All Saints' Day and Other Sermons

To day is All Saints' Day. On this day we commemorate and, as far as our dull minds will let us, contemplate the saints; the holy ones of God; the pure and the triumphant be they who they may, or whence they may, or where they may. We are not bidden to define and limit their number. We are expressly told that they are a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues; and most blessed news that is for all who love God and man. We are not told, again and I beg you all to mark this well that this great multitude consists merely of those who, according to the popular notion, have "gone to heaven", as it is called, simply because they have not gone to hell. Not so, not so! The great multitude whom we commemorate on All Saints' Day, are SAINTS. They are the holy ones, the heroes and heroines of mankind, the elect, the aristocracy of grace. These are they who have kept themselves unspotted from the world. They are the pure who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, which is the spirit of self sacrifice. They are those who carry the palm branch of triumph, who have come out of great tribulation, who have dared, and fought, and suffered for God, and truth, and right. Nay, there are those among them, and many, thank God weak women, too, among them who have resisted unto blood, striving against sin.