RESPONSIBILITIES OF WEALTH.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVII, Issue 8910, 9 November 1907, Page 6

RESPONSIBILITIES OF WEALTH.

A MEMORABLE SERMON

TRINITY OHUKOH, NEW YORK

BISHOP OF LONDON SPEAKS

HIS MIND

MILLIONAIRES TOLD SOME

PLAIN TRUTHS

New Zealanders will doubtless remember that Dr Wiunington-lugram, the Bishop of London, was tho first to whom the New Zoalaud Bishopric of Wellington was offorod when that see was vacated in 18!)3by tho resignation of Bishop Hadfiold, he boiug then head of the Oxford House, Bothnalpreeu. His subsequent success as Bishop, first of Stepney and now of London, is historic He is at present on a visit to tlio United States of • America, and has been creating a tre-; mendous sensation, partly by his intensely vigorous and genial personality and partly by a splendid and most courageous sermon which ho preached on Sunday, 22ud September, to a congregation of millionaires, Wall-street financiers, and fashionable ladies. The New York correspondent of a leading London paper says:— Dr Wiuningtou-lugram, the Bishop pf London, visited Wall-street, and in Trinity Church, before a congregation consisting of eminent financiers, stockbrokers, ladies of fashion, and stenogi'apliei's, preached a sermon which will ever be memorable in the History of the oldest and wealthiest church corporation of New York. Without the slightest atte ,- oratory, but with no ~*npt at words, the bishop •' mincing of arising from v a welt on the evils of the ■ ..nscTupulons exploitation W , "' powers of money. If the is to be saved from the brooding -discontent of Socialism, every man must regard himself as the steward, not the owner, of the capital under his coutrol. The sermon was delivered with such simple earnestness that it was impossible for any of the great Trust magnates and stockbrokers in the congregation to take offence. But the fact that next week, in the ap poiutment of a receivership for the luterborotigh Metropolitan Railways, one of the gravest financial scandals ever heard of in New York came to ilght, lent irrisistible import to the bishon's words. He liad travelled to New York ,ou a private yacht from Great Neck, Long Island, and driven immediately to Trinity Church, at the head of Wallstreet/which was packed with sightseers, anxious to catch a glimpse of the democratic bishop. The symbolic insignificance of the sacred edifice, whose lofty spire seems quite diminutive beside* the forty-storied commercial palaces near by, must have forcibly impressed the bishop's mind. Tho church was crammed to its utmost capacity, while" thousands outside were unable to gain admission. Mr Pierpont Morgan and many other notable figures in the financial world, though new-holders, had to content themselves with standing room, and so great was the crush that many ladies fainted. Taking as his text the words in the Gospel of St. Luke, "Render an account of thy stewardship," the bishop drew an effective picture of his home atFnlham Palace, and said he would be regarded as a madman if he called that palace his own. Similarly, millionaires were madmen who considered themselves the owners and not the trustees of capital. Neglect of this elementary Christian truth, the Bishop observed, was the cause of all social evils from which London and New York were suffering. "No man who is really a Christian would soil his hands with one dollar the possession of which lie could not justify in the sight of Heaven.''