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‘And there was great joy in that city.’
Act_8:8
Christianity has three different aspects in which it appears; three ways in which it makes its influence felt: truth, righteousness, and love. Every soul which is really redeemed by Christianity will enter into new beliefs, higher ways of action, and deeper affection towards its fellow-men. Belief, behaviour, and benevolence, these are the fields in which Christianity works. In every character Christianity will show its triple power.
Now, let us take these one by one, and ask if the city is not capable of each of them as well as the individual. They must exist primarily in the individual; all spiritual character must reside ultimately in the single soul, but still I think it is true that an aggregate of individuals may possess the spiritual character which the individual possesses, and the city, like the man, can exhibit Christian faith and Christian righteousness and Christian love.
I. Look first at faith.—Perhaps this seems the hardest to establish. There was a time, perhaps we say, when each city did indeed possess its own beliefs, when no man could live in Rome without believing like the Pope, or in Geneva without believing like John Calvin, or in New England without believing like the king and like the magistrates. Every city had then its faith. Every proclamation was based upon a creed. But all that is altered now. A thousand different beliefs fight freely in our streets, and all men are free. No man is less a citizen from anything he believes or disbelieves. When these old times come back again, then we shall have a believing city, but not till then. And these old times are never coming back. But this reasoning is surely somewhat shallow. It speaks as if the only exhibition of a faith were in formal statement. It ignores for the State what is being more and more accepted for the individual, that the best proof of a man’s believing is not his acceptance of a doctrine, but his impregnation with its spirit. It may be impossible that cities should confess their faith in their charters and make the simplest acknowledgement of their most fundamental articles in the heading of their statutes, or the inscriptions on their coins; but if its people believe in God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and testify of that belief in a way recognisable of all by its way of life, then, is not that a believing city, even without creed or formal proclamation? It is a Christian city, a believing city, and how do we know? It is because that spirit which was never in the world, save as the spirit of Christian faith, prevails in and pervades its government and social life, the spirit of responsibility and of trust in a great Heavenly Father. These are the real spiritual results of Christian belief, which are not found in heathenism.
II. The second aspect under which Christianity presents itself is that of righteousness.—A Christian holds certain truths and does certain things. There is a moral character in his activities. I pass on to this question: Is it true that there may be a character involved by this gathering of men which we call a city as by an individual? Can there be a Christian city? The answer is not difficult. Every city has a moral character distinct from the individual character of its inhabitants. This is seen in two ways. First in official acts, which must be acts of justice or injustice, deceit or candour. It also appears in acting that is not official, as amongst its sistercities, but more in its power of influence as a moral force, which pervades and exercises power on all that came within it. Send a child to a heathen, brutal community, as of the South Sea, where vice is open, and he is certainly contaminated. What does it? Not this or that man’s example alone; but that evil influence is everywhere in the customs, manners, traditions. Then bring your boy and put him into great London. He will be influenced not merely by this or that character, but by its Christian goodness everywhere, in the just dealing of the street, the serene peace of the homes, the accepted responsibility and obligations of friends and neighbours; in the universal liberty, in the absence of cruelty, in the purity and decency, in the solemn state and the courteous ceremony; everywhere the testimony is of a city wherein dwelleth righteousness. This is the character of the city itself.
III. The third development of Christianity is charity.—Truth and righteousness and love. We say, ‘Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the greatest of these is charity.’ When a man becomes a Christian he believes right and then does right, and then he tries to help his fellow-men. This is the highway of Christianity trodden by the multitudes of Christians in every age, and now again the question comes: Can a city, too, have Christian charity, and do good by the issue and utterance of its Christian character? The Christian character of charity is very apt indeed to delude us and to be lost sight of when we see it on a large scale. If a Christian man gives alms to a poor man it is laid down to impulse, and if a city provides for its own sick and needy and homeless, it is laid down to economy. In every case the connection of the charitable act with Christian faith is apt to be lost. But this is a very shallow view of the case. What is impulse? Is there no Christianity in it? Is it to-day the same feeling as a savage’s inpulse? Has Christianity done nothing to keep down every impulse to harm, and to strengthen this impulse to love our brethren? And do you say the city’s charity is all economy? For experience has shown her that it is a saving system. But who taught her this economy? Who told the city that human life was worth the saving, that the hospital was a good thing to have, that this is an experience, and organisation, a development to civilisation? How is it that Christianity alone has had this experience, and that outside her bounds the most highly-organised of nations in their best civilisation never had anything more than the barest rudiments of hospitals? No; the charity of the city is a distinct testimony to one thing wrought into the convictions of the city, and that one thing is the faith of the many, and our conviction has come nowhere except out of the Christian faith. The city may not know where it has come from, as very few of us can trace the deepest convictions in us to their source, but none the less does it spring out of the Gospel.
Bishop Phillips Brooks.
Illustration‘If you are part of a great city, remember, oh, remember, that your righteousness is not for yourself alone: it is for your city. I am speaking here to business men who, if really Christians, may put a more Christian character into the business life of this Christian metropolis. I am speaking to women of society, who, if really Christians, may make the social character of this city more Christ-like, more true, serious, lofty, pure, charitable and obedient, less sordid, less sensual, less ignorant. I am speaking to young men on whom rests the development of that character in this city which their fathers gave it. If you fail, Christian men, what chance for the city? It is not for yourselves, even for your own happiness alone, here or in some far-off world, but for the city you love. Your character will become the character of thousands who will be gathered into her and born unto her. You have new motives to be earnest and pure, by the love of God, by the service of Christ, by the work of the Holy Ghost.’