"The Terrible Responsibility"

At St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where in pre-war days flanneled undergraduates lolled on the lawn of the quadrangle around an ancient well, there was an unprecedented gathering last week of the Archbishops of Canterbury, York, and Wales, the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the diocesan bishops of England, Wales, Scotland. Save for the decennial worldwide Lambeth Conference, Britain's episcopate had never before gathered in one conference. But as Malvern showed, the Church of England has lost its smugness. The bishops last week soberly admitted that the church has drifted away from the people, that it is largely to blame for the fact. Said they:

"We believe that the present crisis in human history exceeds in magnitude and in spiritual import any that has ever preceded it. ... No words can adequately appraise the splendor of comradeship, courage and self-sacrifice shown by so many of our people. These qualities are found in non-Christians as well as in Christians. They are of God wherever found. . . . Let us so turn to God now that if in His providence victory is ours, we may neither waste nor misuse the terrible responsibility of victory but may turn it to the service of God's laws in the reordering of our social life, the rediscovery of the dignity of man and the refashioning of the comity of nations."

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