alifornia
jional
ility
Ex Libris
C. K. OGDEN
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
SERMONS
FOR CHILDREN
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
SERMONS FOR CHILDREN
INCLUDING
THE BEATITUDES AND THE FAITHFUL SERVANT
PREACirr.D t.\~ U'ESTMIXSTER ABBEY
BY ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D.
LATE DEAN OF WESTMINSTER
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLR STREET
1887
All rights reserved
PREFACE.
THKSK SERMONS, having been found to interest
many young persons into whose hands they came
when privately printed, are now published in the
hope that they may be of use to a wider circle of
readers.
They have been reproduced as correctly as the
rough state of the Author's Manuscript permitted ;
but it is obvious that, in some places, either the
manuscript has been inaccurately deciphered, or
the Preacher supplemented what he had written by-
additions at the moment.
The concluding Sermon, on 'The Faithful
Servant,' though not addressed specially to children,
and not preached in the Abbey, seemed from its
personal and familiar character to have a proper
place in this volume.
CONTENTS.
HKKMON
I. THE CHILD JESUS (1871) .
II. LITTLE CHILDREN, LOVE ONE ANOTHER
(i73) , . 10
III. THE USE OF CHILDREN (1874) . . 20
IV. THE ' GOLIATH' BOYS (1875) . . . 32
V. THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS (1876) . . 44
VI. SICK CHILDREN (1877) . . . . 54
VII. ST. CHRISTOPHER (1878) . . -67
VIII. THE CHILDREN'S CREED (1879) . . 76
IX. TALITHA CUMI (1880) . . -87
X. THE BEATITUDES (1881) . . -95
XI. THE BEATITUDES (1881) . . . 104
XII. THE BEATITUDES (1881) . . .113
XIII. THE BEATITUDES (1881) . . . 122
XIV. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT (1856) . .132
SERMONS FOR CHILDREN.
i.
THE CHILD JESUS.
(December 28, 1871.)
And the child grcu>, and waxed strong in spirit, filled ~uith
wisdom : and the grace of God was upon Him, LUKE ii. 40.
THIS day is called the day of the Holy Innocents,
because it calls upon us to remember the death of
those little children who were killed at Bethlehem
at the time of our Saviour's birth, when He also
was a little child like them. It is also a day
famous in this Abbey, because it was on this day,
more than eight hundred years ago, that this great
church was finished by its first founder, King
Edward the Confessor, who was himself an inno-
cent, guileless man, almost like a little child. We
have thought, therefore, that it might be good to
mark this day by gathering together here as many
THE CHILD JESUS. SERM. i.
children as could come, and putting before them
the example which our Saviour set to all children,
He having been Himself a little child and a little
boy, such as those who are here to-day. For this
purpose the different passages of Scripture have
been chosen that have been sung or read to-
day ; the eighth Psalm in order that you might
see how little children may find out the glory of
God in the great works of nature, the beautiful
sights and sounds that they see and hear around
them ; the fifteenth Psalm in order to show how,
from our earliest years down to our latest age,
that in which God finds most pleasure is the
humble, pure, truthful, honourable mind ; and the
one hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm in order
to impress upon parents what precious, inestim-
able gifts are given to them in their little children.
And the anthem has been chosen in order to
remind all who are young how precious to them
are the days of their youth, and how the one thing
which they must bear in mind from first to last
is to ' fear God and keep His commandments, for
this is the whole duty of man ; ' and the hymn in
order to show how all of us, even the youngest,
may come to our gracious Saviour to ask Him to
have pity upon us. And the lessons were chosen,
THE CHILD JESUS.
the first in order to remind you how little Samuel
knelt upon his knees at morning and evening,
waiting for the voice of God to tell him what he was
to do ; and the second lesson which is what I will
specially speak of now because in it we have the
example of our Saviour Himself as the little child.
Let me, then, draw from these words what may be
useful both for the parents and friends of those
children who are here, and also, I hope, for the
children themselves, if they will listen to what I say.
First of all it is said, ' The child ' that is,
the child Jesus 'grew.' He grew in stature, and
He grew in character and goodness. He did not
stand still. Although it was God Himself who
was revealed to us in the life of Jesus Christ, yet
this did not prevent Him from being made like
unto us in all things, sin only excepted. It has
been reverently and truly said,
Was not our Lord a little child,
Taught by degrees to pray ;
By father dear and mother mild
Instructed day by day? '
Yes, He was ; we need not fear to say so, and in
this lies the example for us. Each one of us,
whether old or young, must remember that pro-
1 Christian Year : The Catechism.
THE CHILD JESUS.
gress, improvement, going on, advance, change
into something better and better, wiser and wiser,
year by year that this is the only condition, the only
way of our becoming like Christ, and, therefore,
like God. Do not think that you will always be,
that you must always be, as you are now. No ;
you will grow up gradually to be something very
different ; you must increase and grow in mind as
well as in body, in wisdom as well as in stature.
The world moves, and you and all of us must move
with it. God calls us, one and all, ever to some-
thing higher and higher, and that higher stage you
and I and the whole world must reach by steadily
advancing towards it.
And then come three things especially which
the text puts before us as those in which our
Lord's earthly education, the advance and im-
provement of His earthly character, added to His
youthful and childlike powers. First, it speaks of
His strength of character. It says, He ' waxed
strong in spirit.' Strong ! What a word is that
for all of you, my dear children. You know
little boys especially know how you value and
honour those who are strong in body. The strong
limb, the fleet foot, the sturdy arm, the active
frame, you do well to value these things ; they
SERM. i. THE CHILD JESUS. 5
are God's gifts. The hardihood which can endure
blows without flinching, and toil without fatigue,
which can win the race, conquer in the game,
or vanquish in the struggle of life these are ex-
cellent gifts ; and it is one of the worst evils of
intemperance or dissipation that they spoil and
destroy this glory of natural health and vigour
which God gives to you. But it is not of this
strength that the text speaks, or that I would now
speak to you. What natural vigour is to the body,
strength of character is to the mind. A stout
heart, that is what you want a stout heart which
will be able to resist all the temptations to do
evil, which scorns to tell a lie, which will never
consent to be betrayed into doing what is wrong ;
a strong, hardy conscience, which fixes itself on
matters of real importance, and will not trifle,
will not waste its powers on things of no concern.
Therefore, I say, be stronger and stronger every
year. I could not say to you, perhaps, be stronger
in body every year, for that is not within our own
power, if we have it not ; but I can say be stronger
in spirit, be strong in mind, be strong in character,
be stout in heart, for this does come by trying to
have it. It conies by being always reminded that
it will conic if you strive to get it. It conies to
THE CHILD JESUS.
those who are determined to seek it. Be strong,
therefore, and very courageous.
And the next thing which the text speaks of
is wisdom. It says the child was ' filled with
wisdom.' Wisdom, as it were, was poured into
Him, and His mind opened wider and wider to
take it in. He drank in whatever wisdom there
was in the knowledge of those about Him ; He
drank in the heavenly wisdom also which comes
down from the fountain of all wisdom. You, too,
have this to gain day by day. Those of you especially
who are at school are sent to school for that very
purpose, to have your minds opened, to take in all
that your teachers can pour into them, to be ready
for this instruction whenever it comes to you from
books, from looking at what you see about you,
from conversation, from experience as you grow
older in life. You need not be old before your
time, but you must even now be making the best
use of your time. These are the golden days
which never come back to you, which if once lost
can never be entirely made up. Our great King
Alfred used to regret in after years nothing so
much as that, owing to his long wanderings and
troubles when he was young, he had not had the
opportunity of regular instruction at school. Seek,
THE CHILD JESUS.
therefore, for wisdom, pray for it, determine to
have it ; and God, who gives to those who ask, will
give it to you. Try to gain it as our Lord gained
it when He was a child, by hearing and by asking
(juestions. By hearing ; that is, by being teachable,
and humble, and modest, by fixing your attention
on what you have to learn. And also by asking
questions, as He did ; that is, by trying to know the
meaning of what you learn, by cross-questioning
yourselves, by inquiring right and left to fill up the
blanks in your minds. Nothing is more charming
than to see a little child listening, not interrupting,
but eager to hear what is taught. Nothing is more
charming than to hear a little child asking questions.
That is the only way in which we are able to know
whether you take in what has been taught you.
And the next thing is the grace or favour of
God, or, as it says at the end of the chapter, the
grace, or favour, of God and man ; the grace, the
goodness, the graciousness of God, which calls
forth grace, and goodness, and gratitude in man.
Our blessed Lord had this always ; but even in
Him it increased more and more. It increased as
He grew older, as He saw more and more of the
work which was given Him to do ; He felt more
and more that God was his Father, and that men
THE CHILD JESUS.
were His brothers, and that grace and loving-
kindness was the best and the dearest gift from
God to man, and from man to man, and from
man to God. He was subject to his parents ; He
did what they told Him ; and so He became dear
to them. He was kind, and gentle, and courteous
to those about Him, so that they always liked to
see Him when he came in and out amongst them.
So may it be with you. Look upon God as your
dear Father in heaven, who loves you, and who
wishes nothing but your happiness. Look upon
your schoolfellows and companions as brothers,
to whom you must show whatever kindness
and forbearance you can. Just as this beautiful
building in which we are assembled is made up of
a number of small stones beautifully carved, every
one of which helps to make up the grace and
beauty of the whole, so is all the state of the
world made up of the graces and goodnesses not
only of full-grown men and full-grown women,
but of little children who will be, at least if they
live, full-grown men and full-grown women. Re-
member, then, all you who are parents ; remember
still more especially, all you who are children,
remember this day ; and if ever you are tempted
to do wrong, or to be idle, or to be rude and
SF.RM. I. THE CHILD JESUS.
careless, or to leave off saying your prayers, then
think of your Saviour's good example which has
been put before you to-night in Westminster
Abbey.
II.
LITTLE CHILDREN, LOVE ONE
ANOTHER.
(December 27, 1873.)
/ write unto you, little children, because ye have known
the Father. I JOHN ii. 13. My little children, let us not
love in word, neither in tongue ; but in deed and in truth.
iii. 18. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. v. 21.
/ have no greater joy than to hear that tny children walk in
truth. 3 John 4.
THE day on which this service is usually held is
called Innocents' Day, from the little innocent
children that were killed at Bethlehem. But as
this year Innocents' Day falls on a Sunday, I have
invited you here on this the day before, which
is called St. John's Day, because it is the day on
which we are called to think of the good apostle
St. John. I shall say a few words to you about
him. His memory was very deeply cherished by
the good king who on Innocents' Day founded the
Abbey, and it has been very dear to Christians
SERM. ii. LITTLE CHILDREN. n
always, When he was first a disciple of our Lord
he was quite young, perhaps not much more than
a boy. But there was something so winning about
him that our Lord always kept him close to Him,
and he was called the disciple whom Jesus loved.
When our Lord was gone away into heaven, this
disciple St. John, after living some time at Jerusa-
lem with the other apostles, went to the great city
of Ephesus, and there he lived on after all the
other apostles were dead, and he was the only
one left. There is a beautiful picture which
some one has painted of the old man sitting on a
rock quite alone, and looking up into heaven, and
seeing there his former companions in that better
world still busying themselves with doing good and
holy things, as we hope that all those whom we
have loved and admired on earth are doing still.
It was whilst he was living there that various
stories are told of him that we do not find in the
Bible, and we cannot be sure that they are quite
certainly true. But they are what the early
Christians believed about him, and they agree so
well with the letters or epistles which he wrote at
that time, and from which I have taken the texts
of this sermon, that I will try to tell them to you,
and see what we can learn from them.
LITTLE CHILDREN^ SERM. n.
One is this. There came one day a huntsman
who had heard so much of this great, wise old man,
that he went out of his way to see him ; and to his
surprise he found St. John gently stroking a par-
tridge which he held in his hand, and he could not
help saying how surprised he was to see so great
a man employed on anything so small. Then St.
John said, 'What have you in your hand?' And he
said, 'A bo\v.' And St. John said, 'Why is it not
bent ? ' And the huntsman said, ' Because then it
would lose its strength.' ' That is just the reason,'
said St. John, 'why I play with the partridge. It is
that my mind may be kept strong by sometimes
being at play.' What do we learn from this story,
my dear children? We learn from it that St. John,
and great and good men like St. John, are glad
now and then to see you at play, and to play like
you. They are glad to see you happy ; and they
wish to be little children again like you, because
that helps them afterwards to work better. We learn
from it to be kind as he was to little birds and
beasts : never to torment them ; to remember that
kindness to dumb animals is a part of what God
requires of you. There was an aged lady, very
excellent, wise, and wonderfully learned, who lived
to be very nearly as old as St. John, and who died
LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 13
last year in her ninety-second year. She said, a
very short time before her death, ' I hope that the
time may come when children shall be taught that
mercy to birds and beasts is part of religion.' Yes,
it ought to be part of our religion. I trust that
we shall make it so. Play, too, with your com-
panions, like St. John ; remember always that all
play and all holidays are given by God, to be like
the unbending of a bow, to help you to work better
for the future. It is as when he said in his epistle,
' I write unto you, little children, because ye have
known the Father.' You have known our loving
Father in heaven. He gives you all good things,
work and play, play and work, to make your minds
and hearts stronger, and better able to do His will.
He gives you beautiful birds and beautiful ani-
mals to play with and to love. They, too, are His
creatures ; He has made you their guardians and
playmates, and he has made them your com-
panions and teachers.
Another story is this. There was a young
man who had grown up under St. John's care in
doing what was right, and St. John was very fond
of him. At last, after a time, St. John had to go
away, and gave this young man in charge to the
bishop or chief pastor of Ephesus, and told him
LITTLE CHILDREN,
on no account to let him go astray. But when
St. John came back and went to the bishop,
with whom he had left his young pupil, he saw
from the bishop's face that something sad had
happened. ' What is it ? ' he said ; and the bishop
told him how this young man had fallen in with
bad companions, who tempted him away into the
mountains, and there they were living the wild
life of robbers, and used to come down from the
hills, as the robbers still do. in those countries, to
carry off travellers and ask a ransom for them. As
soon as St. John heard this, he immediately set off
into the mountains. He was not frightened by the
thought of the robbers, he cared only to save this
poor young man from his bad courses. And when
the robbers saw him coming, they said amongst
themselves, ' Here comes some one that we can
carry off; ' and down rushed the young man who
had become their chief, and found himself face to
face with his beloved old master and friend St.
John. And the moment he saw him he burst into
tears and fell at his feet, all his better feelings
revived, and instead of his carrying off St. John,
St. John brought him back to good ways, and he
never went astray afterwards.
What do we learn from this ? Is it not some-
I.Ol'E ONE ANOTHER. 15
thing like that which St. John himself said in that
chapter which you have just heard ? He had taught
this young man as a little child to love and know
the good Father of all. He had taught him as a
young man to overcome the wicked one ; that is, to
get the better of the evil that there is even in the
best things. And now when he went astray he
never lost his interest in him ; he went after him,
even at the risk of his own life, to bring him back,
and he succeeded. This story is full of instruction
even for us. It brings back to us some of St.
John's own words, ' Little children, keep yourselves
from idols.' Although we have now no idols like
those which the heathens worship, yet there are
many idols still. If a little brother or sister will
insist on having a toy for himself, and not let any
one else play with it, that is his ' idol.' If any
boy who is growing up thinks of nothing but
games and amusement, and neglects his lessons,
then games become his idol. If a young man
goes, as did that one in the story, after bad com-
panions, they become his 'idols.' Keep yourselves
from all these idols ; and all of you, O children,
boys, and young men, remember that there is no
greater pleasure you can give to your parents and
teachers than to continue in the good thoughts
1 6 LITTLE CHILDREN, SERM. n.
and words that they have taught you ; remember
that there is no greater pain for them than to
think that you have forgotten what they told
you, that you have ceased to care for them, and
have gone off into evil ways. And oh, how happy
for you, how happy for them, if when you have
gone astray, or done anything wrong, you come
again like that young man and acknowledge your
faults ! and the good old friend, whoever it is,
father, or uncle, or brother, or teacher, will receive
you back again as if nothing had happened. ' I
have no greater joy,' St. John said, 'than to hear
that my children walk in truth.' Be truthful
in all things, acknowledge your faults as did
the young robber chief, do not keep them back
from your parents or friends. Never tell a lie
to conceal what you have done wrong. Have
no tricks or schemes to make others think you
better than you are. Tell the truth, and shame
the devil.
There is one other story. When St. John was
very old indeed, when he was almost a hundred,
when he could no longer walk or speak as he had
done in his youth, he used to be carried into
the market-place in the arms of his friends, and
the people, old, and young, and children, gathered
SERM. ii. LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 17
round him to hear the farewell words of their
venerable teacher. And then he would say, ' Little
children, love one another ; ' and when they asked
for something else, he said again, ' Little children,
love one another ; ' and when they asked him yet
again, still he said, ' Little children, love one another. '
And they said, ' Why do you always say this, and
nothing else ? ' And he said, ' Because this is the
best thing I can say ; if you love one another, that
is all that I have to tell you.' What do we learn
from this? We learn that the thing which St. John,
the beloved disciple, was most anxious to teach,
was that those whom he cared for should love one
another. It is the same as when he said in his
letter to them, ' My little children, let us love one
another in deed and in truth.' And that is what
we say to you now, ' Little children, love one
another.' Little brothers, be kind to your little
brothers and sisters. Boys at school, be kind to
those who are younger and weaker than you. You
can show them kindness and love in many, many
ways ; you can keep from teasing or hurting them,
you can prevent others from teasing or hurting
them ; and that will make them love and be kind to
you. Little boys will never forget the kindness they
have received from bigger boys at school. Brothers
i8 LITTLE CHILDREN, SERM. n.
and sisters who have given up lovingly and kindly
when they were quite small will give up lovingly
and kindly all their lives. Love one another in
deed and in truth ; do not pick out each other's
faults ; make the best of what there is good in each
other ; be glad when you hear anything good of
those who live with you. Never quarrel ; it does
no good to any one. Never be jealous ; jealousy
is one of the most mischievous, hateful things that
can get into any one's mind. Never tell bad
stories one of another. Never listen to bad
stories of other people. When you ask to be
forgiven in your prayers every night, always try
in your hearts to forgive and forget what has
been done to vex you in the day.
This is the love which St. John wished to see.
This is the love which Jesus Christ wishes to see
in all His disciples, old and young.
Always bear in mind that the first thing to be
done is to try to help and befriend some one else.
That will make you generous and just ; that will
make you active and courageous ; that will make
you feel how wicked it is to lead others into wrong,
and how happy and excellent a thing it is to help
others to be good. That will make you better able
to love and to do good to men when you grow
SERV. ii. LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 19
up to be men yourselves. That will the better
enable you to love God, who can only be loved
by those who love their fellow-creatures. There-
fore I end this address to you, as St. John ended
his long life, saying, ' Little children, love one
another.'
III.
THE USE OF CHILDREN.
(December 28, 1874.)
And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in
the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye
be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter
into the kingdom of heaven. MATT, xviii. 2, 3.
THE Festival of the Innocents, which is the festival
of little children, brings us in the course of the
services of the Church to this incident in the
Gospel history. Jesus called a little child, and
set him in the midst of them. That is what is
attempted here every Innocents' Day. We wish
once a year to call the little children of London
together and place them in the midst of this great
church in this great metropolis, and ask them, and
ask their friends and parents, what it is that these
little faces ought to teach us, as they taught the
first disciples of Jesus Christ.
First, what do they teach us about God and
our Saviour ? There was a very wise man, William
SF.RM. in. THE USE Of CHILDREN.
Paley, who lived a hundred years ago, who used to
say that of all the proofs that the world gave him
of the benevolence, the good-will of God, our
Creator, the chief was the pleasures of little children.
And there is a great deal in this : when we see the
innocent, radiant happiness of children, without
care and without sorrow, we cannot help thinking
that we then see something like what is meant by
Paradise, something like what God intended man-
kind to be. They are like the flowers, like the gay
plumage and the flight of birds, like the dancing of
brooks and rivulets ; we cannot imagine why they
should be as they are, except because God delights
in such happiness, and would wish us to enjoy it.
And so, too, in the Gospel history, where we hear
how often our Saviour took notice of little children,
how He set them up in the midst of His disciples,
how He took them up in His arms and laid His
hands on their little heads and blessed them, and
by His outward gesture and deed declared His
good-will towards them this shows us how He
enjoyed what we enjoy. It is the answer to the ques-
tion which is sometimes asked we hear that our
Saviour wept, and we ask, But did He ever smile ?
Yes, He did srnile. He must have smiled as He
fondled these little ones. No one can mix thus
22 THE USE OF CHILDREN. SERM. in.
with children, and not have his brow relax, and his
eyes brighten, and his lips move with gaiety and
laughter, as he handles them, and looks at them,
and learns from them. And then, in this en-
joyment and appreciation of little children, our
Saviour teaches us the enjoyment and appreciation
of all innocent happiness. He bids us enjoy this
season. He bids us be as a child with children.
He bids us be as little children. He bids us feel
that He loves us as a father pitieth his own
children. Surely the sight of little children set
in the midst of full-grown men is a rebuke to our
passions, a solace to our sorrows, an example for our
imitation. ' Except ye become as little children,
ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.'
No doubt there are bad children, there are vain
children, who are no comfort and no examples to
anybody ; but a good child is in some respects more
of a comfort, more of an example, than a good man.
And why ? Because a little child knows nothing of
our quarrels, of our doubts, of our disputes, of our
ambitions, of our cares. -It can come into a sick
chamber, or a chamber of sorrow, when no one
else can come in, because it awakes no painful
feeling ; it is unconscious in its joy, it is gentle in
its grief. It produces a holy calm which enables
SERM. in. THE USE OF CHILDREN. 23
the sufferer to reflect and decide, and look upwards
and inwards with the trustful confidence which the
confidence of the child itself inspires. And do we
not feel that in their presence, if anywhere, we are
among those who see things as they really are ?
And how often has a little child of a rough, hard
father or mother, set in the midst of an unhappy
household, been by its innocent ways the saving
of such a parent or such a household ! What pro-
tection there is in the smile of an innocent infant !
What a sermon there is in the eyes of an inquiring,
honest, fearless little boy ; of a gentle, pure little
girl ! How impressive and how true to nature is
the story of the old miser, Silas Marner, whose
suspicious, irritable mind was gradually transformed
and transfigured by the treasure of a little child
that he one day found unexpectedly placed in his
miserable home ! That exactly expresses what our
Saviour meant by setting a child in the midst of
them. How striking the letter of Luther to his
little boy John, or his letter on the death of his
little daughter Magdalen ! These children seem
to have been given to him that all the world might
know what a kind, tender heart there was in that
strong, strict, energetic man. Or in the history of
England is there any crime in the bloody civil wars
24 THE USE OF CHILDREN. SEKM. in.
of York and Lancaster, or any of the cruelties of
the kings and barons in those savage times, which
has so touched the hearts of all Englishmen in
later days as the murder of the two little princes in
the Tower?
Thus lay the gentle babes girdling one another
Within their alabaster innocent arms ;
A book of prayers upon their pillow lay.
We feel, as we read that story, a glow of
righteous indignation against grasping ambition
and selfish tyranny of every kind, past or present.
Or in the history of the horrors of the French
Revolution is there any deed of blood which has
left so dark and deep a stain on the violent party-
spirit and revolutionary fanaticism of those days as
the inhuman treatment of that unfortunate child,
the son of Louis XVI., who died at ten years old
of the misery and insults inflicted upon him by the
agents of the ruffians who then trampled on the
liberties of France ? I have seen an ivory cross,
said to have been worn by the queen his mother
on her way to the scaffold. But the figure on the
crucifix is not the dying Redeemer in his full-grown
stature, but the infant Jesus stretched on the cross,
with His gentle smile and innocent gestures.
EF.RM. in. THE USE OF CHILDREN.
Whether or not it was that she, in that last hour,
was thinking of her own unhappy child, that little
figure at least represents what has been the feeling of
humanity in the whole course of history that there
is nothing which so touches the heart, or elevates
the thought, or stirs the just anger of the better
portion of mankind, as the wrongs or the sufferings
of a little child. Such thoughts as these ought to
strike home to the hearts of all who have anything
to do with children, parents, friends of children,
ay, and children themselves. This is the meaning
of those words of our Lord, when on this same
occasion He said, ' Whoso shall offend one of these
little ones, it were better that a millstone were hanged
about his neck, and that he were drowned in the
depths of the sea.' Think what it is to mislead, or
to pervert, or to corrupt, or to give needless pain to
any of these children, who were sent to us with the
special view of keeping alive within us whatever
there is of good or pure or just. An ancient
heathen poet has said, ' There is nothing which
demands greater reverence at our hands than the
conscience of a little boy : '
Maxima debetur pueris reverentia.
To accustom them in their early years to sounds or
26 THE USE OF CHILDREN. SERM. in.
sights of cruelty or vice, to teach them by precept
or words those bad habits, those slang, vulgar
words, which confuse their delicate sense of right
or wrong, which deprave their taste for what is
beautiful ; to encourage, by foolish laughter or by
reckless indulgence, the tricks or the mistakes or
the frivolities of those who soon learn to know
what it is that amuses their elders, and who have
a fatal facility of imitating what is bad as well as
what is good ; these are so many ways of offend-
ing God's little ones, causing them to stumble, go
astray, spoiling them (to use that homely but most
expressive word) for any good word or work in
after-life. And, on the other hand, how much can
be done to develop, to unfold, to enlighten them
from the very first ! They are to us the types and
likenesses of the whole human race of religion
itself. Every generation is bound to contribute what
it can to the formation of that perfect man which is
to grow up into the fulness of the stature of Jesus
Christ. And so every parent, every teacher, is bound
to pour all the light and knowledge and grace that
he can into the souls, the eager receptive souls, of
those who will grow up to take our place when we
are dead and gone. ' Take heed that ye despise not
one of these little ones.' No, indeed, they are not
SF.RM. in. THE USE 01- CHILDREN.
to be despised, they have in them the future of
the world. ' Their angels,' as the Saviour says,
' behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.'
That is to say, their immortal destinies are trea-
sured up in the eternal councils of Providence,
as the means by which the world shall be regene-
rated. That little child which the Saviour held in
His arms was, according to the tradition, to grow up
to be the future martyr of the early church, Ignatius,
the heroic Bishop of Antioch. The children of
England at this moment who knows what may-
be the lot of any one of them ? We remember the
mournful regret of the poet in the country church-
yard at the thought how there might there be
mouldering
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre ;
how
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
But the same thing may occur to any thoughtful
man, as he looks over an assembly of children, not
with useless regret at what might have been and
is not, but with inspiring hope at what may be, and
perhaps shall be. They are the rising generation ;
they contain the poets, the scholars, the discoverers,
28 THE USE OF CHILDREN. SERM. in.
the statesmen, the Christians of the future. Their
guardian angels, their ideals (so to speak), are at
this moment contemplating, in the face of the
Eternal Father, the possible destinies of glory, of
grace, or of goodness which they may accomplish,
and which need only our helping hands to enable
them to help themselves, and reach forward to the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
And in this, you, my dear children, can take
your part. I have hitherto spoken more to your
friends and your parents than to you, but you will
have heard what I have been saying, and you will
feel how great a blessing you can be to them and to
all of us if you are good, sweet-tempered, and kind ;
and how great a misery if you are naughty, cross,
selfish. If you look at the face of your father or
mother, your uncle or aunt, or your tutor, you will
often seen a dark shade come over it, as if they had
some very bad news ; and what do you think it is? It
is because they have seen something in you that has
distressed them, that has made them fear that you
are not going on as you ought, that you have been
unkind, or untruthful, or rough. Oh ! drive away
that dark shade from their faces, for you only can
do it ; you love them, and you would not make them
unhappy. And have you not also seen their faces
SERM. in. THE USE OF CHILDREN. 29
sometimes shine with joy, and their eyes sparkle ?
and even if they are ill or suffering, have you not
seen them cheered up, and seem, for the moment,
almost well ? Why is it ? What has helped them ?
Have they had a great treasure sent to them ? Has
a good fairy given them some beautiful palace or
kingdom ? No. I will tell you what it is. They
have heard, they have seen, that their child is going
on as they would wish ; that their little son or
their little nephew shows himself more manly, more
attentive to his lessons, more courageous, more
kind to dumb creatures, more thoughtful for his
brothers and sisters ; or that their little daughter or
their little niece is growing up more modest, more
willing to help her father and mother, more gentle,
more compassionate ; less thinking of herself, and
more of those about her. And can you not also
help each other ? For it is not only parents that
sometimes spoil their children, it is sometimes
children who spoil one another. And it is not
only parents and teachers who educate and teach
their children, it is children who educate and teach
one another. Even in the nursery you can keep
quiet whilst your little brother and sister are saying
their prayers. By giving or keeping back your
playthings you can make one another happy or
30 THE USE OF CHILDREN. SERM, in.
miserable. And as you grow older you little boys
especially, when you go to school you can be like
guardian angels to those who are weaker and
younger than you. You can watch over them.
You can encourage them in telling the truth, and
in keeping from bad words. You can prevent
others from teasing them ; and when you grow to
be men, you will find, perhaps, that the good which
you have done to them has never been forgotten ;
and when some one presses your hand more warmly,
or looks gratefully in your face, it will be because
he remembers the kindness you did to him when
you both sat side by side on the same bench, or
played together in the same playground at school.
And if any good thought has been put into your
hearts to-day, do not let it pass away. Remember
that each of you may grow up to be a light in the
world, beloved by all good men there, as you are
beloved by your brothers and sisters and play-
fellows. It is told of one recently buried in this
Abbey David Livingstone that he began to im-
prove himself quite as a young boy in Scotland,
reading his books at any odd moment, amidst all
the noise and clatter around him when he was at
his work ; and he ended his life by having made
himself so honoured and beloved by the Africans
SERM. in. THE USE OF CHILDREN. 31
amongst whom he died, that they carried his dead
body through every kind of difficulty and danger,
till at last it was laid where you see his name and
his fame inscribed for ever. And remember that
Jesus Christ Himself, the great and good Saviour,
began as a child like you. A good man, 1 whose
monument was erected in this church by one 2 who
loved his poetry dearly, and who is himself de-
parted from us, was always thinking of little chil-
dren and writing verses for them, and of the love
which Jesus Christ had for them ; and with some
of these verses I will end what I have to say.
Was not our Lord a little child,
Taught by degrees to pray ;
By father dear and mother mild
Instructed day by day ?
And loved He not of heaven to talk
With children in His sight ;
To meet them in His daily walk,
And to His arms invite ?
In His arms may you all remain to the end of your
lives.
1 Keble. Edward Twisleton.
IV
THE 'GOLIATH' BOYS.
(December 28, 1875.)
There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth
the sheep. i SAM. xvi. n.
I PROPOSE to set before you to-day an example of
what may be expected from children, from little
boys, from little girls, when they are quite young ;
to show you how they may do and say things
which will be of the greatest use to those about
them, and which will do the greatest good to their
own characters. Sometimes we think that they can
only do very little, but I will show you that they can
do a great deal. Look at David : when Samuel
first came to his father's house and asked to see
the sons, they came one after another, tall, grown-
up men ; no one thought of the little boy who was
with the sheep. When the huge giant, Goliath of
Gath, defied the armies of Israel, he looked round
disdainfully, as though he saw no one. But
SERM. iv. THE ' COLT A 7V7' BO K9. 33
running across the valley there came to the Philis-
tine giant this young boy, with his bright auburn
hair, and his fierce quick eyes, and his little satchel
round his neck, and his little switch in his hand,
with which he kept the sheep-dogs in order. It
was he who had sung his songs on the hill-side,
where he saw the sun and moon and stars. It was
he who had had the courage to run after the lion
and the bear, and snatch his sheep or his lambs out
of their mouths. It was he who, though his tall
brothers thought nothing of him, and the proud
Philistine treated him as a mere child, yet was able
to do for his country what no one else could do,
and with his sling and his stone, with his fleet feet,
and his certain aim, and his strong faith, and his
undaunted spirit, to overthrow his gigantic enemy.
This is a story which is often repeated. It has
been repeated in the example of some of the
early martyrs ; not only of those children who are
commemorated to-day as the Innocent Babes
whom Herod killed, and who died not knowing
how or why, but later in the history of the Church ;
as in the cases of the little boy Pancratius, who is
believed to have been a martyr at fourteen, and of
the little girl Agnes, who is supposed to have been
a martyr at thirteen. There have been some of our
34 THE ' GOLIA Tff' BO VS. SERM. iv.
own good young princes who are buried in this
Abbey. There was that wonderfully gifted boy,
Edward VI., who was only sixteen when he died,
and who before that time had by his diligence and
his honesty made himself beloved and trusted by
all about him, and who even had the firmness
to resist doing a very cruel act when urged to it
by a much older man, who should have known
better. There is the good Prince Henry, eldest
son of King James I., who when his foolish atten-
dants provoked him to swear because a butcher's
dog had killed a stag that he was hunting, said,
' Away with you ! all the pleasure in the world is
not worth a profane oath.' There was, again, that
other Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who sat on the
knees of his father, Charles I., on the day before
his execution, and who, when his father said to
him, ' They will try to make you king instead of
your elder brother,' fired up like a little man, and
said, ' I will be torn in pieces first.' Well might
all these princes be mourned, and have a place
in English history, and a place in this Abbey ;
because, though they died early, they showed of
what stuff they were made, and that they would
have been fit to be kings, and to be with kings,
because they had wills and consciences of their
THE ' GOLIATH' 1 BOYS. 35
own ; because they were afraid of nothing except
doing wrong ; because they cared for nothing so
much as doing their duty.
But perhaps some of you, or of your parents
and friends who have the charge of you, will say :
' Oh, but these were young princes, with all the
advantages which a great education could give ;
or, these were martyrs who lived long ago, when
times were so different ; or, that bright-eyed, light-
haired boy, the youthful David, was inspired by
God's especial grace to do and say great things,
which could not be expected of us.'
But now let me give you an example which
comes nearer home. I will speak to you of what
has been done by little boys of seven, of eight, of
twelve, of thirteen, as young as the youngest of
you ; little English boys, and English boys with
very few advantages of birth, not brought up as
most of you are, in quiet, orderly homes, but taken
from rough workhouses. I will speak to you o;~
what such little boys have done, not three thou-
sand, or fifteen hundred, or two hundred years
ago, but last week last Wednesday ' on this very
river Thames. Do you know what I am thinking
of? It is of the little boys who were brought
1 December 22, 1875.
i> 2
36 THE 'GOLIATH' BOYS.
from different workhouses in London, nearly five
hundred, and were put to school to be trained as
sailors on board the ship which was called after
the name of the giant whom David slew the
training-ship Goliath, down the Thames. This
great ship suddenly, about eight o'clock on Wed-
nesday morning, caught fire. It was hardly light ;
one of these dark winter mornings when we can
hardly see to dress ourselves. In three minutes
the ship was on fire from one end to the other,
and the fire-bell rang to call the boys each to his
post. What did they do ? Think of the sudden
surprise, the sudden danger, the flames rushing all
round them, and the dark cold water below them.
Did they cry, or scream, or run, or fly about
in confusion ? No, they ran each to his proper
place ; they had been trained to do it ; they knew
it was their duty, and no one forgot himself, none
lost his presence of mind. They all, as the
captain says, ' behaved like men.' Then, when
it was found impossible to save the ship, those
who could swim, at the command of the captain,
jumped into the water, and swam for their lives.
Some at his command got into a boat ; and then,
when the sheets of flame and clouds of smoke
came pouring out of the ship upon them, the
THE GOLIATH' BOYS. 37
smaller boys for a moment were frightened, and
wanted to push away. But there was one among
them the little mate his name was William
Bolton. We are proud here that he came from
Westminster. A quiet boy, they tell us, and one
much loved by his comrades. He had the sense
and the courage to say, ' No ; we must stay and
help those that are still in the ship.' He kept the
barge alongside of the ship as long as possible,
and was thus the means of saving more than one
hundred lives. And there were others, who were
still in the ship while the flames went on spreading,
and they came and stood by the good captain who
had been so kind to them all, and whom they all
loved so much ; and in that dreadful moment they
thought more of him than of themselves ; and one
threw his arms round his neck, and said, ' You'll
be burnt, captain ; ' and another said, ' Save your-
self before the rest.' But the captain gave them the
best of all lessons at that moment ; he said, 'That's
not the way at sea, my boys.' He meant to say
and they quite understood what he meant that the
way at sea is to prepare for danger beforehand, to
meet it manfully when it comes, and to look at the
safety not of oneself, but of others. ' And thus,' as
says the public journal in speaking of it, ' the captain
THE 'GOLIATH' BOYS.
not only had learned that good old way himself, but
knew how to teach it to the boys under his charge.'
And now let me ask you to consider what we
may all learn from this story of the good conduct
of the boys in the Goliath ship. First, what an
encouragement it is to parents, teachers, nurses, all
who do anything for children, as showing that
their labour is not spent in vain ! These little
boys were taken from a rough, neglected class,
which had before been a trouble and vexation
to all about them. By the foresight and energy
of the Minister of State who began this system
of training-ships, and then by the constant, genial,
wise kindness of the captain and his wife and
daughters, always having a kind word and look
for these little boys, making them feel their ship to
be their home, instructing them in habits of order
and duty and religion, they were being trained
to be the servants of their country and their God
in that noble profession of an English sailor. And
now that they have been suddenly put on their
trial in this great calamity, we see how all this had
told upon them. What seeds of goodness were
there in these little hearts ! what energy given to
those little minds ! This is what education can
do ; this is what can be done by making a good
SERM. iv. THE ^GOLIATW BOYS. 39
beginning. I know, we all know, that good be-
ginnings may have bad endings ; .that these little
heroes, as we may call them, of the Goliath ship
may, if they are spoiled by foolish flattery, or meet
with wicked companions, turn out very differently
from what they are now. There has been a dreadful
example, within the last month, of one who began
as a charming, enterprising, intelligent, religious
boy, but who, from giving way to evil courses and
bad associates, ended in committing a frightful
crime, and died last week, with the infamy of a
selfish, hard-hearted murderer. 2 But these things
are the exceptions. Let us hope and believe that
whenever care, forethought, and kindness are ex-
erted on young children, they will lead the rest of
their lives according to that good beginning. It
is the best we can do for them ; it is the best we
can do for our country.
And you, children, turn your thoughts once
again back to that burning ship, and the example
of the little boys all doing their duty so nobly.
What is it that this teaches you ? It teaches you
that you ought to be always ready to do what is
right at a moment's notice. These boys could
never have guessed, when they got up on the
' Waiuwright.
40 THE 'GOLIATH' BOYS. SERM. iv.
morning of that day, that in three minutes they
would have to be all working to save their lives,
and the lives of those about them. But they were
ready, and they did it. There is a fine old motto
of an old Scottish family, ' Ready, aye ready ' :
let that be your motto. When a sudden alarm
comes perhaps fire in the middle of the night,
perhaps some other danger try to keep what is
called presence of mind ; do not run about here
and there, as if you had lost your senses, but be
quiet, be calm. Do what you are bid, and you may
save father, mother, brothers, and sisters. And
again, when a sudden temptation comes upon you
to go after what is wrong, saying foolish, filthy
words, or telling a lie, or over-eating yourselves,
or being unkind, remember those boys in the
Goliath. They stood firm to what they knew
was their duty. They stood firm though the
flames were raging round them ; they were like the
three children in the midst of the burning fiery
furnace, who were as true to their conscience, and as
calm, as though the fire had been a moist whistling
wind. And remember how, when those who were
in the boat were a moment dismayed, there was
one, the little mate, who had the courage to persist
in keeping close to the ship, and so saved many,
SERM. iv. THE 'COLIATIT BOYS. 41
many of his dear friends. Be like that little mate :
when you are pressed to do anything wrong, have
the boldness to say No. A very wise man has said
that any one who has learnt to say JVo has made
the first step to being a good, useful, great man.
Do not care how many there may be against you ;
do not think of the trouble of doing right. Do it, and
take the consequences. Even if the burning masts
had fallen upon the Goliath boys and killed them
all, it would have been better for them all to have
died in that way, and be buried by the little boy
who is this day laid to rest in the village church
of Grays, than that they should have weakly
given way, and shown the white feather, or
failed in one atom of their duty. And think what
a reward, what an exceeding great reward, you give
to your parents and your teachers by any such
good conduct. When that little boy clasped his
arms round the captain's neck, and begged him to
go, and said, 'You'll be burnt, captain, if you stay,'
do not you think that that moment must have made
up to the captain for all the trouble and pains he
had spent on these boys, to see that they loved him,
and would have given their lives for him ? Remem-
ber that short speech of the captain when they
asked him to leave the ship : 'That's not the way at
42 THE 'GOLIATH' BOYS. SERM. iv.
sea, my boys.' That is the best advice for all of us.
We are all on our voyage through life, over many
waves of this troublesome world. There is one way
of getting out of these troubles it is by selfishly
thinking of ourselves, by leaving our companions
in the wood, by taking the best for ourselves, by
avoiding risk and danger and pain, and seeking our
own profit and pleasure. This is what is done by
many children, and by many men. ' But that is
not the way at sea, my boys.' It is the way of the
world. It is the way of cowards, and spendthrifts,
and spoiled children, and selfish men ; but it is not
the way of English sailors, it is not the way of
Christian Englishmen, it is not the way to noble
lives and glorious deaths. There 'is the way at
sea' the way of standing by your post till the last,
doing your duty whatever comes, thinking more of
others than of yourself, jumping into the face
of danger rather than flying away in dishonour,
working away quietly and calmly and manfully to
do as much good as you can whilst life is granted
to you. 'That's the way at sea, my boys.' That
was the way of the boys in the burning ship. That
is the way in which England's sailors, like Commo-
dore Goodenough, have won for themselves an
immortal name. That is the way of good children,
SERM. iv. THE GOLIATH' SOYS. 43
honourable boys, and gallant men ; the way of
Christian heroes and Christian martyrs That is
the way in which we trust that this day will teach
you to walk henceforth, and till the latest day of
your lives.
44
V.
THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS.
(December 28, 1876.)
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thoii or-
dained strength. Ps. viii. 2. Like as the arrows in the hand
of the giant, even so are the young children. Ps. cxxvii. 5
(Prayer Book version). Lord, who shall abide in Thy taber-
nacle? who shall dwell in Thy holy hill? Ps. xv. i.
WHEN, year by year, we see a congregation of chil-
dren with their parents assembled, it is, or ought to
be, a joy and comfort to those who feel the burden
of life, the darkening shades of sorrow, and the
weight of care. Why is this? Why is the sight
of children a consolation? Parents, perhaps, will
understand best what I have to say at first, although
I shall also have to say something which children
will understand for themselves. I have taken these
verses from the three Psalms which are sung on occa-
sion of these gatherings to express what I mean.
I. The first is from the eighth Psalm. That is
SERM. v. THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS. 45
a Psalm which almost certainly was written by
David. He wishes to unravel his thoughts, and to
have a clear idea of God ; and he finds it in two
things ; in the moon and the stars, which we see
in the sky on a cloudless night, and which cause him
to think of the order with which this great universe
has been arranged ; and in the bright faces and the
blameless talk of little children. Little children,
give him an idea of what man, who was born in
the image of God, was meant to be. No doubt
there are bad children, naughty children ; and
even in good children there is something which
may become very bad. Still, in children there
is an innocence, a lightness of heart, an ignorance
of evil, a joyousness, and a simplicity, which ought
to be refreshing to every one. It was this which
made our Saviour so fond of them taking them
up in His arms and saying, ' Of such is the kingdom
of heaven ; ' and it is this which is well expressed
by a good English poet, who says, as he looks back
regretfully to his childhood
Happy those early days when I
Shined in my angel infancy ;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound ;
46 THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS. SERM. v.
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
Oh, how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track ! '
And this it is, also, which gives a soothing thought
to any who have lost their darlings in infancy or in
early childhood. Their lives were complete. They
had shown us the glory of God in their dear little
ways. They have gone to be with Him. ' We
reckon not by years and months where they have
gone to dwell.' May I read to you the words of a
great scholar and philosopher 2 after the death of a
sweet daughter ? Parents may take the words to
themselves, and children may know from them
what a comfort they may be for their parents if
they have been good and gentle and diligent. ' As
soon as her last breath was gone I was able to
thank God that He had taken my child into His
arms, where she is safe for ever from all the troubles
and the sorrows of life. The first chapter of her
existence has closed. Who knows what troubles
might have been in store for her? But she was
found worthy to enter the kingdom of heaven as a
little child. Here we have toiled for many years,
and been troubled with many questionings, but
1 Henry Vaughan, The Retreat. - Max Muller.
SERM. v. THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS. -17
what is the end of it all ? We must learn to become
simple again like little children. That is all we
have a right to be ; for this life was meant to be
the childhood of our souls, and the more we try
to be what we were meant to be, the better for us.
Let us use the powers of our minds with the greatest
freedom and love of truth ; but let us never forget
that we are, as Newton said, " like children playing
on the sea-shore, while the great ocean of truth lies
undiscovered before us."'
II. But we must not, in thinking of children,
think only of them in the past. We must think of
their future ; and here let us look at another Psalm,
the hundred and twenty-seventh, a Psalm which
some of the Jewish teachers long ago thought might
have been written by the great King Solomon.
At any rate, it expresses what a man of vast ex-
perience of human life might well have said. It
tells us that we must console ourselves in the sor-
rows and troubles of the present time by thinking
of what the children who stand around us may be
in the time which is coming. They are like the
arrows which a mighty archer can shoot far away
into the distance and the darkness, and so strike a
target which we, perhaps, can hardly see, but which,
if these little arrows are winged with good thoughts,
48 THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS. SERM. v.
and pointed with good resolves, and polished by
a good training, they will surely reach. We may
sometimes, as we look towards the immediate
future of our country, think sadly perhaps how
few great characters or glorious gifts there are to
enlighten the close of this nineteenth century, as
we and our fathers were enlightened by the great
characters and the glorious gifts of those who
adorned its beginning. But our consolation may be
that those who are the children of this generation
shall grow up to fill this void, and to comfort those
who are still unborn. Amongst the children who
are now present here, there must be many who will
live to the twentieth century. Let them remember,
when the first year of the next century shall dawn
upon them, that they were called upon, as now in
this Abbey, to take their part in rendering their
country a great, a happy, and a Christian nation.
Where we have failed, let them succeed ; where we
have succeeded, let them improve ; where we have
lost, let them recover. Happy is that country which
has its quiver full of good, strong, active, honest,
Christian children. She shall not be afraid when
she speaks with her enemies in the gate. There is
a long, long day before many of you. Make the
very most of it. Let us feel assured that when we
SERM. v. THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS. 49
die and pass away we shall have left our country,
our religion, and our honour, safe in your hands.
III. And this brings me to the third lesson
which we may take from these Psalms. The
fifteenth Psalm also is almost certainly written by
David. It was what he wrote, we may suppose,
when he had conquered Jerusalem, and asked who
was worthy to live in the holy city ; that is, what
are the characters that God loves and wishes to be
with Him ? There is no difficulty in understanding
what David says in the verses which follow the
first ; and when people talk of the difficulty of
teaching religion to children, let them remember
these verses of the fifteenth Psalm. They will
find how very easily they can be learned, and
hpw very easily they can be applied. I will try
to apply them now ; and so I turn to you, my
children, and having told you how much we anl
your country expect from you, I will tell you
who it is that shall be thought worthy of the house
of God and His holy hill ; and I will ask those who
are parents and friends, or who have any influence
over any of these children, to try to make a good
atmosphere round about them, so that these
conditions may become possible and easy for them.
What, then, is it that we may recommend to all
i:
50 THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS. SERM. v.
children if they would wish to please their parents,
to please God, and to go to heaven ? Love honest
work. Love to get knowledge. Never forget to
say your prayers morning and evening, never be
ashamed to say them. It will help you to be good
all through the day. Always keep your promises.
Do not pick up foolish and dirty stories. Never,
never tell a lie. Never strike, or hurt, or be rude
to a woman or a girl, or to any one weaker or
younger than yourselves. Be ready even to risk
your own lives to save a friend, or a companion, or
a brother, or a sister. Be very kind to poor dumb
animals. Never put them to pain. They are
God's creatures as well as you ; and if you hurt
them you will become brutal and base yourselves.
Remember always to be gentle and attentive to
older people. Listen, and do not interrupt when
they are talking. If you have an old father or
grandfather, or a sick uncle or aunt, remember not
to disturb them. by loud talking or rough playing.
Be careful and tender to them. You cannot think
what good it does them. And if it should hap-
pen that any amongst you have poor fathers or
poor mothers who have to get up early in order to
go about their business, and to earn their bread
and your bread, remember what a pleasure it will
SERM. v. THE CHILD REN'S PSALMS. 51
be to them to find that their little boy or their little
girl has been out of bed before them on a cold
winter morning, and lighted a bright, blaz.ing fire,
so as to give them a warm cup of tea. Think
what pleasure it will be to them if they are sick, or
if they are deaf, or if they are blind, to find a little
boy or a little girl to speak to them, to read to
them, and to lead them about. But there is not
only the comfort which is experienced in being
thus helped ; there is the still greater comfort of
knowing that they have a good little son or a good
little daughter who is anxious to assist them, and
who, they feel sure, will be a joy, and not a trouble
to them, by day and by night. No Christmas
present can be so welcome to any father and
mother as the belief that their children are
growing up truthful, manly, courageous, courteous,
unselfish, and religious. And do not think that
any of these things are too much for any of you.
I know that many of you have great temptations.
Perhaps you may have homes where it is very
difficult to be tidy and clean. Perhaps, as you go
to school along the streets, there may be wicked
people who endeavour to lead you astray, and who
try to make you steal, and use bad words. Yet I
am sure that, if you do your best, you will find
K 2
52 THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS. SERM. v.
such delight in doing your duty that you will go
on in what is good. Let the good frighten the
bad ; let the light drive away the darkness ; let
the whole world know that there are little English
boys and girls who are determined to do their duty
whatever befalls them. Some of you may re-
member that, last year, I spoke of the gallant boys
who behaved so well on board the Goliath ship
when it was on fire. Well, these same boys have
just begun their training over again. It was only
on Tuesday last that they got on board their new
ship, the Exmouth ; and there they are working for
their country once more. God .bless and prosper
them, and may they still be examples to all of us.
It was only the other day, also, that I heard of a
brave, modest little boy Hammond Parker was
his name who was only just fourteen years of age,
but who had saved, at different times, the lives of
no fewer than four other boys by plunging into
the rough sea after them on the coast of Norfolk.
Now, that shows what you may all do not,
perhaps, by plunging into the stormy sea, but, at
any rate, by saving little brothers or little sisters
from going wrong. You can do far more for them
than, perhaps, any one else, because you are
always with them. Stand by them, protect them ;
SF.RM. v. THE CHILDREN'S PSALMS. 5;
stand by each other ; and then the foolish, wicked,
and cruel people who want to mislead you will
very soon run away. Bad people are almost
always afraid of good people, even though the
good are much fewer ; even, indeed, though the
good may be only a little child. I knew once a
very famous man (it was Adam Sedgwick), who
lived to be eighty-eight years old, and who was the
delight of every one about him. He always stood
up for what was right. His eye was like the eagle's
when it flashed fire against what was wrong. And
how early do you think he began to do this ? I
have an old grammar which belonged to him, all
tattered and torn, which he had when he was a
little boy at school ; and what do I find written in
his own hand on the first page of it ? I find these
words from Shakespeare : ' Still in thy right hand
carry gentle peace, to silence envious tongues. Be
just and fear not.' That was his rule all through
life, and he was loved and honoured down to the
day when he was borne to his grave. Be just, be
good, and fear not. Let that be your rule ; and God
and Jesus Christ will be with you now and always.
54
VI.
SICK CHILDREN.
(December 28, 1877.)
Is it well with the child? . . . It is well. } 2 KINGS iv. 26.
I HAVE usually spoken to you on this day of the
life and happiness of children. I wish to speak to
you this evening of the sufferings and sorrows of
children, and concerning children or rather, I will
say, of the happiness which out of their sufferings
and sorrows God intends to bring to us.
First let me speak of the death of children. It
is one of the chief thoughts placed before us by the
Festival of the Innocents the Holy Innocents, as
they are called. We know nothing about those
little children of Bethlehem, except that they died.
What is the good which can be brought to any of
1 I have been reminded that a sermon on this text was
preached by Dr. Doddridge on the death of a beloved child,
the words having been written actually on the child's coffin.
S/CA' CHILDREN. 55
us, old or young, by the death of those dear little
ones, who had been lent to us for so short a time
that we seem to have lost them almost before we
have time to know them ? ' Is it well with the
child ? ' said Elisha to the mother of the little boy
that he had known from his birth. The little boy
was dead ; but the poor mother was still able to
say, 'It is well.' Yes, there are several ways in
which, even in this hard trial, w r e may say, ' It is
well.' ' It is well,' because in God's sight all that
happens is well, if only we use it rightly. ' It is
well,' because the child that dies in its innocence
is taken, if any human creature is, to the presence
of God and of Jesus Christ. He Himself has told
us that the characters of little children are the
likeness of the characters in heaven. When we
think of heaven we think of them. ' It is well,'
because it makes, or ought to make, on our hearts
an impression which perhaps nothing else can
make. Even a hard-hearted man, when his child
dies, or his little brother dies, is deeply moved.
He thinks that he might have been more kind
whilst they lived. He looks at the little vacant
chair, and his eyes fill with tears.
And we are comforted by thinking of them.
I have heard of a little child dying with suth
56 SIC A' CHILDREN.
bright and beautiful visions before him that his
countenance was quite transfigured, and glowed as
with heavenly colours ; and his parents, as they
looked at him, were more than consoled. They
went away strengthened in their faith and hopeful
in their good deeds.
This Abbey is full of the remembrances of great
men and famous women. But it is also full of the
remembrances of little boys and girls whose death
shot a pang through the hearts of those who loved
them, and who wished that they never should be
forgotten.
Almost the earliest royal monument in this
Abbey is of a beautiful little deaf and dumb girl of
five years old the Princess Catherine, daughter of
King Henry III., who loved her dearly. She has
not been forgotten, nor have her two little brothers,
and perhaps four little nephews, who were buried
close to her, as if to keep her company. And so
there are two small tombs in Henry VII. 's chapel of
the two infant daughters of King James I. Over
one of them are some touching lines written by an
American lady, which all mothers should read.
And to these tombs of these two little girls were
brought in after days by their nephew, Charles II.,
the bones of the two young murdered princes,
SF.KM. vi. S/CA' CHILDREN. 57
which in his time were discovered at the foot of
the staircase in the Tower.
And there is in the chapel of St. Nicholas
another tomb of a little child that died from a
mistake of its nurse ; and we know a from her will
that she never ceased to lament the little darling,
and begged very urgently, if possible, to be buried
beside it. And there is in the cloisters the
monument mentioned on a previous occasion, 3
which contains only these words, ' Jane Lister,
dear child,' with the date and the record of her
brother's previous death. It is an inscription which
goes to the heart of every one. It was in the year
1688, just a month before the great English
Revolution, but the parents thought only of ' Jane
Lister,' their ' dear child.'
Do not forget the dead children. They are
not forgotten in Westminster Abbey, they ought
never to be forgotten elsewhere. Mothers, parents,
who, like Rachel, mourn for some dear daughter
or son, think that they are still yours, to animate
and urge you forwards. That was a true answer
which the little girl made to the poet Wordsworth,
who asked how many they were
- Colonel Chester's edition of The Registers of ll'cst-
ntinster Al>l>ey, p. 220. * See p. 20.
58 SICK CHILDREN. SERM. vi.
' Seven boys and girls are we ;
Two of us in the churchyard lie,
Beneath the churchyard tree.'
' How many are you then ? ' said I,
' If they two are in heaven ? '
Quick was the little Maid's reply,
' O Master, we are seven ! '
And there is another beautiful poem by the father
of three sons : 4 two were living, but the third was
dead. Of him he thus speaks :
I have a son a third sweet son ; his age I cannot tell,
For they reckon not by years and months where he is gone
to dwell. . . .
I cannot tell what form is his, what look he weareth now,
Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph
brow. . . .
But I know, for God doth tell me this, that he is now at
rest,
Where other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's loving
breast. . . .
Whate'er befall his brethren twain, his bliss can never
cease ;
Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is certain
peace.
But I would not speak only of dead children.
I will speak of sick children, of children who have
some illness or infirmity, crippled, or weak, or
ailing, like some of those who are here to-day from
4 Moultrie's poem on ' The Three Sons.'
SERM. vi. SICK CHILDREN. 59
the Royal Infirmary for Children. l ls it well ' with
those suffering little ones ? Yes, ' it is well,' for
them and for us, if we take the sickness as it is
intended by our heavenly Father.
There is a beautiful picture, by the famous
painter Holbein, of a family who are praying, or
perhaps giving thanks, for the recovery of their
sick child ; and the prayer is supposed to be
granted by the appearance of the child Jesus in
the midst of the family, happy and strong, whilst
the poor sickly child is represented as in the arms
of the Virgin Mother, taken as her own. That is
a. likeness to us of what we ought to hope for in
the case of our sick and ailing children. The sick-
ness may perhaps continue, but the sufferer may
be under the protection of our good Father, and
nursed as it were for Himself ; and amongst us
the child, the inner spirit of the child, which will
grow up amidst suffering and weakness, is like the
spirit of the holy child Jesus, happy and strong,
and pure and good.
Sickness and illness may make a child fretful
and selfish, and the people about a sick child may
spoil it by giving up everything to it, and encourag-
ing it to ask for everything. But it may also teach
a child to be patient and considerate, and grateful
60 SICK CHILDREN. SERM. vi.
for all the care it gets ; and then, instead of being
a source of sorrow and vexation in the household,
it becomes a source of instruction and comfort to
all.
I will try to make this clear to you from several
examples. One is taken from a story : it is one
which some of you may have read, called the
' Heir of Redclyffe.' In that story is described a
sickly boy called Charles. He is, at the beginning
of the story, like one of those fretful, peevish in-
valids of whom I spoke just now ; speaking sharply
and crossly to every one, and making every one's
will bend to his. But in the course of the story
there comes into the house another boy full of
health and life, but also full of generosity and
kindness, and the sickly, selfish boy turns over a
new leaf ; his character is transformed as the story
goes on. He still remains a suffering cripple, but
he becomes the stay and support of the house ;
instead of always demanding comfort from them,
he, in all the troubles of the family, gives comfort
to all the others.
This is from a story, an imaginary tale of what
might happen. Now I will tell you of what has
happened. It is a contrast between two boys in
Scotland, to which my attention was called some
SERM. vi. SIC A' CHILDREN. 61
time ago by an excellent Scottish judge, now dead. 5
They were boys who both became famous in after
life, and many of you have heard of their names.
One was Lord Byron, the other was Sir Walter
Scott. Well, both these boys had the same kind
of misfortune. Both Lord Byron and Walter Scott,
from their earliest years, were lame. Each of them
had what is called a club foot, or something very
like it. But now what was the different effect pro-
duced by this lame foot on the two boys ? Lord
Byron, who was a perverse, selfish boy, was made
by this club foot discontented and angry with every
one about him. It entered like iron into his soul. It
poisoned his heart. It set him against all mankind,
and it injured his whole character. He had a
splendid genius, but amidst many fine qualities it
was a genius blackened and discoloured by hatred,
malice, uncharitablcness, and the deepest gloom.
Walter Scott, on the other hand, never lost his
cheerfulness. His lame foot made him turn to the
reading of good old books, and to the enjoyment
of the beautiful sights and sounds about him, and
he too grew to be a great poet and the writer of
stories which will live in every age and in every
country. But in him the lameness which he had
^ Lord Ncavcs.
62 SICK CHILDREN.
borne patiently and cheerfully in childhood never
interfered with his kindliness and his good-humour
to those about him. He was a delight to all that
came across him, and even when he was at last
overtaken by heavier misfortunes he never lost his
loving, generous disposition. The lameness which
in Byron turned to what St. Paul calls a savour of
death unto death, became in Walter Scott a savour
of life unto life.
This, then, is the lesson which I would wish to
teach to all children who are sickly and suffering,
or who may become sickly and suffering : Do not
think that you are without an object, do not think
that you cannot be useful, do not think that every-
thing has gone against you. No. It is well with
you : you can be most useful, you can be the
useful child ; and when you grow up you can be
the useful man or the useful woman in the home.
You can arrange plans of amusement for the others
who are too busy to arrange them for themselves.
You can show by your constant cheerfulness that
happiness does not depend on the good things
which you eat, or on the active games which you
play, but on a contented, joyful heart. You can
make them feel that there is a better world above,
where you hope to be, and where you may be
SERM. vi. SICK CHILDREN.
almost now, because your thoughts are with God
and with Jesus Christ. And you children who are
strong and healthy, remember that to you this
little sick brother or little sick sister is a blessing
that God has given you. // is well for you to have
them. They may not be able to share in your
games ; you will often be obliged to be quiet in
their sick room, or when they come amongst you.
But that is good for you, because it makes you see
very early the joy, the happiness, the usefulness, of
having some one weaker than yourselves whom you
can protect ; some one in pain or suffering to whom
you can minister like a ministering angel. Do not
be hasty or angry with a deaf brother, or I may
say a deaf mother or aunt, because they cannot
hear you ; or a blind sister, or I may say a blind
father or uncle, because they cannot see you ; or
with a lame or deformed brother or cousin or com-
panion, because they cannot take an active part
in your amusements. No. They cannot do this ;
but they can do much better than this for you,
because they make you feel for deafness and blind-
ness and lameness everywhere. When you have
seen it in those you love, you will be reminded of
it in those you do not love.
And if you have had any of these misfortunes
64 SICK CHILDREN.
yourselves, and have grown out of them, the recol-
lection of what you have suffered may make you
of much use to others. There is a distinguished
man, very high in rank, and of absolutely indispens-
able value in the public service of his Church and
country, who when a little boy was very lame. 6 He
recovered, but he never lost his fellow-feeling for
lame people j and once, when we were walking
together, I remember that he gave some money to
a poor lame man who opened the gate for us, and
he told me that he always did so, in remembrance
of his own lameness.
Learn to be tender to your suffering brothers or
sisters. You who are sick or weakly, always keep
up that fellow-feeling. It will make your weakness
or illness a blessing, and not a curse. You who are
well and have sick friends, you also try to keep up
that fellow-feeling. In the story of Elisha and the
sick child, we are told that when he hoped to re-
store the child to health ' he went up and lay upon
the child, and put his mouth upon the child's
mouth, and his eyes upon the child's eyes, and his
hands upon the child's hands ; and he stretched
himself upon the child,' and the flesh of the
child waxed warm. This is a likeness of the sym-
6 Archbishop Tait.
SERM. vi. S7CA' CHILDREN. 65
pathy which all in health, whether old or young,
should try to have for those who are in pain or
infirmity. We give life and happiness to the sick
by giving them, as it were, a taste of our life and
happiness ; our words are words to them, our eyes
are eyes to them, our hands are hands to them.
There were some sailors who were stranded on a
desert rock on a freezing night. There was one
little midshipman amongst them; they put their
clothes upon him, they covered him up. They all
were found dead in the morning ; but, if I remem-
ber right, the little boy, through their kindness,
survived their warmth had saved him, they died
that he might live. And so, even without such
great efforts, we should try to put ourselves in the
place of our sick and suffering companions. We
should try to feel for them, as we should wish them
to feel for us, to tell them of the happy and beau-
tiful things of the outside world, to make them
understand that they are not forgotten, to show
them what is the sphere in which they can be useful.
It is for this reason that hospitals for sick
children are so much to be encouraged. In old
barbarous heathen times the life of a sick or de-
formed child was not thought worth preserving.
The sickly children were thrown on the road as
F
66 SICK CHILDREN. SERM. vi.
not worth saving. But they are worth saving ;
they may be the saving of those about them. One
of the first great changes that were made by
Christianity was that those sick children left to
perish were adopted by kind men and women, who
brought them up as their own. And so not only
in hospitals, but in every family where there is a
sick child, remember that it is your duty, your
privilege, to look after such. If you are kind to
them God will be kind to you. They are your
special charges ; they are the good things committed
by God to us for our keeping. They are our ear-
liest and best teachers in the good way. Who-
ever does anything for them does it to the good
God and merciful Saviour who entrusted them to
us. And we shall not lose our reward. // will be
well for the children and it will be well for us.
VII.
ST. CHRISTOPHER.
(December 28, 1878.)
Like as the arrcnvs in the hand of the giant, even so are
the young children. Ps. cxxvii. 5.
THERE is an old story, a kind of Sunday fairy tale,
which you may sometimes have seen represented
in pictures and statues in ancient churches (there
are two sculptures of it in King Henry VII. 's
chapel in this church), of a great heathen giant
who wished to find out some master that he should
think worthy of his service, some one stronger
than himself. He went about the world, but
could find no one stronger. And besides this, he
was anxious to pray to God, but did not know how
to do it. At last he met with a good old man by
the side of a deep river, where poor wayfaring
people wanted to get across, and had no one to
help them. And the good old man said to the
68 ST. CHRISTOPHER. SERM. vn.
giant, ' Here is a place where you can be of some
use ; and if you do not know how to pray, you will,
at any rate, know how to work, and perhaps God
will give you what you ask, and perhaps also you
will at last find a master stronger than you.' So
the giant went and sat by the river-side, and many
a time he carried poor wayfarers across. One
night he heard a little child crying to be carried
over ; so he put the child on his shoulder and
strode across the stream. Presently the wind blew,
the rain fell, and as the river beat against his knees
he felt the weight of the little child almost greater
than he could bear, and he looked up with his
great, patient eyes (there is a beautiful picture in a
beautiful palace at Venice, where we see him with
his face turned upwards as he tries to steady him-
self in the raging waters), and he saw that it was
a child glorious and shining ; and the child said,
' Thou art labouring under this heavy burden
because thou art carrying One who bears the sins
of all the world.' And then as the story goes
on, the giant felt that it was the child Jesus, and
when he reached the other side of the river he fell
down before Him. Now he had found some one
stronger than he was, some one so good, so worthy
of loving, as to be a master whom he could serve.
SERM. vn. -ST. CHRISTOPHER. 69
In later days the thought of the giant Christopher
(the ' bearer of the child Christ ') was so dear to men,
that his picture was often painted very large on the
churches, so that those who saw it far off should
have a pleasant and holy remembrance through the
day which would save them from running into evil.
But we all may learn from it two useful lessons,
which may keep us from evil and lead us into good.
The first lesson is that often, when we know
not how to believe or how to pray, we at any rate
may know how to work for the good of others, and
then God accepts this as if it were a prayer. There
is an old Latin saying, Laborare est orare or, if we
were to turn it into English, we should say,
Good working and good playing
Is almost like good praying.
Or, as some one else has said,
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
We ought all of us to say our prayers ; they will
help us to do what is good : but we must also all
remember that our prayers are no use unless we
strive, both in our work and in our play,
To live more nearly as we pray.
70 ST. CHRISTOPHER. SERM. vn
This is one lesson which we may carry with us
from the story of St. Christopher, and one which
applies to all, whether grown-up people or children.
Pray and work, work and pray, do as much good as
you can, and God will reward and receive you at last.
But there is another lesson which more es-
pecially applies to the sight of a congregation of
children with their parents and friends. The child
Jesus, who, according to the story, was carried on
the shoulders of the giant, was the type and like-
ness of all children. That is one reason why we
think so much of Christmas ; why Christmas is so
much more loved than even Easter or Whitsun-
tide. It is because we feel that the birth and the
childhood of our Lord contained the promise of
His manhood, because we have our hearts drawn
towards the tender, innocent child who, when He
grew up, suffered so much and endured so much
for the good of mankind. And that may be the
case, more or less, with all children. That is why
our Saviour looked upon them with such confid-
ence, such reverence, and such affection. ' Of
such,' He said, ' is the kingdom of heaven.' Of
such and out of such characters as were wrapped
up in the little beings which He saw before Him,
and which we now see before us, is the hope of the
SERM. vii. ST. CHRISTOPHER. 71
coming time. You who are the parents, you who
are responsible for the training of these children,
you bear upon your shoulders a burden like that
which the giant of the old story carried ; you bear
a burden greater, perhaps, than you know how to
bear the burden of forming their characters ; the
burden, perchance, of the destinies of the coming
age. Rejoice in them, and while remembering
how heavy is the responsibility which presses upon
you, be encouraged to carry your little burdens
safely over the great river of life, which is also the
great river of death. Remember also that as St.
Christopher in the old story was saved by carrying
the Child, so we may be saved by the children
carrying us ; they may help by their innocence and
truthfulness to teach us now and to help us here-
after ; they may be as that little child which
Elisha cured, who it was supposed afterwards grew
to be the great prophet Jonah ; or that other little
child in the Gospels who, as the early Christians
believed, grew to be the great Christian martyr
Ignatius.
But as the children are the burden, the quiver
on our shoulders, so they are, as the text says,
' like as the arrows in the hand of the giant,' like
the arrows which a mighty archer shoots into the
72 ST: CHRISTOPHER. SERM. vn.
darkness, piercing hearts which are far away. These
children, if rightly trained and rightly nurtured,
may indeed be the blessing of times to come ; nay,
more, they may be blessings even while they are
yet children. Let me give you one simple in-
stance. It is a story, not like that old fairy story
with which I began this sermon, but a real story of
our own time. I found it in a sermon 1 by a power-
ful preacher in one of the strange cities of North
America, but describing what happened in our own
country on a cold winter day like those which
we have just had. Listen to it, parents ; listen
to it, dear children, for if you have understood
nothing else of what I have said, you will under-
stand this. Not long ago, in Edinburgh, two
gentlemen were standing at the door of an hotel
one very cold day, when a little boy with a poor
thin blue face, his feet bare and red with the cold,
and with nothing to cover him but a bundle of rags,
came and said, ' Please, sir, buy some matches.'
'No, I don't want any,' the gentleman said. 'But
they are only a penny a box,' the poor little fellow
1 ' The Life that now is : ' Sermons, by Robert Collyer,
of Chicago, pp. 260-64. The story is taken from this
volume almost word for word, and I have incorporated
some of the preacher's forcible remarks.
SERM. vii. ST. CHRISTOPHER. 73
pleaded. ' Yes, but you see we don't want a box,'
the gentleman said again. 'Then I will gie ye
twa boxes for a penny,' the boy said at last ; ' and
so to get rid of him ' (the gentleman who tells the
story says) ' I bought a box ; but then I found I
had no change, so I said, " I will buy a box to-
morrow." "Oh, do buy them to-night, if you
please," the boy pleaded again ; " I will run and
get ye the change, for I am verra hungry." So I
gave him the shilling, and he started away. I
waited for him, but no boy came. Then I thought
I had lost my shilling ; still there was that in the
boy's face I trusted, and I did not like to think ill
of him. Late in the evening I was told that a
little boy wanted to see me. When he was brought
in I found it was a smaller brother of the boy that
got my shilling, but if possible still more ragged
and poor and thin. He stood a moment, diving
into his rags as if he was seeking something, and
then saidf " Are you the gentleman that bought
the matches frae Sandie ? " " Yes." " Weel, then,
here's fourpence out o' yer shilling ; Sandie cannot
come ; he's very ill ; a cart ran ower him and
knocked him down, and he lost his bonnet and his
matches and your sevenpence, and both his legs
are broken, and the doctor says he'll die ; and
74 ST. CHRISTOPHER. SERM. vn.
that's a'." And then, putting the fourpence on the
table, the poor child broke down into great sobs.
So I fed the little man, and I went with him to see
Sandie. I found that the two little things lived
almost alone, their father and mother being dead.
Poor Sandie was lying on a bundle of shavings : he
knew me as soon as I came in, and said, " I got the
change, sir, and was coming back ; and then the
horse knocked me down, and both my legs were
broken ; and oh, Reuby ! little Reuby ! I am
sure I am dying, and who will take care of you
when I am gone ? What will ye do, Reuby ? "
Then I took his hand, and said that I would
always take care of Reuby. He understood me,
and had just strength to look up at me as if to
thank me : the light went out of his blue eyes ; in
a moment
He lay within the light of God,
Like a babe upon the breast,
Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.'
That story is like an arrow in the hand of a giant.
It ought to pierce many a heart, old and young.
Whenever, dear children, you are tempted to say
what is not true, or to be hard on other little boys
and girls, or to take what you ought not to take,
SERM. vii. ST. CHRISTOPHER. 75
we want you to remember little Sandie. This poor
little boy, lying on a bundle of shavings, dying and
starving, was tender, and trusty, and true ; and so
God told the gentleman to take poor little friend-
less Reuben, and be a friend to him, and Sandie
heard him say he would do it -the last thing he
ever did hear ; and then the dark room, the bundle
of shavings, the weary, broken little limbs, all faded
away, and Sandie was among the angels, who could
look at him in his new home, and say one to
another, ' That is the little boy who kept his word,
and sent back fourpence ; that is the little boy who
was tender, and trusty, and true, when he was
hungry and faint, and when both his legs were
broken, and he lay dying.' This story is told
you now because, whether it be hard or easy, we
want you to be tender, and trusty, and true, as
poor little Sandie, who did not forget his promise,
and who loved his little brother to the end.
7 6
VIII.
THE CHILDREN'S CREED.
(December 27, 1879.)
/ have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in
truth. 3 JOHN 4.
As once before, so now, we have brought you
together on St. John's Day, because Innocents' Day
falls on a Sunday. Those words which I have
read from St. John well express what all of us
ought to feel ' We have no greater joy than that
our children, than that the rising generation, should
walk in truth.' And I have, therefore, thought it
useful to set forth what are the religious truths
which we should try to teach our children, and
which our children should try to learn. Some of
what I say will be chiefly addressed to parents
and friends ; some of what I say will be chiefly ad-
dressed to children. But I hope that most will find
SERM. viii. THE CHILDREN'S CREED. 77
some in one part, some in another something
to instruct them.
There are two points to be mentioned at the
outset which might seem difficult to reconcile, but
which in fact wonderfully agree, and are a support
to each other. On the one hand, what we teach
to children should be truths which will stand the
wear and tear of time as they grow up. Solomon
says, ' Train up a child in the way he should go :
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.'
That is very true, but in order that he should not
depart from it when he is old, it must be a way
which, when he is old, he will find to be as good
for him as it was when he was young. On the
other hand, we must try to teach a child what he
will understand, in the simplest and not in the
hardest words, in the words which sink deepest
into his soul and lay most hold on his heart. This,
perhaps we might think, cannot be the truth in
which the child will feel most delight when it grows
older. Not perhaps in the very same forms ; but
we may be sure, and our Saviour Himself has told
us, that the instruction which is most suitable for
a little child is also the most suitable for the oldest
and wisest of men.
I. What then shall we teach our children to
78 THE CHILDREN^ CREED. SERM. vm.
believe, which when they grow up they may find
that later experience does not require them to
alter ?
(i) We must teach them that, beyond what they
feel and see and touch, there is something better
and greater, which they can neither feel nor see nor
touch. Goodness, kindness to one another, un-
selfishness, fairness, and uprightness these are the
best things in all the world. It is true that good-
ness and kindness have no faces that we can kiss
no hands that we can clasp ; but they are certainly
close to us, both in the midst of our work and our
play. And this goodness and kindness which, ex-
cept in outward acts, we cannot see, is something
which existed before we were born. It is from this
that we have all the pleasant things of this world
the flowers, the sunshine, the moonlight all these
were given us by some great kindness and good-
ness which we have never seen at all. And this
Goodness and this Love are the Great Power out of
which all things come, which we call by the name
of God. And because God is so much above us
and so good to us, we call Him by the name which
is most dear to us of all earthly names our Father.
When a father goes away from home, still his
children know that he is somewhere, though they
SERM. viii. THE CHILDREN^ CREED. 79
cannot see him, and they know what to do in order
to please him. So it is with the great unseen
Father of us all. Let us then teach our children
that God is Goodness and Justice ; that the rules
which He has laid down for the government of the
world are His will and wish for us ; even frost and
cold, even sickness and pain, are for our good, and
we must trust that he has some good reason for it,
perhaps to make us strong, and brave, and healthy.
It is for this reason that you see in the Abbey, on
the monument of Sir John Franklin, who was so
long shut up in the ice, the words, ' O ye Frost and
Cold ; O ye Ice and Snow; bless ye the Lord ;
praise Him, and magnify Him for ever.' This,
then, in various ways, is our way of expressing our
belief in our Father in heaven.
(2) But this highest kindness and fairness are
like what we have seen and heard of in the world.
Children can see it in their good parents, their
good uncles and aunts, their good brothers and
sisters ; and as they grow older they will find that
there have always been good people, and they will
hear that there was once one Child, one Man, so good
to all about Him, so good to little children, that
He has shown us better than any one else what is
the true likeness of that unseen Goodness which
8o THE CHILDREN'S CREED. SERM. vnr.
we call God, and which we still hope to know in
heaven. Children should be taught what Jesus
Christ did and said when He went about doing
good, and should be made to understand that only
so far as we are like to Jesus Christ, or like what
Jesus Christ loved when He was in the world,
can we be His friends or followers. He was good,
and He went through all sorts of trouble and pain,
even to His death on the cross, for no other reason
but to make us good. This will help us to under-
stand why He is called the Son of God, the Saviour
of men.
(3) And children should learn to know that
there is in the heart of every one of us something
which tells when we have done right or wrong,
which makes the colour come into our cheeks when
we have said what is not true, something which we
must treat with honour and respect both in ourselves
and others. What is this ? There are many names
by which you will hear it called in after life, but there
is one name which we speak of almost in a whisper,
because we do not like to think or speak of it as if
it were a common thing. We call it ' the voice of
God,' the invisible Power all around, which also is
within us the 'Breath' or the 'Spirit of God,'
which we cannot see any more than we can see our
SERM. vni. THE CHILDREN'S CREED. 81
own breath or spirit and because it is so good we
call it ' the Holy Spirit of God.' And from this
' Breath or Spirit of God ' comes all the good not
only in ourselves but in other people ; and children
cannot learn too early to admire and love all that
is admirable and lovable in the men, women, and
children that they see around them. They may,
perhaps, also be able to learn the great lesson that
there are things to be admired and loved in people
they do not like, in people that hurt and annoy
them, or even in those whom they ought to avoid.
And if, as sometimes happens, children are brought
up in other countries where they see that people
do not always go to the same church, or utter the
same prayers as they and their parents, they may
learn thus early a lesson which they never will
forget namely, that our heavenly Father has those
who serve Him and do good in many different
ways, but still in and by the same Good Spirit.
II. These are the chief things which we ought
to learn from our catechism as to what the young
should believe. And now, what must we teach
them as to what they should do? St. John, when
he was a very old man, so old that he could not
walk, and could hardly speak, used to be carried
in the arms of his friends into the midst of the
82 THE CHILDREN^ CREED. SERM. vin.
assembly of Christians, and then he would lift him-
self up and say, ' Little children, love one another ; '
and again, ' Little children, love one another ; ' and
again, ' Little children, love one another.' When
asked, ' Have you nothing else to tell us ? ' he
replied, ' I say this over and over again, because if
you do this there is nothing more needed.' Now,
that is something like what I would say to you.
What you have to be told to do is very simple. It
is that you should be kind and loving to one
another, for then you will be loving towards God,
because you will be doing that which He most
desires. Try not to vex or tease your smaller
brothers or sisters ; try to help them when they are
in difficulty; do not be jealous of them; do not
tell stories against them ; above all, do not lead
them into mischief, because the worst harm you
can do to a young child is to tempt him to do what
is wrong. If he once begins you cannot stop him,
and many years afterwards he will remember with
bitter grief and indignation that you were the first
to lead him astray into evil ways. A lie that is
told, a deceit that is practised, a bad word that is
heard, a bad act that is lightly spoken of, often
enters into the mind of a young child, and remains
there all his life. There is a proverb which says,
SERM. vin. THE CHILDREN'S CREED. 83
' Little pitchers have long ears ;' and it means that
little children often hear more than you think they
hear, and keep in their memory things which you
think they must have forgotten. It is the same, in
other words, as a Latin proverb, which those boys
who understand Latin will translate for themselves
maxima debetur pueris rererentia. The greatest
reverence, the greatest fear should restrain us from
doing anything by false, or vulgar, or foolish words
to spoil the conscience, or the taste, or the charac-
ter of a little boy. You know what you mean by a
spoiled picture, or a spoiled book ; the colours are
blurred, the leaves are rumpled. That is what
we mean by a child whose character is spoiled or
stained by the foolish indulgence or neglect of those
about him. Parents, try not to spoil your children.
Children, try not to spoil one another : and take
care not to be spoiled yourselves. That is one
of the most important ways of fulfilling St. John's
precept both for old and young, ' Little children,
love do not spoil one another.' And there is
another part of this precept which children should
be taught : it is that love and kindness include not
only our brothers and sisters and relatives, but also
poor people who are in suffering or want ; and not
only these, but also the poor dumb creatures that
84 THE CHILDREN'S CREED. SERM. viir.
depend upon us. Never be rude to any poor man
or woman because they are in rags, or because they
look and talk differently from ourselves. Never be
cruel to any dog, or cat, or bird. There was once a
very cruel Roman emperor cruel to men, women,
and children who, when he was a little boy, used
to amuse himself by tormenting flies. Perhaps if
he had been stopped then he would not have had
his heart hardened against his fellow-men.
III. And now how are you to be strength-
ened to believe and to do these things ? There
are many ways, but I will mention only two. By
reading good books and by learning good prayers.
(i) Good- books. First of all, the best parts
of the Bible ; for even in the best of all books,
the Bible, there are some parts more useful, more
easy, more likely to stand the trials of time than
others. Learn these, teach these, and you will
then find that the more difficult parts will not per-
plex those who in their early childhood have had
a firm grasp of those parts of which the truth and
beauty belong not to the vesture that is folded up
and vanisheth away, but to the wisdom and grace
which endure for ever. And of other good books,
let the stories of the good and great men of our
own or former times be fixed in our remembrance.
SERM. vni. THE CHILDREN'S CREED. 85
How many such stories there are, which, as Sir
Philip Sydney said of Chevy Chase, stir our souls
and spirits as with a trumpet ! How many are
there which will make our blood boil against the
evil-doer, or our hearts beat with admiration for
generous and noble deeds ! There was a famous
French soldier of bygone days whose name you will
see written in this Abbey on the gravestone of Sir
James Outram, because in many ways he was like
Bayard. Bayard was a small boy, only thirteen,
when he went into his first service, and his mother
told him to remember three things : ' first, to fear
and love God ; secondly, to have gentle and
courteous manners to those above him ; and
thirdly, to be generous and charitable, without
pride or haughtiness, to those beneath him : ' and
these three things he never forgot, which helped to
make him the soldier 'without fear and without
reproach.' These are the stories which are part of
the heritage of all the families of the earth, and
ought to be cherished from the first to the last.
(2) And what must we teach, what must be
learnt about prayer? Let no parent forget, let no
child forget, to say a prayer, however short, at
morning and at evening. It will help to make you
better all the day. The Lord's Prayer will never fail
86 THE CHILDREN'S CREED. SERM. vm.
you. The child will be able to understand it, the
old man will find it expressing all that he wants.
And there is also that form of prayer which is
expressed in hymns. There are hymns which can
be remembered better than anything else, and
which in restless, sleepless nights of pain and
suffering will come back to our minds, many, many
years after they were learnt in childhood. Amongst
these let me recommend the Morning and Evening
Hymns, written by one of the best of Englishmen,
Bishop Ken the first beginning, 'Awake, my soul,
and with the sun ; ' and the other, 'Glory to Thee,
my God, this night.' Not long ago I was visiting
an aged and famous statesman, 1 and he repeated
to me, word by word, the Evening Hymn, as he
had learnt it, he told me, from his nurse ninety
years before. So may it be with you, my dear
children, not only with hymns, but with the other
good things which you may learn now, and perhaps
when you are like that old, very old man, grown
gray in the service of his country, and full of years
and honours, you may remember that when you
were children you heard something which you have
not forgotten on the festival of St. John, on the
eve of Innocents' Day, in Westminster Abbey.
1 Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.
IX.
TALITHA CUMI.
(December 28, 1880.)
LET me take this evening the story of our Saviour's
kindness to a little girl. There was in Capernaum
a well-known house where lived one of the chief
officers of the synagogue. His name was Jairus.
In that house was one only child, a little daughter
of twelve years old, just at the age when a child
has had time to endear itself to its parents, when
its character first comes to be seen and known.
The child was thought to be dying. The father
heard that the Great Healer had just crossed the
lake. He was feasting in the house of Levi, the
publican. The father rushes in ; he falls at His feet ;
he entreats Him to come and save his daughter.
The Lord arose ; that little life was as precious
in His sight as the souls of those whom He was
convincing by His divine wisdom. He who said,
TALITHA CUMI.
'Suffer the little children to come unto Me,' was
as eager, if one may so say, to soothe the sick
bed of this small Galilean maiden as though He
had nothing else to do. For Him the thought of
human sickness, the call of a suffering parent, was
the most sacred of human duties. He came at
once. All along the shore and all through the
streets He had to force his way through the dense
crowd, thronging ever more and more closely
round Him. Whilst He thus struggled with the
crowd, a messenger broke through the press with
the sad tidings that it was too late. ' Thy daughter
is dead.' Amidst the surging of the crowd, and
above the hum of many voices, the Master's wakeful
ear heard the whisper of the messenger. He bade the
father still keep up his heart. ' Fear not,' He said,
' only believe.' ' Fear not,' He says to all anxious
mourners. 'Fear not the dark and dreary void into
which thy loved one has passed. Fear not that
God will desert thee in thine hour of need. Fear
not but that thou wilt once more see the child, the
parent, the brother, the sister thou hast lost. Only
believe in the lovingkindness of God our Saviour.
Only believe that He who makes the flowers to
spring and the buds to come forth again, will raise
that little flower, will help that bursting blossom of
TALITHA CUML 89
the human soul.' He reaches the house. The hired
mourners of Eastern countries are already there,
wailing and shrieking, as is their wont. He put
them all aside. He said to the parents, 'She is not
dead, but sleepeth ' ; words that have often brought
comfort to parents hanging over the face of their
dead child in the hope of the general resurrection ;
words that are written in this church, on the pede-
stal of one of the children of the great family of
Russell, who died in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
He touched the hand of the child, as she lay on
her couch as if in the sleep of death. He addressed
her in words which have been handed down liter-
ally. It is doubtful, in His discourses generally,
what language our Saviour spoke whether Greek
or Syriac ; but here, at any rate, the Syriac words
are given. They are, ' Talitha cumi ' ; that is, ' My
little lamb, my little pet lamb, rise up.' With these
endearing appellations He roused the sleeping soul.
By these He showed to the parents that He was one
with them in their parental love, in their domestic
joy as well as in their domestic sorrow. And she
came again to life, and was to them as before.
Now let me apply this both to parents and
children. Parents, remember what a gift, what
an inestimable gift, is given to you in the soul
90 TALITHA CUMI. SERM. ix.
of a little child ; how its playful ways are to you
the special gift of God. Think what a sight it is
to see an innocent little girl ; reflect how to any
cne except the most brutal of mankind such a
sight banishes all thoughts of filthy language or
foul deeds; remember that the tenderness and
gentleness which the sight of such a little girl
awakens is one of the best parts of your nature.
If any of you doubt whether it is in you to be self-
controlled and masters of yourselves, remember
that, unless you are very bad indeed, you must
be so in the presence of such a little being. Sir
William Napier describes, in his 'History of the
Peninsular War,' how affecting it was to see, at the
battle of Busaco, in Portugal, a beautiful Portuguese
orphan girl coming down the mountains, driving an
ass loaded with all her property through the midst
of the armies. She passed over the field of battle
with a childish simplicity, scarcely understanding
which were French and which were English, and
no one on either side was so hard-hearted as to
touch her. And let me give two stories which show
how the strongest men are open to those tender
kindly feelings which little children are given by
our heavenly Father to promote in all of us. That
same Sir William Napier once in his walks met
SERM. ix. TALITHA CUMI. 91
with a little girl of five years old sobbing over a
pitcher she had broken. She in her innocence
asked him to mend it. He told her that he could
not mend it, but that he would meet her trouble
by giving her sixpence to buy a new one, if she
would meet him there at the same hour the next
evening, as he had no money in his purse that day.
When he returned home he found that there was
an invitation waiting for him, which he particularly
wished to accept. But he could not then have met
the little girl at the time stated, and he gave up the
invitation, saying, ' I could not disappoint her, she
trusted in me so implicitly.' That was the true
Christian gentleman and soldier. Another exam-
ple is that of Martin Luther, one of the fiercest
and most courageous men that ever lived. But
when he thought of his little children, especially of
his little daughter, he was as gentle and kind as
any woman. His daughter Magdalen died when
she was thirteen years of age, and it is most affecting
to read his grief, and, at the same time, his resigna-
tion. ' Magdalen, my little daughter, thou wouldst
gladly stay with thy father here, and thou wouldst
also gladly go to thy Father yonder.' 'Ah ! thou
dear little thing, thou shalt rise again, and shine
like a star ; yea, like the sun.' ' Her face, her
92 TALITHA CUMI. SERM. ix.
words, cleave to our heart, remain fixed in its depths,
living and dying the words and looks of that most
dutiful child. Blessed be the Lord Jesus Christ,
who called, chose, and magnified her. I would for
myself, and all of us, that we might attain to such
a death ; yea, rather, to such a life.'
And you, children, these words are also ad-
dressed to you. ' My little lamb,' the very word
tells to you how precious you are to the Good
Shepherd. Arise, get up, bestir yourself! get up
from any slothful habit, from any idle, selfish habit
you have formed. Let His voice reach your inner-
most heart, and raise you from the deepest sleep.
There was a boy who used to carry parcels
from a bookseller to his customers. He went
every day trudging through the streets with a heavy
parcel of books under his arm, and one day he
was sent to the house of a great duke with three
folio volumes of Clarendon's ' History of England.'
The parcel was so heavy, his shoulders were so
tired, that as he passed through Broad Sanctuary,
opposite Westminster Abbey, he laid down the load,
and sobbed at the thought that there was nothing
higher in life for him to look forward to than being
a bookseller's porter. Suddenly he looked up at
the great building which towered above him. He
SERM. ix. TALITHA CUMI. 93
thought of the high thoughts and the great men
enshrined within it. He brushed away his tears,
replaced the load on his shoulder, and walked
on with a light heart, determined to bide his time.
And his time came at last. He became one of the
best and most learned of our Indian missionaries. 1
There was a little girl living with her old grand-
father. She was a good child, but he was not a
very good man, and one day when the little child
came back from school he put in writing over her
bed, ' God is nowhere' ; for he did not believe in
the good God, and he was trying to make the little
child believe the same. What did the little girl
do ? She had no eyes to see, no ears to hear, what
her grandfather tried to teach her. She was very
small ; she could only read words of one syllable
at the time ; she rose above the bad meaning
which he tried to put into her mind ; she rose as
we ought all to rise, above the temptation of our
time ; she rose into a higher and better world ;
she rose because her little mind could not do
otherwise, and she read the words, not ' God is
nowhere] but ' God is noiv /iere.' That is what we
all should strive to do. Out of words which have
no sense, or which have a bad sense, our eyes, our
1 Dr. Joshua Marshman.
94 TALITHA CUM I.
minds, ought to be able to read a good sense. The
old grandfather was touched and made serious, and
we ought all of us to be made serious in like
manner by the innocent questions and answers of
our little children. God is noiv here. God is now,
at this moment, watching over them and us. God
is here, in this very Abbey, watching over the little
children here assembled. God is in your homes, in
your play, in your prayers, listening to you, as He is
in this church, and He says to each one of you, to
each one of us, ' Talitha cumi ' My little lamb, rise,
mount up, be better this year than you were last
year. Mount up, become better and wiser ; mount
up, rise up, as if you were climbing a long ladder ;
mount up, rise up, as if you were climbing a high
mountain, and then you will be able to read those
words, ' God is nffivherej in their truest sense.
They mean that God is in no particular place.
That is true ; but it is not the whole truth it is
only half the truth, or, rather, it is, when taken
by itself, the reverse of the truth. But when we
make it ' God is now here] it becomes a great truth,
for it tells us that because God is in no particular
place, therefore He is in all places. God is now
here, for God is always everywhere your help in
ages past, your hope for years to come.
95
X.
THE BEATITUDES.
(Saturday Afternoon, June 18, 1881.)
And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain :
and ivhen He was set, His disciples came unto Him.
MATT. v. i.
IT has been my wish, for some time since, to invite
those who may be disengaged at this time of the
year, and at this time of the day, to hear a few
words which may perchance be useful to them on
some of the serious matters connected with reli-
gion. The season of the Christian year which we
are now entering upon is not marked by any solemn-
ity which conspicuously attracts us : Christmas is
over, Lent is over, Easter is over, Whitsuntide and
Trinity Sunday are over, and there is nothing to
break the long and even tenor which continues
onwards towards Advent. The absence of any
such particular solemnity appears to leave a vacant
96 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. x.
space in which we may possibly have an oppor-
tunity of calling attention to those truths through
which alone all other facts and doctrines of the
Christian religion are important.
I propose to speak of the Beatitudes pronounced
by our Saviour on the characters in which He most
delighted. They are all-important in several ways.
First, they open that discourse which, whatever
may be the difficulties of particular parts of it, has
always been recognised as the most important
part of the New Testament. Nothing else in
the Gospels, nothing in St. Paul's Epistles, can
compare with the interest which attaches to the
words derived from our Saviour's lips on this occa-
sion. It is, as it has been well called, the Magna
Charta of Christianity. These Beatitudes corre-
spond in the Christian religion to the Ten Com-
mandments delivered on Mount Sinai they were
intended by some good reformers of our Church
Service to take the place of those Ten Command-
ments on the three great festivals of the Christian
Church which are now past. They are not ques-
tioned, at least in their essential parts, by any of
those various inquiries which have thrown some diffi-
culty in the way of accepting this or that saying
of our Saviour, this or that writing of His apostles.
SERM. x. THE BEATITUDES. 97
Secondly, they put before us what are those
qualities, and what are those results, which the
Founder of our religion regarded as alone of supreme
excellence. He does not say, ' Blessed are the
Churchmen,' or 'Blessed are the Nonconformists';
He does not say, ' Blessed are the Presbyterians,'
or ' Blessed are the Episcopalians ' ; He does not
say, 'Blessed are the Methodists,' or 'Blessed are
the Baptists ' ; He does not say, ' Blessed are the
Roman Catholics,' or 'Blessed are the Protestants':
but He says, ' Blessed are they who show those
graces and virtues in their characters which may
be found in every one of these communities, and
under every one of these forms of belief.'
In proportion as we show any of these in our
lives, we do what our Master tells us ; in propor-
tion as we do not show them, we fail in the
purpose for which He lived and died for man.
Often in revivals, and in confessions on death-beds,
people ask, * Are you happy ? ' ' Are you saved ? '
Christ gives us the answer : ' You are happy, you
are saved, if you seek the happiness, first, of
modesty ; secondly, of compassion for sorrow ;
thirdly, of gentleness ; fourthly, of an eager desire
for justice ; fifthly, of purity and singleness of
purpose ; sixthly, of kindness to man and beast ;
H
THE BEATITUDES.
seventhly, of pacific and conciliatory courses ;
eighthly, of perseverance in spite of difficulty.'
Again, the form of the ' Beatitudes,' as they are
called or, in other words, the declaration of the
happiness of those who fulfil these things in their
own lives is perhaps the best way of leading us to
practise those things. He does not say, 'Be merci-
ful,' or ' Be pure in heart ' ; but He says, ' Happy
are the merciful, happy are the pure in heart ' :
that is to say, He points out that the happiness of
which we all of us, rich and poor, are in search,
can be found in one or other of these Divine
qualities.
In this respect the same course was laid down
by a great teacher of religion who existed among
the heathen in the world of former times, 1 in words
which it may perhaps be well for me to read to
you, both because they are instructive in them-
selves, and also because they show the same deep
feeling of desire that man should be happy and
not miserable, which lay at the bottom of our
Saviour's heart.
A disciple of that great teacher of whom I
speak came to him and said, 'Many angels and
men have held various things to be blessings when
1 Buddha.
SERM. x. THE BEATITUDES. 99
they were yearning for happiness: do thou declare to
us the chief blessing.' This great teacher answered
and said, 'Not to serve the foolish, but to serve the
wise, to honour the worthy of honour this is the
greatest blessing. To dwell in the pleasant land,
to have former good works to look back upon,
and right desires in the heart this is the greatest
blessing. Much insight and instruction, self-con-
trol and pleasant speech, and whatever word be
well spoken this is the greatest blessing. To sup-
port father and mother, to cherish wife and child,
to follow a peaceful calling this is the greatest
blessing. To bestow arms and live righteously ; to
give help to kindred, to do deeds which cannot
be blamed these are the greatest blessings. To
abhor and cease from sin, to abstain from strong
drink, not to be weary in well-doing these are the
greatest blessings. Reverence and lowliness, con-
tentment and gratitude, the hearing of the law at
due seasons these are the greatest blessings. To
be longsuffering and meek, to associate with those
who are quiet, and have religious talk at due
seasons these are the greatest blessings. Self-
restraint and purity, the knowledge of noble truths,
the knowledge of the value of rest this is the
greatest blessing. On every side all are invincible
THE BEATITUDES.
who do acts like these ; on every side they walk in
safety, and theirs is the greatest blessing.'
I have read these words to you, not in order
that they may take the place of our Saviour's
teaching in the eight Beatitudes, far from it ; but
in order that you may see how, in this method of
instruction, the great lights our God has sent into
the world speak, on the whole, in the same voice.
These are the Beatitudes of millions of our fellow-
creatures in India. The Beatitudes of Jesus Christ
are far simpler and nobler, but they both spring
from the same spirit.
Fourthly, I have taken this subject of the states
of mind which our Saviour calls ' blessed ' because
they furnish to us the great goal or end which
will solve many difficulties in the great battle of
life which we all have before us. This day is the
anniversary of the battle of Waterloo the greatest
battle of modern times. It involved the ques-
tion, Who should be master of the world ? You
know the object which sustained our soldiers in
that great conflict. It was for the officers and
generals the hope of vanquishing the great enemy
of England ; it was for all the soldiers the great
object of fulfilling their duty to their country, and
of obtaining that honour which is the soldier's
THE BEATITUDES.
great reward. These are noble motives, and they,
no doubt, serve to nerve the heart and will against
hardships and sufferings and death. We need not
disparage such motives ; but we are not all soldiers,
and there are honours even greater than the reward
of a grateful country. Those qualities of which
our Saviour spoke are within the reach of all of us,
and they amply serve to sustain us in all the con-
flicts of poverty and distress with which many of
us are encompassed. There are, no doubt, many
lesser kinds of happiness and virtue. There are,
no doubt, many successes in life which attend on
the swaggerers, the self-asserting, the common-
place, the listeners and retailers of gossip, the
people who turn about with any evil wind that
blows. But there is something beyond. In moun-
tain countries there is, over and above all the lower
hills, one range, one line of lofty summits which
conveys a new sense of something quite different ;
and that is the range of eternal snow. High above
all the rest we see the white peaks standing out in
the blue sky, catching the first rays of the rising
sun, the last rays of the sun as it departs. They
are not the rounded hills which can be climbed by
every one. They are not a range of extinct vol-
canoes, from which all fire has departed ; they are
THE BEATITUDES. SERM. x.
the same always wherever we see them. Such are
the Beatitudes. High above all earthly ordinary
virtues, they tower into the heaven itself. They
are white with the snows of eternity. And when
the shades of sickness and sorrow gather round us,
when other common characters become cold and
dead, then those higher points stand out brighter
and brighter ; the glow of daylight can be seen
reflected on their summits when it has vanished
everywhere beside.
There are many examples of these different
virtues. Sometimes in some rare cases we meet
a man or a woman of whom it might always be
said that you see all the eight Beatitudes written
upon their faces. They belong to that circle of
a very few by whom the whole world is made
happier and better. But also we may meet with
each of them separately ; and we may, by dwelling
on their separate existence, as exemplified by the
living or the dead, be enabled to see that such
virtues are possible ; we may find comfort in dwell-
ing upon them. I shall endeavour to take from
those who are commemorated in this Abbey some
one or two persons for each of these Beatitudes, who
may give us something of a glimpse of what is meant
by the ' pure in heart,' by the ' merciful,' by the
SERM. x. THE BEA TITUDES. 103
'poor in spirit,' by the 'peacemakers,' by those who
1 hunger and thirst after righteousness,' and those
who are ' persecuted for righteousness' sake.' If I
can raise your minds to the appreciation of such
virtues, if I can do this in any way so as to produce
an impression upon you that we have something
in life worth striving for, and that this Abbey,
by its various examples, has something worth
teaching, I shall not have spoken in vain.
IO4
XI.
THE BEATITUDES.
(Saturday Afternoon, June 25, 1881.)
Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be
comforted. MATT. v. 3, 4.
I PROPOSE, in accordance with the plan which I
laid down last Saturday, to take in order what are
called the Beatitudes, in which our Saviour selected
for His approbation the qualities which He most
cherished. It will not be supposed that these
qualities are equally found in all persons, or that
their exemplification will always be equally applic-
able to Christians in different times of the world.
The different Beatitudes, as it were, fill up the
deficiencies which some of them leave ; and they
must be looked upon rather as describing to us
points of character that are each in themselves
good, and which when we see we cannot help
SERM. xi. THE BEATITUDES. 105
admiring. It is the admiration of good qualities
which is the best proof of spirit rising above
matter. In whatever way these qualities are pro-
duced in man, whether inherited or acquired, it
still remains certain that so long as there is a spark
of enthusiasm enkindled for them in any human
being, so long is the living proof retained of their
undying excellence.
' Blessed are the poor in spirit.' This, like so
many of our Saviour's words, is, as it were, a little
parable in itself. As the poor man is with regard
to the substance of this world, so is the ' poor
in spirit ' with regard to the various attractions of
the soul and spirit. Blessed are the unselfish ;
happy are those who live for others, and not for
themselves ; happy are those among us who leave
a large margin in their existence for the feelings
which come to us from what is above, and also
from what is around us. We know what a man
is when inflated by the sense of his power, his
wealth, and his intellect ; how he goes about the
world asserting himself, claiming everything on
which he can lay his hands as his own. That is
the man whom we may call purse-proud in spirit,
rich with the prosperity and the aggressiveness of
a powerful, wealthy man. The quality which our
io6 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xi.
Saviour admired was the reverse of this. It is to
be found among the rich as well as among the
poor, although, perhaps, poverty more conduces
to it than riches. There was a story in old times
told of a severe, cynical philosopher visiting the
house of one who was as far his superior in genius
as in modesty. He found the good philosopher
living in a comfortable house, with easy chairs
and pleasant pictures round him, and he came in
with his feet stained with dust and mud, and said,
as he walked upon the beautiful carpets, 'Thus I
trample on the pride of Plato. ; The good philo-
sopher paid no attention at the time, but returned
the visit, and when he saw the ragged furniture and
the scanty covering of the floor of the house in
which the other ostentatiously lived, he said, ' I
see the pride of Diogenes through the holes in his
carpet.' Many a one there is whose pride is thus
shown by his affecting to be without it ; many a
one whose poverty, whose modesty in spirit, can
best be appreciated by seeing how the outward
comforts and splendour of life can be used by him
without paying any attention to them.
There is another way in which this unselfish
feeling expresses itself feeling for what is above us.
'Reverence,' Shakespeare says, 'is the angel of the
SERM. xi. THE BEATITUDES. 107
world.' It is the angel of the world by smoothing
and softening, and bringing into their right propor-
tions, all the jarring elements of the human mind
and human heart. It is what Burke described as
produced by the entrance into this Abbey. ' The
moment we enter into the Abbey,' he said, 'the
very silence seems sacred ' ; and Wordsworth says :
Be mine in hours of fear
Or grovelling thought to seek a refuge here ;
* * * *
Where bubbles burst, and folly's dancing foam
Melts if it cross the threshold.
Some one has described how a great American
orator and statesman, Webster, first entered the
Abbey. He walked in, he looked around him, and
he burst into tears. That is the acknowledgment
of something undefined, mysterious, superior to
ourselves, and superior to all common things, which
is the root of all religion, and which springs from
that modesty and humility of spirit which is de-
scribed in the first Beatitude.
It is well said that 'theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.' We do not, perhaps, perceive at once
the success of those who are thinking of this or of
higher things ; but, nevertheless, in the long run it
is sure to be theirs. There is a story told of a Welsh
io8 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xi.
chieftain, who, on coming with his followers to
a river, said, ' He who will be master must first
make himself a .bridge ' ; and he carried them, one
after another, on his back until they reached the
opposite shore. That is what we must all do. We
must make ourselves the slaves of others, doing
their work, securing their interests ; if we wish to
be in a high sense their lords and 'masters, we must
be, all of us in our way, the servants of the public,
not by doing their bidding, but by defending their
interests ; not by listening to their follies, but by
seeking their good. There are two characters
whose memory is enshrined in this church, who
may be chosen out of many as instances of un-
selfish qualities. One is its first founder, Edward
the Confessor. There was nothing in him of
ability or power to commend him ; he had just
one single merit, that he thought more of the poor
and the suffering than he did of himself ; and for
that reason the poor and the suffering for long
years afterwards remembered him with gratitude ;
and when the Abbey was rebuilt by Henry III., it
was in commemoration of these unselfish quali-
ties of the last Saxon king. Another example is
to be seen, of a very different kind, at the very ex-
tremity of the nave, where is a monument erected
SERM. xi. THE BEATITUDES. 109
to a young philosopher, a clergyman, who, in the
short space of a life which lasted only twenty-one
years, made discoveries in science of a most sur-
prising kind. His name was Jeremiah Horrocks.
There was one thing which he felt, however, had a
higher claim upon him even than science. It was
the doing his duty in the humble sphere in which
he found himself; and when he was on the eve of
watching the transit of the planet Venus across the
sun, and was waiting with the utmost keenness of
observation for this phenomenon, he put all these
thoughts aside, and went on the Sunday on which
this sight was to be observed to perform his
humble parish duty in the church where he was
pastor. He mentions it in his journal in words
which are now written over his monument :
' Called aside to greater things, which ought not to
be neglected for the sake of subordinate pursuits.'
Subordinate, secondary, in one sense, those pur-
suits could not be, for they were the discovery of
the glory of God in the greatness of His works ; but
subordinate, in another sense, they were, for they
came across, in that instance, the single-minded dis-
charge of the duty which he owed to his parishioners
and to his Divine Master. It was a true example
of what an old poet has called 'high humility.'
no THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xi.
Whatever you have to do, do it, whatever and how-
ever great may be things that would take you from it.
I turn to the next Beatitude, which falls in not
unnaturally with this. It is ' Blessed are they that
mourn.' The whole Abbey is indeed filled with the
shadows of those that mourn. Every funeral, or
almost every funeral, even the most splendid that
takes place within these walls, has some sincere and
heart-rending sorrow involved in the separation of
death ; always, or almost always, I have observed
there have been sad faces in the long funeral pro-
cessions which have accompanied the great and
famous to their end ; sad faces indifferent to the
splendour of the scene around them, and lost in
the thought of the dear friend or father or husband
or son who had gone down into the dark grave.
' What,' we ask again and again ' what is the
object of these dreadful sorrows? What is the
gracious purpose which may be intended in these
repeated strokes of human calamity?' It is hard
to say ; but thus much we may say that if every
one were to lift up his mind to the thoughts which
arise at such moments, he would be in a condition
far indeed raised above the frets and cares and sins
of common life. There is in the grief of such
times a tranquillising, solemnising, elevating wisdom,
SRKM. xi. THE BEATITUDES. in
which transports even the most hardened amongst
us into a region beyond himself. Any one who
thinks how greatly he would regret bitter or foolish
words or acts toward the dead as they lie before
him, has a constant reminder that such acts and
words are against the best spirit of a man as he
actually lives and moves among his fellows. Think
of what you are in sorrow. That is a true likeness
of the high thoughts that we ought to have, that we
may have always. In this sense, therefore, we may
truly say that in the mourning of which this house
of God is the constant memorial, there is a true
source of comfort which never can be effaced.
Because it is the temple of silence and recon-
ciliation, it is the temple of God and the home of
man. One touch of nature, it is said, makes the
whole world kin ; but it is because one touch of
nature lifts us up into that higher and nobler state
in which we are kindred of each other, because
we then feel that we are kindred also with God.
All the graves in the Abbey more or less convey
this lesson. Let me name one, which has nothing
else to commend it except its suggestive sorrow.
It is in the Cloisters, where the parents have
written on a tablet over their little girl, ' Jane
Lister, dear child, died October 7, 1688.' That
112 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xi.
is all. It was at the time when every one was
thinking of the stirring events which were lead-
ing to the revolution of 1688, but these parents
thought of nothing else than their dear little child ;
their hearts were not on earth, but in heaven,
where they hoped that she was. We cannot doubt
that in so mourning they were comforted.
XII.
THE BEATITUDES.
(Saturday Afternoon, July 2, iSSl.)
Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous-
ness : for they shall be filled. MATT. v. 5, 6.
I PROCEED with my statement of those whom our
Saviour has called ' happy.' 'Blessed are the meek.'
Those of you who have followed the changes made
in the translation by the Revised Version, will have
observed that these Beatitudes are left entirely un-
changed ; and this is due to the great solemnity
which attaches to the words. But in this instance
the word ' meek ' hardly expresses the quality
which is meant in the original. It is too passive a
word ; it does not sufficiently represent the active
character which is intended. Those of you who
can understand French will recognise this in the
French translation : ^ Bicnhcurciix sent les dcbon-
i
H4 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xn.
naires' ; that is to say, ' Happy are the gracious,
graceful, Christian characters who, by their cour-
tesy, win all hearts around them, and smoothe all
the rough places of the world.' Perhaps ' Blessed
are the gentle ' would best express it. If we give to
the word ' gentle ' all the meanings that it properly
implies, it is the opposite of ' vulgar,' ' coarse,'
' barbarian ' ; it is the ' delicate,' 'refined,' 'civilised,'
' chivalrous.' We know its meaning when it is
mixed up with another word, as in 'gentleman,' or
'gentleman-like.'
Our Saviour on one occasion said, f Come unto
Me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart.' It really
was, ' For I am gentle ' ; and it is said by an old
poet of our Saviour that He was 'the firsc true
gentleman that ever breathed.' Both the word
' gentle ' and the word ' gentleman ' rise very high
above the common acceptation of the term. A
peasant, an artisan, if he has this gracious quality
of feeling for others, the courteous eagerness to
avoid offence, may be as great a gentleman, in
the true sense of the word, as any duke or any
prince. ' He was a very perfect, gentle knight,'
was the description given by Chaucer of a true
gentleman in his day ; and the words may be
applied to one of our own time who is buried in
SERM. xii. THE BEATITUDES. 115
our Abbey George Grote, the historian of Greece,
whose urbanity lives in the recollection of all who
knew him.
These are the kind of qualities which penetrate
into every corner, and which may be, therefore,
truly said to inherit the whole earth. How very
much may be done by a kind answer at a railway
station by a railway porter ! How very much
pleasure, and even happiness, may be given by the
policeman at the corner of the streets ! How fully
the duties of life are transformed into graces and
pleasures by such gentle acts !
It has been sometimes said of persons, both in
high stations and in humbler stations, that, next
to being Christians, the great thing was that they
should be gentlemen ; that even if they were not
called Christians, it was a great comfort to feel
that one had a gentleman to deal with. And the
happiness they distribute returns on themselves ;
for what can be more charming than to be gifted with
those divine qualities which pass, one hardly knows
how, into the rough feelings and habits of those
around us, and diffuse all about us an atmosphere
of gratitude and contentment the determination
not to give or take offence ; the instinct that
tells us that it is our business to pay attention
I 2
Ii6 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xn.
especially to the neglected, and not to think only
of the great ? These are qualities which we may
well call blessed, which may be found both in man
and woman ; and an example of it I will choose
from this Abbey is a lady who lived more than 300
years ago. Her tomb maybe seen in Henry VII. 's
Chapel, and it is the most beautiful and venerable
figure that this church contains. It is Margaret,
the mother of King Henry VII., who is said, by
her gracious and gentle manners, to have attracted
all hearts towards her. ' Every one that knew her '
so it was said in her funeral sermon, ' every one
that knew her loved her, and everything that she
said or she did became her.' She was full of noble
thoughts for her country ; she counted it to be her
sacred duty to end the Civil War of the Roses by
securing the marriage of her son with Elizabeth of
York. She founded colleges of learning at Cam-
bridge; she bequeathed money for the poor of
Westminster; and, as if to show how the gracious
and beautiful conduct which was so characteristic
of a lady in the highest walks of life could de-
scend to the humblest station, she used to say
that if the Christians would combine against their
common enemy the Turk, she would undertake
to go as their washerwoman. She felt, no doubt,
SERM. xii. THE BEATITUDES. 117
that she could carry the dignity of a lady into that
humble sphere : and, in like manner, every washer-
woman or servant in this church might perform
their duties of laundress and servant with the true
grace and dignity of a lady.
The next quality which our Saviour blesses is
thus expressed : They who 'hunger and thirst after
righteousness.' He does not say, ' Those who
have attained righteousness,' but those who have a
hungering and craving after that which they per-
haps have not reached, which they perhaps never,
in this life, may fully attain to, but which to seek
after is the truest ambition of the children of God.
When we look out into the world, when we
see how much there is of falsehood and injustice
and oppression all around, there is one consoling
thing ; and that is to see some who are filled with
an earnest desire to make things better than they
are.
There was a band of youthful scholars who met
many years ago in Germany, and they bound
each other by a simple resolution that they would
not die until they had done something to leave the
world better than they found it. There is such a
thing, we know, as thirst after knowledge. Every
one knows what a craving there exists, even
ii8 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xn.
amongst the humbler classes, for knowledge and
learning. And the same figure of ' thirst ' best
expresses the ardent feeling of the soul for a
nobler and purer life than that which we now
have. ' Like as the hart ' like as the stag
' desireth water brooks, so longeth my soul after
Thee, O God.' We may have read how a stag a
stricken solitary deer, with the tears streaming down
its cheeks, panting and heaving with its weary toil
at the end of its day's long chase plunges into
the mountain torrent to bathe its worn-out limbs,
or revels in the refreshing lake. It is a likeness
of what, in common life we recognise the thirst
of the soldier on his march as he approaches
the rushing river ; the thirst of the politician,
after his weary nights and days of toil, for moments
of repose; the thirst of the labourer and the artisan
after a long day's work. There is a representation
in the Catacombs, on one of the Christian tombs,
of a stag drinking eagerly at the silver stream,
figuring the first sign of the Christian life.
This is the true likeness of hungering and
thirsting after righteousness. When we are toiling
towards the close of our earthly course, or in any
especial period of it ; when we feel stifled by the
sultry and suffocating sense of the hardness and
SERM. xii. THE BEATITUDES. 119
selfishness of the world about us ; when our breath
is, as it were, choked by the trifles and forms and
fashions of the world we live in, or our ears deafened
by the clattering of the world's vast machinery, we
may still join the cry, ' I thirst for the refreshing
sight of any pure, upright, generous spirit ; I thirst
for the day when I may drink freely of God's
boundless charity ; I thirst for the day when I shall
hear the "sound of abundance of rain," and see
a higher heaven than that which now incloses us
round.'
Happy are they who, when they see generous
deeds, and hear of generous characters higher than
their own, long to be like them. It is our business
to keep up the chase ; not to cease our efforts to
quench this thirst ; never to be ' weary in well-
doing,' and to believe that in this hunger and
thirst is the spring of all true religion.
There was once in this country and in this
church a wild young prince, who selfishly indulged
in all the enjoyments and passions of youth. By
his father's death-bed he was brought to a sense of
better things, and from that moment his soul went
on constantly aspiring to higher and severer courses
of duty. It was King Henry V., whose tomb you
may see behind Edward the Confessor's Chapel.
120 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xn.
He especially attended to the complaints of the
poor, and those who had none to help them.
Unlike his ancestors and his kindred, he never
swore any profane oath. He had only two words
to express the strength of his determination and
show what his resolution was. When anything was
proposed to him that was wrong, his one word was
'Impossible'; when anything in the shape of a
duty came before him, he had only one word, ' It
must be done.' During many days his life as a
soldier was unlike what one would desire ; but he
almost always had before him the sense of holier
things ; and when at last his end grew near, his
dying words were, ' Build thou the walls of Jeru-
salem ' ; and, as if speaking to the evil spirit that
had haunted his youth, he cried, 'Thou liest ! thou
liest ! my heart is for the Lord Jesus Christ.' This,
in times long ago, was an example how they which
' hunger and thirst after righteousness ' can be
filled can be satisfied, at last> with the hope of
having mastered their evil passions, and attained
to' that conquest over themselves which is more
glorious than conquest over their enemies.
There are many others in this church who may
recall to our minds the same thoughts as we wander
round it many who had before them a great and
SERM. xn. THE BEATITUDES. 121
bright idea of human life, and who did something
to realise it ; such as those who laboured for the
abolition of the slave trade, like Granville Sharp,
Zachary Macaulay, and Wilberforce ; those, also,
who laboured for the revival of more serious
thoughts and more just principles of action
amongst their countrymen, like John and Charles
Wesley. Let us seek to aspire in some degree
towards their goodness, and humbly trust that,
when we wake up from our long sleep, we may
awake after their likeness and the likeness of the
God whom they followed, and may be 'satisfied
with it.'
XIII.
THE BEATITUDES.
(Saturday Afternoon, July 9, 1881.)
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the piire in heart: for they shall see God.
MATT. v. 7, 8.
' BLESSED are the merciful.' This especially illus-
trates what I said at the beginning of these dis-
courses, that the object of each of the Beatitudes
is to bring out the beauty of one particular quality
without commending the other qualities which may
exist in the same character with it We see many
men of very imperfect morality, and yet in whom
this quality of mercy is such as to make us feel that,
if it were universal amongst mankind, the whole
world would be the happier for it, and that in those
in whom it is found it is a redeeming virtue in the
proper sense of the word a virtue which redeems
from condemnation and detestation the whole cha-
SERM. xni. THE BEATITUDES. 123
racter in which it is found embedded. It is said
that Lord Brougham made a resolution that he
would count that day no day on which he had not done
some one act of kindness towards some one fellow-
creature. Lord Brougham was a man of many faults ;
but, if this resolution were sincerely made and sin-
cerely acted upon, it is wonderful how much good
it implies in the course of his long life. We see the
same thing by examples where the reverse has been
the case, where men have so hardened their hearts,
or had their hearts so hard from the beginning,
that they are steeled against all approaches to pity
and compassion. Look at the cases of the betrayal
of innocent girls to their ruin. Much else may
be said of these cases ; but one thing is that which
the prophet urged against David that he had no
pity.
Look, again, at the case of assassinations
those assassinations which during the last few
months have become so formidable. I do not now
speak of the unsettling of all the bonds of society;
I speak only of the total want of compassion and
mercy which they show towards the individuals
who are the victims of this frenzy. The Emperor
of Russia ' was a man with the same affections and
1 Alexander II. assassinated March 13, iSSl.
124 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xin.
feelings as yourselves, with sons and daughters as
you have; the President of the United States 2 had
friends and family, who are dearly attached to him.
It is said that the assassin did for a moment waver,
because he felt a passing weakness in the presence
of the wife whom he was about to deprive of a
husband. We often say that Emperors, Kings, and
Presidents are ' the same flesh and blood ' as ourselves,
meaning that they have the same infirmities and
the same faults. In all these cases it is for the wel-
fare and the safety of mankind that the common say-
ing should have a more extended meaning given to
it. Yes, it is because these great personages are the
same flesh and blood as ourselves that they demand
from us the kindly consideration which we should
give to our own brothers, sisters, daughters, and
husbands. Look, again, at the French Revolution
and the Inquisition, and at the cruelties per-
petrated in the name of Liberty in the one case and
of Religion in the other. What was the cause of
this ? It was simply that the feeling of humanity,
of mercy, had died out in the hearts of those
unhappy men who rose to the highest places of
authority, and that therefore they had no eyes to
2 President Garfield, shot by an assassin, July 2, died
September 19, 1 88 1.
SERM. xni THE BEATITUDES. 125
see and no ears to hear the tears and misery that
they produced.
But let us take a wider sphere of compassion,
which is due not only to human beings, but to
all living creatures, whether of our own or of the
animal creation. Martin of Galway ! see what an
immense circle of happiness he has diffused by
reason of the Acts for restraining cruelty to animals
which he carried through Parliament amidst ob-
loquy of every kind, in defiance of the press, in
defiance of popular opinion. How many a wearied
horse, and jaded ox, and suffering dog, if they had
voices to speak, would bless the name of Martin
for the long-continued blessings which he has
showered upon them ! It is surely not too much
to ask that this mercy or compassion to dumb
animals should be made part of the very religion of
childhood, that children may grow up to manhood
with something of the same horror of cruelty to
beasts and birds that they would feel with regard to
each other.
There are two persons connected with this
church whom I will specially name as examples
of the virtue of mercy, even when surrounded
by many qualities which we cannot admire or
approve. One was the statesman, Charles James
126 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xin.
Fox, whose monument you see in the nave of this
Abbey. At his feet there kneels a negro, with
clasped hands, and with the strongly marked
physiognomy of his race, seeming to plead for
the generous-minded benefactor, in whose heart,
immersed as it was in public affairs and in private
pleasures, the wrongs of those whom he had never
seen awakened a spark of deep compassion and of
just indignation, which causes him to be remem-
bered in that noble band whom I mentioned last
Saturday as hungering and thirsting after righteous-
ness, but who was himself drawn towards that holy
fellowship solely by this feeling of mercy and com-
passion. The other is Charles Dickens. There
are many charges that might be brought against
his style, and perhaps against his behaviour ; but
there was one quality which attracted to his grave
the honour and the tears of English men and Eng-
lish women of all classes, especially the poor it
was that he had a tender heart for their sufferings,
that he had that insight, which, perhaps, he was
the first to display, into the squalor and temptations
and wretchedness of their position, which won him
an everlasting name among the benefactors of the
humbler classes. Truly is it said that the merciful
shall obtain mercy. We cannot believe that the
SERM. xnr. THE BEATITUDES. 127
generous and merciful acts of such men as these
can ever be lost in the sight of God by reason of the
other faults with which they are surrounded. It is
the very quality on which our Saviour's blessing has
been most distinctly pronounced. 'Forgive,' He
says, ' and ye shall be forgiven.' ' Give, and it shall
be given unto you.' And the feeling of posterity
and the feeling of contemporaries is, after all, some
slight index of what we may call in this respect the
final judgment of God.
' Blessed are the pure in heart.' This is the
next Beatitude, but one altogether different from
that of which we have just been speaking. The
one quality is found sometimes not coupled
with the other ; nevertheless, in this case also
we feel that our Saviour's blessing has gone
straight to the point. The words may bear a two-
fold meaning pure, disinterested love of truth,
and pure and clean aversion to everything that
defiles. Pure love of truth ! How very rare, yet
how very beneficent ! We do not see its merits
at once ; we do not perceive, perhaps even in the
next generation, how widely happiness is increased
in the world by the discoveries of men of science
who pursued them simply and solely because they
were attracted towards them by a single-minded
128 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xm.
love of what was true. Look at Sir Isaac Newton,
the most famous grave which this church contains.
It was said by those who knew him that he had
the whitest soul they had ever known the whitest
soul, perhaps, in other points also, but the whitest
especially in this, that no consideration ever came
across his desire of ascertaining and propounding
the exact truth on whatever subject he was engaged.
Corrupt elections, corrupt motives, are the very
reverse of this Beatitude. Open your eyes ! Take
the mask off your faces !
Again, pufity from all that defiles or stains the
soul. Filthy thoughts, filthy actions, filthy words
we know what they are without attempting to
describe them. How can the mind best be kept
free from their intrusion? How is society best
guarded from their corrupting influence? Let us
take three examples from those who are buried or
who have monuments in this church. Milton has
not only told us that he was from his earliest youth
entirely free from such defilements, but he imprinted
it in such a manner in the words of his poems
that no one can read those poems and admire
them without feeling as if he had passed into a keen
and frosty atmosphere, where all low and debasing
thoughts vanish away. Look at his description
SERM. xin. THE BEATITUDES. 129
of chastity in ' Comus ' ; look at his description of
the purity of married life in ' Paradise Lost.' Are
they not as a sword and shield with which we may
defend ourselves against all the fiery darts of temp-
tation ? Addison, again, lived at a time when the
profligacy which broke over England in the reac-
tion against the too great severity of the Puritans
overran and undermined all literature and all mo-
rality. Addison furnished a literature in which there
was at once everything to please, and nothing to
give countenance to those gross and dark images
which had haunted the imagination of his contem-
poraries. It shows what can be done by one man
in this respect, that Macaulay, who lies beside his
statue, and who has written an essay to commemor-
ate the benefactions which Addison bestowed upon
England, has given foremost place to this, that
Addison effected a great social reform, and recon-
ciled wit and virtue after a long and disastrous
separation, in which wit had been led astray by pro-
fligacy, and virtue by fanaticism. Wordsworth has
the glory of having not only abstained from anything
which can injure or defile the soul, but of fixing
the mind upon those simple affections and upon
those great natural objects of beauty and grandeur
which are the best preservatives against any such
130 THE BEATITUDES. SERM. xm.
attempts to corrupt and stain our existence. We
sometimes hear it said that these dark and fleshly
ideas are necessary accompaniments of genius or of
poetry. Not so. In the case of Shakespeare, and
even more remarkably in the case of Byron, what
they have written that is low and filthy is not poetry,
is not that which commends them for ever to the
gratitude of their contemporaries and countrymen.
It is in proportion as they are pure, in proportion
as they are clean, in proportion as they are elevated
above anything like such corrupt thoughts, that
they become our guides and our delight.
And what is the reason that our Saviour gives
for this blessedness of the ' pure in heart ' ? It is
that ' they shall see God.' What is the meaning of
this ? It is that of all the obstacles which may
intervene between us and an insight into the
nature of the invisible and the Divine, nothing
presents so coarse and so thick a veil as on the
one hand a false, artificial, crooked way of looking
at truth, and on the other hand the indulgence of
brutal and impure passions ; and nothing can so
clear up our better thoughts, nothing leaves our
minds so open to receive the impression of what is
good and noble, as the single eye and the pure con-
science ; which we may not, perhaps, be able to
SERM. xni. THE BEATITUDES. 131
reach of ourselves, but which are an indispensable
condition of having the doors of our minds open,
and the channel of communication kept free be-
tween us and the supreme and eternal fountain ot
all purity and of all goodness.
[This was Dean Stanley's last Sermon. It was
preached on July 9, 1881, and he died on the i8th
of the same month.]
K 2
132
XIV.
THE FAITHFUL SERVANT.
(Preached at Alderley, on February 10, 1856, on the death
of Sarah Burgess, for thirty-eight years the devoted and
beloved servant of the family of the Rev. Edward
Stanley.)
Well done, good and faithful servant ; thou hast been
faithful aver a few things : I will make thee ruler over many
things : enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. MATT. xxv. 23.
THE Parable from which these words are taken is
one of the most important in the whole Bible. It
describes mankind not only according to the general
division of the good and bad ; but according to
those many varieties and divisions of character,
pursuits, opportunities, which we actually see with
our eyes in this world. ' The kingdom of Heaven
is as a man travelling into a far country, who
called his own servants and delivered unto them
his goods ; and unto one he gave five talents, to
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 133
another two, and to another one, to every man
according to his sc-ceral ability? ' Look round any
congregation, any circle of our acquaintance, any
family, this is exactly what we see ; no two
persons have the same gifts, or the same advan-
tages ; one has five talents, another has two,
another has one. Scripture and experience speak
here the same language ; every one will feel that
thus far he is sure from his own knowledge that
what the Parable says is true. And to every one
it has its lesson to give as it proceeds. Many
passages of Scripture are intended to alarm the
very wicked, or to console the very good ; but
this Parable is intended for by far the larger class,
who are neither very good nor very wicked ; whose
sin consists not in doing what is wrong, but in
neglecting to do all the good they might do with
the gifts entrusted to them. Our Master is gone
away into a far country. He has left His goods
with us, to use or to neglect. He will not help us
unless we help ourselves. It is no excuse to say
that our. opportunities were small, that we had
but one talent, and that therefore we ' hid it in the
earth ' : this was the very reason why we should
have made the most of it, why we should have
' Matt. xxv. 14, 15.
134 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
' put it out to the exchangers,' so that when our
Lord comes again ' He may receive his own with
usury.' 2 As the Parable thus contains a warning
to the unfaithful servants, so it contains an en-
couragement to all those faithful servants, be they
high or low, who have traded with their talents,
few or many, great or small It reminds us that
talents, used well and faithfully, bring with them,
both in this world and in the next, their own great
reward ; that in the great toil and struggle of life
the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the
strong, but to those who out of little have made
much, who out of weakness have perfected strength ;
who having been faithful over ' few things ' have
been made and will be made ' rulers over many
things.'
This great truth, like all the truths and doctrines
of Scripture, is best understood by example ; by
the knowledge of our own hearts, or by the know-
ledge of one with whose character and end we
have been ourselves acquainted. Such an one we
have known in her whose remains we last week
committed to the grave ; whose name, whose life,
whose voice and countenance have been long
familiar to almost all in this place ; who was a
2 Matt. xxv. 27, 28.
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 135
constant testimony to the truth of these words of
our Saviour.
Let us consider what we may all of us learn
from a character and a life which was not granted
to us for nothing. It was itself one of God's gifts
for our use. Let us see how we can still keep it
amongst us, how we can still ' put it out to die
exchangers ' : let us not ' hide it ' in the grave
which was ' digged in the earth ' 3 to receive that
which was 'of the earth, earthy,' but let us treasure
up the memory of that part which was ' heavenly,'
that, though we ' have borne the image of the
earthy ' to her last home, we may ' bear ' with us
' the image of the heavenly,' till we also meet 'the
Lord from Heaven.' 4
What, then, was the talent which was com-
mitted to her keeping? All who ever knew her
will feel that in her was lost a true servant, a true
friend, a true sister, a true mother ; to many here,
as to many elsewhere, she was the best likeness of
Heaven, and heavenly things, that they had ever
known. What was it that she thus faithfully used?
and how did she use it ?
Was it wealth, or station, or fame? No. She
was born and bred in the humble rank of so many
* Matt. xxv. 1 8. 4 i Cor. xv. 47, 48, 49.
136 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
amongst us. No books tell of what she did ; no
great means of guiding, or ruling, or helping others
were granted to her : she died, as she had lived,
' not ministered unto, but ministering.' Or was it
strength and health, such as enables many of us
to bear much, and do much, ' rising up early and
late taking rest, eating the bread of carefulness,'
' going forth to work and to labour till the even-
ing ' ? No. You know well that these were not
granted her ; you remember well her fragile form,
her wasted features, faint and weary with the
journey of life before her years were half numbered ;
like a withered leaf, that a breath of wind might
blow away in a moment. This was what she was
outwardly. 'The flesh indeed was weak' and frail;
but the 'spirit was willing' 5 and ready. It was
this readiness and quickness of spirit which God
had given to her, which, carefully trained by
others, carefully trained by herself, carefully trained
by God's grace, rose above all weakness and in-
firmity of body ; rose above all humbleness and
lowliness of station ; rose above all selfishness of
the flesh and of the spirit ; and has risen, we may
humbly trust, above the power of death and the
grave.
5 Matt. xxvi. 41.
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 13?
Let us see, piece by piece, through her life,
how this was carried out. Let me especially
commend her example to the young amongst
us. Such as they are now, such she was once.
Let them think, as they hear me describe what
she was, how they may at last be as we trust she
is now. And first, in her earliest years, in the
school of this parish, she laid the beginning
of that ready quickness of which I have spoken.
What she learned she learned well : what she
did she did with her whole soul. There are
those who can remember her as she sat working
at her humble task, with that fixed attention
which alone makes work good and sure. Here
she first took in that interest in things around her,
in things above her, which she never afterwards
lost : here she first learned to know and value
those whom afterwards it was the happiness of her
life to serve, living or dying : here she first laid in
that store of knowledge of hymns and sacred texts
and chapters, which she never forgot in after times.
Long, long afterwards, far away from this place, in
years and months of illness, in the long nights when
she would lie awake from pain and restlessness
during her last sickness, she would find rest and
comfort in repeating to herself the hymns and
138 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
passages 6 from Scripture which she had learned
in Alderley School. Consider this, my younger
hearers, you who think it time lost to lay up in
your memory what you will never again have the
opportunity of gaining, remember that, here or at
your homes, you have, now or never, the chance of
receiving what will come back to you with usury in
after years ; that your solitary hours, your bed of
sickness, will be cheered or darkened according as
you have made the most of the one talent, small
though it be, which God gives you in the school of
your childhood.
From school she passed, as so many of you will
pass or have passed, into service. For a short time
she was in the service of your present venerable
Minister. Then she passed into the family which
for the remaining thirty-eight years of her life she
never left. All that she was in that family it is not
possible, it is not necessary for me fully to speak.
How she was one with them in their joys and their
sorrows, how every change of place and station
6 It may be mentioned that amongst the passages thus
learned, in which she took special delight, were the Sermon
on the Mount, in the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of St.
Matthew's Gospel; the I2th, I3th, and I4th chapters of
the Epistle to the Romans ; and the 3rd and th chapters of
the Epistle to St. James.
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 139
was shared by her with them, you know almost as
well as I do. You know how, through her, every
intelligence which could affect us was felt by your-
selves ; how in her happiness or joy was reflected
every good or evil fortune which befell every
member of the family, far or near, old or young.
But you can hardly tell how great is the blessing
which such a union between master and servant
sheds around on all who come within its influence.
To know that in the midst of that household there
sat one who, through all the changes and chances
of life, thought far more of the interests and com-
fort and welfare of those whom she served than of
her own ; who never thought of what she wished
or liked, but only of what they wished or liked ;
who in all sickness and distress, in all difficulty
and prosperity, in all time of our tribulation, and
in all time of our wealth, was ever ready with a
bright smile, with a kind look, with a wise word,
with a gentle touch, with a quick eye, to calm, to
cheer, to assuage, to counsel ; this was indeed a
light shining in the darkness of this evil world. It
was an example to those who served with her to
see in her what they ought to be not the servants
only, but, 'as in the sight of the Lord,' the guardians,
the friends, the support and stay of the interests of
140 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
those whose interests could not be divided from
their own. It was a never-failing source of refresh-
ment and consolation to those whom she served,
that whatever else changed in the world around,
or within their circle, she was there, unchanging
and unchangeable. When the heavens were dark
around, and when troubles came thick and fast, or
when the ' faithful seemed to fail from among the
children of men,' one true heart was there, to prove
that there is a constancy and a peace which the
world has not given, and which the world cannot
take away. It was a living parable to all, to remind
us that what she was to her earthly master we all
ought to be and may be to our heavenly Master.
' Behold, even as the eyes of servants look unto
the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a
maiden unto the hand of her mistress.' This first
part of the verse was the exact likeness of her con-
stant life ; would that we could all learn the con-
clusion that the Psalmist draws from it ' Even so
our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until He
have mercy upon us.' 7 In her the two services
were united. Through her earthly service she
wrought out her heavenly service also : but how
forcibly does such an example bring before us what
7 Psalm cxxiii. 2.
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 141
our relation should be to our heavenly Father, of
whom 'every family in heaven and earth is named,' 8
making His will our will, His love our love, His
joy our joy. Bear this in mind, all masters of
households, who have known this or any like ex-
ample of fidelity to your interests, ' knowing that
ye also have a Master in Heaven.' 9 Bear this in
mind all ye that are or will be servants, ' in single,
ness of heart as unto Christ ' ; ' not with eye-service
as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ doing the
will of God from the heart : with good will doing
service as to the Lord and not to men ; knowing
that whatever good thing any man doeth, the same
shall he receive of the Lord.' l Do not despise it,
do not think it beneath you. The service of men,
as the apostle thus tells you, may indeed be in the
fullest sense the service of Christ : from your ex-
ample lessons may be taught which would never
be taught by anything else ; from your faithfulness
in a few things, those who in this world are rulers
over many things may often learn lessons of
humility, of faith, of love, which in their own sta-
tions they might else never have learned at all.
But there was yet another field in which 'our
Eph. iii. 15. Col. iv. i.
1 Eph. vi. 5, 6, 7, 8.
142 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
dear sister here departed ' used to the uttermost all
the talents that were committed to her. ' Our dear
sister here departed? How touchingly, how power-
fully, must those words have come to the hearts of
those mourners, who stood round the grave last
week ! ' Sister,' indeed, in no common sense,
sister by all the ties of earthly relationship, sister
by all the ties of Christian brotherhood, in all
sisterly and family affections ; never ceasing to re-
member the place of her nativity, the home of her
childhood, the friends of her youth, the father and
mother who trained her in the way that she should
go, the brothers and sisters whom she had faithfully
loved, the brothers' children and the sisters' children,
to whom she became, as it were, a second mother,
as they grew up round about her. Others, often,
become faithful' servants in distant households ; and
by degrees their early haunts know them no more ;
lapse of years and change of place, without any
fault of theirs, loosens, and dissolves the bond of
ancient natural affection. Not so, my brethren,
not so with her, whom you, as well as we, have now
lost. Dear as were to her the interests of the family
which she served, no less dear were the interests of
the family from which she was born. She did not,
as many do, make one duty the excuse for neglect-
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 143
ing another duty ; she fulfilled them both. The
school, the church, the cottages of her native parish
were always present with her ; she never lost her
old simple habits : she always delighted to return
amongst you : she wrote to her absent family, often
twice or thrice a week, what they wished or what
they needed to hear : she always loved to talk of
her early days, of her home beside the wood, of
her prizes at school, of her kinsfolk and acquaint-
ance. Long and tenderly she ministered to her
aged mother : only a few days before her end, she
spoke to me at length of her father's goodness and
simple piety, of his daily prayers before he went
to his work, of his reading of the Bible by his fire-
side, of a rebuke which he had given to her for a
hasty expression in her childhood, by which she
had never ceased to profit. When she came down
amongst you, you know how she would gather the
rising generation of her family around her : how
she would give to her little nephews and nieces, as
they stood beside her, words of wise counsel for
this world and for the next ; how she watched over
their welfare ; how she guarded and guided them
onwards and forwards and upwards. You also
know how deeply she had set her heart on laying
her last remains amongst her own people, in the
I 4 4 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
grave of her father and her mother. Long ago she
had made those near her promise that whenever
and wherever her last hour found her, she should
be laid nowhere but here. And when at last it did
approach with certainty, then her longing for her
native place grew stronger ; the recollection of the
churchyard seemed to draw her homewards ; and
home at last she has been brought ; her mortal
remains to her home here on earth, her spirit to
that home where the weary are at rest for ever.
It is not without cause that I speak of that
strong family affection. It reminds you that she
was truly your own, that whatever good she had
was hewn out of the same rock, cast in the same
mould as yourselves ; what she was you may be ;
what she longed that you, her younger kinsfolk,
might be, that, remembering her wishes, you ought
to become, and, with God's grace, you may become
hereafter. It reminds you also of the value of
these affections : honour them, cherish them ; they
are not enough in themselves to guide us to Heaven,
but they are the beginning of all heavenly and holy
thoughts. The very desire which she expressed so "
strongly to be laid amongst you, is that same ancient
feeling of which you read in the patriarchs and
saints of old, who, when dying in strange lands,
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 145
charged that their bones should be taken and
buried with their fathers in the cave of Machpelah,
in the land of promise : 2 so that even in death
their union should not be broken. So may it long
be with you : so may this place, this church, this
churchyard, always draw you to each other, to
those who have gone before us, and to God in
Jesus Christ. . . .
It was only a short time before her end, that
I asked her one day what was her favourite text
in the Bible. Without a moment's hesitation she
answered, and dwelt on every word as she repeated
it : ' Come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My
yoke upon you, and learn of Me ; for I am meek
and lowly in heart ; and ye shall find rest unto
your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden
is light.' We have long known the text ; we read
it often ; we hear it often ; whenever the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper is administered we hear it :
it needs no human recollections to add anything to
the sweet music of its sounds, or to the abiding
strength of its consolations. Yet even divine words
like these may be brought nearer home to every
one of us, if we have seen their comfort and their
1 Gen. xlix. 29, 30 ; 1. 25.
L
146 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
truth exemplified in any one whom we ourselves
have known.
Ponder well the words ; and how naturally do
they recall the image of her whose stay and support
they had become. 'All ye that labour and are
heavy laden.' How exactly does this describe her
outward form and manner of life ! Think of her
failing strength, her frequent pains, her slow step,
vainly striving to keep pace with her active spirit ;
think, especially as years advanced, of the toil and
difficulty with which she dragged along her weary
limbs, heavy laden with ever-increasing infirmity ;
think of the brave struggle with which, under all
this burden, she yet laboured and travailed to the
last. Yet this life, so full as it might have seemed
of pain and misery, was a life of true and constant
happiness. Think of her once more : and you will
see that she had indeed come to Him who said ' I
will give you rest,' ' I will refresh you.' Think
of that patient, contented, ever-brightening smile ;
think of those kind, cheering, happy words, always
ready for those who came in and went out amongst
us ; recall her as she passed to and fro amongst her
kindred here, always bent on doing some little
act of thoughtful goodness, never forgetting, never
omitting any : recall her as she sat silent and com-
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 147
posed in her chair, plying her daily task or turning
over the leaves of her little hymn-book or prayer-
book ; remember the calm resignation with which,
without fear, without excitement, she was ever ex-
pecting her latter end ; ever thankful for the mercies
she had enjoyed through life, ever filled with the
thought that the daily words of parting for her
evening rest might be for the last time ; and you
will indeed see that hers was the happiness and
peace of one who had found 'rest to her soul'
where only it can be found.
And how she had sought and found it ? Still
the words of her text guide us. She had ' taken
His yoke upon her,' she had learned of Him who
was ' meek and lowly of heart.' Humbly, faithfully,
lovingly, in childhood, in youth, in age, in all the
intercourse of life, she had striven to take upon her
the yoke of His words, of His commandments, of
His will. Steadily, firmly, she strove to be guided
in all things, not by her own pleasure, not by her
convenience, not by her feelings, but by a fixed
sense of duty, of truth, of justice, of honest and
loving obedience ; as ever in the presence of Him
who is ' without variableness or shadow of turning,'
in the service of Him who, as she delighted to
remember, was ' Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
L 2
I 4 8 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
and to day, and for ever.' 3 And this she did, labour-
ing to be like Him in all ' meekness and lowliness
of heart.' Loved, honoured, esteemed as she was by
all around her, she never rose above her station ;
she never joined together things that were incon-
gruous or unsuitable ; she never grasped at power,
or wealth, or consideration for herself; she bore
always the same simple, humble heart, that she
brought with her from her early childhood. By
her lowliness only she was exalted ; by her meek-
ness only she ' inherited the earth.' 4
And of her most truly it may be said, that ' His
yoke was easy, and His burden was light.' You
who are young, you who are in full enjoyment of
health and life, and spirits, you who think that a
serious and religious life must be mournful and
difficult, that the Lord whom you are called upon
to serve is an ' austere and hard Master, reaping
where he has not sown, and gathering where he has
not strawed ' ; 5 look at what you know, remember
whr.: you have heard, of her who is gone from us.
There was indeed much to make her life sad ;
much, as I have said, of pain and suffering ; much
of sorrow and mourning for the loss of those she
8 Heb. xii. 8. This was also a favourite text of hers.
4 Matt. v. 5. 5 Matt. xxv. 24 ; Luke xix. 21.
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT, 149
dearly loved ; for the parting from scenes and
places where she had struck deep root ; much of
anxious care that her duty might be fully performed.
But every one who knew her will say, as she herself
often said, that her life had been full of happiness.
No innocent enjoyment passed within her reach,
but that it lighted up her face with a cheerful
gleam ; no means of adding to the comfort and
pleasure of others was ever neglected by her ; to
smooth down family trouble, to promote every-
where agreement and good-will, and brotherly and
sisterly affection, was her constant aim. And the
pleasure she gave to others was reflected back on
herself. They, who live for others and not for
themselves, are always rewarded by this very thing ;
even if they have no joy themselves, they rejoice
in the joy of others ; the health of others, the
prosperity of others, the peace of others, becomes
to them as it were in the place of their own health,
covers their own adversity, enlightens their own
obscurity ; like the apostle, of whom we have read
in this day's service ; 6 ' as unknown, and yet well
known ; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing ; as poor,
yet making many rich ; as having nothing, yet
possessing all things.' But more than this, there
6 2 Cur. vi. 9, 10.
150 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
was the joy within ; ' the peace ' of those ' whose
mind is stayed on God.' It is the special blessing
of the yoke of Christ, not only that it is easy, but
that it makes all other things easy ; it is the special
blessing of the burden of Christ that it is not only
light itself, but that it makes all other things light.
So it was with her. Because she had taken upon
her the yoke of Christ, therefore the yoke of service,
which some find heavy and grating and painful,
was to her easy and delightful ; because she had
taken upon her the burden of Christ, therefore the
burden of care and the burden of sickness and
suffering, became but as ' a light affliction, which
was but for a moment, working for her a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' 7 All around
partook of the heaven which was within : there was
no struggle against itself, for self was swallowed up
in faith and love.
In the 35th 8 chapter of the Book of Genesis
you may read a touching scene in the story of the
Patriarch Jacob, which bears witness how from the
earliest times all respect has been paid to such long
and honourable service as that of which we are
speaking. He had been a far wanderer in a strange
country : he had seen many changes of good and
7 2 Cor. iv. 17. 8 Verses 6, 7, 8.
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 151
evil fortune, many forms of human character ; he
had come back to his native land ; with his staff he
had crossed over the Jordan many years before,
and now he had become two mighty bands : and
he came to Bethel in the land of Canaan, 'the
place where God appeared to him when he fled
from the face of his brother.' There he halted, in
the middle stage of his journey ; in the middle
stage of the years of his pilgrimage through life ;
and there, we are told, ' Deborah, Rebekah's nurse,'
the nurse that had come with his mother from her
own people years before, ' she died and she was
buried beneath Bethel, under an oak, and the name
of it was called Allon Bachuth, that is, the oak of
weeping.' Many griefs had befallen him in times
past many griefs were yet to befall him in times
to come. But this grief was not to be forgotten.
Under the old gray stones which had been set up
in Bethel, the ' house of God,' where he first awoke
to a consciousness of the presence of his Lord
and Maker ; under the shade of the aged oak-tree
which from generation to generation had spread
and would still spread its branches over the con-
secrated spot, the faithful servant of his father's
house was laid ; and the memory of the spot was
long preserved, and under the oak of Deborah,
152 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
beside the house of God, in many a distant time,
the wayfarer would often rest, and remember the
name of her whose remains reposed beneath. 9
Even so, my brethren, long may that spot be known
and remembered where the faithful friend and
servant of many years has been laid beside the
well-known tree, under the ancient tower, in that
quiet and secluded corner, which she knew and
loved so well, in the grave of her parents and her
kindred.
But let us think not only of the earthly grave
and its earthly sorrows ; let us think of all which
that grave is intended to teach us ; what thoughts
not only of sorrow, but of joy and comfort and
heavenly hope we may carry away with us, when-
ever we pass by it, or whenever we think of her
who there sleeps her last sleep. It was indeed
when we stood beside it last week, what Jacob
called the grave of Deborah ' the oak of weeping '
' the oak of tears.' But it may also be to those
who view it rightly, 'the oak of gladness,' ' the gate
of Heaven ' ; the entrance into that joy which
shall never pass away.
It costs us all a pang when standing at the open
grave which is to receive the last remains of any
9 I Sam. x. 3 ; I Kings xiii. 14.
SERM.XIV. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 153
near and dear to us, to ' give our hearty thanks to
God for their deliverance from the miseries of this
sinful world.' Yet when we consider in any case
when we consider in her case what those miseries
are from which she is now for ever set free, we shall
be able to feel that the loss we so deplore is yet a
cause of thanksgiving. Think what she has been
spared ; think of her ' deliverance from the burden,'
as it was fast becoming, the burden of the weak and
suffering flesh : think of the successive pangs which
would have entered like iron into that loving and
devoted soul, had she lived, as in the ordinary
course of human things she might have lived, to
see one by one the departure of those whom she
so loved and served on earth. Think also of the
deliverance, for which she, if she could but speak,
would give the deepest thanksgiving of all ; the
deliverance from all those little infirmities, trials,
temptations, with which even the best and most
saint-like of us are compassed about in this mortal
life. It is the peculiar trial of characters like hers,
that they cannot bear to see anything done by
others which they can by any possibility do them-
selves. In some this may arise from other causes
from love of power, from jealousy, from mistrust.
In her this infirmity, so to call it, was occasioned
154 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
not by reasons of this kind, but by the exactness,
the nicety, the eagerness, of her desire to see all
done in the best way in which she thought it could
be done ; from her great unwillingness, also, ever
to take from others that service and that trouble,
which she thought it to be her station and duty
always to be rendering, never to be receiving. She
knew well that she had this trial ; and she spoke
with humble hope that He who is perfectly just,
and who knew whereof she was made, would judge
and receive her, according to that ' faithfulness and
truth,' in which she put her entire trust. But from
this and all like trials, from this craving, never
satisfied, after perfection on earth, we may feel sure
that she is especially delivered in that world to
which she has gone. There they 'who hunger and
thirst after righteousness ' are blessed, for there
their longings shall at last be filled. There she
will no more vex her righteous soul with the sight
of good which she cannot accomplish, and of evil
which she cannot prevent. There she will no more
be fretted by the thought of ministrations imper-
fectly rendered, by the sight of good designs half
finished. In that better world there is no pavement
strewed with good intentions unfulfilled ; in that
world there will be no let or hindrance to the full
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 155
service always given with all the energy of that
love, which, as the apostle tells us, ' never fails ' '
' for the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in
it ; and His servants shall ser-ce Him? 2 Yes, my
brethren, dim and distant, and 'seen through a
glass darkly,' are all our notions of another world.
Yet, if anything be certain respecting it, this is
certain, that according to our faithfulness in a few
things here, will be our rule over many things there.
Her last words, uttered as if with a consciousness
that her end was at hand, as she retired to rest on
her last night, were, ' My work is done.' 1 Done it
was, ' well done ' on earth ; but not done, rather
still to be continued, and begun afresh, in the
eternal state beyond.
In this world, our faculties, our gifts, our talents,
are limited by outward circumstance, by humble
station, by small fields of duty. Many who have
acquired a great name in history have gained it not
because they were better or wiser than others, but
only because they had here greater and wider op-
portunities. Not so in the world to come. There
the spirits of all will find their appointed services.
Our heavenly home has room and verge enough
for all the energy which in this narrow spot of earth
1 I Cor. xiii. 8. Rev. xxii. 3.
156 THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. SERM. xiv.
has been cramped and shackled down. In our
Father's house are many mansions ; 3 and in one
or more of those many mansions the ever-increas-
ing ' number of His elect ' will, in ways which eye
hath not seen nor ear heard, fulfil their Father's
will. Then will be seen that union of rest and
labour, of repose and active energy, in this world
vainly though earnestly sought by all the true
disciples of Him to whom rest and work are one.
Both will then be possible ; of both, we have the
promise in those strains, few and far between, which
reach us from that higher state. On the one hand,
we ' hear a voice from heaven saying, Blessed are
the dead which die in the Lord ; for they rest from
their labours : ' 4 on the other hand, we see a vision
as of living creatures ' round about the throne, which
rest not day and night ; and give glory and honour
and thanks to Him that sits on the throne, who
liveth for ever and ever.' 5 And again we hear the
sweet plaintive tones of a still small voice, which
saith, ' Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest ' ; 6 but it is
mingled with the stirring, cheering, strengthening
sounds, ' as it were of a trumpet talking with us ' : 7
3 John xiv. 2. 4 Rev. xiv. 13. 5 Rev. iv. 8.
6 Matt. xi. 28. " Rev. iv. I.
SERM. xiv. THE FAITHFUL SERVANT. 157
' Well done, good and faithful servant : thou hast
been faithful over a few things, I will make thee
ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy
of thy Lord.' H
8 Matt. xxv.
PRINTED BV
3POTTISVVOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
WORKS BY
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D.
LATE DEAN OF WESTMINSTER.
LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE
JEWISH CHURCH. FROM ABRAHAM TO THE
CHRISTIAN ERA. New and Cheaper Edition. With
Portrait and Maps. 3 vols. Crown 8vo. l8s.
LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE
EASTERN CHURCH; with an Introduction on the
Study of Ecclesiastical History. New and Cheaper
Edition. With Maps. Crown 8vo. 6s.
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
2nd Edition. 8vo. 7*. 6d.
CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS : Essays on Eccle-
siastical Subjects, a^th Edition. 8vo. 6s. ,
CONTENTS : Baptism The Eucharist Eucharist in the
Early Church Eucharistic Sacrifice Real Presence Body and
Blood of Christ Absolution Ecclesiastical Vestments The
Basilica The Clergy The Pope The Litany Creed of the
Early Christians Roman Catacombs Lord's Prayer Council
and Creed of Constantinople Ten Commandments.
ESSAYS CHIEFLY ON QUESTIONS OF
CHURCH AND STATE. New Edition. Crown
8vo. 6s.
THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL TO THE
CORINTHIANS; with Critical Notes and Dissertations.
5/A Edition. 8vo. 185.
SINAI AND PALESTINE, IN CONNECTION WITH
THEIR HISTORY. New and Cheaper Edition. With
Maps. Svo. 12s.
JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street.
Works by ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. continued.
SERMONS ON PUBLIC OCCASIONS
PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 8vo. i2s.
THE BIBLE IN THE HOLY LAND. Being
Extracts from the above Work, for the use of Village
Schools and Young Persons. 2nd Edition. With
Woodcuts. Fcp. 8vo. 3.?. 6d.
HISTORICAL MEMORIALS OF CANTER-
BURY. The Landing of Augustine The Murder of
Becket Edward the Black Prince Becket's Shrine.
New and Cheaper Edition. With Illustrations. Post
8vo. 6s.
HISTORICAL MEMORIALS OF WESTMIN-
STER ABBEY, from its Foundation down to the Year
1876. tyh Edition. With Illustrations. 8vo. 15.5-.
LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF DR.
ARNOLD. \yh Edition. With an unpublished Poem
by J. KEBLE. With Portrait. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 12s.
MEMOIR OF EDWARD, CATHERINE, AND
MARY STANLEY, yd Edition. Crown 8vo. gs.
SERMONS DURING A TOUR IN THE EAST,
PREACHED BEFORE H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES,
WITH NOTICES OF SOME OF THE LOCALITIES VISITED.
tyh Thousand. 8vo. 9^.
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY : BIOGRAPHICAL
LECTURES. By G. G. BRADLEY, Dean of Westminster.
Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d.
JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street.
University of California
SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388
Return this material to the library
fronwhich-4Uttas borrowed.
Oti 1998
Subject to
Recall
r.
A:.? 1 3 ":a
SEL/EMS LIBRARY
ti V4 J ID. b / /b
REMOVE
HIS BOOK CARD
Diversity Research Library
A 001145686
