On Tuesday the Archbishop of Canterbury commenced his second visitation
of the diocese in Canterbury Cathedral, and there delivered an address to his Clergy, which referred to many aspects of the duty which devolves upon the Church as the Church of the nation, and concluded by especially enforcing the truth that the controversy of the present day is not, chiefly at least, a controversy with superstition, but is a controversy with the growing spirit of unbelief. For such a controversy, a clergy of large learning and large insight into the state of the national mind was absolutely essential ; and if the Clergy of the National Church do not prove equal to the emergency, the Archbishop predicted that some great catastrophe would befall not only the Church, but the nation. That is a wise as well as a courageous warning. And probably the real danger of that catastrophe is not more keenly realised by any one amongst us than by Dr. Tait himself, who knows very well how few men, comparatively, of the highest type of moral force and of intellectual power now enrol themselves among the clergy, and how many of such men enrol themselves among the ranks of the sceptics.
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