It cannot be supposed that men should meet together from such different quarters without enlarging their knowledge of each other, of human nature, and the world. Narrow and contracted modes of thought on certain subjects incident to very circumscribed travelling will, we may expect, expand into generous dimensions, in consequence of a visit from afar to the British Metropolis; while the opportunities afforded us for intercourse with foreigners cannot but bring the knowledge of their methods of life and social habits to our very doors. By those who are skilled in the languages of other countries the means of improvement afforded this year are great beyond expression.
May we not add, that the intelligent observation of our country, its large freedom, its general order, its civil institutions, its commercial activity, and, above all, its numerous benevolent associations, will be adapted to suggest valuable hints and reflections to strangers; by creating comparison between what they witness here and what they have been familiar with in their own land, and by leading them to inquire into the causes of difference between themselves and us?
These are probable beneficial results of the Exhibition; there are still more important advantages to be contemplated among the things that are possible, the actual realization of which must depend upon combined and individual effort. Whether, in a moral and religious point of view, it will terminate in blessing the world and ourselves must be determined by the use we resolve to make of it. England has created an unprecedented opportunity for doing spiritual good on a large scale to the other countries of the earth. A field of usefulness at home is now opened, which may, by careful tillage, yield a harvest to be reaped by multitudes who shall return rejoicing, “taking their sheaves with them.” No one can tell where the undulations of the influence will terminate which the Christians in Britain may now put in action. Evils relating to the interests of morality and religion will no doubt be incidentally occasioned by this vast concourse. Monsters in human form, who seek “the wages of iniquity,” by pandering to the gratification of sensuality and intemperance, will make the months of our world-festivities the season for plying all the bewitching arts of their deadly craft. They will spread their toils with the utmost cunning, dress up profligacy and vice in the most gorgeous apparel, and deck their “chambers of death” with surpassing luxuries. The strange woman will “sit at the door of her house, in a seat in the high places of the city, to call passengers who go right on their ways,” and to “lead her guests to the depths of hell.” The harpies who live by the intemperance of others will not be slow in making provision for temptation, where the dissipated may “stretch themselves upon their couches,” and “chant to the sound of the viol, and drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief ointments.” The gambling-house keeper will be also on the alert, to stimulate and keep alive a feverish avarice, or to excite some desperate attempt to repair an already ruined fortune. In all these ways, and many more, evil agencies will be busy, even beyond their common wont, to seduce the innocent, to kindle passions impure and vile in the breasts of the unsuspecting, and to rouse afresh the palled appetite and the jaded desires of the man hackneyed in the ways of sinful pleasure. Incentives to the breach of the sabbath will also be contrived; facilities for amusements and excursions on the day of rest will be multiplied; pleasure-gardens will be opened with new attractions; and steam-boats will ply, and omnibuses travel, in augmented numbers. The Sunday press will, we fear, start on a fresh race for the favour of the worst portion of the public, by supplying more stimulants than ever to a vitiated and diseased taste; and other publications of vicious tendency will be industriously vended. Against all these dangers we warn the reader. If the young and unexperienced, when they visit the metropolis under common circumstances, need to be on their guard against the designs of the profligate and unprincipled, with more than double force does that necessity press upon them at the present season. A much more than usual share of caution, wisdom, self-control, and virtuous presence of mind will be requisite, in order to preserve the visitor from falling a prey to such as “lie in wait to deceive.” And let every youth, whose piety has been formed amidst quiet sequestered scenes, and has till now been sheltered by parental care, and quickened and trained by domestic example and instruction, seek, as he comes within the reach of new and unknown temptations, the special protection of Divine Providence, and the holy safeguard of the Spirit of God. Carefully should he strive to fortify himself against peril, by fixed and frequent meditation on the precepts and principles of the gospel; and, above all, it becomes him earnestly and often to present to God that memorable prayer, “Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.”
But though mischiefs may be anticipated, yet it appears to us a vast preponderance of moral and religious benefit may be accomplished, if British Christians rise up to the spirit of the great occasion, and seek, under the blessing of God, to turn it to that valuable account which Divine Providence seems now to suggest to thoughtful minds. We repeat, that England has created for herself an unprecedented opportunity for doing spiritual good: and we may add that her guilt will be indeed heavy if she neglect to improve it.
1. The great gathering supplies singular facilities for making religious impressions on the minds of our foreign visitors. As a preliminary to this, indeed an indispensable prerequisite, we must be careful to show them courtesy and kindness. It was held to be a religious duty among the Greeks to give friendly entertainment to a stranger, because it was believed he might possibly be a god in disguise. An inspired pen enforces the duties of hospitality, on the ground that “some have entertained angels unawares.” We look for no such guests; but we are assured that, whatever be their costume, clime, and speech, they who visit us are indeed souls of Divine origin and enduring existence; and the dignity of their nature is a sufficient reason why we should “honour all men.” A sedulous and constant endeavour to treat them, wherever they meet us, with marked respect, and with affectionate civility—to answer their questions, to guide their way, and to assist their examinations into objects of interest:—not to do this in a careless manner, but so as to exhibit that true politeness which is described as “benevolence in little things,” will tend to secure for us a vantage ground in all the direct attempts we may make for their spiritual welfare. It will bespeak their friendly regards; it will be on the surface of our character a beautiful proof of the practical nature of our religion, and will recommend to candid inquiry the principles from which it springs. A proud, an indifferent, a suspicious, an antagonistic, or even a patronizing air of intercourse—(one or other of which habits, or all in turn, some Englishmen are prone to display when travelling abroad)—will at once alienate from us the people of other lands, and prevent the success of our well-meant efforts, however vigorously employed, for their spiritual good. We must look on them not as inferiors, not as individuals worse taught than we—nor as ignorant or foolish—but as men of like passions and powers, having heads as clear and hearts as warm as our own. This propitiation of their favour is in a high degree important; and if, in the impetuosity of religious zeal, it be disregarded, the high purpose planned will be removed beyond the probability of accomplishment.
To secure great spiritual results, both combined and individual action are requisite. The Bible Society has devised its methods for supplying foreigners with the word of life in all languages. Means will be furnished for sending home many a sojourner amongst us, like him of Ethiopia, who returned from Jerusalem “sitting in his chariot, and reading the prophet Esaias.” And, if he should receive a favourable impression of our civilization, as we hope he will, and be led to see that its chief excellences are based upon the influence which the holy book has wrought in English society—as we trust he may—then will he be thereby prepared, in some degree, to search out the blessed contents of that volume which unfolds the promise of the “life that now is, and of that which is to come.” The Tract Society has also religious publications in various tongues for cheap sale or gratuitous distribution. And perhaps when prejudice, or an indisposition to afford sufficient time, may interfere with the reading of the Scriptures, a tract may obtain a perusal, and drop into the mind some germinant thoughts which may grow and ripen into the strength and beauty of spiritual life. A special organization, moreover, has been contrived to secure places of worship for “devout men out of every nation under heaven,” and to provide preachers in foreign languages, to conduct earnest evangelical ministrations. And is it too much to suppose that when they hear, “every man in his own tongue wherein he was born,” the “wonderful works of God,” there will be some, who, like those assembled on the day of Pentecost, will be pricked to the heart, and will receive the word. And let it not be forgotten that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned;” and moreover that this spiritual discernment is one of the “gifts for men,” which an ascended Saviour gives in consequence of his having “led captivity captive.” The written letter is not “the power of God unto salvation,” save as the Spirit takes “of the things of Christ,” and shows them unto us. Seeds of truth will not produce “them thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold,” till the Lord give the increase. There can be no pentecost without an effusion of the Holy Ghost. But, while we feel the necessity, we should by faith and prayer honour him who has promised the supply. God is willing to do his part, if we do ours. “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
But associated efforts will not suffice. Isolated action was everything once. Combined action is too exclusive now. The one must be done, and the other not left undone. Each man must strive in his own sphere to do good to the stranger from a far land. He may distribute tracts, he may guide to the house of prayer, he may know how to drop a fitly spoken word; or he may be able to introduce the foreigner to a courteous, intelligent, and educated friend. Persons of wealth and influence, and especially such as, together with these, have tolerable facility in the use of modern languages, possess talents for usefulness at the present time, the value of which they can hardly overrate. By judicious hospitality; by making a point of cultivating acquaintance with the guests of the nation, and selecting certain among them as guests of the family; by frequent and wise arrangements for this purpose; by entertainments, elegant but simple, generous but not extravagant; and, by methods easily understood and adopted by those who possess the requisite means, many may be brought within the reach of the gentle, tender, and softening influences of Christ’s blessed religion of friendship and love—may have images painted in their memory never to fade, and emotions kindled in their hearts never to be quenched, and
“Oft, while they live—
In their own chimney nook, as night steals on,
With half-shut eyes reclining,—oft methinks
While the wind blusters and the pelting rain
Clatters without, shall they recall to mind
The scenes, occurrences they meet with here,
And wander in Elysium.”
They may discover that they were entertained by angels unawares. Elements of piety, like rich odours, may steal over their soul, to leave behind an undying fragrance. Our Christianity, through our kindness, may become endeared. In the reminiscences of future years they may strangely feel that never were they so near heaven, as during the memorable moments they spent around the domestic hearths, and at the domestic altars of England; and, stimulated by the recollection, they may embrace the truths and find the inward hidden life which will enable them to perpetuate and multiply such hallowed scenes.
2. The great gathering affords an argument for making efforts to promote religion at home, and presents an opportunity for the purpose—“We are a spectacle to the world!” The supreme Governor of the nations, the Prince of the kings of the earth, has assigned us a rank amongst the empires of the globe which cannot fail to attract the attention of mankind. Our constitution and laws, our literature and science, our commerce and art, our army and navy, present points of interest, forms of grandeur, specimens of activity, and developments of power, which the other cultivated portions of our race intelligently study as great theorems in the science of civilization; while our brethren in distant regions, still half barbarous, gaze on the signs of our glory, or listen to the tale of what we are and do, with a vacant and bewildering kind of wonder. And moreover the people, institutions, and language of this little isle have attained a sort of ubiquity. They are seen, felt, heard, in almost every latitude of both hemispheres. Something or other British, some foot-marks of our wide-spread influence, may be discovered on nearly every shore. “We are a spectacle to the world!” The Christians of our country—embracing the true disciples and servants of man’s Divine Redeemer, commissioned by his express mandate, and constrained by his infinite love—have united and are still employed in the sacred task of teaching to the ends of the earth the blessed name of him they worship and adore. They send the missionary, the Bible, and the tract, to the pagan people of the world’s two continents, and to them that “are afar off upon the sea.” “We are a spectacle to the world!”—rendered so by Providence, accepting and maintaining the position by our secular and still more by our sacred enterprises, we more emphatically than ever assert the publicity of the post we occupy, by now inviting the inhabitants of the world at large to visit our land. As a professedly Christian nation, then, glorying as we do in that title—making a boast very often of the purity of our religion, of the reformation of old corruptions, and the brilliant beauty of its spiritual truths, “what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness?” England should be the model nation for the world. Will not some strangers come, almost expecting to find us such? Will they not look for striking indications of the influence among ourselves of that Christianity which we preach to them as worthy of all acceptation? Will they not inquire, what is it doing for us? And we do not fear but the intelligent and candid among them will recognise not a few of the beautiful footprints of our religion in our institutions and our homes. But will they not see something else? Will they not mark, here and there, broad spaces in our civilization where the power of our Christianity has never come—spaces in society left uncivilized? We need not now point them out; they have been laid bare again and again, and urged on our notice by home missionaries and city missionaries, by magazines, newspapers, and parliamentary records. They have met our eyes and made us shudder, in revelations from the press, the pulpit, and the platform. Terrible secrets have been divulged respecting some departments of English life. Facts have been stated indicative of the vice and irreligion of some portions of the community. Meditating on these things, we seem to hear, from the lips of the foreigner whose spiritual welfare we contemplate, those well-known words—“Physician, heal thyself; whatsoever ye have done in Capernaum do also in thy country.” And the just retort makes us blush—not indeed for our Christianity, but for ourselves. Our Christianity, wherever it has been purely taught and faithfully applied, has wrought marvels on a scale fully proportioned to the extent of our efforts. What makes us ashamed is, that we have not discharged our duty in reference to its diffusion among ourselves, any more than we have done our duty in reference to its diffusion throughout the world.