Canterbury Pilgrim

Promptly at 2 o'clock three loud knocks sounded on the west door. The ancient bolts were drawn. The portals opened. Twelve trumpeters, standing at the foot of the choir 100 yards away, split the air with a ringing E-flat chord and a fanfare.

Through the open portal came a verger. Behind the verger walked a cross-bearer, the Canterbury choristers and seven decrepit beadsmen. Behind the decrepit beadsmen came a long array of Canterbury canons, chaplains and dignitaries in all their robes, followed by pages carrying the maces of Canterbury and York and the cross of Canterbury. Last of all came Dr. William Temple himself, wearing a miter with his gold-embroidered cream brocade cope.

Thus, with all the pageantry of medieval times, with the most elaborate pomp since George VI himself was crowned, back in the days of peace, England last week enthroned the 98th Archbishop of Canterbury. The ceremonies, attended by some 4,000 people, including 45 bishops, many another notable, lasted nearly two hours and a half. Notable absentees: Winston Churchill and Dr. Cosmo Gordon Lang, the last Archbishop of Canterbury. Never-forgotten presence: the spirit of Dr. Temple's father, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1896 to 1902 and now lies buried 20 yards from the throne on which his son was formally seated.

Dr. Temple's pilgrimage to bomb-pocked Canterbury technically started from York, whose Archbishop he has been since 1928. But longtime Church Times Editor Sidney Dark (TIME, Oct. 27) said last week: "He goes to Canterbury not so much from York as from Malvern. He is entirely committed to the Malvern program [TIME, Jan. 20, 1941] and is too big a man to go back on it." William Temple is a determined man, with his mind made up to give the country a powerful democratic and leftist lead, in sharp contrast to the conservatism of his predecessors.

The ceremony was more than a Church of England occasion, just as Dr. Temple is more than a British religious leader. This plump, unpretentious, leftist churchman is the nearest thing to an acknowledged leader that worldwide Protestantism has had since the Reformation. He made history by being the first Primate ever to invite non-Anglican churches to send official representatives to his enthronement. Churchmen came from 17 countries and from 22 different communions.

Dr. Temple was enthroned on a brilliant day, in one of England's loveliest springs. On the special train down from London, gaitered bishops and pipe-smoking clerics were as gay as schoolboys on a holiday outing.

Said the Times next day: ". . . The noble ceremony [is] . . . itself a part of the enduring background of our civilization against which even the war might appear no more than a gigantic irrelevancy."

Next week Dr. Temple will return to London to live amid the bombed ruins of Lambeth Palace, using such ground-floor rooms of it as remain. This 752-year-old seat of the Archbishops of Canterbury is just across the Thames from Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. "It is the business of Lambeth," said Dr. Temple at Malvern last year, "to remind Westminster of its responsibilities to God." Now that he occupies Lambeth, he is not likely to shirk that task.

The Baptist Temple in Philadelphia, mother church of Temple University, will contribute a tenth of its entire budget to war-service work. Sponsor of the idea is Dr. Daniel A. Poling, its pastor, famed president of Christian Endeavor.

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