As well as social concerns, Temple played a role in humanitarian and religious concerns. He was a leading figure in missionary conferences, led missions to undergraduates at Cambridge, Oxford and Dublin, and revitalised the annual Blackpool sands mission. In retrospect (1944) "The Manchester Guardian" expressed reservations about Temple as a diocesan bishop: "he was doing too many things outside his diocese … he was not really interested in humdrum details of administration". Nonetheless, "The Church Times" said, "No aspect of life in his diocese was without his touch, whether it were in college, factory, conference hall or theatre. And all the time the flow of books from his pen continued, most of the work being done in the odd snatches of time between interviews and engagements, which lesser men fritter away with a cigarette".