Article for January Publications: Onward to the New Year!

In the spring of 1865, in the little Yorkshire village of Horbury Bridge, the Rev’d Sabine Baring-Gould thought the children of his Sunday school should have something cheerful to sing as they marched to the nearby church of St Peter’s for the Whitsuntide festival. Thinking of the journey of the Christian life, he wrote a simple marching hymn, “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” I spoke about “Onward, Christian Soldiers” in my Remembrance Sunday homily, as it is a hymn that can divide opinion. In the course of researching the hymn I found some curious details about Baring-Gould’s life. He was the son of a country squire who had expected his son to follow in the family business, but Sabine, against his father’s wishes, became a vicar. It seems this independence of mind was characteristic of the man, for Sabine once more defied his father—and the social attitudes of his day—to marry a mill girl named Grace Taylor. They were married for forty-eight years and had fifteen children. If all that is not evidence enough of Sabine Baring-Gould’s independence of mind, then this extract from his memoirs, which tells of how he came to teach with a bat on his shoulder, surely must be sufficient:

“One day whilst I was sitting before my fire, down the chimney came tumbling a bat. It fell on the hearth-mat. I picked it up and put it in a worsted stocking, which I nailed up beside the fire-place, and there it lived quite happily. Every day at one o’clock it descended and took its place under my chair, where it waited till I came from dinner in the hall, whereupon it would crook itself on to my trouser, crawl up on to my knee, and sit there, whilst I fed it with milk. It became tame, and loved to be caressed and talked to. Sometimes it would mount to my shoulder and sit there; and when I went to my class, would remain there immovable, to the great amusement of the boys and distraction from their lesson. On my return I put the little creature back into the stocking, where it slept, till hungry. The boys called it my Familiar; and thought that it whispered strange secrets into my ear.”

Why am I telling you all this? People often think that being a Christian means conforming, but actually being a Christian allows you to be yourself—or rather, allows you to become your better self. The Christian life is one of repentance, from a Greek word meaning “a change of heart and mind.” Making New Year resolutions is an annual secular example of repentance, often made without the acknowledged inspiration and guidance of God, or sometimes even completely without His inspiration and guidance. Christian repentance is to act in accordance with your better self, to act in accordance with the person God created you to be. It is to see what you have failed to be, but also to see what, by the grace of God, you can yet become. As it says in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Which might mean following the call of God despite what your father says, or marrying the girl you love despite what society says, or teaching with a bat on your shoulder despite the sniggers of the classroom.

Happy New Year & Onward, Christian Soldiers!

Rev’d Stephen Gamble