TO GIRLS
WHAT A GIRL CAN DO IN A DAY OF GOD[23]
When I think of all the vast influence exercised by those in this hall, I feel inclined to say what Bishop Selwyn said in the midst of Eton Chapel—"You can turn the world upside down."
But, before I say anything of my own, I want to emphasise what has already been said to you, with regard to the influence at the Front of those who are here at home. As I went down behind the firing-line in 1915, and held seven or eight services a day, before each service began I invariably said one thing from end to end of the line. I said: "I have come here, boys, before we have any service, to bring you the love from home of your mothers, your sisters, and your sweethearts." And you saw the soft look that came into those boys' faces while the guns were firing—and sometimes an aeroplane was guarding the service for fear the Germans should not be able to resist a target of four thousand men, and a Bishop in the middle—you would know what they think of home, and how you have got the heart of the Empire in your keeping. One of the boys who has died the death of honour wrote home to his mother: "I have come here, mother, for one purpose—and that is, that you and the sisters shall not be treated like these Belgian women have been."
I am going to put the message at the very highest at once. I have never found young people fail to rise to it. I am going to put upon your lips, as your resolution, no less a resolution than was on the lips of our Lord Himself, our great High Priest, just before He went to His own death—"For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." I say High Priest, because I am going to put this one single thought before you as describing the function which girls are to discharge in a Day of God, and that is, they have got to be priests of God.
Now, that may seem to you a strange thing to say, but before I have done I shall have failed indeed if you do not believe it. I am always trying, in London, to unite all the great Christian bodies in common action. We fight as one family, side by side, against evil, sin, intemperance, and impurity. Every year all the denominations in London elect me chairman of the London Temperance Council and of the Public Morality Council, and it is by focussing the whole of the Christian thought of London that we are as strong as we are, when we tackle night clubs, and living pictures, and other abominable evils, and destroy them in the name of the Lord. I say that because I believe fully that if everyone understood what the teaching about priesthood was it would take away much misunderstanding, and I believe would join together many Christian bodies divided to-day. There is only one Priest in the Universe, and that is Jesus Christ Himself. But He says Himself that the Church is His body. Therefore, the whole of the Church is the body of a Priest. Those of us who are called priests are ordained as organs of a priestly body. We act in the name of the body, and therefore the idea that we are setting ourselves up above this or that person is wholly wrong, because we act as organs, as hands and feet—as it were—of a priestly body. And mark you, the Church is the great company throughout the world of all baptized persons, baptized by whoever baptizes them.
If you think that out, you will see what a powerful idea this idea of priesthood is. Have you ever seen a priest ordained? I wish sometimes, though I am afraid you would fill the whole dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, that you could come some day and see what to me every time is a most touching sight: you would have seen those young men, thirty perhaps, as were there at a recent ordination, brought up before the Bishop, who has other priests standing round, and then on the head of each, as he kneels in front, we all lay our hands, and I say, "Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God." A young girl said once, "Do you mean to say every clergyman I see has been through all that?" But now, if that is so, why do I look round on you and say you are young priests of God? Why? Because you are part of this priestly body. You are joined to the one great High Priest, and therefore you, whom God knows one by one, are known and named and called. Of course in the Church Confirmation is the ordination of the lay priest, and if you are confirmed, I am going to tell you five things you are expected to do.
1. The first is to be girded. I have more to do in my life, and naturally so, with young men and boys than I have with girls and women, but that very reason gives me an added authority in speaking to you, because I know what their difficulties are. I speak, constantly, to as many young men as there are of you girls; I say, knowing what difficulty they have at their age to control their passions, that it is like ruling a horse. A horse is a splendid servant, but a vile master. When you have got the bit in your horse's mouth and the reins in your hand, a horse is a splendid servant; but let him off at full gallop, with the reins round your feet and the bit in his teeth, then he is a terrible master. So it is with the boys. They have got to be on the horse with the reins of God's Commandment in their hands, and the bit of self-control in the mouth, then their bodies are glorious servants. What you young girls as priests have got to do is to help those boys and young men in the very flower of their lives not to do anything which is afterwards a stain upon their conscience. You can rally round them and, if you are young priests, can help them.
There are three things of priceless value a young girl has on her side in doing this. The first is her natural modesty. Why are we so afraid of bad companions breaking down a girl's modesty, and why are we so afraid of rough horseplay soiling the purity of her soul? Because it is spoiling her first great gift, her first great power. It is just that naturally beautiful modesty a girl possesses with which she is meant to help every young man. That modesty is meant to help her to be self-controlled, and to help him to be so too. Then she has a most wonderful power of self-sacrificing love. I say to the young men, "Never take advantage of the trusting love of a girl"; but to you I say, you have that beautiful power of true love. It is that power of sacrifice and self-sacrificing love which is your great asset to the world. Never soil it, and never spoil it, or let it be dragged down by anyone. And you have a naturally religious nature. Those three things, those three splendid things, you have got with which to gird yourselves. Allow anyone to rob you of them, and you have lost your strength. Keep them and you have the first great quality of a true priest of God. Gird yourselves with modesty, unselfish love, and natural and supernatural religion.
2. And when the young priest has so girded herself, the next thing she has to do in discharge of her priestly office is to offer up every day an oblation of prayer and praise to God. He is looking for it every day. Do you remember the story contained in a poem by Browning of a cobbler boy who used to praise God at his work every day? He was wafted away to another sphere, and there was silence in the workshop, and God said, "I miss my little human praise."
Make then your second resolution, that, having girded yourself, you will never fail to offer to God this sweet incense of prayer and praise, and do it perfectly openly. Don't be ashamed of it being known you do it.
In "Studies in a Devotional Life," Canon Peter Green tells us how he shared a room in a little hotel in South Africa with two men, who looked like brigands. Not liking to say his prayers openly in their presence, he slipped outside, and said them on the veldt, only to find on his return the "bearded ruffians," who proved to be Cornish miners, kneeling in prayer themselves. This so impressed the writer that, when on one of the South African expresses he had to sleep in the same place as three postmen, he overcame his shyness, and said his prayers openly. Next morning, one of the postmen, an old choir-boy who had forgotten to say his prayers for a long time, confessed that the clergyman's action had shamed him, and he would begin again that day. So the simple influence of one example ran down the line.
3. Your third duty, and I get to love it more myself every year, is not only to pray for yourselves, but to plead for others. On my prayer-desk, there are two or three hundred intercessions for mothers, whose sons are at the Front, and for the boys themselves. What a beautiful task it is to intercede for them in turn, so many a day! We are promised that our prayer shall be heard, your prayer just as much as mine. Begin with intercession for fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, people you are next to at your work, your parish, or the church you go to, and so on, extending right out to the boys at the Front. Pray to God for victory; don't be ashamed to pray for victory in a glorious, a righteous cause like this. Pray that all this may be overruled for the spread of God's kingdom in the world. And always pray for the lonely missionaries, so often disheartened, so tired, so far away. And mind you, if you have not begun doing all this, you are going to begin. When I went down to a parish which had not been very efficiently worked, I collected a number of girls into a club, and got them to come for their first service. I had just become Rector of Bethnal Green, and the committee of the club wrote: "Dear Rector,—We think it our duty to inform you that in our opinion our club service was a success, and we beg you to have such a service for us every month until further notice."
Well now, those girls were starting their religious life; but when I go down now I find what I started as a little, tiny thing grown and grown and grown; those people whom I spoke to first are now grown women. It all goes on if you once make a good start. Therefore do take up, if you have never taken up before, this process of interceding. I am organising all the children in London this year in intercession for the war, and when we pour in a million children's prayers, is it not going to be a power which is going to bring down the blessing of Heaven on our cause?
4. Then we come to the fourth task of the priest.
The fourth work of a priest is to consecrate or dedicate himself every day. I do ask you to realise, as every day comes, what possibility there is in a day. There was a young Bishop who was consecrated the other day; I think he was the youngest Bishop consecrated. I knew him very well, and I had just one minute to write a note, and I wrote this, and he told me afterwards it had been more help to him than anything that had been sent to him. Therefore I pass it on to you: "Take one day at a time," I said, "and trust the Holy Spirit to see you through." Now I believe that that is the real secret of spiritual life. Take one day at a time. Don't worry. Don't be thinking of all kinds of difficulties in future. Take one day at a time, and trust the Holy Spirit to see you through. Dedicate every day and consecrate every day. Think over those whom you are going to meet during the day. Be prepared beforehand for the special temptations and difficulties of that particular day; remember that no day will ever come again, and that every day has to be lived out as a young priest of God. If every girl in Nottingham dedicated or consecrated herself every day like that—taking one day at a time, and trusting the Holy Spirit to see her through—why, there would be a power of strength in this city which would astonish the world.
5. Then we come on to the fifth great priestly task of service. I was talking to a little boy of nine. His mother had turned his beautiful home into a hospital for wounded soldiers. She herself was girded, dressed as a nurse, and the little fellow was in bed, rather seedy that day, and I sat down on his bed at his mother's request to have a chat with him. He said: "I love, Bishop, having the soldiers here; we cannot go back to our old life after the war." There is nothing so good as a life lived out in service, every day helping other people, and, if we are going to carry nothing else away, we are going to carry away this, that there is nothing so valuable as service. Even the lad's mother, a rich woman, who had served for ten months as a nurse, said: "Had I only known, Bishop, what to do before, I should have done it. This ten months has been the most delightful service to me I have ever had in my life." How can you girls, working girls many of you, serve in your daily life? All the work you do for the nation in the great factories of Nottingham, done honestly and straightforwardly, as young priests, with no bad language or bad stories allowed amongst you, is all recognised, and all blessed as part of your priestly service. But you can do more than that. I find again and again that in London the best Sunday School teachers, the best girl guides, the best members of the League of Honour there, are hard-working girls. Their service has gone beyond their professional work, and they also use their leisure time at home. They are the best girls at home their mothers ever had. I remember a father saying to me: "Mr. Ingram, I'm not much of a churchgoer myself"—he did not come at all, as a matter of fact—"but I will say this, that my boy as does go is the best boy I have got." What we want them to say about the girl who goes to church or chapel is: "She is the best girl we have got at home, the most willing, the most satisfactory, and the most loving."
There, then, you have the five priestly functions to discharge, and you have got to discharge them "for their sakes," as well as for your own.
For whose sake?
First for the sake of the boys, who are dead. There is a beautiful poem about the other world, which was given me the other day, and which I pass on to you in the hope that it may bring a little cheer in the dark night to any present who have lost their brothers, any mothers who have lost their sons.
"Lest Heaven be for the greybeards hoary,
God, who made boys for His delight,
Goes in earth's hour of grief and glory,
And calls the boys in from the night.
When they come trooping from the War
Our skies have many a new gold star.
"Heaven's thronged with gay and careless faces,
New waked from dreams of dreadful things.
They walk by green and pleasant places
And by the crystal water-springs;
Forget the nightmare field of slain,
And the fierce thirst and the strong pain.
"Forget? God smiles to see them merry,
For His own Son was once a boy;
They never shall be old and weary,
But of their youth shall have great joy,
And in the playing fields of Heaven
Shall run and leap, new-washed, new-shriven.
"Now Heaven's by golden boys invaded,
'Scaped from the winter and the storm;
Stainless and simple as He made it
God keeps the boy's heart out of harm.
The wise old Saints look down and smile,
They are so young and without guile.
"Oh, if the sonless mothers weeping,
The widowed girls, could look inside
The Country that hath them in keeping
Who went to the Great War and died,
They'd rise and put their mourning off,
Praise God, and say, 'He has enough!'"[24]
Secondly, it is for the boys who will come home that you have your five priestly functions to discharge. They will come home very different to what they went out. I saw this wonderful transforming power as I went down the lines. Boys came out of the trenches, with the mud upon their puttees, knelt down and asked me to confirm them, thirty at a time (of course they had been previously prepared by the Chaplains).
Many came to other services. They sang "When I survey the wondrous Cross," while the guns thundered close by, with a reality which it was impossible to mistake. Are they coming back to irreligious girls, to careless sweethearts, careless sisters who neglect their religion, to girls who would drag them down? No. Let us have here a country and a Church worthy of its defenders, to which they can return. Let us have such a work going on at home, side by side and step by step with what is going on in Flanders and the Dardanelles, that when they come back they may find a changed England at home. For their sakes you must sanctify yourselves—for the sake, too, of the little sister who looks to you as her model and her example. You have more influence over her, perhaps, than anyone else in the house, except her mother. For her sake be a priest of God, and—I say it without the least sense of immodesty—also for the sake of the children who are to be. I speak to-night to the future mothers of the children of Nottingham, and it makes all the difference to the young mother, as she looks round her children, and, when they grow older, tries to influence her growing sons and daughters, whether she can look them in the face without shame and without a blush, and is only asking them to do what she tried to do herself before she was married. For the sake of the children to be, exercise this glorious priesthood. If you do you will ennoble Nottingham by your action. You will make it a city set upon a hill; and "a city set upon a hill cannot be hid."