APPENDIX XIII.

A FUNERAL SERMON.*

OUR DUTY TO THE DEPARTED.

"Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me."-Job xix. 21.

THERE is always something very solemn and touching in contemplating Death. It works so many changes, turns the course of so many hopes and desires, alters plans, frustrates anticipations, makes a few rough places plain, and many smooth ways rugged, that men cannot fail to remember the hour when it pleased God to terminate the day of probation of some well-loved relative or friend, and to summon him to the particular judgment-bar of his Redeemer and Judge. Men cannot fail to remember the day, because the course of their own lives, still realities to themselves, was altered by the influence; and those who were left behind were rudely reminded of the change by the startling contrast between the past and the present. The voice loved and welcomed, the sound of the footfall known so well, the hand with its kindly grasp and the heart with its beat of sympathy, are silent and still. The well-used chair is vacant; the open book unread; the familiar room tenantless.

Preached at All Saints', Lambeth, on Sunday, 10th September, 1871, upon the death of the Rev. J.

A. Johnston, Vicar of St. John's, Waterloo Road, who departed this life. August 29, 1871.

Here, in this vast city, we, as Christian men and women, have lost much, because no longer the departed lie, sleeping their last sleep, round our sacred sanctuaries. It was well to be reminded continually that life is fleeting and transitory; to be told with the expressive power of deeds done before our natural eyes-the solemn act of burial-that this is but our time of probation, a short life in comparison with that which continues for ever and ever beyond the grave; and that here we have no continuing city, but seek one to come. It was well when Holy Church, as at the font and at the altar, stood by, in the persons of her ministers, to commend the bodies of the faithful to the earth, as they had commended their souls into the hands of a merciful Creator; and pointed with strong confidence to the sign of the Crucified as a token of light in a day of separation and mourning and woe. It was well, when men went up to the House of Prayer, to adore Three Persons in One God, and to ask favours and graces for themselves, that they saw on either side of the pathway, where the shadow of the cross fell, memorials of the silent dead, with a simple prayer that mercy might be shed from on high in the great day of the Lord. These beautiful and touching sights bade the faithful not selfishly to pray for themselves alone, nor realize their own wants exclusively, but to remember in their sacrifices and orisons the friends of old, who had been called away from this transitory world to the place of departed spirits, and to put int actual practice the consoling doctrine of the Communion of Saints. With holy Job, the friend passed from sight and ken seemed to cry out to them in his need, "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me."

Yes Death is solemn indeed, and should frequently be made the subject of holy meditation. Our ancestors in times gone by, and not long gone by either, were accustomed, when writing their last wills and testaments, to affirm as the first and chief reason for

their so doing: "Forasmuch as there is nothing more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the hour and day thereof "a sentiment which it would be well for all of us ever to keep in our minds; so that while we have time we may strive to love God, and do good unto all men, especially unto those who are of the household of faith.

Now the faithful departed, as you well enough know, form an important part of the One Family of God. Those who have gone before us in the sleep of peace belong to you not solely or chiefly because of affinity or relationship, but because both you and they have partaken, by the mercy of our Father in Heaven, of a new nature in Christ. Though we miss them from our side in the daily warfare which we, left behind, are still called upon to wage; though they are no longer here, going in and out, in daily work or common worship, yet have they as true and real an existence as when they lived on earth, and are one with us in God, who is the Father of all. Doubtless, as in the case of the rich man and Lazarus, they are permitted either directly or by some inscrutable agency, to know what is happening in the world; interested in those left behind, sorrowful when sin has the dominion, rejoicing when grace triumphs, anxiously waiting for the full fruition of the joy of all the ransomed, and longing for the beautiful breaking of the everlasting day, when that joy in its full perfection shall for ever reign supreme.

For this, therefore, it follows that though death has both its solemn and sorrowful side, it has likewise another-a side from which to the eye of Faith may be seen the dark cloud's silver lining. He, who took man's nature upon Him in the pure womb of the ever-blessed Virgin, fought the battle of life, agonized and died for us men dead in trespasses and sins; and by His own inherent power, as God, rose again on the first Easter Day for our salvation. He went down alone to the way of the passage

of Jordan.

His feet touched the cold waters in the valley of the shadow of death. Through the dark river he passed, reaching the Heavenly Canaan beyond, on the confines of His own home where enshrouded dwells the Eternal in unapproachable majesty. Thither to the land of Paradise He bore the message of redemption by Himself completed, and of death by death overcome. Then the prison-bars were unloosed and the doors flung open that the prisoners might rejoice because of Calvary, and in due course obtain the consummation of their hopes in Him. As Zechariah of old, prophesying in the Name of the Lord, had declared—“I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried they shall call on my Name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people and they shall say, The Lord is my God." *

Yet now, until the great day for the restitution of all things, they wait for the full realization of the loving-kindness of God,those, that is, who have died in His faith, fear, and favour. Not yet have they attained to the vision of the King in his beauty. Safe and surely secure from temptation, they are, it may be, paying a penalty, if it be still unpaid, because of the sins and frailties of this mortal life; waiting God's will and work until it shall please Him in a time accomplished to unfold the glories of the

city of peace. For themselves, therefore, we may believe that they desire to be remembered by those still in the flesh when the life-giving Eucharist is offered, and the mingled voices of our worshippers here rise to God's throne. "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me." Need this Christian lesson be further set forth, or more closely applied as regards those whom, whether recently or more remotely we have loved and lost?

On the present occasion, as you know, we have specially to

Zechariah xiii. 9.

remember one who was with us so lately, known to many, respected and regarded by all, the Vicar of an adjoining parish, closely connected with this by his office, whose almost sudden death has caused sorrow, and a deep feeling of loss to not a few. Making no noise in the world, and courting no popularity, at the same time unflinching in his statement of Divine Truth, yet owning no enemies, he was a warm and sincere supporter of the Catholic Revival, with boldness, zeal, and discretion. Six weeks ago and he, we might have held, had still many years of life and usefulness before him. Burdened, however, by the anxieties-never adequately realized except by those who have to bear them-of a large London parish, with constant toil of mind and body, he nevertheless appeared in ordinary health and spirits. But such was only an appearance. Unremitting in labour, steady, regular, sometimes with help, frequently with little sympathy expressed, and sometimes single-handed, he had here worked in his sacred office for nearly a quarter of a century. And this had naturally told upon the constitution of one who was keenly sensitive and never so physically strong as he seemed. So that when the attack came, and he lay prostrate, there was little or no power to enable him to rally. The light it is believed had for some time been burning low, and yet it burned lower still and so went out.

Not here would we lift the veil before the chamber of death to declare more than that as a pure and self-denying Christian priest he had lived, and as a pure and self-denying Christian priest he died. One, erewhile a respected fellow-worker with myself here, ministered tenderly to the dying, and then gave him our Lord's Body and Blood, blessed viaticum for the soul in its passage through the gate of death. Calm, recollected, patient, forgiving, suffering

* The Vicar of St. John's, Water- Church and Vicarage of All Saints', loo Road, is the ex-officio patron of the Lambeth.