You know of whom I have been speaking, friends and fellow-worshippers:
though I have named no name, you have interpreted my meaning, you have
read between my lines. And now that we are about to part, with regretful
love and honour freely paid, with the oldest of those who have loved
this place,--and, in parting with her, to bid good-bye for ever to a
generation of pious men and women who in their day served God and
wrought righteousness,--I have one last appeal to make. And I make it
far less to the middle-aged, whose habits are fixed, whose principles
chosen, and who have taken a course in life which they will not lightly
abandon, than to the young, whose nature is yet plastic, and who may
make of their existence what they will. I ask them, Is the life which I
have tried to describe worth living? or is there any other method by
which they think the highest objects of existence can be more completely
attained? Is there any finer discipline for their powers than the
service of God, any nobler education than the fellowship of Christ? I do
not plead with them for allegiance to any particular form of
Christianity, though we have a right to rejoice in the strength and
sweetness of our own Saints, and I might argue that the faith which
issues in such fruit of holy living cannot be without its just claim to
respect. But my interest is at once deeper and wider than this: I plead
for Christianity, I plead for Religion; for the awe of God, for the love
of Christ, for the service of man. We are falling upon careless times,
when the world is too much with us, and the love of ease seduces us, and
we flit--thinking, God help us! that it is pleasure--from one facile
excitement, from one selfish gratification, to another. We live in a
sceptical age, when knowledge and faith find it hard to come to terms,
and there is always an excuse for disbelieving truths which startle the
soul into seriousness and make a painful demand upon the will. But
whatever else is false, one thing remains true--that the service of God
is strength and peace and freedom. Christ still holds the secret of
life: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up
his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it,
and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." Amen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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