Page:Distinguished Churchmen.djvu/351

 THE REV. HARRY WILSON, M.A. 303

fortunate of the human race in the spiritual and social scales. One of the remotest possibilities of our time is the over-doing of Christian and social work in East London, where are still congregated, in an odd, entangled mass of life, the weak, the poor and the lost of many lands, surrounded by some of the worst influences that go to make up the sum of human misery. No ; there is certainly no fear of over-doing the thing ; nor, indeed, is there anything to justify the term, &quot;rush to the East End.&quot; The energetic work we behold going on in that quarter to-day is notable only because it is in strong con trast with the stagnant state of things a quarter of a century ago in times when poverty, vice and irreligion were left unchecked and pretty much alone, and when there lay not heavily upon the hearts of people in comfortable positions in life a feeling of responsibility with regard to the spiritual, the moral and the social welfare of the multitude.

The Bishop of London, of course, stands pre eminently distinguished in connection with the Church in East London ; and next to him, in the reckoning of most people, would come the Rev. Harry Wilson, M.A., the Vicar of St Augustine s, Stepney, and the founder of many useful institutions, including the &quot; Red House,&quot; which Dr Ingram has wittily popularised as &quot; a good pull-up for Bishops ! &quot; For rather less than twenty years Mr Wilson has successfully laboured among the workers of the East End. To-day he is almost as well known as an

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