Omelie di John Henry Newman

The Religion of the Pharisee, the Religion of Mankind

"O God, be merciful to me, a sinner." Luke xviii. 13.

{15} THESE words set before us what may be called the characteristic mark of the Christian Religion, as contrasted with the various forms of worship and schools of belief, which in early or in later times have spread over the earth. They are a confession of sin and a prayer for mercy. Not indeed that the notion of transgression and of forgiveness was introduced by Christianity, and is unknown beyond its pale; on the contrary, most observable it is, the symbols of guilt and pollution, and rites of deprecation and expiation, are more or less common to them all; but what is peculiar to our divine faith, as to Judaism before it, is this, that confession of sin enters into the idea of its highest saintliness, and that its pattern worshippers and the very heroes of its {16} history are only, and can only be, and cherish in their hearts the everlasting memory that they are, and carry with them into heaven the rapturous avowal of their being, redeemed, restored transgressors. Such an avowal is not simply wrung from the lips of the neophyte, or of the lapsed; it is not the cry of the common run of men alone, who are buffeting with the surge of temptation in the wide world; it is the hymn of saints, it is the triumphant ode sounding from the heavenly harps of the Blessed before the Throne, who sing to their Divine Redeemer, "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God in Thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation."
And what is to the Saints above a theme of never-ending thankfulness, is, while they are yet on earth, the matter of their perpetual humiliation. Whatever be their advance in the spiritual life, they never rise from their knees, they never cease to beat their breasts, as if sin could possibly be strange to them while they were in the flesh. Even our Lord Himself, the very Son of God in human nature, and infinitely separate from sin,—even His Immaculate Mother, encompassed by His grace from the first beginnings of her existence, and without any part of the original stain,—even they, as descended from Adam, were subjected at least to death, the direct, emphatic punishment of sin. And much more, even the most favoured of that glorious company, whom He has washed clean in His Blood; they never forget what they were by birth; they confess, one and all, that they are children of Adam, and of the same nature as their brethren, and compassed with infirmities {17} while in the flesh, whatever may be the grace given them and their own improvement of it. Others may look up to them, but they ever look up to God; others may speak of their merits, but they only speak of their defects. The young and unspotted, the aged and most mature, he who has sinned least, he who has repented most, the fresh innocent brow, and the hoary head, they unite in this one litany, "O God, be merciful to me, a sinner." So it was with St. Aloysius; so, on the other hand, was it with St. Ignatius; so was it with St. Rose, the youngest of the saints, who, as a child, submitted her tender frame to the most amazing penances; so was it with St. Philip Neri, one of the most aged, who, when some one praised him, cried out, "Begone! I am a devil, and not a saint;" and when going to communicate, would protest before his Lord, that he "was good for nothing, but to do evil." Such utter self-prostration, I say, is the very badge and token of the servant of Christ;—and this indeed is conveyed in His own words, when He says, "I am not come to call the just, but sinners;" and it is solemnly recognized and inculcated by Him, in the words which follow the text, "Every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted."
This, you see, my Brethren, is very different from that merely general acknowledgment of human guilt, and of the need of expiation, contained in those old and popular religions, which have before now occupied, or still occupy, the world. In them, guilt is an attribute of individuals, or of particular places, or of particular acts of nations, of bodies politic or their rulers, for whom, {18} in consequence, purification is necessary. Or it is the purification of the worshipper, not so much personal as ritual, before he makes his offering, and an act of introduction to his religious service. All such practices indeed are remnants of true religion, and tokens and witnesses of it, useful both in themselves and in their import; but they do not rise to the explicitness and the fulness of the Christian doctrine. "There is not any man just." "All have sinned, and do need the glory of God." "Not by the works of justice, which we have done, but according to His mercy." The disciples of other worships and other philosophies thought and think, that the many indeed are bad, but the few are good. As their thoughts passed on from the ignorant and erring multitude to the select specimens of mankind, they left the notion of guilt behind, and they pictured for themselves an idea of truth and wisdom, perfect, indefectible, and self-sufficient. It was a sort of virtue without imperfection, which took pleasure in contemplating itself, which needed nothing, and which was, from its own internal excellence, sure of a reward. Their descriptions, their stories of good and religious men, are often beautiful, and admit of an instructive interpretation; but in themselves they have this great blot, that they make no mention of sin, and that they speak as if shame and humiliation were no properties of the virtuous. I will remind you, my Brethren, of a very beautiful story, which you have read in a writer of antiquity; and the more beautiful it is, the more it is fitted for my present purpose, for the defect in it will come out the more strongly by the very contrast, viz., {19} the defect that, though in some sense it teaches piety, humility it does not teach. I say, when the Psalmist would describe the happy man, he says, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin." Such is the blessedness of the Gospel; but what is the blessedness of the religions of the world? A celebrated Greek sage once paid a visit to a prosperous king of Lydia, who, after showing him all his greatness and his glory, asked him whom he considered to have the happiest lot, of all men whom he had known. On this, the philosopher, passing by the monarch himself, named a countryman of his own, as fulfilling his typical idea of human perfection. The most blessed of men, he said, was Tellus of Athens, for he lived in a flourishing city, and was prospered in his children, and in their families; and then at length when war ensued with a border state, he took his place in the battle, repelled the enemy, and died gloriously, being buried at the public expense where he fell, and receiving public honours. When the king asked who came next to him in Solon's judgment, the sage went on to name two brothers, conquerors at the games, who, when the oxen were not forthcoming, drew their mother, who was priestess, to the temple, to the great admiration of the assembled multitude; and who, on her praying for them the best of possible rewards, after sacrificing and feasting, lay down to sleep in the temple, and never rose again. No one can deny the beauty of these pictures; but it is for that reason I select them; they are the pictures of men who were not supposed to have any grave account to settle {20} with heaven, who had easy duties, as they thought, and who fulfilled them.
Now perhaps you will ask me, my Brethren, whether this heathen idea of religion be not really higher than that which I have called pre-eminently Christian; for surely to obey in simple tranquillity and unsolicitous confidence, is the noblest conceivable state of the creature, and the most acceptable worship he can pay to the Creator. Doubtless it is the noblest and most acceptable worship; such has ever been the worship of the angels; such is the worship now of the spirits of the just made perfect; such will be the worship of the whole company of the glorified after the general resurrection. But we are engaged in considering the actual state of man, as found in this world; and I say, considering what he is, any standard of duty, which does not convict him of real and multiplied sins, and of incapacity to please God of his own strength, is untrue; and any rule of life, which leaves him contented with himself, without fear, without anxiety, without humiliation, is deceptive; it is the blind leading the blind: yet such, in one shape or other, is the religion of the whole earth, beyond the pale of the Church.
The natural conscience of man, if cultivated from within, if enlightened by those external aids which in varying degrees are given him in every place and time, would teach him much of his duty to God and man, and would lead him on, by the guidance both of Providence and grace, into the fulness of religious knowledge; but, generally speaking, he is contented that it should tell him very little, and he makes no efforts to gain any {21} juster views than he has at first, of his relations to the world around him and to his Creator. Thus he apprehends part, and part only, of the moral law; has scarcely any idea at all of sanctity; and, instead of tracing actions to their source, which is the motive, and judging them thereby, he measures them for the most part by their effects and their outward aspect. Such is the way with the multitude of men everywhere and at all times; they do not see the Image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He wishes: if once they did this, they would begin to see how much He requires, and they would earnestly come to Him, both to be pardoned for what they do wrong, and for the power to do better. And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves. For that contracted, defective range of duties, which falls so short of God's law, is just what they can fulfil; or rather they choose it, and keep to it, because they can fulfil it. Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient;—they think they know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and in consequence they are very well content with themselves, and rate their merit very high, and have no fear at all of any future scrutiny into their conduct, which may befall them, though their religion mainly lies in certain outward observances, and not a great number even of them.
So it was with the Pharisee in this day's gospel. He looked upon himself with great complacency, for the very reason that the standard was so low, and the range so narrow, which he assigned to his duties towards God and man. He used, or misused, the traditions in which he {22} had been brought up, to the purpose of persuading himself that perfection lay in merely answering the demands of society. He professed, indeed, to pay thanks to God, but he hardly apprehended the existence of any direct duties on his part towards his Maker. He thought he did all that God required, if he satisfied public opinion. To be religious, in the Pharisee's sense, was to keep the peace towards others, to take his share in the burdens of the poor, to abstain from gross vice, and to set a good example. His alms and fastings were not done in penance, but because the world asked for them; penance would have implied the consciousness of sin; whereas it was only Publicans, and such as they, who had anything to be forgiven. And these indeed were the outcasts of society, and despicable; but no account lay against men of well-regulated minds such as his: men who were well-behaved, decorous, consistent, and respectable. He thanked God he was a Pharisee, and not a penitent.
Such was the Jew in our Lord's day; and such the heathen was, and had been. Alas! I do not mean to affirm that it was common for the poor heathen to observe even any religious rule at all; but I am speaking of the few and of the better sort: and these, I say, commonly took up with a religion like the Pharisee's, more beautiful perhaps and more poetical, but not at all deeper or truer than his. They did not indeed fast, or give alms, or observe the ordinances of Judaism; they threw over their meagre observances a philosophical garb, and embellished them with the refinements of a cultivated intellect; still their notion of moral and religious {23} duty was as shallow as that of the Pharisee, and the sense of sin, the habit of self-abasement, and the desire of contrition, just as absent from their minds as from his. They framed a code of morals which they could without trouble obey; and then they were content with it and with themselves. Virtue, according to Xenophon, one of the best principled and most religious of their writers, and one who had seen a great deal of the world, and had the opportunity of bringing together in one the highest thoughts of many schools and countries,—virtue, according to him, consists mainly in command of the appetites and passions, and in serving others in order that they may serve us. He says, in the well known Fable, called the choice of Hercules, that Vice has no real enjoyment even of those pleasures which it aims at; that it eats before it is hungry, and drinks before it is thirsty, and slumbers before it is wearied. It never hears, he says, that sweetest of voices, its own praise; it never sees that greatest luxury among sights, its own good deeds. It enfeebles the bodily frame of the young, and the intellect of the old. Virtue, on the other hand, rewards young men with the praise of their elders, and it rewards the aged with the reverence of youth; it supplies them pleasant memories and present peace; it secures the favour of heaven, the love of friends, a country's thanks, and, when death comes, an everlasting renown. In all such descriptions, virtue is something external; it is not concerned with motives or intentions; it is occupied in deeds which bear upon society, and which gain the praise of men; it has little to do with conscience and the Lord of conscience; and {24} knows nothing of shame, humiliation, and penance. It is in substance the Pharisee's religion, though it be more graceful and more interesting.
Now this age is as removed in distance, as in character, from that of the Greek philosopher; yet who will say that the religion which it acts upon is very different from the religion of the heathen? Of course I understand well, that it might know, and that it will say, a great many things foreign and contrary to heathenism. I am well aware that the theology of this age is very different from what it was two thousand years ago. I know men profess a great deal, and boast that they are Christians, and speak of Christianity as being a religion of the heart; but, when we put aside words and professions, and try to discover what their religion is, we shall find, I fear, that the great mass of men in fact get rid of all religion that is inward; that they lay no stress on acts of faith, hope, and charity, on simplicity of intention, purity of motive, or mortification of the thoughts; that they confine themselves to two or three virtues, superficially practised; that they know not the words contrition, penance, and pardon; and that they think and argue that, after all, if a man does his duty in the world, according to his vocation, he cannot fail to go to heaven, however little he may do besides, nay, however much, in other matters, he may do that is undeniably unlawful. Thus a soldier's duty is loyalty, obedience, and valour, and he may let other matters take their chance; a trader's duty is honesty; an artisan's duty is industry and contentment; of a gentleman are required veracity, courteousness, {25} and self-respect; of a public man, high-principled ambition; of a woman, the domestic virtues; of a minister of religion, decorum, benevolence, and some activity. Now, all these are instances of mere Pharisaical excellence; because there is no apprehension of Almighty God, no insight into His claims on us, no sense of the creature's shortcomings, no self-condemnation, confession, and deprecation, nothing of those deep and sacred feelings which ever characterize the religion of a Christian, and more and more, not less and less, as he mounts up from mere ordinary obedience to the perfection of a saint.
And such, I say, is the religion of the natural man in every age and place;—often very beautiful on the surface, but worthless in God's sight; good, as far as it goes, but worthless and hopeless, because it does not go further, because it is based on self-sufficiency, and results in self-satisfaction. I grant, it may be beautiful to look at, as in the instance of the young ruler whom our Lord looked at and loved, yet sent away sad; it may have all the delicacy, the amiableness, the tenderness, the religious sentiment, the kindness, which is actually seen in many a father of a family, many a mother, many a daughter, in the length and breadth of these kingdoms, in a refined and polished age like this; but still it is rejected by the heart-searching God, because all such persons walk by their own light, not by the True Light of men, because self is their supreme teacher, and because they pace round and round in the small circle of their own thoughts and of their own judgments, careless to know what God says to them, and fearless of being condemned by Him, {26} if only they stand approved in their own sight. And thus they incur the force of those terrible words, spoken not to a Jewish Ruler, nor to a heathen philosopher, but to a fallen Christian community, to the Christian Pharisees of Laodicea,—"Because thou sayest I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; I counsel thee to buy of Me gold fire-tried, that thou mayest be made rich, and be clothed in white garments, that thy shame may not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise; be zealous, therefore, and do penance."
Yes, my Brethren, it is the ignorance of our understanding, it is our spiritual blindness, it is our banishment from the presence of Him who is the source and the standard of all Truth, which is the cause of this meagre, heartless religion of which men are commonly so proud. Had we any proper insight into things as they are, had we any real apprehension of God as He is, of ourselves as we are, we should never dare to serve Him without fear, or to rejoice unto Him without trembling. And it is the removal of this veil which is spread between our eyes and heaven, it is the pouring in upon the soul of the illuminating grace of the New Covenant, which makes the religion of the Christian so different from that of the various human rites and philosophies, which are spread over the earth. The Catholic saints alone confess sin, because the Catholic saints alone see God. That awful Creator Spirit, of whom the Epistle of this day speaks so much, He it is who brings into {27} religion the true devotion, the true worship, and changes the self-satisfied Pharisee into the broken-hearted, self-abased Publican. It is the sight of God, revealed to the eye of faith, that makes us hideous to ourselves, from the contrast which we find ourselves to present to that great God at whom we look. It is the vision of Him in His infinite gloriousness, the All-holy, the All-beautiful, the All-perfect, which makes us sink into the earth with self-contempt and self-abhorrence. We are contented with ourselves till we contemplate Him. Why is it, I say, that the moral code of the world is so precise and well-defined? Why is the worship of reason so calm? Why was the religion of classic heathenism so joyous? Why is the framework of civilized society all so graceful and so correct? Why, on the other hand, is there so much of emotion, so much of conflicting and alternating feeling, so much that is high, so much that is abased, in the devotion of Christianity? It is because the Christian, and the Christian alone, has a revelation of God; it is because he has upon his mind, in his heart, on his conscience, the idea of one who is Self-dependent, who is from Everlasting, who is Incommunicable. He knows that One alone is holy, and that His own creatures are so frail in comparison of Him, that they would dwindle and melt away in His presence, did He not uphold them by His power. He knows that there is One whose greatness and whose blessedness are not affected, the centre of whose stability is not moved, by the presence or the absence of the whole creation with its innumerable beings and portions; whom nothing can touch, nothing can increase or diminish; who was as mighty before He {28} made the worlds as since, and as serene and blissful since He made them as before. He knows that there is just One Being, in whose hand lies his own happiness, his own sanctity, his own life, and hope, and salvation. He knows that there is One to whom he owes every thing, and against whom he can have no plea or remedy. All things are nothing before Him; the highest beings do but worship Him the more; the holiest beings are such, only because they have a greater portion of Him.
Ah! what has he to pride in now, when he looks back upon himself? Where has fled all that comeliness which heretofore he thought embellished him? What is he but some vile reptile, which ought to shrink aside out of the light of day? This was the feeling of St. Peter, when he first gained a glimpse of the greatness of his Master, and cried out, almost beside himself, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" It was the feeling of holy Job, though he had served God for so many years, and had been so perfected in virtue, when the Almighty answered him from the whirlwind: "With the hearing of the ear I have heard Thee," he said; "but now my eye seeth Thee; therefore I reprove myself, and do penance in dust and ashes." So was it with Isaias, when he saw the vision of the Seraphim, and said, "Woe is me ... I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of Hosts." So was it with Daniel, when, even at the sight of an Angel, sent from God, "there remained no strength in him, but the appearance of his countenance was changed in him, and {29} he fainted away, and retained no strength." This then, my Brethren, is the reason why every son of man, whatever be his degree of holiness, whether a returning prodigal or a matured saint, says with the Publican, "O God, be merciful to me;" it is because created natures, high and low, are all on a level in the sight and in comparison of the Creator, and so all of them have one speech, and one only, whether it be the thief on the cross, Magdalen at the feast, or St. Paul before his martyrdom:—not that one of them may not have, what another has not, but that one and all have nothing but what comes from Him, and are as nothing before Him, who is all in all.
For us, my dear Brethren, whose duties lie in this seat of learning and science, may we never be carried away by any undue fondness for any human branch of study, so as to be forgetful that our true wisdom, and nobility, and strength, consist in the knowledge of Almighty God. Nature and man are our studies, but God is higher than all. It is easy to lose Him in His works. It is easy to become over-attached to our own pursuit, to substitute it for religion, and to make it the fuel of pride. Our secular attainments will avail us nothing, if they be not subordinate to religion. The knowledge of the sun, moon, and stars, of the earth and its three kingdoms, of the classics, or of history, will never bring us to heaven. We may "thank God," that we are not as the illiterate and the dull; and those whom we despise, if they do but know how to ask mercy of Him, know what is very much more to the purpose of getting {30} to heaven, than all our letters and all our science. Let this be the spirit in which we end our session. Let us thank Him for all that He has done for us, for what He is doing by us; but let nothing that we know or that we can do, keep us from a personal, individual adoption of the great Apostle's words, "Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief."
(10th Sunday after Pentecost, 1856. Preached in the University Church, Dublin.)

The Secret Power of Divine Grace

"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke xvii. 20, 21.

{47} WHAT our Lord announces in these words, came to pass: and we commemorate it to this day, especially at this season of the year . The kingdom of God was inaugurated by the Apostles, and spread rapidly. It filled the world: it took possession of the high places of the earth; but it came and progressed without "observation." All other kingdoms that ever were, have sounded a trumpet before them, and have challenged attention. They have come out "with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield." They have been the ravenous beast from the north, the swift eagle, or the swarming locusts. In the words of the Prophet, "Before them a devouring {48} fire, and behind them a burning flame. The appearance of them has been as the appearance of horses, and they ran like horsemen ... And the noise of their wings was as the noise of chariots and many horses running to battle." Such has ever been the coming of earthly power; and a Day will be, when that also will have a fulfilment and find its antitype in the history of heaven; for, when our Lord comes again, He too will come "with the word of command, and with the voice of an Archangel, and with the trumpet of God." This will be with observation; so will He end; so did He not begin His Church upon earth; for it had been foretold of Him, "He shall not contend nor cry out; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. The bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He shall not extinguish, till He send forth judgment unto victory."
And that noiseless, unostentatious conquest of the earth, made by the Holy Apostles of Christ, became, as regards the Jews, still more secret, from the circumstance that they believed it would be with outward show, though He assured them of the contrary. The Pharisees looked out for some sign from heaven. They would not believe that His kingdom could come, unless they saw it come; they looked out for a prince with troops in battle array; and since He came with twelve poor men and no visible pomp, He was to them as a "thief in the night," because of their incredulity, and He was come and in possession before they would allow that He was coming.
But the coming of His kingdom would anyhow have been secret, even though they had not been resolved that it should not be so. And He tells us in the text the {49} reason why. "Neither shall they say, Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you." You see, He tells us why He came so covertly. It could not be otherwise, because it was a conquest, not of the body, but of the heart. It was not an assault from without, but it was an inward influence not subduing the outward man through the senses, but, in the words of the Apostle, "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ." Kingdoms of this world spread in space and time; they begin from a point, and they travel onwards, and range round. Their course may be traced: first they secure this territory, then they compass that. They make their ground good, as they go, and consolidate their power. Of course, the kingdom of Christ also, as being in this world, has an outward shape, and fortunes, and a history, like institutions of this world, though it be not of this world. It began from Jerusalem, and went forward to Scythia and to Africa, to India and to Britain; and it has ranks and officers and laws; it observes a strict discipline, and exacts an implicit obedience: but still this is not the full account, or the true process, of its rise and establishment. "The weapons of its warfare were not carnal;" it came by an inward and intimate visitation; by outward instruments, indeed, but with effects far higher than those instruments; with preaching and argument and discussion, but really by God's own agency. He who is Omnipotent and Omniscient, touched many hearts at once and in many places. They forthwith, one and all, spoke one language, not learning it one from the other so much as taught by Himself the canticle of the Lamb: or, if by men's teaching too, yet {50} catching and mastering it spontaneously, almost before the words were spoken. For time and space, cause and effect, are the servants of His will.
And so, voices broke out all at once into His praise, in the East and in the West, in the North and in the South: and the perplexed world searched about in vain, whence came that concord of sweet and holy sounds. Upon the first word of the preacher, upon a hint, upon a mere whisper in the air, a deep response came from many lips,—a deep, full, and ready harmony of many voices one and all proclaiming the Saviour of men. For the Spirit of the Lord had descended and filled the earth; and there were thrilling hearts, and tremulous pulses, and eager eyes, in every place. It was a time of visitation when the weak were to become strong, and the last become first. It was the triumph of faith, which delays not, but accepts generously and promptly,—according to the Scripture, "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart; this is the word of faith which we preach." And thus, as Nineveh and Babylon were surprised of old by the army of the enemy, so was the world thus surprised by Him, who, in prophetic language, rode upon a white horse and was called "Faithful and True"; and, as it befell Egypt at the first Pasch, that there was not a house where there lay not one dead, so now, on this more gracious Passage there was not a house where there was not one alive. For the Highest had come down among them, and was everywhere; the Lord of Angels was walking the earth; He was scattering His gifts freely, and multiplying His Image: and, in this sense, as well as in that in which He spoke the words, "a man's {51} enemies were they of his own household." The despised, the hated influence insinuated itself everywhere; the leaven spread, and none could stay it; and in the most unlikely places, in the family of the haughty and fierce soldier, amid the superstitions of idolatry and the degradations of slavery, the noblest, and the ablest, and the fairest, as well as the brutish and the ignorant, one and all, by a secret power, became the prey of the Church and the bondsmen of Christ. And thus a great and wide-spreading kingdom flushed into existence all at once, like spring after winter, from within.
Such were the immediate concomitants of the first coming of Him, who was "the most abject of men," and "acquainted with infirmity," and whose "look was as it were hidden and despised," and "as one struck by God and afflicted." As the prophecy goes on to say, "He divided the spoil of the strong"; and if you ask me, my Brethren, how it was that He did this marvel? what was the way and the instrument of His grace in His dealings with the spirits which He had created?—I answer in brief, by referring back to the past history of our race. It is certain that man is not sufficient for his own happiness, that he is not himself, is not at home with himself, without the presence within him of the grace of Him who, knowing it, has offered that grace to all freely. When he was created, then his Maker breathed into him the supernatural life of the Holy Spirit, which is his true happiness; when he fell, he forfeited the divine gift, and with it his happiness also. Ever since he has been unhappy; ever since he has felt a void in his breast, and does not know how to satisfy it. He scarcely apprehends {52} his own need; only the unstudied, involuntary movement of his mind and heart show that he feels it, for he is either languid, dull, or apathetic under this hunger, or he is feverish and restless, seeking first in one thing, then in another, that blessing which he has lost. For a time, perhaps even till old age comes, he continues to form to himself some idol on which he may feed, and sustain some sort of existence, just as the weeds of the field or the innutritious earth may allay the pangs of famine. One man determines to rise in life, another is wrapt up in his family. Numbers get through the day and the year with the alternation of routine business and holyday recreation. Rich men are lavish in pomp and show; poor men give themselves to intemperance; the young give themselves up to sensual pleasures. They cannot live without an object of life, though it be an object unworthy of an immortal spirit.
Is it wonderful then, that, when the True Life, the very supply of the need of mankind, was again offered them in its fulness, that it should have carried power with it to persuade them to accept it? Is it wonderful that its announcement should have startled them, that its offer should have drawn them, that a first trial and a first fruit of the gift should have made them desirous of further and larger measures of it? This, then, is the secret of the triumph of the unearthly kingdom of God among the self-willed, self-wise children of Adam. Soldiers of this world receive their bounty-money on enlisting. They take it, and become the servants of an earthly prince; shall not they, much more, {53} be faithful, yes, even unto the death, who have received the earnest of the true riches, who have been fed with "the hidden manna," who have, in the Apostle's words, "been once illuminated, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come"? And thus it is that the kingdom of God spreads externally over the earth, because it has an internal hold upon us, because, in the words of the text, "it is within us," in the hearts of its individual members. Bystanders marvel; strangers try to analyze what it is that does the work; they imagine all manner of human reasons and natural causes to account for it, because they cannot see, and do not feel, and will not believe, what is in truth a supernatural influence; and they impute to some caprice or waywardness of mind, or to the force of novelty, or to some mysterious, insidious persuasiveness, or to some foreign enemy, or to some dark and subtle plotting, and they view with alarm, and they fain would baffle, what is nothing else but the keen, vivid, constraining glance of Christ's countenance. "The Lord, turning, looked on Peter:" and "as the lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even unto the west," such is the piercing, soul-subduing look of the Son of man. It is come, it is gone, it has done its work, its abiding work, and the world is at fault to account for it. It sees the result; it has not perceived, it has not eyes to see, the Divine Hand.
Nay, not the world only, but the Church herself, is oftentimes surprised, I may say, even perplexed, at the operation of that grace which is without observation, and at the miraculous multiplication of her children. The {54} net of Peter seems about to break, from the multitude of fishes, and is hard to draw to shore. So was it singularly in the first age, in the issues of that glorious history of primitive conversion on which I have been dwelling. "The Lord added daily to their society," says the text, "such as should be saved." This process went on for three centuries; then came a most bitter and horrible persecution; at length it ceased; and then with awful abruptness, rushing upon the wings of the wind, the overwhelming news was heard, that the Lord of the earth, the Roman Emperor, had become a Christian, and all his multitude of nations with him. What an announcement! no human hand did it—no human instrument of it, preacher or apologist, can be pointed out. It was not "Behold here, or behold there"—it was the secret power of God acting directly without observation upon the hearts of men. All of a sudden, when least expected, in the deep night of persecution, "as a thief," He came. All of a sudden, the Rulers of the Church had upon their hands the gigantic task, to which she alone was equal, that of bringing into shape and consistency a whole world. The event, and the almost fearful grandeur of it, had been visibly described by prophecy a thousand years before it. "Lift up thy eyes round about," was the word of promise to the Church; "lift up thy eyes, and see. All these are gathered together, they are come to thee. Thou shalt be clothed with all these as with an ornament, and as a bride thou shalt put them about thee. The children of thy barrenness shall still say in thy ears, The place is too strait for me, make me room to dwell in. And thou shalt say in thy {55} heart, Who hath begotten these? I was barren and brought not forth, led away, and captive, and who hath brought up these? I was destitute and alone; and these, where were they? Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I will lift up My hand to the Gentiles, and will set up My standard to the people. And they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and carry thy daughters upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nurses. They shall worship thee with their face towards the earth, and they shall lick up the dust of thy feet."
My Brethren, you know our Lord spoke, when He went away, of coming back, not only suddenly, but soon. Well, in the sense in which I have been speaking, He is ever coming. Again and again He comes to His Church; He ever comes as a strong warrior, bringing in with Him fresh and fresh captives of His arrows and His spear. That same marvel of an inward work in the souls of men on a large scale, which He wrought at the first, He is ever reiterating and renewing in the history of the Church down to this day. Multitudes are ever pouring into her, as the fish into Peter's net, beyond her own thought and her own act, by the immediate and secret operation of His grace. This is emphatically the case now. It is seen on a large scale all over Christendom. Fifty years ago religion seemed almost extinguished. To the eyes of man, it was simply declining and wasting away all through the last century. There were indeed in that century saints and doctors and zealous preachers and faithful populations, as heretofore, but these the world could not see. The political power and social {56} influence of religion was ever less and less; and then at last a European revolution came, and in man's judgment all was lost. But in its deepest misfortunes began its most wonderful rise; a reaction set in, and steadily has it progressed, with every sign of progress still. And in its progress the same phenomenon, I say, reveals itself which we read of in the history of former times; for while the Holy Church has been praying and labouring on her own field, converts, beyond that field, whom she was not contemplating, have been added to her from all classes, as at the beginning. Germany and England, the special seats of her enemies, are the very scenes of this spontaneous accession. To the surprise of all that know them, often to their own surprise, those who fear the Church, or disown her doctrines, find themselves drawing near to her by some incomprehensible influence year after year, and at length give themselves up to her, and proclaim her sovereignty. Those who never spoke to a Catholic Priest, those who have never entered a Catholic Church, those even who have learned their religion from the Protestant Bible, have, in matter of fact, by the overruling Providence of God, been brought through that very reading to recognize the Mother of Saints. Her very name, her simple claim, constrains men to think of her, to enquire about her, to wish her to be what she says she is, to submit to her; not on any assignable reason, save the needs of human nature and the virtue of that grace, which works secretly, round about the Church, without observation.
My Brethren, there are those who imagine that, when we use great words of the Church, invest her with {57} heavenly privileges, and apply to her the evangelical promises, we speak merely of some external and political structure. They think we mean to spend our devotion upon a human cause, and that we toil for an object of human ambition. They think that we should acknowledge, if cross-examined, that our ultimate purpose was the success of persons and parties, to whom we were bound in honour, or by interest, or by gratitude; and that, if we looked to objects above the world or beyond the grave, we did so with very secondary aims and faint perceptions. They fancy, as the largest concession of their liberality, that we are working from the desire, generous, but still human, of the praise of earthly superiors, and that, after all, in some way or other, we are living on the breath, and basking in the smile, of man. But the text, and the train of thought which I have been pursuing, remind us of the true view of the matter, were we ever likely to forget it. The Church is a collection of souls, brought together in one by God's secret grace, though that grace comes to them through visible instruments, and unites them to a visible hierarchy. What is seen, is not the whole of the Church, but the visible part of it. When we say that Christ loves His Church, we mean that He loves, nothing of earthly nature, but the fruit of His own grace;—the varied fruits of His grace in innumerable hearts, viewed as brought together in unity of faith and love and obedience, of sacraments, and doctrine, and order, and worship. The object which He contemplates, which He loves in the Church, is not human nature simply, but human nature illuminated and renovated by His own supernatural {58} power. If He has called the visible Church His spouse, it is because she is the special seat of this divine gift. If He loved Peter, it was not simply because he was His Apostle, but because Peter had that intense, unearthly love of Him, and that faith which flesh and blood could not exercise, which were the fitting endowments of an Apostle. If He loved John, it was not as merely one of the Twelve, but because he again was adorned with the special gift of supernatural chastity. If He loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, it was not only as His friends and guests, but for their burning charity, and their pure contrition, and their self-sacrificing devotion. So it is now: what He creates, what He contemplates, what He loves, what He rewards, is (in St. Peter's words) "the hidden man of the heart," of which the visible Church is the expression, the protection, the instrumental cause, and the outward perfection.
And therefore, applying this great truth to our own circumstances, let us ever bear in mind, my Brethren, that we in this place are only then really strong, when we are more than we seem to be. It is not our attainments or our talents, it is not philosophy or science, letters or arts, which will make us dear to God. It is not secular favour, or civil position, which can make us worthy the attention and the interest of the true Christian. A great University is a great power, and can do great things; but, unless it be something more than human, it is but foolishness and vanity in the sight and in comparison of the little ones of Christ. It is really dead, though it seems to live, unless it be grafted upon the True Vine, and is partaker of the secret supernatural {59} life which circulates through the undecaying branches. "Unless the Lord build the House, they labour in vain that build it." Idle is our labour, worthless is our toil, ashes is our fruit, corruption is our reward, unless we begin the foundation of this great undertaking in faith and prayer, and sanctify it by purity of life.
(28th Sunday after Pentecost, 1856. Preached in the University Church, Dublin.)

Order, the Witness and Instrument of Unity

"And He sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. And He said to them: Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor scrip, nor bread, nor money; neither have two coats; and whatever house you shall enter into, abide there, and depart not from thence." Luke ix. 2-4.

{183} THESE words, taken from the Gospel which has just now found a place in the sacred solemnity in which we are at present engaged, may be called the ceremonial, with which the preachers of the New Law were ordered to go forward for the execution of their charitable work. In this point of view, as in other respects, they are remarkable words, as intimating to us how utterly contrary it is to the character and spirit of the Divine Appointments to do anything without order and prescription. If an occasion could be supposed on which external forms might have been dispensed with, surely it was then, {184} when the Disciples were to be wanderers on the face of the earth, to be whirled about as leaves by the rude blast, and to be accounted fortunate if they managed in their mission to secure themselves from torture and death. Yet even on that their first entrance into the regions of darkness and sin, ere the faithful had grown into an extended, and were formed into an organized body, ere they had secured vigour and weight sufficient to act upon the world, even in the Church's initiatory and provisional state, we find her furnished by her Divine Founder with canons and decrees for the first simple movements and actions of her ministers. Even in those rudimental efforts, the Apostle's rule is to be verified: "Non est dissentionis Deus sed pacis." He is not a God of confusion, of discordance, of accidental, random, private courses in the execution of His will, but of determinate, regulated, prescribed action. It might have seemed a matter of indifference how the Disciples addressed themselves to their missionary work; but no, they were to go forth "in pace, et in nomine Domini": their very dress, their carriage, and their journeying, were anticipated for them, and were to be of one kind, not of another.
All the works of God are founded on unity, for they are founded on Himself, who is the most awfully simple and transcendent of possible unities. He is emphatically One; and whereas He is also multiform in His attributes and His acts, as they present themselves to our minds, it follows that order and harmony must be of His very essence. To be many and distinct in His attributes, yet, after all, to be but one,—to be sanctity, justice, truth, love, power, wisdom, to be at once each of these as fully as if He were {185} nothing but it, as if the rest were not,—this implies in the Divine Nature an infinitely sovereign and utterly incomprehensible order, which is an attribute as wonderful as any, and the result of all the others. He is an infinite law, as well as an infinite power, wisdom, and love. Moreover, the very idea of order implies the idea of the subordinate. If order exists in the Divine Attributes, they must have relations one to another, and though each is perfect in itself, it must act so as not to impair the perfection of the rest, and must seem to yield to the rest on particular occasions. Thus God's power, indeed, is infinite, but it is still subordinate to His wisdom and His justice; His justice, again, is infinite, but it, too, is subordinate to His love; and His love, in turn, is infinite, but it is subordinate to His incommunicable sanctity. There is an understanding between attribute and attribute, so that one does not interfere with the other, for each is supreme in its own sphere; and thus an infinitude of infinities, acting each in its own order, are combined together in the infinitely simple unity of God.
Such is the unity, and consequent harmony and beauty of the Divine Nature, even when viewed in the lights which are supplied to us by the traditions of the human race and the investigations of the human intellect. But, wonderful as is that order and harmony, considered only in the way of nature, much more wonderful is it in the mysteries of Revelation. There we are introduced to the ineffable, the adorable, the most gracious dogma of a Trinity in Unity, which is what I may call the triumph of Unity over difficulties, which, to our limited faculties, seem like impossibilities and contradictions. How strong, {186} how severe, how infinitely indivisible, must be that Unity of God, which is not compromised by the truth of His being Three! How surpassing is that Unity of substance which remains untroubled and secure, though it is occupied and possessed wholly and unreservedly, not only by the Father, but also by the Son; not only by Father and Son, but by the Holy Ghost also! And, moreover, as there is a subordination, as I have said, of attribute to attribute, without any detriment to the infinitude of each of them individually, and this is the glory of the God of Nature; so also does an order, and, as I may say, a subordination exist between Person and Person, and this is the incommunicable glory of the God of Grace. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are all equal to Each Other in their Divinity, else They would not Each be the One God. Yet, true as it is, that not one of the Divine Persons is less infinite, less eternal, less all-sufficient, than the Other Two, it is true also that, in the history of the Everlasting mystery, the Father comes first in order, as the Fountain-head of Divinity; the Son second, as being the Offspring of the First; and the Holy Ghost third, as proceeding from the Father and the Son. And for this reason it would appear that the Second and Third Persons hold certain offices, such as that of mission, which are fitting only in Them. Hence it was fitting that the Son should be incarnate, and not the Father; and fitting that the Holy Ghost should be the energizing life, both of the animate and rational creation, rather than the Father or the Son.
Nay, further than this still: so dear to Almighty God is that principle of order and of law, which is a characteristic {187} of His glorious Essence, that, when He would reveal Himself to man, He even placed Himself under the conditions of an additional law, which did not belong to His nature, but was the mere creation of His will. He limited, as I may say, the range of His omnipotence by the obligation of His promise. Considered in Himself, He is, of course, in no respect a debtor to His creatures, nor answerable to them; there was no justice that could exist between them and Him; they could not profit Him; nor claim anything of Him; they were, in our Lord's words, but "servi inutiles"; yet the Almighty, after wonderfully calling into existence the rational creation, has more wonderfully placed it on a level with Himself. He has invested it with rights and titles. He has given it a power of meriting, and a ground for encountering and influencing His own determinations and acts. Henceforth, not only are His creatures bound but He also. "Dimitte Me," He said to Moses, on his pleading for Israel; "Let Me go," "Set Me free," "Do not stand in the way of My will," "Dimitte Me ut irascatur furor meus contra eos," "that My wrath may be kindled against them." He was restrained in the exercise of His attribute of justice by the necessity of faithfulness to His word; but what I remark is, that unless the notion of law, and of subjection to it, were elementary to the idea of the Divine Being, He never would have previously placed Himself in what (as in this instance) may be called a state of restraint. He voluntarily made promises and put Himself under engagements, from it being of His very nature to love order, and rule, and subordination for their own sake. {188}
Such being the teaching, both of nature and of grace, concerning the Almighty, it is not surprising that, whereas in all things our blessedness lies in being like Him, in this respect especially His pattern should be our duty and our good. The God of order has set up all creation upon unity, and therefore upon law. Time was when philosophists contended that all things went on at random; that the phenomena of the material world were the result of the blind dance of everlasting atoms, and that the beauty on the face of nature was no earnest or evidence of the existence of any systematic plan of which it was the result. Such a fancy is now simply despised and abandoned even by those who do not recognize the Divine Creator in His works. Even those who have no eyes to see the Omniscient and the Omnipotent, now ridicule and repudiate the idea of chance and hazard in the course of physical nature: for the further their investigations are carried into the material framework of the universe, the more certain is the existence, the more encompassing is the range, of order and of law. There is no unrestrained, no lawless freedom in the physical world,—after the pattern of its Maker. It is not, indeed, good as He is good, even in its own degree; for it is full of fault and imperfection, and might be better than it is. It is not wise as He is wise; rather it has no intelligence at all lodged in it. It is not stable as He is stable; but, on the contrary, it is ever in motion and ever on the change. But one attribute it has of God, without exception or defect, and that is the attribute of order. Here it is as perfect in its finite degree and after its kind, it is as simply the {189} manifestation of harmony and of law, as the infinite Creator Himself.
And so of the rational creation also, both in heaven and upon earth. The Angels have their hierarchy above; distributed into nine orders, they hymn the praises, and they fulfil the will, of the Omnipotent. And here below the history of mankind is founded upon the existence of society, and before and without formed political bodies there is no course of events to record. While men remain as savages, there is nothing to tell of them; nor is this all;—but the more accurately the history of the world can be investigated and put into shape, the more does it evidently appear to advance upon fixed laws, both as regards time and place, though, of course, without interfering with the responsibility of the individual.
But amongst all the instances of unity, of harmony, and of law, which the Creator has given us after His own image, the most remarkable is that which He set up when He came upon earth, the most perfect is that which exists in His Church. In the awful music of her doctrines, in the deep wisdom of her precepts, in the majesty of her Hierarchy, in the beauty of her Ritual, in the dazzling lustre of her Saints, in the consistent march of her policy, and in the manifold richness of her long history,—in all of these we recognize the Hand of the God of order, luminously, illustriously displayed. In her whole and in her parts, in her diversified aspects, the one same image of law and of rule ever confronts us; as in those crystallized substances of the physical world, which, both in the mass and in the details, consist in a reiteration of one and the same structure. {190}
My Brethren in the Sacred Ministry, you see to what conclusion I am conducting the train of thought which I have been pursuing. We, indeed, by virtue of that ministry, are at all times subjects and guardians of that Sacramentum Unitatis, which the Holy Fathers have ever recognized as lodged in the Church of God. Such we are by our office under all circumstances;—but, if there be a time when we are pre-eminently witnesses of this great and eternal truth, it is not when we are performing one by one our daily duties, though even then we represent in our individual persons the unity of her teaching and of her rule;—nor is it even when we offer Mass amid our own people, though then, indeed, we formally unite and seal them all with the impress of the One God, the One Mediator, the One Sacrifice for sin once offered, and the One Faith,—but it is surely at those special and rare seasons, of which the present is one, when all ranks and orders of the elect household are brought together from all parts into one place, under the invocation of One Spirit, in the form of a visible Hierarchy, and as an image of the whole Catholic Church;—when the Bishop in his Cathedral and on his throne, the Clergy who share his counsels and his anxieties, the Pastors who are deputed from him to feed his flock in every place, the Regulars whom Christ's own Vicar has sent to minister to him in his incessant toils, the ecclesiastics of inferior rank, the students from the Seminary, and the faithful people in attendance, when all are thus brought together in the august form of Synod, and in the solemnity of its prescribed ceremonial: and still more, if more need be said, when such {191} a meeting of the Church has the singular and most touching prerogative of being the first which has been held through a long three hundred years, and is the token of a change of times, and of a resurrection in this island, of the fair presence of Catholicism.
My Reverend Brethren, under such circumstances is it wonderful that my mind recurs to the history and the teaching of a great servant of God, of a primitive Bishop and Martyr, whose lot was cast in a day, which, as regards the particular subject before us, may be paralleled to our own? In the beginning of the New Dispensation, things were in that provisional state which I touched upon when I began;—not as if the dogma and the rule of the Church could be different at one time and at another, but "Hæc omnia operatur unus atque idem Spiritus, dividens singulis, prout vult"; "All these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as He will." From the first, indeed, as ever, there was but one source of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; from the first, one Pastor Ordinarius of all the faithful; from the first, bishops had their thrones in the Church, of divine right; from the first, the hierarchy was determined; but not from the first were all these appointments observed with the exactness which they admitted and required. At first, twelve, and not one, were possessed of universal jurisdiction; at first, bishops and priests, though ever separate in their office, were not always separate in their work and their position; at first, those who were called to follow the evangelical counsels, observed them, not in community, nor in solitude, but in the bosom of their families. In these, and many {192} other ways, the visible Church, though set up from the first in its substance, was not from the first manifested in the fulness of operation and institution.
But, when the last Apostle had been taken to his throne above, and the oracle of inspiration was for ever closed, when the faithful were left to that ordinary government which was intended to supersede the special season of miraculous action, then arose before their eyes in its normal shape and its full proportions that majestic Temple, of which the plans had been drawn out from the first by our Lord Himself amid His elect Disciples. Then was it that the Hierarchy came out in visible glory, and sat down on their ordained seats in the congregation of the faithful. Then followed in due course the holy periodical assemblies, and the solemn rites of worship and the honour of sacred places, and the decoration of material structures; one appointment after another, realizing in act and deed the great idea which had been imparted to the Church since the day of Pentecost. Then, in a word, was it that the Church passed from what I may call the Apostolic Vicariate, to its true form of Diocesan Episcopacy, which whoso destroys, as a Pope and Doctor especially dear to English Catholics has intimated, is the forerunner of Antichrist.
And this change of government took place, not because persecution had ceased, not because the powers of the world gave leave, but because it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, for the welfare of the faithful, at that very time to bind together, in every part of the Church, ruler and subjects, into a closer and more loving unity. And so, as a beginning and in encouragement of the good {193} work, the same Divine Providence at that very time sent her a glorious martyr, St. Ignatius of Antioch, to be her prophet and doctor,—as in regard to the doctrine of the Incarnation, as in regard to the "science of the saints," so pre-eminently as regards the structure and the sacramental power of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Welcome and cheering did his words sound in the ears of those early Christians, as they were wafted to them while he travelled along to martyrdom. Suitably and seasonably do they speak to us at present, who are now assisting in the same ecclesiastical revolution which was in progress then. Appositely, surely, and without apology, I may now quote some portion of them, as a fit comment on the ceremonial of these days.
"Jesus Christ," he says to the Ephesians, "our true Life, is the Mind of the Father; and so the Bishops, appointed even to the utmost bounds of the earth, are after the mind of Jesus Christ. Wherefore it will become you to concur in the mind of your Bishop, as also ye do. For your famous Presbytery, worthy of God, is knit as closely to its Bishop as the strings to a harp. Therefore by your unanimity and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung; and each of you taketh part in the chorus. Wherefore, it is profitable for you to live in blameless unity, that so ye may always have fellowship with God. Let no man deceive himself; if he be not within the Altar, he faileth of the bread of God. For, if the prayer of one or two be of such force, as we are told, how much more that of the Bishop and the whole Church? He therefore that does not join himself to the congregation, is proud, and has already condemned himself. {194} Let us take heed, then, not to set ourselves against the Bishop, that we may be subject to God. And the more any one seeth his Bishop keep silence, the more let him reverence him; for whomsoever the Master of the house sends to be over His own household, we ought to receive him, even as we would Him that sent him. It is plain, therefore, that we ought to look to the Bishop, even as to the Lord Himself."
To the Magnesians: "Meet it is, that for the honour of Jesus Christ, the Bishop of us all [Note], who wills it, that ye should preserve an obedience that is without guile; since a man does not deceive the Bishop whom he sees, but he practises rather with the Bishop invisible, and so the question is not with flesh, but with God, who knows the secret heart."
To the Trallians: "He that is within the Altar is pure; but he that is without is not pure. That is, he that doeth anything without the Bishop and the Presbyters and Deacons, is not pure in his conscience."
To the Philadelphians: "Although some would have deceived me according to the flesh, yet the spirit is not deceived, being from God. For it knows both whence it comes, and whither it goes, and reproves the secret heart. I cried whilst I was among you, I spoke with a loud voice: Give ear to the Bishop and to the Presbytery and to the Deacons. And some suppose that I spake this, as knowing beforehand the separation of some. But He is my witness, for whose sake I am in bonds, that I knew nothing from any man. But the Spirit spake, saying in this wise: Do nothing without the Bishop; keep your {195} bodies as the temples of God; love unity; flee division; be followers of Christ, as He of His Father."
May we all learn from the parting words of one, who warned us, as I may say, in the very agonies of martyrdom, to advance more and more in the spirit of obedience, in brotherly affection, in mutual forbearance and concession, in sympathy and compassion one for another. "In humilitate superiores sibi invicem arbitrantes," says the apostle, "non quæ sua sunt singuli considerantes, sed ea quæ aliorum. Supportantes invicem, et donantes vobismet ipsis, si quis adversus aliquem habet querelam," "In humility, esteeming others better than themselves: each one not considering the things that are his own, but those that are other men's; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another." The world looks upon us as a political, crafty, grasping set of men, like its own children. It recognizes, in the establishment of our Hierarchy, the work of an ambitious aspiration; and thinks us bound together by mere earthly bond, by selfishness, by expedience, by party spirit, by servile fear, and by ignorance. It knows nothing (how can it know?) of that hidden life, of that faith, that love, that spirit of adoration, which is our incorporating principle. It knows nothing of His Divine Presence, who, when He left the earth visibly, told us that we should still possess Him, though the world would not. It has no experience of the operations of grace, of the efficacy of the Sacraments, of the power of prayer, of the virtue of holy relics, of the communion of Saints, of the glorious intercession {196} of the Mother of God, and of the care and tenderness of the Guardian Angel. It takes for granted, that what it sees, and just as much as it sees, is the whole of us. We know, my dear and Reverend Brethren, we know, we witness to each other, and to God, in calm and thankful confidence, that we have that which the world does not dream of. We know well, that in all these matters which, during the last several years, have brought the wrath of man upon us, in the establishment of the Hierarchy and the celebration of Synods, we have but been aiming to do God's will more perfectly. We know well, that we have acted as those who one day must give account for their gifts and their works before the awful judgment seat; and that what the world takes for ambition or craft, has been but an effusion of love.
You, my Lord and Father, are by these very changes,—by becoming the Bishop of an English Diocese, and no longer the Vicar of the Holy See, sent hither for the charge of the faithful,—you are circumscribing your power, and laying yourself under obligations which before you had not. Now no longer the mere representative of him who has the plenitude of jurisdiction, but as the shepherd of a flock you are bound to your clergy and people, you are knit into the body of the faithful whom you rule and whom you serve, by a more intimate tie, and a severer liability. Not only in will and in intention, but from your office and your position, henceforth you will be taking no measures by yourself, but with the counsel of others, as well as for their well-being. As the Eternal placed Himself under the conditions of a compact, when He would reveal Himself to sinful man, {197} as He made Himself subject to the law of human nature when He took human flesh, so do the diocesan obligations which you have undertaken make you less free than you were before, and, from love to the souls of your priests and your people, do you rejoice in such captivity.
And still more is this true, my Reverend Brethren, of each of us, the Bishop's children and servants, each in his own place. We are no longer solitary labourers in our several spheres, cut off from our brethren, and at a distance from our head. We are, in a sense in which we were not before, members of a body. We are participating in a special way in the great Sacramentum Unitatis, and are bringing ourselves thereby nearer to the Divine Source of truth, purity, and charity, who is present when we are gathered together. We are met here to gain grace, and instruction, and consolation, and encouragement, from the One Eternal Bishop of the Church, whom our visible Father and Head represents. We are come, that that celestial order and peace, and that perfection of law, and that hierarchy of gifts and virtues, of which the Church is the manifestation, may also be set up and manifested, according to our measure, in our own persons. We come here to go back more able to govern ourselves, and to do God's will, and to preach His word, and to be a pattern to His people.
Yes! if there be on earth a visible image of heaven, it is in the Church collected together in one place; and we come here to drink, from that present source of grace, the strength, and health, and vigour needful for us on our journey thither. When even a fallen servant of God and his satellites entered the company of prophets under the {198} Old Law, and saw them prophesying, and Samuel standing over them, the Spirit of God came upon the intruders, and they too began to prophesy. Again, under the New law, when even an unbeliever came into the assemblies of the infant Church (an Apostle is our warrant for saying it), he was overcome and transformed by the harmony of her worship. Her very presence and action was the sufficient note of her divinity. What, then, my Reverend Brethren, will not be the influence of her ceremonial on us, who, erring though we be as mortal men, still, as we trust, have the grace of God within us, are aiming after meekness, purity, charity, and detachment from the world, and are faithfully though imperfectly fulfilling the high commission severally given to us? May we not believe, through the mercy of Him who has chosen us, that we shall carry back with us a something which hitherto we had not?—a fuller and deeper view of the great dispensation of which we are the ministers, a clearer understanding of the beauty of God's House, a firmer faith in the solidity of that rock on which it stands, a closer devotion to Him who inhabits it, a more subdued, more peaceful, and more happy temper, to encounter the trials which meet us on our course, and which are appointed to lead us forward to heaven.
(Preached Nov. 9, 1853, in St. Chad's, in the first Diocesan Synod of Birmingham.)

In the World, but not of the World

"The world passeth away, and the desire thereof: but he that doeth the will of God, abideth for ever." 1 John ii. 17.

{263} I HAVE been asked by those whose wish at such a moment is a command, to say a few words on the subject of the sorrowful, the joyful solemnity, which has this morning brought us together. A few words are all that is necessary, all that is possible;—just so many as are sufficient to unite the separate thoughts, the separate {264} memories, the separate stirrings of affection, which are awakened in us by the presence, in our midst, of what remains on earth of the dear friend, of the great soul, whom we have lost,—sufficient to open a communication and create a sympathy between mind and mind, and to be a sort of testimony of one to another in behalf of feelings which each of us has in common with all.
Yet how am I the fit person even for as much as this? I can do no more than touch upon some of those many points which the thought of him suggests to me; and, whatever I may know of him, and say of him, how can this be taken as the measure of one whose mind had so many aspects, and who must, in consequence, have made such distinct impressions, and exercised such various claims, on the hearts of those who came near him?
It is plain, without my saying it, that there are those who knew him far better than I could know him. How can I be the interpreter of their knowledge or their feelings? How can I hope by any words of mine to do a service to those, who knew so well the depths of his rare excellence by a continuous daily intercourse with him, and by the recurring special opportunities given to them of its manifestation?
I only know what he was to me. I only know what his loss is to me. I only know that he is one of those whose departure hence has made the heavens dark to me. But I have never lived with him, or travelled with him; I have seen him from time to time; I have visited him; I have corresponded with him; I have had mutual confidences with him. Our lines of duty {265} have lain in very different directions. I have known him as a friend knows friend in the tumult and the hurry of life. I have known him well enough to know how much more there was to know in him; and to look forward, alas! in vain, to a time when, in the evening and towards the close of life, I might know him more. I have known him enough to love him very much, and to sorrow very much, that here I shall not see him again. But then I reflect, if I, who do not know him as he might be known, suffer as I do, what must be their suffering who knew him so well?
1. I knew him first, I suppose, in 1837 or 1838, thirty-five or six years ago, a few years after he had become Fellow of Merton College. He expressed a wish to know me. How our friendship grew I cannot tell; I must soon have been intimate with him, from the recollection I have of letters which passed between us; and by 1841 I had recourse to him, as a sort of natural adviser, when I was in difficulty. From that time I ever had recourse to him, when I needed advice, down to his last illness. On my first intimacy with him he had not reached the age of thirty. I was many years older; yet he had that about him, even when a young man, which invited and inspired confidence. It was difficult to resist his very presence. True, indeed, I can fancy those who saw him but once and at a distance, surprised and perplexed by that lofty fastidiousness and keen wit which were natural to him; but such a misapprehension of him would vanish forthwith when they drew near to him, and had actual trial of {266} him; especially, as I have said, when they had to consult him, and had experience of the simplicity, seriousness, and (I can use no other word) the sweetness of his manner, as he threw himself at once into their ideas and feelings, listened patiently to them, and spoke out the clear judgment which he formed of the matters which they had put before him.
This is the first and the broad view I am led to take of him. He was, emphatically, a friend in need. And this same considerateness and sympathy with which he met those who asked the benefit of his opinion in matters of importance was, I believe, his characteristic in many other ways in his intercourse with those towards whom he stood in various relations. He was always prompt, clear, decided, and disinterested. He entered into their pursuits, though dissimilar to his own; he took an interest in their objects; he adapted himself to their dispositions and tastes; he brought a strong and calm good sense to bear upon their present or their future; he aided and furthered them in their doings by his cooperation. Thus he drew men around him; and when some grave question or undertaking was in agitation, and there was, as is wont, a gathering of those interested in it, then, on his making his appearance among them, all present were seen to give to him the foremost place, as if he had a claim to it by right; and he, on his part, was seen gracefully, and without effort, to accept what was conceded to him, and to take up the subject under consideration; throwing light upon it, and, as it were, locating it, pointing out what was of primary importance in it, what was to be aimed at, {267} and what steps were to be taken in it. I am told that, in like manner, when residing on his property in France, he was there too made a centre for advice and direction on the part of his neighbours, who leant upon him and trusted him in their own concerns, as if he had been one of themselves. It was his unselfishness, as well as his practical good sense, which won upon them.
Such a man, when, young and ardent, with his advantages of birth and position, he entered upon the public world, as it displays itself upon its noblest and most splendid stage at Westminster, might be expected to act a great part and to rise to eminence in the profession which he had chosen. Not for certain; for the refinement of mind, which was one of his most observable traits, is in some cases fatal to a man's success in public life. There are those who cannot mix freely with their fellows, especially not with those who are below their own level in mental cultivation. They are too sensitive for a struggle with rivals, and shrink from the chances which it involves. Or they have a shyness, or reserve, or pride, or self-consciousness, which restrains them from lavishing their powers on a mixed company, and is a hindrance to their doing their best, if they try. Thus their public exhibition falls short of their private promise. Now if there was a man who was the light and the delight of his own intimates, it was he of whom I am speaking; and he loved as tenderly as he was beloved;—so far then he seemed rather made for domestic life.
Again, there are various departments in his profession, in which the particular talents which I have been assigning to him might have had full play, and have led {268} to authority and influence, without any need or any opportunity for those more brilliant endowments by which popular admiration and high distinction are attained. It was by the display of talents of an order distinct from clearness of mind, acuteness, and judgment, that he was carried forward at once, as an advocate, to that general recognition of his powers, which was the response that greeted his first great speech, delivered in a serious cause before an august assembly. I think I am right in saying that it was in behalf of the Anglican Chapters, threatened by the reforming spirit of the day, that he then addressed the House of Lords; and the occasion called for the exercise, not only of the talents which I have already dwelt upon, but for those which are more directly oratorical. And these were not wanting. I never heard him speak; but I believe he had, in addition to that readiness and fluency of language, or eloquence, without which oratory cannot be, those higher gifts which give to oratory its power and its persuasiveness. I can well understand, from what I knew of him in private, what these were in his instance. His mien, his manner, the expression of his countenance, his youthfulness—I do not mean his youth, but his youthfulness of mind, which he never lost to the last,—his joyous energy, his reasonings so masterly, yet so prompt, his tact in disposing of them for his purpose, the light he threw upon obscure, and the interest with which he invested dull subjects, his humour, his ready resource of mind in emergencies; gifts such as these, so rare, yet so popular, were necessary for his success, and he had them at command. On {269} that occasion of his handselling them to which I have referred, it was the common talk of Oxford, how the most distinguished lawyer of the day, a literary man and a critic, on hearing the speech in question, pronounced his prompt verdict upon him in the words, "That young man's fortune is made." And indeed it was plain to those who were in a position to forecast the future, that there was no prize, as it is called, of public life, to which that young man might not have aspired, if only he had had the will.
2. This, then, is what occurs to me to say in the first place, concerning the dear friend of whom we are now taking leave. Such as I have described, were the prospects which opened upon him on his start in life. But now, secondly, by way of contrast, what came of them? He might, as time went on, almost have put out his hand and taken what he would of the honours and rewards of the world. Whether in Parliament, or in the law, or in the branches of the Executive, he had a right to consider no station, no power, absolutely beyond his reach. His contemporaries and friends, who fill, or have filled, the highest offices in the State, are, in the splendour of their several careers, the illustration of his capabilities and his promise. But, strange as it may appear at first sight, his indifference to the prizes of life was as marked as his qualifications for carrying them off. He was singularly void of ambition. To succeed in life is almost a universal passion. If it does not often show itself in the high form of ambition, this is because few men have any encouragement in themselves {270} or in their circumstances to indulge in dreams of greatness. But that a young man of bold, large, enterprising mind, of popular talents, of conscious power, with initial successes, with great opportunities, one who carried with him the goodwill and expectation of bystanders, and was cheered on by them to a great future, that he should be dead to his own manifest interests, that he should be unequal to the occasion, that he should be so false to his destiny, that his ethical nature should be so little in keeping with his gifts of mind, may easily be represented, not only as strange, but as a positive defect or even a fault. Why are talents given at all, it may be asked, but for use? What are great gifts but the correlatives of great work? We are not born for ourselves, but for our kind, for our neighbours, for our country: it is but selfishness, indolence, a perverse fastidiousness, an unmanliness, and no virtue or praise, to bury our talent in a napkin, and to return it to the Almighty Giver just as we received it.
This is what may be said, and it is scarcely more than a truism to say it; for undoubtedly, who will deny it? Certainly we owe very much to those who devote themselves to public life, whether in the direct service of the State or in the prosecution of great national or social undertakings. They live laborious days, of which we individually reap the benefit; nevertheless, admitting this fully, surely there are other ways of being useful to our generation still. It must be recollected, that in public life a man of elevated mind does not make his own self tell upon others simply and entirely. He is {271} obliged to move in a groove. He must act with other men; he cannot select his objects, or pursue them by means unadulterated by the methods and practices of minds less elevated than his own. He can only do what he feels to be second-best. He proceeds on the condition of compromise; and he labours at a venture, prosecuting measures so large or so complicated that their ultimate issue is uncertain.
Nor of course can I omit here the religious aspect of this question. As Christians, we cannot forget how Scripture speaks of the world, and all that appertains to it. Human Society, indeed, is an ordinance of God, to which He gives His sanction and His authority; but from the first an enemy has been busy in its depravation. Hence it is, that while in its substance it is divine, in its circumstances, tendencies, and results it has much of evil. Never do men come together in considerable numbers, but the passion, self-will, pride, and unbelief, which may be more or less dormant in them one by one, bursts into a flame, and becomes a constituent of their union. Even when faith exists in the whole people, even when religious men combine for religious purposes, still, when they form into a body, they evidence in no long time the innate debility of human nature, and in their spirit and conduct, in their avowals and proceedings, they are in grave contrast to Christian simplicity and straightforwardness. This is what the sacred writers mean by "the world," and why they warn us against it; and their description of it applies in its degree to all collections and parties of men, high and low, national and professional, lay and ecclesiastical. {272}
It would be hard, then, if men of great talent and of special opportunities were bound to devote themselves to an ambitious life, whether they would or not, at the hazard of being accused of loving their own ease, when their reluctance to do so may possibly arise from a refinement and unworldliness of moral character. Surely they may prefer more direct ways of serving God and man; they may aim at doing good of a nature more distinctly religious; at works, safely and surely and beyond all mistake meritorious; at offices of kindness, benevolence, and considerateness, personal and particular; at labours of love and self-denying exertions, in which their left hand knows nothing that is done by their right. As to our dear friend, I have already spoken of the influence which he exercised on all around him, on friends or strangers with whom he was connected in any way. Here was a large field for his active goodness, on which he did not neglect to exert himself. He gave to others without grudging his thoughts, time, and trouble. He was their support and stay. When wealth came to him, he was free in his use of it. He was one of those rare men who do not merely give a tithe of their increase to their God; he was a fount of generosity ever flowing. It poured out on every side; in religious offerings, in presents, in donations, in works upon his estates, in care of his people, in almsdeeds. I have been told of his extraordinary care of families left in distress, of his aid in educating them and putting them out in the world, of his acts of kindness to poor converts, to single women, and to sick priests; and I can well understand the solicitous and persevering {273} tenderness with which he followed up such benevolences towards them from what I have seen in him myself. He had a very retentive memory for their troubles and their needs. It was his largeness of mind which made him thus open-hearted. As all his plans were on a large scale, so were his private charities. And when an object was public, and required the support of many, then he led the way by a munificent contribution himself. He built one church on his property at Loch Shiel; and another at Galashiels, which he had intended to be the centre of a group of smaller ones round about; and he succeeded in actually planting one of these at Selkirk. Nor did he confine himself to money gifts: it is often more difficult to surrender what we have made our own personally, than what has never come actually into our tangible possession. He bought books freely, theological, historical, and of general literature; but his love of giving was greater than his love of collecting. He could not keep them; he gave them away again; he may be said to have given away whole libraries. Little means has any one of determining the limits of his generosity. I have heard of his giving or offering for great objects sums so surprising, that I am afraid to name them. He alone knows the full measure of his bounties, who inspired and will reward it. I do not think he knew it himself. I am led to think he did not keep a strict account of what he gave away. Certainly I know one case in which he had given to a friend many hundreds, and yet seemed to have forgotten it, and was obliged to ask him when it was that he had done so.{274}
I should trust that, in what I am saying, I have not given any one the impression that he was inconsiderate and indiscriminate in giving. To have done this would have been to contradict my experience of him and my intention. As far as my opportunities of observing him extended, large as were his bounties and charities, as remarkable was the conscientious care with which he inquired into the nature and circumstances of the cases for which his aid was solicited. He felt he was but the steward of Him who had given him what he gave away.
He gave away as the steward of One to whom he must give account. There are at this time many philanthropic and benevolent men who think of man only, not of God, in their acts of liberality. I have already said enough to show that he was not one of these. I have implied the presence in him of that sense of religion, or religiousness, which was in fact his intimate and true life. And indeed liberality such as his, so incessant and minute, so well ordered, and directed too towards religious objects, almost of itself evidences its supernatural origin. But I insist on this point, not only for its own sake, but because of its bearing upon that absence of ambition, which in a man so energetic, so influential, is a very remarkable point of character. Such apathy, so to call it, might be, though not an Epicurean selfishness, still a natural temper, the temper of a magnanimous mind, such as might be found in ancient Greece or Rome, as well as in modern times. But in truth in him it was much more than a gift of nature; it was a fruit and token of that religious sensitiveness which had been bestowed on him from {275} above. If it was really the fact, that his mind and heart were fixed upon divine objects, this at once accounts for what was so strange, so paradoxical in him in the world's judgment, his distaste for the honours and the pageants of earth; and fixed, assuredly they were, upon the invisible and eternal. It was a lesson to all who witnessed it, in contrast with the appearance of the outward man, so keen and self-possessed amid the heat and dust of the world, to see his real inner secret self from time to time gleam forth from beneath the working-day dress in which his secular occupations enveloped him.
I cannot do justice by my words to the impression which in this respect he made on me. He had a tender conscience, but I mean something more than that—I mean the emotion of a heart always alive and awake at the thought of God. When a religious question came up suddenly in conversation, he had no longer the manner and the voice of a man of the world. There was a simplicity, earnestness, gravity in his look and in his words, which one could not forget. It seemed to me to speak of a loving desire to please God, a single-minded preference for His service over every service of man, a resolve to approach Him by the ways which He had appointed. It was no taking for granted that to follow one's own best opinion was all one with obeying His will; no easy persuasion that a vague, obscure sincerity in our conclusions about Him and our worship of Him was all that was required of us, whether those conclusions belonged to this school of doctrine or that. That is, he had deep within him that gift which St. Paul and {276} St. John speak of, when they enlarge upon the characteristics of faith. It was the gift of faith, of a living, loving faith, such as "overcomes the world" by seeking "a better country, that is, a heavenly." This it was that kept him so "unspotted from the world" in the midst of worldly engagements and pursuits.
No wonder, then, that a man thus minded should gradually have been led on into the Catholic Church. Judging as we do from the event, we thankfully recognize in him an elect soul, for whom, in the decrees of Omnipotent Love, a seat in heaven has been prepared from all eternity,—whose name is engraven on the palms of those Hands which were graciously pierced for his salvation. Such eager, reverential thoughts of God as his, prior to his recognizing the Mother of Saints, are surely but the first tokens of a predestination which terminates in heaven. That straightforward, clear, good sense which he showed in secular matters did not fail him in religious inquiry. There are those who are practical and sensible in all things save in religion; but he was consistent; he instinctively turned from bye-ways and cross-paths, into which the inquiry might be diverted, and took a broad, intelligible view of its issues. And, after he had been brought within the Fold, I do not think I can exaggerate the solicitude which he all along showed, the reasonable and prudent solicitude, to conform himself in all things to the enunciations and the decisions of Holy Church; nor, again, the undoubting conviction he had of her superhuman authority, the comfort he found in her sacraments, and the satisfaction and trust with which he betook himself to the intercession {277} of the Blessed Virgin, to the glorious St. Michael, to St. Margaret, and all Saints.
3. I will make one remark more. I have spoken, first, of his high natural gifts, of his various advantages for starting in life, and of his secular prospects. Next, in contrast with this first view of him, I have insisted on his singular freedom from ambition, and have traced it to that religiousness of mind which was so specially his; to his intimate sense of the vanity of all secular distinction, and his supreme devotion to Him who alone is "Faithful and True." And now when I am brought to the third special feature of his life, as it presents itself to me, I find myself close to a sacred subject, which I cannot even touch upon without great reverence and something of fear.
We might have been led to think that a man already severed in spirit, resolve, and acts from the world in which he lived, would have been granted by his Lord and Saviour to go forward in his course freely, without any unusual trials, such as are necessary in the case of common men for their perseverance in the narrow way of life. But those for whom God has a love more than ordinary He watches over with no ordinary jealousy; and, if the world smiles on them, He sends them crosses and penances so much the more. He is not content that they should be by any common title His; and, because they are so dear and near to Him, He provides for them afflictions to bring them nearer still. I hope it is not presumptuous thus to speak of the inscrutable providences of God. I know that He has His own wise and special dealings with every one of us, and that what {278} He determines for one is no rule for another. I am contemplating, and, if so be, interpreting, His loving ways and purposes only towards the very man before us.
Now, so it was, there was just one aspect of this lower world which he might innocently love; just one, in which life had charms for a heart as affectionate as it was religious. I mean that assemblage of objects which are included under the dear name of Home. If there was rest and solace to be found on earth, he found it there. Is it not remarkable, then, that in this, his sole earthly sanctuary, He who loved him with so infinite a love met him, visited him, not once or twice, but again and again, with a stern rod of chastisement? Stroke after stroke, blow after blow, stab after stab, was dealt against his very heart. "Great and wonderful are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, O King of ages. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord and magnify Thy name? for Thou only art holy." I may speak with more vivid knowledge of him here than in other respects, for I was one of the confidants of his extreme suffering under the succession of terrible inflictions, which left wounds never to be healed. They ended only with his life; for the complaint, which eventually mastered him, was brought into activity by his final bereavement. Nay, I must not consider even that great bereavement his final one; his call to go hence was itself the final agony of that tender, loving heart. He who had in time past been left desolate by others, was now to leave others desolate. He was to be torn away, as if before his time, from those who, to speak humanly, needed him so exceedingly. He was called upon to {279} surrender them in faith to Him who had given them. It was about two hours before his death, with this great sacrifice, as we may suppose, this solemn summons of his Supreme Lord confronting him, that he said, with a loud voice, "Thy will be done"; adding his favourite prayer, so well known to us all, "Fiat, laudetur, atque in æternum superexaltetur, sanctissima, altissima, amabilissima voluntas Dei in omnibus." They were almost his last words.
We too must say, after him, "Thy will be done." Let us be sure that those whom God loves He takes away, each of them, one by one, at the very time best for their eternal interests. What can we, in sober earnest, wish, save that very Will of God? Is He not wiser and more loving than we are? Could we wish him back whom we have lost? Who is there of us who loves him most but would feel the cruelty of recalling to this tumultuous life, with its spiritual perils and its dark future, a soul who is already rejoicing in the end and issue of his trial, in salvation secured, and heaven begun in him? Rather, who would not wish to have lived his life, and to have died his death? How well for him that he lived, not for man only, but for God! What are all the interests, pleasure, successes, glories of this world, when we come to die? What can irreligious virtue, what can innocent family affection do for us, when we are going before the Judge, whom to know and love is life eternal, whom not to know and not to love is eternal death?
O happy soul, who hast loved neither the world nor the things of the world apart from God! Happy soul, {280} who, amid the world's toil, hast chosen the one thing needful, that better part which can never be taken away! Happy soul, who, being the counsellor and guide, the stay, the light and joy, the benefactor of so many, yet hast ever depended simply, as a little child, on the grace of thy God and the merits and strength of thy Redeemer! Happy soul, who hast so thrown thyself into the views and interests of other men, so prosecuted their ends, and associated thyself in their labours, as never to forget still that there is one Holy Catholic Roman Church, one Fold of Christ and Ark of salvation, and never to neglect her ordinances or to trifle with her word! Happy soul, who, as we believe, by thy continual almsdeeds, offerings, and bounties, hast blotted out such remains of daily recurring sin and infirmity as the sacraments have not reached! Happy soul, who, by thy assiduous preparation for death, and the long penance of sickness, weariness, and delay, has, as we trust, discharged the debt that lay against thee, and art already passing from penal purification to the light and liberty of heaven above!
And so farewell, but not farewell for ever, dear James Robert Hope Scott! He is gone from us, but only gone before us. It is for us to look forward, not backward. We shall meet him again, if we are worthy, in "Mount Sion, and the heavenly Jerusalem," in "the company of many thousands of angels, the Church of the first-born who are written in the heavens," with "God, the Judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament, and the blood which speaketh better things than that of Abel."
(Preached May 5, 1873, in the Church of the Jesuit Fathers, London, at the Funeral of James R. Hope Scott, Esq., Q.C.)