Chapter III: Part 3

1. And, first of all, remember how _deceptive are appearances in Nature_. We might be absolutely certain, might we not? if we did not know to the contrary, that this earth was quite still. It does not seem to move in the slightest degree, but we really know that the earth is travelling at the terrific speed of nineteen miles a second through space--nineteen miles every second. It does look, does it not? as if the sun was going round the earth quite quickly. But actually the earth is going round the sun. Again, when you blow a candle out, it does seem as if you really put it out. But do you? It is just the one thing you do not do. You do not blow it out. The force in the flame passes into another form. The conservation of force or energy is one of the great truths of science. You do not blow the candle out at all. Therefore even from this lowest ground there is nothing whatever in science that makes it improbable that when a man dies he shall live again. But you may go farther, without leaving what we are taught by scientific knowledge. A man's body is changed every seven years. Yet the man does not change. I look back and remember myself perfectly well as a boy who went to a certain school. And yet not a fragment of my present body went to that school. There must be someone in me that persists, that goes on when the body changes. If I were to cut off my hand I should still be myself; if I were to cut off my arm, my leg, still I should remain. And so if the whole body goes, I am still myself. If we had not anything more than this, we could not prove that men live after death; but there is nothing whatever in the whole teaching of science to _disprove_ that we do. You might, for instance, notice that an instrument in a room is perfectly silent, but that may be because he who has been playing upon it has gone into another room. There would be no argument in the silence of the instrument for the non-existence of the player. I say that because one of the most touching incidents in my life was when a poor little girl said to me (I have often quoted this): "I feel so afraid of death. I seem to see it coming down on me like a great shadow." For a moment or two I prayed for the right word to say to her, and it seemed to come to me, as it does come at these moments, from the HOLY SPIRIT. I said to her: "You would not be afraid if I were to come and carry you into the next room." "No," she said, "I should not." "Well, then," I said, "would you be afraid if someone ten thousand times kinder, and with ten thousand times more strength, should carry you into another room?" When I next saw her she was dead, with a smile on her face. If the player has gone away into the next room, no wonder the instrument does not sound. And therefore, if the body seems dead, it only seems dead because the owner of the body has gone into the next room. It is said in the hospital, as the nurse comes out from behind the screen: "He is gone." He is gone--quite so, he is gone--therefore no wonder his body looks dead.

2. And this becomes all the more certain when you notice that ever since man has existed _he has always believed_ and felt perfectly certain that he is going to survive death. This is one of the great instincts in humanity. Such convictions always point to some great truth that corresponds to them. For instance, the prayer instinct in man demands GOD. It has been beautifully said that, just as the fin of the fish demands the water, and just as the wing of the bird demands air, so the instinct of prayer in man demands GOD. Man is a praying animal. He always has prayed, and that great instinct of prayer demands satisfaction. He always has believed he is going to live after death, and the very fact that that instinct has been planted in him everywhere demands that he shall. There is a very touching story in ancient literature about the great Greek philosopher Socrates. Although he knew nothing about CHRIST or the Christian revelation, he had a long conversation, recorded in one of the most ancient writers, before he drank the fatal poison, hemlock. Although he had not the Christian revelation, he gave all the arguments necessary to make everyone around him certain that five minutes after death he would be the same as five minutes before.

3. And this becomes all the more certain when you consider the _character of GOD_. People often do not realise how much the character of GOD is bound up with this question of immortality. No good man would implant a living instinct in a child's nature and then love to tantalise and disappoint it. No good man would do it, or think for a moment of doing it; and do you suppose GOD would? Let me read you the first portion of a beautiful letter which I have received from one of the highest in the land, who lost her husband last year, and has lost her splendid son this year in battle. She writes: "Dear and kindest friend, Lord Bishop--I have lingered in thanking you for your letter, because it was so precious, and is always beside me to inspire and comfort. England has gone forth 'obedient unto death' in the honour that befits her, and we must try and be worthy. It does not seem lonely, for they have gone in good company, that great band of brave, shining knights who have given all." That beautiful trust inspires the "Farewell of the Dead," which was written during the early weeks of the war:

"Mother with unbowed head,
Hear thou across the sea
The farewell of the dead,
The dead who died for thee.
Greet them again with tender words and grave,
For, saving thee, themselves they could not save.

"To keep the house unharmed
Their fathers built so fair,
Deeming endurance armed
Better than brute despair,
They found the secret of the word that saith,
'Service is sweet, for all true life is death.'

"So greet thou well thy dead
Across the homeless sea,
And be thou comforted
Because they died for thee.
Far off they served, but now their deed is done
For evermore their life and thine are one."

Now, do you suppose--this is to me an absolutely irrefragable argument--do you suppose that GOD would have planted the love of that son in that mother's heart, and given her that faith, and then mean to disappoint her? All I can say is that, if He does, He is no GOD I could love, nor that anyone could love. The world is in the hand of some foul fiend, who loves to disappoint and blast the hopes of his children. That is not the GOD of the New Testament. No, our LORD says something very touching about that. He says: "In My FATHER'S house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you." "I would have told you." I would not have let you live all your lives and see your sons die, and your husbands die, and then disappoint you. "If it were not so, I would have told you."

4. And so we are prepared--you see now why I chose that particular text--we are prepared for _the great revelation when it comes_. Even science has prepared us. This great instinct of the soul, that it will live again, has prepared us. Our belief in a good GOD prepared us. We were all ready to hear it, and at last it comes from heaven. "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."

And now we have got it. It has been all led up to; we were all prepared for it. We could not have been certain till we were told it by One who came from heaven. This is the Christian religion. It is no miserable half-and-half Gospel about a good man that once lived. That view of JESUS CHRIST has nothing to do with Christianity. The SON of GOD came Himself from heaven.

That is the Christian religion. And, having come from heaven, He knows what is in heaven. And He speaks with the certainty of knowledge: "In My FATHER'S house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you." And "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."

And, mark you, to prove it, to get the whole truth this morning, not only for your own selves, but for the mourners who abound in our midst, and must abound more and more as the weeks pass--to prove this doctrine that He rose Himself from the dead, we must have the full gospel of Easter. Alas! a new theology has been whittling away the faith of some in this country. But the old doctrine of Easter was this, "David saw corruption, but He whom GOD raised up saw no corruption." And as He died and was buried, so He rose again. Why do we keep Sunday, do you suppose, if there was no Resurrection? Why not keep as the sacred day Friday, if nothing happened on Sunday? If CHRIST did not rise on that day, why do we have at our Eucharists the Body broken and the Blood shed? How could any people enshrine in their Eucharistic service the tokens of a shameful death unless the body buried had risen again? How did the Cross get to the top of the dome of St. Paul's? Why should we have the old gallows erected over the finest city in the world, unless it was the symbol, not only of death, but of glorious resurrection?

Therefore, we have not got to put our reason behind our backs in believing that He who said "I am the resurrection and the life" raised Himself from the grave. It is with our reason as well as with our hearts that we say, in answer to the question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" "Yes, thank GOD, he has never really died."

5. And what sort of life is it going to be on the other side of the veil, the veil which hides this unseen world? Those young men who are dying are not always specially religious. They come to church sometimes, and some come to Communion. I had from the front the other day an account of how two hundred and fifty of the Artists' Corps received the Communion before they went into battle. But, still, we know many of our soldiers are not what we should call specially religious men. What, therefore, are we to think of the life awaiting them on the other side of the veil? Well, I will tell you what I think. I pin my faith to this: JESUS CHRIST knows them through and through. "JESUS beholding him loved him" was said of one young man. JESUS beheld all these boys of ours, all these young comrades, and He loved them. And He knows what kind of life they will enjoy, and He prepares them for the life that is for them. He has something for each that they will be fit for, when, strengthened in character and purified in soul, they are ready to inherit the kingdom prepared for them. You can trust them with Him, you can trust your boy to CHRIST, who understands him better than you do.

What shall we have in the other world which will correspond to what we have here? One thing at least that we shall have is memory. You remember, in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Abraham says to Dives: "Son, remember." "Son, remember." Resolve to lay up something in your life here to which your thoughts will turn happily and find pleasure in, in the quiet times beyond death. In that stillness there must be no bitter quarrels to remember, no bitter jealousies, no unkindnesses. Make to yourselves, while here, friends from your use of the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when it fails those friends may receive you into everlasting habitations.

And then with memory will come love, all the old beautiful love and friendship which makes us so happy here. But, mark you, the right kind of love--not lust. "Love is the fulfilling of the law," says St. John.

"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done."[14]

The two are absolutely different. Love thinks of the interests of the loved one, and is full of self-control and self-restraint. But lust only thinks of self, and is unbridled and unrestrained. Love goes on into the other world.

[14] Shakespeare.

"They sin who tell us Love can die;
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
In heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of hell.
Of lust these passions of the earth,
They perish where they have their birth,
But Love is indestructible.
Its holy flame for ever burneth.
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth;
Full oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times oppressed,
In heaven it finds its perfect rest.
It soweth here in toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there."[15]

[15] Southey's "Curse of Kehama."

Therefore cultivate here in your Church life, in your home life, this wonderful, pure, beautiful thing, this love which will last for ever. "They sin who tell us Love can die." And, above all, keep that love pure, absolutely pure and true. Let nothing be substituted for it which calls itself love, but which is not love. Then with this love, this unselfish, disinterested love, the prayer instinct goes on. Do not be afraid of thinking of and praying for your dear boy in Paradise; pray for him. Do you suppose the mother in Paradise ceases to pray for her son here? You know that, in the old beautiful prayers of the Church for her dead, we pray that GOD will give them eternal rest and peace, and that everlasting light will shine upon them. That prayer instinct that lies so deep here goes on behind the veil. They are praying for us there as we are praying for them here. As St. Augustine says so beautifully, "The Church above loves and helps its pilgrim brothers."

And, then, one thing more must go on--energy and activity of soul. Can you imagine a man like the late Archbishop Temple doing nothing for ever and ever? No. The greatest rest is delightful exercise of the faculties of the soul. And there must be in that other world work for those who have been active here below. Such souls when they are taken from us are being promoted to some work that they are specially fitted to do by the experience which has long worked itself into their souls. I think of two cases of Christians suffering patiently week after week, one for thirteen, the other for fifteen, years. The beautiful patience being worked into their character will be wanted in the other world.

Then, again, man is born for a Church. He is born to worship here in companionship with others. I hope that this church will be every Sunday morning as full as it is now, that you will more and more join in the fellowship of the saints, and that you will more and more learn to love this spiritual home, and to cheer one another on in your spiritual lives, and so be ready, when the time comes, to worship in the other world with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven. Lift up your heads and the hands that hang down, all ye mourners! For death is not that miserable, terrible thing which some people think it is. We are born into the other world as quietly as we are born into this. And the other life there is full of happiness, full of love, full of joyous and beautiful activities. And so, when we are called upon to die, it will only be a gentle passing from life here to life there, and from the fulness and the happiness of this life to the still deeper fulness and still greater happiness of the life of the world to come.

VIII

THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM[16]

[16] Preached in Westminster Abbey at the consecration of Canon
MacInnes as Bishop in Jerusalem.

"O pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love
thee."--Ps. cxxii. 6.

There is no place in the world to be compared to Jerusalem, if you consider its romantic position, its historical interest, and its spiritual significance. What a relief it is to breathe its mountain air after the hot plains of Egypt! On what a glorious position it stands, more than two thousand feet above the sea, surrounded by hills even higher than the hill on which it stands itself! Truly, still "the hills stand about Jerusalem"--a true image of the way the LORD stands about His people.

But it is not the romantic position of Jerusalem which gives it its chief claim to fame, but, even more, its marvellous history. Really, to uncase Jerusalem, to dig down from one Jerusalem to another, to be able to explain the history which would attach to each layer of it, would be to unravel the history of the ancient world. Volumes have been written, and will continue to be written, on this entrancing theme; but suffice it to say that the man who stands, say, at the centre of the Temple site of Jerusalem is standing on one of the most historic spots in the world.

But, after all, when one is speaking in a Christian church at the consecration of a Christian Bishop, it is neither of these things which makes Jerusalem absolutely unique. The Seven Hills of Rome and its Forum might compete with Jerusalem from the point of view of geography or history. No! it is the supreme fact that here, and here alone, on the world's surface, in Judæa and Galilee, the feet of the SON of GOD actually trod the earth, which makes Jerusalem unique. Rightly has Palestine been called ever since the Holy Land. When the guardian of the traditional site of the Ascension points out to you the spot which the feet of the LORD last trod before He ascended behind the cloud, of course you know that such tradition is too detailed to be necessarily accurate with regard to the actual spot; but that His feet _did_ tread the earth about that spot, that He _did_ walk over the Mount of Olives, that He _did_ agonise somewhere near those trees in the Garden of Gethsemane, that on one or other of those skull-shaped mounds He _did_ die for the sins of the whole world, that either at the traditional site or somewhere near He _did_ rise again from the dead--this it is that makes Jerusalem the joy of the whole earth. With ten times the depth of meaning with which even the ancient Jews could say it, the Christian will say: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth." "O pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee."

I. The consecration, then, of a Bishop of the great Anglo-Catholic Church, who is to live in Jerusalem, is an event which concerns the whole of Christendom, and especially every branch of the Anglo-Catholic Church throughout the world; for it is clear that such a Bishop in Jerusalem has three great and important functions to discharge to the whole Christian world:

1. In the first place, he has to represent worthily, by personal conduct and by reverent and dignified ceremonial, the great branch of the Catholic Church to which he belongs. All branches of the Church meet at Jerusalem; several have their altars by the Holy Sepulchre. How can the other branches of the great Catholic Church learn what is the teaching and the practice of the Anglican branch except from the Bishop who represents her there, and from the cathedral over which he presides? If the Bishop himself has no dignity, no influence, no σεμνότης, among all those dignified and grey-bearded Patriarchs who represent other Churches, the Church of England will suffer in the opinion of the whole Christian Church. If the cathedral church is poor in worship, feeble in life, unspiritual in tone, the Church of England loses caste among the Churches of the world. If, on the other hand, the Bishop and his cathedral worthily maintain the best traditions of the ancient and apostolic Catholic Church of England, then will the representatives of other ancient Churches gladly acknowledge that "the LORD is with her of a truth."

2. But not only has the Bishop in Jerusalem to be a worthy witness to the doctrine of his Church, and in his cathedral to display a winning example of its ceremonial and worship, but he also has to respect and foster the spiritual life in the ancient Churches of the East. He is to be no proselytiser, seeking to take away members of other Churches to form his Church; he is rather the kindly brother, ever ready to lend a hand to fan the embers of spiritual life in other Churches, or to rejoice in the fervent glow on other altars besides his own. No Bishop would be a fit Bishop in Jerusalem who had not some knowledge of the history of the ancient Churches of Christendom, an interest in their varying liturgies, and a deep respect for their history and the special significance each has in the life of the Catholic Church. On the other hand, that Bishop would have a peculiar glory in his episcopate who most succeeded by brotherly sympathy and inspiring example in stimulating life in an ancient Church, where, perhaps, life was running low, or was able to send up the sap once again through the fibres of an apparently withered tree.

3. But his efforts must not stop there. The Bishop in Jerusalem must be a missionary. If from the first the Gospel was to spread throughout the world, "beginning at Jerusalem," Jerusalem must never cease to be a missionary centre. There must be no faithless despair as to the eventual conversion both of Jews and of Mohammedans; the great heathen tribes of the Shellooks and the Dinkas of the Upper Nile, up to which the diocese, with its centre at Jerusalem, at present extends, even though it must be exercised for the most part through the presence of an assistant Bishop in Khartoum, must feel the missionary zeal of the Bishop in Jerusalem. Every missionary agency within thousands of miles must be certain of his fatherly interest. I have visited myself nearly every mission station from El Obeid, five hundred miles beyond Khartoum, to Beyrout, and seen how greatly was appreciated the genuine interest of even a passing Bishop; but those mission stations must feel sure of the interest of the Bishop whose "sedes" is at Jerusalem, and above all, of course, those must feel sure of it whose missions are connected with our own Church. Few people can have visited the magnificent mission hospital of the London Jews' Society in Jerusalem, which is said to be the finest mission hospital in the world, or seen the devoted work of the representatives of the Church Missionary Society in Cairo, or watched the mission schools of the Hosanna League on the Lebanon, without being proud of the missionary zeal and spiritual efforts of our own Church.

II. But on a day like this we are at liberty to see visions and to dream dreams, and one can imagine missionary efforts which have their centre at Jerusalem on a far more extensive scale than any which have been possible as yet--missionary efforts which may include the revival of the ancient Churches of Asia Minor, the linking up with the work done by the Archbishop's Mission to the Assyrian Church, and a far more complete subjugation to CHRIST of the Lebanon district, to which Canon Parfit's and Canon Campbell's schools seem to point the way.

Such, then, seem to be the possibilities and prospects of a Bishop in Jerusalem, and we are encouraged to raise our hopes high to-day, first by the wonderful blessing which has been granted to the work of him who is laying down the pastoral staff, wielded with so much tact and love and winning influence by Bishop Blyth for a quarter of a century; and, secondly, by the experience and attainments and standing of him who this day takes up the pastoral staff which Bishop Blyth lays down.

1. And first with regard to Bishop Blyth himself. It was said to me in Jerusalem of the Bishop, by one who has long been the superintendent of the Church missionary work in Palestine: "He has laid a splendid foundation on which a success can be built." Few can realise, who have not been at Jerusalem, the dignity and beauty of St. George's Cathedral, which Bishop Blyth has built, and the charm of the daily services in it, morning and evening, at which the choir consists of the delightful Syrian boys and girls who form the schools. I have never seen boys more like English boys in their keenness for games (they were quite invincible at football) and their general manliness of tone, and under the gentle tutelage of English ladies the Syrian girls are being trained to be well-mannered, and capable teachers, whom I frequently found teaching either in Palestine, on the Lebanon, or in the schools of Egypt and the Soudan. But, in order to understand the influence accumulated by Bishop Blyth during these long years of residence in Jerusalem, you had to visit with him the Patriarchs of other branches of the Church; everywhere you found him trusted and loved; to come with his introduction was to be welcomed by all the ancient Churches of the East, and it is certain that, just as it was said of Livingstone that "he left the door open in Africa for all the white men who should come after," so it is certainly true that Bishop Blyth has left behind him, among all the representatives of the ancient Churches of the East, open hearts into which his successor can enter. And we are glad to think that we still have the Bishop resident with us here in London, to give us his counsel and advice.[17]

[17] The Bishop only lived a few weeks after his successor's
consecration.

2. And then, with regard to his successor, he is no tyro going out to learn his work for the first time; he is already one of the best-known missionaries in the whole of the nearer East; he has for years been the superintendent of the Church missionary work in Egypt and the Soudan; he has had the control of many workers, and has had, moreover, thousands of pounds passing annually through his hands. He is a good Arabic scholar, and can not only take services, but can speak and preach freely in Arabic, and what that means in the East every traveller knows. His long experience of dealing with the Coptic Church in Egypt, and the great respect in which he and his colleague, Mr. Gairdner, are held in it, are a certain guarantee of the respect and loving reverence with which he will treat the other ancient Churches of the East; and he has himself assured us, in words which have been printed and circulated, that, so far from wishing in any way to alter the simple and beautiful service in St. George's Cathedral, he will love to fan and foster the flame of devotion which will always burn, it is hoped, more and more brightly at the central shrine of the Anglo-Catholic Church in this city of Jerusalem, which is itself the cradle of the Christian Church.

It is therefore, dear brother, with very high hopes and many earnest prayers we send you forth to-day. The horizon is clouded at present with the heavy clouds of war; CHRIST'S work will be crippled for a time, and further extension for a time will be impossible; but when the great clouds of war have, in the mercy of GOD, rolled away, and the Sun of Righteousness has arisen with healing in His wings, and Christianity has been proved to be more than ever essential to the prosperity and well-being of the world, then we believe that _you_ are singularly fitted in the providence of GOD to avail yourself of the mighty opportunity which will open out.

"O pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee." There will be many who will pray for its peace from to-day more fervently than ever, and they will uphold your hands as they pray it, as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses; and if, as we believe from the bottom of our souls, GOD will hear that prayer, then Jerusalem shall once again be built as a city at unity with itself, and from the farthest bounds of the earth there shall come, at least in spirit, "turning their faces thitherward," more and more every year, the converted, thankful and adoring "tribes of the LORD."

II

TO THE CLERGY

I

MESSENGERS[18]

[18] Given first at Chiswick Parish Church to the Clergy of the
Rural Deanery of Hammersmith; afterwards to the Chaplains of the
Fleet, 1916.

The Eyes of Flame[19] are resting upon us; we do not want to get away for a moment from that thought as our central message. But get away from the idea that "the Bishop is asking us to come for a Quiet Day." As I believe events have proved, it is JESUS CHRIST Himself going round the diocese in the power of the SPIRIT. Wonderful things have happened on these Quiet Days. Men have been so struck to the heart that they have resigned their livings; they have seen what they ought to have been, and with the aid of the HOLY SPIRIT, before the Eyes of Flame, have contrasted that with what they are. If it is JESUS CHRIST coming round, then we cannot be too quiet on such a Day in listening to His voice all the time. It is therefore with the Eyes of Flame resting upon us and with the prayer "Speak, LORD, for Thy servant heareth," "I will hearken what the LORD GOD will say concerning me," that we will think over three things that we are expected to be. And the first is a _Messenger_. You will remember that, when we first stood before the Bishop for ordination, we were told of a great treasure that was committed to our care. We have spent much time thinking over that treasure.[20] We were reminded that we were to be messengers, watchmen, stewards. Now we will simply take the title "messengers."

[19] See a former volume, "The Eyes of Flame" (Wells Gardner, Darton
and Co., Ltd.).

[20] See "The Church in Time of War," pp. 51-70: "The Treasure
Committed to our Trust."

Let us picture the messenger; let us forget the tame surroundings and monotonous features of the life we lead, and picture ourselves as real living messengers. We might take one of our despatch-riders. Few things are more really splendid than the way the undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge are doing most of the despatch-riding at the front--our own boys, we may say, have been carrying the despatches during this campaign. It is very dangerous work. One of the boys whom I have known all his life is now a despatch-rider in the war, having to take these messages at any cost. Everything depends upon the despatch getting there. The whole brigade will be cut to pieces if the despatch is not sent there. They only send despatches for the most urgent reasons. There the despatch-riders are in the darkness, threading their way through all the great holes made by the shells, pushing on to take the despatches. They are messengers with a vengeance, taking their lives in their hands, realising the vital importance of getting their message through.

Now, I am going to take a particular messenger because his character and life are very carefully described to us in detail by one of our great poets. I think it will come home to us more if I can describe the picture of the messenger of Athens given us by Browning in that wonderful poem "Pheidippides." It may be more familiar to some than it is to others. I will just sketch Browning's picture. Pheidippides tells how he started on a mission of absolutely vital importance, and the whole problem was to get to Sparta in time to get help. He dashes off, and stands before the Spartan Senate.

"Persia has come!
Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth;
Razed to the ground is Eretria; but Athens, shall Athens sink,
Drop into dust and die--the flower of Hellas utterly die,
Die with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid,
the stander-by?"

It is a matter of absolute life and death, and that is the first thing about the messenger I want you to notice. Either he got there or he did not; either he persuaded them or he did not. He gave his message, though he did not succeed in persuading Sparta to undertake the needed help. The fate of his country depended entirely upon his effort. There is something glorious in his absolute devotion to his country. Then, when he had given his message, he waited for the answer, and he is described as quivering with eagerness:

"The limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood."

That expresses the keenness with which he waited for the answer. And the answer, which, as you remember, was an evasive one, counselling delay, is thus characterised by Pheidippides:

"Athens, except for that sparkle--thy name, I had mouldered to ash."

Then, having done everything he could, he dashed back to tell them at Athens that Sparta was not coming. We see the utter abandonment of the messenger:

"Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!
Yet 'O Gods of my land!' I cried, as each hillock and plain,
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again."

Then comes the moment of his life. In the midst of the hurry and race he suddenly comes face to face with his god--the great god Pan. In all his hurry and haste and keenness he hushes himself in a moment, to listen to what the god has to say. Very touchingly described that is. Then, when he has received the message for himself, for his nation, once again he is off.

"I ran no longer, but flew."

And he stands before his people, and he gives them the full message which the god had given him, with all its warning and all its comfort and hope and good news. When that is done he fights on the Marathon day. And then, when the victory is won, he thinks of what the god has promised him, and he thinks to

"Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,"

and live with her for the rest of his life.

"Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:
So, when Persia was dust, all cried: 'To Acropolis!
Run, Pheidippides, one race more!'"

Take the news to Athens! He takes it, and his great heart bursts with the joy of the news.

"Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed."

He sealed his message with his death.

Now, there is the messenger, and we have to think over the different points about that messenger, to compare our motives to-day with what they are expected to be. (1) Take first of all his realisation that his message was _a matter of life or death_. I wonder whether some of us are slipping away from that--slipping away from the awe of that first sermon, slipping into little moral essays or interminably long discourses? Are we still men with a message?

One of the tremendous revelations in London, after twenty-six years of life and work there, is the death-struggle that is going on in every human soul. And even now, as Bishop, I find that every available five minutes is taken up by the needs and struggles of some individual soul in the diocese of London. In your parishes it must be just the same. Upon that message you are going to give on Sunday morning or evening depends perhaps the salvation, or perhaps the condemnation, of some soul.

And if we once get into the way of preaching simply interesting lectures--interesting to ourselves--which we have thought out in our studies during the week, we have lost the sense of having a message. One of the most distinguished men then in the Church said to a young preacher sadly: "You seem to preach as if you have something to say, and I only preach because I _must_ say something." Well, if we are drifting into getting up into the pulpit because we must say something, without realising the temptations and struggles of the souls in front of us, we have lost our message; we are no longer messengers.

(2) And then, secondly, what about the old keenness? Am I able to say "the old keenness"? One honest brother came to me one Quiet Day and said: "I have never felt keen at all." He could not speak of the old keenness; he had never had it. He wanted it. The keen messenger stands quivering like Pheidippides:

"Except for that sparkle, thy name, I had mouldered to ash!"

There stands the true messenger quivering with the keenness of his message. What has happened to us if we are no longer keen about our message?

(_a_) Is it because we have really ceased to believe it? I say that because during this past year I have had some who have openly said (the realisation of it has come to them during the day) that they have largely slipped away from their real belief in JESUS CHRIST as the SON of GOD. They started reading Higher Criticism or German theology. Of course, we must read very varied kinds of books; we have no right to be afraid of reading anything that will enable us to help the laity in their difficulties. But these brothers had been reading too many of these books speaking of our LORD as only a man, in which we are told that "He was mistaken in supposing this," or, "No doubt He was under the impression that this was the case"; and they have slipped away from their belief in JESUS CHRIST as the SON of GOD. Their faith has really for a time gone; they have not got a message, because they do not believe in the old message. They would have said of such a meditation as we have had together on the Book of Revelation: "How do we know St. John ever wrote it?" And if we meditated upon our LORD'S last prayer in St. John's Gospel, they would say: "How do we know that we have the words of the LORD'S last prayer?" Thus their minds are really in doubt all the time, so that at last nothing really speaks to them at all. Now, what I advise is a careful study of the writings of such a man as Dr. Swete. He tells us that in that last prayer of our LORD we have, through the medium of St. John or the writer of St. John's Gospel--he believes it was St. John--as nearly as you can get them, the actual words of our LORD'S prayer. I am not taking any particular case, but only trying to illustrate a state of mind. If you are losing your message because you are ceasing to believe it, then all the salt has gone out of your ministry till faith comes back. If you face it, and find it is so, ask our LORD, who has come to speak to us now, to restore to you your belief in Him once again, so that He shall be to you the centre of the universe, and you will be really in a position to say again, as you once did,

"How sweet the Name of JESUS sounds
In a believer's ear!"

Then you will be able to preach again.

(_b_) Or is it that the fault is not so much intellectual as moral, and there is really something between you and CHRIST--something which is making your message appear unreal, because there is something in your life which contradicts your message? It has been a very blessed thing that a number of men have seen what that thing is during these Quiet Days. Is there anything in your life which contradicts your message? I remember hearing--it was not in this diocese--of a priest who did not dare to speak to his young men and boys about certain things, because his own conscience reproached him. That is the sort of thing that makes your message sound hollow when you get up to deliver it, in the pulpit or in the Bible-class. "Search me, O LORD, and seek the ground of my heart, prove me and examine my thoughts and see whether there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." This must be our prayer. If we say that to our people, we must say it to ourselves, and get it put right, though it may be like plucking out the right eye or cutting off the right hand. When it is put right your message will ring true again.

(_c_) Or is it what you may call "middle-aged low spirits"? Is it something like accidie. Dr. Paget describes that dreariness of feeling that comes over some in middle age. "You cannot expect that amount of keenness from me at my age," a man says. I think of three men myself--Bishop Wilkinson, Bishop King and Canon Body--who were to the last day of their lives as keen as when they started. So when you think of these three men, it cannot be middle age or old age that really produce this accidie. I dare say it would be equally true of Mr. Simeon or Mr. Wesley, but I only happen to know of these three men, who were like fathers to me. They were as keen up to the day that they died as ever they were in their lives. Bishop Wilkinson's last words before he died--an address to a committee of his Prayer Union in his diocese--were the same burning words that had fired the rich people of Eaton Square and the miners of the North.

Well, if it is not middle age or old age, must be ourselves who are to blame. Therefore let us ask for a revival of our keenness, and not put down the want of it to old age or middle age. Of course, it may be that a man--I want to be quite frank about that--a man has been too long where he is. If you knew how much prayer and thought I personally give to this matter, how anxious I am to move men when I see a move would be for their good, you would realise how distressing it is to me to keep a man in one place when he would be much better moved, or promoted to a living. But the simple fact is there are not enough livings to go round. I want you to realise how urgently we at the centre feel the danger of men getting stale or being kept in one place too long. But it is not from the man's point of view that we ought to look at it. He may pray to have a change. But while he is there he is the messenger to the people, who are constantly changing. There is a new population constantly coming in. He must be there ready for them. And those who remain in the parish are still depending upon him. He is their messenger; he must not let them suffer because he is tired of his particular post. I cannot imagine any of those three men, whom I knew so well, in the least letting the keenness of their message be diminished because they thought they ought to be moved somewhere else. A man may feel very sad because he cannot do more, but he must not let his work fall off, although he may be praying that in GOD'S providence he may have a change.

(3) Then comes the waiting before GOD for the message. Pheidippides bowed his head even in the heat of the race, bowed his head and listened. And, you know, one of the things we have certainly found out lately is that the great fault of the Church of England is not listening. We pray, but we do not wait for an answer. It is the ten minutes after prayer that matters. It is listening for the answer to come back. One of the reasons why English clergy need a Quiet Day is that they are not good listeners to GOD. We talk to Him, we even, as someone has said, chatter to Him like little children chatter to their parents, but we do not listen for the reply. We must listen for the reply when we speak to God. We must wait for our message. It must be renewed every day. What is the message that I am to take to the people? Rearrange all your time so that you may have time for listening. That has been crowded out. It is not a question of how many visits you can make in a day, but of the atmosphere you take with you on those visits, and the atmosphere depends upon the previous "waiting upon GOD." Then when you go on your visit the HOLY SPIRIT opens the door of the heart of those to whom you go.

(4) Then notice, fourthly, the abandonment of the messenger. I am sure St. Paul really loved the picture of the runner. Do you notice he is always going back to it? The runner flung aside his cloak, with his eyes fixed on the goal, like Pheidippides the messenger; that is exactly what he did: he flung everything away for speed and alertness, in order to be there in time--the one thing that mattered. Do you not think that it may be true that we have become too comfortable as messengers? May it not be that we have lost the alertness and keenness and the mobility of the messenger? We have just settled down into our comfortable homes and creature comforts. They hinder our movements, and we do not run with the alertness of a messenger of GOD. Of course, we have to be part of a great system, to have parishes, to settle down in a certain place, and to secure that no one is neglected in the parish. But we must remember, we clergy of the Church of England, that we are not working for a particular parish or country only, but for the whole world. We must not rest content in being a stolid yeomanry, who can only fight in our own country, but we are to be a mobile alert force for the conversion of the world. We ought to be entirely and absolutely independent of our comfortable homes, of our comfortable way of life. It is good to go into camp and be content to stay there for a couple of months. We ought to feel that having food and raiment, with these we shall have enough. That love of comfort is a great danger; it greatly hampers us in our task and in our alertness as messengers.

And, again, if we are a mobile army for the world, we ought to be ready to go to any part of the world to which the SPIRIT of the LORD directs us. It often happens that the SPIRIT catches away some young curate, and he is found in some unpronounceable place in Japan or China. He is there because the SPIRIT has taken him there. Therefore we have to question ourselves very strictly to-day, it seems to me, as to whether we are detached enough to be messengers, or whether we have got clogged by mere custom and the comforts of life, so that we do not move quickly enough. Or again, we may be hampered in our movements by the demand for a full Catholic service for our own solace and comfort. Those men at the front who are receiving the Holy Communion before the battle have little barns for their service, with flickering and guttering candles. When they come home they will tell us they have never had such a Communion service in their lives as those they had with their comrades. Honestly I consider it is right to have, if we can, a beautiful service which uplifts our souls, to give our people all the Catholic privileges possible. But we ought not to be dependent upon it; we ought to recognise that the heart of the thing is also in the poor barn and the guttering candle. We all ought to be content to do without many things that we have now, if only we may be allowed to carry our message to the ends of the earth.

(5) And then, when he comes, he is to give the full message. Pheidippides stood before his people and gave it all, the warning, and the comfort and the inspiration. Do not leave anything out. One part is as important as another. He gave the whole rounded message, and we must be careful to do the same. We must be careful not to let the Gospel consist of one doctrine only--for example, the Atonement. The Atonement is a part of the Gospel--a glorious part of it--but it is not the whole message by any means. There is the Gospel of Grace. We are saved by the death of CHRIST, but we are saved by Grace and the means of Grace--the power in the water of life to refresh the soul that is pardoned, and the beautiful sacramental teaching handed on to us. The prodigal comes back, and he receives the robe and the ring, and the home, and the feast, and the shoes for service--all these things. The prodigal of to-day wants them too; the FATHER'S kiss--the outward and visible sign of the FATHER'S love; the ring in Confirmation, the robe in Baptism, the home in the Church, the feast--the Holy Communion--the shoes for service. You have got to tell them about everything. You have no right to say of one doctrine: "This is the whole Gospel." We must teach the Gospel of the Resurrection and the Ascension as much as the Atonement, and the Church's Sacraments as well. Therefore we have to ask--have we not?--whether our teaching has degenerated into some little shibboleth, which we keep repeating over and over again. We must be messengers of the whole message, and we must see that we are giving the message in its fulness, or else there may be souls unsaved who might be saved by the very part of it which we leave out. We might be astonished if we catechised our people as to what we have really taught them in ten years. Have we simply given them a series of moral exhortations, or the same part of the message, year after year, and not the whole message?

(6) Then, lastly, we must seal the message with our lives. "Do you really mean to say"--I believe it was a girl who asked the question when present for the first time at an Ordination Service--"do you mean to say that every clergyman I have ever met has been through that?" Well, apparently we do not always give the impression that we have. The messenger has to seal the message by his life, and by conduct consistent with such a trust, but also he has got to seal it, if necessary, with his death.[21] Pheidippides died

"In the shout for his meed."