The Bishop of Winchester, writing to Thursday's Times on the
subject of these statistics, points out the reasons for doubting their sufficiency ; while quite admitting the admirable zeal of the Nonconformist bodies, and their effectiveness in evangelising the middle-classes of the larger towns. At the same time, he quite agrees that the Established Church has not been as successful as it ought to be in getting at the working- class, and remarks that there was always a danger that the English Church should " die of respectability," and that it may be in great measure its inbred respectability which unfits it for getting at the poor. "I must add," he says, with great wisdom, " that we must be tolerant of occasional extravagance
and of considerable variety of ritual, and even of doctrine." The truth, no doubt, is, that indifference due to physical poverty and misery can be reached only by the stimulus of genuine excitements, and that this implies what respectability will re- gard as " extravagance," whether of the kind fostered by Salva- tion Armies, or of the kind fostered by Ritualistic displays. The Bishop of Winchester is always wise and honest.
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