THE Bishop of Hereford's apologia, delivered at his visitation of the diocese, is another case of qui s'excuse s'accuse. In defence of his more recent appointments to canonries in his Cathedral, his lordship explains that he selected his nominees as "leading members of the liberal, progressive Broad Church School of Theology, that school to which, as it happens, I myself more or less belong", and "because, in the course of a long life, I have seen and regretted the persistent neglect and hard treatment meted out to this important section of our Church by the higher authorities of both Church and State." This, in spite of the fact that seventeen of the Deaneries are held by ecclesiastics who share with his lordship the honour of belonging "more or less" to the liberal, progressive Broad Church School. The Deaneries, in fact, are becoming their close preserve. . . He exhorted those of his hearers who had been "brought up and trained, as so many of you have been, in a highly dogmatic faith, resting on creeds formulated long ago", to be lenient in judging their progressive neighbours. This exhortation was a curious commentary on the judgment he had, in a previous sentence, passed on the Bishop of Zanzibar [100 Years Ago, 10 April], whose "natural home", he said, is "in the Roman Church and not in ours". Catholics are faithful to the standards of the Church. Their reward is that those who, like the Bishop of Hereford, chafe at the restraints of "a highly dogmatic faith resting on creeds formulated long ago", call them Papists, the name which, they know, will prejudice them most in the eyes of the uninstructed multitude.

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