The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-14 00:00:00

14, 1870.

'Pint Speech made by the Bishop of EXETIIR in the
tipper House of the Convocation of the Province of
Canterbury on Friday is certainly no exception to the
latter half of the rule that "speech is silver but
silence is golden." We fear we could notjsay as much
as to the first half. The Btsuor has taken a step whose
importance we frankly admit we did not at
first understand. His justification of that step
reveals at once how important, inopportune,
and indeed unfortunate it is. If Dr. TE3IPLE
previously to his nomination to the See of Exeter,
had felt misgivings as to the tendency of "Essays and
Reviews," and had declined to withdraw his contri-
bution from that volume solely from considerations
for his colleagues, then, while acknowledging his
delicacy, we sh)uld be compelled to say that he had
sacrificed a much higher duty to a much lower one
—the interests of Christianity to those of six friends.
But the BISHOP expressly disclaims any such idea.

4 :;
4

lle will not admit tkat the volume is a dangerous

one. On the contrary he thinks it did good service.
Thenwhy in the name of all that is reasonable does ho
practically condemn it, by withdrawing from all con-
nection with it ? Simply and solely, so far as we can
understand, because he is no longer FREDERICK
TEMPLE but LORD BISHOP Of EXETER. In fact, if
we may be pardoned a jest on so serious a matter, he
has undergone a see change which has wrought
effects fully as remarkable as the " sea-change"

of the poet. This change is not for the better. It has

brought the BISHOP into a position neither dignif.ing
nor safe—which we take to be a euphemism for a seat
between two stools. The BISHOP has withdrawn his
essay because it has given offence to certain well-
meaning and pious persons, and most offence to those
who, like the Bishop of LICIIFLELD, have never read
it. This is yielding to the weaker brethren with a
vengeance. Unfortunately it is stultifying the stronger
brethren who, by their recent support of him, had
even greater claims upon the BISHOP'S consideration.
The BISHOP says that the volume was written for a
definite object. Young Oxford had doubts, but
pl'oung Oxford was reticent. We should have thought
;that so long as young Oxford had doubts, reticence
was a very proper position, .not to say a binding
duty. Not so, says the LORD BISHOP Of EXETER. It
was the duty of young Oxford to speak out, and it
did. speak out in these seven "Essays and Reviews."

ut when an essayist and a reviewer becomes a
BISIIOP he is no longer young Oxford, he is, we sup-
yose, old Oxford, or at all events middle-aged Oxford,
and, as the French say when one comes to that age
cwt ae range.

Now we make bold to assert that if the BISHOP'S
account of the origin of this famous volume be con ect
a more unnecessary, a more unwarrantable work Nras
never issued from the press. We all know the wmds
of the LA UREA E.

He fought his doubts, he gathered strength;
He would not make his judgment blind
He faced the spectres of the mind,
And laid them."

But Dr. TEMPLE, instead of "fighting," "facingrAnd
"laying" them, paraded them, drew them up in :im-
posing military fashion, reviewed them in both
senses of the word for all the world to see. It; .7sas
',impossible to have made a more lamentable mist ake.
It would have been well if he who made it, had
remembered other lines by the same poet :--!
" Leave thou thy sister when she pray;
Her early heaven, her happy views:
Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse
A life that leads melodious days."
Of ono thing we are quite sure : the other c esayists
would decline altogether the BrsuoPs account
of their enterprise. It was not because i hey had
doubts that they wrote, but because ti. cy had
certainties. It was because they felt that t here was
need of a new reformation, a new onslaught apcn the
eidula of the mind, because they saw that t ho Bible
had been treated with superstitious revere] tce , born
of the letter which killeth, that they set they 'selves
to assert the right of a free and reverent Ins ndling,
which should give full play to the spit it that
quickeneth. It was not negations, but positive
had to make. If,* tl my had
assertions, which they
merely doubted they would not hair( ,een so
Weakly incontinent of speech as to /rut h into
Priiit, They had a far uobler potil e and

'