A few months ago there was a national conference for all the archdeacons of the Church of England. We number just over a hundred and of these eighty were present. On the following weekend The Church Times had a cartoon on its front page showing two anxious clergy, one saying to the other, ‘What bothers me is what the other twenty-two were doing!’ Such is the reputation of archdeacons, who bear something of the character of that God whom the small boy once famously described as the Person who goes around seeing what you are up to and then telling you to stop.