St. Lukevi. 12.
"He continued all night in Prayer to God."
Last week we looked at the soul as that faculty of life which, to a certain extent, we share with animals; to-day we pass on to consider, under the title of spirit, the higher endowment by which man is enabled to look up and, in the fullest exercise of his whole being, to say "my God."
A man without religion is undeveloped in regard to the highest part of his complex nature. In attaining to self-consciousness, and the special powers it brings, he has gone one step further than the animal, but has utterly failed of his true purpose. The supreme object of the self-consciousness, which reveals to him his personality, is that it should disclose its own origin in the personality of God.
One very striking effect of the War has been to produce a vast amount of testimony to the fact that man is, broadly speaking, religious by nature.
The services in the places of worship all over the land have been multiplied, intercession is becoming a felt reality, congregations have grown.
It is asserted, by those who have the best means of knowing, that by far the majority of the letters from the front contain references to religion, such as acknowledgments of God's providence, prayer for His help, or requests for the prayers of others. Sometimes, in the strange double-sidedness of human nature, accompanied by expletives obviously profane. Mention is often made of the bowed heads, and the prayer, in which both sides join, at the time of a joint burial during a temporary truce.
All these things show that the deeps of the fountains of natural religion have been broken up in wondrous fashion.
Our question to-day is: How shall we discipline that spirit which enables us to realise religion as a fact?
Let us try to get to the root of the matter.
There are two chief derivations of the word religion. One comes from the verb which means "to go through, or over again, in reading, speech, or thought." Hence religion is the regular or constant habit of revering the gods, and would be represented by the word devotion—an aspect most important to bear in mind.
The other derivation, and the more usual, derives religion from the idea of binding together, and tells of communion between man and God. For us Christians this thought finds its highest ideal and fulfilment in the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The great characteristic action of religion is prayer; varying in its methods and degrees from merely mechanical performances, like the praying wheels of the Chinese up to the heart devotion of the Christian, poured out when commemorating, in the Holy Communion, the death and resurrection of His Lord.
The first essential of any prayer which is to be of value in the discipline of the spirit is regularity. No words can exaggerate the importance of morning prayer. Yet, alas! tens of thousands of professing Christians are content with evening prayer alone. The one who goes forth in the morning prayerless is just as ill-equipped to do his duty, and meet his temptations, as the foodless man is to perform physical work.
The whole story of the saintly life, alike in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Church, is that of diligence in prayer. It was to promote that spirit that the Church of Christ, following on the lines of the Jewish Church, from very early days adopted special hours for stated devotions, with the daily offering of the Holy Eucharist linking the whole system together.
The lowest standard to aim at is private prayer morning and evening, midday too if possible, and regular attendances at God's House on Sundays and Feast Days. The guiding principle, to be kept ever in mind, is not what my own inclinations suggest, but what the glory of God demands. Were this always the case, what magnificent congregations there would be.
Prayer represents a real business of the spirit into which we put the whole endowment of our being, intellect, memory, emotion, will.
Oh! those wandering thoughts, how they do distress us; and just in proportion as we wish to pray and are learning to pray, so we feel our deficiencies the more keenly.
A few moments before we commence our prayers spent in saying very quietly, "Thou God seest me," or "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," coupled with a simple yet earnest act of the realisation of God's presence, will be of infinite use.
The railway train coming into a station does not draw up with a jerk, but gradually slows down. So with us; we cannot come out of our rushing lives all in a moment into the quiet of God's presence; we need to slow down.
But much of the wandering in prayer is the direct result of the habit of wandering in life. Flitting from one subject, one book, one occupation to another; scrappy reading, talking, thinking; then, as a natural consequence, scrappy praying. A great master of the spiritual life used to say, "You will get far more help in your prayers by leading a more useful life, than by making tremendous efforts after concentration when you are actually at prayer."
The one who tries to keep alive the habitual sense of God's presence makes his whole life a prayer, of which the stated devotions only form a natural part. It is comparatively easy for such a one to concentrate his thought and to keep his attention fixed when engaged in his prayers.
Just a word or two about books of devotion. They serve a most useful purpose, especially in preparation and thanksgiving for Confession or Communion, but should never be allowed to take the entire place of the Christian's glorious privilege of pleading the "Abba Father," and speaking to God in his own words, day by day.
Be careful not to use prayers which are manifestly beyond your own standpoint or out of harmony with your own feeling. The mere repetition of phrases that do not represent your inner attitude towards truth only tends to formality; the effort to force a kind of artificial conformity, because you think you ought to feel this or that, invariably ends in unreality. Given these cautions, devotional books may be of great use, even for regular daily prayer, and often help to call back the thoughts which are flying off at a tangent.
To speak of discipline without touching upon Confession would be to omit one of its most essential features. Nightly self-examination must be performed, and that not perfunctorily, but with real intention of repentance and strictness of living. Self-examination is nothing more nor less than spiritual account-keeping; without it the man has no real idea of how the business of his soul stands.
When it reveals the fact that sin is making headway and the spirit losing ground, then the wise teaching of the Prayer Book should be followed; "the grief"—for such it ought to be—opened in Confession to God, before one of God's ministers, and the benefit of absolution secured.
Much of the terrible prejudice felt against this practice arises from the mistaken idea that the priest professes to forgive us our sins. The words of the Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick, in our own Prayer Book, put the matter on its true footing:—"Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath left power to His Church to absolve, ...forgivethee ... and by His authority ... Iabsolvethee." The source of all pardon and the right to exercise it rest in God alone, but the message declaring the fact is part of the "ministry of reconciliation," committed, in the infinite condescension of God, to the "earthen vessels." An illustration may be taken from the pardon of a criminal condemned to death; the Home Secretary recommends it, but the King, on his sole authority, grants it, and then the message, theabsolvo te, which lets the man go free, is delivered by the governor of the gaol.
Penitents, especially after a first confession at some crisis in mature life, often bear witness to the fact that it seemed to bring them straight into the presence of Jesus Christ; to make them feel the reality of His pardoning blood in a way they never could have believed possible. How strange that the very thing which by so many pious and thoroughly honest souls is dreaded because it is supposed to bring a man in between God and the soul, should yet so often be used by the Holy Spirit to give a wondrous and precious vision of Christ the Saviour.
Thus far we have spoken only of that kind of occasional Confession which is obviously contemplated by the Prayer Book; we have no time to dwell on its habitual use.
Suffice it to quote some words from the first English Prayer Book:—
"Requiring such as shall be satisfied with a general confession, not to be offended with them that do use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the priest; nor those which think needful or convenient to open their sins to the priest to be offended with them that are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession to the Church."
That staunch Evangelical Churchman, Bishop Thorold, who was strongly opposed to habitual Confession in our Communion, once said, "We cannot ignore the fact that the giants of old owed much of that saintliness, which we of the present day can only wonder at but cannot reproduce, to the practice of Confession."
If you should be in doubt about it for yourself, consult some spiritually-minded person who possesses experience in the matter. Not, on the one hand, the man who will tell you that it is the greatest curse the Church has ever known; nor, on the other, the one who would have it practised by everybody.
Surely for us sober Church folk there must be a loyal middle course, which leaves absolute freedom, so long as the individual "follows and keeps the rule of charity, and is satisfied with his own conscience."
Last, but most important of all, in the discipline of the spirit comes the Holy Communion, about which we shall speak next week.
As our closing thought, let us go back to what we said just now. The object of religion is God's glory, not man's enjoyment. See how this puts feelings down into their right, and subordinate, place. They are sometimes very delightful, sometimes very depressing, but always liable to be misleading. A great saint of old used to say:—"If God never gave me another moment of sensible devotion in prayer, I would go on praying, because His glory demands it."
Religion has to do with facts: the facts of what God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost have done, and are doing, for us; the facts of what we have to do, to make the finished work of Christ our own.
Here, as always, our Lord Himself gives us the highest illustration. Neither as God, nor yet as perfect Man, was there an actual need for Him to pray; yet His whole life was punctuated with prayer: first because the glory of the Father required it, and next because His chosen Apostles must be taught by example as well as precept.
Let the same mind dwell in us. It is for the glory of God that I should have salvation; therefore by the help of God I will discipline my spirit.
For suggested Meditations during the week see Appendix.
St. Lukexxii. 19
"This do in remembrance of Me."
Our subject of to-day flows quite naturally out of what we said last week. Religion rests on facts, and its object is God's glory, not merely our profit. Our duty, therefore, is an absolute submission to those facts—in other words, implicit obedience.
This is being illustrated on all sides in regard to the War.
The facts are indisputable. Lord Selborne put the matter in a nutshell when he said: "The task in front of us is colossal. We are fighting for nothing less than our lives, in circumstances which make it the duty of every Englishman to put everything in the world he possesses, everything that he values, into the scale to ensure success, and I am sure there is not one of us, whatever his position, who would flinch in the slightest from the duty he owes to his country and to his deepest self."
The response to the facts has been obedience, immediate and unquestioning, on the part of a vast number. True, not all have yet been reached who ought to come forward, and some are even now crying out for that compulsory service which may yet prove inevitable. They forget that the obedience of one free man is worth more than the forced submission of many. Let us wait hopefully, energetically; losing no opportunity of pressing the stern logic of facts wherever we may.
And those who have joined the services have come at once under a discipline totally different from that of the sternest school or the strictest house of business. The surrender has been made voluntarily, and it has placed the whole life in each detail under the claim of an absolute obedience.
The disposal of every moment of time belongs to the authorities. The private in high social position must obey the orders of a young lance-corporal just as exactly as he expected his own commands to be carried out in his business or his household.
Who can estimate the immense development of moral fibre that surely must take place in succeeding generations from the fact that so vast a number, in all ranks of society, are now under obedience? Not because they were driven to it, but because they embraced it by an initial act of obedience.
—Thus they answered,—hoping, fearing,Some in faith, and doubting some,Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming,Said, "My chosen people, come!"Then the drum,Lo! was dumb,For the great heart of the nation throbbing,Answered, "Lord we come."2
—Thus they answered,—hoping, fearing,Some in faith, and doubting some,Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming,Said, "My chosen people, come!"Then the drum,Lo! was dumb,For the great heart of the nation throbbing,Answered, "Lord we come."2
—Thus they answered,—hoping, fearing,
Some in faith, and doubting some,
Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming,
Said, "My chosen people, come!"
Then the drum,
Lo! was dumb,
For the great heart of the nation throbbing,
Answered, "Lord we come."2
Let us apply this thought to the command in our text, "Do this in remembrance of Me." The facts are undisputed. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the tenderness of His compassion, instituted an ordinance by which we might remember Him and feed upon Him.
Further than this we cannot go on the ground of universal consent. Strangely enough, that rite which is the same in its central act, whether celebrated by the nonconformist in his ordinary dress, or the priest clad in costly vestments, whether in the humble room or the stately cathedral, which is, on the one hand, the well-nigh universal mark of all who profess and call themselves Christians, is yet the battle-ground of fierce dispute and bitter disagreement.
The present crisis is undoubtedly deepening in our minds the exceeding value of this blessed gift of Christ to His Church.
It is deeply suggestive of the spirit of our young officers that a group of old public-school boys, just about to leave for the front, should have begged their late schoolmaster—now a Bishop—to give them a Celebration of Holy Communion in his own private Chapel on their last Sunday in England. What a beautiful send-off!
Then, turning to the scene of operations itself, we find a touching witness in the simple record sent by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe to his brother at Southampton. "We spent our Christmas Day waiting for the Germans, who did not appear. But we managed to find time for church and for three celebrations of Holy Communion, although the whole time we were cleared for action and the men were at their guns."
Who can contemplate unmoved that spectacle of the men, not gathered in the peaceful security of the House of God, but out upon the ocean, expecting attack, realising the possible nearness of the end, leaving their guns but for the moment, then back again, strengthened for life or death by the sacred Body and Blood.
Or take the witness of Rev. E.R. Day, one of our Senior Army Chaplains serving with the Expeditionary Force. While home on a few days' leave he preached at Lichfield Cathedral, and, touching upon the efficacy of prayer, testified how enormously it was valued by our soldiers now serving at the front. The Holy Communion was especially appreciated. On Christmas Day there were no fewer than seven hundred communicants from one regiment and four hundred from another, and the service was held in a ploughed field with a packing-case for an altar. He had conducted these services sometimes in the back-parlour of a public-house, in a stable, in a loft, in a lean-to shed, and in the open; anywhere, in fact, where room could be found. Out on the battlefield there was hardly any need for a compulsory parade service; the men had only to hear that a service was to be held and they would crowd to it.
Most of the reasons given by those who stop away from Communion centre in self.
"I am not worthy." Of course not, nor is the priest who celebrates, nor is any member of the congregation. We sadly misread that caution of S. Paul about receiving "unworthily."
Let us take a homely illustration. Our good Queen Victoria was very fond of visiting cottagers in the Highlands and reading the Scriptures to them. You can imagine how one of them might say, "I am not worthy of such an honour; this little place is so poor and mean." Quite true, yet she could tidy up the home, mend her frock, make everything neat and clean, so as to receive the Queen "worthily." Until you realise the fact—
"I am not worthy, gracious Lord,"
you will never receive Him worthily. No one who examines himself, confesses his sins, and firmly purposes to amend, ever yet came to Communion unworthily.
"I don't feel inclined to come." Because you have not realised in its full meaning two facts: yourself as a great sinner, Christ as a great Saviour. Feelings have nothing to do with duty. If they had, our army would be about half the size it is. Do you suppose that all those who are joining the Services like leaving home, wife, friends, comforts? Feelings have been sacrificed to facts.
"I'm too great a sinner." Then you are not fit to die. Repent, turn to the Saviour, and then in His holy ordinance you will find the very strength you need to keep you from falling back.
"I have such terrible temptations." So we all have, priest and people alike. Temptations are not sins; they are the enemies on the battlefield, and if you never meet them, you—the Christian soldier enlisted at your Baptism—will never have the chance of winning a victory. The one who stays away from Communion because of temptations or sins, which he is really trying to resist, is like the sick man who looks at the bottle of medicine and says, "I will take it when I get well."
"So many communicants are hypocrites." That shows that you know enough about the Christian life to be able to judge your fellow creatures. Are you making things any better by neglecting your duty?
"I have got an enemy." Have you honestly tried to be reconciled; are you willing to forgive and bury the past? "Yes, but he is not." All the more need then for you to come to the Communion and pray for his heart to be changed.
It was said of one great saint that some people might never have had the blessing of his prayers for them but that they were his enemies.
All these excuses centre in self. They could not do otherwise, for no one has ever yet found in Christ any reason why they should stay away from Him.
Obedience forms so large a part of discipline—nay, is almost identical with discipline—because it takes us out of self.
Our Lord Who has bidden us "do this" knows exactly what is best for us. In putting aside feelings, fancies, unworthy scruples, and casting ourselves unreservedly upon His boundless mercy, we shall taste of the treasures of His grace and be satisfied.
One important part of the discipline of this obedience is making a special and very careful preparation before, and thanksgiving after, each Communion.
Preparation which consists first of all of real self-examination and repentance, using fearlessly the "ministry of reconciliation" when necessary, and then of special prayers which help to put us into the attitude of hopeful, grateful anticipation.
Thanksgiving; definite prayers and praises, continued for a day or two, unless we are very frequent communicants, so that we may lose none of the preciousness of the blessing by our own forgetfulness or ingratitude.
In this, as we said last week, books canhelp, but that is all; they cannot make the preparation or the thanksgiving for us.
Early Communion, quite apart from the doctrinal question of fasting reception, is a useful feature of the discipline of obedience. It is a custom which comes from primitive times, and is universal in the greater part of the Catholic Church.
To give the early hours of the day to our Blessed Lord is surely more in accordance with what His great love requires than to choose our own time and come when it suits us best: that is when it requires less effort and self-denial, and when our minds have been distracted by the cares of the advancing day.
The coming on of old age or sickness may necessarily debar us from the privilege and joy of early Communion, but, while we can, let us make the most of the blessed morning hours, when in all the freshness of our newly awakened life we draw near to Him Who ceaselessly watches over us.
The question is often asked: "How often ought I to receive the Holy Communion?" The answer depends upon so large a number of considerations that no general rules can possibly be given. Spiritual capacities vary infinitely.
One broad principle we can lay down: Do not receive so often that you begin to neglect preparation and thanksgiving. Better by far six Communions a year, which have meant real, living intercourse between yourself and your Saviour, than a weekly one which has degenerated into a perfunctory form.
It is to be remembered that there is nothing to prevent your attending the service whenever you wish, joining in the praises and prayers, even though for some good reason you are not going to receive.
But, whatever your custom may be, have a rule about your times of receiving, and keep to it strictly.
Aim at regularity for your own sake. One of the greatest causes of many of the obscure modern complaints is the irregularity of meals, consequent upon the exacting conditions of life. Precisely so, much sickness of spirit springs from the careless way in which the chief spiritual food is treated. People go to the Holy Communion when they feel inclined, instead of according to a fixed rule, modifying the rule, just as they would in the case of their meals, by circumstances which may arise; spiritual sickness might dictate abstention from Communion for a while, just as bodily disease might require a period of fasting.
Be regular for others' sake. The consistent example of the communicant who lets neither weather nor inclination interfere with duty exercises an influence far wider than he could imagine possible.
Be regular for Christ's sake, in grateful recognition of that tender love which has given us the highest privilege of the Christian life. Surely never is our Lord more satisfied in seeing of the travail of His soul than when His faithful ones are gathered before His Holy Table, worshipping Him in the tremendous reality of His spiritual presence, feeding upon Him in the mystery of His Body and His Blood.
Thus out of our obedience to the great "Do this" comes discipline of the highest kind. That discipline which is ever putting self in the background, ever exalting the person and the work of Christ.
Then follows the reward, never attained by those who in self-interest seek it, only poured forth upon such as are content to lose their life in finding it, "He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me."
For suggested Meditations during the week see Appendix.
Revelationsvii. 14
"These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
Two considerations only can throw any light on the dark mystery of suffering, the problem which has baffled the intellect, the perplexity which has torn the heart of mankind from the dawn of conscious life—"I believe that Jesus Christ was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man"; "I believe in the life of the world to come."
The two thoughts blend in our text with a harmony of illumination which, though it does not solve the problem, renders it less dark.
Only in the light of another world, where the seed sown here shall bear wondrous fruit, can we even begin to reconcile the existence of suffering with the goodness of Almighty God. If there be no hereafter, then indeed suffering must be the work of a vengeful tyrant rejoicing in cruelty, or of a fatalistic machine grinding out its foreordained consequences.
What we require is some comprehensive plan which will knit together past, present, future in one great purpose of progress towards ultimate perfection, which will guarantee not onlyanexistence hereafter, but will render that existence personal, conscious, capable of the highest development.
We find this in the Incarnation, the eternal purpose of God the Father, formed in the eternity ofthe past, that His Son should take our human flesh.
This plan is working itself out inthe presentby the power of God the Holy Ghost, through the life of the great Church of Christ, militant and expectant.
It stretches forth into the future, with regard to which we have parables, promises, visions, warnings, all pointing to a continuously progressive growth till the perfect manifestation of the Kingdom of Christ be reached.
Thus the Incarnation supplies the unifying principle, and in its light we catch some ray of hope on the dark problem of suffering.
In consequence of sin our Lord was a sufferer, even in some mysterious sense was "made perfect through suffering" (Heb. ii. 10).
The climax came in the "full, perfect, and complete sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" made upon the Cross.
It is suggestive that these words should occur in the Consecration Prayer of the Holy Communion Service, as if to remind us that our true spiritual and commemorative sacrifice draws all its validity, power, and preciousness from the one offering of Christ made by Himself in His death.
Thus we see that most essential act for our salvation was not one of victory, triumph, or glory, as the world reckons these things. Oh, no! It was one of absolute self-surrender, involving untold anguish of soul and body. The results of the sufferings of our Lord have justified their tremendous cost.
Its efficacy consisted not in the physical pains, but in the entire yielding up of the will. Thus it represents for us that victory over self which is the only path to eternal life.
But this victory, even now in these emphatically feather-bed days, is always more or less painful. In the early times it meant persecution, poverty, isolation, death, for the sake of Jesus Christ.
It is always so; the greatest deeds the world has ever known, nationally, or individually, have been wrought out by suffering; because suffering, more than any other agent, deepens character.
Look around among your friends and acquaintances. Who are the morally strongest? To whom do you turn in your times of difficulty, doubt, trouble? Not to those whose lives have been easy, to whom the lines have fallen in pleasant places, to whom success has come without effort! No! You turn to the one who has fought his way through the doubt, the difficulty, the trouble, and you find a tower of strength. There is the secret of Charles Kingsley's power as a counsellor; once he did not believe that there was a God; he went through the agonies of doubt.
There is the secret of the wondrous force of Archbishop Temple. Rough, rugged, almost discourteous at times; hating shams and penetrating them with an unerring instinct, but tenderness itself to the really distressed. He knew what it was as a lad to do field labour in poor clothes and with insufficient food. In later years, when up at College, he was wont to study by the light in the passage, because he could not afford oil for his own lamp.
Yet another illustration, showing the directly spiritual influence of suffering—those countless cases of bed-ridden invalids, often in intense pain, who develop an intense, fervent, yet restful piety, seldom attained even by the most devout in active life.
Those who have had experience in missions or dealing with individual souls know how constantly suffering—especially in middle life—lays the foundations of conversion. Ay, and lays them strong and deep. The soul in trouble feels its need of God, turns to Him, and then gets to know the fulness of His mercy, even in and through the affliction.
And now, how stands it in regard to the War? We need not repeat in detail those various points on which we have already dwelt. Spite of all the ghastly sufferings the War is bringing in its train, nay, in a sense, because of them, it has linked together the Empire in the closest bonds, allayed political and polemical strife, evoked a wealth of heroism, self-sacrifice, prayer, and benevolence, and braced up the moral fibre of countless lives.
Yet all this does not explain the existence of suffering, the why and the wherefore still lie hidden in that region of the infinite which we, finite beings, cannot penetrate. We can see, from its results, that suffering is no more incompatible with the eternal love of God, than the surgeon's knife is inconsistent with the tenderness of his heart. "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth," "God dealeth with you as with sons" (Heb. xii., 6, etc.). Our great mistake is to look upon trouble as punishment, inflicted by an angry God, and to rebel under the chastening hand. When God sees that His child, whether the nation or the individual, needs discipline He sends it, and there is no more lack of love than there is on the part of the wise earthly parent, when he corrects his child and makes him suffer pain. Nay, it is the very love that prompts the discipline.
Once more, let us look at suffering in its power of producing sympathy.
The Incarnation was the greatest act of sympathy the world has ever known. The Word made flesh, our Saviour born as a babe, that He might enter into all the experiences of our human nature; that He might not simply feelforus, but feelwithus.
Here is the essence of the word; take it in Latin, compassion; take it in Greek, sympathy—alike it means feeling with. And in the wondrous mystery of the Church, the spiritual body of Christ, the same great principle is still working itself out.
Very strange, very mysterious, yet real with the essence of reality, is the connection between the suffering Christ and the suffering Church, "inasmuch as ye have ministered to one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." And yet it is the Christ Who helps and sustains us from on high. The same Christ Who was here upon earth, suffering in His martyr Stephen was yet standing at the Father's right hand to succour him.
The same Christ Who flashed the wondrous vision of Himself on the eyes of S. Paul, was yet so intimately present in and with His infant Church that he "thundered" forth the question, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?"
It is just this thought of Christ still present in the person of His suffering children, that gives the glow of enthusiasm to philanthropic work of a definitely Christian character. But may we not go a step further and try to see Christ, in a measure, in all suffering, even that of the animals? He came to redeem the world, and we in our little view are apt to narrow down the purposes, and limit the possibilities within very contracted lines.
The War is opening up to us opportunities boundless in their character and scope. Probably to-day tens of thousands who have hitherto spent aimless lives; whose time, means, gifts have gone in the shallow channel of self, now know something at least of the joy of launching out on to the broad stream of living, loving sympathy. This has been because, though in some instances unconsciously to themselves, Christ, in the power of His Holy Spirit, has touched their lives.
If anguish has come to our hearts let it work its discipline upon us in and through Christ, by the opening out of ourselves to Him, that we may take in the full measure of His priceless sympathy. Let us try to lose ourselves in ministering to others, one of the surest anodynes for grief and pain.
But if we have, as yet, passed unscathed, let us be all the more diligent, tender, and loving in our care for others.
There is no need to go into details. Wherever your lot be cast you have only just to look around and you will find there are individuals, wives at home, soldiers at the front, whose lot you can brighten in very simple yet very real ways; perhaps institutions, such as Red Cross Homes, Hospitals, Belgian Hostels, to which you can render practical service; Funds to which you can send your money; all these are means through which you may enter into the glorious discipline of opportunity that comes through suffering.
Have you ever thought how infinitely poorer the world would be in all that is highest and purest in its life, were there no suffering to call forth the tender ministry of sympathy?
And now let us summarise what we have been saying. Suffering is a great mystery, but two facts throw light upon it—the hereafter, the Incarnation; suffering does discipline character, therefore, judging by results, it is not incompatible with the love of God, even though its existence be still a problem; suffering presents us with the splendid possibility of sympathy, to be exercised in the power of the loving Christ.
Can we close better than with the thought of the saints in Paradise?
On earth they lived in the always realised consciousness of a personal Christ. When the Apostles were persecuted and beaten, they departed from the Council "rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." So it has been all down the long story of the ages. And the saints are those "who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb"; their sufferings sanctified by, and borne in, the power of Him Who was made perfect by the things which He endured. Their "light affliction, which was but for a moment, has worked out for them the exceeding abundant and eternal weight of glory."
Thus the Incarnation, the eternal counsel of the past, that embraced them while they were on earth, is still enfolding them, while they, with us, wait and pray for its final consummation, in the coming of the Kingdom.
Let us so use our opportunities for discipline now, that the uplifting of character shall be permanent; not a mere spasm of passing enthusiasm, but a real growth into the character and likeness of Him Who suffered death upon the Cross, that all might live unto Him.
For suggested Meditations during the week see Appendix.
1Thess.iv. 13
"We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, which have no hope."
Of all kinds of sorrow, bereavement is in some senses the sternest, the most irrevocable, and the one in which human compassion is of least avail.
All that we said last week on the discipline of suffering applies here, but with enhanced force. If suffering generally cannot be rationally contemplated outside of the doctrine of a future existence, still less can death be tolerated unless it lead to further life. If sorrow in the bulk needs the Incarnation to throw upon it the light of God's love, still more does this particular grief require the assurance that the finished work of Christ operates within, as well as without, the vail.
Broadly speaking, all over the world there are torn and bleeding hearts mourning the nearest, the dearest; in the vast majority of instances, from the circumstances of the case, men in the beginning or the very prime of life.
The heroism of the women has been as magnificent as that of the men—nay, in a sense, more so. For those who go forth there is the novelty, the excitement, the nerving sense of duty. Their time is so ceaselessly occupied that but little space remains for brooding or for anxious thought, on behalf of themselves or those at home. The men who remain behind, the fathers, brothers, friends, have the priceless boon of daily occupation, often vastly increased in amount. There is no such infallible anodyne of care as plenty of honest work.
But the women—theirs is the harder task, the fiercer trial, of keeping up the brave appearance, the show of cheerfulness, whilst all the time the load of apprehension and fear lies heavy on their hearts. None will ever know the crushing reality of the offering the women are making to their country, in one great stream of self-sacrifice.
Nor can we forecast the end, nor estimate the claims that are yet to be made in the cause of patriotism. The nations engaged, at least the chief of them, are fixed irrevocably in their determination that peace, when it comes, shall be no temporary patching up of hostilities and arranging of indemnities, but a solid, lasting settlement, which shall, as far as possible, place another vast European war out of the range of practical politics.
To tens of thousands there has come the ceaseless yearning for
The touch of a vanished hand,The sound of a voice that is still.
The touch of a vanished hand,The sound of a voice that is still.
The touch of a vanished hand,
The sound of a voice that is still.
Now notice how S. Paul deals with the matter. "That ye sorrow not as others which have no hope." There is no injunction here not to sorrow at all; that would be contrary to human nature, and would bespeak callousness rather than resignation. Our Blessed Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus, and in so doing sanctified human grief. The keenest faith, to which the other world is an absolute reality; the fullest hope of the sure and certain resurrection for the dear one; the most disciplined and submissive will which accepts unquestioningly the dispensations of the Father; all these are not proof against the natural grief at the removal of a loved one from this sphere of tender intimacies, into another, where we can only commune with him in thought and prayer.
How often this is illustrated at the death of a chronic invalid who has suffered much. With tears streaming down the cheeks, the mourner will say, "I am so thankful he is at rest." No selfish, rebellious side of grief is exhibited by those tears; only human sorrow, blending in loving harmony with perfect resignation.
Now notice carefully the ground on which S. Paul bases the Christian's hope for the departed; first, faith in the death and resurrection of Christ; "if we believe that Jesus died and rose again." It is a mere platitude to say that the whole of S. Paul's teaching is founded on the actuality of the resurrection. "If Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most miserable" (1 Cor. xv. 17). Then out of this fact of the resurrection flows a consequence: the dead, as we call them, "sleep in Jesus," and will be His immediate companions at the last day. We cannot enter into a discussion as to the exact conditions of what is called "Hades" or the "intermediate state"; suffice it to say that one great feature of it is nearness to Jesus, "having a desire to depart and be with Christ" (Phil. i. 23); "absent from the body, present with the Lord" (2 Cor. v. 8). Herein consists the blessed hope set before us in regard to the faithful departed; the crucified, risen, ascended Jesus has them in His keeping; we and they alike are parts of the one great Church, knit into the "Communion of Saints" by the mystic bond of the sacred bread, linked each to the other by mutual prayer; they for us and we for them.
Very beautifully and tenderly does the Archbishop of Canterbury deal with this thought in one of his late sermons:—
"As with bowed head and quivering lip we commend their souls into the hands of a faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour we feel how the very passing of those brave and buoyant lives into the world beyond pierces the flimsy barrier between the things which are seen and temporal and the things which are unseen and eternal, and again we can and do give thanks. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living:—
"Nor dare to sorrow with increase of griefWhen they who go beforeGo furnished, or because their span was brief.For doubt not but that in the worlds aboveThere must be other offices of love,That other tasks and ministries there are,Since it is promised that His servants thereShall serve him still. Therefore be strong, be strong,Ye that remain, nor fruitlessly revolve,Darkling, the riddles which ye cannot solve,But do the works that unto you belong."
"Nor dare to sorrow with increase of griefWhen they who go beforeGo furnished, or because their span was brief.For doubt not but that in the worlds aboveThere must be other offices of love,That other tasks and ministries there are,Since it is promised that His servants thereShall serve him still. Therefore be strong, be strong,Ye that remain, nor fruitlessly revolve,Darkling, the riddles which ye cannot solve,But do the works that unto you belong."
"Nor dare to sorrow with increase of grief
When they who go before
Go furnished, or because their span was brief.
For doubt not but that in the worlds above
There must be other offices of love,
That other tasks and ministries there are,
Since it is promised that His servants there
Shall serve him still. Therefore be strong, be strong,
Ye that remain, nor fruitlessly revolve,
Darkling, the riddles which ye cannot solve,
But do the works that unto you belong."
Here is the magnificent prospect of hope for those who mourn: that the Incarnation of our Lord is still working itself out in all its beneficent purposes. By the power of the Holy Ghost, in the Church expectant as in the Church militant, the answer to the constant prayer, "Thy Kingdom come," is being ceaselessly given; and the fulness thereof will be realised in the Church triumphant. The saints on earth and those in Paradise are equally in the hands of the Lord, though the latter have clearer vision and nearer sense of the fact than the former. By some this is used as an argument against the practice of prayer for the departed, but surely this thought of the unity of the whole body leads in exactly the opposite direction. No argument can be adduced against this most ancient and primitive custom, observed by the Jews long before the coming of Christ, but what equally applies to any petition for an absent friend still on earth. In each case they are in the keeping of Him Who knows best and will do right, yet for those still here we pray, believing that in His own way God will take account of our prayers and knit them up into His own dealings, so that they become part of His eternal purposes. When commending the departed to Him, naturally our words will be chastened and restrained because we know somewhat less of the conditions of the "intermediate state" than we do of those of our own dispensation. Somewhat less; for how little do we really understand of the circumstances around us now in all their bearings as they lie open beneath the eye of God. Therefore it is that whenever we pray we must ask in full submission to our own limitations and in the spirit of the Master, "Nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done."
Thank God this matter is not one of argument; no, it lies in another plane: the innate feeling of one who really knows what prayer means and who has grasped in some degree the doctrine of the "Communion of Saints."
A pious evangelical, well fortified with arguments against prayer for the departed, had been nursing her sick sister and taking care of the little daughter of the house. The sister died, and the same evening the motherless girl knelt down at her aunt's side to say her prayers. "Auntie, may I say God bless dear mother?" The whole drift of the aunt's training and theology would have led her to say "No" point blank. There was no time for argument or explanation, for facing the inevitable "If not, why not?" The instincts of natural religion prevailed; the aunt replied, "Yes, dear"; and from that day onward never failed herself to say, when remembering her dear ones, "God bless my sister."
Whatever the effect of such prayers in the other world, there is no shade of doubt that to the bereaved they bring an infinite sense of nearness to their beloved, and of the reality of the life of the world to come.
Thus far we have been speaking of those who may fairly be called the faithful departed, the cases in which hope may be reasonable and assured almost to certainty.
Now let us go a step further. The mind staggers as it contemplates the tens of thousands being hurried into eternity who, either according to the teaching of the Catholic Church or the notions of popular theology, would be deemed unprepared.
We trust, in a dim sort of way, that the all-embracing mercy of God will accept their sacrifice of themselves for their country, and in some fashion place it to the credit side of their account. No doubt He will. But can we not get a more evangelical, and at the same time more catholic, view of the matter? We find it in an extension of our conception of the possibilities of the intermediate state, the condition of souls between death and judgment. Evangelical to the backbone, because it is the work of Christ which we conceive of as being there carried on. Catholic, because the Church from very early times has recognised the idea of the discipline of souls as being a process continued after death. The authority of S. Paul has been appealed to on account of his words to the Philippians (i. 6), "being confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ"; and to the Corinthians in that mysterious passage concerning "the fire which shall try every man's work" (1 Cor. iii. 13). The doctrine was developed and materialised till it resulted in those corruptions which were so largely responsible for the Reformation. In their zeal to root out error, the Reformers fell into the opposite extreme and abolished the idea of the intermediate state altogether. Hence arose the popular notion, unknown to the Catholic Church till then, of Heaven or Hell as the immediate issue of death.
Of course, the Church's teaching had regard to the condition of its own members after death, and we cannot press it into an argument as to those not dying, technically, in a state of grace; but at least this much we may say: Surely no intelligent person can contemplate the thought of these vast hosts being hurried off into eternal perdition, and at the same time retain his reason or his faith in a God of love. Whatever the possibilities of the world to come, they are but the extension of the boundless love of God in Christ, and hold out no promise for us if we wilfully neglect our day of grace.
But now to pass on to one further source of consolation which comes in its measure to all the bereaved alike; the chastened joy from the thought of the splendid sacrifice the dear one has been privileged to make.
Take an illustration—a letter from Major-General Allenby to Lady de Crespigny on the death of her son:—
"Dear Lady de Crespigny,—I and the whole of the Cavalry Division sympathise with you, and we feel deeply for Norman's loss. But I must tell you that he died a hero's death. The brigade was hotly engaged, and on the Bays fell the brunt of the fighting on September 1st. Norman, with a few men, was holding an important tactical point, and he held it till every man was killed or wounded. No man could have done more, few would have done so much.
"With deepest sympathy, yours sincerely,
"E.H.H. Allenby."
How the bereaved hearts in the midst of crushing grief must have lit up with gladness at such a record as that!
But to close. The discipline of bereavement consists essentially in the trial of faith, yet at the same time brings with it the power of faith. In bereavement, above all other forms of sorrow, comes the felt need of God; it has been so with countless souls. The answer to the need is the revelation that God makes of Himself in Christ; then comes the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, which dries the tears and heals the broken heart.
Note.—The question of prayer in connection with God's foreknowledge is so admirably treated in "Some Elements of Religion" (Liddon) that we append an extract:—
"What if prayers and actions, to us at the moment perfectly spontaneous, are eternally foreseen and included within the all-embracing Predestination of God, as factors and causes, working out that final result which, beyond all dispute, is the product of His Good Pleasure?
"Whether I open my mouth or lift my hand is, before my doing it, strictly within the jurisdiction and power of my personal will: but however I may decide, my decision, so absolutely free to me, will have been already incorporated by the All-seeing, All-controlling Being as an integral part, however insignificant, of His one all-embracing purpose, leading on to effects and causes beyond itself. Prayer, too, is only a foreseen action of man which, together with its results, is embraced in the eternal Predestination of God. To us this or that blessing may be strictly contingent on our praying for it; but our prayer is nevertheless so far from necessarily introducing change into the purpose of the Unchangeable, that it has been all along taken, so to speak, into account by Him. If, then, with 'the Father of Lights' there is in this sense 'no variableness, neither shadow of turning,' it is not therefore irrational to pray for specific blessings, as we do in the Litany, because God works out His plans not merely in us but by us; and we may dare to say that that which is to us a free self-determination, may be not other than a foreseen element of His work."
For suggested Meditations during the week see Appendix.