The Water of Life, and Other Sermons

by Charles Kingsley

True. And we must therefore believe that to them—indeed to all—this has been a visitation not of anger but of love. We must believe that they are taken away from some evil to come; that God permits the destruction of their bodies, to the saving of their souls. His laws are inexorable; and yet He hateth nothing that He hath made.

And we must believe that this cholera is an instance of the great law, which fulfils itself again and again, and will to the end of the world,—‘It is expedient that one die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.’

For the same dirt which produces cholera now and then, is producing always, and all day long, stunted and diseased bodies, drunkenness, recklessness, misery, and sin of all kinds; and the cholera will be a blessing, a cheap price to have paid, for the abolition of the evil spirit of dirt.

And thus much for this very painful subject—of which some of you may say—‘What is it to us? We cannot prevent cholera; and, blessed as we are with abundance of the purest water, there is little or no fear of cholera ever coming into our parish.’

That last is true, my friends, and you may thank God for it. Meanwhile, take this lesson at least home with you, and teach it your children day by day—that filthy, careless, and unwholesome habits of living are in the sight of Almighty God so terrible an offence, that He sometimes finds it necessary to visit them with a severity with which He visits hardly any sin; namely, by inflicting capital punishment on thousands of His beloved creatures.

But though we have not had the cholera among us, has God therefore not visited us? That would surely be evil news for us, according to Holy Scripture. For if God do not visit us, then He must be far from us. But the Psalmist cries, ‘Go not far from me, O Lord.’ His fear is, again and again, not that God should visit him, but that God should desert him. And more, the word which is translated ‘to visit,’ in Scripture has the sense of seeing to a man, overseeing him, being his bishop. If God do not see to, oversee us, and be our bishop, then He must turn His face from us, which is what the Psalmist beseeches Him again and again not to do; praying, ‘Hide not Thy face from me, O Lord,’ and crying out of the depths of anxiety and trouble, ‘Put thy trust in God, for I shall yet give Him thanks for the light of His countenance;’ and again, ‘In Thy presence is’—not death, but—‘life; at Thy right hand is fulness of days for evermore.’ And again, the Psalmist prays to God to visit him, and visit his thoughts,—‘Search me, O Lord, and try the ground of my heart. Search me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’ Shall we pray that prayer, my friends? Shall we, with the Psalmist, pray God to visit, and, if need be, chasten and correct what He sees wrong in us? Or shall we, with the superstitious, pray to God not to visit us? to keep away from us? to leave its alone? to forget us? If He did answer that foolish prayer, there would be an end of us and all created things; for in God they live and move and have their being—as it is written, ‘When Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; when Thou takest away their breath, they die, and are turned again to their dust.’ But, happily for us, God will not answer that foolish prayer. For it is written, ‘If I go up to heaven, Thou art there; if I go down to hell, Thou art there also.’ Nowhither can we go from God’s presence: nowhither can we flee from His Spirit.

This is the Scripture language. Is ours like it? Have we not got to think of a visitation of God as a simple calamity? If a man die suddenly and strangely, he has died by the visitation of God. But if he be saved from death strangely and suddenly, it does not occur to us to call that a visitation, and to say with Scripture, ‘The Lord has visited the man with His salvation.’ If the cholera comes, or the crops fail, we say,—God is visiting us. If we have an especially healthy year, or a glorious harvest, we never say with Scripture, ‘The Lord has visited His people in giving them bread.’ Yet Scripture, if it says, ‘I will visit their transgressions,’ says also that the Lord visited the children of Israel to deliver them out of Egypt. If it talks of death as the visitation of all men, it speaks of God visiting Sarah and Hannah to give them children. If it says, ‘I will visit the blood shed in Jezreel,’ it says also, ‘Thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.’ If it says, ‘At the time they are visited they shall be cast down,’ it says also, ‘The Lord shall visit them, and turn away their captivity.’

If we look through Scripture, we find that the words ‘visit’ and ‘visitation’ are used about ninety times: that in about fifty of them the meaning of the words is chastisement of some kind or other: in about forty it is mercy and blessing: and that in the New Testament the words never mean anything but mercy and blessing, though we have begun of late years to use them only in the sense of punishment and a curse.

Now, how is this, my friends? How is it that we, who are not under the terrors of the Law, but under the Gospel of grace, have quite lost the Gospel meaning of this word ‘visitation,’ and take a darker view of it than did even the old Jews under the Law? Have we, whom God hath visited, indeed, in the person of His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, any right or reason to think worse of a visitation of God than had the Jews of old? God forbid. And yet we do so, I fear; and show daily that we do so by our use of the word: for out of the abundance of the heart man’s mouth speaketh. By his words he is justified, and by his words he is condemned; and there is no surer sign of what a man’s real belief is, than the sense in which lie naturally, as it were by instinct, uses certain words.

And what is the cause?