ENGLAND'S GREATNESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 309, 4 January 1908, Page 6

ENGLAND'S GREATNESS.

A correspondent writes to the London "Tribune" as follows:—"In ringing tones we are told that the Archbishop of Canterbury declared at Dover on October 31st that we are living "in the very biggest time England's story has ever known." This is good hearing; but, alas! in these same papers we are told that the Bishop of Chester, speaking apparently with no less earnestness and conviction, denounced our country as a "self-pleasing, luxurious, limp, and lazy hngland.' A\ hich of these high ecclesiastical authorities is speaking with the voice of truth'/ One would be glad to adopt the cheery optimism of the Primate, but 1 fear lie does not read the newspapers; or, if he does, he fails to see how frequently their columns are filled with records of grim and sordid crimes, stories of immorality in high places, heart breaking narratives of biting poverty, starvation and death; petty details of mean thefts and despicable trickery; the lleecing of widows by "bucket-shop" thieves; murders done in drink; unnamable offences committed by the decadent and the depraved. One does not need to >eek for these things in the papers. \\ hen you lead such cheerful messages as that of the archbishop, and feel a glow of pride in your country's glory, the other side of the picture lias a woeful habit of rising up out of the cold print and hitting your conscience between the eyes. You cannot take up a newspaper in these days without being greeted by s ome pitiful, sordid, painful, shameful, or revolting story which makes you feel ashamed of the age in which yon live. And there are some other things which do not find their way into the papers, or at least not often. Has the Primate, I wonder, ever seen the hordes of shivering, penniless, hungry outcasts who haunt the Embankment by night? Or the poor wretches who are fed in scores at two o'clock in the morning at the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen in Clare Market? Or the gaunt and hollow-eyed children with no language but profanity who ''play"—save the mark!—in the squalid courts of the East End? We .send missionaries to China and India, and spread many millions per annum to spend the gospel there. Heaven knows we need them intinitely more at home!