THE BISHOP OF MASCHESTER AND MRS. DESANT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6261, 10 December 1881, Page 7

THE BISHOP OF MASCHESTER AND MRS. DESANT.

Mrs. Besant having felt aggrieved at some remarks made by the Bishop of Manchester in a speech he recently delivered denouncing secularism as " breaking down the purity of English family life," asked his lordship to prove his assertion. In his reply his lordship remarks :—"I say advisedly, on the authority not only of the clergy, but of laymen who mix among the working classes, and know their thoughts, that the sanctities of domestic life are not valued by men who adopt the atheistic and secularist hypothesis. A book that has been condemned as utterly immoral in its teachings and tendency, 'The Fruits of Philosophy'—for which I believe, with whatever intention, you are responsible —is still publicly sold in the streets of Manchester, and was not long ago taken by a clergyman in Burnley out of the hands of a young unmarried female Sunday scholar, who was thus taking poison into her nature. In Manchester, not many months since, 47 men were apprehended by the police, engaged in the most detestable practices, and I say distinctly and firmly, that if men's faith in a God and righteousness is destroyed, ami they are taught that there is no hereafter and no account to be given of their lives here, these doctrines and their natural and necessary outcome will destroy the moral health of life at its root and make purity an impossible virtue. I feel bound to lift >:p my voice against these terrible issues wherever I have the opportunity. The spreading canker of impurity in all classes of society, of which medical men sadly assure me, is the one thing that alarms me for the future of England."