Thomas Wingfold, Curate, vol 2 | Page 6

man might be guilty of next, but having a few among
them who were sympathetically interested in seeing how far his call, if
call it was, would lead him.
His second sermon was to the same purport as the first. Preposing no
text, he spoke to the following effect, and indeed the following are of
the very words he uttered:
"The church wherein you now listen, my hearers, the pulpit wherein I
now speak, stand here from of old in the name of Christianity. What is
Christianity? I know but one definition, the analysis of which, if the
thing in question be a truth, must be the joyous labour of every devout
heart to all eternity. For Christianity does not mean what you think or
what I think concerning Christ, but what IS OF Christ. My Christianity,
if ever I come to have any, will be what of Christ is in me; your
Christianity now is what of Christ is in you. Last Sunday I showed you
our Lord's very words--that he, and no other, was his disciple who did
what he told him,--and said therefore that I dared not call myself a
disciple. I say the same thing in saying now that I dare not call myself a
Christian, lest I should offend him with my 'Lord, Lord!' Still it is, and I
cannot now help it, in the name of Christianity that I here stand. I have,
alas, with blameful and appalling thoughtlessness I subscribed my
name, as a believer, to the Articles of the Church of England, with no
better reason than that I was unaware of any dissent therefrom, and
have been ordained one of her ministers. The relations into which this
has brought me I do not feel justified in severing at once, lest I should
therein seem to deny that which its own illumination may yet show me
to be true, and I desire therefore a little respite and room for thought
and resolve. But meantime it remains my business, as an honest man in
the employment of the church, to do my best towards the setting forth
of'the claims of him upon whom that church is founded, and in whose

name she exists. As one standing on the outskirts of a listening Galilean
crowd, a word comes now and then to my hungry ears and hungrier
heart: I turn and tell it again to you--not that ye have not heard it also,
but that I may stir you up to ask yourselves: 'Do I then obey this word?
Have I ever, have I once sought to obey it? Am I a pupil of Jesus? Am I
a Christian?' Hear then of his words. For me, they fill my heart with
doubt and dismay.
"The Lord says: Love your enemies. Sayest thou, It is impossible?
Then dost thou mock the word of him who said, I am the Truth, and has
no part in him. Sayest thou, Alas, I cannot? Thou sayest true, I doubt
not. But hast thou tried whether he who made will not increase the
strength put forth to obey him?
"The Lord says: Be ye perfect. Dost thou then aim after perfection, or
dost thou excuse thy wilful short-comings, and say, To err is
human--nor hopest that it may also be found human to grow divine?
Then ask thyself, for thou hast good cause, whether thou hast any part
in him.
"The Lord said, Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth. My part is
not now to preach against the love of money, but to ask you: Are you
laying up for yourselves treasures on earth? As to what the command
means, the honest heart and the dishonest must each settle in his own
way; but if your heart condemn you, what I have to say is, Call not
yourselves Christians, but consider whether you ought not to become
disciples indeed. No doubt you can instance this, that, and the other
man who does as you do, and of whom yet no man dreams of
questioning the Christianity: it matters not a hair; all that goes but to
say that you are pagans together. Do not mistake me: I judge you not. I
but ask you, as mouthpiece most unworthy of that Christianity in the
name of which this building stands and we are met therein, to judge
your own selves by the words of its founder.
"The Lord said: Take no thought for your life. Take no thought for the
morrow. Explain it as you may or can--but ask yourselves--Do I take no
thought for my life? Do I take no thought for the morrow? and answer
to yourselves whether or no ye are Christians.
"The Lord says: Judge not. Didst thou judge thy neighbour yesterday?
Wilt thou judge