| Show SHOPS LAST ItI in the of Refi iia the following most remarkable sermon dill ts century is reported to have been preached on christ mas last by the bishop of london eugling Eug lind TIM N text io nor met weep and howl for your miseries that shall dome upon you behold the hire of t he laborers who have reaped your fields which is of YOU kept ly fraud and the cries of them which davd reaped dow n ar e entered the lord of yo have lived in pleasure and have been wanton ya h r hearts as in a day of at ve hare condemned and killed the just and resist you james v 1 4 50 6 cie eizens the text which which read you and from behall preach the list sermon as bishop that ishall ever 4 I 1 el liver from abi S pulpit a h ieh 19 bably ets tin familiar to you comfortable well to do people as it is familiar to all choie who dined i it penned have toiled ad suffered for humanity although it is read sometimes in the ordinary course of our church lee I 1 yet jud i ng duct yur card ave been deaf to its terrible denunciations from the days when I 1 was an humble curate shtil now I 1 have had a large and varied eap exp e fience 0 f cathedrals churches pre and sermons but I 1 ha v e never yet heard a discourse based on abete words and I 1 cannot learn from any 0 X my brother bishops or priests that they have ever need them or heard them so used I 1 can see by your uneasy 4 I 1 e that you are asking your delves why on this christmas day in accordance with cus tom I 1 should be preaching smooth things to houi should be maa enough to offend your delicate bus the 5 of one nathe common people words written eighteen elgh teen centuries ago abich might have done very well then but dosal bly bi applied to you and t U r elm today to day you who co ni er e clad ip purple and fine linen who some of you live in kings houses vilio fare delicately every day and who consider that you have fulfilled every moral obligation when vou hive dropped a coin into the collel a box before you step into your carriage to be driven aito your lux urious homes it is because that I 1 believe that only james but jesuit christ himself if he could stand in my alace today would burl there wor 3 at you with a force and a passion of chwe a tills nibe century hai e but little con cep tiou not As a bishop but as a m no I 1 repeat them to you hardly ho pi D g that they may touch your h e arts b u t m 0 r e as n 1 u s t i fi c a tion f 0 r y n 0 r i a n d e tr og e i 0 s i ti 0 n 0 forbears For years I 1 have been one of on my home has nat been christs home was with the mass but with the classes I 1 have an abundance of this worlds goods I 1 have lived with the fashionable with the wealthy and I 1 have been a dignitary of a church which is the church bf abe rich and not the church of the poor without a protest I 1 have mixed in society with men and hornen whom christ would have denounced as bitterly as he the scribes and pharisee in the house of bards chave silent ly sat side by side gera and adulterers and as silently have I 1 as chiy personal friends high born women some of whom see before me to day with no would allow wife or daughter to asso chate I 1 have been among you spread ing like a canker the last of the flesh and the pride of life and in stead of reproving you as christ would have done I 1 have taken e u H a and haxe not dire d your individual and all this time there has been going on around me ia this huge ciar and the land the surging toiling life the sorrow the suffering th po v ere ty the disease the sin and shame ahne I 1 h I 1 realize but dimly aa some thi g altogether apart from my own existence but for irlich I 1 at I 1 get see clearly you and 1 have be en up the present ti memos fly to blame we and our clam have kept back by fraud the hire of the laborers who have reaped ou r field we have lived in pleasure ona he earth and been wanton we love nourished our own hearts while we have starved the bodies of those to whom we owe the very bread wd we wear and now we are condemns i and our very ga whose inarticulate cry is entering into the eam of the lard whose we pretend to be my fellow citizens I know not how it apay be with you but for me this careless selfish life is ended little b r little I 1 lave awakened to the fact that all my days I 1 leave ea neglect edmy real duty to iny fellow men and at last I 1 have come to know that my place is not here as the wel croper paid bishop of a church chic be in its present con ii utterly opposed to every t ag which cariot taught but por to whom ile do aured that the dospel should he E t bac h e d amon gibe laborers whose to we h a ve kept baa b y fraud too long have I 1 neglected the miserable mia erable metal faeta of our so called christian civilization too long have I 1 spoken to you ammoth things and oried wh was no I 1 ave k wu by repute wet ibm was daiset ay abou amou 9 our starvation star ration in our inida t rd prostitution our streets ut hibb have aken theseas a 01 for which yott and I 1 were hot amiblo mi blo but which were real lydae to the inherent winked ness of nature but now I 1 aeve aa th our 6 have bem wilt ahk I 1 i and have learned this as VOU may also learn if louwill I 1 lave res 1 l aed that frog this christ mile day dinv inv now life shall begin today I 1 in rob esI give up my bishopric my and my come I 1 give up my pleasures of bo biety and odthe boltl I 1 give u en y leatia the of lords and sk lut I 1 take my place as a man amona men it is I 1 know a bold step I 1 have taken have tile cost resolved no longer to live 00 tha labors of others I 1 shall have to join the arial army of the unemployed to morrow I 1 shall attempt to preach my first sermon to them in brafa I 1 ar square from the same text that bave used here today to day nod it is likel that I 1 shall pass tomorrow ail lit in a police cell but there I 1 he 1 be no worse aff than jesus christ would be if he attempted atte meted kcf eater this abbey min ter mcw for and locked up as a vagabond w thou t means of substance ad to your class he would simply be a laborer whose subsistence you have ker by fraud to the abo 0 that fraud and of the disei I 1 ry and degradation re suit from it I 1 shall henceforth de life it will be no easy task not near so easy as being bishop but the reward ota good conscience and of noble work wall done is better barthau far thau a palace and ten thousand pound a in this p tear ace I 1 I 1 shall prot ably ne ver speak again but fr te dom shall have opened out her arms and gathered all men into her wide ambrice em brice when custica and T th sh it it h ve taken th deplace ofru op prea sion and fraud some man of the people shall stand in this temple of the dead and I 1 aspired by abe best tradition of the past the noblet of the future and ideal han of sena biagi ing through these 1611 ity aisles that living christmas message which till then can never have its full el 9 at floe can PA pase on earth an goodwill to ann HERBERT burrows |
