THE NEW BISHOP.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18418, 26 June 1925, Page 10

THE NEW BISHOP.

TO THE KDITOB OP "THE PBBSS."

Sir,—l certainly do not know that the appointment of a new bishop can be fairly called a political matter. The final acceptance of any recommended namo lies, I presume, with the Archbishops and the Sovereign, and political influences may theoretically come into operation, but practically I do not tnink our own diocesan appointments show any such cases. Are the present deliberations of our Synod political, or were they so when we secured Bishop Julius; or when about 1855, a large meeting of clergy and. laity in Christchurch recommended the Rev. H. J. C. Harper ? 1 still think that chief attention is paid to the apostle's dictum that a bishop must be blameless, and I trust that Birnvingliam is finding Bishop Barnes to be so. That this prelate should have publicly stated his rejection of the infallibility of the Book of Genesis is just what it ought to be, and what it. must bo sooner or later with every one unless progress of learning ceases. If "Watchman'' could see some account of Sir Arthur Keith's volumes on. the Antiquity of Man or, more recently, if he would look up one of the latest issues of the "Illustrated London News" and read the article, fully illustrated, on the recent discovery of an early human skull in Bcchuanaland, he would bo compelled to join with the modernists and critics in regarding Adam and Eve, and Eden as an ancient myth. Man was not created a single perfect pail - , for even present records show him to have once been much more ape-like than he is to-day. If candidates for the ministry are not taught these things they are not fit to deal, from the pulpit, with the Book of Genesis, and if they are so taught they certainly conceal it and all that follows from it. Either alternative seems to ms to demand 'action from a new bishop. • Thanking you for space,—Yours, etc., ANGLICAN.