Make Way for Youth
One of the (few) advantages of being a poli- tician is that you go on being a promising young man until you can begin to draw the retirement pension. Much the same seems to apply to bishops. The Preface to the eightieth issue of Crockford's Clerical Directory comments skit- tishly on the new intake—there are now two bishops under fifty years of age. The new youthfulness of the episcopate has manifested itself in a frisky independence which shows that the two archbishops will have a difficult team to drive.' The average age of the episcopate has .dropped so sharply that the author of the Preface, who is traditionally a distinguished (but anony- mous) member of the Church of England, cal- cuLates that the Prime Minister would not nor- malty, even if this Parliament ran its full course, have to appoint more than four or five bishops. But he has to add, 'death and disease are no respecters of statistics,' a somewhat gloomier sentiment and one that haunts the Government Chief Whip.
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