England is now the only Protestant country in which bishops retain some relics of the dignity and influence which belonged to the episcopal office during the Middle Ages. Even in Roman Catholic countries they have been sadly shorn of their ancient importance, though the prelates of Hungary still hold vast possessions, while in France, or Spain, or the Catholic parts of Germany a man of eminent talents and energy may occasionally use his official position to become, through his influence over Catholic electors or Catholic deputies, a considerable political factor. This happens even in the United States and Canada, though in the United States the general feeling that religion must be kept out of politics obliges ecclesiastics to use their spiritual powers cautiously and sparingly. England stands alone in the fact that although the Protestant Episcopal Church is, in so far as she is established by law, the creature and subject of the State, she is nevertheless so far independent as a 101 religious organisation that she retains a greater power than in other Protestant nations. State establishment, though it may have depressed, has not stifled her ecclesiastical life, and an interest in ecclesiastical questions is shown by a larger proportion of her laity than one finds in Germany or the Scandinavian kingdoms. A man of shining parts has, as an English bishop, a wide field of action and influence open to him outside the sphere of theology or of purely official duty. And the opportunities of the position attain their maximum when he reaches the primatial chair of Canterbury, which is now the oldest and the most dignified of all the metropolitan sees in countries that have accepted the Reformation of the sixteenth century.

Ever since there was a bishop at Canterbury at all, that is to say, ever since the conversion of the English began in the seventh century of our era, the holder of that see has been the greatest ecclesiastical personage in these islands, with a recognised authority over all England, as well as an influence and dignity to which, in the Middle Ages, the Archbishops of Armagh and St. Andrews (primates of the Irish and Scottish Churches) practically bowed, even while refusing to admit his legal supremacy. To be the most highly placed and officially the most powerful man in the churches of Britain, in days when the Church was better organised, and in some 102 ways stronger, than the State, meant a vast deal. The successor of Augustine was often called a Pope of his own world—that world of Britain which lay apart from the larger world of the European continent. Down to the Reformation, the English primates possessed a power which made some of them almost a match for the English kings. Dunstan, Lanfranc, Anselm, Thomas (Becket), Hubert, Stephen Langton, Arundel, Warham, were among the foremost statesmen of their time. After Henry VIII.’s breach with Rome, the Primate of England received some access of dignity in becoming independent of the Pope; but, in reality, the loss of church power and church wealth which the Reformation caused lowered his political importance. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, there were still some conspicuous and influential prelates at Canterbury—Cranmer, Pole, Whitgift, and Laud the best remembered among them. After the Revolution of 1688, a time of smaller men begins. The office retained its dignity as the highest place open to a subject, ranking above the Lord Chancellor or the Lord President of the Council, but the Church of England, having no fightings within, nor anything to fear from without, was lapped in placid ease, so it mattered comparatively little who her chief pastor was.

Bishoprics were in those days regarded chiefly 103 as pieces of rich preferment with which prime ministers bought the support of powerful adherents. But since the middle of the nineteenth century, as the Anglican Church has become at once more threatened and more energetic, as more of the life of the nation has flowed into her and round her, the office of a bishop has risen in importance. People show more interest in the appointments to be made, and ministers have become proportionately careful in making them. Bishops work harder and are more in the public eye now than they were eighty, or even fifty, years ago. They have lost something of the antique dignity and social consideration which they enjoyed. They no longer wear wigs or ride in State coaches. They may be seen in third-class railway carriages, or sitting on the tops of omnibuses. But they have gained by having countless opportunities opened up to them for exerting influence in philanthropic as well as in religious movements; and the more zealous among them turn these opportunities to excellent account.

Whatever is true of an ordinary bishop is true a fortiori of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is still a great personage, but he is great in a new way, with less of wealth and power but larger opportunities of influence. He is also a kind of Pope in a new way, because he is the central figure of the Anglican communion over the 104 whole world, with no legal jurisdiction outside England (except in India), but far over-topping all the prelates of that communion in the United States or the British Colonies. Less deference is paid to the office, considered simply as an office, than it received in the Middle Ages, because society and thought have been tinged by the spirit of democratic equality, and people realise that offices are only artificial creations, whose occupants are human beings like themselves. But if he is himself a man of ability and force, he may make his headship of an ancient and venerated church a vantage-ground whence to address the nation as well as the members of his own communion. He is sure of being listened to, which is of itself no small matter in a country where many voices are striving to make themselves heard at the same time. The world takes his words into consideration; the newspapers repeat them. His position gives him easy access to the ministers of the Crown, and implies a confidential intercourse with the Crown itself. He is, or can be, “in touch” with all the political figures who can in any way influence the march of events, and is able to enforce his views upon them. All his conduct is watched by the nation; so that if it is discreet, provident, animated by high and consistent principle, he gets full credit for whatever he does well, and acquires that influence to which masses of men are eager to 105 bow whenever they can persuade themselves that it is deserved. During the first half of the nineteenth century the English people was becoming more interested in ecclesiastical and in theological matters than it had been during the century preceding. It grew by slow degrees more inclined to observe ecclesiastical persons, to read and think about theological subjects, to reflect upon the relations which the Church ought to bear to civil life and moral progress. Thus a leader of the Church of England became relatively a more important factor than he had been a century ago, and an archbishop, strong by his character, rectitude, and powers of utterance, rose to occupy a more influential, if not more conspicuous, position than his predecessors in the days of the Georges had done.

These changes naturally made the selection of an archbishop a more delicate and troublesome business than it was in those good old days. Nobody then blamed a Prime Minister for preferring an aspirant who had the support of powerful political connections. Blameless in life he must be: even the eighteenth century demanded that from candidates for English, if not, according to Dean Swift, for Irish sees. If he was also a man of courtly grace and dignity, and a finished scholar, so much the better. If he was a man of piety, that also was 106 well. By the time of Queen Victoria the possession of piety and of gifts of speech had become more important qualifications, but the main thing was tactful moderation. Even in apostolic days it was required that a bishop should rule his own house well, and the Popes esteemed most saintly have not always been the best, as the famous case of Celestine the Fifth attests. An archbishop must first and foremost be a discreet and guarded man, expressing few opinions, and those not extreme ones. His chief virtue came to be, if not the purely negative one of offending no section by expressing the distinctive views of any other, yet that of swerving so little from the via media between Rome and Geneva that neither the Tractarian party, who began to be feared after 1837, nor the pronounced Low Churchmen could claim the Primate as disposed to favour their opinions. In the case of ordinary bishops the plan could be adopted, and has since the days of Lord Palmerston been mostly followed, of giving every party its turn, while choosing from every party men of the safer sort. This method, however, was less applicable to the See of Canterbury, for a man on whose action much might turn could not well be taken from any particular section. The acts and words of a Primate, who is expected to “give a line” to the clergy generally and to speak on behalf of the bench of bishops as a whole, are so closely scrutinised that he must 107 be prudent and wary, yet not so wary as to seem timid. He ought to be both firm and suave, conciliatory and decided. That he may do justice to all sections of the Church of England, he ought not to be an avowed partisan of any. Yet he must be able and eminent, and of course able and eminent men are apt to throw themselves into some one line of action or set of views, and so come to be considered partisans. The position which the Archbishop of Canterbury holds as the representative in Parliament of the whole Established Church, makes statesmanship the most important of all qualifications. Learning, energy, eloquence, piety would none of them, nor all of them together, make up for the want of calmness and wisdom. Yet all those qualities are obviously desirable, because they strengthen as well as adorn the primate’s position.

Archibald Campbell Tait (born in Scotland in 1811, died 1882) was educated at Glasgow University and at Balliol College, Oxford; worked at his college for some years as a tutor, succeeded Dr. Arnold as headmaster of Rugby School in 1843, became Dean of Carlisle and then Bishop of London, and was translated to Canterbury in 1868. It has been generally understood that Mr. Disraeli, then Prime Minister, suggested another prelate for the post, but the Queen, who did not share her minister’s estimate of 108 that prelate, expressed a preference for Tait. Her choice was amply justified, for Tait united, and indeed possessed in a high degree, the qualifications which have just been enumerated. He was, if it be not a paradox to say so, more remarkable as an archbishop than as a man. He had no original power as a thinker. He was not a striking preacher, and the more pains he took with his sermons the less interesting did they become. He was so far from being learned that you could say no more of him than that he was a sound scholar and a well-informed man. He was deeply and earnestly pious, but in a quiet, almost dry way, which lacked what is called unction, though it impressed those who were in close contact with him. He showed slight interest either in the historical or in the speculative side of theology. Though a good headmaster, he was not a stimulating teacher. Had he remained all his life in a subordinate position, as a college tutor at Oxford, or as canon of some cathedral, he would have discharged the duties of the position in a thoroughly satisfactory way, and would have acquired influence among his colleagues, but no one would have felt that Fate had dealt unfairly with him in depriving him of some larger career and loftier post. No one, indeed, who knew him when he was a college tutor seems to have predicted the dignities he was destined to attain, although 109 he had shown in the theological strife that then raged at Oxford the courage and independence of his character.

In what, then, did the secret of his success lie—the secret, that is, of his acquitting himself so excellently in those dignities as to have become almost a model to his own and the next generation of what an Archbishop of Canterbury ought to be? In the statesmanlike quality of his mind. He had not merely moderation, but what, though often confounded with moderation, is something rarer and better, a steady balance of mind. He was carried about by no winds of doctrine. He seldom yielded to impulses, and was never so seduced by any one theory as to lose sight of other views and conditions which had to be regarded. He was, I think, the first man of Scottish birth who ever rose to be Primate of England, and he had the cautious self-restraint which is deemed characteristic of his nation. He knew how to be dignified without assumption, firm without vehemence, prudent without timidity, judicious without coldness. He was, above all things, a singularly just man, who recognised every one’s rights, and did not seek to overbear them by an exercise of authority. He was as ready to listen to his opponents as to his friends. Indeed, he so held himself as to appear to have no opponents, but to be rather a judge before whom different 110 advocates were stating their respective cases, than a leader seeking to make his own views or his own party prevail. Genial he could hardly be called, for there was little warmth, little display of emotion, in his manner; and the clergy noted, at least in his earlier episcopal days, a touch of the headmaster in his way of receiving them. But he was simple and kindly, capable of seeing the humorous side of things, desiring to believe the good rather than the evil, and to lead people instead of driving them. With all his caution he was direct and straightforward, saying no more than was necessary, but saying nothing he had occasion to be ashamed of. He sometimes made mistakes, but they were not mistakes of the heart, and, being free from vanity or self-conceit, he was willing in his quiet way to admit them and to alter his course accordingly. So his character by degrees gained upon the nation, and so even ecclesiastical partisanship, proverbially more bitter than political, because it springs from deeper wells of feeling, grew to respect and spare him. The influence he obtained went far to strengthen the position of the Established Church, and to keep its several parties from breaking out into more open hostility with one another. He himself inclined to what might be called a moderate Broad Church attitude, leaning more to Evangelical than to Tractarian or Romanising views in 111 matters of doctrine. At one time the extreme High Churchmen regarded him as an enemy. But this unfriendliness had almost died away when the death of his wife and his only son (a young man of singularly winning character), followed by his own long illness, stilled the voices of criticism.

He exerted great influence in the House of Lords by his tact, by his firmness of character, and by the consistency of his public course, as well as by powers of speech, which, matured by long practice, had risen to a high level. Without eloquence, without either imagination or passion, which are the chief elements in eloquence, he had a grave, weighty, thoughtful style which impressed that fastidious audience. His voice was strong and sonorous, his diction plain yet pure and dignified, his matter well considered. His thought moved on a high plane; he spoke as one who fully believed every word he said. The late Bishop of Winchester, the famous Dr. Samuel Wilberforce, was incomparably his superior not only as a talker but as an orator, but no less inferior in his power over the House of Lords, for so little does rhetorical brilliance count in a critical and practical assembly. Next to courage, the quality which gains trust and regard in a deliberative body is that which is familiarly described when it is said of a man, “You always 112 know where to find him.” Tait belonged to no party. But his principles, though not rigid, were fixed and settled; his words and votes were the expression of his principles.

The presence of bishops in the House of Lords is disapproved by some sections of English opinion, and there are those among the temporal peers who, quite apart from any political feeling, are said to regard them with little favour. But every one must admit that they have raised and adorned the debates in that chamber. Besides Tait and Wilberforce, two other prelates of the same generation stood in the front rank of speakers, Dr. Magee, whose wit and fire would have found a more fitting theatre in the House of Commons, and Dr. Thirlwall, a scholar and historian whose massive intellect and stately diction were too rarely used to raise great political issues above the dust-storms of party controversy.

Perhaps no Archbishop since the Revolution of 1688 has exercised so much influence as Dr. Tait, and certainly none within living memory is so well entitled to be credited with a definite ecclesiastical policy. His aim was to widen the bounds of the Church of England, so far as the law could, without evasion, be stretched for that purpose. He bore a leading part in obtaining an Act of Parliament which introduced a new and less strict form of clerical subscription. He realised that the 113 Church of England can maintain her position as a State Church only by adapting herself to the movements of opinion, and accordingly he voted for the Divorce Bill of 1859, and for the Burials Bill, which relieved Dissenters from a grievance that exposed the Established Church to odium. The Irish Church Disestablishment Bill of 1869 threw upon him, at the critical moment when it went from the House of Commons, where it had passed by a large majority, to the House of Lords, where a still larger majority was hostile, a duty delicate in itself, and such as seldom falls to the lot of a prelate. The Queen wrote to him suggesting that he should endeavour to effect a compromise between Mr. Gladstone, then head of the Liberal Ministry, and the leading Tory peers who were opposing the Bill. He conducted the negotiation with tact and judgment, and succeeded in securing good pecuniary terms for the Protestant Episcopal Establishment. Though he had joined in the Letter of the Bishops which conveyed their strong disapproval of the book called Essays and Reviews (whose supposed heretical tendencies roused such a storm in 1861), and had thereby displeased his friends, Temple (afterwards archbishop), Jowett, and Stanley,[20] he joined in the judgment of the Privy 114 Council which in 1863 dismissed the charges against the impugned Essayists. Despite his advocacy of the Bill which in 1874 provided a new procedure to be used against clergymen transgressing the ritual prescribed by law, he discouraged prosecutions, and did his utmost to keep Ritualists as well as moderate Rationalists within the pale of the Church of England. He did not succeed—no one could have succeeded, even though he had spoken with the tongues of men and of angels—in stilling ecclesiastical strife. The controversies of his days still rage, though in a slightly different form. But in refusing to yield to the pressure of any section, in regarding the opinion of the laity rather than that of the clergy, in keeping close to the law yet giving it the widest possible interpretation, he laid down the lines on which the Anglican Established Church can best be defended and upheld. That she will last, as an Establishment, for any very long time, will hardly be expected by those who mark the direction in which thought tends to move all over the civilised world. But Tait’s policy and personality have counted for something in prolonging the time-honoured connection of the Anglican Church with the English State.

Perhaps a doubtful service either to the Church or to the State. Yet even those who regret the connection, and who, surveying the long 115 course of Christian history from the days of the Emperor Constantine down to our own, believe that the Christian Church would have been spiritually purer and morally more effective had she never become either the mistress or the servant or the ally of the State, but relied on her divine commission only, may wish that, when the day arrives for the ancient bond to be unloosed, it should be unloosed not through an embittered political struggle, but because the general sentiment of the nation, and primarily of religious men throughout the nation, has come to approve the change.