The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-06-19 00:00:00

HOSPITAL SUNDAY IN LONDON.

On Sunday (13th), for the eighth time, simultaneous
collections were made in many of the churches and
chapels in London on behalf of the general and special
hospitals of the metropolis whose claims to share in
the fund so raised are endorsed by the Committee
and Council of Distribution. Last year, notwith-
standing the depression of business, the collections
exceeded those of the two preceding years, though
falling short of the first four years. The figures are:
—1873, £27,700; 1874, £29,936; 1875, £26,396; 1876,
£27,042; 1877, £26,083; 1878, £24,904; 1879, £26,501.
On the 20th of July last year, at the meeting of the
council, £22,342 15s. 3d. was awarded to 81 hospitals
(an increase of two on the number assisted in 1878),
£2,113 16s. 6d to 43 dispensaries, and £260 for the pur-
chase of surgical appliances, in pursuance of the reso-
lution of 1878 that 1 per cent, of the total amount
should be devoted to this object.

At St. Paul's Cathedral the services were largely
attended. At the morning service the Lord Mayor
and Sheriffs of London and Middlesex were present in
State. The Rev. Prebendary Burrows, vicar of
Edmonton, who preached, based an eloquent appeal
on behalf of the hospitals on the words, "It is more
blessed to give than to receive." The reverend gentle-
man held that the recurrence of these collections on
behalf of the hospitals in the metropolis tended to
bring public opinion to bear on the management of
the institutions, and so bring about economy in their
management as well as a larger liberality in the con-
tributions for their support. At the afternoon ser-
vice the sermon was preached by the Archdeacon of
London (Bishop Claughton), and the evening preacher
was the Rev. Berdmore Compton, vicar of All Saints',
Margaret-street.
The amount collected at the three services was
£l7l 7s. id.

At Westminster Abbey, the preacher in the morn-
ing was the Very Rev. the Dean of York, who
selected for his text the words "Laid at his gate,
of sores," Luke xvi., part of the 20th versc.. They
were, he said, taught that the words quoted contained
a parable of that which had been from the beginning
of the world and would continue to be as long as the
world lasted; of that with whicl they were all
familiar, but which it required the aid of the grace of
God to deal with aright—namely, human sorrow and
human suffering. Lazarus was not a solitary instance
—he was a type of thousands. Referring to the institu-
tions to the support of which the offertory was to be
devoted, the preacher observed that in the hos-
pital the poor obtained that direct treatment of
disease or accident with all the professional
skill and appliances of science which they could
not have in their own homes. It had the
additional benefit, too, of being a school—a point from
which healing influences flowed from all the ills to
which our flesh is heir. A truly Christian spirit had
been developed, and that to an extraordinary degree,
in the care of the sick. Hospitals held out no senti-
mental attraction ; they appealed to our sense of what
was necessary and to our Christian sympathy, and it
would be a reflection on the age if they were allowed
to languish for want of support. Sermons in aid of
the Metropolitan Hospital Fund were also preached at
the afternoon service 9,t three o'clock, and at the
special evening service in the nave at seven o'clock—
at the former by the Rev. W. Boyd Carpenter, ilnd
at the latter by the Rev. B. Jowett, Master of
Balliol.
The total amount collected was £266 17s. 6d., of
which sum £lOO 19s. was the amount of the morning
collection, and £lll odd that of the afternoon.

At the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, Mr. Gladstone
and the Duke of Buccleuch attended Divine service in
the morning. The Rev. D. Moore, one of the Queen's
chaplains, vicar of Holy Trinity, Paddington,
preached a sermon on charity and the relief of suf-
fering, selecting as his text St. Luke, x. 29. In the
afternoon the Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D., Boyle
Lecturer, at the close of the fourth of a series of lec-
tures on "TIT Fore-knowing Sufferer," spoke of the
sacrifices Christ made for humanity and of the relief
he gave to physical suffering.

The., collections at the chapel amounted to £6O
158. 501. Last year the amount was £36 17s. 9d.

At the Chapel Royal, St. James's, the sermon was
preached by the Rev. Canon Birch, who took for his
text Philippians i. 27, a passage in which St. Paul
specially enjoins the necessity of Christian conversa-
tion according to the Gospel. Speaking in particular
of practical Christianity, the preacher ended his ser-
mon by a reference to the work of the London
hospitals, for which contributions were asked.
The sum collected amounted to nearly £BO.

At the Chapel Royal Savoy, the sermon was
preached by the Rev. Henry White from 2 Corin-
thians, i., verses 3 and 4. The preacher said that
men's natural desire for personal comfort was neither
mean nor unworthy. The sick craved health—the
ignorant desired knowledge —the poor sought a
competency—the solitary needed society. But the
return of Hospital Sunday was a reminder that
every plea for comfort must embrace the needs
and longings of others. Not many could imitate
the beautiful example of "Sister Dora," whose
charmed life was an angelic ministry of fearless and
untiring charity for the wretched and the suffering.
But all could remember the sorrows of those who
were outstretched on the beds of our London Hos-
pitals, and send them an offering of aid and sympathy.
Christian congregations were gathered together not
only in remembrance of their sympathy with suffering,
but also in witness to their own gratitude for the price-
less blessings of health and strength. Jesus Christ did
not sit in a study, like some modern apostles, and weave
sour philosophies about the infirmities of human
natuxe. He did not stand in a pulpit like many of our
modern preachers to denounce the weakness of human
nature. But He reared a home of comfort and a sanc-
tuary of refuge for all who suffered the hurts and pains
of humanity. It had been said that all the sermons
preached in London would not appeal so earnestly
for sympathy as would the sight of those suffer-
ing faces for whom Hospital Sunday pleaded. But
since this appeal was impossible it was left to the
preachers on Hospital Sunday to speak foothose who
could not in word or
.presence speak for themselves.
Sick children struggling with mortality and writhing
in pains which they could not understand, and which
they had not done ought to deserve; young men and
maidens just crossing the threshold of life and beaten
back by accident or weakness which they could not
avert; these, and such as these, were the suppliants
for whom Hospital Sunday pleaded. Not even the
proverbial hardness of the times, and the inevitable
narrowing of resources ought to stem the current of
Christian charity on such a day.

At the Temple Church Dr. Vaughan, preaching
from the words, " Is any sick among you? let him
call for the elders of the church,"—made a strong
appeal in favour of the hospitals, whose claims upon
individual charity, he declared, were not so fully
recognized as they ought to be. One-third of the
accommodation in the hospitals could not at present
be utilized for lack of funds.

Preaching at the Church of St. Peter, Cranley-
gardens, South Kensington, the Bishop of Manchester,
Dr. Fraser, said a hospital was as truly a consecrated
building as a church—not by a consecrating act, but
by the very presence of Christ within its walls, in His
sick, His maimed, His poor. He was not committing
himself to an indiscriminate approval of our hospital
system. Speaking as a layman, he thought the form-
ing of hospitals for special diseases was an unwise
example of the principle of division of study which
might hamper more than promote the system of cure.

The Rev. Professor Jowett, Master of Balliol Col-
lege, Oxford, preached at the morning service in the
parish church of St. George's-in-the-East before an un-
usually large congregation, not of a few of whom be -
longed to the poorer classes of the extremely poor
neighbourhood in which the church is situated.

At Christ Church, Westminster-bridge-road (in the
morning) the Rev. Newman Hall preached to a
crowded congregation from I. Corinthians, x., 16,
"The communion of the body of Christ." The body
of Christ, the preacher said, was the great bond of
union between all Christians. It was the incarnation
of God upon earth which made all mankind one
brotherhood. It was our Lord's humanity, His sym-
pathy for all forms of suffering, which supplied the
great motive for the relief of sorrow, distress and
anguish of every kind.

The collection amounted to about £35. The collec-
tion in the evening was on behalf of the temperance
cause.

Mr. C. H. Spurgeonpreached to a crowded congrega-
tion at the Tabernacle. In the morning the text was
2 Thessalonians ii., 16, 17. The propositions of the
sermon introducing the subject were these :—lt is of
the utmost importance that Christians should enjoy
consolations; the needed consolations are freely
bestowed; and therefore they ought to prompt to
benevolence towards others needing consolation. In
the hospitals they would be helped by the collections
of the day. There were only 5,300 beds to four millions
of people. But of the 5,300 only 2,300 were in use,
mainly because the hospital authorities had not the
means to use them. These facts should speak with
trumpet tongue to our great merchants and wealthy
people, and should urge the question, "Will you allow
these people, who may have worked for you now in the
days of their sickness,Swhen provision is made for their
help in the hospitals, to pine and die unrelieved bv it
for want of the means by which they may be fed while
stretched on the bed of pain ? "

The collection in the morning amounted to £179,
and that in the evening to £7B, making a total of £257,
compared with £lBO last year, the total this year being
larger than on any former occasion.

At the City Temple, Holborn-viaduct, the Rev.
Dr. Joseph Parker, the collections for Hospital Sunday
fund amounted to £lO5.

At ten synagogues the sermons were preached, for
the most part, and the collections made, on Saturday.
The Great Synagogue, in which the Chief Rabbi
ordinarily preaches, is closed for repairs; service is
held in an adjoining building, and the collection on
Saturday amounted to £230. ,Dr. Hermann Adler
preached at the Bayswater Synagogue on the text
(Exodus xv. 26) "For I am the Lord that healeth thee,"
and took as his subject the hygiene of the Bible. The
collection realised about £7O. The Rev. A. L. Green
preached at the Central Synagogue. He exhorted his
congregation to contribute even more liberally to the
general hospitals than to special Jewish charities, to
prove, as on former occasions, the large-heartedness of
Jewish charity. The collection amounted to over £l5O.
In the new West-end Synagogue, St. Petersburg-place,
Bayswater, the Rev. I. Singer preached, taking his
text from Numbers xvi., 48. "And he stood between
the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed."
The collection amounted to about £7O. At the orth
London Synagogue the Rev, Isidore Harris, preacher,
selected from the Lesson of the day the same text.
The offertory realised about £35, which, it is believed.
will be supplemented, as in the previous year, by pri-
vate collections. The Rev. B. Spiers, Dayan,
prvachti Ow &I:touting At tho NOW 15312Rogriet

Great St. Helen's, on the Lesson of the day.
The collection realised about £3O. In the
afternoon the Rev. Dayan made an appeal on behalf
of the same cause in the synagogue of the Beth Hamid-
rash. In the Hambro Synagog-tie, where the Rev.
Herman Gollancz preached, 210 was collected. The
collection at the Sephardic Synagogue, in Bevis
Marks, the oldest of the synagogues, amounted to £4O.
At the synagogue of the West London Congregation
of British Jews in Berkeley-street, the Rev. Professer
Marks preached; the sum collected is expected to
amount to not less than £230: The amount collected
at the Western Synagogu i e n St. Alban's-place, St.
James's, was £l5 15s. There was no sermon. Several
other collections were made in the synagogues, the
i
total amount of which s not yet ascertained.

The Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund amounted
on Tuesday evening to about 2,8,000.