BISHOP HARVEY GOODWIN.*
BISHOP HARVEY GOODWIN "had," says his biographer, "the genius of common-sense ; saneness was the chief characteristic of his life; sweet reasonableness was from first to last an abiding feature of his mind." He was, in short, one of those eminently useful rulers which the Anglican Church has, it would seem, beyond all others, the faculty of producing. It may be sometimes objected to them that they are not the most learned, not the moat eloquent, possibly not the most saintly persons, within the borders of their com- munion, but they are the most sensible, the most statesman- like; they keep their heads better than the clergy whom they rule. Bishop Harvey Goodwin had other virtues besides these, but he had these in abundance. A good in- stance of this is related on pp. 173-74. In 1871, in the second year of his episcopate, the city of Carlisle was greatly excited by the statement, founded on some anony- mous letters, that a monastic settlement of two hundred priests calling themselves Brothers of the Holy Cross was shortly to be established in the city. The Dean (Francis Close) and a hundred clergy signed a memorial to the Bishop. The slender foundation of fact was that a house of residence had been contemplated for the clergy who were to help the incumbent of a large Carlisle parish In his work among the poor. The Bishop told the memorialists that he did not feel at liberty to discourage the scheme, though he had no sym- pathy with the views it was supposed to represent, and that. "his aim had ever been to encourage religious zeal of all kinds." These last words are very significant, for they differentiate the Bishop's statesmanship. A prudent, level- headed, impartial man who encourages zeal all round is surely an ideal Bishop.
Harvey Goodwin seems not to have bad many advantages in his education. His father was an Evangelical of the straitest sect, and, distrusting all public schools, sent his son to a private school kept by the vicar of High Wycombe. The vicar, says Canon Rawnsley, was "no scholar," and was • Harvey Goodwin, Bishop of Cariiga, By H. D. Rawnsley. London: John Murray.
"helped by a series of second-rate ushers." Still, as the young Harvey went to Wycombe when he was ten and left it at sixteen, able to write Latin and Greek verse fluently, he must have learnt something, more than he might have acquired at more famous schools. The tone of the place, however, was unsatisfactory, and the boy had, for a time at least, to endure a brutal severity which left enduring traces upon him. Two years, well spent with private tutors, fol- lowed; he was just beginning his nineteenth year when he entered as a pensioner at Cams, which united the advantages of being both a Norfolk college—the Goodwins were a Kings Lynn family—and an Evangelical stronghold. He had already mastered his first year's subjects in mathematics. It was debated whether he should read classics also. He decided in the negative. He came out as Second Wrangler, and won the second Smith's prize, this latter after a tie with the Third Wrangler. The Senior was Leslie Ellis, afterwarde a close friend of his rival, a man of extraordinary ability, but hindered from accomplishing adequate results by infirmity of health. In 1845 Harvey Goodwin married, but continued to live at Cambridge, holding the curacy of St. Giles and taking pupils. In 1843 he was appointed to the Rectory of St. Edward's, the church where " Latimer used to deliver his fruitful discourses." He at once began to draw great congregations of undergraduates. The qualities that attract this kind of audience are peculiar. They would not make a man a popular preacher in the common sense of the term. Honesty, plain speech, common-sense, naturalness, freedom from stock-phrases, were conspicuous in Harvey Goodwin's discourses. One great attraction in them was that they were not specially addressed to the undergraduates, who found, however, in what was meant for the ordinary congrega- tion exactly what they needed themselves. It is a curious thing that though the preacher had never rowed, or indeed followed any kind of athletics, he was often spoken of as "Chaplain of the Boats."
In 1858 came the offer of the Deanery of Ely, an office which he held for eleven years, devoting himself with great zeal to completing the restoration of the Cathedral, and to the perfecting of its services. The new Dean had more than an amateur's knowledge of architecture, and he had very decided views about music. One great scheme for the ornamentation of the building he was able to complete when its completion seemed hopeless. Mr. H. Styleman le Strange bad undertaken to paint the roof of the tower. The work was bat half done when he died in 1862. The Dean then applied to Mr. Gambier Parry, an old schoolfellow of Mr. le Strange, but to himself personally unknown. Mr. Parry completed it. The Dean's interest in the Cathedral did not prevent him from giving much time to his duties as a citizen. He was Chairman of the Board of Health till his fellow-townsmen -were foolish enough to reject him. He was active as a Guardian of the Poor, established a dispensary, and induced the Local Board to put the roads into repair.
In 1869 he was nominated to the Bishopric of Carlisle. it was not a very desirable diocese. A hundred and fifty years before (Canon Rawnsley misstates the date by a century, p. 131) Bishop Nicholson, who took the un- usual step of seeing with his own eyes the condition of his diocese, has recorded in the notes of his visita- tion tours a state of things which is almost incredible,— parsons who kept public-houses, and churches in which neither Bible nor Prayer-book were to be found. Matters 'had greatly improved, but there was much left to be done, witness Mr. Conybeare's famous article in the Edinburgh on the "Mountain Clergy." It is easy to imagine that men of the "Wonderful Walker" type might easily become, if gifted with a less saintly temper, very undesirable parish priests. Canon Rawnsley is too good a patriot to be hard on Cumberland folk, but he tells us that less than forty years ago, " out of the eight neighbouring clergy [to Keswick] only two were sober men." We are told, and indeed could be told, little or nothing of the Bishop's experiences in this direction. They are of too recent date to be published. Possibly the personal relation of the Bishop to his clergy is kept too much in the background by his biographer. When he is visible it is generally in some public function or some official position. He is preaching or lecturing, presiding at a congress or public meet- ing; of the care of the churches" which came upon him daily we hear little. One thing is abundantly clear, the profound re- spect and confidence with which he was regarded by all who had to do with him. One of the needs of the diocese, felt more than in any other English Bishopric, was the increase of inadequate clerical incomes. Besides generally carrying on this work which had been begun by his predecessors, the Bishop raised a special fund for providing the poor clergy with the means of getting an occasional rest. Personally he was liberal up to the fall extent of his powers. On one occasion the diocesan surveyor lamented to him the heavy claim for dilapidations against the widow of a deceased incumbent that he had to make out. The Bishop could only say that the incoming rector must have his rights, and the surveyor went away with the impression that he was a little hard. Shortly after he met the widow, and expressed his regrets to her. She said that there had been no call upon her. The Bishop had paid the sum out of his own pocket.
In theology Bishop Harvey Goodwin was what may be called an orthodox liberal. We find him protesting against the attempts to settle critical controversies by quoting the authority of Christ, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, for instance, by Christ's use of the popular phraseology. On such themes as the Personality of Satan and Everlasting Punishment he expressed himself with cautions wisdom. They were not to be held ab fide. The clergyman who imposed a belief in the former as a condition for admission to the Holy Com- munion was, he thought, absolutely wrong ; as to the latter, he did not believe that it was "possible to devise any complete scheme of the relation of the seen world to the unseen which would not present insuperable diffieulties." On the relation between Science and Revelation be had something to say that men of science listened to with respect, for be was an expert. In politics he was a follower of Mr. Gladstone till the fatal year 1886 and the Home-rule Bill. The general impression left by the story of his life is of a strong, just, wide-minded man, with no small share of that gift of humour which a man who has to manage ecclesiastical persons and affairs needs, it may be, more than any one else.
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