(Fourth Sunday in Lent.)
PHILIPPIANS iv. 8. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise,
think on these things.
It may not be easy to see what this text has to do with the story of
Joseph, which we have just been reading, or with the meaning of the
Bible of which I have been speaking to you of late.
Nevertheless, I think it has to do with them; as you will see if you
will look at the text with me.
Now the text does not say 'Do these things.' It only says 'THINK of
these things.'
Of course St. Paul wished us to do them also; but he says first
THINK of them; not once in a way, but often and continually. Fill
your mind with good and pure and noble thoughts; and then you will
do good and pure and noble things.
For out of the abundance of a man's heart, not only does his mouth
speak, but his whole body and soul behave. The man whose mind is
filled with low and bad thoughts will be sure, when he is tempted,
to do low and bad things. The man whose mind is filled with lofty
and good thoughts will do lofty and good things.
For thoughts are the food of a man's mind; and as the mind feeds, so
will it grow. If it feeds on coarse and foul food, coarse and foul
it will grow. If it feeds on pure and refined food, pure and
refined it will grow.
There are those who do not believe this. Provided they are
tolerably attentive to the duties of religion, it does not matter
much, they fancy, what they think of out of church. Their souls
will be saved at last, they suppose, and that is all that they need
care for. Saved? They do not see that by giving way to foul, mean,
foolish thoughts all the week they are losing their souls,
destroying their souls, defiling their souls, lowering their souls,
and making them so coarse and mean and poor that they are not worth
saving, and are no loss to heaven or earth, whatever loss they may
be to the man himself. One man thinks of nothing but money--how he
shall save a penny here and a penny there. I do not mean men of
business; for them there are great excuses; for it is by continual
saving here and there that their profits are made. I speak rather
of people who have no excuse, people of fixed incomes--people often
wealthy and comfortable, who yet will lower their minds by
continually thinking over their money. But this I say, and this I
am sure that you will find, that when a man in business or out of
business accustoms himself, as very many do, to think of nothing but
money, money, money from Monday morning to Saturday night, he thinks
of money a great part of Sunday likewise. And so, after a while,
the man lowers his soul, and makes it mean and covetous. He forgets
all that is lovely and of good report. He forgets virtue--that is
manliness; and praise--that is the just respect and admiration of
his fellow-men; and so he forgets at last things true, honest, and
just likewise. He lowers his soul; and therefore when he is
tempted, he does things mean and false and unjust, for the sake of
money, which he has made his idol.
Take another case, too common among men and women of all ranks, high
and low.
How many there are who love gossip and scandal; who always talk
about people, and never about things--certainly not about things
pure and lovely and of good report, but rather about things foul and
ugly and of bad report; who do not talk, because they do not think
of virtue, but of vice; or of praise either, because they are always
finding fault with their neighbours. The man who loves a foul
story, or a coarse jest--the woman who gossips over every tittle
tattle of scandal which she can pick up against her neighbour--what
do these people do but defile their own souls afresh, after they
have been washed clean in the blood of Christ? Foul their souls
are, and therefore their thoughts are foul likewise, and the
foulness of them is evident to all men by their tongues. Out of
their hearts proceed evil thoughts about their neighbours, out of
the abundance of their hearts their mouths speak them. Now let such
people, if there be any such here, seriously consider the harm which
they are doing to their own characters. They may give way to the
habits of scandal, or of coarse talk, without any serious bad
intention; but they will surely lower their own souls thereby. They
will grow to the colour of what they feed on and become foul and
cruel, from talking cruelly and foully, till they lose all purity
and all charity, all faith and trust in their fellow-men, all power
of seeing good in any one, or doing anything but think evil; and so
lose the likeness of God and of Christ, for the likeness of some
foul carrion bird, which cares nothing for the perfume of all the
roses in the world, but if there be a carcase within miles of it,
will scent it out eagerly and fly to it ravenously.
The truth is, my friends, that these souls of ours instead of being
pure and strong, are the very opposite; and the article speaks plain
truth when it says, that we are every one of us of our own nature
inclined to evil. That may seem a hard saying; but if we look at
our own thoughts we shall find it true. Are we NOT inclined to
take, at first, the worst view of everybody and of everything? Are
we NOT inclined to suspect harm of this person and of that? Are we
NOT inclined too often to be mean and cowardly? to be hard and
covetous? to be coarse and vulgar? to be silly and frivolous? Do we
not need to cool down, to think a second time, and a third time
likewise; to remember our duty, to remember Christ's example, before
we can take a just and kind and charitable view? Do we not want all
the help which we can get from every quarter, to keep ourselves
high-minded and refined; to keep ourselves from bad thoughts, mean
thoughts, silly thoughts, violent thoughts, cruel and hard thoughts?
If we have not found out that, we must have looked a very little way
into ourselves, and know little more about ourselves than a dumb
animal does of itself.
How then shall we keep off coarseness of soul? How shall we keep
our souls REFINED? that is, true and honest, pure, amiable, full of
virtue, that is, true manliness; and deserve praise, that is, the
respect and admiration of our fellow-men? By thinking of those very
things, says St. Paul. And in order to be able to think of them, by
reading of them.
There are very few who can easily think of these things of
themselves. Their daily business, the words and notions of the
people with whom they have to do, will run in their minds, and draw
them off from higher and better thoughts; that cannot be helped.
The only thing that most men can do, is to take care that they are
not drawn off entirely from high and good thoughts, by reading, were
it but for five minutes every day, something really worth thinking
of, something which will lift them above themselves.
Above all, it is wise, at night, after the care and bustle of the
day is over, to read, but for a few minutes, some book which will
compose and soothe the mind; which will bring us face to face with
the true facts of life, death, and eternity; which will make us
remember that man doth not live by bread alone; which will give us,
before we sleep, a few thoughts worthy of a Christian man, with an
immortal soul in him.
And, thank God, no one need go far to look for such books. I do not
mean merely religious books, excellent as they are in these days: I
mean any books which help to make us better and wiser and soberer,
and more charitable persons; any books which will teach us to
despise what is vulgar and mean, foul and cruel, and to love what is
noble and high-minded, pure and just. We need not go far for them.
In our own noble English language we may read by hundreds, books
which will tell us of all virtue and of all praise. The stories of
good and brave men and women; of gallant and heroic actions; of
deeds which we ourselves should be proud of doing; of persons whom
we feel, to be better, wiser, nobler than we are ourselves.
In our own language we may read the history of our own nation, and
whatsoever is just, honest and true. We may read of God's gracious
providences toward this land. How he has punished our sins and
rewarded our right and brave endeavours. How he put into our
forefathers the spirit of courage and freedom, the spirit of truth
and justice, the spirit of loyalty and order; and how, following the
leading of that spirit, in spite of many mistakes and failings, we
have risen to be the freest, the happiest, the most powerful people
on earth, a blessing and not a curse to the nations around.
In our own English tongue, too, we may read such poetry as there is
in no other language in the world; poetry which will make us indeed
see the beauty of whatsoever things are lovely and of good report.
Some people have still a dislike of what they call foolish poetry
books. If books are foolish, let us have nothing to do with them.
But poetry ought not to be foolish; for God sent it into the world
to teach men not foolishness, but the highest wisdom. He gave man
alone, of all living creatures, the power of writing poetry, that by
poetry he might understand, not only how necessary it was to do
right, but how beautiful and noble it was to do right. He sent it
into the world to soften men's rough hearts, and quiet their angry
passions, and make them love all which is tender and gentle, loving
and merciful, and yet to rouse them up to love all which is gallant
and honourable, loyal and patriotic, devout and heavenly. Therefore
whole books of the Bible--Job, for example, Isaiah, and the Psalms--
are neither more nor less than actual poetry, written in actual
verse, that their words might the better sink down into the ears and
hearts of the old Jews, and of us Christians after them. And
therefore also, we keep up still the good old custom of teaching
children in school as much as possible by poetry, that they may
learn not only to know, but to love and remember whatsoever things
are lovely and of good report.
Lastly, for those who cannot read, or have really no time to read,
there is one means left of putting themselves in mind of what every
one must remember, lest he sink back into an animal and a savage. I
mean by pictures; which, as St. Augustine said 1400 years ago, are
the books of the unlearned. I do not mean grand and expensive
pictures; I mean the very simplest prints, provided they represent
something holy, or noble, or tender, or lovely. A few such prints
upon a cottage-wall may teach the people who live therein much,
without their being aware of it. They see the prints, even when
they are not thinking of them; and so they have before their eyes a
continual remembrancer of something better and more beautiful than
what they are apt to find in their own daily life and thoughts.
True, to whom little is given, of them is little required. But it
must be said, that more--far more--is given to labouring men and
women now than was given to their forefathers. A hundred, or even
fifty years ago, when there was very little schooling; when the
books which were put even into the hands of noblemen's children were
far below what you will find now in any village school; when the
only pictures which a poor woman could buy to lay on her cottage-
wall were equally silly and ugly: then there were great excuses for
the poor, if they forgot whatsoever things were lovely and of good
report; if they were often coarse and brutal in their manners, and
cruel and profligate in their amusements.
But even in the rough old times there always were a few at least,
men and women, who were above the rest; who, though poor people like
the rest, were still true gentlemen and ladies of God's making.
People who kept themselves more or less unspotted from the world;
who thought of what was honest and pure and lovely and of good
report; and who lived a life of simple, manful, Christian virtue,
and received the praise and respect of their neighbours, even
although their neighbours did not copy them. There were always such
people, and there always will be--thank God for it, for they are the
salt of the earth.
But why have there always been such people? and why do I say
confidently, that there always will be?
Because they have had the Bible; and because, once having got the
Bible in a free country, no man can take it from them.
The Bible it is which has made gentlemen and ladies of many a poor
man and woman.
The Bible it is which has filled their minds with pure and noble,
ay, with heavenly and divine thoughts.
The Bible has been their whole library. The Bible has been their
only counsellor. The Bible has taught them all they know. But it
has taught them enough.
It has taught them what God is, and what Christ is. It has taught
them what man is, and what a Christian man should be. It has taught
them what a family means, and what a nation means. It has taught
them the meaning of law and duty, of loyalty and patriotism. It has
filled their minds with things honest and just and lovely and of
good report; with the histories of men and women like themselves,
who sinned and sorrowed and struggled like them in this hard battle
of life, but who conquered at last, by trusting and obeying God.
This one story of Joseph, which we have been reading again this
Sunday, I do not doubt that it has taught thousands who had no other
story-book to read--who could not even read themselves, but had to
listen to others' reading; that it has taught them to be good sons,
to be good brothers; that it has taught them to keep pure in
temptation, and patient and honest under oppression and wrong; that
it has stirred in them a noble ambition to raise themselves in life;
and taught them, at the same time, that the only safe and sure way
of rising is to fear God and keep his commandments; and so has
really done more to civilize and refine them--to make them truly
civilized men and gentlemen, and not vulgar savages--than if they
had known a smattering of a dozen sciences. I say that the Bible is
the book which civilizes and refines, and ennobles rich and poor,
high and low, and has been doing so for fifteen hundred years; and
that any man who tries to shake our faith in the Bible, is doing
what he can--though, thank God, he will not succeed--to make such
rough and coarse heathens of us again as our forefathers were five
hundred years ago.
And I tell you, labouring people, that if you want something which
will make up to you for the want of all the advantages which the
rich have--go to your Bibles and you will find it there.
There you will find, in the history of men like ourselves--and,
above all, in the history of a man unlike ourselves, the perfect
Man--perfect Man and perfect God together--whatsoever is true,
whatsoever is honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report; every
virtue, and every just cause of praise which mortal man can desire.
Read of them in your Bible, think of them in your hearts, feed on
them with your souls, that your souls may grow like what they feed
on; and above all, read and study the story and character of Jesus
Christ himself, our Lord, that beholding, as in a glass, the glory
of the Lord, you may be changed into his likeness, from grace to
grace, and virtue to virtue, and glory to glory.
And that change and that growth are as easy for the poor as for the
rich, and as necessary for the rich as for the poor.