The After-glow of a Great Reign | Page 2

great
experience, who had looked out of the door of his being and had seen
God. And he tells us, as the result of his experience, and as the basis of
his repentance, these words "Behold, Thou requirest truth in the inward
parts." It is one thing to say words which, understood in a certain sense,
are true, it is one thing to avoid direct breaches in our action of the law
of honour, but it is another thing to be in ourselves absolutely sincere,
to look up into the eyes of God, as a truthful child looks up into the
eyes of its mother, to possess our own hearts like a flawless gem, with
nothing to hide, nothing to keep back, and nothing to be ashamed
of--that is to have truth in the inward parts, and that is what God
demands. It is what He found in Christ, one of the things which made
Him say time after time, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well
pleased"; He found ever reflecting back His Face as He looked down
upon Him a perfectly sincere Person, true through and through. That
was the secret of His marvellous influence, that was why little children
came and crept under the ample folds of His love, that was why young
men came and told Him their secrets, that was why everybody, except
the bad, felt at home with Him, that was why women were at their best
with Him, that was why Herod the worldly found he could not flatter
Him, and Pilate the coward found Him devoid of fear; it was because
right through, not only in His words and actions, but in His being He
not only had, but He was, Truth in the inward parts. And it is because
our Queen, with her simple and beautiful faith in her Saviour, caught
from childhood this attribute of her Lord, because she worked it out
into her character, made it the foundation of everything she did--it is for
that reason she was able to keep the Court pure, and the heart of the

country true, to get rid of flattery, meanness and intrigue, and to chase
away the sycophant and the traitor.
Is it not a lesson which the country needs, is there any nobler
monument that we could build to her than this--to incorporate into the
character of the nation the first and great characteristic of her own
character, and to try and plant in society, in trade, and in Christian work,
truth in the inward parts?
Take, first, society. It is a cheap sneer, which speaks perpetually of the
hollowness of so-called society, as if rich people could not make and
did not make as honest friendships as the poor and middle class; but, at
the same time, few would deny how much of what would be such a
good thing is disfigured by display and insincerity, that miserable
attempting to be thought richer than we are, that pitiable struggle to get
into a smarter set than happens to be ours, the unreal compliments, the
insincere expressions, the sometimes hideous treachery. If society were
purged from these, it would not be the dull thing which some people
imagine, just as if this insincerity and frivolity and unreality constituted
the brightness of it. No, it is these things which constitute the dulness
and the stupidity. If they were done away with, then society would be a
gathering of true men and women, true to themselves, true to one
another, and true to God, and would be a society which God could
bless.
Secondly, take trade and commerce. Speaking in the very centre of a
city reared upon a basis of honourable commerce, it would be more
than wicked to refuse to acknowledge the splendid honour and trust on
which such commerce is based; but when we clergy, not once or twice,
but constantly, get letters from those employed in firms and in business
up and down the country, saying, "How can I live a Christian life, when
I am obliged by my employer to do dishonest things in business, when I
am told to tell lies, or I shall lose my place?" When we have, even
within the last few months, terrible instances of breach of trust among
those who have been entrusted with the most sacred interests by the
widow and the orphan, must we not acknowledge that a second great
monument which we might build to our Queen would be to restore to

the trade and commerce of the country those principles of honour and
integrity on which the great firms were built up, and to make it true
again from end to end of the world that an Englishman's word is as
good as his bond.
And so,