422 



The Review of Reviews. 



April io, mm. 



Bishop intended to give evidence — and therefore it 

 was unnecessary to trouble anyone to bear witness on 

 that head. The cost of the trial, which mounted up 

 to _;^6ooo, was entirely defrayed by a public sub- 

 scription. To the Defence Fund the Bishop con- 

 tributed jQs°- When I was released from gaol he 

 was one of the heartiest in his congratulations. 

 From lirst to last throughout the whole of a moral 

 crisis which subjected the nation to a testing ordeal, 

 Bishop Temple never flinched, never failed, but 

 from first to last stood to his guns like a man. 



HOW THIS EPISODE IS CHRONICLED. 



This episode was one which applied a far more 

 crucial test to the essential manhood and selfless 

 rectitude of the Bishop than half the ecclesiastical 

 hubbubs which figure so largely iri these Memoirs. 

 But the only reference which the fifth " Friend," the 

 Ven. Archdeacon Prebendary, makes to the subject 

 is to print part of the Bishop's pastoral letters to his 

 clergy urging them to take advantage of the oppor- 

 tunity afforded by the new Act and the agitation 

 which forced it through Parliament to raise the 

 moral tone of the nation, and to introduce it as fol- 

 lows : — 



One o£ ibe earliest DastoriU lettei« writteu by tlie Bishop 

 to Ilia clergy was sugerested by the so-called revelations of 

 the Pall Mull (luzette \\\ the summer of 1885. 



That and nothing more ! So is biography written 

 w hen the task is loft to the hands of men who are so 

 much out of sympathx with their subject as to feel 

 justified in partially suppressing, and thereby misre- 

 presenting, incidents which are of crucial import- 

 ance as indication of character. It has always been 

 so. The story of the way in which Christ dealt with 

 the woman taken in adultery only appears in one 

 Gospel, and we are told that in the early ages many 

 copyists left it out, fearing lest the incident might 

 have a prejudicial effect upon morality. Yet who 

 is there who would not willingly exchange half a 

 dozen of the miracles recorded by the other Evan- 

 gelists for that one supreme illustration of the spirit 

 that was in Jesus ? So in like manner Dr. Temple's 

 essential chivalry shone out clearer and brighter in 

 the way he dealt with "' The Maiden Tribute of 

 1885 than in almost any other action of his life. 

 Therefore it is slurred over by men not worthy to 

 untie his shoe-strings. 



THE .VRCHBISHOP IX POLmCS. 



The " seven friends are not all of the same un- 

 worthiness. But between them they seem to fail to 

 give an adequate conception of the national influ- 

 ence of the late Primate. Of course, there may be 

 nothing more to tell than they have told. But after 

 the leading case of •' The Maiden Tribute " I am 

 loath to believe that an intellect so masculine, an 

 P-nglishraan so patriotic, could have lived through 

 eighty years of active life without having left deeper, 

 trace upon the national development than we find 

 recorded here. Upon the greater questions of In- 



ternational Peace, the Fnfranchisement of Woman, 

 the Humanisation of the conditions of Labour, the 

 Development of the Empire, the reunion of the 

 English-speaking world — on all these questions 

 Frederick Temple must have thought deeply, and 

 have said something that might well have been re- 

 corded in his Memoirs. But we search in vain for 

 any utterance. We ate told that he did a civil 

 thing and wrote a courteous letter to the Americans, 

 that he took part in^ t.he early stages of the Dock 

 strike mediation, and that he once spoke about 

 Christianitv and Imperialism; but of what he said 

 we are told nothing. If it were not that his '■ seven 

 friends ' have shown what they can do in suppress- 

 ing his views on Woman's Suffrage, 1 should be 

 inclined to believe that the late Archbishop had 

 held himself aloof from almost all the greater move- 

 ments of our time. He was a staunch teetotaler and 

 temperance reformer — the friends could not very 

 well suppress that fact — but is it credible that he 

 had no light or leading to spare his countrymen 

 upon such grave moral qut-stions as those involved 

 in the issue of peace or war "' 



HIS INFLUEKCK ON I'l-^ACE OK W.^K. 

 Hardly had he been appointed Bishop of Lcndi u 

 ihan the whole Empire was thrilled by alarums ut 

 war. -Mr. Gladstone, with the whole nation behind 

 him, l>lustered about war with Russia in a quarrel in 

 which it was afterwards discovered the fault was 

 entirel) on our side. Did he or did he not do any- 

 thing to' alUi) the passionate fury of the people? 

 The Memoir sayeth not. In 1898 the Russian sum- 

 mons came for the Parliament of Peace. The occa- 

 sion was recognised by Bishop Creighton as one of 

 thos" supreme moments in the history of mankind 

 which are full of fate for future progress. Had the 

 Primate no word of encouragement or of counsel 

 for the Peace Crusade? A year later Lord .\Iilner 

 and Mr. Chamberlain plunged the Empire into war 

 with the Transvaal. To some of us it was the most 

 wanton and criminal war of our time. We had re- 

 Ideated opportunities of averting it by accepting the 

 constantly renewed offer of arbitration. Had the 

 late .\rchbishop nothing to say on that great national 

 apostasy ? When the war broke out it was prose- 

 cuted with a dex-astating fury that recalled the ravag- 

 ing of the Carnatic by Hyder .W\. The principles 

 of civilised warfare, solemnly sanctioned in 1899 at 

 the Hague were trampled underfoot by the methods 

 of barbarism put in operation by Lord Kitchener 

 in I goo. Did the Primate approve or protest, or did 

 he sit on the throne of .Augustine like some god on 

 high Olympus, serenely indifferent to the cries and 

 sobs of the women and children who w-ere done to 

 death as victims to the Jingo Moloch ? The Me- 

 moir sayeth not. There is only one entr\' in the 

 index on '' South African War." and it relates solely 

 to the action taken by Dr. Temple in forming a 

 Church Navy and Army Board. There is another 

 leference — not indexed under South Africa — in 



