Shorter Notice
THESE collected prefaces, which have all appeared from the same anonymous hand during the last twenty-five years, display a pungency and directness which subscribers to Crockford's have by now come to expect. Thus, although concerned primarily with ecclesiastical matters, they are of interest generally not only for their content but for the strength of the writing and the total lack of ambiguity. Certain topics, as the author points out in his introduction, are of annual recurrence. There is the continual anxiety over the supply of candidates for Holy Orders, the problem of the financial position of the clergy, and, in the earlier pages, the pensions measure. In connection with pensions the author asks the questions so often repeated by the laity: " What manner of man does the nation really desire (or deserve) to get for the ministry of the Church ? " Where doctrine is concerned, his standpoint is clear: " We do not think that the Church of England has no better destiny before it than to `mark time' indefinitely in a spot whose principal attraction lies in the fact that it is about equidistant from Geneva and Rome ; " and, in matters of procedure and administration he is just as succinct : " The Church of England can never forget that it must take account of the nation as a whole . . . because it is a Church and not a sect." From this, the viewpoint of the Church Established, he deals with those matters that have been brought to his notice during the last quarter of a century, and if one does not always agree with his con- clusions one must admit that they are stimulating.
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