In 1865 England was swept by a devastating epidemic of foot and mouth disease. In rural Norfolk, a vicar who was later to become the first Bishop of Liverpool preached a sermon which, in the manner of those days, became a tract for the times and was read by millions.
J.C. Ryle, whose books of sermons still sell worldwide today, took his title from the Book of Exodus 8:19, in which the magicians of Egypt's Pharaoh, unable to replicate the plagues which afflicted the nation, declared: "This is the finger of God".
The epidemic had the by the throat, said Ryle. Myriads of cattle had already died and there was not a county in England that was not suffering. He said the government was at its wits' end while scientists and vets were completely baffled, for "with all the accumulated wisdom of the 19th century we have found a foe that entirely beats us".
Ryle said that as a minister of Christ he wished to point up some issues that appeared likely to be forgotten. One was that God was still governing his world as in Old Testament times; and the answer to the questions "Why us?" and "Why now?" could be answered only with the words of the magicians: it is the finger of God.
Ryle saw Britain as plainly under the judgment of God and he listed some of the sins which he believed had provoked diving anger: "To make money and to die rich seems to be thought the highest virtue and the greatest wisdom, yet God has said covetousness is idolatry and the love of money is the root of all evil," he preached. He identified love of pleasure and luxury as a sin whereby the British had become "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God" (Second Letter of St Paul to Timothy, 3:4). He instanced the failure to keep the Sabbath holy as another national failure.
"The quantity of intoxicating drink needlessly consumed every year in England is frightful. The number of public houses, gin palaces and beer shops is a standing proof that we are an intemperate people, yet God has plainly said no drunkard shall enter his kingdom," Ryle said.
He then took issue with the prevalence of adultery, a tendency towards false religion, and scepticism about the Bible. He said there were even clergy who dared to call themselves Christian, yet boasted that much of the Bible was not true. Ryle took the whole nation to task as he insisted everyone should consider their ways in an age of hurry, bustle, restlessness and fast living: "Railways and telegraphs keep everyone in a state of unhealthy excitement. Now surely it would be well, when the hand of God is stretched out against us, if we were all to sit down and think a little. Are we not all over England living too fast? Would it not be well if there were more Bible reading, more Sunday keeping, more calm, quiet effort to serve God and honour him?" he asked.
The future bishop said England was a proud, self-conceited nation and its people considered themselves the wisest, greatest, richest and bravest people in the world. When God's hand was against them in judgment, it was time to give up that boastful spirit.
As he closed, Ryle appealed for national repentance and a return to daily godliness: "The sins of a nation are made up of the sins of a great number of individuals. Now, if every individual tries to amend his own life and to do better, the whole nation will soon improve. The city is soon clean when every man sweeps opposite his own door." From where Ireland finds itself this weekend, does Ryle's sermon read as though it is 150 years out of date? C.S. Lewis described suffering and distress as God's megaphone to a deaf world. What is God saying to Ireland, and is there a contemporary J.C. Ryle in a pulpit anywhere to spell it out plainly?
Ryle's concluding prayer will be as helpful to 21st-century believers as it was to a perplexed and suffering congregation in the 19th:
"Almighty God, who orderest all things in heaven and earth, and in whose hand is the life of man and beast, have pity on us miserable sinners, who are now visited with great sickness and mortality among our beasts. We humbly confess that we deserve thy chastisement because of our many national sins, but spare us, good Lord, according to thy tender mercies. Deal not with us according to our sins. Withdraw from us this grievous plague and restore health to our cattle. Above all, stir up amongst us true repentance and increase true religion in the land. We ask all in the name and through the mediation of Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory. Amen."