One hundred years ago
The main argument against the Bishops sitting in the House of Lords is this, — that the most constant in their atten- dance get a certain worldliness by their position there, rather than any largeness; that they do not make good Life-Peers, and do lose influence over their clergy, so far as they assert- themselves in the House of Lords. There is not a Bishop on the Bench who has ever delivered a good spiritual speech on the righteousness or unrighteousness of a war. There is not a Bishop on the Bench who has ever discussed the ques- tion of the franchise, the question of democracy, from a spiritual point of view at all, or who has ever spoken on such a question with anything like the authority, for instance, of Lord Shaftesbury.
Spectator, 29 March 1884
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