THE NORTHERN CLERGY AND THE EPISCOPATE.
[To Tan EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."1
SIR,—Will you allow me space to call attention to the treat- ment which the Church in the Province of York receives from successive Prime Ministers in the matter of the preferment of the clergy? Of the whole of the Bishops of the Southern Province, there is only one whose clerical life previous to his appointment to the Bishops' Bench had belonged to the North, and that is the Bishop of Chichester, who was for thirty-five years Rector of Middleton, near Manchester. The Bishop of Hereford was, indeed, Vicar of Leeds for five years, but all the rest of his ministerial life was spent in the South. Per contra, all the Bishops in the North of England are men whose career had belonged to the Southern Province, unless, indeed, we except the Bishop of Newcastle, who spent four years as a parish priest near Liverpool, though the whole of the rest of his ministerial experience had been in the South.
Again, during the last six years no less than fifteen out of the thirty-three Bishoprics of England and Wales have become vacant. Of these vacancies, two—viz., Ripon and
Exeter—have been filled by Evangelicals ; Man- cheSter and Durham—by Broad Churchmen; and all the rest by High Churchmen of a more or less decided type.
Is this wise Is it fair ? I am myself a moderate High Churchman ; but one cannot but see that the majority of the laity, and perhaps one-half the clergy, are " Evan- gelical " rather than "High" in their churchmanship. Is there not a danger of the Episcopal Bench getting out of touch with the laity ? . And now there are two more Sees just about to become vacant. There are a fair share of able men among the Northern clergy. Why are they so much over-
looked ?—I am, Sir, &c., A LANCASHIRE LAYMAN. [The Bishop of Chester was also Vicar of Leeds in 1886-89. —ED. Spectator.]
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