DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17467, 30 July 1928, Page 6

DAY BY DAY.

It has for some time been common

Arohblshop of Canterbury.

knowledge in English church circles that Dr. Randall Thomas Davidson, Archbishop

of Canterbury, Intended to resign in the very nearfuture and make way for his successor before the next meeting of the Lambeth Conference. He has already held the ofilco for more than 25 years, a Primacy which is unparalleled in duration since that of Archbishop Warham in the sixteenth century. It is expected that Dr. Davidson will retire in ample time to allow the, new archbishop to be well settled into office before the start ,of the. Seventh Lambeth Conference, which lakes place in 1930, and which is likely lo be attended by most of Iho Bishops of the Anglican Communion .throughout, the world, as has generally been the case in the past. The strain of the work of Prayer Book revision his told heavily on the Archbishop, especially during the past two years, while he is reported to have suffered lately from sever attacks of lumbago. All his life he has suffered from the effects of a gunshot wound received when a young man, and which Inflicted permanent injury on the sciatic nerve. Speaking on 7th June last at the Canterbury Diocesan Conference, the Archbishop flrst intimated his definite intention to resign. On that occasion he said: "When in. 1930 the bishops gather here for the Seventh Lambeth Conference it will be under other' chairmanship than my own, though I am privileged to take part in July in forming the initial plans for that great gathering." Mis announcement has been the forerunner of many prophecies as to who will he his .successor, hut it is generally understood that the Archbishop of York —Dr. Cosmo Gordon Lang—-has acceded to a request that he should transfer his activities lo the senior Archbishopric of the Anglican world. The appointment will have an element of novelty in it, since not in modern times has a predecessor been living to give advice. Dr. Davidson was eighty years old last April, and the weight of years combined with, the arduous work of Ihe past year or two has done much to impair his health, wilh the consequence I hat it is almost certain that he will resign before the life of the present Parliament ends, and that his successor will be in olllcc in plenty of time before the Lambeth Conference eventuates.