THE

IV.

"By influence of the Light Divine,

Let thy own light in good works shine."

BISHOP KEN.

HE Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his picturesque memoir of the Vicar of Morwenstow (who, by the way, was a total abstainer), draws a gloomy outline of the irreligious condition of the Diocese of Exeter in the first half of this century. He says: "There was a story told of a fox-hunting parson, Mr. Radcliffe, in the north of Devon, when I was a boy. He was fond of having convivial evenings in his parsonage, which often ended uproariously.

"Bishop Phillpotts sent for him, and said, 'Mr. Radcliffe, I hear, but I can hardly believe it, that men fight in your house.' 'Lor, my dear,' answered Parson Radcliffe, in broad Devonshire, 'doant 'y believe it. When they begin fighting, I take and turn them out into the churchyard!'"

Happily, the times have changed since then, and the customs, too; but although clerical conviviality may be accounted as dead and buried without hope of a resurrection, intemperance still stalks abroad with her twin-sisters-degradation and desolation. It is therefore a matter for congratulation that Bishop Phillpotts has been worthily succeeded by one who "feels the responsibility of his position, and

endeavours conscientiously to perform its duties." Those who have watched Bishop Temple's career during the ten years he has presided over the Diocese of Exeter will acknowledge that this estimate a very high one has been well-merited: for Dr. Temple has been a great worker, has frequently visited the most distant parts of his large Diocese, and by his personal influence and example has given a great impetus to parochial organisation.

Frederick Temple is a son of an officer in the army, and was born on November 30th, 1821. He received his early education at the Tiverton Grammar School, and afterwards proceeded to Oxford, where he became Scholar of Balliol College, and took his degree of B.A. as a double first class in 1842. He was elected a Fellow and Mathematical Tutor of his College, and was ordained in 1846. Two years later he accepted the principalship of Kneller Hall Training College, near Twickenham, which he resigned in 1855. He was next one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, and soon after, in 1858, succeeded Dr. Goulbourn as Head Master of Rugby.

He was exceedingly popular at the famous school. It has been said, that "he achieved a reputation as a teacher unrivalled since the days of Dr. Arnold, and almost challenging competition with his." He was a great favourite with the scholars, and his "Rugby Sermons," to some extent, furnish a key to his great success. They have a literary, personal tone about them, that is highly attractive, and display a wonderful power of investing old and familiar truths with the charm of freshness, and of bringing out with great clearness the beauty of Scripture. In

a word, breadth of sympathies, directness of thought, and manliness of tone, reveal a preacher of high culture seeking to be the friend, helper, and counsellor of his boys.

It was at Rugby, too, that Dr. Temple put himself in training as a public speaker. Nature had not made him an orator: so, like the present Earl of Derby, he carefully cultivated the arts of speech, and availed himself of such practice as the meetings which were held in Rugby and the vicinity afforded. By this means he acquired a readiness and flow of words, for the exercise of which his public office now gives him ample opportunities.

Dr. Temple gained some notoriety in 1860, as the author of the first of the seven "Essays and Reviews." The writers, it will be remembered, wished to be regarded as only responsible for their own Essays; but the public could scarcely be expected to discriminate, when all were linked together in one volume, and no doubt Dr. Temple was credited with much in the book from which his after career proves he entirely differed. Hence, when in 1869 Mr. Gladstone nominated him to the See of Exeter, in succession to the late Bishop Philpott, the proposal met with some opposition. In the end the appointment was confirmed, and Dr. Temple was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on December 21st, 1869, together with the Bishops Elect of Bath and Wells, and of the Falkland Islands.

As a Bishop, Dr. Temple has carried into his new sphere the same geniality of temper, tact in dealing with men, and untiring industry, which secured so large a measure of success at Rugby. As an illus

tration of his genial and kindly spirit, we may mention that on one occasion he went into a remote district of Cornwall, to take a clergyman's duty for a month, while the latter enjoyed his summer holiday. The Bishop took the whole of the duties, visiting the sick with painstaking devotion, and otherwise showing a friendly interest in the parishioners which quite won their hearts.

Dr. Temple has taken a prominent place in all educational movements in his Diocese. He has also thrown himself warmly into the wide-spread Temperance organisation which so markedly characterises. the Church of England at the present time. Not long ago, a veteran writer on Temperance, Dr. R. B. Grindrod, of Malvern, published a brief note, in which he claimed St. James the Minor, Bishop of Jerusalem, as a Nazarite, and as the first total-abstaining Bishop. However this may be, for Dr. Temple may be claimed the honour of being the pioneer of personal total abstinence amongst the Bishops of to-day. A“Christian Nazarite" we may term him, for as good old Bishop Hall truly says:

"We borrow more names of our Lord than one. As we are Christians, so are we Nazarites; the consecration of our God is on our heads, and therefore our very hairs should be holy. Our appetite must be curbed, our passions moderated, and so estranged from the world, that in the loss of parents or children. nature may not make us forget grace. What! does the looseness of vain men persuade them that God is not curious, when they see Him thus precisely ordering the very diet of His Nazarites? Nature pleads for liberty, religion for restraint; not that there is

more uncleanness in the grape than in the fountain, but that wine finds more uncleanness in us than water, and that high living is not so fit for devotion as abstinence."

Dr. Temple has not altogether escaped the penalty of adherence to his principles. It will be remembered, that upon one occasion he had to stand a shower of flour, bad eggs, and other missiles when denouncing the liquor traffic in Exeter. But the Bishop is not the man to be discouraged by opposition; he believes that, "if we persevere it is possible that by-and-by we shall be able to convince the Legislature that everywhere it will be their duty so to provide that if any man wishes this pleasure, he must go and seek it; that he shall not have it thrust into his face, and made a perpetual temptation to his weakness."

Holding these convictions, Bishop Temple is a supporter of the Permissive Bill, and an active VicePresident of the United Kingdom Alliance. He is also a Vice-President of the Church of England Temperance Society, and has presided over the annual Meetings of the Total Abstinence Section, held in Exeter Hall. Speaking of one of the Bishop's addresses the Church of England Temperance Chronicle says:-" Never from the time when we attended our first teetotal meeting, have we heard a more outspoken speech than that which fell from his lordship's lipsa speech which Mr. Livesey might have written, or Mr. Gough declaimed."

In a sermon preached in Lancaster, in 1876, Dr. Temple said: "I pass on now to consider cases where this particular indulgence is a danger, a temptation, and to some a most terrible temptation, too. For there are hundreds upon hundreds of