or,
at least, their sons after them. And those here who are what the
world calls gentlemen and ladies, know very well that those names
are names which are very precious to them; and would sooner give up
house, land, money, all the comforts upon earth, than give up being
called gentlemen and ladies; and these last know, I trust, what some
poor people do not know, and what no man knows who fancies that he
can make a gentleman of himself merely by gaining money, and setting
up a fine house, and a good table, and horses and carriages, and
indulging the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the
pride of life; for these last ought to know that the right to be
called gentlemen and ladies is something which this world did not
give, and cannot take away; so that if they were brought to utter
poverty and rags, or forced to dig the ground for their own
livelihood, they would be gentlemen and ladies still, if they ever
had been really and truly such; and what is more, they would make
every one who met them feel that they were gentlemen and ladies, in
spite of all their poverty.

Now, people do not often understand clearly why this is. They feel,
more or less, that so it is; but they cannot explain it. I could
tell you why they cannot; but I will not take up your time. But if
they cannot explain it, there are those who can. St. Paul explains
it in the Epistle. The Lord Jesus Himself explains it in the
Gospel. They tell us why money will not make a gentleman. They
tell us why poverty will not unmake one: but they tell us more.
They tell us the one only thing which makes a true gentleman. And
they tell us more still. They tell us how every one of us, down to
the poorest and most ignorant man and woman in this church, may
become true gentlemen and ladies, in the sight of God and of all
reasonable men; and that, not only in this life, but after death,
for ever, and ever, and ever. And that is by charity, by love.

Now, if you will look two or three chapters back, in the Epistle to
the Corinthians--at the 11th and 12th chapters--you will see that
these Corinthians were behaving to each other very much as people
are apt to do in England now. They all wanted to rise in life, and
they wanted to rise upon each other's shoulders. Each man and woman
wanted to set themselves up above their neighbours, and to look down
upon them. The rich looked down on the poor, and kept apart from
them at the Lord's Supper; and no