Sermons at Rugby

Sermons at Rugby

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sermons at Rugby, by John Percival
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Sermons at Rugby
Author: John Percival

Release Date: October 11, 2005 [eBook #16856]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SERMONS
AT RUGBY***

Transcribed from the 1905 James Nisbet and Co. edition by David
Price, email [email protected]

SERMONS AT RUGBY

By the Rt. Rev. JOHN PERCIVAL, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF
HEREFORD SOMETIME HEADMASTER OF RUGBY
JAMES NISBET AND CO. LTD. 21 BERNERS STREET, LONDON.
1905
[Title page: title.jpg]
[Photograph of John Percival: john.jpg]

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
This little group of Rugby Sermons is to be taken and read as being
nothing more than a few stray chips from the workshop of a busy
schoolmaster, brought together by a kindly publisher, and arranged as
he thought best.
They represent no body of continuous doctrine. In one case the subject
may have been suggested by the season of the Christian year; in
another it was the meeting or the parting at the beginning or the end of
a term that suggested it; or more frequently some incident in the school
life of the moment.
Such, indeed, almost inevitably is the teaching of a schoolmaster,
engrossed in the training of the boys committed to his charge and
growing under his hand towards the destiny of their endless life.
To those boys, and to the masters, my colleagues, and to other fellow-
labourers--some gone to their rest, some still doing their appointed
work--I dedicate this brief reminder of our common life in days of
happy fellowship.
J. HEREFORD. July 1905.

I. RELIGIOUS PATRIOTISM.

"Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself. . . . O pray for the
peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within
thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces. For my brethren and
companions' sakes I will wish thee prosperity. Yea, because of the
house of the Lord our God I will seek to do thee good."--PSALM cxxii.
3, 6-9.
As we draw near to the end of our summer term, when so many are
about to take leave of their school life, there is sure to rise up in many
minds the thought of what this life has done for them or failed to do,
and of what the memory of it is likely to be in all their future years as
they pass from youth to age.
And it should be our aim and desire, as need hardly be said, that from
the day when each one comes amongst us as a little boy to the day
when he offers his last prayer in this chapel before he goes out into the
world, his life here should be of such a sort that its after taste may have
no regrets, and no bitterness, and no shame in it, and the memories to
be cherished may be such as add to the happiness and strength of later
years. And if, as we trust, this is your case, your feeling for your school
is almost certain to be in some degree like that which is expressed in
this pilgrim psalm. Its language of intense patriotism, steeped in
religious feeling, which is the peculiar inspiration of the Old Testament
Jew, will seem somehow to express your own feelings for that life in
which you grew up from childhood to manhood.
Indeed, the best evidence that your school life has not failed of its
higher objects is the growth of this same sort of earnest patriotic
enthusiasm. Do you feel at all for your school as that unknown Jewish
pilgrim who first sung this 122nd Psalm felt for the city of his fathers
and the house of God? "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall
prosper that love thee. For my brethren and companions' sakes I will
wish thee prosperity. Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God I
will seek to do thee good."
Experience shows us that those English schools have been the best in
which this feeling has been strongest and most widely diffused; and
that those are the best times in any school which train up and send forth

the largest proportion of men who continue to watch over its life, and to
pray for it in this spirit: "For my brethren and companions' sakes I will
wish thee prosperity. Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God I
will seek to do thee good." On the other