THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY ON BRITISH SOCIETY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1433, 16 December 1886, Page 3

THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY ON BRITISH SOCIETY.

The Bishop cf Salisbury has been drawing a highly, coloured picture cf modern British society, Ha says : hough tb« vice and the luxury ot .he rich might be tolerated for a while by the poor, the i.oor were not unobservant of. them The secularist newspapers wore fall of it. There was not a scandal in high life but was known all over England in its darkest corners, and probably much exaggerate'!, Even what might be called the innocent luxuries of the wealthy wtro a sore and terrible trial to the starving and of en uncomplaining masses of the pour. Why should there be this measureless contrast, this unequal distribution of got d things ! That was a question which ih-y asked aglin and agdn, and if no sufficle .t r ply was made there would gradually be gathered up such a fl od of bitter resentment as would Sweep away In a revolution not only the signs but also the homes of religion Itself.” The right rev gentleman then proceeded to answer hia own quasticn, and said that '• he believed that there was only one answer that could be made to the question wilh any approach to reason, and that was that God had made the loia of men unequal in order that the rich might help the poo-.” The poor, in fact, are taugh'. oa high authority that they are made poor so that the rich might help them. Is there not an explosive element of danger In teaching of this kind, and patticularly as the preacher Indicated pos sible if not probable, o ming cat*atrophies? If the rich do not help the poor, th y directly defeat the purposes of the Almighty. and therefore prepare themselves for extinction No Foci .list of m odern t mes has preached a more revo ntionary and levelling doctrine than this ; and it is not unlikely that the Bishop’s words will bo echoed from many a rocialist platform, and from many a Socialist meeting. The Bishop made no classification of ruh men ; and, as we have no rich Bishops, and Archbishops, and p uralists in the Church, they must come under the same condemnat on which hangs like a stormcloud over the destiny of the wealthy. It was a bold thing to interpret the purposes of the Eternal, and to proclaim it as dictum tl at God made the poor in order that the rich might be benevolent.— Echo.