HEROES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 468, 17 August 1909, Page 4

HEROES.

The Archibishop of York in hiss little work, The Opportunity of the Church of England, tell us : “I can think of a poor woman who because her confirmation was to be the sealing of her resolve to give up drink, was on its eve, lied to a chair while her husband and two of his mates tried to force brandy down her throat: of a lad who came late to the confirmation, obviously bruised and distressed because he had fought his way to church through the street-gang to whom he had once belonged : of a factory girl of whose hard struggles against temptation I had known, passing me as I met the candidates going to their places and saying, ‘ Oh, Bishop, pray for me; I’m afraid of myself of a man, who, for a whole week after his confirmation, had to endure, in silence, at the dinner hour in his workshop, a mock repeliton of the ceremony, conducted by his fellow workmen. But, indeed, there is scarcely any East End Confirmation held at which I do not hear of some such tale of courage and endurance ; and almost every parish priest could tel many similar tales from his own experience.”