The Archbishop of Canterbury's speech in Convocation on Wednesday as
to the report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Com- mission, shows too much of the tendency so common among public men now-a-days to shrink from taking part in forming public opinion until public opinion has already been made up without their help. What his Grace appears to have said was, in effect, that the Upper House of Convoiation ought to wait for the report of the Committee sitting on the relations of Church and State in the Lower House, and that if time were given, many opinions hostile to the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission Report would be modified, and turn out in the end in favour of that Report. That is all very well, but is it not the duty of an Archbishop, though without dogmatism and dictation, to help to guide ecclesiastical opinion, by showing what, in his opinion, needs to be done, and what are the conditions under which it may be done effectually ? Dr. Benson's caution is all very well, but it seems to us to in- cline in the direction of timidity. Church opinion needs crystallising, and who is so likely to promote its crystallisation as an Archbishop speaking with due temperateness and yet with due firmness?
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