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January, 1790, true to the last to the great purpose of his life, and he was buried with the service of the Church of England with every demonstration of respect and honour that the army and people of Russia could offer him. His monument was the first that was admitted to a place within this cathedral, and at the instance of Dr. Samuel Johnson. He had declined a public statue while living: his real monument is the record of his life. In the memorable words of Edmund Burke, "This gentleman visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces or the stateliness of temples, but to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to take the gauge and dimensions of human misery, to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected."

There are two lessons which Howard teaches us more especially. The first: Howard was a philanthropist because he was a religious man. In the last century a great school of writers, especially in France, endeavoured to treat philanthropy as a virtue which has no connection with religion,indeed, as a virtue which was an effective rival of religion, as being at once more practical and not encumbered by a supernatural creed. Howard, the greatest philanthropist of the century, gives no countenance to this idea. His Journals show him to have been a deeply religious man, who drew all the governing and guiding motives for his exertions from his religious convictions. The English Church cannot claim him as one of her sons; he belonged to a body of independent Dissenters at Bedford, and at one time he was powerfully attracted by the simplicity of life and by the active benevolence of the Quakers. But he always entertained friendly feelings towards the Church, and in his last hours. he desired that her Burial Service might be read over his grave. We Churchmen can only wish that, being what he was, he had been one of ourselves, in one sense for his own sake, in another for our own. That he was profoundly influenced in all the actions of his life by the spirit and example of our Lord and Saviour, that he obeyed the will of Jesus Christ so far as he knew it with touching fidelity, is altogether beyond dispute.

Few men have had a better right to say Christ constraineth me," or have done more to

"The love of

convince the

world, by the force of a splendid example, that philanthropy

is a flower that grows naturally on the tree of deep personal religious conviction.

And a second lesson which Howard's life teaches us is the importance of concentrating thought and strength on any good work which we are led to take in hand. Howard did so much, he was so widely influential, because he was what would be called, perhaps disparagingly, “a man of one idea" -the miseries of existing prison life not only in his own country but throughout the world. He knew that our human powers, whether of thought or of action, are after all very limited, and that, if any serious task has to be attempted, they must be used economically and made the best of.

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Howard allowed nothing to interfere with his efforts to improve the condition of prisoners. He would decline invitations, sometimes he would not look at a newspaper, lest his mind should be diverted from the duties of that day with reference to the great object of his life. He was alive to, but he was impatient of, the charms of art and of scenery. He was desirous, and yet neglectful, of opportunities for recreation. When at Wilton he would not divert his attention from the jail at Salisbury in order to visit the great mansion of the Herberts. When in Rome he would not even allow himself the necessary time to inspect the splendid ruins which distinguish the capital of the ancient world. This rigid unity of purpose makes his journals somewhat monotonous, and, from a literary point of view, disappointing. "Prisons, prisons, prisons," is always the burden of his tale, but at the same time it shows the secret of his success under unparalleled difficulties. He revolutionised the opinion, not only of England, but of Europe, as to the treatment of criminals. In one of the hospitals at Rome he read with delight a famous sentence which proclaimed the principle which already lay nearest to his heart, the principle that it is a poor thing to visit the bad with punishment unless you can also do something to improve them by discipline.

That there is still much to be done in order to give full effect to the truth that punishment should be remedial as well as penal is true enough, but that the principle is now, not merely inscribed on the walls of a charitable institution, but generally recognised throughout the civilised world, is very largely indeed the work of Howard. If it should be thought that in some particulars Howard carried his concen

tration of thought and effort to an extreme, there can be no doubt whatever that the absence of such concentration is one reason why in our day so many promising lives, SO many bright thoughts, so many good resolves, lead to so little, lead to nothing. The temptations to dissipation of interest are greater now than they were a century ago. Facilities for travelling, the great multitude of books and newspapers brought within everybody's reach, and, it may be added, something in the temper of the time, all have the effect of leading the mind to pass rapidly, too rapidly, from one subject to another, and to give itself thoroughly to none. Some of us may have a greater breadth of interest, a wider outlook, more varied cultivation than had John Howard, but yet we may pass through life without doing a twentieth part of what he did for the good of man and for the glory of God.

No doubt he was in easy circumstances, without being wealthy, but what he had to give he gave with all his heart, he gave it to an object of immense importance. We may

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have more time and means, we may have less, than he had, but a young man or woman on the threshold of life cannot do better than consider what he or she can do that will glorify God and do good to man, and then, in old words, turn all the desires of the heart that way." The most unshowing and unromantic methods of doing good may be the most acceptable. To work at a night-school, to keep the accounts of a charity, to get up Sunday breakfasts for poor people, may mean more in the eyes of the Infinite Mercy than to dispose of immense charitable resources, or even to be a great teacher or ruler in the Church. The vital condition of doing good, whether it be spiritual or physical good, is that simple unity of purpose which springs from disinterestedness, and this can best be learned at His blessed feet Who remains the first and the greatest of philanthropists, since in life and in death He gave Himself for us, that whether we wake or sleep we might live together with Him.

THE INSPIRATION OF SELECTION.

(Preached before the University at St. Mary's, Oxford, on Whitsun Day.)

ST. JOHN XVI. 14.

"He shall glorify Me; for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you."

THIS is the heart of the promise which our Saviour made to His disciples, when, with the feelings of bewilderment and desolation that were natural at the time, they were gathered round Him in the supper-room. The day, they felt, was near when they would no longer see and hear, at any rate, as heretofore, the wise and gracious Friend Who had taught and was teaching them so much that was best worth knowing. And He did not directly combat or relieve the sad anticipation. Nay, He told them frankly that He was leaving them; that in a little while they would not see Him, because He was going to the Father. But His place, He said, would be taken by Another Who would not disappoint them; but Who would only arrive when He had Himself departed. "If I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." And what was this Envoy and Successor to achieve when He did come? He was, no doubt, to change the hearts and minds of those who were outside the sacred fold. He was to "convince the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." But He was also to do a yet greater service for the orphaned Church. "When the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth Which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me." "He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsover He shall hear, that shall He speak." "He shall glorify Me; for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine; therefore

said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you."

That this promise would be kept became clear to the Apostles on that solemn occasion, the anniversary of which the Church observes to-day. When the crucified and risen Lord had ascended into heaven there was an interval of hushed and awful expectation before the promised Comforter came down. And when He came, essential Spirit though He was, He condescendingly came in such guise that the senses of men should apprehend His approach. He came as a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind; His arrival was pourtrayed in tongues like as of fire, which rested upon the Apostles; it was followed by such sudden endowment of a band of Galilean peasants with a gift of speech in various dialects as to astonish a mixed multitude of men who represented almost every race and district between the Tiber and the Euphrates. These were but outward signs, marking the advent of a supernatural power: this was the birthday of the Church of Christ. As our Lord Jesus Christ Himself had been conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary, so the society, which was to perpetuate among men His mind and His life, sprang from a kindred union between the Eternal Spirit and a sample-sufficiently poor and unrepresentative it might have seemed, yet still a sample-of our common humanity; and thus the little community, hallowed and invigorated from on high, entered on the career which has already lasted for nearly nineteen centuries, and which will end only with the close of time.

I. We have to consider, first of all, that particular account of the work of the Holy Spirit which our Lord here sets before us-" He shall glorify Me." The prediction belongs to that class of His sayings which only admits of moral justification if the Speaker is indeed more than man. Natural modesty and good taste, not to speak of distinctively Christian virtues, would make such language impossible in the mouth of any honest and humble man who knew himself to be no more than man, and was conscious of the failure and weakness which in every merely human life must so largely outweigh any solid claims to glory or renown. And our Lord's words cannot be understood to foretell any gradual accumulation and wreathing of titles or doctrines round His person, by the devotional or speculative activity of a later

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