bound to enforce the law, because it
was the law, and was at once assailed unjustly, as well as bitterly,
by those who sympathised with the offending clergyman, and who could
not, or would not, understand that a bishop, like other persons in an
official position, may hold it his absolute duty to carry out the
directions of the law whether or no he approves the law, and at
whatever cost to himself. These attacks were borne with patience and
dignity. He was never betrayed into recriminations, and could the more
easily preserve his calmness, because he felt no animosity.

A bishop may be a power outside his own religious community even in a
country where the clergy are separated as a caste from the lay
people. Such men as Dupanloup in France show that. So too he may be a
mighty moral and religious force outside his own religious community
in a country where there is no church established or endowed by the
State. The example of Dr. Phillips Brooks in the United States shows
that. But Dupanloup would have been eminent and influential had he not
been a clergyman at all; and Dr. Brooks was the most inspiring
preacher and the most potent leader of religious thought in America
long before, in the last years of his life, he reluctantly consented
to accept the episcopal office. Fraser, not so gifted by nature as
either of those men, would have had little chance of doing the work he
did save in a country where the existence of an ancient establishment
secures for one of its dignitaries a position of far-reaching
influence. When the gains and losses to a nation of the retention of a
church establishment are reckoned up, this may be set down among the
gains.

If the Church of England possessed more leaders like Tait, Fraser, and
Lightfoot--the statesman, the citizen, and the scholar--in the
characters and careers of all of whom one finds the common mark of a
catholic and pacific spirit, she would have no need to fear any
assaults of political foes, no temptation to ally herself with any
party, but might stand as an establishment until, after long years,
by the general wish of her own people, as well as of those who are
without, she passed peaceably into the position of being the first in
honour, numbers, and influence among a group of Christian communities,
all equally free from State control.

Fraser's example showed how much an attitude of unpretending
simplicity and friendliness to all sects and classes may do to
mitigate the