;4^
.t?^"*
i/^
*^'^
ic>S^^^.
i
jWercp for t\ft ^Fallen.
TWO SERMONS
IN AID OF THE
HOUSE OF MERCY, CLEWER,
REV. T. T. CARTER, M.A.,
RECTOR OF CLEWER, BERKS.
TO WHICH IS ADDED
^n Appeal fov tijc Completion of tljc H^oim,
LONDON :
JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET,
AND NEW BOND STREET,
MDCCCLVI.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY JOSEPH MASTERS AND CO.,
ALDEEStcATE STREET.
SERMON I.
2 Cor. V. 21.
" He hath made Him to be sin for us Who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him."
That the Son of God, abiding still, as from ever-
lasting, in. His pure, unapproachable God- head, was
made Man, binding the two natures indissolubly to-
gether in His one Person, being as truly Man as He is
truly God, is the simplest view of the Incarnation. A
yet farther depth of the mystery is, that the created
nature which He assumed was sinful, though as He
took it. He cleansed it for Himself; and thus, Him-
self sinless, He became subject to the extremest pe-
nalties of sin.
The words of the text, — words which appal us, as
we utter them ; which, but for the seal of Revelation,
we could not have applied to Him, — '' He hath made
Him to be Sin," are generally understood to mean
that He became a sin-offering. But this interpretation
can by no means be intended to limit the application
of the words of Scripture to the sacrifice of His Death,
as if this could exhaust their deep meaning. His
whole earthly life was, in truth, a sin-offering. His
A 2
submission to the presence, the shame, and the penal-
ties of sin, was a prolonged sacrifice, commencing from
the very hour when He " was made Flesh, and dwelt
among us."
Even before His Incarnation, the shadow^s of the
coming sacrifice had been cast forward upon Him, for
the stains upon a man's lineage fall upon himself.
Not merely did the nature, wdiich He took to cleanse it,
bear in it the accumulated impurities of ages, in an
ever-increasing deterioration after the first fall, but
even the chosen line, through which He came, bore
upon it aggravated stains of sin. When the first Evan-
gelist traces the lineage of the Messiah, he is carefiil
to note, — as facts important to recall, though but for
such a cause our better feelings ever seek to veil the
dishonour of our parentage, — the more than ordinary
stains of sin that marked some members of the chosen
family. Recording how "Juda begat Pharez and
Zara," he states specially that it was " of Thamar.'"
Recording how " Salmon begat Boaz," he adds, " of
Rahab,"- elsewhere known as " the harlot."^ And
mentioning one of the choicest names of the sacred
line, " David the king," he reminds us how he " be-
gat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias."*
And after His Birth, the necessities of the fallen
nature into which He had entered, pursued Him to
the end. The subjection in which He was held was
set forth in symbolical ordinances which He conde-
scended to receive in His owai Person. Thus on the
eighth day He was "circumcised, as though His Flesh
needed to be mortified. Thus, His Blessed Mother
was purified, as though she had contracted defilement
1 S. Matt. i. 3. 2 S. Matt. i. 5.
3 Heb. xi. 31. * S. Matt. i. G.
u.uc^
from the bringing forth of the sinless One. Again, en-
tering on His ministry He was baptized, as though
He needed the mystical washing away of sin.
This truth, moreover, is still more wonderfully seen
in the personal experience of the power of sin, which
by some mysterious necessity He was constrained to
learn. For to this end He passed through the Forty
Days' Temptation, that by an actual consciousness
He might know the hatefulness and power of sin ;
being " in all points tempted like as we are.'" And
again, when He was bowed to the earth in Geth-
semane, and His convulsed frame gave forth the
Bloody Sweat, what must have been the burden of
sin, past, present, and to come, which penetrated His
inmost soul !
So likewise when He mingled among mankind,
sharing all the vicissitudes and needs of our daily
life, His close fellowship with sin w^as so publicly
manifested, that to the Pharisees it appeared an un-
answerable condemnation of His claims, and became
their fatal stumblingblock. " Why eateth your Mas-
ter with pubhcans and sinners?^ The act of such
near intimacy with the unclean, such fellowship as the
sharing of a common meal betokened, and this as His
habitual practice, startled and perplexed the world.
How could the pure Deity be associated with a de-
filed humanity? How could One Who claimed no
lower place than co-equality with the Everlasting
Father, # choose as His companions the very outcasts
of the fallen?
On the other hand this same truth is manifested,
though with very opposite consequences, in the effects
produced upon the children of affliction, who were
1 Heb. iv. 15. ^ s. Matt. ix. 11.
6
drawn to seek Him. When the excommunicated
leper — the special type of spiritual uncleanness — in
his solitary wanderings along the byways of Galilee,
felt the spring of hope, watching for the Deliverer to
cross even his path of sorrow, and pity him, how
notorious must have been the sympathy existing be-
tween Him and the lost sinner ! With what power
must the thrilling tidings have spread, when even
" the sinner from the city " could dare to creep out of
her dark haunts into the very chamber where He sat
at meat, and kiss His feet !
It is in wonderful accordance with all these circum-
stances, that S. Paul uses the words of the text, and
they combine to prove, what has been observed, that
these words imply, not merely that He came to atone
by suffering, but that by an intimate Presence He
entered into the very depths of the evil which He
came to destroy ; incapable of the least shadow of
impurity derived from it, but not incapable of the
closest association with it.
An irreversible law rules our race, that of ourselves
we cannot revive, when fallen. Once corrupted,
our nature has no power of self-restoration. Even
Almighty Power can lay hold of nothing within itself
to rescue it. The Creator can find in it no element of
regeneration. Its Source of Life is from without, and
the renewal of that life can only be from without also.
He Who first gave, can alone restore the lost gift.
Further, there is this difference between the original
and the restored gift ; that whereas God gave, as a
gift out of Himself, breathing it into our nostrils, the
breath of life, in the restoration of what was lost, it
is not any gift from Himself that sufficeth for our
need ; but Himself is the gift ; Himself becomes the
new Life. " The Second Man is the Lord from
Heaven.'" It is not a new creation taking the place
of the old ; but the Creator Himself is the New
Creation. "In Him was Life, and the Life was
the Light of men ; and the Light shineth in darkness."
His own undying Life prevails over the death of ours.
The righteousness of our nature once lost is for ever
lost. It is not the old righteousness requickened ; but
" the Righteousness of God in Him " which takes its
place. Our corruption can pass away only before
His Presence, " Who knew no sin ;" and our restor-
ation can be accomplished only as that Presence re-
forms the corruptible into His own incorruption. The
fact of sin once entering into the nature, renders it
for ever incapable of again reviving and returning unto
God. He only Who could ''see no corruption," can
restore it by combining it with Himself. He only
Who " knew no sin," can quicken it afresh from the
dead, by the Divine Nature entering in and uniting
Itself in some deep mystery with the fallen nature.
Even as God entered into death, and ' was prostrate
under His enemy the hour He overwhelmed him,
the Conqueror chained and bleeding beneath the foe
He destroyed ;' so He entered into sin, complying with
all its penalties, clothing Himself with its garments,
enduring all its misery, and thus, even as He yielded
Himself, annihilated the power in whose grasp He
was bound, transforming into His own Image, as He
touched it at every point, the corruption which was
causing Him all His agony. It is no more, therefore,
" I that hve ; but " — Another had passed within him
and possessed him, and became his truer self, — " Christ
LiVETH IN ME : and the life which I now live in the
^ 1 Cor. XV. 47.
8
flesh, 1 live by the faith of the Son of God, Who
loved me, and gave Himself for me.'"
It was the consciousness of this, however dimly
perceived ; the consciousness that, with the myste-
rious Stranger Who had appeared in the Flesh, there
was sympathy with the inward groanings of every
sinner's lot, and power by an intimate communion to
heal the fountain-head of sin within, that drew around
Him the first company of penitents, which was to
increase as His Presence spread among all nations,
gathering to Himself everywhere all those whose
troubled hearts, " groaning and travailing with pain
together" under the "bondage of corruption," waited
"for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the
body."
In contemplating the change which passed over
human nature, as God entered within it, imparting to
it His own righteousness in Himself in the place of
its own sinfulness, the differences between one sin and
another fade away. In contrast with the outgoings
of His transcendent love they are inappreciable. As
we rise to contemplate the Son of God crossing the
gulph which separates the all-holy Godhead from sin-
ful humanity, degrees of sin in the creature so infi-
nitely blessed, are lost to the sight. Certainly the
hard distinctions which the conventionalities of society
have drawn, can have no place here. As there can
be no limit to the sympathy with which His sacred
Heart yearned towards the fallen, or to His power in
restoring them, there can be no ground for exclud-
ing from the range of our compassion, or the possi-
bilities of complete renovation, any even of the dead-
liest sins.
1 Gal. ii. 20.
Yet such exclusion has been made in the case which
we are now specially considering ; for though fallen
woman has not sinned alone, how entirely in the
world's eye has the undivided burden of guilt fallen
upon her ! While the partners of her sin pass in and
out among ns, unnoticed, save by the sleepless Eye of
God ; on her has lain the blight of a hopeless excom-
munication. Even the Church has failed in its love
towards her. The ministerings of the Son of Man
have through us been straitened in her case. This is
said deliberately ; for though some Penitentiaries have
long since been established amongst us, it has not
been by the direct action of the Church, nor has the
love and self-devoted ness of the Gospel in their highest
forms animated the work. It is not meant to dis-
parage what has been done, whether within the
Church, though in a different spirit and on a diffe-
rent plan from what we should have desired, or even
without the Church, to stem the tide of impurity, yet
considering the general tone of feeling, the want of
sympathy and earnestness, and the inertness and bar-
renness of the Church itself, we must acknowledge
that a debt, as yet unredeemed, is owed towards the
many thousands, who, as beings already enveloped in
the darkness of a lower world, people your midnight
streets.*
And what renders this neglect the more inexcusable,
is that whilst our Lord's love in seeking to save the
lost, knew no respect of persons, in no instance has
His dealing with penitents been recorded with such
minuteness and fulness of detail, as in the case of
fallen woman. Whatever be the cause, — whether it
^ The substance of this Sermon was preached in London, at
Christ Church, S. Pancras.
A 3
10
were because fallen woman was doomed to bear the un-
mitigated scorn of the world, — or that her sin, involv-
ing the ruin both of body and soul, is most completely
at variance with the righteousness of the Spirit which
He came to infuse into our nature, — or that the viola-
tion of the sanctity of marriage — the " great mys-
tery,"^ given in the days of man's innocence, symbol-
izing the Incarnation, and the mystical union which is
betwixt Christ and His Church, — is so fatal a sacri-
lege, and spreads the widest misery throughout the
human family, destroying its holiest natural ties, — •
and therefore that this sin, because of its exceeding
deadliness, needed a special assurance of pardon, and
became the fittest instance of the inexhaustible powers
of the Atonement, — whatever the cause be, we have
certainly no such records of His healing and consoling
love, as He manifested towards these lost ones of His
Fold.
For, let us trace briefly the wonderful details we
possess of His personal intercourse with such mem-
bers of this lost class as were, through His grace,
drawn to Him. First, He shields the penitent from
the scorn which has ever dogged her path, rebuking
the world around that would have heaped upon her
head the extreme malediction of the Law : " He that
is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone
at her."^ Then He breathes into her soul the peace of
His heahng absolution. " Neither do I condemn thee."
And then He acknowledges in her the reality of a will
and a power (His own merciful gifts,) to overcome all
remaining passions, — " Go, and sin no more."
Again, dealing with another, one of a darker con-
1 Eph. V. 32. See the First Exhortation in the Marriage Service.
^ S. John viii. 7.
11
science, He first seeks to stir her soul to confession and
a sense of guilt, awakening her to the comprehension of
the extent of her sin. " Jesus saith to her. Go, call thy
husband and come hither. The woman answered and
said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou
hast well said, I have no husband. For thou hast had
five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy
husband ; in that sayest thou truly.'" Then varying
His appeal, as His words were lost upon her, and
still long-suffering towards one as yet incapable, as it
seemed, of being aroused to a sense of sin. He seeks
another entrance into her soul, opening before her,
in allusion to a question she herself had raised, the
view of a pure, deep bliss, in communion with the
Eternal Father through the Spirit, now within reach
of her, and of all the children of her people. "Jesus
saith unto her. Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh
when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem, worship the Father the true wor-
shippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in
truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him."
Again, in a third and yet different case, one whose
soul had been deeply stirred, and whose sore anguish
had issued in an entire devotion, how touchingly
tender and encouraging are His words as He disclosed
to the world the great gift of love which He had shed
upon her. " And He turned unto the woman and
said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman ? I entered
into thine house, thou gavest Me no water for My feet,
but she hath washed My feet with tears, and wiped
them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest Me no
kiss, but this woman, since the time I came in, hath
not ceased to kiss My feet. My head with oil thou
1 S. John iv. 18.
12
didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed My
feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her
sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much,
hut to whom httle is forgiven^ the same loveth Httle.'"
It is in the convictions which such passages of the
Word of God inspire, that the House of Mercy has been
formed. And this work has grown far beyond our own
borders ; for within this vast city it has been taken up
by many kindred hearts. And where more fitly should
such help be given than here ? For who can think
without shuddering of the revelations of wickedness
which are here spread out beneath the eye of Heaven,
side by side with all that art, or wealth, or power of
intellect can produce ; horrible profligacies separated
by but a thin partition from all that is most beautiful
and illustrious in the world ! No sooner does evening
close upon her streets, than one can scarcely venture
forth without meeting almost at every turn what
must sadden his inmost heart : no watchful parent but
must feel anxiety for his child whom necessity may
call forth from home amidst such danger.
Is there not here a call for very earnest efforts ? For
of these many thousands of lost ones wandering in the
midst of us, none can be saved without some means,
such as we seek to offer. Between them and hope,
whether for this world or the next, there is a gi'eat
gulf fixed, across which no eff'ort of their own can ever
enable them to pass. They can find " no place for re-
pentance," though they seek it " carefully, with tears,"
except through the mercy of others. They are the
very children of despair.
And yet the cause of their fall may have been a train
of circumstances in which their blame was less than
1 S. Luke vii, 44 — 47.
13
that of others. They may have been the innocent
victims before they became the tempters. Not one of
them, perhaps, but would have shrunk back from what
they now are, could they have seen the end of their
early faults ; many, perhaps, would have never fallen,
had the voice of warning come in time, — had the care
of a true home, or of the Church, been around them
in timely season. And that there are many who,
whatever be the entanglements around them now,
would arise and bless us for such mercy, as in the
days when the first graces of the Gospel opened on the
world, is evident by the many applications made,
which by no existing means can be met.
When the Son of God, " Who knew no sin," to
Whose pure Humanity its presence must have been
a perpetual agony, passed through the cities and
highways of Judsea and Galilee, and His eyes rested
on the forms of sin that moved around Him, how did
His sacred Heart yearn, and how great was the self-
sacrifice through which He sought to overcome the
malignity of the evil, and to draw its victims " out of
darkness into His marvellous light, and from the
power of Satan unto God !" He has now passed
within the veil, and is hidden ; but His Presence is
among us, and His Image lives in our hearts and we
are His ; and we are to be, as He was, in this world.
He still speaks through us, and His Hand is stretched
out through our ministerings to save and to heal.
The travail of His soul is to be satisfied in the toil and
love of His Church, which must still ever bear " the
marks of the Lord Jesus." Should we not then look
around us with His Eyes of pure compassion, and fol-
lowing Him at however great a distance, still in His
Spirit of self-devotedness, seek to deliver, and if need
14
be, " compel to come in," those whom His voice is
calling, even now, " in the streets and lanes of the
city," and in the " highways and hedges" of om' land ?
Let it then be our earnest prayer that our hearts
may be enlarged, and the gift of the love of Christ
be stirred within us, that in the spirit and power of
His love we may accomplish what He hath given us
to do, and seek by His grace to gather in these lost
ones, whose misery, degradation, and shame perpetually
cry out to us for mercy, that we may work together
with Him, their Redeemer, for their deliverance, that
so with Him we may rejoice in the final gathering of
all whom He will save in His day; to Whom with the
Father and the Holy Ghost, &c.
SERMON II.
S. John xix. 25.
"Now THERE STOOD BY THE CROSS OF JeSUS HiS MOTHER,
AND His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas,
AND Mary Magdalene."
The text mentions three persons who, at the latter
period of the Crucifixion, stood near the Cross. The
following verse speaks of a fourth, — " When Jesus
therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing
by, whom He loved." Four there were in all, who
saw His last pang, and watched His dying look ; the
blessed Virgin Mother, Mary her sister, Mary Magda-
lene, and S. John the beloved Apostle. Though
brought thus closely together, they were persons very
different one from another, in character, in prepara-
tions of heart, and in manner of Hfe.
In the Mother of our Lord we see the image of
Virgin purity. She was one who from infancy had
grown in a retired home, in a sweet humility, in gen-
tleness, in submission, in innocence, so far as was ever
given to a child of Eve, (One only excepted) blessed
among women, honoured of Angels, and highly
favoured of God. She was the pattern of all those
who, in their several degrees, nurtured in Christian
homes, and shielded from the impurities of the world,
16
have never fallen away from their first grace, ever
drawing nearer to the perfect vision of God.
S. John is the image of faithful love. He was one
who had grown up in the world, in common labour,
amidst the ordinary trials of life, in a fisher's calling,
and from that world, and all its gains, and all its
pleasures, had turned at the first call to follow the
Lord, and in following Him, had learnt to rule his
life and quiet his too passionate soul, as he gazed with
a still, deep love on the Countenance of his Master,
and from His bosom whereon he lay, drank in the
streams of light and love, through which he became
ever purer, more gentle, more divine. He is the fore-
runner of all those who in the midst of the world are
yet weaned from it more and more, as the call of God
comes upon them, and follow His will, as their eyes
are opened to see, and by degrees are absorbed in the
pervading consciousness of His most blissful love.
We pass over the third, Mary, the Virgin Mother's
sister, scarcely known to us except by name. There
is yet a fourth, standing by the Cross, near as the
others, Mary Magdalene. She had been known in
early life by a far different course from that of her com-
panions, by a notoriety which has clung to her name
through all ages. She is known as " the sinner from
the city ;" so unclean that seven devils had entered
into her. But she had learnt to loathe her sin, and
had knelt at the feet of Jesus, washing them with her
tears, and wiping them w'ith the hairs of her head,
once the snares of accursed love, but now offered to
Him Who in mercy had drawn her to Himself, to
love Him only. She had heard Him pronounce her
forgiveness, and from that hour had cleaved to Him
as the life and joy of her soul, and followed, minister-
17
ing to Him of her substance. She is the pattern of
all those who, having fallen and become dead in tres-
passes and sins, have heard in the depth of their souls
the voice of God calling them, and have torn them-
selves from all the entanglements in which they were
bound, and sought a perfect cleansing through His re-
deeming love in following His holy ways, giving them-
selves, and all they have, to Him.
These three stood near the Cross, types of that in-
numerable company to be gathered in from all corners
of the earth to meet before the Throne. One all
purity, who had borne Him in her womb. One all
love, who had lain on His breast at supper. One all
sorrow, who had pierced Him with her sins. And all
together now in Him gathered into one fellowship.
The Cross has alike drawn hearts so different, and
alike cleansed all. Even the sins which had been as
scarlet have been made white as snow. The sinner
in her penitence is cleansed, and in her cleansing stands
beside the purest of her sisters. " The pure in heart
shall see God," as is given to none other; but none
of the virtues of the Cross and Passion of the Son of
God are withheld from the penitent.
Often indeed there is given to these last an earnest-
ness of grace which seems beyond that of all others. All
the three Marys carried the sacred Body to the tomb,
but when the Virgin returned to the city, and all was
silent, and hope was gone, the Penitent remained
watching. " There was Mary Magdalene and the
other Mary sitting over against the sepulchre."* All
the three again went to the tomb early in the morning
when the Sabbath was past, carrying sweet spices to
anoint Him ; but when the others had retired in de-
1 S. Matt, xxvii. 61.
18
spair of finding Him, the Magdalene alone remained,
in tears, still seeking Him.
And as there are depths of earnestness and love de-
veloped in the souls of those who in the bitterness of
their remorse have known the mercies of Christ, so
are there gifts of consolation, unrevealed to others,
reserved for them alone. Our Lord showed Himself
alive first to the Magdalene, next to S. Peter, both
fallen, both penitents. The first entrance into Para-
dise, the passage thither even by His side, was the
blessing of a Penitent. The first sound of His voice,
when He had risen from the dead, and the promise
that, when He had ascended. He should be touched
with a closer touch than was ever known before, was
the unspeakable joy of the Magdalene.
And if to all who have fallen, and after their long
wanderings would return, there is mercy, and through
that mercy a perfect cleansing, and the vision of God,
can we suppose that the one class of penitents who
are more especially represented by the Magdalene,
shall fail to find their place beneath the Cross. If
the Eternal did not scorn, though the leper scorned,
the sinner from the city, but gave His feet to be
kissed, and blessed her love, for " she loved much,"
can we think that now in the fulness of His perfected
atonement, He will reject any one who comes forth
from her hiding place of shame in the city or the vil-
lage, to find rest in Him ? If when many, even
leaders and teachers of the people, had condemned
the sinner taken in the very act, He nevertheless
shielded her from scorn and death, and would give her
her season of grace in peace, can we doubt that His
will now must be, that every one, however defiled,
should have a refuge and a home, and hope of restora-
19
tion to the favour of God and man ? We believe
then that the will of God is clear, that such penitents
should not be driven back into the depths of the dark
waters, but rather should be sought out, if haply the
strivings of the Spirit may draw one or another unto
Him Who still waiteth to be gracious.
There are moreover special reasons why such sinners
have a very touching claim on our pity and our aid.
Does it not move you to think that the sinful woman
has to bear a burden from which man the partner of
, her guilt is free ? He returns from his sin and no
outward change has passed over him. In the eye of
the world he is as though he had sinned not. How
different are the consequences to her. She must for-
feit home and becomes the outcast. She loses the
hope of ever again eating the bread of honesty. A
gulph opens before her, which no remorse, no toil, no
restitution can ever enable her to cross. From very
necessity she sins on ; from the very cravings of
hunger, though she loathe it, must still return to it,
must die in it, if death overtake her. No door opens
to receive her as a servant ; no trade admits her as a
sharer of its toil. There is no despair on earth like
that which comes over the soul of the fallen woman,
when sin has become an abomination to her, and yet
her perpetual uncleanness is the only source of her
daily bread. Her hell is begun ; within her shame,
tribulation, and terror ; without her scorn, and dark-
ness and a laughter in which devils may well be
thought to join.
Or if the darkness be unfelt, and the inward horror
be as yet unrevealed to the soul, yet even still more is
to be mourned that spiritual death which tends ever
onward, though unconsciously, yet rapidly and surely,
to its own place and final doom.
20
It should moreover move us to think, that all this
misery may have arisen from causes to which the poor
alone are subject. For their children suffer, in a
manner unknown to others, from exposure, from too
close contact in cottages with insufficient space to
separate the sexes, and preserve the veil even of com-
mon decency ; from too great familiarity in the times
of labour, in the field where all ages and both sexes
mingle without restraint, or the workroom with its
close and long continued evil communications, during
the many hours when no mother's eye is near to check
the first breach of female honour, or mark the first
unholy look; or in the walk homewards, unguarded,
amidst the contaminations of the idlers of the hamlet,
or along the crowded street.
Or it may be from unkindness at home, wdiere pas-
sions are so uncontrolled, or from want of discipline
and restraint, so difficult to preserve among the poor
in their unceasing round of daily toil, or from a fond
parent's weakness, or a sinful parent's neglect, or mere
blameless lack of prudence, the consequences of all
which tell with such intensely aggravated force in the
unguarded state of a labourer's home.
Or again from destitution, the burden of distress
depressing all the moral energies of the soul, and
breaking down the barriers of the grace of chastity,
or the helplessness of the orphan and motherless,
in the special difficulties which poverty must bring.
How quickly in such scenes, and amid such snares
as these, will the early faults of wilfulness, or vanity, or
secret passion hurry the young beyond the line of
female safety, and then in an unwary hour, the weak
compliance with some dazzling promise or heartless
lie, in ignorance or heedlessness of what must follow,
seals her destiny, and suddenly she awakes to feel that
21
she is the scorn of all, and must shun the light of day,
and go and dwell where the darkest horrors ply their
trade. All unconsciously perhaps there begins a course
in which are gradually revealed the realities of a lot as
horribleas imagination could picture among the damned.
It has been the continual sight of such misery close by
our own homes, and in the sphere of my pastoral care,
that has led us to form a retreat where penitents com-
ing forth fi'om those depths of debasement may share,
if it be possible, the merits and virtues of the all-suffi-
cient Sacrifice of the Cross, which is our only hope,
and is surely their' s also. There is a haunt within my
parish, such as alas ! is not uncommonly found in the
suburbs of our towns, whither, as to a sink of shame
flow in from all the villages around, and from the
great city, the outcasts of many a saddened home.
They stray away from the scenes of their childhood,
and are lost amidst the crowd w^hich wanders through
our lanes and courts. My frequent walk is among
sights of degraded womanhood, which, God grant, may
never darken the hearth of any one of you. A few
years ago God stirred in the hearts of some who dwelt
in the spot referred to, a desire to flee from their sins,
and at the same time He awakened in one of His ser-
vants who lived hard by a longing to save the sinner.
There was a lady who received into her own home
those penitents ; within three days, six ; within a month
fifteen. Thus arose the House of Mercy, within
sight of the abode of vice ; that " where sin abounded,
there grace should much more abound." From that
hour to this present, it has grown upon this founda-
tion. There was no design, no theory, nothing of our
own mind. Enlarging, the work has taken a settled
form in the same spirit.
22
It has been unbought love winning to Him Who is
Love, the fruits of His redemption, disentangUng the
thorns which had fastened around and torn the lost
sheep, smoothing the roughness of the way of the
cross, and rejoicing in their return w'ithin the fold.
In the recovery of the lost it has been marvellous to see
what affections have been drawn forth, what efforts after
self-control have been made, what restraints patiently
borne, what a change has come over the countenance,
stamping on the outward features the influences which
had been breathed over the inward life. A marvel
and a blessing it has been to watch how hearts so
withered, which had never believed that pure, disin-
terested love could exist in human breasts, have
melted at the touch of those who sought them in
Christ's compassion.
For as we have learnt from Christ the hope that
such sinners may be saved, so have we learnt the true
means by which the work is to be done. He taught
us by His own example the effectual way to reach such
sinners' hearts : it was by His self-sacrifice and love.
He stooped from heaven to reach them. He sat down
with them to share the sinners' meal. " As Jesus sat
at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sin-
ners came, and sat down with Him and His disciples."^
He stooped down to still lower depths of shame and
suffering. He " being in the form of God, thought it
not robbery to be equal with God : but made Himself
of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a
servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being
found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself, and
became obedient to death, even the death of the
cross. "^ He gave up all for love of those whom He
1 S. Matt. ii. 10. ■ ~ Philip, ii. G— 8.
23
sought to save, and mingled amongst them, and be-
came as one of them, and thus constrained them to
love Him. He the All-pure, yielded Himself to min-
gle with the impure ; He Whose Name is Love, gave
Himself for those whose hearts had become most basely
selfish, and thus both won them to Himself, and raised
them to the consciousness of a higher and purer life.
And this manifestly is an eternal law affecting the
salvation of souls. It is undeniably an example which
must reverently be borne in mind by all who would
win souls, and according to our measure, at however
vast a distance, be copied. And herein a great defect
in our old Penitentiaries is made evident ; for there
has been in them a lack of this self-sacrifice and per-
sonal love. The work has been too often done merely as
a hired service. They who serve in them are scarcely
in a position to represent to the penitent Christ's
love, nor to say, without risk of being gainsaid, " We
come to you in the love of God, and for your soul's
sake only." The penitent cannot so surely feel " for
love of me and for Christ, not for themselves, they
labour." There is not the direct appeal of love to
love. There is danger lest the great principle of the
first drawing of the soul be not put forth, and lest
the sinner rise not to the contemplation of the love of
Christ in Christ Himself: for they whom she sees,
as between God and her, bear in their ofiice and minis-
tering but a dimmed reflection of His Image in this
which is His special mode of winning hearts.
It is this w^hich distinguishes the House of Mercy
from our older Penitentiaries. If to live amongst such
fallen ones, labouring for them day and night, with
unbought love to save them from their sins, and from
themselves, in order to present them before the Throne
in the presence of all the holy angels, rejoicing over
24
each one that repenteth, constitutes a claim on your
sympathy and aid ; such a ground of appeal may be
urged most undoubtedly in this case.
And must not such an appeal come with a very per-
sonal feeling to every one of us on one ground or
another. Such as have been brought up in pure and
joyous homes, where a holy modesty has ever found
the seclusion which it loved, where the young heart
has known no blighting, and its first fond affections
have been sanctified and sealed by a blessing from
above, and who owe they know not how much, to
safeguards cast around them, not of their own choosing,
but of His love Who orders all our lots in life, — such
may feel a pity for those who perhaps have fallen, be-
cause, as they grew up, they had no such watchful
shelter.
So likewise the parent who by God's infinite mercy
has been spared the bitterness of a daughter's fall, on
whose lineage no spot of infamy has ever come, may
compassionate those whose trials and difficulties they
never experienced, and who, had their lot been cast
in a more favoured sphere, would perhaps equally have
been spared such misery.
And again, some there may be whose consciences
are stirred with the remembrance of the sins of their
youth, who have upon their souls the same guilt as
those for whom I plead, but have escaped their utter
degradation; some one perhaps there may be, who even
has lured into the fatal snare one who but for him had
never known such infamy : — of such, surely we may
ask an act of restitution, for without restitution, where
it may be had, repentance is vain, and such an offering
may return in blessing, if not on the very partners of
their crime, yet on other members of that doomed
25
class, for whom, so often much more simied against
than sinning, this one, and only means of restoration
now remains.
For surely '* God is righteous in all His ways," and
" the judgments of the Lord are true." There can be
no inequalities in His dispensations, Who " is no re-
specter of persons." And though, for the most part,
on woman only fall with such instant speed the terrible
consequences of her guilt, there must be judgments in
store for those also who have shared the same guilt, —
a fellowship of retribution, as there has been a fellow-
ship of impurity, — judgments suspended awhile, that
other laws of His Providence may have their course,
but to be manifested in that day when God will " bring
to light the hidden things of darkness," and every
unrepented sin shall have its full recompense. " Some
men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judg-
ment, and some men they follow after. ''^ The sins of
youth may seem to have passed away — no trace left, save
upon the memory, — and since their days of evil, the
guilty may have drawn around them the circle of a happy
home, and in its happiness forget the misery which
has fallen upon those no more guilty than themselves.
But the impunities of social life can give no secu-
rity against Heaven's unerring retributions. Subse-
quent abstinence from evil is no atonement for former
guilt. The flight of years cannot put away sins ; if
unabsolved, uncleansed in the virtues of the atoning
Blood of the Lamb, they live on where sleep in awful
silence the final judgments of an offended God. Bles-
sed be His Name, those final judgments may be averted ;
but infinite mercy cannot lessen the demands of perfect
justice. God surely looks for restitution. Sins against
1 1 Tim. V. 2-1.
26
Himself He freely remits, and herein we can offer
no amends to satisfy His justice. Sins towards our
fellow-creatures, He remits as freely ; but herein we
may often give, and where we can. He requires us to
give "restitution and satisfaction to the uttermost of
our power;" and to check the vice, and heal the
misery in which oneself may have borne a part, is
a meet offering, which will be accepted of God, not
as though it could win pardon, but as the late amends
of penitence, from one who did what he could.
Oh ! that we may all feel more deeply the dreadful-
ness of sin, and the nearness of our danger, and the
mercy of our escape, and the blessing of rekindled
hope, and the value of souls in His eye. Who will
have the house swept even for the one piece of silver,
from which the Image of its Lord is not yet wholly
erased, and Who even where it is altogether obliterated,
yearns to recreate afresh " after the same Image in
righteousness and true holiness ;" that Image in which
it is our hope to stand before Him at the Last Day ;
and that, in the grateful consciousness of His forgive-
ness and renewed love, we may run the way of His
commandments, and accomplish the good works which
He hath prepared for us to walk in, in love to others,
as we have been freely loved of Him ; that so, in that
day when He maketh up His jewels, He may own us
as among those in whom the purposes of His love have
been fulfilled, and the travails of His own Soul satis-
fied ; to Whom, with the Father and the Holy
Ghost, be now and ever all glory and thanksgiving,
&c., &c.
AN APPEAL
HOUSE OF MERCY, CLEWER.
Lent, 185G.
To those who are interested in Church Penitentiaries and Sister-
hoods, this appeal is addressed. The House of Mercy for the re-
covery of fallen women has been established amidst many difficul-
ties, although largely prospered, and the greater portion of the
intended designs is finished ; but we urgently require help at this
present time, for we are pressed by the liabilities still remaining on
the new buildings, and by the need of completing what we have
begun. "VVe ask of those who are enabled and kindly disposed
to aid us, that they would aid us now by giving, or collecting
each the sum of ^10. If three hundred and fifty persons under-
take to give this aid, our work may before long be completed.
"We are encouraged to make this appeal from the blessing which
has hitherto rested on the House of Mercy, and which is marked
by the following facts in our past progress.
First, as to our financial state. We commenced this work
suddenly, without any preparation, in a house lent only for six
months, trusting to aid, from day to day. In laying the foun-
dations of every work of any magnitude, there is much of the
outlay which never appears above ground ; but the main of tlie
expenditure has been as follows : — Two houses were successively
occupied, after the first which was lent, and both these had to be
fitted for the purpose, at a considerable cost. A permanent site
was then purchased, being a freehold estate of fifteen acres,
at a cost of £2300. The grounds around the house have been
fenced, drained, and laid out for recreation ; dairy-farm stocked, &c.
Lastly, the New Buildings just completed have been raised at a
28
cost of about £6500. This may seem a large outlay for the pur-
pose, but those who have examined the buildings and know our
requirements, have not thought that there has been any unneces-
sary expenditure. There has been running on, at the same time,
a current expenditure of maintaining a household of about thirty
persons, year after year, for upwards of six years.
Secondly, as to the vital point of the living agency for carry-
ing on the work. It was commenced by a single individual,
who, for six months and upwards, had no fellow-workers. For
the next year and a half, there was only the precarious help of
occasional visitors. Gradually a settled community has been
formed, which now consists of nine Sisters. They are constituted,
according to legally constructed statutes, and by Episcopal
sanction, into a corporate body, as a recognised instrument of
the work of the Church of God. They support themselves on
their own independent means, and carry on the entire manage-
ment and care of the House with only a few subordinate helpers
serving without wages.
Thirdly, as to the truth and permanence of the principles on
which the House has been founded. Its principles were, at the
commencement, known only in the appeals of the chief leader
of the movement. They have since made such way, that they
are now recognised and upheld by a Society which numbered,
in the spring of 1854, 400 members, including fifteen Bishops,
and whicli extends its operations throughout the entire sphere of
the Church of England. Five other Houses have since been
formed on the same principles, and are now cherished by this
Society.
Lastly, as to the great and momentous object for which these
efforts have been made — the success of our endeavours to recover
the lost sheep of Cheist's fold. The Clergymen and Sisters
alike who here entered upon this work were obliged to do so
without any previous experience whatever. The old precedents
scarcely applied to what was intended to be carried out in dutiful
observance of the Church's system and by a higher kind of service.
We have had to form our own views, learn minute details, and
test every rule by our own actual experience. The work has also
suffered greatly, up to this time, from the very inconvenient internal
arrangement of houses, which ordy with difiBculty were at all made
available for the purpose, and where there could be no classifica-
tion, or even temporary separation for testing the cases admitted.
We calculate, however, that out of eighty cases who have left after
29
being for a longer or shorter period under our care, there are fifty-
doing well in the world, with a large proportion of whom inter-
course from time to time is kept up. We look on these as the
first-fruits of a large harvest of souls, over even one of whom
repenting there is joy among the angels of God.
"When it is considered that this progress has been made in the
course of six years and a half, we may well thank God and take
courage. We cannot but recognise His hand blessing the work ;
may we not venture, therefore, to ask for aid, to finish it.
Our immediate need is to clear ofi" the liabilities upon the
Buildings already completed and occupied ; and then to build the
remaining wing, which contains the Sisters' chief rooms, the de-
partment for Penitents of a higher grade, additional Probationaiy
rooms, the Chapel, and the Infirmary. £3500 will enable us, we
trust, to complete the work.
We are earnestly desirous to complete it without delay for
many reasons. The pressure for the admission of Penitents is so
great that we have constantly the pain of rejecting urgent cases.
One crying want especially, which has never anywhere as yet been
supplied, — a separate department for Penitents of a higher grade,
cannot be met till the remaining wing is built. The completion
of the Sisters' rooms is also very urgent, for at present they are
occupying rooms intended for the Penitents, and both their effi-
ciency is marred, and the privacy which they need, when not
actually employed, is unattainable for want of the rooms intended
for them.
We trust, then, for the love of souls, that this our appeal will
not be rejected ; and that in the same spirit in which the work is
being carried on, those who can help us will join with us in an
association of prayer and alms for a time, till the work be accom-
plished.
If the question should ever cross the mind, — is so large an
outlay, and so elaborately constructed a system, necessary for such
an object? — an answer is suggested in the words used by the
Lord Bishop of Oxford at the last meeting of the Church Peni-
tentiary Association in London : —
" It has been objected that more has been done for reclaiming a
few of the lost ones of Cheist than has been done for a great
number of the unfallen. This is the one recurring thought which
tends to weaken our efforts. It is, in one shape or another, the
taunt which has been thrown out against the Penitentiary move-
30
meut, and it takes the form of an accusation that the promoters
of it are influenced by a spurious, sickly, and morbid benevolence.
No one who is engaged in this work has failed to suffer from the
paralysing influence of this suspicion ; and, therefore, it is well
that there should be settled in the minds of all what is the true
and thoroughly sufficient answer to the question. The simple
answer is that it is the will of God, marked upon the entire dis-
pensation, of which we are parts, that there should be the ne-
cessity of greater labour to bring back to the fold those who could
be saved, rather than to preserve those who, through the grace of
God, had not fallen. It is that which stands written, as with the
finger of God, in the history of man's redemption. Let those
who misgive their motives reflect upon what God, in His marvel-
lous tenderness, has done for man ; because what limit was there
to the power of God when man fell into sin ? and why might He
not then have called into existence countless worlds peopled with
unfallen creatures ? But, instead of this, the Eternal Son died
for us upon a cross, and went through the whole of that costly
apparatus by which man became rescued from his fall. Therefore,
those who hope to share hereafter in the beatitude of Christ
should not suffer such a thought to subdue them ; because,
stamped upon every thought of our own is the thought that to
raise the fallen and to save the sinner was sufficient to bring down
from heaven the co-eternal Son of God to hang upon the cross at
Calvary. Nothing so much tends to put matters in their true
light as to go straight to the great truth, that when they labour
to restore a few unfortunate beings from the unspeakable misery
in which sin has reduced them, they are but following the distinct
type of God's love for mankind in the redemption of man through
our Loud Jesus Christ."
N.B. Any who are kindly drawn to unite in making the effort
here urged will be thankfully supplied with any number of papers
they may require, to assist in forwarding this object, by applying
to the undersigned.
THOMAS T. CARTER.
Clewer Rectory, Windsor.
By the same Author.
THE FIRST FIVE YEARS OF THE HOUSE OF MERCY.
Second Edition. Price Qd.
SISTERHOODS FOR THE CARE OF FEMALE
PENITENTS.
A Tract. Price M.
Also,
CHRIST THE HEALER.
S pennon
PREACHED BY THE
LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD,
At the opening of the New Buildings of the House of Mercy, Clevver,
Vigil of S. Andrew, Nov. 29, 1855.
Price \s.
'''%f.^if'};?rfr,
|PM|(HII'li|lll9;
w
^^M
