Authority and Knowledge

by Edward Stuart Talbot

Authority and Knowledge.

A SERMON

Preached in the Parish Church of S. Deiniol, Hawarden,

ON THE

Seventh Sunday after Trinity,

JULY 23rd, 1882.

BY

THE REV. EDWARD STUART TALBOT, M.A.

Warden of Keble College, Oxford.

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PRINTED BY REQUEST.

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Hawarden:

SPENCER, PRINTER AND STATIONER.

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1882.

PREFACE.

 

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A true estimate in English homes of Authority and Knowledge would be of priceless value to the country. To contribute anything to such an object would be a great privilege.

But perhaps it is more practical to hope that the Sermon may be of some service in a Parish to which I am very closely bound, by suggesting some ways in which the two influences of home and school may be brought into closer alliance, and do thereby better work for the children than they can do apart.

Not that I should have printed the Sermon by my own act for either of these objects: and if, by God's blessing, it should in any degree serve them, this will be due entirely to the kindness of a Parishioner who requested and undertook the printing of it.

Keble College, Oxford,

September, 1882.

E. S. T.

A SERMON

"He went down with them … and was subject unto them … and … increased in wisdom." S. Luke ii, 51, 52.

T falls to me this morning to ask you to give your help liberally towards the burthen of the cost of the Schools in this Parish. You do not need, I am sure, to be reminded that a good School, well ordered, and well taught, is an immense blessing to a place. You see the proof of it in your children. Those of you who have ever lived where there were not Schools, or where they were bad, will see it doubly by the contrast. From what I hear of this Parish, with its eight or nine Schools under one management, you seem to be singularly favoured in this respect: and the fact which the Rector mentioned to me this morning, that in the last few years £5,000 had been spent upon Schools in building and enlarging alone, apart from all other outlay, does seem to me a strong call to you, to make the most of so good a provision as you have, and to do all that you can for the maintenance and efficiency of that which has been so provided. Nor will you doubt that your Schools should be Christian Schools, through which the Church's little ones shall be trained in the knowledge of her Holy Faith, and through which the Church's pastors may begin to do their duty to the lambs of Christ's flock. You will feel, I am sure, that you owe whatever help you can give to the clergy, upon whom the Schools cast such a heavy care, to those who, with the clergy, undertaeon your behalf the management of your Parochial Schools, and to those who daily discharge the duties of Teachers, so sacred and happy, and yet also so toilsome, so trying to strength and spirits, temper and self control Help them by your prayers. I hope many of you, in your private or family prayers, often use such words as these, "for the Schools of this Parish, and for those within them, both teachers and learners." Help them by your money; (whether or no you are parents yourselves, and so directly benefited by the Schools.) because you covet the unseen, but sure blessing which Christ has promised to them that give; and because you know that the gift of good and Christian Schooling is as good a gift as you can give in Christ's name to the people of your parish, and especially to those whom Christ has told us that He most loves, the poor and the little ones. I may say with all truth and reverence that this is a service for which our Master asks you through me to-day.

But over what is so plain as this, we ought not to spend our time; the fewest and simplest words will make those who have any love of our Lord, and willingness to spend for His sake, give almost above their power; and those who have no such spirit, will give no more for much speaking. Nor have I much regard for the extra tritle which the urgency of a preacher draws out of peoples pockets; unless it comes from hearts touched with some true sense of the privileges as well as duty of Christian giving.

Leaving therefore the subject of to-day's Collection, I would rather go on and ask you to think for a few minutes, of some of the deep thoughts which a Christian school suggests. Such thoughts go beyond the schools; for a school is a picture, a parable, a miniature of life: the principles at work in a school, are at work widely in life, among the grown, as well as the children, though in different forms. But though they go beyond the schools, these thoughts have a most practical bearing on the duties of those who have to do with the Schools and with the children who attend them.

For what ends now does a School exist? It exists because we count two things good for children: and it aims at those two things. The first is Discipline: the second is Knowledge. When you send a child to school, you mean him to learn first his letters, then his reading and figuring, afterwards his geography and history, and all through his Bible teaching. That is the Knowledge. But also you hope he will be trained. If a child is noisy, or untidy, or saucy before he goes to School, you look forward to that being cured by the regular ways, and good order, and firm authority of the School: if he has some fault such as deceitfulness, or a passionate temper, or spitefulness to other children, or disobedience which vexes you, and against which you make your prayers to God, you hope that the influence of the schoolmaster, and perhaps of a good tone in the school, will help to cure him of it. This is the Discipline.

There is Authority in the School to give the Discipline: and there is Teaching to give the Knowledge.

Two great matters surely: Authority and Knowledge: the objects of our Schools, but going far beyond our Schools Authority, which sits on thrones, and is exercised by Governments, and speaks through magistrates, and courts of law, and officers of state, which speaks in the Church through the pastors whom God has set over His people: which rules in the home, in the loving and protecting rule of husband over wife, of parents over children. And Knowledge of which the things learnt in the Schools are the simple beginnings, but which runs up and branches out into all the sciences, which scales the heavens to count the stars, and runs through the depths and intricacies of creation; which is the secret of power, and is ever putting new powers into our hands; which tasks the comprehension, and kindles the imagination, and points to the true satisfaction of our instincts and desires; which rises to things so high and magnificent and divine and yet comes down to matters of practice, and divides itself into as many kinds of knowledge and skill, as there are professions or crafts and works.

Authority and Knowledge. These are the two; and the questions which I wish to ask you about them are,

(1) Is either of them certain to be a good to everyone?

(2) If not, what is it which makes them good?

(1) Authority. How does it act? We see in our Schools that it acts by power. We have power in the Schools over the children, power to order, power to reward them, power to punish and expel them, if they disobey. Authority everywhere rests on power, and works by power. The government has power at its command, soldiers, police, the action of the law: even in the home the father is the strongest: and can enforce, if need be, his will.

(2.) Knowledge. Knowledge, to put the thing simply, is that by which a man finds his way. We are born into the world as it were like a person lost in an unknown land, of which ha does not know the country or the language And all the knowledge that is given us is to help us to find our way: we learn what sort of a place the world is, and how we are to live, and what is useful, and what brings money and a living. All kinds of knowledge, reading and summing, and learning how to handle a knife and fork, or sit on a horse, up to the knowledge which fits a man for a great post and enables him to earn a large salary, all are parts of this learning our way. Even the high sciences are the same: Astronomy teaches us whereabouts we are in the great Universe, what sort of a place it is to which our little world belongs: and Religious knowledge helps us to find our way in another and yet higher sense.

And now I ask my first question; is it certainly good for every one to be under authority and to possess knowledge? You will be inclined to say 'Yes, to be quite undisciplined, or quite ignorant must be wrong; Rule and Knowledge are sure to be good for everyone.' And yet I shall venture to answer that they are not certainly good.

Surely there are cases when subjection to power and authority brings mischief and not good; for we have about us a feeling of independence and freedom, a sense that each man or each child is given by God his own life, and belongs to himself, and not to any one else. And if Power comes down upon us, and with no questions asked or answers given, sets us rules or orders, and compels us to obey, and forces and punishes us till we do; what follows? Is this good for the one who is under rule? Possibly it may be answered that obedience and discipline are such good things, that if he is wise, he will submit and be the better for it. But then I am not asking whether authority is good for the wise, but whether it is good for all. And I think you know how easily a man or a child either (for their childish sense of what is fair and just is very keen and quick) may easily gain much harm rather than good by being under the rule of an authority which he does not see to have any right over him but what power gives. He chafes under it, and grows sullen: he escapes it by lying, and grows deceitful; or he breaks out against it and his temper gets spoilt and soured. This is the way in which bad schools and harsh schoolmasters, bad homes and cruel parents have ruined children, and bad kings or tyrannical governments have ruined nations. This Authority of might without right was the curse of that slavery which England in this century did away with, by the grace of God, throughout the dominions of the Queen.

No: rule is not in itself a certain good. No more is knowledge. A sharp man is not necessarily a good man. Villains may use skill and science for villainy. And without being a villain, it is easy to be spoilt by knowledge if knowledge is treated merely as a means of getting on; if a superiority in knowledge is valued as a ground for boasting over others, or for "cutting them out"; if great and glorious subjects are learnt and studied not for their greatness or glory, but for gain or show, or pride

Authority then and knowledge may be an evil and not a good. Yet we send our children to school to be under authority and learn knowledge. What is it then which is needed to make authority and knowledge good?

Here again I must speak first of one and then of the other.

Authority then, to make it good and wholesome for those under it, needs to be rightful: It needs to be such as they can respect and acknowledge: such as may be kicked against by what is evil in them, but not by what is good, not by their conscience, and their best selves. It must rule not by force alone, but by right too.

And knowledge, if it is to be a good, must be seen to be precious, to be worth something for its own sake: this is what it wants to prevent it from seeming a mere task set for no reason by a master's caprice, or from being degraded into a kind of cash, to be paid in buying reputation or success. Is any master a good teacher who does not give the pupil an interest in his subject but only crams him for a Prize? So it should be with knowledge everywhere. A man will hardly be able to succeed with a subject of knowledge unless he cares about it; but even if he does so succeed, he himself will gain no real good from it. To do us good, knowledge must have a value of its own, and be felt by us to have it.^[1]

Let us apply these thoughts quickly In one or two ways.

First, they suggest something as regards our Schools, for parents and for those who have to do with the children. You send them to gain knowledge, and to be under discipline. But it rests with yourselves in great measure what they think of the knowledge, and how they take the discipline. The Schoolmaster is for them a power, a force, a stranger who can punish. It rests with him of course to gain by degrees over them, through earning their respect, an authority of a gentler and different kind; but it rests with you also to make them respect him from the first. God has taught them through the simple instincts of their hearts, until you forfeit it, respect for you. If they hear you speak with respect of the Schoolmaster, if when they begin to complain, or rebel, you, instead of encouraging them, gently show them that they are wrong, and make them feel that the master's authority is a wise and right one, they will give him some of the respect which they give to you: his discipline will seem to them not of might only but of right, and then it will be for their good. So, again, with their knowledge, show them that you care about it. I have always remembered what I read some years ago in the report of an able Inspector reporting to Government on Scotch Education. He was speaking of the great superiority of Scotch Schools, and the reason which he gave for this was the great interest taken by the parents in the work of the children at School. At home in the evening they would question them about their work in the day, showing their own interest in the subjects taught, and encouraging industry and proficiency by their approval. We have something to learn here. Shew pleasure to the children if their reading has been good, their writing neat, their lessons accurate, their knowledge of Bible and Catechism reverent and intelligent. Show them (they will be quick enough to see the difference) that you value these things for their own sakes, because it is always worth while to do a thing well if it is done at all, because knowledge of the things in this world is a knowledge of what is very good, because a knowledge of all that concerns man is full of deep and tender interest, because in particular to know the things of God is the highest thing given to man. Shew them this out of School and you will not only double the value of their School, but you will be shaping their character for life; and instead of shirking idlers, or else sharp, calculating, forward prigs, you will make them earnest, solid, reverent-minded men.

But further, upon what does your own authority in your homes rest? and upon what higher authority than yours does the master hold authority over the children? Does he stand for you only, or for a Power higher than you? Brethren, do you not see that the root of all rightful authority, be it of parent or teacher, ruler or king or priest, lies in this that it comes from the One Authority, viz God? His Authority is perfect, not only because He is all powerful, but also because He is all good. His rule is perfect right, as well as perfect might, for He perfectly deserves to rule: we can give our whole hearts to Him, and not lose our freedom, for slavery to Him, is freedom for the slave. And those to whom any authority is committed, do not diminish, but increase it, if they remember themselves, and let it be seen by those over whom they rule, that they are "over them in the Lord," that their authority is from God. Such authority is natural and right; it appeals to the conscience it trains, but it does not crush; and it lasts when the authority of mere strength would long ago have been laughed at or defied. Do you not see then how necessary it is that parents should train their children in the knowledge of their Father above, and that they should so use their own authority as those who are ruling for Him, who do not order about and scold and punish their children 'for their own pleasure,' but guide them with a quiet, firm, loving authority, which may be their first simple lesson of what a Father in heaven is, and which the simple reverence and faith of children will quite readily take for what indeed it is, that is for an authority speaking from God? So also with our Schools. Do you not see how precious it is to us that they should be Christian Schools, that their authority over the children should speak as it were for God, and should be set over them by God? Sooner probably, and more deeply than we at all think, there sinks into their young conscience a sense that it is a good and right power which is over them, that it is one which they ought to obey, and not only one which they must obey perforce till they can deceive it or escape from it. I think if we had secular schools we should see the difference in the children's tone And so as to the knowledge, is it not a precious thing that the knowledge should come to them not from an 'Education-shop,' where they buy so much, to spend it again in other things, but from the hand of those who give it in God's name because it is good, because God who made the things of knowledge, and made men's hearts and minds to know, would have us use those minds, and gain the interest and enjoyment and wisdom which true knowledge rightly given always brings; for "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."^[2]

The preciousness of Discipline when we see God's Holy Hand in the discipline, the preciousness of Knowledge when we see in it a schooling by God in things which at the bottom of them are of God, these are the truths which we have reached: we have seen that these are the secrets of all true authority, and true education; we have claimed for Christian Schools that these are their double foundation: we have seen too how these should mould the homes of Christian children. But they have their word of counsel for every life and every soul. Are we not all our lives under discipline? and what is life but a time allowed us to grow in knowledge and increase in wisdom?^[3] Under discipline we must be, some of it, as we think, just, some of it unjust or seeming so: truths and doctrines checking our thoughts; rules checking our wishes; the wills of others, their selfishness or their necessities or their comfort hampering and limiting us, want of money or health or time hindering us from what we would do; bereavement and trouble taking from us what we would keep; our path and our fortune shaped for us, more perhaps than we shape it for ourselves. Is all this discipline certainly good for us? No; if we take it only as a rule of force, as that to which we must yield, because we can do no other, as an iron necessity, it will harden us, or sour us with the bitterness of a restless and unsatisfied spirit. But if we take it for what it is (however it comes, even when it comes through the sins and selfishness of others) and see in it a discipline from the one rightful and loving authority, the authority of our Father, then most assuredly we shall prove the blessing that is in it, its wise correction, its light and profitable yoke; 'subject to' it we shall 'increase in wisdom.'^[4] For indeed the two lie very close together; the heart which is lowly to submit is open to learn; and all through life the opportunities lie thick around us of a knowledge which is wisdom.

What we need for reading it is not cleverness so much as faith; for each man there is wisdom enough and to spare, if he will gather up the knowledge that comes to him from every side, not to trade in it, nor to tickle his curiosity with it, nor to cut a figure by help of it, but for the divine meaning and value that it has: if, as life goes on, he will try to be ever learning, pressing on to get at the meaning of things, by putting together what he sees without him, and what he feels within; by turning from experience to conscience, and from conscience to the Word of God, and from the Word of God back again to his own heart and to the thoughts of men in books, and the experience of men in life: valuing all, because in all there is one divine "wisdom sweetly ordering all things"^[5]; Athirst for knowledge, "because athirst for God^[6]. To him that believes through all knowledge God is known, or at least we draw onwards towards knowing God. Lead me in Thy truth and teach me! On Thee do I wait, all the day"^[7]; "give me this" and every "day" my "daily bread"; "that which I see not, teach Thou me"^[8]

FINIS

1. This will not be pressed in an extreme way as though, for example, children were able to judge fully of what it is good for them to learn, and nothing were ever to be taught against the grain. The early and more mechanical parts of the study of Language supply a very plain instance of a subject which is taught and has to be taught without the learner being able to understand what it will afterwards give him and offer to him. In all learning, perhaps, there is room for the principle "we walk by faith and not by sight"
2. Matt, iv, 4.
3. Luke ii, 52.
4. Luke iv, 51, 52, (the text).
5. Wisdom, viii, i.
6. Psalm xlii, 2, (P. Book Version.)
7. Psalm xxv, 5.
8. Job xxxiv, 32.