THE QUALIFICATION OF BISHOPS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your correspondent " X." opens, in the Spectator of August 17th, a very interesting question, especially at this juncture when a new Government has just entered upon office, and when all Churchmen are watching with intense interest for signs of the line that promotions in the Church are likely to take. I, for one—and I am sure with thousands of my profession—hail with deep gratitude the two appoint- ments just made. That of Dr. Talbot will give general satisfaction; and the same may be said of the Bishop of Rochester, whose further career will be attended with earnest wishes for his improved health. I am sorry, I confess, that you, Sir, have described him at this fresh stage in that career as one "indifferent to dogmatic truth." Surely there are no published utterances of the Bishop's that support so serious an accusation ; and no one can have read his last charge without admiring the deep religions earnestness as well as the states- manlike wisdom of his appeals to the more extreme among his clergy.
It is noticeable that your correspondent (obviously a High Churchman), while hesitating to adopt your estimate of Bishop Davidson, goes farther than I think you would go in assuming that moderation of views is in all cases another name for indifference to dogma. " Moderate men," he says, "are very seldom men of strong convictions.' " Of course the truth of this assertion depends entirely on what sense we attach to the term "moderate." If moderation means indifference, then "X." merely states a truism. Bat is this so, and is it not possible for a man to hate and avoid the
"falsehood of extremes," and at the same time to be possessed by a passionate devotion to what he believes the truth ?
Another very doubtful assumption seems to underlie "X.'s" argument,—namely, that men, influential as leaders of schools of thought, are thereby naturally pointed out as fit men to become Bishops. Why, he asks, were not Keble and Newman, Posey and Arnold, made Bishops ? The answer that your correspondent seems to anticipate is that men who are to be "fair and just " should be moderate, and not party men. But is not the proper answer to his wonder that the first duty and task of a Bishop is to govern, and to govern a flock of hundreds, differing from one another foto ccelo in theology and politics, and that for purposes of Church government a party magnate is not necessarily the best man ? A Parliamentary leader has to lead a party, but a Church leader, men of all parties. No ; it seems to me that of late years the danger to the Church from inadequate Church appointments has lain in a quite other direction. It has lain in the appointment for political reasons (presumably) of nonentities ; of men possessed of no talent except mediocrity (a very different thing from moderation); men of the slightest possible attain. ments in intellect or culture ; men with no prominent reputation, except, perhaps, for narrow and fanatical views on such questions, for instance, as Temperance, or for the gift of that fluent and facetious preaching which pleases the groundhogs and makes the judicious grieve. No one can run over, in thought, the appointments to Deaneries and Canonries in the last few years, and not feel bitterly the opportunities that have been lost, and the men of real weight and eminence overlooked, by the promotion of such as I have just indicated. We may well hope and trust that Lord Salisbury—even if the task of ecclesiastical nominations is ungrateful to him—will see that this source of weakness in our Church shall not continue.—I am, Sir, &a, A CHURCHMAN.
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