The Wellington Bishopric.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 257, 7 March 1894, Page 2

The Wellington Bishopric.

• •— (Times' Correspondent.) London, February 27, The fact that the popular Rector of Richmond (Yorkshire), Canon Danks, has, like two other leading clergymen, refused the Bishopric of Wellington, caused me to wonder what it is which causes this seemingly desirable appointment to go begging. I sought enlightenment from the Church, and after some persuasion induced a gentleman to whom the See was proferred to state his views. He says :— lt is a very serious thing for a. man to undertake a bishopric. More serious when it is 12,000 miles away, and he has many ties and interesting work in England. The income of the See (£800) when rates, taxes, and bishop's expenses are deducted, and the expense of so great a removal considered, is not such as to enable a man to visit England once in a few years, and a loyal man will not accept a bishopric in New Zealand unless he is prepared to throw in his lot with the Colony. Returned empties are not a type to which one would wish to belong. Nevertheless, to go out there for life, unable to visit the Old Country for want of cash, is a serious matter, and a prospect at which it is scarcely surprising a well-to-do clergyman, with fair prospects at home, blenches." These objections, no doubt, weighed with Canon Danks, and I daresay there were also others, as he has a growing up family.