Sit modus an rebus—there is reason in all things—and it
has always been especially hard for Bishops to decide in what degree of state to live. Someone will no doubt remind me, what I have momentarily forgotten, who it was who wrote years ago on " The Fatal Opulence of Bishops." Outgoings balanced against incomings, Bishops are open to small reproach on the ground of opulence nowadays, but here is the new Bishop of Bath and Wells observing uncomplairiingly that he means to do his best on a stipend of L5,000 to keep up the fourteenth-century moated palace with its forty- odd bedrooms, but that he will obviously have his work cut out—an observatiOn which, as it happens, synchronises with the recommendation Ey six distinguished laymen that a rural vicar should be unmarried and live in a cottage with his humble parishioners. Dr. Underhill is to be com- mended for his public spirit in seeking to maintain his palace for the purpose for which it was intended, but a quite unjust strain is laid on a bishop in such a case. There are, of course, ways out of the difficulty. Farnham Castle presented a similar problem ; it was solved there by turning the larger part of it into a diocesan house, valuable for retreats and many other purposes, and keeping the remainder as Bishop's Lodgings.
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