Part 1

Transcribed from the 1864 Rivingtons edition by David Price, email [email protected]

[Picture: Pamphlet cover]

AN ADDRESS TO THE SISTERS OF ST. PETER’S HOME, BROMPTON,

FOUNDED FOR THE RECEPTION OF CONVALESCENT WOMEN OF GOOD CHARACTER TILL THE COMPLETION OF THEIR RECOVERY:

DELIVERED ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION, JUNE 30, 1864.

BY EDWARD MEYRICK GOULBURN, D.D. PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL’S, CHAPLAIN OF THE BISHOP OF OXFORD, AND ONE OF HER MAJESTY’S CHAPLAINS IN ORDINARY.

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LONDON; RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE: AND HIGH STREET, OXFORD. 1864.

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LONDON: GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN’S SQUARE.

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TO THE RIGHT HON. AND RIGHT REVEREND ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, THE VISITOR OF ST. PETER’S HOME, THESE PAGES ARE BY HIS KIND PERMISSION INSCRIBED.

INTRODUCTION.

AMONG the many signs of the vitality of the English Church, which every dutiful son of hers will hail with joy, are the various organizations of the Work of Women which have recently sprung up amongst us, the Institution of Deaconesses, the employment of Parochial Mission Women, and the foundation of Sisterhoods. It is a mistake surely to look coldly upon such movements, because they assume (what to our generation is) a somewhat novel form. There ought to be in every living Church a plastic power, which adapts its machinery to the wants of the age, and to the ever-varying shapes which Society is taking; and we rejoice to find in our own Church evidences of this power. Enthusiasms many and fervent are rising up in her, and driving her members to these new agencies, which should not be regarded with suspicion because they are new, but rather tried fairly, and guided discreetly, and watched vigilantly.

Watching and guidance they will doubtless all of them want; and most of all, Communities of women banded together under a Superior for devotion and for acts of mercy. The very first step of joining such a community may easily be taken in violation of the principle (if not of the letter) of the Fifth Commandment. It may be an act of will-worship deliberately committed by one who slights God’s Ordinance of the Family, and prefers ties and sympathies of her own creation to those with which it has pleased Him in His Providence to surround her. But supposing the community composed exclusively of those who have a moral right to join it (of those who have no ties, or none which they cannot perfectly satisfy while living in the comparative seclusion of a Sisterhood), the perils to which their life exposes them are not few, and all the more dangerous because they are subtle. First; there is a constant tendency to erect a false standard of spirituality in the mind, and to imagine a higher degree of perfection to attach to the life of a Sister than to that of an equally devoted Christian woman living in the world. This tendency culminates in the Roman phraseology “Religious,” as applied to the members of Monastic Orders, a phraseology which I for one earnestly deprecate, and greatly regret to see adopted by some of my clerical Brethren in speaking of these Communities. “Words,” says Bacon, “are like the Tartar’s arrows; they shoot backwards;” and if we allow ourselves to call the members of our Sisterhoods “Religious,” or to speak of them as being “in Religion,” we shall soon come to regard their vocation as more spiritual than that of the Christian wife and mother,—a notion most unspiritual and unscriptural in the mind of the writer of this Address. Possibly the life of a Sister may present fewer difficulties to the attainment of a high standard of sanctity than life (under its ordinary conditions) in Society; but even if this be granted, which must we rate higher, the faith and zeal which _evades_ difficulties, or the faith and zeal which _meets and triumphs over_ them? I believe it might be shown that many of the most eminent doctors of the Church, previously to the Reformation, have decided that life in the World may be altogether as spiritual, and exemplify a standard of holiness at least as high, as life in a Convent. Then, again, it must be remembered that the relations which the members of a religious Community contract are artificial. These Communities are a kind of hotbed for rearing devotional feeling and piety of a high caste. It is not at all necessary to deny that very beautiful forms of piety are often reared there, as very beautiful flowers are under glass. But we may reasonably expect the beauty of form to be somewhat compensated by want of vigour. And of course this is especially likely to be the case with Communities of Women. Without denying to the piety of Women very great and peculiar excellences, beyond those which characterize the religious feelings of men,—while fully appreciating all the sympathy and power of heroic endurance manifested by Christian Women, and fully recognizing the general truth, that Religion thrives far better in the soil of a susceptible heart than in that of a powerful understanding,—we must yet grant that the female type of piety has a weak side,—the side, namely, of a morbid sentimentalism. Now this side may be expected to exhibit itself in high relief in our Sisterhoods, where the sentiments of devout Women constitute the religious atmosphere of the place. And as the tone of the disciple insensibly reacts upon the tone of the teacher, and what the first is eager to receive the second is usually prompt to supply, it is likely enough that the spiritual pastors and guides of such communities will (with perfectly pure intention and without dreaming of evil) pander to a style of religion very much out of keeping (to say the least of it) with the sobriety of Holy Scripture, and with the staid and dignified tone of the Book of Common Prayer. Those who have read the Spiritual Letters of St. Francis de Sales, and have observed the difference of tone between the generality of them which are addressed to women, and the few in which his correspondents are men, will immediately recognize what I mean. Souls should be dealt with on the same principles, whatever souls they be; the same fervour, the same unction, should be manifested in the guidance of either sex; but in the direction of his female disciples, this saintly man displays now and then a tincture of sentimentalism which can hardly be called healthy. Madame de Chantal and the others craved for something of that sort, and he, as their director, with the utmost artlessness, supplied it. There may be the truest unction in religion without unctuousness. Our Litany is an instance of this.

The great receipt for keeping the tone of piety sound and healthy doubtless lies in one word, WORK,—work in the cause of our suffering fellow-men. And it seems to me to be a proof of the reality of the danger which I have just been pointing out, that in some of these Communities the Sisters have begun to affect a life of entire seclusion from works of mercy, under pretence of a higher devotion. Does not this show that there is something in the moral atmosphere of these communities, to which the healthy, practical, sobering tendencies of work are uncongenial? I have spoken strongly in the Address on the great danger and mischief likely to accrue from making the purely contemplative or devotional life the ideal of high sanctity; and indeed I have desired to make the whole Address a protest against this false theory by assuming (what I know to be the case) that the Sisters of St. Peter’s Home are all busied in works of mercy, and giving them plain, practical counsels, such as would be equally applicable to all the work which has to be done by Christians in active life. These counsels are so commonplace that those who care to read them will probably ask for the reasons which justify me in publishing them.

My only reason is, that the Founder of the Home pressed their publication, under the idea that it might be of some use in making the Institution known. As he is one of those munificent Benefactors of the Church, occasionally found among the wealthy Laity of this great City, to whom the Clergy at all events are bound to hold out the right hand of fellowship, I did not feel at liberty to decline his request when it was pressed upon me. In the vigilant superintendence of our Diocesan (who kindly permits me to inscribe these pages to him) we have every guarantee that reasonable people can desire for St. Peter’s Home being conducted on the soundest principles, for its members being kept in faithful allegiance to the Church of their Baptism, warned against and secured from those dangers to which the experience of the Church teaches that Religious Communities are exposed, and made a great blessing to those who are sheltered and tended in their quiet retreat, and to the poor and sick people in their neighbourhood.

AN ADDRESS, _&c._

MY SISTERS IN CHRIST,

I READ in your Primary Constitution and Statutes that “the whole work carried on in this place is dedicated to St. Peter, who, more than any other Apostle, ministered to the sick.” I suppose that there is in these words a reference to that passage of the Acts of the Apostles, in which we are told that the people of Jerusalem “brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.” It is in every way a remarkable passage. Though the notice of these cures wrought by the Apostle’s shadow is so incidental, it is full of instruction. A shadow is an influence cast by a man’s body, and may usefully remind us of the influence cast by his mind. As all bodies must cast a shadow in the sunlight, so every rational soul must, by the law of our nature, exert an influence in its walk through life on every other rational soul with which it comes in contact. However narrow and however humble be the circle in which we move, our character, habits, tone, certainly tell in it; each action, each word, nay, each gesture and glance, is an item in the sum total of our moral weight.—Then again, as we cast our shadow on the pavement unconsciously, without deliberate intention, so the moral influence, of which I am speaking, is exercised when we least think of it. Words thrown out when we are off our guard, ways of acting which have become more or less instinctive, are all full charged with this moral influence, and have in fact a much more powerful (though a more subtle) efficacy than the things we say and do of set purpose.—Then again, the shadow is always a correct outline of the body of which it is a shadow. And the moral influence which we exert without being conscious of it is always exactly true to our character, which cannot be said of our voluntary influence. A man may preach, and exhort, and throw himself into Christian enterprises, and thus gain a reputation for piety, and yet be a self-seeker, actuated by ambition, or a desire to stand well with others. Many will say to Our Lord at the last day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works?” to whom He will have to profess, “I never knew you.” In this case the deliberate and voluntary influence exerted by the man misrepresents him; we gather one impression from his efforts, and another from his real character. But the influence which he exerts unconsciously never deceives us. Live side by side with him for a month; watch him when he is not on parade before society, but with his family, with his children, with his servants; listen to his casual remarks; observe his character as it transpires at all the thousand pores of daily life; and the impression will be in the main true; it will correspond to what he really is.

It would be a very curious, and I doubt not a very alarming spectacle, if we could all of us see how very much we have done in the course of our lives by unconscious influence. But this is what history and biography never reveal. They tell us of enterprises taken in hand, battles fought, good causes advocated and won, in short, of every stir and movement made in the world. But of that subtle reciprocal leavening of human characters by one another of which we are speaking, because it is so noiselessly effected, they take no account. Yet secret and silent as it is, this involuntary influence is infinitely more powerful than the voluntary. Just so some of the most powerful agents in Nature are the quietest—do not thunder upon the ear or flash upon the eye. Gravitation is a tremendous force, operating all around us, and binding the planets to the Sun. Yet Gravitation is perfectly noiseless. {14}

You would consider, I suppose, that the ends of an Institution like this were fully answered, and then only _fully_ answered, if the shadow of St. Peter’s Home were, in the high sense of the word, a _healing_ shadow—if the moral and spiritual influence exercised by the Sisters upon the patients were such that souls were won by it to Our Lord. And I can quite conceive that this might be so under the proper conditions. True; the period for which each patient may reside in the Home is but short. But then three or four weeks’ association with devoted servants of Christ, whose devotion transpires naturally and is not obtrusively put forward, may, under His Grace, work a great change, and leave an impression which will never be erased. Even the shadow of Peter passing by is sometimes effectual to a spiritual cure. If the fire of God’s Grace is burning bright and clear upon the altar of our hearts, it will throw out sparks in our passage through life. And it is in the nature of sparks to kindle, when they light on combustible material. Every soul with which we come in contact is sympathetic, and accessible at all times through its sensibilities. And its sympathies and sensibilities become greater oftentimes in the hour of weakness and necessary withdrawal from the world. Persons come to your Home to convalesce. They are not in bodily pain; for their cure is supposed to be already effected in the Hospital. Their hearts are in some measure predisposed to gratitude by a sense of God’s goodness in restoring them, and of your kindness in receiving them under your roof. Hence you have a very fair field for the exertion of Christian influence. And I can well conceive that many might derive a lasting benefit from association with you; and that looking back upon their past lives in advanced age they might say: “The first impressions I had of the reality of things unseen, and of the powers of the world to come, was given me at St. Peter’s Home, not so much by any definite teaching I carried away, as by the whole conduct and way of life of the Sisters. In tending me, they made me feel that their ways and aims were not of this world; and I still retain the impression which that sight of living goodness made upon me.”

It will be so, my Sisters in Christ, if while you diligently tend these patients in pursuance of the vocation which you have undertaken, you at the same time diligently cultivate the interior life of piety in your own hearts. And in order to that diligent cultivation, I shall prescribe to you to-day three spiritual exercises, comprehending, as I believe, the sum and substance of Personal Religion. I believe that the diligent practice of all three will enable any one, by God’s good blessing, to cast a healing shadow, to throw all around him a decided influence for good; and that even one of them devoutly observed, and wrought into the texture of the mind, will be the means of great advance. But though I speak of them in these terms, and promise these effects from them, you must not suppose that I am going to give other than the plainest and most commonplace advice. I have no specific for the conduct of a spiritual life but such as has been given you over and over again; and if I had, you would rightly regard it with suspicion. For the way of Christ’s Saints, blessed be His Name, is a well-trodden way; and the advice for His Church, when she would seek Him, is, “Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock.”

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I. The first practice we recommend for securing a holy influence upon others is the Practice of God’s Presence,—that the mind should be momentarily collected in hours of business, as well as in hours of devotion—the oftener the better—and placed with a holy ejaculation, or a devout aspiration, or an expression of confidence or love, under His Eye. I should not know how better to define this exercise than by calling it a momentary glance at Christ, away even from those occupations which are the task-work He has set us. A momentary glance. Do not think it necessary always mentally to repeat some set ejaculation; that might be a distraction, and create absence of mind, when all your faculties are needed for what you are engaged in; but look away to Him for the instant, and then back again, nothing doubting but that He can interpret for you the need of your heart.

The importance of this practice in the cultivation of the spiritual life can really be hardly exaggerated. To begin with the beginning. We read that the first effect of the Fall upon the mind of our first parents was to make them shun God, and hide themselves from the Divine Presence among the trees of the garden. Now Grace is corrective of the mischief done by the Fall; and its operations are the very reverse of those of our corrupt nature. As sin therefore drives man to screen himself by diversions, or by business, from God’s Presence, so it is one of the first instincts of Grace to seek God’s Face. We may do so now with the utmost confidence through the Blood of Our Lord, knowing that Justice itself has nothing to allege against us when we come before God with that plea; and the oftener we do so amidst the occupations, hurry, and cares of daily life, the holier and the happier shall we be.—Next; this is the only real method of fulfilling the great New Testament Prayer-precept; “Pray without ceasing.” We must not fritter away the meaning of those sacred words, by representing them to our minds as a rhetorical form of saying, “_Pray very often_.” To pray is to seek God’s Face—is it not? Then if a state of mind could be more or less realized, in which the soul is always conscious of being under God’s Eye, would not that be prayer without ceasing? And this state is not to be attained except by constant momentary reminiscences of God’s neighbourhood, and fervent breathings of the heart towards Him. When attained, it does not really interfere with occupations, though it might seem that in any mental work it would be a distraction to turn the mind away. For the state is a consciousness of God’s Presence. Now consciousness of the human presence is quite compatible with vigorous exercise of the mind. I am thinking at present of the subject on which I am speaking to you, and how I am to prosecute it; yet not for a moment do I lose the consciousness that your eye is upon me. Again; say that I am walking to a certain place, and that in doing so, I am engaged in earnest conversation with a friend. We are both thinking of our arguments, and how we shall meet what is advanced by one another; but all the while, the consciousness is present to us that we are making the right turns, and really advancing to the place for which we are bound. But I should wrong the sense of the Divine Presence, if I said only that it need be no interference with our occupations; I should rather say that it is the greatest furtherance to them. For every work needs energy to be done well; and what secret of energy is comparable to the refreshment of spirit which may be derived from the thought that we are under God’s Eye, working for Him, and with the encouragement of His smile? The thought is as like a breath of sweet air sweeping across a wayside dusty heather.—Once again; Faith is the great principle of the renewal of our character. Without Faith there is no elevation of mind, no spiritual buoyancy, no hope, no possibility of advance or improvement. Now when we recommend the constant reminiscence of God, we recommend virtually a constant exercise of Faith. “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.” The Presence of God is of course a “thing not seen.” And of all things not seen it is the nearest to us, and that in which we have the most vital interest. Habitually to assure our hearts of this “thing not seen” is to live by Faith. And to live by Faith is to overcome the world and self; it is the life for which Christ redeemed, and for which the Holy Ghost regenerated us.

Most true it is that those who honestly attempt this exercise of Faith find it difficult. What attainment worth making, either in things natural or spiritual, was ever easy? Every thing is granted, not instantaneously, but in course of time, to prayer and striving. “Try again” is the simple expedient, which must be resorted to after a hundred failures. No wonder that in a world of sense and numberless distractions the Presence of God should be a hard lesson to learn. But when learned, it is a great secret of holy influence; for it transpires, though we say nothing to that effect, through the calmness and brightness of our minds, that we are much with God. And a portion of this lesson may be mastered daily.

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II. The second practice recommended for the cultivation of the interior life is that of submission to the Will of God. This submission we may and must learn to yield in the little trials and crosses of daily life. The real reason why, when great trials come, Christians are so little prepared to meet them—why even persons religious in the main are all abroad, and know not which way to turn, when they are visited with bereavement or bodily suffering—is, that they have never, if I may so say, acclimatized themselves to the loving endurance of God’s Will amidst the numerous little thwartings and contradictions of daily life. People _will_ go on thinking (or acting as if they thought) that nothing short of a calamity is a sufficiently dignified occasion for the display of religious principle; and thus they do not avail themselves of the annoyances of daily life, as a field for the cultivation of patience and surrender of the will. And thus numerous precious opportunities of growth in grace run to waste.