TOBOGANNING TO THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10957, 27 April 1907, Page 6 (Supplement)

TOBOGANNING TO THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.

FATHER VAUGHAN'S LAST DENUNCIATION. LONDON, March 15. Father Bernard VaUghan has delivered another remarkable sermon on " The Sins 'of Society" to a crowded congregation at Farm Street Church. .He exhorted his 'hearers to "rally round the standard of those brave men arid pure women who are doing so much to save EJngland from deserving the pahie given her by foreign, nations as Europe's nursery of vice."' . . ■ , . The following are some of the striking passages of the sermon, the text of which was : "And Herod, with his army, set Him at naught, and mocked Him" :— "Are Britain and France embracing one another m the entente cordiale and tobogganing down a slimy steep ending m the bottomless pit? , "Herod represented the voluptuous giddy world of dissipation, aud he wanted to see Jesus not because He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, but because He was being talked aboqt. Any one was welcome who could help to stimulate the jaded appetite of the foul, flabby, fleshy voluptuary. SEEKING SENSATIONS. -' "If Jesus were to come to Loudon today society would be as anxious lo see Him as Herod was, and for no better reason — namely, because it has heard many thingsof Him, and because m its august presguce 'He would be alm.st sure to work a miracle.' "Even I, simply because a good many people happen to come to hear. me, receive quite a number of flattering invitations 'just to meet a few friends at lunch, during which to talk over the beautiful sermon.' ... "At best society is a poor, petty, paltry show, while at worst it is a lying, vicious diabolical intrigue. "Its curse seems to be that it loves darkness better than light; m fact, it. treats as vulgarities whatever, speaks to it of duty, of sin, of death, or of the judgment to come. "What else is to be expected from people who despise and mock one another? "To me there are few sights more pathetic than that presented by a beautiful woman, beautifully accoutred, 111 beautiful pose, pouring forth a lava of fiendish abuse of some other woman whose chief offence is that her pearls weigh heavier, or that she is perhaps more popular. "Again, how pitiable, not to say cruelly wicked, it is for mothers to treat their debutante daughters as some of them do — dressing them badly, treating them bjidly, detracting them ."badly, and all because they happen to he younge' and prettier than themselves."