Chapter 12

Again, we show our thankfulness to God by giving Him a hearty worship in His Church. I wonder how many people know exactly why they come to Church at all. Some say they come to get good. That is mere selfishness. Some say they come because it is respectable. Yes, but worthless, unless it means something more. Others would tell us, if they were quite honest, that they come to Church because they want to stand well in the good opinion of the Clergyman, or with the Squire. This is sheer hypocrisy. There is only one true reason for coming to Church,--the fact that we love God, and are grateful to Him for all His mercies, and want to show it. We should come to Church to _worship_ God with the best member that we have; we should come with the feeling--"I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the House of the Lord;" "I love the place, O Lord, wherein Thine honour dwells." All slovenliness in the performance of the service, all irreverence, or signs of inattention, and indifference, are tokens of a want of thankfulness. We should get this thought fixed in our minds when we enter Church,--I have come here to-day mainly to thank God for His great goodness to me, and to all men. I have come also to ask for certain things, the forgiveness of my sins if I am truly penitent, the help and strength of the Holy Spirit to renew my life; I have come to ask for those things, which are requisite and necessary as well for the body as the soul, and I seek instruction in the lessons, the Gospel and Epistle, and the sermon. But the chief object of my presence here is the worship, the glory, the honour of God. And so I will give Him the best I have. If you once grasped that fact, my brothers, we should have no silent lips, no sleepy eyes, no lounging bodies, no irreverent conduct in God's Holy Church. Remember God is present in His Church, therefore we must behave with the greatest humility and reverence. In some Churches you will see the people obstinately sitting throughout the service, but if one of the Royal Family enters, they all rise up. Now, if we remember that the King of kings, and Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes, is present, we shall stand up to do Him honour. It is defrauding God of the honour due to Him when we refuse to show Him marks of reverence. Do you know that in the House of Lords it is always the rule for members to bow to the throne, although it is empty, as being the seat of the Majesty of England. We bow to the Altar as being the throne of the Most High God, the place where He visits His people in the Blessed Sacrament. There we should honour and reverence God, in whose presence we are, with the best members that we have. Our heads should bow in humility before the God of Heaven and earth. Our knees should bend in adoration before Him who is worshipped by the Heavenly Host. Our eyes should be fixed upon our Prayer Books that they may not wander. Our thoughts should be centred on the fact that God is there with us, that we are in the presence-chamber of the great King. Our voices should be used to praise God in chant, and psalm, and hymn, and to offer prayer or thanksgiving. If we are silent we are defrauding God. God's Priest does not say, "let _me_ pray for you," he says, "let _us_ pray." We cannot worship God by proxy, we cannot give God what He asks by means of a choir, whilst the congregation is silent. Let us, each one of us, for the future, remember why we have come to Church, and that it is our individual business to worship God with reverence and holy fear. And in all you sing or say here, be in earnest, _mean_ what you say. It is an insult to God to say words which you do not believe, or understand. Once in a certain Church, during Lent, an Easter hymn had been put down by mistake, and was sung very heartily by the choir. The choirmaster after service spoke to the singers, regretting that such a mistake should have occurred. And he was answered, "Oh, it does not matter, we only think of the tune, and do not trouble about the _words_." I am afraid that too many hymns are sung in the same careless fashion, but if so, they are not _praise_. "Sing ye praises with _understanding_."

One word more; we are bidden to render unto Caesar what belongs to him, and to God what is His. This world has certain claims upon us. Part of our time and our money must be devoted to our business and our position in the world. But not _all_ of our time and money must be so given. God claims His share, and our gratitude for His mercies ought to make us gladly render unto God the things that are God's. He claims a certain part of our time for His public worship in Church. If we stay away from His House, or if, when there, we are careless, and indifferent, we are robbing God. God claims a certain part of our money, to be dedicated to the relief of the poor, or the maintenance of His Church. If we spend all our money on the world we are defrauding God of His right. May He grant us all more thankful hearts, for Jesus Christ's sake.

SERMON LX.

GATHERING THE FRAGMENTS.

(Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.)

S. JOHN vi. 12.

"Gather up the fragments that remain."

The fragments that remain! What are they? Something more than the remnants of that miracle of feeding. We have come to the last Sunday of the Church's year, only a few more fragments, a few more days, remain, and then Advent will have come, and we shall begin a new year. Again we shall hear the warning cry--"Prepare to meet thy God." Brothers, are we ready to meet Him? We are one year nearer the day when we must render in our account; one year nearer the time when the Master will come to reckon with His servants; one year nearer the return of the Bridegroom. What of our lamps, are they burning? What of our talents, have they yielded interest? Another year gone--eternity nearer by twelve months; surely this is a solemn time for us all. Let us gather up the fragments of time that remain before Advent. Do not put off making resolutions, or giving up bad habits, till next Sunday. We know not how few fragments of our life remain. As says a Bishop of our Church, "they who dare lose a day are prodigals, but those who dare misspend it are desperate. Time is the seed of eternity, the less that remains the more valuable it becomes. To squander time is to squander all." The events of one brief day have often influenced a whole life, aye, a whole eternity. The flight of a bird determined the career of Mohammed; a spider's spinning that of Bruce; and a tear in his mother's eye that of Washington. Voltaire, when only five years old, committed to memory an infidel poem, and grew to live and die an unbeliever; whilst Doddridge, as a child, studied the Bible from the pictured tiles at the fireside explained by his mother. Use the moments, the fragments, that remain, and so begin this Advent season rightly, your lamp burning, the works of darkness cast away, the armour of light girded on. But not only must we look forward, the end of the Church's year is a fitting time for looking back. Some of us can do so joyfully, thankfully, peacefully. Week by week the teachings of Holy Church have shown them the life of duty, and they feel that they have tried to live that life by the help of God's Holy Spirit. The first half of the year's teaching showed us God's love for us, the second half taught us how we can show our love to God. Last Advent told us of the battle of life, the good fight of the faith, and the love of God strengthening us in the conflict, and promising the crown of victory. Christmas brought us once more the dear, glad, tidings that Jesus is our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. Epiphany showed us our Saviour manifested in our work, in the changed character of a believer who out of weakness is made strong, in the cleansed sinner whose leprosy is healed, in the storm of life made calm. The star of Epiphany led us to Jesus, to hope, to rejoicing, and gladly we offered our gifts, to the King our gold, to the Great High Priest our incense, to the Crucified our myrrh. Lent showed us the sterner side of the life of duty, and brought its lessons of self-denial and self-restraint. Those of us who went out into the wilderness of this world with Jesus, "glad with Him to suffer pain," resisting the tempter, found their reward at the glad Easter-tide. The sorrow which had endured for the night of Lent gave place to the joy which came with Easter morning. And so in every Sunday of the year we trace the golden thread of God's loving mercy lying along the narrow way, the path of duty. If we have tried to keep in that path, then we can look back joyfully over the year that is gone, and for the future we can, like S. Paul, "thank God, and take courage."

They tell us that the fishermen of Brittany, when going forth on a voyage, offer this prayer--"Save us, O God, thine ocean is so large, and our little boat so small." That may well be our prayer as we begin another year. "Gather up the fragments." For some of us that will be a sorry task; we are like children crying in the midst of the broken pieces of some costly vase, shattered by our carelessness. The fragments that _remain_! How many remain of the lessons and warnings of the past year? How much of the good seed remains undestroyed by the choking thorn? Some of us made good resolutions last Advent, we started well with the beginning of the Church's year, we girded on our armour, we determined to make a fight for the true faith, and we took a firm stand on the promises of the Gospel. And now nothing remains of those good resolutions except the broken fragments to witness against us and upbraid us. As for the good fight, we have fled from the battle beaten, our shield has been left disgracefully behind, we have turned ourselves back in the day of battle. My brother, what is that dark stain upon the white robe of your purity? It was not there a year ago. Last Advent you could look father and mother, aye, the whole world, in the face. And now you have a guilty secret spoiling your life. You may cry with Macbeth--

"Had I but died an hour before this chance I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant, The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left."

You cannot wash away that stain, even though you could "weep salt oceans from those eyes." To look back mournfully will not help to undo the past. To lament over the fragments of a misspent year, or the memory of broken resolutions, vows unfulfilled, and chances lost, will not bring back "the tender grace of a day that is dead." The thought would be maddening if we did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The knowledge that we cannot recall one lost day, nor alter one past page in our life's story, would bring a remorse cruel as the fabled vulture which ever fed upon the vitals of the chained Prometheus. But thanks be to God, Jesus says, "He that sitteth upon the throne saith, Behold, I make all things new." Dear brothers and sisters, some of us need to turn over a new leaf, to make a fresh start, how shall we do it? Let us take our secret sin, our secret sorrow, to Jesus now. Let not the sun go down and find us impenitent, unpardoned. Let us no longer go through life like galley slaves, chained and labouring at the oar. Jesus waits to strike off our chains, He came to preach liberty to the captives. Think of that, you who are yet prisoners, slaves of some sin. Jesus will set you free. As long as you hide your fault you are a slave, you are torn and bitten by remorse, the worm that dieth not, the fire that is not quenched. Tell the story of your sin to Jesus _now_. Never mind how sad, how shameful it is. He is the _same_ Jesus, remember. The same who cleansed the Magdalene, who pardoned the adulteress. Can you, will you, say to-day--

"We come to Thee, sweet Saviour, With our broken faith again; We know Thou wilt forgive us, Nor upbraid us, nor complain.

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour, Fear brings us in our need; For Thy hand never breaketh Not the frailest bruised reed."

"Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." Let Advent find us once more fighting the battle from which some had retreated. Let the marks and scars upon our armour teach us our danger, and help us to fight more watchfully, more humbly. Let the mistakes, the weaknesses, the negligences, the ignorances of the past, be warnings to us for the future.

"Saint Augustine, well hast thou said That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame.

Deem not the irrevocable past As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last To something nobler we attain."

Do you remember the Eastern story of the magician, who gave a ring of vast beauty to a certain prince? Not only was the ring set with priceless gems, but it had this wonderful quality. If the king indulged in any evil thought or wish, or devised any sinful act, the ring contracted on his finger, and warned him by its painful pressure. My brothers, does the ring of conscience press no finger here to-day? Is there no one here now who says in his heart: "Would to God that I were as in years past?" If so, cling to the cleansing Hand of Jesus _now_. A well-known Scottish physician tells us that, during a terrible outbreak of cholera, he was summoned to a small fishing village where the plague had broken out. As they approached the place by boat, they saw a crowd of anxious watchers waiting for the doctor's arrival. Suddenly an old man, of great height and strength, dashed into the water, reached the boat ere it could reach the land, and seizing the doctor in his mighty arms, carried him helpless through the crowd to the bedside of his cholera-stricken grandson.

Brethren, if the plague spot of sin is upon you, seize upon the Hand of the Good Physician, clasp Him in your arms, cry to Him now: "wash me throughly [Transcriber's note: thoroughly?] from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin!"

SERMON LXI.

WHAT THE FLOWERS SAY.

(Children's Flower Service.)

PSALM ciii. 15.

"As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth."

Children, have you ever heard of the language of flowers? Now, of course, we know that flowers cannot speak as we can. I wish they could. I think they would say such sweet things. But in one way flowers do talk to us. When you give them some water, or when God sends a shower of rain upon them, they give forth a sweet smell; I think that the flowers are speaking then, I think that they are saying, "thank you." Let us listen to the preaching of the flowers to-day. What do they say to us? Well, some say one thing, some another; but there is one thing which all of them say--"trust God." God takes care of the flowers, and sends them dew, and rain, and sunshine, and fresh air, and they tell us that the same God who cares for the flowers cares also for us. And next, I think, all the flowers say to us, "thank God." See how the daisies in the meadow seem to look up thankfully to God. Someone says that God smiles on the earth, and that the earth smiles back again with its flowers. Is not that a pretty thought, children, that the flowers are the smiles of the grateful earth? Next, the flowers say to us, "be contented." They are quite satisfied to grow, and smell sweet, and look pretty, in the place where God puts them. Now, just as God plants the flowers in a certain place, some up high on the hills, others down low in the valley; some in the Queen's greenhouse, others in the cottager's garden, so He puts you children in your right place. Be quite sure, my children, that the best place for us is where God puts us. Have you ever noticed the sweet-scented wall flowers growing on an old stone wall? They have scarcely any earth for their roots, only a little bit between the stones, yet they make the old wall beautiful, and no flower smells sweeter. They teach us to be contented. They seem to say, we have no grand place to grow in, no carefully-prepared bed, only a bit of old wall for our home, but we are quite satisfied, and we mean to make home as bright and sweet as we can. Let us learn the lesson of the wall flower. Let us try to make home bright and happy, and sweet, no matter how poor it is. Another thing which all the flowers tell us is this, "remember that you must die." When the Autumn and Winter come we say the flowers are dead because we cannot see them. But the flowers are not really dead. They are sleeping in the earth till the Spring comes again. God has put them to bed in the warm ground, and when the proper time comes they will waken up. Just what God does to the flowers He does to us. One day He will send us to sleep, and take our soul to a safe place in Paradise, whilst our body is put to bed in the earth beneath the soft and pleasant grass. People will say that we are dead, just as they say the flowers are dead. One day the resurrection morning will come, it will be our spring-time, and God, who raised Jesus Christ from the grave, will raise us up again.

So you see, children, the flowers tell us not only that we must die, but that we must rise again. What else do the flowers say to us? I think they say, "keep in the sunshine, be happy." You always find that flowers are on the sunny side of things. So ought we to be. A plant cannot grow, and blossom, in a dark cellar. It must have sunshine. So if you want to be God's children, that is, good children, you must have sunshine in your hearts, sunshine in your faces. Look at the face of an innocent child, one who is gentle, obedient, loving, pure. You will see the face full of sunshine. But look at the face of a child who has done something wrong; who has told a lie, or done some cruel, mean, or dishonest act. There is no sunshine on _that_ face. There is nothing but a dark heavy cloud. The ill-tempered child has no sunshine on his face. He lives down in a dark cellar. The discontented child has no sunshine on his face. He lives down in a black dungeon with Giant Despair. My children, ask God to keep you innocent; or if you have done wrong, ask God to forgive you for Jesus Christ's sake, then you will have sunshine, you will be happy.

There is another thing which the flowers say to us--"Be sweet." There is nothing so delicious as to go into a flower garden after a warm shower, and to smell the sweet scents. Well, God has sent you into the garden of this world to be sweet like the flowers. How can you be sweet? You can be sweet-tempered, sweet-mannered, sweet-spoken. Sometimes you hear people say that someone has a sweet face. Now that need not mean a pretty face; a person may be pretty, and yet not sweet. Those who are sweet-tempered show it in their faces. You know how a bunch of flowers in a room makes it sweet and wholesome. Now every good child in a home, or a school, is like a nosegay of blossoms, making the place sweet and wholesome; and every bad, vicious, unruly, child is like the smell which comes from poisoned water. When I used to visit the sailors in their ships to talk to them about God, I used to say to them, "Now I want one of you men to be a little pinch of salt in this ship, I want you to keep things sweet. Who will be the little pinch of salt?" You understand what I mean, children? I wanted a good man, who prayed, and read his Bible, to help the others, to try and stop bad talking, to keep things sweet, as salt does. Well, I want each of you children to be God's sweet flower, and to try to make your home sweet by your gentleness, your good temper, your love. Some children are regular stinging nettles in a home, or a school. They always make people uncomfortable. They sting with their tongues, and they sting with their looks and their tempers. Make up your minds, dear little ones, to be, by God's help, sweet flowers, not stinging nettles.

And now, before I leave you, let us think what one special flower teaches us. I told you that there is such a thing as the language of flowers, that is, that each flower has its special meaning. Well, what does the rose say? Surely the rose says, "love one another!" Do you know who it is who loves us best, and who has done most for us? Our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, and it is for that reason, I think, that He is called in the Bible a Rose,--the Rose of Sharon. Whenever you see a rose, think of Jesus, the Rose of Sharon, and remember what He says to you, "Little children, love one another." I will tell you a story about a rose. A little brother and sister lived in a crowded court in a great city. It was a wretched, dirty, ugly, place, where scarcely any sunshine ever came, and where the people were often rough and wicked. Little Willie and his sister knew nothing about green fields spotted with daisies, they had never seen a flower. One day a kind friend took all the poor children living in the court for a drive into the country. I cannot tell you how happy Willie and his sister were when they saw the trees and hedges, which were all new and strange to them. Presently they passed a garden in which were growing some sweet-smelling red flowers. Willie had never seen anything half so lovely, and he was anxious to know what the flowers were called, so they told him that they were roses. Well, after a time, when the Winter came, little Willie fell ill. Day after day his sister sat beside him, holding his thin white hand in hers. Often they talked about that wonderful day in the country, where they had seen the roses. Often, too, they talked about Jesus, and the still more beautiful country where He lived. The children were very ignorant, but they had been to Sunday School, and learnt something about the dear Lord who loves children. One cold, dark day, little Willie was much worse, and he said to his sister--"Oh! I wish I could see a rose once more. I wish you would go and get me one of those roses we saw that day!" So the little sister, who loved him dearly, set out to walk to the place where they had seen the flowers. After a long and weary journey, she came to the field where they had played, and the garden where the roses grew. But the field and the garden were white with snow, and there were no roses there. The little girl was worn out with hunger and fatigue, and she dropped on her knees in the snow, and prayed, and this was her prayer--"Dear Jesus, send me one rose, only one, for little Willie." Just then a carriage came along the road, and the lady who rode in it had a beautiful red rose in her hand, which had grown in a greenhouse. She dropped it from the window, I suppose, by accident, but when the little girl saw it lying on the snow, she thought that Jesus had sent it to her, and took it up lovingly to carry to her brother. But she had no more strength to struggle through the cold night, and when the morning came they found her dead upon the white snow, with the red rose in her hand. That night little Willie, lying alone in the cold, dark, garret, also died. And the writer of this story thinks that when the brother and sister met in the Paradise of God, the sister, who gave her life for love, carried a beautiful flower in her hand, and said, "Willie, here's your rose." So thinks the writer, and I think so too.

SERMON LXII.

DAILY BREAD.

(Harvest Thanksgiving.)

PSALM lxv. 9.

"Thou preparest them corn."

"Come, ye thankful people, come," and let us thank God for another harvest. Once more the Father, the Feeder, has given bread to strengthen man's heart, and we turn from the corn stored in the garner, to God's own garner the Church, where He has stored up food for our souls.