THE NEW ENGLISH PRIMATE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3630, 1 March 1883, Page 4

THE NEW ENGLISH PRIMATE.

lijcredible as it may seem, it is nevertheless (i fact that Dr. Benson took an entire week to consider whether lie should accept the Primacy. Ordinarily a period of eight - aiid-forty hours is considered quite long enough for a- clergyman to decide whether he shall accept preferment, but for several days Dr. Benson really hesitated to leave a diocese in which lie had been eminently useful and had formed personal associations of a most agreeable character. Perhaps there- was was just one fly in the pot of ointment which reconciled Mm to the change. Latterly' Ids relations with the political Nonconformists have been hostile. He_ attacked the Libcraiionists in language which would have been condemned in the mouth of a members of the Fourth Party, but which was particularly unsccnijy when Hie controTcrsialist was a J3ishop~" Then the Wesleyans have a grudge against him because Ik; assailed them for the " illegitimacy '' of their ordci o ; for if there is one thing that a "Wesleyan minister dislikes more than another it is that the validity of his ministerial charaoter should bo impeached by a prelate of that Church to

which John Wesley was so deeply attached. In other respects one feels constrained to speak of Dr. Benson in the highest terms. He is a man of extraordinary energy, who has always succeeded in the most arduous undertakings. When he was appointed head master of Wellington College he had to work on the most unpromising materials. Nevertheless, he made that institution one of the first imblic schools in England. Thesame good luck attended him in the new Diocese of Truro. He found things there very backward; but he has multiplied churches any clertry, and has given the Church of England a position in that corner of the kingdom which it had not occupied for generations. He will, therefore, unquestionably make an able and energetic Primate ; but I think that he will never conciliate the Nonconformists as his predecessor did; nor need the Nonconformists object to this. Dr. Tait's moderation and genial temper made his Erastiaiiism formidable, "wlieroiin it' Dr. Benson continues'to vituperate the Dissenters he will become a powerful ally of the disestablishment party. —London correspondent of the South Australian Register.