The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-07-10 00:00:00

THE DEAN OF WESTMINSTER ON
nITCT_AND AND AIVIMIZICA.

Dean Stanley preached at Westminster Abbey on
Sunday afternoon on St. Matthew v. 21, 22, and after
explaining that the words " raca " and " fool," the use
of which was condemned by Christ, were to be taken
as types of all contemptuous expressions more or less
virulent, he spoke at some length on the evils of indul-
gence in such modes of speech and of the wisdom of
those who avoid them, even at the sacrifice of bril-
Nancy :

Quoting the prover° that "Curses, like young chicken,
always come home to roost," the Dean put in a vigorousplea
against party names, for while he admitted that they are not
always undeserved, and some called fools really are fools,
some called rebels really are rebels, some called athiests
really are athiests, some called heretics really are heretics,
some called schismatics really are schismatics, some called
idolaters really are idolaters, he argued that such terms are
too often only used at random, and are often applied to the
good and wise, and hence are only fit to be cast with the re-
fuse and the offal into the valley of Hinnom. They are the
slang of the religious or the political world, just as the
common vulgar abuse of conversation is the slang of
the schoolboy or of society. Quoting the expressions
of an Alexandrian divine of the fourth century
which had been recently quoted by a modern divine
with apparent satisfaction—devils, anti-Christs, maniacs,
Jews, polytheists, atheists, dogs, wolves, lions, chameleons,
eels, hornets, leeches—the Dean said these and like words
had lighted up the flames of persecution and death which
had not long died out. So, too, the mighty master of gibes
In France had used words which, when uttered, seemed to
be like mere flashes of summer lightning, but which had
led to events in which many a noble, prelate, priest, and
pastor had perished, and Church and Constitution had
been levelled in the dust. Whether in the mouth of
an Athanasius or a Voltaire " Raca" and " Mora " pro-
duced their natural fruit in fire, sword, and murder.
So, too, in Churches and in nations the Dean traced
the same results from the same causes, and earnestly
pleaded for a greater exercise of brotherly love among
peoples and among Christians. Applying the subject to the
anniversary of the Fourth of July which next year would
reach its hundredth celebration, the anniversary of
the Declaration of American Independence, of the breach
between the mother and the daughter country, the Dean
said that the sons of the great country beyond the Atlantic
were indeed our brothers, in a sense in which no other two
great nations on the face of the earth were brothers, for they
were children of the same fathers, inheritors of the same
traditions, speaking the same language, professing the
same religion, rejoicing in the same faith and the same hope.
No doubt each had had its temper sorely tried and its
passions roused, the elder by the younger or the
younger by the elder, but none the less strong were the
bonds which united them. Bitter as had been the first
feelings fostered by the recriminations of King and states-
men, swiftly as the words of enmity had been tossed across
the ocean, Baca " from one, "Mora" from the other,
" Tyrant " from one, "Rebel" from the other—the wound
had soon been healed, and the Declaration of Independence
was the birth of a new friendship. How soon had the
representative of the young Republic presented himself
gladly at the Court of England ; and now, asked the preacher,
what American is there who is not proud of the ancestry
which once he spurned, what Englishman is there who is not
proud of the name of Washington? Alter expressing the
pleasure he felt in being able to welcome an eminent pastor
of the United States to the Abbey pulpit, who a century
ago would have been unable to occupy it, the Dean said
It was not flattery which the two nations needed, for each
had its faults which none could correct so well as those who
were of a common lineage, but it was an indespensable con-
dition that each should approach the other not as a foe, but
as a brother. It was true of nations, as of individuals, that
truth, even if it were praise, spoken in hate was gall and
wormwood, and that truth, even if it were blame, spoken in
love was welcome, and so had it been in this case. Woe, said
Dr. Stanley, to those who reopen the breach, and glory to
the peacemakers who by conciliation, by a determination not
to give or to take offence, by a careful abstinence from insult,
have knit the two nations together in the one communion and
'fellowship of good deeds, great thoughts, and undying hopes
of a future in which both nations will feel even more than
they do now that their institutions, their literature, and
their Church are better worth uniting and preserving,
because in another hundred years they will have outgrown
many weaknesses and advanced in many graces, and will
have gained from the experience of both hemispheres more
light, greater warmth, greater charity, greater seriousness,
and a truer insight into the means of improving, with a
deeper knowledge of the means of communion with God.
"Oh," said the Dean, in conclusion, "may the children of
the New World look back to the rock whence they were
hewn with an undiminished conviction that its faith and
practice are based upon the Rock of Ages; and may the
nations of the Old World, as they watch the star of empire
, moving westward, feel that even it they take the wings of
' the morning, and flee to the uttermOst parts of the earth,
even there also will God lead them, and his right hand will
uphold them?"