CARDINAL MANNING ON THE MISERY OF LONDON.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1603, 5 July 1887, Page 3

CARDINAL MANNING ON THE MISERY OF LONDON.

In a pastoral letter just issued, Cardinal Manning says :—“ We are in a third Babylon, as great as Rome, It is the capital of a Christian people. la its people Christian ? We are responsible for all that is Catholic scattered in this wilderness of five millions of men ; and we are debtors to labor with even more unselfish love and denial of self than other men, and that in all works of humanity and sympathy with those who suffer, be they oura in faith or not. They are our brethren ; they share the same sufferings and sorrows. We are

tlieir debtors in all the seven works of spiritual and corporal mercy. Upon multitudes among ua there is an uuconcionsness like sleep. They have never known poverty or want. Their wellprovided life i», they think, the Jot of all, as might be, and therefore ought to be, so that they will o< t even read or listen. They do not know the condition of our poor ; but the fault is their own. Others again there are who know the truth, but they are so confident in their theories of social science that they give no prompt salvation to those who are not in conformity with rule. The laws of the moral world are indeed inflexible, because they are divine; bot the state of the moral world is always abnormal, and to a large extent immoral. Nevertheless we are debtors to all men ;and hunger and misery have rights, even in the worst of men. And we have duties even to those whom we may never be able to save. But into his large field of Christian obligation it is not necessary to enter. Only two words shall be added. We have never sounded

the deep sea of misery of London ; nor will these soundings be ever taken until the efforts of official search be largely

helped by the spontaneous personal aervice both of men and women devoted to (he works of Christian and human benevolence."