death upon the Cross; over which He now liveth and reigneth, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.  You are children of God the Father of spirits, who wills that all should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.  You are inheritors—­that is, members not by your own will, or the will of any man, but by the will of God who has chosen you to be born in a Christian land of Christian parents—­inheritors, I say, of the kingdom of heaven, from your cradles to your graves, and after that, if you will, for ever and ever.  Behave as such.  Claim your rights; for they are yours already:  and not only claim your rights, but confess your duties.  Remember that every man, woman, and child in your street is, prima facie, just as much a member of Christ as you are.  Treat them as such; associate yourselves with them as such.  Accept the simple physical fact that they live next door to you, as God’s will toward you both, and as God’s sign to you that you and they are members of the same human and divine family.  Enter with them, in that plain form, into the free corporate self-government of a Christian parish.  Fear no priestly tyranny; from that danger you are guaranteed by the fact, that the great majority of the promoters of this fund are laymen, of all shades of opinion.  You are guaranteed, still further, by the fact, that in the parochial system there can be no tyranny.  It is one of the very institutions by which Englishmen have learnt those habits of self-government, which are the admiration of Europe.

’Do, then, the duty which lies nearest you; your duty to the man who lives next door, and to the man who lives in the next street.  Do your duty to your parish; that you may learn to do your duty by your country and to all mankind, and prove yourselves thereby civilized men.

’And confess your sins in this matter, if not to us, at least to God.  Confess that while you, in your sturdy, comfortable independence, have been fancying yourselves whole and sound, you have been very sick, and need the physician to cure you of the deadly and growing disease of selfish barbarism.  Confess that, while you have been priding yourselves on English self-help and independence, you have not deigned to use them for those purposes of common organization, common worship, for which the very savages and heathens have, for ages past, used such freedom as they have had.  Confess that, while you have been talking loudly about the rights of humanity, you have neglected too often its duties, and lived as if the people in the same street had no more to do with you than the beasts which perish.