A GENRAL ARCHBISHOP.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 7743, 12 June 1903, Page 4

A GENRAL ARCHBISHOP.

A more complete contrast could scarcely be imagined than tihat between Dr Davidson, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and his immediate predecessor. The former is as remarkable for his pleasantness, affability, and unfailing gpod humoi as Dr Temple was noted ior his grimness-. A member of the Episcopal Bench expressed the •difference very neatly during the debates on the Education Bill in the House of Lords, when Dr Davidson was Bishop of "Winchester. "My chief opponents," he said, " were Winchester and Temple. Winchester really rubbed me the wrong way, yet I hardly knew it, for he ugod a velvet ha.t-pad ; but Temple took (a, scrubbing-brush and fairly scoured away my notions." After this suaveness of tempeijaiment, the most remarkable characteristic of the new Archbishop,, according to Mr T. P. O'Connor, is that spirit of democracy which, solely within the last ihalfcentury, has noticeably permeated the i highest ecclesiastical circles. In his first diocese of Eooheater, halfi town and half country, Dr Davidson declined to make his home amid the beautiful rural surroundings which most men would have chosen- Instead, he selected a sombre residence in Kennington road, explaining that he desired to live "at /a, central hub o£ our qxtgsA -wlie&l, &ccessxfe>l<> t-o clergy and laity alike, at the smallest possible cost of time and money, when need requires." A ye-aar's illness 1 was the penalty which he paid for this self-sacrifice, and it was only his translation to the See of Winchester, and the bracing influence of the fresh, country air of Surrey, thiat completely restored 'him to strength. The success of Dr Davidson in the Church has been largely due to a series of lucky friendships. As a young man he was the fellow student and close companion of Crauford Tait, son of the Archbishop of Canterbury at that time. Friendship with the Archbishop, whose secretary young Davidson became, and marriage with his daughter,' followed. Mr O'Connor tells us that the homeliness of Dr Davidson's features is in keeping with his unpretentiousness of manner. It was this fact which fovmed the point of one of Dv Manner's cartoons in Punch, where a very plain ecclesiastic L« referred to, with perfectly unconscious humor, by one of his clergymen, as " our revered Diocesan," who " could never b|& called an Ornamental Bishop." " I trusted I avoided a portrait, my lord," said Dv Maurier when he met Dr Davidson, and the latter assured himi laughinlg!, that he had done so. In taking tho joke so pleasantly Dr Davidson, and the latter assured him, of his former benefactor, Archbishop T\ait. Dr Davidson, in the days of his secretaryship, found the Archbishop one morning in the hands of his " tailor, trying on some new gaiters. " Gravely taking the extract book, he solemnly turned' the pages until he came to a Punch 'cartooin, in which he was represented in ungainly dress. Pointing to the pictuare, he said to the wondering tailor, ' I want you to particularly notice how tbe British public regard your gaiters.' "

The Governor of German Southvjest Afeica, speaking iv the Heiob.stag, said' Boer immigrants were only useful for deuttle-breeding operations, and if they had no capital they simply travelled about with their families, subsisting on what they could shojot, and doing damage to the wells, the pastures, and timber. The Boer, he said, never worked as an artisan or laborer.