Decoration.
Decoration.
Once upon a time the lightning from heaven fell upon a tree standing in the old primeval forest and kindled it, so that it flamed on high. And it happened that a young hunter, who had lost his path in that wilderness, beheld the gleam of the flames from a distance, and, forcing his way through the thicket, he flung himself down in rapture before the blazing tree.
“O divine light and warmth!” he exclaimed,stretching forth his arms. “O blessed! O heaven-descended Fire! let me thank thee! let me adore thee! Giver of a new existence, quickening thro’ every pulse, how lost, how cold, how dark have I dwelt without thee! Restorer of my life! remain ever near me, and, through thy benign and celestial influence, send love and joy to illuminate my soul!”
And the Fire answered and said to him, “It is true that my birth is from heaven, but I am now, through mingling with earthly elements, subdued to earthly influences; therefore, beware how you choose me for thy friend, without having first studied my twofold nature. O youth! take heed lest what appear to thee now a blessing, may be turned, at some future time, to fiery pain and death.” And the youth replied, “No! O no! thou blessed Fire, this could never be. Am I then so senseless, so inconstant, so thankless? O believe it not! Let me stay near thee; let me be thy priest, to watch and tend thee truly. Ofttimes in my wild wintry life, when the chill darkness encompassed me, and the ice-blast lifted my hair, have I dreamed of the soft summer breath,—of the sunshine that should light up the world within me and the world around me. But still that time came not. It seemed ever far, far off; and I had perished utterly before the light and the warmth had reached me, had it not been for thee!”
Thus the youth poured forth his soul, and theFire answered him in murmured tones, while her beams with a softer radiance played over his cheek and brow: “Be it so then. Yet do thou watch me constantly and minister to me carefully; neglect me not, leave me not to myself, lest the light and warmth in which thou so delightest fail thee suddenly, and there be no redress; and O watch thyself also! beware lest thou too ardently stir up my impatient fiery being! beware lest thou heap too much fuel upon me; once more beware, lest, instead of life, and love, and joy, I bring thee only death and burning pain!” And the youth passionately vowed to keep her behest: and in the beginning all went well. How often, for hours together, would he lie gazing entranced toward the radiant beneficent Fire, basking in her warmth, and throwing now a leafy spray, now a fragment of dry wood, anon a handful of odorous gums, as incense, upon the flame, which gracefully curling and waving upwards, quivering and sparkling, seemed to whisper in return divine oracles; or he fancied he beheld, while gazing into the glowing depths, marvellous shapes, fairy visions dancing and glancing along. Then he would sing to her songs full of love, and she, responding to the song she had herself inspired, sometimes replied, in softest whispers, so loving and so low, that even the jealous listening woods could not overhear; at other times she would shoot up suddenly in rapturoussplendour, like a pillar of light, and revealed to him all the wonders and the beauties which lay around him, hitherto veiled from his sight.
But at length, as he became accustomed to the glory and the warmth, and nothing more was left for the fire to bestow, or her light to reveal, then he began to weary and to dream again of the morning, and to long for the sun-beams; and it was to him as if the fire stood between him and the sun’s light, and he reproached her therefore, and he became moody and ungrateful; and the fire was no longer the same, but unquiet and changeful, sometimes flickering unsteadily, sometimes throwing out a lurid glare. And when the youth, forgetful of his ministry, left the flame unfed and unsustained, so that ofttimes she drooped and waned, and crept in dying gleams along the damp ground, his heart would fail him with a sudden remorse, and he would cast on the fuel with such a rough and lavish hand that the indignant fire hissed thereat, and burst forth in a smoky sullen gleam,—then died away again. Then the youth, half sorrowful, half impatient, would remember how bright, how glowing, how dazzling was the flame in those former happy days, when it played over his chilled and wearied limbs, and shed its warmth upon his brow, and he desired eagerly to recall that once inspiring glow. And he stirred up the embers violently till they burned him, and then he grew angry,and then again he wearied of all the watching and the care which the subtle, celestial, tameless element required at his hand: and at length, one day in a sullen mood, he snatched up a pitcher of water from the fountain and poured it hastily on the yet living flame.——
For one moment it arose blazing towards heaven, shed a last gleam upon the pale brow of the youth, and then sank down in darkness extinguished for ever!
Decoration.
Decoration.
PAULINA.from an unfinished tale, 1823.And think’st thou that the fond o’erflowing loveI bear thee in my heart could ever beRepaid by careless smiles that round thee rove,And beam on others as they beam on me?Oh, could I speak to thee! could I but tellThe nameless thoughts that in my bosom swell,And struggle for expression! or set freeFrom the o’er mastering spirit’s proud controlThe pain that throbs in silence at my soul,Perhaps—yet no—I will not sue, nor bend,To win a heartless pity—Let it end!I have been near thee still at morn, at eve;Have mark’d thee in thy joy, have seen thee grieve;Have seen thee gay with triumph, sick with fears,Radiant in beauty, desolate in tears:And communed with thy heart, till I made mineThe echo and the mirror unto thine.And I have sat and looked into thine eyesAs men on earth look to the starry skies,That seek to read in Heaven their human destinies!Too quickly I read mine,—I knew it well,—I judg’d not of thy heart by all it gave,But all that it withheld; and I could tellThe very sea-mark where affection’s waveWould cease to flow, or flow to ebb again,And knew my lavish love was pour’d in vain,As fruitless streams o’er sandy deserts melt,Unrecompensed, unvalued, and unfelt!****
PAULINA.from an unfinished tale, 1823.And think’st thou that the fond o’erflowing loveI bear thee in my heart could ever beRepaid by careless smiles that round thee rove,And beam on others as they beam on me?Oh, could I speak to thee! could I but tellThe nameless thoughts that in my bosom swell,And struggle for expression! or set freeFrom the o’er mastering spirit’s proud controlThe pain that throbs in silence at my soul,Perhaps—yet no—I will not sue, nor bend,To win a heartless pity—Let it end!I have been near thee still at morn, at eve;Have mark’d thee in thy joy, have seen thee grieve;Have seen thee gay with triumph, sick with fears,Radiant in beauty, desolate in tears:And communed with thy heart, till I made mineThe echo and the mirror unto thine.And I have sat and looked into thine eyesAs men on earth look to the starry skies,That seek to read in Heaven their human destinies!Too quickly I read mine,—I knew it well,—I judg’d not of thy heart by all it gave,But all that it withheld; and I could tellThe very sea-mark where affection’s waveWould cease to flow, or flow to ebb again,And knew my lavish love was pour’d in vain,As fruitless streams o’er sandy deserts melt,Unrecompensed, unvalued, and unfelt!****
Decoration.
Take me, my mother Earth, to thy cold breast,And fold me there in everlasting rest,The long day is o’er!I’m weary, I would sleep—But deep, deep,Never to waken more!I have had joy and sorrow; I have provedWhat life could give; have lov’d, have been belov’d;I am sick, and heart sore,And weary,—let me sleep!But deep, deep,Never to waken more!To thy dark chambers, mother Earth, I come,Prepare my dreamless bed in my last home;Shut down the marble door,And leave me,—let me sleep!But deep, deep,Never to waken more!Now I lie down,—I close my aching eyes,If on this night another morn must rise,Wake me not, I implore!I only ask to sleep,And deep, deep,Never to waken more!
Take me, my mother Earth, to thy cold breast,And fold me there in everlasting rest,The long day is o’er!I’m weary, I would sleep—But deep, deep,Never to waken more!I have had joy and sorrow; I have provedWhat life could give; have lov’d, have been belov’d;I am sick, and heart sore,And weary,—let me sleep!But deep, deep,Never to waken more!To thy dark chambers, mother Earth, I come,Prepare my dreamless bed in my last home;Shut down the marble door,And leave me,—let me sleep!But deep, deep,Never to waken more!Now I lie down,—I close my aching eyes,If on this night another morn must rise,Wake me not, I implore!I only ask to sleep,And deep, deep,Never to waken more!
Decoration.
Decoration.
A certain holy anchorite had passed a long life in a cave of the Thebaid, remote from all communion with men; and eschewing, as he would the gates of Hell, even the very presence of a woman; and he fasted and prayed, and performed many and severe penances; and his whole thought was how he should make himself of account in the sight of God, that he might enter into his paradise.
And having lived this life for three score and tenyears he was puffed up with the notion of his own great virtue and sanctity, and, like to St. Anthony, he besought the Lord to show him what saint he should emulate as greater than himself, thinking perhaps, in his heart, that the Lord would answer that none was greater or holier. And the same night the angel of God appeared to him, and said, “If thou wouldst excel all others in virtue and sanctity, thou must strive to be like a certain minstrel who goes begging and singing from door to door.”
And the holy man was in great astonishment, and he arose and took his staff and ran forth in search of this minstrel; and when he had found him he questioned him earnestly, saying, “Tell me, I pray thee, my brother, what good works thou hast performed in thy lifetime, and by what prayers and penances thou hast made thyself acceptable to God?”
And the man, greatly wondering and ashamed to be so questioned, hung down his head as he replied, “I beseech thee, holy father, mock me not! I have performed no good works, and as to praying, alas! sinner that I am, I am not worthy to pray. I do nothing but go about from door to door amusing the people with my viol and my flute.”
And the holy man insisted and said, “Nay, but peradventure in the midst of this thy evil life thou hast done some good works?” And the minstrel replied, “I know of nothing good that I have done.” And the hermit, wondering more and more, said, “How hast thou become a beggar: hast thou spent thy substance in riotous living, like most others of thy calling?” and the man answering, said, “Nay; but there was a poor woman whom I found running hither and thither in distraction, for her husband and her children had been sold into slavery to pay a debt. And the woman being very fair, certain sons of Belial pursued after her; so I took her home to my hut and protected her from them, and I gave her all I possessed to redeem her family, and conducted her in safety to the city, where she was reunited to her husband and children. But what of that, my father; is there a man who would not have done the same?”
And the hermit, hearing the minstrel speak these words, wept bitterly, saying, “For my part, I have not done so much good in all my life; and yet they call me a man of God, and thou art only a poor minstrel!”
At Vienna, some years ago, I saw a picture by Von Schwind, which was conceived in the spirit of this old apologue. It exhibited the lives of two twin brothers diverging from the cradle. One of them, by profound study, becomes a most learned and skilful physician, and ministers to the sick; attaining to great riches and honours through his labours and his philanthropy. The other brother,who has no turn for study, becomes a poor fiddler, and spends his life in consoling, by his music, sufferings beyond the reach of the healing art. In the end, the two brothers meet at the close of life. He who had been fiddling through the world is sick and worn out: his brother prescribes for him, and is seen culling simples for his restoration, while the fiddler touches his instrument for the solace of his kind physician.
It is in such representations that painting did once speak, and might again speak to the hearts of the people.
Another version of the same thought, we find in De Berenger’s pretty ballad, “Les deux Sœurs de Charité.”
Decoration.
WhenI was a child, and read Milton for the first time, his Pandemonium seemed to me a magnificent place. It struck me more than his Paradise, forthatwas beautiful, but Pandemonium was terrible and beautiful too. The wondrous fabric that “fromthe earth rose like an exhalation to the sound of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,”—the splendid piles of architecture sweeping line beyond line, “Cornice and frieze with bossy sculptures graven,”—realised a certain picture of Palmyra I had once seen, and which had taken possession of my imagination: then the throne, outshining the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind,—the flood of light streaming from “starry lamps and blazing cressets” quite threw the flames of perdition into the shade. As it was said of Erskine, that he always spoke of Satan with respect, as of a great statesman out of place, a sort of leader of the Opposition; so to me the grand arch-fiend was a hero, like mythenfavourite Greeks and Romans, a Cymon, a Curtius, a Decius, devoting himself for the good of his country;—such was the moral confusion created in my mind. Pandemonium inspired no horror; on the contrary, my fancy revelled in the artistic beauty of the creation. I felt that I should like to go and see it; so that, in fact, if Milton meant to inspire abhorrence, he has failed, even to the height of his sublimity. Dante has succeeded better. Those who dwell with complacency on the doctrine of eternal punishments must delight in the ferocity and the ingenuity of his grim inventions, worthy of a vengeful theology. Wicked latitudinarians may shudder and shiver at the images called up—grotesque, abominable, hideous—but then Dante himself would sternly rebuke them for making their human sympathies a measure for the judgments of God, and compassion only a veil for treason and rebellion:—
“Chi è piu scellerato di coluiCh’ al giudicio divin passion porta?”
“Chi è piu scellerato di coluiCh’ al giudicio divin passion porta?”
“Who can show greater wickedness than heWhose passion by the will of God is moved?”
“Who can show greater wickedness than heWhose passion by the will of God is moved?”
However, it must be said in favour of Dante’s Inferno, that no one ever wished to go there.
These be the Christian poets! but they must yield in depth of imagined horrors to the Christian Fathers. Tertullian (writing in the second century) not only sends the wicked into that dolorous region of despair, but makes the endless measureless torture of the doomed a part of the joys of the redeemed. The spectacle is to give them the same sort of delight as the heathen took in their games, and Pandemonium is to be as a vast amphitheatre for the amusement of the New Jerusalem. “How magnificent,” exclaims this pious doctor of the Church, “will be the scale of that game! With what admiration, what laughter, what glee, what triumph, shall I behold so many mighty monarchs, who had been given out as received into the skies, moaning in unfathomable gloom! Persecutors of the Christians liquefying amid shooting spires of flame! Philosophers blushing before their disciples amid thoseruddy fires! Then,” he goes on, still alluding to the amphitheatre, “then is the time to hear the tragedians doubly pathetic, now that they bewail their own agonies! To observe actors released by the fierceness of their torments from all restraints on their gestures! Then may we admire the charioteer glowing all over in his car of torture, and watch the wrestlers struggling, not in the gymnasium but with flames!” And he asks exultingly, “What prætor, or consul, or questor, or priest, can purchase you by his munificence a game of triumph like this?”
And even more terrible are the imaginations of good Bishop Taylor, who distils the essence from all sins, all miseries, all sorrows, all terrors, all plagues, and mingles them in one chalice of wrath and vengeance to be held to the lips and forced down the unwilling throats of the doomed “with violence of devils and accursed spirits!” Are these mere words? Did any one ever fancy or try to realise what they express?
Decoration.
Iwassurprised to find this passage in one of Southey’s letters:—
“A Catholic Establishment would be the best, perhaps the only means of civilising Ireland. Jesuits and Benedictines, though they would not enlighten the savages, would humanise them and bring the country into cultivation. A petition that asked for this, saying plainly, ‘We are Papists, and will be so, and this is the best thing that can be done for us and you too,’—such a petition I would support, considering what the present condition of Ireland is, how wretchedly it has always been governed, and how hopeless the prospect.” (1805.)
Southey was thinking of what the religious orders had done for Paraguay; whether he would have penned the same sentiments twenty or even ten years later, is more than doubtful.
Decoration.
Theold monks and penitents—dirty, ugly, emaciated old fellows they were!—spent their days in speaking and preaching of their own and others’ sinfulness, yet seem to have had ever present before them a standard of beauty, brightness, beneficence,aspirations which nothing earthly could satisfy, which made their ideas of sinfulness and miserycomparative, and their scale was graduated from themselvesupwards. We philosophers reverse this. We teach and preach the spiritual dignity, the lofty capabilities of humanity. Yet, by some mistake, we seem to be always speculating on the amount of evil which may or can be endured, and on the amount of wickedness which may or must be tolerated; and our scale is graduated from ourselvesdownwards.
Decoration.
“Solong as the ancient mythology had any separate establishment in the empire, the spiritual worship which our religion demands, and so essentially implies as only fitting for it, was preserved in its purity by means of the salutary contrast; but no sooner had the Church become completely triumphant and exclusive, and the parallel of Pagan idolatry totally removed, than the old constitutional appetite revived in all its original force, and after a short but famous struggle with the Iconoclasts, an image worship was established, and consecrated by bulls and canons, which, in whatever light it is regarded, differed in no respect but the names of its objects from that which had existed for so manyages as the chief characteristic of the religious faith of the Gentiles.”—H. Nelson Coleridge.
I think, with submission, that it differed in sentiment; for in the mythology of the Pagans the worship was tobeauty,immortality, andpower, and in the Christian mythology—if I may call it so—of the Middle Ages, the worship was topurity,self-denial, andcharity.
Decoration.
“Anarrowhalf-enlightened reason may easily make sport of all those forms in which religious faith has been clothed by human imagination, and ask why they are retained, and why one should be preferred to another? It is sufficient to reply, that some forms there must be if Religion is to endure as a social influence, and that the forms already in existence are the best, if they are in unison with human sympathies, and express, with the breadth and vagueness which every popular utterance must from its nature possess, the interior convictions of the general mind. What would become of the most sacred truth if all the forms which have harboured it were destroyed at once by an unrelenting reason, and it were driven naked and shivering about the earth till some clever logician had devised a suitable abode for its reception? It is on these outwardforms of religion that the spirit of artistic beauty descends and moulds them into fitting expressions of the invisible grace and majesty of spiritual truth.”—Prospective Review, Feb. 24. 1845.
Decoration.
“Havenot Dying Christs taught fortitude to the virtuous sufferer? Have not Holy Families cherished and ennobled domestic affections? The tender genius of the Christian morality, even in its most degenerate state, has made the Mother and her Child the highest objects of affectionate superstition. How much has that beautiful superstition by the pencils of great artists contributed to humanise mankind?”—Sir James Mackintosh, writing in 1802.
Decoration.
Irememberonce at Merton College Chapel (May, 1844), while Archdeacon Manning was preaching an eloquent sermon on the eternity of reward and punishment in the future life, I was looking at the row of windows opposite, and I saw that there were seven, all different in pattern and construction, yet all harmonising with each other and with the building of which they formed a part;—a symbol theymight have been of differences in the Church of Christ. From the varied windows opposite I looked down to the faces of the congregation, all upturned to the preacher, with expression how different! Faith, hope, fear, in the open mouths and expanded eyelids of some; a sort of silent protest in the compressed lips and knitted brows of others; a speculative inquiry and interest, or merely admiring acquiescence in others; as the high or low, the wide or contracted head prevailed; and all this diversity in organisation, in habits of thought, in expression, harmonised for the time by one predominant object, one feeling! the hungry sheep looking up to be fed! When I sigh over apparent disagreement, let me think of those windows in Merton College Chapel, and the same light from heaven streaming through them all!—and of that assemblage of human faces, uplifted with the same aspiration one and all!
Decoration.
Ihavejust read the article (by Sterling, I believe), in the “Edinburgh Review” for July; andas it chanced, this same evening, Dr. Channing’s “Discourse on the Church,” and Captain Maconochie’s “Report on Secondary Punishments” from Sydney, came before me.
And as I laid them down, one after another,thisthought struck me:—that about the same time, in three different and far divided regions of the globe, three men, one military, the other an ecclesiastic, the third a lawyer, and belonging apparently to different religious denominations, all gave utterance to nearly the same sentiments in regard to a Christian Church. Channing says, “A church destined to endure through all ages, to act on all, to blend itself with new forms of society, and with the highest improvements of the race, cannot be expected to ordain an immutable mode of administration, but must leave its modes of worship and communion to conform themselves silently and gradually to the wants and progress of humanity. The rites and arrangements which suit one period lose their significance or efficiency in another; the forms which minister to the mindnowmay fetter it hereafter, and must give place to its free unfolding,” &c., and more to the same purpose.
The reviewer says, “We believe that in the judgment of an enlightened charity, many Christian societies who are accustomed to denounce each others’ errors, will at length come to be regarded as membersin common of one great and comprehensive Church, in which diversity of forms are harmonised by an all-pervading unity of spirit.” And more to the same purpose. The soldier and reformer says, “I believe there may be error because there must be imperfection in the religious faith of the best among us; but that the degree of this error is not vital in any Christian denomination seems demonstrable by the best fruits of faith—good works—being evidenced by all.”
It is pleasant to see benign spirits divided in opinion, but harmonised by faith, thus standing hand in hand upon a shore of peace, and looking out together in serene hope for the dawning of a better day, instead of rushing forth, each with his own farthing candle, under pretence of illuminating the world—every one even more intent on putting out his neighbour’s light than on guarding his own.
(Nov. 15. 1841.)
While the idea of possible harmony in the universal Church of Christ (by which I mean all who accept His teaching and are glad to bear His name) is gaining ground theoretically,practicallyit seems more and more distant; since 1841 (when the above was written) the divergence is greater than ever; and, as in politics, moderate opinions appear (since 1848) to merge on either side into the extremes ofultra conservatism and ultra radicalism, as fear of the past or hope of the future predominate, so it is in the Church. The sort of dualism which prevails in politics and religion might give some colour to Lord Lindsay’s theory of “progress through antagonism.”
Decoration.
Iinclineto agree with those who think it a great mistake to consider the present conditions or conception of Christianity as complete and final: like the human soul to which it was fitted by Divine love and wisdom, it has an immeasurable capacity of development, and “The Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of his Holy Word.”
Decoration.
Thenations of the present age want notlessreligion, butmore. They do not wish for less community with the Apostolic times, but for more; but above all, they want their wounds healed by a Christianity showing a life-renewing vitality allied to reason and conscience, and ready and able to reform the social relations of life, beginning with the domestic and culminating with the political. They want no negations, but positive reconstruction—no conventionality, but an honestbonâ fidefoundation, deep as the human mind, and a structure free and organic as nature. In the meantime let no national form be urged as identical with divine truth, let no dogmatic formula oppress conscience and reason, and let no corporation of priests, no set of dogmatists, sow discord and hatred in the sacred communities of domestic and national life. This view cannot be obtained without national efforts, Christian education, free institutions, and social reforms. Then no zeal will be called Christian which is not hallowed by charity,—no faith Christian which is not sanctioned by reason.”—Hippolitus.
“Any author who in our time treats theological and ecclesiastical subjects frankly, and therefore with reference to the problems of the age, must expect to be ignored, and if that cannot be done, abused and reviled.”
The same is true of moral subjects on which strong prejudices (or shall I say strongconvictions?) exist in minds not very strong.
It is not perhaps of so much consequence what we believe, as it is important that we believe; that we do not affect to believe, and so belie our own souls. Belief isnotalways in our power, but truth is.
Decoration.
Itseems an arbitrary limitation of the design of Christianity to assume, as Priestley does, that “it consists solely in the revelation of a future life confirmed by the bodily resurrection of Christ.” This is truly a very material view of Christianity. If I were to be sure of annihilation I should not be less certain of the truth of Christianity as a system of morals exquisitely adapted for the improvement and happiness of man as an individual; and equally adapted to conduce to the amelioration and progressive happiness of mankind as a species.
Decoration.
Decoration.
Whentravelling in Ireland, I stayed over one Sunday in a certain town in the north, and rambled out early in the morning. It was cold and wet, the streets empty and quiet, but the sound of voices drew me in one direction, down a court where was a Roman Catholic chapel. It was so crowded that many of the congregation stood round the door. I remarked among them a number of soldiers and most miserable-looking women. All made way for me with true national courtesy, and I entered at the moment the priest was finishing mass, and about to begin his sermon. There was no pulpit, and hestood on the step of the altar; a fine-looking man, with a bright face, a sonorous voice, and averystrong Irish accent. His text was from Matt. v. 43, 44.
He began by explaining what Christ really meant by the words “Love thy neighbour.” Then drew a picture in contrast of hatred and dissension, commencing with dissension in families, between kindred, and between husband and wife. Then made a most touching appeal in behalf of children brought up in an atmosphere of contention where no love is. “God help them! God pity them! small chance for them of being either good or happy! for their young hearts are saddened and soured with strife, and they eat their bread in bitterness!”
Then he preached patience to the wives, indulgence to the husbands, and denounced scolds and quarrelsome women in a manner that seemed to glance at recent events: “When ye are found in the streets vilifying and slandering one another, ay, and fighting and tearing each other’s hair, do ye think ye’re women? no, ye’re not! ye’re devils incarnate, and ye’ll go where the devils will be fit companions for ye!” &c. (Here some women near me, with long black hair streaming down, fell upon their knees, sobbing with contrition.) He then went on, in the same strain of homely eloquence, to the evils of political and religious hatred, and quoted thetext, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” “I’m a Catholic,” he went on, “and I believe in the truth of my own religion above all others. I’m convinced, by long study and observation, it’s the best that is; but what then? Do ye think I hate my neighbour because he thinks differently? Do ye think Imaneto force my religion down other people’s throats? If I were to preach such uncharity to ye, my people, you wouldn’t listen to me, ye oughtn’t to listen to me. Did Jesus Christ force His religion down other people’s throats? Not He! He endured all, He was kind to all, even to the wicked Jews that afterwards crucified Him.” “If you say you can’t love your neighbour because he’s your enemy, and has injured you, what does that mane? ‘ye can’t! ye can’t!’ as if that excuse will serve God? hav’n’t ye done more and worse against Him? and didn’t He send His only Son into the world to redeem ye? My good people, you’re all sprung from one stock, all sons of Adam, all related to one another. When God created Eve, mightn’t He have made her out of any thing, a stock or a stone, or out of nothing at all, at all? but He took one of Adam’s ribs and moulded her out of that, and gave her to him, just to show that we’re all from one original, all related together, men and women, Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Turks and Christians; all bone of one bone, andflesh of one flesh!” He then insisted and demonstrated that all the miseries of life, all the sorrows and mistakes of men, women, and children; and, in particular, all the disasters of Ireland, the bankrupt landlords, the religious dissensions, the fights domestic and political, the rich without thought for the poor, and the poor without food or work, all arose from nothing but the want of love. “Down on your knees,” he exclaimed, “and ask God’s mercy and pardon; and as ye hope to find it, ask pardon one of another for every angry word ye have spoken, for every uncharitable thought that has come into your minds; and if any man or woman have aught against his neighbour, no matter what, let it be plucked out of his heart before he laves this place, let it be forgotten at the door of this chapel. Let me, your pastor, have no more rason to be ashamed of you; as if I were set over wild bastes, instead of Christian men and women!”
After more in this fervid strain, which I cannot recollect, he gave his blessing in the same earnest heartfelt manner. I never saw a congregation more attentive, more reverent, and apparently more touched and edified. (1848.)
Decoration.
ThisDiscourse was preached on the festival of St. John the Baptist, and was a summary of his doctrine, life, and character. The text was taken from St. Luke, iii. 9. to 14.; in which St. John answers the question of the people, “what shall we do then?” by a brief exposition of their several duties.
“What is most remarkable in all this,” said the priest, “is truly that there is nothing very remarkable in it. The Baptist required from his hearers very simple and very familiar duties,—such as he was not the first to preach, such as had been recognised as duties by all religions; and do you think that those who were neither Jews nor Christians were therefore left without any religion? No! never did God leave any of his creatures without religion; they could not utter the wordsright,wrong,—beautiful,hateful, without recognising a religion written by God on their hearts from the beginning—a religion which existed before the preaching of John, before the coming of Christ, and of which the appearance of John and the doctrine and sacrifice of Christ, were but the fulfilment. For Christ came tofulfilthe law, not to destroy it. Do you ask what law?Not the law of Moses, but the universal law of God’s moral truth written in our hearts. It is, my friends, a folly to talk ofnaturalreligion as of something different fromrevealedreligion.
“The great proof of the truth of John’s mission lies in its comprehensiveness: men and women, artisans and soldiers, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, gathered to him in the wilderness; and he included all in his teaching, for he was sent to all; and the best proof of the truth of his teaching lies in its harmony with that law already written in the heart and the conscience of men. When Christ came afterwards, he preached a doctrine more sublime, with a more authoritative voice; but here, also, the best proof we have of the truth of that divine teaching lies in this—that he had prepared from the beginning the heart and the conscience of man to harmonise with it.”
This was a very curious sermon; quiet, elegant, and learned, with a good deal of sacred and profane history introduced in illustration, which I am sorry I cannot remember in detail. It made, however, no appeal to feeling or to practice; and after listening to it, we all went in to luncheon and discussed our newspapers.
Decoration.
Text, Luke iv., from the 14th to the 18th, but more especially the 18th verse. This sermon was extempore.
Thepreacher began by observing, that our Lord’s sermon at Nazareth established the second of two principles. By his sermon from the Mount, in which he had addressed the multitude in the open air, under the vault of the blue heaven alone, he has left to us the principle that all places are fitted for the service of God, and that all places may be sanctified by the preaching of his truth. While, by his sermon in the Synagogue (that which is recorded by St. Luke in this passage), he has established the principle, that it is right to set apart a place to assemble together in worship and to listen to instruction; and it is observable that on this occasion our Saviour taught in the synagogue, where there was no sacrifice, no ministry of the priests, as in the Temple; but where a portion of the law and the prophets might be read by any man; and any man, even a stranger (as he was himself), might be called upon to expound.
Then reading impressively the whole of the narrative down to the 32nd verse, the preacher closed the sacred volume, and went on to this effect:—
“There are two orders of evil in the world—Sin and Crime. Of the second, the world takes strict cognisance; of the first, it takes comparatively little; yetthatis worse in the eyes of God. There are two orders of temptation: the temptation which assails our lower nature—our appetites; the temptation which assails our higher nature—our intellect. Thefirst, leading to sin in the body, is punished in the body,—the consequence being pain, disease, death. Thesecond, leading to sins of the soul, as pride chiefly, uncharitableness, selfish sacrifice of others to our own interests or purposes,—is punished in the soul—in theHell of the Spirit.”
(All this part of his discourse very beautiful, earnest, eloquent; but I regretted that he did not follow out the distinction he began with betweensinandcrime, and the views and deductions, religious and moral, which that distinction leads to.)
He continued to this effect: “Christ said that it was a part of his mission to heal the broken-hearted. What is meant by the phrase ‘a broken heart?’” He illustrated it by the story of Eli, and by the wife of Phineas, both of whom died broken in heart; “and our Saviour himself died on the cross heart-broken by sorrow rather than by physical torture.”—
(I lost something here because I was questioning and doubting within myself, for I have always had the thought that Christ must have beengladto die.)
He went on:—“To heal the broken-hearted is to say to those who are beset by the remembrance and the misery of sin, ‘My brother, the past is past—think not of it to thy perdition; arise and sin no more.’” (All this, and more to the same purpose, wonderfully beautiful! and I became all soul—subdued to listen.) “There are two ways of meeting the pressure of misery and heart-break: first, by trusting to time” (then followed a quotation from Schiller’s “Wallenstein,” in reference to grief, which sounded strange, and yet beautiful, from the pulpit, “Was verschmerzte nicht der Mensch?”—what cannot man grieve down?); “secondly, by defiance and resistance, setting oneself resolutely to endure. But Christ taught a different way from either—bysubmission—by the complete surrender of our whole being to the will of God.
“The next part of Christ’s mission was to preach deliverance to the captives.” (Then followed a most eloquent and beautiful exposition of Christian freedom—of who were free; and who were not free, but properly spiritual captives.) “To be content within limitations is freedom; to desire beyond those limitations is bondage. The bird which is content within her cage is free; the bird which can fly from tree to tree, yet desires to soar like the eagle,—the eagle which can ascend to the mountain peak yet desires to reach the height of that sun on which his eye isfixed,—these are in bondage. The man who is not content within his sphere of duties and powers, but feels his faculties, his position, his profession; a perpetual trammel,—heis spiritually in bondage. The only freedom is the freedom of the soul, content within its external limitations, and yet elevated spiritually far above them by the inward powers and impulses which lift it up to God.”