Lord Salisbury is getting into arrears with his Bishops. The
Bishop of Bangor is resigning, the Bishop of St. Albans is resigning, and the Bishopric of Durham has been vacant for the last ten weeks. The filling-up of these Bishoprics is one of the most difficult and unenviable of the Prime Minister's tasks. It is very rarely indeed that he gets any real praise for his recommendations, and he almost always makes new enemies by them ; but we do not suppose he minds that, if he can but satisfy himself that he has put new life into the Church by them. But that is just the great difficulty, and we fancy that the least enviable aspect of an unenviable task is the dissatisfaction and searchings of heart by which these appointments must be succeeded in the mind of a Prime Minister who really cares about the Church as Mr. Gladstone did and Lord Salisbury does. The field for choice is con- siderable, but it is very imperfectly known ; and though considerable, it does not perhaps contain any large num- ber of men who satisfy the conditions of the case. By- the-way, where do the ad interim revenues of a vacant Bishopric go to ? Is it to the Ecclesiastical Commis- sioners ? If so, perhaps it would not be a bad plan to let most of the dioceses be Bishopless for a few months each after every vacancy, and borrow Bishops for the emergencies of the Church. It would increase the funds at the disposal of the Commissioners.
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