Self-Portrait of a Bishop
Fifty Years Work in London. By the Right Rev. A. F. Winning- ton-Ingram. (Longmans. tos. 6d.) "Tuts is not an autobiography," say the publishers, and, in the strict sense of the word, truly. But with a naiveté which has always been one of his outstanding characteristics, the lately retired Bishop of London paints his own features with a fidelity surpassing all the efforts ot the great artists whose self- portraits hang in the Uffizzi Gallery. Dr. Winnington-Ingram takes his readers through the half-century of his life and work in London as one turning the pages of a vast album of snapshots in every one of which he himself is the central figure. Here he is as he was known to thousands during his long episcopate, always happy, always enjoying to the full what were to him, at all events, "the sweets of office "; moving from Bethnal Green, viii St. Paul's, to Fulham Palace, consorting with royalties, statesmen, merchant princes, the leaders of Big Business in America, and with "all (other) sorts and conditions of men" (not to say women) with the smile of a happy schoolboy and, be it said in all sincerity, the unbreakable serenity of a saint.
Those fifty years were pregnant with change in every depart- ment of life. All through them, as we now know only too dread- fully, the world was moving towards the climax which is now upon us, but from first to last the Bishop of London remained the one inveterate optimist, temperamentally incapable of seeing any other interpretation of the facts than the rosiest one possible, and, above all, completely assured that whatever he did was per- fect in intention and as good as he could make it in accomplish- ment. That he drew this happiness in largest measure from the well of a profound faith is absolutely true, as these pages bear witness over and over again, and therein lies their main value. For the reader will not find in them any profundity of analysis of the movements, ecclesiastical and political, religious and social, which were at work in the world outside Fulham Palace during the years 1889 to 1939, nor even thumbnail sketches of the multitude of personalities with whom the writer came in contact, but only the record of how he enjoyed meeting them and all the rest of "the dog's life" of a Bishop of London. In plain words, if you seek in these pages for guidance as to why the world and the Church are where they are today you will not find it, but if you are curious as to the spiritual and psychological secrets which made Dr. Winnington-Ingram one of the most discussed, acclaimed and criticised figures in the world for fifty years, you will read this book (which, incidentally, bears many a trace of the haste with which it was written) with interest—and some smiles.
FRANCIS GOWER.
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