The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-06-19 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER

everywhere of a breaking up of that visible kingdom,
the Church, which had nursed the infancy of modern
civilisation, and under the shadow of which so many
generations had served God in life and departed hence
in peace. Everything around them betokened change
—not, however the results of external violence, but the
natural outcome of that period of the world's life at
which we had arrived. What, he asked, were to be
the future character and attitude of the Church.
The essential doctrines of the Church, its organiza-
tion, and others of its attributes were imperishable,
but the change would come in the manner of the
Church's work. If the period of spiritual authority
had passed away, and if that vast ecclesiastical organi-
sation which coloured the whole social life of the
middle ages and which lingered still in our national
institutions and language was apparently breaking
up, as noble a part might yet be reserved for the
Cnurch of God in being the conscience of the age,—
not commanding, but suggesting; not ruling by might
and power, but by a calm, quiet: and gentle influence;
by that whispered voice heard in every quarter breath-
ing into the national councils higher principles; soften-
ing the antagonism of classes; welding together in
the gracious bonds of a common faith rich and poor
and employers and employed; not quenching liberty
in the name of law; removing national prejudices,
and teaching les-sons of purity and charity. That
might be the destiny of the Church of the future, and it
might obey it without loosening for an instant its grasp
of the verities which had come down to us from
the Apostles, saints ;and martyrs. If the work of the
Church of Christ was to be accomplished henceforth by
influence rather than by authority, by whispered
utterings rather than by the loud impervious voice,
what were the special qualifications and obligations
for assuming Bush an attitude which members of
that Church must acquire? In the first place there
must be earnest, definite convictions; sharp, precise,
undoubted statements of the truth, and manifesta-
tions of earnestness in those who lifted up the
Prophet's voice. Next, to that earnestness of con-
viction and definiteness of belief they must add con-
sistency of life, and there must be no want of propor-
tion between what people believed and what they were.
One great duty in that respect was to succour the
needy and convert the sinful, and that day they had a
splendid opportunity which they ought not to let
slip. Last year £28,000 was collected on Hospital Sun-
day, and it had since been divide din carefully-adjusted
proportions among 114 institutions for the relief of
every varying form of sickness. He asked them this
year to share in increasing that sum; and he could
not help thinking that large as the amount undoubtedly
was, it bore a pitiable proportion to the wealth
of the metropolis. If it were possible to trace the
givers, to what a comparatively few would the poor,
the sick, and the sorrowfil be indebted for a single
farthing? Tens of thousands gave nothing at all, and
others gave without the heart. In labours of love
such as that the Church must redouble her zeal,
having before them the vision of him who left the
eternal dwelling where there was no death or sorrow
or pain to go through the lazar-house of earth healing
all manner of sickness and disease, and dying to save
those that were lost. Let them remember the voice
from the Throne saying unto those who administered
to the wants of others,—" Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have
done it unto me." Should not that voice strengthen
every one of them to deeper sympathy with human
suffering and to a desire to do more, to give more, and
to be more in order to vindicate the honour of the
name of Christians, and so that, at last, they might hear
the voice of extreme sweetness, shedding around their
little efforts to heal the sufferings of the poor an in-
effable dignity,—"l was sick and ye visited me."

constitution by which it was governed was this:
Every church or congregation that contributed was
represented by its priest or its minister, and by
two others of its own choosing, making an aggregate
electoral body of about 3,900 or 4,000, These met to-
gether to determine the rules by which the whole was
to be arranged. A greater guarantee for public con-
fidence or against partiality and the prevalence of
private feeling, could hardly be given. They elected
annually a Council of 100 men, to whom was corn-
mitted<the administration of the funds for the year.
This 100, after the most deliberate and calm considera-
tion, selected nine men to constitute a tribunal or
committee of distribution, through whose hands the
money was to pass, and the awards were to be made
in proportion to the needs and merits of the institutions.
He did not know how it was posaPile to make a juster
or fairer constitution than this. The first collection two
years ago brought in a sum of between £27,000 and
£28,0007 and the collection last year between £28,000
and £20,000. The collection of last year was dis-
tributed among some 108 hospitals, general or special,
and dispensaries. Hospitals which possessed endow-
ments in land or moaey sufficient to maintain them
did not partake at all. But those hospitals which were
maintained in whole or in part by voluntary contribu-
tions became qualified to participate, first according
to the extent of the benefit resulting from their work,
and secondly according to the care and economy of
their administration. How inadequate the hospitals
in London were to the needs of the sick might be
judged from the fact that, as he .had often told them,
the mortality annually exceeded 70,000, and 70,000
deaths represented a multitude of sick which he was
afraid to reduce to any calculation. He believed
the entire number of in-patients which the hospitals
could accommodate every year would not exceed3s,ooo,
allowing for changes of patients. But even if the
number was raised to between 40,P00 and 50,000, what
was that to a population of 3i- millions? Therefore,
hospitals needed to be enlarged and extended, and
to be planted in those wide intervals between
hospital and hospital where none now existed. Besides
he was assured that the hospitals in London every
year incurred a deficiency of something like £40,000
which had to be made up by eff-irts of all kinds.
Then there were the special nospitals, not the
private adventures of well-meaning persons, but
bond fide hospitals intended for the study and
treatment of special kinds of disease, for it was only
by concentrated practice and experience of diseases
in their particular forms that science could be able
to master their nature. Thirdly, there was a large
number of dispensaries in London which were ef
great benefit to our poor. Where the hospital did not
exist the dispensary was the only, substitute, and where
a dispensary was well founded it became the pre-
cursor of a hospital, and also grew into one. It was
well-known that it was impossible for hospitals to give
more than the briefest time to out-patients, but dispen-
saries supplemented their action. Moreover, they sent
their medical officers to visit the poor in their homes,
and thus there were two benefits conferred—help was
carried to those who could not go for it, and families
were taught to nurse their own sick and to exercise the
offices of charity to their own kindred. His Eminence
concluded by a strong appeal to all his hearers to con-
tribute generously, and prayed that the same loving
mercy which they showed to others in their strength
mielt be shown to themselves in their hour of weak-
ness.
The collection amounted to £5O.

the lot of the reporters of England. Nevertheless they
have their revenge. If they be martyrs themselves
they certainly from time to time make martyrs of
those whose speeches they report. (Laughter). You
little know, my good friends, how greatly it is in
your power to make or mar the fortunes of those
whose speeches you present to the public. You
little know the sufferings you entail on some
unfortunate orator or preacher whose speeches or
whose sermons you present, perhaps in their naked
unadorned simplicity, so that when some savage
journalist of another rank in your hierarchy, ever on
the watch, falls upon such victims, it is little less than
martyrdom. (Laughter). Surely it is hard for us to
be dressed up in the skins of wild beasts which are not
our own, and then to be torn to pieces by those wild
journalists without a chance of disentangling ourselves
from the Nessus shirts in which you have enveloped
as. But if you can mar, you can also make our
fortunes. It is said that in the old days, before the
fall of th Roman Empire, St. Jerome never went
to a public meeting, or to a pulpit, without having
ten reporters in his suite, and it is even said that St.
Augustine was always accompanied by sixteen.
(Laughter.) Happy Jerome and Augustine, or unhappy
Jerome and Augustine, as the case may be. Yet, let
us say happy, because what we possess of their writings
is no doubt due to those faithful bands of reporters who
have handed down their folios for our instruction and
edification. (Cheers). I must plead my ignorance if I
am unawares treading on the toes of any unknown pre-
cedence, but I come now to the foreign correspondents.
Those who have travelled abroad know what a delight
it is in crowded metropolis, or in trackless desert, to
fall in with the correspondent of some English or
Scotch newspaper. These correspondents may some-
times be spokekt of contumeliously as mere jackals of the
lionaat home, but believe me when you meet with them
on their own field in foreign parts, it is they who are the
lions, and we who become their jackals. The hunger
and eagerness with which they devour every traveller,
Prince or Emperor, who passes across their path well
entitles them to as much credit for their indomitable
courage and industry as those who have adventured
themselves in more difficult and arduous posts on the
field of battle, or in the dangerous track of science.
I would say to the correspondents :—" Bear in mind
how very much pleasure you can give both to those
abroad and to those at home by even a slight word of
recognition here and there, so as to make us
feel we are not forgotten; how very much
good you can do by smoothing the rough edges
of our angular nation and the nations of the Conti.
nent ; how the blessing pronounced on peacemakers
may fall on the pacific tone which almost always
marks the communications of our foreign correspond-
ents." And now I come to those who actually con-
tribute the leaders to our great journals, composed at
a moment's notice in the dead of night on some heart-
stirring event with results which may shake the
nations. (Cheers). What responsibility, what labour,
can be greater than this? Writing a leading article
seems to me to be one of the most unattainable, unap-
proachable pieces of human workmanship that can be
conceived. (Cheers). And what is the reason of this?
It arises in part from the very anonymous character
of our journalism, which I cannot but think, looked at
from this point of view, is one of its greatest and most
beneficent powers. (Hear, hear). The writers of
such articles know they are expressing not their own
caprices, but for the moment they are expressing, I do
not say always, the whole force of public opinion, as well
as the opinion of the corporation greater than they are
to which they belong; and therefore they are bound by
every feeling of loyalty and honour not to betray or
sully it by any frivolity or levity of their own. They
are inspired also by this still greater motive.
They are influenced not only by the feeling
of what is behind them, but by the feeling
of what is before them. They know they are
addressing the whole English people, and not only
the whole English people, but likewise the whole et
the English-speaking people throughout the world.
They know that the stone they throw into the water
goes on with ever-widening circles until it reaches the
Antipodes. And remember how this marvellous power
is bound up with responsibility of doing deeds and ad-
dreesing words of mercy, of justice, of purity, to all
those many thousands whom these words shall reach;
and it is not without sufficient examples that one
believes that this is possible when we remember the
long series of such articles in our recollection which
have electrified, and moved, and stirred the hearts
of England. These and such as these are amongst
the works and the responsibilities which belong to
the English press; but the very exertions of
which I have spoken—the very labour which is in-
volved—brings with it not only its own reward, but
often its own penalty, for even to them there comes
a time at last when they require some repose, and need
that calm and that ease which this Fund is intended
to give you. In proposing its prosperity I cannot
do better than couple it with the name of your presi-
dent. (Cheers.) He not only through this Newspaper
Press Fund, but in many other silent and secret ways
has, during a beneficent life, laboured to ease the
anxieties of literary men, to bring forth to the light
the shy and timid genius, to ease the declining years
of those whose cares and whose talent, he has always
shown himself most able to appreciate. I propose,
therefore, "The Prosperity of the Newspaper Press
Fund, with its noble President, Lord Houghton."
(Loud cheers.)

Lord Houghton responded, and proposed "The
Visitors," coupling with it the name of his Excellency
Count Beust, the Anglo-Hungarian Ambassador.

Count Beust, who was received with applause, spoke
to the toast. He gave a full meed of praise to the
independence, to the impartiality, to the unimpeached
honour of the English press? The press abroad was
entitled to a similar encomium, but it must acknow-
ledge that its model was an English one. He wished,
therefore, "All honour to the Press of England."
(Loud cheers.)

The other toasts were "The American and Conti-
nental Press," proposed by the Hon. Dudley F.
Fortescue, and acknowledged by Colonel Forney, of
the American Press; "The Chairman," "The Houses
of Parliament," and "Sir Julius Benedict and the
Artistes."

Subscriptions were announced amounting in all to
over £l,OOO.