AFTER exercising almost superhuman patience, the limit to the Rev. H. P. Nelson’s forbearance has been reached, and he permits us this week to publish the full story of the Bishop of Birmingham and St. Mark’s, Washwood Heath, of which church Mr. Nelson is the patron. He is no extremist; he belongs to no Anglo-Catholic organization; and in his interview with the Bishop he intimated that he would be willing to present a clergyman, selected by the Bishop himself, who was suitable for the parish. But Mr. Nelson’s acute sense of his responsibility both as patron and rural dean brought from his diocesan nothing but almost incredible discourtesy. For two months Dr. Barnes vouchsafed no reply to his letters, and it was not until after the two months that he denied the accuracy of Mr. Nelson’s account of their interview. The only possible explanation is that Dr. Barnes does not open and read his letters, and in any case Mr. Nelson is amply justified in his charge that the Bishop refuses “to give any attention to the responsibilities of his position”. It seems to be a matter of indifference to him that a parish of eleven thousand souls has no priest. He has, as Mr. Nelson quite properly says, shown himself “lacking in that sense of humanity that makes the actual needs of human beings of infinitely more worth in a chief shepherd than the promulgation of theories”. When we first heard a rumour that Mr. Ramsay Macdonald intended to make the ecclesiastical appointment, which was the most grievous blunder of his administration, we asked: “Is the work of the Lord to be threatened by a bishop from whom nothing can be expected but. criticism and misunderstanding?” Our anticipation of evil has been abundantly fulfilled.
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