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:
"If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness ...
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain,
Knocked at my sullen heart in vain:—
Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take,
And stab my spirit broad awake."
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.