BISHOP 1VILBERFORCE'S APOLOGY. MHE Bishop of Winchester has appointed his
youngest son, the Rev. Albert Wilberforce, a young man who has been some four years in priest's orders, to the valuable rectory of Southampton in his own diocese,—one of the most valuable of the ninety livings in his gift, worth 11,100 per annum. This little bit of what looks like nepotism has been the occasion of a good deal of scandal to Churchmen, and the Evangelical journals have spoken their minds with some candour on the unpleasant subject. Of course the Bishop cannot reply. We, however, having meditated a good deal on the kind of apology which he might confidentially offer to any friend who should remonstrate with him on this questionable exercise of official patronage, propose to suggest on his behalf what that apology might perhaps be, partly as a lesson to our- selves and a censorious public in charity, partly as an interesting study of a character of which we may regard the chief defect as an excessive if not unchastena zeal for edification, and a slight tendency to gloat over its own sanctification. Let us suppose the Bishop writing to his candid friend upon the subject. His letter might, we imagine, be something of this sort, (we need not say that we are not inventing for the sake of satire, but endeavouring to come as near the truth as a fair outside critic can) Palace, IVinchester.
'My dear , I am very thankful to you for your conscientious and candid letter of expostulation with me on the selection of my youngest son for the important living of Southampton. I feel it to be a pledge of your feeling of Christian fellowship that you write to me so fully and freely of a matter in which you suspect my motives of an interested bias, however little evident to myself. I should indeed be little worthy of the high positiou in our beloved Church to which it has pleased Providence to raise me, could I see in those honest remonstrances of yours anything but a fresh reason for regard- ing you with honour, and for still further distrusting myself, since you, who know me so well, are in some measure dissatisfied with me, kindly and generously as you are always disposed to judge me. Still, after passing all the considerations which have influenced me in this painful and difficult decision once more in review,—and I need not tell you, I am sure, my dear friend, how anxiously I have sought counsel in the only quarter in which counsel can be found on any difficult act of life,—I must assure you, that with the most unfeigned diffidence in myself, I yet cannot but acquit myself of any even slight admixture of motive disloyal to our Church in the decision at which I have arrived. No one, I trust, knows better than I do the deceitfulness of the heart of man, or the multitude of plausible forms in which the great enemy of mankind veils his approaches to our souls ; and I am far from supposing that the special grace granted, as we believe, to the faithful Overseer of the flock, for the wise execution of the responsible duties of his office, would guarantee me any exemption
from his wiles. Still, you, 1 am sure, would be the last to deny that we may err as much through over-anxiety and scrupulosity,—
through that fastidiousness of mind which is so careful to shake off from itself even the appearance of dust, that he who indulges it seems to be always picking his way through life, and loses all chance of generous toil and hearty service,—as through blindness to our own self-interested motives ; and I think you will admit that a bishop especially ought sometimes to show a holy courage in facing and almost courting the world's censure, if he has satis- fied his own conscience that he is working zealously in his Master's cause.
'Now, if I know myself at all,—and it would be false modesty to pretend that one who for near forty years has wielded a good deal of influence over men through a certain power of social tact granted to him, has not in that time learned something of the ways of his own heart,—my most serious temptation has always been the temptation to court popularity. When I said in those last published University sermons of which you were so good as to express to me a very gratifying opinion, "If the( great peril of being praised by men ever falls upon thee, tell thyself, whilst the sweet ointment is poured upon thee, with a secret beating of the breast, what thou knowest of him whom they are praising," I was, as your discernment very likely told you, really addressing myself. Even as a bishop, my danger has, I think, always been to take too much account of the favourable opinion of the Church and the clergy, too little of the individual voice of my own conscience speaking without reference to the judgment of men.
Now, surely a bishop is, as I think you will admit, directly responsible to a higher tribunal than any Prime Minister. Were it otherwise, the special unction which he receives would be almost a blasphemy. Gladstone may be quite right in trying to satisfy the House of Commons and the public in his appoint- ments, for his discretion is only granted him at all under condition of exercising power for the people ; and he would soon cease to have any to exercise, if he did not limit his own judgment to a selection made within the circle of popular men. But bishops do not receive divine grace for the purpose of subordinating the teaching it sug- gests to the tribunal of human opinion, and I regard every inclina- tion to do so as a distinct temptation. Of course, the voice of our holy Church may at times prick our consciences to a sense of postponed or neglected official duty. When I delayed for nearly a year my protest against that sad blot upon our sanctity which Stanley's latitudinarianism had brought upon us in the admission of a Socinian to one of our Communion services, and his presence on the Committee for revising the New Testament, no doubt I had been slack in my duty ; it was not until I heard "the sound of the going in the tops of the mulberry trees" that I bestirred myself, trusting that the Lord would "go out before me to smite the host of the Philistines." Indeed, I attribute my ill-success in this matter to my waiting for the stirring of the Church. Had I listened to my own Episcopal conscience in the first instance, which was for me, as a Bishop, the "true sound of the going in the tops of the mulberry trees," no doubt my onset would have been more successful ; and we should have smitten the Philistines "from Geba until thou come to Gaza." But if I erred here, so much the more was I bound to guard against such an error in future,—to know my own weakness, and take special guarantees against it.
And now, as you will see, my reverend brother, I have come to the very point of the question. I am, I humbly confess it, too liable to defer to the verdict of human opinion. As a bishop, it is my duty to judge on higher grounds. I must consult for the true weal of the Church, even though my action be "a hissing and a reproach" to me in the sight of my clergy and laity ; and it is especially my individual duty, if I am liable to be unduly in- fluenced by the fear of that hissing and reproach. Now, as you justly insist, a bishop should be the father of his clergy. And towards whom amongst his clergy is he in a position to exercise the true spiritual influence of a father, more perfectly, than towards those who are not only his sons in the faith, but his sons in the flesh also? Whose qualifications can he know as thoroughly as he knows those of his own son ? To whom can he render such a wealth of spiritual assistance as to one in that relation to him in which the ties of nature strengthen the ties of grace ? In Southampton is, as I may say, the spiritual stronghold of my diocese, the key of my position. Should not a great general choose for the post of difficulty, even though it be also the post of honour, one with whom his relations are so intimate that he can rely upon him as he would upon himself, perhaps even more implicitly than he could upon himself ? Is he to be scared away from such an appointment by the fear that his army will not understand and approve his choice ?
Well, but you have urged, "consider the age and experience of the new rector ;—is it right to trust so responsible a post to a young man only four years ordained, when .there are so many experienced soldiers of the Church who have borne themselves gallantly through years of hard service ?" From the depth of my Episcopal conscience, I reply that it is in great measure for his youth that I chose him. The highest qualifications for moving men are accorded to the young. Human things may be learnt by lessons of a slow experience, and doubtless divine wisdom is poured out in the highest degree on faithful age; but in our Church we need neither the lessons of experience nor the compre- hensive wisdom of age, so much as we need more of the fire of youthful enthusiasm. Our Church is strong in the rural parishes, weak in the great towns and cities. And why, but because we do not trust young men more liberally,—young men who alone have the courage and the energy to lead forlorn hopes against the vice and sin of our great cities ? It is young, not old, Churchmen who have changed the face of the spiritual world. We know from Holy Writ that Saul was "a young man" when he was sent on his mission to the Gentiles. And he wrote to the first bishop he appointed, Timothy, "Let no man despise thy youth."
'But is it passible, you ask, that mere worldly motives have not tinged my consideration of this question, that I have taken no account of the advantages to my family of putting my son early into a prominent position in the Church and a comfortable position in the world ? My dear brother, does not our holy Church utterly reject all ascetical doctrine, and even forbid us to regard advantages of this kind as arguments against a step which on other grounds we feel justified in taking. I would not insist on the Apostle's words to Timothy, that " if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel," for I do not read these words as addressed to Timothy as bishop, or at least as relating to appointments to be made by him in his official capacity ; but I think we may take them as intended to fortify us against that spiritual weakness of which I have known some very dear and right reverend friends to be guilty, which attaches so undue an importance to the opinion of the world as to blind them to the duties which they owe to the Church to make the best selections for ecclesiastical office in their power, even though their choice should alight upon one of their own family. I, for my part, have always struggled against this temptation. Two of my eons have been my chaplains, because I feel it to be an unspeakable advantage to the Church and to my diocese, to have chaplains who know my mind, and whose mind I know, so intimately as we know each other. I have seen the blessed fruits of this course of action, and I are only pursuing it further in giving my son such a position in the chief town of my diocese that I can, without any injustice to him or feeling of delicacy in my- self, stay whenever I please under his roof, to study for myself the spiritual wants of the most important place within my spiritual jurisdiction.
But you urge finally, is it not most important for a bishop to avoid the scandal and loss of influence which may arise from an unjust interpretation of his motives in relation to actions thus susceptible of an ambiguous interpre- tation? God forbid that I should for a moment deny this. I have always studied, as far as might be possible, to let my light shine clearly before men according to the Gospel precept ; I have endeavoured never to hide it under a bushel. I am well aware that in the position with which I have been blessed by Providence, I ought to have some regard to my own repute. The prelate of the Order of the Garter, the bishop of one of the largest and richest dioceses in England, I know that I owe something to the dignity of my office, as well as to the honour of my own person. I have always striven to remember that not only should we, Overseers of the Church, cultivate personal sanctity, but that we should not do anything which should lead the world to mis- judge our value for sanctity. Still, we must not forget the greater principle in the leas. We are not only to let. our light shine before men, but to feel ourselves blessed when they revile and persecute us and speak all manner of evil against us, falsely, for the sake of our Master. Could I, knowing the importance to my diocese of putting an able and earnest young man in the great and growing town of Southampton, — one who
knows intimately the mind of his bishop, and who will provide me with a sort of suffragan in that great place even when I cannot be there myself,—sacrifice such an end to the fear of a little personal calumniation ? True, there may be other men quite my son's equal in energy and power, and his superior in experience, in the diocese, but then I have not had the oppor- tunity of knowing any of them as I know him. Here I can act with certain knowledge of my ground. Any other appointment would be more or less a leap in the dark. Could I justify to myself, in the day when my conscience shall be compelled to review all the opportunities I have used and lost as a man and as a bishop, such a lost opportunity as this, out of mere deference to the opinion of the world? And may I not fairly, at an age not far removed from the threescore years and ten appointed to man, take my stand on a character which is before the world, and which, if there has been in it any weakness I deplore more than another, has been weak on the side of concession to the opinion of the world, rather than on that of proud defiance of it. Believe me, my dear friend and brother, that in the last day, when called upon to review my earthly career, there will be no point on which I shall feel my conscience so completely void of offence as this of my decision as to the Rectory of St. Mary's, Southampton. However little I may expect the world to believe in the purity of my motives, I trust that I have satisfied you that in this matter I am not neglecting any counsel of perfection. "See," as the Apostle says, "how great a letter I have written you with my own hand," and this, too, in the intervals of days mainly devoted to the Committee on the University Teats' Abolition Bill, which I cannot but regard even now with the greatest distrust and aversion, though I think that with the blessing of Providence the safeguards we have devised will at least avoid much of the scandal to the Church and the offence to pious parents, which the naked principle adopted by the House of Commons must have caused.—Believe me, reverend and
dear Brother, your faithful servant, S. WINTON.'
We do not suppose that Dr. Wilberforce has defended his appointment from the charge of nepotism by precisely these argu- ments or in these words. But we should be surprised if he had not adopted many of them, and it is a not uninatructive effort even to imagine the probable interior of the mind of one of those who 'seem to be pillars' in the Church, little as we are disposed to relish the general spiritual effect.
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