We will not disturb them. Let them enjoy their salaries
so long as they live. At their deaths let those who love shams and
pretences appoint other Brothers and Sisters who will have all the
dignity of the position without the houses or the salaries. We may
even go so far as to provide a chaplain for the service of the chapel,
if the good people of the Terraces would like those services to
continue. But as for the rest of the income one cannot choose but
ask--and, if the request be not granted, ask again, and again--that it
be restored to that part of London to which it belongs. One would not,
with the person who communicated with the Commissioners, insult East
London by founding a 'Missionary' College in its midst unless it be
allowed to have branches in Belgravia, Lincoln's Inn, the Temple, St.
John's Wood, South Kensington, and other parts of West London; we will
certainly not ask permission to turn St. George's-in-the-East into a
Collegiate Church with a Dean and Canons, 'and a sisterhood.' But one
must ask that the pretence and show of keeping up this ugly and
useless modern place as the ancient and venerable Hospital be
abandoned as soon as possible. That old Hospital is dead and
destroyed; its ecclesiastical existence had been dead long before, its
lands and houses and funds remain to be used for the benefit of the
living.
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