better-trained ministry. If the parish priest only theoretically
believes in it, and is quite upset if his curate is ploughed in
the examination, and writes and begs that he at least may be let
through--I am only giving an illustration of dozens of letters I
have received--that sort of thing does not help us. It is no good
my speaking to you anything but true words; that sort of thing does
not help us to keep up what should be the standard of our trained
ministry. We must remember that the real examination comes in our
parish. When we arrive there, it is the people who really examine
us, and if, when they have got to know us, they find that we are
not worth calling in to minister to their souls--well, it is not
the fault of the people, it is the fault of the training and the
want of skill of the physician. And if some were ordained quickly
owing to poverty--and GOD knows it often is owing to poverty: many
a man would be only too thankful for another year in a theological
college--that is the fault of the Church. The Church must supply
the money if the men cannot. We have an efficient Board, in the
diocese to-day, of responsible men choosing out candidates. And if
the Church were a little more generous in its support, we might have
a really adequate supply of clergy. We have not got by any means
the full number which the Church needs to-day to send all over the
country.
(2) The second essential thing is self-knowledge. "Physician, heal
thyself," is an old saying. Of course, I am not speaking from a
pedestal, but simply sitting among you, and speaking to myself as
much as to you. The words I believe CHRIST is saying to us all are,
"Physician, heal thyself"--that is to say, we must see what is wrong
in our own lives and works; otherwise we cannot have the insight
to heal others. We do not know how to do it, unless we have cut
down into our own souls. The man who has done that is the man who
really knows. It is only the man who is frank enough to look below
the surface and see the wickedness of his own heart who is the one
who can deal with other people. The HOLY SPIRIT, who alone knows us
through and through, may bring us to a deeper self-knowledge to-day,
which will make us very much better physicians. If we heal ourselves
first, we shall know how to heal others.
(3) Then, thirdly, to carry out this great task we must know our
people one by one. Here is a great difficulty. A parish priest may
have ten thousand people in his charge, but how difficult it is
for him to know each one! He must do it--though, of course, partly
through others. He must have a system. I do not think a parish
priest ought ever to be wholly inaccessible to any part of his
parish. He must have his curates working for him, but the priests
who work with him must have a system by which the vicar himself will
know when he is wanted. I am sure every parish priest feels that
he must be ready for any emergency. It is not easy to escape from
councils and committees, but he should be ready with the surgeon's
knife whenever he is wanted all over his great ward. He must not
leave it wholly to anyone else, so long as he is responsible. In
order to know the people, he must be up to the last day of his
life a visitor. I hold it to be an absolutely wrong view of the
pastoral office to say: "I can sit in my cassock in the church, and
the people know where I am, and they can come to me if they like."
Of course, it is a very good thing to have times when we shall be
in church, and when the people will know that we are there. There
is (let us say) the daily service at a time which everybody knows;
they can catch us after the daily service, and see us as we go away.
We make it known we shall be pleased to see them after Mattins and
Evensong. And we have a time before the great festivals when they
can come to prepare themselves for the great services. All that
is wholly to the good. It is good for the house-surgeon to have a
place where his patients can come and see him. But something else is
wanted. He must be ready to go out and see them when they are ill,
and find out what is the matter with them. What should we think of a
physician who had always the same regimen and the same medicine for
everybody? It used to be a joke, I remember, at a great school at
which I was, that the doctor gave us all the same physic. It was no
doubt a libel on him. But certainly such a method would be a fault
in the case of the spiritual surgeon; souls would die under such
treatment. We have to ask ourselves: Are there any patients dying
under my hand, in my ward, because I have not taken the trouble to
really heal them, because I am not going down deep enough, because
I am not finding out what is the matter with them, because I am not
really acting the part of physician, still less that of a celestial
surgeon?
(4) And then, when we have got the people to trust us so that they
wish us to go to them, or they come to us with their troubles and
difficulties and sorrows, we must have for our people the patience
of the good physician. If we have known and benefited by the
patience of our own physicians of the body when we have been ill,
and have realised how patient they are, if some of our best friends
have been the doctors, the physicians, and surgeons, who have
attended to us, we, too, have got to show the patience of the good
physician to our people. We have no right to give a sarcastic answer
because a particular parishioner seems to be beyond the limit. We
must imitate the patience of JESUS CHRIST. The old story of "Quo
Vadis?" is told in different ways. One version is that, as St.
Peter was, in a fit of impatience, leaving Rome, our LORD met him
on the way, and he, Peter, asked Him whither He was going. The LORD
answered that He was going to Rome to be crucified again because
Peter had left his post. Another version of the same story is that
one of the disciples was asked where he was going, and he said: "I
have lost patience with such and such a man." The LORD said: "I have
had patience with that man for forty years." Whichever way you put
the story, the point is that we have no right to be impatient with
our people. Why _should_ we be impatient? Think how patient He has
been with us all this time. We must have, then, the patience of the
Good Physician. Let me speak to the younger clergy, nearly all of
whom I have ordained myself. Do you remember that when you were
undergraduates you were not particularly keen when someone came in
to speak to you for your good? Perhaps you were a little impatient.
And, perhaps, after all is said and done, the young men of the
parish feel very much the same when you come in and want to talk to
them for their good. I think sometimes we forget that the young men
of the parish are very much the same as we were as undergraduates,
and that if they do not come on at once to the Bible-class or want
to be confirmed, they are not very much worse than we were at their
age. Therefore we must pray for more patience with them. Someone had
patience with us, or we could not have been here in the ministry at
all. Someone bore with all our waywardness, and with hopefulness
brought us on to something better. We shall never do anything
without patience. It is the patience of CHRIST that will win them at
last, and they will say: "Thy gentleness has made me great."
(5) But, then, while we are patient, we must not be afraid of
speaking the uncomfortable truth. I mean, there is such a thing as
being too kind--too kind in the sense that we are afraid to speak
out, to cut down, as it were, with the surgeon's knife. You remember
the Celestial Surgeon of Stevenson:
"If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness ...
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain,
Knocked at my sullen heart in vain:--
Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take,
And stab my spirit broad awake."
Something of what he means is, I suppose, humorous. What he means
is that something must pierce below the surface, something must
get home; anything is better than faltering in our great task of
happiness, being dead to the blessings of life that GOD gives us.
Sometimes we have to stand up and say: "Thou art the man." "It is
not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." We have got to
say this whenever there is occasion for it. We have got to speak
out for the sake of the man's soul. It is not easy, but we must be
prepared to do our part as celestial surgeons. There is many a man
who has lived to bless his parish priest for telling him the truth
about himself. He has been very angry at first, and full of bluster,
but thankful afterwards. We must never be afraid to be celestial
surgeons in the sense of doing the best for our patients.
(6) Well, then, directly you have done that, be ready to pour in the
oil like the Good Samaritan. There he is, delightful man, putting
off his business to look after the poor man, and we are to remember
to our shame that the priest and the Levite had passed by him. Pour
in the oil of sympathy. It seemed a very little thing to repeat that
commonplace bit of comfort to the mourners; often you may hesitate
to write that letter to the tenth man or woman who has lost his or
her boy in the war. That letter, written in love, is like the oil;
it comes as a healing balm. You have poured in loving sympathy.
You cannot have too much of it to give away. The good physician is
full of pity even while he uses the drastic medicine, and the best
surgeon is wonderfully patient. "When I lost my boy, when he hung
between life and death, then I found out what my parish priest was
like," people should be able to say. If we have not got sympathy,
and cannot pour in the oil, where are we? The world expects us to
be kindly, loving, sympathising, sacrificing physicians in times of
trouble and sorrow.
(7) And then, once again, do not forget the after-care. We have
"after-care committees" for our children when they leave school,
but we _are_ an after-care committee for all our people's souls.
Our LORD understood all about after-care. When He healed the little
girl, He commanded that something should be given her to eat. He at
once thought of her needs. He wanted to strengthen her after the
strain that she had gone through.
And that brings us to the beautiful work of our guilds. There need
be no particular kind of organisation, but we must in our parishes
look round and see that everyone has what he wants--see that men and
boys, women and girls, are looked after. When they are cured, have
we provided that something should be given them to eat, something to
strengthen them? Do we carry out the after-care which every good
physician and surgeon always displays?
I always remember, from my East London days, a little pamphlet
written by the present Bishop of Southwell. It was called "From
Marriage to Marriage." It made a great impression on me at the time.
I cannot remember all he said, but the point is this: We were too
much inclined to imagine that everyone had to go through a dreary
course of falls and rescues. But if we really shepherded the little
child from the moment he was born, it would be different. Let us
begin with the young couple. From the time they leave the church
we have to look after them. And then, when their child has come,
we have to take care of that little child and shepherd it from
the very start. If we do not do that, we have left out our most
important work. There is a great deal of work upon which we are
engaged--_e.g._, rescue work--which would not be on such a gigantic
scale if we had real after-care committees thoroughly at work in the
Church from the time the people are married.
We must examine ourselves to-day, then, very strictly from the
point of view of being good physicians: "What about my parish? Are
my people dying under my hand, through my carelessness or want
of skill? Are there any whom I do not know or who do not know me
because I have not won their confidence? Do I visit them as much
as I can, and find out what is the matter with them? Am I treating
them with loving patience, and yet with frankness and courage and
tenderness, looking after them right on to the end?" When the
Apostles healed a man they gave us the true spirit in which to do
it. "In the name of JESUS CHRIST rise up and walk." Not in their own
name, not in their own power, but in the name and power of JESUS
CHRIST. They did not try to be popular people and make people like
them; they had but the one idea, to make it perfectly plain that the
power of their LORD was present to heal; and the result was that
the man leapt up, stood, and walked, and was seen afterwards in the
Temple walking and praising GOD. If in our healing work we keep
out the idea of self, and work as good physicians and celestial
surgeons in the name of CHRIST, the effect of our work will be
that we shall see numbers in the parish, perhaps paralysed before,
walking and leaping and praising, not us, but GOD.
III
FISHERS OF MEN
We have meditated upon our work as messengers, and then on our work
as physicians and surgeons; but the duties given us are so various
that it ought to make us feel how extraordinarily full of interest
our work is. Every faculty of the mind and spirit is wanted for this
wonderful work. We are called sometimes stewards representing the
Master to the people of the world, looking after the menservants and
the maidservants, foraging for the food of the household and giving
it out. Then another time we are watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem,
walking up and down watching over the city and blowing the trumpet
when the danger comes, continually holding up our hands in prayer.
We do our work as messengers running with a message, as physicians
and surgeons going up and down the ward, and then suddenly we hear
a voice ring, as it were, from heaven: "Follow Me, and I will make
you fishers of men." Here we have quite a different picture--the
wind-swept deck of the fishing-smack in the teeth of the tempest.
"Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find."
We are fishers fishing for men. What a different picture from the
others! And I think we ask, rather sadly, some of us, who have been
working night and day, whether we are successful fishers of men. We
say: "Master, we have toiled all the night and taken nothing." I
have this huge parish of ten thousand people to look after, and what
is the result of my work among them? Have I been a successful fisher
of men? And that makes us, of course, ask ourselves in a day like
this: "What is the secret of successful fishing? If I have toiled
all the night and taken nothing, and all the day and taken very
little, what ought I to do? My time is getting on; the evening will
come, my fishing will be over. Can I not discover in the presence of
my LORD to-day what He would have me do different from what I have
been doing, that I may bring to His feet a greater harvest of souls
than I have ever brought yet?"
(1) And the first secret of successful fishing is _variety of
method_. There are some of us, no doubt, who do fish on our holidays
in the literal sense, and we know how again and again in the salmon
rivers we have tried fly after fly. And yet in our fishing for
men we often tie ourselves down to one monotonous kind of method,
never thinking of varying it. But if we have found one method
fail, surely we might try another. Why should we be tied down to
one particular humdrum method if it has been tried for years and
failed? Of course, there are certain things which must be the same.
We have no right to complain for a moment of what some people call
the monotony of Mattins and Evensong for ourselves. Mattins and
Evensong are not at all monotonous. I remember thinking, when I made
that promise which everyone makes when they are ordained, of obeying
the Prayer-Book and saying Mattins and Evensong every day, that it
would be a kind of slavery to me. But, on the contrary, I find it
a chain that binds me about the feet of GOD. The lessons in these
services are four "letters from heaven" every day, as Canon Liddon
called them. We have spent an immense time in Convocation--nine
years--in considering what variations in the authorised services
of the Prayer-Book may be admitted, and we have almost agreed upon
a supplementary book which will give an immense variety to the
service: a great many more antiphons, a rewritten preface to the
Confirmation Service, the Marriage Service carefully revised, and
some things definitely sanctioned for the Church at large which we
have used under provisional sanction in this diocese. We hope to
have the new supplementary book out at the end of the war. Think,
for instance, of the Psalms. Has not the Great War revealed to us
the depth of the Psalms--"the war-songs of the Prince of Peace,"
as they have been called. The war has given to many a new meaning
which we never saw before. And think of all the needs of the sick
of the parish, and our personal needs, all to be woven into these
beautiful services which we use every day, and which seem to bind
us to the feet of GOD. If any of you have drifted away from your
regular use of Mattins and Evensong, or if you have not started it
in your own churches, make a resolution to start it from to-day.
When your people hear the bell ring, that will tell them that at any
rate the clergyman is at his prayers.
Of course, we do not want our beautiful services to be altered in
substance; but we may have variations sanctioned by authority. In
fishing for men we are not bound by one method. If we find that
one method does not succeed, we must try another. I have already
sanctioned in the diocese a shortened form of Evening Service.
For those not reached by services in church we must have open-air
services. People will listen at the windows in the little square or
street in which they live. There must be, too, special services for
such organisations as Boy Scouts and Church Lads' Brigade. For the
ordinary Sunday-School we are now able to have new methods provided
by experts for the diocese. Then, if the Sunday-School system does
not seem to suit your particular parish, try catechising in church.
I am only suggesting--it is not for me to lay down this or that rule
as to what is to be tried. My point is this: With the HOLY SPIRIT
guiding you, and with the inventiveness of love, you will be able to
bring out of your treasure things new and old. Although one of the
oldest things in the world, the Church is yet the youngest. We never
grow old, and, acting with the inventiveness of youth, we ought to
be thinking out new plans and new methods all the time; and while I
am speaking upon the inventiveness and freshness of the successful
fisherman, I need not say that I shall be only too happy to sanction
almost any new experiment you may wish to make in fishing for men,
if you will submit to me the prayers you think of using, and if
I think the suggested method consistent with the teaching of the
Church to which we both belong.
(2) Then there must be, too--every true fisherman knows this--a
_ripple on the water_ for fishing, best of all a light breeze in
the morning. That means that it is a fishing-day. And do you not
know what I mean when I say that there seems to be no ripple on
some parishes at all? The whole of the surface of the parish seems
as dull as ditch-water--no ripple, no fish. If there is no sense of
expectancy, no keenness, no enjoyment, no happy spirit, among the
workers, there will be no fish. I would like you to ask yourselves
whether there is such a ripple in your parish, or whether it is
all very dull and dead. And I would like to ask anyone who seems
to recognise that there is nothing going on, and that there has
been no catch, yesterday, to-day, or the day before, to ask himself
if he cannot go back and create a ripple in the parish. When you
think over how that ripple is to be created, of course, it can
only be by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT brooding over the waters,
as He originally brooded over the waters and brought cosmos out of
chaos. I believe the chief way, if I may reduce the metaphor to
prosaic terms, the chief way must be by constantly praying for the
parish and the people, that the HOLY SPIRIT may come and stir the
dulness by creating a spirit of expectancy and a joy in the work.
When you are obviously enjoying your work yourself, and making the
Sunday-School teachers and the workers enjoy it, you may expect a
ripple in the parish. Joy in the work is a most attractive thing.
There must be the joy throughout the parish, among clergy and
workers; the curates and the Vicar must be at one, with no friction
between them, and they and the workers a real band of brothers and
sisters all fishing in the same waters. Pray very earnestly for
this. I shall not bring in more at this point about the necessity
for intercession. Remember that it is the parish priest who is
perpetually praying for his people individually, and teaching his
people to pray, who is the most successful. In my experience it
is the praying parish that has a ripple on the surface. I see a
wonderful quantity of fish caught in a parish of that kind.
(3) Then think what is the cord or line by which the fish are
caught. "I will draw them with the cords of a man," by human
influence, by _personality_. Now this question of personality is
a very difficult one. Dr. Newman is said to have stated that he
dreaded personal influence. Well, of course, it is quite easy to
see what he meant. He dreaded such personal influence in religion
which is used to make people simply like us or to draw them to
ourselves and to leave them there--that is to say, he dreaded
a misuse of personal influence. So misused, no doubt, personal
influence is a dangerous thing. But that does not alter the fact
that people are drawn to CHRIST by personal influence, and that we
must use our personal influence if we are to be successful fishermen
for CHRIST.
And that brings me to this personal question: Is there anything
in ourselves that puts people off? I wish to be perfectly frank.
Is it not a fact that we clergy sometimes do put people off by
our manner and appearance? Even the smallest thing is important
if it is going to spoil the line or cord that is to draw people
to CHRIST. I believe we put off people more than we know by
carelessness about our appearance, or manner, or matters of that
kind. So much depends on us that we cannot take too much care of
our personality. We should see to it that when people meet us they
can see the attractiveness of goodness in us, and be drawn to our
LORD because they are first attracted to His representative. And do
ask yourselves--I might seem to be personal if I went into details:
Is there anything in my manner that is spoiling CHRIST'S work so
that He cannot fish with me, cannot draw others through me? Is it
because I am not humble enough, or is there something in me, some
unattractive feature or characteristic, that is spoiling the fishing?
(4) And then, of course, there must be the _hopefulness of the
fisherman_. The true fisherman is nothing if he is not hopeful.
"Master, I have toiled all night, and caught nothing; nevertheless,
at Thy word I will let down the net." The true fisherman never
knows when he may be successful; he is always expecting something
at the last moment, and he manages to infuse hopefulness into his
fellow-workers; he hopes that there is going to be good fishing in
the day or the night. I had a rather touching illustration of the
value of hopefulness in a little hospital near where I was spending
a holiday. Five sisters, friends of mine, who really managed the
whole hospital, sent a telegram from the village asking if I
could come and see one of the young soldiers, whom they could make
nothing of. He was absolutely in despair. He had lived a bad life,
and I think it was the presence of these five good girls who were
nursing him that made him feel the contrast between his life and
theirs, with all its purity and goodness. The contrast brought him
to repentance. Still, he thought it was too late to change. He could
not be forgiven. I went to the hospital. There he was, a young man
about twenty-eight, really in despair. It took me a long time to
get any hope in him. At last, when he had gone into his whole life,
and I had given him absolution, and had a prayer with him, I saw a
sort of hope come into his face. The change was extraordinary. He
said: "Will you pray with me again, Bishop?" In all my experience
I have not very often been asked like that to pray again with a
man. They are generally shy, and satisfied with the first prayer.
I prayed with him a second time. He wrote me afterwards a charming
letter, asking me to send him a Bible and Prayer-Book, which I did.
What that man wanted was hope, nothing but hope; he was in despair
about himself. "GOD shall forgive thee all but thy despair." We
shall never catch a man like that unless we can infuse into him that
glorious hope which we have ourselves. I persuaded him that he was
not too late, and he was saved by hope.