BISHOPRIC OF LONDON
The appointment of Winnington Ingram to the Bishopric of London proved
to be very popular. It had already crept out as a likely fact when
he addressed a meeting at the Mansion House on March 18, 1901, and
he received a tremendous welcome. The comments of the day concerning
his appointment were unanimous in their approval; and on April 30 the
ceremony of his enthronement was conducted in St. Paul’s Cathedral,
and the man who had faced so many difficulties in the past until he
had looked them down now confronted the forest of difficulties in the
London diocese.
It was a task to make any man flinch!
The See itself had, of course, always been one of great importance, for
the simple reason that it was the diocese containing England’s capital.
Whoever might be its Bishop could never have escaped the pressing
questions of the period in which he lived. National questions, civic
questions, ecclesiastical questions, would all be certain to arise for
discussion in London, if they were there at all! For example, one feels
sorry for the former Bishops of London who exercised their jurisdiction
during the struggle between the Stuarts and the people. Nor could it
ever have been an easy task to tactfully administer the affairs of
the many churches in the City, and in the immediate suburbs, even when
those suburbs did not extend very far, and Fulham Palace itself was
considered the summer country residence of the Bishops.
But with the increase in size of London itself there naturally came
added responsibilities. It is not necessary to labour this point,
for the facts emerge startlingly from the figures. Three hundred and
twenty-five years ago the population of London was 180,000. Exactly 100
years before Winnington Ingram was enthroned, it had reached 864,000.
Forty years later it had added a million; ten years later another
half-a-million; ten years later still nearly another half-a-million;
and twenty years later still, viz., in 1881, it had again increased by
over a million. It was then that the problems of the London diocese
began to be acute!
It came about in this way. There was already the beginning of the
“flock-to-the-towns-movement” in every part of the United Kingdom,
which has brought it to pass in these days in which we write, that out
of every hundred inhabitants of the United Kingdom seventy-nine and
more are town-dwellers and town-workers. This drift to the towns was
already beginning to be noticed in 1871 to 1881; and nowhere was it
more marked than in London.
Had the huge crowds which had thronged London simply entered in and
dwelt there, making use of the churches already erected, even then the
task of shepherding such masses effectively would have called for a man
of great power. Why, to have merely made the round of them would have
been a 365 day task, taking only two parishes per day. To have had
the knowledge a true Bishop should have of his clergy would have meant
intimate acquaintance with battalions of rectors, vicars, curates,
cathedral officials, and hospital, asylum, and barrack chaplains. To
meet the demands of the increased population, and to have enlarged the
existing accommodation, would have meant providing for an expenditure
that would have taxed the most ingenious Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Yes, it would have meant all this, if the people had simply naturally
increased; and if the others had simply thronged in, urged by the
“drift-to-the-towns” movement.
Gradually, however, there was another problem added.
For many years shopkeepers and merchants, who used to live over their
shops and warehouses, had begun to erect for themselves residences a
little further out. These emigrants did not go far at first. In the
west they went towards Bayswater; in the east, towards Stepney; in
the north, towards Highbury and Holloway; and in the south towards
Kennington and Denmark Hill. There they built for themselves important
looking houses, stately-fronted, porched or terraced; and drove
Citywards in the mornings by carriage, hansom, and omnibus.
It only needed a few years more, and they had moved still further out.
Anywhere, anywhere, to escape the crowd! They left their former houses
to be let to their managers and clerks. _This was stage Number One._
A few more years yet, then these also had drifted onwards to long rows
of suburban villas, from which they came in by train, and the big
houses, formerly let to them by their employers, _now reached the
second stage_. They were left behind by the salaried people who had
now emigrated to the huge suburbs which sprang in Chelsea, Brompton,
Willesden, Watford, Queen’s Park, Battersea, Wandsworth, and Clapham;
Upton Park, East and West Ham, Forest Gate and Ilford; Camberwell,
Peckham, and Deptford; Lee and Blackheath. The houses they left behind
became tenanted by the upper wage-earning classes, who let off some
portion of the house; and where one family had lived there were two or
even three now found. _This was the third stage!_
A few years more and even these had travelled some little distance
further; and the large residences became mere tenement dwellings.
Little by little, room after room became let by itself, and many
families struggled along under one roof. At night time, in a
twelve-roomed house, there might have been counted any number from
twenty upwards of sleeping people, and in the daytime the children
simply swarmed in the streets. _This was the final stage!_
This was the condition of affairs that stretched before the gaze of the
new Bishop of London. The immigration into London had presented one
problem, the emigration out of London into Greater London presented
quite another. The density of the population, on the one hand, called
for religious provision, and the churches in its midst had to be
encouraged. But the emigration from London meant that “Down Town”
churches also multiplied, and “Out Town” churches had to be built and
financed.
The situation bristled with difficulties; for side by side with
Changing London came the saddening fact that the people in London were
changing also. Take the West End! In Bishop Wilkinson’s day, the houses
around St. Peter’s, Eaton Square, were occupied by church-going people;
and St. Paul’s, Onslow Square, where Prebendary Webb-Peploe preached,
once crowded every Sunday with throngs of fashionable worshippers,
were two examples of the way in which the Week-End and Sunday golf
habit were disastrously beginning to affect the congregations. And, if
men like Prebendary Webb-Peploe, eloquent in speech, and spiritually
gifted, from whom we had the statement, discovered this, what must the
other churches have done? It simply meant that a large majority of
the wealthy town-dwellers were too busy to pay any attention to soul
culture, or to show devotion to their parishes.
A large number of others were living in expensive flats, and leaving
them at the week-ends in the same way.
Another feature of London life was being produced in the better-class
boarding-houses. There were many many thousands living in the
boarding-houses of London, an irresponsible, undomesticated existence.
The home sense--utterly destroyed--and the home ties, that counted
for so much in the past, weakened! Ever on the wing, the spirit of
discontent and fault-finding at every fresh house was fostered. The
Sundays, if possible, were spent away. If not, then they perhaps
went to the nearest church, for which they felt no devotion, like
the former residents of the parish, and contented themselves with
dropping anything from a penny to sixpence into the plate. Hence, the
offertories of the churches were depleted, and the efficiency of their
work hindered.
Turning to the type which was being produced among the poorer classes,
the observer was faced with a phenomenon unique in the world’s history.
There was a generation growing up which, in millions, had been living
in the mean streets, and courts, and crowded ways of this great city,
cramped in its bodily surroundings, living a hot, fretful life, working
long hours of sedentary, unhealthy toil. Had you witnessed a Bank
Holiday scene on Wormwood Scrubbs, or Hampstead Heath, or Battersea
Park, you would have known what it meant. For hours there would be a
seemingly endless stream of tired, carelessly dressed, worn-out looking
mothers, with babies in their arms, and dragging at their skirts. Gangs
of loud-voiced youths, and equally loud-voiced girls, were all wending
their way to the centre of a noisy, roaring, rattling fair. Then they
would return once more to their old cramping surroundings. Numbers of
them were passing their existence losing touch with Nature, and except
for a holiday, all too brief, seldom getting their vision enlarged
by the sight of vast spaces, or by contact with the working of the
mysterious Force of the ocean’s tide “rolling in fullest pride,” or
of the equally mysterious Force of Growth in the fields. In the early
years of this century, when Winnington Ingram began his work as Bishop,
a great deal was heard about the irreligiousness of the masses. It was
not easy to remember God, or to feel desire for worship in such a life
as theirs. A new type of individual was being developed, remarkable
neither for physical strength, mental power, nor spiritual genius;
remarkable for nothing except the quick-wittedness born of their
constant rubbing shoulders with a crowd.
Quite apart from these very poor, who were represented by 300,000
families, _yet always on the fringe of their condition_, there was a
great working-class population who were found in Walthamstow, Nine
Elms, Battersea, the back streets of Chelsea and Brompton, and the
unbroken lines of the Queen’s Park estate. We had occasion to find a
working-man in one such house in Battersea, one of a long lane of tiny
dwellings, and we called at several before we could find him. They were
all the same. A dirty hall, a common staircase. The street outside
the playground of the children, and the rooms inside small and close.
As we walked the streets scarcely one pretty face, or one lad of fine
physique could be discovered. They looked undersized, crude, rude, and
without ideals. The women’s faces were hard, the girls’ pert, and the
men toil-worn. And miles upon miles of similar streets held hundreds of
thousands of similar men and women and children. This was the London
that faced Winnington Ingram as he assumed the episcopal responsibility
for this--the largest city in the world!
Without hesitation he bent himself to the task.
One month after his consecration as Bishop he started to do for the
“Bishop of London’s Fund” what he had been hitherto doing for the East
London Church Fund. Twelve days after the enthronement in St. Paul’s
he preached at Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, and secured £1,500 for
his fund. In the year he had wooed out of the people nearly £29,000.
This he felt was the duty that lay nearest to his hand. He saw the
city as we have described, and he felt that its one hope lay in making
more provision for its changing needs; that if any uplift was to be
preserved for them it must come this way. None but the churches could
fight the tendency to materialisation of spirit that unchecked and
unleavened was bound to come in city life.
It was with this consciousness that the Bishop of London set first and
foremost in his programme of activities the provision for the spiritual
needs of his vast diocese. And, in the years that followed, he never
weakened in his conviction that the one thing which could save London
would be the multiplication in its midst of a race of devoted clergy.
Yet no effort for the future was allowed to induce him to neglect the
multitudinous duties which came upon him in carrying out the _details_
of his episcopal position.
To record how, year after year, during his twenty-five years’
episcopate, his life was crowded with the fulfilment of many claims
which were thrust upon him would call for far more space than the
limits of this book could furnish. It will be sufficient to select one
such year at random--one of the earliest years of his experience as a
Bishop, and to say: “This is a sample!” Here it is:--
He addresses a New Year’s letter to his diocese. He visits the Royal
Naval College at Osborne. He speaks to a Men’s Meeting at the City of
London School. He receives a deputation from American Church Bishops.
In the interests of the Church of England, seeking to weld her in bonds
of sympathy with the great Eastern Church in Russia, he journeys to
St. Petersburg. He is received by the Tsar and Tsaritza. As he returns
home he visits Berlin. Immediately upon his return he addresses the
“Frances Holland” School for Girls. He goes to St. Christopher’s
Working Boys’ Club. On the midnight march of the Church Army through
Westminster, he joins in the procession. He holds a Confirmation at the
Chapel Royal, St. James’s. He opens the “Bishop Creighton” House at
Fulham. He addresses the London Diocesan Conference as its President.
He gives a Garden Party at Fulham to German clergy. He presides at a
display by the London Diocesan Branch of the Church Lads’ Brigade. He
distributes the prizes at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. He receives
honorary degree at Cambridge. He opens the new Parish Room at St.
Chad’s, Haggerston. He consecrates the Church of Emmanuel at Northwood.
He shares in the Lenten Mission at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. He
addresses a great meeting at the Albert Hall. He is present at the
Balkan Committee’s Meeting on Macedonian Reform. Goes to Bethnal Green
to address assembly of East London men. Rushes down to Bournemouth
to plead for the East London Church Fund. Preaches at Christ Church,
Lancaster Gate. Again at Christ Church, Mayfair, on “Socialism.” Speaks
at Church House to Women’s Diocesan Society; again in connection with
the Central Board of Missions; again to the Waifs and Strays Society;
again on the East London Jews’ Fund; again on the Education Bill;
again on the work of the Society of Sacred Mission, Kelham; and again
on South London Church Work. He goes to St. Peter’s to unveil the
Bishop Wilkinson memorial. At Fulham he speaks on Settlement work in
the light of his Oxford House experience. At Fulham Parish Church he
dedicates the tower and bells. He pleads at Grosvenor House for the
Bishop of London’s Church Fund; at the Guildhall for Missions. Gives an
address at the Kensington Town Hall on the Education Bill. He speaks
at Lincoln’s Inn on the Incorporated Inns of Court Mission; and at the
Mansion House in connection with the Pan-Anglican Congress on “Women
and their Responsibility.” Speaks at the Portman Rooms on the claims of
his own Church Fund. Addresses the Queens’ College students. Delivers
an address at Queen’s Hall on the Chinese Opium Traffic; speaks on the
Licensing Bill, and again on “Morality.” Again, at the Representative
Church Council on the Licensing Bill. Again, at the Royal Albert
Hall on Anglo-German relations; and again at the same place, on the
Licensing Bill. Goes to St. Dunstan’s-in-the-East. Gives Good Friday
addresses at St. James’s, Piccadilly. Visits St. Margaret Pattens!
Gives an address at St. Mary’s Hospital on the Medical Profession and
the Church. Is present at St. Michael’s, Cornhill, and addresses City
men. At St. Paul’s Cathedral on Easter Day. At Sion College; and speaks
at Union Street on Church Schools Maintenance. Preaches at Westminster
Abbey for London Hospitals. Is present at the Church of England
Pageant. Appeals to the public concerning the condition of the Congo
Free State. Pleads the cause of the Seaside Camps for London Working
Boys.
One year’s work that emerged and could be noticed publicly! But beside
all this there was the church visitation in the week and on Sundays
to which the Bishop refers in his letter as “visiting 133 parishes.”
Beside all this the great amount of time spent in committees, and the
still greater in correspondence!
Before the letters were all disposed of, those with whom interviews had
been arranged began to arrive at the Palace, or more usually at London
House as being more convenient for the clergy of his diocese.
If the Bishop’s engagements for the day were so heavy that he would
have no other opportunity for a little exercise, he interviewed his
clergy while walking briskly in the open air.
If to be caricatured often hits off a truth better than in any other
way, then the witty lines published in _Punch_ reveal better than
anything we can say the stress of the Bishop’s public and private life:
THE LAY OF THE SUFFERING BISHOP
From morn till evening, from evening till night,
I preach and organise, lecture and write.
And all over London my gaitered legs fly.
Was ever a Bishop so busy as I?
When writing my sermons, the best of my work’ll
Be done in the trains on the Underground circle;
I can write one complete, with a fine peroration,
Between Charing Cross and Mansion House Station.
For luncheon, I swallow a sandwich of ham,
As I rush up the steps of a Whitechapel tram;
Or with excellent appetite I will discuss
A half-penny bun on a Waterloo ’bus.
No table is snowy with damask for me;
My cloth is the apron which covers my knee:
No manservants serve and no kitchenmaids dish up
The frugal repasts of this suffering Bishop.
But the mere details of his work could not be allowed to monopolise his
efforts. As Bishop of London, and one of the spiritual Peers in the
House of Lords, he was called to watch over the interests of the Church
of England. He had only been the episcopal leader in the London diocese
for little more than a year, when the struggle over the Education Bill
in 1902 forced him into the arena. In the debate in the House of Lords,
the Bishop of London expressed his determination to later on move an
amendment to the Bill, providing for the right of the parish clergyman
to teach in the school; and also safeguarding that the repairs for
which the parish school was liable should only be structural.
He felt so strongly on the matter that in view of the County Council
Elections at the end of 1903, he addressed a letter to the Press and
the diocese, in conjunction with the Bishop of Rochester, which,
while deprecating having to adopt a course which brought him, even
defensively, into active collision with large bodies of Nonconformists,
yet called upon Churchmen to throw their strength into the election of
candidates who would be ready to work the Act impartially.
On December 30, 1903, he wrote to the people of his diocese this New
Year Letter:
“DEAR PEOPLE,
“It has been a busy year for all of us: unmarked by any great
incident, and undisturbed by any great calamity. I have continued
my course of visits around the diocese, and have visited 133 more
parishes during the past year. The rate at which this diocese
increases may be gauged by the fact that I have consecrated ten
new churches this year; and it would have been quite impossible for
me to have borne the ever-increasing burden, if it were not for the
unfailing work of my Suffragan Bishops and Archdeacons, backed up in
each locality by the Rural Deans, with their band of faithful clergy
behind them.”
He then referred to that letter he had already sent in conjunction with
the Bishop of Rochester to _The Times_ and other papers. He then laid
it down:
“The principle we believe to be in danger is a threefold one. (1)
That the teaching of definite religious truth is an integral part
of true education. (2) That the religious truth taught the children
should be the religion of their parents. (3) And that it should be
taught them by those who believe it. Let it be made clear that we
cannot surrender these principles in the case of the schools which
have been built by voluntary effort.
“If the ideal of the Free Church Council expressed in their
resolutions at Leicester is realised, then all schools are to be
of one type. Only simple Biblical instruction is to be allowed. No
test of any sort is to be applied to the teachers; and apparently no
inquiry is to be made as to the fitness of the teacher who gives the
Biblical instruction. What is quite clear is that we clergy have to
oppose this policy root and branch.
“Is it for this we have spent £10,000 a week for eighty years on the
teaching of the poor? Is it for this that one million new school
places were added to our schools after the passing of the Education
Act of 1870? No, it was in order that, at any rate, three millions
of children in the Voluntary Schools throughout the country might be
taught without restraint the religion of their parents, and so be
enabled to start in life with a definite religious faith. In London,
at any rate, there can be no talk of Nonconformist children being
forced to come to Church schools against their will. There is a Board
School within reach of every child: and so large is the additional
grant to be made by the County Council in respect of the poor schools
which it is taking over, that for the first years, at any rate, no
rates will be used for the Voluntary Schools at all.”
He then proceeded to urge them to place men upon the Council, who would
see that the Church interests were safeguarded, and he went on thus:
“Side by side with that a parallel duty will be laid upon us. We must
not hesitate to do our part under the Act. We must hand over our
schools free of debt. That will mean that, after recognition, the
grant due from the Government on the appointed day will leave the
sum of over £30,000 to be raised. When this appeal has come out, I
wish it to be made the occasion of a great Lenten Self-Denial Week,
through every parish in the diocese, whether rich or poor.
“Some day the principle for which we have contended for so long, that
the ‘children shall be taught the religion of their parents, and by
those who believe it,’ may be seen by all our fellow-citizens to
be essentially sound and just. Then we may hope that facilities in
all schools may be granted for definite religious instruction, and
in such cases we shall be quite willing ourselves to grant similar
facilities in our own schools to those who wish to avail themselves
of them. But meanwhile, our immediate duty is to safeguard the
spiritual interests of the 180,000 children still in the Voluntary
Schools of London.
“If I have dwelt specially upon the religious question, it is because
_that_ is the question which to us as Christian men is the most
fundamental, and because that is the issue upon which, as Churchmen,
we are called to act in defence.
“Your affectionate friend and Bishop,
“A. F. LONDON.”
These two sides of his ecclesiastical career have always been evident
in the life of the Bishop of London. On the one hand, with the fervour
and faith of a spiritual leader, he would eagerly assume great
responsibilities in erecting and supporting churches in his vast
diocese; and, on the other, show himself ready to devote time and
energy to publicly asserting the interests of the Church of England as
a whole.
It was during the public side of his work, as exhibited in the course
of his many years’ episcopate, that we get a clear insight into the way
the Bishop’s mind approached great vital questions. There are leaders
who are always ready to oppose change because they are out of sympathy
with changes of any kind; or if they are found willing even for an
experiment it is on the grounds of mere utilitarianism. It is rare in
public life to discover a man who is willing to bring everything to the
touchstone of principle.
The Bishop of London proved himself just such a man.
We find him in 1904 speaking in the House of Lords on the Licensing
Bill; and he stated that he regarded the withdrawal of licensing powers
from the local magistrates as a blow at local patriotism, and declared
that he favoured the fourteen years time-limit for the licenses. It was
not the working of the Bill which appealed to him, but the principle of
removing control from any but those affected by it; and the other of
creating a vested interest by annual renewal of the license as a matter
of course, till by its renewal a custom had been established, which
could be pleaded as a reason for further renewal.
When the “Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Bill” was passed, making it legal
to marry the sister of a deceased wife, he was much exercised in his
mind by the clear interference of the State with what had hitherto been
regarded as an ecclesiastical matter, never in question, until it was
now disturbed by regard to mere utility. He implored the Archbishop
of Canterbury to make clear to the clergy what their duty really was
and whether they could be justified in refusing the Holy Communion to
those who, from the point of view of Church Law, were living in sin.
The Archbishop replied in a long letter, in which he set forth that no
one who was living within the scope of the Statutes of the Realm could
be said to be “A notorious and open evil liver”--on which grounds alone
Holy Communion could be withheld from any applicants. But at the same
time he pointed out that the Church could not permit dictation from
the Legislature as to the provisions of its own spiritual discipline.
However, this appeal by the Bishop of London to the Archbishop revealed
that his own mind was working towards setting spiritual issues above
obedience to a merely utilitarian and popular measure.
The same attitude was revealed by his joining in the agitation against
the proposed Johnson-Wells pugilistic contest, which prevented the
fight coming off--an action on the part of the Churches, which at the
time was anything but popular.
His readiness to risk anything in what he considered the cause of
right, however conservative his action might appear, was indicated by
the fact that in February, 1914, he presented a petition, signed by 676
priests of the Diocese of London, to the Upper House of Convocation,
expressing anxiety at the unchecked denial of Christian truths by
office-holders in the Church, and at the tendency to approach the
problem of reunion in a way inconsistent with the recognised necessity
of episcopal ordination. On April 30 this House adopted the resolution
and asserted the determination of the House to maintain unimpaired the
faith in the Trinity and in the Incarnation contained in the creeds and
the report of the Lambeth Conference of 1908, affirming the historical
facts contained in those creeds to be part of the doctrine of the
Church. They also re-affirmed the principle that no man should be
suffered to perform priestly functions without episcopal ordination.
This same attitude was emphasised in 1904 by his protest at the
teaching of Canon Hensley Henson on the subject of the Virgin Birth,
a protest which brought forth an answering letter addressed to the
Bishop by Dr. Henson himself. But the Bishop complained that “there is
so much ambiguity in the language of Canon Henson and of other similar
writers; so much readiness to discuss possible effects of the results
of historical criticism, as if these results were already assured;
there are so many admissions, lightly made which would carry those
who make them further probably than they themselves think, further
certainly than the faith of the Church permits; that there is ground
for legitimate anxiety as to the nature and consequences of much of
this modern teaching. I am, however, very grateful for the kind tone
Canon Henson adopts throughout the letter to me personally and for the
respect he expresses for my office. The propositions which he lays
down in his published letter may be summed up in the one proposition
that--‘We must follow Truth wherever it leads.’ This principle I have
not shrunk in any way from applying, as he suggests I have, to the
New Testament, and, therefore, in a sermon of mine, and an address
delivered to the London Diocesan Conference, I have given the reasons
which lead me to believe in the Virgin Birth of our Lord.”
But though this particular incident closed on a kindly note, there
was none the less a great gulf fixed between the schools of thought
represented by Canon Hensley Henson and Winnington Ingram: and, years
later, this fact was emphasised by the Bishop of London’s personal
action over the consecration of his former friend, Hensley Henson, to
the episcopate.
He explained his action in the following letter:
_January 19, 1918._
“The Bishop of London has acknowledged, through the Archdeacon of
London, a memorial presented to him by the clergy of the diocese,
on the subject of the consecration of Hensley Henson to be Bishop of
Hereford. He says, ‘Before I received it I had come to the painful
decision to take no part in the consecration of Dr. Henson as Bishop
of Hereford. I say “painful” because he is an old friend of mine for
twenty-nine years, and was my predecessor at Oxford House. I only
abstain because of what I consider his dangerous views with regard
to the Virgin Birth and Resurrection, and certain miracles wrought
by our Lord, as exemplified in passages quoted by the Bishop of
Oxford in his public protest. I shall always hope that he will, if he
becomes a Bishop, lay aside the controversial pen, and develop that
pastoral side of his character that we who knew him and loved him at
Bethnal Green knew to be so strong in him.’”
It can readily be perceived that one who, like the Bishop of London,
would definitely take such a step as to refuse to support by his
presence even the consecration of an old friend, would not easily yield
one jot or tittle to any claims but those of his own conscience.
It was the same over the Woman’s Suffrage question. For years the
struggle was intense and protracted. The members of the Militant Party
amongst the suffragettes were attracting attention to their cause by
measures which, in the then existing conditions, had brought them into
open breaches of the law. It was in vain they were arrested and fined.
They retorted by accepting prison sooner than pay fines, and once in
prison, went on hunger strike, to obtain their release. Nothing would
have been easier for a man of such intense sympathy as the Bishop of
London than to show it actively on the side of these women. But from
his point of view they were in revolt against Constitutional methods.
On January 24, 1914, he visited Holloway Gaol, and interviewed Miss
Rachel Peace, who, it was stated, had been forcibly fed. He reported
that the statement was unfounded, but pleaded that she must be released
on license. His plea was refused, and on January 31 he published a
letter stating the fact. Its publication was followed by a wilful
interruption of his service at a consecration of a church at Golders’
Green. The next day a deputation asked him to visit two women prisoners
in Holloway, and then come and state his experiences before a meeting
of the Woman’s Social and Political Union. He refused to do the latter,
but he visited the prison and talked with the women, and found they
complained of no personal unkindness beyond forcible feeding. He told
them that their action was not only wrong, but impolitic. The result of
his statement was that the militants picketed his house. Here again was
a clear case of his willingness to risk unpopularity in asserting his
own personal and considered views.
Even in the Church of England itself, the same fact came out when
he found it necessary to deal with practices which seemed to him to
involve greater issues, and an instance of this was found in his
decision concerning the methods adopted at St. Peter’s, London Dock, in
1909.
He sent them a letter practically removing the episcopal ban on the
Church, and the Vicar, the Rev. L. S. Wainwright, read it publicly.
The Bishop wrote:
“With regard to the use of incense--in view of the fact that incense
has been used in your Church for forty years and more, I make no
order dealing with the matter of the Reservation of the Sacraments.
I sanction its being reserved for the purpose of communicating the
sick, but I direct that it shall be reserved in the Mortuary Chapel,
pointed out to me on the occasion of my visit, instead of in the side
Chapel where it is now reserved.”
From the instances quoted above, the position of the Bishop becomes
lucidly clear. It becomes apparent that he felt he was there to protect
the people in the 593 parishes of his diocese from any errors which
might creep in, either of doctrine or of practice. He asked only one
question: What was the principle involved? And on the principle he took
his firm stand, whether within or without the Church this was always
his attitude.
So the years passed, in the exercise of his episcopal duties, in the
rapidly extending diocese of London; in willingly fulfilling the
extra duties thrust upon him as a man of commanding influence; and in
fearlessly asserting his conscience as a spiritual peer of the realm,
and one of the spiritual leaders of his own Church.
Then, like a bolt from the blue, came the Great War in 1914, and to all
the difficulties which had hitherto faced him was added the shouldering
of responsibilities which a state of war thrust upon every man in high
position and peculiarly upon himself.