I have read of the appointment of Dr. Kenneth Kirk
to the Bishopric of Oxford with some interest in view of a conversation heard at the Oxford Union a few days earlier. The learned participants were laying down the conditions for the filling of the vacant see. The new bishop (I) must be a scholar and a Greats man, (2) could of course not be a Cambridge man, (3) must be a former don—there was the connexion with the University to think of. All those conditions are fulfilled in Dr. Kirk. The recorder of the conversation in question adds another on his own account. " Give us," he appeals, " a first-class priest who has been face to face with the problems of both his clergy and his laity." It is certainly not an unreasonable demand, and it is a manifest handicap to the head of a large agricultural diocese that his only experience of parish work should have been a two-years' curacy in a colliery village. But the needs of Oxford and of Oxfordshire are manifestly dissimilar and Dr. Kirk will probably succeed in meeting them both as well as anyone could.
* * * *
Previous page
