Discipline and Other Sermons | Page 3

that war of which He is the Supreme Commander, and which will
endure as long as there is darkness and misery upon the earth; even the battle of the living
God against the baser instincts of our nature, against ignorance and folly, against
lawlessness and tyranny, against brutality and sloth. Those, the deadly enemies of the
human race, you are all bound to attack, if you be good men and true, wheresoever you
shall meet them invading the kingdom of your Saviour and your God. But you can only
conquer them in others in proportion as you have conquered them in yourselves.
May God give you grace to conquer them in yourselves more and more; to profit by the
discipline which you may gain by this movement; and bequeath it, as a precious heirloom,
to your children hereafter!
For so, whether at home or abroad, will you help to give your nation that moral strength,
without which physical strength is mere violent weakness; and by the example and
influence of your own discipline, obedience, and self-restraint, help to fulfil of your own
nation the prophecy of the Seer -
'He couched, he lay down as a lion; and as a great lion. Who dare rouse him up?'

SERMON II.--THE TEMPLE OF WISDOM

(Preached at Wellington College, All Saints' Day, 1866.)
PROVERBS ix. 1-5.
Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: she hath killed her
beasts; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth
her maidens; she crieth upon the highest places of the city, Whoso is simple, let him turn
in hither: and to him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat of my bread,
and drink of the wine which I have mingled.
This allegory has been a favourite one with many deep and lofty thinkers. They mixed it,
now and then, with Greek fancies; and brought Phoebus, Apollo, and the Muses into the
Temple of Wisdom. But whatever they added to the allegory, they always preserved the
allegory itself. No words, they felt, could so well express what Wisdom was, and how it
was to be obtained by man.
The stately Temple, built by mystic rules of art; the glorious Lady, at once its Architect,
its Priestess, and its Queen; the feast spread within for all who felt in themselves divine
aspirations after what is beautiful, and good, and true; the maidens fair and pure, sent
forth throughout the city, among the millions intent only on selfish gain or selfish
pleasure, to call in all who were not content to be only a more crafty kind of animal, that
they might sit down at the feast among the noble company of guests,--those who have
inclined their heart to wisdom, and sought for understanding as for hid treasures:- this is a
picture which sages and poets felt was true; true for all men, and for all lands. And it will

be, perhaps, looked on as true once more, as natural, all but literally exact, when we who
are now men are in our graves, and you who are now boys will be grown men; in the days
when the present soulless mechanical notion of the world and of men shall have died out,
and philosophers shall see once more that Wisdom is no discovery of their own, but the
inspiration of the Almighty; and that this world is no dead and dark machine, but alight
with the Glory, and alive with the Spirit, of God.
But what has this allegory, however true, to do with All Saints' Day?
My dear boys, on all days Wisdom calls you to her feast, by many weighty arguments, by
many loving allurements, by many awful threats. But on this day, of all the year, she calls
you by the memory of the example of those who sit already and for ever at her feast. By
the memory and example of the wise of every age and every land, she bids you enter in
and feast with them, on the wealth which she, and they, her faithful servants, have
prepared for you. They have laboured; and they call you, in their mistress's name, to enter
into their labours. She taught them wisdom, and she calls on you to learn wisdom of them
in turn.
Remember, I say, this day, with humility and thankfulness of heart, the wise who are
gone home to their rest.
There are many kinds of noble personages amid the blessed company of All Saints,
whom I might bid you to remember this day. Some of you are the sons of statesmen or
lawyers. I might call on you to thank God for your fathers, and for every man who has
helped to make or execute