I find it wholly impossible to crush into one Fors what I have been
gathering of Bible lesson, natural history lesson, and writing lesson,
and to leave room enough for what I have to give of immediate
explanation to the Companions, now daily increasing in number. My
readers must bear with me—I cannot do more than I am doing, though
every day I wonder more at there being so many things apparently my
duty to do, while I have only two feeble hands for all of them.
But this much of general statement of the meaning of our Companionship
is now absolutely necessary.
Of course, the first natural idea taken up by persons who merely hear
talk, or read newspapers, about the Company, is that their domain is
intended for a refuge for the persons who join it—that within its walls
the poor are at once to be made rich, and the sorrowful happy.
Alas, this is not by any means the notion of the St. George’s Company.
It is to be a band of delivering knights—not of churls needing
deliverance; of eager givers and servants—not of eager beggars, [18]
and persons needing service. It is only the Rich, and the Strong, whom
I receive for Companions,—those who come not to be ministered unto, but
to minister. Rich, yet some of them in other kind of riches than the
world’s; strong, yet some in other than the world’s strength. But this
much at least of literal wealth and strength they must have,—the power,
and formed habit, of self-support. I accept no Companion by whom I am
not convinced that the Society will be aided rather than burdened; and
although I value intelligence, resolution, and personal strength, more
than any other riches, I hope to find, in a little while, that there
are people in the world who can hold money without being blinded, by
their possession of it, to justice or duty.
The Companions whom I accept will be divided, according to their means
and circumstances, into three classes.
The first and highest class will be called “Comites Ministrantes,”
“Companions Servant.” It will be composed of the few who devote their
main energy to the work of the Company; and who, as I do myself, and as
the Master must always, pursue their private avocations only in
subjection to its interests, being at the same time in positions
absolutely independent, and openly shown to be so.
The second, or middle class, will be called “Comites Militantes,”
“Companions Militant.”
These will be persons occupied actually in manual labour on the ground,
or in any work which the Master may order, for the fulfilment of the
Society’s functions; being dependent on such labour for their
maintenance, under the conditions fixed by the Company’s statutes.
The third and lowest order will be called “Comites Consilii,” (Friends
of, or in, Council,) “Companions Consular,” who will form the general
body of the Society, being occupied in their own affairs as earnestly
as before they joined it; but giving it the tenth of their income; and
in all points, involving its principles, obeying the orders of the
Master. Thus almost any tradesman may continue his trade, being a
Companion; but, if a jeweller, he must not sell false jewels; or if a
butcher, (I have one accepted already, and I very much want to get a
butcher’s daughter, if I could; but she won’t come,) must not sell bad
meat.
I at first meant them to be called Censors, or Companions Estimant,
because when the Society comes into real work, the sentences of fine,
or other disgrace, pronounced by the marshals’ officers, and the
general modes of determining quality and value of goods, must be always
ratified by majority of this order, of the Companions, in whom also, by
virtue of their number, the election, and therefore censorship, of the
Master, will necessarily be vested.
To these last, especially, I have now some special matters to write.
Will you please look back to the Fors of December 24th, last year, p.
278, and tell me,—or rather, which is chiefly needful, answer to
yourselves, how far you have reflected, since reading it, on the nature
of “unfruitful works of darkness;” how many you have abandoned, and how
many reproved. It is too probable that you have not, even yet, the
slightest idea what works of darkness are. You know,—they can’t mean
merely murder, or adultery, or theft. You don’t, when you go to church,
mean to pray that you may have grace to give up committing murder or
adultery, or that you may ‘rather reprove them’? But what then is it
that you pray to give up? If you don’t know, are you not, yet, in the
least, ashamed of yourselves, for going every Sunday, if not every day,
to pray to God, without having the dimmest idea what you mean to ask
Him for?
Well,—not to be farther teazing about it,—in the first and simple
sense, works of darkness are useless, or ill-done, or half-done,
things, which pretend to be good, or to be wholly done; and so mislead
or betray.
In the deeper and final sense, a work of darkness is one that seeks
concealment, and conceals facts; or even casts disdain and disgrace on
facts.
A work of light is one that seeks light, and that, not for its own
sake, but to light all men; so that all workers of good work delight in
witnesses; only with true desire that the witnesses’ pleasure may be
greater than theirs; and that the Eternal witnesses—the Cloud around
us, and Powers above—may have chief pleasure of all:—(see on this
matter, ‘Eagle’s Nest,’ page 54). So that, of these works, what was
written of St. Bernard must be always true, “Opera sancti Patris velut
Sol in conspectu Dei;” for indeed they are a true Light of the world,
infinitely better in the Creator’s sight than its dead sunshine; and
the discovery by modern science that all mortal strength is from the
Sun, while it has thrown foolish persons into atheism, is, to wise
ones, the most precious testimony to their faith yet given by physical
nature; for it gives us the arithmetical and measurable assurance that
men vitally active are living sunshine, having the roots of their souls
set in sunlight, as the roots of a tree are in the earth; not that the
dust is therefore the God of the tree, but the Tree is the animation of
the dust, and the living Soul, of the sunshine. And now you will
understand the meaning of the words on our St. George’s wealth,—“Sit
splendor.”
And you must take care that your works do shine before men, if it may
be, as a lamp; but at least, as a shield;—nay, if your Captain in
Heaven wills it, as a sword.
For the failure of all good people nowadays is that, associating
politely with wicked persons, countenancing them in their wickedness,
and often joining in it, they think to avert its consequences by
collaterally labouring to repair the ruin it has caused; and while, in
the morning, they satisfy their hearts by ministering to the wants of
two or three destitute persons, in the evening they dine with, envy,
and prepare themselves to follow the example of, the rich speculator
who has caused the destitution of two or three thousand. They are thus
destroying more in hours than they can amend in years; or, at the best,
vainly feeding the famine-struck populations, in the rear of a
devouring army, always on the increase in mass of numbers, and rapidity
of march.
Now I call on the St. George’s Company, first, to separate themselves
clearly, as a body, from persons who practise recognized, visible,
unquestionable iniquity. They are to have no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of Darkness; but to walk as Children of Light.
Literally, observe. Those phrases of the Bible are entirely evaded,
because we never apply them to immediate practice.
St. George’s Companions are to have no fellowship with works of
darkness; no companionship whatsoever with recognizable mischief, or
mischievous men. Of every person of your acquaintance, you are solemnly
to ask yourselves, ‘Is this man a swindler, a liar, a gambler, an
adulterer, a selfish oppressor, and task-master?’
Don’t suppose you can’t tell. You can tell with perfect ease; or, if
you meet any mysterious personage of whom it proves difficult to
ascertain whether he be rogue or not, keep clear of him till you know.
With those whom you know to be honest, know to be innocent, know to be
striving, with main purpose, to serve mankind and honour their God, you
are humbly and lovingly to associate yourselves: and with none others.
“You don’t like to set yourself up for being better than other people?
You dare not judge harshly of your fellow-creatures?”
I do not tell you to judge them. I only tell you not to dine with them,
and not to deal with them. That they lose the pleasure of your company,
or the profit on your custom, is no crushing punishment. To their own
Master they stand or fall; but to your Master, Christ, [19] you must
stand, with your best might; and in this manner only, self-asserting as
you may think it, can you confess Him before men. Why do you suppose
that thundrous word of His impends over your denial of Him, “Whosoever
shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before Angels,” but
because you are sure to be constantly tempted to such denial?
How, therefore, observe, in modern days, are you so tempted. Is not the
temptation rather, as it seems, to confess Him? Is it difficult and
shameful to go to church?—would it not require more courage to stay
away? Is it difficult or shameful to shut your shop on Sunday, in the
East,—or, to abstain from your ride in the Park on Sunday, in the West?
Is it dangerous to hold family worship in your house, or dishonourable
to be seen with a cross on your Prayer Book? None of these modes or
aspects of confession will bring any outcry against you from the world.
You will have its good word, on the contrary, for each and all of them.
But declare that you mean to speak truth,—and speak it, for an hour;
that you mean to abstain from luxury,—and abstain from it, for a day;
that you, obeying God’s law, will resolutely refuse fellowship with the
disobedient;—and be ‘not at home’ to them, for a week: and hear then
what the High Priests’ servants will say to you, round the fire.
And observe, it is in charity for them, much more than by duty to
others, that you are required to do this. For half, at least, of these
Caiaphas’ servants sin through pure ignorance, confirmed by custom. The
essential difference in business, for instance, between a man of honour
and a rogue, is that the first tries to give as much to his customer
for his money as he can, and the second to give as little; but how many
are at present engaged in business who are trying to sell their goods
at as high a price as possible, supposing that effort to be the very
soul and vital principle of business! Now by simply asserting to these
ignorant persons that they are rogues, whether they know it or not; and
that, in the present era of general enlightenment, gentlemen and ladies
must not only learn to spell and to dance, but also to know the
difference between cheating their neighbours and serving them; and
that, as on the whole it is inexpedient to receive people who don’t
know how to express themselves grammatically, in the higher circles of
society, much more is it inexpedient to receive those who don’t know
how to behave themselves honestly. And by the mere assertion,
practically, of this assured fact to your acquaintance’ faces, by the
direct intervention of a deal door between theirs and yours, you will
startle them out of their Rogues’ Paradise in a most healthful manner,
and be the most orthodox and eloquent evangelical preacher to them that
they have ever heard since they were born.
But all this must, of course, be done with extreme tenderness and
modesty, though with absolute decision; and under much submission to
their elders by young people—especially those living in their father’s
houses. I shall not, of course, receive any Companions under age; but
already there are some names on my list of young unmarried women: and,
while I have shown in all former writings that I hold the power of such
to be the greatest, because the purest, of all social ones, I must as
definitely now warn them against any manifestation of feeling or
principle tending to break the unity of their home circles. They are
bound to receive their father’s friends as their own, and to comply in
all sweet and subjected ways with the wishes and habits of their
parents; remaining calmly certain that the Law of God, for them, is
that while they remain at home they shall be spirits of Peace and
Humility beneath its roof. In all rightly ordered households, the
confidence between the parent and child is such that in the event of a
parent’s wish becoming contrary to a child’s feeling of its general
duty, there would be no fear or discomfort on the child’s part in
expressing its thoughts. The moment these are necessarily repressed,
there is wrong somewhere; and in houses ordered according to the ways
of modern fashionable life, there must be wrong, often, and everywhere.
But the main curse of modern society is that, beginning by training its
youth to be ‘independent’ and disobedient, this carefully cultivated
independence shows itself, of course, by rejecting whatever is noble
and honourable in their father’s houses, and never by healing or
atoning what is faultful.
Of all St. George’s young Companions, therefore, he requires first the
graces of gentleness and humility; nor, on the whole, much independent
action of any kind; but only the quiet resolve to find out what is
absolutely right, and so far as it may be kindly and inoffensively
practised to fulfil it, at home; and so far as it may be modestly and
decorously uttered, to express the same abroad. And a well-bred young
lady has always personal power enough of favour and discouragement,
among persons of her own age, to satisfy the extremest demands of
conscience in this direction.
And now let me see what room I have left for talk of present matters.
Here is a piece printed a fortnight since, which I can’t be plagued to
keep in type till next month.
Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
8th February, 1876.
I am fifty-seven to-day: and may perhaps be allowed to talk a little of
myself.
Among several pretty love-letters from my pets, which only make me
sorrier that I’m fifty-seven—but I really don’t think some of the
letters could be nicer if I were only twenty-seven—there’s one with a
ghost story in it, more precious to me than all the others, seeing I
draw more quickly [20] near, now, daily, to the Loyal land.