The Archbishop of Canterbury says he has been living in
a dream ever since he accepted the Archbishopric, and we are not very much surprised at that ; but we think it is time he should be waking-up, and his speech at the dinner given to him by his old schoolfellows at King Edward's School, Birmingham, on Thursday, does not look much like waking-up. The Standard reports him as having said that he could not adequately convey to his old schoolfellows the feelings with which he found himself "in the chair of the martyred Land," and, further, that he hoped "worthily to follow in the footsteps of Archbishop Tait." Now, is there not a good deal of evidence of internal vacillation, of his not having made up his mind which leg to stand upon, in that P If he is going to follow "worthily in the footsteps of Archbishop Tait," it is surely a great pity to talk about "the martyred Laud." Land's execution was not a step which any reasonable historian would now approve, but still it was not exactly a martyrdom. He did not die for a cause which any one not a fanatic would call wholly divine. Dr. Benson, we trust, will follow worthily in the footsteps of Archbishop Tait, especially his later foot- steps, but he is not doing so in talking of "the martyred Laud." Archbishop Tait would have been almost as likely to use that expression as he would have been to live for five months in a dream.
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