Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-04-13
BISHOP OF LONDON GIVES UP
HIS IISHCPRLC.
Resigns His Seat in the House Of
Lords and Joins the Ranks Of
the POOr-A Great Sermon.

ieu from the LONDON justice, has Just
lately found its way in print IN this
country:
TExT-.'Go to nov. ye rich men
weep snd howl fol. your miseries that
shall come upon you. Behold, the hire
of the Iabarers who have reaped your
fields, which is of you kept back by
fraud, crieth and the cries of them
which have reaped down are entered
into the ears of the Lord Of the Sabbath.
Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth
and been wanton; ye have nourished
your hearts as in day of slaughter.
Ye have condemned and killed the
just, and be doth not resist you. -
James Y; J. 4, 5, 6.
FELLOW CITIZENs-The text which
1 have Just read you, and from which /
shall preach the last sermon as Bishop
that I shall ever deliver from this pull
pit, is one which is probably as unfam-
liar to your comfortable, wen-to-do
people as t is familiar to all those who
since it as originally penned, have
tolled and suffered for humanity. ALL
though it ID read some times in the or
binary coarse of our church service,
yet Judging from your conduct, your
ears have been deaf to its terrible de-
nunciatiOns. From the days when /
was humble curate until now, I have
had a large and varied experience of
cathedrals, churches. preachers and
sermons. but I have never yet heard a
discourse based on these words, and
cannot learn from any of my brother
bishops or priests that they have ever
| used them, or heard them so used.
I can see by your uneasy demeanor
that you are asking yourselves why, on
this Christmas day, when, in accor-
dance with custom, should be preach
ing smooth things TO you, L should be
mad enough TO offend your delicate
susceptihilities by quoting The sayings
of one of the common peopIe-wOrds
written eighteen centuries ago which
might have done very we'll then, but
which cannot possibly be applied to
you and your class today; you who
come here, clad in purple and fine lin
/ en-, who, some Of you, live in kings
houses, who fare dehcately every day,
and who consider that you have fulfilled
| every moral obligation when you have
| dropped a coin in the collection box,
before you step into your carriages to
| be driven t. your luxurious homes. 1t
is because 1 believe that not only James
Hut Jesus Christ himself, if he could
stand in my place today, would hurl
! these words at you with a force and q
/ passion of viii ch we, in this nineteenth
/ century, have but little conception,
Not as a bishop, but as a man repeat
them to you. hardly hoping that they
may touch your hearts, but more as %
justification for my new and strange
position.
For years I have been one of you.
| My home has been not where Christ's
home was, with the masses, but with the
classes. have an abundance of this
worlds goods. have lived with the
fashionable and the wealthy, and have
been a dignitary of a church, which is
a church Of the rich. and not the church
of the poor. Without a protest have
mixed in society with men and women
whom Christ would have denounced as
bitterly as he denounced the Scribes
and Pharisees. In the house of lords 1
have silently sat with whoremongers
and adultersrs, and as silently have I
welcomed as my personal friends, high
born wOmen-some Of whom I see be-
fore me I, day-witl. whom no decent
wOrkingman would allow his wife or
daughters to associate.
I have seen among you, spreading
like a canker, the lust of the flesh and
the pride Of life. and instead of reprOv-
! ing you, as Christ would have done.
haYe taken refuge in generalities, and
haYe not dared to denounce your indi-
vidusl sins. And all this time there
has been going on around me, in this
! huge city and throughout the land, the
surging, tOiling lfe Of humanity-the
sorrow, the suffering, the poverty, the
disease. the sin and the shame which I
realize but dimly, as some thing alto
gether a part from my own existence,
but for which, at last see clearly, you
aad / have been, up to the present time
mostly to blame. We and our class
have kept back by fraud the hire Of the
Iaborers who have reaped our fields
we have lived in pleasure on the earth
and been wantan. We have nourshed