The Dedication Service of the Tower and
yesterday moming, and attracted a large Spire of Holy Trinity Cathedral took [vases and inter congregation. The Service
the Ven, Archdeacon Moule, the first por-poriformed by Bishop Moule, assisted by tion taking place in the Cathedral and the concluding portion at the base of the tower. others had taken their places inthe Chancel, By eleven o'clock the clergy, trustees, and
when the Service commenced with the sing: ing of the hymn '*O God, our help in ages past." After the customary responses, the chanting of Psaln Ixxxiv, and the reading by Archdeacon Moule of the Lesson from 1 Cor, iii, 11-17., Bishop Moule deli-yered the follo exhortation, taking as his text 1. Cor. iii, 16. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God: anil that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" He said—The words just read were addressed by St. Paul to the Corinthian Christian comtunity eighteen centuries ago, within a very few years of the consummation of our Lord'sredeeming work. Hehad in viewsome hundreds of professed Christians, saints, he does not shrink from calling them, as compared with the pagan population around them, At that date no elaborate Church had been built for Christian worship. They met in each other's houses, or in the borrowed lecture-room of some public teacher. And from the one temple of the true God at Jerusalem, still standing in its gorxious splendour, the Apostle was far distant. At Ephesus, however, where he wrote, and at Corinth to which he addressed his letter, there stood at that time temples to the gods of the Gentiles; wonders of grace and symmetry, the perfection of wsthetic design and of the craft of the workman. With his eye, possibly, on the great fane of Artemis, he turns to- his ricnds, and bids them think of themselves as stones built together by another art and for another purpose; by a spiritual masonry, and to enshrine the holy Spirit of God,' And his inference is: Be holy, be good, sincere, true, just, kind, Roly, since He who attracted you.
re, unselfish, unworldly. Be good, be
self, whose name you bear, who rede you from sin and the thraldom of evil, did so in order to combine you with all your fellow Christians in one system of truth and goodness; just as the hewn and polished stones are combined in the consummate syumetty of your temples; that you, that the living temple resulting from your, combination,—might be the shrine, the habitation, of God and His Spirit: Brethrev, you, like the—Corinthian Church, are surrounded by idolaters, Bet in all other respects your lot is different from theirs. They ware recent converts you are hereditary Christians. You cannot trace your pedigree far enough back to find a single pagan ancestor. They were, in a large proportion, of the poor and despised classes. It is, for the most part, otherwise with you, You are freemen instead of slaves, and sharers in the mental and material civilisation of this latest century of our era. Besides, though outnumbered a hundred to one by the bayan population, the highest architectural art of Shanghai is to be sought, not in the temples of their idols but, in your Christian Cathedral, this Church of the Holy Trinity in which we are met. What shall I say? Were St. Paul amongst us to-day, would his appeal be weaker, or more forcible, to you than it was to those primitive believers? Would it not Jo many fold stronger? It is quite true that your advantages may easily become disadvantages. Hereditary Christianity, which ought to confer vast additional force on every impulse towards virtue and the love of God, often, in the weakness of human nature, is perverted to the contrary. Our familiarity with the highest things breeds indifference, inattention, contempt. On the other hand, the recent conviction of the new convert sustains his resolution, animates his hope, and keeps wane his affection. It is true, too, that the development of visible worship with its appurtenance, the stately church, and noble services, and sweet music are all too often coupled with the decay and decease of all that. is vital and valuable in worship, and hinders the adoration of the believing heart, love and devotion to God, and divine charity towards man, These things are so, have been so from Solomon's day to the present. On the other hand no abnegation of the fair de-conoies of building, and ritual, and song, prove a charm against associated with sanctimonious self-righteousness, and censoriousness towards our fellows. ' But Paul—with his utter loyalty to God yet deep sympathy with all that is humai—would beyond a question appeal to us, could he but stand here, with a logic similar to what we have before us, but more cogent by fi "You have built a temple," he would say, "to the triune God, a place of meeting and communion for His people, beautiful, reverend, costly. You have completed it with a spire, x model of symmetry, pointing to heaven, and musical with chimes,—meant to celebrate alike the joyous and the pathetic moments of this your chequered life. What then Will you ye Christian in your architecture, yet pagan in your thoughts and lives? Shall this nave echo with holy song and solemn prayer, while your hearts are full of the tones and the aspirations of the dying and defiled world? Shall your spire point ever to the skies, and' the souls of, Christians grovel perpetually on the low ground of selfish scheme and industry and ambition God forbid! What is visible is after all insignificant, it is transitory, it is neutral. Dedicate it as you will, it is the use to which the building is put that sanctifies it, not a ministerial prayer or benediction. This may or may not be a temple of God, but " know ye not that you are the temple of God, and Uhat the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" This is your character as you are Christians. Will you belie it? Shall lust, greed, selfishness, indifference to God, disregard of fellow man, neutralise your Christian character, stain you with the leprosy of i delible sin, and so, for your parts, defile, desecrate the chosen shrine of the Holy Ghost, the habitation of God! Let me your fellow-countryman, denizen like you of a pagan land, in Paul's stead, in his Lord's stead, adjure you tu heed his appeal. Let us dedicate, rededicate our beautiful Church but, Brethren, let us rather in all earnestness reconsecrate ourselves—soul and body, to His service who loved us, redeemed us, and would gather and cement us in one, by His spiritual masonry, to be a holy Temple for His honour. May 1 not add, Jet us do so nvw? Shall all things take precedence of religious decision! Are we so sure of living to old age? Mentally 1 hear, as from another world, the echoed answer, No, spoken so pathetically by the death, just as his task was completed, of the architect to whose consummate knowledge, and taste, and assiduity, we owe the perfection and solid symmetry of the spite. His death speaks. Our words cannot reach him. Let his premature and regretted departure say to each of us "Now, not to-morrow. Whilst to-day is yours, not in those years to come on which We reckon so much, which are for others, but perchance, not for us. Now, yield heart and life to God to be moulded in His image of purity and truth and immortal love.""
During the Service a very effective ode, written for the occasion by Archdeacon Moule, and set to music by Mr. F. L. Crompton, Organist of the Cathedral, was sung, after which the Clergy and Congregation proceeded to the base of the Tower, where the hymn "The Church's one foundation" was sung and the Dedication pronounced by the Bishop. Three prayers having been said the cere-many ended, its termination being the signal for the ringing of the new peal.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.