4. In work among the lowest classes, while we may conform to their wishes, we must be sure that we ourselves fall into no sin, such as the sin of irreverence, which is sometimes committed by those who try to attract them. In work among people of higher social position, while we may be anxious that our mode of worship and our style of preaching shall in no way shock a refined taste, we must beware lest we gloss over or tone down any truths that are likely to be unwelcome. It may sometimes be our duty to declare truths that are utterly opposed to the most inveterate convictions of those to whom we speak. We must not be unfaithful to our own consciences for fear of offending the sensibilities of anybody. Even St. Paul, the model of tact and adaptation, did not hesitate to reason before the licentious governor Felix of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. On one occasion (writes a gentleman who knew Robertson well at Cheltenham) he had been asked to preach at a church where the congregation was chiefly composed of those whom Pope describes as passing from "a youth of frolics" to "an old age of cards." I accompanied him, and listened curiously for his text. It was this, "Love not the world, nor the things of the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The sermon was most impressive and eloquent, and bold in its denunciation. Returning home, he asked me if I thought he was right in preaching it. I answered that it was very truthful; but, considering the character of the clergyman whose pulpit he occupied by courtesy, and the character of the congregation, not a discreet sermon. It might have been as truthful without apparently setting both minister and people at defiance. "You are quite right, quite right," he answered; "but the truth was this: I took two sermons with me into the pulpit, uncertain which to preach; but, just as I had fixed upon the other, something seemed to say to me, 'Robertson, you are a craven, you dare not speak here what you believe'; and I immediately pulled out the sermon that you heard, and preached it as you heard it."1 5. We must never sacrifice convictions to expediency. St. Paul's sympathy even with his opponents, and his great tenderness for the bigoted, the scrupulous, the superstitious, are the more remarkable in a man of such deep, strong, definite convictions. Assuredly he never accepted the hateful maxim that to 1 S. A. Brooke, Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 71. understand everything is to condone everything. No one held more tenaciously to the sacredness of principle and the certainty of truth. Yet he would go almost any length, short of compromising principle, if by any means he might win over his antagonists. In particular he was ready to waive his own personal rights and to sacrifice his individual liberties in all matters that did not involve evil, on the chance that by so doing he might influence some soul for good. General Gordon wrote: "Daily I am more convinced that the non-assertion of one's rights is a great gain, though only to be acquired by a closer union with Christ." ¶Of Bishop Moberly, Keble says, "There is nobody, I feel sure, nobody on earth, who can exactly take the part which he did, with his sweet and noble and, as I always thought, royal ways: not giving up an inch of principle, yet known to be the friend of every one and making all friends to one another." 1 ¶Ideal tolerance necessarily is of extreme rarity because it virtually implies an amicable meeting of apparent contradictories -Belief, and sympathy with Unbelief. Superstition and infallibility may tolerate-"just endure "-Jews, Turks, and Infidels. Indifferentism suffers with good-humoured contemptuousness a babel of Creeds. The genuinely tolerant, whatever the origin of his faith, has made it his personal possession, has converted himself to it.2 6. But we may sacrifice almost everything else. Yield in a thousand little things that the great things may be urged. Nothing on earth is so winning, so subduing, as the spectacle of a man who forgets all his self-importance for the sake of doing good to others. The real triumphs of the Gospel involve the humility and self-suppression and self-effacement of its preachers. And the Gospel of Love can prevail only as it is preached lovingly, with endless tenderness and tolerance and patience and longsuffering. In one of Cowper's letters to John Newton we read: "No man was ever scolded out of his sins," or, let us add, persecuted out of his prejudices and errors and superstitions. A sermon was preached before the Irish House of Commons in 1725 by Edward Synge on the anniversary of the rebellion. The preacher was prebendary of St. Patrick and son of that Archbishop Synge who for many years exercised a great influence 1 C. A. E. Moberly, Dulce Domum, 165. 2 W. Stebbing, Three Essays, 10. over all Irish policy, and it was published by order of the House. Taking for his text the words "Compel them to enter in," which had been so often employed in justification of persecution, and adopting substantially the reasoning of Locke and of Hoadly, Synge proceeded to examine with considerable ability the duty of a Protestant Legislature in dealing with a Roman Catholic population. Coercion, he maintained, which is directed simply against religious teaching as such, is always illegitimate and useless. Its only good end could be to release men from error, but this involves a change of judgment, which cannot be effected by external force. "All persons, therefore, in a society, whose principles in religion have no tendency to hurt the public, have a right to toleration.": 1 W. E. H. Lecky, A History of Ireland, i. 304. LITERATURE. Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, v. 199. Fraser (J.), University Sermons, 204. Hall (C. R.), Advent to Whitsun-Day, 83. Hickey (F. P.), Short Sermons, ii. 50. Hort (F. J. A.), Cambridge Sermons, 109. Hutchings (W. H.), in Sermons for the People, New Ser., ii. 170. Maclaren (A.), Christ in the Heart, 205. Paget (E. C.), Silence, 53. Westcott (B. F.), Lessons from Work, 269. Williams (T. M.), Sermons of the Age, 173. Winterbotham (R.), Sermons, 93. Cambridge Review, i. Supplements Nos. 12, 13 (Mayor). Christian Age, xl. 66 (Wolf). Christian World Pulpit, viii. 395 (Landels); xvii. 232 (McCree); lxi. 231 (Stalker); lxxv. 97 (Henson). Church of England Magazine, xiv. 96 (Horne). Church of England Pulpit, lxi. 78, 142 (Mackarness). Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., vii. 85 (Agar Beet), 114 (Alford). |