The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-02-16 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OP SYDNEY,

r. Barey, the new 333 shop of Sydney and Primate
oil' Australia, preached his :nue' sermon previous to his
departure for his diocese ta a crowded congregation,
at WeNlminster Abbey on Suiday morning,
Taking for his text the worar, "Bringing forth out
of his treaeuree things new and old" (Matthew all ,
36), the bishop drew attention to the accounts of the
creation of tiler world as told in Gexesis and of the new
creation as foretold in Revelations, remarking that as
in the former case there was a contienous process of
evolution, so in the latter there was a continuone
growth. In the progress of individual life and of the
world towards tha perfection we called heaven we-
might truly say, with these facts before us, that
nothing would be destroyed except That which
being evil is against the true law of being,- and that
it was because the past is not dead that we
could rise as on stepping dotes to higher
things. The progress of human society depended
on the blending of the old and the new. In arts,
language, literature, and Institutions we were simply
the inheritors of the past, yet every generation had to
add from its own store what is original and new.
Differences of parties—political and religious—were
only differences of degree, although in degree those.
differences might be great and striking, and there were
but few individuals on either side who would fanatically
destroy all that is old or stolidly oppose all that is
new. Every statesman, every reformer, was one who
operated to bring forth out of his treasures thines new
and old. So the law supernatural of the Kingdom of
God was the highest ex6mplification of the law natural
of God and man. The same was true of the Church of
England, which, on the one hand, was based on things
of the past which were unchanged and unchangeable,
and on the other band was growing continually with
the growth of man and the progress of the world. To
the true Christian all this progress, in spite of defects
in it and in spite of antagonism, was the working out
of the great purposes of God and the preparation of
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. If ever the
growth of this formative and directive power should
cease, Christianity would cease to be in the future
what it has been in the past, the growth of indi-
vidual Christian life. In essential particulars English
Christianity had not changed since the days of St.
Augustine, although it had been continually growing
with the growth of the English people, and so increase
sing its influence and power for good. When the
creation of a Greater Britain showed England in a
form unexampled in the history of the world, the
question was asked—Would our Christianity rise to
this great emergency? Thank God it had done so.
Not without too great timidity, not without too long
hesitation, it had nevertheless put forth its might, and
had met this new call and this new development of
power. Our national Church had expanded into a
world wide communion, and had been assisted by other
forms of English Christianity so unhappily separated
from her. Where was there a grander example of the
great principle of the text? Surely whatever men
might think or say a Christianity that had thus
renewed its old life again and again had before it a
future of energy and triumph, even if revolutionary
power should shake the institutions of our society and
threaten the time-honoured landmarks of law and of
faith. In the course of the service the prayers of the
congregation were asked "for General Gordon in his
arduous mission in Egypt."