Not our cares, though at this season one anxiety will press heavily on
the minds of all. The dense cloud, which for weeks past has darkened
the social atmosphere of these northern counties, still hangs sullenly
overhead. God grant that the rift which already we seem to discern may
widen, till the flooding sunlight scatters the darkness, and a lasting
harmony is restored to the relations between the employer and the
employed.
Not our burdens, though on one at least in this Cathedral the sense of
a new responsibility must press to-day with a heavy hand. If indeed
this burden had been self-sought or self-imposed, if his thoughts were
suffered to dwell on himself and his own incapacity, he might well
sink under its crushing weight. But your prayer for him, and his ideal
for himself, will shape itself in the words which were spoken to the
great Israelite restorer of old, "Not by might, nor by power, but by
My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." In this strength only, before you
as before him, will the great mountain become a plain.
Therefore we will lay down now our hopes and our fears, our every
burden, at the steps of the altar, that, entering disencumbered into
the inmost sanctuary, we may fall before the Eternal Presence.
The vision of God is threefold--the vision of Righteousness, the
vision of Grace, the vision of Glory.
I. The vision of Righteousness is first in the sequence. Righteousness
includes all those attributes which make up the idea of the Supreme
Ruler of the universe--perfect justice, perfect truth, perfect purity,
perfect moral harmony in all its aspects. Here, then, is the force of
Butlers dying words. Ask yourselves, Can it be otherwise than "an
awful thing to appear before the Moral Governor of the world"? You
have read, perhaps, the written record of some pure and saintly life,
and you are overwhelmed with shame as you look inward and contrast
your sullied heart and your self-seeking aims with his innocency and
cleanness of heart. You are confronted--you, an avowedly religious
person--in your business affairs with an upright man of the world; and
his straightforward honesty is felt by you as a keen reproach to your
disingenuousness and evasion, all the keener because he makes no
profession of religion. Yes, you know it; this is the very impress of
God's attribute on his soul, though God's name may seldom or never
pass his lips. And if these faint rays of the Eternal Light, thus
caught and reflected on the blurred mirrors of human hearts and human
lives, so sting and pain the organs of your moral vision, what must it
not be, then, when you shall stand face to face before the ineffable
Righteousness, and see Him in His unclouded glory!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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