General News.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3700, 3 November 1880, Page 2

General News.

Bishop Itporhouse of Melbourne, -in; •/, reot-nt address, asked whether, if oar politicians were guilty of unscrupulous conduct, it was the duty of the Church to stand by and say nothiag, or to say ihiki the chnrch had nothing to do with it, as it wts a matter for the State? Was there one God for the State, and another for the * Church P Could a man lie and te rnjust as a statesman, without being responsible ' - to a God for itP He maintained not. If a man lied or cheated, no matter in what position of life he was, ■he committed * sin, and it was the duty of ♦ the -' Church to rebuke ' sin. Whenever" the Church of Christ failed to lift up '• her voice she would fail to be pf.use. ■;,' and the ' sooner she ended the betterV' , God governed both church and the,state, , I \ and offences against his commandments would'bring tjheir punishment/ whether/, committed by institutions or, individuals..,,,. Be education,, he asked whether, if our ( „, children were threatened with, the loss of „'.\ the knowledge of God and the. light of. Christ, we ought not to be expected to count nothing too great a sacrifice to " aVert such a dire, .calamity, He war almost ashamed .*to put' the question, knowing what thousandY of people then ;r> were in this colony calling themselves Christians who cared nothing for the knowledge of God being eliminated, from ) their educational system, so long as they *, j did not have to fay for the education. 1 ; ' , At a recent meeting of the Orrell Jjaiul , Board, near Wigan, in Lancashire,: th« Clerk, in illustration of the diffioultlct , > which beset the control of infection, mentioned a practice which exists in that'; district, of mothers deliberately exposing their young'children to the; infeotiob of ' scarlet ferer and whooping-cough, under the belief that it was better that the children hare the disease while young; He designated the belief as a "super* s atition." He would rather term it

a tradition, arising from the imperfectly: * understood results of experience. The practice described is by no means confined to the part of Lancashire under' consideration. Our own knowledge of it is somewhat extensive, but the exposure, so far as we have met with it, has been invariably limited to the obviously mild : cases of , infectious disease, and. fiWQ,' y . elements entered into the practice. First, - there was the practically universal belief that the infectious diseases.of children had to be undergone by every child, and , . the sooner they were got- over the better for the child, both «as to its , chance of recovery and its subsequent welfare; and next there was the belief that if a child contracted the disease from a mild, case, it would have a xcild, attack, hence mild oases were selected to catch the disease from. In j .' both these elements there was a lubptra.

tarn of truth, which long experience and oommon observation had shown, and which was uncheoked bj the more precise observation of the medical man.—Lancet. When should an orator expect fair sailing?—When-he hat before him a sea of upturned faces.