The Bishop of Peterborough (Dr. Magee) made an excellent speech
to a working-class meeting at Leicester on Wednesday, of which the chief point was that whatever wealth and enjoyments the progress of material civilization might bring to the working- classes, there was no class which would really suffer more from the failure of the Christian spirit, if it were ever to fail. "If the age became thoroughly materialistic, it would be a hard, harsh, grind- ing, selfish age, and upon whom would that hardness and harsh- ness fall but upon those who supplied the wants of the age by -their labour ?" It is true, but it is, of course, no argument for the 'faith of the working-class in Christ, only at best a reason why they :should wish the wealthier classes to believe in Him, even if they themselves can't. The Bishop came nearer to touching a real spring of conviction when he said that every man in that great class was .exposed to the tyranny of the great man surrounding him, and ." it was hard for a man to maintain his own individuality of .character in the face of a surrounding mass who were going all the other way. Faith alone would enable a man to assert his individual liberty and character against the whole world, if need be." In other words, any faith that is a condition sine qua non of -nobleness, is faith in truth. There the Bishop touched the "bottom.
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