The After-glow of a Great Reign / Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral

by Arthur F. Winnington Ingram

Therefore, among the virtues which we set ourselves to acquire during Lent, let us set ourselves, with the help of God, and by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to see if we cannot acquire in our characters, as part of them, this power of sympathy; and, as we test ourselves, one by one, by the laws which ought to govern our lives during these six weeks, let us test ourselves by that law which more than any other goes to the root of our characters—the law of kindness.

We ought to obey this law, first, in our own home lives; secondly, in our private charities; and, thirdly, in our public responsibilities. And, first of all, have we got such a perpetual spring of sympathy in our hearts ready for emergencies, ready for every sufferer, ready for every sinner who comes to us? Have we such a perpetual spring within us, ready and accessible for use in our home lives? It seems that the one thing a Christian should never be without is this spring of sympathy. "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up to everlasting life." It is hard to see what good a Christian is doing in the world at all if this primary function of his Christianity is undischarged. If he fails in that, he is failing in his primary duty. This, then, is the first question I would press upon everyone, as I would press it upon myself: Have I at the disposal of the brother who needs me the sympathy he wants, and if not, of what use am I in the world? Think what some lives are in the home circle; all the other members of the family have to devote themselves to keeping some one in a good humour. The children are anxious lest the father or perhaps the mother should be ill-tempered to-day. This so-called Christian, with the primary duty of being loving, sympathetic, considerate, is a creature of moods; father is ill-tempered to-day, and the whole house is miserable; or mother, for some reason unexplained to the children of the family, for days together allows herself to be under a cloud of gloom. And you see in a family—who has not seen it?—an amount of restless, anxious, watching, to try and prevent the ill-temper creeping over this one whose temper is of such importance to the whole family circle. And do we not constantly see that most unjust tyranny which the ill-tempered or ill-controlled member of the family has over the rest? Is such a one seated among us in this church to-day? Let him go down on his knees, and pray to be forgiven for failing in the primary duty of life, the duty of being loving and sympathetic at home. There are many courteous enough and popular enough outside, who yet at home utterly break every day of their lives the law of kindness. Let us face it on our knees, if it is so, and pray to be forgiven. It is self that does it, that miserable self which stops and chokes, as it were, the spring from working. We are so anxious to have a little more credit or a little more comfort. And it is because our eyes are fixed upon ourselves that we do not see that wounded man in front of us, and do not hear his cry for aid. It is a first condition of having sympathy to have a heart "at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathize." There are some whose lives are confined to their home circle; some girl, perhaps, who longs to go outside, but is thought too young to work for others, and thus she can do nothing in her home that seems worthy of being done for her Saviour. I would say to such, what an aim to be in the home circle, the most unselfish girl there! What an inspiration to have brothers and sisters say what a brother that one is! what a sister that one is! he or she never fails us in our hour of need.

And then in our private charity, is not this the secret of the worthlessness of so much so-called charity that constantly we give not really to help the sufferer, but to save ourselves? That careless gift to the beggar in the street, or to someone who asks us for a gift—is it not constantly, not really to help that person, but to ease our own minds and consciences? It is really given to ourselves. No; what we must practise—and God knows it is hard enough in this crowded city and in this crowded life we live—what we must practise is getting down by our brother's side. We must save him from the temptation which is a curse to him; from the temptation to drink, it may be, that is ruining him. Get down by his character, look at him as Christ would look at him. What does he need? How can we help him, that poor wounded man brought across our path? We must try and give him, in the name of Christ, the very thing he needs, the character which he lacks.

And so, again, with our public responsibilities. There are three figures very prominently before our eyes just now. There is, first, the overcrowded dweller in our slums—poor men and women and boys and girls, dwelling as they do nine and ten and even more in a room—that room the only place for them to eat and sleep in. It is astonishing how good and pure the boys and girls come out of such homes; but there the evil is, and it is not getting better, it is getting worse; every year makes it worse. And as we face it what are we to do? I do sometimes think, my friends, you who come from comfortable homes, you who belong to the better class, and are going from this Church to beautiful homes of your own, do not realize what it is to those brothers and sisters of yours to have only one little room to live in, what immorality it must lead to, and does lead to, what terribly stunted frames among the children, and what stunted characters. We have been, some of us, for weeks past, considering, in conference, the great problem. One of the best experts, who has studied the question for years, has made up his mind that the most hopeful remedy is to have from the centre of our great city, to every part of the great circumference of London, underground and overground means of transit to whirl away from the centre to something which may be called home the poor people who work for us. Others are still in favour of building in the slums better buildings at a cheap rate, which, as a Conservative paper this week advocated, should be helped by the State. But the point is this: Whatever plan is fixed upon by the experts and those responsible, are we ready to rise to it? Does the law of kindness touch us in our municipal work? Are we prepared, as a great Christian city, to rise to the self-sacrifice which it involves? We believe that all these schemes eventually will pay, but undoubtedly at the first there may be a call upon the self-sacrifice of Londoners to carry them out. And I would ask you to put it to your consciences whether we should gauge the rates only according to their amount. We have to watch carefully whether our public money is wasted, we have to take our share in deciding what shall be done, but we have also to consider when we are called upon as Christian citizens, to pay a little more towards a well-considered scheme to cure one of the most terrible evils in our midst, whether the law of kindness does not bid us do so. Let us send this week on to our central Council—by whatever party name they call themselves—men who have the time and the brains, and, above all, the heart, to deal with these great problems.

Then we have before us prominently one we miscall the Hooligan. And we must freely admit when street ruffianism has reached a certain point, there is but one thing to do, and that is to bring in firmly and strongly the arm of the law. But can we as Christian citizens be content with the arm of the law? Is there no other arm, no other law that we are bound to try before these young lads grow up indeed ruffians who must be dealt with by the law? Are we so hopeless and helpless as to have no other power to bring in upon them? Can we not transform them as boys? Must we be content to transport them as men? And so on Friday there was inaugurated at the Mansion House a scheme for dealing with the roughest lads of our town in such a way as experience has shown does transform them from the possibility of becoming young ruffians into respectable and honest men; in other words, to apply to them in their youth the law of kindness, and so make it unnecessary to apply to them for their discipline the penalty for the breach of any other law throughout their lives. I ask you whether you as Christian citizens cannot rise to a great scheme like this to plant down in every little slum some place beside the public-house into which the lads so lovable and so full of good and so open to influence, if you will only take them in time, may come to in the evening to be trained and disciplined and taught, and so be changed that their lives may be more worthy of children of God. You cannot all personally help, but we shall be asking some of you young men to give up one evening a week and go and work these clubs. The older ones can give money; we want from you your personal help. Will you give it?

And lastly, we have to-day before us the untaught child. After all is said and done, these schemes for dealing with Hooligans would be unnecessary if we really had from the very beginning an efficient scheme for teaching the young Christian principles. You are asked today to give your alms to the National Society. It is a grand thing for us of the Church of England to think that we have given for the education of the people for the last eighty years more than 10,000 pounds a week. And yet the work is failing. In God's name, because we are interested in a new scheme, let us not forsake or starve the old. And a liberal contribution to the National Society is a true response to the law of kindness.

Let us take home, then, these four great lessons from the character of our late Queen—Truth in the inward parts, Moral courage throughout life, The rainbow of purity round the throne of the heart, and In the tongue the law of kindness. May God send them home to us and incorporate them into the national character, and then we shall have with us for years to come the after-glow of a great reign.