The Archbishop of Canterbury in the course of a sermon
preached in his Cathedral last Sunday impressed on his hearers the danger of tampering with the sacredness of history. He described how in his school-days at Harrow he and some other boys were looking at "The Comic History of England," a well-known work burlesquing successive scenes in English history. "Our house-master, to be known in after years to the whole world as one of our present-day prophets —Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham—came into the room, and we called his attention to the book we were enjoying. He quietly and gravely refused to look at it, but all he said was to ask us in the piercingly suggestive way characteristic of him all through his life: Should you like somebody to write a comic Prayer-book ?' For me at least the shaft struck home, to my abiding profit." The comparison is perhaps extreme, but it serves to remind us of the difference between legitimate satire and wanton, purposeless travesty.
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