reputation; left it for the Life and Liberty
Movement, which has done nothing, and then on to Manchester as the
future Archbishop of Canterbury. What has he done? What has he ever
done?

"He can't stick at anything; certainly he can't stick at his job--always
he must be doing something else. I don't regard him as a reformer. I
regard him as a talker. He has no strength. Sometimes I think he has no
heart. Intellectual, yes; but intellectual without pluck. I don't know
how his brain works. I give that up. I agree, he joined the Labour
movement before he was ordained. There I think he is sincere, perhaps
devoted. But is there any heart in his devotion? Do the poor love him?
Do the Labour leaders hail him as a leader? I don't think so. Perhaps
I'm prejudiced. Whenever I go to see him, he gives me the impression
that he has got his watch in his hand or his eye on the clock. An
inhuman sort of person--no warmth, no sympathy, not one tiniest touch of
tenderness in his whole nature. No. Willie Temple is the very man the
Church of England _doesn't_ want."

Finally, one of those men in the Anglo-Catholic Party to whom Dr. Temple
looks up with reverence and devotion, said to me in the midst of
generous laudation: "His trouble is that he doesn't concentrate. He is
inclined to leave the main thing. But I hear he is really concentrating
on his work at Manchester, and therefore I have hopes that he will
justify the confidence of his friends. He is certainly a very able man,
very; there can be no question of that."

It will be best, I think, to glance first of all at this question of
ability.

Dr. Temple has a notable gift of rapid statement and pellucid
exposition. One doubts if many theologians in the whole course of
Christian history have covered more ground more trippingly than Dr.
Temple covers in two little books called _The Faith and Modern Thought_,
and _The Kingdom of God_. His wonderful powers of succinct statement may
perhaps give the impression of shallowness; but this is an entirely
false impression--no impression could indeed be wider of the mark. His
learning, though not so wide as Dean Inge's, nor so specialised as the
learning of Canon Barnes, is nevertheless true learning, and learning
which has been close woven into the fabric of his intellectual life.
There are but few men in the Church of England who have a stronger grip
on knowledge; and very few, if any at all, who can more clearly and
vividly express in sim