A POSTHUMOUS book of sermons by the late Bishop of London
has been recently published (London : Long- mans and Co., 3s. 6d. net). It takes its title from three addresses upon "The Mind of St. Peter" given by Dr. Creighton before an assembly of Bishops. The first address contains the following passage :—" He [St. Peter] was chosen by our Lord as the typical representative of those on whom His Church should be built. Many people have wondered why. He was a man whose faults were obvious, whose weak- ness was made manifest; he was a man of no command- ing intelligence and no extraordinary gifts of nature." All through the ages Peter has touched the heart of Christendom because he was, as people say, "so human," which means so much like most of us. He acted in terrible circumstances as the majority of us shrewdly suspect that we should have acted in like case. He repented, as we imagine that we also should repent; and he atoned heroically for his cowardice, as we all dimly hope that we might possibly atone. The story of his life is one of the great Christian credentials setting forth the power of Christianity to recreate character. Peter attained through faith to the quality of courage—a quality which seems at first sight to be an unattainable gift—and the average man admires and desires courage with all his heart.
To our mind, it is a greater' evidence of the power of Christi- anity that Peter should have died a martyr than that the fierce inquisitor Saul should have become the St. Paul of the charity chapter. That fierce zeal should be so restrained as to become benevolent enthusiasm is not unthinkable; but to make a hero of a coward is a different matter, and seems, indeed, to necessitate a spiritual rebirth. Certainly Peter as Luke paints him in Acts is a man with whom we cannot connect cowardice; and his Epistle to the persecuted strangers in Pontus is one of the most wonderfully " heartening " writings in the New Testament, and must have carried immense weight, coming as it did from one who had felt and had yielded to the temptation to shirk, and instantly "turned again."
According to the New Testament narrative, Peter was begotten again unto a lively hope by the incident of the Resurrection. So far as we are told, our Lord did not allude to Peter's denial when he appeared to the fishermen upon the shores of the lake. He commended to him the care of the community, and He said something to him "signifying by what death He should glorify God." At first reading, this suggestion that he would die a martyr seems a harsh one, but it was probably the only thing which could have restored Peter's self-respect. By these words he was reassured of his own potential heroism. For the fears of a good man are not allayed when he has saved his skin, nor his inner sense of shame wiped out by repentance. The more keenly a man repents cowardice the more terribly is it borne in upon him that he may do the same thing again. Peter had protested that he was ready to die, and having refused to do so, he has done with protestations. "Thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love Thee," is all that he will say. Christ makes the protestation for him. He will be ready, He assures him, to die any death, and the last terror is lifted from the soul of the man who, tradition tells us, voluntarily increased the sufferings of his own crucifixion. There are, and always have been, a very large number of men who could face almost any danger if they could but be certain that they would face it creditably. The fear of fear is an awful fear, for the man who feels it thinks he will forfeit the favour of God and man. That Peter should have felt such fear must endear him to the ordinary man who so often feels it.
Apart from conduct, Peter's mental standpoint is wonder- fully like that of the average religious man. He clings rather unreasonably to the ideas and ceremonials among which lie was brought up, and he is apt to fall back into them, even after he has assented to newer ways. His feeling is for things as they are. He does not desire to overturn existing systems either of thought or of government. He has a deep respect for the existing order, and can hardly dissociate a religious attitude of mind from one of willing subordination to the powers that be. "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake : whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the
praise of them that do well Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king." What is this but a wonderfully heightened and sanctified version of the civil, political, and religious creed of the ordinary man? Besides this, St. Peter.shows a great appre- ciation of what we call respectability, a quality, or rather a set of qualities, at which it is just now the fashion among some un-English Englishmen to laugh. He tells his readers not to be careless of appearances,—" Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles : that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation." The outward har- mony of family life seems to him a matter of great importance. His advice to husbands and wives is too well known to quote. That it commends itself instinctively to ordinary men is proved by the fact that it still retains its place in the Marriage Service. He makes much of gentle, "pitiful" manners, and even suggests the seemliness of inconspicuous dress, while he exhorts to ungrudging hospitality. Servants, he declares, are not at liberty to disobey their masters, even if these are unjust. Christ, he tells them, suffered unjustly, and they may count such sufferings as in some sense an honour. All the same, he lays it down as an absolute principle that all men are equal before God, "who without respect of persons jadgeth accord. spiritual reward, and he does not hesitate to make that reward an inducement to do well, quoting with-conviction the words of the Psalmist: "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile : let him eschew evil, and do good ; let him seek peace, and ensue it." He holds that practice is, after all, the most effectual method of preaching, and exhorts his readers with "well- doing" to "put to silence the ignor- ance of foolish men." That he and St. Paul were not always in accord is evident from the New Testament, and tradition has somewhat accentuated their. differences. The spiritually simple and the intellectually spiritual will never be altogether in sympathy. For the spiritual architecture of the Church of Christ we are indebted to the Apostle of the ,Gentiles; and every, great teacher of. genius whom the Church has produced Las added something to its splendour; but. it is on- simpler men that the edifice is founded, and it is they who have preserved its unity. For the Church is in some sense one, though the sects suspect one another, and the great Roman branch repudiates all . recalcitrant children. Men who have one ideal. and one hope cannot be altogether divided. For this •unity, such as it is, Christendom has to thank, not her men of. genius, but her," plain. men." There are Evangelicals, in the true sense of .the word, in all the Churches who per- ceive the figure of Christ behind the paraphernalia of all the systems, .and who unconsciously reject, because they do not understand, the contradictory commandments of men.. The men of religions genius build up, defend, and, alas ! at times rend, the Church. It is the men of. the type of Peter who preserve the faith, so far as it is preserved, "in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life."
THE CLASSICS IN EDUCATION.
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