The peace of God. That is what the priest will invoke for you all, when
you leave this abbey. Do you know what it is? Whether you do or not,
let me tell you in a few words, what I seem to myself to have learned
concerning that peace. What it is? how we can obtain it? and why so many
do not obtain it, and are, therefore, not at peace?
It is worth while to do so. For these are not peaceful times. The peace
of God is rare among us. Some say that it is rarer than it was. I know
not how that may be; but I see all manner of causes at work around us
which should make it rare. We live faster than our forefathers. We
hurry, we bustle, we travel, we are eager for daily, almost for hourly
news from every quarter, as if the world could not get on without us, or
we without knowing a hundred facts which merely satisfy the curiosity of
the moment; and as if the great God could not take excellent care of us
all meanwhile. We are eager, too, to get money, and get more money
still--piercing ourselves through too often, as the Apostle warned us--
with many sorrows, and falling into foolish and hurtful lusts, which
drown men in destruction and perdition. We are luxurious--more and more
fond of show; more apt to live up to our incomes, and probably a little
beyond; more and more craving for this or that gew-gaw, especially in
dress and ornament, which if our neighbour has, we must have too, or we
shall be mortified, envious. Nay, so strong is this temper of rivalry,
of allowing no superiors, grown in us, that we have made now-a-days a god
of what used to be considered the basest of all vices--the vice of envy--
and dignify it with the names of equality and independence. Men in this
temper of mind cannot be at peace. They are not content; they cannot be
content.
But with what are they not content? That is a question worth asking.
For there is a discontent (as I have told you ere now) which is noble,
manful, heroic, and divine. Just as there is a discontent which is base,
mean, unmanly, earthly--sometimes devilish. There is a discontent which
is certain, sooner or later, to bring with it the peace of God. There is
a discontent which drives the peace of God away, for ever and a day. And
the noble and peace-bringing discontent is to be discontented with
ourselves, as very few are. And the mean peace-destroying discontent is
to be discontented with things around us, as too many are. Now, my
friends, I cannot see into your hearts; and I ought not to see. For if I
saw, I should be tempted to judge; and if I judged, I should most
certainly judge rashly, shallowly, and altogether wrong. Therefore
examine yourselves, and judge yourselves in this matter. Ask yourselves
each, Am I at peace? And if not, then apply to yourselves the rule of
old Epictetus, the heroic slave, who, heathen though he was, sought God,
and the peace of God, and found them, doubt it not, long, long ago. Ask
yourselves with Epictetus, Am I discontented with things which are in my
own power, or with things which are not in my own power?--that is,
discontented with myself, or with things which are not myself? Am I
discontented with myself, or with things about me, and outside of me?
Consider this last question well, if you wish to be true Christians, true
philosophers, and, indeed, true men and women.
But what is it that troubles you? What is it you want altered? On what
have you set your heart and affections? Is it something outside you?--
something which is NOT you yourself? If so, there is no use in
tormenting your soul about it; for it is not in your own power, and you
will never alter it to your liking; and more, you need not alter it, for
you are not responsible for it. God sends it as it is, for better, for
worse, and you must make up your mind to what God sends. Do I mean that
we are to submit slavishly to circumstances, like dumb animals? Heaven
forbid. We are not, like Epictetus, slaves, but free men. And we are
made in God's image, and have each our spark, however dim, of that
creative genius, that power of creating or of altering circumstances, by
which God made all worlds; and to use that, is of our very birthright, or
what would all education, progress, civilisation be, save rebellion
against God? But when we have done our utmost, how little shall we have
done! Canst thou,--asks our Lord, looking with loving sadness on the
hurry and the struggle of the human anthill--canst thou by taking thought
add one cubit to thy stature? Why, is there a wise man or woman in this
abbey, past fifty years of age, who does not know that, in spite of all
their toil and struggle, they have gone not whither they willed, but
whither God willed? Have they not found out that for one circumstance of
their lives which they could alter, there have been twenty which they
could not, some born with them, some forced on them by an overruling
Providence, irresistible indeed--but, as I hold, most loving and most
fatherly, though often severe--even to agony--but irresistible still--
till what they have really gained by fighting circumstance, however
valiantly, has been the MORAL gain, the gain in character?--the power to
live the heroic life, which
"Is not as idle ore,
But heated hot with burning fears,
And bathed in baths of hissing tears,
And batter'd, with the shocks of doom,
To shape and use."
Ah! if a man be learning that lesson, which is the primer of eternal
life, then I hardly pity him, though I see him from youth to age tearing
with weak hands at the gates of brass, and beating his soul's wings to
pieces against the bars of the iron cage. But, alas! the majority of
mankind tear at the gates of brass, and beat against the iron cage, with
no such good purpose, and therefore with no such good result. They fight
with circumstances, not that they may become better themselves, not that
they may right the wrongs or elevate the souls of their fellow-men, not
even that they may fulfil the sacred duty of maintaining, and educating,
and providing for the children whom they have brought into the world, and
for whom they are responsible alike to God and to man; but simply because
circumstances are disagreeable to them; because the things around them do
not satisfy their covetousness, their luxury, their ambition, their
vanity. And therefore the majority of mankind want to be, and to do, and
to have a hundred things which are not in their own power, and of which
they have no proof that God intends to give them; no proof either that if
they had them, they would make right use of them, and certainly no proof
at all that if they had them they would find peace. They war and fight,
and have not, because they ask not. They ask, and have not, because they
ask amiss, to consume it on their lusts; and so they spend their lives
without peace, longing, struggling for things outside them, the greater
part of which they do not get, because the getting them is not in their
own power, and which if they got they could not keep, for they can carry
nothing away with them when they die, neither can their pomp follow them.
And therefore does man walk in a vain shadow, and disquiet himself in
vain, looking for peace where it is not to be found--in everything and
anything save in his own heart, in duty, and in God.
But happy are they who are discontented with the divine discontent,
discontented with themselves. Happy are they who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, that they may become righteous and good men. Happy are
they who have set their hearts on the one thing which is in their own
power--being better than they are, and doing better than they do. Happy
are they who long and labour after the true riches, which neither mobs
nor tyrants, man nor devil, prosperity nor adversity, or any chance or
change of mortal life, can take from them--the true and eternal wealth,
which is the Spirit of God. The man, I say, who has set his heart on
being good, has set his heart on the one thing which is in his own power;
the one thing which depends wholly and solely on his own will; the one
thing which he can have if he chooses, for it is written, "If ye then
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more
shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"
Moreover, he has set his heart on the one thing which cannot be taken
from him. God will not take it from him; and man, and fortune, and
misfortune, cannot take it from him. Poverty, misery, disease, death
itself, cannot make him a worse man, cannot make him less just, less
true, less pure, less charitable, less high-minded, less like Christ, and
less like God.
Therefore he is at peace, for he is, as it were, intrenched in an
impregnable fortress, against all men and all evil influences. And that
castle is his own soul. And the keeper of that castle is none other than
Almighty God, Jesus Christ our Lord, to whose keeping he has committed
his soul, as unto a faithful and merciful Saviour, able to keep to the
uttermost that which is committed to Him in faith and holiness.
Therefore that man is at peace with himself, for his conscience tells him
that he is, if not doing his best, yet trying to do his best, better and
better day by day. He is at peace with all the world; for most men are
longing and quarrelling for pleasant things outside them, for which he
does not greatly care, while he is longing and striving for good things
inside him in his own heart and soul; and so the world goes one way, and
he another, and their desires do not interfere with each other.
But, more, that man is at peace with God. He is at peace with God the
Father; for he is behaving as the Father wishes His children to behave.
He is at peace with God the Son; for he is trying to do that which God
the Son did when He came not to do His own will, but His Father's; not to
grasp at anything for himself, but simply to sacrifice himself for duty,
for the good of man. And he is at peace with God the Holy Spirit; for he
is obeying the gracious inspirations of that Spirit, and growing a better
man day by day. And so the peace of God keeps that man's heart free from
vain desires and angry passions, and his mind from those false and
foolish judgments which make the world think things important which are
quite unimportant; and, again, fancy things unimportant which are more
important to them than the riches of the whole world.
My dear friends, take my words home with you, and if you wish for the
only true and sound peace, which is the peace of God, do your duty. Try
to be as good as you can, each in his station in life. So help you God.
Take an example from the soldier on the march; and if you do that, you
will all understand what I mean. The bad soldier has no peace, just
because he troubles himself about things outside himself, and not in his
own power. "Will the officers lead us right?" That is not in his power.
Let him go where the officers lead him, and do his own duty. "Will he
get food enough, water enough, care enough, if he is wounded?" I hope
and trust in God he will; but that is not in his own power. Let him take
that, too, as it comes, and do his duty. "Will he be praised, rewarded,
mentioned in the newspapers, if he fights well?" That, too, is not in
his own power. Let him take that, too, as it comes, and do his duty; and
so of everything else. If the soldier on the march torments himself with
these matters which are not in his own power, he is the man who will be
troublesome and mutinous in time of peace, and in time of war will be the
first to run away. He will tell you, "A man must have justice done him;
a man must see fair play for himself; a man must think of himself." Poor
fool! He is not thinking of himself all the while, but of a number of
things which are outside him, circumstances which stand round him, and
outside him, and are not himself at all. Because he thinks of them--the
things outside him--he is a coward or a mutineer, while he fancies he is
taking care of himself--as it is written, "Whosoever shall seek to save
his life shall lose it."
But if the man will really think of himself, of that which is inside him,
of his own character, his own honour, his own duty--then he will say,
Well fed or ill fed, well led or ill led, praised and covered with
medals, or neglected and forgotten, and dying in a ditch, I, by myself I,
am the same man, and I have the same work to do. I have to be--myself,
and I have to do--my duty. So help me God. And therefore, so help me
God, I will be discontented with no person or thing, save only with
myself; and I will be discontented with myself, not when I have left
undone something extraordinary, which I know I could not have done, but
only when I have left undone something ordinary, some plain duty which I
know I could have done, had I asked God to help me to do it. Then in
that soldier would be fulfilled--has been fulfilled, thank God, a
thousand times, by men who lie in this abbey, and by men, too, of whom we
never heard, "whose graves are scattered far and wide, by mount, by
stream, by sea,"--in him would be fulfilled, I say, the words, "He that
will lose his life shall save it." Then would he have in his heart, and
in his mind likewise, a peace which victory and safety cannot give, and
which defeat, and wounds, ay, death itself, can never take away.
And are not you, too, soldiers--soldiers of Jesus Christ? Then even as
that good soldier, you may be at peace, through all the battles,
victories, defeats of mortal life, if you will be discontented with
nothing save yourselves, and vow, in spirit and in truth, the one oath
which is no blasphemy, but an act of faith, and an act of prayer, and a
confession of the true theology--So help me God. For then God will help
you. Neither you nor I know how; and I am sure neither you nor I know
why--save that God is utterly good. God, I say, will help you, by His
Holy Spirit the Comforter, to do your duty, and to be at peace. And then
the peace of God will rule in your hearts and make you kings to God. For
He will enable YOU each to rule, serene, though weary, over a kingdom--
or, alas! rather a mob, the most unruly, the most unreasonable, the most
unstable, and often the most fierce, which you are like to meet on earth.
To rule, I say, over a mob, of which you each must needs be king or
slave, according as you choose. And what is that mob? What but your own
faculties, your own emotions, your own passions--in one word, your own
selves? Yes, with the peace of God ruling in your hearts, you will be
able to become what without it you will never be--and that is--masters of
yourselves.