Our leading journal, writing of the increase of the episcopate, observes that the ‘danger will be that bishops should allow themselves to be absorbed in the mere business and bustle of their work, and should neglect the more solid and silent part of their duties. The bishop must find time for constant intercourse with his books, for thought, and for mature preaching. He must make himself everywhere felt; but he must also reserve himself, and should be at least as conspicuous for judgment as for learning, and for moderation as for activity.’ (_Times_, June 13, 1877.) {17} It is well that the public should recognise the sacredness, the spirituality of the episcopal office. No man, however able, can think, and study, and pray, if he is to live in a state of ceaseless location. Laity and clergy alike should remember that their bishops must have time for preparation, if their public utterances are to be worthy of the occasion; that nothing is so subtle as the processes of thought; nothing so laborious as the creative work of composition; and that one needless interruption may bring about a mental chaos, and throw into hopeless disorder the delicate machinery of the mind. * * * * * Note, lastly, THE ANIMATING PROMISE by which the threefold exhortation is enforced:— ‘For in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee.’ ‘Thou salt save thyself.’ A selfish motive some will argue. Nay, not more selfish than it is to exist. It is selfish to pursue our own advantage at the expense of others. It is _not_ selfish to wish our own highest goal:—the wish is bound up in our existence. And again, the Christian’s wish is not for himself alone; it is not lonely, solitary affection. He longs for immortality for himself; he longs for it also on behalf of and in company with others. ‘It is not a selfish instinct,’ writes one of our deepest Christian thinkers, ‘it is not a neutral one, it is a moral and a generous one, . . . Christianity knows nothing of a hope of immortality for the individual alone, but only of a glorious hope for the individual . . . in the eternal society of the Church triumphant. (Mozley’s _University Sermons_, p. 71.) Such, then, is the promise held out to the faithful minister. He ensures his own salvation; he helps forward the salvation of others. He aims at nothing short of this; and he knows that his ‘labour is not in vain in the Lord.’ (1 Cor. xv. 58.) To the work thus briefly sketched our brother in Christ is now to be sent forth. This much would I only add, that having wrought side by side with him in this great London for years now not a few, I can testify from no superficial knowledge, as with no common warmth of affection, to what I cannot but feel to be his special fitness for the work which lies before him.