3. This hope will supply courage and patience. — There is nothing that makes a man so downhearted in his work of self- improvement as the constant and bitter experience that it seems to be all of no use; that he is making so little progress; that with immense pains, like a snail creeping up a wall, he gets up, perhaps an inch or two, and then all at once he drops down, and farther down than he was before he started. Slowly we manage some little, patient self -improvement ; gradually, inch by inch and bit by bit, we may be growing better, and then there comes some gust and outburst of temptation ; and the whole painfully reclaimed soil gets covered up by an avalanche of mud and stones, which we have to remove slowly, barrow-load by barrow-load. And then we feel that it is all of no use to strive, and we let circumstances shape us, and give up all thoughts of reformation. To such moods, then, there comes, like an angel from Heaven, that holy, blessed message, " We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." Every inch that we make now
' J. Dinwoodie.
I JOHN III. 3 ^oS
will tell then, and it is not all of no use. Set your heart to the work, it is a work that will be blessed and will prosper.
^ I think this was the first year that I took a leading part in opposing the Adjournment for tlie Derby (which Tom Hughes had previously engineered) and was beaten by about three to one. This was one of the many " Forlorn Hopes " which I have lived to see successful — for I think the Derby adjournment is now virtually killed. In those days everyone laughed at the idea of stopping the scandal. Surely the words of Charles Greville (himself a Turfite) in his Journal indicate the true nature of racing — " Then the degrading nature of the occupation ; mixing with the lowest of mankind and absorbed in the business for the sole purpose of getting money, the consciousness of a sort of degradation of intellect, the conviction of the deteriorating effect upon both the feelings and the understanding — all these things torment me, and often turn my pleasure to pain." How often in looking back on these forlorn hopes do I think of the lines —
Though beaten back in many a fray, Yet freshening strength we borrow:
And where the vanguard halts to-day The rear shall camp to-morrow.^
11 Two serious defeats had within the week been inflicted upon the British forces in South Africa. Cronje, lurking behind his trenches and his barbed wire entanglements, barred Methuen's road to Kimberley, while in the northern part of Cape Colony Gatacre's wearied troops had been defeated and driven by a force which consisted largely of British subjects. But the public at home steeled their hearts and fixed their eyes steadily upon Natal. There was their senior General, and there the main body of their troops. As brigade after brigade and battery after battery touched at Cape Town, and were sent on instantly to Durban, it was evident that it was in this quarter that the supreme effort was to be made, and that there the light might at last break. In club, and dining-room, and railway car — wherever men met and talked — the same words might be heard: "Wait until Buller moves." The hopes of a great empire lay in the phrase.^
^ It is neither blood nor rain that has made England, but hope — the thing all those dead men have desired. France was not France because she was made to be by the skulls of the Celts or by the sun of Gaul. France was France because she chose.^
^ Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 107. ^ A. Conan Doyle, The Great Boer IVar, 175.
* G. K. Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw. JAS.-JUDE — 20
3o6 THE POWER OF THE CHRISTIANHOPE
^ Westcott gave us hope, in an age which needed, above all things, to be saved from hopelessness. "We can keep hope fresh," so he cried to us of the Christian Social Union.
Hope, the paramount duty which Heaven lays, For its own honour, on man's suffering heart.
This is the debt that we owe to him — to cling to the high hopes with which he was inspired — even though we " see not our token, and there is no prophet more ; no, not one among us who under- standeth any more." ^
We are of those who tremble at Thy word;
Who faltering walk in darkness toward our close Of mortal life, by terrors curbed and spurred :
We are of those.
We journey to that land which no man knows Who any more can make his voice be heard Above the clamour of our wants and woes.
Not ours the hearts Thy loftiest love hath stirred, Not such as we Thy lily and Thy rose: —
Yet, Hope of those who hope with hope deferred, We are of those.^
III.
The Pattekn of Purity.
y 1. Christ is the Pattern — "as he is pure." — He exhibits perfection in the inner and outer life. The inner life consists in oneness with Christ, the outer life in intercourse with our fellow- men. The two are well combined in those words of St. Peter: " What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness ? " This holiness of character has its root in its close companionship with Christ, and is exhibited in all manner of Christian conversation. Look at the Pattern. His holiness was pre-eminently practical. Look at His submission to His mother when He was " subject unto her," His care for her in His dying hour, His compassion for the multitude, His love for His chosen flock. His faithfulness to those whom He loved, His meek-