26 OCTOBER 1889, Page 3

On Tuesday, the Primate of all England began his quadrennial

visitation of the clergy and laity of his diocese at Canterbury Cathedral. In his first address he dwelt specially on the duty of the Church in regard to social improvement. "Those things which furnished the present true worthy problems of the English Church were poverty, temperance, purity, and lay work." " The town and village life of the Church," the Arch. bishop continued, " gave, and was intended to give, the greatest scope for the exercise of moral force and social healing; wherever her ministers, with all their advantages of position, were backward—even if they were not outrun by any others—in bringing up the state of morals and the social tone to a higher level—each successor in his own occupation of his benefice—there both the Church and the world had grave reason to be dissatisfied." No doubt the Archbishop of Can- terbury is quite right to keep their duties as good citizens before his countrymen, lay and clerical. We cannot, however, help feeling that occasionally he came near falling into the mistake of talking of Christianity as if it were nothing but a kind of sentimental Socialism. That tone had far better be regarded as the monopoly of Cardinal Manning