or why some of them should ever be incurred. The Bishop of London (then Mr. Winnington-Ingram) thus summed up the statement of his episcopal friend in the background: "It amounts to this--a bishop's income is a trust-fund for the diocese which head ministers. It would make no difference to him personally if three-quarters of it were taken away, so long as three-quarters of his liabilities were taken away too; and it is quite arguable that this would be a better arrangement." Certainly it is "quite arguable"; but is it equally certain that the change "would make no difference to the Bishop personally"? I doubt it. Married men, men with large families and plenty of servants, naturally prefer large houses to small, provided that there is an income to maintain them. Men who enjoy the comforts and prettinesses of life prefer an income which enables them to repair and furnish and beautify their houses to an income which involves faded wallpaper and battered paint. Men of hospitable instincts are happier in a system which enables them to spend £2000 a year on entertaining than they would be if they were compelled to think twice of the butcher's bill and thrice of the wine-merchant's. Men who like horses--and few Englishmen do not--naturally incline to regard "stables as a necessity," and even as "in some respects"--what respects?--"a saving." If their income were reduced to the figure suggested by Dean Lefroy, they would find themselves under the bitter constraint (as Milton calls it) of doing without a "necessity," and must even forgo an outlay which is "in some respects a saving." Again, the anonymous Bishop returned his outlay in subscriptions at a fraction over £400 a year. I do not presume to say whether this is much or little out of an income of £4000. At any rate it is a Tithe, and that is a respectable proportion. But, supposing that our Bishop is a man of generous disposition, who loves to relieve distress and feels impelled to give a lift to every good cause which asks his aid, he is of necessity a happier man while he draws £4000 a year than he would be if cut down by reforming Deans to £2000. I venture, then, with immense deference to that admirable divine who is now Bishop of London, to dissent emphatically from his judgment, recorded in 1895, that the diminution of episcopal incomes, if accompanied by a corresponding diminution of episcopal charges, would "make no difference to the Bishop personally." I conceive that it would make a great deal of difference, and that, though spiritually salutary, it would be, as regards temporal concerns, one of those experiments which one would rather try on one's neighbour than on oneself.