f the Christian world, and who
has placed himself whole-heartedly in political alliance with the
militant forces of victorious Labour, exercises so little influence in
the moral life of the nation? How is it that he suggests to us no
feeling of the relation of triumphant leadership, but rather the spirit
of Napoleon on the retreat from Moscow?

We learn from his teaching that no one can be a Christian without "a
tremendous act of choice," that Christ proclaimed His standard with
"tremendous severity of claim," that "it is very hard to be a good
Christian," and that we must surely, as St. Peter says, "pass the time
of our sojourning here in fear." All of which suggests to us that the
Bishop has not entered into life whole, even perhaps that sometimes he
looks back over his shoulder with a spasm of horror at the hell from
which he has escaped only by the sacrifice of his rational integrity.

Let us recall the main events of his history.

He was educated at Harrow and Balliol, and exercised a remarkable
spiritual influence at Oxford, where he remained, first as
Vice-Principal of Cuddesdon College and then as Librarian of Pusey
House, till he was forty years of age.

During these years he edited the book called _Lux Mundi_ in which he
abandoned the dogma of verbal inspiration and accepted the theory that
the human knowledge of Christ was limited. This book distressed a number
of timid people, but extended the influence of Dr. Gore to men of
science, such as Romanes, as well as to a much larger number of
thoughtful undergraduates.

For a year he was Vicar of Radley, and then came to London as a Canon of
Westminster, immediately attracting enormous congregations to hear him
preach, his sermons being distinguished by a most singular simplicity, a
profound piety, and above all by a deep honesty of conviction which few
who heard him could withstand. Weller, the Dean's verger at the Abbey,
has many stories to tell of the long queues at Westminster which in
those days were one of the sights of London. The Abbey has never since
recovered its place as a centre of Christian teaching.

Up to this time Dr. Gore's sympathy for the Oxford Movement was merely
the background of a life devoted to the mystical element and the moral
implications of the Christian religion. He was known as a High
Churchman; he was felt to be a saint; his modernism was almost
forgotten.

It was not long before his tentative movement towards modernism end