THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER AND MRS. BESSANT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 304, 22 December 1881, Page 4

THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER AND MRS. BESSA NT.

Mre. Besaant having felt aggrieved at some remarks aade by the Bigoop of M.qno^egfer in n 'rfo.h ! ,-- uccc iy dehv.tvvt tieiouL.iUj; 6ecu!aiiam us

''breaking down the parity of English ( am:j!y life," asked his lordship to prove his esfertioo. la bis reply his lordship remarks : — "I gay sdvieeJly, on the authority not only of the olersy, but of laymen who mix Emong the working classes, and know their thought?, ttat the sanctities of docaeaiic life ure tot valued by men who adopt the atheistic and secularist hypothesis, A book that hea been condemned es utterly immoral in its teachings end tendency, — ■* The Fruits of Philosophy,'— for which I believe, with whatever iatention, you are responsible — is still publicly Bold in the streets of Manchester, and was not loog aoo token by a clergyman in Burnley out of the hands of n young upmanied feccnl3 Sunday scholar, who was thus taking poison into her nature. In Manchester, not rcany months sinco, forty-seven men were apprehended by the police, engaged in tie most detestable practices, and I say distinctly ocd Brrrily, that if men's faith in a God and righteousness is de-stroyeil, and they arß taught that there is r.o hereafter, and no account to bo fjven of tbeir lives here, these doctrines, and their natural and neoeepa-y outcome will destroy the moral health of iife at its root, and mike purity an impossible virtue, I feel bound to lift up my voice against theee terrible igflces wherovsr I have the opportunity. The spreading corker of impurily in all doejsps of sociefy, of which medicil men sadly assure top, is the one thing thai; alerma me for the future of Eo»---land." °