All Saints' Day and Other Sermons

by Charles Kingsley

Now I am not going to scold—even to blame. To do so would be not only unjust, but ungrateful in me, to a congregation which is as attentive and as reverent as you are. Indeed, I am the only person to blame, for I ought to have spoken on the subject long ago.

As it is, coming fresh from Chester, and accustomed to hear congregations, in that city and in the country round, reading the responses aloud throughout the service with earnestness, and reverence, I was painfully struck by the silence in this church. I had before grown so accustomed to it that I did not perceive it, just as one grows accustomed to a great many things which ought not to be, till one forgets that, however usual they may be, wrong they are, and ought to be amended.

Now, it is always best to begin at the root of a matter. So to begin at the root of this. Why do we come to church at all?

Some will say, to hear the sermon. That is often too true. Some folks do come to church to hear a man get up and preach, just as they go to a concert to hear a man get up and sing, to amuse and interest them for half-an-hour. Some go to hear sermons, doubtless, in order that they may learn from them. But are there not, especially in these days of cheap printing, books of devotion, tracts, sermons, printed, which contain better preaching than any which they are likely to hear in church? If teaching is all that they come to church for, they can get that in plenty at home. Moreover, nine people out of ten who come to church need no teaching at all. They know already, just as well as the preacher, what is right and what is wrong; they know their duty; they know how to do it. And if they do not intend to do it, all the talking in the world (as far as I have seen) will not make them do it. Moreover, if the teaching in the sermon be what we come to church for, why have we prayer-books full of prayers, thanksgivings, psalms, and so forth, which are not sermons at all? What is the use of the service, as we call it, if the sermon is the only or even the principal object for which we come? I trust there are many of you here who agree with me so fully, that you would come regularly to church, as I should, even if there were no sermon, knowing that God preaches to every man, in the depths of his own heart and conscience, far more solemn and startling sermons than any mortal man can utter.

Others will answer that they come to church to say their prayers. Well: that is a wiser answer than the last. But if that be all, why can they not say their prayers at home? God is everywhere. God is all-seeing, all-hearing, about our path and about our bed, and spying out all our ways. Is He not as ready to hear in the field, and in the workshop and in the bed-chamber, as in the church? “When thou prayest,” says our Lord, “enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Those are not my words, they are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and none can gainsay them. None dare take from them or add to them; and our coming to church, therefore, must be for more reasons than for the mere saying of our prayers.

Others will answer—very many, indeed, will answer—we come to church because—because, we hardly know why, but because we ought to come to church.

Some may call that a silly answer, only fit for children: but I do not think so. It seems to me a very rational answer: perhaps a very reverent and godly answer. A man comes to church for reasons which he cannot explain to himself: just so—and many of the deepest and best feelings of our hearts, are just those that we cannot explain to ourselves, though we believe in them, would fight for them, die for them. The man who frankly confesses that he does not quite know why he comes to church is most likely to know at last why he does come; most likely to understand the answer which Scripture gives to the question why we come to church. And what answer is that? Strange to say, one which people now-a-days, with their Bibles in their hands, have almost forgotten. We come to church, according to the Bible, to worship God.

To worship. Think awhile what that ancient and deep and noble word signifies. So ancient is it, that man learnt to worship even before he learnt to till the ground. So deep, that even to this day no man altogether understands what worshipping means. So noble, that the noblest souls on earth delight most in worshipping; that the angels, and archangels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, find no nobler occupation, no higher enjoyment, in the heavenly world than worshipping for ever Him whose glory fills all earth and heaven. To worship. That power of worship, that longing to worship, that instinct that it is his duty to worship something, is—if you will receive it—the true distinction between men and brutes. Philosophers have tried to define man as this sort of animal and that sort of animal. The only sound definition is this: man is the one animal who worships; and he worships, just because he is not merely an animal, but a man, with an immortal soul within him. Just in as far as man sinks down again to the level of the brute—whether in some savage island of the South Seas, or in some equally savage alley of our own great cities—God forgive us that such human brutes should exist here in Christian England—just so far he feels no need to worship. He thinks of no unseen God or powers above him. He cares for nothing but what his five senses tell him of; he feels no need to go to church and worship. Just in as far as a man rises to the true standard of a man; just in as far as his heart and his mind are truly cultivated, truly developed, just so far does he become more and more aware of an unseen world about him; more and more aware that in God he lives and moves and has his being—and so much the more he feels the longing and the duty to worship that unseen God on whom he and the whole universe depend.

I know what seeming exceptions there are to this rule, especially in these days. But I say that they are only seeming exceptions. I never knew yet (and I have known many of them) a virtuous and high-minded unbeliever: but what there was in him the instinct of worshipping—the longing to worship—he knew not what, the spirit of reverence, which confesses its own ignorance and weakness, and is ready to set up, like the Athenians of old, an altar—in the heart at least—to the unknown God.

But how to worship Him? The word itself, if we consider what it means, will tell us that. Worship, without doubt, is the same word as worth-ship. It signifies the worth of Him whom we worship, that He is worthy,—a worthy God, not merely because of what He has done, but because of what He is worth in Himself. Good, excellent, and perfect in Himself, and therefore to be admired, praised, reverenced, adored, worshipped—even if He had never done a kindness to you or to any human being. Remember this last truth. For true it is; and we remember it too little. Of course we know that God is good; first and mainly by His goodness to us. Because He is good enough to give us life and breath and all things, we conclude that He is a good being. Because He is good enough to have not spared His only begotten Son, but freely given Him for us, when we were still sinners and rebels, we conclude Him to be the best of all beings, a being of boundless goodness. But it is because God is so perfectly and gloriously good in Himself, and not merely because He has done us kindnesses, yea, heaped us with undeserved benefits, that we are to worship Him. For His kindnesses we owe Him gratitude, and gratitude without end. But for His excellent and glorious goodness, we owe Him worship, and worship without end.