a marvellous religious apocalypse that is
unrolled before him ; transcendent spiritual concep-
tions break upon him, the spirit of the prophet is
not subject to the prophet, and he is inspired to
raptures that have no parallel save in John's visions

THE GLORY OF THE SANCTUARY. 113

of the Christian apotheosis of men. The thought
and language of both are congruous with their theme.
Hence these last twenty-six chapters of Isaiah's pro-
phecies are luminous with spiritual conceptions of
religious truth and life and catholicity such as .Judaism
itself never conceived.

The central idea of this great glory of the Church
is the presence in it of Jehovah Himself. " I will
glorify the house of my glory." "I will make the
place of my feet glorious/' "As for me, I had it in
mine heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the
covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our
God." " We will go into His tabernacle, we will
worship at His footstool." In the place of His worship
His footstool partakes the glory of His throne.

To common spots of earth the place of Divine
worship is what the Holy Place of the Jewish Temple
was to its outer court, what the Temple itself was to
the rest of Palestine — the place of special manifesta-
tion, grace, and joy. " The Lord loveth the gates of
Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob." " This is
my rest for ever ; here will I dwell, for I have a
delight therein " " Wheresoever two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them."

The representation may suggest to us the con-
ditions and characteristics of God's true worship.

Two things seem essential to the glory of a
church :

Firstly — That it be a place of Divine manifestation.

Secondly — That the Divine manifestation pro-
duce its proper spiritual effects upon the worshippers.

I. A church will be glorious just in the degree in
which it is a place of Divine manifestation.

The glory of any place is the presence that fills
it: the glory of the throne is the character of the
monarch, the glory of a country the patriotism of
its inhabitants, the glory of a house the virtues of

I

114 HENRY ALLON.

its inhabitants. The glory of Solomon's Temple had
its renown, not from its transcendent architecture or
its consecrated wealth — in these it was far surpassed
by pagan temples — but from the Divine manifestation
that filled it. Its mercy-seat was the theocratic throne
of Jehovah ; its Shechinah- splendour was His sj^mbol ;
its oracle declared His will ; the ark of the covenant
contained His law ; the altars of sacrifice and of
incense, with sprinkled blood on the mercy-seat, indi-
cated the way of approach to Him. These filled the
Temple with sanctity and awe, and gave it a renown
throughout the world.

Who thought of the plates of gold that covered
the mercy-seat, or of the gorgeous carvings that
adorned it, when both were enveloped in the mystic
flame of the Shechinah ? Who thought of the purple
hangings, the costly vessels, or the gorgeous vestments
of the high priest, when all were dimly seen through
the awful cloud which filled the place ? The Lord
of Hosts was there in palpable manifestation ; the
Majesty of heaven and earth dwelt in the thick dark-
ness. What were the material splendours of the
temple of Diana at Ephesus compared with these
spiritual glories of the Temple at Jerusalem ?

This Temple was about to pass away. Already
the axes of Nebuchadnezzar's army were lifted to
destroy it ; already the torches were lighted that
should ignite it; and yet Isaiah predicts a worship
that in its glory should far transcend all that had
consecrated it.

In material splendours, and in inspiring associa-
tions, the Temple of the restoration was far inferior
to the Temple of Solomon. No ark of the covenant
was there ; the rich and precious memorials of God's
great interposition had perished ; no Shechinah -glory
rested upon the mercy— seat. There was no pal-
pable symbol of the Divine Presence to meet the
eye and to awe the heart of the worshipper. The

THE GLORY OF THE SANCTUARY. 115

service continued, but with an impoverished ritual
and a faded splendour. Well might the old men
weep, and mingle their wails with the songs of
consecration. " Who is left among you that saw
the house in its first glory ? and how do ye see it
now ? Is it not in your eyes in comparison with it
as nothing ? "

And yet their lament was rebuked by the strange
announcement that " the glory of the latter house
would exceed the glory of the former." How ?
Purely because it would be filled with a more
august Presence. The " Messenger of the covenant "
would come to this Temple, the "Desire of all nations"
would appear in it. The august splendours of the
old Temple were but symbols of His spiritual glory,
who was " the brightness of the Father's glory, and
the express image of his person." " A greater than
Solomon is here." " The law came by Moses, but
grace and truth by Jesus Christ." " He that hath
seen me hath seen the Father."

It was but an unconscious child in the arms of a
peasant mother; it was but an intelligent boy asking
questions of the doctors ; it was but a Xazarene
peasant disputing with the Pharisees. No signature
of divinity was stamped upon His countenance, no
nimbus was around His brow, no Levite ministered
to Him, no Rabbi sought teaching from His lips.
He " had no form nor comeliness ; " the slow de-
terioration of years had been anticipated by the ruth-
less ravages of sorrow ; and to the man of thirty it
was objected, "Thou art not yet fifty years old."
And yet His presence was the greatest glory that
had filled any Temple. Could they have recognised
it, there was a spiritual glory such as the world had
never seen in the mystery of His incarnation, in His
sublime teaching about the Father, in the perfect
purity of His character, in His ineffable sympathies
with sorrow, in the mysterious agonies of His soul

I 2

116 HENRY ALLON.

because of human sin. Had they rightly marked His
mien, they might have discerned somewhat of the
glory which Isaiah saw when he spake of Him. Had
they looked upon Him with spiritual and loving eyes,
He would have been transfigured before them. " In
him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."
The first house was the manifestation of the Father,
the second house is the manifestation of the incarnate
Son.

It is only an upper room in Jerusalem, a seques-
tered and modest place of prayer, altogether without
material splendours. To an onlooker the conditions
would appear mean. Not far distant is the august
Temple that Herod has restored, its sacrifice blazing,
its incense ascending, its gorgeously-arrayed priests
performing their ritual, Levites chanting jubilant
psalms, Scribes expounding the law and the prophets.
It is the national Temple, the Established Church of
the people, and multitudes of devotees throng its
stately courts.

The number of the disciples is about one hun-
dred and twenty, a few peasants and ministering
women. Neither altar nor sacrifice nor priest gives
sanction to their worship ; not even their Master is
with them as heretofore ; no sign from heaven has
consecrated the place, or given assurance to their
hearts — they are simply a few men and women
praying. But power from on high comes upon
them ; the promise of the Father is fulfilled ; men
are " pricked in their hearts ; " spiritual gifts are con-
ferred ; spiritual transformations are wrought. Excited
multitudes crowd upon the apostles, and break in upon
their preaching and praying with the passionate in-
quiry, " Men and brethren, what shall we do ? " The
gorgeous Temple is the sepulchre of spiritual life, the
upper room is its birth-chamber; three thousand
souls are added to the Church, "men being saved."
This was the still greater glory of the upper room.

THE GLORY OF THE SANCTUARY. 117

It was not, as in the first Temple, a symbolical manifes-
tation of the Father ; it was not, as in Herod's Temple,
an incarnation of the Son; it was a manifestation of
the Holy Spirit in actual processes of spiritual life-
giving, each individual man made a living temple.
" Know ye not that ye are the temple of God ? "
It was a manifestation of God, not, as heretofore,
to men, but in men — the great end for which all
other manifestations were given.

This, the dispensation of the Spirit, is our own.
It is the ultimate manifestation of God. Its perfect
issue will be the restoration of redeemed souls to the
perfect image and blessedness of God. " The mani-
festation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal."

Nothing external to a man can be compared in
moral glory to this recreative process within him.
We might bring together for the adornment of a
church-building silver and gold, art and ritual, until
it vied with Solomon's Temple itself. We might
conceive a Shechinah-cloud over the pulpit, and the
Christ Himself as the preacher in it, and yet the
worshippers might be as unspiritual as these
manifestations left the Jews.

But the mysterious processes of the Holy Spirit
work in the very soul of the man, quickening in
him the new life of the Spirit and renewing him day
by day. The power that converted Peter's hearers
was a greater power than that which brake the rocks
of Sinai. The glory of the Day of Pentecost tran-
scended the glory of the Mount of Transfiguration.
The moral miracle that quickens a dead soul is more
than the physical miracle that raises Lazarus from
the dead.

It is not meant by this contrast that the older
dispensations were destitute of spiritual presence and
power. Messianic ideas and the workings of the Holy
Spirit have characterised every dispensation. Christ

118 HENRY ALLON.

is the only way to God ; quickenings of spiritual life
are the only true religiousness. Without spiritual
realisation there can be no worship. Who can imagine
David performing a mere ritual, or think of his
passionate songs as a mere form of prayer ?

But we cannot conceive of worship without fitting
form of ritual embodiment. Every human feeling
finds expression in material forms of speech or act.
Even a silent Quaker's meeting is a material assem-
blage for the purpose of spiritual excitement and ex-
pression. Our hymns are praise in prearranged
words and music ; our prayers find expression in
human speech. Constituted as we are, "it needs a
body to keep a soul.1'

Nor does it follow, because of the spiritual cha-
racter of our Christian dispensation, that our methods
of worship are of little importance, and may be
slovenly and impoverished. Difference of worship-
form there must be. Wherever there is true worship
there is God's house. Jacob found it in the Syrian
desert ; the early Christians in dens and caves of the
earth ; Huguenots and Covenanters worshipped on
mountain-sides ; humble men in cottage rooms and
village barns ; seamen in smoky cabins ; prisoners in
condemned cells. Wesley preached to Bristol miners
at the mouths of their pits ; Whitfield to London
costermongers in Moorfields, and there, amid dis-
cordant " Hallelujahs " or broken words of penitence,
God manifested Himself in fulness of spiritual glory.

But it does not follow that their necessity should
be our choice ; that, with liberty, wealth, and culture,
with ceiled houses, august temples of commerce,
sumptuous theatres of pleasure, the house of God
is to be exceptional in its selfish parsimony, and
repellent in its ascetic discomfort.

If spiritual worship does not consist in lavish
ornament, neither does it in repulsive baldness.
Selfishness is apt to disguise itself in the subtle garb

THE GLORY OF THK SANCTUARY. 1 1(>

of spirituality. If there be waste in the precious
ointment which love lavishes, is there not some thin-
worse than waste in the demur which is made to it.
What love is worthy that is not lavish in its offerings ?
Is, then, love to God to be stinted by the plausible
spirituality of mere selfishness? Is everything that
it brings to be sublimated by the tests of a spurious
spirituality, or to be reduced by arithmetic to the
cold measure of utility? If our love build a house
for God, are we to enshrine the jewel of our worship
in a coarse, repulsive casket ? Should not its adorn-
ments have some congruity with the wealth and
social habits of those who build it ?

•lacob, the exile, has visions of God as he sleeps
upon his stone at Bethel; David, the king, will build
Him a house : while Mary opens to herself the heart
of her Lord by breaking over His feet her box of
spikenard.

True, He who " dwells not in temples made with
hands " needs neither gilded columns nor gorgeous
ritual, even to assure Him of our love. Jesus did
not so need Mary's spikenard; but, because it was
love spontaneously offering its best, He lovingly re-
ceives, generouslv commends it, and gives it an ever-
lasting memorial. Nothing is too costly if it be an
offering of love ; nothing is too poor if it be all that
love can bring. It is a cold love that nicely calcu-
lates ; the love that does not is often called extra-
vagant by that which does.

The impulse that prompts us to offer our best to
God is holy and noble, and it is wronged by our refusal.
Love itself is narrowed by its niggardliness of offering.
AVhen we lavish upon ourselves what is costly and
beautiful, and bring to God only parsimonious offer-
ings, the very heart of love is damaged and destroyed.
It can live only in expression.

The house that God has built for us is adorned
with rich and varied beauty, filled with a thousand

120 HENRY ALLON.

things for new delight — colour and form, tree and
flower, gleaming sunshine and moving cloud— the
beautiful, as well as the useful. Shall we, then, in
building our temples for His worship, restrict their
provisions to the stones of the wall and the timber
of the seats ?

It is one thing to confound material forms with
spiritual offerings ; it is another to be coarsely care-
less or meanly parsimonious in the offering that we
bring. We may vitiate even our own benefaction
by our mode and temper of giving. Nothing that
we can offer can bear a worthy proportion to His
majesty, but it may indicate our reverent sense of it.

We might adduce the constituents of our worship
in demonstration of its spiritual glory.

(1) The Bible, for instance, as the revelation and
law of our religious life. May we not designate it a
marvellous historic and permanent incarnation of the
Holy Spirit ?

Mutely it lies upon the desks of our pulpits, but
how wonderfully it informs our thought and inspires
our heart ! A Divine revelation of God's thoughts
and purposes in Jesus Christ — but not, like other re-
ligious books, in the form of theological treatises and
authoritative precepts — it is a historical record of
God's dealings with men at different stages of their
religious development. At sundry times, and little
by little, God spake to our fathers by the prophets, in
the latter days by His Son. It is the Divinest, the
most authoritative, of all revelations, and yet it
affirms no theory of its own inspiration, and vainly
and foolishly we seek to supply the defect by formu-
lating theories of inspiration for it.

When the Divine incarnates itself in the human,
no theory of it is possible. All that we can do is to
recognise the result, and demonstrate that both the
Divine and the human are there ; so it is in personal
life, so it is in Providence, so it is in the person of

THE GLORY OF THE SANCTUARY. 121

Christ, so it is in the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.
The Divine and the human blend in an incarnate
whole, and who shall discriminate their elements ?
Divine thought and the quickenings of Divine life are
embodied in human experiences. The evidence that
compelled Nicodemus to say of the Christ, " Master,
Ave know that thou art from God ; " that compelled
the Pharisees to say, " Never man spake like this
man:" that compelled the centurion to say, " Truly
this man was the Son of God;" compels us to say
of the Bible, Truly this is the Word of God.

What can be more incontestably Divine than its
revelations of the very thought and heart and pur-
pose of God ; what more truly human than its
forms of human thought, its limitations of human
knowledge, tenderness, and sympathy, the personal
experiences and emotions, the throbbing heart, the
unmistakable individuality of every book, of every
page ?

And what can be more indissolubly one : the
marvellous congruity of Divine thought and pur-
pose through forty generations : the first promise to
Abraham fulfilled in Christ ; Christ coming not to
destroy, but to fulfil all the Divine idea that had been
embodied in the law and the prophets before Him ?
From Genesis to Revelation one grand idea of Divine
character and human salvation, gradually developed
by some forty writers of different books, and in almost
every form of literature, from history to sacred drama.

Is it not a conclusive proof of the Divine inspira-
tion of the Bible that it propounds no theory of its
own inspiration ? A book less Divine would have
been more imperative in its claims.

Or, if we look to its spiritual power — its power
to quicken and sanctify religious life — its glory far
transcends that of the cloven tongues, the miraculous
gifts of Pentecost. It is quick and powerful, sharper
than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing

122 HENRY ALLON.

asunder of soul and spirit. What a mighty practical
power it has of lofty spiritual ideas, of holy spiritual
life ! What moral force that the world possesses can
be compared with it ? It is one of the moral
miracles of human experience ; it satisfies every
spiritual imagination of a man ; it is adequate to
every religious necessity. We consult it as an oracle ;
we submit ourselves to it as a law of life ; all our
preaching is contained in it ; it talks with us in the
morning ; we hide it in our hearts that we may
not sin. It is the devotional manual of our closets,
the teacher of our families ; its wisdom directs us ;
its principles inspire us ; its precious promises comfort
and animate us ; it " makes us wise unto salvation."
Little children learn from it their incipient religious-
ness ; busy men, struggling, wearied, tempted, sinful,
find it the only anchor of their soul ; dying men read
or remember it ; and when all other voices are silenced
it tills them with a sure and certain hope. It is the
Avord of eternal life. Where is the religious oracle
that in moral glory can compare with the Bible ?

(2) So we might speak of the distinctive ideas of
Christian theology.

For instance, the unique conception of God that
inspires our worship.

A purely spiritual, a perfectly holy and righteous,
an infinitely loving and merciful God ; so represented
in the earliest records of the Bible in the midst of
Pagan deities, centuries before Homer sang or Plato
lived. So that, save in our increasing knowledge of
Him, there is no change in Biblical representations of
Him. The God of Abraham is the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ ; so unspeakable in His
goodness, His pity, His tenderness, that in order to
represent His transcendent love, J esus Christ has to
exhaust all our most endearing conceptions of father-
hood. All the common attributes of deity, almighti-
ness, omniscience, holiness, goodness, enshrined and

THE GLORY OF THE SANCTUARY. 123

glorified by the tender love of fatherhood. Think of
a worship, think of a religious fellowship of which
this is the inspiring sentiment. Dread, an impossible
feeling ; entreaty, a superfluous prayer. More ready
to forgive than we to ask ; more ready to bless than we
to receive. " Waiting to be gracious ; " preventing us
by " the blessing of His goodness ; " even sacrificing
Himself for our salvation. He " spares not his only
begotten Son, but freely delivers him up for us all."
What a sentiment of religious life and relationships
and worship it is.

(3) Think again of the representation of Jesus
Christ as the incarnate Son of God.

A presentation of perfect manhood in the strug-
gling, suffering, responsible conditions of human life ;
" in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin ; "
passing through all the natural stages of human life,
discharging all duties, exemplifying all excellences,
no man convincing him of sin, the one perfect man
of human history. And combined with all this a
human sympathy, tenderness, pity, self-sacrifice, that
are equally peerless. u A brother born for the day of
adversity," " touched with the feeling of our infirmi-
ties ; " a benevolence beautified with every thought-
fulness, delicacy, and gracious service; so that John
has to say, " The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth."

Whatever the historic truth of this record, the
conception and the delineation of it are the most
wonderful and glorious ever presented to human
thought. Think of a worship with such an inspira-
tion! Beyond all conceivable teaching, the personal
representation of Jesus of Nazareth inspires us. With
what sedulousness we imitate Him ; with what conse-
cration we serve him : with what rapture wo worship
him ! We " put on ( lirist."

124 HENRY ALLON.

Add to this idea of His incarnation the still more
wonderful conception of His atonement for sin.

The moral grandeur of its root idea — that even love
may not set aside righteousness for its gratification ;
that in the forgiveness of sins even God must show
forth His righteousness as well as His mercy, — how
our moral sense responds to it ! Were it possible for
God to forgive my sin of His mere pitiful feeling —
for bygone transgressions to be simply blotted out ;
for the dishonour put upon holiness and law to have
no reparation — my self-interest might be satisfied,
but my conscience, my sense of right, would be
wounded ; just as it Avould be if the benevolence of a
magistrate turned away the righteous penalty from a
wrong-doer. A man is not saved who evades righteous
punishment or who breaks prison.

The conception of Christ's atonement is of homage
paid to the holiness that has been desecrated, to the
righteousness that has been violated. In this I can
have perfect moral satisfaction. My conscience is
satisfied with the conditions of my forgiveness. God
is a just God as well as a Saviour ; He declares not
His love only, but His righteousness in the remission
of sins. Again I say, whichever may be the actual fact,
there can be no question which is the grander in
moral idea.

If again I think of the way in which atonement is
made I see the same transcendent moral glory.
Because atonement cannot be made by those who
have sinned, " God spares not his only begotten
Son." He becomes incarnate, that as a proper and
perfect man — a partaker of the nature of those who
have sinned — He might suffer and die.

Not to appease an angry feeling in God by an
oblation of human blood, as we be slanderously
affirmed to maintain. How can physical blood-
shedding atone for moral guilt ? Is it not written
that " God so loved the world that he gave his only

THE GLORY OF THE SANOTUAIiY. 125

begotten Son ? " Did not Christ Himself say, " There-
fore the Father loveth me because I lay down my
life for the sheep ? " Is it not time that men should
forbear these mendacious representations, and rever-
ently and candidly, simply consider what the New
Testament teaches concerning the atoning sacrifice of
Christ ?

What did He suffer ? Not merely the physical
death of the cross, there could be no sin-offering in
that. It was only the outward symbol of His spiritual
crucifixion, His agony of soul — as in Gethsemane —
when no human hand touched Him, and when He
prayed, being in an agony, " 0 my Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me."

It could not be the literal anguish of the sinner's
hell. He could have no sense of baseness, no anguish
of remorse, no consciousness that sin had separated
between Him and God. To represent Christ as in
this sense having our sins laid upon Him, or imputed
to Him, is to affirm a moral fiction ; there can be
nothing that is not actually real in the processes of
Christ's atonement.

Is it not enough to recognise His anguish as that
of a holy man realising the sins of his brother men ;
the feeling as of a virtuous father over a reprobate
son ; the feeling as of a pure mother over a fallen
daughter ; a feeling of anguish often keener than
that of the wrong-doer himself, because of his purer,
more sensitive soul.

Was not this a homage to the essential right of
holiness and to the essential wrong of sin ; was not
this a vicarious suffering for sin — the holy man
suffering this unspeakable anguish because of the sin
of his brother man ? Was not this manifestly to
magnify the law and to make it honourable : a demon-
stration to all men that transgression of righteous law
inevitably involves penalty ?

Again I say, whatever the actual truth may be as

126 HENRY ALLON.

to the conditions of forgiveness, there is in this
conception a perfect naturalness ; the absence of
everything that is unreal, or arbitrary, or unjust — a
transcendent moral glory. " Righteousness and peace
kiss each other." Both conscience and heart join in
thankful recognition. " I am not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ."

(4) So the conception of the manifestation of the
Holy Spirit in the Christian church is transcendent
in its glory. An economy of simple truth, appealing
to the reason and heart of men, and made effective
by the mystic processes of life wrought by the Holy
Spirit. Precisely as in the economy of physical life
God makes food the sustenance of life ; or as in the
field God giveth the increase to the seed-corn.

Truth alone will not produce spiritual life any
more than food alone will produce physical life. Men
have always had more truth than they have realised.
The coming into our life of higher truth is like re-
ceiving better food, it is the entrance of a greater
moral force for the production of life ; the life-giving
is the essential thing, not the word of life only, but
the entrance of life. Do we not feel the moral
grandeur of the imperative demand even upon the
righteous Nicodemus, " Ye must be born again."
Religiousness is an inward life as well as an outwTard
act. " Neither circumcision availeth anything nor
uncircumcision, but a new creature."

II. Which brings us to the other great condition of
moral glory — viz., that if the place of God's feet is to
be made glorious, the Divine manifestation must pro-
duce its proper spiritual effects upon the worshippers.
Here, then, all the distinctive characteristics of church
life present themselves for consideration. I cannot,
of course, speak of them in detail, any more than I
can of the constituents of Christian theology, but
they are all contributive elements of moral glory.

(1) Think, for instance, of the conception and

THE GLORY OF THE SANCTUARY. 127

culture of Christian holiness in the church. Every
command of Sinai, every precept of righteousness,

spiritually interpreted and applied to the inmost
heart of a man ; not only must he do holy things, he
must be a holy man — holy in every feeling, faithful in
every responsibility, loving in every relationship.
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy
heart and soul and strength, and thy neighbour as
thyself." " Be ye perfect even as your Father which
is in heaven is perfect."

Again I say, whatever the actual, practical realisa-
tion, the moral conception of a holy character is
perfect and sublime. Nor is it a mere " counsel of
perfection." As a simple matter of fact it has pro-
duced the noblest practical life that the world has
seen. Xo men so strenuously strive after holiness or
realise such a godly sensitive sanctity. We " work
out our own salvation with fear and trembling, because
it is God who worketh in us to will and to do of his
good pleasure."

In transformations of personal character, in the
conversion of individual men — often from the grossest
wickedness to the most strenuous holiness — in the
elevation of common goodness in men to saintliness
of feeling, nobleness of character, consecration of
service and self-sacrificing love ; or, again, in the
inspiration of philanthropic and purifying enterprises,
benevolent institutions, and beneficent achievements,
the Church of Christ stands supreme. Scarcely can
we imagine the condition of the world, destitute
of Christian agencies and influences. Annihilate
Christian churches, neutralise Christian influences,
exclude Christian sentiments, and what to-day would
be the character and condition of our English towns
and villages ? Even as tested by actual experience,
did our Lord exaggerate when he said of Christian
disciples, " Ye are the light of the world, ye are the
salt of the earth ( "

128 HENRY ALLON.

(2) And to the moral glory of Christian character
add the moral glory of Christian worship, the beauty
of holiness in a worshipping assembly, — men in pure
spirituality of conception and in radical love of heart
" bowing down before the Lord their maker," realising
His presence, expressing their reverence and love, and
consecrating their service.

What a lofty imagination inspires it ! Sometimes
in their cynical unspiritualness or flippancy men
sneer at the worship of a Puritan or a Quaker
assembly as being prosaic and unimaginative. Partial
and ascetic it may be, forgetful that men consist of
body as well as soul, but surely not unimaginative.
Rather must we say, that so to realise God ; to see the
invisible, to be spiritually absorbed in His worship, is
the very highest imaginative effort of a man.

We provide no visible symbol, we erect no material
altar, we bring no sacrificial offerings, we perform no
sumptuous rites, we are urged by no sensuous excite-
ments. To a mere observer of outward things it is
but an ordinary assembly of men and women. Simple
words are uttered, spiritual truths are set forth, the
appeal is solely to intellectual conception and to
religious consciousness. Our worship depends upon
neither consecrated place nor ordained priest, only
upon what we ourselves are and feel in God's spiritual
presence. "Wheresoever two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them."

Surely the lack of imagination is with those who
need an elaborate ceremonial appealing to the
physical sense, to enable them to realise spiritual
things.

To the spiritual eye is there not in worship such
as this a surpassing glory ? It is the direct spiritual
communion with God of each individual heart. Man's
heart speaking to God its love and need ; God speak-
ing to man his love and blessing. However vast the

THE GLORY OF THE SANCTUARY. L29

assembly, each individual heart waits upon God; how-
ever consentaneous the common hymn or prayer, each
puts into it an individual and confidential meaning,
utters its own deepest and most personal feeling; and
yet the common act, the common presence, the
common grace, blends all individual prayers and feel-
ings into one great worshipping heart of love and
praise.

Surely pompous rite and processional pageantry
and priestly interposition are an intrusion here — a
lessening of the pure spiritual glory. Does not
elaborate rite hamper and hinder simple spiritual
feeling ? Is it not a cumbrous robe that embarrasses
the loot of our approach to God ; a coloured medium
that obscures the pure vision of faith ; a prescribed
performance that distracts the worshipping thought
and checks the worshipping impulse ? We may not
say that it absolutely disables spiritual worship ; but
it makes it so difficult that men adopt it as a
substitute, and commonly it is the barometer of
spiritual decay.

Men thirsting for the living God and coining to
seek Him are impatient of cumbrous forms ; they
tolerate only such forms as are the unconscious
vehicles of vivid thought and rapturous feeling.
Only when the Israelities lost their sense of the
spiritual presence of Jehovah did they make a golden
calf to represent Him. Is not much of the elaborate
ritual that men construct as a medium of approaching
God a perilous approximation to that great sin I If
we would realise the true glory of worship we shall
surely find it where men the most directly approach
( Hid — each heart expressing its spiritual feeling
and realising God's spiritual blessing. The place of
such worship is in its glory more awful than Sinai,
in its sanctity more holy than the mercy seat in
the temple.

These, my friends, are the constituents of the

J

130 HENRY ALLON.

glory with which we seek to fill this " place of God's
feet/'

Here, when His worshippers are gathered together,
Christ will " be in the midst of them," and will
" manifest Himself unto them as He does not unto the
world." Here penitence will smite upon its breast,
and faith lift up its eye, and the mysterious processes
of spiritual life be wrought, and the glorious sanctities
of the Christian character be perfected. " Of this
and of that man it shall be said, ' He was born there/
and ( the Highest himself shall establish her.' '

What other places have such associations ? What
other acts and processes of men have such sublimity ?
What other assemblies of men are crowned with such
moral glory ? Where else do men so nearly touch the
spiritual — so immediately look into the face of God ?
It is the mount of human transfiguration ; men
shine with the spiritual glories of God, and converse
with his saintliest servants. In the consciousness of
this we are subdued to Jacob's feeling : " Surely
God is in this place ; this is none other than the house
of God, this is the gate of heaven."

But whether or not this place will actually be made
glorious will depend upon those who worship in it —
upon the simplicity and entireness of their dedication
of it to God's glory — upon the character that they
maintain as God's worshippers — upon their consecra-
tion as God's servants.

Shall the name of the house be " The Lord is
there," or shall " Ichabod " be inscribed upon its
portals ? All depends upon the spirituality with
which you worship, the sanctity of your life and
fellowship, the service and self-sacrifice of your church
life.

Christ may come to this temple only to drive out
the money-changers, or He may come with loving
purpose to heal the broken-hearted, and to appoint to
them that mourn in Zion beauty for ashes, the oil of

THE GLORY OF THE SANCTUARY. 131

joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness.

Oh, brethren, amid all the toil and strife and
pollution of life keep this place holy — a home for
peaceful pieties — a sanctuary for blessed communings
with God — a rest where your wearied souls may find
comfort and blessedness ; whenever you approach it
put your shoes off your feet, for it is holy ground.

And if this be only the place of God's feet, what
must be the glory of His throne, where they see Him
as He is, worship with the new song, and know even
as they are known ?

" And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God
Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And
the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon,
to shine in it, for the glory of the Lord doth lighten it,
and the Lamb is the light thereof."

J 2

132

[1870.]
FAMILY LIFE.

" God setteth the solitary in families." — Psalm lxviii. 6.

Literally, " God maketh the solitary to dwell in
a house." A promise to the Babylonian exile of
restoration to the crowning blessing of social life.
It may furnish occasion for saying some things about
the constitution and character of family life, especially
as conceived and realised among ourselves.

The promise implies the blessing ; we need no
demonstration of it ; our strongest instincts confess
it. However men may realise family life — whether in
the pure refinements and joys of cultured love, or in
the mere utilitarian services of simple association and
dependence — all men seek it; the hard, sensuous,
exacting Indian in his wigwam, as well as the refined
and chivalrous European in his mansion. Family
association is so universal and imperative that it can
spring only out of one of the primal instincts of our
nature. It was not an arbitrary law that the Creator
was appointing, it was a natural necessity that He
was declaring when, looking upon the man that He
had just created, He said, " It is not good that the
man should be alone." He can neither develop the
faculties nor satisfy the affections of his nature in
solitude.

At any rate, God has so constituted us that family
life is the necessity of our being; and I think it
is part of His own image in which God has created us.
I do not think that the supreme conception of God is
a self-sufficiency that does not care for companion-
ship. I cannot lift even the Infinite One above all

FAMILY LIFE. 133

joy in the exercise of the social affections, and picture
Him in His creation in lonely solitude, just as the
Matterhorn is lifted above the bosom of the Alps —
sublime in its altitude, but among the eternal snows.
He delighteth in the habitable parts of the earth : He
delighteth in the companionship, in the moral a!'i*< ■<•-
tions of His creatures, in loving and being loved :
His delights are with the sons of men: He has no
designation more dear to Him or to us than " Our
Father who art in heaven."

In making us instinctively crave companionship,
therefore, he has made us, like Himself, to delight in
intercourse — intellectual, moral, affectional — with all
capable of reciprocating our feeling.

Whatever men's theories about the origin or con-
stitution of society, the family is an institution of
God, and is founded upon great and indisputable facts
of our nature.

They are such as these : — The craving for society
is instinctive and imperative. It is the instinct which
cements human life, which enables human brother-
hood, which binds us together in mutual dependence
and affection. A man who is a misanthrope and shuns
his kind is regarded as a social maniac. Solitary
confinement is more terrible and maddening than the
severest affliction : the infancy of human life, in its
prolonged weakness and dependence, makes the family
society and family affections imperative ; its helpless-
ness could not be otherwise nurtured, its burdensome-
ness would not be otherwise borne.

The benevolent affections of our nature demand
society for their activity, their culture, and their
gratification. Can we conceive of the repulsiveness of
a life lived alone, and caring only for itself } Our
intellectual powers, again, are chiefly developed by our
social life, our highest enjoyments spring out of it ;
the cup of life which is the sweetest is the loving cup,
which we pass from hand to hand. Our nature

134 HENRY ALLON.

craves approbation and love and service; we have
affinities that irrepressibly seek companionship. The
family is the centre and crown of all our social rela-
tions ; we do not construct it so much as find ourselves
in it. Save the earliest human pair, the first conscious-
ness of every human being is, not that he is an inde-
pendent unit, having to form relations for himself,
but that he is a dependent child, related to parents.
His relationship is as independent of his own volition
as is the relationship of the creature to the Creator.
This is not the first theoretic notion, but it is the
first fact of our experience. We begin life as members
of a family, we are the centre of a family circle. We
may isolate ourselves from our kind as we grow up,
but we begin by inevitable relationships and de-
pendence. You cannot reverse this ; you cannot
begin human life as it began at the creation. The
family is for each of us the beginning of all life and
experience. I am a related being, a being under
authority, a being owing duty, a being the object of
affection, and instinctively returning it.

With the family, then, all life begins. The rela-
tionship is not one of choice ; it is for each of us a
relationship of necessity. It is the most perfect con-
ception of life : two beings related to each other by a
tender and indissoluble tie, serving one another by
no harsh law of dominion, but by the silken authority
and constraint of love ; and a child as their offspring,
the object of a strange, mystic, instinctive, indomit-
able affection in both, nurtured in a sheltered home
of virtue and tenderness, the love of a mother tem-
pering the authority of a father, the love of a father
modifying the weak passion of a mother : in its ideal
a trinity of perfect being, of purest love and blessed-
ness, the simplest, most powerful, most blessed of all
institutions, the germ of all that is good, the sancti-
fying example and grace of all that is pure and beau-
tiful in social life ; the quiet, noiseless nursery of our

FAMILY LIFE. 135

best affections, in which the parent is taught and
softened and sanctified by the child ; in which the
child is nurtured in as much of human love as has
survived the fall ; in which, silently and unconsciously,
selfishness is limited and chased away, and the first
principles of duty learned, and joy and sorrow
soothed and sanctified. It is not too much to say
that a man is what the home of his childhood makes
him. No man is a perfectly nurtured man who has
had no home, or wThose home has been poisoned or
deteriorated in any of its great affections and virtues.
The home of our childhood is with us throughout our
lives — an atmosphere about us, a temper within us.
It is the first mould of character, and no after in-
fluence can wholly transmute it.

No study would be more profitable than the
history of the family — the ideas that have entered
into it, the influences that have created its temper,
the discipline that has regulated its habits, the place
that it has had in the formation of nations and in
the social character that they have borne : the patri-
archal family, with its hierarchy and its monarchy ;
the family of savage tribes, with its hard selfishness
and brutality ; the heathen family as in Greece or
Rome, corrupt and dissolute in the one, hard and
despotic in the other; and the Christian family, filled
with purities and refinements, with amenities of love
and delicacies of respect, and self-abnegations of
service, of which even Plato never dreamed.

No institution owes more to the benignant
religion of Christ than the family : the elevation of
woman to be the companion and counsellor and the
object of chivalrous and reverent affection to man ;
the gentle culture of children ; no longer, as in old
pagan times, the mere property of irresponsible parents,
when the father regarded both wife and child as mere
chattels, and from whose tyranny, however brutal, and
from whose power, over even life itself, there was no

136 HENRY ALLOJST.

appeal. Children are now regarded as a trust, not a
property: parental power, the old patria potestas,
limited in its exercise by Christian obligations, and
softened by Christian affections. The penetrating, per-
meating feeling of our Lord's great teaching about
the Father in heaven has changed the parent from
a despot into a constitutional ruler, and his authority
from that of stern natural right into that of loving
influence. Through the generations the influence
has wrought : the Christian father is less stern now,
and family life more loving and free than even in
the childhood of our sires. We receive our children as
an entrustment from God, and under the genial and
tender influence of Christianity we seek to develop
in them all principles and affections that are pure
and loving. We may not provoke them to wrath, but
bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord — not for our own selfish ends, but for His holy
service and kingdom. They are ours only for this,
that we may nurse them for God.

As we grow out of childhood our individuality
and independence develop, and we take upon our-
selves the responsibility of founding new families.
Every time a marriage is made, a new family life
begins. God made man male and female, as if the
proper generic man were neither the male alone nor
the female alone, but male and female both. It is not
good for man to be alone, and God gives him a wife as
a helpmeet for him ; not a companion male, not a
friend, but a wife. Marriage is the sacred bond of
the family. Where marriage is disregarded, where it
is permitted to deteriorate, where the conjugal tie is
lightly regarded, or easily broken, or violated by un-
faithfulness, or desecrated by hard, selfish contentions,
family life is degraded — deprived of its most pre-
cious elements. Woman has been deposed from her
proper place, and children have been deprived of their
most essential nurture — the nurture of pure affection.

FAMILY LIFE. 137

Throughout the world just now the elevation of the
family is regulated by the sanctity of marriage.

The position of woman has ever been determined
by the family; in proportion as the family has been
a sacred, a pure, and blessed thing, in that proportion
has woman been elevated and respected! As the
uniform influence of religion has been to elevate
woman — and the process is going on still ; as the
dominion of the parent over the child is every gener-
ation becoming more genial, moral, and loving, so is
the subordination of the woman lessened. Even yet
there is much to be redressed ; there are disabilities
and restrictions from which woman has yet to be
emancipated; there is yet to come a larger develop-
ment, a nobler culture, destined to render higher
service to the world. God has given to woman her
womanly nature : and it needs not, in order to main-
tain that, that either disability of law or of custom
should be imposed. Nature — God — will take care of
the qualities that make woman what she is.

It is not the weakness of woman that is her
charm, it is her love, her tenderness, her sympathy,
her motherly instinct, her religiousness, her pity.
Freedom, power, such as are hers of natural right, will
not deteriorate these, but rather deepen and enrich
them. Make woman great intellectually and morally :
make her strong by every possible culture, and
free by every natural right, and you make her a
more perfect and tender woman, wife, and mother.
Feminine qualities are neither weak nor trail: the
love, the tenderness, the faithful sympathy of
woman are, perhaps, the strongest things in human
nature : while surely the noblest work of life —
the work of which the greatest genius, the most
exquisite culture may be proud, and for which it is,
after it has done its best, inadequate, is to nurse a
child, to fashion its thought and heart after the
image of God. Can any literature or art or public

138

HENRY ALLON.

service to which a woman can give herself vie in
arduousness or moral grandeur with this ? If an
angel from heaven could select a task of human life
the most worthy of his powers, it would not be to
write a book, fashion a statue or rule an empire —
it would be to tend a child. God help the conceited
blindness of the woman who calls herself strong-
minded and superior, because she has a smattering of
art or philosophy, who scorns motherhood or neglects
her nursery and relegates it to nursemaids, that
she may take her part in learned life. There is no
philosopher, however wise, there is no artist, however
great, who can conceive an achievement so arduous
or noble as the training of a child — the nurture and
development of its physical powers, its intellectual
mind, its moral and religious soul. Even artistically
speaking, she is not a strong-minded but a weak-
minded woman who is not prouder of her motherly
prerogative of nursing and bringing up children —
moulding them in God's image— than she would be
of the achievements of a Phidias.

If, then, we would have noble, pure, and happy
families, our first care must be the mothers, their
utmost culture and power, their endowment with
every social freedom and prerogative that can give
their womanly nature full play. The nobler the
woman, the richer and better the wife and the
mother.

Another thing important — I had almost said essen-
tial— to the highest development of families is, that
they should be early formed — in plain words, early
marriages. Nothing is more contradictory to nature,
more injurious to men and women, than to defer
marriage until middle life, and to have children to
educate when those children should have been forming
families of their own. I can conceive of no greater
violation of the Creator's purposes than the growing
habits of our modern social life — men and women re-

FAMILY LIFE. 139

fusing to marry ten or twelve or twenty years after they
have reached the age which nature indicates as fitting
— depriving themselves of the rich educational in-
fluences of youthful conjugal love, exposing themselves
to perilous temptations, wronging their offspring in
every way, and bringing to the domestic hearth only
cold calculation instead of the glowing affections
that have been selfishly denied their object until
their force is Avasted. What wonder that we have
families filled with cold prudence when there should
be warm affection, a deteriorated atmosphere for the
nurture of children, an adulterated or enfeebled love
for conjugal life ?

There is no period of life when young men
especially more need the strengthening and happi-
ness of pure domestic love than when they are
beginning their business or their profession. It is
God's ordinance ; it is one of the sweetest rewards
of toil, and one of the most satisfactory retrospects
of life, to have struggled up the hill together. In
nine cases out of ten progress is more rapid, property
is sooner acquired.

The things that in these days hinder marriage
at the time that nature intends it are : first, the
foolish notions or extravagant habits of women, whose
manifest passion for dress and gaiety may well deter
from marriage a prudent man. When a man thus
early would look for a wife, he naturally looks for one
who, by her quiet tastes and prudence, will help him
to get on, and not by her extravagance hinder him.
Next, the miserable mistake of thinking that they
must begin life in a style equal to that in which their
parents are ending it : hence years must pass before
the means are acquired, and many pure enjoyments
are sacrificed to a foolish vanity, and perhaps much
more than this. Be sensible enough to begin in a
cottage: nothing will rive such a zest to the mansion
when it is Avon. Next, selfish indulgence, or equally

140 HENRY ALLON.

selfish ambition. A man prefers his solitary ease and
luxuries to the joyous struggle and rewards of married
love. Alas ! for the man who does not marry until
cold prudence can control, and even substitute itself
for, his love. Alas ! for the woman whose husband
has never been her sweetheart, and has never felt for
her the inspiration of pure and passionate love. What
wonder that our families are degenerate when the very
fires that should kindle their affections do not exist.
Prudence should ever enter into love ; but, oh. ! it is a
poor love that can sit down to the multiplication
table, and calculate before it yields to sweet impulses.

If our families are to be what they should be,
man and wife must not be afraid, under the inspira-
tion of love, and in the fear of God, to link their
hands together at the foot of the hill and, come weal
or woe, bravely climb it together. Is such love dying
out of our modern, prudent, bachelorhood society ?
God forbid ! When the romance of love has gone,
and calculations of prudence take its place, the de-
terioration of our social life has advanced very far.
They who for love's sake take each other for better
and worse, go with each other into the home they can
afford to live in, and struggle together at the beginning
of life, Avhen its battle is the sorest, and gather children
around their knees while their hearts are yet fresh
and fervent, will form the noblest families, and will
the most enjoy the good of life. Better a cottage
where love is than a mansion with prudence as a sub-
stitute for it. There is only one true key in which
the music of life can be set — young love. They who
begin life in another key will never when a dozen
years are passed be able to modulate it into this ; their
whole life will be a mistake — its first true principle is
wanting.

I had intended to speak of children and their
education as a constituent of noble family life ; but
this is too great a theme for a passing reference.

FAMILY LIFE. 11!

And I need not add that the fear of God — the
beginning of all wisdom — is essential. If human love
be not crowned and sanctified by Divine, it will not
suffice to realise the highest good. It may do some-
thing— much even — for all virtuous love is true and
good ; but it will not put the crown upon married
blessedness, it will not supply the most potent and
essential element of the nurture of children. Let the
love of God enwrap and permeate and sanctify all
other love, and the family will realise the most of
Eden that has survived the Fall, and anticipate the
most that we can conceive of heaven.

Need I vindicate the kind of remark that I have
permitted myself this morning? I hope not: I hope
we have all of us learned the true and deep religious-
ness of our human and household affections. With
these things pre-eminently — the love of man and
woman, the formation of households, the nurture of
children — religion has to do. Is it to shut itself up
in the cloister or the church, and leave these affections
wdiich play so great and serious a part in life to the
calculations of prudence, the selfishness of men, or the
badinage of friends? I trow not. Religion would
bless this rapturous joy as a God-given thing, would
demand that nothing unworthy may be permitted to
hinder or deteriorate it, would by her gracious in-
fluence sanctify it, would join together man and wife
with her benediction and prayer, and would rest her
chief hope of a holy family life upon the purity,
enthusiasm, and unselfishness of early affections.

142

[1880.]

THE RELIGIOUS SERVICE OF COMMON

THINGS.

"And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not
unto men ; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward
of the inheritance : for ye serve the Lord Christ." — Col. iii. 23, 24.

This is a striking example of the cogent and far-
reaching ethics of Christianity, its close and impera-
tive requirement of practical moral righteousness.
Unlike some religious systems, it deals minutely and
holily with the least things of daily life and duty. It
is not a mere metaphysical theology or philosophy, or
ecclesiasticism ; it is a religion. It binds moral law
upon men, and makes righteousness and fidelity and
conscientiousness the law of the inward conscience.
And whenever men fail in this, as they often do,
they as much violate essential Christianity as if they
were to deny the being of a God, or the divinity
of Jesus Christ.

Why do Christian men sometimes fail of practical
righteousness, and, full of doctrinal jealousy or
spiritual fervours, neglect truth and purity of life ?
Why, for the same reason that some good men, who
are upright and truthful, and scrupulous in moral
virtues, disregard Christian theology, and never think
of spiritual communion with God. They see only a
part of Christianity, that part of it which they may
have special affinities for, and shut their eyes to the
rest.

Christianity is a more comprehensive thing than

UELIGIOVS SERVICE OF COMMON THINGS. 143

most men conceive. It has its lofty doctrines con-
cerning God and human nature and the future life —
the sublimest of all theologies, the grandest of all
philosophies, the most spiritual of all metaphysics.
And a man may so think and contend for Christian
beliefs as to forget that it is anything else but beliefs.

It has its fellowship with God, its realisations of
spiritual inspiration and worship and prayer, of
thought and feeling, and a man may so vividly
realise these as to feel impatient of the plain pro-
saic things of every-day life ; he becomes a mystic,
an enthusiast, a fanatic. A man's very piety may
hinder his practical usefulness and make him neg-
lectful of ordinary moralities. It is a phenomenon
often seen — a man keeping up spiritual fervours and
failing in moral virtues. And so in a Christian
church a man may subscribe his creed and be very
fervent in his worship, and not be a hypocrite either,
while his moral virtues — his truthfulness, integrity,
purity — are very inferior. He simply takes part of
Christianity, not the whole of it.

Christianity is as much a morality as it is a
theology, or a Church worship. Every teaching of
it aims at moral life. It is a great deal more than
morality, it is a theological doctrine, it is a spiritual
life ; but the special, the supreme end of both the
doctrine and the life is practical holiness.

And whatever may be the actual state of morals
at any period, whatever may be the individual moral
sentiment of any Christian man, it never lowers its
ideal, it never compromises its principles, it never
relaxes its urgencies. Morality is never made an
expediency, it is a universal and imperative prin-
ciple, pervading the entire life of men and ruling all
their relations. In politics, in business, in personal
pursuits and pleasures, a man may try to accommo-
date moral principles, but the sublime ideal of Chris-
tianity remains, and whenever the inconsistent man

1U HENRY ALLON.

conies back to the teachings and principles of Christ
he is loftily rebuked and condemned.

The variable goodness of ages or men does not
affect the great religious rule and obligation — the
teaching of the Bible without and the verdict of
the moral sense within. And however the morals
of society or men may fluctuate, the calm, lofty, un-
changeable demand of Christ remains to test and
correct it. Another thing is— Jesus Christ has iden-
tified his religion with humanity in its entireness.
He neither selects nor favours any particular class.
He lays down no principle, makes no requirement
that is not as applicable to one class as to another.
He assails no rights of property, he tolerates no in-
vasion of just liberties. Every man has talents
entrusted to him for use, every man discharges com-
mon duties on broad religious principles. In all we
do, we act not only towards one another, but towards
Christ. Every personal duty is also a religious service.
An essential part of our duty to God is our discharge
of the common duties of life ; there is a personal
service in the most unlikely things, and there is
religious obligation in every personal service. The
religion of Christ penetrates life and comprehends life
in everything. There is no single thought or act of
a man that you can put outside religious obligation.
A thousand things are unrecognised by his fellow-
men. A thousand things that he does could not be
claimed of him ; but God imposes upon him the
obligation first of essential right and then of unselfish
benevolence. Every thing is a service of the Lord
Christ.

I will pass by with a simple recognition the
place and dignity that are here simply and almost
as a matter of course assigned to Christ. He is
recognised as the Lord of human life, and as the
rewarder of its faithful service. We serve the Lord
Christ, and we shall receive from Him the reward of

RELIGIOUS SERVICE OF COMMON THINGS. 145

the inheritance. He is the Master of human life,
whatever earthly masters may be.

Much also might be said concerning the new
motive of human duty which is here set forth. We
are to do everything " as to the Lord "■ — Christ being
referred to, not the Divine Father — but He is to be
the object of our service, and the approver of what
we do. He is to be the religious conscience of our
life, a claim for Him altogether unique, and that
admits, I think, of but one interpretation and sig-
nificance.

But I wish chiefly to speak on the religious
character of the common service of life. Great
emphasis is put upon this by the reference here
to the service of slaves. These Christian slaves are
faithfully to serve even arbitrary and cruel masters,
and their service will be counted as a service to
Christ.

But is not this a recognition and sanction of
slavery ? Ought not the incitement to have been
resistance and revolt ? Why is it that Christianity
tolerated the social institutions amid which it was
born — the despotism of the monarch, the vassalage
of his subjects, the tyranny of masters, the bondage
of slaves? Slavery especially, proprietorship and
traffic in human flesh, is so abhorrent to all natural
justice and morality, that we put the brand of social
anathema upon the civilised nation that practises it.
It existed in the most revolting forms in countries
into which the apostles introduced Christianity : and
yet Christianity pronounced no indignant condemna-
tion of it, and did not demand its immediate abolition.

It is purely a question of procedure. No one can
deny that the entire spirit and genius of Christianity
— that its every principle and sympathy is intensely
antagonistic to slavery, and that where Christianity
does its proper work slavery is extinguished by
it. The Christian religion came into the world

K

146 HENRY ALLON.

simply to create a new and holy spiritual life, which
by its inward moral force should constrain universal
righteousness and benevolence. It did not begin with
forms of civil government or organised societies of
men. It began with the individual man, and with
his inward heart and conscience, rather than with
his forms of life. It trusted to the new life that it
created, to the spiritual conscience that it illumined,
for the effectual reform of all wrong institutions and
habits. To have begun with these would have been a
very shortsighted policy, and would have ended in a
very inadequate reformation, perhaps in the localising
of Christianity, in stamping it with a conventional
character ; certainly it would have made its work far
more difficult. It would have arrayed against it all
the social forces and prejudices of organised life.

Its method is far wiser, far more radical; it incul-
cates principles, it changes feelings, it creates sym-
pathies which radically transform all social and
individual life. Leaving social institutions as they
were, our Lord simply, and with profoundest wisdom,
addressed Himself to the conscience and heart of the
individual man, and created a new life there, a silent
but mighty and effective corrector of all that was
wrong. He purified the stream at its source.

Christianity even enjoins submission to the laws
of society, however iniquitous, until moral convic-
tions shall have wrought their change. The apostle
enjoins even upon Roman slaves that they be subject
not only for wrath, but for conscience sake. They
are to abide in the same calling wherein they are
called, and to console themselves by remembering
that there is no respect of persons with God. Paul
sends back Onesimus to Philemon, simply appealing
in a noble and tender way to Christian principle
and feeling. The consolation is that, morally and
spiritually, all are on a perfect equality. " He that is
called in the Lord, being a slave, is the Lord's free

RELIGIOUS SERVICE OF COMMON THINGS. 147

man ; while he that is called being free is the slave
of Christ : " thus both reconciling men to the in-
equalities of their lot, and quietly and effectively
working their redress. This is the spiritual method
of Christianity.

Here the injunction is, that notwithstanding the
iniquity of their bondage, they are to render a faithful
and hearty service, obeying their masters in all
things, not merely as a social duty to them, but
as a religious duty to God. This principle is involved,
that so far from the secular duties of life being
limited in their reference and character to the persons
and obligations around us, they have a high religious
reference and result.

Nothing is more common than for men to speak
of certain actions as being naturally and essentially
distinct from other actions, religious or secular, as
the case may be. The assumption is that in the
great bulk of our common-life duties, our labour and
our merchandise, our professional and literary pur-
suits, our literature and art, and social recreations,
there is no necessarily religious character. Men en-
gaged in these pursuits as the business of their lives
may find time to attend to religious things, and may
attain to religious character and temper ; but we do
not think of them as inherently involving the exercise
of the principles and motives of religion, or as being
part of its duty and discipline of life.

When we speak of men as engaged in the service
of Christ, Ave think of public worship or evangelising
work. We think of ministers of religion, set apart
to expound and urge the truths of Christ, and to
claim for religious interest at least a proportion of
men's time and care. We think of missionaries con-
secrating their lives to the great conflict of Chris-
tianity with barbarism and idolatry; or we think of
deacons, or evangelists, or school teachers, devoting
some portion of their time to religious work. And

K 2

148

HENRY ALLON.

we think of attendance upon public worship, of
private devotions, and of religious deportment when
great temptations come or great issues of right and
wrong1 have to be determined. But we do not often
think of a man as actively engaged in the service of
Christ when he is buying and selling, or ploughing a
field, driving a cab, or sweeping a crossing. We make
a great moral distinction between things that we
call sacred and things that we call secular; and we
think of these as somewhat antagonistic ; the secular
as, to say the least, preventive of that progress in
religion which, but for them, we should make. If we
had not this common work to do, and could be always
in church, or engaged in religious things, how much
better religiously we should be !

Now, if this estimate be a right one, it presents
human life in an aspect that is very mournful, almost
appalling ; for, beyond all doubt, there is nothing in
life so important as the formation of religious cha-
racter and the securing of religious interests. If,
then, I am doomed to spend ten or twelve hours of
each workday in occupations which prevent religious
culture and attainment, and my only chance of holi-
ness is during the jaded intervals of weekday work
and on the Sabbath, when I can go to God's house
and repair the religious damage I have sustained, it is
a melancholy condition of human life. It gives the
leisurely a far better chance of moral goodness and of
heaven than the busy. For if you make religion the
distinct pursuit of life, he will the most successfully
attain to it who has the most leisure. Unhappy
indeed is the worker's lot. For these pursuits are
indispensable ; they are the lot that God has ordained
for us, so that it comes to this : men's actual and
indispensable duty in life has no part in securing the
moral ends of life. The whole heaven-appointed
activity, the care, the occupation, the industry of my
daily existence is at war with the moral character and

RELIGIOUS SERVICE OF COMMON THINGS. 149

ends of it. It is my duty, therefore, to leave it as
soon as I can, and to lessen it as much as I can ; to
leave my ploughing and my merchandise, and to
betake myself to some church or prayer-meeting or
religious mission.

I think this is not a true theory of life. This
passage gives us a much nobler conception. The
Christian slave of a heathen master may in the
faithful discharge of his daily duties be doing a
religious thing; he may serve the Lord Christ, If
any condition could be imagined too servile, or
inimical to religious service and character, it is surely
the services that might be exacted of a heathen
slave ; and yet the apostle claims these as a religious
service of Christ. He does not tell these slaves that
in the midst of their sorrowful oppressions they
may find time for thus serving ; but that their very
occupations were a service of Christ. An emphatic
teaching of the fitness and religiousness of every true
service of life. He is the holiest man who in the
holiest way discharges the duties of his calling.

No matter what department of human life you
take, this principle holds good. It may be a high
religious service. Christianity concerns itself with
everything in human life; there is a religion of toil
as great and sacred as the religion of worship.

It is not all plrysical drudgery — a stretching of the
sinews and a straining of the limbs to tasks. We
may not think exclusively of strenuous toils and be-
setting cares, of the sad necessity of wreariness to the
body, perplexities to the mind, and care to the
heart, or of the humiliation of having to spend so
large a part of every day in unprofitable tasks.
AVe can think of all this as part of our religious
culture and expression ; toil enters into the moral
grandeur of human lives, into the supreme greatness
of our spirits. The evils of toil are its accidents —
the crowded manufactory, the bustle and energy and

150 HENRY ALLON.

selfishness of the market, the anxious trader, the
sickly artisan, the jaded shopman, the weary porter,
the feverish and immoral competition. These are not
the whole of toil, they are not even its necessities :
they are its perversions and accidents. Beneath all
these there is the sphere of moral duty and feeling,
the sense of obligation to God and man, the main-
tenance of right, the heart of endurance and patience
and faith, the spirit of human helpfulness and social
order and divine purpose. All the active principles
and affections of the religious life may find full play.
They never can be laid aside or reduced to a con-
dition of suspended animation. Man labours for more
than secular ends. Warm affections stimulate his
weary hands, a kind of natural sanctity is thrown
over his toil by thoughts of his home, his wife and
children, for whom he is providing. Why do these
toils go on at all ? The man might satisfy personal
necessities with far less. Is there not religiousness of
a very high kind in the provision thus made for the
clothing and feeding of the family, for the education
of children, for the need of sickness and the infirmi-
ties of age, for the feebleness of women and the
helplessness of children?

Rough as may be the manner, and harsh as may
be the words of many of these sons of toil, beneath it
all this natural religiousness of purpose and of feeling
works in its inarticulate way, needing only to be sanc-
tified by Christ's Gospel to become an intelligent
service of Him.

There is religiousness, too, in the very spirit in
which we accept toil as an ordinance of God, and in
the uses we make of it for moral discipline, and in
the temper in which we bear its burdens. What a
means it is of restraining evil and developing good ;
what a mine of virtues ; what a school of improve-
ment! How much better we learn patience and
gentleness, and righteousness and magnanimity, when

RELIGIOUS SERVICE OF COMMON THINGS. 151

thus exercising' them, than in the excited feelings, the
theoretic purposes of the closet or the sanctuary.

And what a grand witness of the power of godli-
ness it is when in his counting-house or his shop, in
his profession or his handicraft, a man maintains his
steadfast righteousness, and refuses to swerve to the
right or left for advantage. Whatever the worth of
beauty or holiness in worship, it is far greater m
common work, and far more difficult to maintain. A
man is just as much discharging a religious duty and
cultivating his religious character when thus plying
his handicraft or selling his goods, or rendering his
menial service, as when praying in his closet or
worshipping in God's house. If a man will do his
common business upon religious principles, and in a
religious spirit, he will have as tine opportunities of
serving and glorifying God as if he were engaged in
the services or the Church or by the beds of the dying.

We shall never conceive of religion aright if we
distinguish times and places and things of life as
specially belonging to it. It must rule the whole of
our lite, and take up into its sanctions its veriest
trifle. Whether wre eat or drink, or whatsoever we
do, we must do it to the glory of God.

What a grand incentive it is to do well and
heartily the every-day work of life, that Christ re-
gards it as a service to Himself. We are not, there-
fore, to grudge the time and strength given to these
common services, or to discharge them with languor
or with impatience. We are to put heartiness into
them, as being a service of Christ. Whatever glorifies
Him should be heartily done, and He may be more
glorified by the way we do our work than by the way
we do our worship. What can be a greater honour to
the religion of Christ than such a proof of its power,
that it so possesses us and rules us that we never for
a moment forget Him or the principles of life which
He enjoins ?

152 HENRY ALLON.

The act that is not heartily done as unto Christ —
that is done grudgingly and by compulsion — cannot
be a religious act. What a grand law of life and
responsibility it is ! How it gathers all the things of
human life, and puts upon them the stamp of divine
approval and possibility !

Are there not many even of formal religious
duties that are not done heartily as unto the Lord,
but rituaily, languidly, coldly ; our want of earnest-
ness manifest in every movement ; irregularity in
work, frequent neglect of worship, perfunctory service
when working at all ?

How often our contributions are grudged or stinted.
It is not every giver who is a cheerful one, who feels
that the privilege is in giving — the blessedness for him
that gives more than for him that receives.

To serve the Lord Christ is motive enough. If
He will accept any form of our poor service, surely we
should be glad and eager to render it.

And then there is " the reward of the inheritance."
However the earthly master may regard our service,
or refuse to reward it even with his thanks, He whom
we serve is not unmindful; He will reward it, not
merely with wages — the commercial equivalent of
service — but with the inheritance of sons, the realised
character and blessedness of fidelity. The reward of
true service is in what we become, not in what is
given to us. The ruler of five cities becomes by his
faithful rule qualified to rule ten cities. It is inherit-
ance, not wages ; an inward moral process, making us
noble sons of God, not an arbitrary gift.

And the emphasis of the whole is, that the teach-
ing here, and throughout Scripture, is that preparation
for the future life consists in a faithful discharge of
the common duties of this one, not so much of its
religious services as of its daily tasks. The future life
is prepared for by the qualities of character that we
develop, by the exercise of a daily conscience, by the

RELIGIOUS SERVICE OF COMMON THINGS. 153

practice of daily virtues, and by the discipline of
daily duty. The future life is simply the continuance
of this ; and he the best prepares for life after death
who is faithful in things before death. He alone pro-
perly lives who makes the best of both worlds, who is
true to every service and possibility of life. He only
is the religious man who is religious in all things,
who builds up the being that he is, who lives under
the powers of the world to come. It is by patient
continuance in well doing that we inherit glory,
honour, immortality, and eternal life. k

And thus the inheritance may be the meed of all
alike ; the patient slave of a heathen master may be
meetening for it as much as the missionary or the
martyr who is filling the church with the renown of
his achievements. Let us but consecrate whatever
may be our life, make every work a service, and so
shall the commonest duties work out for us " a far
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

154

[1878.]
UNTIL HE COME.

A COMMUNION SERMON.
" Ye do shew^. the Lord's death till he come." — 1 Cor. xi. 26.

Nothing is more remarkable in Christianity, con-
sidering its Jewish development and period, than the
characteristic absence from it of ritual ordinances,
the perfect freedom and spirituality of its church
fellowship. That our Lord intended His disciples
to associate together in religious fellowship is
certain. But He did not prescribe any particular
method of so doing. He laid down no plan, He
appointed no order, He gave no rules for the formation
of Christian churches. Associate yourselves together
for the brotherhood, the edification, the joy of your
Christian life. Not a word beyond this general
requirement can be found in the New Testament.
The form of our social fellowship, the regulations of
its worship and service are left entirely to ourselves.
Keligious teachers and pastors there must be, and
deacons to administer its secular affairs, but we have
no prescriptions concerning them. All is left to the
promptings and expediencies of Christian brother-
hood.

Nothing can be freer and more flexible than the
ideas of the New Testament concerning church life
and worship. Our modern ecclesiastical conceptions
and controversies are the deteriorations and harden-
ings of the tendency in us that finds it difficult to
believe in purely spiritual forces, and that has a deep
distrust of liberty.

UXTIL HE COME. 155

And if this be true bf the church organisations, it is
also true of what we call church ordinances — worship,

ritual, work; all are left to the expediency and pre-
ference of religious men.

Our Protestant reformers thought that they had
advanced very far towards pure spirituality when they
reduced the seven sacraments of the corrupt Church
of Rome to two — Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
And yet even these have been the germs out of which
the modern sacramentarianism of the English Estab-
lishment has developed— the points round which the
monstrous pretensions of its priestcraft have gathered.
So much of the old sacramentarian leaven was re-
tained as virtually to have leavened the whole lump.

Is there not room for the suspicion that the true
idea of these ordinances has not yet been reached 1 » y
that Church ? Can the Divine Lord have ordained in
His Church sacraments of such a character as almost
uniformly and inevitably to develop into priestisin and
superstition ?

( an either baptism or the Lord's Supper in any
strict sense be called Church ordinances at all ?
Baptism is an ordinance not so much within the
Church as at its threshold. It was not ordained by
Christ, it was simply adopted. John the Baptist bap-
tised before Him, so did the Jews, so did even pagans.
Our Lord simply adopted the customary method of
receiving and declaring disciples. He did not devise
a new mode, but gave His sanction to one already
existing, as being in every way simple and suitable.
When a dispute arose about it between John's dis-
ciples and His at Enon, He did not think it important
enough to take part in it, but went into ( ralilee, leaving
John's disciples to continue their baptising, and it is
not said that He Himself ever baptised again. Exactly
in the same spirit Paul, while accepting baptism as the
mode of receiving disciples which Christ had sanctioned,
thanked God that he himself had baptised but few.

156

HENRY ALLON.

And yet oat of this simple and accidental initial rite
of discipleship priestism has developed a theory of
baptismal regeneration, and our Baptist brethren have
conditioned it upon the entirely new test of spiritual
conversion.

Was the Lord's Supper, when instituted, a church
ordinance at all ? Certainly no organised church
existed. It is only by a figure of speech that the
little company of the twelve can be called a church ;
they were a fellowship, not an organisation. Not a
word is said about the relation of the Lord's Supper
to the church when it should come into existence.
Was not the idea of it social, not ecclesiastical ? It
was simply a commemoration of personal love, and as
such it was afterwards observed. The disciples
brake bread, not in churches only, but from house
to house. They did this in remembrance of Christ
whenever and wherever in their social life their
love prompted them to do it. No doubt they
did it in their church assemblies — it could not be
omitted. It is pre-eminently a social ordinance,
an ordinance for the church fellowship. Nay, it is
probable that the first assemblies of the church met
simply for the purpose of observing it, and that all
other worship gathered round it.

But what simple associations the churches were.
How we have stiffened them and made them formal
and authoritative ! No one thought of the presence of
an apostle or minister as essential to breaking bread.
We forsooth cannot observe the Lord's Supper with-
out one. The evil is not in placing the observance in
the midst of our church assemblies — they are its most
natural and convenient place — but in permitting eccle-
siastical superstitions to overshadow it. In the church
we gather round the Lord's Table, but not as round an
altar for church sacrifice, not as an ecclesiastical cor-
poration giving validity to it by our church character,
but as a simple brotherhood of Christian men, who

UNTIL HE GOME. L57

love Christ and together remember Him, who may or
may not be ecclesiastical church members. Its con-
ditions are spiritual, not ecclesiastical. It is enough if
avc be men of spiritual hearts — men who love Christ
and have a thankful remembrance of His death. It has
no necessary connection with a church building, nor
with a ritual service, nor with ecclesiastical member-
ship. It is a fellowship of loving remembrance for all
who love Christ, whatever else they may be, and
is equally valid anywhere, whoever be the adminis-
trator, in a common dwelling, on the mountain
side, in the cabin of a ship, in catacombs or prisons,
wherever true hearts seek Christ. It is not an
ecclesiastical ordinance, it is a social one, instituted
before all organised churches, and for the simple
fellowship of disciples.

This great commemoration of Christian love is
of a death. Why a death rather than a life, a teach-
ing, a holiness, a benevolence \ No life is so full
of light and o'ooclness and love as the life of Christ.
In no life is there so much to be remembered. But it
is not His life, not His incarnation, that the Lord's
Supper specially commemorates, or that is the distinc-
tive theme and power of Christian preaching. There
is no reasoning away this peculiarity of Christian com-
memoration. If Unitarianism be right, this great
commemoration exaggerates the death of Christ and
perverts the sentiment ol natural sorrow for His
death into a morbid feeling, of abnormal importance.
It is not too much to say that all the emphasis of
Christian teaching, all the distinctiveness of Christian
spiritual power, lie in Christ's death. We do not
so think of other martyrs. Paul and Peter died as
martyrs: Socrates and John Huss — how rarely we
even think of their death. When we study their
teachings or commemorate their work, it is their life-
work that we think of, their death is a subordinate
incident. When we read Plato we think only of

158 HEN BY ALLOK.

Socrates' wise teaching, his death scarcely intrudes
upon our thoughts. Who thinks of Paul's death as
we read his history or his letters ? It is not even
recorded. But in this commemoration we distinguish
the death of Christ from everything else connected
with Him. He ordained this feast to preserve the
memory of it ; surely the strangest of all commemo-
rations, the strangest of all ordinances ! a feast to com-
memorate a death, a feast around a cross, at the door
of a sepulchre. His life is subordinate to His death ;
the death gives its significance to the life.

Then did He come a minister of darkness, of
despair ? If His death was simply the extinction of
the light of His life, it is for a sorrow, not for a joy.
What can there be in that to celebrate in a feast ?
Other deaths are celebrated in requiems, funeral
orations, days of mourning; this death by a eucharist.
Not His life, not His resurrection, but His death is
to be thus commemorated with the joyous love of a
feast. And with this every other allusion to it
accords. It was His " lifting up " that was to draw all
men unto Him. Moses and Elias spake with Him
about " the decease that he should accomplish
at Jerusalem." Paul preached " Christ crucified/'
and would " know nothing else among men."

All this is utterly inexplicable on the theory of
the ordinary termination of a life. Christ Himself
could never have asked us to commemorate His
martyrdom unless more than the loss of life had been
in it. Only the common conception of His death as
an atonement, as a sacrifice for the sin of the world,
can explain it in any rational way. We are to com-
memorate His death because from it our true life
flows. His grave was not the tomb of life, it was
the womb. Death is in many ways the gate of life.
His death was the gate of the world's life ; all the
great ideas of spiritual life through Him are centred
in it — and we commemorate that. The relations of

UNTIL HE GOME. L59

His death to our life involve mysteries that arc in-
scrutable : all theories of the Atonement, therefore,
are partial and unsatisfactory. I doubt whether any
philosophical explanation of it is possible. We are
contented with general conceptions and the assurance
of the fact; and our feast of joy commemorates His
death because it is, in fact and in experience, the
fount of the world's life.

And yet I think it was the personal human feeling
that chiefly found expression nere — " This do . . in
remembrance of me." Was He not thinking more of
the love which His death expressed than of its
atoning efficacy. It is the request of tender affection.
He yearns to be remembered, He who so loved
them as to die for them. Whenever we gather round
His table Ave think of His personal love. He does not
say, re-enact my death in figure ; He does not say
that miracles of stupendous mystery shall be enacted
in the commemoration : He does not say, present my
death afresh to God as a sacrifice. All these ideas
are utterly foreign to His feelings, foreign to His
words, foreign to the entire genius of Christianity. It
is a simple yearning, a request to be remembered ;
it is the love of the human Christ that yearns, it is
not the mandate of the Divine Christ that enjoins.
He does not say build an altar for a sacrifice — it is a
simple sitting at table ; He does not speak of paten
or chalice — it is simple bread and wine ; He suggests
no consecration of a priest — only the consecration of
loving hearts. It is not so much the Divi n<' Christ
that the Lord's Supper commemorates as the loving
man, Christ Jesus; His human heart craves to be
remembered and loved, the Lord's Supper is J I is
parting keepsake, and He bids us do this as a means
of remembering Him. *

We are to show forth His death. From its very
nature the Lord's Supper is not, like baptism, a soli-
tary individual act. It is a common fellowship, a

160 HENRY ALLON.

participation ; we break bread together ; we show forth
His death in our common relations to it, our joint
participation of it. By this peculiar commemoration
— breaking bread and drinking wine — we show forth
His death as that in which distinctively we trust and
glory. It is not Bethlehem we commemorate, it is
Calvary. Our whole Christian life, our personal faith,
our church fellowship, rests upon His death as its basis
and root. If we are asked concerning our salvation
through Christ, we show forth, not His teaching, His
character, His resurrection, peerless as these were, but
His death.

There is need thus perpetually to witness con-
cerning His death as the chief expression of His love,
the chief purpose of His mission. We need to keep
it continually before our own thoughts and hearts.
As with the keepsake of a departed friend when we
look upon it, so whenever we come to the Lord's table
we renew our thoughts of Him, we excite afresh our
affections, we produce the tenderest moods, the deepest
gratitude, the most sanctified feelings of our religious
soul.

We show forth His death to one another. The
Lord's Supper is the closest, strongest bond of our
religious fellowship. Nothing so draws us together,
nothing so hallows our memories of one another and
makes them tender, as the table of the Lord. It is a
true instinct that brings us there in all special church
gatherings, in all solemn crises, in all seasons of thanks-
giving, in all Christian partings. Our strongest emo-
tions are here embodied : we have not put the seal
upon our affection and our joy and our fidelity until
we have gathered round the table of the Lord.

What memories of it we have — personal memories,
church memories. We have no other recollections
so vivid, so pleasant, and so tender. There, if any-
where, the heart is softened from its hardness, re-
deemed from its sin, discharged of its selfishness.

UNTIL BE COME. 16]

How it holds the Church together in persecution !
Then the Lord's Supper becomes a sacrament. How
it holds us together in our dislodgments and separa-
tions ! The thought of the distant traveller is of
the church around the Lord's table. Our fidelity
in our temporary dispersions is kept strong and fresh
by it. We anticipate no moment of reunion more
tenderly than round the table of the Lord, and to the
world we show forth His death.

There is no tendency stronger than that of self-
righteousness, the tendency to resolve all religion into
mere personal goodness. We need perpetually to
insist upon spiritual principles and force, upon the
atoning death of Christ as the beginning of all new
life, as the inspiration of all holiness. We show forth
to men our trust in His death, our fellowship in it.
That is the source of our life, the inspiration of
its brotherhood. There is no thought that has such
strength to preserve and sanctify our own souls, there
is no truth that has such moral power for the re-
demption of the world.

" Until he come." It is a link between the two
comings. We look backward to the first, forward to
the second ; we remember His cross, anticipate His
throne.

" Death is the only thing in death that dies." Out
of death the life, the triumph, the glory come. We
should be orphans indeed had we not this faith, this
blessed hope of the glorious appearance of the great
God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. He fills the future
as well as the past, He will lc come again the second
time without a sin-offering unto salvation." AVe live
and work and wait for His glorious appearing. Our
trust is in one that died, not in one that is dead, for
He is alive for evermore.

While, therefore, we specially commemorate His
death, it is as the condition of His more glorious life.
The death is not the end, it is only the beginning ;

L

162 HENRY ALLON.

not the issue, only tlie means. This commemor-
ation is intended to carry our thoughts to the
glorious consummation ; it connects the sufferings of
Christ with the glory that follows. He rose because
He died, He is glorified because He was crucified —
glorified through the moral power of His cross; "there-
fore God hath highly exalted Him." And the Lord's
Supper, therefore, is the espousal of faith and hope ;
faith looks back to the cross, hope looks on to the
crown; both fill our eye and heart with a thankful

The first advent put an end to the Jewish rites
and sacrifices which foreshadoAved Christ, the second
advent will put an end to all services and expedients
for remembering Him in His absence. Christ Himself
will be better than the most precious remembrance of
Him, His presence will be more than His memory.
We shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
in the kingdom of His Father. " Blessed are they
who are called to the marriage supper of the
Lamb."

May I ask 3^011 who trust in Christ and love Him,
but do not come to His table, why you neglect a com-
memoration so touchingly solicited, so tender in its
associations with the greatest proof of His love, so
singularly beautiful in its character, and practically, so
unspeakably beneficial and blessed ? How can you
lift your foot to turn away when Christ so tenderly
asks you to stay ? How can you refuse when He bids
you so remember His love, so to show forth His
death, so to avow your hope, so to rejoice with your
brethren ? Why refuse such a Eucharist, such a com-
memoration of love and joy, such a sanctifying and
assuring grace ?

It is a simple observance, but the roots of ineffable
consolations are in it. You may think that you can
maintain your religious life and love without it. Pos-
sibly : but surely that is an ungracious reply to such

UNTIL HE COME. 163

a request of yearning infinite love, to push back the
proffered keepsake, saying, "My love can do without

it." Rather should it be an eager joy to "do this"
also.

May God give to us all that grace, of which all
ordinances are only means, and after sitting down at
this table on earth, grant us to sit down at the
marriage supper of the Lamb.

L 2

164

[1881.]
CHRIST'S SYMPATHY.

" For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able
to succour them that are tempted." — Heb. ii. 18.

The common things of life need the most constant
ministry. Daily hunger needs daily food, and the
homely meal is more to life than the festive banquet,
the common provision than the luxuries of the wealthy.
Hence we constantly recur to the central truths of
the Gospel of Christ, to the forgiveness of sins, to the
quickening of the new life, to the nurture of holy
character, to the ministry to human sorrow, to the
revelation of immortal life.

Sometimes we have to preach about Christianity,
its truth, its moral beauty, its form, its authority ;
but our chief business is to preach Christianity itself,
to demonstrate not the validity of the weapon, but
its efficiency when practically applied. The com-
mandment is exceeding broad, and has applications
to the remotest interests and minutest graces of
human life, the ruling of a temper, the gladness of a
feeling ; but from these again we return to the grave
and constant vitalities of the religious life. Sins and
sorrows do not cease for us. We need daily forgive-
ness and daily grace. Men are suffering, and need
comforting, and must be constantly brought to the
saving, helping Christ, our very present help in time
of need. It is not novelty that the hungry man
craves, but common bread ; it is not the last new
thing in medical science for which the sick man
seeks the physician, but the remedy that will effect a

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY. 165

cure. What it lacks in novelty is more than compen-
sated by its practical efficacy ; so he who provides the
spiritual food or medicine of hungry or diseased souls
must mainly think of daily conditions and chronic
wants, and bring to each his portion of meat in due
season.

So we come again to this great mission of Christ
the Comforter, the Christus Consolator, the eager
recognition of eighteen centuries of Christian teach-
ing, and of repeated necessities in individual lives ; to
which all sorrowful men listen still with as much
avidity as if it were for the first time enunciated.
Let us again look at this divine provision for our
human sorrows, and try to urge it. It would be
strange were there not some anxious, some sorrowful
hearts in a congregation like this. It will be much if
even one troubled soul goes away feeling that there is
" consolation in Christ" Blessed is the man who
passing through the valley of Baca — the valley of
weeping — makes it a fountain of blessing.

It is an assertion of the great moral purpose of our
Lord's suffering life. It was to give Him power, not
of Divine pity, but of human sympathy. It was the
Divine taking a form that enables us easily to realise
this. Both comfort and faith depend very much upon
our own easy realisations. It is not easy to realise the
love and pity of pure Deity ; of a Being purely
spiritual, august, perfect, infinitely remote from the
conditions of our actual life. We can think of it
only as a good-natured condescension, a distant
Almightiness turning aside for a moment to help.
There is comfort in this, but not all the comfort we
crave. We need sympathy as well as help — the sym-
pathy that may not lift the actual burden, but that
cheers and strengthens the spirit to bear it. Often
sympathy has no other power, and yet it is very pre-
cious. It is a word of very tender meaning. It implies
suffering with a man, not helping him in the muscular

166 HENRY ALLON.

sense of the term, but making him feel that we feel
with him in the pity and sorrow of our soul. Sym-
pathy is more than help ; the noblest souls would
sooner have helpless sympathy than unsympathising
help. And to enable us to feel sympathy, the sym-
pathiser must have suffered. It needs experience to
engender it, until in advanced life men become very
pitiful and tender. Christ was in this way made
perfect through suffering ; this was the purpose of
His incarnation, of His sorrowful human experiences
of temptation and pain. We can through the in-
carnation of Christ realise the Divine, feel the love and
pity of God, and trust His help much more easily
than when we think of pure Deity.

A thousand problems, of course, start up — meta-
physical, economical, moral. Can a Divine being
suffer ? How can the human in Christ suffer apart
from the Divine ?

May we not say that all love — and therefore God's
love — is power of sympathy ? It is not essential to
sympathy that the same exact experiences should be
endured. We can sympathise very really with
calamities and sorrows that have never befallen our-
selves. Imagination does its part in individualising
suffering. We know what it is to suffer generally,
and love gives us divinations of the special sufferings
of others. Can the Divine heart suffer ? May we
answer the question by another ? If it could not.
could it truly love those who have to suffer ? God is
not a marble perfection, a passive quiescence, an
absorbed selfishness. Love in God is what love is in
us — a quick affection and sympathy. If He did not
sorrow when we suffered He would be anything but
perfect. Do not let us be afraid to conceive of
quick sympathetic emotion in the heart of the great
loving Father; He sorrows over our sins and suffer-
ings. It is part of His supreme blessedness that He
does. Even the metaphysics need not trouble us ; a

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY. l>w

perfect God can so suffer in our suffering because He
is perfect. Assuredly the incarnate Christ can ; and
I think there is no incongruity between His suffering
humanity and the sympathising divinity which it
enshrined. He was tempted in every way in which
human nature can be tempted, His purity and iidelity
put to every test.

In itself, as God intended and made it, human
nature is a holy thing — perfectly, immaculately pure.
We know it only as tainted and corrupted with strong
inclinations to moral evil — selfish, sensuous, dis-
obedient. Even if we were not taught that this is
a fallen, a disordered, a diseased condition, we
should naturally so conclude. It would be a moral
incongruity to conceive of moral imperfection as a
creation of God. Reason and common sense are on
the side of the Scripture doctrine of the Fall.

The teaching concerning Christ — the second man
— is equally reasonable. If the incarnation be a truth
at all, clearly the human nature which the Divine
Christ took upon Him was not ordinary, tainted,
fallen human nature. Every instinct would be
offended by such a supposition. We are compelled
to recognise a pure type of human nature free from
all stain or tendency to sin. This is the theory of
the miracle of the incarnation, and without miracle
the incarnation could not be at all ; the one difference,
and the only difference, between Christ and ordinary
men is this.

But there is in perfect holiness no exemption from
trial, from temptation, from tests of obedience and
iidelity, from positive solicitations to evil. He was
tempted in all points as we are ; only He did not, as
we, sin in His sympathies with the temptation, in
His yieldings to it. The Prince of this world, when
he came, found nothing in Him.

A moral being, however, is tested and tempted
according to the sympathies of his own character.

168 HENRY ALLON.

Temptation is possible only Avhere there is suscepti-
bility. Eve was tempted according to her suscepti-
bility ; so were the angels who fell.

There are some temptations that are possible only
to an evil nature. A gin-shop is no temptation to a
well-regulated moral nature. A drunkard cannot pass
it ; his depraved appetite craves it, as by a fascination
he is drawn into it. Perhaps there is no moral nature
that is not insensible to some form of temptation.
Our Lord's temptations were only such as could appeal
to a pure human nature. He could not be tempted
as the drunkard, or licentious, or selfish man is
tempted. He could not be tempted as man is tempted
whose conscience is depraved, whose moral feeling is
corrupted. He was without sin.

There are natural appetites and desires of pure
human nature as well as depraved appetites and
passions of sinful human nature ; and through these
He could be tempted. He could feel hunger, and was
tempted by unlawful ways to satisfy it. He could feel
pain, and therefore could be tempted to evade it or
to murmur at it. All the suffering conditions of His
life would urge evasion. Why should He be poor ?
Why should He so weary Himself in toiling for
ungrateful men ? Why should He drink so bitter a
cup, endure so cruel a cross ? If He prayed that it
might pass, would not His human feeling be urged to
refuse it ?

He desired the triumph of His mission ; He was
tempted to sensational means of securing popularity.
The people wished to make Him a king. Why should
not the natural ambition be gratified ? The sinless
appetites of the flesh, the lawful desires of the mind,
might all be urged to indulgence ; and in this way He
was tried ; not only tested as to His purity and
fidelity, but positively solicited by the evil one to
wrong gratification. He could so be tempted because
He had these natural human susceptibilities and

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY. 169

feelings. There was no sin in them, as there is in de-
praved appetites and passions. All moral natures can
be assailed, appealed to, whether they will do right or
not ; but they may refuse every gratification that is
wrong.

The Divine Lord did this : whatever His human
craving for food, or ease, or success, He instantly
repelled every suggestion of wrong methods. No
such suggestion could spring up in His pure soul :
but it could be suggested from without. And the
suggestion was met by the strong instinct of holi-
ness, of right, of love, of obedience — " Get thee behind
me, Satan."

The sin lies not in evil solicitation, but in sym-
pathy with the solicitation, in the wish that it might
be yielded to, that the gratification were possible. We
do not conquer temptation when we merely refuse to
yield to it, when some urging of conscience, some fear
of consequences, some sense of stern law restrains us.
A man may not dare to do, and yet may wish that he
might do. A man conquers temptation only when
his very desire repels it, when his whole nature rises
up against its wrong, when the sense of law is lost in
strong moral feeling, and he would not do it if he
might. This was our Lord's victory ; His entire soul
was antagonistic to wrong. The tempter had nothing
in Him.

It follows from this that a moral nature suffers
from temptation in proportion as it is pure and per-
fect. It is not the mere temptation that causes the
suffering, but the moral refinements and sensitive].'
of the nature that is tempted. It may abhor 1 1 1 r *
suggestion, may be fur removed from all fear of
yielding to it, and yet from its very perfection
suiter most intensely. In this way Christ suffered
being tempted. His power of suffering from evil
suggestion was infinitely greater than that of a man
whose feeling is tainted by sinful sympathy; just

170 HENRY ALLON.

as some men are both physically, emotionally, and
morally far more sensitive than other men. The
greatest nature is capable of the greatest feeling ; the
purest nature endures the most from the suggestion of
sin. The lower the scale of being, the lower the sen-
sibility. The greatest soul has the greatest vibrations
when it is touched. Some are cut to the quick by an
unkind word, an unloving look ; others are so pachy-
dermatous that such things are scarcely noticed by
them. There are men who could follow to the grave
their nearest friend and not shed a tear ; there are
others who would wail in anguish.

All this applies to moral natures. The purest and
most sensitive suffer most. The very thought of
human sin — the sin of others, not His own — caused
the agony of Gethsemane. Every moral feeling is
stronger and more sensitive in God than in man ; sin
offends Him more. It is that abominable thing which
He hates.

The same temptation has very different measures
of intensity and pain, according to the nature to
which it is addressed ; the feeling in us becomes
infinite in God. In this way Christ was perfected
in sympathy ; the things that He so exquisitely
suffered from the temptation are a qualification for
a power of sympathy in Him, so that in all solicita-
tions to sin, in all sorrow and cares, in all pain and
struggles, He feels the keenest interest, the tenderest
sympathy.

It follows that the holier we ordinary men are, the
more keenly we shall suffer from temptation; the
more like Christ we are, the more will evil grieve us.
His salvation is much more than the forgiveness of
sins, it is a deliverance from the power of sin, help in
resisting it, power in putting off' the old man and his
deeds : a process of spiritual quickening, culture, and
refinement, brimnnof us to a state of feeling which shall
repel evil suggestion by sheer intrinsic antipathy to it.

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY. 171

Even in enduring physical pain, human care, and
disappointment and sorrow, the desertion of friends,
the privations of life, He who had not where to lay
His head suffered more than we can suffer. His very
physical organism must have been finely strung. His
intellectual and emotional nature, His social affections
and human sensibilities, must have been in exquisite
congruity with His spiritual perfection. Common trials
would be far keener to Him than they are to us.
Indeed, this is implied in the urgency to (; consider
him who endured such contradiction of sinners
against himself." When the men of Nazareth would
have cast Him from the precipice, when His dis-
ciples walked no more with Him because of His hard
sayings, when Peter denied Him, when Judas be-
trayed Him, when they all forsook Him and fled, it was
more than the sensitiveness of common men that was
wounded — it was a soul, tender in its sensibilities
even to anguish, silently enduring unsuspected pain.
All this is full of comforting suggestion.

1. For instance, there is a great difference between
the instinctive yearning of the flesh and the intel-
ligent desire of the spirit, between the physical hunger
that craves and the moral sense that controls the
gratification of the craving. How often we confound
them, and blame the suffering which the sense causes,
as if it were a moral wrong of the soul. How often
"the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.'' Such
temptations Christ felt, and in such there is no sin.

2. Christ was tempted to seek the success of His
mission by wrong means, and He refused. How this
should assure us when good men in the name of
religion ask us to do foolish or even wrong things.
How often we do things that our judgment does not,
approve, through fear of being thought indifferent
about the interests of Christ's kingdom. How often
we are asked in the interests of religion to do some-
thing sensational, to cast ourselves down from the

172 HENRY ALLON.

pinnacle of the temple. It will gather a crowd, it
will fill a chapel, it will secure a good collection, it
will bring men to hear the Gospel. In the name of
Christ do not do it. No end can justify unworthy
means. God's kingdom does not need our folly or
our falsehood. And yet the only way in which some
men can be tempted is through their religious zeal.
Money, pleasure, fame, sense cannot tempt them.
The lurid lights of hell or of earth cannot even lead
them astray ; but lights from Heaven may : let Satan
transform himself into an angel of light — lead them
to a church or a revival meeting — and he may play
with their moral rectitude almost any prank he likes.
It is not the less a sin because it is a pinnacle of the
temple to which he takes men. Men will strain their
consciences in a church to accomplish religious ends,
as they would never think of doing in the market for
secular ends. There is but one rule for us in such
temptation, simply and absolutely to refuse. The
means must be as holy as the end. We shall not
imitate Christ unless we refuse every means of doing
religious work that is not righteous and fitting.

3. Human suffering is not the mere infliction
of God's almighty power. Its reasons, its feelings
enter very deeply into the Divine heart. It is not
a hard stroke of wanton power. It is a going
forth of God's fatherly heart. Our earthly fathers
may chasten us as may seem good to them, the
heavenly Father for our profit, that we may be par-
takers of His holiness. It is a great assimilating
process — His moral nature assimilating ours. We
imperfectly interpret, we greatly wrong the Divine
doing when Ave think that it has no compelling reason,
that it might have been done without; and we
impetuously pray that He would reverse or take it
away : " Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother
had not died." True, perhaps ; but what an unutter-
able loss had he not died. To have been spared the

GITRJSrS SYMPATHY. 173

sorrow of the death would have been to be deprived
of the love and grace and glory of the resurrection.
We see only the process, and it seems causeless and
painful. God sees the issue, and it is infinitely
glorious; it is the ordinance of His deepest moral
feeling, of His intensest love : a working of His very
heart.

Has not God most joy in His greatest pity, in
seeking and saving him who is the most lost ? He
delighteth in mercy, and most in the farthest reaches
of His mercy, just as a physician rejoices in his
greatest cure, the philanthropist in his greatest rescue,
the preacher in his greatest conversion. Is it not a
necessary law of benevolence ? Does not Christ
express it when He says that there is more joy in
heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over
ninety and nine just persons ? The sheep that was
lost is a greater joy to Him than the whole flock.

4. What an assurance it is of the common nature
of God and man that such sympathy is possible! If
His nature were not like our nature, if we were not
His offspring, His breath, children of His image, such
sympathy could not be.

The incarnation is only the means of making it
more palpable to us. The Christ, too, was a partaker
of our nature, and in virtue of its common elements
He can sympathise with us. Our poor, weary, sinful
hearts can go to Him, and invoke His human, His
sinless pity. If we are tempted of the devil, so was
He ; if avo are hungry and weary, and wrung with
pain, He likewise took part of the same. He knows
them all with quick intuition and tender experience;
He knows the heart of the tempted, suffering man.

So He yearns towards us in His saving purpose
and work ; for this cause came He into the world, that
He, the strong Son of God, might be the consoler of
sorrowful men. He seeks them that He may com-
fort them, as tender women go into hospitals to nurse

174 HENRY ALLON.

rough men, moved by the Divine sentiment, the
gracious enthusiasm of humanity.

And since He knows all that we are and feel, there
is no defect of sympathy through ignorance. He
does not mistake us as Eli mistook Hannah. He has
nothing to discover in us ; our shame and sin and
sorrow cannot hide itself from Him. From the first
He has perfect knowledge of us. He accepts us as
we are — accepts us to save and comfort us. Our
suffering comes from various sources ; from infirmity,
from misfortune, from sin. Christ knows the suffering,
although not the sin. He was familiar with hunger
and poverty, misfortune and bereavement, anguish
and death. The man of sorrows, men crowned Him
its king. He knoweth our frame ; Ave have no sorrow
that His sorrows did not overpass.

" In that he himself hath suffered being tempted,
he is able to succour them that are tempted/'

"Wherefore let us come boldly unto the throne
of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace
to help in time of need."

IT-",

[1888.]
I N ¥ L QE N C E.

•• Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his
savour, wherewith shall it be salted I it is thenceforth grood for
nothing', hut to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot
be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel,
but on a candlestick ; and it giveth light to all that are in the
house. Let your light so shine before men. that they may Bee your
good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.'* — Matt.
v. 13—16.

The metaphors by which our Lord sets forth the
influence of the Christian disciple, the qualities of
his life, and the way in which they operate in social
life, are very striking.

" Ye are the salt of the earth," the qualifying,
preserving, purifying influence of human society.
The assumption is that the earth — the world of men
— is in a state of spiritual corruption, with a charac-
teristic tendency to become worse and worse. This
we have seen is literally true. It needs salt, therefore
— some powerful antiseptic element — to arrest and
counteract the tendency to moral putrefaction. What
salt is in physical processes, that Christianity is in
moral processes.

So again, when speaking of individual life, our
Lord says, "Have salt in yourselves," let Christian
principles and sympathies arrest and eradicate the
moral corruption of the personal character.

Here the idea is that Christian men are to be to
society what Christian truth is to the individual
heart. The life of Cod is as salt in the personal

176 HENRY ALLON.

disciple ; the true disciple is as salt in the social life
of men.

Salt had a large and significant place in the
natural symbolism of ancient peoples. In eastern
countries it is a scarce and precious condiment. The
ideas associated with it were various and interesting,
as readers of Plutarch will remember. It has, there-
fore, furnished the sacred writers with some of their
most suggestive analogies. Hence, too, it was so im-
portant an element in Hebrew sacrifice. It was, as
here used by our Lord, the symbol of moral vitality
and purity, therefore pre-eminently of the purifying
forces of Christianity. This symbol was derived
from the specific qualities and uses of salt as an
antiseptic.

It was also the ancient symbol of hospitality,
because of its being so essential an ingredient of
human food; hence also of- friendship, brotherhood,
fidelity. A covenant of salt was sacred and inviolable.
To eat salt with an Arab is to the present day to
secure the pledge of his friendship ; hence it becomes
the fitting symbol of the assuaging, healing, uniting
influences of the religion whose watchword is " peace
on earth and goodwill to men."

Salt, again, was the symbol of wisdom. Pliny
calls the Greeks the salt of the nations, and the
Apostle Paul urges us to let our speech be seasoned
with salt that we may know how to answer every
man. Like salt, wisdom is an antiseptic ; it arrests
and counteracts ignorance and error, and is a fitting
symbol, therefore, of His teaching who is " the wisdom
of God."

Salt was used in sacrifices to symbolise the incor-
ruptness of that which expiated sin — " Every sacrifice
shall be salted with salt " — and also to symbolise the
sacredness, fidelity, and permanence of the covenant
between God and the sacrificer ; so that every item of
this varied and expressive symbolism is a fitting and

INFLUENCE. Ill

suggestive representation of the religion of Jesus
Christ.

By a slightly varied use of the symbol our Lord
intimates its value as manure for land — " Salt is good,
but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it
be salted ? It is neither tit for the land, nor yet for
the dunghill" They who were the salt of the earth,
therefore, were to fertilise " the field which is the
world," and in which the good seed of the kingdom is
sown, as manure fertilises the arable glebe, so that
the sterile human soil shall bring forth richly fruits
of righteousness.

The other metaphor carries a still larger meaning
— it is at once more noble in idea and more com-
prehensive in reference. " Ye are the light of the
world." If the one metaphor represent that fertilising
agency, without which the very aliment of life would
be wanting, the other represents the illumining and
quickening power whereby ignorance and moral death
are destroyed, and men are lifted to the utmost
height of intellectual grandeur and spiritual life,
even to the very knowledge and blessedness of God
Himself. The light shines from heaven to earth : it
is God's manifestation of Himself to the darkness and
death of human souls. Light prefigures to us the
two great ideas of knowledge and purity.

Both metaphors together furnish a very sug-
gestive representation of the various forces which
Christianity exerts in regenerating human society ;
the salt of the earth operating upon the cold, passive
clod, counteracting its elements of corruption, and
invigorating it with powers of life ; and the light of
the world making the very firmament of life luminous
and filling its entire sphere with intelligence and
warmth.

Both affirmations are startling and bold.

" Ye are the salt of the earth." They would
quicken into life that which was dead, fertilise that

M

178 HENRY ALLON.

which was sterile, make that which was barren to be
prolific in fruits of righteousness — they were to be
charged with a truth and a life that would lift men
to God.

" Ye are the light of the world " — a greater affirm-
ation still. They would fill the moral firmament with
the highest spiritual knowledge — make it resplendent
with the purest glory. The influence of their light,
like that of the sun, would be illimitable, all per-
vading, charged with illuminating and vitalising in-
fluence ; wherever it came it would diffuse lustre and
quicken life.

The two metaphors supplement and perfect each
other, as life and light do. A man must be quickened
to spiritual life to have the power of perceiving
spiritual light — the more life there is in a man, the
greater his power of receiving light ; while the more
light that he receives, the larger his vision of God,
the stronger and purer and richer his life will be.

The two metaphors, again, suggest different types
of religious character, different degrees of religious
life, different forms of religious influence.

The salt works secretly, silently, slowly. Many
men, true disciples of Christ, realise but a low
degree of Christian life. They are good, but not
very intelligent ; right in heart, but narrow and pre-
judiced in their views. To be quickened to religious
life is a great and blessed thing; but to have that life
made luminous and wise and noble by intelligence, to
understand the mind of God, the ways and purposes
of God, as well as to feel His heart, is a thing
still greater and more blessed. Paul ministers milk
to them that are babes in Christ, he speaks wisdom
among them that are perfect. To the one he is as
salt, a quickening, purifying influence ; to the other
he is as light, an illuminating, fructifying power.

No true disciple of Christ will be contented with
the lower condition of life, any more than a true man

INFLUENCE. L79

is contented with mere animal conditions of being.
" Leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ,
we go on to perfection."

The two types, however, do exist, and they demand
corresponding treatment.

In our ragged churches, in heathen missions, we
go to the ignorant and degraded. The agency is that
of the salt, arresting the process of decay, preserving
sweetness and wholesomeness. We appeal to men by
stronger and more sensuous means — through the
senses, or the lower emotions, or the coarser intel-
ligence. AYe work upon fear and self-interest, and
so bring men to Christ.

The appeal to cultured congregations is higher
and more intellectual, more refined and subtle. We
work upon their reason and nobler sentiments ; we
minister the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ.

This is simply sa}dng that in applying the Gospel
of Christ you must use means suitable to the culture
and moral intelligence of those whom you would save.
The appeal that would arrest and bring one man to
Christ may have even a deterrent effect upon another
man. The moral process is alike in all, the Divine
Spirit is the common quickener, the spiritual truths
of God are the common agency, but there are divers
operations. In one the process is that of the salt —
sensible contact, pungent applications — a kind of
chemical conversion. In another the process is that
of the light — a kind of spiritual revelation through
the reason, the mental tastes, the moral feelings.
Some are grossly unintellectual ; scarcely any appeal
to reason is possible. Some are inquiring and acquisi-
tive ; their reason must be convinced.

Some have their hearts broken as by a stroke,
like the gaoler at Philippi; some have their hearts
opened as by the morning sunbeam, like Lydia :
some, like the men of Nineveh, will repent only when
a .Jonah goes to them with alarming preaching ; some

M 2

180 HENRY ALLON.

are eager for knowledge, like the Ethiopian eunuch.
To some, address must be poignant as salt, to others
it must be gentle and insinuating as light. Paul does
not preach to the barbarians at Lystra as he does to
the philosophers at Athens ; the Baptist comes with
his message of repentance ; the Christ with His in-
vitation to rest. One man's preaching is specially
adapted to convert, another to instruct and nurture
him that is converted. Both are requisite — the salt
in its pungency, the light in its penetrating gentleness.

As this injunction follows immediately upon the
Beatitudes as a practical application of their teaching,
it is evident that our Lord regards the moral qualities
which he has specified and pronounced blessed as
having this virtue. Spiritual poverty, a mourning
sense of moral evil and meekness of heart, hunger
for righteousness, mercifulness, purity, peacemaking,
fidelity to Christ in persecution — these are the
spiritual qualities which make up the true disciple of
Christ and make him the salt of the earth and the
light of the world. They define a distinctive character.
They indicate wherein true spiritual power consists ;
not in dogmas or activities, but in essential qualities
of heart ; not in sacramental mystery, or consecrated
priest, or legitimate church, but in inward spirituali-
ties of soul. All who are thus spiritually good may
enlighten and bless mankind. It is the prerogative
of no church, or caste, or creed, it is the property of
every true disciple of Christ. It follows therefore : —

1. That Christian men are the salt of the earth in
virtue of their being in it. Pure men in the midst of
impurity, men in broad and palpable contrast with the
ungodly ; their Christianity not merely received by
them as a doctrine or about them as a profession, but
within them as life and manifest as character, its prin-
ciples embodied in living forms, in holy practice ;
quietly, unconsciously, yet potently exerting a subtle
moral influence upon all who come within their reach.

INFLUENCE. 181

2. They arc the salt of the earth by their active
assimilating power upon its corruptness. Even un-
conscious piety is aggressive. Purity in itself is an
assault upon vice — a protest and rebuke. Every holy
life restrains and transforms the unholy lives around
it. Every pious man is a living witness for God.
He testifies to his claims, demonstrates the reasonable-
ness and blessedness of piety ; he is an argument for
religion and an example of it.

Actively he seeks to bring others under its influ-
ence, to make them holy as he is holy, happy as he
is happy. He dissuades from sin, he incites to holi-
ness, he labours and prays and sacrifices himself if
by any means he may save some.

Nor can it be questioned that practically Christian
men seek by their holy lives to enforce their prin-
ciples. Make what allowance you will for the in-
consistences and even the hypocrisies of men, it still
remains true that the morality of Christian life is
higher than that of any other life. More is expected
from it, more is found in it — more of sanctified feeling,
more of holy grace, more of godly service, more of
brotherly beneficence and self-sacrifice. Christian men
may in their zeal strive ignorantly and unwisely, but
they do strive to convert men from sin, to conform
them to the holy character of Jesus Christ ; they do
labour and pray, and sacrifice property and time to
redeem the world from sin.

The teaching of the second metaphor is precisely
to the same effect. As lights of the world Christian
men communicate to men their highest spiritual ideas,
their supreme conceptions of purity. True or false,
the world possesses no ideas so great as those of
Christianity. Only this divine light of God can
illumine the spiritual darkness of men. Enlightened
themselves, Christian men are enlighteners of others.
In relation to Christ, the Sun of Righteousness,
they shine with a light derived from Him. It is the

182 HENRY ALLON,

necessary property of light to transmit its rays. Every
object receiving light must reflect it, as the moon and
the planets reflect the light of the sun.

It is therefore the necessary law as well as the
duty of the Christian man to shine as a light in the
world, to reflect and diffuse the light he has derived
from Christ.

In whatever locality we may be, Christ expects us
to disperse its darkness. In our families, our neigh-
bourhoods, our country we are to be as lights " in a
dark place." Men do not light a candle and put it
under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth
light to all that are in the house. Christian men
are not enlightened by Christ to retire into deserts,
to be immured in cloisters, or even to indulge in the
pious quietude of the house, or the rural seclusion of
the country. Where the world is darkest they must
carry their light. They may not even leave it to
shine by its own lustre — they must place it where it
will shine the most, live where they can shed the
greatest enlightenment, set the most beneficial
example, exercise the most gracious influence. Our
Lord did not seek the seclusion of Nazareth, nor His
Apostles the solitudes of Judasa ; they sought the
great centres of men — crowded cities — that they might
affect the greatest numbers. How we forget this obliga-
tion in our plans of life, in our choice of a residence, in
our yearnings for quiet. " Let your light so shine " —
so place it, so keep its lustre unimpaired — " as that men
may see your good works and glorify your Father who
is in heaven."

This is the practical application of the whole —
the responsibility resting upon disciples of Christ
that the character and influence of their religion
shall in their hands have the utmost possible efficacy.
If the dignity and moral beauty of Christian disciple-
ship be great, equally great is its responsibility, and
the peril and doom of unfaithfulness.

INFLUENCE. 183

Our Lord mentions two forms of peril : —

The salt may lose its savour, the light may he
deteriorated or placed where it does not shine ; that
the former may do its work its vitality and pungency
must be conserved. If it become stale and insipid,
all its uses are lost. A man, that is, may lose the
power and unction of his piety, the fervour and
spirituality of his faith and love ; the influence of his
Christian beliefs upon his practical life may become
slight and imperceptible. His Christian activities
may cease, his power of moral contagion may die out
of him, so that he shall no longer be a savour of
Christ in every place. He may, indeed, like trees in
winter, still retain his Christian vitality, but practically
it is dormant. It has lost the out-bursting energy, the
aggressive power of life.

Every church has members, every Christian man
has acquaintances in this torpid condition. What
Job calls the root of the matter may be in them, but
it is as a root out of a dry ground. It gladdens with
no vegetation, gratifies writh no fragrance, enriches
with no fruit. We do not say of such that they are
not disciples, that the salt is not in them — only that
it has lost its savour ; they are fit for no uses of the
Christian life, they exert no practical influence, put no
constraint upon evil, urge men with no importunity,
hallow social life with no sanctity. To an onlooker it
is impossible to distinguish them from the un-
spiritual.

In various degrees of decadence and power you see
men thus losing the savour of their piety.

It would be difficult to note all the causes and
indications of the process. When a man loses his
religious fervour and moral earnestness he begins to
take life in an easy, self-indulgent way. Selfish con-
siderations determine his actions. His purposes are
ruled by calculation as to what will be most advan-
tageous or agreeable to himself. He surrenders himself

184 HENRY ALLON.

to a cold, eager worldliness. Religious work is irk-
some to him ; he becomes niggardly in his gifts.
By these sure indications his salt is losing its savour.

Perhaps he lives for years in the church and does
no recognised service; for years in a neighbourhood,
and does no religious good to a single individual soul.
So that were he to give his account to God he could
instance no one whom he has benefited. Surely the
savour is well-nigh gone. Christ pronounces such
" good for nothing." Salt is valuable only as salt.
It has no other uses. Some things may fail of one
purpose and fulfil another. Salt losing its saltness
falls into unmitigated worthlessness, not fit even for
the dunghill, only to be cast out as refuse. An un-
spiritual man is fit for no religious uses. Worse
than useless, he becomes a spiritual incumbrance and
nuisance. Filling his place in the church assembly,
he is cold as the stone beneath his feet, barren as the
pillar against which he leans. Without enthusiasm or
sympathy, he is a cold critic and obstructive in all
church councils, bearing a Christian name, but with-
out a Christian heart ; subscribing a Christian creed,
but faithless in Christian life : not so much a temple
of piety as an urn containing its ashes, over which
angels bend and weep.

And it is despicable. aCast out and trodden
under foot of men." There is nothing that men
despise more than inconsistent life and selfish com-
promise. Uncompromising piety they will honour ;
they feel a kind of respect for open, reckless god-
lessness ; but for truckling meanness, for canting
hypocrisy that would serve both God and mammon,
that would pose for a saint in the Church and a
worldling in the world, they feel an unmitigated
scorn.

The loss is irrevocable. " Wherewith shall it be
salted ? " There is no salt for salt. Salt may correct
unsavoury meat, but there is nothing to correct

INFLUENCE. 185

unsavoury salt. The best things arc capable of the
worst corruption. A Christian man who has lost
his piety is commonly worse than the man who never
had piety to lose, the Pharisee than the Publican.
If the conservators of the world are unfaithful, who
is there to save it ? Who shall keep the keeper ?

It is a question for each of us. Am I preserving the
saltness of my Christian character and exerting a holy
influence upon my family, my social circle, my neigh-
bourhood, the world ? Whatever the power of truth
over my personal heart, has its power been exerted
upon others ? Am I purifying the world, or is the
world corrupting me ? Is the salt giving its properties
to the flesh, or the flesh to the salt ? Am I making
society more spiritual, or is society making me more
carnal ? Is my savour of heaven or of earth ? Do
I bless the world with spiritual healing, or curse it
with insipidity ? Does it honour me for my useful-
ness, or tread me under foot as barren ? Am I a
savour of life unto life or of death unto death ?

How are those nearest me affected by me ? Are
they becoming more thoughtful, earnest, and holy, or
growing in indifference and unspirituality ? Are my
children, my servants, my friends, the better for my
influence or the worse ? — seasoned by the pungency
of the salt, or has the salt lost its savour ?

Does my light shine ; am I myself illumined ; not
merely an instructed theologian, but a luminous
saint, a man irradiated with the light of the life of
God ? A man of manifest penitence, faith, holiness,
love ? You cannot be a mere light-bearer, you must
yourself be light. " Among whom ye shine as lights
in the world," living epistles of Christ, " known and
read of all men."

If not a converted man, you are doing nothing to
enlighten others ; you shed your darkness upon them,
increase the density and noxiousness of the moral
atmosphere, make it a darkness that may be felt.

186 HENRY ALLON.

Keep the lustre of your life unimpaired, feed the
lamp of your life with the oil of heavenly grace,
keep it trimmed with the careful discipline of life.
Let no impure passion, no subtle selfishness, de-
teriorate it.

Let it shine so as to be seen. Let the flame of
piety be distinct, palpable, unmistakable. You are
enlightened not for yourselves only, but for others.

" Heaven doth with us as we with torches do ;
Not light them for themselves : for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not."

Your place in the world is where there is the
most darkness, where your light may shine with the
greatest effect. Your care is demanded for the sur-
roundings of your religious life, that no waywardness,
no eccentricities of character, no seeming inconsist-
encies may dim the perception of your piety. Men
may see only a distorted or discoloured piety, because
you do not avoid the very appearance of evil. It is
not enough to be harmless ; you must be blameless,
and without rebuke. Many a man wastes half the
influence of his piety by sheer follies — foolish speech,
reckless actions. The light shines, but it shines in-
effectually.

If Ave may not parade our good doing, neither may
we conceal it. Let it shine so as to glorify our
Father who is in heaven. Only this as our supreme
motive can be our sure guide of life. " Holding forth
the word of life in the midst of a crooked and per-
verse generation, among whom ye shine as lights in
the world," a light to glorify not ourselves, but " our
Father who is in heaven."

187

[1883.]

RELIGIOUS SOLUTION OF SCEPTICAL

THOUGHTS.

"Nevertheless lam continually with thee: thou hast holden
me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel,
and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but
thee? and there is none npon earth that I desire beside thee. My
flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart,
and my portion for ever.*' — PSALM lxxiii. 23—26.

This is a strange conclusion to a dark mood of scep-
ticism. It is like the rejoicing of an exhausted
warrior after a fierce battle. It is like rest after
sore temptation, when angels come and minister to
us. It is as light in a dark place, deliverance out of
a sore strait.

The Psalm is the outcry of a troubled and mili-
tant soul. The mystery of life is very great, its
conflict is very sore. The singer felt as it he, a good
man, had been very badly treated; as if piety and
virtue counted for nothing, as if He who governed
the world made no moral distinctions. " Surely I
have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my
hands in innocency.''

Nay, looking merely at external things, it almost
med as if it were better to do wrong than right,
better not to be restrained by moral scruples. Wicked
men have manifestly the best of it: they prosper
because of the unscrupulousness of their wickedin iss,
while good men suffer from the restraints of their
righteousness. It seemed a sadly confused world, a
world all a muddle : there seemed no moral principles
in its rule.

188 • HENRY ALLON.

Is it not one of the greatest of a good man's trials,
one of the most terrible straits of a pious man's
faith, to feel as if in a world that God does not care
for, or does not govern righteously ? Tossed as into a
seething, bubbling cauldron of circumstance ; driven
hither and thither by lawless forces, no firm hand
laying hold of him; buffeted by troubles; beaten oft*
his feet, as it were, by the wind and the hail ; whirled
high into the air, and dashed down again to the
ground — a helpless waif of life.

He, a good man, surely ought to be held firmly,
to find a sure footing. God might, by a kind of
natural retribution, let His tempests loose upon the
wicked ; but for wrong always to come right, for right
always to find itself in the wrong, was a sore perplexity
for a man's religious faith. It sorely tried Asaph.
He was tempted, as Job was tempted, to " let go his
integrity," to " curse God and die."

He describes this turmoil of his feeling in lan-
guage of almost unrivalled dramatic power and
pathos. One puts this Psalm with the Book of Job,
or with Paul's description of his conflict with carnal
passion.

But his sceptical mood has a sudden and strange
solution. Light unexpectedly breaks in upon the
pitchy darkness of his soul. There is no apparent
process of reasoning, no elaborate demonstration of
the righteousness and philosophy of Providence, as in
the Book of Job. The solution of religious problems
does not often come in this way. Intellectual pro-
cesses do not often settle moral questions, any more
than physical processes settle questions of reason.
Spiritual problems demand spiritual solutions. It is
a flash of spiritual light.

It is a sudden religious thought that resolves
Asaph's difficulties, " Nevertheless I am continually
with thee." The problem is brought to the test of
religious principles and experience. Neither material

SOLUTION OF SCEPTICAL THOUGHTS. 189

considerations, nor intellectual reasonings can solve
it. Has religious principle any power? He will
estimate the value of godless men's methods and
gains, in their relationship to righteous principles and
moral satisfactions.

" Until I went into the sanctuary of God," until I
brought religious teachings and considerations to bear ;
<: then understood I their end." Only spiritual truths
can shed light upon the world's darkness; the prob-
lems of life can be solved only by spiritual realities.
A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of
things that he possesses — a truth that men are very
slow to learn, but that every man's own conscious-
ness abundantly proves.

There is the inner world of soul, as well as the
outer world of sense ; the domain of spiritual prin-
ciples, affections, and satisfactions, as well as the
domain of physical gratifications. What is the value
of this wicked prosperity — the man himself being
judge — as compared with the consciousness of noble
character, the ineffable joys of pious feeling ? When
by his godless ways the man has gained his wealth
and honours, gotten the things into his hand, what
consciousness do they inspire ? How far do they
satisfy his complex and mysterious nature ? How far
do they realise his expectations from them ? Is he
as happy as he thought he would be I Can his heart
rest in them ? Do they assure his thought, his
feeling, his anticipation of what shall come after he
has done with them ?

It was worth the sceptical distress, the doubt,
the conflict, the anguish, so to have solved such a
problem. What an outburst it is : " Nevertheless I
am continually with thee: thou hast holder me by my
right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel,
and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I
in heaven but thee \ and there is none upon earth
that I desire beside thee." It is as if his scepticism

190 HEN11Y ALLON.

had dammed up the religious feeling of his soul,
blocked its channels of pious faith and expression,
until it has gathered volume and strength, when all
the barriers are broken down, and the flood spreads
over his entire being. What a torrent of religious
faith and passion it is !

However perplexing the problems, however plaus-
ible the doubts, the religious trust of his intuitive
soul asserts itself. He will confide in the righteous-
ness and benignity of his God ; the instincts of his
heart are true and strong. God is greater and
better than anything that He does. He can under-
stand his great Father Himself better than he can
understand His doings. His error has been in trying
to interpret God by His doings — nay, but he will
interpret the doings by God. He has a thousand
assurances of His rectitude and love, and he will
believe Him to be right even in these apparent con-
tradictions. Sooner or later they will come right,
because He who does them is right.

This was Asaph's remedy for his scepticism — the
loving trust of his heart shall correct the perplexed
thought of his head. His religious experience shall
determine his theology ; his piety shall rule his faith,
not his understanding. It is a great lesson for us all
to learn.

Are not all our great religious problems solved in
this way ? Is not experiment the method of all
science ? The religious life can have no other
method. There are many things that I can know
only by doing them. I test light by seeing ; I under-
stand love by loving; I know life by living. So
I know God and Christ and spiritual life by
experience of them. I cannot demonstrate them by
intellectual evidence or argument, any more than I
can demonstrate life. I have no means of proving
the being of a God, the incarnation and atone-
ment of the Christ, the new life of the Holy Spirit.

SOLUTION OF SCEPTICAL THOUGHTS. 191

Let me test them practically — receive the teaching,
and embody it — try what it will do for my character,
my life, my consciousness. I do not ask the astro-
nomer to demonstrate the sun. I look upon its
brightness — I see the fruits and the flowers which it
quickens; so I know God by the moral light and
beauty and fruitfulness with which He tills me. It
is the vision of the spiritual life : that is to me the
truest theology which produces in me the noblest life.

The Psalmist mentions three or four of his
conclusions : —

I. That there is a providential government of the
world, and that in His government of the world God
has special regard for religious men.

This was the first reaction of his sceptical rea-
sonings, the conclusion to which his first religious
impulse led him: "Nevertheless I am still with thee."
It is the only possible conception of a Divine Pro-
vidence. In all the complications of this wonderful
world, in all its distresses, disruptions, and convul-
sions, I, the individual man, am never for a moment
lost sight of.

What a conviction to be wrought into a man's con-
sciousness ! What an assurance and inspiration for his
daily life — the infinite Father never forgets me. Heaven
is crowded with worshippers; earth is filled with
sinning, struggling, clamouring, cursing, praying men,
movements of nations, disruptions of society, battles
and devastation : I, God's solitary child, am never for-
gotten. He knows me, calls me by my name, watches
over me, hears me, helps me, loves me. Infinite in
knowledge and power, He can do this : infinite in
love, He will. I am not merely one in a crowd, a
grain in the great heap of humanity ; I am a person,
distinct and individual as in my own consciousn< -
before God. He knows the way I take : the hairs of
my head are all numbered. It is not the mere
poetry, it is the logic of omniscience.

192 HENRY ALLON.

It is a conception of God's providence full of
inspiration, of assurance, strength and joy, infinitely
more fruitful than any providence of pantheism, of
fatalism, of materialism.

It is the only conclusion of religious recognition
that the entire consciousness of a man can rest in.
If He be the creator of the world, He governs it ;
His hand moves in it everywhere — none the less
because of the order of its laws. We are all of us
directing and modifying the actions of law — from the
physician who heals disease, to the man who turns
his foot from a stone in his path. It is not necessary
for a personal providence that laws of Nature should
be abrogated ; it is enough that the operation of law
should be directed. Can we think of the world as
released from His control, rolled by His creating
hand into space to find its godless destiny ? Must
not He who ordained its laws administer them ?
Must not He, as the necessity of His perfections,
discriminate men and things ? Can we think of an
omniscience that does not know ; a law or a motion
that is self-sustained or self-directed ; a love that
does not bless ?

It is the necessary conclusion of all intelligent
theology, the necessary assurance of all true religion,
that He is not far from any one of us ; that in Him
we live, and move, and have our being ; that by the
necessary law of His benevolence He is ever seeking,
not His own arbitrary pleasure, but His creatures'
good ; that His power is the instrument of His wise
love, seeking, through a thousand ways of discipline
and development, our holiness and happiness.

There is a winter of the spiritual life when vital
processes are latent — when neither fruit, nor foliage,
nor sap is manifest ; but the processes that shall
issue in the harvest are not the less going on ; and
the great Husbandman patiently watches their de-
velopment ; the quickened seed looks forward to the

SOLUTION OF SCEPTICAL THOUGHTS. 193

blossom ; the blossom is in order to the fruit ; and
the entire culture of the plant is subordinate to
the harvest. "Every branch in me that beareth fruit,

he purgcth it, that it may bring forth more fruit."

Comfort has but a small place in the great pur-
poses of life. It is an ignoble seeking. Comfort ! yes,
if it conies as the sequence and issue of great duty
and noble feeling ; but the only worthy purpose of
life is character, service, God-likeness — and every
means is blessed that produces this.

As a man lives for high spiritual ends he under-
stands this, and joyfully accepts God's curative
medicine, God's perfecting discipline of life. His is
the great Gospel of suffering, which is the revelation
of Christianity — the Christian solution of the Old
Testament problem, " Our light affliction . . . worketh
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory ; while we look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen " — the effect of
the suffering being conditioned upon the looking, the
aim, and the temper of the man — the attitude deter-
mines the process.

So God, the great Father, is personally dealing
with each one of us. And then, besides the Provid-
ence without us, there is a spiritual world within.
His Spirit speaks to our spirit ; touches, quickens,
sanctifies, blesses it. How ? do you ask ? Who may
construe the things of the Spirit ? Do we not touch
each other's spirit — exert an influence by thoughts,
by feelings, by mysterious sympathies and affiniti<
Can God be denied such access to human hearts ?
Does He not speak to us in His Word ? Do we not
speak to Him in prayer ? He, the giver of life,
quickens life in us. Who may prescribe limits t<>
spiritual intercourse ? We cannot even to one anol her
impart the whole of ourselves, or the best of our-
selves; there are unknown possibilities we never
attain. What mother can speak her love to her

194 HENRY ALLON.

child ? We are ever striving to say to the great
Father more than we can say. God would fain
impart to us more of Himself. A greater and more
blessed communion with Him is possible than any
soul has realised.

It would be a cold doctrine of God's personal
presence that did not include this inward communion
with Him, " setting God always before us ; " the subtle,
mystic, half unconscious sense of God in our daily
life — God dwelling in us, we in Him.

This is the consciousness of every religious life,
the meaning of all prayer, the home and rest of
outcast, wearied hearts — "Oh, that I knew where I
might find him ! "

I do not, like Lear, wail to the winds ; " my heart
and my flesh cry out for the living God/' To tell me
that I moan only as the wind moans ; that my tears
are shed only as the ocean foam is scattered ; that for
my yearnings after God there is no satisfaction ; that
all that is greatest and strongest within me is a self-
delusion, a capacity that there is nothing to till ; that
this living, throbbing soul of mine can find no response
but the cold, lifeless, cruel laws of Nature, is to mock
all that I am most conscious of — my affinities, my
yearnings, my love. I must have a personal God, a
Heavenly Father, to whom I can bring my want, my
sorrow, my crying ; whose bosom I can feel, of whose
sympathy I am assured, whose help will not fail.

It is the first teaching of all religion. It was the
first great truth that the dumb, yearning, religious
heart of the Psalmist laid hold of: "I have set God
always before me." Not only was God with him —
he was with God ; ever looking to Him and trusting
in His love — "Nevertheless I am continually with
thee."

II. Allied with this is the further recognition of
God as the smide of the religious man's life.

Not, of course, by any external agency, save by

SOLUTION OF SCEPTICAL THOUGHTS, 195

unrecognised orderings of His providence; but by
quickenings of religious sensibility and grace, whereby
we are made discerning and wise in the orderings of
our spiritual life. The true wisdom of a man is not
in the direction of an external hand, but in the
guidance of an understanding heart. " I will instruct
thee and teach thee in the way that thou shalt go ; I
willguide thee with mine eye." It is a promise that
can be fulfilled only to the watchful and the obedient,
who are observant of indications of the Divine will,
and are eagerly responsive to them. God's hand
might lay hold of us when most unobservant, His
words might arrest us when most careless ; but
direction by a glance is possible only when we are
habitually observant, when our attitude is attentive,
our uplooking constant. It is a delicacy of Divine
method, a simple suggestiveness which is the neces-
sary way of spiritual influence. All spiritual things
solicit us gently, touch us delicately ; they are whis-
pers and hints, not rude, overmastering forces ; He
who cannot hear God's still small voice will not be
guided at all. How many of the spiritual teachings
of the Bible are conveyed to us in suggestions rather
than in broad explicit statements. How little of
explicit demonstration it contains. For the accept-
ance of doctrine, for obedience to commands, a docile,
sympathetic heart is imperative — a heart that is of
the truth, and responds to the faintest touch of truth,
as the ^Eolian harp to the summer breeze. To be
guided by demonstration or law is one thing ; to be
guided by the eye is another — this is possible only to
sympathetic life. He will miss the most precious
truths that the Bible yields, the most precious expe-
riences of the religious life, who demands logical
pmof for all its spiritual teachings; they are illumina-
tions rather than reasonings.

There are readings between the lines, intimations
and possibilities, divinings of meaning, which logic

N 2

196 HENRY ALLON.

cannot touch — only the intuitions of a loving and
docile heart. What a profound and wonderful philo-
sophy of life it is. No man is so wise as the re-
ligious man. The spiritual man brought into har-
mony with all God's purposes, made susceptible to
all spiritual influences, capable of responding to all
God's methods, the controlling power of God perfectly
harmonising with the inviolable freedom of men. How
often He girds us when we do not know Him ; chooses
our inheritance when we think the choice our own.
He guides us by qualifying us to guide ourselves — to
aim at high purposes and to form right judgments.

How wisely He orders our circumstances, places us
amid difficulties, exposes us to temptations, compels
our struggle and resistance and judgment. The wise
Father knows that we are educated best, not by being
sequestered, but by being exposed. It is not the
education of a man to seek monkish seclusion, to
abjure use because of abuse. It is better to struggle
with evil, even though sometimes Ave have the worst
of it ; therefore God exposes us to fierce temptations,
makes us perfect through suffering, develops manly
strength in us by strenuous exercises of it. The
innocence of a child is one thing ; the holiness of a
man is another. Our inheritance is not the less
chosen of God because it is an experience of conflict
and suffering ; it is no less the right way because Ave
are disappointed in it. For this very reason God may
choose it ; the roughest way leads to the loftiest
moral heights.

III. And finally, God Himself is recognised as the
supreme good of life : " Whom have I in heaven but
thee ? and there is none upon earth that I desire
beside thee." God is more than His gifts — a suffi-
cient good should all gifts fail. His gifts are more
when He is recognised as their giver. No man so
greatly enjoys the material good of life as the re-
ligious man does. Life in all its departments is more

SOLUTION OF SCEPTICAL THOUGHTS. 197

to him than it is to any other man. " God visits him
ever)7' morning, and tries him every moment. "

And when the things of life can no longer be
possessed — when heart and flesh fail, God is the
strength of his heart, and his portion for ever : a
trained and developed and perfected spiritual man, he
enters into the joy of his Lord.

Is not this a wonderful philosophy of life, a
wronderful interpretation of its great problems ? Ay,
you say, if it were but true — you only wish that it
were true ; but is not the wish a presumption of its
truth ? Can I, think you, imagine better things than
God has ordained ? Can I imagine greater satis-
factions for these marvellous affections and faculties
of mine than He has provided ? Is man to be God's
greatest failure \ Has He endowed him so greatly
only to disappoint him ? Philosophy tells us that
every faculty finds its functions ; then man, surely,
will not fail of his satisfactions.

So our Christian philosophy teaches us to turn
away from mere outward material experience to
inward spiritual processes ; to estimate things, not in
their carnal, but in their spiritual relations. Let the
wicked enjoy his great prosperity. His very success
may be God's most terrible retribution upon him ;
more than anything else, it may make him hard and
unspiritual ; he is filled with his own ways — bidding
his soul eat, drink, and be merry. Would it not
have been better for Dives had his torment begun a
little sooner ? Were the Master to pronounce a judg-
ment upon him, he would say, "Thou fool."

Let the righteous be in great adversity if but his
worldliness be purged out of him — his purity, and
faith, and love be perfected ; it will be good for him
in the moral estimate of things that he has been
afflicted.

God will guide us by His counsel, and afterwards
receive us to glory : but it will be only through our

198 HENRY ALLON.

own spirituality and wisdom. In the domain of moral
life there are things which God cannot do for us, He
can only enable us to do ; so we conquer circumstance
by becoming greater than circumstance. " In the
world ye shall have tribulation ; in me ye shall have
peace."

Whatever else may fail me, the Heavenly Father
never can. He knows me by name, His providence
is about me, His Spirit is within me — not as a
general law merely, but as a personal care ; not
shining indiscriminately as the sun, knowing not
whether it falls upon a flower or a stone, but shining
as a loving intelligence, a special sympathy, appre-
hended by the discerning and sympathetic soul. My
life needs a God, not one who sits upon a distant
throne, ruling a multitude of subjects, but one who
holds me by my right hand, walks by my side, and
is my very present help in every time of need.

What a privilege of life this consciousness is!
He would have me " without carefulness " — " Casting
all your care upon him, for he careth for you."

Trust in Him with a true heart ; trust, and living
you shall suffer no ill, and dying you shall feel no
death.

199

AN ORDINATION CHARGE.

M Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine ; continue in
them : for in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that
hear thee/'— 1 Timothy iv. 16.

My Beloved Brother, — From the earliest ages of
the Church these words have been consecrated to
services like the present, their aptness and momen-
tousness spontaneously suggesting them to everyone
discharging such a duty as, at your request, I have
to-day undertaken. A live coal from off the altar,
laid upon the hearts of God's consecrated servants,
they have, probably, kindled the sacrifice of minis-
terial service more frequently than any other scrip-
ture, perhaps than all others combined ; they seem to
have been indited by the Holy Spirit for this especial
use. My own ordination charge was founded upon
them ; they are themselves a charge ; and I should
abundantly justify to myself the service which I now
undertake, could I hope to produce in your mind and
heart to-day impressions, and purposes, and prayers,
like those then produced in my own.

Assuredly, I shall not be unmindful of the ad-
monition, u Thou, therefore, that teachest another,
teachest thou not thyself?" but in addressing you
upon the responsibilities of the Christian ministry I
shall put myself in the foremost place, and endeavour
to reach your conscience and heart through my own.

May the Holy Spirit enable all of us, whom He
has counted faithful and put into the ministry, to
place ourselves by your side, to recall our own ordi-
nation impressions and vows ; so that, with you, we
may now search our hearts, and pray our prayers, and

200 HENRY ALLON.

renew the dedication of body, soul, and spirit to Him
" whose we are and whom we serve."

Hardly, however, can we feel as you feel : a first
ordination to the ministry comes only once ; we can
hope only faintly to reproduce its impressions. To
you this will be a day long to be remembered, a day
to date from henceforth and for ever, a day from
which incalculable results must flow. What sanctities
gather round it ; what prayers and purposes mark it ;
what memories will reproduce it ; even through
eternity it will be in your heart and your history,
distinct and solemn and transcendent — a day of days,
" the day of your showing to Israel."

Will you try, then, to realise the resemblance of
your position to-day to that of Timothy ; — a young
minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, your ministry just
commencing and about to shape for itself a character
and a history ? You will then be prepared to listen
with docility, and even with awe, to the apostle's
injunction that you " take heed " to it, that with all
watchfulness and prayerfulness you set yourself to
realise its great spiritual ends, " to save yourself and
them that hear you."

I. First, then, the apostle enjoins you to take heed
to the character of your ministry.

Two things make a minister of Jesus Christ — the
man and his message, the "self" and "the doctrine."
And in a ministry of spiritual things the character of
the man is as momentous as that of his message.
Not only will your ministry be what your labour
makes it, but it will be what you yourself are. Your
personal character is the basis of your official cha-
racter ; your life is the condition of your work. You
are not a mere instrument for doing a mechanical
thing. It is not the mere exercise of certain faculties
of thought and speech, and official act, that is re-
quired of you. It is not a manipulated thing, a brief,
a book, a ritual that you are to produce. You are an

AN ORDINATION CHARGE. 201

" ambassador in Christ's stead ; " your work is to pro-
duce states of feeling in men's hearts, conviction of
the truth, and impressions of the goodness of the
Gospel which you preach ; that you may practically
win men to the love and discipleship of the Saviour.

It is essential, therefore, that not only that which
you speak is true and holy, but that you who speak it
are true and holy also ; for men will transfer to the
message, even unconsciously, the impressions which
they receive of the messenger.

It is not, therefore, concerning your talents, nor
even concerning your message, but concerning your-
self, that your first solicitude is to be felt. Therefore,
it is that in giving you your charge as a minister,
God first renews His charge to you as a man. He bids
you take heed to your ministry by taking heed to
yourself.

There are two classes of things about which you
are to be solicitous. There are things pertaining to
you as a Christian man, and there are things per-
taining to you as a Christian minister.

1. In the first place, do not permit your work as
a minister to hinder your piety as a man.

As a Christian man, and in order to your per-
sonal piety and salvation, you need to " Take heed to
yourself." You will not be saved as a minister, but
as a man ; " lest/' says the apostle, "... when I have
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."

How little men imagine the need of such solici-
tudes in a minister ! Can it be necessary to urge any
special care for personal piety upon one who, by the
consecration of his office, is " a man of God " ?
Does not the office itself avouch and secure the
character ? Does not the work sanctify the life, and
make the maintenance of personal piety an easy and
unencumbered thing ? Is not a minister's life neces-
sarily sequestered from evil and enshrined in good ?
How little they understand the human heart who

202 HENRY ALLON.

reason thus ! In no sphere of life, perhaps, may-
piety be so easily and unconsciously lost— -just because
it is so taken for granted. Our form and habit of life
presume devoutness, and maintain the seeming of it.
And so our own vigilance may be lulled to sleep, and
ministerial piety may be lost in the very routine of
ministerial duty.

You, my brother, will doubtless have discovered,
ere this, that if by the assumption of the ministerial
office you have escaped one form of temptation, it has
been only to encounter another, more perilous still,
because more refined and subtle.

Other men study God's truth as food for the
nutriment of their own spiritual life ; you study it as
a science for producing spiritual life in others. Theo-
logical study is your professional business. You live
officially near to the most solemn things ; they are
the means and instruments of your work.

What, then, if your familiarity with them, as
instruments, should lessen your sense of them as
spiritual influences ! What if, while you wield God's
truth, so as that others tremble, you yourself are un-
moved by it! What if you should call others to
earnestness and holiness, and you yourself be trifling
and unspiritual ! What if you should lead the devo-
tions of others, and your own heart be undevout !
What if you should minister at others' death-beds,
and be forgetful of your own ! What if the very
preacher of salvation should himself fail of it !

Have you not already discovered that the asylum
which shuts some evils out, shuts others in ; that it is
possible, in studying the philosophy of spiritual life,
to neglect its experience ; for the theology of the
head to supersede the religion of the heart; to neglect
the tree of life in pursuit of the tree of knowledge ;
to be made the keeper of others' vineyards, and not
to keep your own ? May you not appeal to other
men's consciences and leave your own untouched ?

AN OliDINATION CHARGE. 203

May you not lose the fervour and tenderness of your
own piety in your busy solicitudes about the piety of
others ? Oh, my brother, it is very much easier to
care for other men's souls than for our own ; to sustain
an outward activity than an inward religiousness —
that is, it is much easier to do than to be.

Take heed then to yourself, lest you come to live
too much an official, outside life — a life of mechanical
acts rather than of moral feelings. Remember that
great doing really depends upon great being. Let
our doing be but the fair intelligent product of our
inward being, of our thought, our culture, our com-
munion with God, and we cannot do too much. But
everything that we do outwardly wre ought first to be
inwardly. God, that is, will not accept even the holi-
ness that you may produce in others as a substitute
for your own. You must give account of yoursdf to
God. You may become as unspiritual in the ministry
of spiritual as of secular things. You may so give
yourself to public preaching and prayer as that your
self-culture and private communion with God are
neglected.

And the temptation is all the more perilous, inas-
much as the reason for it seems to excuse it. We
might refuse to abridge our closet duties for any
secular business, but religious occupation seems
almost to justify it. Under any circumstances, the
care of our own souls requires of us the exercise of
the highest principle, and the most resolute determin-
ation. We are always too ready to substitute for
it anything which may seem to be an equivalent.
Spiritual solicitude for others does not demand the
judicial severity, the self-discipline and penance, that
self-culture involves. It is easier to preach a dozen
sermons than to conduct one half-hour's serious ex-
amination of our own souls.

And yet, whatever hinders our self-culture, be it
the work of the pulpit or the work of the market, is

204 HENRY ALLON.

essentially pernicious. To keep our personal soul is
the first of all duties. If I lose my hold upon God
with the one hand, it will not compensate me that I
save men's souls with the other, " lest . . . when I have
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."

Forgive me this urgency, my brother; I speak in
the presence of an urgent peril, and from the con-
sciousness of my own experience. " Keep thy heart
with all diligence ; " and whenever you detect in your-
self the first disinclination to secret prayer, the first
impatient feeling in sacred duties, the first substi-
tution of that which is official for that which is per-
sonal, then be sure that you are in peril, and cry unto
Him who can preserve you.

2. There are also things that pertain to you as a
minister. If you are not to permit your work as a
minister to hinder your piety as a man, neither may
you permit your piety as a man to fall short of your
work as a minister. For you are more than a " man
of God ; " you are a " minister of Jesus Christ," and
your character must sustain your office, your piety be
adequate to the functions that you discharge. It has
not been always so. Even setting aside those who
have presumed to take upon them an office for which
they were consciously unfitted, and those who have
guiltily permitted what was once a true and noble
spiritual life to decline, have there not been periods
in our Church history when the indispensableness of
ministerial piety was timidly maintained, and when
mere moral habits and intellectual aptitudes were the
chief things required ? Can we marvel at the sad
entail of woe that this brought ; that lowness of piety
engendered laxity of sentiment — for it is the heart
that is ever the true guardian of orthodoxy— and that
the declension and apostasy of many followed ? Many
a Puritan church stands like a tombstone over a grave
— a grave in which evangelical truth and life have
been entombed. Many a holy place in which our

AN ORDINATION CHARGE. 205

fathers worshipped still witnesses a worship without a
mediator, the preaching of a cross upon which no
atoning Saviour hangs, and of a resurrection which
does not declare the Son of God with power.

Hardly, we trust, can the sin be repeated : the
penitence of many generations has bewailed it ; the
jealousy of the present generation has very pardonably
become almost morbid. And for me to-day to say
to you, my brother, that the exercise of your ministry
presupposes your piety, is, thank God, almost to utter
a truism. The latter is the required and fundamental
condition of the former. The first avowals of your
novitiate were of personal godliness, and before these
witnesses to-day, you have again professed repent-
ance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ.

You have recalled old memories of household
piety, of church consecration, of providential circum-
stance, of manifold grace, which have been listened to,
as well as recited, with swelling hearts. What pro-
cesses of Divine grace you have confessed, what
emotions you have hinted. How deep and earnest
the spiritual life that you have described ; how
prayerful your feeling, as, in the first solicitudes
of your ministerial purpose, you interrogated your
spiritual life. We have " glorified God in 37ou," as we
have seen your own manifest conviction that this is
the essential condition of your spiritual wrork, sancti-
fying by its presence, or invalidating by its absence,
every other.

Still there may be need to remind you that minis-
terial sanctity must be not only maintained, but
assiduously cultured, raised to a high tone, made
a pervading power ; and that, above ail other things,
it will determine your ministerial efficiency. And it
may not be unnecessary to caution you against the
subtle and insidious influences that are always oper-
ating to deteriorate it. With what emphatic and

206 HENRY ALLON.

solicitous reiteration does Paul urge these things
upon Timothy, reminding him that in personal god-
liness he is to be an ensample to believers, an example
to those who are examples to the world !

Ponder, then, my brother, the official importance
of a high spiritual character. The very obviousness
of it may diminish your sense of it. You may so
take it for granted as practically to neglect it. Other
men need piety as the essential condition of salvation ;
you need it, further, as the essential condition of your
work. Not that God requires less of other men than
He does of you ; but shortcoming in you would be more
flagrant, incongruous, and injurious. Above all men,
you need a piety that shall pervade and imbue your
whole being — that shall be so paramount and con-
trolling as manifestly to attemper your whole heart
and life, your studies and your prayers, your teachings
in the pulpit, and your ministerings as a pastor, your
sanction of the joys of life, and your solacing of its
sorrows — a piety that only communion with God can
generate, and only entire consecration express. You
are set apart not only to teach men godliness, but to
stimulate them to its attainment ; and your sermons
and prayers must live and burn, through the vital
spirit that is in them, ere they will awaken the re-
sponsive sympathies that you solicit. You cannot
separate your ministry from yourself — as you are, it
must be. Far more are you than a professor of
theological science ; far more than an ordinary
believer, or a saint. You are chosen to serve at the
altar of the church ; to be a " leader of the sacra-
mental host of God's elect ; " to be the spiritual guide
and exemplar of multitudes of immortal souls. To
you the Master commits, not the stewardship of
wealth, or the government of empires — that were
comparatively a light entrustment — but the keeping
of souls, of souls for whom He died. You receive it
from Him as your sole commission, your solemn

AN ORDINATION CHARGE. 207

charge, that " you save yourself and those who hear

There is not one of us who does not feel how pos-
sible it is to commend a holiness that we do not cul-
tivate ; to point a path that we do not tread : to
speak of the love, even of a Christ, with a cold heart
to argue, even for the truth, in a spirit of unbelief; to
speak of comforts which we ourselves do not feel ; to
yearn for success from other motives than the love of
souls — " deceiving and being deceived." Our very
expressions of humility may be the utterances of a
proud spirit ; our rebukes of negligence spring from
a mortified vanity; our pastoral ministrations may
have " respect of persons " ; our faithful preaching be
a courting of popular applause ; yea, the very fruit of
our labours be "a sacrifice to our own drag, and
incense to our own net." And if we acquire facdity in
ministerial work, we may consecrate to indolence and
selfishness the leisure that it gives.

Others will refer to us their doubts or their com-
plicate experiences. What if we cannot deal with
them without exposing our own spiritual ignorance !
What if, to their deep disappointment, they find us
" physicians of no value " ! The topics of your
ministry will relate to the various experiences of
men's tempted, struggling, sinful life ; their penitence,
their hopes, their fears, their duties. Suppose that
you lack the instinctive sympathies which true sanc-
tity gives ! Only the pure in heart see God : suppose
you lack such power of spiritual perception, and
the secrets of the most High be hidden from you !
The great mysteries of godliness, which form the
staple of an efficient ministry, are penetrated, not by
a keen intellect, but by a sympathetic, prayerful
heart. You will know only as you yourself are, "If
any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the
doctrine whether it be of God." You will "grow in
knowledge" as a spiritual teacher only as you "grow

208 HENRY ALLON.

in grace " as a spiritual man. Your preaching of the
things of God must largely be a history of your
experience of them. " I publish to my flock," says
Baxter, " the distempers of my own soul."

Oh, my brother, realise the true character of the
work that you have to do, and all injunctions will be
superfluous. It will form a channel in your heart,
into which every stream of thought, and feeling, and
purpose will flow. You will guard with a godly
jealousy the purities and refinements of spiritual
character. Your face will shine before the people as
you come down to them from the mount ; they will
" take knowledge of you that you have been with
Jesus." Your work will be to you a holy passion, a
thing of prayerful solicitude and trembling awe. You
will labour in the spirit of the Master's consecration,
and sacrifice yourself in the spirit of the Master's
passion. Your motto will be : " If by any means I
may save some." Your feeling : " Neither count I my
life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my
course with joy, and the ministry which I have re-
ceived of the Lord Jesus."

Forgive me, my brother, this importunity on this
point. It includes all counsels needful on my part ;
it touches all impulses on yours.

3. It is only another form of the same injunction
to say to you, in the next place, take heed to your
Ministerial Deportment. And this respects :

First, your conception of your office. How do
you conceive of its relation to the truth ? Where
does it rank ? What are its prerogatives ? How do
you wish men to account of you ? How do you
account of yourself? Questions which have agitated
the Church throughout its history, and which have
divided attention, even with the truth itself Nay,
the truth has often been subordinated to them, for
the office has been magnified above its functions.
Just in proportion as the Church has become corrupt,

AN ORDINATION CHARGE. 209

the truth has been subordinated to the man — not the
man to the truth. Few more terrible histories have
been written than that of priestcraft, with its struggles
of unholy ambition, its tyrannies of successful intrigue
and unscrupulous power. The bishop of souls, a lord
of God's heritage ; the servant of Christ, a ruler of
nations, seating himself upon a throne, laying hold of
the powers of both worlds, and " exalting himself
above all that is called God, and worshipped ; " a
" mystery of iniquity " that began to work even before
the inspired pen dropped from the failing hand of the
seer, and while he could yet earnestly and beseechingly
warn the churches against it; and which, in countless
forms, is still working in all Churches. " Who," he
vehemently asks, " Who is Paul, and who is Apollos,
but ministers by whom ye believed ? "

Theoretically, you repudiate all lordly claims and
titles. " One is our Master, even Christ, and all we
are brethren." Your reply to all who ask concerning
your office is, " Let a man so account of us as of the
ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of
God."

Your office, rightly conceived of, claims an autho-
rity that is Divine ; but a wrong conception of it may
lead you to contend for an authority that Christ has
not given you, or to concede authority that it is un-
faithfulness to Him to part with. As a pastor, you
are to " feed the flock ; " as a bishop, you are to " rule
the church; " and of the members of the church, God
requires that they obey you and " submit themselves."

But then, your authority is not an arbitrary thing;
it is clearly defined and limited. It is restricted to the
administration of Christ's laws, to the enforcement of
Christ's truth. The submission that you may require
is only " in things that are the Lord's."

With this limitation you will, I trust, " magnify
your office," respect yourself as a minister of Christ,
and cause others to respect you as such. While you

o

210 HENRY ALLON.

will avoid all foolish assumptions on the one hand,
you will not, by any unworthy subserviency on the
other, justify the reproach that they who " live to
please must please to live." You will be faithful and
fearless ; you will honestly witness for God ; you will
not shun to " declare the whole counsel of God ; "
you will not permit the truth and sanctity of God's
message to be disparaged in your hands. " Let no
man despise thee." The surrender of your inde-
pendence, the compromise of your fidelity, were
the death-signal to your usefulness and peace.

To be a servant of Christ is enough for your
highest ambition — your purest joys. "He that will
be greatest amongst you, let him be the servant of
all." The apostle had no higher glory than to sub-
scribe himself " Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ." As
such you stand in the true apostolical succession.
Add, my brother, one more to the countless in-
stances, so often ignored, of ministers of Christ, free
and fearless in the discharge of their duties, com-
mending themselves to every man's conscience, en-
shrining themselves in every man's heart. Be a
faithful servant of Jesus Christ, and there will be
no need of unseemly strife for church power. Be
assured that your influence will be proportionate to
your fidelity. Your place in the hearts of your
people will be secured neither by unworthy sub-
serviency, nor by official assertion, but "by pureness,
by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the
Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned."

Kemember, too, that your conscience is not the
law of other men's consciences. You may not, as a
religious instructor, overbear other men's personal
convictions. In many things you can give only
judgments — proffer only advice. Be careful not to
confound conscience and expediency ; some of the
most troublesome men amongst us are men of ex-
cessive conscientiousness, men who make a morality

AN ORDINATION CHARGE. 211

of everything, and who, by claiming a conscientious
regard to things of mere expediency, really destroy
morals. Do not, my brother, be afraid of either the
existence or the expression of differing opinions ;
these must obtain where men are intelligent and
true, and your respect for them will secure respect
for your own.

Secondly, fill your soul with the magnitude of
your office. While you take care not to exaggerate
its official and social importance, it will be impos-
sible for you to exaggerate its moral importance.
What work that God gives a man to do on earth
can for a moment be compared with it ? You wield
" the powers of the world to come." You minister
truths that are transforming the world, its thoughts
and its life, its literature and its laws, its heart
and its social habits; truths that have quickened
dead souls to life, and that have made saints of
the worlds reprobates. At any moment the words
that you speak, made mighty through God, may
transform the man who hears you ; the man wThom
social laws and mere moral influences have failed to
touch ; over whom a mother has wept, and a father
prayed in vain ; around whom wife and children
have clung in unavailing entreaty, and whom all
considerations of interest and character have failed
to constrain. You may transform a very child of
the devil into a child of God ; so that to-morrow
he shall listen to you with penitent heart and
hungry ears, prayer breaking from his lips, and
tears rolling down his cheeks, the demon of sin cast
out, and he sitting at the feet of the Saviour,
" clothed, and in his right mind."

Oh, my brother, never for a moment forget that
your preaching may save men ; that it is intended
to save men, and that, as you are faithful, God
will make it effectual for saving men. Oh, how is
this mighty Gospel wronged by those who minister

o 2

212 HENRY ALLON.

it ; how its resources are limited ; its agency ham-
pered ; its powers permitted to slumber. How rarely
we make "full proof" of it; test it to the utmost;
try how much it can do ; sow as the husbandman
sows ; fight as the warrior fights ; reason as the
pleader reasons; expecting results, and watching for
them.

Thirdly, such conception of yom ministry will
determine your discharge of its various functions.
I will not enumerate them. The spirit of duty may
well dispense with a catalogue of duties. I need
not remind you how much wise care you will need
to give to the conduct of worship, the teaching of
Bible classes, the visitings of the pastor.

One thing only will I venture to specify, and
it is this : that whatever else you may do, you
will " take heed " to your preaching. Preaching is
the great function, preaching is the great practical
power of your ministry ; " the power of God unto
salvation."

Above all other moral agencies, oratory touches
and sways human passions, and for your oratory
you have the most potent of all themes. You may
not be able to achieve great scholarship, to become
an accomplished classic, a profound metaphysician, a
learned philosopher — although the better the scholar,
other things being equal, the more effective will
be the preacher. With scarcely an exception, the
greatest preachers have been great scholars. Luther,
Calvin, Howe, Watts, Hall, Chalmers, were all ac-
complished men, eminently combining science and
sanctity, the professor and the apostle, intellectual
gifts with spiritual fervour. But if for any cause it
should be with you an alternative, I beseech you,
my brother, by all that is solemn in your office, by
all that is precious in human souls, by all that
is pitiful in Christian compassion, by the passion
of Christ, by the love of the Spirit, by the great

AN ORDINATION CHARGE. 213

purpose and yearning of the Father, cultivate that
which will save men. Strive, with all your powers,
to be an " able minister of the New Testament."
Let every thought and purpose, every sympathy
and effort — yea, your very life itself, be bound up
with the doing of this. " Give thyself iv/tully to it,"
— literally be in it. Let no temptations to literary
ambition or to social enjoyment seduce you from
it ; let all your studies be pursued with a reference
to it ; let it be the passion of your undivided heart ;
fill the soul of every purpose with it — " determine
to know nothing else amongst men." Men excel in
no pursuit of life without enthusiasm, least of all
in preaching. Let, then, effective preaching be your
great ambition — your sermons the focus into which
you bring all the rays of your thought, and scholar-
ship, and feeling, to be enkindled by the Holy Spirit
into a blaze of sacred eloquence. Make everything
contribute to the wealth, lucidity, and power of your
sermons. And preach sermons that shall be not
the mere putting together of theological platitudes,
or moral aphorisms, but that shall be a nurture of
spiritual life, inclusive of all things, meddling writh
all interests, uniting all objects, concentrating all
energies, sermons dealing not with metaphysical
subtleties, but with the practical moralities that
come home to the business and bosoms of the
living, every-day men of this nineteenth century.

Your only possibility of eminent success is to
choose your end, and to make everything contri-
bute to it. And this, if an enthusiast, you will do.
All men and all things, conversation and books,
histories and travels, philosophies and fictions, news-
papers and every-day experiences — you will compel
all to contribute their wisdom and suggestion. And
you will preach with singleness, enthusiasm, passion,
and absorption. Be assured that over-preparation
for preaching, if of the right kind, is an impossibility

214 RE NET ALLON.

Your danger is not in over-study, but in separating
any study from this one supreme one.

Hence so many pitiful failures in our ministers ;
it is not the want of adequate talent, but of deter-
mined aim and adjusted culture — their utter lack
of passionate earnestness. There is no fire burning
within them ; no zeal of the Lord among them. If
they have purposed at all, they have purposed
something else — either to be scholars, or writers,
or thinkers, or eloquent discoursers of religious philo-
sophy; they have not, that is, purposed the great
end of the orator — to carry his point. Be this,
then, your end and passion ; speak to men with
the words of God burning on your lips. Magnify
your preaching office ; feel it to be a " grace given
unto you ; " watch over the sacred fire, and nurture
it with holy prayers, and sympathies, and purposes.
Whenever you preach it, if only in a cottage, preach
your best; "seek out acceptable words," and the
most effective manner of uttering them ; reverence
human souls, and think how solemn a thing it is
to come to them from God. You find them dead
in trespasses and sins ; speak to them words where-
by they may be saved — words of yearning, burning
sympathy ; words of gracious Gospel, of holy, helpful,
transforming truth.

II. And this reminds me that you are specially
enjoined to take heed not only to yourself, but also to
the doctrine — that is, you are not to mistake the
thing to be preached. It is here designated "the
doctrine," the truth of Christ, the doctrine involved in
Christ's life and death, and revealed in Christ's word ;
the doctrine exclusively, without additions of human
supposition ; the doctrine entirely, without any with-
holdment ; the doctrine as Christ Himself has dis-
tributed and proportioned it, in all its wise and won-
derful adaptations to men of different thoughts and
different characters. " Teaching every man, warning

AN ORDINATION CHARGE. 215

every man in all wisdom." Let no one escape your
appeal, or evade your aim ; let your ministry be, as it
were, an anticipatory bar of judgment, to which every
man must " give account." Let every heart feel your
searching in turn ; let the hypocrite feel that he can
wear no disguise that God's truth cannot penetrate,
and the unbeliever that he can never so harden his
heart as that God cannot touch it ; speak to the
worldly as he brings hither the world in his heart,
and to the undecided as he halts betwixt two opinions,
to the penitent as he smites upon his breast, and to
the feeble as he wearily struggles with his burdens.
Let each be warned, and encouraged, and taught,
"rightly dividing the word of truth."

Above all, my brother, preach Christ Never
forget your character as His ambassador, nor your
message as the preacher of His cross. Let every
reference of your preaching be to the living, personal
Christ. In the strictest sense of the term, you are to
" know nothing amongst men save Jesus Christ, and
Him crucified." In this, Christianity knows no
change, is capable of no development ; the things
which Paul committed to Timothy are still to be
" committed to faithful men." You have not a truth
to discover, but a discovered truth to proclaim. You
have simply to connect the Christ that Paul preached
with all the varied forms of our modern life. The
cross of Christ is a Gospel for universal humanity ;
the world can never outgrow it until it outgroAvs
its sin.

Be not ashamed, then, of this Gospel of Christ. A
more fatal invalidation could not befall humanity
than reserve or incertitude here. Clear and undoubt-
ing faith is the essential condition of your success.
Whatever your reverent sense of the mysteries of
the Divine counsels, you are surely entitled to hold
firmly by revealed facts, and to proclaim them de-
cisively and authoritatively. Reverent diffidence,

216 HENRY ALLON.

modest inquiry, and well-discerned limitations, will
commend themselves to all who are wise ; but for
God's ambassador to have only doubts to utter, is
to turn the ministry into an impertinence.

Preach Christ, then, my brother; bear constant
and decisive testimony to His death and resurrection ;
assured that there is " no other sacrifice for sin," " no
other blood that cleanseth," that it is still " a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The
truest philosophy is to preach the thing that men's
necessities crave. When hungry souls ask you for
bread, you may not give them stones.

And preach Christ for Christ's sake ; not because
the people will have it so, and because thereby
you may secure the greatest following ; but from a
deep and pervading sense of His presence in Christ-
ianity. Paul gloried in His cross, and would glory in
nothing else. It was the paramount topic of His
ministry. Wherever he went he so paraded it as to
make it a local spectacle, so that he could say to them
of Galatia : " Before your eyes Jesus Christ is evidently
set forth, crucified amongst you." So do you make
every place a Calvary, where affection may weep, and
carelessness tremble, and penitence pray, and infidelity
smite upon its breast. Such a theme is in itself a
power ; a moral magnet, which the weakest may hold.
" I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me."

III. And then this care for yourself and for the doc-
trine is to " 'continue!' "Continue in them." Your
moral and ministerial fitness are to be persistent and
habitual. You may not permit your pious fervour to
evaporate in to-day's emotions, nor your fidelity to be
circumscribed by to-day's vows, nor your yearning
desire for usefulness to expend itself in next Sabbath's
sermons. Your effort is not to be spasmodic and
fitful. To the primary power of piety and zeal you
must add the cumulative influence of consistency and

• AN ORDINATION CHARGE. 217

perseverance. The fire upon the altar must be kept
ever burning. Do not permit anything to divert you
from your ministry or to lessen its efficiency. " It is
not meet that you should leave the word of God and
serve tables." " Let the potsherd strive with the pot-
sherds of the earth." Your wrork is your sufficient
vocation. Can you, think you, ever so discharge it as
to deem yourself at leisure for some supplementary
occupation ? " Give tlryself wholly to it," and, if
solicited to literary struggles or to political strifes, let
your sufficient answer be, " I am doing a great work,
and cannot come down."

Continue in it, even to the end; knowing no
pause, keeping no Sabbath, augmenting your influ-
ence, and multiplying your talents. Be " faithful unto
death, and you shall receive a crown of life."

" Ye who your Lord's commission bear,
His way of mercy to prepare ;
Angels, he calls you — be your strife
To lead on earth an angel's life.
Think not of rest — though dreams be sweet,
Start up and ply your heavenward feet ;
Is not God's oath upon your head,
Ne'er to sink back on slothful bed 1
Never again your loins untie,
Nor let your torches waste and die,
Till, when the shadows darkest fall,
Ye hear your Master's midnight call."

I Y. And, finally, if competently and faithfully
discharged, your ministry will realise its proper aims
and issues. You will both " save yourself and them
that hear you." The Master will graciously recognise
the simplicity of your purpose, and the moral fitness
of your methods, and will bless you with His saving
grace.

This, therefore, you are to aim at and to expect.
There is a sense in which you are not responsible for
success, it is " God " who giveth the " increase."

218 HENRY ALLON.

But God forbid that you, my brother, should ever
know the feeling that, because of this, can be con-
tented without the increase.

Paul agonised for success, " travailed in soul " for it
until Christ was formed in his converts, had " continual
sorrow and heaviness of heart," " besought them day
and night with tears," was " ready to be made a curse,"
if thereby they might be saved. Paul's Master and
yours was made a curse for the salvation of the souls
to which you preach. It was the " travail of his
soul," the "joy that was set before him." Let it be
also your travail and joy ; for this do you " strive
mightily," if " hy any means you may save some." As
Christ gives these souls into your charge, He commands
you to save them.

And you know the appalling consequences if they
are not saved. Oh, my brother, how will you feel and
preach, as from Sabbath to Sabbath you ascend this
sacred desk, and look round upon men and women
who, you have but too much reason to fear, are not
saved ? In imagination you will see them passing to
the bar of God, to give account to Him who shall
judge both quick and dead. In a sense that is true
of no other human being, the destiny of these par-
ticular souls depends upon you. Oh, how deeply,
prayerfully, painfully solicitous will you be, so "to
warn every man, and to teach every man in all
wisdom, as that you may present every man faultless."
The text warrants you to expect this. It speaks of
their salvation as a natural consequence of your
fidelity ; there is no suggestion of the possibility of
your being faithful, and they not saved. Exceptions
there may be — men will perish under the most faith-
ful ministry ; but these are exceptions ; the rule of
God's blessing is that in proportion as you are faithful
those who hear you will be saved.

Be faithful, then, my brother — faithful to the
truth, faithful to yourself, faithful to Christ, faithful

AN ORDINATION CHARGE. 219

to these souls, faithful even unto death ; and you will
receive, not only the guerdon of other men, not only " a
crown of life," not only the personal commendations
of the Master : " Well done, good and faithful servant "
— a wondrous recognition of our poor service — but
your special service will result in living fruits and
witnesses of your fidelity — in saved men, who will
stand writh you before God, and by their personal
gratitude and love will crown even your joy in
heaven. Next in fervency to their love for their
Lord will be their love to you ; through eternity they
will " call you blessed," and in its surprise and joy the
rapture of your "Here am I" will be rivalled by that
of the " Here are the children whom Thou hast mven

me."

My brother,

" I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall judge the quick and dead, at his
appearing and his kingdom ; preach the word ; be
instant in season, out of season ; reprove, rebuke,
exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. . . .
Watch thou in all things, ... do the work of
an evangelist ; make full proof of thy ministry."

0, man of God, fight the good fight of faith, lay
hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called,
and hast professed a good profession before many wit-
nesses.

" I give thee charge in the sight of God, wdio
quickeneth all things, and before Jesus Christ, who
before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that
thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebuk-
able, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ."
" And when the chief Shepherd shall appear thou
shalt receive a crown of glory."

" Consider what I say ; and the Lord give thee
understanding in all things."

220

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, AND THE
CHURCH.

ADDRESS FROM THE CHAIR OF THE CONGREGATIONAL

UNION.

[This address, though delivered so long ago as 1864, and upon
subjects concerning which there has been, since then, much
controversy, causing of necessit}*- some changes of opinion, is
inserted here as belonging to the years in which Dr. Allon
was in the prime of life, and as an illustration of the position
held in that day by the broader school of Congregational
ministers.]

Beloved and Honoured Fathers and Brethren,
— In assuming the position to which I have been
thus called, it were vain for me to deny some degree
of even trembling anxiety. This, however, would be
greater still were it not for the character of this
assembly — an assembly of free men, whose conclusions
are reached by honest independence of thought, and
by frank and fearless debate. Were your chairman in
any sense the arbiter of ecclesiastical matters, " such
an one as Paul the aged " would alone be suitable for
the office. Kesponsible only for my own individual
opinions, and with no fear for the perfect brotherliness
of our proceedings, I tremble only in the sense of per-
sonal prominence and speech among older and wiser
brethren.

It would be ungrateful were I not also to confess
a humble and thankful joy ; I thank the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom I serve in the
Gospel of His Son, for every indication of the con-
fidence and love of my brethren ; for by these only
could any man be placed here. The mere place were
a carnal and unworthy ambition, but the spontaneous

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 221

love that confers the place is, next to the favour of
the Master, the highest and purest glorying of my
life. In the deep sense of it I will try to be more
thankful to Christ, and more useful to His Church,
and to you.

My service, however, is a vicarious one. Our
brother Mr. Harrison was first designated for this
honour. Standing high in our esteem, and living
warmly in our affections, we were prepared to greet
him this morning with no ordinary expressions of our
confidence and love. But God has otherwise deter-
mined ; a severe and protracted sickness has disabled
his ministry to us, and his still more important
ministry to his own church. Our sympathies with
him take another form than that which Ave had
anticipated. Happily, however, they are relieved
from fears which a few months asfo would have
weighted them with sadness; and we can rejoice that
his disability is nearly removed. A shadow of
great darkness had fallen upon him, but the brightness
which made it a shadow was there also ; and like a
cloud from a landscape the shadow has passed away,
and the blessed and rejoicing light of God again shines
upon his home, his church, and us. " For indeed he
was sick nigh unto death : but God had mercy on him ;
and not on him only but on us also, lest we should
have sorrow upon sorrow."

When most unexpectedly requested to supply his
lack of service, I did not confer " with flesh and
blood ; " I gave a more unhesitating assent than I
should have done to a request in the ordinary course
of things ; I gave myself no time for even the fluttering
hesitancy that the most confident might well feel.
My brotherly sympathies, the exigencies of the
circumstances, and my deference to whatever may be
the wishes of my brethren constrained me — " therefore
I came unto you without gainsaying, as soon as I
was sent for." I will urge no plea of unworthiness,

222 HENRY ALLON.

however I may feel it ; I will utter no word of depreca-
tion, however naturally such may rise to my lips ; I
will make no avowals, however earnest and prayerful
my purposes. I would rather try, so far as personal
feelings must obtain, to realise the " perfect love
which casteth out fear," and to feel myself "your
servant for Jesus' sake ; " and as rapidly as possible I
would hasten from all personal references to things
broader and higher ; and in the simplicity and
absorption of a common service to our Divine Master,
forget everything but your brotherly love and His
great glory. May He, the ever present Head of His
Church, "whose we are, and whom we serve," be con-
sciously and helpfully present with us all, in all our
words and works !

If I gather into a single sentence the greetings cus-
tomary on these occasions, it is because I can so take
for granted our mutual love as to feel no necessity for
their detailed affirmation. We meet in peace, no dis-
cord disturbs the harmony of our churches ; no
angry purpose threatens the joy of our intercourse.
The God of peace is with us. Our " churches have
rest." The Lord grant that, " walking in the fear of
the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Ghost, they
may be multiplied." " Peace be to the brethren, and
love with faith, from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ."

Brethren of other churches we joyfully recognise
as fellow-servants with us, and "fellow-heirs of the
grace of life ; " we bear a common name, " their Lord's
and ours." Those present we gladly welcome to a full
brotherly fellowship ; for all others we cherish
brotherly sympathies and proffer brotherly prayers.
" Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity. Amen."

Year by year our greetings change, and every
year there are some that we cannot renew. The law
of change — instructive and solemn — passes upon this,

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHUBOIL 223

as upon all periodic gatherings of men. The majority
of faces upon which I look to-day are the familiar
faces of last year and* the jrear before ; but upon every
one change has passed.

The great glaciers of the Alps fulfil their course like
the history of human lives ; noiselessly and imper-
ceptibly they slide from the place of their mountain
birth to the valley in which they are dissolved ; and
yet each year marks every part with change — the
fresh snow consolidates into ice at their cradle — the
various marks and fissures of progress attest their
course — they melt and pass away at their terminus —
the snowy child of the mountain having become a
river of living waters to fructify the sunny plain.
Similar to this is our course. Every year we look upon
faces grown older and heads grown whiter. Even the
most youthful advance by palpable stages ; the stu-
dent of last year is a pastor this ; the fluttering hopes
and fears of a first year's pastorate pass into calmer
assurance ; the auguries of those who prayerfully laid
hands on the young minister are more decisively ful-
filled— he makes good his claim to confidence and
honour, perhaps takes a junior place among the
" elders who have obtained a good report." He who
but yesterday felt insignificant in this assembly, and
as from an obscure distance looked with reverence to
its fathers, is amazed to find himself presiding over its
councils. With some the foot begins to falter, the
familiar voice to tremble, and the consciousness dawns
that for good or for evil the great work of life is done,
and that only gleanings can be added to its garnered
sheaves. Then the reverent head bows beneath its
crown of glory ; it is the land of Beulah, where for a
little time the pilgrims of life wait for the summons to
cross the river. Again we come together, and the
familiar presence is missed, and with a chastened
sadness and a tender affection it is said, " he is not, for
God hath taken him."

224 HENRY ALLON.

Every year adds to our necrology, and the past has
been no exception. Some — youthful soldiers — have
fallen early in the field ; others — men of maturer
wisdom and strength — have been taken away in the
midst of their days ; some few, who after their task
was done had lingered until busy workers had almost
forgotten them, have gathered up their patriarchal
feet, and another generation has become a tradition of
the past. Our fathers — where are they ? The prophets
— do they live for ever ?

Thus, while our assembly remains, its constituents
change, and our heritage of honoured names, of
precious memories, of fruitful work, grows richer.
Each succeeding year we are " compassed " with a
greater " cloud of witnesses." Blessed be the great
Head of the Church, for the fathers whom we rever-
ence who are yet spared to us, and for younger
brethren in whom we hope, whom He does not cease
to give — a true and holy apostolical succession, as
useful and as honoured, as qualified to " feed the flock
of Christ," and to "speak with the enemy in the
gate " — as princely in liberality, and as simple in con-
secration, as the men of any previous generation.
" Instead of the fathers come up the children, and
they are princes in the land."

It has been the custom for my predecessors in
this office to speak concerning the position and
aptitudes of our own denomination, and the part
which it is taking, or ought to take, in the great
work of evangelising the world. Naturally and
necessarily, the excellences and defects of our own
distinctive Church system have been the most
prominent subjects of our annual thought and debate.
The very able addresses of my immediate predecessor*
were very inclusive of these ; they discussed most of
the prominent matters of our interior church life,
and with so much of suggestive wisdom and telling
* The late Dr. Mellor, of Halifax.

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 225

point, that holy and thankful response was elicited
from all our hearts.

May I venture on this occasion to depart from
these precedents, to assume that our own denomination
has for the present been sufficiently discriminated and
discussed, although it will ever behove us jealously to
guard its position, and to stimulate its agencies ?
But the denomination is not the Church, and every
now and then there is need that the tribes forget their
distinctive interests, and yield themselves to the
inspirations of a common patriotism. At the present
time, I think, the things that the most fill men's
minds and hearts are not things distinctive and
denominational, but things that vitally affect the
whole Catholic Church of Christ. Will you permit
me to occupy the rest of your time this morning with
a few remarks concerning some of these ?

No one can fail to see that the atmosphere of the
Church is heavy and troubled ; portentous clouds
have gathered ; some have broken in fierce tempests ;
and we hardly know yet what has been uprooted, and
what has been rocked, only to take a more vigorous
hold upon the soil.

The Christ, the Book, and the Church, with all
that is vital in them, are now challenged. It is no
longer a dispute about meanings, it is a demand for
authority. It is no longer, " What does the Christ
say ? " but " Who is the Christ that He should speak
at all ? Is He really the Saviour and Master that He
claims to be ? " The Bible is no longer, as heretofore,
asked simply concerning its meaning, but concerning
its authorship and authority. By what right does it
speak at all ? Who authorised it to declare God's
counsels and to give law to men's consciences ? Is it
in any distinctive sense an inspired and' authoritative
revelation from God, or is it simply a surpassing
inspiration of ordinary sanctified humanity ? These
matters, moreover, are no longer, as hitherto, debated

226

HENRY ALLON.

with opponents without the Church, but with teachers
within it. So long as the Church presented a con-
sentaneous and compact array against foes without,
or simply lacked the aid of her own indifferent and
unspiritual members, she wap but fighting the battle
for which she was ordained ; now her accepted and
fundamental truths are assailed by some of the most
able and earnest of her sons. It is " heresy/' strictly
so called, that challenges orthodoxy ; like Saul the
Pharisee, good men " verily think within themselves
that they ought to do many things contrary " to the
traditional authority of the Bible, " which things they
do/' It is no longer a Tom Paine necessitating the
" Apology " of a Bishop Watson ; the foes of the Bible
are " those of its own household." And the supreme
judicature declares that within the same ecclesiastical
enclosure one party must recognise, as fellow members
and authorised ministers, others who deny what, to
say the least, they themselves deem essential to the
Divine authority of the Bible. The civil authority is
not only supreme over the ecclesiastical in the deter-
mination of doctrine, but it gives its legal sanction
to that which it does not deny to be theological
heresy.

This greatly adds to the gravity of the crisis.
While the personal excellences and official position
of many who thus teach error are melancholy proofs
of the practical inefficiency of creeds and establish-
ments to secure the orthodoxy even of their own
members, they are a great vantage-ground for those
with whom we have to contend. Who can fail to
feel how much the controversy would be relieved were
the issue simply one of Scriptural truth — were there no
questions of civil law, or official prerogative, or
authoritative creeds complicated with it ?

If ever the advantages of our own simple Church
system were manifest it is surely now. Were one of
our bishops to fall into heresy, save as he might be

TEE CHRIST, TEE BOOK, TEE OEURCE. 227

able to produce convictions in others it would begin
and end with himself. No legal decision would com-
pel the toleration of his heresy in his own communion ;
recognition would be refused him, and there an end.
Surely men will see ere long that a system which
places law above truth, and which imposes upon
both churches and ministers such incongruous and
humiliating disabilities, can be neither scriptural
nor expedient.

Let me very emphatically say that questions like
these vitally concern us; they have, therefore, imperative
claims upon us. The Church that, when such matters
were in debate, either remained indifferent, or pur-
posely stood aloof, would fatally isolate itself, manifest
a selfish sectarianism, and guiltily betray the entrust-
ment of the Master. It was a maxim of Socrates that
u in times of danger all good men should take sides/5
The curse fell upon Meroz simply because she stood
aloof. It is impossible for more momentous issues to
be imperilled. Upon what the Christ really is — upon
what the Bible really is — upon what the Church
really is — everything vital in Christianity depends.
All wise men shrink from controversy; where the
spirit of contention is, the Church is grievously
vexed with a devil, and until it is cast out she can do
no healthy work. But sometimes controversy may be
the first and most pressing of her duties. The greatest
evil that can afflict a land is war ; but to w\age war
may sometimes be the highest and holiest patriotism.
He who morbidly or passionately exalts into the
domain of controversy things of mere expediency, and
by fierce, untiring debate distracts the Church, sins
against " unity, peace, and concord." But equally
guilty is he who permits things of vital principle to
be lowered to the sphere of mere expediency, and
who, for the sake of an unfaithful peace, refuses to
" contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the
saints." In its effeminacy, in its damaged conscience,

p 2

228 HENRY ALLON.

in its unholy compromises, peace may be more
iniquitous and disastrous than war.

And yet in all Churches there are men whom
moral cowardice, or mistaken conceptions of duty,
hinder from taking part in the settlement of great
questions ; and who gladly leave to others the
responsibility of maintaining the truth. The}' are
not unfaithful to their convictions, but they are un-
faithful to the truth, concerning their duty to which
their convictions are mistaken. Nobly absorbed,
perhaps, in spiritual work — in preaching, in pastoral
duties, in various efforts to save men's souls — they
refuse both to examine their own ecclesiastical posi-
tion and to defend the theological truths upon which
the spiritual power of all Churches must depend.
They fear, perhaps, lest their own loosely-formed con-
victions should be disturbed, or their practical spiritual
work be hindered. To every Sanballat who challenges
them they reply, " We are doing a great work, so that
we cannot come down " — the wisest of all replies so
long as the enemy remains below in the " plain of
Ono," but what if he has climbed to the very walls of
the Holy City ? What if he assaults the builders on
its scaffold — what if he is tampering with its watch-
men, and raising an insurrection in its streets ? To
refuse to fight then were a cowardly infidelity to
Christ, which even the most pious occupation could
not justify. It is as if the harvestman were to
persist in the ingathering of his sheaves, regardless of
the enemy who had landed upon his coasts. It may
be a duty to sacrifice even a spiritual harvest in order
to defend the territory upon which all spiritual
harvests are to be produced.

Wise workers for Christ, like Christ Himself, will
let duties be dictated by circumstances. Sometimes
it may be a duty to labour in the city, and sometimes
to retire into the desert — sometimes to preach to the
multitude, and sometimes to dispute with the

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH 229

Pharisee and the Sadducee. Ours is not yet the

enviable condition in which we can work without
fighting. The flocks of the Church do not yet pasture
round dismantled and grass-growrn cannon. As with
the old Jews, " the walls of the city are built in
troublous times/' and the builders stand upon the
scaffold, " every one with one of his hands labouring in
the work, and with the other holding a weapon."
AVould that there were no Samaritans to contend
against. How pleasant then would it be to build !
How rapidly the work of conversion would advance !
But God appoints it otherwise, and we may not
refuse His conditions of service. No man is per-
mitted so to do peaceful work as to be exempted from
rough conflicts. Nor, in the long run, will any man
attain to great nobility, reap great spiritual harvests
or win the Master's highest commendation, who is
unfaithful to the claims of great principles.

Upon the question of the Christ — His character and
claims, the whole of Christianity rests. Upon our
conceptions of His person and work, all Christian
doctrine, and all Christian heresy depend. All
Christian " truth is in Jesus." They who worship
him as the incarnate God, they who, through His
atoning death, seek reconciliation with God, neces-
sarily differ vitally from those who regard Him
as merely a perfect man, and as dying merely a
martyr's death. Nothing surely is more fundamental
in a religion than the object of wrorship, and the way
in which the sinful are restored to God. So long as
these are held in common, agreement is fundamental,
and other differences are but accidents : but these
denied, all that is distinctive in Christianity is denied
only a common morality is recognised.

It is simply, therefore, delusive and false to speak
of the common Christianity of men who thus differ.
" Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is not of God ; and this is that spirit

230 HENRY ALLON.

of anti-Christ whereof ye have heard that it should
come, and even now already is it in the world." It is
not upon any will or assertion of ours that this rests,
it is an essential antagonism of things ; Christianity,
regardless of accidental diversities, is necessarily in-
tolerant of all who deny its fundamentals.

And yet these are the questions concerning the
Christ which are debated just now. He whom we
have worshipped as God is declared to be less than a
mere good man. In the great cause between Christ
and the Pharisees, the verdict on one count is given
in favour of the Pharisees, " he tuas a deceiver of the
people." With His disciples at Bethany He conspired
to put a living man into a tomb, that his emergence
therefrom might pass for a miraculous resurrection.
The cross, which our penitence has clasped, and up to
which the streaming eye of our faith has dared to
look, is but the martyr's death-tree of a handsome and
amiable Jewish shepherd, whose popularity had
deteriorated his noble moral character. We may
not, therefore, render it a higher homage than to
wreathe it with the garlands of a human sympathy,
and of a poetic sentiment. Moved by the divine
power of love, and under the influence of a hallucina-
tion, Mary of Magdala "gave to the world a
resuscitated God ; " so that for two thousand years
Christendom has believed, and worshipped, and
apologists have striven, and missionaries have toiled,
and martyrs have shed their blood for — a delusion and
a lie.

To this the controversy concerning the Christ has
come ! This is the apotheosis of infidelity ! This is
the utmost revelation of the spiritual faculty ! It
provokes our indignant resentment of its impertinence,
but it wonderfully reassures us by its folly. When
argument thus degenerates into absurdity and impos-
sibility a cause is lost. We are not, therefore, troubled
concerning the Christ.

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 231

The signal failures of rationalism to construct a
theory of the Christ, properly historic, but neither
divine nor supernatural, and that shall account for
all the phenomena of the Gospels, have well-nigh
exhausted the controversy. The field in which the
Divine Master walks and is worshipped by His
disciples is well-nigh cleared of gainsayers. Strauss
and Kenan simply prove that counter-theories are
exhausted.

Even the sober and reverent theory of English
Unitarianism makes no impression upon our religious
and social life. It continues traditionally, but it has
no living assimilating power ; and when now and
then, under the relentless exigencies of logic, some
venturesome writer impugns the perfect human
sanctity of the Christ, he excites only a passionate
resentment or an apologetic pity. It is manifest that
he is arguing from a priori principles rather than
from the constraint of resistless evidence.

The perfect holiness of Jesus is the world's one
sacred thing, that it has enshrined in its heart of
hearts — its one bright star of hope amid the darkness
and tempest of sin — its one ideal of conceivable perfec-
tion amid the fragments of God's broken image — its
one calm and faultless life amid those who madly sin
or weakly struggle — its one redeeming thought and
hope amid the wrong and ruin, the degradation
and woe, that almost compel our despair of
humanity, and our denial of God. Men's religious
sensibilities cling to Him, their spiritual intuitions
confess Him. And when their own logic would con-
strain them to say, "Give glory to God, for we know
that this man is a sinner ;" they revolt from logic, and
incongruously take refuge in the inexplicable.

The " Leben Jesv," of Dr. Strauss, which a little
more than a quarter of a century ago startled
Christendom by its plausible theory of the Christ, is
not only almost forgotten, but it has been abjured by

232 HENRY ALLON.

its author. With great learning and ingenuity it por-
trayed a merely human Christ, transcendent in good-
ness, but exalted to a Divinity only by the legends of
his ignorant and credulous fellows — which in the
course of the first two centuries shaped themselves
into the four Gospels. But this theory laboured
under a capital defect. Reducing the Christ to a
mere man, it left unexplained the universal belief that
He was a God. It made the effect greater than the
cause. It was compelled to confess a supernatural
Christianity, while it denied a supernatural Christ.
The precious fruit is acknowledged, but the living
vine that produced it is denied. And it is not one of
the least of the triumphs of modern scholarship, that
it has made this theory of the gradual growth of
legends untenable, by triumphantly demonstrating
that all the four Gospels belong to the first century ;
so that in a new edition of the " Leben Jesu " just pub-
lished Strauss himself confesses its untenableness, and
charges the Evangelists with wilful fraud.

And now comes M. Renan's new and still more
preposterous theory, already on all hands confessed to
be the most signal of the failures of Rationalism.
Few books of modern times have obtained so great a
notoriety. It is the one book of this generation
which has aroused the whole Christian world. This,
however, I venture to think, is an accident of the
man, rather than an excitement about his theme. M.
Renan's genius — his reputation as a Semitic scholar,
the richness of his conceptions, the romance of his
sentiment, the felicity and splendour of his style, his
marvellous power of reproductive imagination — of re-
peopling the scenes of history — of revivifying the
incidents and circumstances of personal life — and of
surrounding it with local accessories, are character-
istics which have placed him among the foremost
literary men of his age. The daring, too, with which
he assails the most reverent beliefs of men, and the

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE OHJJROH. 233

eagerness with which in Catholic countries every
assault upon the Church is hailed ; all these things
have given to the " Vie de Jesus " an extraordinary but
factitious interest. Apart from these, it neither ex-
presses any widespread feeling, nor has it produced
any. A thing of summer lightning, it plays harm-
lessly in an almost cloudless sky, launching no bolt
either to harm or to terrify whose who walk in the
peaceful fields of faith.

Few have felt that serious refutation was necessary.
A cry of surprise at its absurdity, or of indignation at
its blasphemy, has been the chief response elicited by
it. Argument is impossible with a writer of mere
romance. Historical criticism cannot deal with a
man so arbitrary and disingenuous in his use of
evidence. Philosophy refuses to recognise a man
who, repudiating her inductive processes, starts with
an a priori principle which is to determine what are
facts. Religion cannot appeal to a man who is so
destitute of spiritual conception, as that he can stand
before the holy Christ and see in Him the perpetrator
of pious frauds. For in nothing has M. Renan more
signally failed than in the inituitive power of inter-
pretation which constitutes the true historian. What-
ever the reproductive power of his intellectual imagina-
tion he must be absolutely denied the spiritual faculty
which recognises truth and goodness. Again we are
compelled to ask, " Where is the wise, where is the
scribe, where is the disputer of this world ? Hath not
God made foolish the wisdom of this world \ "
Falling upon this stone, the mightiest are " broken."
He who can stand before the Christ of the Gospels —
so sublime in intellect, so transcendent in goodness, so
spiritual in conception — and conceive the possibility
of the intellectual absurdities and the moral delin-
quencies which M. Renan charges upon Him, must, if
there be any reality in moral perception, be utterly
destitute of the faculty by which, according to the

234 HENRY ALLON.

Apostle Paul, " spiritual things are discerned." Con-
cerning the Pharisees, Christ Himself said that,
" having eyes, they saw not." Standing in the full
blaze of His spiritual power and goodness, they could
blindly ask Him for a sign ; whereas, to all who were
not spiritually blind, He was His own sufficient sign —
His life was its own sufficient light — His goodness its
own sufficient attraction. As the tides respond to the
moon, as the corn bows before the wind, so do all
spiritual souls to the Holy Christ. Had their moral
sense been pure, they would have felt that the truth
in Him could not be a lie — that the right in Him
could not be wrong — that the Divine in Him could
not be of Beelzebub, nor even of poor imperfect
humanity. These things surely needed no prophetic
attestation, no miraculous endorsement, no historical
corroboration.

Must we not apply the same test, and say that he
who does not in the Gospels see the spiritual Christ is
spiritually blind ? The Divine Master does not need
to bring credentials with Him. His is a life that only
Divine wisdom could conceive, that only Divine good-
ness could constitute. But applying such a criterion
as this to scholarly and philosophic men like M.
Kenan, we must, of course, lay our account with the
contemptuous rejoinder, "Are we blind also ? " And
yet we may not forbear it. It is Christ's own test of
the spiritual. " Flesh and blood cannot reveal to us "
the divinity and moral glory of the Christ ; only " our
Father who is in Heaven." Following and worshipping
our Divine Lord, we must be willing to bear this
reproach also — to the ingenuous and modest one of the
most painful that can be borne — that we think our-
selves wiser than the gifted and the learned.

The controversy concerning the Christ does not,
then, disquiet us ; save, perhaps, in France, we venture
to think that it is nearly exhausted, and that His
position is virtually conceded.

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK THE CHURCH. 235

Our own churches are unswerving in their fealty
and worship. They are quick and sensitive, even to
passionateness, in their resentment of any suspected
wavering. He is the Deity whom we worship, the
Redeemer by whom we are saved, the one perfect
example whose steps we are to follow. Even the
insidious heresy that resolves the death of the cross
into simple self-sacrifice, and the atonement into mere
moral influence, finds little favour amongst us. The
healthy instinct which tells us that righteousness must
have precedence, even of love — must be that to which
love conforms — the necessary form that all expres-
sions of love assume, resents the maudlin theology
that finds its ultimate root and rest in mere benevo-
lence Our churches hold to the conception of
( 'hrist's death as a proper expiatory atonement, having
a legal aspect Godwards, as well as a moral aspect
manwards.

These great truths are our life and our power.
They constitute the difference between negations and
beliefs. Negations cannot save men. He who truly
believes has greater power than thousands who only
deny. Precious and indispensable as are intellectual
gifts and acquisitions, these are neither the power of
our pulpits nor the life of our churches ; our strength
is in our message, and not in the learning or eloquence
with which we clothe it. It may be but the hand of
a child, but if it holds up the cross, it holds the power
that can save the world. " I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw all men unto me."

Far distant be the day — as we devoutly believe it
is — when our churches shall falter in these beliefs, or
hesitate in their utterance. The spiritual forces of
every age of the past, of every agency of the present,
they must also be of the future. The world can never
outgrow its need of the Christ — of His divinity i'^r its
worship — of His atonement for its sin — of His
example for its imitation. Forms of preaching ma v

236 HENRY ALLON.

change, misinterpretations may be rectified, new har-
monies and glories of Christianity may be discovered ;
but the Christ will be enthroned upon men's hearts,
as He is enthroned now — their utmost conception of
divinity, love, and goodness. " Thou art the King of
Glory, 0 Christ, Thou art the everlasting Son of the
Father. When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver
man Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb. When
Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death Thou
didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of
the Father."

The controversy concerning the Book is much
more radical and pervading. It has long been foreseen
as the next inevitable controversy of Protestantism.
The infallible Bible superseded the infallible Pope ;
and being what it is — a collection of miscellaneous
writings, the productions of some twelve centuries
— it was inevitable that, sooner or later, many complex
questions concerning its authorship and authority
would arise. The marvel is that the conflict has
been so long delayed. But it has come upon us at
length, and perhaps none of us now living will see its
issue. Dogma has been superseded by criticism.
Every claim of the Book is subjected to the most
searching tests — whence it came, what it is, and what
authority it assumes.

The first result of such questioning has been fierce
conflict, and some degree of confusion on both sides.
Science, flushed with new discoveries, has rashly pro-
nounced its facts to be incompatible with the declara-
tions of the Bible — geology has dug up stones to
throw at it — philology has assailed it with hard
words — astronomy has declared that " the stars in their
courses fight against it " — history has summoned wit-
nesses to prove it legendary. And the natural effect
of this combined assault has been alarm and exaspera-
tion in those to whom it is precious as life itself, and

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 237

dear as the holiest hopes. These in their turn have
rashly denied the facts from which science has drawn
such premature inferences, or have put forward pre-
posterous theories to account for them. On neither side
can either the methods or the tone of controversy be
commended. Science has been arrogant, inimical,
premature. Theology has been dogmatic, jealous, and
ignorant. Science has been eagerly irreligious, full of
moral scepticism. Theology has been eagerly denunci-
atory, full of dogmatic intolerance. Science has in-
sisted upon crude theories and unproven hypotheses
as if they were demonstrated facts. Theology has
refused to admit that even its human interpretations
of Scripture may be wrong.

And this is the present attitude of the students of
these two great records of God — unreasoning hostility
on the one hand, unreasoning fear and objurgation on
the other. Instead of humbly sitting down side by
side, to help each other and to find out Him, they
have excommunicated and anathematised each other.
Perhaps it was inevitable that in their first contact,
new science, proud of her youthful achievements and
excited by the future before her ; and old theology, to
whom science was largely a sealed book and entrenched
in her traditional interpretation, should thus mis-
understand each other. Esau disparages the birth-
right, and Jacob employs reprehensible means to
secure it.

But this can be only for a little while. It is the
property of truth to discover and harmonise all
things. Science, by her own progress, will be com-
pelled to reconsider her speculations, and theology to
revise her interpretations. Science needs the Bible to
make it devout ; the Bible needs science in all its
departments to help in its interpretation. And as
surely as the God of truth is one, so surely will these
two volumes of His revelation to man be found
equally true and authoritative ; the one expounding

238 HENRY ALLON.

the meaning of and bearing a wondrous witness to the
other. Already, indeed, we see this in part, for some
of the greatest names of modern science are among
the devoutest believers of the Bible. Faraday is one
of its preachers, and Owen one of its defenders against
infidel science ; and, with a goodly array of others,
they have testified that science, when conclusively
ascertained, is in perfect harmony with Scripture,
when rightly interpreted.

The course and issue of this great controversy will
probably be analogous to that concerning the Christ.
Rationalistic theories will be exhausted, inasmuch as,
one after another, they will fail to account for all the
facts and phenomena of Scripture ; until at length the
Holy Book established upon, not a traditional and
dogmatic, but upon an intelligible and critical basis,
is demonstrated to be God's supernatural and authori-
tative revelation to man. But do not let us be afraid
of saying that this can be only by a process of mutual
adjustment. In every age the true instinct of the
Church has recognised the Divine and Holy in the
Book, just as it has in the Christ. In this it cannot
be mistaken ; but it does not therefore follow that its
intuitive recognition has always been justified by
tenable arguments, or that its interpretations have
always been right. The divine record is one thing,
the human interpretation of it is another ; and everj^
interpretation must be rejected as erroneous that does
not include a full and fair consideration of all the
phenomena.

It is sad enough that, instead of simply exploring
the rich Gospel field, and satisfying our souls with its
precious fruits of life, we should thus have to defend
it against invaders. Instead of garnering its truths
into our hearts we have thus to make them matter of
intellectual controversy. Instead of speaking them to
sorrowful hearts and into dying ears we are compelled
to debate whether they be God's truths at all, and

THE CUEIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 239

have any right thus to speak life and comfort to men.
But we may not shrink ; we can have no satisfaction
in an unproven faith, no strength in vague misgivings.
Let the Book and all that is in it be fully submitted
to every test of both friend and foe, and " may God
defend the right ! " We seek no victory but for truth,
we believe that in the long run no other is possible.
And if from our religious side of the controversy we
confidently say we have no fear for the issue, wre do not
utter wrords of ignorant and foolish boasting, but words
that the history of eighteen centuries, that a thousand
proofs of the divine presence and ten thousand in-
stances of divine power, abundantly justify. Diffi-
culties there are, some of which the light of advancing
knowledge has removed ; others, for which, as yet, wre
have found no solution. But unless our moral sense
has absolutely befooled us — unless the spiritual history
of this marvellous Book is a lie — unless our own expe-
rience of its spiritual power be a delusion, it will be
abundantly demonstrated to be " the word of the Lord
which endureth for ever."

Some of the most damaging assaults upon the Divine
Authorship of the Bible have really been assaults only
upon untenable theories of inspiration, which a more
justifiable position utterly disables. From my own
intercourse with the more intelligent members of
different evangelical Churches I verily believe that the
dogma of verbal inspiration has, in thousands of
religious men, produced a widespread revolt, and a
very painful and perplexing unsettledness respecting
the true character and claims of Scripture. It is
affirmed to be necessary for the divine authority and
infallibility of Scripture, that every word of it should
have been dictated by the H0I3- Spirit — as an author
dictates sentences to an amanuensis. Not contented
with the Catholic formula of Thomas Aquinas
" Auctor Sacrse Scriptune est Deus," some of the old
divines venture to say that " singula verba a Spirit u

240 HENRY ALLON.

Sancto in calamum dictata," that " notarii sive tabel-
liones Spiritus Sancti, manus Christi, calami Dei
auctoris." One old dogmatist even maintained that
" the very style of Scripture is vitiated by no false
grammar, no barbarisms, no solecisms. " Were these
merely fancies of the schoolmen, we should simply
smile at them ; but they are reiterated by modern
writers. Thus Professor Gaussen represents the
sacred writers as different instruments of music, upon
which in turns the Holy Spirit plays. aThe Lord
God, mighty in harmony, applied as it were the finger
of his Spirit to the stops which He had chosen for the
hour of His purpose, and for the unity of His celestial
hymn." Mr. Burgon says : — " Every book of the
Bible, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word
of it, every syllable of it (where are we to stop ?),
every letter of it is the direct utterance of the Most
High." Dr. Candlish does not hesitate to say,
" Not merely the whole treatise, but every sentence
and syllable of it, shall be as much to be ascribed to
God as its author as if He had Himself written it
with His own hand." " They are very miscellaneous
papers ; every sort of character is "personated, as it
were, in the preparation of them ; every different style is
employed ; every age is represented, and every calling/'
Surely these are very solemn and daring claims,
and involve very momentous consequences. If this
be the claim of Scripture itself, where is the proof?
If it be merely a human conception of what is neces-
sary to constitute the infallible authority which the
Scripture does claim, irreverent temerity and perilous
presumption can hardly go farther. Who are we
that Ave should prescribe the conditions of a divine
book ; that we should have such exact knowledge of
the process whereby God inspired His servants ; that
we should thus rashly carry the ark of God into
battle, and stake the whole credit of divine revelation
upon a human theory of verbal infallibility ?

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK. THE CHURCH. 241

Is it not presumption to approach the Book of
God with a theory of any kind ? Does not true
philosophy as well as true piety demand that we
simply and humbly search the Scriptures to ascertain
what they themselves testify concerning their author-
ship 1 To settle beforehand a theory of inspiration,
and to support it by just such facts as will tit it in dis-
regard of the rest, is to be every bit as arbitrary and
rationalistic as M. Kenan himself. In both cases it is
the rationalism that makes human reason determine
what ought to be the phenomena of divine revelation.
The very point is assumed which has to be proved.

Without any such theories we may, I think, easily
discern in the Book phenomena that will satisfy both
our reason and our faith. Permit me, in very few
words, to indicate where I venture to think we may
confidently rest.

Xo reader of these marvellous writings can deny
that they put forth supernatural claims, and none of
us will question that they establish these by over-
whelming evidence. The sacred writers claim to be
filled with the Spirit of the Lord, and to speak " in the
name of the Lord." This they demonstrate by their
superhuman knowledge, their superhuman wisdom,
and their superhuman acts — by a manner of history,
a gift of prophecy, a sublime theology, a transcendent
morality, a knowledge of human nature, and a wondrous
harmony of continuous revelation through twelve hun-
dred years, utterly inconceivable to unassisted human
thought.

As a crucial instance we take the book of ( fenesis ;
its theology, so utterly contrasted with all coeval
mythologies, so perfectly divine, so faultlessly pure.
Its lun, mil cha racters — Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abra-
ham, neither demigods nor heroes ; but, although in
constant intercourse with Jehovah, always proper
men. Its elevated and unfaltering morality, so that
even in such a complex character as that of Jacob,

Q

242 HENRY ALLON.

the distinction between right and wrong is never for a
moment left doubtful. A morality that wonder-
fully contrasts with the morality even of Plato, a
thousand years later — that anticipates even the
elevated Christian morality of this nineteenth century.
And blended with all this, a pervading and prominent
supematuralism — a miraculous record of the be-
ginnings of the human race, which furnishes the only
explanation of the phenomena of human character,
and of the facts of human history. And this, the
product of a writer of calm, intellectual greatness, of
almost unparalleled sagacity, of unmistakable moral
goodness ; one of the sublimest intellects, one of the
saintliest men that the world has seen ; whom it is
impossible, with any regard to intellectual or moral
congruities, to regard either as a fool who is deceived,
or a knave who deceives. Here, then, is unmistakable
proof of the Divine.

And this book of Genesis is only the first of a long
series of tracts, produced during a long series of cen-
turies, all of which, more or less, have the same
characteristics, and bear testimony to their proto-
type, all of which are in wonderful harmony — his-
torical, doctrinal, and moral — with it and with each
other — each casual in its origin, distinctive in its
form, complete in itself, and impressed with the
strongly-marked individuality of its author ; and yet
all constituting one great and developing system of
Divine theology, growing with the growth of the
world, and widening with its enlarging experience —
history, prophecy, sermon, and psalm — all combining
into one harmonious whole ; full of deep theological
and spiritual harmonies ; each workman preparing his
contribution apart, but the whole brought together by
the Great Architect, and combined into one august and
symmetrical temple of truth. This is the true miracle
of the Bible — its inward unity, not its outward
uniformity ; nay, would not the outward uniformity

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH 243

infinitely lessen, if not destroy, the miracle of the
inward unity ? " There are diversities of operation,
but it is the same God which worketh all in all."

Or, as one more illustration, take the New Testa-
ment records of the Christ ; which, wdiatever their re-
semblances, are at any rate as remarkable for their
diversities ; each author manifestly writing with per-
fect naturalness and spontaneousness, and with the
independence and confidence of perfect truth. If
there be any psychological characteristics of a writer,
or any historical criteria of a narrative that can be
relied upon, it is impossible to doubt the perfect
honesty and trustworthiness of the four Evangelists.
They cannot be discredited without the utmost moral
scepticism, without outraging all the probabilities that
constitute moral certainty, and sacrificing all sober
judgment to an insane credulity. For the alternative
is this — either these men are truthful witnesses or
they have dared to profane the most awful things of
God, and to tamper with the most sacred feelings of
men ; either they are faithful historians, or they are
the most audacious of the world's impostors. Com-
binations of ignorance and fanaticism may be sup-
posed, but beyond certain limits the result is a
monstrosity of the imagination, not a possibility of
experience. And yet, the four narratives of these
four Galilean peasants combine to give us the peerless,
perfect character of the Christ. Whence came this
wonderful conception, presented thus in fourfold por-
traiture ? For one human imagination to create such
a character were a greater miracle than Jesus Himself,
and yet here are four. How is this Jesus to be
accounted for ? How came He, a peasant of Judea,
first to have such divine ideas, and then such a mar-
vellous power of inspiring four other peasants so to
record them, as that through nineteen centuries of
Christian belief and literature no holy man has ever
produced a fifth Gospel, or a second " Acts of the

Q 2

244 HENRY ALLON.

Apostles/' or an additional Apostolical Epistle ? A
supernatural authorship is the only rational explana-
tion of such phenomena.

Or again we might ask — How is it that the topics
of Scripture throughout are so wonderfully selected,
so wonderfully recorded, that precisely the things are
taught and the omissions made that their religious
purpose requires, and that adapt Christianity and its
Bible to the religious life of all the nations of the
earth ?

How is it that these simple herdsmen and
fishermen restrict themselves to a mere narrative
of facts ; that they indulge in no expressions of
surprise, no exclamations of indignation, no com-
ments, no moralisings ? How is it that these
men, being Jews, push aside all the circumstantials of
their Judaism, and by an unerring intuition lay a
simple and firm hold upon the spiritual, the catholic,
and the eternal ? Here, again, are phenomena that
no theory of mere human authorship can account for.
Indeed, the proof of the Divine in Scripture is
literally inexhaustible ; almost every week some un-
suspected but beautiful and harmonious line of proof
is opened out, compelling us to recognise in the
authorship of Scripture the indubitable marks of the
supernatural and the Divine.

Equally indubitable, on the other hand, are the
marks of human authorship. Who can read any
book of Scripture and not feel that a genuine human
heart beats in it ? If our consciousness can tell us
anything it tells us that these are proper men, in-
spired by God, but yet retaining the full exercise of
every human faculty and feeling — the human instru-
ments of a Divine power, but expressing in their
writings all their varied human personality, circum-
stances, and moods.

Else were the Bible unspeakably less precious to
us. Were it written as the tables of the law were

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHUROIL 245

written, as the inscription on Belshazzar's banquetting
house was written — did God speak to us as the
musician speaks through his instrument, as the
ventriloquist simulates a voice, the Word might come
to us Avith Divine authority, but it would come with-
out human sympathy. It might find us in the secret
place of our soul, but it would awe and terrify us
there. Its wonderful knowledge of us is bearable,
only in virtue of its human tenderness. It finds in us
depths that no other plumb-line has fathomed — it
enters chambers of our soul that nothing else has
searched — it shows itself familiar with experiences
that even the wife of our bosom may not share — it
puts into words the deepest mysteries of our being —
it understands all our feelings — it anticipates all our
experience — it gives definiteness and intelligence to
what we ourselves realise only dimly and vaguely — it
is as if we stood before God — it bears faithful witness
for Him — it tolerates no sin, excuses no evil — abates no
assertion of the wrong, no impression of the enormity
of evil. How unbearable all this, were it not for the
wonderful human sympathies with which this Divine
knowledge is clothed ! Wherever we open it — at the
sorrows of Job, the mission of Moses, the penitence of
David, the labours of Paul, or, chief of all, the tragedy
of the Cross, it is tenderly, intensely human — full of
the thoughts, and feelings, and struggles of " men of
like passions with ourselves " — a human soul informed
by a Divine prescience, a Divine knowledge incarnated
in human sympathies. It were as great a loss to
eliminate the human element from the Christ as the
human element from the Bible. The human expe-
rience is as precious as the Divine communication.
AVhencver either 'element is lost sight of, both the
Christ and the Bible are reduced and damaged.
DoceUe or Corinthians, they are alike heretics and
injurious.

The sacred writers, therefore, are no mere bearers

246 HENRY ALLON.

of despatches from the court of Heaven. They are
God-inspired, God-filled men. Their human intellect
and their human soul alike employed in the author-
ship of Scripture — " Holy men of old spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost." The old Eutychean
heresy represented humanity as absorbed and lost
whenever it came into contact with the Divine ;
hence it denied the human character of the sorrows
and sympathies of Jesus. And what is it but to
repeat this heresy, to resolve the humanity of the
sacred writers into passive instruments of the Divine ?
Is it not to make all the pious passion of David, all
the personal avowals of Paul unreal, to reduce these
men to the mock personages of a sacred drama, and
the Divine Spirit to the simulator of various human
voices and feelings ? Does not every instinct within
us, every reverential and holy feeling, shrink from
this ? Be the inspiration of Scripture what it may,
the product in all its characteristics must be genuine.

We read the Pentateuch, and we sympathise with
the hopes, and fears, and strivings, and prayers of the
great Jewish leader dealing with a rude and disorderly
multitude. We read the Psalms, and we sympathise
with the many-stringed soul of the Psalmist, with his
great pulsing heart, full of beliefs and doubts, and
sins and sorrows, and hopes and fears. And we can
believe anything rather than that the 51st Psalm is
not a genuine personal penitence, and the 103rd
Psalm a genuine personal gratitude, and that we are
listening to mere dramatic passion, as in the broodings
of a " Hamlet " or the ravings of a " Lear."

We read the Gospels, and when John tells us
that " he who saw it bare witness," we cannot con-
ceive that the Holy Spirit dictated the words of the
evidence that he was to give, for wherein would this
differ from a forgery ? We read the Epistles of Paul,
and on every page we feel our contact with a peculiar
and strongly-marked religious experience ; with

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 247

Christianity incarnated in a remarkable and self-
asserting man. And we could as soon disbelieve in
our own consciousness as believe that all this personal
religious feeling is unreal, and that words merely
representing it were dictated to him. Is it not as
truly Paul speaking to us as the Divine Spirit ? Are
not his epistolary familiarities — his affectionate greet-
ings and solicitudes — his directions about his cloak and
parchments — his naive acknowledgments that he had
repented of his first letter to the Corinthians, although
he no longer repented — not only inimitably natural,
but unmistakably genuine ?

It is only by thus fully and fearlessly recognising
the human element in the authorship of Scripture
that we can understand it and find reality in it. And
is it not monstrous that a man, delivering a great
religious message from God, is to be declared invali-
dated because incidentally he makes a scientific allu-
sion according to the notions of his day ? Difficulty
there is if it be insisted upon that the very words were
dictated by the Holy Spirit; for then he would be
made to simulate human ignorance as well as human
character. But this is most gratuitously to put an
irresistible Aveapon of offence into the hand of infi-
delity. An untenable position always compromises
more than itself. Exaggerated claims provoke exagge-
rated repudiation ; and. it were difficult to say whether
the Bible has suffered more from unrighteous assailants
or from unwise defenders.

May we not, then, rest with the simple recognition
of these two elements of Biblical authorship, and with
the inferences which they enable ? Why should we
crave a scientific harmony of them, a theory that will
account for all the phenomena, and that may be reduced
to a formula ? Is this either necessary or possible ?
Has God given us exact formulae of other truths — of
the Incarnation, of the Atonement, for instance ? Has
He not left room for the exercise of moral faculty

248 HENRY ALLON.

in their investigation ? Conscientious Deism, con-
scientious Socianism, conscientious Bationalism, are
all possible. There is no demonstration, logical or
otherwise, to force the convictions of the un-
willing or unspiritual. For the man of spiritual eye
and spiritual sympathy there is abundant proof; but
it is not so drawn out into propositions as that a man
must outrage reason to disbelieve. The investigation
of all spiritual things demands spiritual faculties.
Only the soul that is spiritual can see the spiritual
God. " He that is of the truth heareth my voice."
Such exercise of moral faculty, therefore, is demanded
for the interpretation of Scripture. He who will array
a difficulty arising from the human element of author-
ship against a proof of the Divine element of author-
ship may do so, but he is guilty of the moral per-
versity of making a mere human ignorance a ground
for denying God.

From the very nature of the case a scientific
theory of Biblical inspiration appears to be impos-
sible. That God is supernaturally present in the
authorship of the Bible is attested by a thousand
proofs of miraculous knowledge, miraculous act, and
miraculous goodness ; but how the Divine Spirit came
into conjunction with the human thought, and will,
and experiences of the sacred writers we may not
know. It is enough to be assured that " holy men of
old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost " —
that " all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," or if
the reading be preferred, that " all Scripture given by
inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine, for re-
proof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,"
declarations which certainly affirm that every part of
the holy writings is full of God, but which give us no
information respecting the methods of His inspiration.
Concerning these, neither the assertions nor the phe-
nomena of Scripture teach us anything, and where
Scripture itself is silent surely human theorising is

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE 0HU11U1L 249

intrusive. On what authority is it affirmed, on the
one hand, that the men were inspired and not the
writings ; or, on the other, that the writings were in-
spired and not the men ; or that because all Scripture
is given by inspiration of God, every word of it is
miraculously dictated ; or, again, that only the religious
utterances of the sacred writers were inspired ? What
is all this but being " wise above what is written,"
but prescribing human conditions, within which alone
Divine revelation is possible ? So, doubtless, we
should have prescribed conditions for the Incarnation
of the Christ. Who of us would not have shrunk
from saying that He could " grow in knowledge," that
He could pray that His cup might pass, that He
could be made " perfect by suffering " ? In this
Divine wisdom has not hesitated to disregard our
narrow and arbitrary human conditions, and to rest
the infallibility of the incarnate Christ upon higher
and broader grounds.

Who, then, are we that we should lay down con-
ditions for the incarnation of the Divine Spirit, and
declare that we cannot conceive of it — that we shall
be left in doubt and embarrassment, unless we are
assured that every human word was supernaturally
dictated ? What if God has thought fit to discredit
our narrow limitations by phenomena incompatible
with them ? What if He purposely leave us to
certain difficulties and doubts, through discrepancies
which we cannot explain and lacunar which we cannot
supply ? What if in this also " the foolishness of
God is wiser than men"? What if He demand of
our spiritual souls a constant exercise of holy sympa-
pathies and conscientious judgments ? Is the Book a
worse moral teacher, or shall we be worse as learners
of it for such demands ? Even when insuperable,
difficulties are not disproofs ; they are simply relative
to our knowledge, and tests of our candour and
humility. A thousand things that we do not know

250 HENRY ALLON.

cannot disprove a single thing that we do know.
Who ever presumes to construct a scientific theory of
the Incarnation of the Christ — to draw a boundary
line — or to describe the harmony of what is Divine
and what is human in Jesus of Nazareth ? Who ever
attempts a scientific theory of the regeneration and
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and a discrimination of
the Divine and human elements in the acts and
processes of a spiritual life ? And these are the only
other conjunctions of the Divine and human that we
know. Why, then, should we insist on a scientific theory
of inspiration ? Why should we not be satisfied with a
simple recognition of facts, and judge each phenomenon
and try to solve each difficulty in the light of these ?
Why should we so passionately seek to get rid of
responsibility for individual judgments by a pre-
liminary theory which shall rule all cases ? We are
all prone to wish that God had made doctrines some-
what more explicit, evidences somewhat more demon-
strative ; that He had more exactly told us what we
are to believe, what service to render, how much
property to give, how many prayers to proffer ; and by
a thousand creeds, and traditions, and self-imposed
rules, we try to furnish ourselves with formulae for
these things. It were an easy, but it were also an
injurious and ignoble thing, by a simple recitation of
articles, to dispose of all the individual difficulties of
revelation. Creeds and formularies have their great
and manifold uses — Scientific Theology cannot be dis-
pensed with — as " aids to faith " they are a precious
possession ; but alas for our Christian intelligence and
manhood, if we prefix our formulae to the sacred
volume, and thereby absolve ourselves from further
interpretation of its contents. It is part of our moral
probation to " prove all things," to examine and weigh
evidence, to form judgments, to exercise spiritual
faculty, to follow the guidance of the light within us,
and to keep it purely and brightly burning that it

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 251

may guide us rightly. It is the great law of Clod's
spiritual kingdom that wrong moral feeling will lead
us into error, and right moral feeling will guide us
into truth. Like the light of God in the lower revela-
tion of His works, the light of God in the higher reve-
lation of His word shines by its own light ; and
they who fail to see it are the blind. To the man
with a spiritual eye, an eye formed for receiving
spiritual light, it is its own witness — a manifest revela-
tion from God, inspired and sacred as no other book
is — related to other books as the incarnate Christ is
related to other men.

It is well, too, that we should sometimes be made
to feel the necessary limitations of our human science —
to have our ambitious speculations reduced to a simple
recognition of Divine facts — to be compelled to stand
still on the margin of the great deep of Divine opera-
tion, and to feel that its waves will not roll back at
our bidding. One half of our disabling perplexities
and unprofitable controversies spring from the un-
hallowed demands of the speculative reason — from our
inability to discern where the ripple-mark of Divine
mystery must arrest the foot of eager inquiry. Our
science would analyse the very Shechinah flame that
indicates the presence of God, when our piety should
simply worship and obey.

But if there is a Divine element in the authorship
of Scripture, there are moral certainties in which we
may assuredly rest.

We cannot doubt, for instance, that the Book is
sufficient for all the purposes for which it was given —
for the revelation to man of God's purpose and will.
It may be only a bush that burns with tire, but the
tire that burns in it is the glory whereby God reveals
Himself; and in virtue of it the place becomes holy
ground. We have assuredly to do with the living
God, and his were blindness indeed who saw only the
bush and did not see Him who is manifested in it.

252 SENRY ALLON.

God never speaks in vain ; however men may refuse
to see and hear, the manifestation is sufficient — it is
all the illumination, all the authority that were
needed. The Book is " able to make us wise unto
salvation." Whatever the mode of its production, Ave
are bound to receive the product as a sufficient and
authoritative revelation of God's will. Before this can
be refused it must be shown, not only that it contains
elements of human authorship, but that it contains no
elements of Divine authorship.

And we may also be certain that the human
element of authorship in which the Divine is incar-
nated is essentially true and holy. We cannot, with-
out blasphemy, conceive of the Divine as thus coming
into conjunction with anything false or evil — lending
the sanction of its sacredness to the promulgation of
any untruth, either historical, scientific, or religious.
However the human element may work in its con-
junction with the Divine, a moral limit to the possi-
bility of error is thus put ; and we are bold to affirm
that the first instance of essential untruth has yet to
be proved. Difficulties there are, but if, as demon-
strated by its own proper proofs, there be a Divine
element in Scripture, some solution of every difficulty
is possible. The one impossible thing is, that by any
presence of His in the authorship of Scripture, the
God of perfect knowledge and truth should sanction
a delusion or a lie.

Brethren, in this great matter may we not calmly
rest here ? Do not these proven facts and moral cer-
tainties enable us to enthrone the Bible in a place as
high and as sacred as could be given to it by any
theory of verbal inspiration ? Must not the soul that
demurs to these be vitiated in all high spiritual
feeling ? We deeply resent all disparagement of the
Bible. He who assails it assails that which, next to
the Christ, is our most sacred thing. It is not our
salvation, but it is the record and witness of it — it is

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 253

not our spiritual inheritance, but it is the title-deed of
it — it is not our spiritual life, but it is the guide, and
sustenance, and stimulus of it. He who damages it,
therefore, diminishes our assurance, and confuses our
faith and love. If the Bible be not the infallible truth
of God, the Divine revelation of Jesus Christ, then
" are we of all men most miserable."

Whatever, therefore, we find in it, that let us
fully admit ; whether our science can explain it or not.
Though carried upon a common cart, the ark of God
needs not our profane human hands to steady it. In
a thousand things its divinity has been manifested, a
thousand times its sacredness has been vindicated.
It has survived the assaults, and the corruptions, and
— what, perhaps, is more — the unauthorised claims and
foolish defences of eighteen centuries. It has quick-
ened myriads of human hearts, and sanctified myriads
of human lives. Wherever it has come it has brought
civilisation and virtue, religion and charity.

It lias won and ruled all that is good in the world.
All holy affinities are drawn to it. It has received the
homage of all who are noble, and has sanctified them
to a greater nobleness still. And never was it so vital
and potent as it is now — a richer fount of spiritual
blessing — a more absolute law of spiritual life. " The
words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a
furnace of earth purified seven times." "The Law of
the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; the testimony
of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The
statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart : the
commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the
eyes." aDo not my words do good to him that
walketh uprightly ? "

Concerning the Church, many and vital are the
questions which are just now vehemently debated.
These, however, I must forbear : I have already br< s-
passed to the utmost limit of the indulgence accorded
to your chairman. I will simply say that on all

254 HENRY ALLON.

matters that affect the interests of the Church of
Christ it is our right and duty to speak ; and that
on matters affecting the Established Church every
Englishman is bound to speak ; for, theoretically, that
Church claims our allegiance, and, practically, it en-
forces our support. These things, however, with
others that have occurred to me, I must leave to
your own intelligence and care.

To conclude, should we not — as one of the great
sections of the Church of Christ in these lands — very
earnestly ask ourselves how far we are qualified to do
the great work, and to fight the great battles of the
times upon which we are fallen ?

First : there is qualification of ecclesiastical
character and position. In this, I think, we are pre-
eminent. We stand in perfect freedom — to inquire,
believe, and serve according to the convictions of con-
science ; we stand discharged of all liabilities for our
faith to sovereigns, parliaments, or synods — each
church is responsible only to Christ. So far we are
in the best of all positions for the investigation and
service of truth ; there is nothing to hinder the in-
corporation into our theology of all the results of
advancing scholarship. No creeds of former cen-
turies come into incongruous conflict with the
enlightenment of this. Nor, our enemies being judges,
is our orthodoxy the less firm for this liberty. We
need no tortuous devices for reconciling our beliefs
with our formularies — our conscience with our sub-
scription. We may not advance further than
other Churches — perhaps not so far — for the revolt of
thought from restrictions is apt to be lawless ; but we
can embody our advance in free and natural practical
expression. We can freely follow the light which
" breaks forth from God's word," accepting all that we
believe to be truth, and repudiating all that we believe
to be heresy.

Secondly : there is a qualification of educational

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 255

culture. Tt were foolish to affirm that in this respect
our ministers are equal to the clergy of the Establish-
ment. Unrighteous exclusion from the universities of
the nation, with other social disabilities, have not been
without their effect. But with the removal of these
the traditions of old Nonconformist erudition are
beginning to revive. Some amongst us are not a whit
behind the very chiefest, in both Biblical and classical
scholarship ; while our general ministerial culture is
advancing with rapid strides upon that of the national
clergy — reluctant as some may be to recognise this.

Our pulpits are occupied by men whose sermons
and defences of the truth, for breadth, learning, and
power, will bear a favourable comparison with those of
any section of the Church.

Our periodical literature is comparatively large,
and with few exceptions it is able, Christian, and
Catholic. Perhaps we need a higher appreciation of
its value — a more practical use of its power. Of
larger contributions to theological science we cannot
boast much ; not because we lack scholarly and able
men, but because we cannot provide for adequate
leisure for the production of elaborate works. The
theological literature of the Establishment is not
supplied by its parochial clergy. And when one
thinks of the men amongst us of cultured power, who
might be " set for the defence of the Gospel," but who
are hindered by the pressing demands of pastoral or
tutorial life — for which, perhaps, they have no special
aptitudes — why, one sighs for some canonry, arch-
deaconry, or deanery, that would enable works which
might enrich the whole Church of Christ.

Finally: there is a qualification of earnest practical
"', ,/•/• — of personal consecration, sanctity and self-
sacrifice — of successful labour in saving souls, for
which our churches are honourably distinguished.
And, after all, the best vindication of Christianity,
and of any specific part of it, is its practical results.

256 HENRY ALLON.

To those who question either the Christ or the Bible,
the best possible reply is their spiritual history ; the
demonstrations of their Divine power in ten thousand
times ten thousand saved souls. Other names have
no such power to charm men's guilt, other books have
no such power to transform men's lives. If truths
may be tested by their practical results, then the
world has seen no worship, no sanctity, no consecra-
tion, no hope, like those inspired by the manger and
the Cross. Robbed of these, the Church would be
poor indeed — its heart left cold, its life unblessed, its
power paralysed. When, therefore, men put forth
their negations or disparagements, it is a sufficient
answer to show them the effect of the Cross, when it
is held up before the despairing eye of the guilty ; how
magically the heavy burden of guilt falls off, the
serpent-bitten soul is healed, and the dark, despairing
eye is reillumined Avith hope and rapture — or the effect
of the Book when it becomes the guide and comforter
of a forgiven man's life, or when its precious words are
spoken into " the dull cold ear of death."

Blessed be God that if we live in an age of daring
and desperate heresies, it is an age also of abounding
and successful work — of missions abroad and of un-
resting energies at home ; and " God always maketh
us to triumph in every place." Never in the history
of the Church have the Cross and the Book won more
signal triumphs. Healed men are more unanswerable
vindications than all the eloquence of a Peter and a
John. One saved soul is a more triumphant demon-
stration of divinity than a thousand reasonings.
They who are healed will be slow to question the
power that healed them ; while they who behold such
" notable miracles " can " say nothing against them."
This argument, then, may be employed by us all. Be
it ours mightily to ply it ! Whilst earnestly employing
all the resources of reasoning and scholarship, let
us mainly trust to the demonstration furnished by

THE CHRIST, THE BOOK, THE CHURCH. 257

renewed souls — the practical fruit of a full and fervent
preaching of Christ crucified. As Christ is preached
— in churches, in theatres, in ragged-schools, by the
wayside, souls will be saved : and as souls are saved,
gainsayers will be silenced.

Shall we not, then, even now seek afresh anointing
for this ? Spirit of the living God, Revealer of the
glorified Christ, Inspirer of the living Word, enkindle
our cold hearts into a supreme and passionate
yearning for this ; endow us with that " power from on
high " which alone can accomplish this ; help us from
this hour to go forth in the spirit of the Master's ser-
vice, in the spirit of the Master's compassion, in the
spirit of the Master's passion ; and mightily to preach
the Word so that many may be saved ; and that again
it may be demonstrated that while the crucified Christ
whom we preach is " a stumbling-block to the Jew,
and foolishness to the Greek ; yet, to them that are
saved, He is Christ the power of God and the wisdom
of God."

it

258

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE.

[An address from the chair of the Congregational Union at the
Autumnal Session of its Jubilee year, 1881.]

Dear and Honoured Brethren, — The free course of
the spirit is grievously hindered by vindications of its
embodiments. To men intent upon spiritual purposes
it is irritating and humiliating to have to expend time
and energies in contentions for the validity of mere
organisation. Compared with the life of the spirit,
forms of Church construction are of trivial import-
ance ; of no importance at all, indeed, save as they
embody and nurture the life itself. Some embodi-
ment or other all spiritual things must take; and
upon the fitness of it, the fulness and the fruitfulness,
the freedom and the aggressive power, nay, sometimes
the very continuance of the life may depend.

Great principles, moreover, are often determined
by very subordinate conditions. Battles upon which
the freedom or the fate of nations may turn are often
joined on trivial occasions. This, to sensible men, is
the only excuse for ecclesiastical polemics, and for
such vindications of the legitimacy and fitness of our
Congregational Church order as this Jubilee seemed
to demand in my address from the chair in May.

We may, I think, to-day venture upon ground
intrinsically higher. We very gladly turn from mere
embodiments of the spiritual life to the spiritual life
itself. It will be equally congruous with our Jubilee
to attempt to set some principles of it in the light of
clear definitions, to appraise their intrinsic qualities,
and to urge their practical application to the interests
of our churches.

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 259

For while, in their own high place of right, prin-
ciples themselves are eternal and unswerving, and
amid the conflicting and confusing forces of human
life work out their purposed issues, we, in our igno-
rance or waywardness, may discern them mistily, or
leave them weakly, and find them again only when,
after confused and hurtful wanderings, we return to
the paths which they rule.

Even in our noblest contentions, chance impulses
or passing prejudices and passions too often usurp the
place of simple principles, Divine methods, and imper-
sonal ends. Kight itself may be pursued as a mere
expediency, and for selfish purposes. Victory may be
sought for the passion of the polemic rather than for
the conscience of truth.

At the best, there is in our contention much of
blind instinct, and of the maintenance of a line of
tradition along which the light of principles fitfully
plays rather than steadily shines.

We all need, therefore, to keep our ideal before us,
to set ourselves in the light of God's thought and pur-
poses, and honestly to test our aims, our methods, and
our tempers by the lofty principles of the Divine
order. It is not so easy to free ourselves from the
dominant passions of the hour, from the traditions of
Churches and schools — to appraise movements and
qualities as it were in vacuo ; to determine whether
our guiding star be solar or planetary ; whether our
ideal itself will bear the tests of the pure white light
of truth, whether it satisfies the spiritual principles
and instincts of our own moral nature and of our
concept of God Himself.

For such an inquiry, indeed, few men are adequate,
and yet it is imperative upon even the feeblest. My
own modest purpose is in some simple, practical ways
to apply to our Church aims and methods such tests
as our spiritual principles and our own moral con-
sciousness may supply.

R 2

260 HENRY ALLON.

For the domain of principles is not so much that
of metaphysics as of practical experience ; principles
themselves are tested not so much by theories as by
the uses of life.

I. The first essential in the maintenance of a true
Church life is the fundamental distinction between
Divine ordinations and human circumstance — the
former determining principles, the latter expediencies.

In practical Church life these are continually
getting intermixed. In subtle forms the foot of ex-
pediency intrudes into the domain of Divine prin-
ciples, and sometimes great principles are permitted
to lapse into mere expediencies. Few things are more
difficult than the practical maintenance of the boun-
dary line between the two. Disregard of it is the
fruitful parent of most of our ecclesiastical strifes, our
mistakes, and our weaknesses. To exalt mere human
expediency to the place and inviolability of Divine
principle, or to reduce Divine principle to the place of
mere human expediency, is fatal to the authority of
both, and confuses both the Divine order and human
conduct.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews makes the
distinction even in Divine institutions — the "things"
of Judaism " that are ready to vanish away," and the
things of Christianity that abide, " the kingdom that
cannot be moved."

In Christianity itself the distinction between the
essential and the circumstantial is just as imperative.
It is the distinction between spirit and body, the
building and the scaffolding, the warfare and its
weapons, the end and the means. And in proportion
as the means are effective — when the spirit is greatly
ministered to by the body, when the building rapidly
rises, when signal victories are won — it becomes diffi-
cult to keep them from usurping a vital place.

Forms of truth are shaped by the exigences of
polemical warfare ; and because they are made mighty

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 261

through God, we give to the casual creed the place of
normal truth ; the strategic position becomes part of
the city of God.

Forms of Church life which the expediency of
special circumstances may dictate are made normal
and authoritative, irrespective altogether of varying
conditions. Because certain forms of Church life have
counteracted special abuses, vindicated spiritual pre-
rogatives, and enshrined precious liberties, we contend
for them as in all circumstances and ages essential to
spiritual life.

Forms of Church worship which have specially
ministered to peculiar conditions of culture or feel-
ing, or which were the imperative alternatives of a
degraded sensuousness, or a mechanical Church life,
and which gave a new enthusiasm to life, new Avings
to faith, a new domain to liberty, opening for us,
maybe, a new way into the holy place of God, are
forthwith stereotyped and canonised as the only forms
of worship compatible with spiritual life itself.

Things may claim honourable place in the historic
records of the Church : weapons and trophies of great
theological or spiritual victories may claim an admir-
ing reverence in the museum of the Church, inasmuch
as they mark notable epochs of past development;
but they are not conditions of imperative conformity,
weapons for our present warfare, or the means and
measure of our present development. Emphatically
are they " things behind," worthy of historical remem-
brance, but to be forgotten in our " stretching forward
to the things that are before."

Often, therefore, the prophet of more spiritual
vision has had sternly to disallow even the claims of
natural sentiment. The memorial serpent of brass, at
one time enshrined in the very ark of God for the
nourishment of pious feeling, so perverts it at another
time that it has to be designated Xehushtan, and
ruthlessly destroyed. For it is one of the curses of

262 HENRY ALLON.

superstition that it disables natural reverence. To
preserve the city from invasion, its pleasant suburbs
may have to be razed ; to save the country, its harvest
may have to be sacrificed. When human things, in
themselves legitimate, are exalted to the place of the
Divine, it becomes imperative altogether to disallow
them, "hating even the garments spotted by the
flesh."

At every cost the clear distinction between the
circumstantial and the essential, the human and the
Divine, must be firmly maintained. Upon this the
purity, the vigour, and the progress of the Churches
depend.

There is, I venture to think, need for the urgency,
not only in relation to sacerdotal Churches on the one
hand, and to rationalistic theories on the other, but
also to Churches which, like our own, the most
strenuously oppose to these their Evangelical faith
and methods. We, all of us, build into the city of
God " wood, hay, stubble." We are continually put-
ting over its portals tablets inscribed with denomina-
tional or human names ; or demanding at its barriers
some sectarian shibboleth by which all who would
enter are tested ; or imposing upon its common life
some sumptuary laws incongruous with its true
freedom and interests ; or upon its worship some
ritual or ordinance in which the human and the
Divine are subtly mixed up, and a common sanction
claimed for both. So that, instead of the pure spirit-
uality, the broad catholicity, and the noble liberties of
the true kingdom of God, Churches organise them-
selves in sects, take upon them the bondage of creeds,
and constrain their lives into mechanical conformity to
ritual ordinances. How rapidly the catholic liberties
of Primitive Church life were narrowed into arbitrary
conventionalisms, first of the Greek, then of the
Roman Church ! How suggestive of narrowness and
intolerance the controversies of the third and fourth

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 263

centuries ; the schism, for instance, on the observance
of Easter ! With what fatal facility the Churches of
the Reformation took the impress of Luther and
Calvin, of Cranmer and Knox, of Anglican and
Puritan ! How modern Churches designate them-
selves by individual names or peculiar observances,
dissent from which is unconsciously regarded as the
measure of departure from Christ ! Even when, in
revolt from all conventional Churches men have repu-
diated Paul and Cephas and Apollos, and have made
it their boast "We are of Christ," they have only
recoiled into a sectarian repudiation of sectarianism,
having a special animosity of its own.

Theoretically, two things are clear —

First, that the human can have no co-ordinate or
permanent place with the Divine.

The Divine is spiritual, vital, essential; therefore
it is catholic and eternal. The human is material,
circumstantial, fortuitous ; therefore it is local, fluc-
tuating, and temporary. However pertinent and
effective for its special occasion, it becomes incon-
gruous and effete through changing circumstances.
It cannot, therefore, continue ; it is a " fashion of this
world which passeth away ; " and if it be not thrown
off* in the natural development of things, it will be
perversely built into the edifice as " wood, hay,
stubble," and will have at last to be burned out by
the fire of God. And the more assiduously it has
been built into the fabric, the more inextricably it has
been intermixed with the Divine, the more dislocating
will be the rectifying process, and the more devas-
tating its issue. Think of the melancholy debris to
which God's fire must reduce many august ecclesias-
tical fabrics ; the huge and manifold carnality, super-
stition, and ceremony, the meagre residuum of genuine
spiritual life !

Secoyidly, the weakness and worthlessness of
Church systems must be in proportion to the " wood,

264 HE KEY ALLON.

hay, stubble" built into them. What a fractious
mixture of eternal truths with human expediencies it
often is ! How the spiritual is corrupted and ham-
pered by the carnal !

Do we, then, as churches clearly maintain this
distinction between the two, and, while freely em-
ploying human expedients, keep them from usurping
the place of Divine verities ?

There is no formula that can designate them, no
rubric that can assign them. Like all things of the
spirit, they are " spiritually discerned." It is the
culture of a life that has to be inculcated, not a
Church order that has to be regulated; only, more
than in most Churches, our traditions and our spi-
ritual culture will, we think, facilitate its attainment.

We need, therefore, a clear spiritual eye, to keep
constant watch against the intrusion of the ecclesias-
tical into the domain of the spiritual, and a firm dis-
criminating hand which, while using the circum-
stantial for its purposes, resolutely refuses it further
place, however potent it may have been. Often,
indeed, the best things must be the most impera-
tively disallowed. There are "lights from heaven
that lead astray ; " there are virtues that destroy
Churches as well as nations :

" Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

The human form of apprehending truth must
not be confounded with its Divine substance ; which
determines the place of Church creeds. The human
embodiment must not be confounded with the spi-
ritual life ; which determines the place of ecclesiastical
organisations. The human mode may not dominate
the worshipping inspiration ; which determines the
place of Church ritual. The human implement may
not be confounded with vital processes ; which deter-
mines the place of religious agencies.

Than such discriminations few things demand a

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 265

finer spiritual faculty, or arc practically more arduous.
Who is there who precisely maintains them ? Who
draws firmly the boundary line between the domains
of the spiritual and the material ? or could be certain
how much is of the Divine life, how much of the
human organism ?

We ourselves, moreover, are ever growing to greater
power of spiritual understanding. As we " become
men, we put away childish things." Church creeds
change and loosen ; Church forms are reduced to ex-
pediencies ; the formative husk falls away as the spi-
ritual fruit ripens ; the letter is increasingly dominated
by the spirit ; that which yesterday was full of in-
herent sanctity is to-day but an ark of gopher-wood,
a depository for God's truth, a point for His Shechinah
to rest upon. Sometimes, that He may rebuke our
superstition, God will permit His very ark itself to be
delivered into the hands of Philistines. The sancti-
ties of one age become the expediencies of another,
the obstacles and corruptions of a third.

Only spiritual aptitudes and sympathies can rule
the process. With ourselves it rests to hasten or to
retard the development of the spiritual. Both in
individual life and in Church life the education of the
spiritual is our own responsibility. Religious sym-
pathy, true idea, cultured sensibilities, right endeavour,
guarded habit, do much to give keenness to intuition,
and ascendency to the spiritual — " A conscience exer-
cised to discern between good and evil."

How striking the persistency and the development
of type in Churches !

Think of Greek and Roman, Anglican and Puritan
Churches. How invariable the type, how persistent
the tendency, how continuous the development of each
— "they go from strength to strength." Sacerdotal
Churches become more and more imperious and ritual ;
Evangelical Churches more and more spiritual and
free. Hence the responsibility of our Congregational

266 HENRY ALLON.

churches to cultivate and develop the spiritual prin-
ciples and tendencies of our forefathers, so that we
may attain to clearer heights of spiritual discernment,
to larger ways of spiritual freedom, to richer fruits of
spiritual life.

It never, indeed, can be an absolute alternative. So
far as we know, pure spirit cannot exist either in life
or in thought. Some body must be prepared for it.
Some medium of communication is essential to it.
Thought must have material and inspiration and
forms of expression. Life must have its quickening,
its vital causation and nurture, from Him who is the
Fountain of life, and for its ministry it must find some
form of embodiment.

Hence in the discrimination of the human and the
Divine, which I am insisting upon, the encroachment
of the material and the sensual of which I have spoken
is not the only antagonist to be guarded against. If,
on the one hand, we have to contend against the
sensuous degradation of the spiritual ; on the other
hand, we have to contend against the emasculation of
the ultra- or the pseudo-spiritual, the entire or undue
disallowance of the human.

Thus, a school of modern thinkers is strongly
asserting itself, Avhich, rightly apprehending the
transcendency of the spiritual in religious life, presses
as a logical inference that all that is not intrinsically
spiritual is to be disallowed or disparaged. A kind of
resuscitated Manicheism arrays their thought and
their feeling against all material ministries to spiritual
life. Not only creeds and Churches, but the Bible and
the Christ are relegated, and somewhat contemp-
tuously, to the domain of the circumstantial and the
superfluous, if not the inimical. It is a kind of
Persian Cosmos of the Spirit. Ormuzd is antago-
nistically arrayed against Ahriman. Instead of the
deeper harmony of life, which determines the place
and mutual relations of spirit and body, the shallower

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 267

and discredited conception of an antinomy of life is
set up ; spirit and matter are essential and eternal
foes.

Thus in the address of Dr. James Martineau —
clarum et venerabile nomen — recently delivered to
his Unitarian brethren, and entitled " Our Loss and
Gain in Recent Theology," this position is taken.
Personally, I cannot refer to this great thinker with-
out a respectful tribute to the literary beauty, religious
sincerity, and spiritual sensibility that characterise
him. Few men regard the Lord Jesus Christ with a
purer or more passionate spiritual affection. Few
have rendered to Him a more reverential homage, a
worship absolute in everything but in name, and more,
I often think, than he himself knows — " the spirit of
the prophet is not subject to the prophet/' Few men
dogmatically denying evangelical beliefs have yielded
their hearts more fully to their influence. None the
less do I feel it imperative to take strong exception to
the positions taken in this address.

Congratulating his co-religionists on the " total
disappearance of all external authority in religion,"
Dr. Martineau tells them that " the yoke of the Bible
has followed the yoke of the Church ;" and that, in
relation to their present standpoint, " the conception
of a canonical literature that shall for ever serve as a
Divine Statute Book belongs to an age of culture that
has passed away. ... It is simply a, fact that dicta
faith and duty are no longer possible, and that by way
of textual oracle, you can carry to the soul no vision
of God, no contrition for sin, no sigh for righteous-
ness ; " that that which " was once used as a text-book
has become a human literature ; " that we are " driven
from words to realities, and must sink right home to
the inward springs of religion in our nature and
experience."

In the orator's judgment, therefore, emancipa-
tion from the " book-theology " of the Bible, as he

268 HENRY ALLON.

designates it, is the first great step in an advance
to the spiritual.

Of course it is true that, on any conception of it,
the Bible is only an external ministry to the inward
spiritual life ; but is it, as here represented, only a
minister of the transient thought of darker ages, of
intermediate stages of development ? Is it not rather,
as for eighteen centuries most Christian men have
deemed it, a record of indubitable facts, of successive
manifestations of God, a developing revelation of
fundamental and eternal truths in the theology of
the true God, and of essential requirements in a true
religious life ? In all human sciences there are phases
of belief that pass with more perfect knowledge ; but
are there not also fundamental truths that no changes
of opinion affect ? To which category do the funda-
mental teachings of the Bible belong ?

I must confess to a little surprise that so acute a
thinker as Dr. Martineau should have so conceived of
the Bible which he repudiates. Is it an accurate
representation of the Bible that it is, primarily at
least, a " dictated faith and duty," a " book-theology,"
a book of words as contrasted with realities, a " textual
oracle," a theological creed, an ethical code ? Is not
its true character that of a historical record ? The
Bible does involve theological truths, it does inculcate
religious duties ; but it does not take the form either
of an oracle, a creed, or a code. Other religious books
do this — the Vedas and the Koran, for example — the
result of which is an ever-growing anachronism, a
mass of obsolete ideas and prescriptions. So mis-
represent the Bible, and it is not easy to avoid
confusion and paradox.

The Scriptures of the older dispensations contain
institutions and rules, partial ideas and prescriptions,
which the Christian life of the New Testament has
altogether outgrown. The religious ideal of Sinai and
of the Jewish Leviticus is even formally superseded by

THE% CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 269

the religious ideal of Jesus Christ. The Christian con-
science avowedly transcends the Jewish conscience.
But this only proves that the Bible is formally a
history. Its one great purpose is to record, in a scries
of historic revelations, the development of God's groat
saving purpose in Jesus Christ, a purpose demanding
gradual preparation and religious education. It neces-
sarily, therefore, presents the thought of God in its
relation to the religious life of man in various aspects,
and in successive stages of development. God " spake
unto the fathers by divers portions and in clivers
manners until at the end of the days he spake in His
Son ; " a manner of revelation altogether incompatible
with the idea of an oracle, a creed, or a code. It is a
series of successive revelations of God to man, exhi-
bited as life only can be exhibited, in dramatic in-
cidents, in individual biographies, in national history,
in contemporary song and sermon, poem and prophecy;
in forms, that is, as varied as the thinkings and moods
and experiences of actual human life.

Whatever theological or religious teaching there
is, it takes the form that all historic teaching takes.
We see the Divine teachings, we see phases of human
character, we see the moral sequence of human actions.
God gives institutions and laws to Israel suited to its
stage of religious development ; David pours out in
song the religious ideas of his age ; Isaiah prophesies
to the actual condition of the people. God reveals
His thoughts and urges forward His great purpose
through the characters and histories of men. Divine
truths take form in human thought ; Divine purposes
are advanced by human conduct. Patriarch, prophet,
king — Abraham, Moses, David — all contribute the
service of their respective epochs. God's truth and
holiness are seen in their practical conflicts with
human error and sin. With lofty over-ruling purpose
He urges His steady course against even the strongest
human passions, the strongest national tendencies.

270 HENRY ALLOK

Nothing is more wonderful than the steady advance
of generation after generation ; each actor, each event,
a reluctant or an unconscious contributor to the
Divine working, until the whole process is explained
by its consummation in Christ. From the first vague
promise of a deliverer to the transgressor in Eden,
through a thousand forms, institutions, and expe-
riences of human life, each a natural and progressive
stage of development, we see the grand process uncon-
sciously advancing, until, when from the advent of
the Christ we look back upon it, we see an orderly
plan and a continuous development, which in its
manifold conditions and harmonies is a miracle of
history. It does not lessen the inspiration of lawgiver
or prophet that he prophesies to his own generation.
It does not affect the inspiration of the Bible writers
that they record contemporary events, contemporary
relations of God to man ; it simply enhances the
harmony of the whole series of writings — so uncon-
sciously and providentially gathered into the canon
— into a miracle which only the supernatural can
explain.

If, then, this be the character of the Bible, as it
indisputably is — not an oracle, not a theological creed,
not a code of religious precepts, but the historical
development of a saving purpose — in what rational
sense can the Bible be dispensed with, or religious
men emancipate themselves from its yoke ? As well
talk of dispensing with the history of the Peloponnesian
War, of being emancipated from the yoke of the
constitutional history of England. As well talk of
dispensing with the phenomena of the physical crea-
tion, or of man's intellectual or moral nature, through
which, according to our ever-developing intelligence,
God reveals Himself, and man grows to His science.

The only rational and pertinent question concerning
the Bible is, Is it true ? Are the representations of God
which it develops historically and morally accurate ?

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 271

Did these Divine manifestations occur, and are they
congruous with our own moral nature, and with our
conceptions of God ? Is the historical testimony
sustained by our moral consciousness ? Does the
Bible as a whole — as a progressive revelation of God
finding its consummation in Christ — realise our highest
moral idea of what God should be and do ?

All other questions concerning the Bible— its
canon, its inspiration, its authors — arc important only
as they concern this. All other phenomena of the
Bible record — its dispensations, its ordinances, its
miracles, its prophecies — are subordinate to this great
moral conception of the formal and developing
purpose of the whole. Imperfect in relation to the
ultimate revelation of Christ the earlier teachings of
the Bible may and must be ; but imperfection is not
error, save as childhood is error, as pupilage is error ;
rather is it undeveloped truth.

Theological doctrines and religious precepts lie in
the Bible as scientific doctrines and physical injunc-
tions lie in the phenomena and properties of Nature :
they have to be gradually formulated by study and
experience. Just as the science and physical ministry
of each generation are proportionate to its developing
knowledge of Nature, so its theological wisdom and
religious goodness are proportionate to its developing
knowledge of the Bible. Neither faith nor duty is
dictated in the pedagogic way that Dr. Martineau
assumes ; " a Divine text-book," in this sense, the
Bible nowhere professes to be. But that it is something
more than a mere " human literature " its marvellous
phenomena compel us to conclude. If it be not the
supernatural record of God's historic revelation of
Himself, it is a miracle of fortuitous plan and purpose,
of intellectual and moral harmony, more inexplicable
still.

In every sense, moreover, that is not trifling, words
are not the antitheses of realities, but their necessary

272 HENRY ALLON.

expression, the means whereby the knowledge of
realities is conveyed ; without which, indeed, every
department of science would be incalculably im-
poverished. Why should words be a more incongruous
medium for making us acquainted with the history of
God's revelation of Himself, and with His thoughts
concerning man's religious life, than for making us
acquainted with the history of Julius Caesar, or with
the ideas of Plato ?

How, again, in the sense intended, is it philo-
sophically possible to find " the inward springs of
religion in our own nature and experience," any more
than to find there the inward springs of history, or
of science, or of philosophy, or of social conduct ?
Capacity we possess, but capacity is not inspiration.
It is not even the material which supplies it ; much less
is it a " spring." Before religion can well up in " our
own nature," knowledge of Divine things must be
imparted to it ; and if experience bears any testimony,
the very disposition for true religiousness, what we
figuratively call " life," must be quickened by that
Divine touch from which all life comes. What other
part of our nature is sufficient for its own knowledge
and development ? In virtue of what analogy can
this be claimed for our religiousness ?

In thus repudiating the Bible and its yoke, Dr. Mar-
tineau can hardly, I think, mean that in their advance
towards the spiritual in religion he and his co-
religionists have soared so high that they have left
beneath their feet as effete things the theological
teachings and ethical ideals of the Bible. He would, I
think, be the first to acknowledge that in the entire
range of human speculation there is no conception of
God so sublime as that of " the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ," and no ideal of moral life com-
parable to that of the precepts and of the example
which the peerless life of Christ constitutes. But
should not this have been said ? Has he not been

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 273

betrayed by dogmatic exigences into a position sub-
limely regardless of facts — a confusion, at any rate, of
the imperfect forms of the historic embodiments of the
Bible with its underlying and ultimate truths ? It
ought not to be difficult to distinguish between the
Divine ideal and its poor and pitiful realisation in
human lives.

A still graver affirmation follows. Dr. Martineau
congratulates his co-religionists that, in their advance
towards the spiritual religion, they have effected " the
disappearance from our religion of the entire Messianic
mythology . . . the total discharge from our re-
ligious conceptions of that central Jewish dream wrhich
was always asking, ' Art thou he that should come, or
look we for another ? ' Meaning, their dismissal of
everything supernatural connected with the person
and work of Jesus Christ as contained in the records of
the evangelists. " From the person of Jesus," he says,
" everything official attached to Him by the evangelists
or by divines has fallen away. . . He has no
consciously (!) exceptional part to play, but only to be
what He is ; to follow the momentary love, to do and
say what the hour may bring, to be quiet under the
sorrows which piety and purity incur, and die away in
the prayer of inextinguishable trust." And further,
he designates this emancipation from old faiths
concerning the Christ as " the dissolution of scenic
dreams."

These old faiths in the historic facts narrated by
the evangelists stand or fall by their own proper his-
toric evidence. This of course cannot be touched
here ; but it may be legitimate for us to ask, Is the
assumption that this is the true condition of the
spiritual justified by either moral philosophy or the
experience of human lives ? Is such renunciation of
the Christ of the New Testament an essential condi-
tion of the highest spiritual life ? Does His rejection
by a Church or by an individual life ordinarily mark

274 HENRY ALLON.

a stage in the advance from the spiritual to the more
spiritual ; from a cold, formal type of religious life to
fervid piety, transcendent holiness, enthusiastic con-
secration ?

Does not such a congratulation deny, first, the
very laws and possibilities of the spiritual ; and next,
the emphatic testimony of all actual religious expe-
rience ? Is not Dr. Martineau again confounding igno-
rant and accidental perversions of Messianic form
with the normal Messianic idea ; and thus unceremo-
niously sweeping away not only the human accretion,
but the Divine substance ? Another illustration of
the law that the pseudo-spiritual is as fatal to the
truly spiritual by evaporating it as the materialistic is
by denying it.

Is it a true philosophy thus to confound spiritual
life with its quickening source and nutriment in
Christ, any more than, as we have seen, it is a true
philosophy to confound the religious understanding
with the Biblical knowledge that ministered to it ?
The highest Christian life we know is the most ample
in its confession of dependence upon the Christ : " I
live, yet not I, it is Christ that liveth in me."

Assuming the historic truth of the Biblical
revelation of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son and
Mediator, is there anything in His relations to the
spiritual life of men that is incompatible with its
highest development ? Whether the answer be asked
of moral philosophy or religious experience it is surely
unequivocal.

Is there any form of conscious life, physical, intel-
lectual, or moral, that is not dependent for its exist-
ence, its nurture, and its continuance upon some
" power not ourselves," and that is altogether external
to us ? Why should the spiritual life be an exception
or be incongruous with the analogies of other life ?
In what way is it inconsistent with spiritual religious-
ness that it should be made possible by the incarnation

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 275

and atonement of a Divine ( Ihrist, quickened and sus-
tained by His Spirit, and instructed and inspired by
His teaching ?

Of course the external power is not the subjective
life. The Scripture which reveals its conditions is
not the personal life. The Christ by whom it is made
possible is not the personal life. The Divine Spirit
by wdiom it is quickened is not the personal life. But
what is there anomalous in this ? AVe may go farther
— as logically Dr. Martineau must, if he would not
lapse into a vague and unintelligible pantheism — and
say, God Himself — the Source of all life ; whose secret,
life in all its springs and modes is, and upon whose
sustenance it is momently dependent — God Himself
is not the personal life. But the personal life is not
the less individual, or the less able to find its per-
fection, because thus conditioned. What is the logic,
what is the philosophy, that affirms that in order for
the spiritual life to attain to its perfection, it must be
emancipated from " the entire Messianic mythology."

This tendency to ultra-spiritualism is perhaps as
strong in human nature as the opposite tendency to
superstition. It is a tendency of the noblest souls.
They imagine the perfection of pure spirit, liberated
from all conditions of body and circumstance. Seeking
after what can exist only in the spiritual imagina-
tion, they refuse the legitimate and necessary ministry
of the sensible, and thus they not only fail to realise
their ideal, but they make direr shipwreck than more
prosaic souls. It is the mirage of religious life ; it
simply mocks the necessities of the soul.

It has been a delusion of all religious ages.
Anchorites and Ascetics, Manicheans and Mystics,
Monks and Puritans, Quakers and philosophic Spi-
ritualists, are alike in their revolt against the compo-
site and fundamental laws of our being, and have
invariably wrought their own Nemesis. The phe-
nomena of human nature, the facts of human life

s 2

276 HENRY ALLON.

are against them ; and facts laugh at philosophies,
while their discomfited votaries pa^s into fanaticism
or despair. So long as the spirit itself is conditioned,
so long will its nurture depend upon material circum-
stances.

The true philosophy of life, therefore, is the right
adjustment of things as they really are. It does not
follow, because the spirit is not the body, that the
spirit therefore is independent of the body : " it takes
a body to keep a soul ; " or, because true progress is
from the less spiritual to the more spiritual, that the
ideal aim is spirit disembodied, or the ideal method
a disparagement of material things. This were as
philosophically absurd as it is naturally impossible ;
therefore, whenever religion in her imaginative
dreams has in this way sought her spiritual ends,
she has simply disabled and dishonoured herself.
Better for faith to walk surely though humbly on the
solid earth, and slowly and painfully to climb to
spiritual heights, than to make itself artificial wings,
which, melting in the sunlight of heaven, only pre-
cipitate an ignominious and destructive fall.

How experience answers the question we shall see
by-and-by. I will only add here, that the true func-
tion of the spiritual seer — he who discerns the future,
and would lead men on to its attainment — is not to
imagine spiritual Utopias, or to urge fanatical expe-
dients ; it is to point out the true uses of life as it is,
to adjust the true conditions of the spiritual and the
material, and, while maintaining the distinction be-
tween that which is ministered to and that which
ministers, to respect and regulate both. That we
keep before the eyes of men a true and lofty spiritual
ideal, after which they are to strive and which all
things must serve, is imperative ; but we may starve
the spiritual by disallowing the proper ministry of the
material, just as we may overbear and corrupt, the
spiritual by an undue encroachment of the material.

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 277

It is, therefore, a question of degree and adjust-
ment, concerning which different men and different
ages will give different answers. We can give only
the answer of our own day ; according to the lights we
have, adjust degrees and determine relations, ever
aiming at a more spiritual condition still. There
can be no more fatal betrayal of the truly spiritual
than to deliver it over to the delusive imagina-
tions and the impracticable methods of the falsely
spiritual.

II. May we, then, in the light of these principles,
venture to prognosticate the Church developments of
the future ?

Events and the fortune of institutions are hidden
from us. Xo man without folly may presume to
forecast the course of God's providential method. Our
most cherished Church systems, our forms of religious
life, the best that w^e know and realise, may be modified
or superseded by something better. But the condi-
tions of spiritual development itself can scarcely be
mistaken. And if forecast has any value, it is to
demonstrate tendencies and to anticipate issues, that
we maybe incited to a constant and strenuous striving
after the eternal truths and purposes of God.

In the Divine order of things it is almost a truism
to say that that which is morally the truest, which
realises the spiritual the most purely and fully, must
ultimately be triumphant.

The one guiding star of the soul amid the per-
plexity and darkness of human things, the one sure
anchoring amid the tempests of human passion, and
the shipwreck of human devices, is fidelity to the
instincts and convictions of our spiritual nature.
Whatever the desolations of intellectual doubt, what-
ever the dismay when familiar forms and sacred beliefs
fall away from us, the man or the Church that is
faithful to his spiritual apprehensions will be saved
from shipwreck, and will, sooner or later, find God.

278 HENRY ALLON.

If with honest hearts we simply strive to discover the
true, and to attain the right, we are on the lines of
the Divine working, the sanction of all that is best in
human experience is upon us, and we have bound
ourselves to the destiny of God's purposes. In the
final issue of things he will find himself most in har-
mony with God whose conceptions have been the most
spiritual, whose strivings have been the most holy.

1. May we not, for instance, confidently conclude
that the Church of the future will be that which in
theological teaching and religious nurture the most
fully provides for the spiritual necessities of men ?

To this test theologies must finally be brought ;
and in proportion as we find them at variance with the
deepest instincts and necessities of human nature,
their ultimate failure may, without presumption, be
affirmed.

That there should be any divorce between theology
and practical religious life is in every way disastrous.
But when the alternative is between theoretical
theology and the facts of human nature, there can be
but little hesitancy as to either the truth or the issue ;
the philosophy that has to " pity the facts " has not a
very hopeful future.

It scarcely needs be said that religious life is
vitally dependent upon a true theology, that in the
actual realisation of things there must be perfect
harmony between theological truth and the highest
religious life. We are made to know ; truth for its
own sake is the imperious obligation of a man. The
intellect is as much made for truth as the moral
nature is for goodness. It is its natural impulse to
seek truth ; simply to know is the religious satisfac-
tion of the intellect. Truth, again, is alone nutritive ;
error is essentially sterile — it is the mother of death.
No life can grow or continue save as it is fed by truth ;
there can, therefore, be no religious life save as there
is theological truth.

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 279

In inquiries after theological truth 1 am as
imperatively bound to reverence the intellectual con-
science as in inquiries after scientific truth. I may not
make mere tastes or sympathies, therefore, the criterion
of my theology. If a theology cannot be historically
established or morally justified, intellectual science has
every right to forbid it. And it need not make the
process of inquiry less judicial that great interests are
involved in the result. There are few processes of
inquiry in which we are not practically interested.
Xo interests are so great or vital as religious interests,
and upon our theological knowledge they must
depend. Knowledge is not life, but it is the nutriment
of life, and upon its quality life depends.

It is, to say the least, a strong presumption that
that theology is both scientifically and historically
true which finds human nature in its deepest needs,
and most fully accounts for all its phenomena : which
remedies its greatest ills, which satisfies its broadest
sympathies, which inspires its noblest holiness, which
fills its largest hopes. And it is an equal presumption
against any theological system, whatever its scientific
pretension, when it fails to do this. The moral instincts
are a surer indication of truth than the intellectual
understanding. On any theory of final causes we can
scarcely imagine that theology to be wrong which, as
tested by experience, is fullest of spiritual satisfaction
and power. We cannot without moral absurdity
imagine falsehood to be more fruitful than truth. In
the very nature of things the highest religious life
must be the product of the truest theology.

We may fairly, I think, bring to this test the
comparative claims of the Rationalistic and the Evan-
gelical systems.

The future will be with the Church that has in it
the greatest moral forces, and the greatest moral forces
are those that most powerfully affect the conscience
and the religious heart of men.

280 HENRY ALLON.

In the light of Christian history, then, and of
almost every variety of religious experience, are we not
warranted in affirming that no theological ideas are
comparable in fitness and power to those that are
significantly designated Evangelical ? While, as an
equally certain historical fact, no Church repudiating
these ideas has developed either strength or per-
manence. Where is the Rationalistic Church to be
found that is either historic, powerful, or missionary ?
Just in proportion as Evangelical ideas take possession
of men they have stricken deep roots in human
nature, they have excited a fervent, spiritual life,
they have inspired a pitiful, self-sacrificing, aggressive
zeal.

Thus Romanism has been a greater and more
permanent religious force than Rationalism, Evan-
gelicanism than Unitarianism or Moderatism. Super-
stition even, which is the ignorant fervour of the
religious life, is a greater spiritual power than Scepti-
cism, which is the negation of it.

Their differentiae are not constituted by intellect,
learning, or zeal, but palpably by the life which dis-
tinctive Evangelical theology inspires ; sometimes
working in despite of ignorance, fanaticism, supersti-
tion, or disadvantageous circumstance. The history
of Puritanism, of the Evangelical revival of the
eighteenth century, of different Churches in our own
day, are familiar British illustrations of phenomena of
which the entire history of the Church is full.

So soon as any Church rids itself of the " mythology
of the Christ " — rejects, that is, the great theological
beliefs of His Incarnation, His Atonement, His Resur-
rection from the Dead — it is emasculated as a moral
force. The Church of living, assimilating, aggressive,
religious men degenerates into a coterie of men
learnedly holding theological opinions which for the
most part are negations. It may imagine itself to
have attained to a profounder theological philosophy,

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 281

a more articulate scientific certainty, a more un-
embarrassed religious ethic — to be, in short, a society
of superior persons ; but the curse of religious impo-
tence has smitten it. It has lost the power of popular
appeal ; it is a pecidiam of the elect,

In the ordinary sequence of things the thinker,
the philosopher, the scientific discoverer, is the pioneer
of popular faith. Knowledge exhaled into the higher
firmament of science descends in rain and fertilises
the earth. The probation of witness-bearing may be
long and arduous, but it has a uniform issue ; sooner
or later truth compels conviction. In rationalistic
theology the process is reversed. Instead of the
cloud gathering richness and emptying itself in ferti-
lising showers, it becomes more and more attenuated,
assumes forms more and more fantastic, and evaporates
in infinite space.

Rationalistic theology fails of historic permanence.
It wins only the suffrages of the speculative ; men who
seek for working power in religious life turn away
from it. The multitude in their practical religious
needs almost instinctively recoil from its barren meta-
physic. We never find the record in its history, " the
common people heard it gladly." The similes of its
processes are not the mustard seed that filled the
earth, the leaven that leavened the whole lump.
Rather is it a theological Sisyphus, an intermittent
fever, a fitful sectarianism, blending with the nega-
tions of the Sadducee the self-complacency of the
Pharisee, proudly standing aloof and declaring that
" the people that knoweth not the law are accursed."
Few things in the history of thought are more
emphatic than the evanescence, the rapid transforma-
tions of materialism. " It cometh up and is cut down
like a flower, and never continueth in one stay." Why
should it be so ?

For obvious reasons thinkers are with it in larsrer
relative proportions than with Evangelical Churches —

282

HENRY ALLON.

scarcely any, indeed, who are not thinkers, or do not
think themselves to be such. Intellectual power and
acquirement are with it ; oratory is with it ; why can-
not it establish itself in permanent forms ? It has the
anomalous and fatal defect of popular powerlessness,
popular incongruity.

Is it, then, the true inference that potent religious
life repudiates thought and culture, and allies itself
with ignorance and fanaticism ? that " ignorance is
the mother of devotion " ? The illustrious record of
Christian philosophers, theologians, scholars, and
thinkers, from Paul to Augustine, from Aquinas to
Bacon, from Pascal to Butler, and to the host of
eminent men who believe in our own day, make this
theory untenable. Among modern philosophers the
rejectors of Christianity are a very small minority
indeed.

It is simply the old dilemma. The facts are more
than the philosophy ; and its most ingenious theories,
its most vehement reasoning, cannot alter them.
When, with any school, its theory is at variance with
the common human instinct, we may be sure that
it is the philosophy that is false, not the human
fact.

With the mass of men religious life is a practical
necessity, not a speculative philosophy. They need
for their moral disability of life, for its historic
despair, for its dark forebodings and blind yearnings
the " strong Son of God " which the Christ proclaims
Himself to be. They need for their sin the Atone-
ment which His Cross provides ; for their death in
sin the quickening which His Spirit brings ; for their
example and inspiration the ideal life of perfect
purity, sympathy, and help which the Christ Himself
is ; and for their future the living hope of immortality
which His resurrection creates.

These are not theoretic dogmas concerning a super-
natural personage, any more than the illuminating,

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 283

quickening, fructifying beams of the sun are an
astronomical speculation concerning that luminary ;
they are practical powers of religious life, they reveal
religious possibilities to men, and enable their attain-
ment. Men know the Christ as the earth knows the
sun, by the quickenings of life which He causes. Our
entire nature responds to His presentation. He is
" all our salvation and all our desire."

Not, indeed, that the majority of those who receive
these great Christian truths can demonstrate them
theologically, or establish them historically. As with
all other scientific truth, only the scholars and philo-
sophers of Christianity can do this. Neither logic
nor historical evidence enters into the process of
popular conviction. Cultured rejectors of these
truths can easily secure an argumentative refutation.
But the conviction lies deeper than argument. It is
an intuitive recognition of fitness, an experimental
proof of sufficiency. As the eye recognises the light,
as the heart feels love, as hunger is satisfied by food,
as life is demonstrated by living, so the truths of
Christ are made certain to sinful men ; new forces
enter into them, new satisfactions fill them, changes
and processes are wrought in them that nothing else
can work. Men cannot mistake the consciousness of
life, or of that which produces it ; their new powers
of religious penitence, faith, holiness ; their new reli-
gious affections, worship, love, self-sacrifice, sympathy
with God, joy in Christ. Life is more than reasonings,
more than testimony. Against its throbbing con-
sciousness, its potent processes and issues, there are
no reasons ; the learned demonstrations of theological
philosophy are powerless. " Whether this man be of
God I know not. One thing I know, that whereas I
was blind now I see." Seeing the man who Avas
healed standing with the disciples, the rulers of the
Sanhedrin could say nothing against it. No evidence
is so demonstrative as that of healed men.

284

HENRY ALLON.

When, therefore, on the one hand the scientific
rationalist tells us that by rejecting the supernatural
Christ he escapes difficulties of the intellectual reason,
and men and women who are trying to live a prac-
tical religious life tell us, on the other, that by
accepting Him they overcome the moral difficulties
of the soul, and achieve holy lives, there can be no
hesitancy as to which we should give credence. If
history has any testimony to bear concerning the
moral forces of human life, it is that the highest
morality and piety that men attain is in virtue of the
distinctive inspirations of Evangelical beliefs. It is one
of the phases of the great cause, Theory versus Fact,
argued in every department of human thought.
Which is to be accepted as true — the intellectual verdict
of the few, discredited by a paralysed righteousness,
or the moral verdict of the many, sustained by
changes and sanctities of character which are simply
miracles of life ?

To this broad vital test we may fairly put the
question ; not, of course, meaning that there is no
religiousness in the one, or that there is no failure of
religiousness in the other. We simply adduce a
general characterisation so indubitable as scarcely to
admit of question. The ultimate test of theology is
religious life. " If I by the Spirit of God cast out
devils, then is the kingdom of God come unto you."

The two great criteria of Evangelical belief which
give it this distinctive moral power are —

(1) The profound moral righteousness of its theory
of forgiveness.

The salvation which it propounds is infinitely more
than mere safety. It is a theory of forgiveness which
perfectly satisfies the moral conscience, so that we
reverence its principles as much as we rejoice in its
immunities. It is a satisfaction for our entire moral
nature. In this every rationalistic theory of religious-
ness fails. It has something to slur over, or to resolve

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 285

into evasive feeling. Unable to deny the fact of
human sin, it proffers no solution of its relations to
Divine righteousness. It simply suggests that bygones
should be bygones. It resolves the entire moral
problem by mere pitiful feeling, a merciful act of
oblivion in which righteousness is entirely left out of
the account.

This is not satisfactory to the moral consciousness.
The Evangelical theory of Atonement is. It may, as
we are told, be a misconception, but it is perfect in its
moral harmonies with our highest conceptions of the
righteousness of God, and with the deepest moral
consciousness of human nature. It does not leave
law a dishonoured thing. It does not leave the con-
science unsatisfied. It does not climb to God's favour
over prostrate principles of righteousness. It does
not refuse a solution of the relations of " sins that are
past " to perfect rectitude and inviolable law. It does
not escape penalty as a man who breaks prison. From
first to last, in the least thing as in the greatest, the
moral process is thorough, the moral sense approves.
Justice itself pronounces the acquittal. The process
is as righteous as the issue is blessed.

And the constitution of our moral nature is such
that it demands this satisfaction. Moral sequence
cannot be violated without resentment ; the nobler
the moral feeling, the deeper the sense of sin, the
more imperative the demand for perfect righteousness
in forgiveness.

It follows, therefore, that the more perfect the
moral satisfaction which a theology gives, the more
potent will be its appeal to human nature. This
appeal of the gospel forgiveness in every part of its
process to our inherent sense of righteousness, to the
indestructible instincts of our moral nature, is the
secret of its distinctive power. If ii be ;i popular
misconception, the misconception carries a proioiinder
principle of righteousness than any of its substitutes.

286 HENRY ALLON.

In completeness of idea it satisfies even the moral
imagination.

(2) The other element of moral power is its perfect
ethic ; and that not only in its ideal, but in its dynamic
force, its provision for practically attaining its ideal.
For the criterion of moral excellence is practicability.
A Utopian Christianity would constrain no serious
endeavour ; men have always known a holiness higher
than they could realise.

The peculiarity of the Christian ethic is that, while
the holiness that it demands transcends all that men
have dreamed, it supplies an inspiration that not only
makes it attainable, but makes its pursuit an enthu-
siasm.

For such, again, is the moral constitution of our
nature, that nothing can satisfy us in the Deity that
we conceive, or in the religious life proposed to us, but
the utmost imagination of holiness, " We give thanks
at the remembrance of His holiness." Believing men
may practically fail ; their lives may contradict their
discipleship ; but they borrow no excuses from the
loftiness or the impracticability of the Christian re-
quirements. The failure is their conscious shame,
their admitted culpability ; they fall short of their
yearning, but it is their yearning notwithstanding.
They would resent the suggestion that the Christian
standard should be lowered or its demand lessened.
Who ever heard an Evangelical believer lay the blame
of his failure upon the inadequacy of the spiritual
forces that are in Christ ?

A man like Paul will groan over the inadequacy of
Judaism, and complain that his progress is hindered
by the " body of death " to which he is chained. Let
him find Christ, and he shouts in the joy of a glad
surprise ; the hateful ligatures are severed, he is con-
sciously full of spiritual power and grace.

Is it not, on the other hand, both characteristic and
ominous that when Evangelical beliefs are abandoned

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 287

spiritual forces arc weakened and moral life relaxed ?
Under all systems individual men have attained
righteousness and godliness, often beautiful and
tender: there were noble lives amid the festering
corruptions of Greek and Roman paganism. Chris-
tianity itself as a moral force works far beyond the
dogmatic recognition of it. Nevertheless the general
moral tendencies of systems are unmistakable. The
tendency of rationalistic life in modern communities
is as uniform as the tendencies of old Pagan life in
Greece and Rome. The history is lengthened enough
and the phenomena are diversified enough for a certain
induction.

The uniform tendency of a rationalistic theology is
to relax the moral sanctions of life, to weaken the
moral forces of virtue, far beyond the margin of any
Puritan asceticism.

Not only are the dogmas of Evangelical belief
denied, its moral restraints are resented. A sufficient
illustration of this may be found in theories of the
relationship of the sexes. One of the first and most
uniform speculations of rationalistic ethics is an
assault upon the sacredness of marriage. Nothing
would be easier than a large induction, from both
precept and instance, of men and Avomen, otherwise
virtuous and distinguished, revolting from the Chris-
tian obligation of marriage and from its lofty demands
upon chastity ; while the removal of Christian social
restraints from the lax and dissolute leads to rapid
and flagrant social demoralisation ; with fatal precision
they follow the example of their Pagan prototypes.

And, more generally, one is almost appalled ;if the
depression of moral enthusiasm, at the chill of the
religious sensibilities where Rationalism prevails.
What a cold sardonic satisfaction the iconoclasts of
scepticism evince if they can but overthrow an evan-
gelic creed! The desolations which they cause, the
moral forces which they paralyse, give them no

288 HENRY ALLON.

concern. They can destroy a tender faith with a
chuckle, and pitilessly uproot the moralities of a man
because, as they think, they grow in an illicit soil.
Add to this their own deteriorated spirit of earnest
inquiry, the flippant insouciance with which, like
skaters over thin ice, they skim over depths of
spiritual and moral truths which are perplexing and
agonising the souls of men ; together with their utter
lack of missionary self-sacrifice. Whatever their
characteristics, they cannot be charged with either
an enthusiasm for truth or an enthusiasm for
humanity.

Human nature being what it is, there can be no
hazard in affirming that this will not be the Church
of the future. Men will demand that which satisfies
the noblest aspirations of their moral and spiritual
nature. And so far as the experience of nearly two
thousand years bears testimony, this satisfaction is
most fully realised by the Evangelical constituents of
humanity. Only so far as they include these do
corrupt Churches maintain their hold, and only in
virtue of their prominent presentation of these do
pure Churches win their triumphs.

Many things may be associated with Evangelical
beliefs which modify their operation, but even these
cannot destroy their vitality. Excessive ritual, priestly
superstitions, sacramentarian corruptions, obscure
their lustre and weaken their spiritual appeal, for
these are the substitution of material for moral forces.
On the other hand, ignorance may hold Evangelical
beliefs in crude and repellent forms. Fanaticism may
narrow religious recognitions and refuse religious
charities, and in this way the force of Evangelical
truths may be impaired. However true a religious
life, however powerful an Evangelical agency, if it be
not characterised by clear thinking, by profound prin-
ciples, by catholic sympathies, its crudeness will
dissipate its force, its intolerance will provoke resent-

THE CHURCIL OF THE FUTURE. 289

inent. It is not easy to calculate how much the
meagre thinking, the drivelling sentiment, the in-
tolerant Pharisaism, and the fanatical cant-words of
some sections of the Evangelical school have pre-
judiced its theology, limited its efficiency, and hindered
its progress.

It is, too, to be fully recognised that the forms in
which Evangelical truths are held must change in the
future, as they have changed in the past. Subject to
the laws of human developments, they have ever
been in constant flux. Amid the changes that with,
perhaps, unwonted violence are just now passing upon
all theological thought, many modes of apprehending
Evangelical truths will perish. We need not be afraid
of this. It is not necessarily unspiritual in its cause,
or evil in its result. Forms of thought perish by a
natural law, as forms of childhood perish. Valid while
they continue, they are necessarily transitory, and give
way to others that are larger and more adequate. As
spiritual understanding develops we necessarily attain
to clearer vision and more spiritual apprehension.
Doubt is an essential factor in processes of faith. A
man who does not doubt never believes. Let the
spirit of doubt be reverent, anxious, inquiring, and it
is the very truth of a man's soul. He will not believe
until he has proved. Lower forms of belief perish for
higher forms to become possible. Ignorantly to re-
ceive and stubbornly to hold to traditional forms, to
refuse all quest and to call it faith, is to substitute
superstition and prejudice for intelligent belief, to
constitute an infallibility of the darker ages of the
Church. To be afraid of fairly meeting questionings,
of looking provisional dogmas fully in the face, of
modifying or abandoning them as increasing light
may demand, is not faith, but a cowardly form of
unbelief. Only by an eye open to all light, a heart
implicitly obedient to all truth, can Evangelical beliefs
be held ; and with an ever-advancing intelligence,

T

290 HENRY ALLON.

an ever-deepening hold, and an ever-broadening
acceptance.

rlhe truths which were the strength and inspiration
of our fathers ; which possessed the convictions of
Paul when — denouncing the superstition of the Jew
and the rationalism of the Greek — he declared Christ
to be the power of God and the wisdom of God, and
avowed his determination to know nothing else
among men — are still, and in largely augmented
power, the moral forces of our own generation, con-
stituting its religious strength, and inspiring its self-
sacrificing philanthropy. And in these they have
given indubitable earnest that they will be the con-
quering strength of the future.

Our own churches are not, perhaps, in so great
peril from the superstition of the Jew ; their more
characteristic peril is the still more deadly rationalism
of the Greek. Let any church preach a philosophy
of Christianity instead of Christ, a science of religion
instead of*a vital force; let any church make it its
suicidal boast that it has emancipated itself from " the
mythology of the Christ," and has retained for itself
only the Christian ethic, and, whatever the religious
goodness of individual men, or the reflected influence
upon them of Evangelical ideas, its power as a church
will be paralysed. A learned philosophy has no
chance against the rudest life.

It is for us, therefore, the dictate of truest philo-
sophy that we urge one another to an unswerving
fidelity to the Evangelical faith of our fathers ; that
simply and prominently as they, only in the lights of
modern thought and requirement, we " preach Christ,"
the only moral force that can redeem the world from
sin; and with whatever of philosophical science, of
learned illustration, of aesthetic form, of effective elo-
quence, contemporary culture or personal genius may
supply. For this preaching, which is " foolishness " in
the estimates of man's wisdom, is by no means a foolish

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 291

manner of preaching, a magical reiteration of Evan-
gelical words. It lias no affinities with either ignorance
or intellectual weakness, coarseness, or fanaticism.
It may prove its power of life notwithstanding these.
But " Christ is the wisdom of God as well as the
power of God ; " and the wisdom as the condition of
the power.

Whatever changes of form may pass upon our
Church life and thought, so* long as the life and
the thought themselves are held fast, the apostolic
tradition will maintain its vitality. Lifted to purer
heights, disencumbered of hindering superstitions and
disabling ignorances, it will be to the world more
than it has ever been. The future will belong to it.
Against the Church built upon this rock the gates of
Hades shall not prevail.

2. Is it not equally clear that the future will
be with the Church that the most fully recognises
the prerogatives and responsibilities of the individual
religious man ?

That Churches differ immeasurably in such recog-
nition scarcely needs be said ; it marks the difference
between oligarchical and democratic Churches. And
the cause of all progress, the final cause of all govern-
ment, is the perfection of the people — the priesthood
of God.

Between Churches like that of Rome, which
organically precludes individualism, and makes
implicit submission and self-effacement a cardinal
principle of its discipline, and Congregational
churches, which are organised on the principle of
indefeasible individual prerogatives, there is the
distance of the entire diameter. Between the
two there are many gradations of Episcopal and
Tresbyteral rule, and to each in its measure the prin-
ciple applies.

If the ideal and consummation of religious life be
the Church development of a perfect manhood — " to

t 2

292 HENRY ALLON.

present every man perfect in Christ Jesus," " growing
up to Him the living Head in all things " — the Church
of the future must be that which, employing the most
fully the discipline of spiritual freedom, realises most
perfectly the individual result. The end of all teach-
ing and training is to make the pupil independent of
the teacher, " a law to himself."

Authoritative Churches like Rome do not even
tend to this result ; all function save passive acquies-
cence in what is ruled for him is denied to the
individual. By a summary act of faith he renounces
all individual responsibility. Exercises of thought
are precluded by authoritative creeds and an in-
fallible priesthood. Freedom of action is forbidden
by prescriptions of authority — Pope, council, or
synod ; by Acts of Uniformity, or episcopal dicta.
Ecclesiastical franchise is precluded by proprietary
patronage — episcopal, regal, or private. Worship is
minutely regulated by rubrics. Discipline is adminis-
tered by ecclesiastical courts. In every department of
Church life, and to the minutest particular, the con-
gregation is absolutely disfranchised. Even the regu-
lation of the individual conscience, the culture of the
personal soul, is prescribed by priest and rubric.
Scarcely a single function of thought, feeling, or
action is left to the determination of individual respon-
sibility ; this is as nearly disfranchised as the moral
powers of a man can be. Ecclesiastical authority,
sacramental administration, and priestly function
control every faculty of his nature, and provide for
every necessity of his life. The priesthood is the
Church, the body of believers its functionless adjunct.

Can the Church of the future be developed on the
lines of such an organisation ? Must not the spirit
thus inculcated necessarily be of the most deteriorated
and invertebrate character ? It is the characteristic
vice of Diocesan Episcopacy. Even where most Evan-
gelical and least priestly, the congregation — at any

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 293

rate, under the conditions of Establishment as in
England — has no responsible function, no recognised
place for the exercise of its thought about doctrine, of
its discretion about ritual, of its judgment about the
methods of Church life and work.

The self-governing functions of Congregational
churches are not merely prerogatives, they are educa-
tional processes, whereby the faculties of the religious
life are developed. They are in the Church what
local self-government is in a nation, an education of
the individual for intelligent and well-ordered cor-
porate life. No peoples are so ignorant and incom-
petent as the subjects of autocratic, oligarchical, or
bureaucratic rule. None are so sagacious and strong
as self-governed communities.

In the Ecclesia of God the individual is sacred.
The Church exists for the individual, not the indi-
vidual for the Church. The unit of Church life is
the personal soul, and the end of Church life is its
development. No prescribed creed may supersede
personal processes of inquiry and conviction. The Bible
lies open to the individual judgment and conscience.
God's appeal is always directly to the individual soul.
"Every one of us must give account of himself to
God." " Prove all things, hold fast that which is
good." No ecclesiastical patron or synod may impose
his bishop or religious teacher. A free man in Christ,
responsible to God for his entire religious life, charged
with the exercise of personal responsibilities, he takes
counsel with those associated with him, free men like
himself, and the pastor is the appointment of their
collective wisdom and will. In all things per-
taining to worship and work, to discipline and
expediency, the prerogative is with the individual
church society. In the very nature of things it can-
not without a solecism be delegated.

Not by binding traditions of the past, not by
external authority of the present, is the Church ruled,

294 HENRY ALLON.

but by the counsel and will of its own membership,
determined by the present expediency of things, and
by such light as the New Testament and the collective
wisdom of the past or of other Churches may afford.
It is a direct appeal to personal intelligence, conscience,
and common sense, calculated by its very nature to
develop the utmost wisdom and strength both in the
church member and the citizen.

For the strength of a church consists not in the
orthodoxy of its creed, the organisation of its govern-
ment, or the completeness of its code, but in the
developed faculty and moral feeling of its individual
members, whereby it becomes a law unto itself, and
endures though all official p-overnment should fail.
And, in the very nature of things, this can be secured
only by exercises of personal responsibility, demand,
and struggle, experiment and mistake, failure and
success.

The pursuit of truth is the essential qualification for
the use of truth. He only can use truth rightly who
has attained it by personal inquiry, who searches after
it, assays it, learns to discriminate it, proves it by
applications of it. Hence Lessing's dictum, that " if
the Almighty were to give him as an alternative the
possession of truth or the pursuit of it, he would
humbly choose the pursuit," is the exaggeration of a
true idea into a paradox and an absurdity ; for it
implies a preference for error. The possession of
truth is a higher condition than its pursuit. Truth is
to be obtained at all costs. The true alternative is
not the possession and the search, but the different
methods of obtaining possession. Even truth itself
is a precarious and unfruitful possession for a man, if
strenuous personal search has not qualified him for its
use.

Were it, therefore, possible for infallible Church or
traditional creed to present to a man complete and
absolute truth, or to prescribe for him the best condi-

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 295

tions of Church life, he would be disqualified for their
use, even could he receive them at all. The law of
all knowledge is that it "grows from less to more."
He who would have even " a conscience void of
offence " must " exercise himself herein." Manhood is
the product of growth, not of manipulation.

Hence the anomalies so often seen in the religious
life of oligarchical Churches — the divorce of theological
creed from religious conduct, of sacrament from
holiness, of ritual and devotional acts from spiritual
feeling and moral rectitude. What strange hybrids
of life present themselves — devotion and dissipation,
superstition and frivolity, early celebration and
evening licentiousness, the viaticum of a priest con-
doning a life of sin, the courtesan becoming a religieuse,
the father of Beatrice Cenci preparing a set-off for his
contemplated crime by the religious dedication of a
chapel ! It is the natural result of the divorce
between Churchism and individual spiritual life,
between theological dicta and a trained understanding,
between prescribed acts and conscience — things done
in obedience to authority and things done in recog-
nition of individual responsibility, and in the exercise
of personal intelligence, will, and. religious conscious-
ness. And it has its exemplifications in other Churches
than that of Rome.

Inconsistencies of religious life there will be in all
Churches ; but there is a radical difference between
wrong-doing which the moral sense condemns, and
wrong-doing through sheer incompetence of the un-
trained conscience. The sense of individual responsi-
bility, exercises of moral freedom, train and strengthen
the religious conscience. Authoritative dicta, rubrical
religiousness, demoralise and deaden it.

It may possibly be urged that all this is but theory,
which facts contradict ; that authoritative and ritual
Churches have hitherto ruled the religious world, and
have thus shown themselves the best adapted for

296 HENRY ALLON.

human nature as it is ; that the suffrages of men are with
them, as, for instance, with the Greek, the Roman, and
the Anglican Churches, which secure the adhesion, not
only of the greatest numbers, but of the highest classes
of society, men of the greatest wealth, possibly of the
largest learning and the highest intellect, the most
sumptuous churches, the most crowded congregations,
and that therefore the future will presumably be with
them.

The obvious reply is, that he who would wisely
judge human institutions must look, not so much at
existing conditions, as at principles and tendencies.
The test of truth is not the suffrage of any given
period, least of all when that suffrage is given under
sensuous inducements ; else much in the Church
history of the past would have been canonised as true
which the growth of spiritual intelligence and life has
demonstrated to be false. Truth has not usually been
with majorities. The progress of men towards ideal
religiousness is very gradual, and through various
stages. We grope through darkness into the light of
God ; through many errors we advance to truth.
The leaven that is leavening the lump was once
but a particle ; the tree that is filling the earth so that
the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the
branches thereof was once but a grain of mustard
seed.

If as yet spiritual Christianity has but half con-
quered sensual paganism, superstitious religiousness,
and worldly selfishness, let us remember that the
supreme difficulty is in the first half conquest, which
therefore is a fair earnest of the whole. And according
to normal laws of progress it will advance in an ever-
accelerating ratio.

And although in Churches the most spiritual in
conception and method much has yet to be done
before the religious ideal is attained', before life is as
holy as its theories and aims, before sensuouness,

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 297

worldliness, and selfishness are wholly purged out, yet
it is much that spiritual Churches, as such, do main-
tain their existence, win an ever-enlarging suffrage,
and exert an ever-increasing influence.

We are bound, therefore, to insist — first, upon the
validity and Divine sanction of our ideal, and, next,
upon fidelity to the forces and methods that the most
tend to realise it. And we may, I think, claim for our
Congregational churches, and for Evangelical Churches
of like spirit, that they are honestly striving after both.
Ours may be the more arduous path and the slower
process, but it is the surer way of success. Gradually
to teach men spiritual idea, to deepen the sense of
individual responsibility, to train spiritual faculty and
trust ; steadily to refuse mechanical means, sensuous
substitutes, and doubtful expedients in doing religious
work ; and absolutely to rely upon purely spiritual
processes, must develop a type and spirit of Church
life that is characteristic and abiding, full of Divine
truth and religious power — " the royal priesthood of
God, the peculiar people, the holy nation."

The plea for hierarchical rule is truth and order ;
the unfitness of the people to determine the one and
to maintain the other ; their ignorance, self-will, and
disorder ; their lack of consentaneousness, precision,
and force.

But does this mean that authority is only to be
provisionally maintained, and for educational purposes,
or does it mean that this is the normal, the ideal order
of the Church, and that all ideas of training it for
exercises of liberty are repudiated ? If the end of all
training be to qualify men for wise exercises of self-
regulated liberty, does not the Church that refuses or
neglects it, pervert its function of ruling service into
a function of tyrannous usurpation ? The avowed
purpose of God's gift to the Church of apostles and
prophets, pastors and teachers, is " for the perfecting
of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the

298 HENRY ALLON.

building up of the body of Christ ; till we all attain unto
the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son
of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ " — a development, not
of individual saints merely, but of the Church.

Upon this process authoritative Churches put a
positive arrest. They abjure even the aim of Church
development ; they recognise no progressiveness of
Church life; their sole idea is the development of
rule. They strengthen their authority, and multiply
their regulations, and, by an inversion of natural
process, increase the helpless dependence of the
people, perpetuating the childhood of the Church to
the end.

In this way the Eomish Church has developed.
It has become more and more autocratic ; by succes-
sive acts of popular disfranchisement, from the very
beginning of its history, it has at length attained an
ecclesiastical and spiritual tyranny that is absolute
and unique. Each successive generation has only in-
tensified its spirit and extended its prerogative, until,
" sitting in the temple of God and setting himself forth
as God, he exalteth himself above all that is called
God, or is worshipped." It has been reserved for our
own day to formulate its dogma of Papal Infallibility,
the corner-stone of its spiritual tyranny ; which would
have been impossible even a century ago. This has
been made possible by successive acts of usurpation
which, after more or less of resistance, have been sub-
mitted to. The last wrong of slavery, and that which
makes it absolute, is the heart of a slave; and that at
length has been wrought in the final acceptance of
the Vatican decrees. The very conditions of growth
and development have been destroyed.

Is it conceivable that a Church so utterly opposed
to all human progress, so deliberately reversing all
natural processes of development, can be the Church
of the future ? And just in proportion as other

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 299

Churches, Greek, Anglican, Presbyterian, Congrega-
tional, do this — disallow, or fail to cherish individual
liberties — they oppose the final cause of human life

itself, the historic processes of God's dealings, the
entire spirit of modern society, the very principles
and instincts of human nature.

Even order may be purchased too dearly. Order
is not the final cause of humanity, but manhood. To
make a solitude is not peace ; to fill prisons is not to
establish virtue ; a slave plantation, a reign of terror,
is not social order. The wildest excesses of liberty are
preferable to the negation of it; for by experiment,
by failure, by suffering, self-restraint and wisdom may
be learned ; but for death there is no possibility of
development or hope. To perpetuate helplessness in
the name of peace, to make the attainment of sponta-
neous order impossible by denying exercises of free-
dom, is simply suicide. God has endowed men with
the noble gift of freedom, and no follies or sufferings
or sins can prevail upon His wise love to withdraw or
restrain it.

The only condition of true order is liberty ; the
only process by which it can be evolved is by experi-
mental exercises of it. They whose only remedy for
disorders is repression by law, whose only avoidance
of error is to make it impossible by the denial of
liberty, have neither faith in God nor respect for
their own manhood.

They attempt, indeed, the impossible. Human
nature cannot be repressed. If outward development
be denied it, inward distemper will be engendered : if
the volcano be sealed, the earthquake is inevitable.
No despotism is at peace. The most absolute are the
least secure. England is more orderly and stable
than Russia. Protestant Churches are more homo-
geneous than the Church of Rome. The spontaneous
order of Free Churches is profounder, more satisfying,
more stable than the enforced discipline of Established

300 HENRY ALLON.

Churches. Their schisms are fewer, their diversities
less extreme, their sympathies are stronger, because
they are freer ; their differences are not so much
discords as harmonies, in which the grand organ of
the Church blends a thousand voices of faith and
worship.

So that on all grounds — of common sense, of
reasonable philosophy, of spiritual life, of historic
experience — this prognostication also is justified.
The future will be with the Church that the most
fully and practically recognises the prerogatives and
responsibilities of the individual life. For thus only
can the highest conditions of belief, the truest sym-
pathies of brotherhood, and the most vital bonds of
union, be constituted.

Our own churches stand on these lines of pro-
gress. Their distinctive principle is that of indivi-
dualism ; their only recognised methods are spiritual
forces.

And yet they also may practically fail. Intolerance
of spirit may be as fatal to development as disallow-
ance of law ; unspiritualness of feeling may neutralise
the divinest method. Congregational churches may
be held in the voluntary bondage of traditional forms
of belief, or worship, or work. And the more excel-
lent the traditions, the greater the peril. The divinest
things become the most subtle tyrannies. Freedom
may be imprisoned in her own house.

Are we, for instance, always tolerant of inde-
pendent thinkers and novel methods ? Does not
earnest contention for the truth sometimes become
contention for our own forms of it ? Do we strive to
be on the side of truth, or to have truth on our side ?
Let the thinker have freest course for his thought,
and the worker for his work. Let us put no moral
disability upon men whom no Church statutes hinder.
Let us be jealous of all moral ban, of all social re-
pression, of all intolerant feeling or biassing prejudice,

THE CILURUH OF THE FUTURE. 301

of any test or disallowance of thought or method,
but that of candid intelligence, generous construction,
and freest spiritual judgment.

I must forbear, or other prognostications might
have been hazarded.

3. The Church of the future will surely be that
which in its worship and fellowship provides most
fully for our entire religious nature.

How much has yet to be said concerning the
spiritualising or the sensualising influence of worship,
the means whereby our entire religious feeling ex-
presses itself to God : the suitableness for spiritual
ends of Congregational provision for worship — esthetic
embodiments of spiritual feeling, whereby our whole
nature is lifted to God and glorified, or icsthetic
substitutes for it, whereby we are hindered and
deteriorated !

How much has to be said about the realisation of
brotherhood in Church life: its ideal, its means, its
hindrances ! This surely belongs to the great hope of
the future, and is a present tendency towards it.

4. It might, too, be added, the future will belong
to the Church which, in its ministry within and with-
out, makes requisition not merely upon its official
ministers or organised agencies, but upon the indi-
vidual service of its entire membership.

" Every man in his place ; " " each according to
his several ability : " a secret of power and progress
more fully and practically recognised by Free Pro-
testant Churches than by any other, and both philo-
sophically and historically the cause of their success ;
and of which the splendid achievements of our
Methodist brethren, celebrated in their recent Oecu-
menical Council, are such a notable illustration. How
fatally all priestly assumption and sacramental theories
discourage and depress this development! And yet
surely the aggregate of spiritual force in a Church is

302 HENRY ALLON.

constituted by the spirituality and zeal of its indi-
vidual members.

What a large field for suggestion and urgency the
true economy of Church work presents to us ! But
alas for the man who attempts to say everything.

Let it be for us a congratulation and an urgency
that, in theory at least, both our principles of Church
life, and our methods of Church worship and work,
are spiritual and tend only to spiritual issues. So far
as we fail of these, and become ecclesiastical, or formal,
or carnal, the failure is due to the imperfections of
human nature rather than to inimical Church idea.
Our frequent reproach, indeed, is that our Congre-
gationalism is a Utopia too lofty for practical realisa-
tion by imperfect human nature. Be it so ; the re-
proach is that of Christianity itself. A lofty ideal
which we fail to attain is better than an ignoble
imperfection with which we content ourselves. In
falling short of our ideal, we only share the experience
of all disciples of spiritual Christianity. Presump-
tuous ignorance and carnal feeling may adulterate
the spirituality of our Church life ; wayward will and
the strivings of selfishness may disturb the harmony
of our counsels and embarrass our action ; unspiritual
conceptions and unworthy expedients may impair and
discredit the simplicity of our methods : these are the
defects of human nature, not of a Church system.
They are an unfaithfulness to our own ideas, inimical
to our convictions and yearnings. Against these we
have to wage the common spiritual warfare of men,
that our Church life may be practically lifted to its
own lofty ideal.

We need only to conform our practice to our
admitted and cherished principles, and, whatever the
exigence, to be faithful to pure spiritual aims and
methods. Let us but apprehend all truth in its
spirit, not in its letter ; present it to men in its
spiritual aspects, and insist upon its spiritual em-

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. 303

bodiment in a free religious life ; and our Churches
will advance the most rapidly, and realise the most
directly and fully the spiritual kingdom of the truth
which the Divine Lord came to establish. They who
wield spiritual force are invincible. His Church is
to be " His body," identified with His own spiritual
work and methods ; and its destiny is to realise " the
fulness of Him that filleth all in all"

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ing. 3s.

Tree Painting. 5s.
Water-Colour Painting. 5s.
Neutral Tint. 5s.
Sepia, in Two Vols., 3s. each ; or

in One Vol., 5s.
Flowers, and How to Paint

Them. 5s.

Paris, Old and New. A Narrative of its History, its People, and its

Places. By H. Sutherland Edwards. Profusely Illustrated.

Vol. I., 9s. ; or gilt edges, 10s. 6d.
Peoples of the World, The. In Six Vols. By Dr. Robert Brown.

Illustrated. 7s. 6d. each.
Perfect Gentleman, The. By the Rev. A. Smythe-Palmer, D.D. 3s. 6d.
Photography for Amateurs. By T. C. Hefworth. Enlarged and

Revised Edition. Illustrated, is. ; or cloth, is. 6d.
Phrase and Fable, Dictionary of. By the Rev. Dr. Brewer. Cheap

E rition, Enlarged, cloth, 3s. 6d. ; or with leather back, 4s. 6d.
Picturesque America. Complete in Four Vols., with 48 Exquisite Steel

Plates and about 800 Original Wood Engravings. £2 2s. each.

Popular Edition, Vol. I., 18s.
Picturesque Canada. With 600 Original Illustrations. Two Vols. £6 6s.

the Set.
Picturesque Europe. Complete in Five Vols. Each containing

13 Exquisite Steel Plates, from Original Drawings, and nearly 200

Original Illustrations. Cloth, £21; half-morocco, £31 10s. ; morocco

silt. £52 10s. Popular Edition. In Five Vols., 18s. each.
Picturesque Mediterranean, The. With Magnificent Original Illustrations

by the leading Artists of the Day. Complete in Two Vols. £2 2S. each.
Pigeon Keeper, The Practical. By Lewis Wright. Illustrated. 3s. 6d.
Pigeons, The Book of. By Roeert Fulton. Edited and Arranged by

L. Wright. With 50 Coloured Plates, 31s. 6d. ; half-morocco, £2 2s.

Selections from Cassell § Company's Publications.

Pity and of Death, The Book of. By Pierre Loti. Translated by

T. P. O'Connor, M.P. 5s.
Planet, The Story of Our. By T. G. Bonney, D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S.,

F.S.A., F.G.S. With Coloured Plates and Maps and about 100

Illustrations. 31s. 6d.
Playthings and Parodies. Short Stories by Barry Pain. 5s.
Poems, Aubrey de Vere's. A Selection. Edited by J. Dennis. 3s. 6d.
Poetry, The Nature and Elements of. By E. C. Stedman. 6s.
Poets, Cassell's Miniature Library of the. Price is. each Vol.
Portrait Gallery, The Cabinet. First, Second, Third, and Fourth Series,

each containing 36 Cabinet Photographs of Eminent Men and Women.

With Biographical Sketches. 15s. each.
Poultry Keeper, The Practical. By L. Wright. Illustrated. 3s. 6d.
Poultry, The Book of. By Lewis Wright. Popular Edition. 10s. 6d.
Poultry, The Illustrated Book of. By Lewis Wright. With Fifty

Coloured Plates. New and Revised Edition. Cloth, 31s. 6d.
Prison Princess, A. A Romance of Millbank Penitentiary. By Major

Arthur Griffiths. 6s.
Q's Works, Uniform Edition of. 5s. each.

Dead Man's Rock. I The Astonishing History of Troy Town.
The Splendid Spur. " I Saw Three Ships," and other Winter's Tales.

The Blue Pavilions. | Noughts and Crosses.
Queen Summer ; or, The Tourney of the Lily and the Rose. With Forty

Pages of Designs in Colours by Walter Crane. 6s.
Queen Victoria, The Life and Times of. By Robert Wilson. Com-
plete in Two Vols. With numerous Illustrations, as. each.
Quickening of Caliban, The. A Modern Story of Evolution. By J.

Compton Rickett. Cheap Edition. 3s. 6d.
Rabbit-Keeper, The Practical. By Cuniculus. Illustrated. 3s. 6d.
Raffles Haw, The Doings of. By A. Conan Doyle. New Edition. 5s.
Railways, Our. Their Origin, Development, Incident, and Romance.

By John Pendleton. Illustrated. 2 Vols., demy 8vo, 24s.
Railway Guides, Official Illustrated. With Illustrations, Maps, &c.

Price is. each; or in cloth, 2s. each.

London and North-Western

Railway.
Great Western Railway.
Midland Railway.
Great Northern Railway.

Great Eastern Railway.
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Coast Railway.
South-Eastern Railway.

Rovings of a Restless Boy, The. By Katharine B. Foot. Illus-
trated. 5s.
Railway Library, Cassell's. Crown 8vo, boards, 2s. each.

Jack Gordon, Knight Errant,
Gotham, 1883. By Barclay
North.

Metzerott, Shoemaker. By Kath
arine P. Woods.

David Todd. By David Maclure.

Commodore Junk. By G. Manville
Fenn.

St. Cuthbert's Tower. By Flor-
ence Warden.

The man with a thumb. By Bar-
clay North.

By Right not Law. By R.
Sherard.

Within Sound of the Weir. By
Thomas St. e. Hake.

Under a Strange Mask. By Frank
Barrett.

The coombsberrow Mystery. By
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A q'ueer Race. By w. Westall.

Captain Trafalgar. By Westall
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The Diamond Button. By Barclay

North.
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Sidney Luska.
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Henry Beckett.
The Tragedy of Brinkwater. By

Martha L. Moodey.
An American Penman. By Julian

Hawthorne.
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By Julian Hawthorne.
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Bishop.
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Hawthorne.
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JULIAN HAWTHORNS-

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Rivers of Great Britain : Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial.

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upwards of ioo Original Illustrations. 7s. 6d.
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Russo-Turkish War, Cassell's History of. With about 500 Illus-
trations. Two Vols. gs. each.
Saturday Journal, Cassell's. Yearly Volume, cloth, 7s. 6d.
Scarabaeus. The Story of an African Beetle. By the Marquise Clara

Lanza and James Clarence Harvey. Cheap Edition. 3s. 6d.
Science for All. Edited by Dr. Robert Brown. Revised Edition.

Illustrated. Five Vols. gs. each.
Shadow of a Song, The. A Novel. By Cecil Harley. 5s.
Shaftesbury, The Seventh Earl of, K.G., The Life and Work of. By

Edwin Hodder. Cheap Edition. 3s. 6d.
Shakespeare, The Plays of. Edited by Professor Henry Morley.

Complete in Thirteen Vols., cloth, 21s. ; half-morocco, cloth sides, 42s.
Shakespeare, Cassell's Quarto Edition. Containing about 600 Illus-
trations by H. C. Selous. Complete in Three Vols., cloth gilt, £3 3s.
Shakspere, The International. Edition de Luxe.

"King Henry VIII." Illustrated by Sir James Linton, P.R.I.
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"Othello." Illustrated by Frank Dicksee, R. A. £3 10s.

"King Henry IV." Illustrated by Eduard Grutzner. £3 10s.

"As You Like It." Illustrated by £mile Bayard. £3 10s.
Shakspere, The Leopold. With 400 Illustrations. Cheap Edition.

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Shakspere, The Royal. With Steel Plates and Wood Engravings.

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Sketches, The Art of Making and Using. From the French of

G. Fraipont. By Clara Bell. With 50 Illustrations. 2s. 6d.
Smuggling Days and Smuggling Ways. By Commander the Hon.

Henry N. Shore, R.N. With numerous Illustrations. 7s. 6d.
Snare of the Fowler, The. By Mrs. Alexander. In One Vol., 6s.
Social England. A Record of the Progress of the people. By various

writers. Edited by H. D. Traill, D.C.L. Vols. I. and II. 15s. each.
Social Welfare, Subjects of. By Rt. Hon. LordPlayfair, K.C.B. 7s.6d.
Sports and Pastimes, Cassell's Complete Book of. Cheap Edition.

With more than goo Illustrations. Medium 8vo, gg2 pages, cloth, 3s. 6d.
Squire, The. Bv Mrs. Parr. Popular Edition. 6s.
Standishs of High Acre, The. A Novel. By Gilbert Sheldon.

Two Vols. 21s.
Star-Land. By Sir R. S. Ball, LL.D., &c. Illustrated. 6s.
Statesmen, Past and Future. 6s.

Storehouse of General Information, Cassell's. With Wood Engrav-
ings, Maps, and Coloured Plates. In Vols., 5s. each.
Story of Francis Cludde, The. By Stanley J. Weyman. 6s.
Story Poems. For Young and Old. Edited by E. Davenport. 3s. 6d.
Successful Life, The. By An Elder Brother. 3s. 6d.
Sun, The. By Sir Robert Stawell Ball, LL.D., F.R.S., F.R.A.S.

With Eight Coloured Plates and other Illustrations. 21s.

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Sunshine Series, Cassell's. Monthly Volumes, is. each.

(A List of the Volumes pitblished post free oji application.}
Sybil Knox: a Story of To-day. By Edward E. Hale. 6s.
Taxation, Municipal, At Home and Abroad. By J. J. O'Meara.

7s. 6d.
Thackeray in America, With. By Eyre Crowe, A.R.A. Illustrated.

10s. 6d.
The " Short Story" Library.

Otto the Kniglit, &c. By Octave
Thanet. 5s.

Fourteen to One, &c. By Eliza-
beth Stuart Phelps. 5s.

Eleven Possible Cas33. By Various

Authors. 6=>.
A Singer's Wife. By Miss Fanny

MURFREE. 5S.

The Poet's Audience, and DelilaTpu
By Clara Savile Clarke. 5i.

The "Treasure Island" Series. Cheap Illustrated Editions. Cloth,
3s. 6d. each. _

The Black Arrow. By Robert

Louis Stevenson.
King Solomon's Mines. By H.
Rider Haggard.

"Kidnapped." By R.L, Stevenson.
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Louis Stevenson.
The Master of Ballantrae. By

Robert Louis Stevenson.

Things I have Seen and People I have Known. By G. A. Sala.
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Tidal Thames, '1 he. By Grant Allen. With India Proof Impres-
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Tiny L-uttrell. By E. W. Hornung. Popular Edition. 6s.

Treatment, The Year-Book of, for 1894. A Critical Review for Prac-
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Trees, Familiar, By G. S. Boulger, F.L.S. Two Series. With 40
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" Unicode": the Universal Telegraphic Phrase Book. Desk or
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United States, Cassell's History of the. By Edmund Ollier.
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Universal History, Cassell's Illustrated. Four Vols. gs. each.

Wild Birds, Familiar. By W. Swaysland. Four Series. With 40
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Wild Flowers, Familiar. By F. E. Hulme, F.L.S., F.S.A. Five
Series. With 40 Coloured Plates in each. 12s. 6d. each.

Wood, Rev. J. G., Life of the. By the Rev. Theodore Wood.
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Work. The Illustrated Journal for Mechanics. New and Enlarged Series.
Vols. V. and VI., 4s. each.

World of Wit and Humour, The. With 400 Illustrations. 7s. 6d.

World of Wonders. Two Vols. With 400 Illustrations. 7s. 6d. each.

Wrecker, The. By R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne. Illustrated. 6s.

Yule Tide. Cassell's Christmas Annual, is.

IL LUSTRA TED MA GA ZINES.
The Quiver. Enlarged Series. Monthly, 6d.
Cassell's Family Magazine. Monthly, 7d.
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The Magazine of Art. Monthly, is. 4d.

" Chums." Illustrated Paper for Boys. Weekly, id. ; Monthly, 6d.
Cassell's Saturday Journal. Weekly, id.; Monthly, 6d.
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Cassell's Complete Catalogue, containing- particulars of upwards of
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CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, Ludgate Hill, London.

Selections from Cassell dD Company s Publications.

§iliks autr ItcUgious Marks.

Bible Biographies. Illustrated. 2S. 6d. each.

The storv of Moses and Joshua. By the Rev. J. Telford.
The Bt< rv ot the Judges. By the Rev. J. Wycliffe Gfdge.
The Str ry of Samuel and Saul. By the Rev. D. C. Tovey.
The Sto.y Ol Lavid. By the Rev. J. WILD.

The Story of Joseph. Its Lessons for To-Day. By the Rev. GEORGE
BAINTOIC

The Story of Jesus. In Verse. By J. R. MACDUFF, D.D.

Bible, Cassell's Illustrated Family. With 900 Illustrations. Leather.

gilt edges, £2 10s.
Bible Educator, The. Edited by the Very Rev. Dean Plumftre, D.D.,

With Illustrations, Maps, &c. Four Vols., cloth, 6s. each.
Bible Student in the British Museum, The. By the Rev. J. G.

Kitchin, M.A. Xe?u and Revised Edition, is. 4d.
Biblewomen and Nurses. Yearly Volume. Illustrated. 33.
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Illustrated throughout. Cloth, 3s. 6d. ;

cloth gilt, gilt edges, 5s.
Child's Bible, The. With 200 Illustrations. 150/A Thousand. 7s. 6d.
Child's Life of Christ, The. With 200 Illustrations. 7s. 6d.
"Come, ye Children." Illustrated. By Rev. Benjamin Waugh. 3s. 6d.
Conquests of the Cross. Illustrated. In 3 Vols. os. each.
Dore Bible. With 238 Illustrations by Gustave Dor£. Small folio,

best morocco, gilt edges, £15. Popular Edition. With 200 Illus-
trations. 15s.
Early Days of Christianity, The. Ey the Ven. Archdeacon Farrar,

D.D., F.R.S. Library Edition. Two Vols., 24s. ; morxco, £2 2s.

Popular Edition. _ Complete in One Volume, cloth, 6s. ; cioth, gilt

edges, 7s. 6d. ; Persian morocco, 10s. 6d. ; tree-calf, 15s.
Family Prayer-Book, The. Edited by Rev. Canon Garbett, M.A.,

and Rev. S. Martin. Extra crown 4to, morocco, 18s.
Gleanings after Harvest. Studies and Sketches by the Rev. John R.

Vernon, M.A. Illustrated. 6s.
"Graven in the Rock." By the Rev. Dr. Samuel Kinns, F.R.A.S.,

Author of " Moses and Geology." Illustrated. 12s. 6d.
44 Heart Chords." A Series of Works by Eminent Divines. Bound in

cloth, red edges, One Shilling each.
MY BIBLE By the Right Rev. W. BOVD

Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon.
MY Father. By the Right Rev. ASH-

My Growth in Divine Life By the

Rev. Preb. REYNOLDS, M.A.

TON OXENDEN, late Bishop of Mont-
real.
My Work for God. By the Right

Rev. Bishop COTTERILL.
MY OBJECT IN LIFE. By the Ven.

Archdeacon Farrar, D.D.
My Aspirations. By the Rev. G.

M ATHESON, D.D.

My Emotional Life. By the Rev.

Preb. CHADWTCK, D.D.
MY BODY. By the Rev. Prof. W. G.

BLAIKIE, D.D.

Helps to Belief. A Series of Helpful Manuals on the Religious
Difficulties of the Day. Edited by the Rev. Teicnmouth Shore, M.A.,
Canon of Worcester. Cloth, is. each.

My Soul. By the Rev. P. B. Power,

M.A.
MY Hereafter. Bv the Very Rev.

Dean IHCKERSTETH.
My Walk with God. By the Very

Rev. Dean MONTGOMERY.

My Aids to the Divine ^ife. By

the Very Rev. Dean BOYLE
MY SOURCES OF STRENGTH. Bv the

Rev. E.E. Jenkins, M. A
of Wesley an Missionary

CREATION. By Harvey Goodwin, D.D.,

late Bishop of Cai
The Divinity of our Lord. By

the Lord Bishop of Deny.

The morality of the old Testa-
ment. By the Rev. Newman
Smyth. D.D.

Holy Land and the Bible, The. Ey the Rev. C. Gf.ikie, D.D., LL.D.
(Edin.). Two Vols., 24s. Illustrated Edition, One Vol., 21s.

MIRACLES. By the Rev. Brow-nlow

Maitland, M.A.
Prayer. By the Rev. T. Teignmouth

Shore, M.A
THE ATONEMENT. By William Connor

M ges, D.D., Late Archbishop of

^ rk.

5 a- 5-94

Selections from Cassell § Company's Publications.

Lectures on Christianity and Socialism. By the Right Rev. Alfred

Barry, D.D. Cloth, 3s. 6d.
Life of Christ, The. By the Ven. Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S.
Library Edition. Two Vols. Cloth, 24s. ; morocco, 42s. Cheap
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10s. 6d. Popular Edition {Revised and Enlarged}, 8vo, cloth, gilt
edges, 7s. 6d. ; Persian morocco, gilt edges, 10s. 6d. ; tree-calf, 15s.
Moses and Geology ; or, The Harmony of the Bible with Science.
By the Rev. Samuel Kinns, Ph.D., F.R.A.S. Illustrated. New
Edition on Larger and Superior Paper. 8s. 6d.
New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land. By B. T. A. Evetts,

M.A. Illustrated. 21s.
New Testament Commentary for English Readers, The. Edited

by Bishop Ellicott. In Three Volumes. 21s. each. Vol. I. — The Four

Gospels. Vol. II. — The Acts, Romans, Corinthians, Galatians. Vol.

III. — The remaining Books of the New Testament.
New Testament Commentary. Edited by Bishop Ellicott. Handy

Volume Edition. St. Matthew, 3s. 6d. St. Mark, 3s. St. Luke,

3s. 6d. St. John, 3s. 6d. The Acts of the Apostles, 3s. 6d. Romans,

2S. 6d. Corinthians I. and II., 3s. Galatians, Ephesians, and Philip-

pians, 3s. Colossians, Thessalonians, and Timothy, 3s. Titus,

Philemon, Hebrews, and James, 3s. Peter, Jude, and John, 3s.

The Revelation, 3s. An Introduction to the New Testament, 3s. 6d.
Old Testament Commentary for English Readers, The. Edited

by Bishop Ellicott. Complete in Five Vols. 21s. each. Vol. I. — Genesis

to Numbers. Vol. II. — Deuteronomy to Samuel II. Vol. III. —

Kings I. to Esther. Vol. IV. — Job to Isaiah. Vol. V. —Jeremiah to

Malachi.
Old Testament Commentary. Edited by Bishop Ellicott. Handy

Volume Edition. Genesis, 3s. 6d. Exodus, 3s. Leviticus, 3s.

Numbers, 2S. 6d. Deuteronomy, 2s. 6d.
Plain Introductions to the Books of the Old Testament. Edited

by Bishop Ellicott. 3s. 6d.
Plain Introductions to the Books of the New Testament. Edited

by Bishop Ellicott. 3s. 6d.
Protestantism, The History of. By the Rev. J. A. Wylie, LL.D.

Containing upwards of 600 Original Illustrations. Three Vols. 9s. each.
Quiver Yearly Volume, The. With about 600 Original Illustrations.

7s. 6d.
Religion, The Dictionary of. By the Rev. W. Benham, B.D.

Cheap Edition. 10s. 6d.
St. George for England ; and other Sermons preached to Children. By

the Rev. T. Teignmouth Shore, M.A., Canon of Worcester. 5s.
St. Paul, The Life and Work of. By the Ven. Archdeacon Farrar,

D.D., F.R.S. , Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the Queen. Library Edition.

Two Vols., cloth, 24s. ; calf, 42s. Illustrated Edition, complete

in One Volume, with about 300 Illustrations, £1 is. ; morocco, £2 2S.

Popular Edition. One Volume, 8vo, cloth, 6s. ; cloth, gilt edges,

7s. 6d. ; Persian morocco, 10s. 6d. ; tree-calf, 15s.
Shall We Know One Another in Heaven? By the Rt. Rev, J, C.

Ryle, D.D., Bishop of Liverpool. Cheap Edition. Paper covers, 6d.
Signa Christi. By the Rev. James Aitchison. 5s.
Sunday-School Teacher's Bible Manual, The. By the Rev. Robert

Hunter, LL.D. Illustrated. 7s. 6d.
44 Sunday," Its Origin, History, and Present Obligation. By the

Ven. Archdeacon Hessey, D.C.L. Fijth Edition. 7s. 6d.
Twilight of Life, The. Words of Counsel and Comfort for the

Aged. By the Rev. John Ellerton, M.A. is. 6d.

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(Eiurational Mtorks attb j$tu&enis' ittammls.

Agricultural Text-Books, Cassell's. (The " Downton " Series.) Edited
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2s. 6d. each.— Farm Crops. By Prof. Wrightson. — Soils and
Manures. By J. M. H. Munro, D.Sc. (London), F.I.C., F.C.S.
— Live Stock. By Prof. Wrightson.
Alphabet, Cassell's Pictorial. 3s. 6d.
Arithmetics, The Modern School. By George Ricks, B.Sc Lond.

With Test Cards. {List on application.)
Atlas, Cassell's Popular. Containing 24 Coloured Maps. 2s. 6d.
Book-Keeping. By Theodore Jones. For Schools, 2s. ; cloth, 33.

For the Million, 2s. ; cloth. 3s. Books for Jones's System, 2s.
British Empire Map of the World. New Map for Schools and
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Mounted on cloth, varnished, and with Rollers, or folded. 25s.
Chemistry, The Public School. By J. H. Anderson, M.A. 2s. 6d.
Cookery for Schools. By Lizzie Heritage. 6d.

Dulce Domum. Rhymes and Songs for Children. Edited by John
Farmer, Editor of " Gaudeamus," &c. Old Notation and Words, 5s.
N.B.— The words of the Songs in "Dulce Domum" (with the Airs bo.b
in Tonic Sol-fa and Old Notation) can be had in Two Parts, 6d. each.
Euclid, Cassell's. Edited by Prof. Wallace, M.A. is.
Euclid, The First Four Books of. New Edition. In paper, 6d. ; cloth, gd.
Experimental Geometry. By Paul Bert. Illustrated, is. 6d.
French, Cassell's Lessons in. New and Revised Edition. Parts I.

and II., each 2s. 6d. ; complete, 4s. 6d. Key, is. 6d.
French-English and English-French Dictionary. Entirely New

and Enlarged Edition. 1,150 pages, 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
French Reader, Cassell's Public School. By G. S. Conrad. 2s. 6d.
Gaudeamus. Songs for Colleges and Schools. Edited by John Farmer.

5s. Words only, paper covers, 6d. ; cloth, gd.
German Dictionary, Cassell's New (German-English, English-
German). Cheap Edition. Cloth, 3s. 6d.
Hand-and-Eye Training. By G. Ricks, B.Sc. 2 Vols., with 16 Coloured
Plates in each Vol. Cr. 4to, 6s. each. Cards for Class Use, 5 sets, is. each.
Historical Cartoons, Cassell's Coloured. Size 45 in. x 35 in., 2s.

each. Mounted on canvas and varnished, with rollers, 5s. each.
Italian Lessons, with Exercises, Cassell's. Cloth, 3s. 6d.
Latin Dictionary, Cassell's New. (Latin-English and English-Latin.)
Revised by J. R. V. Marchant, M.A., and J. F. Charles, B.A.
Cloth, 3s. 6d. Large Paper Edition, 5s.
Latin Primer, The First. By Prof. Postgate. is.
Latin Primer, The New. By Prof. J. P. Postgate. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.
Latin Prose for Lower Forms. By M. A. Bayfield, M.A. 2s. 6d.
Laws of Every-Day Life. By H. O. Arnold-Forster, M.P. is. 6d.
Special Edition on Green Paper for Persons with Weak Eyesight. 2s.
Lessons in Our Laws; or, Talks at Broadacre Farm. By H. F.

Lester, B.A. Parts I. and II., is. 6d. each.
Little Folks' History of England. Illustrated, is. 6d.
Making of the Home, The. By Mrs. Samuel A. Barnett. is. 6d.
Marlborough Books: — Arithmetic Examples, 3s. French Exercises,

3s. 6d. French Grammar, 2s. 6d. German Grammar, 3s. 6d.
Mechanics and Machine Design, Numerical Examples in Practical.
By R. G. Blaine, M.E. New Edition, Revised and Enlarged. With
7g Illustrations. Cloth, 2S. 6d.
Mechanics for Young Beginners, A First Book of. By the Rev.

J. G. Easton, M.A. 4s. 6d.
Natural History Coloured Wall Sheets, Cassell's New. 18
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Selections from Cassell § Company's Publications.

Object Lessons from Nature. By Prof. L. C. Miall, F.L.S. Fully
Illustrated. New and Enlarged Edition. Two Vols., is. 6d. each.

Physiology for Schools. By A. T. Schofield, M.D., M.R.C.S.,&c.
Illustrated. Cloth, is. gd. ; Three Parts, paper covers, 5d. each ; or
cloth limp, 6d. each.

Poetry Readers, Cassell's New. Illustrated. 12 Books, id. each ; or
complete in one Vol., cloth, is. 6d.

Popular Educator, Cassell's NEW. With Revised Text, New Maps,
New Coloured Plates, New Type, &c. In 8 Vols., 5s. each; or in
Four Vols., half-morocco, 50s. the set.

Readers, Cassell's "Higher Class." (List on application.)

Readers, Cassell's Readable. Illustrated. (List on application.)

Readers for Infant Schools, Coloured. Three Books. 4d. each.

Reader, The Citizen. By H. O. Arnold-Forster, M.P. Illustrated.
is.6d. Also a Scottish Edition, cloth, is. 6d.

Reader, The Temperance. By Rev. J. Dennis Hird. Crown 8vo,
is. 6d.

Readers, Geographical, Cassell's Ne\ . With numerous Illustrations.
(List on application )

Readers, The "Modern School" Geographical. (List on application.)

Readers, The " Modern School." Illustrated. (List on application.)

Reckoning, Howard's Art of. By C. Frusher Howard. Paper
covers, is. ; cloth, 2s. New Edition, 5s.

Round the Empire. By G. R. Pakkin. Fully Illustrated, is. 6d.

Science Applied to Work. By J. A. Bower, is.

Science of Everyday Life. By J. A. Bower. Illustrated, is.

Shade from Models, Common Objects, and Casts of Ornament,
How to. By W. E. Sparkes. With 25 Plates by the Author. 3s.

Shakspere's Plays for School Use. 9 Books. Illustrated. 6d. each.

Spelling, A Complete Manual of. By J. D. Morell, LL.D. is.

Technical Manuals, Cassell's. Illustrated throughout : —

Handrailing and Staircasing, 3s. 6d. — Bricklayers, Drawing for, 3s.—
Building Construction, 2S. — Cabinet-Makers, Drawing for, 3s. —
Carpenters and Joiners, Drawing for, 3s. 6d. — Gothic Stonework, 3s. —
Linear Drawing and Practical Geometry, 2s. Linear Drawing and
Projection. The Two Vols, in One, 3s. 6d. — Machinists and Engineers,
Drawing for, 4s. 6d. — Metal-Plate Workers, Drawing for, 3s. — Model
Drawing, 3s. — Orthographical and Isometrical Projection, 2s. — Practical
Perspective, 3s. — Stonemasons, Drawing for, 3s. — Applied Mechanics,
by Sir R. S. Ball, LL.D., 2s. — Systematic Drawing and Shading, 2s.

Technical Educator, Cassell's NEW. An entirely New Cyclopaedia of
Technical Education, with Coloured Plates and Engravings. Four
Volumes, 5s. each.

Technology, Manuals of. Edited by Prof. Ayrton, F.R.S., and
Richard Wormell. D.Sc, M.A. Illustrated throughout : —
The Dyeing of Textile Fabrics, by Prof. Hummel, 5s. — Watch and
Clock Making, by D. Glasgow, Vice-President of the British Horo-
logical Institute, 4s. 6d. — Steel and Iron, by Prof. W. H. Greenwood,
F.C.S., M.I.C.E., &c, 5s.— Spinning Woollen and Worsted, by W. S.
B. McLaren, M. P., 4s. 6d.— Design in Textile Fabrics, by T. R. Ashen*
hurst, 4s. 6d. — Practical Mechanics, by Prof. Perry, M.E., 3s. 6d. —
Cutting Tools Worked by Hand and Machine, by Prof. Smith, 3s. 6d.
Things New and Old ; or, Stories from English History. By
H. O. Arnold- Forster, M.P. Fully Illustrated, and strongly bound
in Cloth. Standards I. & II., gd. each; Standard III., is.;
Standard IV., is. 3d. ; Standards V., VI., & VII., is. 6d. each.
This World of Ours. By H. O. Arnold-Forster, M.P. Illustrated.
3s. 6d.

Selections from Cassell § Company's Publications.

gooha far llouna people.

"Little Folks" Half-Yearly Volume. Containing 432 4to pages, with
about 200 Illustrations, and Pictures in Colour. Boards, 3s. 6d. ; cloth, 5s.

Bo- Peep. A Book for the Little Ones. With Original Stories and Verses.
Illustrated throughout. Yearly Volume. Boards, 2s. 6d. ; cloth, 3s. 5d.

The Romance of Invention: Vignettes from the Annals of Industry
and Science. By James Burnley. Illustrated. 3s. 6d.

Beyond the Blue Mountains. By L. T. Meade. 5s.

The Peep of Day. Cassell's Illustrated Edition. 2s. 6d.

Maggie Steele's Diary. By E. A. DiLLWYN. 2s. 6d.

A Sunday Story-Book. By Maggie Browne, Sam Browne and Aunt
Ethel. Illustrated. 3s. 6d.

A Bundle of Tales. By Maggie Browne (Author of "Wanted— a
King," &c), Sam Browne, and Aunt Ethel. 3s. 6d.

Pleasant Work for Busy Fingers. By Maggie Browne. Illustrated. 5s.

Eorn a King. By Frances and Mary Arnold-Forster. (The Life of
Alfon>o XIII., the Boy King of Spain.) Illustrated, is.

Cassell's Pictorial Scrap Book. Six Vols. 3s. 6d. each.

Schoolroom and Home Theatricals. By Arthur Waugh. Illus-
trated. 2s. 6d.

Magic at Home. By Prof. Hoffman. Illustrated. Cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.

Little Mother Bunch. By Mrs. Molesworth. Illustrated. Cloth, 3s. 6d.

Pictures of School Life and Boyhood. Selected from the best Authors.
Edited by Percy Fitzgerald, M.A. 2s. 6d.

Heroes of Every-day Life. By Laura Laxe. With about 20 Full-
page Illustrations. Cloth. 2s. 6d.

Bob Lovell's Career. By Edward S. Ellis- 5s.

Books for Young People. Cheap Edition. Illustrated. Cloth gilt,
3s. 6d. each.

The Champion of Odin; or,
Viking Life in the Days of
Old. By J. Fred. Hodgetts.

Under Bayard's Banner. By Henry Frith
Books for Young People. Illustrated. 3s. 6d. each.

Bound by a Spell; or, The Hunted
Witch of the Forest. By the
Hon. Mrs. Greene.

*Bashful Fifteen. By L. T. Meade.

* i he White House at Inch Gow.

By Mrs. Pitt.
*A Sweet Girl Graduate. By L. T.
Meade.

The King's Command: A Story
lor Girls. By Maggie Symington.

Lost in Samoa. A Tale 01 Adven-
ture in the Navigator Islands. By
Edward S. Ellis.

Tad ; or, " Getting Even " with
Him. By Edward S. Ellis.

♦ The Palace Beautiful. By L. T.

Meade.

♦Polly : A New-Fashioned Girl. By

L, T. Meade.
"Follow My Leader." By Talbot

Baincs Reed.
*The Cost of a Mistake. By Sarah

Pitt.

*A World of Girls: The Story of

a School. By L. T. Meade.
Lost among White Africans. Bv

David Ker. '

For Fortune and Glory: A Story of

the Soudan War. By Lewis

Hough.

* Also procurable in superior bi)idi>iz, 5s. each.
Crown 8vo Library. Cheap Editions. Gilt edges, 2s. 6d. each.

Rambles Round London. By C.

L. Mateiux. Illustrated.
Around and About Old England.

By C. L, Mateaux. lllubtrated.
Paws and (laws. By one of" ihe

Authors of " Poems written t'.r a

Child." Illustrated.
Decisive Events in Hist^rv.

Bv I nomas Archer. With Original

lllus' rations.
The True Robinson Crusoes.

Cloth gilt.
Peeps A broad for Folks at Horn ?.

Illustrated throughout.

Wild Adventures in Wild Plaeo3.
By Dr. Gcrdon St.ibLs, R.N Illus-
trated.

Modern Explorers. By Thomas
Illustrated. New and r

Edition.

Early Explorers. By Thomas Frost.

Home Chat with our Young Fol&fl,
Illustrated throughout.

Jungle, Peak, ana Plain. Illustrated
throughout

The England of Shakespeare, by
E. Goad by. With Full-page Illus-
trations.

Selections from Cassell #• Company's Publications,

The "Cross and Crown" Series. Illustrated. 2s.6d. each.

Freedom's Sword : A Story of the

Days of Wallace and Bruce.

By Annie S. Swan.
Strong to Suffer: A Story of

the Jews. By E. Wynne.
Heroes of the Indian Empire:

or, Stories of Valour and

Victory. By Ernest Foster.
In Letters of Flame : A Story

of the Waldenses. By C. L,

Mat^aux.

Through Trial to Triumph. By

Madeline B. Hunt.
By Fire and Sword: A Story of

the Huguenots. By Thomas

Archer.
Adam Hepburn's Vow: A Tale of

Kirk and Covenant. By Annie

S. Swan.
No. XIII.; or, The Story of the

Lost Vestal A Tale of Early

Christian Days. By Emma Marshall.

11 Golden Mottoes " Series, The. Each Book containing 208 pages, with
Four fall-page Original Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. each.

"Nil Desperandum." By the
Rev. F. Langbridge, M.A.

"Bear and Forbear." By Sarah

Pitt.
"Foremost if I Can." By Helen

Atteridge.

" Honour is my G-uide." By Jeanie

Hering (Mrs. Adams-Acton).
" Aim at a Sure End." By Emily

Searchfield.
" He Conquers who Endures." By

the Author of "May Cunninghams

Trial," &c.

Cassell's Picture Story Books. Each containing about Sixty Pages of

Pictures and Stories, &c. 6d. each.

Little Talks. Daisy's Story Book.

Bright Stars. Dot's Story Book.

Nursery Toys. A Nest of Stories.

Pet's Posy. G-ood-Night Stories.

Tiny Tales. Chats for Small Chatterers.

Auntie's Stories.
Birdie's Story Book.
Little Chimes.
A Sheaf of Tales.
Dewdrop Stories.

Cassell's Sixpenny Story Books. All Illustrated, and containing
Interesting Stones by well-known writers.

The Smuggler's Cave.

Little Lizzie.

Little Bird, Life and Adven

tures of
Luke Barnicott.

The Boat Club.
Little Pickles.
The Elchester College Boys.
My First Cruise.
The Little Peacemaker.
The Delft Jug.

Cassell's Shilling Story Books. All Illustrated, and containing Interest-
ing Stories.

Bunty and the Boys.
The Heir of Elmdale.
The Mystery at Shoncliff

School.
Claimed at Last, and Hoy's

Reward.
Thorns and Tangles.
The Cuckoo in the Robin's Nest.
John's Mistake.
The History of Five Little

Pitchers.
Diamonds in the Sand.

Surly Bob.
The Giant's Cradle.
Shag and Doll.
Aunt Lucia's Locket.
The Magic Mirror.
The Cost of Revenge.
Clever Frank.
Among the Redskins.
The Ferryman of Brill.
Harry Maxwell.
A Banished Monarch.
Seventeen Cats.

Illustrated Books for the Little Ones. Containing interesting Stories.
All Illustrated, is. each ; cloth gilt, is. 6d.

Tales Told for Sunday.

Sunday Stories for Small
People.

Stories and Pictures for Sun-
day.

Bible Pictures for Boys and
Girls.

Firelight Stories.

Sunlight and Shade.

Rub-a-Dub Tales.

Fine Feathers and Fluffy Fur.

Scrambles and Scrapes.

Tittle Tattle Tales.

Up and Down the Garden.

All Sorts of Adventures.
Our Sunday Stories.
Our Holiday Hours.
Indoors and Out. -
Some Farm Friends.
Wandering Ways.
Dumb Friends.
Those Golden Sands.
Little Mothers and their

Children.
Our Pretty Pets.
Our Schoolday Hours.
Creatures Tame.
Creatures Wild.

Selections from Cassell $ Company's Publications.

44 Wanted— a King" Series. Cheap Edition. Illustrated. 2s. 6d. each.
Great Grandmamma. By Georgina M. Synge.
Robin's Ride. By Ellinor Davenport Adams.
Wanted— a Kme; ; or, How Merle set the Nursery Rhymes to Rights.

By Maggie Browne. With Original Designs by Harry Furniss.
Fairy Tales in Other Lands. By Julia Goddard.
The World's Workers. A Series of New and Original Volumes.
With Portraits printed on a tint as Frontispiece, is. each.

John Cassell. By G. Holden Pike.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon. By
G. Holden Pike.

Dr. Arnold of Rugby. By Rose
E. Selfe.

The Earl of Shaftesbury. By
Henry Fr:th.

Sarah Robinson, Agnes Wes-
ton, and Mrs. Meredith. By

E. M. Tomkinson.

Thomas A. Edison and Samuel

F. B. Morse. By Dr. Denslow
and J. Marsh Parker.

Mrs. Somerville and Mary Car-
penter. By Phyllis Browne.

General Gordon. By the Rev.
S. A. Swaine.

Charles Dickens. By his Eldest
Daughter.

Sir Titus Salt and George
Moore. By J. Burnley.

Florence Nightingale, Catherine
Marsh, Frances Ridley Haver-
gal, Mrs. Ranyard ("L. N. R."j.
By Lizzie Alldridge.

Dr. Guthrie, Father Mathew,
Elihu Burritt, George Livesey.
By John W. Kirton, LL.D.

Sir Henry Haveloctc and Colin
Campbell Lord Clyde. By E. C.
Phillips.

Abraham Lincoln. By Ernest Foster.

Georee Mulier and Andrew Reed.
By E. R. Pitman.

Richard Cobden. By R. Gowing.

Benjamin Franklin. By E. M.
Tomkinson.

Handel. By Eliza Clarke. [Swaine.

Turner the Artist. By the Rev. S. A.

George and Robert Stephenson.
By C. L. Mateaux.

David Livingstone. By Robert Smiles.

%• The above Works can also be had Three in One Vol., cloth, gilt edges, y.
Library of Wonders. Illustrated Gift-books for Boys. Paper, is.;
cloth, is. 6d.

Wonderful Balloon Ascents. Wonders of Animal Instinct.

Wonderful Adventures. Wonders of Bodily Strength

Wonderful Escapes. and Skill.

Cassell's Eighteenpenny Story Books. Illustrated.

Wee Willie Winkie.

Ups and Downs of a Donkey's

Life.
Three Wee Ulster Lassies.
Up the Ladder.

Dick's Hero; and other Stories.
The Chip Boy.
Raggles, Baggies, and the

Emperor.
Roses from Thorns.
Gift Books for Young People.

Original Illustrations in each.
The Boy Hunters of Kentucky.

By Edward S.Ellis.
Red Feather: a Tale of

American Frontier.

Edward S. Ellis.

Seeking a City.

Rhoda's Reward; or.
Wishes were Horses."

Jack Marston's Anchor.

Frank's Life-Battle ; or,
Three Friends.

Fritters. By Sarah Pitt.

The Two Hardcastles. By Made-
line Bonavia Hunt.

the
By

If

The

Cassell's Two-Shilling Story Books. Illustrated.

Faith's Father.

By Land and Sea.

The Young Berringtons.

Jeff and Leff.

Tom Morris's Error.

Worth more than Gold.

" Through Flood— Through Fire;"

and other Stories.
The Girl with the Golden Looks.
Stories of the Olden Time.
By Popular Authors. With Four
Cloth gilt, is. 6d. each.

Major Monk's Motto. By the Rev.

F. Langbridge.
Trixy. By Maggie Symington.
Rags and Rainbows: A Story of

Thanksgiving.
Uncle William's Charges; or, The

Broken Trust.
Pretty Pink's Purpose; or, The

Little Street Merchants.
Tim Thomson's Trial. By George

Weatherly.
Ursula's S tumbling-Block. By Julia

Goddard.
Ruth's Life-Work. By the Rev.

Joseph Johnson.

Stories of the Tower.
Mr. Burke's Nieces.
May Cunningham's Trial.
The Top of the Ladder : How to

Reach it.
Little Flotsam.
Madge and Her Friends.
The Children of the Court.
Maid Marjory.
Peggy, and other Tales-

The Four Cats of the Tippertona.

Marion's Two Homes.

Little Folks' Sunday Book.

Two Fourpenny Bits.

Poor Nelly.

Tom Heriot.

Through Peril to Fortune.

Aunt Tabitha's Waifs.

In Mischief Again.

Selections from Casscll § Company's Publications.

Cheap Editions of Popular Volumes for Young People.
cloth, gilt edges, 2S. 6d. each.

Bound in

In Quest of Gold; or,
the Whanga Falls.

Under

On

Board the Esmeralda;
Martin Leigh's Log.

For Queen and King.
Esther West.
Three Homes.
Working to Win.
Perils Afloat and Brigands
Ashore.

The " Deerfoot" Series. By Edward S. Ellis. With Four full-page
Illustrations in each Book. Cloth, bevelled boards, 2s. 6d. each.

The Hunters of the Ozark. | The Camp in the Mountains.
The Last War Trail.

The "Log Cabin" Series. By Edward S.Ellis. With Four Full-
page Illustrations in each. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. each.

The Lost Trail. | Camp-Fire and Wigwam.

Footprints in the Forest.

The "Great River" Series. By Edward S. Ellis. Illustrated.
Crown 8vo, cloth, bevelled boards, 2s. 6d. each.

Down the Mississippi. Lost in the Wilds.

Up the Tapaj os ; or, Adventures in Brazil.

The " Boy Pioneer" Series. By Edward S. Ellis. With Four Full-
page Illustrations in each Book. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. each.

Ned in the Woods. A Tale of I Ned on the River. A Tale of Indian
Early Days in the West. River Warfare.

Ned in the Block House. A Story of Pioneer Life in Kentucky.

The "World in Pictures." Illustrated throughout. 2s. 6d. each.

A Ramble Round France.
All the Russias.
Chats about G-ermany.
The Eastern Wonderland
(Japan).

Half-Crown Story Books.

Margaret's Enemy.
Pen's Perplexities.

Books for the Little Ones.
Rhymes for the Young Folk.
By William Alli.ngham. BeauLifully

Illustrated. 3s. 6d.

The History Scrap Book:
nearly 1,000 Engravings;
7s. 6d.

With

Cloth,

Glimpses of South America.
Round Airiea.

The Land of Temples (India).
The Isles of the Pacific.
Peeps into China

Notable Shipwrecks.
At the South Pole.

My Diary. With 12 Coloured Plates

and 366 Woodcuts. Is.
The Sunday Scrap Book. With

Several Hundred Illustrations. Paper

boards, 3s. 6d. ; cloth, gilt edges, 5s.
The Old Fairy Tales. With Original

Illustrations. Boards, Is.: cloth,

ls.ed.

Albums for Children. 3s. 6d. each.

The Album for Home, School,
and Play. Containing Stories by
Popular Authors. Illustrated.

My Own Album of Animals.
With Full-page Illustrations.

With

Picture Album of All Sorts.

Full-page Illustrations.
The Chit-Chat Album. Illustrated

throughout

Cassell & Company's Complete Catalogue will be sent post

Jree on application to
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, Ludgate Hill, London.