The Dominion SATURDAY. APRIL 5, 1919. A NOTABLE PERSONALITY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 164, 5 April 1919, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY. APRIL 5, 1919. A NOTABLE PERSONALITY

The resignation of the Bishop of Oxford (bit. Chahles Goiie) is an event of high importance in the ■religious world, and is also a. matter ot much interest to all sorts and conditions of men, for Dr. Gohe is well known for his courageous leadership in movements' for the extension and improvement of education, and for industrial and social reform. Shortly before the conclusion of the war he paid a visit to the United States with the object of placing before the American public the moral aims which compelled Britain to go to war and of reminding his hearers of the common conscience which holds the British and American peoples together in a strong spiritual unity. Uk. Gohe has powerfully advocated the urgent need of a League of Nations to prevent, war. He has written an_ able pamphlet on this subject, entitled The League of Nations (he Opportunity of the Church. He does not shut his eyes to the great ' difficulties of creating and maintaining such a, league—difficulties of organisation and of details, and the supreme difficulty of limiting by international or supcrnational control the judgment of a nation as to what itsown honour and interests require. But he finds grounds for hope and resolution in the despair of the future which must fill our minds when we contemplate the tendencies of national rivalry as they existed before the war unless they can be effectively restrained, and in. tho progress and the-international sympathies of democracy. He thinks that Christian people in every nation should combine to welcome and to propagate the principle of tho League, ''for, indeed, it is its own voice that the Church hears echoed back by the statesmen who propose it. There 'can be few practicable measures which would bo so strong a witness to Christian principles as the formation of a League of Nations to promote and maintain peace,' and nothing would make the peoples of tho world better understand what Christianity stands for than tho spectacle of a divided Christendom reunited at least to promote this purpose."

The industrial classes' have a firm and wise friend in Bishop Gore. He believes that everyone should have a fair chance of living a full life and should have the opportunity of developing all the capacities of spirit, mind, and body with which.Nature has endowed him. He has'ahvays insisted that a, workman is something more than a mere "hand." This idea of the sacredness of personality is no. doubt ■largely' responsible for the j declaration of the Labour Commission to be presented to the Peace | Conference that, "in right and fact, the labour of human beings should not be treated as merchandise or an article of commerce." Dr. Gore was a member of the committee act up by the Archbishops of the Church of England to deal with industrial problems. This committee recently issued its report, which is a .decidedly interesting-and thought-prc-voking document. - The report insists strongly on the pre-eminence of moral over material considerations, and asserts that "it is the duty of the Church, .while avoiding dogmatism as to the precise methodsof applying Christian principles to industry, to insist that Christian ethics arc as binding upon economic conduct and industrial organisation as upon personal . conduct and domestic life." For _ years Bishop Gore has been insisting on the- supremacy the Christian moral law in the industrial sphere, and he has given consistent : and wholc-hcartcci support to the efforts of Labour to realise its legitimate ideals.

During the past forty years T)n. Gore has i exercised • a dominating influence in (ho Church of England. It is generally understood'that the return to the Christian faith of Hie late C. J. KoiMNKS, one of the most famous of the friends and disciples of Charles Darwin, was in a largo measure duo to Dr. Cork, who stands in the front rank of Anglican theologians. His essay, entitled The llnhj Snlri't and Inspiration, published in Lux Jfiuidi in 1880, caused a great sensation, and alienated some of his most intimate friends?. Some of the views expressed in that famous essay were regarded as?extremely dangerous. Religious conservatives were shocked, and he was denounced as "infidel Gore'' fly Father Ignatius at a Church Congress. But Christian thought has. moved rapidly since those days, and is still moving. The opinions defended by Dit. Gore in 1889 arc now generally regarded as quite orthodox. Indeed, Dr. Gore himself is now looked upon by the younger generation of Oxford theologians as a conservative and during recent years he has been endeavouring to put a; brake on the wheel. The advanced wing has not unnaturally

reminded him of his past. They repudiate the idea that Liu; M.'itndi contains the last word in theology or Biblical criticism. Dit. Gore'.s Hampton Lectures, in 181)1, rank with the best productions of that famous foundation, and he has published a number of other works which are well known in all Englishspeaking countries. The retirement of the Bishop of Oxford from the English diocesan episcopate will leave a vacancy which it will not be easy to fill. It is not often that great scholarship, strong personality, and vigorous activity in the everyday world arc combined in a Churchman, as'they arc in Bishop Corf. As a University tutor, as Canon of Westminster, as Bishop of Worcester, Birmingham, and Oxford, he has done splendid work for Church and nation.