WHAT IS A BISHOP P T HE instinct of the average
English Churchman when annoyed by his rector is to write to the Bishop and complain, and in an extraordinary number of cases his instinct leads him right. Either the Bishop replies to him in a letter which makes him feel that he has complained without sufficient reason, or he writes to the rector a "monition" which secures the parishioner some kind of redress. The rector is either a good kind of man who thinks he should defer to his ecclesi- astical superior, or he has some reason for standing well with him, or he is when cooler open to reason, and so treats the "ad- monition" with respect. In any case, he yields and amends his annoying ways, and the offended parishioner, finding himself reinstated in his own opinion, declares the episcopal system a very good one, and his special Bishop a man singularly open to reason. We suppose it is this process repeated for genera- tions, and reported verbally through the parishes, which has produced the popular belief as to a Bishop's powers, for the idea of them certainly exists, and is as certainly an illusion. No highly-placed official, except, perhaps, a Lord-Lieutenant, is so entirely without power, as distinct from influence, as an English Bishop. Legally he can do almost nothing to an incumbent in his diocese. He admitted him, no doubt, to orders, and instituted him to his living, but he admitted him under traditional rules which have all the force of law, and he instituted him under other rules which are positively laws, and for breach of which there are penalties in the shape of costs quite sufficiently severe. Nobody ever heard of a presentee being refused induction, except for the gravest reasons, while every one knows of some presentee who, in his judgment, ought never to have been inducted. Once in possession of his living, the incumbent is as independent of his Bishop as a citizen of London is of the nearest stipen- diary. The Bishop, like the stipendiary, may have extensive powers, but unless the incumbent breaks some law those powers have no relation to him. He is a freeholder, and unless he commits some offence serious enough to justify a prosecution, the Bishop can no more take away his living than a Magistrate can take away his neighbour's Consols. He can- not shift the beneficed clergyman as in most Catholic countries he can, or inhibit him from his functions, or even, without risk of unpleasant newspaper comment, send him a letter of censure. He can, no doubt, send him any number of letters of advice, and we suppose, if he used that power without scruple, the Bishop could make himself unpleasant, just as the Queen could make a Minister's life unpleasant by per- petually asking explanations ; but the incumbent is not bound to take the advice, and if he did not answer the letters we do not know that anything would happen to him. He would be ill-regarded at the Palace, but if be wanted no patronage he need not care about that. The Bishop's legal authority over a law-abiding rector or vicar is in truth just nil, and in many cases his moral authority is not much greater. The incumbent does no doubt at his ordination promise, or, as it is usually described, "vow," obedience to the "godly admonitions" of his " Ordinary ; " but there are a good many limitations, some of them quite honest, on the meaning of that pledge. He certainly does not pledge him- self to obey an order which he considers immoral,—for instance, an order not to take tithe to which he is by law entitled. Supposing the impossible case of such an order being issued, the rector would say that obedience would be a fraud upon the next incumbent, and would with a serene mind decline to obey it. He certainly is not bound to obey an order which is heretical, and so long as there is no legal process he is himself the only judge as to what is or is not heretical. Canon Knox Little, for instance, would be very apt to consider an order from Dr. Ryle, supposing him an incumbent within that excellent prelate's diocese, as to the celebration of the Eucharist, to be quite heretical. And there are questions as to the canonical rights of presbyters generally in relation to Bishops generally, which are not settled yet, and probably never will be, which enable a rector of fixed convictions to go pretty much his own way, even when that way is exactly the reverse of that approved by his diocesan.
The Bishop, in fact, like so many other English grandees, is powerful chiefly because it is a professional habit to show him deference. Most men who are liable to be quarrelled with, which is, unhappily, the position of a majority of clergymen, would rather that some- body should be a recognised referee, and the Bishop in the eyes of lay Churchmen is distinctly that. Then profes- sional feeling has always weight, and professionally it is bad form for a clergyman, unless he is fighting for some privilege approved by his party in the Church, to quarrel with his Bishop, who is at all events his superior, and who, if pro- voked, can make his opinion of a mutinous inferior known in a way by no means favourable to promotion. Lay opinion, too, is usually, we hardly know why, on the side of the Bishop ; and the cleric has to live among laymen and to be dependent in a thousand ways upon their tolerance and good- will. Finally, there is the influence of character and ability. It is very disagreeable to be smashed in correspondence, and the Bishop, if provoked beyond bearing, is usually quite capable of smashing the rector. There is a notion current in newspapers that Bishops are generally fools, but the notion is a very silly one, deriving the very slight foundation it has from a passed-away state of affairs, when Bishops were of all dignitaries most likely to be selected by favour. Nowadays it may be taken as a rule that nobody rises to the top of a ,profession without qualifications of some sort of a pretty strong kind, and as Bishops are chosen by lay persons who have to study their public repute and are greatly afraid of making blunders, very few persons without special claims mount episcopal thrones. The Bishop, therefore, is pretty sure of deference, and deference in England in peaceful times involves something of actual power. But of direct authority the Bishop has scarcely any, and whenever the quarrel of the parties in the Church is bitter enough to produce defiances, the Bishop, who looks, and in a way is, so very dignified, usually finds himself in a very painful position. He is per- petually appealed to to do things which he has no means of doing, is taunted by laymen as inefficient when he is only powerless, and is lectured by newspapers for neglecting duty which, if he were only permitted, he would perform, as the uneducated phrase it, with a heart and a half. He is really under such circumstances a hardly treated man.
A great many proposals have been made, usually by Bishops, but sometimes by statesmen, to modify this state of affairs, and vest the Bishops with more practical authority, but they have usually failed. One reason is that they break against the bedrock of the clergyman's freehold, which nobody, lay or clerical, will consent should be interfered with. Another is that it is very difficult even to think of a fitting minor punishment for a, recalcitrant clergyman who will not, from conscientious motives, obey his Ordinary. He cannot be secluded in a convent, because of English " prejudices ; " he cannot be fined or suspended, because of the bedrock aforesaid ; and he cannot be publicly reprimanded as officers sometimes are, because, serene in the majesty of his con- science, he would not care one jot even if Lord Grimthorpe drew up the reprimand. We suppose if the Bishop preached at him by name he would not like it, but that would detract from the Bishop's judicial position; while any form of doing penance would be considered Romanising. That is a real difficulty, and besides that there is a more serious one still, the absolute impossibility of inducing English lay Church- men to define even in their own minds precisely what Bishops are, or rather ought to be. That they ought to exist is ad- mitted on all hands without cavil or demur, and that they ought to be paid more than rectors, and to take precedence of them on all occasions. It is also admitted that they, and they alone, have the power of ordaining priests and deacons, though many laymen think that this power belongs not so much to Bishops universally as to Bishops with legally recog- nised Sees. Whenever, however, he is required to go beyond this, the layman begins to be lost in an ecclesiastical fog. He never will quite decide whether he thinks a Bishop ought to be able to punish, or control, or guide a presbyter or not. He generally concedes in a vague way that he ought, bat when it comes to giving the Bishop authority to act, not as an ecclesiastical Court, but in his own canonical strength, he refuses to do it. He will not even do what the Presbyterian Churches practically do, and allow the Bishops in Council, and without legal forms, to suspend, or inhibit, or expel an offending cleric. He does not conceive of any such right as inhering in the Order, and he will not grant the right by any secular ordinance. He does not particularly distrust Bishops when three or four are acting together, he has considerable respect for the active opinion of all of them sitting in Council, and he is quite cheerful about allowing them to sit in the Legislature ex-officio; but as to giving them sub- stantive power over the clergy like that of officers over their men, he hardly knows why, but he refuses to do it. His real feeling is, we believe, that a Bishop ought to rule as a Board- school master is exhorted to do, by force of character—and that feeling is a respectful one—but when the advice dictated by the Bishop's force of character is met with defiance, the layman draws back puzzled and bewildered. He does not like the Bishop to be defied by the rector. He has an idea that that is in some sort mutiny, and that there ought to be somewhere ecclesiastical Articles of War; but as to creating those Articles, it never enters his head. If it did, he would reject the thought as injurious to the freehold, without which, in his judgment, the Church would not be the Church, but only an ecclesiastical profession. Very likely he is right—we are not discussing that just now—but if he is, it is very unfair of him to scold the Bishops for not using powers which they do not possess, and which he refuses to bestow on them. He will not allow the entire Bench all sitting together to excommunicate one rebellious perpetual curate, yet he is offended if one Bishop, for the sake of peace, and because
he cannot help himself, lets that curate be. The plain truth of it all is that shoat Royal authority, Cabinet authority, Episcopal authority, and a good many other kinds of authority, the respectable Englishman loves the fog. With- out it he considers everything would be too visible, even immodestly bare. The Queen he is certain ought to exist, and so ought the Bishop; but whether either of them ought to do anything he is not quite sure, and until he is sure, he contents himself with criticism, usually laudatory as regards -the Queen, but as regards the Bishop often vitriolic, and almost invariably ignorant and unfair.
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