TRIALS OF A BISHOP.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 96, 25 April 1911, Page 3

TRIALS OF A BISHOP.

REMARKS BY THE ACTINGPRIMATE. [by ielegeaph— special to the post.] AUCKLAND, This Day. i The Acting-Primate (Bishop Julius) j made some forcible remarks touching i the trials of a bishop in the course of a sermon at St. Mary's Cathedral. Par- ■ nell. He took for his text five words [of St. Paul : "Of all men most miserable." There was in Worcester Cathedral, h« said, a tomb which bore as its inscription the single Latin word "MiBemrnus" — "most miserable." Now, if there was a man to whom the' world might justly apply this term that man was St. Paul. He had left his position, his friends, his wealth, all that the world held most dear, and for th© sake of his belief became a wanderer upon the face of the earth, ending his life in imprisonment and a degrading death, and yet it was under only one conceivable circumstance that St. Paul would have had written on his tomb the word "Miserrimus." If his faith had proved vain and useless h« would indeed have been "of all men most miserable." "If there^ is any ghastly business under the. sun," continued the preacher, "it is that of a bishop who doesn't believe, in what he teaches, but has to keep up appearances and go on his way as if it were not a mockery and a sham. If such a man could be found his tomb might well bear the one unhappy 'word You may talk lighlly of a bishop and his work, but I would not give a click for the business of keeping up institutions and not saving souls. It is not enough to belong to a church which is respectable, ancient, and decent unless it is devoted to God's service. The position is nothing whether he were the wealthiest of bishops or in poverty like St. Paul. It would be better for a man to drive pigs to market than to govern' a church which had lost its faith. But there is another side to the picture : If your bishop comes in fulness of faith, comes to Auckland and looks on the little land of his diocese, sees strife and factious parties looking for fights, not souls, sees numbers who belong to no church, out-cast women, neglected children, he will see behind al' this the Gospel of Life which will bear him up in his many trials and difficulties. It will help him along his way, and often when he feels he hasn't done as well a"s he expected, I would ask you, then, to pray for him. Even if your prayers are short, then I want you to back him