The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-02-11 00:00:00

DEAN STANLEY ON THE DOWNFALL

OF PARIS.

Lait Sunday Aternoon Lean Stanley preached a
sermon in Westminster Abbey in aid of the fund now
bvieg raced in the city of Loudon for the relief of the
desti‘ute and starving people in Paris. Though little
notice had been given of the Dean's intention to te
enlist public sympathy, there we a very large comme-
gation, and the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs attended the
service in State. [lt may be worthy of remark that
there is hardly an occation within living memory,
it in unslerstood, in which the civic dignitaries of the
City if Lnnlon have Is fore been present sithin the
Ally, except at a Coronation, aod the circum-
stance, therefore, is noticeable from it rarity.]
Dean Stanley took for his text the inthjolned, though not
eon.ruotive, vermin from the Llmentetiour of Jeremiah
How ilea the city sit solitary that woefull of people! how
is the become as a widow 1 she that was great among the
nations, anal princess among the pronitars, hole is she to, COME
&Ont.?! ! Arise, tory out in the night ! in the begiunong of
the watches pour oat thine heart like water before the face of
the Lord kit up thy hands toward Him for the lie of thy
young children, tho t faint for htmgAr in the top of every street.
Remember, 0 Lord, trituf is douse upon us: confider a 7,11
bek id our repro och. Oar itherieo/le, is ittriied to s.rangers,
our houses to atieus We are orphans and fatherless, our
onothors are at widows. Our necks are under pereettlion ;
we tabour, and have 714 rest."

The Dean recounted the circumstances under which the
Baia of Lamentations WAS written, and, having detcr!hed
is general tone and tenor, he aged who could doubt the
special application of his text to the subject which was to
occupy the tie tights of the congregation. The general prin-
ciple it Incnlcated—sometimee forgotten, and always needing
to be recalled—was the cry of cohering humanity.
Whatever any of them might.have thought of the origin of
the present war, ho ever little or much they might bane
thought ita authors ay blame, however deeply and bitterly
they might have deplored the BMWs on one side or the other
by which it had been prolonged or carried ow—all each
thoughts now had tuttle second place. At that momea they
dreamt cally of the overwhelming misery among two millions
of human bangs exposed to want, ccli, and diegomfort
of every kind, increasing in intenelty until It moulted in
famine, starvation, and death. iimh a spectacle se
'rutin/Jed had not ten within the expel lance of the ptesent
glimerallm ; fu acme respects it had not been within the
en/silence of any generattm fu hi/story. There had been
great natural vhdtations like the Irish famine of 1846 and

the ootton Undue in oar northern district. in 1,62. There '
had been slopes in ancient and modem times during which
greater end eriegs had been undergone: but a siege on so
vast a scale had never been men in the world's annals, and
a !smite at ence so widely spread and so stindeuly recorded
ha i never before been disclosed to mortal eyes. In the pre-
sence et such a visitation we were compelled to feel that
sat: were r htions of the great human faintly, and it invited
us to conic over and help them. There were two special
cads which tilts vast disclosure of misery made upon ils—arne
more remote, though of a more hertualant kind ;tire other
more innuedlete and pressing Is was lice beset, 10 years
ago since • get at audience was thrilled through and throngh
by the moving description which one of the greatest English
orators pave MI the siege of Genoa towards the and of the
last century. The story waa told with tile view of fixing
{ceder at:or:Who on the cruel necenity Imposed on natl.,.
anti :senates by the laws of war. lead the streaker showed
with hapax Meet rarreeness that great cities ought no
tonere t have their preligious !otters el, and that, what-
ever tee horrors of war in futare might be, Ito y should be
relieved of the terrible misery causequent up ,n cinch esta-
bi.sieneets. We nog it be thankful tail a tiffs Country the
salauilties which Paris had been called to endure could never
occur, scelng that lore no great city was trilled, and that
a vast populatlencould snot be enelored within entitled walls
and serried into a besieged camp, He trusted that It might
ever Inc so, and that England might remain free from this
sp.:el-1 cause of human suffering. Wit ho had now to speak
of a wart preseing and intend ate. It was not the sleet of
a month heave. but of thla we k ; the a ant riot of ea mor-
rut., tu6 ci to.dty. 10 wee the time and ultra watt Inn
gelvdege to unite with the two col feeding uatioos in dehr
what neither of them equal do alone or reels together for
the mitigation co' the emcee's, reitery, poverty, Mel Lamina
&meter a ptople witbia n day's iteerney from our shore.,
and who were slow phaing and perishing for lack of food.
The Dean, in pasting entered into an eloquent retrospect
elite treat capital of France, comparing it lu what he
called Its nobler sat more serious aspect with the tine
when it drank of the cup of its sorcerers., caltra.tiag the
amatacres of Si, klarthatomow and et September with the
era wheni it became the bright star of the morning and
it the darns of a glorittua dea in the initireAst of
humanity—a city famed for heroic virtues, for V. hatever
wan gtti.ctous and chivalrous; for saintly and lime-honoured
Minna ; tic its architectural and landscape beauties, Its
spachus stietts and leligthened avenues, its venerable
chmcbse, and its magnificent libraries anti museums ; in
al or', ho mini, the glory of the world'e nreailleSn, the kerns
of the gaiety of the human heart, the joy if the whole
earth. But he went on to trey, rooting his teat:—" How
cloth the city eit solitary that Ives full of people ! how hi
she become a allow! she that was great amorg the nations,
anti princess among the provd.ces, how is she In, estate tribu-
tary !" In those words. be said, he had ventured to describe
the misery reiultieg from so terrible a catastrophe, and
which as at-hole could tilt be adequately dept--led by guy
other. They judged net, however, the vat quistied or the
vi3ters ; they could not but remember that thee by whom
the suffering bad been brought about had themselves been
iv:fleeces, and had the fortune twf war turned against them
they would have suffered still more der ply. Tony were now
culled tempi), t s assist in mitigating a great calamity, whi
by Cled's providence, they were specially enabled to do. The
dote neighbordhoed of England anti France, which In
former days led to many a bitter ail.-underatatitlino; end
many a cruel ear, was now turned for us and for them into
a blersed opportunity for charily and bentfieence, for reliev-
ing many a worn out frame and many a Wit ken heart, or
fer seeing many a precious life. To uo other nation on earth
bad the duty been an obviouely essigued, a ill our ten alth iii
money and ccnimoditlee, and to us it bad been con-
mitted in the moat literal snore of the word to love our

neighbour—cur great and fallen reighbour—es we loved
ourselves To us even the altpowerful corquerora ap-
pealed ta aid them in their truly generous udssion
of dividing with their metric, the assistonce which
was hardly inn ;tent to maintain them bath. lio had
ventured to give those details ; he used no argu-
ments, f. r none were made& It was enough that a great
neightsoming nation vas perishing within sight of our
shores, that the wisdom stud the io.ed of eupplsing their
wants were recomdzsd by sal who bad the best means of
knowing, and that not only this east metropolis, hut the
whole nation, through its Government and Its municipali-
ties, was responding to the ealL London, as the sister clly
of the capital thus Inflated, bad come forward to lead this
enterprise of mercy; and in that Cathedral Church of West-
minster, where Frenchmen and E :gthhoson lay side by side,
the first appeal had beets addressed to a congreeation ot
worshippers. Ile Urad them, in concludon, to glee wISI
they could, for the thee was short, the nerd in the last
degree urgent, and the work beneficent.
As the congregation deported a large collection was made
fit tho doors of the Abaey tan example it may be atated in
sorrow, by no meals generally L.nowed In London churches )