"CANON GORE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21100, 6 February 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

"CANON GORE."

BY MATANjCA

A PASTORAL PRELATE.

.When Bishop Gore died, probably few in New Zealand had any sense of intimate loss and fewer still any recollection of his interest in this country. Yet some here have reason to remember him with affection and to recall his blessing on the scheme of Mr. Harry Valder, of Hamilton, as a helpfully suggestive contribution to needed industrial reconstruction. Both facts are typical: he inspired great personal affection in hia associates and from the conning-tower of his care for the public weal he looked easily across half a world for any light ' that might arise. He was a man of many parts, all good. When he became the first Bishop of Birmingham nearly thirty years ago, R. J. Campbell was in his early heyday at the City Temple, and as he knew the bishop well, was induced to say something of him. " Men always bow before intellect, learning and simple goodness," he said, " but these three are not often found in combination. He is one of the most unworldly of men; in fact, he presses this almost to the borders of asceticism; the plainness and simplicity of his personal habits are well known to many. He is precisely the kind of man who, in an earlier age, would have been drawn to More rather than to Erasmus, to Chillingworth rather than to Laud." An older generation of churchgoing folk had often on its lies the name of " Canon Gore," dipped appreciatively into hia lucid commentary on Romans and other New Testament books, wondered a little at his editorial venture in theology as " Lax Mundi " expressed a point of view then new. and was induced to take a mora vital interest in social regeneration because of hia bold faith in the Christianising of society.. Those days seem now to be " before the flood," yet almost to the recent end of his long life he maintained the same breadth of activity. Let witness be borne especially by hia " Can We Then Believe ?" published in 1926 as a summary of his reconstructive writings in theology, and his Hallev Stewart lectures delivered in the following year on " Christ and Society," as thoughtfully historical and practical a survey of social principles as was ever made. Pathflnding Days. Those earlier days, however, have their particular appeal for admiring remembrance, so marked by hi 3 calm courage and grave optimism were ihey a3 he blazed some trails with pioneering zeal. The Oxford Movement had given place to Anglo-Catholic tendencies, and he allied himself with the new evangel. He wa3 not blind, even then, to what he has since acknowledged of its " large shaire of the follies, weaknesses and excesses which popular movements almost always show," but he was convinced that it could and should contribute much to the clearing and steadying of Christian belief and the applying of that belief in th« needy sphere of practical affairs. With wonderful quietness ha bore criticism and offered it, content to be personally misunderstood by the poorlyinformed if only they might come to vital understanding of things dear to him and of value for all the world. The hot breath of hostile propaganda blew strongly on him then. He had been chosen for the See of Worcester, after Bishop Perowne's retirement, and left his canonry at Westminster for the more onerous post knowing it would be hard. He encountered opposition before he crossed the threshold. There was a veritable tumult in the Church House at his " election." Mr. John Kensit, honest but unhappy as a stormy petrel in ecclesiastical politics, had rallied his comrades in militant Protestantism, and they voiced their indignation at the appointment in language that was neither moderate nor courteous. Mr. Kensit excelled himself in vocal enthusiasm and had to be removed at the order of the presiding law officers when at last his interruptions became too continuous to be tolerated longer. Seated in a large easy-chair, in the wide space separating the legal luminaries from the public, Canon Gore heard all the bitter things without the slightest show of resentment, seeming to give closer attention to the legal formalities than to the torrent of abuse. His quiet bearing was characteristic. Saddened as he must have been at so unseemly a disturbance within those decorous wails, he did not allow even this to move him from hi 3 selfforgetting. Wida and Lofty Outlook. Worcester had good reason to be proud of him, and the problems of Birmingham —from the first a charge for an alert brain and a brave heart—were but ailother touchstone revealing his worth. So, j on to the end of high pastoral duty, he passed in honour. But the world at large wiil remember him less for all thi3 than for his never-faltering stimulus to its wider thought and life. A phrase inseparable from that memory is " tha reconstruction of belief." He made it hia own, without denying others' right to use it as their watchword. Book after book came from his devoted brain, a thread of thought knitting each to each. If " Lux Mundi," built by many hands, was a " jarring lyre," ag some deem it solely to be, it must be owned by them no leiss than others that he " ever strove to make it true.." He wag blessedly ready to heed criticism. " I accept with shame as wholly just " is his gentle answer to severe comments on his style, which he promises to . better by breaking up, in future issues, "a number of in-* tolerably cumbrous sentences." Thus, too, he pleads guilty to using " certain " and quite certain " where " more probable " and " much more probable " should have been written. Nevertheless, he knew his ground and took it frankly, and there is always a rich positive content in his writing. His argument hag ever a clear starting point and a straight course; the conclusion tomes —it i 3 not sought. Social Betterment. What he wrote in this way wag for those that could move*about in such subjects with some degree of expert skill, but his more practical theme of social regeneration guided by Christian principles all could enjoy and value. In this were great guiding ideas: the need for dissatisfaction and alarm at the existing condition of society, and 30 the need for thoroughgoing reform; the cause of these needs in human blindnes3 and blundering selfishness; the folly of looking for wholesale and simultaneous conversion of men, and the wisdom of service by groups having inspired vision and the courage of faith; the unique capability of Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of men and society. He is plainly affiliated to those earlier stalwarts, Jowett and Maurice, Kingsley and Hughes; but he is gifted apart with a warm and intimate insight into the mind of - the Man of Nazareth. When it comes to applying the Sermon on the Mount, there is in him an understanding of its time and ours that is nowhere better exemplified. Ha was never alone. It is to-day impossible to think of him without thought of fellow-prophets of a better da}' like Westcott and Scott Holland, and as inevitable to believe that there companied with him the Divine Man he loved to serve.