The Bishop of Winchester delivered the Presidential address in the
afternoon, after the President of the Southampton Evangelical Free Church Council bad read an address cordially welcoming the Congress. Dr. Talbot took for his subject " The Kingdom of God in the World of To-day." The fundamental principles of that Kingdom had been given them by Christ, and they might be described as the equal value of each human life; the principle which put patience above force, service above power, and giving above receiving; the superiority of the spiritual to the material ; and the supremacy of love as motive and force. The forces which blocked the way of the Kingdom were also spiritual; they were active as well as passive, and they were revealed at home as well as at close quarters with heathenism. "Disclosures such as those of the Congo, the Putumayo, and he feared the Portuguese islands, showed what European action could be and could do when money lured and evil drove. The White Slave traffic startled them into recognition of the intensity and coldbloodedness of evil at home. But though the Kingdom was a crusade it was also an organism and a growth, and their work was not all fighting.
Previous page
