WILLIAM TEMPLE
By THE BISHOP OF SOUTHWELL (The Rt. Rev. F. R. Barry)
NEARLY all has been said that words can say in honour„ in gratitude and in affection about William, by Divine Providence (if ever a man .was) Primate of all England. What his loss means to the Church at such a time is beyond calculation. Not to the Church of England alone, but to all the religious forces in this country. Not to them alone, but to the whole nation ; not to the nation alone, but to the world. Indeed, there is but one standard of comparison. If in the critical stages of the war we had been deprived of Mr. Churchill, the two events would have been com- mensurable. William Temple was, on any showing, not only one of the greatest Archbishops and religious leaders England has ever known. He was certainly one of the greatest Englishmen and one of the dominant figures of our time. This was a man. His masculine strength of mind, the versatility of his endowments, his courage and independence of judgement were organised from a centre of personal force to create such a calm and equanimity, such an impression of powers in reserve, as made him a heaven-sent- leader of his fellows. " A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." The onlooker does not always realise at what a price and with what. rigid discipline such poise is achieved and such power is exercised.
But never was anyone less like a super-man. His simplicity, his gift for friendship, the pervasive infection of his happiness, and, not the least, his vast reverberating laughter, earned for him not only respect, but love, among all sorts and conditions of men and women. When before has anything like this happened? The news of his sudden and unexpected passing left not only bishops and clergy and church-people feeling numbed and paralysed. The ordinary' non-churchgoing citizen felt that something on which he had come to rely had been removed from the background of his life. No Archbishop since the Reformation, not even Dr. Randall Davidson, held such a place in popular esteem as Temple had won in thirty- three months of office. When before this has it 'ever happened that the President of the United States should cable condolences to the British Sovereign on the death of an anglican ecclesiastic? This fact alone is some measure of his stature and of his commanding position as the leading- spokesman of world-Christianity. He was beginning to exert an influence which might have been unparalleled in Christendom.
When he was nominated by the Crown, it was in fact by popular acclamation. Not only the Church, but the country as a whole, in- stinctively knew that this was the man they needed. The tem- perature rose at the time of his appointment. I made bold to write myself in these columns: "During his reign the national Church will be re-established in the confidence and loyalty of our people. For he will remember what ecclesiastics have recently been in danger of forgetting—that behind the clergy and the institution is the great mass of God-fearing Englishmen who are now, for one or another reason, un-Churched. Perhaps the real test of his Primacy will be the power of its outward-moving sympathy." That was the test, and the people recognised it. In the less than three years that he has been given to us, the prediction has been startlingly fulfilled. He roused new hopes in the minds of tens of thousands. He had put Christianity " on the map," they said. He awakened in count- less men and women hitherto estranged from religion the convic- tion that Christianity does matter, that it is one of the forces that count. He showed the man-in-the-street that the Church does care for him, and has something arresting to say to him. Had he lived, the people would have rallied round him is perhaps round no other man—certainly no other leader of the Churches. He could have put himself at their head and given the world supreme Christian leader- ship.
To reflect on all this makes his going from us harder to bear and harder to understand. He was the one man who, in human judgement, was indispensable to the Christian cause at the most crucial moment in its history. But he has liberated a new spirit ; he has opened doors of new possibility and set a new standard for religious ministry. He had already fashioned a new conception of what an Archbishop of Canterbury can be. May it be that a double portion of his spirit may be found to rest en his successor.
But where is the man? If we take a broad view, there can be no decision more important and no more onerous responsibility than the nomination of the next Primate. Where is the man? Nobody can " follow " Temple. He was unique. There is nobody in the same class. There are perhaps three or four men who come within measurable distance of some of the qualifications most needed. There may be half-a-dozen who would be competent to support the effic'al duties of the Primacy. But today and tomorrow this is not enough. As a hear!' of a world-wide institution the Archbishop must have the -confidence of the Church ; he must be a bigger man than the. other bishops ; yet he must not be clerically minded, for he is the Christian spokesman of England. He must hold the trust and affection of the people and command the attention of the whole nation. What we need today is a man on fire, a prophetic voice which can speak the great language, one whose strength, wisdom and ability (and all these gifts he must have) are fused in the magne- tism of the inspired leader. May that man, be found who has caught Elijah's mantle!
But there is a warning, and we must not neglect it. Apart from his share in the high affairs of State, the Archbishop of Canterbury has to carry a crushing burden of administration and of sheer relentless routine work of which the public has simply no idea. He has nothing like an adequate secretariat and is asked to do the work of a Prime Minister with the 'apparatus of a headmaster. At the time of Dr. Temple's translation fears were felt that he might be overwhelmed by it, and find himself unable to continue what he had hitherto done so brilliantly. He refused to allow that to happen. He was everywhere, unspared and unsparing, constantly travelling up and down the country under the trying conditions of war-time, addressing audiences of every kind arid touching the life of the nation at every point. He still persisted in putting into practice his own interpretation of his office and of national religious leader- ship. He did this not by shirking or neglecting the unrespiting official work of Lambeth—which is in itself more than a man can carry—or the pastoral care of his diocese, but by attempting to do this all at once. It killed him. Is the Church so rich in prophets that it can afford to squander the gifts of God? This lesson must be laid to heart. Some rearrangement has become imperative.
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