Phenix Gazette

The following, from the London Examiner, is
a sample of the manner in which the dignitaries
of the Church are now treated by the English
press:
The Bishops.—"Ye hypocrites, ye can discern
the face of the sky, and of the earth; but how
is it that ye do not discern this time? Yea, and
why, even of yourselves, judge ye not what is
right."
Since the swine rushed into the sea, was there
ever a gregarious movement of self-destruction
like that which has fixed the indignation of the
country? How would such as they have acted
when the Lord scourged those that bought, and
those that sold, from the Temple? Surely they
would have thrust the door in his face, they would
have been as twenty to one against the purifica-
tion. But they have acted consistently. The
successions of the Apostles are not to be looked
for in palaces and purple. They, whose state is
a practical denial of the Scripture they profess to
teach, may well set their wills against the rights
of the people. Such men would never have re-
nounced their worldly goods to follow a divine
Reformer, but would surely have ranged them-
themselves with Herod, and have opposed Pilate only
when he spoke the words of mercy and justice.
The coil of wealth has doubtless corrupted their
holy office; they illustrate nothing so practically
as the imposition of hands. Sad innovation has
Mammon made in the holy order. Lazarus has,
by process of clutching and scraping, waxed a
Dives. Frequent example is made of the wis-
dom of those that lived in the infancy of the
world; but the authorities are often uncertain.—
The maxim, stare in antiqua vias, is often in
their mouths; but one would think the old ways
were Lombard street or the Stock Exchange; let
us, for the love of charity, place them in the old-
est and most sacred ways to be traced in the his-
tory of Christianity. They were roads to rich-
es. See how wealth has corrupted them—see
how avaricious apprehension for the treasure
which the thief approaches, and the moth de-
stroys, has wrapped them up in selfishness, hard-
ened their hearts against the patriotism of the
throne. With divine prescience have they been
warned
against riches, and now in their
living they set forth the truth of their pernicious
effects. Our pampered prelates preach the les-
son, and present the example of the evil.