John 13:34-35

CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY

‘By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another: even as I loved you, that ye also may love one another.’

John 13:34 (R.V. marg.)

Philanthropy, then, is the great sign and test of Christianity. As we look around us and reckon up all the charitable institutions of England and the wealth that flows into them, we may lay the consolation to our hearts that we are thereby declared to be a most Christian people. By this all men shall know that we are Christ’s disciples.

I. Christian philanthropy is essentially the philanthropy of a society.—Christian philanthropy is active love ministered among brethren by one to another, and that is only possible in a society where the needs of each member are known—needs for livelihood, for protection, for sympathy—and so a helping hand can be held out to ease the particular trouble. The motto of the Christian society is, ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.’ It is a mutual helpfulness that the law of Christ enjoins. But how is that possible in the Church of England to-day? I answer, it is still possible if Christian men will use the parochial organisation that exists, and supply it where it is lacking. There are to-day congregations in London where the Christian society is realised as vividly as ever, where the laity recognise their responsibilities, and co-operate with the clergy in a common zeal for the benefit of the parish; and why should not this happy state of things be universal? In America it is the rule. Why should it be the exception in England? Think how the condition of each parish would improve if its improvement lay as an aspiration and a task upon the hearts of all the Christian residents; if they met regularly for counsel and co-operation, and divided amongst themselves, according to their respective gifts, the duties that the needs of the place suggested; to take but one instance: if the visitation of the poor were not the official business of official visitors, but was undertaken by Christian men and women (not even in minor orders), a few houses by each person, where they could make friends! Christian philanthropy, then, we say, is the philanthropy of a society in which every member alike has a duty and a claim. And, as a corollary to that, we must lay it down that each single and separate society of Christians must feel its unity with the whole, and not restrict its interest to its own body.

II. A second principle of Christian philanthropy is that in its love for man it never forgets the true definition of a man as a ‘child of God.’—It seeks his well-being in the highest sense. In all the causes it advocates it keeps in view its one main object, which is to make men good, and will have nothing to do with schemes which, while professing to be charitable, tend to degrade character. It does not, however, despise what might seem a merely natural philanthropy. Far from that; it seconds it to the best of its power, so far as its ends are wise, because it knows that body, and mind, and spirit are closely intertwined. It recognises that to some men God may speak through the intellect, to others through the emotions, aroused by some beauty of art or nature, and it is a root principle of Christianity to share with the unfortunate whatever we have ourselves found profitable, and what but for our help they could not enjoy. The Church of Christ looks with more than satisfaction on all efforts to improve the material condition of the poor, whether by better housing, or better wages or better conditions of labour, or better education. When public-spirited men do to-day what the Romans did in their more thorough fashion under the Antonines—build great public buildings, colleges, schools, museums, picture galleries, and so forth—the Church rejoices; but of all these more outward helps to the good life it most welcomes hospitals.

III. The third and last principle is that Christian philanthropy, in its efforts to promote whatever cause it sees to belong to the Kingdom of Christ, grudges no cost.—The principle, of course, is that all Christians are brethren, members of the one family of Christ, and brethren do not lay stress on mine and thine in the hour of need. They hold all that they have in trust for the family cause, the family honour, the family enterprises. If the need is clear, the only question is one of method.

—Canon H. C. Beeching.