Wilberforce's most conspicuous characteristic was his vivid apprehension
of the Spiritual World. His eyes, like Elisha's, were always open to
see "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire." Incorporeal
presences were to him at least as real as those which are embodied
in flesh and blood. Material phenomena were the veils of spiritual
realities; and "the powers of the world to come" were more actual
and more momentous than those which operate in time and space.
Perhaps the most important gift which God gave to the Church through
his ministry was his lifelong testimony against the darkness of
Materialism.
2. Second only to his keen sense of the Unseen World was his conviction
of God's love.
Other aspects of the Divine Nature as it is revealed to
us--Almightiness, Justice, Awfulness (though, of course, he recognized
them all)--did not colour his heart and life as they were coloured
by the sense of the Divine Love. That Love seemed to him to explain
all the mysteries of existence, to lift
"the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world";
to make its dark places light, its rough places plain, its hard
things easy, even its saddest things endurable. His Gospel was
this: God, Who made us in His own Image, loves us like a Father;
and therefore, in life and in death, in time and in eternity, all
is, and must be, well.
3. "He prayeth best, who lovest best
All things both great and small.
For the dear God Who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
Those familiar words of Coleridge perfectly express Wilberforce's
attitude towards his fellow-creatures, and when I say "fellow-creatures,"
I am not thinking only of his brothers and sisters in the human family.
He was filled with a God-like love of all that God has made. Hatred
and wrath and severity were not "dreamt of" in his "philosophy."
Towards the most degraded and abandoned of the race he felt as
tenderly as St. Francis felt towards the leper on the roadside
at Assisi, when he kissed the scarred hand, and then found that,
all unwittingly, he had ministered to the Lord, disguised in that
loathsome form. This was the motive which impelled Wilberforce
to devote himself, uncalculatingly and unhesitatingly, to the
reclamation of lives that had been devastated by drunkenness, and
which stimulated his zeal for all social and moral reforms.
But his love extended far beyond the bounds of the human family;
and (in this again resembling St. Francis) he loved the birds and
beasts which God has provided as our companions in this life, and
perhaps--for aught we know--in the next. In a word, he loved all
God's creatures for God's sake.
4. No one had a keener sense of the workings of the Holy Spirit
in regions beyond the precincts of all organized religion; and
yet, in his own personal heart and life, Wilberforce belonged
essentially to the Church of England. It is difficult to imagine
him happy and content in any communion except our own. Nowhere else
could he have found that unbroken chain which links us to Catholic
antiquity and guarantees the validity of our sacraments, combined
with that freedom of religious speculation and that elasticity
of devotional forms which were to him as necessary as vital air.
Various elements of his teaching, various aspects of his practice
will occur to different minds; but (just because it is sometimes
overlooked) I feel bound to remind you of his testimony to the
blessings which he had received through Confession, and to the
glory of the Holy Eucharist, as the Sun and Centre of Catholic
worship. His conviction of the reality and nearness of the spiritual
world gave him a singular ease and "access" in intercessory prayer,
and his love of humanity responded to that ideal of public worship
which is set forth in _John Inglesant:_ "The English Church, as
established by the law of England, offers the Supernatural to all
who choose to come. It is like the Divine Being Himself, Whose
sun shines alike on the evil and on the good."
5. In what theology did Wilberforce, whose adult life had been
one long search for truth, finally repose? Assuredly he never lost
his hold on the central facts of the Christian revelation as they
are stated in the creed of Nicæa and Constantinople. Yet, as years
went on, he came to regard them less and less in their objective
aspect; more and more as they correspond to the work of the Spirit
in the heart and conscience. Towards the end, all theology seemed to
be for him comprehended in the one doctrine of the Divine Immanence,
and to find its natural expression in that significant phrase of
St. Paul: "Christ in you, the hope of glory."
Spiritually-minded men do not, as a rule, talk much of their spiritual
experiences; but, if one had asked Wilberforce to say what he regarded
as the most decisive moment of his religious life, I can well believe
that he would have replied, "The moment when 'it pleased God to
reveal His Son _in_ me.'"
The subject expands before us, as is always the case when we meditate
on the character and spirit of those whom we have lost; and I must
hasten to a close.
I have already quoted from a writer with whom I think Wilberforce
would have felt a close affinity, though, as a matter of fact, I
never heard him mention that writer's name; I mean J. H. Shorthouse;
and I return to the same book--the stimulating story of _John
Inglesant_--for my concluding words, which seem to express, with
accidental fidelity, the principle of Wilberforce's spiritual being:
"We are like children, or men in a tennis-court, and before our
conquest is half-won, the dim twilight comes and stops the game;
nevertheless, let us keep our places, and above all hold fast by
the law of life we feel within. This was the method which Christ
followed, and He won the world by placing Himself in harmony with
that law of gradual development which the Divine wisdom has planned.
Let us follow in His steps, and we shall attain to the ideal life;
and, without waiting for our mortal passage, tread the free and
spacious streets of that Jerusalem which is above."