An Address to the Sisters of St. Peter's Home, Brompton

I READ in your Primary Constitution and Statutes that “the whole work carried on in this place is dedicated to St. Peter, who, more than any other Apostle, ministered to the sick.” I suppose that there is in these words a reference to that passage of the Acts of the Apostles, in which we are told that the people of Jerusalem “brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.” It is in every way a remarkable passage. Though the notice of these cures wrought by the Apostle’s shadow is so incidental, it is full of instruction. A shadow is an influence cast by a man’s body, and may usefully remind us of the influence cast by his mind. As all bodies must cast a shadow in the sunlight, so every rational soul must, by the law of our nature, exert an influence in its walk through life on every other rational soul with which it comes in contact. However narrow and however humble be the circle in which we move, our character, habits, tone, certainly tell in it; each action, each word, nay, each gesture and glance, is an item in the sum total of our moral weight.—Then again, as we cast our shadow on the pavement unconsciously, without deliberate intention, so the moral influence, of which I am speaking, is exercised when we least think of it. Words thrown out when we are off our guard, ways of acting which have become more or less instinctive, are all full charged with this moral influence, and have in fact a much more powerful (though a more subtle) efficacy than the things we say and do of set purpose.—Then again, the shadow is always a correct outline of the body of which it is a shadow. And the moral influence which we exert without being conscious of it is always exactly true to our character, which cannot be said of our voluntary influence. A man may preach, and exhort, and throw himself into Christian enterprises, and thus gain a reputation for piety, and yet be a self-seeker, actuated by ambition, or a desire to stand well with others. Many will say to Our Lord at the last day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works?” to whom He will have to profess, “I never knew you.” In this case the deliberate and voluntary influence exerted by the man misrepresents him; we gather one impression from his efforts, and another from his real character. But the influence which he exerts unconsciously never deceives us. Live side by side with him for a month; watch him when he is not on parade before society, but with his family, with his children, with his servants; listen to his casual remarks; observe his character as it transpires at all the thousand pores of daily life; and the impression will be in the main true; it will correspond to what he really is.

It would be a very curious, and I doubt not a very alarming spectacle, if we could all of us see how very much we have done in the course of our lives by unconscious influence. But this is what history and biography never reveal. They tell us of enterprises taken in hand, battles fought, good causes advocated and won, in short, of every stir and movement made in the world. But of that subtle reciprocal leavening of human characters by one another of which we are speaking, because it is so noiselessly effected, they take no account. Yet secret and silent as it is, this involuntary influence is infinitely more powerful than the voluntary. Just so some of the most powerful agents in Nature are the quietest—do not thunder upon the ear or flash upon the eye. Gravitation is a tremendous force, operating all around us, and binding the planets to the Sun. Yet Gravitation is perfectly noiseless. {14}

You would consider, I suppose, that the ends of an Institution like this were fully answered, and then only fully answered, if the shadow of St. Peter’s Home were, in the high sense of the word, a healing shadow—if the moral and spiritual influence exercised by the Sisters upon the patients were such that souls were won by it to Our Lord. And I can quite conceive that this might be so under the proper conditions. True; the period for which each patient may reside in the Home is but short. But then three or four weeks’ association with devoted servants of Christ, whose devotion transpires naturally and is not obtrusively put forward, may, under His Grace, work a great change, and leave an impression which will never be erased. Even the shadow of Peter passing by is sometimes effectual to a spiritual cure. If the fire of God’s Grace is burning bright and clear upon the altar of our hearts, it will throw out sparks in our passage through life. And it is in the nature of sparks to kindle, when they light on combustible material. Every soul with which we come in contact is sympathetic, and accessible at all times through its sensibilities. And its sympathies and sensibilities become greater oftentimes in the hour of weakness and necessary withdrawal from the world. Persons come to your Home to convalesce. They are not in bodily pain; for their cure is supposed to be already effected in the Hospital. Their hearts are in some measure predisposed to gratitude by a sense of God’s goodness in restoring them, and of your kindness in receiving them under your roof. Hence you have a very fair field for the exertion of Christian influence. And I can well conceive that many might derive a lasting benefit from association with you; and that looking back upon their past lives in advanced age they might say: “The first impressions I had of the reality of things unseen, and of the powers of the world to come, was given me at St. Peter’s Home, not so much by any definite teaching I carried away, as by the whole conduct and way of life of the Sisters. In tending me, they made me feel that their ways and aims were not of this world; and I still retain the impression which that sight of living goodness made upon me.”

It will be so, my Sisters in Christ, if while you diligently tend these patients in pursuance of the vocation which you have undertaken, you at the same time diligently cultivate the interior life of piety in your own hearts. And in order to that diligent cultivation, I shall prescribe to you to-day three spiritual exercises, comprehending, as I believe, the sum and substance of Personal Religion. I believe that the diligent practice of all three will enable any one, by God’s good blessing, to cast a healing shadow, to throw all around him a decided influence for good; and that even one of them devoutly observed, and wrought into the texture of the mind, will be the means of great advance. But though I speak of them in these terms, and promise these effects from them, you must not suppose that I am going to give other than the plainest and most commonplace advice. I have no specific for the conduct of a spiritual life but such as has been given you over and over again; and if I had, you would rightly regard it with suspicion. For the way of Christ’s Saints, blessed be His Name, is a well-trodden way; and the advice for His Church, when she would seek Him, is, “Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock.”