The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-10-30 00:00:00

WILL THE ENEMY MEET THEM

A number et High Church pastors have agreed to loin to-
gether for the purpose of devoting twelve days in the mouth
of November to united prayer, and other religious exercises
for the conversion of sinners. The movement has been set
on blot to counteract The danger believed by its promoters to
threaten the land by the spread of irreligion and indiffer-
ence. Remarking upon this the Daily Sr ws says :
Our columns contained on Saturday a Manifesto
issued by the Rev. Canon Gregory and other
well-an pun clergymen, fixing the 14th November
next for a "special attack upon sin and Satan."
We wish these gallant members of the Church
Militant every success. The war in which they
are engaged has lasted a long while, and is drag-
ging heavily, so that any prospect of decisive
operations is welcome. There is one point on which
we should like to have further information. An
we read their order of the day, if we may so style it,
they do not propose to go outside their oon churches
to meet the enemy, and we do not quite understand
how they can be sure of a meeting with him at the
particular time and place they may appoint. it would
be just like their wily old foe if, while they were open-
ing fire fr.,m their guns of position with great fracas,
1 he were absent at the head of his fly lug columns. and
gathering trophies in the open. Ilowever, these clergy-
men, we feel sure, will do their best with the forces at
their disposal, and they have our hearty good wishes.

In reference to the foregoing, the Rev. Newman
Hall has written the following to the Daily News
"I was sorry to see In your paper of Monday an article cal.
culated to give to some readers an impression totally bppuseti
to the well-known sentiments of the Daily News. It referred
t . the proposal of into iligh Church clergy to devote a week
In harem' Mr to a special attack on inamrallty and irreligion.
I am sure that in sone somewhat humorous comment you
coubi not have me.t tit that the toethods proposed—viz . pm) er
to Go.l and pre iching the Gospel—are not, according to
the Christian faith, th - most eff,ctual means of doing this.
Between Ritualists and myself thero is nothing in nornunal,
except or ennunon Christiana) ( which, however, is sonic-
t• dug, ; but so greats is the prevalence of drunkenness vice,
slid ut•goilline.a, that I rejoice in this proposal, ;111,1 should
be glad if Nooconformists were to show the true Catholic
spirit which animates them by selecting the very mine week
tar promoting the very same object by the very same means."
Ti which the Daily News thus reidiet
With the utmost respect for the Rev. Newman Hall, we
have to observe that we have always found that we could
sefely rely upou the intelligence and candour of the public,
and Mr. Hall is the first to suggest that our observations on
Monday meant anything more than that operations against
moral and spiritual evil, carried on merely within the
interiors of churches and chapels, where the masSes, among
whom "sin and Satan" make most havoc, ate rarely to Ito
found, must necessarily have but limited results.