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THE EFFECT OF THE HOLY GHOST ON HUMAN CHARACTER[25]

"For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith."—Acts xi. 24.

I need not tell you, not only how much I look forward to my Marlborough day, but also how much I have thought as to what message I would give you. When I think of the many to whom I have preached at Marlborough year by year, of the three hundred now dead, of the hundreds more who are fighting, and of the fact that many of those to whom I am speaking would soon, if the war went on, be in the thick of it, I realise what a very solemn thing it is to come down to Marlborough and give a message to my old school.

I will tell you what made me choose this message. The fact that Whitsuntide this year comes on the same day as St. Barnabas' Day gives me a subject, the most solemn subject I have ever taken at Marlborough—viz., the effect of the Holy Ghost upon human character. St. Barnabas was one of the most attractive characters in the New Testament, an example of attractive goodness. He was such a gentleman in all he did, and therefore, if we could have produced in us, by the Holy Ghost, the wonderful character that the Holy Ghost produced in St. Barnabas, we might have that description used of us; just think what it would be for men to say of us—"He was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith."

What, then, is the effect of the Holy Ghost upon human character? You might say, "But do we have the falling of the Holy Ghost, too?" Why did we have that hymn this morning, "Our blest Redeemer, ere He breathed"? I was asked to choose the hymns, and I chose that one because it so beautifully describes the indwelling of the Holy Ghost on your Confirmation day, and that is what makes the School Confirmation the crowning event of the year. At Confirmation you have the falling of the Holy Ghost in exactly the same way as happened in the early Church. Yesterday, for instance, I confirmed, under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, two hundred and thirty people of all ages. "What is the effect of the Holy Ghost upon human character?" Some people imagine that what is called "doctrine" has no practical value. But is this true?

(1) The first thing that the Holy Ghost does is to convict the world of sin. He shows people what they really are. You may have heard of the National Mission of Repentance and Hope, and wondered what it was. I will tell you. I have just come from a tour round twenty-four dioceses in support of that Mission. I do not for one moment understand by that Mission that we do not believe we are fighting God's battles in the war. I believe that those three hundred Old Marlburians who have fallen in the war have died as martyrs. I believe the world is being redeemed by precious blood again to-day, and that that precious blood is being mingled with the Precious Blood. I believe also that the freedom of the world and the national honour are being saved to-day by the precious blood of our sons and brothers. It is, therefore, not because we do not believe we are doing the right thing in this war that we are engaged in this Mission; it is because we believe we are called to save the freedom of the world, and the national honour, and to see the Nailed Hand prevailing over the Mailed Fist, that we have to repent. Admiral Beatty said, in effect, that we should never win the war until the nations came back to God, and it is Lord Roberts (peace to his ashes, and glory to his memory!) who, just before he died, said we had got the men, the ammunition, and the guns now; what we wanted was the nation on its knees. And it is to bring the nation to its knees, back to God, that is the great object of the National Mission of Repentance and Hope. A messenger in connection with that Mission will very likely be sent down to Marlborough.

Meanwhile let the Holy Ghost do His work. He is the great Messenger, the great Missioner. Ask the Holy Ghost to show you yourselves as you really are. It is the hardest thing in the world to see this (easier for a boy than a grown-up man), but we cannot get on in the spiritual life unless we are shown ourselves as we are. If a light is shown into a darkened room, the dust is discernible on the furniture, and stains are seen where it was thought no stains were; and we cannot carry out the teaching of the Gospel, and cast the beam out of our own eye, until we have seen it. All progress really begins with humility.

We must therefore let the Holy Ghost show us ourselves as we are. "What does God think of me?" should be the first question we should ask ourselves, and the Holy Ghost will give us the answer. But that is only the first thing the Holy Ghost does. If He left us there, contemplating our stains, our infirmities, and our sins, it would not be much of a message of a Gospel of Hope.

(2) No, the next beautiful work of the Holy Ghost is that He takes Christ and shows Him to us. I paid a touching visit the other day to an old clergyman who, some people would have said, was past his work. He was ill and in lonely lodgings, and I went to see him. The old clergyman gave me a great lesson. Instead of complaining, of saying that he had been a failure, had been neglected and passed over, he said: "I hope I shall live a few years longer, Bishop, to preach the glorious Gospel." There he was, lonely, ill, passed over by the world, yet feeling the great joy of simply preaching the glorious Gospel. We are apt to get mechanical about our religion. Even in the lovely service here at Marlborough, we are sometimes—very often, perhaps—wandering in thought, and inclined to become mechanical in our religion. The Holy Ghost makes it living. He takes of Christ, shows Him to us, and makes the whole thing real. Therefore, our second prayer should be that the Holy Ghost will make religion a reality to us, make us understand the glory of the Incarnation, that God actually came to earth in mortal form, for our sakes.

(3) Thirdly, the Holy Ghost is the Comforter. He comforts us and helps us to comfort other people. I remember, when I was at Marlborough last year, that I had several boys in to see me, one of them a little fellow who had lost his father in Gallipoli; and I tried to comfort him. The Holy Ghost is the only Comforter. When one goes to a mother, as I have done, who has lost, perhaps, three sons (and in this connection we at Marlborough shall always think of the father and mother of those three splendid sons, the Woodroffes), one is at a loss to say anything; one cannot comfort them oneself, but has to depend upon the higher power; and my experience is that the Holy Ghost brings the Balm of Gilead, which no earthly agency can produce, a heavenly balm of comfort for the mourners which enables us to go out and comfort others. There is no comforter better than the younger boy of a family, who, filled with the Holy Ghost, goes home in the holidays to comfort his father and mother in the loss of an older son.

(4) But, of course, the old words "comfort" and "comforter," as applied to the Holy Ghost, meant far more than we call "comfort." "Comfort" in the case of the Holy Ghost, means far more than sympathy; it means fortitude, courage, inspiration. The comfort of the Comforter always strengthens; mere sympathy sometimes weakens. We have got to bring home the bright view of death, to produce a pride that "my boy, my brother, my husband, should have died." I believe that we have not anything like a bright enough view of death.

It is the Comforter that can make us believe that. It is the Comforter that can breathe fortitude into the splendid mothers and wives of England, and to the lads in the trenches, up to their knees in mud, facing danger every moment, that can bring fortitude to the nation; and it is the task of the Church to breathe fortitude to the nation to go on until the end.

(5) The Holy Ghost has two more beautiful things to do for us, and is always ready to do them. The first of these is to guide us. The other day I heard the hurrying footsteps of a layman coming after me in the street as I was walking to a meeting. The layman, who told me that he was a churchwarden of one of the churches in the Diocese of London, and had never spoken to his Bishop before, asked for a message to give in an address. I gave him the same message I had given to a young Bishop some months before[26]: "Take one day at a time, and trust the Holy Spirit to see you through." This is a great truth, and one which I will pass on to you, as you leave this place to take up your work in the larger world outside. I remember having asked a rich clergyman, at the beginning of a Sunday afternoon, whether he would go down and take a very poor parish in the East of London, where there was no money and the credit of the parish was very much shaken. He did not at first seem inclined to go, and, thinking nothing more about it at the time, I went into St. Paul's Cathedral, and preached upon the text, "Led by the Spirit of God." In the evening I received a pencilled note from the clergyman, stating that he had been in the Cathedral, that he was led by the Spirit of God to go to the parish. He went, and splendid work he did there. There is not one of you who need be left to your own guidance; the Spirit of God will lead every one, and guide you all your lives.

(6) The sixth thing which the Holy Spirit does for you is to pray in you. It is not very easy to pray. I expect many of you get a bit disheartened about your prayers; you kneel when "Preces" are called in dormitory, and get up feeling cold and dead, and that it is sometimes rather a matter of form. Prayer does not depend upon feeling; we ought to pray in the belief that the Holy Ghost will pray in us, and in that way God calls to God, the deep calls to the deep, and the smallest boy in the School is able to share the supreme energy of God.

You see, therefore, that this doctrine or truth about the Holy Ghost is the most practical thing in the world. Resolve to-day that you will really make your bodies temples of the Holy Ghost. The boy who is filled with the Holy Ghost will be the merriest boy in the School and the pluckiest at games; he will always be chivalrous and unselfish, and there will be a something about him, besides, that will really breathe the presence of the Heavenly Spirit, who dwells in him. You must have a little more spiritual ambition, and all of you make your prayer that you may be, like St. Barnabas, "good men, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith."


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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