What a question! Oh, ask it yourselves honestly! I have been out in gales myself, and I cannot understand how you can go out, in thirty feet of timber, upon that mighty sea, with the wind howling over your heads like a death-bell, and the great hungry waves chasing you for miles, each one able and willing to swallow you up into the deep, and the gulls screaming over you as if they were waiting to feed upon your floating carcases, and you alone, in a tiny boat, upon that waste, howling wilderness of waters!—I cannot understand, I say, how, when a man is in such a case as that, day after day, year after year, he can forget his God, the only friend who can save him from the sea! the only friend who can send him safe out to his work in the evening, and bring him home safe to his wife at morning. One would think that when you went down to the shore in the morning, you would say, “Oh, God! without whose help I am no stronger than a piece of sea-weed floating up and down, take care of me! Take care of my wife and my children; and forgive me my sins, and do not punish me by calling me away this night to answer for them all!” And when you come home at night, you would say, “Oh, God! who hast kept me safe all this day, what can I do to show how thankful I am to Thee!” Ay! what can you do to show how thankful you are to God for His care? What ought you to do to show your thankfulness to Him? What must you do to show your thankfulness to Him? He has told you. “If you love me, He says, keep my commandments. Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.”

These, my friends, are the holy and thankful thoughts which ought to be in your hearts every day and hour. This is the thought which God meant to put into your hearts when He made sailors of you, and brought you into the world, by the sea-side, to take up your business in great waters. You might have been born in Bristol or Liverpool or London, and never seen anything but streets and houses, and man’s clumsy work. But God has been very good to you. He has brought you up here, in this happy West country, where you may see His wonderful works day and night; where you ought never to forget that you have a Father in heaven who made the sea, and who keeps you safe at sea by night and day. God has given you a great deal. He has given you two books to read—the book of God’s Word, the Bible, and the book of God’s earth, the sky and sea and land, which is above you and below you and around you day and night. If you can read and understand them properly, you will find in them everything which you want; you may learn from them to be holy in this world and happy in the next. God has given you, too, fathers, mothers, wives, children, a comfortable home, a holy trade—the same which the apostles followed. God has given you England for your country, and the West country—the best place in England for your home. God has given you a good Queen, and good magistrates and landlords. God has given you health and strength, and seamanship, and clear heads and stout hearts. And God has made you seamen and fishermen, and given you a business in which you can see God’s mighty power and wisdom day and night, and feel Him taking care of you when you cannot take care of yourselves.

Therefore you ought to thank God that yours is a dangerous business, because it teaches you to trust in God alone for safety. And what are you to give Him in return? What does God require of you? You cannot pay Him back again for all His mercies, for they are past counting, but you must pay Him back all you can. And what must you pay Him back? First, you must trust in God; for he who comes to God and wishes to walk with God through life, as a good man should, must believe that there is a God, and that He will reward those who look to Him.

I never heard of a sailor who did not believe in God; for how can a man look at the sea, and not say to himself, God made the sea! But I have seen a great many sailors who did not trust in God. As long as it is fine weather, and everything goes right, they will forget God, and fancy that it is their own seamanship, and not God alone, which keeps their boats afloat, and their own skill in fishing, and not God alone, which sends the shoals of fish into their nets; and so they are truly fine-weather sailors—men who are only fit for calm seas and light breezes, when they can take care of themselves without God’s help; but when a squall comes their hearts change, by God’s mercy. For when a man has done all he can to save himself, and all he can do is no use, and his nets are adrift, and his boat on her beam ends, and the foaming rocks are on his lee, then he comes to his senses at last, and prays. Why did he not pray before? Why did he not save himself from all that misery and trouble and danger by thanking God for taking care of him, and praying to God to take care of him still. “Foolish men are plagued for their offences, and because of their wickedness. They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business on great waters; these men see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep; for at His word the stormy wind ariseth which lifteth up the waves thereof; they are carried up to heaven, and down again into the deep; their soul melteth away because of the trouble; they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.” And justly they are punished for forgetting God. God made the calm as well as the storm. Could they not remember that? But look at God’s mercy; for when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, He delivers them out of all their distress. For He makes the storm to cease, so that the waves are still; then are they glad because they are at rest, and so God brings them to the harbour where they would be.

Is there an old man sitting here who has not had this happen to him? And what did you do, my friend, when God had saved you out of that danger? It is easy to tell what you ought to have done; you ought to have gone home and fallen on your knees, and prayed to God; you ought to have said, Oh, Lord, I am a miserable, foolish sinner, who can only remember Thee when Thou art angry; an ungrateful son, who only thinks of his father when he beats him! Oh, God, forgive me, I ought to have trusted in Thee before! I deserved all my danger and punishment and more. I did not deserve to be pardoned and saved from it! I deserve to be at the bottom of the sea at this moment. But forgive me, forgive me, loving and merciful Father, for the sake of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, who died on the cross that I might be saved from death!

And when you had prayed thus, the next thing you ought to have asked yourself was—What does God require of me? how can I try to pay Him back—how can I show that I am thankful? My good friends, what does God require of you? “To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” I told you He required of you first to trust in Him at all hours, in all weathers. This is the next thing which He requires of you—To do justly, to cheat no man, not in the price of a pilchard; to love mercy; to love your neighbours, as Christ loved you; to help your neighbours, as Christ helped you and all mankind, by dying to save you; and as Christ has helped you, night after night, when you might have been buried in the waves, if Christ had not prayed for you that you might have time to repent, and bring forth fruits fit for repentance. To love mercy; to forgive every man who hurts you, for they are all Christian men and your brothers. Christ loved every one! Why should not you? If your wife or friend loved anything, you would be kind to it for their sakes; and so, if you really love God, and are thankful to Him for all His mercy and kindness, you will love every man you meet, for God’s sake, who loved them and gave His Son for them.

“To walk humbly with your God.” That is the beginning and end of all—you must be humble; you must confess that you are foolish, and God alone is wise; that you are weak, and God alone is strong; that you are poor fishermen, whom any squall may drown, and that God is the Great, Loving, Almighty God, who made heaven and earth, and the sea and all that is therein, and who helps all those who put their trust in Him. This is what God asks you to do in return for all He has done for you! To pray to Him, to praise Him, to put your trust in Him, to keep His commandments like thankful, humble, obedient, loving children. They who do these things, and only they, shall never fail. By night and day, in summer and winter, in storm and calm, in health and sickness, in richness and poverty, God will be with them. Christ will be with them. He sat in a fisherman’s boat once, on the sea of Tiberias, and He will sit in your boats if you will but ask Him. He will steer you, He will save you, He will take care of your wives and children when you are far away, and He will bring you through the troublesome waves of this mortal life, so that, having faith for your anchor, and hope for your sail, and charity for your crew, you may at last land on the happy shore of everlasting life, there to live with God, world without end. God grant it may be so!

My good brothers—for I am a Christian like you, and an Englishman like you, and a west countryman like you—I thank our Father in heaven that He has brought me from the other end of England, and put this message into my mouth, to remind you of who you are—that you are the men who see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep; and that God will say to every one of you at the day of judgment,—I taught you all this, I gave you all this, I did all this for you, what have you done for Me in return?

Go home—read over these verses in 107th Psalm, and think over what I have said. Do it to-night, for the weather has broken up—there are gales coming. Which of you can say that he will be alive next Sunday?

XXIII. THE GOOD SOLDIER OF JESUS CHRIST

“Thou therefore endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

—2 Timothy ii. 3.

Suppose a young man went of his own will for a soldier; was regularly sworn in to serve the Queen; took his bounty; wore the Queen’s uniform; ate her bread; learnt his drill; and all that a soldier need learn, as long as peace lasted. But suppose that, as soon as war came, and his regiment was ordered on active service, he deserted at once, and went off and hid himself. What should you call such a man? You would call him a base and ungrateful coward, and you would have no pity on him, if he was taken and justly punished.

But suppose that he did a worse thing still. Suppose that the enemy, the Russians say, invaded England, and the army was called out to fight them; and suppose this man of whom I speak, be he soldier or sailor, instead of fighting the enemy, deserted over to them, and fought on their side against his own country, and his own comrades, and his own father and brothers, what would you call that man? No name would be bad enough for him. If he was taken, he would be hanged without mercy, as not only a deserter but a traitor. And who would pity him or say that he had not got his just deserts?

Now, for God’s sake and your own sakes consider. Are not all young people, when they are old enough to choose between right and wrong, if they choose what is wrong and live bad lives instead of good ones, very like this same deserter and traitor?

For are you not all Christ’s soldiers, every one of you? Did not Christ enlist every one of you into His army, that, as the baptism service says, you might fight manfully under His banner against sin, the world, and the devil,—in one word, against all that is wrong and bad? And now when you are old enough to know that you are Christ’s soldiers, what will you deserve to be called, if instead of fighting on Christ’s side against what is good, you forget you are in His service? What are you but deserters from Christ’s banner and army, traitors to Christ’s cause?

But some may say, “My case is not like that soldier’s. I did not enter Christ’s service of my own free will. My parents put me into it when I was an infant, without asking my leave. I was not christened of my own will. My parents had me christened before I knew any thing about it! I had no choice!”

Is it so? Do you know what your words mean? If they mean anything, they mean that you had rather not have been christened, because you are now expected to behave as a christened man should. Now is there any one of you who dare say, “I wish I had not been christened?”

Not one! Then if you dare not say that; if you are content to have been christened, why are you not content to do what christened people should? If you are content to have been christened, you are christened people now of your own free will, and are bound to act accordingly.

But why were you christened? not merely because your parents chose, but because it was their duty. Every child ought to be christened, because every child belongs to Christ. Every child is in debt to Christ,—every child is bound to serve Christ.

In debt to Christ, you say? Certainly, from the moment you are born, and before that too. You are in debt to Him since you were born, for every good thought and feeling which ever came into your hearts and minds, for He put them there. And will any of you answer, “Then I wish He had not put them there, if they are to bring me into debt to Him, and force me to serve Him. I don’t wish, of course, that I had been bad; but I wish that I had been neither good nor bad. I wish I had had no immortal soul, which is bound to serve Christ.”

Now does any man of you wish that really? Dare any of you wish that you were like the beasts, without conscience, without honour, without shame, without knowing right from wrong, without any life after death, without being able even to talk—for mind, without immortal souls men could not speak. The beasts cannot talk to each other; reasonable speech belongs to our souls, not to our bodies. Then if you are glad that you have souls, and are better than the dumb beasts, you confess that you feel in debt to Christ, and are bound to serve Him. For who gave you your souls but Christ?

But even if you had had no souls, you would have been in debt to Christ, and bound to serve Him. “What for?” you ask. Why, for life itself. How did you come here? Who gave you life? Who brought you into the world? Who but Christ, by whom all things were made, and you among the rest? Who gave you food? Who made every atom of food grow which you ate since you were born? Who made the air you breathe, the water which you drink, the wool and cotton which clothes you? Who but Christ? Do you not know that you cannot even breathe a breath of air, unless Christ first makes the air, and then gives your lungs life to breathe the air? and yet you cannot understand that you are in debt to Christ, and have been eating His bread and living on His bounty ever since you were born?

And mind, all this while I have not said one word about the greatest debt of all which you owe to the Lord Jesus Christ, even His own life, which He gave for you! Only think but once that for your sakes the Lord was crucified—for your sakes He died the most horrible, painful, shameful death. And then say, Are you not in debt to Him? “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” If any mere man had died for your sake, would you not love him—would you not feel yourself in debt to him, a deeper debt than you can ever repay? Then Christ died for you—how can you be more deeply in debt to any one than to Him?

You have now no right to choose between Christ and the devil, because Christ has chosen you already—no right to choose between good and bad, because God, the good God Himself, has chosen you already, and has been taking care of you, and heaping you with blessings ever since you were born.

And why did Christ choose you? As I have told you, that you may fight with Him against all that is bad. Jesus Christ’s work at which He works for ever in heaven and in earth, is to root out all that is bad, all sin, all misery; and He will reign, and He will fight till all His enemies, even Death itself, are put under His feet and destroyed. And Christ expects you and me to help Him. He has chosen you and me, and all Christian people, to fight against what is bad, and to put it down and root it out as far as we can wherever we find it; and therefore, first, to root it out of our own hearts and lives; for while we are bad ourselves we cannot make others good. But if we go on doing bad and wrong things, are we fighting on Christ’s side? No, we are fighting on the devil’s side, and helping the devil against God.

Do you fancy that I am saying too much? I suspect some do. I suspect some say in their hearts, “He is too hard on us. We are not like that traitorous soldier. If an English soldier went over to the enemy, and fought against the English, and killed Englishmen, that of course would be too bad; but we do not wish to harm any one, much less our neighbours. If we do wrong, it is ourselves at most that we harm. If we do wrong, it is only we that shall suffer for it. Why does he talk as if we were robbers or murderers, or had a spite against our neighbours? We do not wish to hurt any one, we do not want to help the devil.”

Now, my friends, if any of you say that, do you not say first what is not true? and next do you not know that it is not true?

First, It is not true that by doing wrong you hurt no one but yourself. Every wrong thing which any man does, every wrong way into which he runs, is certain sooner or later to hurt his neighbours. The worse man a man is, the worse for those who have to do with him. You know it is your own case. You know that bad people hurt you, and make you unhappy; and that good people do you good and make you happy. You know that bad example does you harm and good example does you good. Think for yourselves—use your own common sense. Recollect what you know, what has happened to you again and again. You know that if any one uses bad language before you, you are tempted to use bad language too. If any one quarrels with you, you are tempted to quarrel with him. You know that if parents do wrong things before their children, the children learn to copy them. It is nonsense to talk of a man keeping his sins to himself. No man does, and no man can. Out of the abundance of a man’s heart his mouth speaks; and a bad tree will bring forth bad fruit. If there are bad thoughts in your head, they will come out in bad words. If there are bad tempers in your heart, they will come out in bad and unkind and dishonest actions. You may as well try to keep in fire, as to keep in sin. It will break out, and it will burn whatever it touches. And if you, or I, or any one does wrong in any thing, we shall surely hurt some one or other by it. If you, or I, or any one is worse than he ought to be, we shall make the parish we live in worse than it ought to be. You know that it is so. Who made you different from the rest of the world? If any body else’s sins are harmful, who will make your sins harmless? Not the devil, for he wishes to see as much harm done as possible. And not God, for He will not be so cruel as to let your sin prosper and go unpunished, as it would if it did not make people hate it, by feeling the bad effects of it.

My good friends, if you by doing wrong hurt other people, and make other people unhappy, are you doing Christ’s work or the devil’s? Are you fighting for Christ, who wishes to make all good, or for the devil, who wishes to make all bad? Are you Christ’s faithful soldier and servant, or are you a traitor to Christ who has gone over to the devil’s side, and is helping the devil to make this poor world (which is bad enough already) worse than it is?

Oh, think of this now, while you have time before you. Remember all that Christ has done for you, and remember that all He asks of you in return is to do for Him nothing but good, which is good for you as well as for your neighbours. The devil’s wages now are shame, discontent, unhappiness, perhaps poverty, perhaps sickness, certainly punishment as traitors to Christ after we die. Christ’s wages are love, joy, peace, the answer of a good conscience, the respect and love of all good men, as long as we live, and after death, life everlasting. Choose; will you be traitors or deserters, and serve the worst of all masters, the King of Hell, or be honest, honourable, and brave men, and serve the best of all masters, the King of Heaven, the Lord of Life, and love, and goodness without bound, whose ways are ways of pleasantness, and all His paths are peace?

XXIV. HOLY COMMUNION; CHRIST AND THE SINNER

“Have mercy upon, me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”

—Psalm li. 1, 2, 3, 17.

This Psalm was written by David when he was sorrowing for sin, and if there are any such among you, my dear friends, let me speak a few words to you. Would to God that I had the tongue of St. Paul to speak to you with—though even when he preached some mocked, as it will be to the end. But if to one of you God has brought home His truth, then to that one conscience-stricken sinner I will say, “You confess with David that all your sorrows are your own fault. Thank God that He has taught you so much.”

But what will you do to be saved from your sins? “I cannot wait,” you say in your heart, “to go home and begin leading a new life. I will do that, please God, but I want to know at once that I am forgiven. I want to be saved. I cannot save myself. I cannot save myself from hell hereafter, or from this miserable sinful life, nearly as bad as hell here. Oh! wretched being that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

Friend, dost thou not know it is written, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

“Ah yes!” says the sinner, “I have been hearing that all my life, and much good it has done me! Look at me, I want something more than those words about Christ, I want Christ Himself to save me if He can.”

Ah, my brother!—poor sinner! thou hast never believed in Christ, thou hast only believed about Christ. There was the fault. But Christ Himself will save thee, though thou hast been the worst of reprobates, He will save thee. Only one thing, He will have thee answer first. “Dost thou wish to be saved from the punishment of thy sins, or from the sins themselves?”

“From my sins—from my sins,” says the man who truly repents. “They are what I hate, even while I commit them. I hate and despise myself, I dare look neither God nor man in the face, and yet I go on doing the very things I loathe the next minute. Oh, for some one to save me from my own ill-temper, my own bitter tongue, my own laziness, my own canting habits, my own dishonesty, my own lustfulness. But who will save me from them? who will change me and make a new creature of me? Oh, for a sign from heaven that I can get rid of these bad habits! I hate them, and yet I love them. I long to give them up, and yet, if some one stronger than me does not have mercy on me, I shall go and do them again to-morrow. I am longing to do wrong now, and yet I long not to do wrong. Oh, for a sign from heaven!”

Poor sinner!—My brother! there is a sign from heaven for thee! On that table it stands. A sign that Christ’s blood was shed to wash out thy sins, a sign that Christ’s blood will feed thee, and give thy spirit strength to cast away and hate thy sins. Come to Holy Communion and claim thy share in Christ’s pardon for the past, in Christ’s strength for the future.

“What!” says the sinner, “I come to the Sacrament! I of all men the most unfit! I who but yesterday committed such and such sins!”