Page:Sermon by the Bishop of Rochester 1901.djvu/8

, and given us a new sense of the sway and majesty of order in His work, that is in the universe.

And is it not true that within limits the knowledge of that Order ennobles Life? It is seen by Science, and in a different way it is felt by Art. And though not every Scientist's or Artist's life is good or high, any more than every religious believer's is, yet the touch of the great Order on the man of Science and the man of Art is, in itself, a dignifying, steadying, lifting thing.

Evidently there is something then for imitation. Life with a purpose, centred, disciplined, ordered for that purpose; strenuous, persistent for it; faithful to it; such a life is in a measure holy, for God is holy.

But this carries us only a little way. We can come nearer God than by having a purpose; for our purpose may be like His, Be ye holy for I am Holy: the words come again from Our Lord Himself in more human tones; Be ye perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect: and another Gospel gives them in yet another form; Be ye merciful as your Father is merciful. Nature is witness of purpose in God: in Christ we learn its nature: it is a purpose of Love. Mercy, and all the actions and fruits of mercy, help, service; these are the symbols by which it is known.

We are, as individuals, and the Church has often as a body been, inconceivably slow in really getting hold of some of the things most clearly contained in that which we believe. Here is one of them. The Christian standard in the Life of God is a standard not only of perfection, as though each of us stood alone, but a standard of perfection by love; of perfect service to others; of going out of oneself (as we may reverently say God did in Creation and when He gave His Son and does by providence and grace) in love and help.

Here is the highest thing possible for man; but it is a thing that takes all the homeliest and most practical shapes. Whatever a man's profession and calling is