Sermons for the Times

by Charles Kingsley

This is the text which I have chosen to-day, because I think it will help us to understand the end of the Lord’s Prayer, which tells us to say to our Father in Heaven, ‘Father, Thine is the kingdom; Father, Thine is the power; Father, Thine is the glory.’

The man who wrote this psalm had been looking up at the sky, spangled with countless stars, with the moon, as if she were the queen of them all, walking in her brightness. He had been looking round, too, on this wonderful earth, with its countless beasts, and birds, and insects, trees, herbs, and flowers, each growing, and thriving, and breeding after their kind, according to the law which God had given to each of them, without any help of man. And then he had thought of men, how small, weak, ignorant, foolish, sinful they were, and said to himself, ‘Why should God care for men more than for these beasts, and birds, and insects round? Not because he is the largest and strongest thing in the world; for I will consider Thy heavens, even the work of Thy hands, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, how much greater, more beautiful they are than poor human beings. May not glorious beings, angels, be dwelling in them, compared to whom man is no better than a beast?’

And yet he says to himself, ‘I know that God, though He has put man lower than the angels, has crowned him with glory and honour. I know that, whatever glorious creatures may live in the sun, and moon, and stars, God has given man the dominion and power here, on this world. I know that even to babes and sucklings God has given a strength, because of His enemies—that He may silence the enemy and the avenger; and I know that by so doing, God has set His glory above the heavens, and has shown forth His glory more in these little children, to whom He gives strength and wisdom, than He has in sun, and moon, and stars.’

Now how is that? The Catechism, I think, will tell us. The Doxology, at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, will tell us, if we consider it.

If you will listen to me, I will try and show you what I mean.

Suppose I took one of your children, and showed him that large bright star, which you may see now every evening, shining in the south-west, and said to him, ‘My child, that star, which looks to you only a bright speck, is in reality a world—a world fourteen hundred times as big as our world. We have but one moon to light our earth; that little speck has four moons, each of them larger than ours, which light it by night. That little speck of a star seems to you to be standing still; in reality, it is travelling through the sky at the rate of 25,000 miles an hour.’ What do you think the child’s feeling would be? If he were a dull child, he might only be astonished; but if he were a sensible and thoughtful child, do you not think that a feeling of awe, almost of fear, would come over him, when he thought how small and weak and helpless he was, in comparison of those mighty and glorious stars above his head?

And next, if I turned the child round, and bade him look at that comet or fiery star, which has appeared lately low down in the north-west, and said, ‘My child, that comet, which seems to you to hang just above the next parish, is really eighty millions of miles off from us. That bright spot at the lower part of it is a fiery world as large as the moon,—that tail of fiery light which you see streaming up from it, and which looks a few feet long, is a stream of fiery vapour, stretching, most likely, hundreds of thousands of miles through the boundless space. It seems to you to be sinking behind the trees, so slowly that you cannot see it move. It is really rushing towards us now, with its vast train of light, at the rate of some eighty thousand miles an hour.’ And suppose then, if, to make the child more astonished than ever, I went on—‘Yes, my child, every single tiny star which is twinkling over your head is a sun, a sun as large, or larger than our own sun, perhaps with worlds moving round it, as our world moves round our sun, but so many millions of miles far off, that the strongest spy-glass cannot make these stars look any larger, or show us the worlds which we believe are moving round them.’

Do you not think that just in proportion to the child’s quickness and understanding, he would be awed, almost terrified?

And lastly, suppose that to puzzle and astonish him still more, I took a chance drop of water out of any standing pool, and showed him through a magnifying-glass, in that single drop of water, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of living creatures so small that it is impossible to see them with the naked eye, each of them of some beautiful and wonderful shape, unlike anything which you ever saw or dreamed of, but each of them alive, each of them moving, feeding, breeding, after its kind, each fulfilling the nature which God has given to them, and told him, ‘All the whole world, the air which you breathe, the leaves on the trees, the soil under your feet, ay, even often the food which you eat, and your own flesh and blood, are as full of wonderful things as that drop of water is. You fancy that all the life in the world is made up of the men and women in it, and the few beasts, and birds, and insects, which you see about you in the fields. But these living things which you do see are not a millionth part of the whole number of God’s creatures; and not one smallest plant or tiniest insect dies, but what it passes into a new life, and becomes food for other creatures, even smaller than, though just as wonderful as itself. Every day fresh living creatures are being discovered, filling earth, and sea, and air, till men’s brains are weary with counting them, and dizzy with watching their unspeakable beauty, and strangeness, and fitness for the work which God has given each of them to do.’

And then suppose I said to the child, ‘God cares for each of these tiny living creatures. How do you know that He does not care for them as much as He does for you? God made them for His own pleasure, that He might rejoice in the work of His own hands. How do you know that He does not rejoice in them as much as in you? Those mighty worlds and suns above your head, which you call stars, how do you know that they are not as much more glorious and precious in God’s sight than you are, as they are larger and more beautiful than you are? And mind! all these things, from the tiniest insects in the water-drop, to the most vast star or comet in the sky, all obey God. They have not fallen, as you have; they have not sinned, as you have; they have not broken the law, by which God intended them to live, as you have. The Bible tells you so; and the discoveries of learned men prove that the Bible is right, when it declares that they all continue to this day according to His ordinance; for all things serve Him; that sun, and moon, and stars, and light are praising Him; that fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, worms and feathered fowl, are showing forth His glory day and night; because He has made them sure for ever and ever, each according to its kind, and given them a law which shall not be broken; for all His works praise Him, and show the glory of His kingdom, and the mightiness of His power, that His power, His glory, and the mightiness of His kingdom might be known unto the children of men.