The best comment which we have had this week on
the Campbell suit was that contained by implication in Canon Liddon's fine sermon at St. Paul's Cathedral last Sunday, on Christ's words, "I am among you as he that serveth." Service, he said, strenuous service for others is the best of all correctives for ill-regulated desire, and then he proceeded :—" The young man of noble family, brought up, it may be, in a religious atmosphere, had all the vigour of his character sapped by a love of pleasure, and the very air of the castle won for his stock by some illustrious ancestor was vitiated by the literature,
art, and companionship which reflect the softness of the life in which he vegetates, his great desire being how to kill time. Balls, theatres, and club gossip feed his enfeebled nature with congenial nutriment, and he cares nothing for the comfort and honour of his family, the credit of his order, or the glory of his country, still less for religion, the highest interest of all. Like the half-vegetable and half- animal creatures which stick to the rocks on the seashore, and open their flabby mouths to see what may be floated into them by the waves, he despises any exertion. Just the same was the case at the other end of the social scale, when men, instead of spending honest and happy lives in the bosom of their families, lounged in the streets or the public-houses, and were not less Sybarites at heart, though there was more to be said in their excuse. When such types of men were common, the ruin of a great country could not long be postponed, and the only security lay in the true life of service of its better citizens." Nothing can be more true ; and it was of the first importance to point out, as Canon Liddon has done, that the idle pleasure-seekers are confined to no class, though the mischief they can do increases with their dignity in the social scale. "Loafers " are of all classes, and are dangerous in all ; it is the- fidelity of service which really purifies ; but even service itself,. without its highest spirit, is a tonic and a safeguard against moral rottenness.
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