At Eastbourne

Through the streets of Eastbourne (England) there passed in full regalia, last week, a procession of 2,000 clergymen--bishops, deans, vicars and curates--which recalled the days of Cardinal Wolsey, famed and hospitable entertainer of Henry VIII.

On the steps of his Town Hall stood the Mayor of Eastbourne, resplendent also in his robes and chains of office. He welcomed the procession, and hospitably bade it enter. Thus assembled the Episcopal Church Congress of England.

The ecclesiastical delegates filed in and seated themselves. Promptly their dignity was sharply and strikingly assailed. In the opening address, they were berated by the Most Reverend Randall Thomas Davidson, D. D., D. C. L., LLD., Prelate of the Order of the Garter from 1895 until 1903, and since that time Archbishop of Canterbury.

Said the Archbishop, Primate of all England: "Complaints of the inadequacy of our sermons on life and fact are beyond dispute . . . Sermons have not kept pace . . . with the increased intelligence, thoughtfulness and knowledge possessed by the average citizen . . . It is intolerable that we clergy should leave it to the daily newspapers or the popular novelist to give guidance and suggest sturdy thought . . . We need more midnight oil, more forenoon hours with closed doors, steady study, and big notebooks . . . The educated hearer not unnaturally resents . . . an easy thinness of thought."

Subsequent discussion before the congress covered a wide range of topics and was more soothing to ecclesiastical consciences. Lord Eustace Percy delivered an innocuous discourse on "Education as a World Problem", and a great deal of attention was paid to several speeches upon:

Race Equality. Viscount Willingdon, sometime Governor of Bombay and Madras declared roundly before the Congress that the white man must let down the color bar to other races, in order to avoid an inter-racial war in the future. Said he: "Providence long ago placed the white man in a position of trusteeship . . . Now his colored wards have grown up . . . He can no longer dominate them . . . He must treat all colored men in a spirit of absolute equality . . . A clash of races would be the ghastliest tragedy in history."

Shoran Singha, a turbaned Christian Indian added: "We have got to get rid of the idea that God sent the white man to rule the black."

One Miss Rosamond Shields declared: "Educated single women of mature age . . . have far more chance than mothers to go outside of their immediate circles to become bridges between the different sets and classes."