tion, the archbishop made him go back within a fortnight. He succeeded in practically healing the schism which for some twenty-five years had divided the church in Natal.
Nor were his sympathies confined to the churches in direct communion with Canterbury. He sent an envoy to Kiew in 1888 to convey the good wishes of the Anglican church on the nine hundredth anniversary of the conversion of Russia. He revived the office of an Anglican bishop at Jerusalem, unhampered by the connection with Lutherans which had formerly existed. The revival was strenuously opposed by most high churchmen, partly because of the past history of the office, and partly from a dislike of intrusion into other men's jurisdictions. But the archbishop knew his ground. He had assured himself that the step had the approval of the Eastern prelates whose prerogative was thought to be invaded, and he had confidence that any bishop whom he sent as his legatus a latere would improve the relations between the churches. A mission dearer to his heart was that to the decayed Assyrian church, of which mission he was practically the founder. The appeals of that church, oppressed by their Moslem neighbours, and infested by Romanist and presbyterian proselytisers, had received occasional attention before, especially when Howley sent George Percy Badger [q. v. Suppl.] to reside for some years along them. But Benson first put the work on a solid basis. After sending Mr. Athelstan Riley to make investigations on the spot, he despatched in 1886 Mr. Maclean and Mr. Browne upon the mission, which has since been greatly developed, to aid the Assyrian church by teaching and in other ways, without drawing away its members from their proper allegiance, and on the other hand without condoning, by any act of communion, the Nestorian heresy with which that church is formally tainted. It was his hope that in the course of time the revived Assyrian church might become again, what it had once been, a great evangelising agency among those Asiatics whom it is hard for European minds to reach.
He was perhaps less alert to seize an opening in relation to the great Roman church. While his desire for union among all Christians was very strong, he had no hope of anything being gained by intercourse with Rome, or even by direct co-operation with its English representatives on points of common interest, like religious education. Since the time of Laud, no such direct advance has been made by Rome to an archbishop of Canterbury as was made in 1894 to Archbishop Benson. Leo XIII had been greatly impressed by what he had learned concerning the state of religion in England; and the Abbé Portal, who had written a work on Anglican orders, hastened from an important interview with the pope to seek an audience of Archbishop Benson. He represented the pope as anxious to write in person to the English archbishops, and as intending to submit the question of English orders to M. Duchesne, who had already declared himself in favour of their validity. He desired to elicit some expression of welcome for a letter which he brought from Cardinal Rampolla, which might encourage the pope to take further steps. But the archbishop was justly annoyed at the interview having been sprung upon him unprepared and gave no encouragement. Whether a more sympathetic attitude on his part would have produced any effect at Rome cannot now be known. At any rate the moment passed. Shortly after, the pope addressed an encyclical to the English people without so much as a mention of the English church. The commission on Anglican orders proved to be a wholly different thing from what M. Portal had said. It pronounced in an opposite sense to M. Duchesne, and the organ of the French savants who wished to facilitate reunion was suppressed by authority.
Throughout all the pressure of public work the archbishop never lost sight of the pastoral part of his office. He visited his diocese, and in particular his cathedral city, more frequently than most of his predecessors. He preached a great deal, and never without deep and careful thought. He devoted much attention to the sisterhoods of which he was visitor. But the piece of pastoral work which interested him most was a weekly gathering in Lent which he instituted in Lambeth Chapel; there he instructed a great throng of fashionable ladies in various books of the Bible.
In 1896 he started on 16 Sept. for a short tour in Ireland, to preach at the reopening of Kildare Cathedral and elsewhere. He was all the more glad to do so because he had strongly and openly disapproved of the action of the Archbishop of Dublin (William Conyngham Plunket, Lord Plunket [q. v. Suppl.]) in consecrating a bishop for the reforming party in Spain. He was everywhere received with enthusiasm. On Friday, 9 Oct., he gave an inspiring address at a great meeting at Belfast in furtherance of the building of a cathedral there. He crossed the Irish Channel the same day, and proceeded on the 10th to Hawarden, to stay with Gladstone, for whom he had the deepest
