The Bishop of Rochester (Dr. Randall Davidson) had hardly set
to work and selected his residence, with the view of grappling with the duties of a poor London diocese, when he was struck down by serious illness, which has compelled the medical men to prohibit him from undertaking any episcopal duties for the next three months at least. This has been a great blow to bim, and in a remarkably manly and impressive letter to Archdeacon Burney, in which he states that the diocese will have to trust to the Bishop of Gibraltar and Bishop Barry for supplying his place during the rest absolutely enforced upon him, he states that he had at first intended to resign his Bishopric, but that he was prevented by the earnest advice of all the friends whom he most trusted against so hasty a step. And as his medical advisers .assure him of the reasonable certainty of his complete restoration to health in a few months, it would obviously be a very great mistake to renounce respon- sibilities which are in all probability only postponed for three or four months, especially since, as he remarks, the time of sickness which must intervene may very well prove the best possible preparation for an official discharge of his duties. An interval of compulsory meditation has often proved to such energetic-minded men as Dr. Randall Davidson the most emphatic of blessings in disguise. And perhaps he may learn from it to be a little less indifferent to dogmatic truth as at the very root of all spiritual teaching.
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