Let us take the last question first, and we take it first because it is the question directly answered in our text. The answer is given by someone who understood human nature, by someone who had sinned, had been forgiven, had been roused out of the conventionalities of life by a great experience, who had looked out of the door of his being and had seen God. And he tells us, as the result of his experience, and as the basis of his repentance, these words "Behold, Thou requirest truth in the inward parts." It is one thing to say words which, understood in a certain sense, are true, it is one thing to avoid direct breaches in our action of the law of honour, but it is another thing to be in ourselves absolutely sincere, to look up into the eyes of God, as a truthful child looks up into the eyes of its mother, to possess our own hearts like a flawless gem, with nothing to hide, nothing to keep back, and nothing to be ashamed of—that is to have truth in the inward parts, and that is what God demands. It is what He found in Christ, one of the things which made Him say time after time, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased"; He found ever reflecting back His Face as He looked down upon Him a perfectly sincere Person, true through and through. That was the secret of His marvellous influence, that was why little children came and crept under the ample folds of His love, that was why young men came and told Him their secrets, that was why everybody, except the bad, felt at home with Him, that was why women were at their best with Him, that was why Herod the worldly found he could not flatter Him, and Pilate the coward found Him devoid of fear; it was because right through, not only in His words and actions, but in His being He not only had, but He was, Truth in the inward parts. And it is because our Queen, with her simple and beautiful faith in her Saviour, caught from childhood this attribute of her Lord, because she worked it out into her character, made it the foundation of everything she did—it is for that reason she was able to keep the Court pure, and the heart of the country true, to get rid of flattery, meanness and intrigue, and to chase away the sycophant and the traitor.
Is it not a lesson which the country needs, is there any nobler monument that we could build to her than this—to incorporate into the character of the nation the first and great characteristic of her own character, and to try and plant in society, in trade, and in Christian work, truth in the inward parts?
Take, first, society. It is a cheap sneer, which speaks perpetually of the hollowness of so-called society, as if rich people could not make and did not make as honest friendships as the poor and middle class; but, at the same time, few would deny how much of what would be such a good thing is disfigured by display and insincerity, that miserable attempting to be thought richer than we are, that pitiable struggle to get into a smarter set than happens to be ours, the unreal compliments, the insincere expressions, the sometimes hideous treachery. If society were purged from these, it would not be the dull thing which some people imagine, just as if this insincerity and frivolity and unreality constituted the brightness of it. No, it is these things which constitute the dulness and the stupidity. If they were done away with, then society would be a gathering of true men and women, true to themselves, true to one another, and true to God, and would be a society which God could bless.
Secondly, take trade and commerce. Speaking in the very centre of a city reared upon a basis of honourable commerce, it would be more than wicked to refuse to acknowledge the splendid honour and trust on which such commerce is based; but when we clergy, not once or twice, but constantly, get letters from those employed in firms and in business up and down the country, saying, "How can I live a Christian life, when I am obliged by my employer to do dishonest things in business, when I am told to tell lies, or I shall lose my place?" When we have, even within the last few months, terrible instances of breach of trust among those who have been entrusted with the most sacred interests by the widow and the orphan, must we not acknowledge that a second great monument which we might build to our Queen would be to restore to the trade and commerce of the country those principles of honour and integrity on which the great firms were built up, and to make it true again from end to end of the world that an Englishman's word is as good as his bond.
And so, again—would to God we had not to add it!—what a revolution would be worked in Christian work itself—Christian work that is supposed to demand from everyone who undertakes it perfect forgetfulness of self, and entire self-abnegation, to have as its workers men and women conspicuous for humility, for thinking of others before themselves, for being ready to bear the cross on the way to the crown. And yet can we deny—would God we could!—that in Christian work there is an amount of self-advertisement, of jealousy among workers, and of insincerity which lowers our cause, and damages the progress of Christianity? Think for a moment what it would be if all Christians were really united as Christ meant them to be, if they worked with one another, showing a common front to the world, one great society, as Christ conceived it, without jealousy, without conceit, without pride, but throwing themselves into one magnificent common cause. Why, nothing could stand before the Christian Church if it were like that. Can we not in this coming reign, and the century just begun, try and plant in the heart of every Christian worker truth in the inward parts?
How are we, then—that comes to be the last question—how are we to attain this wonderful gift, the secret of a strong character?
And, first of all, let us be perfectly clear as to the first essential. The first essential is detachment of mind. Oh! what cowards we are with regard to the opinion of others! You will find time after time men and women, who think themselves free, living under the most degrading tyranny of fear as to what will be thought of them by others. Not to care at all what anybody thinks is inhuman, but to be bound by a kind of trembling terror as to what people will say or think, is a degrading slavery. Bit by bit it creates in the character a habit of insincerity; little by little the question is in the heart and in the mind, "Will this be popular or not? Shall I be liked for this?" We speak or do something according to the reflection it will make in the thoughts of others. There may be some here who know that that is their temptation, who know that they are not true, that they are never themselves, they are always somebody else, or the reflection of the mind of somebody else. Let the example of our truthful Queen speak like a trumpet note the old words of the New Testament, "Stand upright on thy feet," and be a man.
And, if the first secret is detachment of mind, putting aside self-consciousness, which is very often other-people-consciousness, the second secret is an increasing consciousness of God. Is it not an extraordinary thing that when we are only here for a few fleeting years, and everybody around us is hurrying to his grave as fast as he can, and when the only person whose opinion matters the least is the eternal God, Who goes on generation after generation, and before Whom everyone must appear at the last—is it not an extraordinary thing how little we think of Him at all? How often during the past week have you thought of God? To actually acquire a continual sense of His presence, to be conscious that His eyes, the eyes of Him Who is from everlasting to everlasting, are always fixed upon us, to rise in the morning with the feeling, "One more day's work for God," and to go to bed in the evening with only one care, "How have we done it?"—that is to gradually foster in the character the second great thing which will produce truth in the inward parts—a consciousness and love of God.
And then, thirdly, learn truth like a lesson. If we did not learn it as the Queen did as a child, let us begin now. Watch every word. Are we in the habit of boasting, are we in the habit of lying, are we in the habit of being insincere? Not "What did we do?" but "Why did we do it?" is the real question. Why did we give that donation to something? For the good of the cause or to see our name in the paper? Why did we do this thing? Was it done from a true and pure motive? And if, as we try and learn truth like a lesson, step by step, in word and deed, we also pray continually, "Give me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me," then there shall emerge gradually something that will last beyond the grave—an image, which is also the pattern, the character of the child, slowly won, but which was the prototype to start with; and thus we may hope to be sincere, and without offence until the day of Christ.
[1] Lines by the Rev. W. H. Draper, Rector of Adel, Leeds.