Thoughts for Thinkers

Sixteenth Liverpool Diocesan Conference, In St. George&Rsquo;S

Hall, November 2, 1897.

Reverend and Lay Brethren, I give you a hearty welcome to our Sixteenth Diocesan Conference, and I am glad to see so large an attendance of members. At the same time I must honestly say I wish the attendance was larger. At present not half the Clergy of this Diocese ever put in an appearance at these important Annual Gatherings, while the proportion of the laity who accept our invitations, and exhibit any interest in our proceedings, is painfully small. This is not a healthy state of things: but I fear it is the same in every Diocese in the land. In this respect the Presbyterians and Wesleyans completely out-distance us. It looks as if the Church of England was not half awake.

(1) The yearly history of our own Diocese is seldom very eventful. The Diamond Jubilee of our gracious and beloved Sovereign, Queen Victoria, has naturally over-shadowed all other events in 1897, and absorbed all men’s attention. Two things however have occurred in the last twelve months which deserve special notice.

One of these things is the successful passage through Parliament of the Liverpool City Churches’ Act, an Act of which the importance was strongly urged on me by the late Mr. Whitley, M.P. for this City, when I first became your Bishop. After 16 years this Act has been obtained, and nine old Churches in Liverpool are now set free for ever from dependence on an annual payment from the Corporation, and will receive instead a fixed Income from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. For this most desirable purpose a lump sum of £95,000 has been paid down by the Municipal Body, in commutation of the endowment of the nine livings, and the vested interests of the patrons and officials. Two of the churches, St. George’s and St. John’s, will be taken down, and money sufficient to build at least two other churches will, we hope, be provided. The terms on which the whole arrangement has been effected have been the subject of very careful calculation, and, in my judgment, are equitable and fair. I believe that neither of the parties to this very important transaction has any right to complain: and I am convinced that the whole result will be useful, and make for peace.

(2) The other exceptional event in the Diocesan history of the last twelve months is the launching of the ambitious scheme of a Church House for the Diocese of Liverpool. The unsuccessful attempt to provide a Cathedral worthy of our new diocese at the beginning of my episcopate, and the many weary Committee Meetings at the Town Hall about the subject, are now matters of ancient history, and many people seem totally ignorant of them. I take occasion to remark that I was present at all those Meetings, and the common slanderous report that the Bishop took no interest in the subject, and did not wish a Cathedral to be built, is destitute of a grain of truth. But those Committee Meetings finally convinced me that there was no prospect of agreement among the inhabitants of Liverpool about the site of a Cathedral, and not the least likelihood of half a million being raised by the Diocese in this generation for the building and endowment of a suitable metropolitan Church. From that time I resolved to promote the erection of a Church House, and after long delay, caused by bad times, I have lived to see the keel laid. Of the great usefulness of such an Institution I need say nothing, and I have never had any doubt about it. It will strengthen the Church of England in many ways which I need not describe today, promote unity, bring the clergy together, and facilitate every kind of Diocesan business. I am very thankful for the acceptance and the large measure of support which the scheme has already received, and for the excellent site in Lord Street, which has been secured. But I must remind you emphatically that much more money will yet be required before the Church House can be built, and I must frankly confess, that I have little hope, at my advanced age, that I shall ever sit down within its walls. Money for church purposes is not so easily raised in this Diocese as dwellers in other parts of England seem to suppose. But I do not despair.

(3) Concerning matters of general interest to our Established Church which have come to the front during the last year, there are two principal ones which demand your attention.

One of these is the Education Act (1896), which, after long and weary discussion in Parliament, has become the law of the land. About this Act you have all heard enough and perhaps too much, and I shall only make a few brief remarks upon it. It is the wellmeant effort of a friendly Government to assist necessitous Voluntary Schools by a new further grant of 4/- a head, an effort rendered necessary by that useless, needless, thankless measure, the Free Education Act. Such grant is to be given primarily to poor schools, and is to be managed by organized federations or associations of schools all over the country, while poor Board Schools in rural districts are also to share in its benefits. Whether the Act will work well remains to be proved, but the mere fact that it is called ‘tentative’ in high quarters shows plainly that some difficulties are expected. I do not wonder. So long as human nature is what it is, I do not expect the principle of ‘federation’ will ever be popular. I only hope that in our own Diocese there will be as little disagreement as possible, and that School Managers will remember that in this world we cannot always have everything our own way, and must put up with a certain quantity of concession and compromise on all sides. The great statesmen of the Six Powers of Europe have not found it easy to work together comfortably about Greece and Turkey, and we must not be surprised if we find at first some educational friction in Lancashire. I trust, however, that in all Committee-meetings and discussions about the new Act there will be a maximum of light and a minimum of heat.

(4) The other great event affecting the Church of England which has come to the front during the last twelve months, is the Lambeth Conference, or Decennial Meeting, of Bishops of the Anglican Communion from every part of the world. About this I shall say very little, because I was not present at it, in consequence of a troublesome cold and doctor’s advice, which, at 81, a Bishop cannot afford to neglect.. I know nothing of the proceedings, which were all held in private and in camera. But the results of the discussions are published by the Christian Knowledge Society, and may be read by any one. I have nothing to say against the subjects which were discussed, or the conclusions which have been put forth by the various Conference Committees, or the great final Encyclical. They are all more or less instructive reading, good, and useful so far as they go. But I cannot refrain from expressing one general opinion. I must deeply regret that the Lambeth Conference completely ignored and passed over the ‘unhappy divisions,’ both about doctrine and ritual, of the Church of England in the present day. They are divisions which threaten to undo the work of the Reformation, and are gradually rending the Established Church into two distinct parties, and destroying the peace of families, parishes, and congregations. No doubt a cautious policy of silence in the Conference about these divisions saved much trouble, prevented awkward collisions, and made things work smoothly. But with all respect to the managers of this great Synod, I cannot refrain from saying, as an individual Bishop, that in my opinion this policy of ’silence’ was not really wise. When I see the immense damage that is being done continually to the Church of England by the tolerated increase of Auricular Confession, and Mariolatry, and imitations of the Romish Mass, I think the silence I have referred to will do harm, and certainly not promote unity. There was no such ’silence’ in the ‘Official letter of the Lambeth Congress of 1878’ and I do not think we are in a more healthy state now. I believe the best friends of the Church had a right to expect at least some expression of regret about our divisions, and I think the conspicuous absence of any expression of opinion about the critical condition of the Establishment will cause much pain and disappointment. The often repeated cry for Unity seems waste of time in the present state of our Church, and reunion with Methodists or Presbyterians appears impossible. Protestant Nonconformists in England will never join a Church so seriously divided as our own; and I cannot wonder. I believe they would swallow a good deal for the sake of peace; but I do not believe they would swallow sacerdotalism.

I turn from this delicate and unpleasant subject to some other matters which appear to demand your thoughtful attention in the present day. I say ‘thoughtful’ emphatically and purposely. A Diocesan Conference like ours has no legal power whatever, and I am glad that it has not. But if it is to be of any use it ought to stir men’s minds, and set them thinking. Thought is the mother of action, and if we can wind up the clock of Churchmen’s minds every year, and send them home to think about matters affecting the Church and the Diocese rather more than they do, we shall do them good, and not meet in vain.

(5) In looking back over the 16 years of my episcopate I see many causes for thankfulness; but I see one serious exception. On the side of thankfulness I will name several things. The Walton Vicarage Act, which placed the See of Liverpool on a level with other Sees; the ‘Turner Pension Fund’ created by the princely generosity of one Christian lady; the successful progress of our Diocesan Sustentation Fund; the City Churches Act; the building and consecration of 42 new Churches, and the opening of 48 licensed Mission Rooms; the large increase in the number of Incumbents, Curates, and Confirmations; and though last, not least, the hopeful launch of a Diocesan Church House--all these are bright spots in the retrospective history of our Diocese. I began my episcopate with 170 Incumbents; there are now 205. I began with 120 Curates; there are now 220. In my first year I had 4,500 young persons presented to me for Confirmation. In 1896 I had 8,300. I should be very ungrateful if I did not thank God every day for these undeserved mercies.

But there is one unsatisfactory point just now in our Diocesan position to which I feel it necessary to request your thoughtful attention. The point I refer to is the financial condition of our Diocesan Institutions. Their annual income altogether, when the Diocese was created in 1880, was £1,900. Since that year it has annually fallen and declined, and is now no more than £900. In plain words the Diocese only gives half as much to the Societies for Church building, Church Aid, Augmentation of Endowments, and Education, in 1897, as it did in 1880. This is a state of things which ought not to be. A Diocese is not called into existence to be a collection of separate independent parishes, but a united body of Churchmen who bind themselves to support in every way the Church of England, as a corporate whole, within the geographical boundaries of the See, and to maintain Diocesan Institutions for the good of the whole body. We fail entirely to do this at present. Year after year parochial collections are dwindling away, and in a large number of parishes there are no collections at all. I do not like this, though I know the money given to Diocesan Institutions does not at all represent the amount of money given to Church purposes in the Diocese. But I cannot think it is right; and I feel it my duty to call the attention of the Clergy and laity of the Diocese to it.

If it is a wrong thing to have Diocesan Institutions, and every parish is to think of itself alone, and say of its neighbours, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’, I wish men would speak out plainly and say so. But if it is a wise and prudent thing for every Diocese to have a common fund for Church Building, or Church Aid, or Education, to which any Clergyman wanting assistance may apply, and by which the strong may help the weak, I do not think our own Diocese is doing its duty. I commend the whole matter to the thoughtful consideration of the Conference. There ought to be a change. At the rate things are going we shall reach the bottom before long, and shall be obliged to give public notice that there are no longer any common Diocesan Funds from which grants can be given, and that all parishes in our Diocese which want assistance must in future shift for themselves. I hope I need not tell this Conference that to have no Diocesan Institutions at all would not be creditable to our new See, and would place us in an exceptional position. The plain truth is that we want more new subscribers, to take the place of old friends who have passed away. I trust that many will come to our aid.

(6) I turn from the comparatively tame subject of our Diocesan Institutions to a matter of far more public importance. I refer to Church Reform. This is a subject which is coming to the front more and more every year, and demands the careful notice of all who really love the Church of England, and wish to keep her healthy and strong. It is useless and too late to say that no reforms are needed, and that the good old ship requires no repair. All ancient man-made machines and instruments have a tendency to wear out and decay, and all as a rule are capable of improvement. From this universal law our Established Church can claim no exemption.

The subject is continually cropping up every year, whether we like it or not, in some shape or another. The Benefices Bill of last Session, the comparatively recent formation of a House of Laymen in each of the Provinces of Canterbury and York, the increasing demands of congregations, when livings are vacant, to have some voice in the selection of a new minister--all these things show plainly that ‘Church Reform’ is in the air. I wish today to impress on the members of our Conference the absolute necessity of looking seriously at it, and making up our minds as far as we can. Education is changing the character of the country, and laymen of all ranks and classes are no longer illiterate dummies, but think for themselves. To tell Churchmen in this day to sit still, shut their eyes, trust the bishops, and be content with machinery and arrangements which satisfied our grandfathers, is as senseless as it would be to send the Guards to garrison Gibraltar, and arm them with flint-locks or longbows. No! my brethren, ‘Church Reform’ is sure to come. Its topsails are already on the horizon, and before long it will be alongside. Unless we want our good old Church to be disestablished, we should try to set our house in order while we can, and consider carefully what is really wanted. What is practicable and what is impracticable? What is possible and what is impossible? What would do good and what would do harm? These are questions which we ought to look in the face, and prepare to answer.

It is needless to tell you that Church Reform is a very wide subject, and greatly complicated by the connection of Church and State. Nevertheless there are some branches of it which appear to me quite within reach, and if Churchmen would only awake and take them up, I believe no Parliament would refuse to sanction them. (i) We need a Reform about the sale of Livings. It is a crying scandal that the spiritual oversight of souls should be the subject of buying and selling, like a flock of sheep or litter of pigs, and the sooner the whole system is declared illegal the better it will be for the Church. (ii) We need Reform of our Ecclesiastical Courts both in cases of false doctrine, and immorality. At present their modes of proceeding are expensive, cumbrous, tedious, and dilatory, and their penalties most unsatisfactory. To imprison a clergyman for holding false doctrine is to go back to the dark ages.

(iii) We need a Reform about the power of Bishops in the matter of institution to vacant benefices. At present a Bishop has no power to refuse any incumbent presented to him, who satisfies certain legal requirements, though he may be inwardly convinced that the man is sometimes mentally, physically, and intellectually unfit for the post he seeks to fill. The English Bishops, I am aware, are no more infallible than the Bishop of Rome. But they ought to have some discretion.

(iv) We need a Reform about the voice of the laity being heard in some way about the manner of the services in the Parish Church, and about the selection of ministers for vacant livings. I frankly confess that this is a very difficult and delicate question, and I doubt whether the laity who take it up realize all that it involves. Does any one wish every ratepayer and parishioner to have a vote for a new incumbent? I cannot believe it. Is the choice to be left to those who attend the church, or to those only who are communicants? These are knots which are not easy to untie, and I commend them to the serious consideration of those worthy people who are fond of writing to the press whenever a living is vacant. The opinion of the congregation, if you give it a voice, should surely be expressed by some wise and carefully chosen Committee.

(v) We need a Reform about all Church patronage. I frankly admit that I mention this with much hesitation. At present there is a good deal to be said for the existing system of wide variety. The Crown, the Bishops, the Lord Chancellor, the Colleges, City Companies, Cathedral Chapters, private patrons, bodies of trustees, all are continually filling up vacancies, and all, no doubt, are continually making mistakes. But I am not quite convinced that the old system can be very much mended. It is easier to find fault with it than to improve it. To sweep away and disfranchise all patrons, and substitute Diocesan Boards of Patronage, such as the Irish Church has, appears to many the right solution of the problem. But I cannot feel satisfied that it would work well. Such Boards could only be formed by placing on them representatives of all schools of thought in the Church. Their appointments could only be made by a great deal of concession among themselves, and by constantly giving way to one another. The whole result would be that strong powerful men of light and leading would generally be passed over for the sake of peace, and, in order to obtain agreement, milk-and-water men of no decided views would be preferred.! doubt extremely whether such Diocesan Boards would do better than the existing system. At any rate I feel no strong confidence in them. I believe they would gradually fill Dioceses with tame, no-party, colourless men without brains, teeth, or claws, who have no distinct opinions about anything at all, and would do no good. However, so long as the Union of Church and State continues, there is no chance of the present system being given up; and the prohibition of sale of livings would stop half its mischief.

(vi) The last but not the least Reform needed is a Reform of Convocation. Of course I need not remind you that the defective representation of the parochial clergy, compared to that of the Deans and Chapters, is most unsatisfactory. In the lower House of Canterbury, the simple fact that two Proctors represent all London is a glaring scandal. The Reform that is really wanted is the admission of the laity in both Houses. I do not forget that ‘Houses of Laymen’ for Canterbury and York have been called into existence. I have not forgotten it, but I cannot admit that these Houses meet the wants of our times, or carry much weight in the country. We want picked, capable, elected, representative laymen who shall sit in the same House with the clergy, take part in all their debates, and meet them on terms of equality about all subjects. Until the laity have a proper place and voice and vote in the proceedings of our Church assembly I believe that Convocation will never enjoy the full confidence of the country, and few Englishmen will care for its debates. Legislative powers such a Reformed Convocation certainly ought not to have. England would not stand two Parliaments. But if the opinions and wishes of Convocation came to Parliament from a body consisting of able laymen as well as clergymen, I am convinced that they would receive far more respectful attention in the House of Commons than they do now. The thing has been tried in the Colonies and in the Episcopal Church of America with success, and I fail to see why it should not succeed here. At all events I am not afraid of the consequences. I have a strong conviction that in any mixed Convocation the most moderate, conservative, and cautious part of the Assembly would be the laity. I have heard on very good authority that it certainly has been found so in Australia. I leave the wide subject of Church Reform at this point. There are branches of it which I decline to discuss because they appear to me utterly impracticable. I do not expect the Curates’ League will persuade people that seniority entitles a man to promotion rather than gifts or grace. I shall say nothing about liturgical revision, that darling project of some zealous souls. So long as our ‘unhappy divisions’ exist, I see no likelihood of our venerable Prayer-book being cast into the furnace of reform, and especially when some persons want to go behind the Reformation, put the clock back, and return to the First Prayerbook of Edward VI. I shall not therefore waste your time in attempting to discuss that subject. I do not believe that the financial position of the clergy would ever be cured by seizing and dividing all the large livings, and giving every incumbent, out of the spoil, a dead level income all round of a bare £250 a year, making the clergy all paupers together. I do not think it would answer to make every official position the subject of election, and to throw open every Bishopric, Archdeaconry, Rural Deanery, Deanery, and Canonry to a contest and a poll in the Diocese. Such castles in the air you will allow me to leave alone, until they have got their feet on the ground.

The whole subject bristles with difficulties, and I doubt if many of you will live to see the ‘things that are wanting’ amended, unless there is some great political Revolution. Church work is notoriously slow work. It is well known that the House of Commons dislikes to be troubled with Church subjects, and is overwhelmed with secular matters. There is a terrible scarcity of men in the Lords and Commons who have the ear of the House, and are ready and willing to take up Church Reform. If I saw some ecclesiastically-minded man of the calibre of John Bright or Richard Cobden, who would come forward with eloquence, wisdom, power, and pertinacity, and compel a hearing, I should be more hopeful. At present I look in vain for such men. However, I cannot forget that the party is still alive which recently made a deliberate attempt to disestablish the Church in Wales, and the next election may alter the whole political situation, and give churchmen a rude awakening. In the meantime I want to set men thinking. Sooner or later Church Reform will come, and I only hope it may not come to a church disestablished and in ruins. The Welsh campaign tells a plain story. It calls on us to reform our church while we can and while we may. As Rudyard Kipling says in his grand Diamond Jubilee Hymn: ‘Lest we forget; lest we forget.’ (7) I must now try to wind up this long address, by some remarks about one very unhealthy and painful symptom which seems to me to characterize the age in which we are living. The symptom I refer to is the increasing indifference to all distinctive doctrines and opinions in religion, in every part of the land. I say emphatically Increasing Religious Indifference.

In saying this I ask you not to mistake my meaning. I have not in view those huge masses of people in London and our large towns, who worship nowhere, and appear to have no religion at all. I refer to those myriads in this age who are to be found in all our churches, who are not communicants, and never exhibit any interest in vital religion. I do not forget that man is by nature a poor fallen creature. I do not expect all who profess and call themselves Christians to be angels. But I declare my belief that the size and rapid growth of the school of indifference is one of the most dangerous signs of the times at the close of the 19th century. The multitude who belong to this school are not open opponents of the faith and Christ’s cause; but they simply sit still and do nothing for religion at home or abroad. Ask any good clergyman who works his parish, and visits his people, and knows their characters, what is the chief difficulty he has to contend with? I am certain he would tell you that it is neither Romanism, nor extreme Ritualism, nor Erastianism, nor Broad Churchism, nor systematic Scepticism, nor any other ‘ism,’ but a half-dead torpid indifference about any sort or kind of religion. (i) You may see the danger I speak of in the vastly altered tone of public feeling about Romanism which has appeared in the last fifty years. There is no longer that general dislike and aversion to Popery which was once almost universal in this realm. The edge of the old British feeling about Protestantism seems blunted and dull. Some profess to be tired of all religious controversy, and are ready to sacrifice God’s truth for the sake of peace. Some look on Romanism as simply one among many English forms of religion, and neither worse nor better than others. Some try to persuade us that Romanism is changed, and not nearly so bad as it used to be. Some boldly point to the faults of Protestants, and loudly cry that Romanists are quite as good as ourselves. And yet the two great historical facts.

(1) that ignorance, immorality, and superstition reigned supreme in England 400 years ago under Popery, (2) that the Reformation was the greatest blessing God ever gave to this land--both these are facts which no one but a Papist ever thought of disputing fifty years ago! In the present day, alas, it is convenient and fashionable to forget them!

No doubt this altered tone of public feeling has been furthered immensely by the proceedings of one extreme party in the Church of England, which has gradually familiarized people with every distinctive doctrine and practice of Roman-ism--the real presence, the mass, auricular confession and priestly absolution, the sacerdotal character of the ministry, the monastic system, and a histrionic, sensuous, showy style of public worship. And the natural result is, that many simple people see no mighty difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. The spurious liberality of the day we live in helps on the reaction of feeling. It is fashionable now to say that all sects should be equal, that the State should have nothing to do with religion, that all creeds should be regarded with equal favour and respect, and that there is a substratum of common truth at the bottom of all religions, whether Buddhism, Mahommedanism, or Christianity! The consequence is, that myriads of ignorant folks begin to think there is nothing peculiarly dangerous in the tenets of Papists, any more than in the tenets of Methodists, Independents, Presbyterians, or Baptists, and that we ought to let Romanism alone, never expose its unscriptural character, and avoid controversy. One thing at any rate is patent and obvious to every observing eye. Whatever the cause may be, public feeling in England is strangely altered about the Church of Rome, and it is a very painful feature of our times.

(ii) You may see the danger again in the widely spread disposition to make cleverness and earnestness the only tests of orthodoxy in religion. Thousands of professing Christians nowadays seem utterly unable to distinguish things that differ. If a preacher or lecturer is only clever and eloquent and earnest, they appear to think he is right, however strange and heterogeneous his sermons or lectures may be. Popery or Protestantism, an atonement or no atonement, a personal Holy Ghost or no Holy Ghost, future punishment or no future punishment, High Church or Low Church or Broad Church, Trinitarianism, Arianism, or Unitarianism, nothing comes amiss to these people if it is clever. They can swallow all if they cannot digest it! They seem to regard doctrine as a matter of no importance, and to think everybody is going to be saved and nobody going to be lost. Their religion is made up of negatives; and the only positive thing about them is, that they dislike distinctness, and think all extreme and decided and positive views are very naughty and very wrong. They are content to shovel aside all disputed points as rubbish, and if you charge them with indecision they will tell you, ‘I do not pretend to understand controversy; I decline to examine controverted points. I daresay it is all the same in the long run.’ Who does not know that such people swarm and abound everywhere? And who does not know that any one who denounces this state of things, and insists that a clergyman should be loyal to the Articles of his Church, is regarded as a narrow, party-spirited, ungenerous person, quite unsuited to the nineteenth century.

(iii) You may see the danger again in the demand which many are loudly making for the adoption of a general policy of toleration and forbearance within the pale of the Church of England. Such a policy, we are gravely told, is the true remedy for ‘the present distress.’ Every clergyman is to be allowed to hold and teach and do what he likes. No one is ever to be called to account, either for his ceremonial actions at the Lord’s table or his sermons in the pulpit. Every school of thought, however extreme, is to be tolerated. No prosecutions in any Court, whether spiritual or secular, are to be permitted, since the Lincoln case. “The model for the Anglican Church is to be Israel in the days of the Judges when ‘Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.’” (Judges 21:25).

The mere fact that such a monstrous policy as I have described finds acceptance with many Churchmen is, to my mind, one of the greatest perils of the Church of England, and its adoption could only have one result. That result would ultimately be disruption, disintegration, and disestablishment.

You could not possibly have two or three distinct churches within one communion. It is amazing to me that the advocates of this notable policy of universal toleration do not see that it would infallibly end in our Church being broken to pieces.

No doubt, at first sight this policy of universal toleration looks very specious. It suits the temper of the times. What more likely to provide peace and stop quarrelling than to declare the Church a kind of Noah’s Ark, within which every kind of animal, and every opinion and creed, shall dwell safe and undisturbed, and the only terms of communion shall be willingness to come inside and let your neighbour alone? Nevertheless, I must confess my utter inability to understand how this policy could ever be carried out without throwing overboard all Articles and Creeds, without doing away with all subscriptions, in short without altering the whole constitution of the Church of England.

(iv) Finally, you may see the growing danger of indifference which I speak of in the painful increase of Sabbath-breaking in the land. In town and in country, in Belgravia and Bethnal Green, the state of things is the same. Full Churches are the exception on Sunday, and half-empty Churches the rule. A religious census of any large population tells the same story. The Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue seems to be left out in the cold and ready to die. Partly from the spread of infidelity, that old enemy of the Lord’s Day; partly from the morbid love of liberty, and letting everyone do as he likes; partly from the exaggerated love of pleasure which marks this age; partly from the facilities afforded by railways for Sabbath travelling, of which our fathers knew nothing, and got on well enough without them; partly from one cause and partly from another, the devil is just now getting more help in his favourite campaign against the Lord’s Day than he has done since the Reformation. You may see what I mean, in the persistent attempts now made to throw open places of amusement, aquariums, museums, picture galleries, and such-like places, under the plausible pretence of ‘affording recreation to the working classes.’

I have no hesitation in saying that this unmistakable increase of Sabbath neglect is one of the worst symptoms of the increase of indifference to vital religion in our days. There is an inseparable connection between the observance of the Lord’s Day and the prosperity of true religion. Voltaire was quite right when he said he could never succeed in destroying Christianity unless he destroyed Sunday. Whether Englishmen know it or not, their Sabbath has been one of their richest possessions, and the grand secret of their position in the world. Of it the famous words may be truly used, that ‘it is the cheap defence of a nation.’ (Edmund Burke: Reflections on the French Revolution.) It is the English Sunday which has made England what it is. It is a simple fact that wherever spiritual religion in a Church is strong and vigorous, the honour of Sunday goes up, and wherever it decays, Sunday ceases to be well observed. In a word, Sunday is the barometer of every so-called Christian nation. Tell me how Sunday is kept in a land, and I will tell you what the Church of the land is.

I leave the whole subject here, and close my address with one sorrowful remark. If open sin and dissipation, and drunkenness, and love of the world, are ruining thousands of Churchmen, I am sure that utter indifference about religion is ruining tens of thousands. Now is there no remedy for this state of things? Is there no cure for this terrible plague of the Church in these latter days? Amidst the endless strife of Church parties, the weary, unprofitable controversies about the sacraments, the ministry, and the ceremonials of worship, the only party which seems to me to grow and increase annually is the huge party of ‘religious indifference.’ Can nothing be done to check the progress of this party, and restore health to our Zion? I answer, Nothing, in my opinion, but an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. More schools and universities will not set us right. They touch heads but not hearts. Spiritual is the disease, and spiritual must be the remedy. In plain words we need among us more of the ‘real presence’ of the Holy Ghost. For this let us all pray and besiege the throne of grace continually.

I cannot forget that the early Christians of the first four centuries turned the world upside down with their doctrine, emptied the heathen temples of their worshippers, stopped the bloody gladiatorial combats, confounded the Greek and Roman philosophers, gave a new position to women and children, and raised the moral standard of all Europe. And yet they had none of our many advantages; no printed books, no Cathedrals or grand churches, no Religious Societies and no subscription lists! But they had that which we seem to lack in 1897, the real presence of the Holy Spirit in their work, their preaching, their characters, and their lives. This was the secret of their power! That is what we want among us at the end of the nineteenth century, more prayer, closer union with Christ, more of the real presence of God the Holy Ghost! Happy would it be for this country if a cry went up daily from every Christian family and every parish and congregation in the land: ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on the Church of England, that she may awake to a sense of her danger, shake off her growing indifference, do her first works and be alive.’ Men and brethren, I say once more, the true medicine that we need is the ‘real presence’ of God the Holy Ghost. For that presence, when we leave the Conference of this week, let us resolve to pray, and never to cease praying.

Hear we the Saviour’s voice, Pray, brethren, pray! Would ye His heart rejoice?

Pray, brethren, pray. Sin calls for ceaseless fear, Weakness needs the Strong One near;

Long as ye struggle here,

Pray, brethren, pray. (Quoted from ‘Hark, ‘tis the Watchman’s cry’, a hymn from ‘The Revival’, 1859.)