^ Bishop Montgomery, in The Church Family Newspaper, llth March 1910, p. 202.
326 INGRATITUDE
worship, and that is the highest exercise in which our souls can ever hope to engage.^
^ The greatest contribution that the AngUcan Church has ever made to Christendom is the " Devotions of Bishop Andrewes," and the reason is that he has culled all that is deepest and highest in the Old Testament and in the New Testament to put into our utter- ances before God, mingled with a touch of his own genius. I am not aware of any crime so great, any horror in life so dreadful, that it cannot find fit expression before God in those "Devotions." Likewise there is no rapture of gratitude and praise which is not also there, nor any intercession or yearning which is not written therein. We are told that Andrewes' awful penitence is owed to one act he committed under pressure. And if so, then that same act is responsible for the notes of praise also from one who, though a sinner, trusted his God utterly. We are almost tempted (be it said with reverence and as a paradox) to thank God that he fell into one heinous sin, since he made such good use of it for all future generations. If ever the grateful leper of the miracle had a counterpart it was in the person of Bishop Andrewes in his own estimation as he lay for years at his Master's feet pouring out his gratitude.2
^ A joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful. Unworthy before let me not be ungrateful after.^
(3) Those who readily obey do not always praise. When Jesus said, " Go shew yourselves unto the priests," off they went — all ten of them ; not one stopped behind. Yet only one came back to behold a personal Saviour, and to praise His name. External religious exercises are easy enough, and common enough ; but the internal matter, the drawing out of the heart in thankful love, how scarce a thing it is !
TJ Begin at once, humbly and simply as a little child, to glorify God in the only way in which it will ever be in your power to glorify Him or that He would value, by making your life worth as much as ever you can in the outpouring of the spirit of good-will, human fellowship, and mutual understanding, upon the struggling weary world.*
2. Our Lord expresses surprise at man's ingratitude. He speaks with a sort of mournful and painful wonder ; and, indeed,
* J. M. Sloan, in Memories of Horatius Bonar, 89.
"^ Bishop Montgomery. ' Bisliui) Andrewes, Preces Privatas^ 156
* R. J. Campbell, A Rosary from the City Temple ^ 17.
ST. LUKE XVII. 17 327
it must appear to us a circumstance marvellous and almost incredible ; such as we could not understand and scarcely believe, were it not that it is such an exact picture of our own hearts. Notwithstanding all the deceits we put upon ourselves, we cannot but acknowledge it, although there is no truth in the world more sad and melancholy than this ; in all our manifold deliverances from sickness and dangers and distresses, we may be full of faith, full of prayer, full of holy resolutions, when we feel God's chastening hand pressing hard upon us ; but when it is removed, this is all gone away and forgotten ; the very feeling of thankful- ness is but as the morning cloud which passes away, as the morning cloud which catches a few gleams from the sun, and is radiant for a moment, or which lets fall, it may be, a few drops of tears ; but, look again, and it is gone away and not found.
^ Where else, in all our English tongue, will you find the piteous cry of wounded love which you find in King Lear ? Where else will you encounter the wild storms which there break over the outraged father's soul ? I remember a great critic describing the Lear which he had just witnessed, its darkness, its splendours, its rage, tears, pity. And he ended his notice with some such words as these : " And so I stepped forth out of the world of the theatre into the real world of the streets. Eeal ? But what is real, if King Lear is not ? " ^
Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen.
Although thy breath be rude.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.*
^ It is related in the memoirs of Caulaincourt, that when the minister was admitted in the early morniug (after the Emperor's
^ C. F. Aked, The Courage of the Coward, 157. * Shakespeare, As You Like It, II. vii. 173.
INGRATITUDE
Attempt to poison himself), Napoleon's " wan and sunken eyes seemed struggling to recall the objects round about ; a universe of torture was revealed in the vaguely desolate look." Napoleon is reported as saying : " God did not will it. I could not die. Why did they not let me die ? It is not the loss of the throne that makes existence unendurable ; my military career suffices for the glory of a single man. Do you know what is more difficult to bear than the reverses of fortune ; It is the baseness, the horrible ingratitude of men. Before such acts of cowardice, before the shamelessuess of their egotism, I have turned away my head in disgust and have come to regard my life with horror. . . . Death is rest. . . . l^est at last. . . . What I have suffered for twenty days no one can understand." ^