A Bishop and Son of a Bishop
A Memoir of Herbert Edward Ryle. By the Rev. Maurice H. Fitzgerald. (Macmillan. 15s.) HERBERT EDWARD RYLE, by his goodness and charm, went 'far to justify his upbringing. His father, the old Bishop of Liverpool, used to speak of his fellow-evangelicals as " God's People." He stared at the world with eyes of cold severity, though he did not always calculate without it A loving and indulgent father, who never:spoke a harsh word to his children, he was shocked to hear that his son was about to marry upon a small income. He, however, took courage from the thought that " Herbert is a sensible fellow. I do not think that he would choose a fool,'or an unbeliever or a Papist, or one who was not a lady."
His son did-not walk in his father's footsteps ; he had the widest of hearts and lived in fervent charity with all lay
hurchmen whatever their dogmatic position. All the same, from the time that he became Bishop of Winchester he showed great disapproval of What he thought the Romanizing tendencies of the younger clergy. He struggled against the tide, and made not clerical enemies but staunch clerical Opponents. When he resigned the See of Winchester to become Dean of Westminster lie wrote himself : " My brethren the clergy I have sought—with what failure God knows—to draw near unto."
Bishop Ryle's biographer was for many years his Chaplain, and he has with the knowledge the sympathy and the skill necessary to give a real insight into his chief's character and work. We watch him working from morning to night " Con-. forming the Churches," encouraging, rebuking, and exhorting, with warmth, or sternness, or humour, as occasion required. We see why he made so many friends and why some 'of his clergy reserved their judgment. He had himself an inner reserve which to a great extent belied his manner. He could kneel down and pray in a railway carriage, a cottage, or a drawing-room, with all the simplicity of one to the manner born, but his soul was not on his sleeve. To the last he called his soul-his own. The book ends on an unexpected and somewhat sad note. A long illness preceded the- Bishop's death'. He " advanced in solitude of spirit." " During his illness he never- spoke either to Mrs. Ryle or his son about the future or about religion. . . . he maintained the same reserve with others and never spoke of the end, even to the clergy who ministered to him," " It was a strange time," comments his biographer, who has written a deeply interesting, inforthirig, and thought- provoking " Life." Having said this we may add, without seeming to cavil, that he would have dime well to make it a little more concise. Probably he had 'not the time:
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