The new Bishop of Winchester, Dr. Harold Browne, made a
speech on New Year's Day at Stoke-next-Guildford, in which he defined his position as not being that of a party Bishop, but of a Bishop who had sympathies with all parties,—with Evangelicals and High Churchmen alike, nay, even with Roman Catholics and Dissenters alike, only that he protested strongly against "the usurpation of the Bishop of Rome" on the one hand, and the principles of Church government as approved by Dissenters on the other. He insisted on the importance of lay- ing more stress on the ninety-nine points on which most Churchmen agree than on the one on which they differ ; but is not this a feeble and couleur-de-rose view of the matter ? Do most Churchmen, who have considered theological matters at all, really- agree on ninety-nine points out of a 'hundred? We wish they did, but unfortunately we know they do not, and where they do, they are probably not persons who have studied theology and criticism much. A bishop who wishes to be more than a good administrator of his diocese, who has any hope of leading thought, must not indulge in vain illu- sion:4 like Dr. Harold Brovrne's. He must recognise frankly the thoroughly disorganised state of English Protestant faith, and the very great rarity even of adequate theological guides.
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