A disgraceful scene took place yesterday week in the City,
where Brother Ignatius (the Bev. J. L. Lyne) had been preach- ing. This gentleman has preached on previous Fridays on the sins peculiar to the City, and seems especially to have stated that Lombard Street was far worse than Jericho—(where, by the way, did he get the materials for so very difficult an historical com- parison? was Jericho great in bankers ?)—from whose blind man's history he had taken his text. This rather wide-of-the-mark denunciation of Mr. Lyne's had, however, the effect of hurting somebodies' feelings—perhaps they thought that to be called worse than Jericho, where so many disagreeable people are sent, in wish, must be very awful indeed,—and yesterday week a crowd of well- -dressed people was got up to mob and insult Mr. Lyne, who, on this occasion, had said nothing thrilling, but yet was unable for a long time to get out of the church without great danger, the crowd pelt- ing him and attempting to upset his cab. Nor was this the worst. ,Quiet clergymen and ladies were grossly insulted,—the latter by the coarsest questions borrowed from the literature of Protestant -exposis of the Confessional,—a good many clergymen of High- Church aspect were hustled and hurt, and altogether these well- dressed vindicators of City morality behaved,—except as regards -thieving,—like a swell mob. The police at last got Brother Ignatius away in a Hansom cab, and a gentleman in Lombard Street, who signed himself "M.," wrote off post haste to the Times to complain of poor Mr. Lyne for creating disturbances in Lombard Street by the use of strong expressions against City sins ! Those which he -quoted are positively denied. But that the City should be so sus- ceptible as to any slur on its virtue as to revenge moral criticism by physical violence, and by insults to women, is surely scarcely a proof of the worldly wisdom of the City. Are the passions of the -City really outstripping its prudence ?
Previous page
