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The Commission has little to suggest, save that they should be compelled to reside for eight months of the year in the neighbourhood of the cathedral, and during three months attend morning and evening service, each one “habited in a surplice with a hood denoting his degree”. They are also, if called on, “to give instruction in theological and religious subjects, or discharge some missionary or other useful work”. These functions seem hardly sufficient for men who are to receive £800 a year, and it is difficult to see what virtue there is in mere technical residence, or how daily attendance at service is compatible with the performance of regular duties as citizens or teachers.

The Canons would better help in making the cathedral the centre of spiritual life if they were the Suffragan Bishops of the diocese. They would in this case have to receive appointment by the Bishop, and take duties assigned by him. One might be responsible for the order of the services, for the care of the property of the cathedral, and for the proper control of the officials. He might, indeed, be called the Dean. Another might be a lecturer or teacher for the instruction of the clergy, and the others might assist the Bishop in those functions which now so largely intrude on his time.

The Bishop of the twentieth century looms large in the distance. He has a place not given to any of his predecessors, as a democratic age has greater need of leaders. He is called to new duties and new functions, and the danger is that he who might be lifting his clergy on to a higher plane, meeting them soul to soul, and comforting them by his contagious piety, will be absorbed in organizing, in business, or in the performance of functions. Suffragan Bishops attached to the cathedral would relieve him from “such serving tables,” and leave him more free to be a father in God to the clergy.