PLAIN WORDS FOR RICH MEN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 46, 18 November 1907, Page 5

PLAIN WORDS FOR RICH MEN.

» ■ BISHOP OF LONDON'S BOLD SERMON. MILLIONAIRE CONGREGATION. ' "To you all, whether you bo financial king or pauper, I send this message—'Give an account of your stewardship, for you may be no longer' steward."'' These words, delivered in simple, earnest tones, were the keynote of the remarkablo address- which, tho ' Bishop of London delivered at Trinity Church, Wall Street, iievr York, on Thursday afternoon to a congregation of "buns,- 'bears." great bankers, and the leading' iadv.'i of-New York society. .We append tin-- ..c'J'g sermon of the Bishop,, cabled to t'.ic xJtfily Mail" by a New York correspondent. . . ..'... .... Text, Luke xvi; 2—"Give an account of thy stewardship; for thou, inayest be no longer, steward." ... "There is something about the Bible, especially the words of our Lord, which bite into tho" conscience. It made tho Secularist who was asked, 'Why don't you leave tho Bible alone?' reply, 'Because it won't leave me alone.' I have chosen these words for my brief address at a busy hour in one. of th'e busiest cities of the world because they are so peculiarly modern. . ■ "First, there is the suddenness with which the sentence is passed on one or other of us. Just before I left London, one of the best known-men-there—he is known throughout the world—asked me for half an hour of my time. He had been given six week)? to live. In'the midst of his busy life the sentence of Heaven had been passed upon him. In London alone —I do not know the statistics here—someone dies every eight minutes, and so, as I watch tho great flood of humanity, I feel how modern the text I have taken is. ...'

"Stewardship,, not ownership, is the central, fundamental truth of tho Christian religion. If you once grasp this, all thr social puzzles of London and New York will be solved and life on both sides, of the Atlantic cleansed. " THE BISHOP AND HIS PALACE. " ' "Havo you over thought why there are any rich and .poor at all? That is a question 1 have had to' face in London. They have asked me how I reconciled my belief in a good God loving all children with the wretched-million in the East End of London, who seem abandoned both by God and by man. I had to face that question, and havi had to face it ever since. "There is but one answer. Tho rich minority have what .they have merely as a trust for all othersj.it is stewardship, not ownership. God's command to every one of us is: 'You aro not your own. Nothing.that you have i 3 your own.' "My home has been the homo of Bishops of Loudon for 1300 years. Supposo that I should say that it was my own, and that the bishop's income of £10,U00 a year was my own, 1 should be called a madman. "■ The man who thinks that he owns what he has in his keeping is no less a madman. This applies alike to the boy and his pocket money and to the millionaire and his millions. Disregard of this trust causes all tho social evils of London and Now York. If every man considered hinisolf a steward there would be no object in dishonesty, for no man who is really a Christian, and who imagines that he has to give an account to God for' every penny, would over soil his hands with dirty work in the city or accumulate ono. dollar by moans .that ho could not justify in tho sight of. Heaven. . • ■ CAUSE,''OF, "BLATANT SOCIALISM.'.'. ' "Stowardslyp would do away with tho tyranny of capital.over.la.bour; capital Iwould be robbed altogether of its 'tyrannous aspect if every owner of capital regarded hinisolf as tho'steward, not as the owner, of what he has. "What is now a tcrro.- hi; Europe; and what I understand is'a source of not less disquiet in America,, the rise of a bitter, blatant, shallow Socialism, is due to. the neglect of this elementary Christian principle. Just, .as .the exaggerations of Christian Science have arisen from the neglect of the truths of the power, of mind over matter and of the sanctity' of the' healing art, so tho more bitter arid blatant forms of Socialism have sprung up from neglect of the'prihciplo of stewardship inherent in the Christian' religion. , '.. , . .......

"Can any of, you here to-day give an account of your stewardship, or are you using your gifts to gain a : iiamc for yourself or for more 1 publicity?" The Bishop went on to impress on the congregation that they were .all .stewards alsd of the Christian religion. Pie mentioned that he had brought from Fulliam Palace some dozen documents dating from the time when the Bishop of London was also Bishop of the American Colonies. One was a netition from an Indian chief asking the King to send a missionary to Massachusetts. The Indiana were prepared to give the missionary glebe lands, but as the glebo was vcrv poor, they hoped that the King would' grant the missionary a salary. BETHNAL GREEN EXPERIENCE'. "You have," the Bishop proceeded, "no right, to forget that you hare'the Christian faith from us as a trust, just as,we have no right to forget that lifteen centuries-ago Great Britain was a barbarous country, to which missionaries came from abroad bringing- the' Christian faith to us." i'he Bishop next applied the text to the question of responsibility for personal gifts, uttering a solemn warning to him who uses his influence to destroy the, soul ofjhis Christian brother. "Nothing," he said, "rusts gifts like conceit and pride. • If you want to use them for the good of the world be humble about them. For nine years I had the happiness to preside over Oxford House, Betlinal Green. The charm of that settlement work was that thirty young men from Oxford and Cambridge, some of them most brilliant, came and used their gifts for the poor of London. There was scope for all, Whether they managed athletics, spoke in debates, or conducted missions. Each ministered as.a.good steward." At the end of the sermon the Bishop offered a short extemporary prayer, asking that America and England might be faithful to their trust. Then, ho. pronounced the Benediction.