Page:Distinguished Churchmen.djvu/114

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86
DISTINGUISHED CHURCHMEN

by authority. In face of that retort, a Methodist organ was unkind enough to twit the Dean with being “one of the most moderate of the lawless priests of our counter-reformation.” Thus the Dean defies his critics, both within and without his city, and defies them with a stout heart and a cheerful countenance.

In other matters Dean Maclure has taken an equally firm stand. Like the late Bishop of Durham (Dr Westcott), he has exerted himself to deal with the labour problem, and in the midst of industries like those wrapped up with the welfare of a place like Manchester, his exertions are not lightly esteemed. In fact, wherever he has laboured in Lancashire he has employed his influence to establish and maintain a steady, systematic progress towards the realisation of better ideals in connection with labour. At the Hull Congress, in 1890, both Bishop Moorhouse and the Dean of Manchester were prominent figures. The Dean's paper on “The Responsibility of Employers for the Spiritual Welfare of Those they Employ” was of marked interest and importance. From the reprint (Bemrose & Sons, Derby), the appended extracts are useful as indicating the Dean's views:—

“To the munificence of manufacturers, whose name is legion, we owe numberless churches, which have been built, and often partially, if not wholly, endowed; schools, parsonage houses, clubs and reading-rooms, institutions of all kinds, which we have wisely ceased to call simply secular, and the founding and maintenance of which have relied almost altogether, perhaps too