The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-04-22 00:00:00

DEAN STANLEY IN WESTMINSTER
ABBEY.

On Sunday morning Dean Stanley preached in Westmin-
ster Abbey for the first time since the death of Lady Augusta
Stanley. Before ten o'clock tu the morning every available
spot in the Abbey was filled, and hundreds were unable to
obtain admission.—The following account of the Dean's
sermon is from the Daily Telegraph :

Dean Stanley selected for his text. Colossians iii.,
part of the Lit verse—" Seek those things which arc
aeove." On a turning in the couree of the river Danube
there stands on an eminence the chief cathedral of the
ancient kingdom of Hungary, and on its front were
these words—" Seek those heings which are above."
They were words which to every traveller down the
river of life might be naturally recalled. They sug-
gested that people should seek not only those things
which were good and commonplace but those things
which were elevated its human Character and in
human duty. There was even in persons who
were not bad the tendency to take a low, grovel-
ling, small, petty, paltry view of things both
human and Divine. They must rise above that
rise to a brighter and clearer atmosphere.
Let them do something greater and better than only
keeping out of harm's way. Let the eye be closed and
the ears deaf to the idle talk, and the low scandal, and
the cynical sneers of frivolous conversation. Rise above
those endless amusements which perish in the using.
People should be masters of themselves—should lift
up their hearts. It was meet and right so to do at
all times and in all places, but chiefly on a day and
in a tune like the present. They should rise from the
email doubt to the great certainties, and seek those
things which were above in the sense of being
be-mod, in advance of ourselves and of our time.
That it was which made the prophets of the old
clispeesation such inestimable teachers and examples,
not only to their own ages, but to all ages. That
upward look of the ancient seers of Israel had been
endeavoured to be expeessed in the figures which
that day had been added to complete the sculpture
of the reredos of the Abbey. A true statesman,
it was said, was he who endeavoured to forecast the
events and tendencies of the coming year or the
coming generation. A true prophet—a true Christian
—wise he who in the tendencies arid events of the
coming generation through the evil saw the good, and
hoped against hope that the good would at last
prevail. On that subject he mentioned how the sixth
and seventh centuries of our era fell behind the
second and third—how greatly inferior was the
fifteenth century to the twelfth, thirteenth, or four-
teenth. Even in oar own time, vast as were the
advances, which in many respects we had ourselves
witnessed, on the days of our fathers, yet when
we sometimes contrasted the sluggiehness,. the
extravagance, the mediocrity of so much of our
yout.,..er gent- ra;ion with the plainness, the energy,
and the pubdc spirit of that generation which was
pa:sing aw,,y, or which preceded us—willn we
thought of the great names of those who adorned
the beginning and the middle of this century,
and how few there were to fake their places—if, in-
stead of the noble passion for reform and improvement
which filled the minds of our fathers, we too often saw
the growth of a blind passion for destruction—if we
thought of the increase of fierce party spirit, or of the
ever-increasing cloud of fancifu4 superstition which had
gathered over the churches of Christendom during the
last thirty years—it was impossible not to have an
apprehension from time to time that the latter half of
the nineteenth century was destined to be a sorrowful
falling off from the first half. Yet still, even if that
were so—and God grant that it might not be—and if
we were entering one of those backward ebbs in the
stream of history which Europe had before this ex-
perienced, yet even then it was still our duty and
our privilege to seek and to aspire after those
things which are above, to set our affections
and cast our thoughts in the direction of those
higher ideas which inspired our forefathers, and which
he humbly trusted would yet again inspire our descend-
ants. It must be remembered that the thick gloom
which overspread the close of the fifteenth century was
the precursor of the bright years of the Renaissance and
the Reformation. There were many things which we
all must wish to forget and wish to live for —there was a
goal which we must all strive to reach—there was a call-
ing which was indeed exceedingly high, aa high as the
heaven of heavens, where Jesus Curie, the holy, the
upright, the true, sits at the right hand ef God. While
not forgetting but remembering those things which
were behind, yet the things which were above became
still brighter, still lovelier, still more inspiring, because
they were the perfection of the fulfilment of that we
had known and valued upon earth. However we might
perplex ourselves on abstract questions relating to the
Deity of the future state, there was one thing which
nothing could destroy, and that was the image of
Divine goodness presented to us in the shape and mind
of Jesus Christ. The saintly spirit, the unexhausted
beneficence the never-changing fidelity, the holy hope
and high humility, glorious aspirations and undying
love, th.ose were amongst the heavenly treasures which
drew our affections upwards in spite of ourselves—
those were the treasures in heaven which neither moth
nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves did not break
through or steal, and "where our treasure is there will
our hearts be also."