LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE LACK OF CANDIDATES FOR HOLY ORDERS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR.")
Sfa,—Mr. Stone in the Spectator of July 28th expresses the opinion that the "increasing nobleness" of the English people leads them to abstain from taking Holy Orders, because the clergy take no lead in dealing with social problems. May I, with some intensity of feeling, express a different conviction,—a conviction which a somewhat bitter experience has forced upon some of us? Both in England and in America a great body of clergy are doing their best to make men feel that the social question is the greatest of Church questions. But on both sides of the Atlantic they find the laity hang back. The Bishops of the Anglican Communion at the last Lambeth Conference gave a magnifi- cent lead. The Christian Social Union has laboured hard. But for the most part it is clergymen and ladies who are left to do the work. Where are the laity ? we are continually asking. There are magnificent exceptions to the painfully general rule, but the general rule is that the laity are very slow to respond to any appeal to stand out for social righteous- ness. I am quite sure that what Professor. Ely has said of America is what those who have most experience in England would also be obliged to say,---that where the clergy give the lead the (male) laity are sadly slack to respond, and especially
the well-to-do laity.—I am, Sir, &c., CHARLES GORE.
• Wistminster Abbey.
Previous page
