The appearance of the annual preface to " Crockford "
is both a literary and an ecclestiastical event. The prefaces are, I believe, by a different hand each year, and the well- informed on ecclesiastical matters take pleasure in attempting to identify the strictly anonymous author. This year's preface, which has just reached me, is fully up to standard. The writer, whoever he may be, is wise, witty and broad-minded, particu- larly in the matter of episcopacy and inter-communion. (Bishops incidentally, are told soundly not to be so foolish as to follow the Roman Catholic practice of putting a cross before their signature; the " sartorial idiosyncracy " of some bishops in regard to their robes and external decorations is the subject of some pungent comment.) One identification I think I can achieve. In reference to the demise of the Guardian and possible causes thereof, it is observed:
" Perhaps the less tolerant modern developments of the Oxford movement led many to prefer a more propagandist and for long very ably edited ecclesiastical weekly, the wide circulation of which would do no harm if it were not the case, as we suspect it is, that a large proportion of its readers read little else."
There is, of course, a great deal of more solid matter than this in the preface—notably in regard to the Church of South India and the question of the Church of England's communion there- with. I wish I could devote more space to it.
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