TOPICS OF THE DAY
BISHOP LIGHTFOOT. THE Church of England has had a great loss, a loss which it will feel even more severely than the Church of Rome would feel the loss of a man and a scholar of equal eminence, power, and simplicity. For the Church of England necessarily depends more on the individual character of her leading men, than a Church which relies so much on her ecclesiastical system, and the practical logic of her attitude, as the Church of Rome. No one who understands the position can deny that the Anglican Church contains not one, but many inconsistent theologies within its bosom, and that its position is justified not by any a priori chain of reasoning, but in the main by the excellence of its work and the character of the workers. It is easy for those who rely on ecclesiastical authority to point to the many incongruities in a Church which appeals to ecclesiastical authority here, and repudiates ecclesiasti- cal authority there, in a fashion almost arbitrary ; but after all, in the actual condition of things spiritual, a Church such as ours, which finds room for the energies of Arnold and Newman, of Maurice and Kingsley, of Liddon and Westcott, of Fraser and Gore and Scott Holland, has something to say for itself; and probably no less comprehensive Church, no Church more strictly bound by theological formula, could have been wide enough to give full scope to the impartial learning, the great capacity, and the single-minded and impressive enthusiasm of the late Bishop of Durham.
For Dr. Lightfoot was not a scholar whose movements it would have been easy to confine within the grooves of any sharply defined system. He took a natural and straightforward view of the early history of the Church. He did not force a significance upon the early Christian institutions which was borrowed from a later phase of ecclesiastical history. He admitted freely that there was no full-grown system of Episcopacy to be found in the New Testament, though he maintained that such a system was to be found in the genuine Ignatian epistles, which belong to the early part of the second century. He was not unwilling to apply the philosophy of evolution to the growth of an ecclesiastical structure, and did not think it the less divine for the gradual character of its develop- ment. His mind was as candid as his learning was solid. What he found in the early Church he described, and what he did not find he did not attempt to anticipate ; but never- theless, as soon as a new characteristic arose he recognised it, and inferred from its very rapid germination that the seeds which sprouted thus early had been still earlier sown. His criticism of the Apostolic epistles was not adapted to the taste of the High-Church party ; and his criticism of the Ignatian epistles was not adapted to the taste of the Low-Church party. But this made no difference to Dr. Lightfoot. He early recognised that it is a scholar's duty to interpret what he sees simply, without the spectacles of prepossession ; and he performed that duty with all the simplicity and vigour of a man who felt impartiality of judgment the most sacred of a critic's duties. Nor was his a thin and ostentatious impartiality, the impartiality of a critic proud to display the even balance of his soul. On the contrary, his learning was so massive, and the meaning of its details was so vividly present to his masculine judgment, that he never seemed to himself to deserve any credit at all for holding the balance even in the presence of eager con- troversialists. The simplicity of his learning was at least as remarkable as its depth. He spoke from the fullness of an immense knowledge interpreted by a really calm and easy judgment. He applied to a priori views like the views of the Tubingen school, and the much vaguer and less accurate views of the author of " Supernatural Religion," just the simple tests that were necessary to show where the a priori theory contradicted certain well-attested facts ; and there he left them, never showing either irritability or impatience. Even when he thought that his opponent had taken up his ground on questions of the first importance without really informing himself of matters which were absolutely essential to any genuine investigation of the simplest elements of the subject, though his manner was severe, it was never arrogant or self-important. His mind was too closely fixed on the facts, to make any dis- play of his own learning or of his masterly arrangement
of these facts.
And, indeed, Bishop Lightfoot, besides being a man of strong judgment and deep learning, was one with far too- much spiritual feeling to make much of his learning or judgment. He was a devout Christian first, and a man of singularly great attainments and unusually calm judgment only in the second place. His whole heart was in his religion, and this perhaps was what induced him to think that when the chance was offered him of taking a very responsible post in the Church which those whom he most deeply revered pressed him to take, it was his duty to accept it rather than to continue his zealous devotion to the apologetic work of Christian teaching at Cambridge. We doubted the wisdom of that decision eleven years ago, and we doubt it still, though we fully admit that in the See of Durham he has set an example to the Church, and sent a current of ardent self-devotion thrilling' through it, which he could not have set, and could not have put in motion from his chair at Cambridge. But great as was the effect of his simplicity and ardent disinterested- ness and wise judgment as Bishop, he was not so great in his insight into men as he was in his insight into the- historic and dogmatic facts of Christianity. There was. something very winning in his shy dignity, in his reserved affectionateness, in his meditative simplicity. At times he reminded his friends of his great predecessor (his name- sake, as regarded the Christian name, as Dr. Liddon reminded his audience in the fine sermon at St. Paul's on Sunday), the great philosophic thinker who used to ride about his diocese very fast on a black pony, immersed in eager thought about that Christianity which many of the- longest-headed of his contemporaries thought not worthy even of so much as consideration, though it filled his own heart to overflowing. They were very different men. Joseph Butler was a great psychologist and metaphysician, as well as an ardent Christian. Joseph Lightfoot was a great student of ecclesiastical and dogmatic history, as well as an ardent Christian. But each alike was a little unequal to' the task of communicating freely with the world in any but the higher regions of intellectual intercourse. Each alike had a deep though repressed enthusiasm. And each alike had a heart that burned within him at the scepticism and levity of the day, and that now and then blazed out in a fashion that could not be hidden from the world. But neither of them was exactly a great administrator,—their knowledge of individual men not being quite as great as their knowledge of man. Even Bishop Lightfoot trusted more to the counsel of others than he would have done, had he possessed the keen insight of a quick eye for character, and was a great Bishop only in the singleness of his purpose, the dignity of his conviction, and the generosity of his personal life. We still have our doubts whether in the comparative seclusion of his chair at Cambridge he might not have accomplished even more for the Church, than he did in the "golden" diocese where he set so great an example. But in both positions alike he was a burning and a shining light, and undoubtedly the light, when set up on the throne of the great Northern diocese, was seen to a far greater distance than from his professorial chair at Cambridge. But whether it kindled more- durable flame in others, is a matter on which judgments may well differ.
We must end as we began, by insisting that the loss of such a man in such a place is a greater loss to the Anglican Church than it would be to any Church where the system stands for more than the men, and the individual is less important. Our Church is not in itself a marvel of unity or greatness. Its justification is that, in an age of perplexity, it shelters a great many types of earnest faith,—and with them not a few, no doubt, of luke- warm faith,—which would not be sheltered in any other_ It gives great scope and freedom to men of high individual power and originality. Such a man as Lightfoot would hardly have been easy in any more systematic Church, and yet he was a great divine and a great investigator, who• has done more to clear away the plausible objections of superficial scepticism than any theologian who is now left to us. Let us hope that there may be found some one not unworthy to succeed him, some one combining a simplicity as touching and profound with gifts not less eminent. For to come after Bishop Lightfoot will itself be a severe test of earnestness and simplicity, and one that can only be successfully passed by a man who in his heart of hearts regards with scorn the praise of men as compared with
the praise of God.
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