THE CHURCH AND LABOUR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8179, 11 July 1906, Page 7

THE CHURCH AND LABOUR.

The Bishop of Birmingham (Dy <3ore) was one of the speakers at the annual meeting of the Ohuroh Reform Leagae, on May lßt. He delivered a remarkable address on the attitude of the Ohuroh towards labour. The health and vigour of aay ohuroh, at any moment, depended, he said, upon the extent to which the spirit which was expressed in it was the spirit of those who were at the bottom, and not mainly the spirit of capital, and of poverty rather than of wealth. "I am speaking," continued Dr Gore, "on Labour Day, Whioh ie also St Phillip and St James' Day. Ido not know that it is more than an aooident that the days should coincide, but,' rightly or wrongly, the Ohuioh directs ua to the Epistle of St James on this day, and I can conceive the document better qualified than that short letter to give labour its charter ■ and its distinction. it oame, he f proceeded, to be more and more ' the all-absorbing tnought that this expression of the spirit of labour must be the goal of their reform, beaause as they passed from one to another of the councils of churchment they must feel generally how very little really'representative these councils of the Churoh were of labour. "1 am as sure," added Dr Gore, "as I can be of any fact on earth, that, from the Christian point of view, the strength of any Churoh is measured by the degree to which its representation of those who belong to the classes to which Jesus Christ chose to give the prerogative of His Kingdom; that is, those whom we customarily call by the name of the labouring classes. The . attitude of the Church has, (on the whole, been the attitude of patronage, the attitude which deals with them from above, not the attitude of a Church whioh is continually • realising that in that class Jesud Christ found the real strength of our religion, and to that class he has Risen a prerogative place in His kingdoir."