nged by a
working-man in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, who urged against it with some
power the argument of despair. Perhaps the lecture was not written; but
if it was, and our recollection of it is at all accurate, it was not
unworthy of a place in this collection.

XXV

BISHOP FRAZER[29]

[29]
_Guardian_, 28th October 1885.

Every one must be deeply touched by the Bishop of Manchester's sudden,
and, to most of us, unexpected death; those not the least who,
unhappily, found themselves in opposition to him in many important
matters. For, in spite of much that many people must wish otherwise in
his career as Bishop, it was really a very remarkable one. Its leading
motive was high and genuine public spirit, and a generous wish to be in
full and frank sympathy with all the vast masses of his diocese; to put
himself on a level with them, as man with man, in all their interests,
to meet them fearlessly and heartily, to raise their standard of
justice and large-heartedness by showing them that in their life of
toil he shared the obligation and the burden of labour, and felt bound
by his place to be as unsparing and unselfish a worker as any of his
flock. Indeed, he was as original as Bishop Wilberforce, though in a
different direction, in introducing a new type and ideal of Episcopal
work, and a great deal of his ideal he realised. It is characteristic
of him that one of his first acts was to remove the Episcopal residence
from a mansion and park in the country to a house in Manchester. There
can be no doubt that he was thoroughly in touch with the working
classes in Lancashire, in a degree to which no other Bishop, not even
Bishop Wilberforce, had reached. There was that in the frankness and
boldness of his address which disarmed their keen suspicion of a
Bishop's inevitable assumption of superiority, and put them at their
ease with him. He was always ready to meet them, and to speak off-hand
and unconventionally, and as they speak, not always with a due
foresight of consequences or qualifications. If he did sometimes in
this way get into a scrape, he did not much mind it, and they liked him
the better for it. He was perfectly fearless in his dealings with them;
in their disputes, in which he often was invited to take a part, he
took the part which seemed to him the right one, whether or not it
might be the unpopular one. Very decided, very confident in his
opinions and the expression of them, there yet was appa