Excerpt from The Message of the Mission; Can We Accept It?: A Sermon Preached in the Mill-Hill Chapel, Leeds, on Sunday, February 7th, 1875 A little closer insight, however, quickly dispels this un reasoning complacency, and sometimes terrifies it into anequally unreasoning despair. Leaving on one side the mlserable war of sects, and passing beyond the narrow limits of theological contests, the enquiring heart speedily finds itself confronted with vast masses of misery and desti tution, of physical degeneration, and of spiritual decline. Not all the riches of England, where the wildest dreams of wealth and luxury have been long ago outstripped, and wearied imaginations sink beneath the burden of their gold, avail to check its pauperism; not all its learning has been able thus far to restrain its crime. Descend into the haunts of our great towns, and you will find it difficult not to draw a picture of almost unrelieved gloom. Enormous numbers living within a day's march of 'utter want, the prey of the consuming passion for drink, seem to defy all efforts to uplift them. There are thousands who are bowed with the necessities of constant toil, and pass joyless lives which they are even thankful to lay down. The young as they enter on their careers are met by powerful temptations which they have too often but little resolution to resist the elder asthey draw near their end look backwards without regret, and forwards without h0pe. There are classes between whom the relations are so tightly strained that a very small event would precipitate them into open opposition. Amid newer manners old laws still survive, of which the strong are sometimes base or degraded enough to take advantage tonppress the weak: and-scarcely a year goes by whose history is not stained in some one of the four quarters of the globe by rapine, by bloodshed, and by' war. I pass by the catastrophes which from time to time thrill us with suggestions of the horrors that ever lie in wait on the other side of safety, and drive fainting hearts to doubt if God after all be.good do but take up a single newspaper with its daily tales of guilt and need; or if you would realise them in their worst forms close at hand, go down amid crowded courts and polluted homes, nay, even through the very streets themselves at night, and see the oppor tunities and the consequences of excess and shame. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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