agree that it was a blessed thing that we ever took up this work of missions in the Church of England? Perhaps, however, we may attribute some of the success of this movement to the fact that the matter was put so severely and strongly by Mr. Ward in his book. Be it so. Let us, nevertheless, be thankful for what has taken place, and let us take courage. With regard to the discussion which has taken place to-day, I think that the spirit which has pervaded it, and the interesting and earnest papers which we have heard must be a matter of supreme thankfulness to us all. Perhaps the most striking and most remarkable paper, and perhaps the one which will have the greatest effect outside these walls is that written by Mr. Powell. I think the sentiments of Mr. Powell must tell upon the class he represents, that important class of which we had such a glorious exhibition in this hall on Wednesday night. The class which we want to gain, the class of whom it might be said, to adopt a phrase of the late Lord Beaconsfield, that it "cannot be said to be lost to the Church, because it has never been gained." One remark made by Mr. Powell particularly struck me; namely, that we should not be too particular with regard to the behaviour and demeanour of those who are coaxed into a church during a mission. As illustrative of this remark an anecdote occurs to my mind. At Leicester, a few years ago, some railway works were going on on the London and North Western Railway, and the consequence was that there were a great many navvies in the neighbourhood, and the people who were engaged in a mission at the time very properly and zealously swept into the church all the navvies they could. One evening, one of those engaged in the mission looked into a seat where there was a navvy, who seemed to have something with him not altogether ecclesiastical. The officer asked the navvy what he had got there, to which he replied, "It is only Bob.' Bob was his dog. On being told by the officer that dogs could not be allowed in the church the navvy_replied, "You have swept us fellows in here, and what is Bob to do? Bob and I always work together, and if I come here, Bob must come here too." The officer of the mission was a man of good sense, and said to the navvy, " Oh, very well, if Bob will behave himself he may remain." The navvy tucked Bob under the seat, where he lay perfectly quiet and happy during the service. I believe that was not the last time Bob attended church. The navvy was struck by what he heard in church, and he came again; and the end of it was that he became a regular worshipper in church, and somehow or other he managed, after a time, to dispense with the company of Bob.

DRILL HALL,

THURSDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 2ND, 1884.

The Very Rev. the DEAN OF CARLISLE in the Chair.

THE BEST MEANS OF RAISING THE STANDARD OF SOCIAL PURITY AMONG (1) THE WEALTHIER AND MORE EDUCATED, (2) THE POORER AND LESS EDUCATED.

PAPERS.

The REV. E. THRING, Head Master of Uppingham School.

In obedience to the commands of the President and the Subjects' Committee, I stand before you to-day to make the attempt to deal in twenty minutes with the central fact of the human world.

I shall endeavour to suggest some lines of thought and action.

The subject of purity falls under the head of life and the transmission of life.

No nation lives long, no individual lives long, who pollutes the sources of life persistently.

Therefore, true views of life, and of sex in relation to life, are absolutely necessary, if ever human nature is to stand on firm ground, and resist evil effectually. What men think facts to be, decides what they do.

The facts of the subject require firm, unmystical statement. They require, first, that the solemn, yet every-day character, of the sexual faculty, as human life, should be realised; and secondly, that voluptuous lies, which lie by exaggerating the power of lust, should be got rid of, whether the exaggeration consist of exaggerated sensuality, or of exaggerated praise of escaping from sensuality.

First, then, the nature and value of life determines the whole question and its treatment.

The facts, for a Christian, start with God's gift of life to man, “The Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," and in God's gift of life to woman, in order to be "a help meet for him," in the work given him to do.

Life and work, then, are the key-notes.

The first great law is, that the sexes were created to help one another; a law of partnership in work. Work cannot be done truly without both. This is the law of the gift of life.

Next, God willed that this gift of life should be transmitted by the union of man and woman. God's act of giving life is thus directly continued by sexual intercourse.

God also gave a blessing, which was a command: multiply," etc.

"Be fruitful and

Our Lord Christ sends us back to this original charter for right knowledge: "In the beginning God created them male and female; therefore," etc.

Purity, then, means life from God in true action; and impurity means treason against God's life. It is as manly in a man to be pure as it is womanly in a woman, and it is as possible.

The original charter is renewed at Mount Sinai, when God made honour of father and mother-honour, that is, of the holy transmission of human life and the duties belonging to it-the title to the one supreme blessing of His covenant; the title to the individual, and through the individual to the nation, of long life in the Promised Land. This is decisive as to the supreme place given to holy transmission of human life in this world.

I cannot but think that a frank acceptance of the facts of God's world-God's facts-would greatly check impurity by giving nobler views. As men think, so do they act; mean thoughts are strong temptations. The thoughts must be set right first. The foremost fact of all the world as regards human nature to me is that the life of the human race is entrusted to sexual union. The crowning fact of Revelation to me is the revelation of the Bride-all mankind gathered up into the perfect excellence of womanly glory to be presented to the Bridegroom.

What men ought to think of women is fixed for evermore by this divine intimation that the highest excellence is in character womanly. The most marvellous fact in the human world of life is to me the purity of marriage-God in this justifying His command.

Ist. The wonderful purity of good women.

2nd The wonderful advance in purity of the chaste man, and the abolition of lust-the true virginity, the circumcision of the spirit.

How infinitely higher a man feels that virginity to be to which the woman brings no lust than that which, however complete (and I think I know what I am speaking of when I say "complete"), was virgin only by banishing womanhood from its world.

But this lowering of sex to a temptation which must be banished is unhealthy and untrue; however necessary it may be, and is, to keep the thoughts from dwelling on sex. They who know that there is no lust, no vile magic, in true sexual relations, will have cleaner imaginations than those who think them sensual. And cleaner imaginations mean greater freedom from temptation, and cleaner life. The morbid glorification which banishes sex as a too-powerful temptation has, I am sure, much to answer for in making the temptation too powerful.

Moreover, that which ought to be banished easily passes into being thought an evil and a curse in itself. But sex is not a curse. Human nature, in its noblest men and women, its best fathers and mothers, in those who give a meaning to the prayer, "Our Father," is traduced and degraded by this view, and the temptation of lust glorified.

Lust is a curse, but not a curse connected with the female sex, as many practically think, and would think with truth if lust belonged of necessity to sexual intercourse, and absence of lust to abstaining from it. Women would be better out of the world if this was true, and the whole female sex a necessary evil; for man chooses to think himself on a higher level-falsely thinks so, since male and female are on the same level. The life of both is equally concerned in being true and faithful

to God's gift of life; and the penalties on unchastity inflicted by God on the body and soul in this world are the same for both.

The basis of all true chastity is a true reverence for sex; a true knowledge that the purity of the body is the one great act of allegiance to God, and loyalty to the Giver of Life; and a clear understanding that lust is a deadly disease, which does not belong to sex and the sexual relations when rightly carried out. The whole subject requires to be lifted out of the mire of heathenism, from which it has never quite emerged. It does not matter whether it be male or female, young or old, married or unmarried, the heathenism must be cut out which exaggerates with heathen voluptuousness of desire, or scarcely less heathen fear, the sexual relations, and implies that there must be lust; whereas lust always and in everyone is equally vile, and is capable of extinction. In the transmission of God's original gift of life, the duties of life and work come first; and women are as necessary for true work as men. True work does away with distinctions of sex. Single or married, old maid or bachelor, are lost in common honour as soon as work takes the first place. This fact determines the treatment and education of women. Honour as workers and a worker's training is their due. They are God's workers first; females afterwards. The goddess theory is simply lust disguised; condemn a nation, or a generation, which puts women aside from the work of life with a false idolatry. The petted slave of the wealthy becomes the beast-of-burden slave of the poor. When women receive true reverence as fellow-workers and helpers, and not as females, then much impurity will vanish. It is one of the great hopes of our time that woman's work is largely recognised. But as long as the fascination, beauty, and accomplishments (evil word) are put in the place of God's facts of life, the battle is lost for the young before it is begun. They enter on life dedovλwuévoi non, utterly δεδουλωμένοι mistaken in their ideas of purity, full of unclean imaginations about sex which are not true, and of unclean glorification of sex which is not true. The police reports give fatal evidence how utterly the enchantment of passion dies out, and fails to protect from brutal violence even her who seemed so supreme and so secure in command. I say nothing about solitary sin, or uncleanness, alone or with others, for higher truth to begin with, shuts the door on uncleanness, and gives it no chance. The solemn responsibility of sex, as God's ministry of human life, must be established. As strong a religious conviction of the true honour of men and women is needed as the monks and nuns of old had of what was imperfect, or false. The world needs to revere womanhood with the sober reverence due to her as one who by God's law is a fellow-helper; the world needs to shake off the heathenism of early times, and learn the secret of complete self-mastery. To raise womanhood is to purify the world. Men and women have to be wrought into perfect excellence by accepting fully and frankly the last and highest revelation, which sets before mankind as the highest perfection the womanly glory of the bride.

The next point I wish to urge is, the necessity of fair conditions of life. Without these it is useless to say much. It is all very well laying down principles; words are a great power where there is freedom of action. But with the very poor, or boys at school, there is no freedom of action.

All their surroundings are fixed for them, and that movement of life which pushes all hindrances out of the way, and shapes a world fitted for itself to live in, is denied to them. But, if the conditions are unfitted for life, life dies. Foul air kills animal life; foul surroundings kill higher life. Whole families pigging in one room cannot, in a civilised country, be chaste. We have talked too much, and done too little. We are too religious. We talk of divine truths, and build churches, when we ought in God's name, and for Christ's sake, to be going round with a scavenger's cart and a navvy's pickaxe, carting off filth and making sewers.

I believe in a Gospel which builds sewers first and churches afterwards; or, to drop metaphor, which goes to the lowest thing that needs to be done and does it, in word and deed, as the highest form of religion. Christ began low down. His coming to earth was in itself a beginning low down, and doing what had to be done. Little or no real good is dropped down from above. Thank God, my Lady Bountiful has had her day; at least, partially so. Personal help and personal devotion never rest satisfied till the wrong is made right. The poor, with their one room, must be helped to help themselves to a better state of things, or they cannot be chaste. Boys at school, also, should be protected by all their surroundings being framed, unknown to them, so as to shut off temptation. The whole structure and system should act as an unseen friend. There is much virtue, or vice, in a wall. Witness the one room. No words, no personal influence, no religion even, can do instead of the holy help of the wall, or overcome its evil, if evil. These words involve serious results in practice. They involve the teaching and training of every boy, with adequate machinery for doing it. The young cannot be dealt with in herds.

The house accommodation should make every boy feel himself cared for. But this is a matter of infinite skill and much expense.

The class-working should thoroughly handle each boy, and leave no unswept corners.

Many objects of interest should be there. One boy is caught in one net, another in another.

The whole atmosphere should be an atmosphere of work and life, with time fully occupied, and an involuntary, quiet throwing of light on all the boy life.

If this was the atmosphere of England, much impurity would vanish from schools. Neglect and faulty structure breed impurity as in a hotbed. Talk cannot get over this. Alter the conditions, or be

silent.

It is enough for me merely to point out this difficulty. The good wall, within a certain range, is omnipotent. I will now pass on to a kindred subject. Good work is needed, but how much more needed is good amusement. Men and women, who have no earthly pleasure save sex and beer, cannot be chaste. I hold the man who in this generation provides good amusement for the poor, and teaches them to enjoy it, to be pre-eminently a man of God. Merry England, rightly understood, is the noblest title a nation could have. Alas, for merry England! Help the helpless to reconstruct their surroundings, or they cannot be

chaste.

Help the helpless to true pleasure, or they cannot be chaste.