PROMOTION OF LIBERAL CLERGY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
Bra,—Your correspondent, "E. V. H.," has surely missed the point of your observations on the Ecclesiastical appointments of the Premier. You were replying, if I remember rightly, to the accusation of the Daily Nevis, that Mr. Gladstone gave more than their share to the High-Church Clergy. You asserted, on the contrary, that the Liberal High-Church Clergy seemed to have no chance at all with the present Government; and you instanced Dr. Liddon.
Your correspondent gives a list of Mr. Gladstone's Liberal appointments. In that list there is only one decided High Churchman. Of the rest, most are Broad Churchmen, one is Broad Church with High-Church sympathies, two are Low Churchmen, and the rest are colourless.
What, moreover, is your correspondent's criterion for a Liberal? A Liberalism which is so carefully concealed that it never connects itself with the Liberal party on crucial questions is a Liberalism which, in my opinion, is not worth much. The Dew of Wells, and one or two more of the names on your correspondent's list, took a prominent and useful part in the controversy on the Eastern Question (to take a recent example).
But I do not remember the names of Dr. Barry or Canons Rowsell and Boyd Carpenter in that connection.
I am not complaining of Mr. Gladstone's appointments. On- the whole, I think them very good appointments. I wish merely to point out that your remarks on the subject are justified by
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