“I became dumb:”  not with rage, not with despair; but because it was Thy doing; and therefore it was done well.  It was the deed, not of chance, not of necessity:  for had it been, then those who loved him might have been excused had they cursed chance, cursed necessity, cursed the day in which they entered a universe so cruel, so capricious.  Not so.  For it was the deed of The Father, without whom a sparrow falls not to the ground; of The Son, who died upon the Cross in the utterness of His desire to save; of The Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Giver of life to all created things.

It was the deed of One who delights in life and not in death; in bliss and not in woe; in light and not in darkness; in order and not in anarchy; in good and not in evil.  It had a final cause, a meaning, a purpose:  and that purpose is very good.  What it is, we know not:  and we need not know.  To guess at it would be indeed to meddle with matters too high for us.  So let us be dumb:  but dumb not from despair, but from faith; dumb not like a wretch weary with calling for help which does not come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother’s feet; and looking up into her face, and watching her doings; understanding none of them as yet, but certain that they all are done in Love.

SERMON XXVI.  GOD AND MAMMON.

MATTHEW VI. 24.

   Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

This is part of the Gospel for this Sunday; and a specially fit text for this day, which happens to be St Matthew’s Day.

On this day we commemorate one who made up his mind, once and for all, that whoever could serve God and money at once, he could not:  and who therefore threw up all his prospects in life—­which were those of a peculiarly lucrative profession, that of a farmer of Roman taxes—­in order to become the wandering disciple of a reputed carpenter’s son.  He became, it is true, in due time, an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Martyr; and if posthumous fame be worth the ambition of any man, Matthew the publican—­Saint Matthew as we call him—­has his share thereof, because he discovered, like a wise man, that he could not serve God and money; and therefore, when Jesus saw him sitting at the receipt of custom, and bade him “Follow Me,” he rose up, and left his money-bags, and followed Him, whom he afterwards discovered to be no less than God made man.  “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.”  It is very difficult to make men believe these words.  So difficult, that our Lord Himself could not make the Jews believe them, especially the rich and comfortable religious people among them.  When He told them that they could not serve two masters; that they could not worship God and money at the same time, the Pharisees, who were covetous, derided Him.  They laughed to scorn the notion that they could not be very religious, and respectable, and so forth, and yet set their hearts on making money all the while.  They thought that they could have their treasure on earth and in heaven also; and they went their way, in spite of our Lord’s warnings; and made money, honestly no doubt, if they could, but if not, why then dishonestly; for money must be made, at all risks.