Part 9

In "Studies in a Devotional Life," Canon Peter Green tells us how he shared a room in a little hotel in South Africa with two men, who looked like brigands. Not liking to say his prayers openly in their presence, he slipped outside, and said them on the veldt, only to find on his return the "bearded ruffians," who proved to be Cornish miners, kneeling in prayer themselves. This so impressed the writer that, when on one of the South African expresses he had to sleep in the same place as three postmen, he overcame his shyness, and said his prayers openly. Next morning, one of the postmen, an old choir-boy who had forgotten to say his prayers for a long time, confessed that the clergyman's action had shamed him, and he would begin again that day. So the simple influence of one example ran down the line.

3. Your third duty, and I get to love it more myself every year, is not only to pray for yourselves, but to _plead for others_. On my prayer-desk, there are two or three hundred intercessions for mothers, whose sons are at the Front, and for the boys themselves. What a beautiful task it is to intercede for them in turn, so many a day! We are promised that our prayer shall be heard, your prayer just as much as mine. Begin with intercession for fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, people you are next to at your work, your parish, or the church you go to, and so on, extending right out to the boys at the Front. Pray to GOD for victory; don't be ashamed to pray for victory in a glorious, a righteous cause like this. Pray that all this may be overruled for the spread of GOD's kingdom in the world. And always pray for the lonely missionaries, so often disheartened, so tired, so far away. And mind you, if you have not begun doing all this, you are going to begin. When I went down to a parish which had not been very efficiently worked, I collected a number of girls into a club, and got them to come for their first service. I had just become Rector of Bethnal Green, and the committee of the club wrote: "DEAR RECTOR,--We think it our duty to inform you that in our opinion our club service was a _success_, and we beg you to have such a service for us every month _until further notice_."

Well now, those girls were starting their religious life; but when I go down now I find what I started as a little, tiny thing grown and grown and grown; those people whom I spoke to first are now grown women. It all goes on if you once make a good start. Therefore do take up, if you have never taken up before, this process of interceding. I am organising all the children in London this year in intercession for the war, and when we pour in a million children's prayers, is it not going to be a power which is going to bring down the blessing of Heaven on our cause?

4. Then we come to the fourth task of the priest.

The fourth work of a priest is to consecrate or _dedicate himself every day_. I do ask you to realise, as every day comes, what possibility there is in a day. There was a young Bishop who was consecrated the other day; I think he was the youngest Bishop consecrated. I knew him very well, and I had just one minute to write a note, and I wrote this, and he told me afterwards it had been more help to him than anything that had been sent to him. Therefore I pass it on to you: "Take one day at a time," I said, "and trust the HOLY SPIRIT to see you through." Now I believe that that is the real secret of spiritual life. Take one day at a time. Don't worry. Don't be thinking of all kinds of difficulties in future. Take one day at a time, and trust the HOLY SPIRIT to see you through. Dedicate every day and consecrate every day. Think over those whom you are going to meet during the day. Be prepared beforehand for the special temptations and difficulties of that particular day; remember that no day will ever come again, and that every day has to be lived out as a young priest of GOD. If every girl in Nottingham dedicated or consecrated herself every day like that--taking one day at a time, and trusting the HOLY SPIRIT to see her through--why, there would be a power of strength in this city which would astonish the world.

5. Then we come on to the fifth great priestly task of _service_. I was talking to a little boy of nine. His mother had turned his beautiful home into a hospital for wounded soldiers. She herself was girded, dressed as a nurse, and the little fellow was in bed, rather seedy that day, and I sat down on his bed at his mother's request to have a chat with him. He said: "I love, Bishop, having the soldiers here; we cannot go back to our old life after the war." There is nothing so good as a life lived out in service, every day helping other people, and, if we are going to carry nothing else away, we are going to carry away this, that there is nothing so valuable as service. Even the lad's mother, a rich woman, who had served for ten months as a nurse, said: "Had I only known, Bishop, what to do before, I should have done it. This ten months has been the most delightful service to me I have ever had in my life." How can you girls, working girls many of you, serve in your daily life? All the work you do for the nation in the great factories of Nottingham, done honestly and straightforwardly, as young priests, with no bad language or bad stories allowed amongst you, is all recognised, and all blessed as part of your priestly service. But you can do more than that. I find again and again that in London the best Sunday School teachers, the best girl guides, the best members of the League of Honour there, are hard-working girls. Their service has gone beyond their professional work, and they also use their leisure time at home. They are the best girls at home their mothers ever had. I remember a father saying to me: "Mr. Ingram, I'm not much of a churchgoer myself"--he did not come at all, as a matter of fact--"but I will say this, that my boy as does go is the best boy I have got." What we want them to say about the girl who goes to church or chapel is: "She is the best girl we have got at home, the most willing, the most satisfactory, and the most loving."

There, then, you have the five priestly functions to discharge, and you have got to discharge them "_for their sakes_," as well as for your own.

For whose sake?

First for the sake of the boys, who are dead. There is a beautiful poem about the other world, which was given me the other day, and which I pass on to you in the hope that it may bring a little cheer in the dark night to any present who have lost their brothers, any mothers who have lost their sons.

"Lest Heaven be for the greybeards hoary, GOD, who made boys for His delight, Goes in earth's hour of grief and glory, And calls the boys in from the night. When they come trooping from the War Our skies have many a new gold star.

"Heaven's thronged with gay and careless faces, New waked from dreams of dreadful things. They walk by green and pleasant places And by the crystal water-springs; Forget the nightmare field of slain, And the fierce thirst and the strong pain.

"Forget? GOD smiles to see them merry, For His own SON was once a boy; They never shall be old and weary, But of their youth shall have great joy, And in the playing fields of Heaven Shall run and leap, new-washed, new-shriven.

"Now Heaven's by golden boys invaded, 'Scaped from the winter and the storm; Stainless and simple as He made it GOD keeps the boy's heart out of harm. The wise old Saints look down and smile, They are so young and without guile.

"Oh, if the sonless mothers weeping, The widowed girls, could look inside The Country that hath them in keeping Who went to the Great War and died, They'd rise and put their mourning off, Praise GOD, and say, 'He has enough!'"[24]

[24] Katharine Tynan.

Secondly, it is for the boys who will come home that you have your five priestly functions to discharge. They will come home very different to what they went out. I saw this wonderful transforming power as I went down the lines. Boys came out of the trenches, with the mud upon their puttees, knelt down and asked me to confirm them, thirty at a time (of course they had been previously prepared by the Chaplains).

Many came to other services. They sang "When I survey the wondrous Cross," while the guns thundered close by, with a reality which it was impossible to mistake. Are they coming back to irreligious girls, to careless sweethearts, careless sisters who neglect their religion, to girls who would drag them down? No. Let us have here a country and a Church worthy of its defenders, to which they can return. Let us have such a work going on at home, side by side and step by step with what is going on in Flanders and the Dardanelles, that when they come back they may find a changed England at home. For their sakes you must sanctify yourselves--for the sake, too, of the little sister who looks to you as her model and her example. You have more influence over her, perhaps, than anyone else in the house, except her mother. For her sake be a priest of GOD, and--I say it without the least sense of immodesty--also for the sake of the children who are to be. I speak to-night to the future mothers of the children of Nottingham, and it makes all the difference to the young mother, as she looks round her children, and, when they grow older, tries to influence her growing sons and daughters, whether she can look them in the face without shame and without a blush, and is only asking them to do what she tried to do herself before she was married. For the sake of the children to be, exercise this glorious priesthood. If you do you will ennoble Nottingham by your action. You will make it a city set upon a hill; and "a city set upon a hill cannot be hid."

IV

TO BOYS

THE EFFECT OF THE HOLY GHOST ON HUMAN CHARACTER[25]

[25] Preached in Marlborough College Chapel. The text is based upon the report taken by the _Marlborough Times_, kindly lent for this purpose.

"For he was a good man, and full of the HOLY GHOST and of faith."--ACTS xi. 24.

I need not tell you, not only how much I look forward to my Marlborough day, but also how much I have thought as to what message I would give you. When I think of the many to whom I have preached at Marlborough year by year, of the three hundred now dead, of the hundreds more who are fighting, and of the fact that many of those to whom I am speaking would soon, if the war went on, be in the thick of it, I realise what a very solemn thing it is to come down to Marlborough and give a message to my old school.

I will tell you what made me choose this message. The fact that Whitsuntide this year comes on the same day as St. Barnabas' Day gives me a subject, the most solemn subject I have ever taken at Marlborough--viz., the effect of the HOLY GHOST upon human character. St. Barnabas was one of the most attractive characters in the New Testament, an example of attractive goodness. He was such a _gentleman_ in all he did, and therefore, if we could have produced in us, by the HOLY GHOST, the wonderful character that the HOLY GHOST produced in St. Barnabas, we might have that description used of us; just think what it would be for men to say of us--"He was a good man, full of the HOLY GHOST and of faith."

What, then, is the effect of the HOLY GHOST upon human character? You might say, "But do we have the falling of the HOLY GHOST, too?" Why did we have that hymn this morning, "Our blest Redeemer, ere He breathed"? I was asked to choose the hymns, and I chose that one because it so beautifully describes the indwelling of the HOLY GHOST on your Confirmation day, and that is what makes the School Confirmation the crowning event of the year. At Confirmation you have the falling of the HOLY GHOST in exactly the same way as happened in the early Church. Yesterday, for instance, I confirmed, under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, two hundred and thirty people of all ages. "What is the effect of the HOLY GHOST upon human character?" Some people imagine that what is called "doctrine" has no practical value. But is this true?

(1) The first thing that the HOLY GHOST does is to _convict the world of sin_. He shows people what they really are. You may have heard of the National Mission of Repentance and Hope, and wondered what it was. I will tell you. I have just come from a tour round twenty-four dioceses in support of that Mission. I do not for one moment understand by that Mission that we do not believe we are fighting GOD's battles in the war. I believe that those three hundred Old Marlburians who have fallen in the war have died as martyrs. I believe the world is being redeemed by precious blood again to-day, and that that precious blood is being mingled with _the_ Precious Blood. I believe also that the freedom of the world and the national honour are being saved to-day by the precious blood of our sons and brothers. It is, therefore, not because we do not believe we are doing the right thing in this war that we are engaged in this Mission; it is because we believe we are called to save the freedom of the world, and the national honour, and to see the Nailed Hand prevailing over the Mailed Fist, that we have to repent. Admiral Beatty said, in effect, that we should never win the war until the nations came back to GOD, and it is Lord Roberts (peace to his ashes, and glory to his memory!) who, just before he died, said we had got the men, the ammunition, and the guns now; what we wanted was the nation on its knees. And it is to bring the nation to its knees, back to GOD, that is the great object of the National Mission of Repentance and Hope. A messenger in connection with that Mission will very likely be sent down to Marlborough.

Meanwhile let the HOLY GHOST do His work. He is _the_ great Messenger, _the_ great Missioner. Ask the HOLY GHOST to show you yourselves as you really are. It is the hardest thing in the world to see this (easier for a boy than a grown-up man), but we cannot get on in the spiritual life unless we are shown ourselves as we are. If a light is shown into a darkened room, the dust is discernible on the furniture, and stains are seen where it was thought no stains were; and we cannot carry out the teaching of the Gospel, and cast the beam out of our own eye, until we have seen it. All progress really begins with humility.

We must therefore let the HOLY GHOST show us ourselves as we are. "What does GOD think of me?" should be the first question we should ask ourselves, and the HOLY GHOST will give us the answer. But that is only the first thing the HOLY GHOST does. If He left us there, contemplating our stains, our infirmities, and our sins, it would not be much of a message of a Gospel of Hope.

(2) No, the next beautiful work of the HOLY GHOST is that He takes CHRIST and shows Him to us. I paid a touching visit the other day to an old clergyman who, some people would have said, was past his work. He was ill and in lonely lodgings, and I went to see him. The old clergyman gave me a great lesson. Instead of complaining, of saying that he had been a failure, had been neglected and passed over, he said: "I hope I shall live a few years longer, Bishop, to preach the glorious Gospel." There he was, lonely, ill, passed over by the world, yet feeling the great joy of simply preaching the glorious Gospel. We are apt to get mechanical about our religion. Even in the lovely service here at Marlborough, we are sometimes--very often, perhaps--wandering in thought, and inclined to become mechanical in our religion. The HOLY GHOST makes it living. He takes of CHRIST, shows Him to us, and makes the whole thing real. Therefore, our second prayer should be that the HOLY GHOST will make religion a reality to us, make us understand the glory of the Incarnation, that GOD actually came to earth in mortal form, for our sakes.

(3) Thirdly, the HOLY GHOST is the Comforter. He comforts us and helps us to comfort other people. I remember, when I was at Marlborough last year, that I had several boys in to see me, one of them a little fellow who had lost his father in Gallipoli; and I tried to comfort him. The HOLY GHOST is the only Comforter. When one goes to a mother, as I have done, who has lost, perhaps, three sons (and in this connection we at Marlborough shall always think of the father and mother of those three splendid sons, the Woodroffes), one is at a loss to say anything; one cannot comfort them oneself, but has to depend upon the higher power; and my experience is that the HOLY GHOST brings the Balm of Gilead, which no earthly agency can produce, a heavenly balm of comfort for the mourners which enables us to go out and comfort others. There is no comforter better than the younger boy of a family, who, filled with the HOLY GHOST, goes home in the holidays to comfort his father and mother in the loss of an older son.

(4) But, of course, the old words "comfort" and "comforter," as applied to the HOLY GHOST, meant far more than we call "comfort." "Comfort" in the case of the HOLY GHOST, means far more than sympathy; it means fortitude, courage, inspiration. The comfort of the Comforter always strengthens; mere sympathy sometimes weakens. We have got to bring home the bright view of death, to produce a pride that "my boy, my brother, my husband, should have died." I believe that we have not anything like a bright enough view of death.

It is the Comforter that can make us believe that. It is the Comforter that can breathe fortitude into the splendid mothers and wives of England, and to the lads in the trenches, up to their knees in mud, facing danger every moment, that can bring fortitude to the nation; and it is the task of the Church to breathe fortitude to the nation to go on until the end.

(5) The HOLY GHOST has two more beautiful things to do for us, and is always ready to do them. The first of these is to guide us. The other day I heard the hurrying footsteps of a layman coming after me in the street as I was walking to a meeting. The layman, who told me that he was a churchwarden of one of the churches in the Diocese of London, and had never spoken to his Bishop before, asked for a message to give in an address. I gave him the same message I had given to a young Bishop some months before[26]: "Take one day at a time, and trust the HOLY SPIRIT to see you through." This is a great truth, and one which I will pass on to you, as you leave this place to take up your work in the larger world outside. I remember having asked a rich clergyman, at the beginning of a Sunday afternoon, whether he would go down and take a very poor parish in the East of London, where there was no money and the credit of the parish was very much shaken. He did not at first seem inclined to go, and, thinking nothing more about it at the time, I went into St. Paul's Cathedral, and preached upon the text, "Led by the SPIRIT of GOD." In the evening I received a pencilled note from the clergyman, stating that he had been in the Cathedral, that he was led by the SPIRIT of GOD to go to the parish. He went, and splendid work he did there. There is not one of you who need be left to your own guidance; the SPIRIT of GOD will lead every one, and guide you all your lives.

[26] Mentioned on p. 189.

(6) The sixth thing which the HOLY SPIRIT does for you is to pray _in you_. It is not very easy to pray. I expect many of you get a bit disheartened about your prayers; you kneel when "Preces" are called in dormitory, and get up feeling cold and dead, and that it is sometimes rather a matter of form. Prayer does not depend upon feeling; we ought to pray in the belief that the HOLY GHOST will pray in us, and in that way GOD calls to GOD, the deep calls to the deep, and the smallest boy in the School is able to share the supreme energy of GOD.

You see, therefore, that this doctrine or truth about the HOLY GHOST is the most practical thing in the world. Resolve to-day that you will really make your bodies temples of the HOLY GHOST. The boy who is filled with the HOLY GHOST will be the merriest boy in the School and the pluckiest at games; he will always be chivalrous and unselfish, and there will be a something about him, besides, that will really breathe the presence of the Heavenly Spirit, who dwells in him. You must have a little more spiritual ambition, and all of you make your prayer that you may be, like St. Barnabas, "good men, full of the HOLY GHOST and of faith."

V

THE WAR AND RELIGION

THE WAR AND RELIGION

It was not until I had had a little correspondence with the Secretaries that I decided upon the subject for my address as "The War and Religion." I was very anxious not in the slightest degree to violate any canon expressed or unexpressed with regard to the subject of these addresses, and I think I can assure any in this audience who may have their doubts upon this matter that they will leave the hall without having their consciences offended in the slightest degree, even if they may profoundly disagree with the conclusions to which I may come. And I am encouraged in saying this by a little incident which occurs every year. I am Visitor of Queen's College in Harley Street, founded entirely by the influence of Frederick Denison Maurice, and it is my pleasant duty to give the girl members of it an annual address. My subject, at their special request, is always Religion; and although quite a large proportion are Jewish girls, I find that they look upon me in after life as quite as much their friend as the others, and come to me in their troubles, and they prefer that I shall speak to them out of the deepest convictions of my heart, rather than offer them some trite and colourless observations which mean nothing.

After all, there is great truth in the proverb that "the shoemaker should stick to his last," and it cannot be entirely without purpose that apparently about once in five years an ecclesiastic is brought on to the scene here in his plain and sober raiment amid the glittering galaxy of Generals and actors and scientists and other distinguished men who in other years fill this distinguished office. I have this summer had the high privilege of visiting every battleship, battle cruiser, and most of the smaller ships of the Grand Fleet of Great Britain, and the thousands of sailors I addressed instantly caught the idea that of course I came to represent "Religion." I told an East-End story which appealed at once to the lower deck, so many of whom come from places like Bethnal Green, Poplar, Stepney, and similar localities at Portsmouth and Chatham. A rather shy East-End curate, on knocking at a door, heard a voice from the wash-tub at the back ask in a shrill voice, "Well, Sally, who is it?" and was rather depressed to hear Sally shriek back, "Please, mother, _it's religion_." But, as I told the sailors, my invariable advice to such a man is this, "Don't be ashamed of representing religion; you were not dressed in a pudding hat and a dog collar and a long black coat to talk about the weather."