A SPECTATO R'S NOTEBOOK
THE publication of the Dean of Lichfield's William Temple, which I have just finished reading, is an event of the first importance. The book is, I know, reviewed in another column and I will make no assessment of it beyond saying that it is in every respect worthy of the man ; though I did not know William Temple well I knew him well enough to recognise the accuracy of the portrait painted here.
I call the publication an event advisedly. Temple occupied a place completely unique in the national life. His faith, his fearless- ness, his learning, his manysidedness, the depth and discernment of his sympathy, his humour, his integrity, his intellectual capacity, distinguished him from all other men in the life not only of the Anglican Church or the Churches as a whole, but of the nation. I can think of no man who has died in the last twenty years or so whose recall to life would be a greater blessing to mankind. To say that Dr. Iremonger has brought Temple back would be to credit him with the impossible. Yet it is a living Temple that emerges from his pages—living, planning, aspiring, directing, trusting— greater as a man than even as an Archbishop, essentially human and therefore in no sense flawless, but a man with a message from the grave as arresting as any he uttered in his lifetime. I am putting this high, but I have found the book profoundly impressive as well as fascinatingly interesting. Its influence—the influence of a per- sonality so vividly interpreted—on men and women of many lands besides this may be far beyond what its author ever dreamed. * * * *
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