Evils of the Times

Evening Star, Issue 8116, 16 January 1890, Page 4

Evils of the Times

At Canterbury Cathedral the other day the Archbishop of Canterbury met the cathedral body and other prominent members in his diocese, and delivered the first of His Grace’s visitation charges. His Lordship remarked that the problems of the English Church were “poverty, temperance, purity, and lay work,” and those subjects would form the subjects of his several addresses. In town and country each one of these great questions was to the All men looked to see how the church stood the test—the effect on these points on society. They knew the state of morals in large classes of the community—no less in some strata of the rich than in some strata of the poor ; they knew that the streets of London flung temptations broadcast before youth and inexperience, and medical authorities spoke of a river of poison flowing into the bloody of this nation. They had a class of suffering people, who could only just exist, hanging on a sharp edge of illness, hunger! uucleanliness, physical and moral incapacity, mental and bodily, in full sight of abundance, luxury, and waste. It was absurd not to know that the proportion of the evil now to the palliatives in use was more formidable than of old. It was impossible to think that any material or secular education was only the way to abolish the virus of self-iadulgence, or the pleasure of extravagance, or the passion for wealth, or the recklessness of extreme poverty. The Archbishop concluded as follows.:—“ Then we may well consider Whether our Church of England may not silence bickerings and postpone controversies, which in fhe sight of much fields of necessity and of work I am ashamed to name, in order to devote her energies to such problems and to strike out agencies for their solving. Her doctrines and her worship will not suffer while she is about her Father’s business, so long as the great fountain of doctrine and worship and character is open in the midst of her. Lastly, our wealth must consider whether it is not time for it to devote some real proportion of itself after the manner of our father’s wealth to a religious solution of the problems whi,ch left to themselves can solve themselves only in whatever may be the natural outcome of despair. Riches and poverty can both combine in the endeavor. Healthful homes and workplaces can be insisted on. Magnificent institutions which in all reason might supplement the surroundings of tiny homes wealth can give, but only the church can supply the souls of them. A personnel trained in the organisation of charity and teaching of true religion, and with men for working all necessary agencies, can alone recover what the educational system of the State and parochial system cannot overtake. Only the church can supply the men and the spirit within the men. Let her,’’