THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER AND MRS BESANT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 514, 21 December 1881, Page 4

THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER AND MRS BESANT.

MrsJJesant having felt aggrieved at; some Temurks, made by the . Bishop of. Manchester in a speech he recently delivered denouncing secularism as “ breaking down the purity of English: family life,” asked his lordship to prove | his assertion. In his reply his lordshipj remarks: —“I say advisedly, on the; authority not only of the clergy, but of; laymen who mix- among the working j classes and know their thoughts, that I the sanctities of domestic life are not j valued by men who ( adopt the atheistic and,.,Secularist hypothesis. A book which has been comdemned as utterly immoral in its teachings and tendency, ‘ The Fruits of Philosophy ’ —for which, I believe, with whatever intention, you are responsible—is still publicly sold in the streets of Manchester, and was not long; ago taken by a clergyman in Burnley out of the hands of a young unmarried female Sunday scholar, who was thus taking poison into her nature. In Manchester, not many months since, forty-seyen men were apprehended by the polled engaged in the most detestable practices and I say distinctly and firmly that if men’s faith in a God and righteousness is destroyed, and they are taught that, there is no hereafter arid no account to be given of their lives here, these doctrines and their natural and necessary outcome will destroy the moral health of life at its root and make purity an impossible virtue. I feel bound to lift up my voice against these terrible.issues wherever I have the opportunity. The spreading canker of impurity in all classes of society, of which medical men assure me, is the one thing,that alarms me for the future of England.” :