  "In her tongue is the law of kindness."—Prov. xxxi. 26. We have reached our last lesson from the life and character of Queen Victoria. Some will be surprised that this lesson should have been kept for the last one, as the kindness and sympathy of the late Queen was a proverb among her people. But, if we come to think of it, it is far best to have kept it to the last. Mere kindness, apart from sincerity, apart from moral courage, without the rainbow of purity, counts low among the virtues. We have known kind people, have we not, who were weak, who were fickle, who were even treacherous, and there is a sad truth in that half-cynical statement that it is the province of the wise to remedy the mistakes of the good. But what captivated the whole Empire in the sympathy of Queen Victoria was its strength; that one so strong should be so kind; that one so fearless should have so much sympathy; that one whose moral standard was so high should be full of mercy and gentleness. It was that which gave a force to those many stories which came to us about the visits to the little lonely cottages in the Highlands; the telegrams to the women huddled by the pit-mouth in their misery; the letter to the mother of the young officer who had died for his country—what gave force to it all was its strength, the fact that it was no passing impulse, but the deep beating of a true mother's heart, that it was the outcome of character; and that, as is so beautifully said in this description of the virtuous woman in the Book of Proverbs: "In her tongue was the law of kindness." And when we turn from the pattern to the prototype—and never, for a moment, during Lent, can we afford to take our eyes off Jesus Christ Himself—when we turn from the Queen to the Saviour, in Whom she had so simple and so touching a faith, the first thing we find to our comfort is that He, too, felt the need of sympathy. Is there any picture in the whole of the New Testament more touching than that which shows us how He goes just before His greatest trial to seek sympathy from His followers, how He, the Head, the Leader, does not disdain to turn to the very followers who trusted in Him for sympathy? "Couldst thou not watch with Me one hour?" And the picture is so comforting, because it tells us that that craving for sympathy, which all of us feel at times, is a true human instinct, that there is nothing wrong in it, that one of the things that we can do for one another is to be like comrades on a night march, when one or another is stricken down, to stand over him, and be ready, at any moment, with the cup of sympathy to give him. And when Jesus goes to His own disciples to ask them for sympathy, it is a lesson that the need for sympathy is a true need, and the desire for it a true instinct of the human heart. But, then, remember, the sympathy He looks for is the sympathy which He always gave, something as tender and gentle as the touch of a good surgeon's hand upon a wounded limb, but also something as strong, and as firm, and as helpful. Why sympathy gets discredited, why people speak of "a morbid craving for sympathy," is because so much sympathy is sympathy of the wrong sort. There is some sympathy which enervates instead of strengthening. It thinks of itself, it thinks of the happiness of having to itself the object of its sympathy, it seeks merely to soothe. But the true sympathy goes far beyond that; the true sympathy never thinks of itself at all. It is simply concentrated upon one thought—how can I, in this trial-time, when my brother or my sister is stricken down by my side, how can I nerve and strengthen him or her to rise to the glorious vocation to which God has called him or called her, to strengthen them to be what God would have them be? And that was the sympathy, was it not, that Christ gave perpetually. It was within Him like a spring working by law, a spring which had all the regularity, as well as the spontaneity, of some beautiful spring among the hills, and it was at the service of every sufferer that came to Him; but He never hurt people when He tried to comfort them, because He gave them the nerving and strengthening sympathy of love. And then, again, notice how constant it was with Him. He was never too tired to be kind. He might be disappointed forty-nine times, but the fiftieth time found Him perfectly ready still. Wake Him up from His sleep, and He is ready to do an act of mercy. Place Him, tired, by the well, and He is ready there to try and help a sinful soul. Let Him have a little quiet time far away but the multitude find Him out, and then sympathy for them is ready to spring to His lips, for "He had compassion on the multitude," we are told, and in His tongue was the law of kindness. Therefore, among the virtues which we set ourselves to acquire during Lent, let us set ourselves, with the help of God, and by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to see if we cannot acquire in our characters, as part of them, this power of sympathy; and, as we test ourselves, one by one, by the laws which ought to govern our lives during these six weeks, let us test ourselves by that law which more than any other goes to the root of our characters—the law of kindness. We ought to obey this law, first, in our own home lives; secondly, in our private charities; and, thirdly, in our public responsibilities. And, first of all, have we got such a perpetual spring of sympathy in our hearts ready for emergencies, ready for every sufferer, ready for every sinner who comes to us? Have we such a perpetual spring within us, ready and accessible for use in our home lives? It seems that the one thing a Christian should never be without is this spring of sympathy. "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up to everlasting life." It is hard to see what good a Christian is doing in the world at all if this primary function of his Christianity is undischarged. If he fails in that, he is failing in his primary duty. This, then, is the first question I would press upon everyone, as I would press it upon myself: Have I at the disposal of the brother who needs me the sympathy he wants, and if not, of what use am I in the world? Think what some lives are in the home circle; all the other members of the family have to devote themselves to keeping some one in a good humour. The children are anxious lest the father or perhaps the mother should be ill-tempered to-day. This so-called Christian, with the primary duty of being loving, sympathetic, considerate, is a creature of moods; father is ill-tempered to-day, and the whole house is miserable; or mother, for some reason unexplained to the children of the family, for days together allows herself to be under a cloud of gloom. And you see in a family—who has not seen it?—an amount of restless, anxious, watching, to try and prevent the ill-temper creeping over this one whose temper is of such importance to the whole family circle. And do we not constantly see that most unjust tyranny which the ill-tempered or ill-controlled member of the family has over the rest? Is such a one seated among us in this church to-day? Let him go down on his knees, and pray to be forgiven for failing in the primary duty of life, the duty of being loving and sympathetic at home. There are many courteous enough and popular enough outside, who yet at home utterly break every day of their lives the law of kindness. Let us face it on our knees, if it is so, and pray to be forgiven. It is self that does it, that miserable self which stops and chokes, as it were, the spring from working. We are so anxious to have a little more credit or a little more comfort. And it is because our eyes are fixed upon ourselves that we do not see that wounded man in front of us, and do not hear his cry for aid. It is a first condition of having sympathy to have a heart "at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathize." There are some whose lives are confined to their home circle; some girl, perhaps, who longs to go outside, but is thought too young to work for others, and thus she can do nothing in her home that seems worthy of being done for her Saviour. I would say to such, what an aim to be in the home circle, the most unselfish girl there! What an inspiration to have brothers and sisters say what a brother that one is! what a sister that one is! he or she never fails us in our hour of need. And then in our private charity, is not this the secret of the worthlessness of so much so-called charity that constantly we give not really to help the sufferer, but to save ourselves? That careless gift to the beggar in the street, or to someone who asks us for a gift—is it not constantly, not really to help that person, but to ease our own minds and consciences? It is really given to ourselves. No; what we must practise—and God knows it is hard enough in this crowded city and in this crowded life we live—what we must practise is getting down by our brother's side. We must save him from the temptation which is a curse to him; from the temptation to drink, it may be, that is ruining him. Get down by his character, look at him as Christ would look at him. What does he need? How can we help him, that poor wounded man brought across our path? We must try and give him, in the name of Christ, the very thing he needs, the character which he lacks. And so, again, with our public responsibilities. There are three figures very prominently before our eyes just now. There is, first, the overcrowded dweller in our slums—poor men and women and boys and girls, dwelling as they do nine and ten and even more in a room—that room the only place for them to eat and sleep in. It is astonishing how good and pure the boys and girls come out of such homes; but there the evil is, and it is not getting better, it is getting worse; every year makes it worse. And as we face it what are we to do? I do sometimes think, my friends, you who come from comfortable homes, you who belong to the better class, and are going from this Church to beautiful homes of your own, do not realize what it is to those brothers and sisters of yours to have only one little room to live in, what immorality it must lead to, and does lead to, what terribly stunted frames among the children, and what stunted characters. We have been, some of us, for weeks past, considering, in conference, the great problem. One of the best experts, who has studied the question for years, has made up his mind that the most hopeful remedy is to have from the centre of our great city, to every part of the great circumference of London, underground and overground means of transit to whirl away from the centre to something which may be called home the poor people who work for us. Others are still in favour of building in the slums better buildings at a cheap rate, which, as a Conservative paper this week advocated, should be helped by the State. But the point is this: Whatever plan is fixed upon by the experts and those responsible, are we ready to rise to it? Does the law of kindness touch us in our municipal work? Are we prepared, as a great Christian city, to rise to the self-sacrifice which it involves? We believe that all these schemes eventually will pay, but undoubtedly at the first there may be a call upon the self-sacrifice of Londoners to carry them out. And I would ask you to put it to your consciences whether we should gauge the rates only according to their amount. We have to watch carefully whether our public money is wasted, we have to take our share in deciding what shall be done, but we have also to consider when we are called upon as Christian citizens, to pay a little more towards a well-considered scheme to cure one of the most terrible evils in our midst, whether the law of kindness does not bid us do so. Let us send this week on to our central Council—by whatever party name they call themselves—men who have the time and the brains, and, above all, the heart, to deal with these great problems. Then we have before us prominently one we miscall the Hooligan. And we must freely admit when street ruffianism has reached a certain point, there is but one thing to do, and that is to bring in firmly and strongly the arm of the law. But can we as Christian citizens be content with the arm of the law? Is there no other arm, no other law that we are bound to try before these young lads grow up indeed ruffians who must be dealt with by the law? Are we so hopeless and helpless as to have no other power to bring in upon them? Can we not transform them as boys? Must we be content to transport them as men? And so on Friday there was inaugurated at the Mansion House a scheme for dealing with the roughest lads of our town in such a way as experience has shown does transform them from the possibility of becoming young ruffians into respectable and honest men; in other words, to apply to them in their youth the law of kindness, and so make it unnecessary to apply to them for their discipline the penalty for the breach of any other law throughout their lives. I ask you whether you as Christian citizens cannot rise to a great scheme like this to plant down in every little slum some place beside the public-house into which the lads so lovable and so full of good and so open to influence, if you will only take them in time, may come to in the evening to be trained and disciplined and taught, and so be changed that their lives may be more worthy of children of God. You cannot all personally help, but we shall be asking some of you young men to give up one evening a week and go and work these clubs. The older ones can give money; we want from you your personal help. Will you give it? And lastly, we have to-day before us the untaught child. After all is said and done, these schemes for dealing with Hooligans would be unnecessary if we really had from the very beginning an efficient scheme for teaching the young Christian principles. You are asked today to give your alms to the National Society. It is a grand thing for us of the Church of England to think that we have given for the education of the people for the last eighty years more than 10,000 pounds a week. And yet the work is failing. In God's name, because we are interested in a new scheme, let us not forsake or starve the old. And a liberal contribution to the National Society is a true response to the law of kindness. Let us take home, then, these four great lessons from the character of our late Queen—Truth in the inward parts, Moral courage throughout life, The rainbow of purity round the throne of the heart, and In the tongue the law of kindness. May God send them home to us and incorporate them into the national character, and then we shall have with us for years to come the after-glow of a great reign. ******* This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: /dirs/2/0/4/3/20430 Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work. 1.F.3. 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