I

MESSENGERS[18]

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."

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.

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:

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.

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,

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."

There ought to be no hesitation about going to infectious cases if we are called to do so. I am always quoting what Bishop King told us in one of his pastoral lectures. He was warning us against being nervous or having presentiments. He said: "I had a presentiment that I should die when I was twenty-six. And, sure enough, after I was ordained, the smallpox came to the parish where I was working. I had to go to the patients, and I had to sit up with them, and bury one myself. 'Here,' I thought, 'is my presentiment coming true; I am twenty-six.' But," he said to us in the lecture-hall, "I am here, gentlemen, this morning." Therefore we should make it a rule that what little risk there is in our profession we should take, after seeing to all needful precautions. And if it be so that we die in the course of our duty through some epidemic, we shall die at our posts, and be doing what a messenger ought to do.

That was a young soldier, a messenger, who came to tell Napoleon of the success of his arms. It is called simply "An Incident of the French Camp."[22]

"Smiling the boy fell dead."

Dear brothers, if we are called to seal our message with our lives, may God give us grace to do so!

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II

PHYSICIANS

We have thought over, or tried to think over, our rÔle as messengers. Now—by that sort of rapid change which these titles put before us, and this illustrates the extraordinary variety and interest of our work—we have got to picture ourselves in the sober mien of physicians—physicians in a ward, good physicians, celestial surgeons. We must put away the picture of the rapid, eager, loyal messenger, and remember that there is a side to our message quite different from this, without which our service as messenger might degenerate into mere preaching. We have much else to do besides that. We are house-surgeons, physicians in a great ward of patients, and that ward is our parish; and upon our training, patience, and skill, will depend the safety and welfare of all this multitude of patients. They are all entrusted to our care. But what should we think, for instance, of a surgeon out at the front, if, with a great mass of wounded to be attended to, nobody ever asked him to come, but left him in a tent without a call? It would not be a very strong testimonial to his skill or standing or people's belief in him. And, therefore, we have to ask ourselves this fresh home question: If in our ward we are not called in, may it not be that the people do not believe in us, or trust us, or think we are sufficiently trained to be able to help them?

(1) And that brings us, of course, to the whole question of training for the ministry. It is really humiliating when you think of it. No one is allowed to be a physician or surgeon, not even to begin as one—certainly not to have any sort of responsibility—unless he has had at least five years' course of continuous training. And sometimes we think a year or two at a University or a Theological College, not necessarily both, quite enough training to become surgeons and physicians of the soul. I do think the Church ought to back up the Bishops in the efforts they are making to remedy this great contrast. Five years' incessant training for those who treat the body, and a hasty two years considered sufficient for the more difficult task of surgeon and physician of the soul!

Therefore do back us up in our difficult task of trying to get a better-trained ministry. If the parish priest only theoretically believes in it, and is quite upset if his curate is ploughed in the examination, and writes and begs that he at least may be let through—I am only giving an illustration of dozens of letters I have received—that sort of thing does not help us. It is no good my speaking to you anything but true words; that sort of thing does not help us to keep up what should be the standard of our trained ministry. We must remember that the real examination comes in our parish. When we arrive there, it is the people who really examine us, and if, when they have got to know us, they find that we are not worth calling in to minister to their souls—well, it is not the fault of the people, it is the fault of the training and the want of skill of the physician. And if some were ordained quickly owing to poverty—and God knows it often is owing to poverty: many a man would be only too thankful for another year in a theological college—that is the fault of the Church. The Church must supply the money if the men cannot. We have an efficient Board, in the diocese to-day, of responsible men choosing out candidates. And if the Church were a little more generous in its support, we might have a really adequate supply of clergy. We have not got by any means the full number which the Church needs to-day to send all over the country.

(2) The second essential thing is self-knowledge. "Physician, heal thyself," is an old saying. Of course, I am not speaking from a pedestal, but simply sitting among you, and speaking to myself as much as to you. The words I believe Christ is saying to us all are, "Physician, heal thyself"—that is to say, we must see what is wrong in our own lives and works; otherwise we cannot have the insight to heal others. We do not know how to do it, unless we have cut down into our own souls. The man who has done that is the man who really knows. It is only the man who is frank enough to look below the surface and see the wickedness of his own heart who is the one who can deal with other people. The Holy Spirit, who alone knows us through and through, may bring us to a deeper self-knowledge to-day, which will make us very much better physicians. If we heal ourselves first, we shall know how to heal others.

(3) Then, thirdly, to carry out this great task we must know our people one by one. Here is a great difficulty. A parish priest may have ten thousand people in his charge, but how difficult it is for him to know each one! He must do it—though, of course, partly through others. He must have a system. I do not think a parish priest ought ever to be wholly inaccessible to any part of his parish. He must have his curates working for him, but the priests who work with him must have a system by which the vicar himself will know when he is wanted. I am sure every parish priest feels that he must be ready for any emergency. It is not easy to escape from councils and committees, but he should be ready with the surgeon's knife whenever he is wanted all over his great ward. He must not leave it wholly to anyone else, so long as he is responsible. In order to know the people, he must be up to the last day of his life a visitor. I hold it to be an absolutely wrong view of the pastoral office to say: "I can sit in my cassock in the church, and the people know where I am, and they can come to me if they like." Of course, it is a very good thing to have times when we shall be in church, and when the people will know that we are there. There is (let us say) the daily service at a time which everybody knows; they can catch us after the daily service, and see us as we go away. We make it known we shall be pleased to see them after Mattins and Evensong. And we have a time before the great festivals when they can come to prepare themselves for the great services. All that is wholly to the good. It is good for the house-surgeon to have a place where his patients can come and see him. But something else is wanted. He must be ready to go out and see them when they are ill, and find out what is the matter with them. What should we think of a physician who had always the same regimen and the same medicine for everybody? It used to be a joke, I remember, at a great school at which I was, that the doctor gave us all the same physic. It was no doubt a libel on him. But certainly such a method would be a fault in the case of the spiritual surgeon; souls would die under such treatment. We have to ask ourselves: Are there any patients dying under my hand, in my ward, because I have not taken the trouble to really heal them, because I am not going down deep enough, because I am not finding out what is the matter with them, because I am not really acting the part of physician, still less that of a celestial surgeon?

(4) And then, when we have got the people to trust us so that they wish us to go to them, or they come to us with their troubles and difficulties and sorrows, we must have for our people the patience of the good physician. If we have known and benefited by the patience of our own physicians of the body when we have been ill, and have realised how patient they are, if some of our best friends have been the doctors, the physicians, and surgeons, who have attended to us, we, too, have got to show the patience of the good physician to our people. We have no right to give a sarcastic answer because a particular parishioner seems to be beyond the limit. We must imitate the patience of Jesus Christ. The old story of "Quo Vadis?" is told in different ways. One version is that, as St. Peter was, in a fit of impatience, leaving Rome, our Lord met him on the way, and he, Peter, asked Him whither He was going. The Lord answered that He was going to Rome to be crucified again because Peter had left his post. Another version of the same story is that one of the disciples was asked where he was going, and he said: "I have lost patience with such and such a man." The Lord said: "I have had patience with that man for forty years." Whichever way you put the story, the point is that we have no right to be impatient with our people. Why should we be impatient? Think how patient He has been with us all this time. We must have, then, the patience of the Good Physician. Let me speak to the younger clergy, nearly all of whom I have ordained myself. Do you remember that when you were undergraduates you were not particularly keen when someone came in to speak to you for your good? Perhaps you were a little impatient. And, perhaps, after all is said and done, the young men of the parish feel very much the same when you come in and want to talk to them for their good. I think sometimes we forget that the young men of the parish are very much the same as we were as undergraduates, and that if they do not come on at once to the Bible-class or want to be confirmed, they are not very much worse than we were at their age. Therefore we must pray for more patience with them. Someone had patience with us, or we could not have been here in the ministry at all. Someone bore with all our waywardness, and with hopefulness brought us on to something better. We shall never do anything without patience. It is the patience of Christ that will win them at last, and they will say: "Thy gentleness has made me great."

(5) But, then, while we are patient, we must not be afraid of speaking the uncomfortable truth. I mean, there is such a thing as being too kind—too kind in the sense that we are afraid to speak out, to cut down, as it were, with the surgeon's knife. You remember the Celestial Surgeon of Stevenson:

Something of what he means is, I suppose, humorous. What he means is that something must pierce below the surface, something must get home; anything is better than faltering in our great task of happiness, being dead to the blessings of life that God gives us. Sometimes we have to stand up and say: "Thou art the man." "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." We have got to say this whenever there is occasion for it. We have got to speak out for the sake of the man's soul. It is not easy, but we must be prepared to do our part as celestial surgeons. There is many a man who has lived to bless his parish priest for telling him the truth about himself. He has been very angry at first, and full of bluster, but thankful afterwards. We must never be afraid to be celestial surgeons in the sense of doing the best for our patients.

(6) Well, then, directly you have done that, be ready to pour in the oil like the Good Samaritan. There he is, delightful man, putting off his business to look after the poor man, and we are to remember to our shame that the priest and the Levite had passed by him. Pour in the oil of sympathy. It seemed a very little thing to repeat that commonplace bit of comfort to the mourners; often you may hesitate to write that letter to the tenth man or woman who has lost his or her boy in the war. That letter, written in love, is like the oil; it comes as a healing balm. You have poured in loving sympathy. You cannot have too much of it to give away. The good physician is full of pity even while he uses the drastic medicine, and the best surgeon is wonderfully patient. "When I lost my boy, when he hung between life and death, then I found out what my parish priest was like," people should be able to say. If we have not got sympathy, and cannot pour in the oil, where are we? The world expects us to be kindly, loving, sympathising, sacrificing physicians in times of trouble and sorrow.

(7) And then, once again, do not forget the after-care. We have "after-care committees" for our children when they leave school, but we are an after-care committee for all our people's souls. Our Lord understood all about after-care. When He healed the little girl, He commanded that something should be given her to eat. He at once thought of her needs. He wanted to strengthen her after the strain that she had gone through.

And that brings us to the beautiful work of our guilds. There need be no particular kind of organisation, but we must in our parishes look round and see that everyone has what he wants—see that men and boys, women and girls, are looked after. When they are cured, have we provided that something should be given them to eat, something to strengthen them? Do we carry out the after-care which every good physician and surgeon always displays?

I always remember, from my East London days, a little pamphlet written by the present Bishop of Southwell. It was called "From Marriage to Marriage." It made a great impression on me at the time. I cannot remember all he said, but the point is this: We were too much inclined to imagine that everyone had to go through a dreary course of falls and rescues. But if we really shepherded the little child from the moment he was born, it would be different. Let us begin with the young couple. From the time they leave the church we have to look after them. And then, when their child has come, we have to take care of that little child and shepherd it from the very start. If we do not do that, we have left out our most important work. There is a great deal of work upon which we are engaged—e.g., rescue work—which would not be on such a gigantic scale if we had real after-care committees thoroughly at work in the Church from the time the people are married.

We must examine ourselves to-day, then, very strictly from the point of view of being good physicians: "What about my parish? Are my people dying under my hand, through my carelessness or want of skill? Are there any whom I do not know or who do not know me because I have not won their confidence? Do I visit them as much as I can, and find out what is the matter with them? Am I treating them with loving patience, and yet with frankness and courage and tenderness, looking after them right on to the end?" When the Apostles healed a man they gave us the true spirit in which to do it. "In the name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk." Not in their own name, not in their own power, but in the name and power of Jesus Christ. They did not try to be popular people and make people like them; they had but the one idea, to make it perfectly plain that the power of their Lord was present to heal; and the result was that the man leapt up, stood, and walked, and was seen afterwards in the Temple walking and praising God. If in our healing work we keep out the idea of self, and work as good physicians and celestial surgeons in the name of Christ, the effect of our work will be that we shall see numbers in the parish, perhaps paralysed before, walking and leaping and praising, not us, but God.

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III

FISHERS OF MEN

We have meditated upon our work as messengers, and then on our work as physicians and surgeons; but the duties given us are so various that it ought to make us feel how extraordinarily full of interest our work is. Every faculty of the mind and spirit is wanted for this wonderful work. We are called sometimes stewards representing the Master to the people of the world, looking after the menservants and the maidservants, foraging for the food of the household and giving it out. Then another time we are watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem, walking up and down watching over the city and blowing the trumpet when the danger comes, continually holding up our hands in prayer.

We do our work as messengers running with a message, as physicians and surgeons going up and down the ward, and then suddenly we hear a voice ring, as it were, from heaven: "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." Here we have quite a different picture—the wind-swept deck of the fishing-smack in the teeth of the tempest. "Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find." We are fishers fishing for men. What a different picture from the others! And I think we ask, rather sadly, some of us, who have been working night and day, whether we are successful fishers of men. We say: "Master, we have toiled all the night and taken nothing." I have this huge parish of ten thousand people to look after, and what is the result of my work among them? Have I been a successful fisher of men? And that makes us, of course, ask ourselves in a day like this: "What is the secret of successful fishing? If I have toiled all the night and taken nothing, and all the day and taken very little, what ought I to do? My time is getting on; the evening will come, my fishing will be over. Can I not discover in the presence of my Lord to-day what He would have me do different from what I have been doing, that I may bring to His feet a greater harvest of souls than I have ever brought yet?"

(1) And the first secret of successful fishing is variety of method. There are some of us, no doubt, who do fish on our holidays in the literal sense, and we know how again and again in the salmon rivers we have tried fly after fly. And yet in our fishing for men we often tie ourselves down to one monotonous kind of method, never thinking of varying it. But if we have found one method fail, surely we might try another. Why should we be tied down to one particular humdrum method if it has been tried for years and failed? Of course, there are certain things which must be the same. We have no right to complain for a moment of what some people call the monotony of Mattins and Evensong for ourselves. Mattins and Evensong are not at all monotonous. I remember thinking, when I made that promise which everyone makes when they are ordained, of obeying the Prayer-Book and saying Mattins and Evensong every day, that it would be a kind of slavery to me. But, on the contrary, I find it a chain that binds me about the feet of God. The lessons in these services are four "letters from heaven" every day, as Canon Liddon called them. We have spent an immense time in Convocation—nine years—in considering what variations in the authorised services of the Prayer-Book may be admitted, and we have almost agreed upon a supplementary book which will give an immense variety to the service: a great many more antiphons, a rewritten preface to the Confirmation Service, the Marriage Service carefully revised, and some things definitely sanctioned for the Church at large which we have used under provisional sanction in this diocese. We hope to have the new supplementary book out at the end of the war. Think, for instance, of the Psalms. Has not the Great War revealed to us the depth of the Psalms—"the war-songs of the Prince of Peace," as they have been called. The war has given to many a new meaning which we never saw before. And think of all the needs of the sick of the parish, and our personal needs, all to be woven into these beautiful services which we use every day, and which seem to bind us to the feet of God. If any of you have drifted away from your regular use of Mattins and Evensong, or if you have not started it in your own churches, make a resolution to start it from to-day. When your people hear the bell ring, that will tell them that at any rate the clergyman is at his prayers.

Of course, we do not want our beautiful services to be altered in substance; but we may have variations sanctioned by authority. In fishing for men we are not bound by one method. If we find that one method does not succeed, we must try another. I have already sanctioned in the diocese a shortened form of Evening Service. For those not reached by services in church we must have open-air services. People will listen at the windows in the little square or street in which they live. There must be, too, special services for such organisations as Boy Scouts and Church Lads' Brigade. For the ordinary Sunday-School we are now able to have new methods provided by experts for the diocese. Then, if the Sunday-School system does not seem to suit your particular parish, try catechising in church. I am only suggesting—it is not for me to lay down this or that rule as to what is to be tried. My point is this: With the Holy Spirit guiding you, and with the inventiveness of love, you will be able to bring out of your treasure things new and old. Although one of the oldest things in the world, the Church is yet the youngest. We never grow old, and, acting with the inventiveness of youth, we ought to be thinking out new plans and new methods all the time; and while I am speaking upon the inventiveness and freshness of the successful fisherman, I need not say that I shall be only too happy to sanction almost any new experiment you may wish to make in fishing for men, if you will submit to me the prayers you think of using, and if I think the suggested method consistent with the teaching of the Church to which we both belong.

(2) Then there must be, too—every true fisherman knows this—a ripple on the water for fishing, best of all a light breeze in the morning. That means that it is a fishing-day. And do you not know what I mean when I say that there seems to be no ripple on some parishes at all? The whole of the surface of the parish seems as dull as ditch-water—no ripple, no fish. If there is no sense of expectancy, no keenness, no enjoyment, no happy spirit, among the workers, there will be no fish. I would like you to ask yourselves whether there is such a ripple in your parish, or whether it is all very dull and dead. And I would like to ask anyone who seems to recognise that there is nothing going on, and that there has been no catch, yesterday, to-day, or the day before, to ask himself if he cannot go back and create a ripple in the parish. When you think over how that ripple is to be created, of course, it can only be by the power of the Holy Spirit brooding over the waters, as He originally brooded over the waters and brought cosmos out of chaos. I believe the chief way, if I may reduce the metaphor to prosaic terms, the chief way must be by constantly praying for the parish and the people, that the Holy Spirit may come and stir the dulness by creating a spirit of expectancy and a joy in the work. When you are obviously enjoying your work yourself, and making the Sunday-School teachers and the workers enjoy it, you may expect a ripple in the parish. Joy in the work is a most attractive thing. There must be the joy throughout the parish, among clergy and workers; the curates and the Vicar must be at one, with no friction between them, and they and the workers a real band of brothers and sisters all fishing in the same waters. Pray very earnestly for this. I shall not bring in more at this point about the necessity for intercession. Remember that it is the parish priest who is perpetually praying for his people individually, and teaching his people to pray, who is the most successful. In my experience it is the praying parish that has a ripple on the surface. I see a wonderful quantity of fish caught in a parish of that kind.

(3) Then think what is the cord or line by which the fish are caught. "I will draw them with the cords of a man," by human influence, by personality. Now this question of personality is a very difficult one. Dr. Newman is said to have stated that he dreaded personal influence. Well, of course, it is quite easy to see what he meant. He dreaded such personal influence in religion which is used to make people simply like us or to draw them to ourselves and to leave them there—that is to say, he dreaded a misuse of personal influence. So misused, no doubt, personal influence is a dangerous thing. But that does not alter the fact that people are drawn to Christ by personal influence, and that we must use our personal influence if we are to be successful fishermen for Christ.

And that brings me to this personal question: Is there anything in ourselves that puts people off? I wish to be perfectly frank. Is it not a fact that we clergy sometimes do put people off by our manner and appearance? Even the smallest thing is important if it is going to spoil the line or cord that is to draw people to Christ. I believe we put off people more than we know by carelessness about our appearance, or manner, or matters of that kind. So much depends on us that we cannot take too much care of our personality. We should see to it that when people meet us they can see the attractiveness of goodness in us, and be drawn to our Lord because they are first attracted to His representative. And do ask yourselves—I might seem to be personal if I went into details: Is there anything in my manner that is spoiling Christ's work so that He cannot fish with me, cannot draw others through me? Is it because I am not humble enough, or is there something in me, some unattractive feature or characteristic, that is spoiling the fishing?

(4) And then, of course, there must be the hopefulness of the fisherman. The true fisherman is nothing if he is not hopeful. "Master, I have toiled all night, and caught nothing; nevertheless, at Thy word I will let down the net." The true fisherman never knows when he may be successful; he is always expecting something at the last moment, and he manages to infuse hopefulness into his fellow-workers; he hopes that there is going to be good fishing in the day or the night. I had a rather touching illustration of the value of hopefulness in a little hospital near where I was spending a holiday. Five sisters, friends of mine, who really managed the whole hospital, sent a telegram from the village asking if I could come and see one of the young soldiers, whom they could make nothing of. He was absolutely in despair. He had lived a bad life, and I think it was the presence of these five good girls who were nursing him that made him feel the contrast between his life and theirs, with all its purity and goodness. The contrast brought him to repentance. Still, he thought it was too late to change. He could not be forgiven. I went to the hospital. There he was, a young man about twenty-eight, really in despair. It took me a long time to get any hope in him. At last, when he had gone into his whole life, and I had given him absolution, and had a prayer with him, I saw a sort of hope come into his face. The change was extraordinary. He said: "Will you pray with me again, Bishop?" In all my experience I have not very often been asked like that to pray again with a man. They are generally shy, and satisfied with the first prayer. I prayed with him a second time. He wrote me afterwards a charming letter, asking me to send him a Bible and Prayer-Book, which I did. What that man wanted was hope, nothing but hope; he was in despair about himself. "God shall forgive thee all but thy despair." We shall never catch a man like that unless we can infuse into him that glorious hope which we have ourselves. I persuaded him that he was not too late, and he was saved by hope.

Now do let us carry back the hopefulness of the fisherman to our parishes, whatever may have happened in the past. Many of you have been in your parishes very many years, and no doubt sometimes you have felt very despondent. Start again to-morrow as if you had just begun. Though you have toiled all the night and perhaps caught nothing, cast your net on the right side of the ship, and the next five years will be the most fruitful years your parish has ever had. People will notice a different spirit about yourself. Try a completely new method, and you will have a wonderful success. There will be a ripple on the water which there has not been before. Be hopeful about it, and then, if you have to stay on in the same parish five or ten years more, it may be a wholly different story from what it has been up to now.

(5) In the next place, a successful fisherman must have a very deep faith. Of course, the ordinary fisherman must have some sort of faith. The good fisherman believes certain things all the time he is fishing. He believes in the laws of the wind, studies them, and acts according to them. He sets his sail according to them, if he is fishing in the sea, and he knows that he must do so if he is to reap of the unfathomable harvest of the sea. He believes in all these things, and on a stormy coast he must be a man of great faith, dealing with great unseen movements and powers all round him. He learns their laws, and he knows that if he acts according to those laws he is successful as a rule. But do you not see that we are just like that ourselves? Really we are in touch with all kinds of unseen powers and movements. We have to believe, for instance, in the salvability of every soul in the world; we have to believe that every soul is meant for the Gospel, and the Gospel is meant for every soul. We have to believe in that man in the worst slum of our parish; we have to realise that the Gospel is fitted for him and he is fitted for the Gospel. No one has ever been found yet who could not be made into a bit of a saint in time. And the Gospel, tremendously deep as it is, is also so simple that the simplest can understand it. That is the wonderful thing about it. We have to believe in it—intensely believe in it; we have to believe in the wonderful power of these tides of the Spirit sweeping round a parish and working wonders; we have to believe in the influence of the unseen wind that blows over it and to pray often: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon them."

We are, as a matter of fact, working amidst unseen and tremendous forces. We talk about the power of God. The power of God! Why, He keeps the whole universe going, twenty million suns always moving on through space. He alone knows whither they are going. Twenty million burning suns! look at the power of that; think what power that alone implies! and then think of the saving power of one drop of blood shed upon the Cross, when you consider Who it was that hung there. Think, again, of the wonderful influence, the downrush of the Spirit: some of you have seen it in missions; we believe in it at every Confirmation. We are really in touch with most tremendous powers. If we had more faith we should be better fishermen. Therefore we do want a stronger faith in our Lord Himself, always at the heart of our work, a real living faith in a living Lord with us all the time.

(6) And then, sixthly, we must fish for men one by one. Of course, we can have great concerted movements. I shall never forget a midnight march through Westminster at half an hour after midnight on a Saturday night. We swept like a net, bringing quite twenty young men out of every public-house. As we counted them in the church school, we could see that most of them were three-quarters drunk. We could see what would be prevented if the public-houses of London were shut earlier, as, indeed, they now have been during the war. It has benefited Russia greatly that she has abolished the whole vodka traffic. We could not take pledges that night from those men: they were not in a condition to make them; but the Church of England, with all her great organisation, ought to be able to prevent that sort of thing, and catch these souls one by one. Here comes in the need of personality; we must talk to each of these young men, provide somewhere else where he may spend his evenings, and remember that you can only catch fish one by one.

(7) And the last point of all is that, to be successful, the fishing-fleet must be kept together. You really are a fishing-fleet, and not merely individual fishing-boats. When a deanery is kept together, it shows a brotherhood, a cohesion, which is a very beautiful thing to see. To a large extent you are such, but, still, even the best-worked deanery can resolve to work more together than they have done, in happy co-operation, the clergy and people of each parish taking an interest in another's parish, rejoicing in its successes and praying for it in its troubles. If the whole deanery meets regularly for united intercession, this must have a great effect upon the mission work in the district. It must have an effect also upon mission work among the heathen for the Church at home to feel part of the same fishing-fleet as the Church abroad, the workers in one ship beckoning to their partners in the other ship to come and help them.

Well, then, take back with you these simple thoughts which I am trying to put before you as your Bishop and fellow-priest. Pray to be made more keen, more alert, more active and enthusiastic messengers. Pray to be skilful, patient, thorough, good physicians, and kinder celestial surgeons. And, perhaps above all, pray to be hopeful, faithful fishermen; go out together as a fishing-fleet on the great ocean, believing in all the possibilities which lie beneath the surface; realise the presence of your Master directing from the shore the whole fleet. And then at the end of all things, in the morning of the great day, you will have a harvest of souls to draw to the shore to His feet.

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