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SOCIAL VICES AND IMMORALITIES.

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WE quote the following eloquent words
from the address delivered by the Bishop of
Melbourne (Dr. Moorhouse) at the recent
session of the Church of England Assembly
in Melbourne: ---

Last year we formed a White Cross
Union in this diocese, and I am glad to
report that, although the progress of the
society has not been what we could have
hoped, yet wherever unions have been
formed and worked, they have not been
without a cheering measure of success.
Some of our clergy have held back from this
work, chiefly it would seem because of its
delicacy and difficulty; but surely after we
have read those awful exposures of the vice
of London which have recently appeared in
our newspapers, all such objections must be
scattered to the winds. ... (Cheers.) ... Some of
us perhaps may have regretted that such
horrible revelations should have been made
to all women and children who read the
daily prints. But they have been so made.
Young and old, men and women, know all
about them. And to talk about the
delicacy of the subject after that, is
like talking about the danger of referring
to infection, when thousands are
known to be dying of a pestilence. ...
(Cheers.) ... And that these revelations are
substantially reliable I do not for an instant
doubt. Their most damning disclosures are
not a whit worse than those which have been
made on her own authority, and on that of
the Rev. Mr. Horsley, by one of the noblest
and purest-hearted women in England. I
will not shock you by going into details; it
will be enough to say that they relate to the
foul and unnatural corruption of children --- in
some cases of mere babes. Where is our
manhood, where is the righteous indignation
which ought to sweep these scoundrelly
defilers of children into prison, and shave
their heads, and stamp upon them the brand
of infamy, whether they be rich or poor,
beggars or nobles? ... (Loud cheers.) ... Don't
you know that there is no sign of a sinking
civilisation and a perishing race so sure as
the prevalence of foul and unnatural
sensuality. Much vice of a natural kind
there may be amongst a people, while
reformation is yet possible. But wherever
that vice takes monstrous and unnatural
forms, there the mysterious hand may be seen,
by those who have eyes, tracing the letters
of doom on the walls of a nation's palaces.
I must speak plainly on this matter. For it
is the nature of these sins, when suffered to
go unchecked, to create passions so vile and
overbearing that at length, by the pure
force of heredity, they become irresistible,
driving a people on to doom, as the storm
drives driftwood upon the rocks. It is vain
to resist when resistance has become impos-
sible. And mark this: All history shows
--- not merely the story of the Canaanites,
but all history --- that when nations have be-
come so vile that their continued existence
would poison the blood of the world, those
nations are exterminated. Necessarily and
righteously, I say. For since it is a God who
rules this world, and not a devil, how should
He allow the race which He has created in
His own image to be destroyed by those who
have made themselves so foul that they can-

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not [cannot] be purified? ... (Applause.) ... But surely,
you will say, no such danger menaces the
great race to which we belong. I hope not,
indeed. But what is the meaning of all
those warning voices which come to us
across the sea. Mr. Moody is no alarmist.
He is a shrewd man, with a keen eye and
a large knowledge of the masses of England.
And what did he say the other day in the
presence of 5000 men in Liverpool? --- "You
are altogether mistaken in supposing that
it is intemperance which is the chief sin of
England. What is eating into the heart of
your noble country is the sin of impurity."
Now I know where I stand, and I know the
solemn responsibility which lies on me to
tell the truth in this matter --- no more and
no less; and speaking under the sense of
that responsibility, I say that I have good
reason for repeating Mr. Moody's warning
here. Emphatically the greatest danger of
our young men is not drunkenness, but
impurity. ... (Cheers.) ... Our warmer sun, our
lonely forests, the early age at which our
young people earn considerable wages, even
the secular tone of our thought, all contri-
bute to this result. And the danger is not
distant. It is upon us.

What will the Lord Jesus Christ think,
then, of you and me, if, with ruin staring us
in the face, we fold our hands and keep
silence, talking in a cowardly unreal way
about difficulties, delicacies, and I know not
what, instead of rushing in between the
living and the dead, that the plague may be
stayed. ... (Applause.) ... I would not have you
say one word which can minister to prurient
tastes. I would not have you do one act
which can shock the divine modesty of
youth. Oh! watch and cherish with the
most jealous care that divinely implanted
guard of purity in your children. But is
there anything, I ask you, in the establish-
ment and working of White Cross unions
which can stain the white purity of the
most innocent? Do we not keep a wise
reticence? Do we not respect the holy
reserve of the uncontaminated? Is not our
work of that quiet and unobtrusive kind
which thrusts no one into prominence?
We take a pledge from the young man
that he will treat all women with respect,
that he will frown down all obscene
conversation, that he will never defile
his eyes with foul pictures or litera-
ture, that like a knight and a hero he
will defend the weak and ignorant, at per-
sonal risk if need be, from the attacks of
villains formidable for their craft or their
wealth. ... (Applause.) ... We say keep your
heart pure that you may be strong. We
say strike for the weak, shield the helpless,
tread down insolent villainy, and do all
this because you are a Christian ... [hidden by a paper fold] ... [be a disciple?]
of Him who lived to succour and heal, who
died to rescue the lost and uplift the fallen.
Can you find me a grander life-task than
that for any man upon earth? Can you
ever think that anyone could be made
worse for being solemnly devoted to it?
Why, then, does anyone hesitate? If you
want, still, secondary motives (though it
irks me to come down to such), then ought
it not to encourage you to know how this
work is growing in England? Working
men are taking it up enthusiastically.
They see that it is specially a working man's
question, for it is from amongst the
daughters of the working classes that
the victims of this monstrous modern
lust are mostly stolen. Nor are the
generous students at our universities
behind their humbler brethren in
devotion to this cause. The protection
of the weak appeals to their manhood. The
strength of purity is found to beckon them
with a commanding gesture, which they
cannot resist. "At Oxford," we hear,
"the Purity Asociation has grown from
200 to 500. At Cambridge, large and
enthusiastic audiences of young men are
addressed by such men as Canon Westcott.
At Edinburgh a powerful White Cross
movement is being set on foot among the
students, the medical students taking very
prominently the lead, and the highest men ...
[obscured by paper fold] ... [with?] H[...]y [Humility?] are giving it their sanc-
tion. Trinity College, Dublin, has also
formed an association on the same basis as
Oxford and Cambridge, the students them-
selves taking the initiative, and Glasgow
and Aberdeen have both taken up the white
cross." Thank God for all this. It shows
that the blood of the mass of our people is
still pure, and it presages, I venture
to say, the growth of a public opinion,
which will be so awful in its indig-
nation, that the vice which would turn
England into a Sodom, will, ere long, be
driven back in terror, and chained down to
the black abyss from which it came. ... (Ap-
plause.) ... And, my friends, you that are
working in this great cause in Victoria, do
not let yourselves be discouraged by the
slow and noiseless growth of your society.
From its very nature your work must be an
unobtrusive one. It is too radical to be
noisy. It lies too deep to be represented by
statistics. The secretary of a temperance
society can easily report how many men
have written their names on a piece of
paper, but who can say how many young
besides those enrolling themselves in your
ranks have been brought to register a silent
vow before God that they will themselves
try to be pure, and to throw the shield of
their manly respect and defence over the
purity of their sisters. What a poor
beggarly account would a paper of statistics
have given of the mightiest moral revolution
ever wrought upon this earth! The Son
of God had become man, had suffered
and died, and He had made some
score or two of humble disciples.
Yes; but for all that, the seed had been
sown that should one day develop into a
mighty tree, capable of covering all the
nations with its protecting shade. The
work of a purity society is like that of the
kingdom of God. It has such an inward-
ness, it reaches down so near to the very
deepest springs of action, that it can only
strike root in quiet and darkness. But for
that very reason, as soon as it once begins
to show upon the surface, all the fields will
be found green and bursting life --- the
promise and pledge of golden harvests.
... (Applause.) ... One word to another class
upon this subject, and I have done. Why
do men hesitate to join this crusade, because
they are conscious of wrong-doing in their
past, or even of the rebellious stirring of
evil impulse in the present? I think these
are the very men who should be most
heartily with us. They need the support
of such a movement as this, and they know
their need. Are they not ashamed
of such sensual selfishness? Do they
not hate the sin? Have they not the
best evidence in themselves of the awful
ravage it can make in heart and life? Men
and brethren, do we hesitate to set forth
the lofty ideal of the Christian life because
we know that we ourselves are so far from
having realised it? And should we then
any more hesitate to proclaim the need of
purity because we feel ourselves to be less in-
wardly pure than we long to be? Fight
the evil within you by all means (the purer
the heart the mightier the blow), but spare
not to join the battle on the broad field of
life, because the inward victory is not yet
fully won. Not in the cloister, but in the
press of men; not in the lonely strife, but
in the embattled ranks of the soldiers of
God, are strength and redemption most
surely won. ... (Cheers.) ... I have always felt
that prevention is better than cure in the
case of such awful moral diseases as that
about which I have been speaking. But
still where the disease exists it is surely our
bounden duty to endeavour to find a cure
for it. You know as well as I do that the[re]

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are low and miserable quarters in our great
city which are a disgrace to our civilisation
--- which are the seats of moral pestilence ---
the centres of deadly contagion. We rejoice
to think that Christian men and women,
like the members of the Salvation Army,
have penetrated those jungles of vice, and
are labouring there for Christ with a courage
and devotion truly admirable. ... (Applause.) ...
But does their faithfulness absolve us from
our share of the duty? Are there not too
many of those children of sin and misery
who once belonged to our churches, and who
would be more readily reached and more
certainly delivered by our methods than by
any other? Do they not look to us for help?
And does not our heart tell us that they
ought not to look in vain? Is it possible,
indeed, that we can be disciples of the All-
Pitiful Saviour, if, seeing them lie in their
blood, we leave them to the care of an[y]
chance Samaritan, while we coldly pass [by]
on the other side?"