hange is altogether to its advantage. To me this
is a very great disappointment. I have always had a very high opinion of
the intellectual values of the leading divines of both the Anglican and
Catholic communions. The self-styled Intelligentsia of Great Britain
is all too prone to sneer at their equipment; but I do not see how
any impartial person can deny that Father Bernard Vaughn is in mental
energy, vigour of expression, richness of thought and variety of
information fully the equal of such an influential lay publicist as
Mr. Horatio Bottomley. One might search for a long time among prominent
laymen to find the equal of the Bishop of London. Nevertheless it is
impossible to conceal the impression of tawdriness that this latter
gentleman's work as head of the National Mission has left upon my mind.
Attired in khaki he has recently been preaching in the open air to the
people of London upon Tower Hill, Piccadilly, and other conspicuous
places. Obsessed as I am by the humanities, and impressed as I have
always been by the inferiority of material to moral facts, I would
willingly have exchanged the sight of two burning Zeppelins for this
spectacle of ecclesiastical fervour. But as it is, I am obliged to trust
to newspaper reports and the descriptions of hearers and eye-witnesses.
They leave to me but little doubt of the regrettable superficiality of
the bishop's utterances.

We have a multitude of people chastened by losses, ennobled by a common
effort, needing support in that effort, perplexed by the reality of evil
and cruelty, questioning and seeking after God. What does the National
Mission offer? On Tower Hill the bishop seems to have been chiefly busy
with a wrangling demonstration that ten thousand a year is none too
big a salary for a man subject to such demands and expenses as his
see involves. So far from making anything out of his see he was, he
declared, two thousand a year to the bad. Some day, when the church
has studied efficiency, I suppose that bishops will have the leisure
to learn something about the general state of opinion and education in
their dioceses. The Bishop of London was evidently unaware of the almost
automatic response of the sharp socialists among his hearers. Their
first enquiry would be to learn how he came by that mysterious extra two
thousand a year with which he supplemented his stipend. How did he earn
_that?_ And if he didn't earn it---! And secondly, they would probably
have poi