Five Sermons
by
H.B. Whipple
Produced by Jared Fuller
FIVE SERMONS
BY THE RT. REV. H.B. WHIPPLE, D.D., LL.D. BISHOP OF MINNESOTA
1890
PREFACE
My only excuse for printing these sermons is the request of friends who
could not secure copies of them. They are printed as delivered, and the
repetition of incidents was a part of the historical statement. The
Third and Fifth Sermons were preached without notes and reported by a
stenographer. H.B.W.
CONTENTS
I. SERMON AT THE OPENING SERVICES OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION,
OCTOBER 1889
II. SERMON AT THE FARIBAULT CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL
OF THE INAUGURATION OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1789-1889
III. SERMON AT THE SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MISSIONARY COUNCIL
IN WASHINGTON, D.C., NOVEMBER 1888
IV. ADDRESS IN LAMBETH CHAPEL, AT THE FIRST SESSION OF THE LAMBETH
CONFERENCE, JULY 3, 1888
V. SERMON AT THE FOURTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF
ST. ANDREW, IN CLEVELAND, OHIO, SEPT. 29, 1889
I. SERMON AT THE OPENING SERVICES OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION,
OCTOBER 2, 1889.
"We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what
work Thou didst their days, in the times of old."--PSALM xliv. I.
Brethren: I shall take it for granted that there is a visible Church;
that it was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, and has His promise that
the gates of hell shall never prevail against it. We believe that ours
is a pure branch of the apostolic Church; that it has a threefold
ministry; that its two sacraments--Baptism and the Supper of the Lord--are
of perpetual obligation, and are divine channels of grace; that the
faith once delivered to the saints is contained in the Catholic creeds,
and has the warrant of Holy Scripture which was written by inspiration
of God. On this centennial day I shall speak of the history and mission
of this branch of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It was a singular providence that this continent, laden with the bounty
of God, was unoccupied by civilization for thousands of years. America
was discovered by a devout son of the Latin Church, whose name--
Christopher, Christ-bearer, and Columbus, the dove--ought to have been
the prophecy that he would bear the Gospel to the New World. It was at
a time when Savonarola, with the zeal of a prophet of God and the
eloquence of a Chrysostom, was laboring to awaken the Church to a new
life. No nation ever had a nobler mission than Spain. That mission was
forfeited by unholy greed and untold cruelty. It was lost forever.
Other nations claimed the continent for their own. In the providence of
God; this last of the nations was founded by the English-speaking race.
I reverently believe that it was because they recognize as no other
people the two truths which underlie the possibility of constitutional
government, i.e., the inalienable rights of the individual citizen, and
loyalty to government as a delegated trust from God, who alone has the
right to govern. These lessons are intertwined with two thousand years
of history. They reach back to the days when the savage Briton came in
contact with Roman civilization and Roman law, and have been deepened by
centuries of Christian influences which have changed our savage fathers
into truth-speaking, liberty-loving Christian men.
More marvellous are the providences intertwined with the history of the
Church. It was planted by apostolic men, and numbered heroes like St.
Patrick and St. Alban before the missionary Augustine came to
Canterbury. Through all of its history it has been the Church of the
English-speaking race. The liturgy contains the purest English of any
book, except the English Bible, which was translated by her sons. The
ritual which Augustine found in England came from the East; and the
liturgy which he introduced was, by the advice of Gregory, taken from
many national Churches. The Venerable Hooker said: "Our liturgy was
must be acknowledged as the singular work of the providence of God." In
its services it represents the Church of the English-speaking race. The
exhortation to pray for the child to be baptized, the direction to put
pure water into the font at each baptism, the sign of the cross, the
words of the reception of the baptized, the joining of hands in holy
matrimony, the "dust to dust" of the burial,--are peculiar to the offices
of the English-speaking people. In the Holy Communion, the rubric found
in all western Churches, commanding the priest, after consecration, to
kneel and worship the elements, never found a place in any service-book
of the Church of England. The Book of Common Prayer has preserved for
us Catholic faith and Catholic worship.
The first English missionary priest in America of whose services we have
record was Master Wolfall, who celebrated the Holy Communion in 1578 for
the crews of Martin Forbisher on the shores of Hudson Bay, amid whose
solitudes Bishop Horden has won whole heathen tribes to Jesus Christ.
At about the same time the Rev. Martin Fletcher, the chaplain of Sir
Francis Drake, celebrated the Holy Communion in the bay of San
Francisco, a prophecy that these distant shores should become our
inheritance. A few years later (1583), divine service was held in the
bay of St. John's, Newfoundland, for Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and when his
ill-fated ship foundered at sea, the last words of the hero-admiral
were, "We are as near heaven by sea as by land." The mantle of Gilbert
fell on Sir Walter Raleigh, who was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth to
bear the evangel of God's love to the New World. The faith behind the
adventures of these men is seen in a woodcut of Raleigh's vessels at
anchor; a pinnace, with a man at the mast-head bearing a cross,
approaching the shore with the message of the Gospel. To some of us
whose hearts have been touched with pity for the red men, its is a
beautiful incident that the first baptism on these shores was that of an
Indian chief, Mateo, on the banks of the Roanoke. In May, 1607, the
first services on the shore of New England were held by the Rev. Richard
Seymour. Missionary services in the wilderness were not unlike those of
our pioneer bishops. "We did hang an awning to the trees to shield us
from the sun, our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, our
pulpit a bar of wood--this was our 'church.'" It was in this church that
the Rev. Robert Hunt celebrated the first communion in Virginia, June
21, 1607. The missionary spirit of the times is seen when Lord De la
Warr and his companions went in procession to the Temple Church in
London to receive the Holy Communion. The Rev. Richard Crashaw said in
his sermon: "Go forward in the strength of the Lord, look not for
wealth, look only for the things of the kingdom of God--you go to win the
heathen to the Gospel. Practise it yourselves. Make the name of Christ
honorable. What blessings any nation has had by Christ must be given to
all the nations of the earth." The first act of Governor De la Warr, on
landing in Virginia, was to kneel in silent prayer, and then, with the
whole people, they went to church, where the services were conducted by
the Rev. Richard Burke. In 1611 the saintly Alexander Whittaker
baptized Pocahontas. Disease and death often blighted the colonies, and
yet the old battle cry rang out--"God will found the State and build the
Church." The work was marred by immoral adventurers, and it was not
until these were repressed with a strong hand by Sir Thomas Dale that a
new life dawned in Virginia.
The first elective assembly of the New World met in 1619. It was opened
by prayer. Its first enactment was to protect the Indians from
oppression. Its next was to found a university. In the first
legislative assembly which met in the choir of the Church in Jamestown,
more than one year before the Mayflower left the shores of England, was
the foundation of popular government in America. Time would fail me to
tell the story inwrought in the lives of men like Rev. William Clayton
of Philadelphia, the Rev. Atkin Williamson of South Carolina, and the
Rev. John Wesley and the Rev. George Whitefield, also sons of the Church
in Georgia.
The Church of England had no rights in the English colony of
Massachusetts. The Rev. William Blaxton, the Rev. Richard Gibson, and
the Rev. Robert Jordan endured privation and suffering, and were accused
"as addicted to the hierarchy of the Church of England," "guilty of
offence against the Commonwealth by baptizing children on the Lord's
Day," and "the more heinous sin of provoking the people to revolt by
questioning the divine right of the New England theocracy." An new life
dawned on the Church in America when, in 1701, there was organized in
England "The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts." It awakened a new missionary spirit. Princess Anne, afterward
Queen of England, became its lifelong patron. The blessed work among
the Mohawks was largely due to her, and when these Indians were removed
to Canada and left sheperdless, their chief, Joseph Brant, officiated as
lay reader for twenty years. The men sent out by the society--the Rev.
Samuel Thomas, the Rev. George Keith, the Rev. Patrick Gordon, the Rev.
John Talbot, and others--were Christian heroes. No fact in the history
of the colonial Church had so marked influence as the conversion of
Timothy Cutler, James Wetmore, Samuel Johnson, and Daniel Brown to the
Church. Puritans mourned that the "gold had become dim." Churchmen
rejoiced that some of the foremost scholars in Connecticut had returned
to the Church. I pass over the trials of the Church in the eighteenth
century, to the meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774. It was
proposed to open Congress with prayer. Objections were made on account
of the religious differences of the delegates. Old Samuel Adams arose,
with his white hair streaming on his shoulders,--the same earnest Puritan
who, in 1768, had written to England: "We hope in God that no such
establishment as the Protestant episcopate shall ever take place in
America,"--and said: "Gentlemen, shall it be said that it is possible
that there can be any religious differences which will prevent men from
crying to that God who alone can save them? I move that the Rev. Dr.
Duche`, minister of Christ Church in this city, be asked to open this
Congress with prayer." John Adams, writing to his wife, said: "Never
can I forget that scene. There were twenty Quakers standing by my side,
and we were all bathed in tears." When the Psalms for the day were
read, it seemed as if Heaven was pleading for the oppressed: "O Lord,
fight thou against them that fight against me." "Lord, who is like Thee
to defend the poor and the needy?" "Avenge thou my cause, my Lord, my
God." On the 4th of July 1776, Congress published to the world that
these colonies were, and of right ought to be, free. We believe that a
majority of those who signed this declaration were sons of the Church.
The American colonists were not rebels; they were loyal, God-fearing
men. The first appeal that Congress made to the colonies was "for the
whole people to keep one and the same day as a day of fasting and prayer
for the restoration of the invaded rights of America, and reconciliation
with the parent State." They stood for their inalienable rights,
guaranteed to them by the Magna Charta, which nobles, headed by Bishop
Stephen Langton, had wrung from King John. The English clergy had at
ordination taken an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. Many who
sympathized with their oppressed country felt bound to pray for King
George until another government was permanently established. Others,
like Dr. Provost, retired to private life. For two hundred years an
Episcopal Church had no resident Bishop. No child of the Church
received confirmation. No one could take orders without crossing the
Atlantic, where one man in five lost his life by disease or shipwreck.
At one time the Rev. William White was the only clergyman of the Church
in Pennsylvania. Even after we had received the episcopate, the
outlook was so hopeless that one of her bishops said, "I am willing to
do all I can for the rest of my days, but there will be no such Church
when I am gone." When William Meade told Chief Justice Marshall that he
was to take orders in the Episcopal Church, the Chief Justice said, "I
thought that this Church had perished in the Revolution." Of the less
than two hundred clergy, many had returned to England or retired to
private life. In some of the colonies the endowments of the Church had
been confiscated. There was no discipline for clergy or laity, and it
did seem as if the vine of the Lord's planting was to perish out of the
land.
On the Feast of the Annunciation, 1783, ten of the clergy of Connecticut
met in the glebe house at Woodbury to elect a bishop. They met
privately, for the Church was under the ban of civil authority, and they
feared the revival of bitter opposition to an American episcopate which
might alarm the English bishops and defeat their efforts. They did not
come to make a creed, or frame a liturgy, or found a Church. They met
to secure that which was lacking for the complete organization of the
Church, and thus perpetuate for their country that ministry whose
continuity was witnessed through all the ages in a living body, which is
the body of Christ. I know of no greater heroism than that which sent
Samuel Seabury to ask of the bishops of the Church of England the
episcopate for the scattered flock of Christ. You remember the fourteen
months' weary waiting, and when his prayer was refused in England, God
led him to the persecuted Church of Scotland. Now go with me to
Aberdeen; it is an upper room, a congregation of clergy and laity are
present. The bishops and Robert Kilgour, Bishop of Aberdeen, Arthur
Petrie, Bishop of Moray, and John Skinner, Coadjutor Bishop of Aberdeen,
who preached the sermon. The prayers were ended; Samuel Seabury, a
kingly man, kneels for the imposition of apostolic hands, and, according
to the godly usage of the Catholic Church, is consecrated bishop, and
made the first apostle for the New World. None can tell what, under
God, we owe to those venerable men. They signed a concordat binding
themselves and successors to use the Prayer of Invocation in the
Scottish Communion Office, which sets forth that truth which is
inwrought in all the teachings of our blessed Lord and His apostles,
that the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is limited to the
worthy receiver of this blessed sacrament. The consecration of Seabury
touched the heart of the English Church.
In 1783 the Church of England did not have one bishop beyond its shores.
There are to-day fifteen bishops in Africa, six in China and Japan, and
twenty-three in Australia and the Pacific Islands, ten in India, seven
in the West Indies, and eighty-five in British North America and the
United States. Every colony of the British Empire and every State and
Territory of the United States has its own bishop, except the Territory
of Alaska.
On February 4th, 1787, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Provost, D.D., were
consecrated bishops in Lambeth Chapel, by John Moore, Archbishop of
Canterbury, William Markham, Archbishop of York, Charles Moss, Bishop of
Bath and Wells, and John Hinchcliffe, Bishop of Peterborough. The
sermon was preached by the chaplain of the primate. Our minister to
England, Hon. John Adams, urged the application of Drs. Provost and
White, and in after years wrote: "There is no part of my life I look
back with more satisfaction than the part I took--daring and hazardous as
it was to myself and mine--in the introduction of episcopacy to America."
Samuel Provost was a devoted patriot and one of the ripest scholars of
America. In the convention which elected him Bishop of New York were
John Jay, Washington's chief justice, Marinus Willet, one of
Washington's favorite generals, James Duane, John Alsop, R.R.
Livingston, and William Duer, members of the Continental Congress, and
David Brooks, commissary-general of the Revolution, and personal friend
of Washington. If less prominent in his episcopal administration,
Bishop Provost's name as a patriot was a tower of strength to the infant
Church.
Of Bishop White we can say, as John Adams said of Roger Sherman, "He was
pure as an angel and firm as Mount Atlas." He was beloved and
reverenced by all Christian people. When Congress declared the colonies
independent States in 1776, he at once took the oath of allegiance to
the new government. When a friend warned him that he had put his neck
in a halter, he replied: "I know the danger; the cause is just; I have
put my faith in God." In 1777 he was elected chaplain of Congress, and
held the office (except when Congress met in New York) until the capital
was removed to Washington. Francis Hopkinson, a distinguished signer of
the Declaration of Independence, and other loyal sons of the country,
were among those who elected him Bishop of Pennsylvania.
One hundred years ago today the representatives of the Church in the
different States met to adopt a constitution. There had been tentative
efforts to effect an organization and adopt a Book of Common Prayer, all
of which were overruled by the good providence of God. Many not of our
fold desired a liturgy. Benjamin Franklin published at his own expense
a revised copy of the English liturgy. The House of Bishops was
composed of Bishop Seabury and Bishop White. Bishop Provost was absent.
In the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies were the Rev. Abraham Jarvis,
the Rev. Robert Smith, and the Rev. Samuel Parker, who became bishops.
They met to show the world that the charter of the Church is perpetual,
and that the Church has the power to adapt herself to all the conditions
of human society. They met to consolidate the scattered fragments of
the Church in the thirteen colonies into a national Church, and secure
for themselves and children Catholic faith and worship in the Book of
Common Prayer. They builded wiser than they knew. They secured for the
Church self-government, free from all secular control. They preserved
the traditions of the past, and yet every feature of executive,
legislative, and judicial administration was in harmony with the
Constitution of the Republic. They gave the laity a voice in the
council of the Church; they provided that bishops and clergy should be
tried by their peers, and that the clergy and laity of each diocese
should elect their own bishop subject to the approval of the whole
Church. There was the most delightful fraternal intercourse between the
two bishops. In the words of our Presiding Bishop, "The blessed results
of that convention were due, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to
the steadfast gentleness of Bishop White and the gentle steadfast--of
Bishop Seabury." A century has passed. The Church which was then
everywhere spoken against is everywhere known and respected; the mantle
of Seabury, White, Hobart, Ravenscroft, Eliot, De Lancey, and Kemper has
fallen on others, and her sons are in the forefront of that mighty
movement which will people this land with millions of souls. While we
say with grateful hearts, "What hath God wrought!" we also say, "Not
unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Nave give the praise."
Surely, an awful responsibility rests upon a Church whose history is so
full of the mercy of God. We are living in the great missionary age of
the Church. There is no nation on the earth to whom we may not carry
the Gospel. More than eight hundred millions of souls for whom Christ
died have not heard that there is a Saviour. One of the hinderances to
the speedy evangelization of the world is the division among
Christians,--alas! both within and without the Church. Our Saviour said:
"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love
one to another." Christians have been separated in hostile camps, and
often divisions have ripened into hatred. The saddest of all is that
the things which separate us are not necessary for salvation. The
truths in which we agree are part of the Catholic faith. In the words
of Dr. Dollinger, "we can say each to the other as baptized, we are on
either side, brothers and sisters in Christ. In the great garden of the
Lord, let us shake hands over these confessional hedges, and let us
break them down, so as to be able to embrace one another altogether.
These hedges are doctrinal divisions about which either we or you are in
error. If you are in the wrong, we do not hold you morally culpable;
for your education, surroundings, knowledge, and training made the
adherence to these doctrines excusable and even right. Let us examine,
compare, and investigate the matter together, and we shall discover the
precious pearl of peace and unity; and then let us join hands together
in cultivating and cleansing the garden of the Lord, which is overgrown
with weeds." There are blessed signs that the Holy Spirit is deepening
the spiritual life of widely separated brothers. Historical Churches
are feeling the pulsation of a new life from the Incarnate God. All
Christian folk see that the Holy Spirit has passed over these human
barriers and set His seal to the labors of separated brethren in Christ.
The ever-blessed Comforter is quickening in Christian hearts the divine
spirit of charity. Christians are learning more and more the theology
which centres in the person of Jesus Christ. It is this which worldwide
is creating a holy enthusiasm to stay the flood of intemperance,
impurity, and sin at home, and gather lost heathen folk into the fold of
Christ. In our age every branch of the Church can call over the roll of
its confessors and martyr, and so link its history to the purest ages of
the Church. We would not rob them of one sheaf they have gathered into
the garner of the Lord. We share in every victory and we rejoice in
every triumph. There is not one of that great company who have washed
their robes white in the blood of the Lamb, who is not our kinsman in
Christ. Brothers in Christ of every name, shall we not pray for the
healing of the wounds of the body of Christ, that the world may believe
in him?
We are perplexed by the unbelief and sin of our time. The Christian
faith is assailed not only with scoffs of old as Celsus and Julian, but
also with the keenest intellectual criticism of Divine revelation, the
opposition of alleged scientific facts, and a Corinthian worldliness
whose motto is "Eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." In many places
Christian homes are dying out. Crime and impurity are coming in as a
flood, and anarchy raises its hated form in a land where all men are
equal before the law. The lines between the Church and the world are
dim. Never did greater problems confront a council of the Church. An
Apostolic Church has a graver work than discussion about its name or the
amending of its canons and rubrics. I fear that some of this unbelief
is a revolt from a caricature of God. These mechanical ideas about the
universe are the outcome of a mechanical theology which has lost sight
of the Fatherhood of God. There is much honest unbelief. In these
yearnings of humanity, in its clubs, brotherhoods, and orders, in their
readiness to share all things with their brothers, I see unconscious
prophecies of the brotherhood of all men as the children of one God and
Father. Denunciation will not silence unbelief. The name infidel has
lost its terrors. There in only one remedy. It is in the spirit, the
power, and the love of Jesus Christ. Philosophy cannot touch the want.
It offers no hand to grasp, no Saviour to trust, no God to save. When
men see in us the hand, the heart, and the love of Christ, they will
believe in the brotherhood of men and the Fatherhood of God.
There was nothing which impressed your bishops in the late visit to
England more than the service in the cathedral at Durham. The church,
with its thousand years of history was thronged. The chants were sung
by two thousand choristers in surplices. The sermon was preached by the
Bishop of Western New York. This grand service was to set apart some
Bible readers and lay-preachers to go into the collieries to tell these
toilers of the love of Jesus Christ. The same awful problems stare us
in the face,--the centralization of swarms of souls in the cities; the
wealth of the nation in fewer hands; competition making a life-and-death
struggle for bread; the poorest sinking into hopeless despair; and the
richest often forgetting that Lazarus at his gate is a child of the same
God and Father. We, too, must send our best men and women wherever
there is sin, sorrow, and death, to work and suffer, and, if need be,
die for Christ.
We are living in the eventide of the world, when all things point toward
the second coming of our King. God has placed the English-speaking
people in the fore-part of the nations. They number one-tenth of the
human family, and I believe God calls them to do the work of the last
time. The wealth of the world is largely in Christian hands. There
never have been such opportunities for Christian work. Never such a
harvest awaited the husbandman.
You may tell me of difficulties and dangers. We have only one answer.
Sin, sorrow, and death are not the inventions of a Christian priest.
"There is only one Name under heaven whereby any man can be saved." We
have nothing to do with results. It is ours to work and pray, and pray
and work and die. So falls the seed into the earth, and so God gives
the harvest. When the Church sends out embassies commensurate with the
dignity of our King, it will be time to talk of failure. Is the kingdom
of Christ the only kingdom which has not the right to lay tribute on its
citizens? The only failure is the failure to do God's work. Was it
failure when Dr. Hill of blessed memory laid the foundation for that
Christian school which the wisest statesmen say is the chief factor in
the regeneration of Greece? Was it failure when James Lloyd Breck, our
apostle of the wilderness, carried the Gospel to the Indians? Did
Williams, Selwyn, and Patteson fail in Polynesia? Was it failure when
Hoffman and Auer died for Christ in Africa? Have your great-hearted
sons failed who have followed in the footsteps of the saintly Kemper,
and laid with tears and prayers foundations for Christian schools which
are the glory of the West? Has the Gospel failed in Japan, where a
nation is awakening into the life of Christian civilization? Never has
God given His Church more blessed rewards. The century which has passed
is only our school of preparation. The voice of God's Providence says:
"Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward." We have some
problems peculiar to ourselves. Twenty-five years ago four millions of
slaves received American citizenship. The nation owes them a debt of
gratitude. During all the horrors of our civil war they were the
protectors of Southern women and children. Knowing the failure of their
masters would be the guarantee of the freedom, there was not one act
that master or slave might wish to blot. We ought not to forget it, and
God will not. To-day there are eight millions. They are here to stay.
They will not be disfranchised. Through them Africa can be redeemed.
They ought to be our fellow-citizens in the kingdom of God. In a great
crisis of missions the Holy Ghost sent Philip on a long journey to
preach Christ to one man of Ethiopia. The same blessed Spirit of God
calls us in the love of Christ to carry the Gospel in the Church to the
millions of colored citizens of the United States.
Brethren, the time is short. Since our last council nine of our noblest
bishops have died. Since I was consecrated, fifty-four bishops have
entered into the rest if the people of God. It is eventide. A little
more work, a few more toils and prayers, and we who have lived and loved
and worked together shall have a harvest in heaven.
II. SERMON AT THE FARIBAULT CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL OF THE
INAUGURATION OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1789-1889.
"Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called
the name of it Ebeneser, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."--
1 SAMUEL vii. 12.
No words are more fitting on this Centennial day. One hundred years ago
George Washington was inaugurated the first President of the United
States. Words are powerless to express the grateful thoughts which
swell patriot hearts. Save that people whom God led out of Egypt with
His pillar of fire and His pillar of cloud, I know of no nation whose
history is so full of the bounty of God. This country was settled by
Englishmen. They were bound by ties of affection to the mother country.
They were not rebels, they were loyal, God-fearing men. The English
crown had violated rights which were guaranteed to them by the Magna
Charta, which brave barons, headed by Bishop Stephen Langton, had wrung
from King John and which under God has made English-speaking people the
representatives of constitutional government throughout the world. It
was not until every plea for justice had been spurned, their sacred
rights trampled upon, and the warnings of the wisest English statesmen
unheeded, that the American colonies resolved to be independent and
free. On the 5th of September, 1774, fifty-five delegates, from eleven
colonies, met in Smith's tavern, Philadelphia, and at the invitation of
the carpenters of that city adjourned to their hall. Questions arose as
to the numerical influence of the colonies. Patrick Henry voiced the
sentiment of Congress, "I am not a Virginian, I am an American." John
Jay, who represented the conservative element said, "We have not come to
make a constitution; the measure of arbitrary power is not full, it must
run over before we undertake to frame a government." It was proposed to
open Congress with prayer. Objections were made on account of the
religious differences of the delegates. Old Samuel Adams rose, with his
long white hair streaming on his shoulders (the same earnest Puritan who
in 1768 had written to England, "We hope in God that no such
establishment as the Protestant Episcopate shall ever take place in
America,") and said, "Gentlemen, shall it be said that it is possible
that there can be any religious difference which will prevent men from
crying to that God who alone can save them? Puritan as I am, I move
that the Rev. Dr. Duche`, minister of Christ Church in the city, be
asked to open this Congress with prayer." John Adams, writhing to his
wife, said, "Never can I forget that scene. There were twenty Quakers
standing by my side and we were all bathed in tears. When Psalms for
the day were read, it seemed as if Heaven itself was pleading for the
oppressed: 'O Lord, fight thou against them that fight against me.
Lord, who is like unto Thee to defend the poor and needy. Avenge Thou
my cause, my Lord and my God.'" Although filled with indignation at the
blood which had been shed in Boston, Congress nevertheless issued an
appeal to the people of England: "You have been told that we are
impatient of government and desire independency. These are calumnies.
Permit us to be free as you are, and our union with you will be our
greatest glory. But if your ministers sport with human rights, if
neither the voice of justice, the principles of the constitution, nor
humanity will restrain them from shedding human blood in an impious
cause, 'we will never submit.' We ask peace, liberty and safety, and
for this we have laid our prayer at the feet of the king as a loving
father." The battles at Lexington, Concord and Ticonderoga preceded the
second meeting of Congress in May, 1775. Their plea for justice had
been spurned. The outlook was dark as midnight. These brave men
represented no government, they had no power to make laws, they had no
officers to execute them, they could not impose customs, they had no
army, they did not own a foot of land, they owed the use of their hall
to the courtesy of the artisans of Philadelphia. On the 12th of June
Congress made its first appeal to the people of twelve colonies, (
Georgia was not represented). It was a solemn call for the whole people
to observe one and the same day as a day of fasting and prayer "for the
restoration of the invaded rights of America and reconciliation with the
parent state." They who sought the protection of God knew that under
God they must protect themselves. All hearts turned to George
Washington, a delegate from Virginia, and he was unanimously chosen to
be commander-in-chief. When Congress met in July, 1776, the people had
been branded as traitors; the slaves of Virginia had been incited to
insurrection, the torch and tomahawk of the savage had been let loose on
frontier settlements, an army of foreign mercenaries had landed on their
shores, their ports were blockaded, an the army under Washington for
their defence only numbered 6,749 men. On the second day of July, 1776,
without one dissenting colony, the representatives of the thirteen
colonies resolved that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to
be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all
allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection
between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally
dissolved." Two days later Benjamin Harrison, the great-grandfather of
our present president, the chairman of the committee of the whole,
reported to Congress the form in which that resolution was to be
published to the world, and the reasons by which it was to be justified.
It was the work of Thomas Jefferson, then aged thirty-three, and never
did graver responsibility rest on a young man than the preparation of
that immortal paper, and never was the duty more nobly fulfilled. In
the original draft of the declaration there was the allegation that the
king "had prostituted his negative by suppressing every legislative
attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce in human
beings." This was struck out, as Mr. Jefferson tells us, in
"complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, not without tenderness to
Northern Brethren who held slaves." Time forbids my calling over the
roll of these noble patriots who signed their names to our Magna Charta.
There is John Adams, of whom Jefferson said, "He was our Colossus on
that floor, and spoke with such power as to move us from our seats."
Benjamin Franklin, printer philosopher and statesman. Roger Sherman, of
whom John Adams said, "He is honest as an angel and firm as Mount
Atlas." Charles Carroll, who, when a member said, "Oh, Carroll, you
will get off, there are so many Carrolls," stepped back to the desk and
wrote after his name, "of Carrollton." John Hancock, who, when elected
speaker, Benjamin Harrison had playfully seated in the speaker's chair
and said, "We will show Mother Britain how little we care for her, by
making a Massachusetts man our president, whom she has by proclamation
excluded from pardon." A friend said to John Hancock, "You have signed
your name large." "Yes," he replied, "I wish John Bull to read it
without spectacles." Robert Morris, the financier and treasurer of the
Revolution. Elbridge Gerry, the youngest member, the friend of Gen.
Warren, to whom Warren had said the night before the battle of Bunker
Hill, "It is sweet to die for our country." What a roll of names! the
silver-tongued Rutledge, brave Stockton, wise Rush, Lee--fifty-five noble
names, not one of whom who did not know that, as one member said, "If we
do not hang together, we shall hang separately." It was not timidity
which made any of the delegates hesitate to take the irrevocable step.
All the associations of their lives, all the traditions and memories of
the past bound them by ties of kindred and affection to the mother
country. They were venturing on an unknown sea; there were no charts to
guide them, no precedents to follow. The truth was, as Jefferson so
tersely said, "The people wait for us to lead the way. The question is
not whether by a declaration of independence we shall make ourselves
what we are not, but whether we shall declare a fact which exists." So
also John Adams said, "The Revolution was effected before the war
commenced."
I cannot tell the story of the seven year's war. The articles of
confederation were sent to the States in 1778, but the last of the
thirteen States, Maryland, did not adopt them until March, 1781.
Congress under he confederacy dealt with the States and did not have the
confidence or the love of the people. It required nine States to pass
any measure of importance. During the war the confederacy was a
pitiable failure. It issued bills which no one would take, its
certificates of indebtedness and promises to pay were so worthless that
it gave rise to the proverb, "Not worth a continental." Robert Morris,
the financier, pleaded hopelessly for help. Alexander Hamilton
denounced the confederation as "neither fit for war nor peace." Even
Washington, always hopeful, wrote in 1781: "Our troops are fast
approaching nakedness; our hospitals are without medicine; our sick are
without meat; our public works are at a standstill; in a word, we are at
the end of our tether, and now or never deliverance must come." At last
victory came--thanks to the generous assistance of France, to the heroism
of leaders like Lafayette, Baron Steuben, and hosts of others, who gave
us their fortunes and hazarded their lives for America, the war was
ended by the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Victor Hugo said, "Napoleon
was not defeated at Waterloo by the allied forces. It was God who
conquered him." Who that remembers Trenton, Valley Forge, Saratoga and
Yorktown, will not say God fought for our Washington? In 1777 a Quaker
had occasion to pass through the woods near the headquarters of the
army; hearing a voice, he approached the spot, and saw Washington in
prayer. Returning home, he said to his wife: "All's well! All's well!
Washington will prevail. I have thought that no man can be a soldier
and a Christian. George Washington has convinced me of my mistake."
Peace was declared in 1783. I have a water-color of the building used
as the Department of State, in which the treaty of peace was signed--it
was a building 12 feet by 30.
In May,1787, delegates from all the States, except Rhode Island, met in
the state house in Philadelphia, with George Washington as president, to
draft a constitution for these United States. All the delegates were
convinced of the utter failure of the articles of confederation, all
were convinced of the need of a stronger government. Two parties
honestly differed and were determined to fight it out to the bitter end.
At one time it looked as if the convention must disband without
effecting its object. Franklin arose and said: "Mr. President, the
small progress we have made after five weeks is a melancholy proof of
the imperfection of human understanding--we have gone back to ancient
history for models of government--we have viewed modern states--we find
none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances--we are groping
in the dark to find political truth, and are scarcely able to
distinguish it when presented to us. How has it happened, sir, that we
have not once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to
illumine our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with
Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this
room for Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard and they were
graciously answered. All of us have observed frequent instances of a
superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe
this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means to establish
our nation. Have we forgotten our powerful Friend? Do we imagine that
we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and
the longer I live the more convinced I am that God governs in the
affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His
notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We are
told, sir in the sacred writings, that 'except the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this, and I also
believe that without His aid we shall succeed in our political building
no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our
little, partial, local interests, our projects will be confounded, and
we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword to future ages. I
therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the
assistance of Heaven an its blessing on our deliberations be held in
this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one
or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate." When the
Constitution was adopted, Franklin rose, and pointing to the speaker's
chair, on which was carved a sun half-hid by the horizon, said:
"Gentlemen, I have long watched that sun and wondered whether it was a
rising or a setting sun--God has heard our prayers, it is a rising sun."
This convention adopted the famous ordinance of 1787, which guaranteed
that slavery should never enter the north-west territory, and this,
under God, saved the nation in the hour of trial. The Constitution was
ratified by eleven of the States in 1788, and the first Wednesday in
January, 1789, electors were chosen in all the ratifying States, except
New York, where a conflict between the senate and assembly prevented a
choice. In Rhode Island and North Carolina no election was held. The
person receiving the highest number of votes was to be president, the
man receiving the next highest number was to be vice-president.
Washington received the whole number of votes, 69; John Adams received
34. They were elected the first president and vice-president of the
United States.
The world has only one Washington. At sixteen he was county surveyor,
the support of his widowed mother; at nineteen he was military
inspector, with the rank of major; at twenty the governor of Virginia
sent him six hundred miles to ask the commander of the French forces "by
what authority he had invaded the king's dominions"; at twenty-two he
was colonel in command of a regiment under General Braddock, and in the
absence of a chaplain he read prayers daily himself. He saved the
remnant of that ill-fated army from annihilation, and fifteen years
after an aged Indian chief came to see the man at whom he had fired many
times and who was protected by the Great Spirit. At his entrance as a
member of the legislature of Virginia, the speaker greeted him with
thanks for his military services. Washington arose to reply and blushed
and stammered. The speaker said, "Mr. Washington, your modesty only
equals your valor." He was a member of the first Continental Congress
of whom Patrick Henry said, "Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, is the
great orator, but for solid information and sound judgement Col.
Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor." When with
one voice Congress chose him to be the commander-in-chief, he said, "I
beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in this room, that I this
day declare with the utmost sincerity that I do not think myself equal
to the command I am honored with. No pecuniary consideration would
tempt me to accept this position. I will keep an exact account of my
expenses, those I doubt not you will discharge. I ask no more." The
nation applauded the prudence, the wisdom, the bravery and patriotism of
Washington. Frederick the Great said, "His achievements are the most
brilliant in military annals." Napoleon directed that the standard of
the French army should be hung with crape at his death. Fox said of him
in the British Parliament, "Illustrious man, it has been reserved for
him to run the race of glory without the smallest interruption to his
course." But the noblest eulogy ever uttered were the words of Gen.
Henry Lee: "First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his
countrymen." He had hoped to retire to private life, and wrote to
Lafayette, "I am a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, under
the shadow of my own vine and fig tree. I have retired from all public
employment and tread the walks of private life with heartfelt
satisfaction." The country would not permit it. He had refused to be a
candidate for the office of president and accepted the nation's
unanimous call with a heavy heart. His last act before leaving for New
York was to visit his aged mother, then eighty-two, and in the last year
of her life. We can picture that tender farewell to one to whom he owed
under God that beautiful faith which shed glory on his life. The
journey to New York was one continued ovation. His Virginia neighbors
and friend gave him a God-speed and benediction. Baltimore outdid
itself in generous hospitality. Philadelphia crowned him with laurel,
the bells rang out their joyous peals, cannons thundered and the people
with one voice shouted "Long live the President." Marvellous as was the
enthusiasm of other cities, the people of Trenton, who remembered the
cruelties of the Hessian in 1776 and their deliverance by Washington,
outdid them all. On a triumphal arch was written "Dec. 26, 1776. The
hero who defended the mothers will defend the daughters." At Elizabeth
a committee of Congress met him, and Caesar never had so beautiful a
flotilla as that of the sea captains and pilots who bore him to New York
on the 23d of April. A week was spent in festivity. It is the 30th of
April. In all the churches of New York there have been prayers for the
new government and its chosen head. The streets swarm with people as
the hour of noon approaches. Every house-top and porch and window near
to Federal Hall is packed with a dense mass. The president has been
presented to the two houses of Congress. The procession is formed.
Washington follows the senators and representatives to the balcony.
Around and behind him are his staff and distinguished patriots of the
Revolution. Every eye is fixed on the stately, majestic man. A little
over six feet high, his form perfect in outline and figure, a florid
complexion, dark blue eyes deeply set, his rich brown hair now tinged
with gray, firm jaws and broad nostrils, lighted by a benignant
expression. Such was the Father of his Country. The brave soldier
trembles with emotion as the chancellor of the State of New York reads
the oath; the hand of Washington is on the open Bible. Was it a
providence that they rested on the words, "His hands were made strong by
the mighty God of Israel?" The secretary would have raised the sacred
book to the president's lips. Washington said solemnly, "I swear, so
help me God," and then bowed reverently kissed the book. He went to the
senate chamber, and with stammering words, for his heart was almost too
full for utterance, he delivered his inaugural address, and then turning
to his friends said, "We will go to St. Paul's Church for prayers." It
had been the habit of his life. His pastor, Rev. Lee Massey, said, "No
company ever withheld him from church."' His secretary, Harrison, said,
"Whenever the general could be spared from the camp on the Sabbath, he
never failed to ride to some neighboring church to join in the worship
of God." He claimed no praise for his matchless victories, but
reverently gave all the glory to the blessing and protection of God. He
knew, in the words of my friend Robert C. Winthrop, that "There can be
no independence of God." The poet will sing and the orator describe
eloquently the pageant of that day, but no incident will so touch the
Christian's heart as the first act of the president of the United
States, kneeling reverently with his fellow-citizens in the public
worship of God. The service which had been set forth and was this day
used in St. Paul's Church by Bishop Provost, also a patriot of the
Revolution, and one who had suffered for his country's sake, was
substantially the same used by us to-day. Washington assumed office in
the midst of dangers. Edmund Randolph, one of the foremost members of
the constitutional convention, wrote to Washington, "The Constitution
would never have been adopted but for the knowledge that you sanctioned
it, and the expectation that you would execute it. It is in state of
probation. You alone can give it stability." There was a stormy sea
before the new ship of state. The bitter hatreds between Federalist and
anti-Federalist were not healed. Two states had not ratified the
Constitution--there were tokens in more than one direction of rebellion.
Without on dollar in the treasury, we were eighty millions in debt. The
pirates of Morocco had destroyed our commerce in the Mediterranean,
Spain threatened the valley of the Mississippi. Our relations with
England were full of bitter memories; a country larger than Europe was
to be protected, and we had a standing army of only 600 men. Washington
called around him as advisers Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of Foreign
Affairs; Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; Henry Knox,
Secretary of War; Edmund Randolph, Attorney-General, and John Jay, Chief
Justice, and by these men, under God, the crumbling confederacy was
cemented into one nation. Time forbids my reading you the words of
wisdom, "apples of gold in pictures of silver," of Washington's
inaugural and farewell addresses. I wish I had time to tell how, with a
prophet's eye, he saw the future of the West, and again and again urged
the opening of lines of commerce to bind East and West together. After
eight years of wise rule, such as befitted "the Father of our Country,"
he retired to the shades of Mt. Vernon, to be, as he had been through
life, the helper of the helpless, the friend of the needy and the
almoner of God. On the 12th of December, 1799, he was exposed to a
storm of sleet and rain, the severest form of quinsy set in; two days
later, the 14th of December, he died. As friends stood weeping around
his death-bed, he said with a smile, "O don't, don't; I am dying, but
thank God I am not afraid to die." As the hour of his death drew near
he asked to be left alone. They all went out and left him with God.
There are lessons for our hearts to-day. Government is a delegated
trust from God, who alone has the right to govern. He gives to every
nation the right to say in what form this trust shall be clothed. No
man has the right to be his brother's master. Take away the truth that
government is a trust which comes from God, and you have left nothing
between man and man but cunning and brute force. Burke said, "this
sacred trust of government does not arise from our conventions and
compacts," but it gives our conventions and compacts all the force and
sanction which they have. I shall be told that the name of God is not
found in the Constitution of the United States; it did not need to be
when it was written on the people's hearts.
While we commemorate the noble deeds of our fathers, which under God
were this day crowned with success, we gratefully remember that our
fathers' God has guided us through all dangers. What other nation has
come out of the horrors of civil war with victors and vanquished vieing
with each other in love for one common country? Where has the hand of
the assassin bowed the whole people by the leader's grave? This is no
day for boasting or to call over the roll of our great dead.
We have sinned deeply, and deeply have we paid the penalty. No hand but
God's could have over-ruled our mistakes and given us our favored
position to-day. We must not forget that no nation has ever survived
the loss of its religion. The year which saw Washington inaugurated
president, saw in the fair land of Lafayette the beginnings of that
holocaust of murder which turned France into a hell. "The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom." No high-sounding words about freedom,
no Godless philosophy, no infidel creed, which robs men of homes here
and heaven hereafter, can save this nation. "Not unto us, but unto Thy
name be the praise," must be our song, as it was the song of our
fathers.
There are clouds and darkness on the horizon for the future. I see it
in the impatience of law, in the jealousies between class and class, in
the selfishness of the rich, and in the misery of the poor, in bribery
and corruption in high places, and in the turbulence of mobs. I see it
in the foul monster of intemperance and impurity which stalk unabashed
through the land. But I see the greatest danger in that insidious
teaching which robs humanity of an eternal standard of right, which
makes morality prudence or imprudence, which limits man's horizon by the
grave, and takes from hearts and homes God and Christ and heaven. Yet,
I reverently believe that God has set us in the forefront of the nations
to be, as our text says, "a beacon on the mountain-top," to lead on in
His work in the last time. It may be that for our sins we shall walk
again into the furnace, as we have walked and come out of it purified
and fitted for the Master's use. I sometimes lose faith in men, but I
will not lose faith in God. It is ours to work and bide our time; so
did our fathers, and so will God give the harvest. I should wrong my
heart and yours to-day, if I forgot the daughters of the Revolution. We
might have had no Washington but for the lessons he learned at that
mother's knee, that his duty to God was to believe in Him, to fear Him
and to love Him with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul
and with all his strength, to worship Him, to give Him thanks, to put
his whole trust in Him, to call on Him, to honor His holy name and His
word and to love Him truly all the days of his life; that his duty
towards his neighbor--was to love him as himself, and to do to all men as
he would have them do unto him, to love, honor and succor his father and
mother, to honor and obey the civil authority, to hurt nobody by word or
deed, to be true and just in all his dealings, to bear no malice or
hatred in his heart, to keep his hands from picking and stealing, and
his tongue from evil speaking, lying and slandering, to keep his body in
temperance, soberness and chastity. Not to covet or desire other men's
goods, but to learn and labor truly to get his own living and to do his
duty in that state of life unto which it should please God to call him.
We know this was the rule of his life. The Father of his Country found
his solace, inspiration and help, as many of us have found it, in the
love of a Christian wife. There are no fairer names in our country's
history than Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Elizabeth Schuyler
Hamilton, Sally Foster Otis, Alice DeLancy Izard, Jane Ketelas Beekman,
and many more, who made up the republican court of Washington; and we do
not forget humble names like Mollie Stark, whose lives were consecrated
to their country. Wives, mothers, daughters! none have places of
greater influence in shaping and moulding our country than you. Your
power is the power of a Christian mother, a Christian wife, a Christian
daughter. In the darkest hour look to God, believe that your mission is
a nobler one than to be a slave of fashion or the leader of a party.
Plant your feet on the rock of eternal truth--never speak with uncertain
voice of the verities of the Christian faith. For you St. Paul said:
"How knowest thou, O Woman, but thou mayest save thy husband and thy
child," and saving them a nation is saved.
III. /SERMON AT THE SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MISSIONARY COUNCIL
IN WASHINGTON, D.C., NOV. 13, 1888/.
"/The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of
His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever/."--REVELATION xi. 15.
THESE words are God's surety that the prayers, the trials and the labors
of His Church shall be crowned with success.
We are living in the great missionary age of the Church. Impenetrable
barriers have been broken down. Fast-closed doors have been opened.
There is no country where we may not carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Divine Providence has been fusing the nations of the earth into one
common brotherhood. Man has created nothing. The lightening would run
its circuit in the Garden of Eden as well as when Morse made it man's
messenger. In the fullness of time God has lifted the veil from human
eyes to see the mysteries of His bounty, and so prepare a highway for
the coming of our King.
I have no argument about the obligation of missions. It is eighteen
hundred years too late for this.
I speak to you to-day of the progress of the Kingdom of Christ. Pray
for me that the story may lead us to the foot of the Cross to consecrate
all that we have to His blessed service.
At the close of the last century a thoughtful young Englishman asked the
governor of the East India Company to go to India to preach the Gospel.
The answer was: "The man that would go to India upon that errand is as
mad as a man who would put a torch to a powder magazine."
A few years ago Chunder Sen, the great scholar of India, died. On his
death-bed a friend asked him what he thought were the prospects of
Christianity in India. He answered: "Jesus Christ has conquered the
heart of India." Not that great battles are not yet to be fought, much
weary work to be done, but with more than half a million of Christians
in India, which have been won in this century, we are certain that the
nation will be won to Christ.
I turn to that dark continent which has had more of human sorrow bound
up in its history than any place on earth. Forty years ago in a cottage
in the highlands of Scotland an aged man said to his son: "David, you
will have family prayer to-day, for when we part we shall never meet
again until we meet before the great white throne." David Livingstone
read the thirty-fourth Psalm, the key-note of that wonderful life, and
then poured out his heart to God in prayer, threw his arms around his
father's neck and kissed him; they parted never to meet again in this
world, and so he went to Africa. He did a wonderful work in the
Bechuana country. He was a carpenter, blacksmith, teacher, laborer,
physician and minister to these poor souls, but the man's heart was in
the interior of Africa. One day, with about as much preparation as I
take when I go to the north woods of Minnesota, he left for the interior
of Africa. His route was along the path of slave traders, and every few
days he came to some place where a poor woman had fainted in the chain-
gang and had been strapped to a tree with her babe at her breast and
left to be stung to death by insects. No wonder that he wrote in his
Journal, and blotted it with tears: "Oh, God, when will the great sore
of the world be healed?"
When you remember that the followers of the false prophet are the only
people engaged in this traffic in human flesh, and that to the poor
African it means slavery or death, you have the answer to the stories of
the progress of Mohammedanism in Africa.
I cannot tell the story of his life. One day he was found dead on his
knees in prayer in an African hut. That life had so impressed itself
upon the heathen folk that they did what will always be a marvel of
history. They wrapped the body in leaves. They covered it with pitch.
They carried it nine months on their shoulders. They fought hostile
tribes. They swam swollen rivers. They cut their way through
impenetrable thickets, and at last stood at the door of a mission house
in Zanzibar, and said, "We have brought the man of God to be buried with
his people." And so David Livingstone sleeps in Westminster Abbey.
Our Stanley took up Livingstone's work, and he laid Africa open to the
gaze of the world. He travelled nine hundred and ninety-nine days, and
the thousandth day reached the sea-coast. In all that journey he did
not meet a single, solitary soul who had heard that Jesus Christ had
come into the world. Stanley tells the reason why he went back to
Africa. He said:
"When I found Livingstone I cared no more for missions than the veriest
atheist in England. I had been a press reporter, and my business was to
follow armies and to describe battles; to attend conventions and report
speeches, but my heart had not been touched with sympathy for missions.
When I found this grand old man I asked: 'What is he here for? Is he
crazy? Is he cracked? I sat at his feet four months and I saw that a
power above his will had taken possession of his life, and given him a
hunger to lead poor heathen folk out of their darkness.
"I have heard the same voice speaking to my heart, 'Follow me,' and I go
back to Africa to finish Livingstone's work."
This was a few years ago. To-day there are fifteen Christian Bishops of
our communion in Africa. Eight were present at the Lambeth Conference.
One of them, Bishop Crowther, was captured when a boy ten years of age
on a slave ship, placed in a mission school, transferred to a high
school, then to the university, graduated with honors, and went back to
Africa as a Bishop. As I looked in the face of that black man and
thought of his wonderful history, I remembered another man from Africa
that carried the cross of my blessed Master up the hill to Calvary, and
that this aged servant of Christ was following in his blessed footsteps.
Another of these Bishops was one of the manliest men that I ever looked
upon; Bishop Smythies, the picture of manly beauty, honored by his
university, beloved by friends, a face gentle and loving as that of St.
John. When I thought of this man going on foot in the interior of
Africa, perhaps to die for Christ, I could not keep back the tears, and
I went to him and said, "My good brother, I cannot tell you how my heart
goes out to you in loving sympathy." He smiled and said, "Bishop, when
the Church in Jerusalem had more work than it knew how to do, the Holy
Ghost sent one of its ministers upon a long journey to convert one
African. Surely it is not much for the Christians of Christian England
to send a Christian Bishop to millions who never heard there is a
Savior."
And now I turn to the opposite quarter of the globe--Australasia, New
Zealand, and Polynesia. When I was a boy there was but one English
settlement, and that was known throughout the world as Botany Bay, the
abode of the most abandoned criminals of English civilization. There
are to-day twenty-one Bishops in those islands. I wish I could tell the
story inwrought in the lives of Selwyn, Patteson, Williams, and a host
of others, some of whom have laid down their lives for Christ.
To-day cannibalism is a thing of the past. Human sacrifices, thank God,
are to be found nowhere on the earth. There is not one of those islands
without its Christian church, and in some of them the last vestige of
heathenism has passed away. They have thousands of Christian men and
women under their native pastors. Surely this is no time to talk about
the failure of Christian missions.
Now I turn to Japan. Less than forty year ago one of our brave American
sailors, Commodore Perry, cast anchor on Sunday morning in the harbor of
Yeddo. He called his officers and crew together for public worship, and
they sang that old hymn of our fathers, "Old Hundred"; and the first
sound that this hermit nation heard from her younger sister of the West
was that grand old hymn.
Next year Japan will have a constitutional government. It has already
adopted the Christian calendar. There are more that a million of
children in their public schools. Many of these schools are under the
charge of Christian men and women, and it is only a question of a few
years when Japan will take her place beside other Christian nations.
This is more wonderful when we remember that until recently there was a
statute in Japan that, "if any Christian shall set his foot on the
Island of Japan, or if the Christian's God, Jesus, shall come, he shall
be beheaded."
I turn to China. I wonder that its doors are open to Christian missions
when I remember that Christian nations at the mouth of the cannon have
forced upon that people that deadly drug which drags body and soul to
death, that their names have been by-words and hissing in Christian
lands. The secret is that God sent to China a young Englishman whose
life was hid with Christ in God. Chinese Gordon saved the nation of
China, and his name will be a household word forever. Surely a people
where the poorest laborer can become the first prince of the realm if he
becomes the first scholar, and if his son is a vagabond sinks to the
place from which his father came, surely such a people have the elements
to receive the Gospel of Christ.
Time would fail me to tell the story of missions in North America; I
should begin at Hudson's Bay, where Bishop John Horden has lived thirty-
five years amid its solitudes and won every one of its Indian tribes to
Christianity. I should tell you of the Bishop of Athabasca, whose home
is within the Arctic circle, who could not attend the Lambeth Conference
because he could not go and return the same year. I should tell of my
young friend, the Bishop of Mackenzie River, when I knew that he spent
nine months each year travelling upon snowshoes and three months in a
birch-bark canoe; that the only way that he could carry to them the
Gospel was to follow them in the chase, hunt with them, fish with them,
lie down in their wigwams in his blanket and always have waiting upon
his lips the sweet story of the love of God, our Father. I told him I
wished he would give me his post-office address and I would send him
books and papers; he said: "Bishop, I am a thousand miles from a post-
office and only get one mail a year."
I should tell you of another, the Bishop of Rupertsland, Dr. Macrae, the
only Bishop in Christendom who has a university made up of a Roman
Catholic college, a Presbyterian college, and a college of the Church of
England; so large-hearted that almost by one consent the people of
Manitoba have made him the president of their entire educational system.
If I turn to our own land, it would be to tell you that one hundred
years ago the Church was a feeble folk, scattered along the Atlantic
coast and known as a people that were everywhere spoken against. Thank
God, to-day her voice is heard in the miner's camp, in the schoolhouse
of the border, in the wigwam of the Indians, and sturdy heralds are in
the fore-front of that mighty movement which is peopling this land with
its millions of souls. Marvellous as is the progress of Christian
missions and the work which has been done in this century, it has
largely been committed to the English-speaking race. In the providence
of God races of men have been selected by Him to do His work. Two
hundred years ago the English-speaking people of Europe were less than
many of the nations of the Latin races. Spain outnumbered England two
to one. To-day there are one hundred and fifty millions of English-
speaking people in the world, one-tenth of the entire human family.
When we think of the future, that by the close of another century more
than five hundred millions will be speaking one language, it leads us to
ask, on bended knees, why has this commission been committed to this
English-speaking race, and what are the responsibilities that rest upon
our branch of the Church of God? I reverently believe that it is
because on its civil side it recognizes as no other race that government
is a delegated trust from God, who alone has the right to govern. It
represents constitutional government, and it has done so since Bishop
Stephen Langton, at the head of the nobles of England, wrung the /Magna
Charta/ from King John, and henceforth recognized the sacredness of the
citizen, who has been clothed with an individuality unlike any being who
lives or will live in all the ages of eternity. On its religious side
it recognizes the two truths which underlie the possibility of the
reunion of Christendom--the validity of all Christian Baptism in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and that the condition of
fellowship in the Church of God is faith in the incarnate Son of God as
contained in the Old Catholic creeds. Surely we may hold up the olive
branch of God's peace over all strife and divisions among the disciples
of Christ, and say "Ye are brethren."
When we remember that in the providence of God the Greek tongue was
spoken throughout the civilized world to prepare a way for the coming of
His Son and the preaching of the blessed Gospel, we see in these facts
forerunning tokens of his preparation for the second coming of Jesus
Christ.
If I had time to-day, I would love to tell you the story that is
inwrought in the history of our noble Missionary Bishops; men who have
hazarded their lives for the Lord Jesus. I wish I could tell you of
their ventures of faith, foundations for Christian schools which they
have laid with prayers and watered with tears, and with a prophet's eye
looked forward to a future when the land will swarm with millions of
souls, that so by Christian nurture and Christian training the Church
may fulfil the Master's words, "Feed my lambs." I wish I could tell you
of the work, dear to every Bishop's heart, of the daughters of the
Cross; yes, and I would like to bring to this Council some of the
tempest-tossed and weary souls who have been led out of their darkness
to the rest and peace and gladness of Christian faith. I wish I could
bring here some from the northern forests and the prairies of the West,
the men of the trembling eye and the wandering foot, that they might
thank you for having led them out of their heritage of anguish and
sorrow into the light of the children of God.
I may not close without a word of tribute to those who have fallen
asleep. Since our last General Convention nine Bishops have crossed the
river and are waiting for us on the other shore. Unbidden tears come as
I remember the loving Elliot, our St. John; Welles, another holy
Herbert; Brown, with his Catholic heart that had room enough to take in
all the poor and the sorrowful of his diocese; Harris, every whit a
great leader in our Israel; Dunlop, the soldier on the outpost, often
debarred brotherly sympathy, who in loneliness and weariness bravely did
his work. Others who were patriarchs of the Church of God--Green, Lee,
Potter and Stevens--all men who were great leaders in the Church of God,
who bravely did their work, whose faces are upon every heart, and who
have entered into rest.
Since I entered the House of Bishops, fifty-three Bishops have laid down
their shepherd's staves and entered into rest.
A word, and I have done. Surely in such a day as this it is no time to
discuss shibboleths. Its is a time for brotherly sympathy and great-
hearted work. With such responsibilities around us there must be no
divisions among those who love the same Saviour and look for the same
heavenly home. I remember that at a critical period in our missionary
work the venerable Doctor Dyer said to me with tears in his eyes,
"Strife is an awful price to pay for the best results, but strife among
the kinsmen of Christ in the presence of those for whom He died, and
when wandering souls are going down to death, is almost an unpardonable
sin." May I not ask you to-day, dear brothers and sisters, what have we
done to help on in the great work which is to be done in the eventide of
the world? What lonely missionary have we remembered in prayer during
the past week? What wanderer have we tried with love to lead to the
Saviour? Have we given the cost of the trimmings of a dress? Have we
made any sacrifices for Him who gave Himself for us? May I not ask you
to-day here beside God's altar to consecrate all you have and are to His
service?
With some of us the eventide draws on. A little while, such a little
while, just time enough to do His work, and then the end shall come.
And when we reach that other home, next to seeing the Saviour, next to
having the old ties re-united, will be the comfort and the blessedness
of meeting some one whom we helped heavenward and home.
IV. /ADDRESS IN LAMBETH CHAPEL, AT THE FIRST SESSION OF THE LAMBETH
CONFERENCE, JULY 3, 1888/.
Most reverend and right reverend brethren: No assembly is fraught with
such awful responsibility to God, as a council of the Bishops of His
Church. Since the Holy Spirit presided in the first council of
Jerusalem, faithful souls have looked with deep interest to the
deliberations of those whom Christ has made the shepherds of His flock,
and to whom he gave His promise, "Lo, I am with you always to the end of
the world." The responsibility is greater when division has marred the
beauty of the Lamb's Bride. Our words and acts will surely hasten or
(which God forbid) retard the reunion of Christendom. Feeling the grave
responsibility which is imposed on me to-day, my heart cries out as did
the prophet's, "I am a child and cannot speak." Pray for me, venerable
brethren, that God may help me to obey His word--"Whatsoever I command,
that shalt thou speak." I would kneel with you at our Master's feet and
pray that "the Holy Spirit may guide us into all truth." We meet as the
representatives of national Churches; each with its own peculiar
responsibility to God for the souls intrusted to its care; each with all
the rights of a national Church, to adapt itself to the varying
conditions of human society; and each bound to preserve the order, the
faith, the sacraments, and the worship of the Catholic Church, for which
it is a trustee. As we kneel by the table of our common Lord we
remember separated brothers. Division has multiplied division until
infidelity sneers at Christianity as an effete superstition, and the
modern Sadducee, more bold than his Jewish brother, denies the existence
of God. Millions for whom Christ died have not so much as heard that
there is a Saviour. It will heal no divisions to say, Who is at fault?
The sin of schism does not lie at one door. If one has sinned by self-
will, the other has sinned as deeply by lack of charity and love. The
way to reunion looks difficult. To man it is impossible. No human
/eirenicon/ can bridge the gulf of separation. There are unkind words to
be taken back, alienations to be healed, and heartburnings to be
forgiven. Where we are blind, God can make a way. When "the God of
Peace" rules in all Christian hearts, our Lord's prayer will be
answered--"That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in
Thee, that they all may be one in Us, that the world may believe that
Thou hast sent Me." No one branch of the Church is absolutely by itself
alone the Catholic Church; all branches need reunion in order to the
completeness of the Church. There are blessed signs that the Holy
Spirit is quickening Christian hearts to seek for unity. We all know
that this divided Christianity cannot conquer the world. At a time when
every form of error and sin is banded together to oppose the kingdom of
Christ, the world needs the witness of a united Church. Men must hear
again the voice which peals through the lapse of centuries bearing
witness to the "faith once delivered to the saints," or else for many
souls there will be only rationalism and unbelief--while this sad, weary
world, so full of sin and sorrow, is pleading for help, it is a wrong to
Christ and to the souls for whom He died that His children should be
separated in rival folds. As baptised into Christ we are brothers.
Notwithstanding the hedges of human opinions which men have builded in
the garden of the Lord, all who look for salvation alone through faith
in Jesus Christ do hold the great verities of Divine faith. The
opinions which separate us are not necessary to be believed in order to
salvation. The truths in which we agree are parts of the Catholic
faith. The Holy Spirit has passed over these human barriers, and set
his seal to the labors of separated brethren in Christ, and rewarded
them in the salvation of many precious souls. The grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the renewing and sanctifying influences of the Holy
Ghost are the same in the peasant in the cottage, and in the emperor on
the throne. They share with us in the long line of confessors and
martyrs for Christ. We would not rob them of one sheaf which they have
gathered in the garner of the Lord. We rejoice that Churches with a
like historic lineage with us are seeking reunion. Churches whose faith
has been dimmed by coldness or clouded by error are being quickened into
new life from the Incarnate Son of God.
Our hearts go out in loving sympathy to the Old Catholics of Europe and
America, whose names always will be linked with Selwyn, Wilberforce, and
Wordsworth, Whittingham, Kerfoot, and Brown, in defence of the faith.
It is with deep sorrow that we remember that the Church of Rome has
separated herself from the teaching of the primitive Church by additions
to the faith once delivered to the saints, and by claiming for its
Bishop prerogatives which belong only to the Divine Head of the Church
While we honor the devotion and zeal of her missionary heroes, and
rejoice at the good works of multitudes of her children, we lament that
lack of charity which anathematizes disciples of Christ who have carried
the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
We bless God's Holy Name for the fraternal work which has been carried
on under the guidance of the see of Canterbury, and which we trust will
lead ancient Churches to a deeper personal faith in Jesus Christ.
We are sad that some of our kinsmen in Christ, children of one mother,
have forsaken her ways. God can over-rule even this sorrow, so that it
shall fall out to the furtherance of the Gospel. They must take with
them precious memories of the love and the faith of the mother whom they
have forsaken, and of the liberty wherewith the truth in Christ has made
her children free--under God these may be a link in the chain of His
providence to the restoration of unity. It is a singular providence
that at this period of the world's history, when marvellous discoveries
have united the people of divers tongues in common interests, He has
placed the Anglo-Saxon race in the forefront of the nations. They are
carrying civilization to the ends of the earth. They are bringing
liberty to the oppressed, elevating the down-trodden, and are giving to
all these divers tongues and kindreds their customs, traditions, and
laws. I reverently believe that the Anglo-Saxon Church has been
preserved by God's Providence (if her children will accept this Mission)
to heal the divisions of Christendom, and lead on in His work to be done
in the eventide of the world. She holds the truths which underlie the
possibility of reunion, the validity of all Christian baptism in the
Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. She ministers the two
sacraments of Christ as of perpetual obligation, and makes faith in
Jesus Christ, as contained in the Catholic Creeds, a condition of
Christian fellowship. The Anglo-Saxon Church does not perplex men with
theories and shibboleths which many a poor Ephraimite cannot speak--she
believes in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in
Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, three Persons and one
God, but she does not weaken faith in the Triune God by human
speculations about the Trinity in Unity. She believes that the sacred
Scriptures were written by inspiration of God, but she has no theory
about inspiration. She holds up the Atonement of Christ as the only
hope of a lost world; but she has no philosophy about the Atonement.
She teaches that it is through the Holy Ghost that men are united to
Christ. She ministers the sacraments appointed by Christ as His
channels of grace; but she has no theory to explain the manner of
Christ's presence to penitent believing souls. She does not explain
what God has explained, but celebrates these Divine mysteries, as they
were held and celebrated for one thousand years after our Lord ascended
into heaven, before there was any East or West arrayed against each
other in the Church of God. Surely we may and ought to be first to hold
up the olive branch of peace over strife, and say, "Sirs, ye are
brethren."
In so grave a matter as the restoration of organic unity, we may not
surrender anything which is of Divine authority, or accept terms of
communion which are contrary to God's Word. We cannot recognize any
usurpation of the rights and prerogatives of national Churches which
have a common ancestry, lest we heal "the hurt of the daughter of my
people slightly," and say "peace, where there is no peace;" but we do
say that all which is temporary and of human choice or preference we
will forego, from our love to our own kinsmen in Christ.
The Church of the Reconciliation will be an historical and Catholic
Church in its ministry, its faith, and its sacraments. It will inherit
the promises of its Divine Lord. It will preserve all which is catholic
and Divine. It will adopt and use all instrumentalities of any existing
organization which will aid it in doing the Lord's work. It will put
away all which is individual, narrow, and sectarian. It will concede to
all who hold the faith all the liberty wherewith Christ hath made His
children free.
/Missions/.--In the presence of brethren who bear in their bodies the
marks of the Lord Jesus, I hardly know how to clothe in words my
thoughts as I speak of Missions. The providence of God has broken down
impenetrable barriers--the doors of hermit nations have been opened;
commerce has bound men in common interests, and so prepared "a highway
for our God"--Japan, India, China, Africa, Polynesia, amid the solitudes
of icy north, and in the lands of tropic suns, world-wide there are
signs of the coming of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. The veil which has
so long blinded the eyes of the ancient people, our Lord's kinsmen
according to the flesh, is being taken away. We bless God for the good
example of martyrs like Patteson, Mackenzie, Parker, Hannington, and
others, who have laid down their lives for the Lord Jesus. We rejoice
that our branch of the Church has been counted worthy to add to the
names of those who "came out of great tribulation, and have washed their
robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." "A great and
effectual door is opened." There is no country on the earth where we
may not carry the Gospel. The wealth of the world is largely in
Christian hands. The Church only needs faith to grasp the opportunity
to do the work.
In the presence of fields so white for the harvest, we must ask, "Lord,
what wilt Thou have me to do?"
1. There must be unceasing, prevailing intercessory prayer for those
whom we send out to heathen lands. The hearts of all Christian nations
were turned with anxious solicitude to that brave servant of God and His
country in Khartoum. Shall we feel less for the servants of Christ who
have given up home and country to suffer and it may be to die for Him?
Some of us remember that when Missions were destroyed, when clouds were
all around us, and the very ground drifting from under our feet, that we
were made brave to work and wait for the salvation of God by the prayers
which went up to God for us. When "prayers were made without ceasing of
the Church unto God," the fast-closed doors of the prison were opened
for the Apostles. It will be so again.
2. There must be the entire consecration of all unto Christ. The wisdom
of Paul and the eloquence of Apollos may plant, but "God alone giveth
the increase." If success comes, if "the rod of the priesthood bud and
blossom and bear fruit," it must be "laid up in the ark of God." He
will not give His glory to another. The work is Christ's. "We are
ambassadors for Him." "I have chosen you and ordained you that ye
should go and bring forth fruit."
3. They who would win souls must have a ripe knowledge of the sacred
Scriptures. "They were written by inspiration of God. . . . that the
man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
Our orders may be unquestioned, our doctrine perfect in every line and
feature, but we shall not reach the hearts of men unless we preach
Christ out of an experimental knowledge of the truths of Divine
Revelation. There is but one Book which can bring light to homes of
sorrow, one light to scatter clouds and darkness, one message to lead
wandering folk unto God. This blessed Book will be to every soldier and
lonely missionary what it was to Livingstone dying alone in Africa, or
to Captain Gardiner dead on the desolate shores of Patagonia, whose
finger pointed to the words, "The Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from
all sin."
4. We must love all whom Christ loves. We may have the gift of
teaching, we may understand all mysteries, we may have all knowledge, we
may bestow all our goods to the poor, we may even give our bodies to be
burned, but without that love which comes alone from Christ, we shall be
"as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." With St. Paul we must say,
"Whereinsoever Christ is preached I do rejoice, and will rejoice."
5. Above all gifts we need the baptism of the Holy Ghost. When this
consecration comes there will be no cry of an empty treasury. We shall
no longer be weary with the bleating of lost sheep, to whom we have to
say, I have no means and no shepherd to send you.
/Christian Work/--We rejoice at every sign that Christians realize that
wealth is a sacred trust, for which they shall give an account. We
rejoice more that they are giving that personal service which is a law
of His kingdom. Men and women of culture and gentle birth are going
into the abodes of sickness and sorrow to comfort stricken homes and
lead sinful folk to the Saviour. Brotherhoods, Sisterhoods, and
deaconesses are multiplying. Never was there greater need for their
holy work. Many of our own baptized children have drifted away from all
faith. To thousands God is a name, the Bible a tradition, faith an
opinion, and heaven and hell fables. But that which gives us the
deepest sadness and makes all Christian work more difficult is that so
many of those to whom the people look for example have given up the
Bible, the Lord's Day, the house of God, and Christian faith. Alas!
they are telling these weary toilers whose lives are clouded by anxiety
and sorrow that there is no hereafter. "They know not what they do."
They are sowing to the wind and will reap the whirlwind. May God show
them the danger before if is too late! The loss of faith is the loss of
everything; without it morality becomes prudence or imprudence. When
the tie which binds man to God is broken all other ties snap asunder.
No nation has survived the loss of its religion. We are appalled at the
mad cry of anarchy which tramples all which we hold dear for time and
eternity under its feet. We cannot look into its face without seeing
the lineaments of that man of sin who "opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God and worshipped." Antichrist is he who
usurps the place of Christ. "He is antichrist who denieth the Father
and the Son." Our hearts go out in pity for those whose mechanical
ideas of the universe may be a revolt from a mechanical theology which
has lost sight of the Fatherhood of God. We stand where two ways meet.
We shall take care of the people or the people will take care of us.
The people are the rulers; the power of the future is in their hands.
Limit their horizon to this life, let penury, sickness, and sorrow
change the man to a wolf, let him know no God and Father Who hears his
cry, no Saviour to help, no brother to bind up his wounds, let there be
on the one side wealth and luxury and wanton waste, and on the other
side poverty, misery, and despair, and there will be, as there has been,
a cry for blood. We wonder why men pass by the Church to found clubs
and brotherhoods and orders. They will have them, and they ought to
have them, until the Church is in its Divine love what its Founder
designed it to be--the brotherhood in Christ of the children of our God
and Father. What the world needs to-day is not alms, not hospitals, not
homes of mercy alone. It needs the spirit and the power of the love of
Christ. It needs the voice, the ear, the hand, and the heart of Christ
seen in and working in His children. No powers of government, no
/prestige/ of social position, no prerogatives of Churchly authority can
meet the issues of this hour; we have waited already too long.
Brotherhood men will have, and it will be the brotherhood of the
commune, or brotherhood in Christ as the children of our God and Father.
Infidelity answers no questions, heals no wounds, fulfils no hopes. The
Gospel will do, is doing, to-day what it has done through all the ages:
leading men out of sin and darkness and despair to the liberty of sons
of God.
In a day of division and unrest there will be many questions which
perplex earnest souls. Some will dwell on the subjective side of the
faith, others will think most of its manifestations in the life. These
questions will affect organization for Christian work, public worship,
and find expression in the ritual of the Church. There is no room for
differences if Christ be first, Christ be last, and Christ in
everything. The ritual of the Church must be the expression of her
life. It must symbolize her faith; it must be subject to her authority.
As the years go by worship will be more beautiful. The "garments of the
king's daughter may be of wrought gold," and she "clothed in raiment of
needlework," but "she will have a name that she liveth and is dead,"
unless her "fine linen is the righteousness of the saints." Lastly, to
none is this council so dear as to those whose lives are spent in the
darkness of heathenism, or who have gone out to new lands to lay
foundations for the work of the Church of God. In loneliness, with
deferred hope, neglected by brethren, your only refuge to cry as a child
to God, it is a joy for you to feel the beating of a brother's heart,
and hear the music of a brother's voice, and kneel with brothers at the
dear old trysting-place, the table of our Lord. Let us consecrate all
we have and are to Him, let us remember loved ones far away, let us
gather all the work we have so long garnered in our hearts and lay it at
his feet. We shall not have met in vain if out of the love learned of
Him we give each to the other, and to all fellow-laborers for Him, a
brother's love, a brother's sympathy, and a brother's prayers. I do not
know how to clothe in words the thronging memories which cluster around
us in this holy place, what searchings of heart, what cries to God, what
communions with Christ, what consolations of the Holy Spirit have been
witnessed in this sacred place. I cannot call over the long roll of
saints, confessors, and martyrs, whose "name are written in the Lamb's
Book of Life." Two names will be remembered to-day by us all. One,
that gentle Archbishop Longley, who in the greatness of his love saw
with a prophet's eye the Mission of the Church and planned these
conferences that our hearts might beat as one in the battle of the last
time. The other, the wisest of counsellors and the most loving of
brethren, the great-hearted Archbishop Tait, whose dying legacy to his
brethren was "love one another." They have finished their course and
entered into rest. A little more work, a few more trials, and we, too,
shall finish our course. We are not two companies, the militant and
triumphant are one. We are the advance and rear of one host travelling
to the Canaan of God's rest. God grant that we, too, may so follow
Christ that we may have an abundant entrance to His eternal kingdom.
V. /SERMON AT THE FOURTH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF
ST. ANDREW IN CLEVELAND, OHIO, SEPT. 29, 1889/.
"/God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life/."--ST. JOHN, iii. 16.
SIN, sorrow and death have not been invented by Christian priests. They
are world facts, they belong to every home, and are hid in every man's
heart. There can be no design without a designer, no law without a
lawgiver, no creation without a creator. So I say, with the leading
scientist of England, "God is a necessity of human thought." Is this
God an inexorable ruler, whose right is His infinite might? or is He an
eternal Father, whose might is His infinite right? And so the question
comes home to the heart: Does God care for us? The body is cared for.
Every invention of man ministers to the life that is between the cradle
and the grave. Man has created nothing. The lightning would run its
circuit in the Garden of Eden as well as when Morse made it man's
messenger. The veil has been lifted so that man can look into God's
storehouse and read laws as old as creation. But the body is not the
man. You ask me how do I know I have a soul? I know it as I know I
have a body--by self-consciousness. There is no place in this world
where men are not compelled by absolute necessity to recognize the act
and the will of a soul within, which directs the act. I ask again, does
God care for me? I say it reverently, brother, you cannot conceive of a
God who could create a world like this, if He can feel one throb of pity
for His children, unless you believe He has provided a remedy for sin,
sorrow, and death. The coming of God into the family of man is an
absolute necessity of the very being of God. The incarnation is the
outcome of the possibility that God can love. I turn then to this
record and I ask, is this Jesus the friend that the world has waited for
and looked for? No one that has walked this earth could use the words
which every day rested upon His lips: "I and the God you worship are
one." "I am the bread that is come down from heaven, and the bread I
shall give you is My flesh, and I give it for the life of the world."
"I am the resurrection and the life; if any man shall believe in Me, if
he were dead he shall live"--unless he were God incarnate. The miracles
of Jesus were not violations of the laws of nature; they were the divine
proofs that that God whose hand is behind every law of nature had come
into the world to help those who needed help. When He multiplied bread
in His hands, He did of His own will that which God does when He
multiplies the wheat in the harvest. When He created the wine of Cana,
He did that of His own will which He does when He distills the dewdrop
in the clusters of the vine. But that which unseals my heart, is the
divine compassion, is the tender pity, is the love that never turns from
the weary. If man had invented this Gospel, the story of Mary Magdalene
would never have been in the record. It is not in the wrecks strewn
along the path of life that men would find those they would lift to the
bosom of God. It is the Divine eye that pities, it is the Divine hand
that is reached out to save. I follow Him to the cross, I follow Him to
the grave, where we are going, where our loved ones are sleeping. The
third day He came back from the darkness; He showed men, by the marks of
the nails in His hands and by the print of the spear in His side, that
He was the very Jesus they parted with at the foot of the cross; and He
ascended to heaven to be the friend of any aching heart that needs a
friend at the right hand of God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a
philosophy, it is not a dogma; it is the story of a Person, a real hand
to grasp, a real Saviour to love, a real God to save. Marvelous as is
this story that never can grow old and will be the burden of the songs
of the redeemed, more wonderful is the Christ of history. Men ask for
proof. You do not ask for proof of a sun when the world is bending low
with golden harvests The other day there was a gathering of great men,
scholars, philosophers. It so happened that one man who had lost his
faith, congratulated his fellows that superstition was dying out, that
the day was at hand when Christianity would be an effete thing of the
past. James Russell Lowell rose, the blood rushing to his cheeks, and
quietly said: "Show me twelve miles square in the world in which I live
where childhood is cared for, where womanhood is reverenced, where old
age is protected, where life and property are absolutely safe, where it
is possible for a decent man to live decently--where the Gospel of Jesus
Christ has not gone before and made that life possible; and then I will
listen to your revilings of my Master." Can I go nearer your heart?
There is a wide difference between men, but there is one side of human
nature that is the same; it is that we call the heart--that which loves,
that which fears, that which suffers, that which is the same in the
poorest laborer that ever handled the spade as in the greatest scholar
that ever graced a university. If we can get the rubbish from the
heart, the good news of God sounds the same to all.
When Sir Walter Scott was dying, in suffering and agony he turned to
Lockhart and said, "Read to me; I am in such agony." He said, "What
book, Sir Walter?" "What book? There is but one book for a dying man;
it is the story of the One that passed this way before me, of Jesus the
Saviour." I stood the other day by the death-bed of one who, when I
first met him was a savage warrior. He looked up in my face and said,
"The Great Spirit has called me. I am going on the last journey. I am
not afraid, for Jesus is going with me and I shan't be lonesome on the
road." Brothers, it is to tell this story that you have banded
yourselves together in the service of Him who redeemed you with His
precious blood. Your motto must be the words of that sainted apostle
whose honored name you bear: "We have found Christ." For it is only
when we have reached out our hand to grasp the hand of Jesus, that,
because we cannot help it, we reach out the other hand to help some one
else. We cannot from the heart say, "Our Father," and not remember
wandering brothers whom we may lead to the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sins of the world. The story is not for wage-workers alone, not for
the poor in the attic and the cellar alone; it is for the man who lives
in the marble house, it is for the trafficker in the market, it is for
every one away from home and heaven and God. We must find the way to
speak as one tempted man has the right to speak to a brother that is
battling with temptation. It is not done by assailing sinners as you
would besiege a city. We have tried hard words and the have answered us
with a curse. It does no good to tell the poor wretch in the ditch, "It
is your fault." We have led men to Mount Sinai, and their hearts would
break if we led them to Mount Calvary. It is this that makes the life
of an earnest minister of Christ the happiest life that God ever gave to
man. I am not here to-day to tell you what to do, but to tell you your
Master's secret, "If you give Him the will, He will find for you the
way." Although you might be the veriest stammerer, if Christ speaks out
in all your life, you will be the best talker in the world. We must
believe in our work; we cannot make others believe until we first
believe ourselves. Our feet must be upon the rock; there is no question
of success or failure there. It may be Athanasius against the world,
but the Athanasius and the faith of Christ will conquer.
And lastly, brothers, never since man has lived on the earth has there
been an hour when a Christian man might be so thankful to God that he
can live and that he can work. In all the ages of this world's history
there never have been such marvels before man's eyes as we see to-day.
I speak not only of the wondrous secrets of God's storehouse, that, for
some end in the councils of eternity, have been reserved for the last
days. You are living at a time when impenetrable barriers have been
broken down; when God is fusing the nations of the earth into a common
brotherhood; when there is not a place in the wide world, where, if you
will, you may not carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nay, more; you are
part of a race that God in His Providence seems to have placed in the
forefront of the nations of the earth. I am not speaking of Anglo-
Saxons, but I am speaking of the race that God has been fusing out of
every tongue, and tie, and kin of the earth; and they having one
language, are, I believe, to do God's work in the last days. One
hundred years ago English speaking people numbered less than many of the
Latin races of Europe; to-day there are one hundred and fifty millions.
And when I remember how God ordered that the Greek tongue should become
the tongue of the whole civilized world to prepare for the first
preaching of the Gospel; and when I think of all that God's Providence
has done for us, I can believe He calls us to lead on in the work of the
last time. In the days when Rome had overrun the world, if some one
regiment was to be placed in the jaws of death, and perhaps upon that
legion rested the fate of an empire, they came out in front of the
assembled host, and kneeling down on one knee they raised their hands to
heaven and took an oath to die for Rome; and that was called the
sacramental oath. And our Saxon forefathers, when they came to the
Lord's trysting-place of love, thought it was a place for taking the
oath anew.
After our Civil War, George Peabody, one of our noblest Americans, gave
his fortune for schools in the desolated south. He visited the White
Sulphur Springs. No king ever received so heart-felt a welcome. The
south laid the homage of grateful hearts at his feet. An aged bishop,
now in Paradise--Bishop Wilmer, of Louisiana, came to see him, and said:
"Mr. Peabody, I am a southern man, and my heart goes out in love for the
man who has been our benefactor. But, Mr. Peabody, if you are saved, it
will not be because you gave your fortune to the needy. You will be
saved, as the poorest laborer, for your faith in Jesus Christ." Mr.
Peabody said, "I know that. I do believe in Him; I do pray to Him."
"But," said Bishop Wilmer, "Mr. Peabody, the night before the Saviour
died for you, He instituted the sacrament of the Holy Communion, and He
left a request for you to come and receive it. He has a gift for you.
Have you ever come to His table?" Mr. Peabody said, "I never knew that.
No one ever told me. I knew about the Holy Communion, but I thought it
was for saints--men who felt sure they were going to heaven. I never
knew it was a place to come and receive a gift the Saviour had for me."
That day Mr. Peabody left the White Sulphur Springs. He knew that the
Holy Communion was to be celebrated in his mother's church, at Danvers,
the next Sunday. He reached Danvers Saturday, and at once called on the
pastor and said, "I am coming to the Holy Communion tomorrow. I did not
know it was my duty till a few days ago." And he did come. That was
royal faith. Not faith in water, not faith in bread and wine, not faith
in priestly hands, but faith in Christ. Such faith as little children
have who take the words just as they read and for all they mean, and
then are safe in the everlasting arms.
So let us to-day consecrate every thought and all we have to Him, and
giving Him the will go out to do His work. And He will do the rest. We
may fall in battle; we may sow the seed and die; but it will fall into
the ground and God will give the harvest. When we reach the other home--
not a place of bodiless shades; not a confused throng of nameless
spirits, but a home of brothers in our Father's house--next to seeing the
Saviour, next to having the old times re-united, will be the comfort of
meeting some one that we have helped home.
And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be all
might, majesty, dominion and power, world without end. Amen.
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