Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1930. A GREAT PRELATE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 123, 27 May 1930, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1930. A GREAT PRELATE

The last words of Lord Davidson, as lie laid his hand on the head of the man who had succeeded him. 'as Archbishop of Canterbury, were: "May God give you judgment." Judgment is indeed a quality of which in these testing times an Archbishop of Canterbury has special need, and it is one of the qualities which contributed most to the great service that he himself was able to render both to. the Church and to the nation during his twenty-five years' tenure of that office. If judgment seems too secular a quality to be placed so high among the qualifications for a position whose incumbent is no longer the keeper of the King's conscience and his chief officer of State, one might truthfully add that Lord Davidson was equally distinguished by a breadth of heart and sympathy which was just as essential a part of his equipment ,as the breadth and balance of mind which made a judicial altitude to tempestuous issues natural and easy. This happy combination could hardly have been more compactly expressed than in his ■ successor's selection of "large-mindedness and charitableness" as Lord Davidson's outstanding merits. The far-reaching effects of these qualities 'upon communions which have often chafed at the privileges still given to the Church of England as out-of-date and repugnant to the spirit of the age are illustrated" in the single sentence in our cabled report which testifies to the universality of the admiration, and sympathy evoked by the late Archbishop's death.

Sermons to-day ' (Sunday), irrespective of creed, including those of Jewish rabbis, paid tributes to Lord Davidson^: saiiitliness. ■' <

Among the tributes specially reported, that of, the "Observer" is one of the most striking, though on one point it may be open to exception :-

■ He raised his office to a. pla,co in the national life, it had hardly .over beforo reached by sheer force of. character. He was a great prelate.because he was a strong, • sincere, and. simple man, endowed with an unsuual store of wisdom and common sense.

It is.certainly not to the eminence of the service ascribed'to Lord. Davidson that anybody is likely to object, but only to the special .quality diagnosed as- the outstanding cause. "Sheer force of character" does not seem to us the secret of his achievement, unless "force" may be> considered to include the charm that wins its way peacefully and tactfully as well as the strength that pushes obstacles out of the road. But "the unusual store of wisdom and common sense" which is also included in the "Observer's" tribute may perhaps be taken to imply a sufficient qualification of the idea of force to fit the eulogies previously quoted. In the very aptly phrased testimony of Mr. • Ramsay Mac Donald there is surely nothing at which even the most .punctilious of critics would care to cavil: " ■

Wisely 'and cautiously, yet with liberal .breadth and depth of thought and sympathy, he guided the Church and won influence in the State. Many of us -will miss a friend' whom wo reverenced,, arid from whom we received stimulating inspiration. '

In this tribute the Prime Minister has properly emphasised the secular side-of the national service which the catholicity of Lord Davt idson's thought and sympathy enabled him to render. /As an example of the service which' was at once ecclesiastical and secular we may refer to the conciliatory' and tranquillising influence he was able to exercise at a time when Nonconformist sentiment was outraged by Balfour's Education Act of 1902. One of Nonconformity's most powerful champions' was Dr. ■ John Clifford, who fulminated against'"Clericalism In British Politics," and'led the Passive vßesistance*Movement against the payment of rates for church schools. Had such advocacy been met in the same militant spirit by ,the head of the Church of England, that bitter controversy might have been perilously intensified'and prolonged. Of Lord Davidson's^ services in purely secular affairs two interesting examples are recorded by Lord Morley, who, it is hardly necessary-to. say, was, both in general politics and in matters of faith, about, as widely separated from him as it was possible to be. But the cause of South African Union which the Asquith Government had in hand in 1909 brought the two men together. Writing on 29th July, when the Bill was before the House of Lords, Lord Morley says:— ■

The H. of L. presented a striking dramatic scene last Tuesday, when Orewo moved the Second Reading of the- South African ¥nion Bill. Botha and Jameson on the steps of the.throne; Milner on the cross-benches; the Lord Chancellor Courtney and myself the protagonists among pro-Boers; the Archbishop of Canterbury giving his blessing in good taste.'and a fine spirit —altogether a grand historic close, worthy of"! a mighty Senate and an Imperial State in the best sense of that abused term.

service, if characteristic, may have been slight, but two years later, on an occasion of Avhich sonic have said that "no more exciting or dramatic scene had ever been beheld within the walls of the House of Lords," and which certainly marked the climax of the most dangerous constitutional crisis of our lime, Lord Davidson exercised by a very brief intervention- a powerful and perhaps determining influence. After the House of Lords had rejected Mr. Lloyd George's Budget in 1909, and the question of limiting their veto had been before the country at two General Elections, the Parliament Bill which was designed to effect that object came before the Lords on the 11th August, 1911. Neither Government nor Opposition could do more than guess at the result of a debate which, after Mo'rley himself had informed the House that His Majesty would, if necessary, create a sufficient number of new peers to save the Bill from a second defeat, is described by him as follows:

The speeches that followed, though some were made by leading men, were in the strain of altercation, hot or cold, rather than serious contribution. The ono most reassuring for Ministers of them all took no more than three or four minutes. It fell fro n the Primate —tho head of the hierarchy who have their seats in the House not by fdesecnt and birth, nor by election from Scotland or Ireland, nor by political or secular service—a man of broad mind, sagacious temper, steady and careful judgment, good knowledge of the workable strength of rivai sections. While those who wore for conciliation and those who . resisted smote ono another, the Archbishop recalled-both to the gravity of the issue. He admitted'tho course of the'debate had made him change his mind. And what was it in the course of the debate that had produced ;an effect so.rare? It was the callousness—he had almost said levity —with ,which some noble Lords seemed to contemplate^ the creation of 500 now peers; a courso of action that would, make this House, and indeed the country, the laughing-stock of tho British Dominions beyond the seas, and of those 'foreign countries whoso constitutional, life and progress had been largely modelled on our own.- Nothing could have been either more true or more apt.

As the Bill was only carried by a majority of 17 (130 to 113), it does not seem too much to suppose that the Archbishop's judicial rebuke of the "callousness," not -to say "levity," of some of the opponents of the Bill may have altered the voles of a sufficient, number of them—a turnover, of 9 would have been enough—to save "the Bill.

One special reason-for the keenness of the all-round sympathy which Lord Davidson's death has excited is the laborious and gallant fight which he fought on behalf of the revised Prayer Book on the ; verge of his 80th year, and the splendid spirit in which, after ay second attempt, he accepted defeat. The certainty of defeat 'left him as far from despair or recrimination as had the expectation of victory. Addressing the Church Assembly three weeks later, he pleaded that the vole should be considered "calmly and in its proper proportions"; denied that "the House of Commons was arrogantly claiming absolute control over the Church's belief and worship"; and, while describing the result as "disastrous and deplorable, but perfectly legal," argued that in the endeavour to reverse it, they should not forget the charity and justice due to those whom they believed to have done the Church a grievous wrong. A defeat accepted in such a spirit has all the inspiration of victory.