THE NEW BISHOP OF BALLARAT.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 167, 18 December 1874, Page 3

THE NEW BISHOP OF BALLARAT.

The Leader observes :—The newly-ap-pointed Bishop of Ballarat, the Rev H. Thornton, of Birmingham, is, if all that is reported of him be true, a prelate of a most pronounced democratic type. By his own statement before a Church Congress, held two years ago at Leeds, ho lias several times been locked up by the police for preaching in the street. He admits that this is "unpleasant," but it does not seem to have at all disturbed his clerical composure, only to have suggested other itinerant means of expounding the gospel. " Working men will not come to tea meetings," he observes, "but no doubt they would come to suppers." " Well, then," he adds, " give them a supper with plenty of cold, rather underdone, beef, and an unlimited supply of red pickled cabbage, and that disposed of, you may speak your mind, and they will listen to and confer with you." The Ballarat bishop-elect likes al freseo church meetings, but the policeman bars the way. "What do you say to a tent," he asks, and as the happy thought strikes him, he follows it up until he places the whole matter vividly before yoii. " Then get your tent," he says, " pitch it early in the morning, and run up a flag. As the working men go to their work in the morning they will say to one another, ' Holloa ! what's up ?' A bill will inform them that the Gospel is going to be preached there that evening. Working men will come into a tent _ to hear the Gospel preached where the light is dim and they're not likely to be 'spotted,' as they call it." This modern St. Paul disregards nothing of a secular character that will serve his religious purpose. Like the eccentric Rowland Hill (or was it John Wesley?) who declared that the devil shouldn't have all the good music, and applied profane melodies to the church hymns, Bishop Thornton would even revert to music of a very secular type indeed to draw a crowd together to preach to. "What do you say," he asks, "to blowing a trumpet ? They find in Holland that a hymn led with a cornet-a-piston will give a good congregation in five minutes." Upon the subject of Sunday Schools the Bishop-elect has a remarkably sound head. "Why not have Sunday schools for men," he asks. "In Birmingham we have one attended by about 1200, who assemble every Sunday morning." Bishop Thornton clearly takes the world as he finds it, and is ready to fashion the roughest material into something good. There is a splendid field for him in Victoria, and his arrival here will be heartily welcomed. We shall need a change then, however, in our railway management, for Bishop Thornton is just the sort of man, we imagine, to ask for a special train for a Sunday picnic at Mount Macedon, with a brass band and a corps of refreshment caterers. Mr Gillies would stand no chance with a bishop who has a contempt for the watchhouse, sits down with an unwashed congregation to underdone beef and pickles, and rolls up a congregation at five minutes' notice by cornet-a-piston and beat of drum.