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GIVEN TO THE ASSOCIATES OF THE'
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ON THEIR ANNIVERSARY, JUNE; 26, 1893, "VvTTHIN THE
OCTAVE OP THE NATIVITY OF S. JOHN BAPTISTS
BY THE , ,
REV. FATHER CONGREVE, S.&.J.E. K.'-
(Printed by request. J

CAPE TOWN :
PEINTJiD AT THE COLLEGE PRESS, ZONNEBLOEM
JMDCCCXOIII.

IMIH

GIVEN TO THE ASSOCIATES OP THE

iMrtiaftw 0f ji. |0Jm $ap&tt.

AT /WFFp^PJ5/*'

ON THEIR ANNIVERSARY, JUNE 26, 1893, WITHIN THE
OCTAVE OF THE NATIVITY OF S. JOHN BAPTIST.

BY THE
REV. FATHER CONGREVE, S.S.J.E.
(Printed by request.)

CAPE TOWN :
PRINTED AT THE COLLEGE PRESS, ZONNEBLOEJt
MDCCCXGIII.
Yale Divinity Library
. Conn.

FT60 OVot

ADDBESS I

S. Luke i., 80.
And the child grew and waied strong in spirit, aad was in the deserts
till the day of his shewing unto Israel.
HpHIS is the Festival, not of the death of a tried
^ soldier of Jesus Christ, but of the birth, boy
hood, and growth of a soul so noble that of all the
great prophets and inspirers of men there had not
risen a greater, said our Lord, than this boy, who kept
the solitary vigil of his spiritual knighthood in the
wilderness. This child was wonderfully born, grew,
and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till
the day of his shewing unto Israel.
oj Let us meditate upon life as S. John the Baptist
^teaches us to think of it.
"^ This child was born and lived 33 years on this earth,
^ and you and I to-day, and all the ages ever since, have
been reaping the results of his short life. The salva-
c tion of the world was made to hinge upon the faithful
j^ life of that one boy, and the brave witness to Christ
" which he learned to give.
¦J- Let us consider what it is we owe to him, what he
"* has actually done for us. When we come to estimate
TKis life's results there is little to shew, no wonderful
/Q book written for all ages, no immortal wor« left be-

hind. His one work was his life. His preaching, in
deed, had a wonderful effect for a time, but there was
nothing in it that was new, or brilliant, or that would
serve as a model for orators. It was all summed up in
a sentence : " Eepent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven
is at hand ! " or " Behold the Lamb of God ! " These
were no new ideas; the wonderful power of his
preaching did not consist in the originality of his ideas,
or in his way of expressing them, but in the reality
and intensity of his own life in God, — his religion.
It was not his eloquence, but his life, which awakened
a nation, and summoned a world to receive its Saviour.
The Scribes and Pharisees had the same Scriptures,
the same doctrines, the same religion as S. John ; but
their doctrines, their religion, were not the life of the
Pharisees who taught them ; they were but a sort of
furniture, an ornament of life to them. As our clothes
belong to us, and may be more or less becoming, but
they are not ourselves ; so the Scribes and Pharisees
had religion as a suit of clothes they could put on and
take off. Religion for them was true and important -
they taught it zealously to men, but they did not
live it themselves. If they observed it, it was the outer
form of the law they kept, not the heart, the spirit
of it. Their own life at the core was quite untouched
by their religion and independent of it. And the
teaching of men spiritually dead left their disciples as
dead spiritually as themselves. But when S. John the
Baptist came preaching in the wilderness the hearts of

men were set on fire. The soldiers, instead of loung
ing in the canteens and theatres, came out to listen to
this wonderful voice crying in the desert. The men
of business, the idlers about the town, the theologians,
they could not resist him. What was the power he
exerted over all men ? If he had no money, no accom
plishments, how can you account for his influence on
the world of his time ? It was his personal relation to
God which gave him such power for good ; religion,
which in many of us is such a feeble and ineffectual
thing, was the life of his life for him.
Let us dwell upon this thought, that true religion is
never a man's accomplishment like elocution or scholar
ship, or playing on the violin. True religion is a
Christian holding fast to God with a living grasp.
I have heard of a very popular clergyman in Europe
whose church is crowded because of his eloquence ; he
gives classes in elocution and trains actors for the
stage. So accomplished a preacher will be sure of a
large audience, but we should not expect to find such
preaching produce a profound moral change in a city
or nation ; the crowds who listen are not likely to
come afterwards to the preacher confessing their sins
and asking "what shall we do?" Such preaching
will never be a power ; it will be a pastime, a fine art,
a decoration of life, a sensation for a day, something
to talk about in society for a short time, and little
more. But I remember a boy at school who had no
cleverness, and made no talk about his religion, but

he lived it; it was the life of his' soul ; the honour of
Jesus Christ enshrined in his body and soul was the
reason why he worked so steadily and hard at his
Studies, and the reason why he threw himself into the
boating and cricket with manliest vigour. Impurity
could not stain that boys' honour any more than a
cloud can put out the sun; for the boy's honour and
purity was God's life in him, and his love of God, for
whom he would live and die. Such a life as that, you
may be sure, made its impression in his school. And
I know a great preacher, getting On in years, who
moves thousands of souls by his words, and someone
told me who was a boy at school with him long ago,
"he was exactly the same as a schoolboy that he is
to-day as a great preacher, and an old man ; none of
us ever dared say a bad word, or do a mean act in his
presence ; there was a fire burning in his soiil in those
days ; the Holy Spirit, God's love, God's beauty, were,
even at school, the very life of the boy."
And, dear friends, that kind of fire does not burn
out and sink down to ashes with age ; I have seen it
flash upward with a more joyous and spiritual bright
ness in a very old and r.eeble man ; because he had
lived for God from his youth, Christ became the
beauty, strength and joy of his old age.
So I ask you to consider how easily religion may
become for you and me what it was for the Scribes
and Pharisees. Yes, there are men whose morality
however much they admire it, is no more to them than

the flower in their poat, and will wither and die as
the flower, for it has no living root in a heart united,
to God.
You or I may be truthful, or we may be chaste ; we
have been brought up to feel that to tell a lie is
ungentlemanly ; to be immoral is to be justly shut
out from good society ; so we speak truth and live
purely, as we put on clothes that suit our position
*n the world. That truthfulness, that chastity of ours
is not ourself ; it is not character, it is accomplishment/
and so when we speak truth or avoid impurity it kindles,
cheers, encourages no one in goodness ; it is not our
life, ourself ; it is but a moral suit of clothes, as it were
which we put on or take off. But S. John Baptist spoke
the truth, acted with courage, lived chastely, and it
was a flash of lightning, because it was a man speaking
the truth, not as a matter of good taste, but because
he had a living hold upon God who is the Truth. And
so truth, courage and chastity, burned and lightened
in S. John Baptist, and set a nation on fire with
hatred of sin and longing for righteousness.
Think then of the difference between a religion
which we have as a set of articles in the Creed and
repeat by memory, and the same Creed translated into
life : a religion which means the living soul of the boy
or the man cleaving to the living God in Christ.
Here we may each of us stop and ask himself, what
is my religion to-day? Is it a living power in me?
or wh.en I have rpc,eived sacraments have I ne-

glected to go and use the grace of the sacraments, and
bring it into all the details of every day life ? If »o«
Teligion can be no more to me than it was to the
Pharisees, — an empty ornament of life ; " Thou hast a
name to live and art dead."
Again let us think of S. John Baptist's religion, that
is, of his personal relation to God ; it was to him not
merely one true good thing ; it was the root of all the
good of his whole life ; it was that which gave noble
ness and truth always to everything he did and bore.
This relation of the young prophet to God was no
measured and limited privilege ; it was a faculty of
desiring God which might always go on increasing ; it
was a love of a good which was always above him, a
hunger for righteousness which, as it waited for Christ,
would learn to hunger more and more. This habit of
expectation gave the impulse to his career ; his whole
being was quickened by this. What could- such a man
be in the world but a voice crying to it, " Prepare ye
the way of the Lord; the Kingdom of Heaven is at
hand ! " He did not choose the prophet's office as a
respectable provision enabling him to settle in life
•comfortably. God's call could ring so clear through
nis eager soul because from his childhood he was lis
tening for it, and could not conceive of any higher or
happier destiny than to hear God speak to him, and to
make his response. With the dawn of reason he learnt
that God had called him before his birth. As soon as
ihe knew anything he began to know that he came from

God to respond to a heavenly vocation. Life meant
nothing else for him but what God meant in sending
him. But that purpose of God required the sacrifice
of his whole being that it might have its perfect
development. We can not imagine the clearness
of this call in the soul of the boy prophet,
eonsecrated from his birth to God, nor his joy
in responding to it. But even we, perhaps are
learning that God can never claim of any soul less than
all that it is ; and that only by giving itself to God
can the soul learn how much more it has to give, and
God desires to possess, than it knew at first. And so
it would not occur to the lad to divide his life between
religion, business, and pleasure. Such a simple mind
to whom God could speak so clearly, would see life
always as one thing. . It was all religion, because it
was the vibration of his whole beiug to the voice of
God. But was not that also for man the true meaning
of business, viz.: to attend to God and to respond to
His call? And what could pleasure mean for a soul
that knew itself created for God, but to give itself to
God as simply as it could ?
That habit of attending to God, that attitude of a
heart that was always expecting God, that simple love
of God was the root out of which all that was noble
and precious for him grew. His home life, his relation
to his mother, to his father, his early friendships, his
visions of the future, " all thoughts, all pleasures, all
delights, whatever stirred that mortal frame," all grew

rqut of the one relation to God, or were linked to God.
His delight in nature, in the sunrise, the sunset, the
wild birds, beasts, flowers of the desert, grew out of
this root, viz., his love of God ; everything that was
beautiful and interesting to him meant God speaking
to him by that thing.
And so consider that it may be with us as it was
with him ; for us also religion may mean our soul
touching God in Christ immediately ; and out of that
touch all our life as Christians is intended to grow, —
our prayers, our communions, yes, and our habitual
truthfulness, our everyday honourable tone and manner,
our courtesy, our choice of a profession, our business
energy, our friendships, our holidays, our games and
amusements, our most personal joys and hopes, every
thing that will ever be precious in our after life, is to
grow out of our love of God, or, as we call it, our
religion. It is a great help to realize that we are
not in the truest sense men at all, not truly alive, unless
God Himself is the root, the vital principle of our life.
Whatever of real good, nobleness, or beauty life is to
have for us in the future can only spring from this
touch of each soul with God, who alone is all goodness
and beauty. Let me leave with you as points for self-
examination three tokens of this vitality which we have
observed in S. John Baptist's religion.
1. — His self discipline. He did not merely feel the
beauty of purity, manliness and religion, but he set
himself by the discipline of a hard life to fight against

every thought contrary to purity, to master his temper,
his body, and every impulse ; on his knees, nnd by spare
living, he learnt to conquer himself for Christ. Does
my religion, my love of God animate me to practise a
steady self discipline and control of all the passions of
my soul and of my body ? The boy at school who
never told a lie, who never committed a deadly sittf
who never did anything which would make him
ashamed if it were found out, was not always the boy
of the most gentle and good disposition, a calm spirit,
free from passion, who never encountered the evil one,
but the boy who, in spite of much evil in himself and
around him, in the vigour of the fear and love of God
was always conquering his body for Christ.
2. — His moral strength.
A morally weak life means a divided life. We grow
weak by wasting our spiritual force, God's grace, and
our natural powers, sometimes on one object some
times on another, as may chance. S. John Baptist
was morally and spiritually strong, because his charac
ter was simple ; it grew out of one root, his relation to
God ; and it was always aiming at one thing, God and
His glory. Like King Arthur's youngest knight : —
" His strength was as the strength of ten,
Because his his heart was pure."
And his purity was his love and worship of God in
his heart. In his thoughts in the dark he would
be looking up to God the King in His beauty ;
and the beauty and love of God looking down upon

10
fliim would make his will strong and joyful to press
through the crowd of shameful imaginations that
might haunt his solitude. A life that presses through
all things to God and rests in God will be strong with
¦the strength of God. " I have written uuto you young
men because ye are strong, and the word of God
abideth in you, and yehave evercome the wicked one.
— 1 John ii. 14.
3. — His spiritual growth.
We shall find probably that a boy's or a man's good
ness which docs not go on, improve, develop, is
not a living divine goodness, but a merely accidental
goodness which has no substance in it, and will soon
wear out. But goodness which springs from the
soul's living touch with God will be growing. The
boy, the man, will never be satisfied with himself; he
will not merely retain in ma,uhood, but will carry on to
perfection the good which he began as a boy; everv
prayer he prays will blossom into practical duty, as
¦every drop of rain on your mountain slopes turns into
•a flower. Progress is a favorite idea of our times- we
hear much of the development of South Africa ; the
telegraph system and the railway are to be developed
wonderfully; but the true development of a country
can never be the development of its railways and tele
graphs: what is to be the development of the Men of
South Africa? This is a question for our self-exami
nation to-day in this quiet time and place; if there has
ever been any work of grace in me, is it going on still ?

11.
is it going from good to better ? The question is not
what progress is there in my studies and accomplish
ments ? but what moral and spiritual advance, what
progress in goodness is there in myself?
Let us spend the rest of our time before the next
address iu thinking over again these three points, or
any one of them, in our prayer : —
1. — The vitality of S. John Baptist's religion shewn by
his self-control. I, as a member of Christ, have received
more of God's grace than S. John Baptist ever received in
this world. He was already a conqueror of his body and
soul for God as a boy. As a boy he was every day over
coming evil with good. Through this mastery of evil he
was learning the love of goodness and purity — the love of
God. In youth he acquired by hard training of cheery
light-hearted poverty the habit of self-control for Christ's-
sake, Whose way he came to prepare in himself first^before
he could prepare it in others. He did all that already as a
boy, and with less help from teachers and surroundings
than I have had. What have I attained ? Here is a test
easy to apply ; do I habitually control my temper, my feel
ings, my words, my acts by the exercise of heavenly grace,
the love of God in my soul ? Pause upon this question and
answer it, not to yourself but to God, iD some such way as
this : — My God, I have been for so many years saying my
prayers, saying grace, receiving sacraments, and yet my
religion seems hardly alive yet. I see that religion, that
is the love of Thee, made a hero of S. John Baptist in
early life ; Thy love given to me in every sacrament could
do much more ; and yet I have not conquered myself for

12
Thee yet, as S. John Baptist did without the gifts of grace
I have received in the Church. By this time I might have
become more alive spiritually. I might have gained much
power over my body, soul, and habits. But now I fear I
have even gone back in some things ; I have bad habits I
knew of long ago which I have not conquered yet for Thy
love, — nay, which I have not even seriously thought of
conquering. My God, I am sorry ; I resolve, by Thy
grace, to rise up against one bad habit to-day, and to strive
against it through the holidays, for Jesus Christ's sake.
2. — Is my goodness, my morality, my religiou strong or
iveak ? Is it the mere accident of being free just now from
temptation ? Or is Almighty God Who dwells personally
in me, remembered and reverenced often in the day, in
playtime, and in work, alone, and in company ? Answer
this question to God. My God, I am sorry that my cha
racter is still so. weak in goodness. I do not act always
on principle, but generally on impulse. If I do right at any
time, it is generally because it happens to be easy to do it ;
if it becomes difficult to do right, I am often too weak to
rise up to face a difficulty, and I sink down among moral
invalids aud feeble persons. S. John Baptist was strong; in
doing right, constantly spoke the truth, boldly rebuked
vice, though he knew he must suffer for it. I am sorry that
the good in me is so weak. 0, Spirit of Ghostly Strength,
who gavest Thyself to me in Confirmation, arouse, inspire,
animate me that I may dare always to speak the truth
boldly to resist evil, and heartily to work for what its- good.
8. — Is my religion, my love of God and of my neighbour
growing ? The habit of reading the Bible, of prayer, of
Holy Communion which I began as a boy, has- it gone on

13

and advanced with manhood? Or is my religion as a
young man just the same, or less than it was wheu I was
a boy ? Let us answer this question to God. My God I
know that all real goodness, all that Thou workest, is a
goodness intended to grow to more and more. I am sorry
that I do not grow in goodness. I confess that I am less
good in some things than a year ago. Some good seems
quite to have faded out of me. I do not find that true
goodness ever grows easier. My God, give me grace now
to rise up and give myself to Thee, not to do that good
only which is easy, but to go on to that which is difficult,
and to fight out the battle of life along with Thee, till I
come in the fellowship of Thy dear Son unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. — •
AMEN.

14

ADDEESS IL

THE LOVE OF GOD AND OF OUR NEIGHBOUR.

TT7E thought of the religion of S. John Baptist,
* * of its vitality ; it was not an ornament of his
life, it was the living root of everything for him ;
it was his personal relation to God ; and wherever he
went, whatever he did, his personal relation to God
was his reason for going there, or for doing what he
did. So God by the Sacraments of Grace gave us His
life, touched us, came to dwell in us, to vitalize, to
consecrate all we are and do and suffer, and delight
in ; to make us spiritually alive, alive to God, not only
sometimes, but habitually. There are some men in
the world who live their life deliberately as far from
God as they can. And there are many good people
who work for God ; He is a long way off from them,
they don't know where ; but they hope to come to
Him after they die, and to put all the hard lonely
work of this life into His hands then. Such work as
that can hardly be called living work for God, such as
the Lord's prayer implies in the words : " Our Father,
may Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven."

in

But there are others who besides working for God,
work in God. He is no God of a future Heaven merely
to them ; He is their life, their light, to-day and every
day in this world. In Him they live and move and
have their being, just as much on days of rebuke and
failure, as on happy days of well-earned holiday, and
harvest of successful toil.
We noticed three tokens of this vital relation to
God which religion implies, in S. John Baptist, viz.,
self-control, strength, and growth. Wherever these
tokens are found in a Christian we may believe that
the Grace of God is a living and operative power in
him, that he is spiritually alive. But this spiritual
vitality in S. John Baptist was a power which he did
not look upon as intended mainly for the salvation of
his own soul. This moral intensity and earnestness
was not exhausted in the aim of getting a higher
place in a future Heaven for himself. This strange
life of self-control, this triumph of the love of God
over the boy's delight in life, as life comes to a boy;
this courage of the young soldier of Christ fighting
ao-ainst the world the flesh and the devil in the desert
alone ; this continual advance and moral progress,
were not merely his noble husbandry, as it were,
trading in the best market, saving his Heaven at the
cost of his Earth. In all his self-discipline he was
aiming at that which is higher than his own self-
improvement ; he was, aiming at the Glory of God,
the conversion of men, the good of his country.

16
I. Ee was aiming at the Glory of God, he was living
for God.
Solitude does not always help us to be better men ;
God created man to be generally not alone.
But whether a man lives alone or along with others
as you do at school and at home, God's purpose is by
your circumstances whatever they are to draw you out
of yourself.
There are selfish men who live alone because they
like their own company best, and can better live for
themselves when alone. But God drew S. John
Baptist into the solitude of the desert that He might
draw him out of his selfishness to live for God. And
God calls us even in youth sometimes to taste solitude.
Death can make a boy's life lonely ; coming home
after the funeral he finds home is not like home. But
that loneliness is not intended to imprison him in his
own sad thoughts ; how often on the contrary it brings
a man or boy on his knees to God. I remember
walking home with an old soldier from the funeral of
his little child, and he said to me, " I never knew how
near Heaven is till now."
Sometimes circumstances isolate us, and make the
life even of the young solitary ; either the people
where we live do not know or trust us ; or we are cut
off from our own people, and can not get to be quite
at home with the new people. Think of S. John
Baptist's loneliness in the desert which would have
been as unbearable as it was unnatural for a boy, had

17
not the Holy Spirit drawn him in his prayer into-
communion with God.
Tennyson notices this higher use of solitude in.
"Enoch Arden," where
" A shipwrecked sailor waiting for a sail,"
passes years of solitude on his desert island, and
"  had not his poor heart
Spoken with Him, who being everywhere
Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone,
Surely he would have died of solitude."
Perhaps God gives us all a taste of solitude in turn,
not that we may die of it, but find our need of fellow
ship by it; find that we cannot live for ourselves
alone ; that we were created for God, and that solitude
means a special opportunity of learning to come to God
and have communion with God.
And this is the value of a quiet morning of retire
ment and devotion such as this. Use it to draw near
to God in quiet prayer, and you will find in that
solitude the true meaning of solitude wherever you
may meet with it afterwards.
You will find that life is given to us, not for some.
thing very important we are to do for God, or say for
Him, but for what we can become with God. It is
not the work He can make us do, God is looking for,
but ourselves, our love, our fellowship with Himself.
How often we make this practical mistake, that God
wants this or that work or duty of me every moment,
and wants nothing more. No ; God wants my duty,

18
but that means not the thing I am to do, but myself,
that is my love in the doing of it. I do it, not for the
material value of the thing done, but because to do it
at once and cordially is the way of giving myself and
my love to God.
This mystery of communion with God, living for God,
and in God, does not flash all at once into anyone's life ;
no one knowB at once all that it is to mean at last ;
but even children come to know something of it, and
as we grow out of childhood into manhood, it should
be growing in us ; aud so S. John said in our Lesson
to-day : " I have written unto you young men, because
the word of God abideth in you ; " and as we grow
older this mystery of fellowship with God, living for
God, and with God, should be growing to be the joy of
our life. " I have written unto you, Fathers, because
ye have known Him, that is from the beginning."
God gives Himself to us in various ways, in order
that we may learn that the only true meaning of life
in this world is our opportunity of giving ourselves to
God, of learning to love God.
You remember how simply and nobly S. John
Baptist practised this principle. When his disciples
complained that men were leaving him to follow
Christ, He answered that he had never sought any
thing for himself in his ministry ; he had lived for
Christ; he was not the bridegroom, but only the
bridegroom's friend, who leads the bride home to him ;
his joy is the joy of giving joy to another, and that

19
other is Christ. "He must increase, but I must
decrease ; this my joy therefore is fulfilled ;" his joy
was that he himself should become nothing in order
that Christ might become everything; and that
through the failure of the disciple, the Master's
purpose might be carried out. This idea of fellowship
with God is not to be thought of as something which
is to begin with a future life. It is rather something
which brings reality into all the relations of this
present life.*
S. John Baptist's religion was a life given to God,
and it was that which ennobled him ; but that religion
was never for His own private advantage. In that
relation to God, his relation to his country and to his
fellow men was always coming to life.
It was in solitude he was called to give his life to
God, but it was not in a dreary indifference towards
his f ellowmen : it was his sacrifice for their sake.
In whatever way God calls us to cultivate our
relation to Him, whether in solitude, or in family
life, at school or in public service, our relation to God,
if it is cherished, develops all our relations to friends
and kindred, to our neighbours, to our country, to the
heathen, to all mankind.
It was because S. John Baptist lived so absolutely
for God first, and for God alone, that it was possible
for him to become so great a blessing to his country,
and to mankind. We do not really become a blessing
* See a tmall tract by Masters, London, called Brother Laurence,
or the Practice of the Presence of God.

20
to mankind by merely emptying ourselves into the-
torrent of the fussy benevolence of the day. But in
proportion as we give ourselves to God with a single
heart, so God can make our life fruitful for the good
of the church and of our country.
A very generous friend of mine taught me this
lesson. He was a man of remarkable power and
influence in England, very dear to his friends, and
happy in his usefulness. God called him to leave all
this and to go out as Missionary to India. There he
gave himself to God, living among the poor, in a
Heathen city, serving God in a life of poverty of
continual prayer and praise. Some good people dis
approved of the poverty and severity of his life ;
doubtless his life might have been longer in this world
if he had devoted himself to the care of it ; as it was
he gave it to God for the Heathen, and died in great
suffering from cholera, and that before there were any
apparent results of his work. But some years after
his death a Priest of long experience as a missionary
in India said, that since Henry Martyn, no missionary
in India had given such an impulse to missionary
charity in India as my friend. If he converted no
Heathens to Christ, he did more than other missionaries
towards their conversion, because he gave not only
his time, but all his love, his body and soul to God for
the Heathen, and so God could through his fervour
call and kindle other missionaries. He seemed to be
living for God only, but just on that account his
sacrifice became fruitful for the good of men also.

21
School friendships are a great sphere for this
mystery of influence for good upon others through
true religion., The mere accident of companionship,
the mere liking of a schoolfellow's company, walking
with him, enjoying life together for a few years is not
what creates a life-long fellowship. But your religion,
the true gift of your heart, your will, your life, to
God, brings a force into friendship, which time and
-accident cannot wear out.
The life of Dean Hook gives an admirable example
of this, in his friendship with a boy, who was at
Winchester with him. The elder boy used to help the
jounger in his preparation for confirmation ; a friend
ship so begun never lost its freshness, but gathered
strength and power of mutual support and encourage
ment right up to extreme old age.
In the memoirs of Archbishop Trench there is a
letter from a friend of his who had lost his faith. He
writes to Trench to tell him how a letter from him
had influenced him in repenting of his unbelief and
doming back to God. For some time as an Atheist he
had been losing his love of his family, as he had lost
the love of God ; he could see in his relations and
friends at home nothing but their faults, and ceased to
care for any one. But the night of his repentance,
when he came back to God, he noticed a very
remarkable thing, that when he went home he found
all his old love for his family came back to him.
If there is any person very dear to you, for whom
™n wnnld dr. ihv. oreatest good, and to whom you

22
would give your beBt treasure, remember that it is not.
the strong feeling of attachment you have for your
friend, which makes your friendship honourable,
precious, and lasting. Passionate feeling is constantly
running off like the torrents down the sluits after rain,
and leaving life strained and empty. But your fellow
ship with God enriches you with something worth
giving to your friend, something which will be a lint
of a friendship which lasts.
Sympathy, love, are not anything we can command ;
they require a certain atmosphere, as certain trees
must have a certain climate, a certain nearness to the sun.
It is only through communion with God that f ellow—
ship with men, with friends,' relations, neighbours*
becomes substantial, reliable, eternal. Your nature,.
character, personality, becomes infinitely more valuable,.
powerful, beautiful, as it is united to God. United to,
God you become influential with men, capable of
serving all who are around you, you become a true
son, a true friend, a true lover, a true citizen.
When I think of school days, I remember a great
genius, we were boys together then, he and I, and
were very intimate ; it is sad to me to think how little
either of us would care to meet the other to-day, how
little real good we did to each other at school.
But there is another boy I remember whose whole
life at school was given to God, and that fact was
always helping, cheering and encouraging his school
fellows in what was right.

23

I saw one face every day in my class which had the
morning beauty of purity, manliness, and the highest
aim ; and I think if I ever see him again, how I shall
welcome the sight of him as an old man, with exactly
the same intimacy and delight with which I used to
meet him at school.
We who have left our schooldays, far behind, keenly
regret now that our friendship did so little good for
eternity to anyone else at school or college. We are
glad to think you have the opportunity we have lost.
How can you really help your greatest friend ? How
can you help to raise and sustain the tone of your
schoolfellows? It requires no ingenuity, no excep
tional gifts. Give your own life to God, as you pro
mised at your Baptism, and everyone at school with you
is strengthened in what is right by your sincerity.
In this meditation try to catch sight of the true
ideal, the true type of man. It is not the man who
cultivates all his powers and opportunities for himself ;
but the Christian, the servant of God, the man who
lives for God and his neighbour, as S. John Baptist
did, who let go his chance of becoming a great man
in the world or in the church, like the Scribes and
Chief Priests, and followed the call of God into a hard,
poor, and lonely life, that by his sacrifice he might
win power with God to serve his country, and awaken
it to repentance.
Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Saints are the type
of the highest life of man ; and no life is true, no life

24
is good enough for any one of us, except the highest.
You can choose this to-day as boys ; you cannot indeed
attain in one day the true end of life as the man does
who has been pressing on to it all his life ; but you
can to-day choose the true aim of life ; and We shall
-certainly never attain to it unless we choose it.
Say to yourself and to God in this meditation, " My
¦aim in life shall not be to grow rich, comfortable, and
idle ; but to love God, the highest good, and to live
for the good of others, even though it should leave me
as poor as S. John the Baptist in the desert."
Your Association is for that purpose ; it is not to
make you good individuals ; no people are really good
as individuals merely ; there is no such thing as a
good boy or man who keeps his goodness for his own
advantage. A good man, a good boy, is one who has
Teceived goodness from God, and lives to give out
that goodness to all, schoolfellows, family, neighbours,
the church, and his country.
If the Association is to help you to do this, you must
make it a reality, you must pray the prayer for it, and
keep its rnle. And as you carry into after life the
habit of Christian fellowship formed here; as you keep
up an affectionate respectful interest in your old col
lege after you have left, you will realize that he is
truest friend, and firmest support to his fellow men,
who gives his life to God, with the single heart of S.
John Baptist, — the man whose love and whose work
¦spring out of an eternal relation to God in Christ.