African settlers seem to recognise the advantage of a scientific
medical training in fitting their clergy for their clerical duties. The newly elected Bishop of Blomfontein is the Rev. John Hale Hicks, a London University M.D., and also a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He took his degree of M.D. in 1864, and since then has taken high scientific honours at Cambridge, having graduated as the Senior in the Natural Science Tripos in 1870. To have obtained as their Bishop a physician of distinction, and one deeply versed in the natural sciences, as well as a theo- logian, will be regarded by the clergy of the African dioceses as no slight good fortune, if Dr. Hicks is anything like as well fitted to govern and inspirit men as he is to heal the sick and avail himself of the natural resources of his African diocese. There is every year, we think, more tendency to prefer as ecclesiastics men who know a good deal outside theology. But we hope that the lay studies which are gaining in weight may not be allowed to push the theological studies to the wall.
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