A BISHOP'S INDICTMENT.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXIV, Issue 24, 18 April 1912, Page 7

A BISHOP'S INDICTMENT.

A NOTABLE DELIVERANCE. Dr.. Gore, the Bishop of Oxford, ha& made a remarkable indictment of the Ghuroh's neglect of its social duty, in an address to the Christian Social Union. He says that his statement was "as well considered as any thing I can say on any subject," and what he said was said of the Church of England, to which Jie belongs. WHERE THE BISHOP FAILED. "His task," he said, '"for many years had .been to persuade C'huroilmen that they ought to take a very different attitude from that which was and customary in regard to social questions, but lie bad met with a very singular anid almost unique lack of success. "I have constantly sat down bewildered," Dr Gore confessed, ''before the blank and, as it seems to me, simply stupid refusal cf the mass of ChurchpeopOe to recognise their social duties. Why on earth is it? What produces this strange blindness of heart and mind? Often have I tortured my miiul trying to find an answer to those questions, and tortured it in vain. I simply recognise the fact: it stares you in the face.

"If yon want to get .a. social reform carried out,-' declared the Bishop, "you find that persons of different- kinds who are not members of the Established Church of this country frequently put us .to sha.fne in their zeal for social causes. Of course, I recognise that there is a. considerable body of Churchmen, who -are zealous 011 these subjects, but I think that what I say about the mass o/f our communicants is true. At the same time, I must recognise that it is quite possible, if I were a. Nonconformist minister, I should still feel the same about the class of mv fellow-membeiss.

SOCIETY ON A MORAL BASIS

"Sometime:, he conjectured that there were certain arguments I>y which the mind? of churchgoers were sr.ilaced. Such an argument was that 'our Lord was not ,a social reformer.' That had a certain amount of plausibility abnut it, a::;l was constantly supported by the quotation of the text: 'Whc. made lie a judge and -a divided over vou?'

, "What was the truth flhont the •argument? If there was -mytiling quite certain, it was that rair Lord took His .stand upon the Old Testament—that He'-assumed the Old Testament to ho accented by His hearers. But the Law and the Prophets had been striving to establish a great social system on a gretib moral basis: unmista-kaWy, for instance; it declared that the first and not the last change xipon any industry was the proper payment of the worker. If they would only understand that until they believed the Old Testament they could not believe the New, they woiiUd.all he social reformers.

» "People say that our Lord was not a, social reformer," the Bishop (repeated. "If He were to come into our elm relies and say what He sadd about po'verty and wealth what would happ'en ? ■ If. the word*: were not so familiar as to have 'become stale in our minds, what would be said to anyone who had: the .audacity to get up and use t'hom to one of our ordinary congregations? People would not call it social reform, but something a great deal' worse. "Look at our Lord's 'awful and tremendous words about wealth, words which none of us who are rich in income to-day can hear without trembling through and through. The 'pooi-' Whom He called 'blessed,' were they like the poor of our slums? Not a bit of it; they were men. like the Apostles, , -of the well-to-do artisan class. Remembering what he said about the rich, and the poor, and then remembering the state of, owr society to-day, I dare any one of you to say what He preached was not a 'revolutionary' doctrine, which we have got over again to digest and make o.ur own. THE M OST REVOLUTION ARY THING. "Do you say He was not a social reformer? AVlhat- did He do? He funded the Church—the brotherhood. If' you say to me, 'I don't want to-go-mixing up with your dirty politics; [ want to. follow pure religion,' I say, 'do and do it; that is the revolutionary thing you can do; that is what turned the world upsida down.' "

There did not appear to him, iDr Gore went on, to he any justification for saying that our present society is unalterable. There was not >a shadow of doubt, but that if only one-half of the communicants of the Church of England were in earnest it could 'be altered by the creation of an intense feeling of repulsion and the dawning of >a great vision. Then there would be no talk of this party or that party; o f this measure or that measure; the thing would simply happen, ,beeaai.se it would, hare become disgusting; and intolerable that it should not.

OUR YOUNG DEGENERATES. The Bishop went on. to picture in •scathing language the rapid- degeneration in "this Christian country" of our young people as they gro-w into early manhood and womanhood. Why did lads brimming over with intelligence when they left school change in ten or even, five years into stupid creatures of -routine, without hope, principles, or interests ? Because they were plkced in conditions of life which were calculated to destroy every vestige of soul and intelligence. "There is not a. sixado-w of reason to believe that that could not -be altered if a sufficiently revolutionary spirit were to enter into the majority of Churchmen and Ghurchwomen/* cried the trisiiop. "Take the question of wages. Upon the mirnd of the enquirer in % great, city like Birmingham there must settle down the conviction that a plague of the making of the well-to-do had: fallen upon the people. Here were "vast masses living 011 the'verge of ta precipice, -waiting for the next chance to uipset them into perdition and the gu'lf of unemployment. Was that <a condition of society on which our Enrd could look with anything. upon, his lips but those maledictions which vsere the worst things ever spoken ?

DULL TO THE GtREAT APPEAL. i "Short of a modern miracle, tens of thousands could not keep their hope, their strength, their .purity. Were they going to tolerate that?

"I do sit down and lask: What is this old Church of England iahout? Why is it so insensate, so dull to the great appeal that ought to make it stir ? These things can 'be altered by political, by every kind of means. If you, instead of being that apathetic, sluggish kind of person who forms the great body of communicants, are full of active determination!, do you suppose that things would he as they are in Loudon or Birmingham, or anywhere etlse ?

"Then you would say: 'Wait! Oh, no ; not at all. Parties! We don'tr care twopence-halfpenny for parties. Things have got to he altered ; we are going to have them a Itemed straight awav. They have got to be done now I' "