New Archbishops

Evening Star, Issue 20020, 10 November 1928, Page 17

New Archbishops

Dr Lang for Canterbury

Aged Primate Looks Backward

Problems to be Faced

The changes in tho supremo leadership of tho Church of England at Homo take effect from Monday next. Dr Davidson then retires from tho Archbishopric of Canterbury, to bo succeeded by Dr Lang, Archbishop of York, and Dr Temple, Bishop ot Manchester, becomes Archbishop of York.

PRIMATE'S RECORD REIGN A LINK WITH WELLINGTON. It - as a great occasion earlier tills year when the revered Primate, who is laying down tho burden of office, was presented on his eightieth birthday with tho freedom of Canterbury. The Sheriff remarked that never before had an Archbishop become a Freeman of the city, and that Dr Davidson’s twenty-five years _as Primate constituted the longest reign since tho Reformation. He ’went on to say: “ All through the ages you find that our history has been influenced for good or ill—largely for good—by the great men who sit in the chair of St. Augustine. To-day we meet to honour one who, in days to come, I think, will bo reckoned among tho very greatest of the Archbishops of Canterbury.” The Primate had won his position, he added, not only by his great abilities, t but because there '-as beneath the ecclesiastic the beating heart of a man who had tho interests of the people at heart. * There was fervent applause when the Sheriff recalled how tho Primate, when a curate at Dartford at the time of a cholera epidemic, had carried a stricken maidservant from her sick room to the coach, which was waiting to take her to hospital. Tho Primate then took tho treeman’s oath, with its quaint pledges of obedience savouring of a far age, and was presented with tho mayor’s right hand of fellowship and tho sealed certificate of Freedom in a casket made of fourteenth-century oak from the Trundel Tower of the Cathedral, decorated with the arras of the city, the diocese of Canterbury, and tho dioceses of Winchester and Rochester, t of which the Primate was formerly Bishop. “ RARE PEOPLE.” “ Distinguished men have held this honour,” said the Archbishop in his reply, “Whether any of them have reached the age of eighty I have my doubts, but of course octogenarians are rare people. I don’t know whether everyone realises that there was no such word in tho English language until about one hundred years ago. It was not that octogenarians did not exist—the word at all events had not been coined. I know the very first use of it is said to bo ‘ pity indeed is duo to futile octogenarians.’ “ There was an octogenarian Archbishop in earlier days—in Saxon times. Ho held office for a long period. Wo do not know a great deal about his life, but we are told that he was a • tactful Ecclesiastic who excommunicated the Archbishop of York.’ ” This was greeted with loud laughter, and when it Lad subsided the Archbishop added, amid further laughter, “ that is a small summary of his career. I daresay ho did other things as well.”

THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON. “ Eighty years is a long life,” he went on. “I look back along those years, and one of my earliest recollections is the death of the Duke of Wellington. I was then four years old. The Duke was born in 1769. We are now in 1928. The link of these two overlapping li os is one of those things in English history which remind us of the continuity of the race.” Dr Davidson said he also recollected the Crimean War. It so happened that the circumstances of his life led him to be in touch during a great many years with prominent men in English life, men who had left their mark or would leave their mark in history. Ho had been on intimate terms with ten Prime Ministers, and ho might say that six or seven of them had been his intimate friends. His duties had brought him into touch with bishops from all over (lie world and not merely England alone. Among his personal friends he was able to remember hundreds of bishops and men who had Hold or were holding episcopal offices. That ought to teach one something, but whether he had learnt tho lesson well or nob was another question. The Archbishop then referred to various stages in his career, and said there was one thing upon which ho was not going to touch. “ That is my marriage and what it has meant.” ho said, amid loud applause. “ You know—l will leave it there.” CHURCH AND STATE. Dr Davidson also referred to the close connection between tho duties of the church and the State, and said the great difference between an archbishop rind a Minister of the Crown was that the latter could “ go out of office, turn round and think about tho mistakes ho bad made, and decide to go back again —an archbishop never gets that chance. “ One of our great difficulties—l think it belongs both to the church and tho State —is to find a sufficient supply of really first-rate men to hojd prominent offices. Wo want them in the church; there is no question about it. “ There is a shortage of clergy, and I hear sometimes that in walks of civil life there is a shortage now of men who can bo absolutely counted on to carry adequately the burden laid upon them, and fulfil with satisfaction to everybody the duties laid upon them.” The ceremony concluded with the singing of the National Anthem, and then, preceded by his Beadsmen dressed in black gowns embossed with Tudor roses and carrying white staffs, and by beadles bearing casket, mace, and sword, accompanied by mayor and corporation, the Primate, a venerable figure indeed, came out into the sunshine, and saw the smiling, greeting, applauding people about him, and went in state along narrow Mercv lane, and through the mellow Christchurch gate, and so took leave of those glad to honour him at the porch of the old stone and flint Chapter House, a happy and proud man. m HEW PRIMATE PERSONALITY AND POLICY. “ It was a bad. day for our kirk when you got hold of Cosmo Gordon Lang,” said a Presbyterian minister, some years ago, to an Anglican bishop; and it is not so long since Lord Buckmaster remarked, during a debate in tho House of Lords, how much lustre tho Primate-elect would have added to the profession of the law had he carried out his original intention of following it. Tributes such as these could bo multiplied (says a writer in the ‘ Observer’), and they would como from all sorts and conditions of men, for there are few living men, and no churchmen, who can claim as many

outstanding gifts as Dr Lang, or could know better how to use them.

What are the qualities for his high office that the new Archbiship will bring to Lambeth? Of Dr Laiig’s gifts of leadership, his career is the record. The curates of Portsea—there were at times as many as sixteen of them in those opulent pre-war days—never worked better as a team than when ho was vicar of tho parish. The influence which the Church of England Men’s Society used to exert in the days of its power was largely duo to the ability with which ho guided its early aefivites; and East Loudon curates of twenty years ago will not have forgotten how the range of their ideals and the scope of their duties, in civic no less than in religious affairs, were extended and sanctified by Dr Lang’s prophetic conception ot the part to bo played by a National Church 111 tho modern State.

Dr Lang was then forty-four years old when lie became suffragan Bishop of York, but 1 remember hearing Lord Oxford say that it was an appointment which ho made withoiit Hesitation or anxiety; and for the six vcars before the war the now Archbishop of York gave of his very best to the spiritual and social problems of the north. Tho tours of the Sovereign and his Consort through the industrial areas, which provoked a new hope and enthusiasm among the workers, were arranged, if not at the archbishop’s instigation, at least with his active cooperation; and it was then, as it remains to-day, one of his greatest ambitions to see the church a power for righteousness in tho heart of a people more independent, and yet no more unwilling to yield to spiritual influences, than the less virile population of East Loudon. ORATOR AND STATESMAN. Of the Archbishop’s as an oratoralike on tho platform, in tho pulpit, and in tho House of Lords —it is enough to say that he has hardly a rival among his contemporaries. 1 have seen a hostile audience of Socialists in xho Isle of Dogs, fvho had come prepared to indulge in the harmless sport of bishop-baiting, tamed in less than five minutes by his eloquence, and standing at tho end of the meeting lik self-conscious school children to receive his blessing; and in Bethnal Green men still remember tho farewell address ho gave as Bishop of Stepney to a crowded men’s meeting in tho Excelsior Hall. A Yorkshire woman who had listened to a probing address delivered by the bachelor Archbishop to members of the Mothers’ Union, whispered to a friend, as she left the minister: “Don’t tell mo he’s not a married man”; and Lord Morley declared that Dr Lang’s live-minute sermon at the last Coronation was tho most masterly example of compressed eloquence to which ho had ever listened. When again, ton years ago, the Archbishop visited the New World, which does not always fall to British oratory, his audiences “ ate out of his hand ” from the beginning of his tour to tho end. It was not only that Dr Lang’s face and head bear a slight resemblance to George Washington’s (the likeness can be traced in tho little statue on tho lawn of the National Gallery opposite St. Martin’s Church); for one of tho leading American' statesmen declared that no ambassador from Europe, except perhaps Marshal Jolfre, had (lone as much for the allied cause os Dr Lang; while witness was born to his influence in the Middle West by a Chicago lady who testified: “Why, he’s just the finest speaker ever. He’s hardly got any English accent, and 1 didn’t hear him drop a single “h.” Much might be written of the Archbishop’s knowledge of affairs, of his shrewd and alert judgment of men, of his personal friendship with the Sovereign, and of other qualities that will stand him in good stead at Lambeth, But those who regard the Primate first as tho successor of Augustine, and only secondarily as a great national figure, will have their eyes fixed on the study that looks across tho river to tho House of Parliament, from which the administration of the National Church is directed and inspired. How will the now Archbishop shape the course of tho church’s policy and of ecclesiastical history in this land? THE MIDDLE WAY. Of his personal convictions Dr Lang would make no secret. By upbringing a Presbyterian, by Oxford contacts and by conviction a. Tractarian, ho stands firm on tho “ via media,” with friendly hands stretched out for somo distance —but not too far—on either side. He is thus in the true lino of descent for an archbishop, whose duty it has always been to “ tolerate the tolerable,” and who must bo supposed bytradition to make it Lis first aim to keep tho National Church us comprehensive as possible. No bishop, moreover, has shared tho counsels of Dr Davidson so intimately as his successor. Dr Lang understands the Erco Churchmen as well as, . cl tho AngloCatholics a little better than, the retiring Primate ; and his conception of tho church’s function in society has been widened by experiences that his predecessor has not enjoyed. But there will bo little change of policy at Lambeth. Many of us agree with Mr Sheppard that_ there_ is at least as much to be. said against, as for, the rather stunted and uninspiring idea of a Primate’s office that now prevails; but it was too much to expect that today a young man would bo placed in Augustine’s chair. The fate of the prayer book, and the controversies over it that have hardly begun, have made some continuity of policy essential—at least, _ in the eyes of leading ecclesiastics and statesmen—and the church must wait a little longer for its John Baptist, its Savonarola, or its Erasmus. This is not to say that Dr Lang possesses none of the gifts of these reformers of old time. The Watcher on Look-out Mountain can see signs that they will be needed in abundant measure during the next ten years; and the sanguine will not ce, e to hope that the Archbishop’s use of them may make his Primacy memorable, perhaps even cataclysmic, in the history of tho English Church. DETAILED CAREER SCOTSMAN SUCCEEDS SCOTSMAN. Dr Cosmo Gordon Lang is, like the Primate whom he succeeds, a Scotsman, and is a son of the manse. His father, the Very Reverend John Marshall Lang, D.D., was a minister of the Church of Scotland, not less highly esteemed for an independence of theological thought which proved no bar to

the Moderatorship or to tho Principalship of Aberdeen University. At the time of Dr Lang’s birth, on October 31, IS6J, his rather was minister of Fyvic, in Aberdeenshire, but promotic soon came to the Barony r ’hurch, in Glasgow, and the son, after attending a private school, proceeded to Glasgow University, where his eloquence quickly won -im a reputation in the Debating Society. ’ From Glasgow lie went up to King’s, Cambridge, but at the cud of his first term he entered for, and won, a Brackenbury scholarship at Balliol. At his now university his oratorical reputation was renewed, and he reached the chair o. the union without opposition. A second in classical moderations was followed by a first in history, and thou Dr Lang entered the chambers of Mr W. S. Robson, afterwards Attorney-General and Law Lord, to read for flic Bar. Three years later, however, lie abandoned the law, and was confirmed by Bishop King at Lin-

coin; and in 18f)0 was ordained deacon and priest on tho title of his All Souls Fellowship, to which he had been elected iu 1888, by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr Stubbs), to whom ho was later examining chaplain. SOCIAL WORK. Two choices were now put before him. Tho Vicar of Barking (now Bishop of Durham) and the Vicar of Leeds (afterwards Bishop Talbot) both offered him a curacy. Both parishes would have given him scope for the social work in which ho had already shown himself keenly interested; his choice finally rested on Leeds, where his earnestness and his power of preaching soon won him tho affection of his parishioners. In 1893, however, ho returned to Oxford as Fellow and Doan of Divinity of Magdalen, and in

the following year, at the ago of thirty, he became vicar of St. Mary’s, the university church. Two years later Dr Lang renewed his acquaintance with an industrial and rapidly-growing parish. Dr Jacob had ,been promoted from Portsea to Newcastle, and Dr Lang was chosen to succeed him; his bishop was the Primate whom ho now succeeds. Here, as at Leeds, he showed himself well fitted to appeal to an industrial population, and especially to men—an ability which has been still more marked in his connection with tho Church of England Men’s Society. His work at Portsea also brought him under Royal notice from Osborne, and it was generally felt that further and high promotion awaited him. Early in 1901 tho death of Bishop Creighton left a vacancy in London; and, when Dr Winnington-Ingram was appointed from Stepney, Dr Lang was chosen to be Ins Suffragan and was consecrated Bishop of Stepney.on May 1 1901. His presence was soon felt in the East End, and indeed throughout the diocese, which recognised in the youngest bishop also one of the best preachers in the church. Whether in the Cathedral or on the platform of a men’s meeting, few could equal his ability.- His work in East London was, indeed, the seal of his reputation, and it was not a surprise when, in 1908, Mr Asquith ' appointed Dr Lang, in spite of his comparative youth, to succeed Dr Maclagan in the Province of York,

Hero again lu’s .influence.has been especially felt in industrial centres. His efforts have been constantly directed to improving the relations between employers and employed; ana his ready sympathy in times of, depression line been appreciated by all. -Ino same beneficence has been shown- in his relations with the Nonconformist churches, and perhaps the most signal feature of his Archbishopric has been his work as chairman of trie gre t committee of the Lambeth Conference or 1020—work to which the American churches in particular paid warm tribute. More recently he has been, with Dr Davidson, the, protagonist among the supporters of the Prayer Book measure, and the outstanding figure or the National Assembly and House or Lords debates. During the war Dr Lang did valuable work for the Allied cause by his preaching in Canada and the United States,_ and since then has been ardent in his advocacy ot still closer Anglo-American relations. Dr Lang is a bachelor.

THE NEW HEAD OF YORK AN ARCHBISHOP"! SON. The career of Dr Temple, the now Archbishop of York, has been curiously alike, and yet in some respects unlike, that of his illustrious father, tho Archbishop of Canterbury, whom tho now retiring Primate succeeded. Born in 1881 at tho Palace, Exeter, and educated at Rugby, where his father had been head master, and at Balliol, of which college his father was a lellow, he has been an Oxford don, at Queen’s; head master of Repton; rector of St. James’s, Piccadilly; Canon of Westminster, and Bishop of Man-

Chester since 1921. Like Dr Lang, be was a president of the union. He is known to a wide public as a philosopher and a theologian, whose books on philosophy and theology have always commanded the respect of experts in those subjects, and to a yet wider public as a writer, speaker, and preacher of broad views ou current, problems of sociology and political economy, with declared leanings towards the ideajs of the Labour Party. His friends know him to possess a great capacity for hard work. He has done much _ tor the Workers’ Educational Association'and for the Life and Liberty movement, and has been one of the. protagonists in support of the Prayer Book measure. He has argued that though, the State is omnicompetent, there ■ are. spheres in which _it had better, not attempt to exercise its authority; it*m u st leave to the church the decision on matters relating to religion. If the State forces the disestablishment issue, so be it; but ho hopes rather that the State “ will be content to observe ith a benevolent eye the church’s work of strengthening its own organs of self-government,and self-discipline, as well as its endeavours to raovo steadily towards Christian reunion,.and,.to‘'grant legal sanctions of such corporate freedom when it is a visible fact and an operative force.” IV .Temple married in 1916 Frances Gertrude Acland, daughter of the late ilc, F. H, Anson.

TRANSLATION OF ARCHBISHOPS I PREVIOUS INSTANCES. The system of translating an Archbishop from one See to another appears to be of comparatively recent introduction in Great Britain. Cardinal John Kemp, Lord igh Chancellor of England was translated from York (to which h. had been promoted from London in 1426) to Canterbury in 1452. Dr Edmund Grin dal, who also bad been Bishop of London, was translated from York to Canterbury in 1575. In the 18th century Dr Thomas Herring and Dr Matthew Hutton followed each othe. as Bishops of Bangor, as Archbishops of York, and as Primates of All England in 1747 and 1757. In tho 19th century Dr Charles Longloy, who had been head master of Harrow. Bishop of Ripon, and Bishop of Durham in turn before becoming Archbishop of York in 1860, came south to succeed Dr Sumner on the chair of St. Augustine in 1862.

CANTERBURY CHEZ LU! [Written by C. 11. Allen, for tho ‘ Evening Star.’ j It is a truism that those who inhabit official mansions do so in trust for tho people. So it is with Government House in Wellington. So it is with Lambeth Palace in London. How that trust is discharged depends upon the genius of tho host and hostess for tho time being. This sketch does not comprise an interview with Dr Davidson, as the somewhat impertinent title might seem to suggest. It is merely an attempt to recall a certain Saturday afternoon when Canterbury was unofficially at homo to a number of strangely assorted persons It was really Miss Tait’s afternoon, but she was supported by her sister and brother-in-law. A number of her coworkers in tho interests of a certain orphanage had been invited to consider tho rcpoH and balance-sheet, which having been duly considered, they were entertained by the (performance of a play. We have all heard of the little theatre movement, and eddies from that pleasurable disturbance have already reached N.cw Zealand. The play was ‘ The Countess Cathlecn,’ of W. B. Yeats, and the mummers hailed from St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields across tho water. It is not necessary to write of tho change that has been wrought in that famous parish in recent years. Dick Shepherd has done for tho black-coated workers _ about Trafalgar square what tho Friars of old did for the stream of youth that poured into Oxford and Cambridge m search of the new learning. So the mummers went to Lambeth to play before tho Archbishop’s guests, and found that they were guests themselves.

One could not wonder what some of those bewigged Erastian prelates, whose portraits hung upon the walls, would have made of tho (play. One recalled Matthew Arnold’s phrase “Tho Celtic Fringe.” Tho proper habitat for ‘ The Countess Cathlcen ’ was the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, not Lambeth Palace. That neither players nor audience were aware ot anything antipathetic in the atmosphere must have been duo to Mrs Davidson’s genius for hospitality. Tho room in which the play was performed had been used as a dormitory for little girls at tho time of tho air raids. Surely tho prelates would have approved of this, whatever they might think of the Countess Cathlcen, who sold her soul in order that her people might have bread. The play was beautifully performed. There was but one marring incident. A screen that did duty as a stage curtain fell down, lilo the tower of Siloam, and enveloped none other than Canterbury himself. Had this been in mediaeval times one trembles to consider the fate of the assistant stage manager. But Canterbury, as has already been written, was “ chc/j lui.” Let others write of Lambeth Palace from tho historical point of view. They have tho data. The only available materials for this sketch are the memory of that afternoon, and tho residuum of copious readings from tho works of the prolific Benson family. At tho conclusion of the play tho mummers were refreshed with tea, which was mutely dispensed by an aged butler, whom one longed to question concerning tho days when Arthur Benson woro a round collar. Unfortunately, ho was stone deaf. It cannot be doubted that he was taken on, along with the fittings, when Dr Davidson’s predecessor succeeded Dr Benson. Now tho Davidson regime has come to a close, and one wonders that will happen to the old man. Perhaps he has solved tho question for himself. Ho may have gone his way, as tho mummers went. “ Here to-day and gone to-morrow” is their transcription of a more solemn utterance. At any rate, they went out that afternoon into late sunlight. The courtyard by which they had entered was warm with it, and they themselves glowed with the combined effects of the archiepiscopa! tea and tho plaudits of tho committee.

They went out by the same door as in they went. Something clicked behind them. Was it portcullis or Yale lock? Countess Cathlcen caught an omnibus for Barons Court. Canterbury turned to the consideration ol seme matter considerably weightier than the screen that had fallen on him. It is pleasing to think that he found time to grace those drawing-room theatricals with his presence, bestowing upon his strangely assorted guests the freedom of Lambeth Palnco lor chat afternoon.