FURTHER 
 PAGES OF 
 MY LIFE 
 
 THFKERtV.V. 
 DOTD CARPENTER 
 
BX 5199 .C3 A4 
 Carpenter, William Boyd, 
 
 1841-1918. 
 Further pages of my life 
 
FURTHER PAGES 
 OF MY LIFE 
 
FURTHER PAGES 
 OF MY LIFE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT REV. W. BOYD CARPENTER 
 
 K.C.V.O., D.D., D.C.L., D.LITT. 
 
 Sub-Dean and Canon of Westminster, and Clerk of the Closet 
 to H.M. the King, and formerly Bishop of Ripon 
 
 AUTHOR Of 
 
 'some fACES OF MV LIFE,' 'tHE WITNESS OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE,' ETC. 
 
 irjTH PORTRAITS AND ILLUHTRATlOm 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 597-599 FIFTH AVENUE 
 I9I7 
 
Printed in Great Britaik bv 
 RicHARD Clay & Sons, Limited. 
 
 BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.T , 
 AND BUNGAY SUFFOLK. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 These pages are only reflections mingled with remi- 
 niscences, I have written them without other thought than 
 of recording frankly and honestly things as they were or, 
 rather, as they seemed to me. There are things written here 
 which touch on intimate parts of my life — which I shrank 
 from recording, but which nevertheless the unappeasable 
 gratitude of my heart urged me to write lest any should 
 think that what is long past has been forgotten. Those who 
 know me will understand. To those who do not, 1 would 
 say that love is the supreme educator of souls, and life without 
 love is destitute of meaning. Realizing this, I think that' 
 they, too, will understand. 
 
 The chapter which speaks of the late much.-loved King 
 contains the substance of an article which appeared in the 
 Nineteenth Century and Afterwards in 1910, and which 1 am 
 allowed by the kindness of the Editor to make use of here. 
 
 For the rest, 1 can only say that life, which for me is 
 drawing to its close, has been, as I said in a previous 
 volume, full of interest ; and that which establishes its interest 
 is the conviction that this life is but a schoolroom life, in 
 which Love is teaching us how to love, that we may feel at 
 home among those who have learnt to love. 
 
 V 
 
5n /Ifteinortam 
 
 A. M. C. 
 
 Una Donna soletta, che si gia 
 Cantando ed iscegliendo fior da fiore, 
 Ond'era pinta tutta la sua via. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF SONG AND STORY . . . . i 
 
 COUSINS AND BROTHER 15 
 
 MY BROTHER HENRY 25 
 
 MY BEATRICE 35 
 
 MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 44 
 
 VILLA LUCAS OR PRANGINS 75 
 
 CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 84 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL . .112 
 
 HOLBECK JUNCTION 131 
 
 MR. MILLWRIGHT 137 
 
 GOOD FRIDAY 142 
 
 FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDSHIP 164 
 
 F. W. ROBERTSON 178 
 
 J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE 204 
 
 MY HOURS OF SICKNESS 218 
 
 WAR MEMORIES 221 
 
 KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 239 
 
 THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 263 
 
 THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 295 
 
 INDEX . , 315 
 
 vii 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE RT. REV. W. BOYD CARPENTER . Frontispiece 
 From the painting by H. G. Riviere. 
 
 HARRIET CHARLOTTE BOYD CARPENTER To face page 64 
 
 A "BEAU" DRAWN— AT A VENTURE . „ 218 
 
 "THE GOOD BRAVE MAN HIS DUTY DID" „ 220 
 
 BROAD BASED UPON THE PEOPLE'S WILL „ 222 
 
 OH ! FOR THE TOUCH OF A VANISHED 
 
 HAND ,,224 
 
 The above four illustrations are reproduced from water-colour 
 drawings by the Aztthor. 
 
 MY CHAPLAINS, 191 1 „ 294 
 
 THE AUTHOR . „ 304 
 
 From a photograph by Lafayette. 
 
 vili 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF 
 MY LIFE 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF SONG AND STORY 
 
 I WONDER whether friends interested in traditional lore 
 can help me to recover the original versions of some 
 songs and carols which float — incomplete, alas ! — in my 
 memory from very early days. I transport myself back in 
 thought — well-nigh seventy years. It is winter, and the 
 dark, cold days are bringing Christmas nearer. We hear 
 the shuffle of uncertain feet on the pavement outside the 
 house ; there is a pause, and then children's voices are 
 raised in carol and song. I can only set down the carol 
 imperfectly, and I do so in the hope that some one better 
 qualified than I may be able to tell us whence it comes, and 
 perhaps give it in its entirety. We only heard it imper- 
 fectly : indeed, I am not sure that the children who sang 
 it knew more than a fragment of the original ; but clearly 
 the original must have been some metrical version of an 
 imaginary or apocryphal incident in our Lord's infant life. 
 The words which fell upon our ears, as I remember them, 
 were these — 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 " He went down, he went down, 
 To yonder little town 
 As far as the old oak-tree, 
 And there he met some boys and girls 
 And said, ' Will you play with me ? ' 
 ' O no ! O no ! ' said these naughty little boys, 
 ' We will not play with you.' 
 So, crying, he ran 
 To the Virgin Mary Ann, 
 ' They will not play with me.' " 
 
 What more of this carol was sung I cannot recall ; but 
 well I know that the singers always hurried on to the 
 practical refrain, which hinted at the Christmas gratuity, 
 and with loud voices they lustily sang as follows — 
 
 "Now bless the master of this house. 
 And bless the mistress true. 
 And all the little children 
 Around the table too — 
 Your pockets full of money, and your cellars full of beer, 
 And we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year." 
 
 So over and over again round the square these ditties 
 were sung, and it may be taken for granted that the singers 
 did not go home empty-handed. These fragments of 
 Christmas greetings and songs are nothing ; but for a long 
 time my curiosity, especially respecting the first, has been 
 piqued, and it would be a satisfaction to meet with the carol 
 in its complete form. 
 
 Among songs which I heard when I was young, there 
 was one which my Aunt Fanny (Mrs. Lawson) was fond 
 of singing. I never saw it in print : it was only from her 
 singing that I learnt it ; but here again I should like to 
 trace it to its origin, and meet with it in a more perfect 
 
FRAGMENTS OF SONG AND STORY 3 
 
 version than 1 can give. It was the narrative of a certain 
 wily husband, whose home was in Yorkshire ; and the 
 song went in this fashion — 
 
 " Mr. Simpkins lived in Leeds, 
 And he had a wife beside : 
 This wife she wore the breeches, 
 
 So she often wished to ride. 
 She asked him for a horse. 
 
 And he yielded to her folly ; 
 Said he, ' I'm always mollified 
 By you, my dearest Molly.' 
 
 Tol de rol, de rol, etc. 
 
 "This horse it had six legs, 
 As I shall prove to you ; 
 For when it raised its fore'egs 
 
 Yet still it stood on two. 
 Down tumbled Mrs. Simpkins ; 
 
 Her loving spouse averred, 
 ' My Lamb's as dead as mutton. 
 For she cannot speak a word.' 
 
 Tol de rol, de rol, etc. 
 
 " They put her in a coffin, 
 
 And he bid them nail her fast ; 
 And the funeral procession 
 
 To the village church it passed. 
 Said Simpkins to his neighbours, 
 
 ' I'll follow at my leisure. 
 For why should I, my friends. 
 Make a business of a pleasure ? ' 
 
 Tol de rol, de rol, etc. 
 
 "At night the resurrection man 
 Determined the corpse to raise : 
 He oped the coffin wide, 
 And on the fair did gaze. 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 The noise awoke the lady, 
 
 ' What brings you here ? ' she sighed, 
 * With picic-axe, spade and shovel ?' 
 ' Why axe about ? ' he cried. 
 
 Tol de rol, de rol, etc, 
 
 "Then up jumped Mrs. Simpkins, 
 And to the stable hied. 
 Where she saw her spouse caressing 
 
 The beast by which she died. 
 When in came neighbour Horner, 
 
 Said he, * I'll buy that beast ; 
 For perhaps he'll do for my wife 
 What he did for the deceased.' 
 
 Tol de rol, de rol, etc. 
 
 " ' O no ! ' said Mr. Simpkins, 
 ' I cannot take your pelf, 
 For know, good neighbour Horner, 
 
 I may want it for myself. 
 I'm grateful to this creature. 
 
 And if I wed again. 
 Perhaps to its assistance 
 
 I should not look in vain.' 
 
 Tol de rol, de rol, etc. 
 
 " Then in rushed Mrs. Simpkins 
 And caught him by the hair ; 
 ' Disown your lawful wife now, 
 
 You villain, if you dare ! 
 I'm neither dead nor buried. 
 
 And you thought to marry too (two) ; 
 But now, my dearest husband, 
 I'll live to bury you.' 
 
 Tol de rol, de rol, etc. 
 
 "Then off went neighbour Horner. 
 Said he, * It is not fair 
 To spoil the reconciling 
 Of such a pretty pair.' 
 
FRAGMENTS OF SONG AND STORY 5 
 
 But Simpkins kissed his loving wife, 
 ' I'm yours till death,' he cried ; 
 
 ' But when, my dearest dear, 
 Will you take another ride ? ' 
 
 Tol de rol, de rol, etc." 
 
 Here is a gruesome tale, which my dear old nurse, 
 Mary Ann, used to tell us, and as she told us it thrilled 
 us with the sense of mystery and marvel ; it seemed to 
 open up to us the long and dark road of human wicked- 
 ness, for it was the first story of crime and the conflict of 
 courageous goodness with evil passion which we had heard. 
 
 The story was in this wise. 
 
 In a certain town — Chester, I think- — there lived a 
 domestic servant who, three nights running, dreamed the 
 same dream. She dreamt that she was in Wrexham, a 
 town with which, if I recollect aright, she had no con- 
 nexion. In her dream she saw a house, and in the house 
 a dark cellar-passage. In that passage she witnessed a deed 
 of blood : a lad attacked by a man who bore a large knife 
 in his hand ; there was a struggle, and in it the lad's hand 
 was nearly severed from his arm, and then she saw the man 
 burying his victim under a flagstone in the cellar. The 
 thrice-repeated dream produced such a powerful impression 
 upon her mind that she resolved to visit Wrexham and 
 test the truth of her dream. According to the story, she 
 was able to impress others, and to evoke such sympathy 
 from the officials of the town that they permitted search to 
 be made. Guided by the girl, the authorities went to the 
 house : she led them to the celkr : she pointed out the 
 flagstone which she had seen in her dreams. The flagstone 
 
6 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 was taken up, and beneath was found the body of a lad 
 with one hand almost severed from his arm. The house 
 in which the discovery was made was occupied by a 
 surgeon-apothecary. Upon him naturally suspicion fell, 
 and investigation brought out the following tragic tale. 
 
 There dwelt in the town of Wrexham an old lady who 
 had been for many years a very valuable patient of a 
 doctor-apothecary who practised and prepared medicines 
 for the inhabitants. This doctor-apothecary had an errand- 
 boy, whose duty it was to carry the medicines out, and 
 deliver them at the houses of the patients. This lad had 
 an observant eye and a reflective mind. He therefore 
 picked up knowledge in unexpected ways. He gained a 
 fairly accurate knowledge of drugs and their properties, 
 and knew more of what his master was doing than the 
 master could have thought possible. The master, unaware 
 of the vigilant eye of the lad, carried on his business, pre- 
 pared the medicines, bottled them and sent them out, 
 unmindful of the sharp and intelligent eyes of his errand- 
 boy. 
 
 There came a time when the death of the old lady 
 would be more profitable to the apothecary than her life. 
 Perhaps she had made a will under which he would benefit, 
 but on this point the story was npt explicit. As the 
 apothecary saw, however, the opportunity of solid gain, he 
 resolved not to lose it. Accordingly he made up for the 
 old lady a bottle of medicine which contained poison. He 
 fondly supposed that he only knew what he had done ; but 
 the boy had observed him, and the boy knew as he carried 
 the medicine to the old lady's house that he was carrying 
 
FRAGMENTS OF SONG AND STORY 7 
 
 death to the door. Accordingly, on reaching the house, he 
 asked and obtained permission to deliver the medicine in 
 person to the lady. As he handed her the bottle he said, 
 "Don't take any of it: it contains poison." Then he 
 returned to the shop. 
 
 A day or so afterwards the apothecary went to pay his 
 usual visit to the old lady : naturally he had expected to 
 hear of her death ; but on his arrival he was shown as 
 usual to the old lady's room, and there she was, still alive 
 and very alert. She looked steadily at the apothecary, and 
 then drew from under her pillow the medicine bottle, with 
 the medicine in it untouched. She told him that his wicked 
 plan had failed, because a courageous and conscientious boy 
 had given her warning. The apothecary returned home, 
 and almost immediately sent the lad into the cellar to the 
 store place. Stealthily he followed, armed with a knife ; 
 and there in the dark passage he killed the lad, and be- 
 neath the flagstones of the cellar he buried him. There 
 had been some resistance on the lad's part, and in the 
 course of the slight struggle the lad's hand was almost 
 severed from his arm. 
 
 All that remained to tell was the usual sequel. The 
 apothecary's shop was closed, the premises were bought by 
 an enterprising publican, who opened them as a public- 
 house, and as an advertisement and enticement of custom, 
 called his place of business The Bloody Hand. 
 
 Such was the story, and it lost nothing in emphasis or 
 impressiveness from little Mary Ann's telling of it. How 
 she lowered her voice as the tragic climax was reached ; 
 how her little dark eyes glowed as she described the courage 
 
8 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 of the boy, or the act of the old lady as she drew the tell- 
 tale bottle from beneath her pillow. Truly the tale was 
 vividly imprinted on our memories, and it left upon our 
 minds an uncanny sense of human vindictiveness and of 
 occult methods of just retribution. 
 
 But I must not close this chapter with such an uncanny 
 story ; it might suggest false conclusions ; it might be 
 thought that my dear little Mary Ann delighted in nar- 
 rating dismal and tragic tales. Her tone of mind was of 
 another order : she was cheerful and shrewd-witted, and 
 would rather encourage than depress the spirits. Here is 
 a story much more characteristic of little Mary Ann's tale- 
 telling art — 
 
 Once upon a time there lived a farmer who began to 
 meet with what looked like evil fortune. His farming did 
 not prosper ; his crops were not as plentiful as once they 
 were ; his cattle did not thrive ; the spirit of mischance 
 seemed to hover over his farm. About this time a woman, 
 who in some ages would have been a witch, and in others 
 a wise woman, came round to the various houses in the 
 neighbourhood and was received and consulted as one who 
 could ensure good fortune and avert evil. She visited the 
 farmer, and he, with many expressions of self-pity, narrated 
 how trouble and loss appeared to dog his footsteps. 
 
 The woman listened, and then she said : " I can tell 
 you the way to good fortune. Do you see that cup she 
 asked, pointing to one of special pattern which hung on a 
 nail on the dresser. " If you will take that cup to ,the 
 spring and fill it, and drink it there every morning at six 
 o'clock, good fortune will be yours." 
 
FRAGMENTS OF SONG AND STORY 9 
 
 The farmer, having trust in the woman's unearthly 
 knowledge, resolved that he would put her counsel to the 
 test. Taking the particular cup with him, which he now 
 regarded with superstitious reverence, he rose early, visited 
 the spring, drank the fresh sparkling water. For weeks 
 and months he continued, having once commenced the 
 habit ; and as the months went by, behold, his farm began 
 to prosper. The wise woman had shown him that the way 
 to success was in early rising and personal superintendence 
 of his farm. His ill-fortune had sprung from indolent 
 habits. Industry and hardihood of Hfe changed failure to 
 success. But ever after the farmer kept as a sacred symbol 
 and highly prized treasure the cup with which he had 
 learned to drink early draughts from the spring. 
 
 In stories like this little Mary Ann distilled practical 
 wisdom for us to remember and cherish. She did not know 
 Thomson, but she taught us that — 
 
 " Renown is not the child of indolent repose." 
 
 Among tales and fragments of tales I may, perhaps, place 
 this fragment of speeches heard in the street. I was walking 
 down Duke Street, Liverpool, perhaps sixty years ago, 
 perhaps more. At the corner was a man addressing a little 
 group of people with all the earnestness of a Cheap Jack. 
 He was trying to persuade the people to buy his wares, 
 which, I suppose, were booklets or broadsheets, and can 
 I be right in surmising that he was also selling playing 
 cards At any rate, playing cards were his theme when 
 I stopped to listen. His speech was on this wise : " Here 
 is a pack of cards — your almanack and your Bible in 
 
lo FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 one. It is your almanack : Fifty-two cards — fifty-two 
 weeks in the year ; four suits — four seasons ; three hun- 
 dred and sixty-five pips on the faces of the cards — three 
 hundred and sixty-five days in the year. You tell me 
 that I am wrong. Yes, I am wrong — there are three 
 hundred and sixty-six pips, but that provides you for 
 leap-year. The pack of cards is an almanack. It is a 
 Bible also. I look at the ace, and it reminds me of the 
 One God ; I look at the two, and it reminds me of the 
 two natures in Christ ; I look at the three, and it reminds 
 me of the Trinity ; I look at the king, and it reminds me 
 of the King of kings, or you will think it better if I say 
 it reminds me of Solomon, who was the wisest of kings ; 
 I look at the queen, and it reminds me of the Queen of 
 Sheba, who was as wise for a woman as he was for a man. 
 When the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon she 
 brought with her five hundred little boys and five hundred 
 little girls, all dressed alike, and she asked Solomon to say 
 which were the little boys and which were the little girls. 
 For a time he was puzzled, then he called for water and 
 told all the children to wash their hands, and then he was 
 able to tell which were boys and which were girls, for the 
 little boys washed their hands as far as their wrists, but all 
 the little girls washed up to their elbows," 
 
 Such was the gist of the Cheap Jack's discourse. More 
 he said which I have forgotten, and probably a good deal 
 more which I did not stay to hear ; but the exposition he 
 gave of the use of a pack of cards stayed in my memory. His 
 calculation of the value of the pips was quite correct — if all 
 the court cards, including the ace, are reckoned as worth ten. 
 
FRAGMENTS OF SONG AND STORY ii 
 
 I may end this chapter with a story which points a 
 moral, I shall first give the story. I shall then give the 
 key which explains what seemed to many to be incredible. 
 I shall then, after the fashion of my calling, point out the 
 moral. The story, then, is this : One afternoon at the 
 witching hour, when the drowsy air invites to seductive 
 repose, an old lady was seated in her armchair, and the 
 welcome influence of the rest-giving hour was upon her ; 
 the door of the living-room was open, and the pleasant 
 sunshine of the sleepy afternoon threw a lane of light down 
 the two or three steps by which the house was entered, and 
 spread a square patch of light across the kitchen floor. 
 The house was on the lower side of the road which climbs 
 from the city of Lancaster to the famous castle known as 
 Lancaster Gaol. Suddenly the woman awoke from her 
 half-slumbrous condition and beheld a startling apparition. 
 Down the steps there came, bumping upon each step as 
 it fell, a human head, and rolled into the middle of the 
 kitchen. A further apparition appeared, the black and 
 ghastly head was followed by a headless figure, draped in 
 a long cloak ; it reached out from beneath the cloak an 
 eager, clutching hand, while a voice as from a sepulchre 
 cried, " Where's my head Give me my head ! " The 
 head was seized, the figure vanished, and the woman 
 fainted. 
 
 The neighbours found her and restored her to con- 
 sciousness, and to them she told the tale. She declared 
 that her husband's head came bumping and rolling into the 
 kitchen (she had been married to a black man), and that the 
 Devil had come and had carried it off. The neighbours 
 
12 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 shook their heads and looked at one another with significant 
 and incredulous gestures. The meaning of all was quite 
 clear : the old lady had had a fit, and had dreamed or 
 fancied this horror. They disbelieved the • tale : they 
 regarded the old lady as the victim of some hallucination. 
 Common sense refused to believe such a gruesome and 
 incredible tale ; but common sense was wrong, and the old 
 lady was right in her facts, though wrong in her inference. 
 Here is the key of the matter : After the Rugeley murder, 
 scientific men showed some active interest in the formation 
 of human skulls. Dr. William Palmer, the man who 
 poisoned Mr. James Parsons Cook with strychnine, had a 
 remarkable head, and a certain eminent man of science 
 began to study the heads of criminals. The governor of 
 Lancaster Gaol, with whom he was acquainted, knew that 
 this man of science was studying heads, and wrote to tell 
 him of a prisoner then in Lancaster Gaol — a negro — whose 
 head was specially striking and peculiar. The prisoner, he 
 said, was dangerously, and more than dangerously, ill, and 
 was not likely to survive more than a day or two. If the 
 man of science would like it, the governor added, he 
 could perhaps allow him, after the man's death, to take 
 away the head for examination. As such a thing, however, 
 was against prison rules, the man of science must come 
 to the gaol prepared to carry away the head with him. 
 Accordingly the learned professor provided himself with a 
 long cloak, appeared at the gaol, and at the proper moment 
 received the ghastly burden. To save time and to avoid 
 observation, he chose a short cut from the gaol to the 
 town. Instead of following the winding of the slow, 
 
FRAGMENTS OF SONG AND STORY 13 
 
 descending road, he took a path which cut across the 
 curves of the road and shortened the distance. Such a 
 short cut meant, of course, a more declivitous descent, and 
 as fortune or fate would have it, when he emerged from the 
 path to cross the road, he stumbled : the head slipped from 
 his grasp, rolled away and reached an open door, and 
 promptly fell down the steps at the entrance and disappeared 
 into the cottage. There was only one thing to be done : 
 the head must be rescued, and rescued with as much secrecy 
 as possible. It would never do to run the risk of publicity 
 and get the governor into trouble ! Therefore the professor 
 acted with discreet rapidity : he drew his cloak over his 
 head to conceal his face ; he dashed into the cottage to 
 recover his precious burden, and in order to awe any one 
 who might be there, he said in a sepulchral voice : 
 " Where's my head ? Give me my head ! " as he seized 
 his treasure and departed with it. The story was ex- 
 plained ; facts were no longer incredible ; the old woman 
 was substantially correct : the head had rolled down her 
 steps into her cottage, and had been rescued by an 
 apparently headless figure. 
 
 And now for the moral. There is a shallow habit of 
 rejecting stories as untrue because they contain some 
 features which seem to be strangely improbable : we dub 
 them as impossible : we dismiss them as dreams or crazy 
 imaginings. In doing so we cut ourselves off from the 
 pathway of truth ; a little more tolerance, a little more 
 attention, followed by patient inquiry, may lead to some 
 interesting discovery of fact or law. There is nothing so 
 credulous as the scepticism which makes it a habit to reject 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 as valueless or false anything and everything which seems 
 outside or contradictory of a few accepted and idolized 
 laws. Such folk put on blinkers : they can only see what 
 lies on the centre of the beaten track : their eyes never 
 travel into the hedges and byways of life : their outlook is 
 limited, and out of this glorified habit of narrowness there 
 grows the old-fogeyism which cannot understand, still less 
 accept, new ideas or fresh messages from new fields of 
 inquiry. 
 
 This obstinate attitude of mind was exemplified in my 
 early experiences. A cousin of ours came to pay us a 
 visit. She brought with her a boy about my own age. 
 Like children, we were telling what we had seen, and in the 
 course of doing so we told this boy that we had seen a 
 train which travelled without a steam-engine. We were 
 met with the vigorous rebuke : " Don't tell Balcram's lies." 
 I don't know now and I didn't know then what Balcram 
 meant, but we resented the sceptical attitude of this lad 
 who made his own measure the limit of his intelligence. 
 We had seen what he had not — the atmospheric railway 
 which then plied between Kingstown and Dalkey in Ireland. 
 The train travelled by atmospheric pressure, the air being 
 liberated from a tube laid between the rails. The ignorant 
 rudeness of the boy was a serviceable experience. It taught 
 the same moral which 1 have tried to enforce as the lesson 
 of the wandering head which terrified the old lady at 
 Lancaster. 
 
COUSINS AND BROTHER 
 
 Pagildeafilda ! 
 
 We were all seated at lunch ; my father at the head, my 
 mother at the foot of the table. The engravings of the 
 Royal Irish Art Union hung round the room ; Turner's 
 "Ancient and Modern Italy" flanked Martin's picture of 
 " The Opening of the Sixth Seal " ; over the chimneypiece 
 was my father's portrait ; over the sideboard, which faced 
 the tall window, was the " Irish Blind Girl at the Holy 
 Well." The room had been still and quiet till, in answer 
 to a question from my father, came the strange burst of 
 unintelligible syllables — 
 
 " Pagildeafilda." 
 
 My father had said, " We expected to see you yester- 
 day," and this was the reply. We all gazed at the speaker, 
 blank wonder and perplexed questioning in our counte- 
 nances. My father uttered a faint inquiry, " What ? " 
 only to meet with a rapid reiteration of the enigmatic 
 formula — 
 
 " Pagildeafilda." 
 
 We were puzzled ; this was a new language ; yet the 
 speaker's absolute sincerity, and his complete conviction 
 that he had uttered what was reasonable and sufficient, 
 were obvious. 
 
 15 
 
1 6 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 At last, after some further inquiry, the mysterious 
 utterance became slowly elongated into intelligibility. " Pa- 
 gildeafilda " was an abbreviation, inarticulate and incoherent ; 
 it stood for the specific announcement — 
 
 "Pa gave me a half-holiday." 
 
 Pagildeafilda — no, I am not going to give his name ; 
 he had named himself. He was Pagildeafilda to us for 
 many years to come. 
 
 The circumstances were these : he was our cousin ; his 
 parents lived in the country ; he was being educated at the 
 Royal Institution School, and he often took lunch with us ; 
 he was free to do so whenever he chose. One day he had 
 failed to appear when he was expected. He explained by 
 the inchoate reply, *' Pagildeafilda." 
 
 He was constantly with us at midday. Truth to speak, 
 we deemed him somewhat of a bore. He had a tenacious 
 affection for us, which we sometimes found inconvenient. 
 He had few resources in himself, and he was prone, some- 
 what incontinently, to associate himself with our pursuits 
 or walks. Sometimes, with the hope of avoiding his 
 company, we would announce some piece of duty which 
 required our attention ; but promptly came the generous 
 resolution, " I'll go with you." When he did come with 
 us I am afraid that we walked very fast, wishing to shake 
 him off ; but dear Pagildeafilda was too sociable ; he fol- 
 lowed us, keeping, perhaps, a couple of feet behind us. 
 Sociable ? yes, and garrulous too. Out of breath, he 
 would entertain us with the relics of some good story, 
 partially remembered and only half apprehended, and shot 
 forth in incoherent portions, punctuated with gasps, and 
 
COUSINS AND BROTHER 17 
 
 guffaws of laughter at intervals when no apparent humour 
 marked the incompleted narrative. 
 
 I am afraid that we were lacking in politeness ; but we 
 were at the age when dogged affection and tenacious 
 sociability did not appeal to us. Yet as I look back 1 can 
 see that in the very qualities which bored us there lay the 
 germs of that character which I learned to admire, love and 
 respect in later years. Poor Pagildeafilda ! He had not 
 great abilities ; his mental horizon was not wide ; his 
 powers of intellectual assimilation were restricted ; but such 
 qualities as he had were, if not improved with due care, 
 yet allowed to grow into sterling qualities. He was, more- 
 over, absolutely free from vanity or conceit ; he took up life 
 as it came ; unquestioningly he accepted every task, it did 
 not concern him to ask whether he liked it or disliked it ; 
 he had never given rein to his fancy with regard to his 
 pleasures or his talents ; he was unaware of either his prefer- 
 ences or his capacities. He could enjoy ? Oh yes, he 
 could join in the enjoyments which were proposed to him, 
 and when he did so he genuinely enjoyed himself. He 
 was a happy, selfless soul, made of the stuff out of which 
 heroes are made, for he was ready for anything — duty, 
 pleasure, difficulty, adventure, readily able to identify him- 
 self with anything that was going on, and so, loyal to the 
 idea of the moment. He was ready for anything — frolic or 
 task, for anything except what was mean or dishonourable. 
 
 Let me recall another scene. This time it is a country 
 or semi-suburban house : it is Pagildeafilda's home. His 
 mother, large and matronly, with a countenance severely 
 motherly, /. e. stern by moods and benignant by desire, 
 c 
 
1 8 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 presides over the extensive tea-table, which is set for the large 
 brood of sons and daughters, and nephews also, in a house 
 as hospitable as it was populous. The mother beams upon 
 her broodlets, but her especial smile is, I think, this night 
 for my brother Henry, who is on the eve of his departure 
 for Oxford. A general faith in my brother's genius pervades 
 this homestead, and the happy confidence of an affectionate 
 heart brings the smile of hopeful anticipation to my aunt's 
 countenance. 
 
 My brother Henry is in one of his lighter moods. 
 Our cousin Robert, lame, but tirelessly energetic, is minis- 
 tering to the wants of those about him. 
 
 " Robert," says my brother, '* 1 hope you will write to 
 me, and tell me how many lamp-posts you have pulled up." 
 
 The ample teapot is in my aunt's hand ; it is lifted 
 high to fill one of the numerous petitioning cups which are 
 clustered on the tray. Suddenly the teapot sways hesitat- 
 ingly, then it is replaced upon the tray with its immediate 
 mission unfulfilled. An expression of dismay and horror 
 passes over the hospitable face. 
 
 *' Robert," exclaims my aunt, " did you ever pull up a 
 lamp-post ? " 
 
 The question is asked in a tone of severe conviction, as 
 though an awful truth had been suddenly brought to light. 
 So solemn and accusing is the tone that a burst of laughter 
 broke round the table. Immediately the horrified anxiety 
 melted from my aunt's face ; perception of the joke irra- 
 diated lips and eyes, and she joined in the merriment of 
 the moment. 
 
 N© ! lamp-posts had not been pulled up, but lamps had 
 
COUSINS AND BROTHER 
 
 been turned out upon the dark road ; larks more or less 
 sprightly had been played, as a handful of lads had scurried 
 over country lanes : now stopping to converse with labourers 
 in the field : now climbing some hill and gathering sticks to 
 make up a hasty fire : now taking a lunch more ample than 
 luxurious by the roadside, and following any quick fancy 
 for mischief which sprang up within one of their restless 
 brains. 
 
 My memories of these expeditions are memories chiefly 
 of cold ; for they were chiefly expeditions in the winter : the 
 days were short, but we were out for long hours on frosty 
 roads which grew slippery towards nightfall. The nights 
 seemed as cold as the days, but the evenings indoors were 
 warm enough ; for the evenings were devoted to lectures 
 and charades. Our first lecture course was delivered under 
 the auspices of an association (of ourselves) which called 
 itself a Literary Society. 
 
 The first of these lectures was given by my cousin 
 Robert. The subject was Dr. Livingstone's travels in 
 Africa. The literary level may be judged by one quotation, 
 " Dr. Livingstone climbed the hill and encountered a lion, 
 half a mile long and a third of a mile broad." I remember, 
 too, how nervousness led to mistakes in reading and how 
 more than once the lecturer read the word " misled " as 
 though it had been " mizzled." It produced a curious 
 sensation when we were told that the great traveller had 
 been mizzled. 
 
 My brother Henry gave a lecture on the Ottoman 
 empire. I remember one image which he employed at its 
 close : the Crescent was the symbol of the Ottoman 
 
20 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 power, but it was destined, as the influence of a nobler 
 faith met it, to expand into the full orb of the Sun of 
 Righteousness. 
 
 These are the only lectures of which I can recall any- 
 thing. It was perhaps all very foolish, very conceitedly 
 ambitious, but yet I am not sure. There was, perhaps, in 
 these puerile efforts some wistful desire for self-expression 
 and self-culture. 
 
 We had "junketings" in those days, Christmas days, 
 which meant cakes and crackers at night, and eager prepara- 
 tions in the daytime. I remember once how we all joined 
 in making ready for the advent of the much-expected cake. 
 To us was left the provision of mottoes and quips which 
 were to be its attendant satellites. Here is an old envelope. 
 From it I draw out some fifteen or twenty slips of paper. 
 Once the outside of the paper was brilliantly silvered : now 
 it is a dull and tarnished grey ; but here, fresh as the day 
 when they were written, are some of the rhymes and jeux 
 d' esprit prepared for the occasion. I cannot vouch for the 
 authorship of all ; but I think that my brother Henry was 
 responsible for the bulk of them. 
 
 Here are some of them — 
 
 "Welcome to all the little ones, 
 The sons and daughters here ; 
 I'm sure, before so many sons, 
 The frost will disappear. 
 
 " I think a likeness may be found 
 
 'Twixt the globe and this noble dough ; 
 They both are round : they both pass round. 
 And the north is the land of snow." 
 
COUSINS AND BROTHER 21 
 
 Here is a pica for taking three helpings of cake — 
 
 " An honest share, an even start ; 
 
 Of slices take not less than three ; 
 If two, you play a double part ; 
 If one, 'tis singularity. 
 
 " If jarring thoughts within you wake. 
 Which here at least should never be. 
 Just take another piece of cake. 
 And pieccful be ! " 
 
 Here is the expression of widespread desire. 
 
 " * Good luck ! Good luck ! 
 
 To the jolly tuck,' 
 We cried when we saw it in view. 
 
 Ah ! have we not felt, 
 
 As the frost did melt. 
 How our mouths were melting too?" 
 
 Here is the final verdict on the disappearing cake — 
 
 " Come, listen, my friends ! I speak for your sake. 
 Take courage and up with your gumption ; 
 When an inquest is held on the death of the cake. 
 You can say that it died of consumption." 
 
 These are little leaves from the Christmas trees and 
 cakes of long ago. 
 
 More riotous than the lecture nights, if not than the 
 festival nights, were those in which we played a charade. 
 Then we let ourselves go. We chose a proverb : we 
 developed some imaginary story to fit the scenes : we as- 
 signed their parts to the players. The properties required 
 for the various scenes were collected ; but all the rest — 
 the words to be spoken, the action, the gestures — were left 
 to the moment ; the speeches were extempore, and each 
 
22 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 actor was free to develop the little plot as he pleased, so 
 long as he did so in harmony with the pre-arranged denoue- 
 ment. This kind of semi-impromptu charade proved very- 
 amusing. Of course, there was the risk of some deadly dull 
 scene, but, on the other hand, the unexpected play, the 
 sudden utterance of some irresistible bit of humour, a 
 passing joke, a staggering repartee, and the frightful joy of 
 watching how the little piece was going, all added a never- 
 failing interest to the amusement of the evening. 
 
 There was also at times a delight in mystifying the 
 audience, as when on one occasion we raised the curtain 
 upon a blank stage : no actor, no furniture to be seen, and 
 then the curtain was lowered. Of course, the word was 
 " Nothing," and as the proverb was " Nothing venture, 
 nothing have," the same mysterious and uninteresting 
 scene was given twice ; but in compensation, the words 
 " Venture " and " Have " were startlingly full of incident 
 and noise. 
 
 What about Pagildeafilda in all these scenes He was 
 just the ready creature, obedient, unselfish, doing his best 
 in everything he was given to do, good-naturedly joining 
 in folly, if folly was the order of the hour ; patiently 
 fulfilling any duty, small or conspicuous, which was put 
 upon him ; wholly lacking in self-consciousness, he felt no 
 misgiving and showed no hesitation in playing the fool. 
 
 Times changed : the house in which such antics were 
 played was given up : the father who had encouraged with 
 genuine interest and applauded with frank appreciation our 
 boyish efforts died one spring day, and the act was over. 
 
 Pagildeafilda went abroad to South America. There he 
 
COUSINS AND BROTHER 
 
 23 
 
 was as a clerk the same faithful, uncomplaining, conscientious 
 creature that he had ever been. Those hideous insects — 
 the pests of the newcomer — attacked his feet. He was 
 crippled so much that he could not walk from his lodgings 
 to his place of business. He said nothing : no one knew 
 the agony he was suffering : no one realized the heroism of 
 his conscientious devotion to his duty. Only afterwards it 
 was discovered that, as he could not walk, he had made his 
 bed under the office counter, so that he never missed his 
 daily duty. 
 
 Later he returned to England : he lived a quiet life — 
 helping others. He never married : the key to his single 
 life was his unselfishness : he could help the more easily 
 his own kinsfolk, being unmarried. 
 
 To the end he was the same : always kindly, always 
 brimful of good nature : interested keenly in others : the 
 self-denying friend in the house, who exhausted himself in 
 playing with the children, who was ready to run any errand 
 if thereby he could save a friend any anxiety or fatigue. 
 
 I remember how once at Ripon, when he must have 
 been over fifty years of age, he consented to attempt to 
 dance the Scottish sword dance. We put down the poker 
 and shovel to represent the crossed swords, and dear 
 Pagildeafilda pounded out in middle-aged fashion the dance 
 which of all dances needs lightness, brightness and delicate 
 accuracy. It would have been ludicrous but for the sweet, 
 unselfconscious good nature which began and carried through 
 the solemn performance. 
 
 There ! it is only a sketch of a good, sincerely kind 
 and half-heroic, half-pathetic figure — a man who lived an 
 
24 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 obscure and uneventful life without a wide outlook, perhaps, 
 without the companionship of rich imaginings and glowing 
 fancies, without great ambitions, without grave discontents, 
 who, without envy of others or repining at his lot, accepted 
 the limitations of his life, fulfilled his daily task dutifully, 
 thought much of others and little of self, and reaped without 
 probably realizing what he was reaping — the harvest of that 
 homage of respect and affection which always waits upon 
 those who are true of heart. 
 
MY BROTHER HENRY 
 
 " Poeta nascitur,'' said an Oxford examiner, as a young 
 man retired from his examination. It expressed the truth, for 
 my brother Henry was always poetic. He dreamed always : 
 he would forget his errand because carried away into another 
 world. He hated all disagreeable things, and he would 
 always shirk facing them. He did not see why life should 
 not be pleasant, and I am bound to say that he had great 
 ability in making things pleasant. He could talk well, and 
 he could play the fool with a happy grace. He had his 
 moods. Now he was overwhelmed with some great and 
 intolerable grief ; but it passed like a cloud, and he would 
 soon be all smiles and sunshine. 
 
 How well I remember a night at Cambridge, when I 
 
 was startled by a visit from the college porter : he told 
 
 me that a gentleman wanted to see me. It was after 
 
 hours : it must have been 1 1 p.m. ; the college gates were 
 
 shut, and it was against rules to let strangers in. I went 
 
 down my staircase and crossed over to the porter's lodge ; 
 
 there, in the dim light of the lodge entrance, stood my 
 
 brother Henry, looking the picture of misery. The porter 
 
 seemed moved with compassion, for he said, "The 
 
 gentleman can come in if he will promise to leave before 
 
 midnight." So, against rules, my brother Henry came to 
 
 my rooms, and unfolded his tale of sorrow. " Oh, mummy " 
 25 
 
26 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 (he always called me this), " it is hard when one has sur- 
 rendered one's heart to another's keeping, to have it 
 suddenly flung back, as though it were a worthless thing. 
 I thought her all gentle innocence and loyal faith ; but 
 now, now," etc. 
 
 All this was Aramaic to me, yet the gist of it was 
 obvious : he had been fascinated by some Oxford girl, and 
 he had brought his broken heart over to Cambridge. I 
 made him take some food, and let him tell his story. 
 Faithful to the pledge to the porter, he left me about mid- 
 night. I saw him to the lodge gate : he went to his hotel, 
 promising to join me at breakfast in the morning. 
 
 I went to bed, dreading the morning, and wondering 
 how I was to minister to a mind diseased or how to piece 
 together the fragments of a broken heart. In the morning 
 I was up betimes : chapel was over ; breakfast was set, and 
 I awaited with some anxiety my sorrow-stricken brother. 
 About nine o'clock he entered — radiant, smiling. He 
 glanced round the room : he looked where the breakfast 
 was laid, solemn and stiff, on the large centre table. " Oh, 
 mummy," he said, dragging a small table into the window, 
 " let's have breakfast in the window." He was quite right. 
 There the sun was peeping round the corner :. there was 
 brightness and the sense of the smile of morning ; the 
 centre of the room had no inspiration in it. So in the 
 window we sat and had our breakfast. Sorrow had hardly 
 endured through the night : joy had come in the morning. 
 My brother stayed a couple of days. My own college 
 friends came in to see him : we lunched at one another's 
 rooms, and my brother, like a man who had never known 
 
MY BROTHER HENRY 
 
 27 
 
 a care, was the life of the party — full of fun, sprightly in 
 speech. He enjoyed himself, and it did one good to see 
 his enjoyment. I think he went back to Oxford heart whole. 
 
 Of course there were other affairs : they meant the 
 whole world while they lasted, but they were only passing 
 clouds. The sun was sure to come out later on. 
 
 Mercurial, fascinating, affectionate, magnanimous, he 
 was a delightful companion, when you could catch, him in 
 the mood. Of course, he was uncertain. Make an 
 arrangement to meet ? Well, it might be tried, but it 
 was much wiser to leave all meetings to happy chance. 
 Once I agreed to meet him in London : he would come 
 from Oxford by a particular train. I went to Paddington : 
 I paced the platform : I met more than one train. I waited 
 so long that, when I rejoined a Cambridge friend, we were 
 late for the proposed expedition. The next day we were 
 reviewed, as Volunteers, in Hyde Park. At an interval 
 we were allowed to break rank and hunt up our Oxford 
 friends. 1 found my brother Henry. Foolishly, I began 
 with reproach : " Why didn't you come up by the train you 
 promised ? " It was all in vain : why face disagreeable 
 things OfF my Henry was flouncing. When I cried 
 after him, " You might tell me where you are staying ! " 
 " Marshall Thompson's Hotel." This was all I could get 
 from him. It was a waste of time to be vexed with him : 
 he compelled affection in spite of any little erratic proceed- 
 ing. His magnetism never failed. When thinking of him. 
 Goldsmith's lines about Garrick begin to ring in my ears — 
 
 " He threw off his friends like a hunter his pack, 
 For he knew when he chose he could whistle them back." 
 
28 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 His magnetism was due to the unspoilt childlikeness of 
 his nature — generous, impulsive, large-hearted, he could 
 rejoice with those that rejoiced — the hardest task of a 
 jealous nature — but jealousy he had none. 
 
 He fulfilled the promise of his youth, and the eulogy of 
 the Oxford examiner. When he was assistant master at 
 Portora School — called the Eton of Ireland — the Earl of 
 Carlisle, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, visited the school. 
 My brother Henry wrote some verses of welcome for the 
 occasion : in them the task of the schoolmasters, who 
 looked forward to the approaching holidays with happiness 
 as keen as that of their pupils, was portrayed thus : all had 
 looked forward to the end of term — 
 
 " But chiefly we, whose life is only seen 
 As rills which make their shrouding grass more green, 
 Whose task it is, with ever-fostering care. 
 To teach the opening bud to bloom more fair. 
 From treasured Past and Present to unroll 
 The first faint stream of glories on the soul. 
 To watch and work, from morn to even chime, 
 Train the wild beast in Boyhood's fiery prime. 
 Shape fancy's flight our mission to fulfil. 
 Prompt the slow thought and chain the rebel will." 
 
 Lord Carlisle's contributions to literature were not 
 forgotten. The metrical paraphrase of the eighth chapter 
 of Daniel was thus alluded to — 
 
 " Once did thy hand the seer's dark page unroll, 
 To thrid the mazes of his hallowed scroll ; 
 Lost in deep wondering trance, thine eye explored 
 The far-off promise of the unerring word ; 
 The years rolled back 'their veil, and thou didst see 
 The measured march of glorious days to be. 
 Didst watch thro' Heaven the soaring wing of fire. 
 And strike one chord on Judah's burning lyre." 
 
MY BROTHER HENRY 
 
 29 
 
 The following lines, which were written with the 
 memory of Lord Carlisle's book entitled, A Diary in 
 Turkish and Greek Waters^ may have some special interest 
 for us who are watching the painful struggle in the Near 
 East, wondering at the tortuous vacillations of dishonoured 
 Greece, and expecting the last days of Turkish misrule — 
 
 " Or didst thou trace for us, with glowing pen. 
 Thy wandering footsteps among distant men ; 
 Still ever on with each recorded day. 
 We glided with thee o'er thy watery way ; 
 Dropped our glad anchor under mountain steep, 
 Stemmed the broad tide of Helle's purple deep, 
 Or, couched by classic stream and mouldering fane, 
 Saw high o'erhead the Moslem crescent wane. 
 Ever for us enthroned in dazzling snows. 
 Once home of gods, Olympus grandly rose ; 
 Still leaped through trellised vine and smooth rock-layers, 
 The crystal fountain down its marble stairs." 
 
 Ten years later, my brother settled in America. There 
 he found friends, who loved his fresh and boyish character, 
 his wide capacity of delight in all things beautiful, his charm 
 of manner and of speech. There his poetic fancy blossomed 
 into more adventurous song. Besides minor pieces, he 
 brought out a volume, entitled Liber Amoris^ containing a 
 poem in four books, or, as he called them, watches. The 
 first watch was introduced by a wind song ; the second by a 
 moon song ; the third by a star song, and the fourth by a 
 pawn song. A story like a silver thread bound the four 
 watches into one complete night watch. The story in its 
 setting was mediaeval ; but it was intended to shadow forth 
 the changes in religious conception which might be expected 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 when the undercurrents of modern thought had influenced 
 the stream of popular opinion. 
 
 The prologue tells the general thought and explains the 
 title of the poem — 
 
 " ' Behold the Book of Love,' said then the seer ; 
 ' Take it and hold it warm within thy robe, 
 Next thy heart's pulses. On its leaves each day 
 Great Love's invisible finger creeping soft 
 And slow, as with a sunbeam shall inscribe 
 All things whatever in his name thou doest. 
 
 Know, therefore, that whatsoever in pure Love 
 Thou doest is straightway writ within this book. 
 Look to't. For when Love comes. He opens this, 
 And from this reads to every soul its doom.' " 
 
 The appreciation or realization of this principle will be 
 seen, in the days when the present activities of religious 
 thought have fulfilled themselves. This is expressed in the 
 last scene, when the narrator is dying : a fading fire, emblem 
 of closing life, burns fitfully in the room — 
 
 " On this low hearth-fire, dying as I die ; 
 See its last tongue of flame, that slowly spires 
 Upward and seems a monumental light 
 Unquenchable, lifting its ensign high 
 Above the grey dust of each buried spark. 
 O tarry a moment till I take- from thee 
 A prophesying symbol of the day, 
 Whose dawn already whitens through the East ! 
 The Hour is coming — hear ye not her feet 
 Falling in sweet sphere-thunder down the stairs 
 Of Love's pure sky ? When this our holy Church 
 Shall melt away in ever-widening walls. 
 And be for all mankind, and in its place 
 A mightier Church shall come, whose covenant word 
 
MY BROTHER HENRY 
 
 31 
 
 Shall be the deeds of love. Not Credo then, — 
 
 Amo shall be the password through its gates. 
 
 Man shall not ask his brother any more 
 
 ' Believest thou ? ' but * Lovest thou ? ' and all 
 
 Shall answer at God's altar, * Lord, I love.' 
 
 For Hope may anchor, Faith may steer, but Love, 
 
 Great Love alone, is captain of the soul." 
 
 This poem won rapid recognition in America, and 
 among those who cordially acknowledged its merits were the 
 poet and essayist, Oliver Wendell Holmes. It is pleasant 
 to give the story of their recognition in my brother's own 
 words. 
 
 " I sent or asked the Ticknors to send a copy of the 
 second edition of the poem. ... I can only say in its 
 behalf that the whole story, plot and characters are original, 
 and conceived and carried out on a definite plan. I enjoyed 
 writing it. By some special benediction it has given me, 
 according to Dr. O. W. Holmes, a first-class place among 
 writers of verse. I hardly think I would like to say this to 
 any but you. It sounds self-conceited. But I hope such 
 feelings are not within me." 
 
 In 1887 he went for a year's tour to the Mediterranean. 
 In this trip he was able to gratify his long-felt wish to visit 
 Greece. As the steamer drew near to its classic shores, 
 his eager enthusiasm knew no bounds : he began to climb 
 high upon the mast to catch the first glimpse of the land of 
 his studies and his dreams. After this tour he returned 
 with fresh inspirations for his work. He gave courses of 
 lectures, and prepared for an extended tour through the 
 States ; but he did not live to accomplish this purpose. 
 
 On the evening of July 16, 1890, he entertained a 
 
32 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 party of friends with his usual vivacity and fascination ; he 
 was full of plans, hopes and high spirits ; but the next 
 morning brought the end. As he was dressing, he fell ; 
 a clot of blood had reached the heart. The editor of his 
 posthumous work wrote in a kind and generously appre- 
 ciative preface : " the warm heart had ceased to throb, the 
 gifted brain was dead, the eloquent tongue was silent for 
 ever." " Happily," continued the same writer, " the 
 world has not lost his beautiful lyrics. The poet remains, 
 though the orator's voice be silent. Dearer than either, 
 remains the memory of the man, simple, frank, kindly, 
 generous in thought and word and deed. Peace to his 
 gentle spirit." 
 
 So wrote Mr. James Jeffrey Roche in his preface to 
 a volume entitled, A Poefs Last Songs. The last songs 
 contained many delightful pieces. Three of these I give, 
 feeling sure that their thought and music will be welcome 
 to those who are strangers to this work. 
 
 ANTITHETA 
 
 " 'Ek tHiv evavTtojv /caAXtcrrj; apfxovui. 
 
 Aristotle. 
 
 Lo, Death and Sorrow and Pain are sweet, 
 And Life and Pleasure and joy are good ; 
 
 And these are one and as one shall meet, 
 When all we feel shall be understood. 
 
 Then lift thy face into Sorrow's rain, 
 
 Yea, deem it sweet as the spring's young breath ; 
 Stoop low and drink of the pool of Pain, 
 
 Dip thy Life's urn in the well of Death. 
 
MY BROTHER HENRY 
 
 For Blis3 is painlike, and Pain is bliss, 
 
 And Love must weep till the dawn of day. 
 
 Then Death shall waken at Life's warm kiss, 
 And Joy wed Sorrow in smiles for aye. 
 
 PEARLS 
 
 Say not : I never throw to fool or clown 
 
 My goodly pearls ; for swine I ne'er amassed them. 
 
 Say rather : Are these pearls which I cast down, 
 And are those always swine to whom I cast them ? 
 
 NON SINE LACHRTMIS 
 
 It was that hour when vernal Earth 
 
 And stormy March prepare 
 For the first day of April's tearful birth. 
 
 That I, o'ercome with care, 
 Rose in the twilight from a fireless hearth. 
 
 To take the fresh first air. 
 
 And smile at morning's mirth. 
 
 Tired with old grief's self-pitying moan, 
 
 A mile I had not strayed 
 Ere my dire path grew dark with double zone 
 
 Of men full fair arrayed ; 
 While blast with sound as battle-trumpets blown, 
 
 Came, as through light comes shade, 
 
 Cries like an undertone. 
 
 Plumed with torn cloud, March led the way. 
 With spear-point keen for thrust. 
 And eager eyes, and harnessed form swathed grey 
 
 With drifts of wind-blown dust. 
 Round his bruised buckher, in bright letters, lay 
 This scroll which toilers trust : 
 Non sine pulvere. 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 Wet as from weltering showers and seat, 
 April came after him. 
 He held a cup with saddest imageries 
 
 Engraven, and round the rim, 
 Worn with woe's lip, I spelt out words like these. 
 All sorrow-stained and dim : 
 Non sine lachrymis. 
 
 These passed like regal spirits crowned, 
 
 Strong March and April fair, 
 And then a sphere-made music slow unwound 
 
 Its soul upon the air ; 
 And soft as exhalations from the ground, 
 
 Or spring flowers here and there 
 
 These words rose through the sound : 
 
 " Man needs these two for this world's moil, 
 
 Earth's drought and dew of spheres, 
 Grief's freshening rain to lay the dust of toil, 
 
 Toil's dust to dry the tears. 
 To all who rise as wrestlers in life's coil. 
 
 Time brings with days and years 
 
 The wrestler's sand and oil." 
 
 O toil in vain, without surcease ! 
 
 O Grief no hand may stay ! 
 Think on these words when work or woes increase : 
 
 Man, made of tears and clay. 
 Grows to full stature and God's perfect peace, 
 
 Non sine pulvere 
 
 Non sine lachrymis. 
 
MY BEATRICE 
 
 I WONDER whether we shall ever be able to estimate 
 rightly the value of unconscious influence. We meet 
 one another : we speak : we laugh and exchange a few 
 thoughts : we part ; but as no force is lost, some measure 
 of mutual influence must have been exchanged. As the 
 planet flies along its orbit, it is disturbed in its course, 
 I suppose, by every body which comes within range of 
 it. But the disturbance is only temporary : the planet 
 may have swerved for a moment, but its course is 
 unchanged. Such, I suppose, may represent the passing 
 influences to which each of us is subject in the inter- 
 course of life. I cannot, perhaps, measure the force of 
 each several influence, but I know that after converse 
 with one, I feel a sensible exhilaration : I go with a better 
 confidence back to my work ; after converse with another, 
 I feel unable to settle down : my centre of gravity has 
 been disturbed ; I am — no, not irritated, but perhaps 
 thrown ofF my balance ; after converse with a third, I am 
 wholly depressed : power, alacrity of thought, hopefulness 
 in effort, has been diminished. The subtle influences of 
 personality make themselves felt. 
 
 This is all preface to one chapter in my life. The 
 one whose influence is in my thoughts as I write, knows 
 little and probably cares less about the matter. Our lives 
 35 
 
36 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 have drifted apart. When last she wished me to know 
 of a family bereavement, she sent word to me through 
 another channel, pleading that she did not know where 
 to find me — and yet she was Beatrice to me. 
 
 I have always wondered at the discussions respecting 
 Dante's Beatrice, The whole story was so clear to me : 
 it was written large in my experience from the time when 
 I was fifteen years old till the time when I was swept 
 into the current of busy life in full manhood. 
 
 No, I am not going to give her name. She will never 
 read this story, and if she did she would not recognize 
 herself. I shall call her my Beatrice ; and I can only say 
 of her — she never realized and she will never know the 
 deep, strong, and all-pervading character of her influence. 
 She was two years older than I : and she was goddess and 
 counsellor to me. I have all her letters — though fifty years 
 have passed, 1 keep them as sacred : the spell of what she 
 once was to me still remains. 
 
 It is folly, you will say, to write of such things. Is 
 it I doubt it. I want women to know what they can 
 be in the lives of boys and young men. I want them to 
 realize the deep worshipfulness of spirit which they can 
 evoke and foster ; for she was God's minister to me, and 
 through her all my life seemed sacred in the dangerous 
 years, those narrow straits of life which connect boyhood 
 and manhood. These are the years in which those changes 
 come which whisper strange secrets, and weave the spell 
 of larger responsibility about the soul : then the sense of 
 new and greater things visits the spirit : it reaches out 
 towards something beyond, it is ripe for religion. 
 
MY BEATRICE 
 
 37 
 
 As it happened, the time of which I speak was one of 
 religious revival : a spirit of excitement and expectancy- 
 was abroad. In the heavens were signs : the tail of a 
 gigantic comet hung for many nights in the forehead of 
 the sky : its length measured out an arc which filled one- 
 third of the heaven above. The signs portended great 
 things : the end of the world perchance was near ; an 
 atmosphere of religiosity spread everywhere — a great 
 evangelist visited Liverpool, and made a deep impression. 
 It was, as people said, a harvest time of souls. Whether 
 this atmosphere drew very closely round the thoughts or 
 feelings of my Beatrice, I cannot say ; or whether a native 
 simplicity of piety, which had grown up in quietness, was 
 hers, undisturbed by prevailing fashions — I cannot say. 
 One thing was true : she became to me a sweet spiritual 
 mentor. 
 
 Let me turn out the long-cherished memorials of those 
 days, and of that sweet influence. Here is a tiny scrap 
 of paper, not more than an inch long : it is folded and 
 within is written a Bible text. She has put it into my 
 hand as I left church, or as we parted, and said Good 
 night. You will be inclined, perhaps, to turn disdainfully 
 away from such a commonplace thing ; but consider what 
 it meant in the life of a lad. The girl was my worship : 
 all the romantic power of one's youthful, unspoken feeling 
 streamed towards her ; her features were beautiful : her 
 colouring just bright enough to satisfy — no faded hues 
 weakened her features, no blatant colours coarsened them : 
 her eyes looked out purely and with a reticent or self- 
 respecting intercstedncss upon life ; she was beautiful and 
 
38 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 she was good, and the power she exercised gained elevation 
 from the religious revival spirit which was abroad. 
 
 The language of religion at that time was not that of 
 to-day : this must be kept in mind. The form of religion 
 found its expression in hymns which sang of imminent 
 peril : 
 
 " Jesu ! Lover of my soul, 
 
 Let me to Thy Bosom fly. 
 
 Other refuge have I none, 
 
 Hangs my helpless soul on Thee." 
 
 Life presented a scene of desolation and danger : all 
 stood in need of some ark of safety. To have reached 
 that ark was the one thing needful. We were as hunted 
 creatures flying towards a city of refuge : the avenger of 
 blood was on our track : time was precious : peril was 
 near. Happy he who could win the gate of the city 
 before the inevitable blow of the avenger could fall. 
 This aspect of the religious life was more highly coloured 
 by the widespread expectation of our Lord's second 
 coming ; in the case of my Beatrice it was brought vividly 
 to mind by a startling incident which occurred about this 
 time. We were at a meeting of the Society for Promoting 
 Christianity among the Jews. We were in the gallery. 
 A small disturbance occurred while the Bishop of Chester 
 (Dr. Graham) was speaking : its meaning was not under- 
 stood till Dr. M*Neile rose to speak, when under deep 
 emotion he told us that the disturbance had been caused 
 by the sudden illness and death of a man in the body 
 of the hall. He spoke of the event, and he made 
 
MY BEATRICE 
 
 39 
 
 an appeal to the careless and indifFerent : the event was 
 God's voice crying to every man. "In such an hour as 
 ye think not the Son of Man cometh," might have been 
 the text of his appeal that night. Every one was deeply 
 moved, and my Beatrice among them. That night when 
 we separated, she pressed into my hand a scrap of paper, in 
 which her earnestness expressed itself. It ran thus : " Do 
 not rest to-night till you can rest in Jesus. Now is the 
 accepted time. Pray, pray." This breathes the spirit of 
 the moment ; who can say that, allowing for the form, 
 which was a common form sixty years ago, it does not 
 express the eternal truth that repose and peace of soul can 
 never be found in oneself, and can only be found in One 
 who presents to us those divine characteristics which imply 
 stability allied with those human characteristics which seem 
 to make sympathy possible ? 
 
 At any rate, the incident shows the spirit of guardian- 
 ship which my Beatrice exercised over me in that period of 
 my life. My friendship grew. She was the repository of 
 my secret ambitions and of my consciousness of the weak 
 unworthiness of those ambitions. Our intercourse was 
 intermittent : her dwelling-place was seldom fixed for a 
 long time in one place ; she was in request, now to look 
 after a brother, now to accompany an aunt on a visit ; and 
 I was soon to move to Cambridge ; so personal intercourse 
 was never continuous ; but our interchange of letters was, 
 if not frequent, yet steady ; and it always dealt with the 
 higher aspects of life — with the soul and its difficulties, 
 with the problems of Christian experience, with the inner 
 conflict and the heavenly help. 
 
40 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 " We need," so she wrote to me when I was at Cam- 
 bridge, " we need every stimulating help : the way seems 
 at times so rough and so narrow, and the light, or rather 
 our eyes, so dim. How much easier it would be, if we 
 had a single eye to the glory of God. I was rather struck 
 by a passage in a little book I was reading the other day : 
 ' It is upon the smooth ice we slip ; the rough path is the 
 safest for our feet.' ... I remember you in what you 
 asked for. How much there is to humble pride in the 
 world ; there is nothing to be proud of ; everything is 
 mixed with sin and defiled in the eyes of a Holy God. 
 God's great love is so plainly revealed in His dealing with 
 us. He takes down my pride so often, but in such a 
 gentle way. Like as a Father He pitieth His children. 
 
 " Your last letter refers to the time when we began to 
 write about the one thing needful. How well God arranges 
 all things ! How useless this correspondence would have 
 been, if what was of most importance had been left out. 
 "When was it that you began to believe in Christ as your 
 Saviour ? Flow quickly time passes ! I did not think 
 it was five years since we were in Llandudno — yet how 
 much has happened since then to warn us and show us that 
 all things are changing here. We have no abiding city 
 here ; ' all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the 
 flower of the grass.' I have heard it said that if a man 
 lived for seventy years, the first thirty years of his life 
 would be longer than the last forty. ' It is high time to 
 awake out of sleep.' We must be up and doing ; the past 
 and the future are nothing in the face of the stern to-day. 
 It is no use to expect rest while the enemy is near at hand ; 
 
MY BEATRICE 
 
 41 
 
 rcsting-time will come afterwards. It is hard to be prac- 
 tical ; theory is all very easy. In many things memory 
 does seem like a curse ; I often wish words and actions 
 could be recalled, and thoughts blotted out, but there they 
 remain, to cure us of our pride and to stir us up to 
 be more circumspect in the future, and this surely is a 
 blessing." 
 
 It will be said that there is nothing remarkable in this 
 letter. It can hardly carry force or light to those who read 
 it in cold blood, with more than half a century between 
 them and the date of the letter. I give it not as a contribu- 
 tion to present-day thought, but as a record of the sweet 
 and earnest spirit which this dear guardian friend of mine 
 showed me in my youth. She was mentor and confidante. 
 Always the note of higher things was struck in her letters : 
 they came to me like angels' visits ; they brought their 
 appeal and their power of caution ; they were a true 
 ministry to me, all the more powerful because they came 
 from one who to me was the embodiment of beautiful, 
 pure, and God-loving womanhood. Her influence central- 
 ized for the moment my life, by drawing it nearer to its 
 true centre, which is God. How much it meant in its 
 steadying and uplifting power I can never tell ; but it made 
 all women sacred and worshipful in my eyes. Always the 
 memory and the thought of her brought a consecration 
 upon all things, and rough and coarse talk, and the doubtful 
 tales which sometimes floated through university life, were 
 hateful to me. 
 
 It may be that some will read youth's romance and 
 nothing else in this little record of an early influence. I 
 
4^ FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 do not dispute it if they will so read it ; but as I look back, 
 I feel that God uses all experiences of life to achieve some 
 good, and that among these experiences the high worshipful 
 affection which a growing lad may feel for a girl somewhat 
 older than himself is no mean power to mould, to disci- 
 pline, to prepare, and even to inspire his life. At any rate, 
 though for more years than I care to recall my life has 
 been sundered from that of my Beatrice, I look back with 
 glad thankfulness to the time when her gentle and unselfish 
 vigilance seemed to watch over my growing years. I know 
 that she made womanhood sacred to me, and I think that 
 the serious trend of my life owed much to the spiritual 
 influence with which she filled the atmosphere of my early 
 life. She, perhaps, has forgotten all this, perhaps never 
 realized that she was exercising any influence at all, and 
 perhaps she will never know how I bless God for all she 
 was to me. 
 
 Do not chide me that I set these thoughts down as I 
 recall past days. We live in an age in which there seems a 
 feverish desire to advertise our beneficence ; we are restless 
 till we know that our philanthropies have been duly chron- 
 icled and amply applauded ; we are eager to see results, 
 and to receive assurance that our influence is known, 
 recognized and appreciated. Are we wise .'' Are wc not 
 brushing the bloom off goodness in making it public ? Is 
 there not a charm and a special virtue about the quiet in- 
 fluence of such as do not " strive, nor cry, nor let their 
 voices be heard in the street." Is there not a lesson to be 
 learned from Him who so often deprecated publicity, giving 
 the caution, " See thou tell no man " .'' 
 
MY BEATRICE 
 
 43 
 
 As I believe that there is a special fragrance about the 
 unrecorded influences of life, I have chronicled my own 
 experience of such an influence. May it bring a message of 
 hope and comfort to those who, perhaps, are depressed 
 because they seem to have been sowing and have never been 
 called to reap. The silent influences of life may be the most 
 abiding, and those which have never found their way into 
 print may be written in heaven and in the hearts of those 
 who do not forget. 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 
 
 There are sacred places in our memories as there are 
 churches in our cities — places which none may enter save 
 with reverence of heart. We uncover the head if we arc 
 Westerns, we take off our shoes if we are Easterns ; the 
 fashion is different, but the spirit is the same. We are 
 filled with the spirit of reverence : the sense of the unseen 
 is here. I ask no man to read this chapter who does not 
 know what reverence means. Nay, reader, if your soul 
 knows nothing of the awfulness of life's sweet and simple 
 things, if you cannot see how beauty may dwell among 
 foolish things, or cannot hear the sound of tears amid the 
 laughter of life, then, I pray you, pass on and leave this 
 chapter unread, for I think that, though I do not know 
 you, I should feel some passing anguish of heart if a 
 mocking spirit should possess you while you read. 
 
 Why write at all .'' some will ask ; why write at all if 
 things written about are sacred ? Why expose your heart 
 to mockery ? Friend, you are right. I have asked myself 
 the same question, and the answer is, I cannot tell you 
 why — save that some influence which I cannot explain 
 moves me to write. It seems as though the spirit of the 
 past has a power over the present, and while the present 
 says, " It is done with — leave it ; write nothing for fear of 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 
 
 writing unwisely or unworthily," another spirit steals nearer 
 to me, and says, " Write ; it is not fitting that these things 
 should be forgotten ; they were once your life ; they 
 formed your heart, your mind, your destiny. The sweet 
 service which wrought so patiently in those earlier years 
 ought not to be forgotten. Your heart responds to me 
 when I speak. There are, moreover, those alive and at your 
 side to-day who will love and cherish the memories you — 
 and you only — can record. Do not fear the world. Men 
 and women who have loved and lost will understand you. In 
 the temple of sorrow all are ready to worship : into it there 
 entereth nothing that can defile." So I write of things 
 most sacred. 
 
 The scene is an English vicarage. The house, built of 
 yellowish stone, is solid and square, and stands with a quiet 
 determination upon ground which falls to the southward 
 and gives a pleasant view of the Chiltern Hills. The door 
 of the house looks to the east ; and above the trees and 
 shrubs which surround the circular carriage-drive, the church 
 spire can be seen like a protecting sentinel of the village. 
 Along the south front of the house there is a gravel path 
 flanked by a croquet ground which runs beyond the limits 
 of the house into the kitchen garden on the west. Up and 
 down this path I walked with my brother-in-law, William 
 Peers, and his bride. The sun is shining, and a pleasant 
 reminiscence of summer and warmth is in the air ; the 
 church-bells, harsh and jubilant, are clanging with earnest 
 endeavour to tell the countryside how glad they are. It 
 is my wedding day. The village folk, who love the bride 
 well for her kindly visits and cheery sympathy, have erected 
 
46 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 a triumphal arch. While the villagers are still gossiping 
 round the church porch or near the verdant arch, I am 
 hearing wise and kindly words from my brother-in-law and 
 his wife as we pace the garden path. " Well, if you two 
 are to be as happy as we are," says my brother-in-law from 
 his superior height (he is six feet high) and his older 
 experience of wedded life (he has been married just seven 
 weeks), " you will be happy indeed." I murmur some 
 incoherent but grateful words of thanks for the implied 
 wish, and the conversation continues on the same lines of 
 satisfaction and hope. I am quite content, for my brother- 
 in-law was my best-loved college chum. He and Taylor 
 Whitehead (of whom more anon) and I used to breakfast with 
 one another in turn. Nine o'clock was the breakfast hour 
 agreed upon : by a majority of two to one the triumvirate 
 voted that hour. This arrangement gave me an hour for 
 quiet reading before breakfast, as I came out of chapel 
 about 8 a.m. ; but now the old college days are things of 
 the past. My brother-in-law is a staid and grave married 
 man ; he is curate in Tewkesbury, and we have promised 
 to spend a night with him there during our wedding trip. 
 
 But, pleasant as is the garden path and the sympathetic 
 talk of a kindly new-made brother and sister, the anxious 
 preparations inside the vicarage end in a demand for our 
 presence. There is the wedding breakfast, that now obso- 
 lete institution. The wedding breakfast has been provided 
 by a well-known caterer at Oxford. We have menu cards 
 printed and frilled in suggestive fashion : a wedding menu 
 is written all over the face of the card. I am seated next 
 to the bride: we occupy the most conspicuous place at 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 47 
 
 the table : we eat or try to eat. Over me there hangs the 
 cloud of apprehension : the breakfast involves speeches, and 
 I cannot escape the obligation and ordeal of returning 
 thanks. The supreme moment has come : Mr. Singleton, 
 the oldest friend of the family present, proposes the health 
 of the bride and bridegroom. He is a man of sympathetic 
 nature, whose thoughts find expression along emotional 
 channels. He speaks with genuine feeling, and therefore 
 with a true eloquence. He is a surprise to some of the 
 company, and he does not make the bridegroom's task easy. 
 Tears glisten in the eyes of the bride's mother, and the 
 emotional wave is felt by many of the company. 
 
 The inevitable moment has come : I cannot escape : I 
 am on my feet : I take refuge in the proverb, " Brevity is the 
 soul of wit " — I am sure friends would wish me to be witty : 
 therefore I shall be brief, and close my speech with a simple 
 Thank you. And thus the alarming moment was passed. 
 The feast flags : there are signs of lethargy, a restlessness 
 of expectation : some whispered words, and significant 
 nods ; and the bride is escorted upstairs to change for the 
 journey. What happened in that interval so awkward for 
 all, especially for me, I cannot recollect, except that my 
 dear old father-in-law took me to his room and placed some 
 unexpected banknotes in my hand, and with his happy and 
 generous bonhomie, wished me well. This was a pleasing 
 incident of that waiting time : it is pleasant to recall it now. 
 Another incident I recall, because it startled me with a 
 pained surprise. A good lady, well-meaning and coura- 
 geous, a friend of the family, caught me on the stairs and 
 implored me to be kind to the bride. I felt insulted, I 
 
48 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 remember. Perhaps I can understand her better now ; but, 
 going away as I was, with the dear child of my heart, and 
 with a knowledge of life as limited as that of a girl, I was 
 conscious only of an angered resentment. 
 
 However, the carriage is at the door : the guests crowd 
 the hall ; we are swept along amid a shower of incoherent 
 words. We are in the carriage : the door is shut, and the 
 stately family coach wheels out of the drive. We gather 
 ourselves together to acknowledge the farewells of the 
 villagers. We descend the crooked steep which leads to 
 the highroad ; we are sweeping along the wide highway 
 which leads to Oxford. Tears fill my little bride's eyes as 
 she drives away from her home. I feel a pain, half resent- 
 ful and half pitying. Am 1 not compensation enough for all 
 losses ? Foolish and inexperienced heart of self-sufficient 
 youth ! But soon the tears are dried ; the drive to Oxford 
 lasts nearly two hours, but at last we are at the station. 
 We are in the train speeding towards Shrewsbury, and as 
 we fly over the pleasant fields, the great sun, sinking in a 
 crimson glory, gives us a splendid farewell. We alight at 
 the Raven Hotel in Shrewsbury. We write letters to tell 
 how we have sped. We read together the twenty-third 
 Psalm — the sweet psalm of pilgrimage — which, some 
 twelve years later, I was to read to her again when the 
 chill shadow of death was drawing near. 
 
 Our wedding trip was a joy and a blunder ; a joy because 
 we were together, a blunder because we tried to show an 
 impartial consideration to our relatives. The result was 
 that we travelled too much. Judge of it. We reached 
 Dublin on Friday. We had been married on the Wednes- 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 
 
 day. My friend, Sheppard Welland, met us on our arrival, 
 and escorted us to rooms he had secured for us. On Sun- 
 day I read for the Rev. Thomas Welland, at his church in 
 Dublin. The next week we were in Enniskillen, where 
 my eldest brother was living. On the Friday we travelled 
 to Chester. On the Saturday we reached Tewkesbury, to 
 pay a visit to my brother-in-law, William Peers. Thence 
 we travelled to Dartmouth : my wife's father and mother 
 were there on a visit to their elder son John, who was then 
 on board the Britannia. From Dartmouth we went to 
 London, and spent a night with a friend ; on Saturday we 
 reached Maidstone. We had thus in the short eighteen 
 days travelled 1400 miles. We were tired with the long 
 journeys and the attendant excitements, and we were a 
 ragged-looking couple when we reached Maidstone, and 
 my duties began. We had paid too much attention to 
 our relatives, and we had squandered our time in wearying 
 travel. 
 
 The house we occupied was the Old Palace, which over- 
 hung the Medway ; it was a glorious old house, once 
 the residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, but now 
 divided into two moderate, and more or less convenient or 
 inconvenient dwellings. Lady Frances Riddell occupied 
 one half, and we, with my mother, occupied the other. 
 The work was pleasant. My vicar, the Rev. David Dale 
 Stewart, one of the kindest and dearest of men, was all 
 that a young curate could wish : kind, wise, sympathetic, 
 helpful — with some amazing Idlosyncracies, but free from 
 all littleness of soul. For two years we stayed at Maid- 
 stone. At the end of it we found it wise to move, and I 
 
so FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 found a curacy at Clapham, where we found rooms first in 
 the Wandsworth Road, and later in a house situated in 
 Lambourn Road. 
 
 I wonder whether the follies of a couple of happy 
 children will amuse those who dwell in the outside world. 
 We were sometimes hard pressed in those days ; many little 
 things which we wished to add to our household store we 
 were obliged to forgo. There were now two children, a 
 boy and a girl, to be cared for. Wages had increased in 
 consequence, and our slender resources needed careful 
 handling. I remember once how we stood together outside 
 a jeweller's or silversmith's shop — to be more explicit, it was 
 a pawnbroker's — looking longingly at a small silver butter- 
 knife, which we coveted for our breakfast table ; we hesi- 
 tated ; we turned away our eyes from the tempting vanity ; 
 we left the arena of attraction, and only after some days of 
 weighing and calculating and considering did we indulge 
 ourselves in the much-wished-for and dainty addition to 
 our small store. Is the butter-knife still to be found 
 among our possessions ? 1 am sure that it was never 
 willingly parted with. The old memory of those lean days 
 and our courageous purchase of it gave it a charm beyond 
 that of other more ostentatious and richer things. If such 
 little incidents have any interest, this also may be added : 
 I once sold a waistcoat, receiving in exchange three useful 
 household jugs. No ! don't pity us ; it was our little home 
 nest, our first home, occupied by ourselves alone ; it was 
 our own home, in a sense the Palace at Maidstone had 
 never been. There were privations ; we had to take 
 thought how to live within our means. Sometimes a great 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 
 
 anxiety about the future would possess my heart, for the 
 family was coming on apace ; but self-denials were sweet, 
 and our love was like that of happy birds in the nest. And 
 that dear little heart at my side, with her quiet, childlike 
 trust, would gently chide my anxiety, and if she was away 
 she would write me one of her simple-hearted letters. 
 
 " I don't think, darling, that we have any right to begin 
 to complain yet, because we have no very bright prospects 
 in the future. We never have been left to want, and I do 
 not anticipate that we shall, and whatever our trials may be, 
 we can remember that God is a loving Father and knows 
 best, and then what a blessing it is that we love one another 
 and are not unhappy as some people are, and the burdens 
 won't be half so heavy when we share them together ; will 
 they, darling ? " 
 
 The keynote of all letters which passed between us was 
 a simple trust in the wise providence of God. Often the 
 sense of the future pressed heavy on my mind. The arrows 
 in the quiver were many ; the little nest was growing full, 
 and I had no patron ; 1 had not been able to attach myself 
 to any party in the Church ; there was no powerful body of 
 trustees to whom I could look for preferment ; I had no 
 acquaintance with parliamentary or political leaders. With 
 an increasing family, and no influence, often the outlook 
 seemed cloudy. I remember once my elder brother con- 
 fiding to me that he thought he might reach the dignity of 
 an archdeacon. For myself, I think my only ambition was 
 to have a secure position and sufficient to provide for 
 the dear children, who were romping in the nursery. The 
 way in which, at last, such a position came to mc I have 
 
52 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 told among my first reminiscences. The provision came 
 when it was needed, and the first chapter of my home life 
 ended with a happy and established position at St. James's, 
 Holloway. 
 
 Our interests were our home and our work. The little 
 nest was a place of joy. The time of the singing of birds 
 was come. In the little mother and in the children my 
 heart found a gladness which was not satisfied to be silent. 
 How could the sweet witchery of wifehood be left unsung ? 
 
 Little eyes gleaming 
 
 What do they say ? 
 Lovingly beaming, 
 
 What do they say ? 
 Roguishly dancing, 
 Artfully glancing. 
 Always entrancing, 
 
 What do they say ? 
 
 Little eyes sparkling. 
 
 What do they say ? 
 Light'ning and dark'ning. 
 
 What do they say ? 
 Timidly turning. 
 Wistfully yearning. 
 Tenderly burning, 
 
 What do they say ? 
 
 Little eyes weary. 
 
 What do they say ? 
 Tell to me, deary, 
 
 What do they say ? 
 Foolishly fearful, * 
 Teasingly tearful. 
 Charmingly cheerful. 
 
 What do they say ? 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 
 
 Little eyes closing, 
 What do they say ? 
 
 Lightly reposing, 
 What do they say : 
 
 Softly awaking, 
 
 Happy looks taking, 
 
 Little plans making, 
 What do they say .' 
 
 Little eyes prayerful. 
 
 What do they say ? 
 Little eyes careful. 
 
 What do they say ? 
 Anxious for you, love, 
 Praying for you, love. 
 Trustful of you, love. 
 That's what they say ! 
 
 In a summer tempest came our firstborn. 
 
 A mist is hanging o'er the hills, 
 And darkness hovers o'er the land. 
 While in the west a golden band 
 
 With brightening hope the landscape fills. 
 
 The stormy tempest swift sweeps by. 
 
 The rain comes streaming from the cloud. 
 And far re-echo thunders loud — 
 
 And one bright beam slants from on high. 
 
 Dark shadows stretch from 'neath each tree, 
 Stretch in the light 'mid storm and rain ; 
 My heart is filled with joy and pain — 
 
 In shade and shine his life will be. 
 
 The mother lies in languid joy. 
 
 The shadows change for rays of light, 
 The sun's grand fire will set in night, 
 
 'Mid shade and shine God guide our boy. 
 
54 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 The mother lies so calm and weak, 
 
 She coils him closer to lier side ; 
 
 Her looks are bright with mother's pride : 
 My heart o'erflows : I cannot speak. 
 
 But I must not burden these pages with more of these 
 heart effusions. I set down these as they serve as tests of 
 the atmosphere of our little home. They are measures, 
 also, of what was lost when the staypole of my tent fell 
 down. 
 
 The early autumn had been happily reminiscent of our 
 early joys : the later autumn brought the shadows creeping 
 slowly — so slowly as to be scarcely noticed — over our roof. 
 
 The Dhammapada Sutta tells us that out of love sorrow 
 is born. The Buddhist stoic would stifle love to avoid 
 sorrow. None who have loved will question the truth that 
 he who loves must meet sorrow ; but whoever knows love 
 will know that it is worth all the sorrow. It is better even 
 to have loved, and to know that most desolating sorrow of 
 losing the loved one, than never to have loved at all. We, 
 in our well-filled nest, had given hostages to fortune ; and 
 when illness came our hearts knew a multiplied anxiety. 
 
 Of this we had experience when scarlet fever visited us, 
 and every one of our six children were attacked by it. We 
 were soon left to fight the foe with very slender forces. 
 One of the servants failed us ; neighbours feared to visit us. 
 One good lady declared that I ought not to continue my 
 duties in church. I remember that she held aloof, and 
 liked to have the breadth of the street between us ; across 
 it she shouted her inquiries about the children. The fever 
 continued. The service at our disposal was scant. The 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 55 
 
 heaviest burden fell on the little mother. In my clumsy, 
 man-like way I tried to help. I remember that I lit the 
 fires, cleaned the grates, and laid the breakfast. I could, 
 at any rate, be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for 
 the sick household. 
 
 The evil increased. The doctor became anxious about 
 our eldest child ; the fever in his case took on a malignant 
 aspect. A second doctor was called in. The child's throat 
 was bad ; it was growing dangerously insensitive. In vain 
 it was cauterized : it showed no response. How well I 
 remember the moment when this peril threatened. I can 
 see the little figure of my wife standing in the room ; the 
 light of the westering sun fell upon her face : agony was 
 written there. I knew how her heart was bound up in the 
 life of our firstborn. 
 
 Meanwhile severer measures were tried upon the little 
 patient. The cauterizing-stick was applied to the throat : 
 it was thrust down deep. Suddenly the child rose up in 
 wrath, and seemed to spit out the offending intruder. 
 " Thank God ! " said the doctors. The response of whole- 
 some painfulness had been secured. From that time forward 
 the shadows began to recede from the home. For long we 
 had pale-faced children in the house, dark patches under 
 their eyes ; little fingers were with difficulty kept from 
 picking at their faces. After a while, thanks to their grand- 
 father's kindness, they were all carried off to Brighton ; 
 there, with the sea facing them, and the fresh parade, and 
 sands for walk and play, the roses came back and the days 
 of pain and peril were past. 
 
 Here I should like to pause and indulge in a digression. 
 
56 
 
 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 People have often speculated about men's callings, and 
 wondered which profession or business affords the greater 
 chance of heaven, or elsewhere. I have no doubt that every 
 calling has its dangers ; I have still less doubt that plumbers 
 have, of all trades, the least chance of heaven. Their trade 
 offers them such an easy path for fraud, and here, if any- 
 where, the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Their 
 wickednesses are hidden, if not in the depths of their heart, 
 yet in the lower places of our homes. It is a marvel to me 
 that people have so long borne the bloodguiltiness of this 
 business. We try the signalman who, fatigued by long 
 hours of work, in a moment of forgetfulness, sends a train 
 along the wrong line. If an accident is followed by a death, 
 we hold him guilty of manslaughter. But the plumber, 
 who in cold blood leaves out a section of drain-pipe, or 
 instead of making a joint good fills it with paper, is liable 
 to no penalty, though death glides into the house on the 
 poisonous wings which he has set free. This is no imaginary 
 picture. I saw the pretty home of the youTig husband and 
 wife ; I saw it in its flowering hour, when the first babe lay 
 in its mother's arms ; and at that supreme moment of hap- 
 piness the evil work of the criminally careless, or more 
 criminally covetous plumber, let death loose, and sent the 
 young mother to the grave. This is not an irrelevant 
 digression. The illness which laid my sick children low 
 was traced to its source. The drain pipe to carry off the 
 poisonous gas was brought through the cistern, and its 
 summit was just above the surface of the water which was 
 used for drinking and household purposes. I sent for the 
 builder, who was also the owner of the house ; I told him 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 
 
 what we had discovered. He blandly assured me that it 
 was quite safe. I replied that I would not pit my judg- 
 ment against his, but that I would refer the question to the 
 sanitary inspector. If the sanitary inspector approved the 
 arrangement of drain pipe and cistern I would not ask for 
 any change. There was no need to say more. The reply 
 came without hesitation. An immediate change should be 
 made. The ways of some men are wonderful, and the 
 perils to which the unwary are exposed by the unscrupulous 
 are many. Had the Apostle lived in modern days he would 
 not have complained of the coppersmith, but of another 
 trade. In our own day Mr. G. R, Sims has sung a ballad 
 of the plumber. 
 
 " The plumber came down like a wolf on the fold. 
 With his pockets all bulging with silver and gold. 
 For twenty-three hours he courted the cook, 
 And twenty-four shillings he charged in his book." 
 
 Now may the good Lord have mercy on plumbers, for they 
 sadly need it ! My digression is ended. 
 
 Twelve years have gone. Our wedding day is drawing 
 near. I have one or two engagements in the Midlands. I 
 have promised to preach at the parish church of Oundle, 
 and the day following at Nottingham. These duties ofFer 
 the opportunity of a little renewed honeymoon. We start 
 on September 27. I have provided myself with a little 
 wedding-day gift — a small work-case, suspended by two 
 dainty leather straps. I have seen it in a shop in St. Paul's 
 Churchyard ; it has taken my fancy ; it is dainty and prac- 
 tical. I secrete it in my luggage. We travel together, my 
 dear little wife and I. Though I am going on work, it is 
 
58 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 to us a holiday treat. Seldom, very seldom, had we the 
 opportunity of such a trip for a day or two together. We 
 start, then, with a happy sense of freedom and with pleasant 
 memories. 
 
 Our hosts at Oundle (the vicar and his wife) are most 
 kind. I fulfil my promise ; and 1 enjoy the work of 
 preaching in the fine and spacious and well-filled church. 
 We stay at the vicarage ; and as the glad anniversary 
 morning awakes I thrust my hand under the pillow, and as 
 my dear little wife wakens I give her my love-token. The 
 day is one of quiet gladness to us. We took the train to 
 Peterborough, and we visited the cathedral. It was in a 
 sense my first cathedral ; for though I had visited Chester 
 and Bangor, Dublin and London and elsewhere, Peter- 
 borough was the first cathedral which awoke in me the 
 sense of the power of architecture as an appeal to the 
 imagination. The view of its west front as it broke upon 
 my sight in i860 gave me one of those unforgettable 
 experiences from which we can date further progress ; and 
 now, sixteen years later, it was to be a joy to both of us, 
 and to be for ever associated in my memory with our last 
 holiday together on that glad wedding anniversary. The 
 day closed with our visit to Nottingham. The following 
 day we returned home with a happy sense of a renewed love 
 experience in our hearts. 
 
 Shall 1 say that the memory of that little trip brings a 
 bitter pang 
 
 " Nessun maggior dolore 
 Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
 Nella miseria," — Inf., v. 1 2 1-3. 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 59 
 
 There is truth in Dante's thought ; but the memory of 
 that glad little holiday together brings with the sadness a 
 sense of peace. The last wedding day we spent together : 
 it was a day of unbroken joy and mutual trust, a sealing of 
 our love. 
 
 The sad and solitary days were fast drawing near, though 
 we knew it not. Here my narrative must break for a 
 moment, for public movements must be followed if private 
 sorrows are to be fully understood. These were days in 
 which public attention was directed to the home difficulties 
 of the poor. Society began to awake to needs of the less 
 fortunate. The food of the poor was unsatisfactory ; ex- 
 travagance in cooking added to^the troubles of many homes. 
 Ignorance was the cause of needless miseries. Let the girls 
 in the schools be taught to cook, and with knowledge 
 economy will come. The miseries which result from the 
 extravagant methods of ignorance will be mitigated. Thus 
 a campaign of enlightenment was set on foot. To help 
 this campaign example was better than precept, and accord- 
 ingly my dear little wife threw herself ardently into the 
 v/ork, and resolved to obtain from the Kensington School 
 of Cookery a certificate of qualification. Armed with this 
 she would be fitted to give lessons in the school and parish. 
 
 What could we do — or what could I do, except give 
 my sympathy to this laudable scheme ? Alas ! it was des- 
 tined to prove, as it may be read, either a fatal success or a 
 splendid failure. The certificates were won. They were hardly 
 won. It meant that in addition to the normal household 
 and parochial duties there was the long daily journey to 
 South Kensington — in those days a matter of not much 
 
6o FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 less than an hour — followed by the arduous practise 
 work, and accompanied by the need of continuous patient 
 study. 
 
 Before me as I write there are fbur certificates granted 
 by the National Training School for Cookery. 
 
 The first is a certificate for preliminary practice in cleaning, 
 which declares that Mrs. Boyd Carpenter, having attended 
 the course, obtained 400 marks out of a possible 400 — full 
 marks, in fact. The second — the date of this is November 
 18, 1875. Then follow two certificates obtained a fortnight 
 later, one testifying that Mrs. Boyd Carpenter had obtained 
 874 marks out of a total of 1000 in an examination by 
 paper, and was entitled to a certificate of knowledge ; the 
 other testifying that she had passed an examination in 
 Artizan Cookery, intended for families spending from fs. 
 to 20s. in the purchase of food. In this examination she 
 had obtained 640 marks out of a total of 800. In the 
 examination for knowledge she was placed fourth in the 
 First Grade. Lastly, there is the diploma of an associate. 
 This is dated May 20, 1876. The date is the anniversary 
 of our engagement twelve years before. 
 
 This record of examinations leading up to the diploma 
 extends over six months — six months of journeys, unwonted 
 studies, fatiguing kitchen work, examinations, during which 
 the demands of home duties continued ; and her poor dear 
 heart was saddened and her life shadowed by the death of 
 her father, to whom she was devotedly attached. 
 
 The diploma was a victory, but a victory won at a fatal 
 cost — ^work, anxiety, sorrow, bodily fatigue and mental 
 anxiety : these were her portion ; and yet the enterprise 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 6i 
 
 for the good of the people of the parish was successfully 
 carried out. 
 
 The price, however, had to be paid : a sensible diminu- 
 tion of energy followed. Often I watched her as she sat — 
 memory of her father evidently occupying her mind — and I 
 saw in her face what I had never seen before. I did not 
 understand it then ; but it was the beginning of the weak- 
 ness which at length undermined her strength. These, 
 however, were only occasional relapses into meditative 
 silence. When we took our little renewed honeymoon 
 trip in September she brightened up, and there seemed to 
 be no cloud over the dear home nest. 
 
 November, however, told another story. The walk up 
 from church tried her : her breathlessness on reaching 
 home was painful, and elicited sympathetic words from our 
 guests. In December she was confined to the house and 
 to bed. The doctors hinted at heart weakness. January 9th 
 was her birthday ; we tried to make a little festival of it 
 in her room. I brought her a small stand for photographs, 
 and I filled it with portraits of those she loved best. She 
 was pleased, greatly pleased ; but the exertion of her 
 pleasure was too much for her, and the next day showed 
 diminished strength. We were only to have her for a 
 week more. I did not even then, however, realize that she 
 was to leave us — up to the last I was blind to what was 
 coming. Only on the morning of the fatal day did I realize 
 the danger, and then I could only cry to God. 
 
 For the rest I must rely upon the little chronicle I 
 wrote at the time. Let those to whom such simple home 
 chronicles have no meaning, or little interest, leave the 
 
62 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 remaining portion of this chapter unread. Here only 
 sympathy can understand. Indeed, I should not write 
 further, but that there are some still alive who knew her, 
 loved her and will understand. 
 
 Here, then, are a few passages out of the sacred chronicle 
 of those days of sorrow. 
 
 "We said our little Psalm — the 23rd Psalm — over to- 
 gether. We had read it together on our wedding night. 
 She talked lovingly of all : she wished the children to have 
 a keepsake : she mentioned little pieces of jewelry which 
 she wished to go to one or another. She turned to one 
 friend and said, ' I can never repay you for all you have 
 done, dear.' 
 
 " I asked her if she would like to have the Holy Com- 
 munion. ' Yes,' she said, ' and your mother. But let me 
 have ten minutes' peace.' We kept still for ten minutes, 
 while she thought and prayed quietly. We then had our 
 last remembrance of the dear Christ's command together. 
 I used her own little well-worn prayer book : it is now in 
 my bureau drawer with other sweet, sad relics of the dear 
 past. The poor dear child joined in the responses with 
 hard, struggling breath. I can recall how her panting voice 
 spoke the words of the confession. ' The remembrance of 
 them is grievous unto us : the burden is intolerable.' When 
 I had given the blessing she said, 'Now, I will sleep.' 
 I left her for a while. When I returned I found that her 
 poor little heart was heavy with the thought of sin. ' I am 
 not fit to go to that pure land,' she said. I said, ' My 
 darling, arc you not forgetting the Saviour ' * Oh no ! it's 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 63 
 
 not that,' she said, ' but I have not lived the life I ought for 
 Him.' My mother then came into the room, and to her 
 she said, * I am not fit to go : I have not been like you, 
 working for Him.' My mother said, * It is not what we 
 have done : He is the Saviour.' Shortly afterwards, my 
 mother repeated the hymn, ' I heard the voice of Jesus 
 say.' When the last line — 'He has made me glad' — was 
 reached, my little one said, ' So glad, yes. He has made 
 me glad.' 
 
 " Once she said, when I laid my hand on hers and her 
 eye fell upon her wedding ring : * Only twelve years ! 
 I should like to stay longer and work with you, darling. 
 That's not wrong, is it ' I stayed with her, and after a 
 while she said, with the peculiar loving and tender tone 
 which she always used in speaking of him to me, * I shall 
 see your father,' and then, after a little while, she added, 
 ' and my father.' ' Yes, darling,' I said, ' and our Father,* 
 Her little hand closed on mine as she repeated, ' Yes, and 
 our Father.' 
 
 " Two of the children, Jessie and Minnie, were brought 
 into the room. She looked at them : her heart was full 
 of loving wishes for them. To Jessie she said * Take care 
 of father.' One thing she yearned for on their behalf; so 
 she said to Minnie, ' Be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.' 
 The children were led away. The little invalid grew rest- 
 less : she seemed to get no repose : no posture brought 
 relief to the wearied frame. Now and again the thought 
 of her unworthiness came back upon her : but at last, as 
 though it were the close of a spiritual conflict, she said, 
 ' I have left it all with Jesus.' This was, as it were, the 
 
64 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 last message of her spirit to us : it summed up her faith 
 and her hope. 
 
 " There was only one scene more — the last. 
 
 " I came upstairs : a friend and the nurse were in the 
 room : soon after my mother joined us. I sat upon the 
 bed, and took her hand in mine : it was cold, and the chill 
 of it startled me. She saw that I was troubled about it : 
 she drew her hand away and warmed or tried to warm it 
 below the bedclothes, and then put it back in my hand. 
 She was quite quiet, she nestled down upon the pillow. 
 The door of the room opened, and the doctor stole in. 
 Some one said to her : 'The doctor is here, dear.' But the 
 doctor said, ' Let her alone ' ; and then to her, ' Just as you 
 are, Mrs. Carpenter.' 
 
 " Then the nurse spoke a warning : ' There is a change.' 
 The little head pressed gently further down on the pillow. 
 The breath came with a deep, hard-drawn sound : there was 
 a little sigh : the eyes closed. All was over. My darling 
 had gone. 
 
 " The same moment my mother's arms were round me ; 
 but I drew away from them and drew myself near to the 
 silent face and form : a sort of fierce jealousy of possession, 
 I suppose, was mine : I was claiming her against death and 
 against all. 
 
 "It was January 17, 1877." So far my little chronicle. 
 
 A strange awe filled me during the next few days : I 
 longed to be near her, yet I felt a worshipful reverence which 
 made me shrink from going in alone. Once I remember, 
 when a dear friend came to see me, I found myself saying, 
 
HARRIET CHARLOTTE BOYD CARPENTER 
 [ To face 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 65 
 
 " Will you go in with me ? I want to go in, but not now 
 alone." She went in with me : a few sacred moments we 
 stood in the quiet room and looked down on the dear face, 
 which seemed so childlike in its coffin. Sometimes I found 
 courage to go in alone. 
 
 A week after the day of loss we bore her worn-out 
 body to the grave. The night before the funeral I went 
 into the room, and by the coffin side I read again our little 
 psalm. I thought of the first time I had read it to her, and 
 of the last. I knelt down and prayed for the children — 
 the children for whose sake she had cherished life. I 
 kissed the coffin and bade her " Good night." The funeral 
 day was a bright day with a clear sky : the promise of 
 spring in winter : a Resurrection day, as a friend said to 
 me. I was, however, like a man in a dream. I went 
 through all the sad ceremonial as a man who dreams an 
 ill dream, which he secretly hopes is untrue. In the carriage 
 my youngest daughter, Annie, sat on my knee, and 1 held 
 her by the hand when we reached the grave side ; but first 
 the church was to be visited, for there the early part of the 
 service was held. Eight girls — former confirmation candi- 
 dates of mine, who used to meet quarterly for prayer and 
 reading under my wife's presidency, followed the clergy 
 who were to officiate. The introductory sentences were 
 read as we entered the church. Then, as soon as the 
 great congregation had settled into their places, the hymn 
 which my mother had repeated by my wife's bedside was 
 sung. The simple and familiar words took on new mean- 
 ings. What memories were wakened and what hopes, 
 when the words, " He has made me glad " were sung ! 
 
 F 
 
66 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 What a rich significance rose to my mind as I heard the 
 line, " Now I Hve in Him ! " And what a vista of lonely 
 days opened before my thoughts as the people sang, " Till 
 travelling days are done ! " Mr. Stewart, my old vicar — a 
 true and constant friend — was with us that day and read the 
 psalm. Mr. Abbott, a neighbouring clergyman, who had 
 travelled with us in Normandy, read the lesson. Then 
 " Rock of Ages " was sung, and we left the church, with 
 its crowd of black-clad and kindly people, and we drove 
 slowly to Highgate Cemetery. 
 
 At Highgate we found that throngs of people had 
 followed us, and had gathered around the open grave. 
 Mr. Stewart read the committal prayer. Canon Harvey of 
 Hornsey— of whom I wrote in an earlier work — followed, 
 and his voice rang out loud and strong, telling of the 
 sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. 
 Then " Abide with me " was sung by the children, 
 under the schoolmaster's guidance ; the crowd on the 
 higher ground caught up the familiar words, and sang of 
 the changeless One whose presence we craved in this ever- 
 changing scene. 1 gave the blessing. Then we cast into 
 the grave our last tribute of flowers. I plucked a little 
 twig from the old yew which overhung the spot. 
 We came home. A lonesome home it was. 
 I met a man the other day : he had lost an arm in the 
 war. I asked him if he felt pain : " None," he said, " but 
 T feel as though the arm and hand were still there. It 
 is the obstinacy of habit, I suppose." A like obstinacy of 
 habit is with the bereaved, and it brings again and again 
 the stab of pain. We receive a kind letter : the loving 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 67 
 
 sympathy of it stirs the heart. The thought leaps up, 
 " I will tell my dear one this : how pleased she will be " — 
 and then slow-moving memory reminds one that the dear 
 one is out of reach. It was so with me : the obstinacy 
 of habit was too much for the benumbed brain. In that 
 sad week I went almost bounding up the stairs : I turned 
 the handle of the room door as I had done so often before 
 with a hungry anticipation of welcome : I thrust the door 
 open. Her coffin was there : it was a few days before 
 they took her away. Tears would have been welcome to 
 me then. Later I heard whispers. Kind friends repeated 
 to me the gossip of the parish : " I was so calm " — 
 " I was showing such Christian fortitude." Oh, poor heart 
 of mine, poor sorrow-benumbed brain that could only 
 monotonously go over scenes, words, phrases of the past. 
 My calmness and my fortitude were little worth — I would 
 fain have exchanged them for tears. 
 
 A month later, I wrote : " I begin to awake, and I find 
 that among the many voices that have cried to me of 
 sympathy, there is One who has stood beside me : silent 
 but pitying, and waiting in love till the wild fit of grief 
 and the paralysis of astonishment have passed away, to 
 take me by the hand and to lead me into His own chamber, 
 and teach me the meaning of this mighty sorrow." 
 
 It was no small responsibility to be left with eight 
 children — ranging from eleven to three years of age ; but 
 this was my lot. In January 1877 my eldest boy, Henry, 
 was eleven, and my youngest child, Archie, was still under 
 four. Between these two there were six others, two boys 
 and four girls. I had an octave of children. 
 
68 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 When a great and devastating sorrow has fallen, one 
 of the hardest matters to deal with is the contradiction 
 between sentiment and duty. Sentiment seeks seclusion : 
 it asks the indulgence of grief. " Let me alone," it cries 
 to the irrepressible and exacting tasks of life ; " let me alone 
 that I may bewail myself a little." But duty points with 
 inexorable finger to the recurring obligations of life ; and 
 duty says, " You cannot afford the luxuries of sorrow. 
 The very tasks of life are hard but wholesome messengers 
 of self-control. Such messengers came to me in plenty. 
 The parish work had to go on : the sermons had to be 
 prepared : there were still children in the schools, and 
 needy and sick people in the houses. Duty called, and 
 sentiment must take a back seat. And yet, if I recollect 
 aright, it was not the severe face of parochial duty which 
 exerted the greatest power over my mind and conduct at 
 that time. There were other influences which came more 
 subtly and more frequently upon me. There were the 
 wistful faces of the eight children ! These spoke more 
 often and more feelingly than outside tasks, and made an 
 appeal to me against all indulgence of sentiment. 
 
 After walking about the parish and fulfilling its 
 task, I would thread my way from the crowded Holloway 
 Road, past the few vacant fields, and climb the short and 
 desolate ascent which led to Highbury Hill : I would 
 enter my own front door : it was the evening hour when 
 the children were neither tied by task nor yet committed 
 to the long process of getting to bed. Was it not my 
 duty to meet their unspoken wishes Must my sorrow 
 fall like a cloud upon their sky .'' It was natural for these 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 69 
 
 young things to be gay. High spirits, exuberant animal 
 life, the restlessness of young activities, these belonged to 
 them, Avaunt, dark thoughts ! yes, even legitimate griefs. 
 Cast no shadows over young hearts. Let laughter come 
 and movement ! Invent some game, some pageant : let 
 us play and think that we forget. 
 
 So I steeled my heart against myself, and resolved that 
 young life should claim its own. I knew that in the long run 
 those dear children would understand the conflict of love, and 
 perhaps understand that the heart does not love the less because 
 it can place the duty of the present before the sorrows of the 
 past, and the care of the living higher than regret for the dead. 
 
 Yet how hard it was to bury one's grief, and to simulate 
 a joyousness of abandon in children's games, and make the 
 glad nursery rioting appear a genuine and unclouded time. 
 Some of the difficulty of this hard task found expression 
 in these lines. That child-joy was hard to bear, and harder 
 still it was to pretend to share it, and so when the little 
 rioters had gone to bed, and their merry voices had been 
 hushed in slumber, this is what my heart said — 
 
 O, merry little voices ! 
 
 Ye children of the dead ; 
 Your very laughter makes me sad, 
 
 Since cold her hand who led 
 Your doubtful feet each day along 
 
 The threshold paths of life ; 
 And silent are the lips of her — 
 
 Your mother and my wife. 
 
 O, merry little voices ! 
 
 Your laughter makes me sad, 
 For I am lone and cannot give 
 The lessons that you had ; — 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 The lessons that her loving lips 
 
 Each Sabbath day have taught you ; 
 
 The thousand comforts and the joys 
 
 Her loving hands have brought you. 
 
 O, merry little voices ! 
 
 I scarce have heart to play, 
 Or join in romp and merriment 
 
 In the twilight of the day ; 
 For I think of her who came and sat, 
 
 Plying needle, as I read, 
 Or looking on with gladness at 
 
 The mirth hour ere your bed. 
 
 O, my merry little children ! 
 
 You have kissed her your good night. 
 And she sleeps beneath the yew-tree, 
 
 And she waits the morning light. 
 We shall play from room to room, 
 
 But her eyes will look no more 
 On our gambols and our frolic. 
 
 With the smile of heretofore. 
 
 O, merry little children ! 
 
 A moment hush your play. 
 And let us think a little now 
 
 Of her who is away. 
 Be silent, lest we rouse her, dears. 
 
 She is but gone to rest. 
 Till the angels shall awake her 
 
 In the morning of the blest. 
 
 O, happy little children ! 
 
 If there we see her face. 
 Familiar as in olden days, 
 
 But glorified by grace ; 
 Her eyes irradiant with the light 
 
 Which cometh from our Christ, 
 And looking on us with the love 
 
 Of one whom God hath kissed. 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 71 
 
 The children's hour ! It always came with its demand 
 upon thought, or inventive energy. It was specially urgent 
 in its demands when the holidays came, and days were long 
 and the opportunities of excursion or amusement were 
 limited ; but in providing amusement in the children's 
 hour, I often had the vigorous and ungrudging help of my 
 brother — the children's " Uncle Archie," Then we could 
 devise a night's entertainment or a day's excursion with the 
 certainty of much out-of-door fun or indoor merriment. 
 Sometimes, at the seaside, we would take excursions over 
 the downs, and give a "fearful joy "-to the children by 
 setting a group of them upon a rug and dragging 
 them down some smooth slope to the level ground 
 beneath — the experiment was full of thrilling emotion to 
 the children, and ultimate permanent damage to the rug ; 
 but it saved the summer afternoon from monotony, pro- 
 voked wholesome laughter, and prepared the way for 
 healthful sleep. When the days shortened and the nights 
 demanded some amusement, again my brother's whole- 
 hearted love of children and their games came to my aid. 
 We then devised little farces, or commonplace domestic 
 dramas, in which sometimes my brother and I were the 
 only actors. We played the fool, and at times played it 
 exceedingly well. What matter did it make, if we could 
 bring happy laughter to the little ones ? 
 
 Once, I recollect, our little farce turned on the de- 
 linquencies of an erratic husband, who stayed out late — 
 much later than his solemn-visaged wife approved. In-order 
 to emphasize the lateness of the hour, we sought something 
 large and impressive to serve as the face of an accusing 
 
72 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 clock ; we found it in a great bedroom bath, whose white 
 inner surface became the dial of the clock. Huge figures 
 were marked out upon it, and the remorseless hands indi- 
 cated that the midnight hour had passed. The scene when 
 the belated man returned was the closing scene of the 
 domestic drama, and a glorious scene of recrimination and 
 riot and wanton destruction it was. Of course, we had 
 other and more serious little plays, but this remains in my 
 memory because of the unforgettable, monstrous, and 
 menacing clock face, which played such a leading part till 
 it fell with loud crash and prolonged vibrant murmurs in 
 the scene of final ruin. 
 
 Later, when the children were old enough to take part 
 in these evening amusements, we prepared more ambitious 
 entertainments. I remember one little piece which was 
 played with considerable spirit. It was, I suppose, a 
 melodrama ; it had a couple of lovers divided by hard 
 circumstances, and swearing, of course, eternal fidelity. 
 It included an unscrupulous old worldling and an emanci- 
 pated woman, each of whom was supplied with an appropriate 
 song. I give these, as they" serve to mark the state of 
 public feeling, as we understood it, in 1879 — 
 
 GREGORY GATHERTIN'S SONG 
 I'm a limb of the law, and my name is Gathertin, 
 
 And I was christened Gregory ; 
 And I'm here to assever and prove and maintain, 
 
 That there's nothing in the world like a law}-er's fee. 
 
 Some talk of their drafts and cheques and bills, 
 
 The large returns of the £ s. d. ; 
 But commend me to briefs and settlements and wills, 
 
 For there's nothing in the world like a lawyer's fee. 
 
MY HOME AND HOME SORROW 
 
 Some seek pleasure at the cannon's mouth, 
 And the glorious reputation of a K.C.B. 
 
 But I'd be shot if I'd been at Waterloo, 
 And I very much prefer a lawyer's fee. 
 
 I'm a limb of the law, and now I seek 
 Your hand, which can bring felicity. 
 
 And I will love my dear Paraffin, 
 
 With the love I bear to a lawyer's fee. 
 
 THE WOOING OF ROSINA. 
 
 My name Rosina Rawbones is, 
 
 I am a spinster free ; 
 I'd like to see the living man 
 
 Who dared to marry me. 
 I know their silly, ogreish ways, 
 
 The stupid, awkward gawks ; 
 That laugh and smoke and jest and joke. 
 
 And blunder in their talks. 
 
 Oh, dear ! the men that I have met. 
 
 Such awful gabies are ; 
 I would not be the slave of one — 
 
 My freedom's better far. 
 For I go in for woman's rights. 
 
 High art, and the intense ; 
 For Local Boards and Parliaments, 
 
 To teach men common sense. 
 
 The first who came to sue for me 
 
 Was Captain Bunny Besom ; 
 He looked at me distractedly. 
 
 And said my love would ease him. 
 I asked him could he prove to me 
 
 The way the circle's squared I 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 He put his eyeglass in his eye, 
 And rudely at me stared. 
 
 Oh, dear ! the men that I have met, 
 Such awful gabies are, etc. 
 
 Then came to seek my hand in love. 
 
 An eminent M.P. ; 
 He said that he'd resign his seat 
 
 If he could marry me. 
 I asked him if he would support 
 
 A bill to let us vote ? 
 He only stammered awkwardly, 
 
 And gurgled in his throat. 
 
 Oh, dear ! the men that I have met. 
 Such awful gabies are, etc. 
 
VILLA LUCAS OR PRANGINS 
 
 There are two classes of kindly disposed people in the 
 world : there are those whose kindliness of feeling leads 
 them to think of you and your needs and what will most 
 help ; there are others whose desire to be kindly leads them 
 to wish to feel enjoyment with you. There is a certain joy 
 of companionship in the hearts of these latter, but it is 
 tinged with a measure of egotism : they wish to provide an 
 enjoyment in which they will participate. Their feeling is 
 very different from that which fills the heart of the man 
 who sets himself aside, and has no thought of any self- 
 gratification, but whose only wish is to devise something 
 which will really benefit his friend. 
 
 In the course of my life I have met with much kindness, 
 but I have met with the kindness of the profit-sharing 
 character more frequently than the wholly unselfish kind- 
 ness. People like to be kind in the way that gratifies 
 themselves ; they are less prone to the kindliness which 
 thinks and acts in a self-detached way. 
 
 I had not been long at Lancaster Gate when I met with 
 a kindness of this rare and happy kind. There lived at one 
 of the houses which stood at what I may call the gateway to 
 the square in which the church stood, a man of remarkable 
 ability and unspoilt kindliness of nature. He had a large, 
 75 
 
76 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 round, rubicund face — the rosy hue of health shone in it ; 
 he had a laughing eye, and the rare faculty of laughing at 
 himself ; he was rich, generous and thoughtful. His readi- 
 ness to help was never of the guinea-and-go-away sort. If 
 he was asked to help, he gave his mind as well as his money 
 to the matter. 
 
 When I had been at Lancaster Gate a few months, and 
 the summer holiday was drawing near, this good parishioner 
 of mine made the friendly inquiry : " How or where are 
 you going to spend your holiday " I said that I had 
 no plans. He said : " Go to my villa on the Lake of 
 Geneva ; tell me how many you will be, and I will 
 arrange." It was a delightful prospect, but the reality 
 surpassed my anticipations. The proposal was so kind, 
 and the way in which it was made was so kind, that I 
 accepted. I made up a little party ; it consisted of my 
 mother and my mother-in-law, Mrs. Peers, my brother-in- 
 law. Rev. W. H. Peers, and another friend, a lady whom I 
 might call Matilda, for she scattered flowers in my life and 
 subsequently became my wife. 
 
 We left London and reached Paris ; there the two 
 seniors of the party were disposed to rest, and my brother- 
 in-law Peers had plans of his own. I took Matilda round 
 the chief show places of Paris, and a long and tiring day we 
 had ; but we were young and vigorous, and we thought 
 little of rest in those days, and, if my memory serves me, 
 we contented ourselves with one night in Paris, and the 
 next night we journeyed on to Geneva. There we changed, 
 and an hour's railway journey brought us to Nyon. We 
 were all eager to see what sort of a house was to be ours for 
 
VILLA LUCAS OR PRANGINS 77 
 
 the six or seven weeks of our holiday. After a drive of 
 some half-hour or more, we turned from the highroad into 
 the grounds of the villa. A long drive past meadows and 
 under pleasant trees ended in a villa most curious to behold. 
 The side it turned towards the park was a series of curves ; 
 the house was brilliantly white in colour. We entered, and 
 found ourselves in palatial quarters. I wonder whether I 
 can give any adequate picture of this fascinating villa. The 
 chief rooms looked out upon the lake. The centre of these 
 rooms was the drawing-room, a large, oval-shaped room, 
 tapestried in royal red. Beyond it, to the west, was the 
 library ; adjoining the library was the Prince's room, so 
 called, for the villa belonged, at one time, to Prince Jerome 
 Buonaparte. From the broad terrace on the south we 
 looked over the lake, and like a silver shield the summit 
 of Mont Blanc showed gloriously white among the iron- 
 grey mountains in the distance. The house was in every 
 way a joy — ample rooms, comfortably, even luxuriously 
 furnished ; a billiard-room, in which my brother-in-law and 
 Matilda and I found solace in the evening. To the west, 
 a tiny little harbour, with boats for excursions on the lake. 
 To row into Nyon became part of our programme. 
 
 In the boathouse I found a vessel of curious shape : 
 two long wooden shoes, like small canoes, were fastened 
 together by upright sticks, crowned by a saddle ; a paddle 
 lay near at hand. It was a vessel which I was told was 
 called a Polinsky. You sat on the saddle with your feet in 
 the canoe-like shoes, and from the height of the saddle you 
 plied the paddle and took your way over the water. The 
 movement was pleasant, and the sense of power which was 
 
78 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 given you by height, made progress easy ; the balancing 
 was not difficult in smooth water. It was a novel ex- 
 perience to impel oneself over the water like a rider on 
 his steed. 
 
 We were well cared for. Servants appeared when re- 
 quired, and disappeared in mysterious fashion. None of 
 them lived in the villa : an underground passage connected 
 with a dependance enabled them to retire to their own 
 separate quarters. 
 
 By day and by night, in sitting-room and bedrooms, 
 we were reminded of the Napoleonic glory which had 
 passed away ; for the imperial monogram was on the glass 
 and china. The catastrophe of 1870-71 had wrought 
 havoc ; and the villa, just as it was, with furniture and 
 household goods, had passed into strange hands. My 
 good friend at Lancaster Gate had shared in the pur- 
 chase of the villa, and thus, ten or eleven years after the 
 fall of the French Emperor, our quaint party were en- 
 joying the rest and refreshment of this choice Swiss home 
 of a Buonaparte. 
 
 1 was fairly tired by my London work, and I was 
 content to read, and ramble, and row upon the lake, and 
 explore the neighbourhood. 
 
 We made the acquaintance of a bright-faced, intelligent 
 and thoughtful Swiss pastor : he had charge of the neigh- 
 bouring village : I heard him preach to his blue-bloused 
 village folk : his sermon showed a competent knowledge of 
 modern thought and problems ; he spoke with clearness and 
 appropriateness, neither obscurantist in ignoring difficulties 
 nor pedantic in parading them before his village hearers : 
 
VILLA LUCAS OR PRANGINS 
 
 he was spiritual and constructive in his teaching. He was 
 good enough to call upon me : his great ambition was to 
 show us his former parish among the hills near to the 
 Dent du Midi. 
 
 In an hour of amiable weakness we agreed to accom- 
 pany him. We travelled by train to Montreux, where he 
 met us : like a young antelope, he bounded up the steep 
 path before. As he sprang upwards with easy and rapid 
 strides, he assured us with a most ingratiating tone of voice 
 that we would walk " doucement " at first, and afterwards 
 increase the pace. The " doucement " was quite enough 
 for us as he climbed gaily towards " Les Avants." We 
 reached the hotel in time for dinner, and there we spent 
 the night ; but the restless spirit of the Swiss vicar grudged 
 the loss of the early morning hours : he had us up betimes, 
 and we entered the cofFee-room at an hour unprecedently 
 early for the waiters : there was no sign of breakfast, but 
 our energetic guide made short work of all difficulties. 
 Anything would do : bread and coffee would be sufficient. 
 We were not consulted : so bread and coffee it was, and 
 before we had achieved much, we were hurried to the 
 road, and began the further climb to the summit of the 
 mountain. We left Les Avants soon after eight: we 
 toiled upward with desperate haste : our joyous-hearted and 
 athletic guide gave us, inadvertently, occasional intervals 
 of rest, when he visited some shepherd's hut and held 
 animated conversation with his quondam parishioners. He 
 fared better than we, for his friends gladly brought forth 
 for him such refreshments as they had : buttermilk seemed 
 to be the most usual or the favourite offering. We reached 
 
8o FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 the highest point of our toilful journey about twelve or one, 
 and we then commenced the descent to the Rossiniere valley. 
 Shall 1 ever forget the staggering incompetence of my foot- 
 steps down the stony and steep path ? I felt like Jonathan, 
 faint for lack of food. I was hardly master of myself : had 
 we encountered some really dangerous obstacle or some 
 damp and slippery piece of ground, 1 think my descent 
 might have been involuntarily rapid. As it was, I practised 
 the stagger victorious, and landed safely at the door of a 
 picturesque inn, where we hoped to find rest and refresh- 
 ment ; but, alas 1 " man never is but only to be blessed." 
 Judge of our dismay ! No food was to be had till it could 
 be fetched from Chateau d'Oex — three miles further up 
 the valley. My brother-in-law and I were quite exhausted ; 
 we made some excuse and retired to our rooms, and lay 
 down on the beds, faint, but expectant — hardening our- 
 selves to wait with patience till food should come. The 
 rest of that day is silence : we were fit for little ; we stayed 
 at the little inn, and we longed for sleep; but sleep was coy 
 and external circumstances were inimical : we had chosen an 
 unfortunate day for our visit. The annual sale of the 
 mountains was to take place, and the little village was 
 crowded by shepherds and others who wished to bid for the 
 right of pasture. They seemed too eager to sleep : at any 
 rate they crowded under the windows the whole night 
 through, and sleep, difficult to woo by over-tired men, fled 
 away before the clamour of tongues. Our cheerful and 
 athletic guide, the Swiss pastor, vanished. No doubt he 
 was swallowed up by his former parishioners : we saw him 
 no more. The next day we hired a vehicle and drove 
 
VILLA LUCAS OR PRANGINS 81 
 
 through La Gruyere and reached some point on the railway, 
 and returned to the Villa Lucas or Prangins, We had seen 
 wonderful ranges of mountains : we had crossed over 
 spacious slopes of rich grass land, and we had reached a 
 cool and secluded valley, in which were crowded throngs of 
 countrymen keenly interested in rural industries. The 
 memory holds a blurred panorama of dazzling snow, cloud- 
 capped heights, glowing or shaded green, but all is seen 
 under a faint mist, for we beheld all with tired eyes, and 
 my recollection of the scenery is dreamlike and splendid. 
 I think we were both glad to be once more under a friendly 
 roof by the shores of the quiet lake. 
 
 That quiet lake, however, could grow stormy at times. 
 One experience we had, which- for the moment filled me 
 with doubt, for a catastrophe was not impossible. We had 
 rowed into Nyon, and on our way home we put the lady of 
 the party in charge of the rudder while we pulled back. A 
 sudden squall came down upon the lake, and when we 
 were rounding the last point on our homeward way we 
 met the full force of it. Just then our steerswoman cried 
 that the task was too much for her, and asked one of us 
 to take the rudder ; but to change places at such a moment 
 was too perilous, and I said, " You must hold on." She 
 did hold on gallantly, and we passed into quieter waters, 
 and at last into the peace and protection of the little 
 harbour. 
 
 Another experience we had. Matilda and I once took 
 the boat and rowed over to the other side of the lake. 
 After a little ramble there we re-embarked and began our 
 return journey. When we were half-way across I became 
 
 G 
 
82 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 aware of a difference in the power of our oars ; my wife's 
 oar seemed suddenly to gain such an overmastering strength 
 that the boat no longer kept a straight course. At first I 
 thought she was trying to outpull me, but no extra effort 
 of mine seemed to make any difference. At last the truth 
 dawned upon us : we were in the swift Rhone current, and 
 we had to allow for its force, and shape our course accord- 
 ingly. It threatened to sweep us far to the westward, but 
 by patient observation, and by discreetly applied force, we 
 before long escaped the limit of the river current, and 
 continued on our way quietly homeward. 
 
 After six weeks of happy sojourn we turned our faces 
 homeward. On our way we visited Strasburg, and spent 
 a few hours at Metz. The pedantic officialism of German 
 railway authorities forced itself upon our notice. It was 
 a bitterly cold night, and my mother, who was no longer 
 young, felt the cold greatly. When we reached one station 
 the officials flung open the carriage door, and the keen wind 
 streamed in upon us. I closed the door, whereupon an 
 angry and arrogant official threw it open again, murmuring 
 some threatening words. I closed it again, for it was not 
 only a matter of discomfort for us all, but it was one of 
 danger for my mother. Again the martinet mind of 
 officialism worked against the comfort and safety of passen- 
 gers, and so the little duel between us continued till we 
 steamed out of the station. 
 
 At Strasburg we went on the Sunday to the church which 
 is honoured by the monument to John Tauler. We found 
 ourselves in a church then used as a kind of garrison church. 
 My wife and I were the only non-military people in the 
 
VILLA LUCAS OR PRANGINS 83 
 
 church, which was filled with soldiers, I think I was able 
 to understand their pride when I saw that great company- 
 gathered there in German uniforms in front of the monu- 
 ment which commemorated the exploits of Marshal Saxe. 
 As I listened to the sound of men's voices, singing in slow 
 and stately style some favourite chorale, there rushed upon 
 me the feeling that their religion was one of race-faith. 
 This company was praising a God who was a God of 
 Germany : they were the subjects of a religion which was 
 in essence Israelitish. It was not the voice of personal 
 religion, of contrition and trust : it was faith in the God 
 of their race and of their armies : it was solemn and impres- 
 sive. The crucifix was upon the altar, but the highest 
 Christian note was lacking in the service. Then I perceived 
 the racial quality in German religious thought which has be- 
 come more plain to us all since the war began. The faith in 
 a divine favouritism has been the ruin of many lands ; and 
 the world is slow to read the double motto of Christ's 
 religion : " In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, 
 barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free " ; and this other : " In 
 every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteous- 
 ness is accepted of Him " — two passages which find their 
 parallel in another pair of sayings : " The Lord knoweth 
 them that are His," and, " Let every one that nameth the 
 name of Christ depart from iniquity." When will the 
 world realize that righteousness is the highest and truest 
 orthodoxy, and that it, and not race, counts in the counsels 
 of God ? 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 
 
 Some friends complained that in my former book I 
 have said so little about my life as bishop. I do not know 
 what my brothers in the episcopate may feel, but for my- 
 self I should say that there is little to chronicle in the 
 routine life of a bishop. It is only now and then that some 
 affair yields some special or dramatic experience. Normally 
 speaking, when the machine is working well there is little 
 which affords motives or incidents demanding any record. 
 Certainly it may be laid down as an axiom that when things 
 are going well there is little to chronicle. Like the body, 
 the diocese is unaware of its organs except when there is 
 local disturbance. Then, of course, there is trouble, and 
 then the head knows that there is trouble. The bishop, too, 
 is like the coxswain of a college boat. If the race is suc- 
 cessful it is the oarsmen who have won it. If the race is lost 
 it has been lost through bad steering. If there is trouble 
 in a parish, the question is, " Why doesn't the bishop do 
 something " and as soon as he does anything the question 
 is, " Why does the bishop interfere .'' " 
 
 Nevertheless the parishioners of any parish are generally 
 very kind : they welcome the bishop when he visits the 
 parish to open the church after restoration, to open the new 
 schools, to dedicate the new window, or the new organ, or 
 the new font. Then the flag floats from the church tower ; 
 84 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 85 
 
 the village band is out : the choristers robe themselves in 
 surplices fairly free from ironmould : the bells are heard, 
 their sweet clamour wakes the countryside : the boy scouts 
 form a guard of honour : the service is to be " quite short," 
 which means that the exhortation is to be abbreviated, but 
 the hymns are to be multiplied, and the anthem elongated 
 to the utmost capacity of the choir. It is all very hearty 
 and earnest, and pleasing and kindly and exhausting. The 
 time spent in reaching the church : the service followed by 
 a luncheon — ^1 beg pardon, a cold collation : the speeches, 
 the introductions : the various few words to be spoken — 
 to our good ladies' committee who arranged the refresh- 
 ments : to the Church Lads' Brigade : to the children in the 
 schools : these things mean a fatiguing though a happy day. 
 The quiet of the railway carriage as you travel home is like 
 peace after storm. You fling your poor body down : you 
 think you will find refreshment in a book, but your jaded 
 mind is irresponsive to the words on its inviting pages : the 
 brain, denuded of nourishing blood, refuses to work. You 
 endure the hour of the homeward journey, and you know 
 that you have gone beyond the limit when work is naturally 
 followed by recuperative sleep. You hope for some interval 
 of repose, but your engagement-book inexorably tells you 
 that to-morrow is as to-day, and even much more abundant. 
 
 There is joy in work, notwithstanding its fatigues. The 
 memory of the bright and hospitable faces ; the insight into 
 this little leafy corner of honest and simple work ; the 
 realization of its happy order and brotherly co-operation ; 
 these things bring a glad content into the heart, and 
 abundantly compensate for any fatigue. 
 
86 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 The limits of time and space make things difficult. 
 Sometimes similar functions are arranged for the same day 
 in parishes a goodly distance apart from one another. I 
 remember having to institute and induct two vicars on the 
 same day ; one function was in Leeds, the other some 
 twenty miles distant by rail. I had fixed the times and the 
 trains ; but the good people, with the new vicar, at the 
 first function had some musical ambitions ; the arrangements 
 were so elaborate that there was considerable preliminary 
 delay ; processional hymns of inordinate length, an anthem 
 of ambitious character, prolonged the service. At last, 
 during the singing of a hymn, I went across to the vicar 
 and said, I must be at the Leeds Station in ten minutes." 
 This I said to warn him that I, at least, must leave to fulfil 
 my next engagement. Having given the warning, I went 
 to the pulpit to preach my sermon. I caught my train and 
 fulfilled the more distant engagement. But such expe- 
 riences are a little trying to the nerves. The use of a 
 motor considerably reduced the strain of these nervous 
 experiences. 
 
 But the real trials of a bishop's life come from the 
 unreasonable and wicked men from whom even an apostle 
 desired to be delivered. I think that a vicar who habitually 
 drinks may be classed among the wicked. How far his 
 parishioners may be classed among the unreasonable, let 
 the following plain, unvarnished tale declare. 
 
 In telling the tale I give fictitious names of parson and 
 parish. Certainly the experiences of a bishop's life are 
 various. Some, I believe, who read my former book, 
 thought that I had done scant justice to these episcopal 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 87 
 
 experiences. I feel tempted to expostulate, and to say, 
 " Friend, if you do not know, can you not realize, 
 that to write explicitly of a bishop's experiences is to run 
 the risk of wounding some worthy soul ? The ordinary 
 record of a bishop's doings is not very interesting. Would 
 it amuse or edify you very much to have a chronicle of 
 miles travelled, of confirmations held, of villages visited, of 
 knotty questions disentangled ? " No, dear reader, you wish 
 something more piquant than these things. Precisely so, 
 yet the piquant things are the painful things, which, being 
 told, may bring hurt to some sensitive spirit. 
 
 I can only touch on such things in a general way ; or 
 shall I say that it may be profitable to generalize my expe- 
 rience in some imaginary incident, which can be justified by 
 memories which must not be allowed to become explicit 
 
 I wonder what is the most demoralizing habit among 
 the many habits which demoralize men. Some will say 
 drink, others debauchery. I am inclined to say debt. I 
 have had to deal with all. Drink demoralizes, but it is a 
 strange thing that when a parson drinks a large number of 
 his parishioners combine to protect him. They feel that 
 the weakness is very human ; it does not make a man hard ; 
 on the contrary, when he has indulged he is companionable, 
 amusing, and magnanimously lenient to offenders. " Ha 
 drinks, but he is a good sort," is the thought of many who 
 know him to be generous and kindly, none too proud to 
 crack a joke or share a glass. These judgments are very 
 partial : they lose sight of the degradation arising from a low 
 animalism ; they forget the inconsistency between life and 
 profession ; and they breed a kind of inverted chivalry, which 
 
88 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 feels bound to protect the offender from his bishop. Thus 
 it may come to pass that a clergyman may be a notoriously 
 intemperate man, and for years he may entrench himself 
 behind the defences which the good-natured of his people 
 raise on his behalf. Here is a case which I give in veiled 
 form. 
 
 The vicar was a short, stout man, with rubicund, but 
 not dissolutely rubicund, face ; he wore the decent black of 
 his cloth. Whatever air he assumed towards his parish- 
 ioners, he had a furtive air in his bishop's presence. He 
 was not one of the bland and insinuating men who are sure 
 to edge themselves to the front at a diocesan gathering, and 
 to assume an air of deferential familiarity with the bishop. 
 On the contrary, the stout little vicar hides away among the 
 outskirts of the throng, and shows a propensity for avoiding 
 the episcopal glance. He drinks ; he knows that he drinks ; 
 he knows that his people know that he drinks ; he has a 
 suspicion that the bishop may know it too. He keeps in 
 the background. Can we call it modesty that keeps him 
 there Hardly, but yet — and here is where the pathos of 
 it comes in — it is humility of a sort. It is the self-conscious 
 humility which feels that he is a stained creature called to 
 mingle among his brethren who are not smirched as he is. 
 Poor soul, he cannot pity himself, but he can be painfully 
 conscious of self. You, who know what is wrong, begin to 
 wonder what will be the end of such a man's career. 
 
 I will tell you. He will go on for a time, the victim of a 
 growing habit, till at length his conduct causes a shock to the 
 public conscience ; then the parishioners will feel aggrieved. 
 They will resent his action as though he had betrayed a 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 89 
 
 trust for which they, as well as he, were responsible. What 
 has he done ? Well, perhaps he has been so much the 
 victim of his habit that he cannot walk straight up the aisle 
 as he goes to read the prayers. Perhaps he will be so 
 fuddled and muddled in brain that he picks from his store 
 of MS. sermons an inappropriate discourse ; or perhaps, his 
 brain being sodden, he forgets what sermon he preached 
 in the morning, and, with evidently confused mind and 
 markedly inarticulate delivery, treats his people to the same 
 discourse in the evening. 
 
 The more conscientious parishioners are aroused ; but 
 I must go on with my story. The clergyman, whom I 
 have described, was vicar of Umpleton Lackwater. 
 
 The village of Umpleton Lackwater was situated near 
 to a great coal area, where several mining villages are to be 
 found. The vicar, the Rev. David Drinkwater, was, as I 
 said, a stout, short man ; he had a round face and scant 
 sandy hair ; he had manners which were popular in the place : 
 he did not stand strongly on ceremony. His ministrations, if 
 not apostolic, were decently sufficient ; for a time no criticisms 
 or complaints were heard, but it seems probable from what 
 followed that his intemperate habits were well known, and 
 either unmurmuringly taken for granted, or condoned with 
 an amused generosity. But it fell on a day — an Easter 
 Sunday, to wit — that he overstepped the limits of official 
 parochial patience ; and there my knowledge of the matter 
 began. A deputation, consisting of the churchwardens and 
 three or four other parishioners, waited upon me with a 
 formal complaint. 
 
 " Ower parson was that drunk, he were, on Sunday — 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 Easter Sunday that was — that he couldn't walk straight 
 up the aisle. Yes, and he preached the same sermon in the 
 evening to what he had preached in t' morning — not that 
 he knew what he was doing ; he were that drunk, he were." 
 
 So the solemn complaint was officially lodged ; the 
 six sturdy parishioners supporting the charge with due 
 emphasis. 
 
 I told them that, as the charge was so explicit and 
 serious, I would forthwith appoint a commission of inquiry. 
 This I did, selecting some six responsible men — three of 
 them being clergymen and three laymen. But before the 
 commissioners could meet I received a letter from the 
 official complainants, the gist of which was as follows : they 
 had seen the accused vicar, and he had promised to amend 
 his ways, and therefore they desired that the matter should 
 be dropped. 
 
 My reply was the only one possible. I told them that 
 the case was too serious to be treated in the way they 
 proposed ; that as they had made explicit charges, it was 
 needful that they should be investigated. The matter, 
 having been brought forward seriously and formally, could 
 not be ignored ; the inquiry must go forward. The 
 commissioners, accordingly, visited the village to hold the 
 inquiry ; but what was their reception .'' They were re- 
 ceived with black looks ; stones were flung at them ; it 
 was impossible to hold the inquiry, for no witnesses were 
 forthcoming. 
 
 So far, in an attempt to do justice, wc had met with 
 failure. But — and here is the astonishing witness to the 
 instability of some human minds — within six weeks the 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 
 
 same half-dozen solemn-faced parishioners were again at my 
 door, to complain of the drunken habits of their vicar. 
 This time, I am afraid that 1 did not receive them with 
 much sympathy. I told them that they were not the sort 
 of men I could help ; that it was useless to come whimper- 
 ing and complaining to me, when they had neither the 
 courage to support their own cause, nor loyalty to support 
 me in doing my duty. So I gave them a lecture, and told 
 them they could go home, and that they need not complain 
 to me till they knew their own minds and were prepared to 
 do their duty. 
 
 I was in despair ; here was a parish put out of effective 
 work by the ill conduct of the vicar, and the fatal and weak 
 good nature of the people. Happily, however, the law had 
 put a new weapon into my hands : the Clergy Discipline 
 Act had been passed. 
 
 Things were in this unsatisfactory condition, and con- 
 tinued so till an opportunity came which the new Act 
 enabled me to use ; so when it came I seized it with 
 alacrity. One morning I read in the Yorkshire Post that 
 there had been a disgraceful scene in the parish of Umple- 
 ton Lackwater. A little child had died, and the sorrowing 
 parents followed their little one to the grave ; but the vicar 
 was so helplessly intoxicated that he could not even read 
 the service correctly ; he outraged the feelings of the 
 mourners by praying for a joyful corruption instead of a 
 joyful resurrection ; he shocked public sentiment by his 
 helpless condition and his total disregard of the decencies of 
 life and the solemnity of the occasion. 1 at once sent a 
 trusty official to the parish ; he gathered evidence, which in 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 the shocked condition of village feeling was easy enough 
 then. Once possessed of the evidence, I cited the vicar to 
 appear before a properly constituted court. He failed to 
 appear ; he had no defence. The case went against him, 
 and I deprived him of his benefice. 
 
 But the affair was not ended. The law required that, 
 after an interval of three weeks, a second court should be 
 held, at which the bishop could, if no difficulties or objec- 
 tions had arisen in the interval, declare that the benefice was 
 vacant. This second court was, of course, an open court, 
 and public notice was given that it would be held on a 
 certain day. It was held at Leeds, and to Leeds I went for 
 the closing scene of this little drama. Judge of human 
 nature, measure once more the unexpected windings of that 
 inexplicable mechanism, the mind of the average man. At 
 the court, the six stalwart, imperturbable, self-contradictory 
 official parishioners appeared. Calm, undismayed and un- 
 ashamed, they commenced as soon as the court was open to 
 lay before me their petition that I would not deprive them 
 of their vicar. One man more unctuous, and perhaps less 
 intelligent, than the rest, came armed with his Bible. With 
 a pleading and pathetic voice, he said : " I read in the 
 Bible, ' Let it alone this year also.' Give him a chance to 
 change — ' Let it alone this year also ! ' " 
 
 I said : " You are too late. I cut it down three weeks 
 ago." 
 
 The plea was monstrous ; the case was a scandalous 
 one ; for six years the misconduct of this vicar had been 
 like an open sore in the neighbourhood ; for six years 
 every attempt to deal with the matter had been baffled and 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 
 
 evaded ; the vacillating conduct of the responsible guardians 
 of the church had been an obstacle to justice ; it was im- 
 perative that the standard of clerical life should be vindicated. 
 The world suffers much from the wicked, but it suffers ten 
 times more from the weak. Life would be purer, better, 
 more wholesome and more happy, if virtue and right were 
 not perpetually handicapped by weak and gushing senti- 
 mentahsm. The weakness of these stout Yorkshiremen 
 was the same as the weakness of indiscriminating alms- 
 givers. The sentimentalist insists on turning on the tap, 
 but he deprecates stopping the leak. 
 
 1 felt no inclination to pay heed to the pleadings of 
 men so weakly inconsistent, so hopelessly illogical as these 
 parishioners of Umpleton, and I declared the benefice 
 vacant. The result was that an active and conscientious 
 vicar took the place of a self-indulgent slacker ; work in 
 the parish became active, and the reproach of the past 
 was done away. 
 
 The story is one which can be repeated by the experi- 
 ence of other bishops. It deals with an offence which of 
 all others is most difficult to deal with. Intemperance as 
 an offence is illusive : it can excuse itself by a hundred 
 subterfuges. The offender is a victim of wicked mis- 
 representation ; he did not stagger as a drunken man 
 staggers ; he stumbled, it is true, but it was due to a 
 passing giddiness which resulted from a weak digestion ; 
 or he was the victim of a foolish indiscretion — a glass of 
 wine, taken for good nature's sake, but unwarily taken on 
 an empty stomach ; such a man as he was never even on 
 the borders of intoxication before ; his wife can testify to 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 his abstemious habits. An experienced chancellor said to 
 me that he never would convict a clergyman of intemper- 
 ance, because he knew how many mistaken and false 
 accusations had been made on the subject. This is one 
 view of the matter ; another view is that there is probably 
 in every diocese a small percentage of such cases, and that 
 every one of such cases means paralysed activity in the 
 parish, and throughout the neighbourhood a general decline 
 in the spiritual influence of the clergy. These cases, and 
 the scandals of a more flagrant character, are fatal to the 
 success of Church work. Happily, these gross scandals are 
 rare. I can only recall three or four cases which came 
 under my own knowledge, and only one of them was of an 
 aggravated character. 
 
 Of less gross ofi^ences, perhaps the most troublesome 
 is the offence of the self-willed parson. This is the 
 class of man who is a born egotist, who has not the 
 slightest apprehension of his duty to win men by the 
 spirit of gentleness and love. He never asks what will 
 profit his people, but only what will please himself ; he has 
 a perverse way of believing that any change which will give 
 pleasure to himself must prove profitable and, indeed, 
 pleasant to his people. He reminds me of the man who 
 liked pepper in his soup, and who accordingly proceeded to 
 pepper the contents of the soup tureen on the plea that he 
 supposed everybody liked pepper with their soup. 
 
 One such parson I remember ; he was a strange mix- 
 ture ; he had a certain rough courage : he had shown 
 conspicuous pluck in attempting to rescue life. He be- 
 came vicar of a populous parish in a northern town. Soon 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 
 
 we had trouble. The parish was poor ; its scant resources 
 placed a heavy burden on the churchwardens, who were 
 responsible for church expenses. Cleaning, lighting, heat- 
 ing, repairs, payment of organist and vergers, made up items 
 of considerable annual expenditure. 
 
 But the vicar had large ideas ; his imaginative ambition 
 was unchastened by the base consideration of ways and 
 means. An organ in a London church was for sale ; it was 
 an organ that had some historic associations: the famous 
 Father Smith, it was whispered, had had some share in its 
 making. The vicar's soul took fire — Why should not the 
 church of St. Boanerges own such an organ That it 
 already possessed an organ was an irrelevant detail — that 
 there was no money to pay for it was a matter of no conse- 
 quence. So the adventurous vicar bought the organ ; 
 the organ was brought down from London ; it was erected 
 in the church, which now could boast of two organs. Then 
 came the bill : how was the bill to be paid ! An organ was 
 clearly an item of church expenses : the churchwardens 
 must pay. The churchwardens declined : they had not 
 ordered the organ. The vicar had acted on his own re- 
 sponsibility : the vicar must find the money. Could he ? 
 Then came to the vicar a happy thought. Reckless men 
 are often fertile in expedients : hence the vicar's happy 
 thought ! There were schools in the parish ; the schools 
 had school buildings ; buildings in a large town constitute a 
 valuable asset. The vicar was chairman of the school com- 
 mittee ; the few hundred pounds required for the organ 
 could easily be raised by mortgaging the school premises ' 
 With a happy confidence the vicar brought the matter before 
 
96 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 the school committee : to his surprise and disgust the com- 
 mittee did not agree to such a proposal. Inquiries were 
 addressed to the bishop. The reply was inevitable : the 
 schools and school buildings were a separate trust : such 
 property could not be mortgaged on behalf of expenditure 
 in church. The vicar was baffled, but when he was at his 
 wits' end deliverance came ; a rich man bought the organ 
 and claimed it as his own, but allowed it meanwhile to 
 remain in the church. 
 
 But the vicar's propensities soon led him into further 
 trouble. When he was in London he saw a picture ; it 
 would look nice in the church : it was bought and sent 
 down. Another time, he saw some handsome banners ! 
 How gloriously they would adorn the chancel. Bills came in 
 to the churchwardens ; expenses grew ; receipts did not ; the 
 bank account was overdrawn ; the bankers called attention 
 to the state of the church account. There was friction, 
 followed by dispute. The bishop was appealed to. A 
 meeting was held at the bank to look into affairs. The 
 vicar and churchwardens met the bishop in the bank par- 
 lour — one of the bank's officials being present. After some 
 altercation, an arrangement was made. The churchwardens 
 were to have charge of the ordinary offertory — indeed, of all 
 offertories except those which were announced beforehand 
 for a specific object. The churchwardens were satisfied : 
 they left the bank contented and even hopeful. 
 
 But these hopes were destined to disappointment. 
 They had forgotten the artifices of the extravagant. The 
 funds which they relied upon were soon and frequently 
 bespoken ; for the vicar would give notice that the offertory 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 
 
 next Sunday would be for the new banners — for a picture — 
 for an altar cloth. Thus once again the wardens were 
 reduced to despair and found themselves face to face with 
 bankruptcy ! 
 
 Meanwhile the vicar, light-hearted, optimistic, not much 
 troubled with conscience, thought to increase the resources 
 of the church by booming it as the abode of " advanced " 
 services. Any innovation in ceremonial, any novelty in vest- 
 ment, any daring experiment in service or song which 
 occurred to his active mind was attempted. Try ritualism 
 was, for this epoch, his motto ! Moved by this spirit of new 
 enterprise, he dreamed dreams of notoriety as a champion 
 of advanced catholicity. He took a journey : he visited a 
 peer who was well known for Catholic proclivities — in his 
 presence the vicar tried to pose as an ardent follower of the 
 Ritual movement. The sham earnestness did not deceive 
 the nobleman. The lion's skin did not sufficiently hide the 
 animal beneath ; the vicar returned disappointed. He had 
 made a bid for support and sympathy : he hoped for 
 notoriety. It was after this vain attempt that I had an 
 amusing interview with this chameleon-like vicar. 
 : ; . I met him by appointment at the Queen's Hotel, Leeds. 
 He began to explain some of his eccentricities in the con- 
 duct of divine worship. He pleaded that he had been 
 exposed to great pressure on the part of others. 
 
 " You don't know how severely I have been pressed to 
 do these things." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " no doubt ; but you were not pressed 
 
 to go and see Lord . You sought him ; he did not 
 
 seek you." 
 
 H 
 
98 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 His face fell : he saw that he could no longer shelter 
 himself under the plea of pressure. 
 
 1 looked at him, and I said : " I should have some 
 sympathy with you and respect for you, if you were a born 
 ritualist ; but you have no constitutional fitness for such a 
 role. God meant you to be a rnuscular Christian." 
 He was silent and said : " Why do you say that ? " 
 " Why do I say that .'' " I replied. " Go over there and 
 look at your face in the glass and you will see what I mean. 
 Is that brow, that structure of face, the face of a man 
 naturally given to the love of ceremonial and the reverence 
 for tradition and authority ? You know what I say is true. 
 You have no genuine disposition towards this way of pre- 
 senting the Christian faith to your fellow-men. If you 
 were following a natural bent it would be different : you 
 are affecting a pose not your own : you are not honest with 
 yourself in this matter." 
 
 He looked at me, and then he said : " I never supposed 
 that you thought about your clergy like that." 
 
 I replied : " I have lived long enough to know some- 
 thing of men's characters. Faces tell their tale. There are 
 men with whom I disagree and yet whom I can respect ; 
 but I cannot have respect for a man who is cast for one role 
 and seeks for notoriety by playing another. Be a man : 
 you have shown qualities of physical courage : there is a 
 place for you and work for you : God has called you to it. 
 Be a man and do it. Above all, be true to yourself." 
 
 The interview ended. I hoped something from it, but 
 I feared the influence of the false atmosphere in which he 
 had been raised. His grandfather had been a tradesman 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 99 
 
 whose descriptive powers had been amazing ; his father had 
 a gift for self-advertisement. The young man had breathed 
 the air of unreality since his childhood. 
 
 Shortly after the interview I have described, he left 
 the diocese for a benefice in another part of England. He 
 gained a strange ascendancy over the mind of a young man 
 of large means : he became involved in litigation and at 
 length disappeared from social view. It was a pity : one 
 felt that good material of life had been wasted. 
 
 It is not, however, the men whose faults become con- 
 spicuous and whom retribution smites with hard blows who 
 are most to be pitied. There is a worse punishment than 
 that of social failure and public disgrace. 1 tremble often 
 for the man who escapes such retribution, whose adroit- 
 ness enables him to maintain his public credit, and who is 
 tempted to measure his character by his success. Some- 
 where there must be an awakening of self-revelation for 
 such. It is sad to mark those whose sins go before to 
 judgment ; but it is sadder still to contemplate those whose 
 sins follow after. 
 
 It is one of the painful experiences of life to meet with 
 those who possess the happy art of evading the painful or 
 public consequences of their actions, and perhaps still more 
 painful is it to discover suddenly that a life which has 
 seemed decent, decorous, praiseworthy is only so in seeming : 
 beneath the comely surface there lurk the powers of hell : 
 dead bones lie beneath the sumptuous stonework. 
 
 I have met more than one instance of this unsuspected 
 moral rot. I can recall one figure — a clergyman whose 
 works seemed to praise him. He bore himself well : no 
 
loo FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 coarse lines of self-indulgent habits marred his face, which 
 was meagre rather than fleshy ; but beneath the surface of 
 his life there were the forces of ill. Fraudulent manage- 
 ment of accounts, and a wicked habit of corrupting lads 
 marked the underside of his life. To tell his story would 
 be to tell one of the most extraordinary experiences of my 
 life, but it would be too long to tell, and almost unbelievable 
 when told. 
 
 Perhaps one narrative may serve to illustrate another 
 form of fault to which a certain class of character is liable. 
 It ought not to be met with in clerical life, but I regret to 
 say that I have met with two or three examples of it. The 
 fault is^ the inability to understand the requirements of the 
 most ordinary code of honour. 
 
 In two cases which I can recall, this fault took the form 
 of a readiness to take advantage of a legal opportunity to 
 repudiate an honourable obligation. 
 
 But to my story. In the diocese of Ripon there are not 
 many good livings (as they are called) in the bishop's gift. 
 Judge, therefore, of my pleasure when a benefice fell 
 vacant which the official calendar of the diocese declared 
 to be worth nearly ;^900 a year. Visions of the happi- 
 ness which I could bring to the heart and life of some 
 good, hardworking clergyman rose before my fancy ; but 
 vain are the hopes of men, and their visions of good 
 pass away like the dreams of a night ! The benefice was 
 a mother benefice : scattered round it were three or four 
 daughter parishes : once the mother church had been re- 
 sponsible for the spiritual oversight of a large district : 
 then in the various hamlets churches had sprung up, and a 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 
 
 separate parson had been assigned to each : these newer or 
 daughter parishes were but scantily endowed : the richest of 
 them could only boast ;^i4o or ^^150 a year. When the 
 vacancy in the mother church occurred, envious and eager 
 eyes were cast at the goodly endowment it possessed. 
 
 My first intimation of the greedy desires of these 
 villages came from a squire who was interested in one of 
 the villages. He visited me, and this was practically what 
 he said : * I live in the village of X, but I pay tithes to the 
 amount of £160 a year to the vicar of the mother church ; 
 thus, though I pay this goodly sum each year, my own vicar 
 gets no benefit from it ; it all goes out of my own parish 
 into the coffers of the grasping mother church." I confess 
 that it seemed to me that he had a genuine grievance. I 
 promised that the matter should be " looked into." 
 
 Once the spirit of readjusting the income was aroused, 
 it spread. The claims of the village of X had been set 
 forth : the claims of Y and Z, two other dependent villages, 
 found advocates, and I am not sure whether another village 
 (say W) did not advance similar claims. 
 
 A commission of investigation was appointed : sober 
 clergymen and staid laymen of the neighbourhood met, 
 considered and discussed the problem. After a somewhat 
 lengthy inquiry, they presented their report. They advised 
 that the claims of the daughter parishes should be met, 
 and that the mother church should be stripped of some 
 half of her revenue. Alas ! for my goodly benefice ! The 
 plum became a very small one : it was hardly a damson 
 now. Where I had hoped to be able to bestow a benefice 
 of nearly £^00 a year, I found that I was the patron of a 
 
I02 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 benefice of a little over i,^oo. There was worse to follow. 
 The £^00 was but a scanty endowment for a benefice which 
 had a house more suited to an income of ;^8oo or ^^900 ! 
 
 My choice of clergy was limited : the benefice could 
 only be held by a man who had either good private re- 
 sources or small responsibilities. I offered it to a bachelor 
 who had worked hard and well in a large populous parish. 
 
 I explained to him that, though in the official list the 
 benefice was described as worth between ;^8oo and ;^900, 
 it was, as I could offer it to him, only worth about 
 half that sum. I explained to him the reductions in the 
 value of the benefice recommended by the commission 
 and approved by the various Church authorities. I told 
 him that the legal execution of the proposed changes could 
 not be carried out during the vacancy of the benefice, for 
 the vicar of the old parish must be a consenting party. 
 Hence I explained to him that I offered him the living on 
 the understanding that he would join in giving effect to the 
 alienation of income which had been recommended and 
 approved. He accepted the benefice on the conditions 
 named. 
 
 But as soon as he was in possession he began to demur 
 to the sacrifice of income ; he delayed : he sought evasions : 
 he was ready to argue against his honour. I began to fear 
 that there might be a failure to fulfil the arrangement which 
 would benefit the daughter parishes and to the fulfilment 
 of which we were all in honour pledged. I confess that 
 my confidence was shaken in the character of a man who 
 was ready to make use of a legal position to evade an 
 honourable understanding and who for a money advantage 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 103 
 
 was willing to break his word. It was the discovery of 
 dead men's bones beneath a whited shrine. 
 
 A similar case I had which was as dishonourable and 
 more callous. It was as follows — 
 
 It was considered desirable to unite two benefices. 
 Accordingly it was arranged that on the next vacancy of 
 either of the two benefices, the vicar of the other should 
 become vicar of the joint benefices, which would then 
 become one united parish. After a time the vicar of one 
 parish, which we may call A, wished, as he was growing 
 infirm, to resign on pension ; he was entitled under Act 
 of Parliament to a pension amounting to one-third of the 
 value of the benefice he held : this meant that he might 
 receive perhaps £100 a year — not a very extravagant pension 
 for a man after some forty years of service. The vicar of 
 the other parish, B, became the vicar of the joint parishes 
 of A and B, and as such he was to receive the income of A 
 as well as that of B. But judge of our amazement when the 
 new vicar refused to pay the pension to the resigning vicar 
 — and was prepared to stand for his legal rights on the 
 ground that the Act of Parliament assigned to him the in- 
 comes of both the former separate parishes. What the final 
 interpretation of the law would have been, had the matter 
 come into the courts, I cannot say, but the claim and plea 
 made by the vicar of B shocked the moral sense of every 
 right-minded man. Before any steps could be taken the 
 dear old vicar of A, a man of godly conversation and 
 well learned withal, settled the matter by dying peacefully. 
 
 Lack of sensitiveness to the claims of honour may, it 
 seems, co-exist with a certain measure of what appears to 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 be genuine piety ; but I confess that it is not a quality of 
 piety which appeals to my respect. 
 
 Debt. — There are many clergymen who have, on very 
 slender means, kept out of debt by a hard and heroic course 
 of self-denial. The story of uncomplaining suffering, of 
 straitened means, of inadequate food, of a life unmitigated 
 by occasional recreation, will, I suppose, never be written ; 
 but in many vicarages this kind of painful drama has been 
 enacted. In quiet country parsonages have lived and died 
 men and women whose lives were one prolonged self-denial, 
 and who have gone silent and unapplauded to the grave. 
 
 There have been real heroes among the clergy, and the 
 bulk of them, to their honour be it said, manage to live and 
 to bring up their families with credit — often and often upon 
 very scanty means. 
 
 But of course there are exceptions, and these were occa- 
 sions of the greatest trouble and perplexity. An illustration 
 or two will, perhaps, prove the best way of showing the 
 difficulties created by the impecunious and extravagant parson. 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Spendall — the name is, of course, 
 fictitious — was the vicar of a country parish. The parish 
 consisted of a long, straggling village, and had a population 
 of, perhaps, looo souls. It was in a healthy neighbour- 
 hood ; the country was undulating, and a long ridge of 
 hills led the way to fresh and invigorating moorland. The 
 vicar had a wife and a small family. The income of his 
 benefice was moderate ; it was not among the poverty- 
 stricken benefices which are regularly helped from diocesan 
 funds, neither was it among those which set the incumbents 
 well above the pressure of want. It was a benefice of about 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 105 
 
 average income, and the vicar added to the income by- 
 opening his house to pupils. For a time I heard nothing 
 of any impending trouble ; parish affairs seemed to pursue 
 the even tenor of their way ; but one day a good and 
 kindly minded layman called upon me and explained his 
 benevolent errand. 
 
 " I am endeavouring," he said, " to collect privately a 
 sum of money to defray our vicar's debts. He owes a 
 considerable amount of money, and I am out to collect 
 enough to set him free of debt, 
 
 I looked at this well-disposed and energetic philanthro- 
 pist, and I said, " You are doing one of the kindest things 
 which a layman can do for a clergyman. The only thing 
 which I would ask of you is, that you would make sure 
 that you know all the debts of your vicar ; for my expe- 
 rience is, that a man in debt never tells the whole truth — 
 perhaps because he cannot, perhaps because he will not." 
 And then I asked, " How much does your vicar owe ? " 
 
 The answer was, " Fifteen hundred pounds." 
 "Well," I said, "I am ready to help, and I will con- 
 tribute to your fund, but on the understanding that we can 
 really clear up the whole debt, and avoid any future trouble 
 in the matter." 
 
 The good layman quite agreed with me, and promised 
 to do his best to obtain a full, clear and exhaustive statement 
 of the debts. 
 
 The fifteen hundred pounds was raised, and the debts, 
 it was believed, were paid ; but within a twelvemonth the 
 Rev. Samuel Spendall was in the impecunious position of 
 owing upwards of four hundred pounds. 
 
io6 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 How did such a thing happen ? It happened because 
 the habits of the Rev. Samuel Spendall were egregiously 
 lacking in the sense of common honesty. In the village he 
 owed money to the butcher and the baker and other small 
 tradesmen ; these bills were never paid : the accounts ran 
 on from week to week and month to month ; but the Rev. 
 Samuel Spendall had no scruple about spending money on 
 his own pleasures. The neighbouring town had attractions, 
 and he found reasons and excuses for visiting it with more 
 than necessary frequency ; and when he did so, it pleased 
 him to have one or more members of his family with him. 
 His dignity required that they should travel first class. 
 Arrived at the town, there were shops where money could 
 be spent : there were also attractive entertainments — a 
 concert, or a play. Why not stay and enjoy ourselves .'' 
 It is true that there is no late train to take us home ; but 
 there are hotels ; and, after all, it is more comfortable to 
 sleep in town than to endure a long, slow, cold, late journey 
 at night. In the entanglement of such an attractive pro- 
 gramme the bills of the local tradesmen were forgotten, 
 or, with the happy optimism of the impecunious, they were 
 waived aside as irrelevant and inconvenient. So from week 
 to week the habit of unconscientious heedlessness went on. 
 Bills were ignored, debt accumulated, and the one person 
 who was never worried about it was the debtor himself. 
 
 Debt is worse than drink in this way. Drink has a 
 habit of bringing a man to book : the night's debauch or 
 the day's excess is followed by some physical warning ; 
 disagreeable pains in head or elsewhere act as warning 
 angels ; but debt can be contracted, and no physical mentor 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 107 
 
 gives warning. The morning after the night of extrava- 
 gance breaks as cloudlessly as though there were no trouble 
 in the world : the head does not throb ; the sight of food 
 does not repel ; there are still things to be enjoyed ; the 
 newspaper tells of some new attraction at the theatre or 
 the music hall. As for the little bits of blue and white 
 paper which chronicle the debts, they can be put away. 
 We will attend to them later on : we will have a regular 
 business day and clear up all the accounts ; but not to-day. 
 A famous pianist or actor is visiting the neighbouring town : 
 we really ought not to miss the opportunity ; and so, the 
 money which ought to go to the butcher or baker or the 
 laundry woman, is spent in travelling first class, listening 
 to concert or play, and tipping the waiters at the hotel. 
 
 Meanwhile the parson's influence in the parish has been 
 deprived of all moral value. The people might condone a 
 lapse into intemperance : to be fond of a glass is a human 
 frailty ; it is understood on all hands, and a man in his 
 cups becomes genial, sympathetic and confidential. If the 
 parishioners occasionally shake the head, or wink the eye, 
 or make a little tossing movement towards their mouths, 
 they say with honest feeling, "Vicar's not a bad sort." 
 They can tolerate a little human weakness ; but they have 
 not the same kindly feeling towards a vicar who is always 
 slipping off to town, leaving the parish unvisited and his 
 bills unpaid, while, as they express it, he does himself 
 well. 
 
 Debt, or the habit which leads to debt, is more difficult 
 to deal with than even drink. A man can so easily deceive 
 himself about his debts : he can mislead others, and he can 
 
io8 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 readily ignore or adroitly postpone the day of reckoning. 
 The habit grows, and it slowly yet surely demoralizes the 
 whole character. Hard facts are put out of sight ; sanguine 
 estimates of expenditure are formed ; lies are accepted as 
 truths. Perhaps means of raising money are resorted to 
 which in days of honour and honesty would have been 
 disdained : begging letters are found to bring in a per- 
 centage of profit. I remember once receiving a letter from 
 a good and kindly lady, calling my attention to the sad 
 straits into which a vicar in my diocese had fallen. The 
 letter hinted in a gentle fashion that it was really discredit- 
 able to the diocese and its bishop that any clergyman should 
 be exposed to such hardship and privation. Dear, kind 
 soul ! she accepted the word of the vicar ; but we knew 
 better : the vicar was making a trade of begging letters. I 
 asked some business men to investigate the matter : their 
 report was that the vicar was utterly untrustworthy. The 
 story which he told to account for his debts was almost 
 entirely untrue. He was trading on falsehood and obtaining 
 money on false pretences ; but he was skilful enough to 
 keep bankruptcy at arm's length while weak and good- 
 natured people kept him supplied with funds, which only 
 served to encourage him in his career of deception. How, 
 it will be asked, how did such a man get a benefice ? He 
 was appointed by a lay patron, who never took the trouble 
 of asking advice or seeking information, which probably the 
 bishop could readily have afforded. 
 
 I have told the stories of some clergymen who, when 
 put to the test, failed in the maintenance of their honour. 
 Happily they were exceptions : they gave way, when tested, 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES 109 
 
 to the spirit of the world, I do not like to leave these 
 stories about clergymen without adding that my experience 
 has also made me acquainted with lines of conduct which 
 appear to be acceptable even to laymen who might be called 
 men of integrity. As illustration of what I mean, here are 
 two stories which set up a contrast between two different 
 views of public duty. 
 
 The first was told me by a man who had been a Member 
 of Parliament. It was a tale of his own experience. Two 
 lines of railroad were proposed, and parliamentary sanction 
 was sought. The proposed lines both ran through a certain 
 property on their way to London, shall we say ? The owner 
 of the property opposed the enterprise, and employed counsel 
 to state his objections and, of course, to claim compensation. 
 It will be well to give names to the two companies which 
 sought for legal approval : one we may be allowed to call 
 the London and Fudlington Railway, the other the London 
 and Pudlington. When the parliamentary committee met, 
 counsel appeared on behalf of (say) Mr. Skimpole, and 
 opposed the Bill on the ground that it would seriously 
 damage the property. The committee, having heard the 
 arguments, assigned in compensation ^30,000. The next 
 day, when the Bill for the other line of railway was under 
 consideration, counsel appeared on behalf of Mr. Skim- 
 pole to oppose the Bill. A member of the committee 
 asked whether Mr. Skimpole's case had not been disposed 
 of on the previous day, when compensation of ^30,000 was 
 given ? Counsel disclaimed any legal knowledge of such 
 a matter : this affair had nothing to do with the London 
 and Fudlington line : he was solely concerned that day with 
 
no FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 the loss which would be occasioned to his client by the 
 London and Pudlington line. After consultation, the case 
 was settled by assigning once more ;^30,ooo to Mr. Skim- 
 pole. And then Mr, Skimpole sold his property for a 
 goodly sum of money, having called attention to the great 
 advantage which the property possessed as being in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of two lines of railway. 
 
 As I heard this story I felt that this was not a story of 
 justice or right ; and I ventured to say that it seemed to 
 me to be a case of an intolerable wrong done, and an unfair 
 advantage taken of the circumstances. The narrator, how- 
 ever, did not agree with me : he remarked nonchalantly 
 that it was not unfair, as a man had a right to take whatever 
 the law gave him. 
 
 My heart sank, for I thought that if our consciences 
 were only operative by the maxims of law it would be an 
 ill day for the standards of public morality ; and there came 
 to my mind another story — and this is my second story — 
 in which, as it seemed to me, a nobler and more magnani- 
 mous conscientiousness was displayed. It was a story my 
 father used to tell. 
 
 In the early days of railway enterprise there lived a 
 certain nobleman not far from London. When the railway 
 — probably the London and North- Western Railway — was 
 desirous of making its way to London, it proposed to run 
 through this nobleman's property. The nobleman was full 
 of wrath. He hated railways : why should this horrible 
 desecration of his property take place .'' He would have 
 no dealings with such a business : he opposed the line as 
 a man full of pride and prejudice might. In the end his 
 
CLERICAL PECCADILLOES in 
 
 objections were overruled, and a sum of money was given 
 him in compensation. Time went on, and houses began 
 to spring up near the railway station, and the land of the 
 nobleman rose in value. One day he said to his son : " I 
 was wrong about the railway: I thought it would injure the 
 property, but it has improved it greatly. This is surprising ; 
 and I see that, so far from being, as I feared, a loser, I have 
 been a gainer through the railway ; and this being so, I do 
 not think, that I am entitled to keep the money which was 
 given me in compensation for a supposed loss which has not 
 occurred." The nobleman acted on his words, and returned 
 the compensation money to the railway company. This 
 was the story : I cannot vouch for its truth. It would be 
 interesting to know whether any record of such a transac- 
 tion exists in the historical pages of the London and North- 
 Western Railway Company, if that was the company 
 concerned. 
 
 At any rate, it stands as a story in contrast to the other ; 
 and I think that I would rather live and die with a con- 
 science like that of the prejudiced old peer than with a 
 conscience touched by the smarter methods of Mr. Skim- 
 pole. It may, I think, be said with truth, that a man whose 
 life is regulated by the letter of the law is yet a long way 
 off from that kingdom of heaven which is within ; unless 
 life is governed by some principle higher than can be 
 expressed in any code, he is still a stranger in the world of 
 good. 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A 
 MORAL 
 
 The clergyman of the stage has too often a fixed type ; 
 but clergymen are of various types : their variety is as 
 marked as that of any other profession. There is the 
 parson who dresses like a groom or a jockey, who looks 
 so unclerical that people of highly ecclesiastical conven- 
 tionality declare that " they don't like him because he is 
 so unclerical." Kind reader, who may be tempted to echo 
 this verdict — remember the warning, so wise and kindly 
 and needful : " Judge not by the appearance, but judge 
 righteous judgment." I utter this warning the more 
 readily in the present case, because 1 can recall clergymen 
 whose appearance would most certainly have been described 
 as unclerical; and yet they were among the best workers 
 I have known. Here is a man who dresses like a sports- 
 man : his only concession to clerical attire is the white 
 tie ; but what a good, practical, kindly parson he is. He 
 runs the parish like a guardian : he has noticed the illness 
 which is so prevalent : he has traced it to the doubtful 
 and indifferent water supply : he has taken prompt action, 
 and now a fine, wholesome and abundant water supply has 
 been provided. He has noticed that the cluster of houses 
 by the railway station is growing in numbers : a new town- 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL 113 
 
 ship is being formed ; his energy meets the emergency, 
 and now a comely and hospitable church stands conveni- 
 ently placed among the increasing population. There is no 
 affectation about this parson. He belongs to no party in 
 the Church : he offends no one's taste either by unctuous 
 phraseology or sacerdotal pretensions : he is a man among 
 men. You may wish that he had a more reverent manner, 
 or that his spirituality were more apparent ; but he cannot 
 affect a role or a pose : he must be just himself. His 
 temperament is practical : he is honest and energetic : he 
 sees what the place and the people seem to need, and 
 he loses no time and spares no pains to supply them. 
 
 This man may not be your favourite type of parson, 
 or mine ; but he is a man who is filling his post in a way 
 which wins respect, if not affection. He will be remem- 
 bered with a regret which will have a note of tenderness 
 in it. " He was a right good sort, he was." This is what 
 you will hear ; and the speaker will turn his face away, as 
 one who fears to let even a passing emotion be noticed. 
 
 -Here is another unclerical parson. You might take 
 him for a groom, out in attendance on his master on some 
 important duty, for his white tie seems to harmonize with 
 the groomlike costume. He is clean and neat — almost 
 spruce in appearance. His church is a model of cleanliness 
 and comeliness : the service is reverent : decent appoint- 
 ments are noticeable everywhere : flowers appear, fresh 
 and various, as decorations suited to the seasons. As the 
 church is well served, so the people are well visited. Classes 
 and mothers' meetings are regular. Among his brother 
 clergy this parson is regarded as a man who brings to 
 
114 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 their discussions a plain, incisive, common-sense view of 
 things. His words are like a fresh breeze, and the heavy, 
 clammy atmosphere of the clerical meeting is refined and 
 clarified after he has spoken. The parsons heave a sigh 
 of content : he has had the courage to say what was 
 glimmering in the background of some minds, and all 
 feel that the tension has been relieved. 
 
 Here again is another unclerically garbed parson. He 
 dresses as if he wished to be mistaken for a jockey : gaiters 
 and leggings, a rough suit with brown checks upon it : 
 a grey necktie fastened with a sailor knot — a stick in his 
 hand. So like a jockey he is that you almost picture him 
 on the roadside sucking the knob of his stick. And yet 
 there is in him a gentleness of devotion and a simpHcity 
 of spirit which win the hearts of those who know him ; 
 and his public ministrations are full of verve, intelligence 
 and true devoutness. What care he takes in the rendering 
 of the service ! What power he throws into his reading 
 and preaching ! He reads the lesson, and you are com- 
 pelled to listen : he makes the words seize and grasp you : 
 you realize the moral force of the stories of the old Book 
 which went to form our national character. He preaches, 
 and you know that thought and study lie behind the 
 sermon, but it is not pedantic : there is no affectation of 
 learning about it, there is no assumption of pious man- 
 nerism : there is moral earnestness and intellectual energy. 
 You are listening to a man with a message. 
 
 And in his parish, what is he ? He is the kindliest of 
 men, but he is quite unconventional. He mingles among 
 the showmen who come round at the annual fair time ; 
 he knows them : he can talk with them — joke with them ; 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL 115 
 
 but he gathers them for some special service : he remem- 
 bers that they are people with souls, and he brings religion 
 to them. How ready he is in emergencies ! Is a sick 
 person in need of night watching ? He will give his 
 night without grudging. Is a young man troublesome, 
 inclined to be dissipated .'' He will devote himself to his case, 
 visit him, travel with him, and watch over him with constant 
 vigilance, while maintaining a happy spirit of comradeship. 
 
 Yes, he is eccentric : people do not like this trait. He 
 is a preacher of singular power, he is prompt and vigorous 
 in action : a man of wide and tender sympathies : but his 
 good qualities are concealed under a cloak of oddity, 
 and though his church is full and his sermons are effective, 
 a conventional public fail to understand him. But what 
 of this .'' Beneath the strange garb and unusual modes of 
 speech there lurks genuine goodness and real power 
 of Christian influence. 
 
 Or, here is another — a different type altogether. His 
 fancy runs to an attire which emphasizes his calling. 
 He goes about in his cassock, and a black cord with 
 tassels encircles his waist. If he visits his people, he visits 
 them in his cassock : if they visit him, they find him in 
 his cassock ; his parishioners pretend to believe that he 
 sleeps in his cassock. People of strong anti-Roman views 
 look at him askance : they distrust a man who seems by 
 his costume to be flaunting sacerdotal claims unblushingly 
 before their eyes. Some people remark on his rubicund 
 countenance, and hint that if the joys of domestic life (he is 
 a bachelor) are denied to him, he finds some compensation 
 in what they are pleased to call the pleasures of the table. 
 Yet, as a fact, he is abstemious and an example of self- 
 
ii6 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 denial. He gives liberally to the needy : he stints himself : 
 he is courageously outspoken to rough and idle men and 
 lads. He is sympathetic — tenderly so — to the weak and the 
 fallen ; his personal piety is as genuine as his parochial 
 devotion. If he is over careful, as some think, about 
 external or ceremonial points, the deep reality of his 
 religion gives men confidence that with him mere exter- 
 nalism will never choke the unquestioned spirituality of 
 his faith. As we learn to know him, we feel inclined 
 to repeat again the much-needed caution : " Judge not 
 according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." 
 
 May I place another character upon the stage ? Here 
 is a parson, neat but not dandyish in his dress ; after its 
 fashion it clearly indicates his profession ; he wears a coat 
 which is ecclesiastical in outline ; his white tie advertises 
 his calling without any hesitation or concealment. He is a 
 little stiff in manner, prim, if not pedantic, in speech. He 
 never condescends to slang : 1 cannot imagine his ever 
 saying to any friend : " How are you, old chap ? " His 
 greeting would be strictly polite — perhaps chilling in effect. 
 You never know if he cares for you. You have an inward 
 though unaccepted belief that he has suspicions of your 
 orthodoxy. You know that he would be inclined to find 
 lurking heresy in your words, and you are conscious that a 
 general spirit of disapproval of modern habits pervades his 
 outlook upon life. Frankly, he does not attract people to 
 him. Mere goodness of nature would not conciliate him ; 
 he distrusts such a thing, because of the established badness 
 of human nature. It is easy to see how such a man might 
 repel you, and how readily we might class him among those 
 pharisaic people who live in a little select circle of their 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL 117 
 
 own, and condemn uncharitably the general world around 
 them. And yet how wrong we should be. Learn to know 
 this man better, and you find that his apparent coldness is 
 the result of constitutional shyness ; that the reserve which 
 marks his manner is not a condemnation of others, but a 
 distrust of himself. His ideal of Christian life is very high. 
 He earnestly desires that his mouth shall not offend, and he, 
 therefore, often — too often — keeps silence from good words, 
 and even kind words ; for he distrusts impulse, and believes 
 in a chastened habit of life. You enter the house, and, 
 although there is an atmosphere of restraint in the family, 
 you soon discover how intense and practical is their 
 religious life. One child — a daughter — is a missionary 
 abroad ; another — a son — is doing good work in a slum 
 parish, and has broken down after an illness contracted in 
 visiting incessantly among cases of an infectious epidemic. 
 The conversation in the home is serene, restrained, culti- 
 vated ; it does not include literature in its widest sense ; 
 but the family know Cowper's poems as well as Milton ; 
 they are well acquainted with the Pilgrim s Progress and 
 Wilberforce's Practical View ; they are familiar with hymns, 
 especially with those which were circulated and sung before 
 the Oxford movement. It is a home of genuine piety 
 which we have entered, and you leave it with the conviction 
 that charity bids us to know all before we venture to form 
 a hasty and ignorant judgment on any man. 
 
 Yet another sketch I must give. Here again is a man, 
 greatly respected ; he is looked upon as a latitudinarim 
 iconoclast ; he setms to have no reverence for established 
 usage or historic beliefs. His very air in church seems to 
 be a protest against any attempt to secure a reverent or 
 
ii8 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 decorous order in worship. His surplice is flung untidily- 
 round his shoulders ; a precarious button holds it together 
 with doubtful success ; beneath it, and in the long, gaping 
 front of the surplice, you see his everyday costume ; no 
 cassock gives symmetry or conciliating reserve to the 
 outline of his figure. In his movements he is quick, and 
 apparently impatient ; he seems to disapprove of any 
 lingering devotion when once the stated service is over. 
 He offends people by a certain slatternly manner of con- 
 ducting worship. He offends or frightens them when he 
 preaches ; he is eager, voluble, and deeply interested in his 
 sermon, but he is heedless of the intellectual capacity of his 
 congregation. He has studied much and long ; he has 
 his own phraseology ; but it is not a language understanded 
 of the people. He flings out his thoughts with burning 
 zeal, but they are either not understood or hopelessly 
 misunderstood by his hearers ; in his absorbing eagerness 
 to say what he feels deeply, he is often incoherent ; his 
 utterances are taken away piecemeal to their homes by his 
 auditors ; some phrase, in their judgment, reeks of heresy ; 
 it seems to deny or invalidate ancient beliefs. They feel as 
 though they were robbed of their Christian inheritance. 
 
 And yet, here again, shall we visit his home ? What a 
 revelation, and what an explanation of all that has been so 
 puzzling meets us here. Here we find a man of simple 
 piety and singular guilelessness of spirit, ordering his 
 household with apostolic care and evangelical zeal. To be 
 present at family prayers is to realize that here is a life 
 guided by the love of Christ, devoted to His service, full 
 of faith in the kingdom which our Lord opened to all 
 believers. And then we realize that his preaching is 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL 119 
 
 intended to make plain a gospel which he thinks has been 
 obscured by unfortunate after-glosses ; that he is trying to 
 speak the truth that he loves ; that the words he uses are 
 quite innocent of heresy when judged by his own range of 
 language, and that a certain unusualness of phrase has given 
 rise to misunderstandings ; that what he sought to say was 
 what the people longed to hear ; but that differences of speech 
 were creating troublesome mistakes. I can imagine that the 
 devout orthodox clergyman who by reason of popular report 
 thought him a heretic, might well feel after a night spent under 
 his roof that this man was a good Christian man, earnest in 
 soul, but entirely misunderstood. And so again, the guest 
 would learn, as we might, to judge nothing before the 
 time. 
 
 If I add another sketch, I do so because there is a touch 
 of humour about the parson whom 1 now describe. He 
 dresses in ordinary clerical attire ; you know that he is not 
 marked by over-scrupulous ecclesiasticism. He goes about 
 his parish, and as he talks you feel that he is a bit of a 
 humorist. He observes his people ; he notes their little 
 tricks of manner, and their characteristic intonation of 
 voice ; he can not only talk to them, but he can tell them 
 how they talk. He is slovenly in church, as though he 
 feared that reverence might end in superstition. He reads 
 the service with emphasis — and the emphasis is all his own ; 
 it indicates — whether you like it or not — it indicates thought. 
 He preaches, and no one can doubt his zeal, but his 
 language belongs to the last generation, and to the people 
 of to-day it sounds like the repetition of empty phrases ; 
 words and collocations of words, which once meant living 
 truth and stirred men's souls, have passed out of currency ; 
 
I20 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 the spiritual force has evaporated. The people listen with 
 laudable patience, but they nod to one another when they 
 meet outside, and agree that the sermon was dull and 
 difficult to follow. Yet at times the latent humour of the 
 preacher bubbles up in the sermon. Once, for example, 
 when preaching on the text, " If thou knewest the gift of 
 God," he ventured on some interesting examples of missed 
 opportunities. " A man," he said, " owned land in Australia ; 
 he grew tired of it ; he sold it. He had hardly returned to 
 England when, behold ! gold was discovered on the property 
 he had sold. If he had known ! I myself," he continued, 
 " once held a picture in my hands ; I was afraid to buy it : 
 I didn't. Shortly after that very picture was sold at 
 Christie's for a very large sum of money. If I had 
 known ! " We can imagine the spirit of mirth which such 
 examples provoked ; but the decorous countenances in the 
 church showed no sign of the amusement which was gener- 
 ally felt. The preacher did not mean to be humorous ; 
 but I think his people knew that the humour of his 
 nature was ready to break out, almost without realizing it 
 himself. He had a gift of smart rejoinder, which was 
 welcome to those who heard it, if not pleasing to the one 
 who had provoked. Thus it happened that a man who had 
 made a fortune in the colonies returned home and bought 
 himself some property in the neighbourhood. This roused 
 the indignation of a pedantic theorist, who denounced the 
 purchase of the property as an outrage on the rights of 
 others — an injury, a wrong, a robbery ! 
 
 " And why should not the man buy a little land and 
 settle down for the closing years of his life Has he not a 
 right to spend his money as he pleases .'' " 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL 121 
 
 " No, he has no right to land. The land belongs to God, 
 and no one man has a right to it, even by purchase." 
 
 The vicar looked at this advocate of extreme socialistic 
 views, and then said, with seeming irrelevance, " That's a 
 very nice coat you are wearing." 
 
 " Yes," said the other, " and good stuff", too ; all good, 
 pure wool." 
 
 " You have no right to wear it or own it," said the vicar. 
 
 " Why not " said the man ; " it's bought and paid for." 
 
 " Oh, no," said the vicar, " however that may be, you 
 have no right to own it ; it is stuff" which belongs to God, 
 just as the land does ; the sheep belong to God ; the 
 psalmist tells us God's claim : ' Every beast is mine, and so 
 are the cattle upon a thousand hills : the whole world is 
 mire and the fulness thereof.' " 
 
 Such was the vicar, with his humour and readiness — 
 a man mercurial, impulsive, imitative ; bearing his life as 
 a disappointment, easily depressed, annoyed and almost 
 angered to find, after some thirty years of work, that his 
 people knew so little of their Bibles. Had he not been 
 expounding it in their ears for a generation ? Was it not 
 heartbreaking to find that they were ignorant of some of the 
 most obvious matters of Bible story ? Rumour said that 
 disappointment killed him ; but I think that his people, 
 even now, miss the tall, black-coated figure, the ruddy face, 
 the white hair, the pause on the road, the jerky speech, the 
 quaint remark, the good-humoured raillery. He was the 
 parson, and whatever else, he was, as they said, " a 
 character," and a character is not easily forgotten. 
 
 But this, let me add, is no reason why a man should 
 attempt to be a character ; eccentricity which is assumed is 
 
122 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 always ineffective. " That is lovely," says Dante, " which 
 is most distinctive" ; but shams are not distinctive. 
 
 BISHOPS AND BISHOPS 
 
 The days when I first made acquaintance with the 
 NoVthern Convocation stand out in my memory with a 
 special interest or even charm. The Upper House then 
 consisted of the Primate, Archbishop Thomson, the Bishop 
 of Durham was Dr. Lightfoot, the Bishop of Carlisle was 
 Dr. Harvey Goodwin, the Bishop of Manchester was Dr. 
 Eraser, the Bishop of Newcastle was Dr. Ernest Wilberforce, 
 the Bishop of Liverpool was Dr. Ryle, and the Bishop of 
 Sodor and Man was Dr. Rowley Hill. We were all enter- 
 tained with large-hearted and unstinting hospitality by 
 the Archbishop at Bishopthorpe. The days were given to 
 business, but in the evenings at Bishopthorpe there was a 
 relaxation from severer topics. An atmosphere of social 
 kindliness invited a happy freedom : it became natural to 
 be gay, and it was admissible to allow mirth to have some 
 scope in the intercourse. The result was that quips and 
 smart sayings, humorous tales and witticisms were welcome. 
 There was no affected solemnity, and no unwritten code of 
 manners which prohibited a smile. Decorous dulness was 
 not considered the essential attendant of piety. The 
 religious spirit might flow through natural channels, and 
 laughter was a gift of God. 
 
 Dr. Rowley Hill was the wit of the party. He had the 
 quick, happy irrelevancy of fancy which could detach itself 
 from the immediate topic, and fasten upon some humorous 
 aspect. When he urged some friend to visit the Isle of 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL 123 
 
 Man, the friend objected that the sea and its consequent 
 malaise would be too much for him, so he could never 
 go by boat. " Oh, well then, why don't you come by 
 Barrow ? " said the Bishop. 
 
 Among tales told by Bishop Rowley Hill, I recall one 
 which he told with great enjoyment. The omnibus was at 
 the hotel door about to convey passengers to the station ; 
 the passengers were taking their seats, and " Boots " was 
 hovering about expectantly, the last chance of a " tip " had 
 come. Among the passengers was a Frenchman, who had 
 just taken his place near the door of the omnibus. With 
 ingratiating and deprecating air, Boots drew near and, 
 tendering his cap, said in an insinuating and suggestive 
 way, " Remember Boots, sir." 
 
 " Vat you say " said the Frenchman. 
 
 " Remember Boots, sir," was the reply. 
 
 The Frenchman looked blank and puzzled, and again 
 asked, " Vat vas dat you say — Remember Boots " 
 
 " Yes, remember Boots," said the eager Boots. 
 
 Whereupon the Frenchman deliberately turned the 
 handle of the door, stepped in dignified fashion into the 
 road, and flinging his arms round Boots' neck, exclaimed with 
 fervour, " Oh, Boots, 1 vill remember you as long as I lif ! " 
 
 One scene I recall. We were all in the hospitable 
 omnibus, which was taking us from Bishopthorpe into 
 York, for the morning meeting of Convocation. As we 
 journeyed, I read to the Archbishop and my brother 
 Bishops, Mark Twain's tale, entitled "Parting with the 
 Family Pet." The effect of the story was just delightful. 
 I suppose we were all just in the mood to enjoy some 
 innocent fooling. Bishop Fraser was happily amused. 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 Bishop Harvey Goodwin appreciated the humour of the 
 tale. The Archbishop, unwilling to give way too much, 
 was yet moved to irresistible mirth. Bishop Lightfoot 
 fairly abandoned himself to the spirit and movement of the 
 narrative, and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. 
 They were happy, brotherly days which we spent at Bishop- 
 thorpe, and the genial tone of them was refreshing. It 
 seemed to unlock the gates of dignified reserve ; we could 
 be ourselves, and let natural emotion have free play, I can 
 now picture Bishop Harvey Goodwin passing on to us an 
 anecdote which he had read in some newspaper. It told of 
 a conversation between two sailors. " Mate," said one of 
 them, " what is a hanthem that I hear folks speaking 
 about.?" "A hanthem, Bill.?" said the other. "Well, 
 it's like this : if I was to say to you, ' Bill, hand me that 
 marling spike,' well, that wouldn't be a hanthem ; but if 
 I was to say to you, ' Bill — Bill — hand me, hand me, Bill, 
 hand, hand me that — hand me. Bill, that marling, marling. 
 Bill — that marling spike, hand me. Bill, that spike — marling 
 Bill spike — hand me that marling, marling spike,' why, that 
 would be a hanthem." The anecdote is trite enough : the 
 keen enjoyment with which it was told is the refreshing 
 element in the incident ; it illustrates the happy freedom of 
 our intercourse, and the absence of that professional reserve 
 which so often dehumanizes our clerical gatherings. 
 
 It is unkind to tell tales out of school ; but as all the 
 actors in the following little scenes have passed away, it 
 may not be out of place to chronicle these harmless tales. 
 It is well known that bishops meet for mutual counsel, 
 and talk over their difficulties. Sometimes these difficulties 
 present a somewhat comic aspect to untrained minds. 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL 125 
 
 One such difficulty was brought before his brethren by 
 a bishop who had great skill in argument, and delighted in 
 .presenting a question under a wide variety of view. The 
 difficulty was this — 
 
 A clergyman had telegraphed to him for instructions. 
 A fire had taken place, and the clergyman was asked to take 
 the funeral of one of the victims ; the body had been 
 almost reduced to ashes : the clergyman desired to know 
 whether he was to use the ordinary burial service or 
 whether he ought not to alter the wording of the service ; 
 for how could he truly say " we commit his body to the 
 ground," when there is literally no body left ? The bishop 
 had replied that the service must not be altered. Having 
 told the story he proceeded to argue the question after his own 
 ingenious and logical fashion. After all, what does the word 
 body mean ? Must you take it to mean the body as we 
 generally know it Yet, if a man had lost arms and legs, 
 would you hesitate to use the word body when it was little 
 more than his trunk which you committed to the ground ? 
 The idea might be carried further — What is a body Is it the 
 material bodily framework ? Among the various accidents 
 of life, how often it is but a small residue of the body 
 proper which is left at the last. Disease may have wasted 
 away the bulk of the bodily tissue : accident may have 
 reduced the frame to a mere fraction of its former self ; 
 fire, as in the case in question, may have devoured all but 
 an insignificant residuum of what was once its bulk. 
 
 This bore on cremation. If cremation became a widely 
 observed practice were we to use the old service and speak 
 of committing the body to the ground. After all, it might 
 be quite convenient to do so. All we meant was that such 
 
126 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 remains of what once was the body were now to be given 
 the sepulture of earth. 
 
 After the bishop had delivered his thoughts on the 
 subject, a debate, or rather a general conversation, ensued. 
 One bishop, steeped in patristic lore, gave utterance to his 
 view that cremation was a pagan practice, and that the 
 distinction between heathens and Christians was well set 
 forth by one of the Fathers, who had pointedly said, " They 
 indeed (the heathen) burn, but we (the Christians) bury." 
 
 Stirred by this thought, another bishop rose and delivered 
 it as his opinion that cremation dangerously threatened the 
 doctrine of the resurrection, and destroyed the very body 
 of which St. Paul had spoken in his Corinthian epistles. 
 
 This was too much for the bishop who had introduced 
 the subject. He rose, and with some vigour and vehemence 
 repudiated the line of reasoning ( i*) which his brother pre- 
 late had used. The words of St. Paul were quite plain : 
 " That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which 
 shall be, but bare grain . . . : but God giveth it a body as 
 it pleaseth Him." 
 
 It was a curious scene : it set one wondering at the 
 very small amount of thought there was in the world, and 
 how readily a man might reach a position of authority and 
 responsibility without having greatly exercised his brain. 
 
 Another scene I may give — this was an informal meet- 
 ing of bishops. Round a table are gathered, perhaps, some 
 dozen bishops. The question to be considered was the 
 fruitful one of Bible difficulties. One devout bishop was 
 sorely troubled on the subject of the iioth Psalm, which 
 critics declared was not written by David, but which, as it 
 seemed to him, our Lord had treated as David's. Christ 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL 127 
 
 had said : " David in the Psalms saith, The Lord said 
 unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand." Must we 
 not believe that our Lord knew better than the critics ? or 
 how were we to explain our Lord's ignorance of the true 
 authorship of the Psalm ? 
 
 I wonder whether the mind of the questioner was 
 satisfied with the general reply that Christ was not com- 
 mitting Himself to the question of authorship at all : He 
 was merely citing as belonging to those works which went 
 under the common title of David, just as we might cite 
 from " Blackstone," although the particular case we referred 
 to might be found in an edition of Blackstone made later 
 than the date of the famous law authority. 
 
 The question of Bible difficulties is a large one, and 
 soon the old difficulties of Jonah and the Whale and 
 Balaam's Ass were brought forward. When some of the 
 ordinary answers to the Jonah difficulty had been men- 
 tioned, a bishop, pious and plaintive, expressed his devout 
 belief : " Well, I feel sympathy with the dear old godly 
 woman who said, ' If the Bible had told me that Jonah 
 swallowed the whale, I would have believed it.' " 
 
 Here I must let the curtain drop : the records are of 
 old and obsolete days. We are wiser now : we have 
 learned much since then. We can afford to smile over 
 difficulties which troubled many pious souls. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP TEMPLE 
 
 Stories of the early years of men's lives have special 
 interest when they give some hint of character which after- 
 life brings out with prominence. The remembrance of 
 
128 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 this kind of prophetic feature of boyhood's actions, 1 think, 
 was stirred in our minds when, in Bradford, during the 
 Church Congress of 1898, we had Archbishop Temple 
 with us as our guest. We had taken up our quarters for 
 the week at the Midland Hotel, and there the archbishop 
 joined us. Is residence under the same roof a revealer of 
 men If so, the archbishop revealed the best and kindest 
 of natures. It was a joy to have him : his happy freedom, 
 his ready mirthfulness, his strength of mind, his industrious 
 energy, were conspicuous. He stayed with us till the last 
 possible moment, travelling back to London by the night 
 train rather than fail to help us at our evening meeting. 
 At the congress he was a real strength to us : at the hotel 
 he was frank and kindly, full of anecdote and friendly talk. 
 
 How vividly he told us of his boyish experience when 
 his mother commissioned him to do some errand in the 
 neighbouring town, and he found that what he had been 
 asked to bring was heavier and more cumbrous than he 
 could carry with anything like ease or comfort ; but with 
 him there was no question of shirking difficulty. If a 
 thing had to be done, it must at least be attempted. 
 Accordingly, now lifting, now dragging, now resting, now 
 renewing his efforts, he travelled with his burden the 
 homeward journey, and so fulfilled successfully the difficult 
 and fatiguing task. The incident showed character, and 
 character is the chief asset in life, and the only one which 
 in the long run counts. 
 
 On another occasion we spoke about hymns. I told 
 how Mr. Farmer, to whom Harrow owes so many of her 
 school songs, had acted when he wanted to compile a hymn 
 book for Balliol College chapel. He asked a certain 
 
SKETCHES OF PARSONS WITH A MORAL 129 
 
 number of his acquaintances to send him a list of twenty 
 hymns, the choice to be governed by this condition : the 
 hymns chosen were to be such that young men would be 
 willing to sing them, and would not be ashamed, twenty 
 years hence, to have sung them. In this way he got 
 several lists containing twenty hymns each, and out of 
 these he was able to compile a hymn book of some 
 hundred hymns, all of them hymns of strong, robust and 
 suitable character. I asked Mr. Farmer what hymns found 
 a place in the majority of lists. He told me, if I recollect 
 rightly, that the hymn, " O God, our help in ages past," 
 was included in every list. I told this to the archbishop 
 and the rest of our party ; and I added that I thought this 
 hymn the finest or premier hymn in the English language. 
 The archbishop — somewhat, I think, to my surprise — did 
 not agree, and expressed his preference for hymns of a 
 more directly personal kind, and gave as an example, 
 " The King of Love my shepherd is." I am not suggest- 
 ing that he put this forward as his favourite hymn ; but he 
 certainly showed his leaning towards the class of hymns 
 which give expression to personal faith. 
 
 We were thinking of different things. My thoughts 
 were of hymns which suit multitudes, or which embody 
 national or collective faith ; and such hymns I would class 
 among those which might be called fine — an adjective which 
 1 would not apply to those tender, sweet, spiritual hymns 
 of individual trust, like " The King of Love," or " Jesu, 
 lover of my soul," or " My God, the spring of all my 
 joys." These, from the clinging intimacy of their language, 
 belong to that realm of spiritual peace and satisfaction in 
 which one no longer considers whether the sacred ode is 
 
 K 
 
I30 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 fine or not : they are the utterance of emotions or experi- 
 ences which lie beyond the range of the critical faculty, 
 which judges whether a thing is "fine" or not. The in- 
 wardly recognized truth possesses the soul to the exclusion 
 for the moment of the artistic judgment. 
 
 In short, at the moment my mind was set upon what 
 my mind appreciated while the archbishop was speaking 
 of what he found soul-satisfying. When we realized this, 
 we were found to be nearer in accord than at first sight 
 appeared. What is fine when sung by thousands in worship 
 is not always spiritually the most helpful when one is alone 
 in one's room, trying to find nourishment and comfort for 
 the failing heart or the burdened soul. 
 
 I have been always glad to recall this conversation about 
 hymns. It helped to clear my own judgment, and it 
 seemed to show me how a man, great, strong, courageous 
 and true, might be possessed at the same time of a genuine 
 and touching humility of spirit. 
 
 Is it worth while recalling what, I think, must have been 
 my last conversation with Archbishop Temple It was at 
 the close of a bishops' meeting. He said he felt tired, and 
 could not do his work. Naturally I suggested rest, which 
 would in time make work easy. " No," he said, " I am 
 tired, and as to my work, I don't want to do it." I answered : 
 " If your worst enemy Said that I should not believe him." 
 It, however, was plain enough that the pressure of work 
 had worn out the energy so much that even the thought 
 of work seemed a burden too heavy to bear. Remember- 
 ing this, I can feel the heroism with which he worked on, 
 and died gloriously in harness. 
 
HOLBECK JUNCTION 
 
 I READ in an advertisement the other day that fifteen- 
 sixteenths of convictions for crime were for fraud. I 
 suppose one may believe that crimes of violence decrease 
 as society becomes civilized, but are we more honest ? 
 
 Be not alarmed, my friend ; I am not going to undertake 
 a dissertation on criminal statistics. The question I asked, 
 and the words which led to it, were only like a preface, 
 which may be happily irrelevant to what follows. While 
 journeying to and fro upon episcopal work, I have often had 
 to spend time at a railway station, and in doing so I have found 
 kind friends among the officials. One station at one period 
 saw much of me. Just outside Leeds there is a station 
 called Holbeck : I used to know it well. It was then 
 the station where tickets were collected from passengers 
 travelling to Leeds from Ripon ; it was the junction also 
 where passengers changed for the Great Northern system, 
 and sometimes for the Midland system. How many hours 
 I have spent in the upper level or lower level stations at 
 Holbeck ! How many good friends I found among the 
 foremen and porters there ! At home we always talked 
 about the Holbeck men as if they were a class by them- 
 selves, distinguished for virtues not met elsewhere. To 
 us they were distinguished by kindness, helpfulness, 
 thoughtfulness ; they eased our journeys, they lessened 
 131 
 
132 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 our fatigues, they carried our burdens for us with a smile. 
 Oh, we were great friends ! Shall I ever forget the good- 
 natured giant, Davey by name, with his huge frame, his 
 paternal eye, his strong and far-reaching voice ? Why, 
 as I write, I can hear it as it rises over the hustling sound 
 of nervous feet, the hum of the luggage-laden trucks, and 
 the roar of the incoming train, as the engine bursts through 
 the arch of the upper line. " Train for Harrogate, Ripon, 
 Darlington, and the North," and then, almost before the 
 echoes died away, Davey was running along the slackening 
 train, was searching the carriages with kindly look, was 
 opening the door of the least crowded compartment and 
 helping us in for the last stage of the journey to Ripon 
 after a long and tiring day. Dear Davey, you almost 
 thought we had proved faithless when the new line was 
 opened and we reached Leeds without passing through 
 Holbeck, or travelled to and from London by a route which 
 avoided Leeds and Holbeck. " You're quite a stranger," 
 he would say, looking down upon me with a wistful expres- 
 sion of face. I declare that I felt almost ashamed that we 
 were taking advantage of improved railway communication. 
 The change robbed Holbeck of much of its traffic and a 
 good deal of its importance ; the staff was reduced, the 
 two or three hundred trains a day no longer rushed and 
 roared through the stations. What it may be now, I 
 cannot say ; but I like to think of it as it was in the days 
 of its glory, when I paced up and down the long platform 
 and talked to the men, and found so much of sweet and 
 true humanity in them all ; when they met me with 
 smiling faces and kindly greetings, when we always made 
 
HOLBECK JUNCTION 
 
 133 
 
 up parcels of Christmas cards for the Holbeck men, when 
 the stationmaster's room was always at my disposal to 
 rest or to chat in. 
 
 It was during one of the inevitable intervals spent in 
 the stationmaster's room that I heard stories of an 
 inspector's experience on the line. Here I come back 
 to the question : ^are we more honest .'' The inspector's 
 business was not that of ticket collector but of ticket 
 inspector. His little realm of inspection comprised a 
 portion of the London and Suburban section of the line 
 it extended a few miles north of London to the city. 
 
 Are people more honest ? He told me that he 
 collected in one fortnight £200 for unpaid fares within 
 his own district. Not all, perhaps, were fraudulent people ; 
 some, no doubt, had failed to book through hurry ; but they 
 were not all forgetful or hurried people who contributed 
 to the 1,200 which was gathered in that fortnight. 
 
 Many were the devices resorted to by the ingenuity 
 of those who shirked honest methods. To nod in a 
 familiar way when asked for ticket and to murmur 
 " Season " was one method : this was generally resorted 
 to by those who were usually season ticket holders, but 
 who sought to travel economically when the season ticket 
 had expired, and so to enjoy cheap travelling before 
 embarking on another period of expensive honesty. 
 Another method adopted was to split the season ticket, 
 as you make split toast ; then, by placing each half in a 
 leather frame, with the rough surface below, you became 
 possessed of the appearance of two season tickets, and 
 you could take your wife to town for the theatre or 
 
134 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 concert, posing both as season ticket holders. A man 
 who was nimble of foot and cool of brain could reduce 
 the cost of a journey by bolting out of the train and 
 hastily booking for the last part of the journey while the 
 train was waiting at the station ; he probably booked for 
 the first part of the journey, then travelled without cost 
 for the interval and put himself right, as he would say, 
 by taking a ticket for the final stage. The inspector's 
 eyes, however, were sharp, and the inspector proved to be 
 ubiquitous, and the adroit culprit was unexpectedly con- 
 fronted by the inspector at the city terminus, and was 
 shown to have in his possession a ticket for the first stage 
 of the journey, and to have given up at the barrier only a 
 ticket for the last stage ; and as the inspector had watched 
 the whole manoeuvre, the smart young man was haled 
 forthwith before the magistrate. 
 
 But here is the most curious tale I heard among the 
 tales told me that day. A certain man was a clever 
 draughtsman, and he bought every Saturday a week-end 
 ticket from King's Cross to Hornsey. Before using it, 
 he altered Hornsey to Holbeck. This required some 
 skill ; but it was done, and done so well that the fraud 
 was not discovered for some time. Every week this man 
 travelled to Leeds, alighting, as his ticket intimated, at 
 Holbeck. No one noticed that the ticket had been 
 tampered with, and even when the fraud was discovered 
 it was not discovered through any clumsiness of the 
 craftsman culprit. It was discovered when a new route 
 was opened for a short portion of the line, and tickets 
 were issued with the additional words : " By West 
 
HOLBECK JUNCTION 
 
 135 
 
 Yorkshire line," or some such indication of the new route. 
 The new words were wanting on the adventurer's ticket, 
 the lack of them led to inquiry, and the inquiry to 
 discovery, the discovery to conviction and imprisonment. 
 
 But now comes the most strange and singular part 
 of the story. What was the object of this weekly journey 
 to Holbeck and back ? It was to preach at some evange- 
 listic or open-air service in Leeds. Human nature has 
 its surprises. I confess to a wish that I might have heard 
 what this strange man had to preach ; what odd con- 
 tradictions must have existed in such a man ! Did he 
 find in his missionary task a justification of his fraud ? 
 Did he lie down to rest on Sunday nights with a quiet 
 and self-approving conscience Or did he make his 
 preachings profitable, and was he all the while laughing in 
 his sleeve at the deceived congregation and the defrauded 
 railway company ? 
 
 Was he the deliberate deceiver who, like Horace's 
 false worshipper, besought the gods to help him to appear 
 good while he was not so 
 
 "Labra movet metuens audiri : Pulchra Laverna 
 Da mihi fallere, da justo sancto que videri ; 
 Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem." 
 
 Hor. E/>., i. 16 (543). 
 "Divine Laverna, grant me safe disguise, 
 Let me seem just and upright in men's eyes, 
 Shed night upon my crimes, and glamour o'er my lies." 
 
 Covington's Translation. 
 
 But I must leave these Holbeck memories, yet not 
 without a tribute to the kindly, hardworking men who 
 smoothed my way and often revived my heart. You will 
 
136 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 not find them in Holbeck now. All are scattered ; I 
 saw recently one familiar face which brought back old 
 memories, but it was not at Holbeck. Not one, I think, 
 of the old Holbeck men are to be found there. Davey 
 is dead. The strong, big, kindly man — the father of the 
 platform — has passed on to the other world. The light 
 of that other world shone in his life and brightened his 
 closing days. Holbeck could never seem the same without 
 him. 
 
MR. MILLWRIGHT 
 
 I HAVE met men who have interested me and even 
 impressed me by some trait or traits of character which 
 are unusual. Two of these recur to my memory : both are 
 dead now, but there are people alive who perhaps would not 
 wish them to be spoken of by name. I shall, therefore, 
 speak of them by some fancy names. 
 
 Mr. Millwright was not a typical Yorkshireman : he 
 was not, that is to say, of the John Browdie sort. He was 
 lithe, active and almost nervously built. He had a wide 
 brow and a face weather-touched and broken into a few 
 broad folds. It could not be called wrinkled, and it 
 certainly was not fleshy or flabby ; but there were distinct 
 marks of effort and energetic attention in its lines. His 
 life had been successful. He had been brought up in a 
 fairly cultivated home, and he had been designed for one of 
 the professions : he was looked upon as the future clergy- 
 man of the family — a foolishly attempted anticipation which 
 led to its own defeat. A lad does not like to have his future 
 fixed and paraded perpetually before his eyes. The well- 
 meant, but silly talk of the home provoked an obstinate 
 distaste in the lad's mind, and he turned his thoughts to 
 business, and in business he succeeded. 
 
 His success, however, was not due to what we call 
 137 
 
138 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 business capacity, which often means adroitness and that 
 smartness which is second cousin to fraud. His success 
 was due to the patience which is said to be synonymous 
 with genius : he was a born inventor, and he had the gift 
 of that tenacity of purpose and long-continued attention 
 which so often ensures success. If Sir Isaac Newton was 
 right in saying that he owed his success to his habit of 
 " always intending his mind," this man of whom I write might 
 fairly make the same claim. Witness him when all the 
 workmen and clerks have gone home ! See how he spends 
 the night ! He is lying at full length below one of the fabric- 
 making machines : he is watching the mechanism : he will 
 start the machine and note the interplay of wheels and teeth, 
 of leather bands, or rough canvas foundation, and he will 
 devise some method of simplifying the process, and so 
 effecting economy in production. He lights upon one 
 simple method of economy. When the foundation material 
 passes through the machine, the m.achine only works upon one 
 length of fabric. If the downward thrust of the machine 
 produces the required result, the upward thrust might be 
 utilized to produce a similar result. Let us run another 
 course of foundation material parallel to the lower one, and 
 let the machinery work upon two lengths at the same time. 
 It will then only need to cut the threads between the two 
 parallel breadths to produce two lengths of fabric instead of 
 one. With a very simple device the productive power of 
 the machinery is doubled. 
 
 This is only one of the many simple contrivances which 
 resulted from nights of patient observation and reflection. 
 It was to this power of attention and energy of action that 
 
MR. MILLWRIGHT 
 
 139 
 
 he owed his success. He became a local magnate — an 
 honoured benefactor of the town where his business was 
 done. 
 
 When I was in the town at one time I heard that he was 
 ill, in the hotel where I was lunching. I sent up my card 
 and asked if he would like to see me. He invited me to 
 come. I found him in a small bedroom all alone. 
 
 I said, " Mr. Millwright, you ought not to be here 
 alone when ill." 
 
 " Bishop," he replied, " I would not let any of my 
 family come. Two doctors from' London came down to see 
 me : they sat in that chair in which you now sit. They ex- 
 amined me, and when they rose up I read death in their 
 faces. 1 said to myself : If I am to get well I had better be 
 alone ; if I am to die, I had better be alone to make my 
 peace with God. So I would not have any member of my 
 family with me." 
 
 The strength of character which such a resolution dis- 
 closed impressed me much, and my interest in Mr. Mill- 
 wright increased. He recovered and lived to a good old 
 age : he kept his mental vigour to the last. Here, for 
 instance is a letter he wrote me when he was more than 
 ninety-one years of age — 
 
 " Knowing how much you are occupied, I will be 
 as brief as possible. 
 
 " I do not wish to trouble you by asking you to 
 give me your opinion, but simply to indicate any work 
 or book that explains how, if the * Garden of Eden ' 
 and the ' Fall ' is simply a myth, and if there was no 
 ' Fall,' how could there be any ' Atonement ' ? 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 " Then what becomes of the Christian religion ? 
 You will see that these questions are vital, and require 
 to be thoughtfully considered." 
 
 Whatever crudeness of conception may be thought to 
 underlie these questions, there is no doubt that this letter 
 shows alacrity and sincerity of mind on the part of one who 
 had passed fourscore and ten. 
 
 I sent him a book, then much lauded, thinking that, 
 though I found it feeble, it might suggest to him some 
 helpful line of thought. Within a few days it was returned 
 to me : he found it unsatisfactory and of no mental service. 
 My experiment had answered, for now I was able to judge 
 better what kind of work would suit him. He was quite 
 able to take stronger meat. Accordingly I recommended 
 to him a book which, for honesty of mind and frank 
 recognition of difficulties, was in my view the best bit of 
 Christian apologetic I knew at the time. It was a book 
 which certain obscurantist minds had condemned as 
 dangerous, because they failed to read it with an intelligent 
 wish to understand it. This time my effort was successful 
 and Mr. Millwright wrote — 
 
 " Let me thank you for pointing out a most 
 admirable book, which was just what I wanted, so full 
 of deep thought. I agree with the author that there 
 can be no religion without faith^ but on the other hand, 
 faith without reason^ which I may say hitherto has been 
 almost universally the case with all the religious world, 
 is simply a ship without a rudder and may lead to 
 anything. 
 
 *' Look at what I was taught by the Church : that, 
 
MR. MILLWRIGHT 
 
 141 
 
 with few exceptions, the whole world was to suffer 
 everlasting fire, because of Adam and the apple ! and 
 there never was such a person ! ! ! There you see 
 the results of faith without reason, and that, too, in 
 the most enlightened country in the world, and the 
 greatest freedom of thought." 
 
 I am not citing these for the sake of the particular theo- 
 logical matters referred to, but for the sake of illustrating 
 the alertness of mind and intellectual interest which marked 
 this remarkable nonagenarian who, after a life of hard work, 
 prolific inventiveness, and unusual business success, could 
 occupy himself in the study of questions which required 
 careful and sustained thought. The vigour and activity of 
 his mind continued with him to the last. His leaf did not 
 wither, and life did not lose its interest ; he knew the secret 
 of old age — the inquiring spirit and well-grounded faith. 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 There is a happiness in recalling work in which the 
 glad co-operation of willing workers has been a source of 
 constant joy. As I look back there was no work in which 
 such a loyal co-operation was seen as I met with when we 
 started a special Good Friday service in Leeds. I do not 
 think that any one could have had a more noble and self- 
 denying body of helpers than those who formed what we 
 called the Good Friday Committee. 1 am not writing a 
 history of that service : I am writing only about the men 
 who for more than twenty years worked to make the 
 service a success. 
 
 Good Friday was treated in many places as a holiday, 
 
 and nothing more. It is true that quiet and devout people 
 
 went to church that day full of grateful and tender thoughts 
 
 of the great love of Christ, but there were thousands who 
 
 took advantage of the slackening of work and treated it as 
 
 a day for amusement. I have said a slackening of work, for 
 
 that day was not everywhere or by every employer of labour 
 
 regarded as even a holiday. Some factories even kept at 
 
 work all day long : the day had no meaning and no sanctity 
 
 for some business men. It seemed to me a pity that no 
 
 special effort was made to bring the sacred memories of the 
 
 day before the great numbers who ignored its meaning 
 
 either by toil or by amusement. 
 
 142 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 143 
 
 A curious story, told me by Dean Burgon, tended to 
 quicken my wish. The story is so remarkable that I tell 
 it here : it may put others on their guard not to assume 
 too readily that what is commonly spoken of is always 
 understood. Dean Burgon — or Mr. Burgon I ought to 
 say, for it was before he was made Dean of Chichester — 
 was seated one Saturday in his study preparing his sermon 
 for Sunday. He was told that the mistress of his school 
 wished to see him. When she came in, she said, " Oh, Mr. 
 Burgon, I have just learned a most dreadful thing 1 " Mr. 
 Burgon wondered what mishap had occurred, and asked 
 what was the matter. " Oh," she said, " I hear that when 
 our Lord was put to death they drove nails into His feet 
 and into His hands, and then hung Him up on the Cross !" 
 Mr. Burgon was puzzled by this utterance, and replied, 
 " Yes, yes, of course " ; whereupon the schoolmistress 
 said, " But, oh ! wasn't it very cruel " " Yes, yes, of 
 course it was," said Mr. Burgon ; " but I don't understand 
 why you come to speak of it just now : we all know that 
 our Lord was crucified. What has made you think of it 
 now ? " " Oh," she said, " I have just seen the new window 
 put up in the church." 
 
 " But do you mean you never knew this before " 
 
 Here, at last, was the key to the schoolmistress's 
 emotion. She had read and taught that our Lord was 
 crucified, but what crucifixion meant was completely un- 
 known to her. It was the stained glass window with the 
 scene of the crucifixion which first disclosed to her the real 
 significance of that mode of death. 
 
 What was concealed from this schoolmistress might 
 
144 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 well be unknown to multitudes who vaguely knew the story 
 of our Lord, but had never realized the actual details of 
 what had occurred. Words did not always explain them- 
 selves. The word " crucifixion " did not of itself explain 
 its meaning to the mere English reader. . Pictures were 
 useful adjuncts to instruction : we taught through the ear, 
 but why should we not teach through the eye also Good 
 Friday was only a day of mere relaxation of work to thou- 
 sands upon thousands. The story of the day : the suffering 
 of the Saviour : the sweet patience : the loving thoughtful- 
 ness for others : the pang of loneliness : the persistent 
 malice of the chief priests : the hard indifference of others ; 
 these things might possibly be completely unknown to the 
 multitudes who only welcomed Good Friday as a curious 
 day in which many people had a holiday and some were 
 seen going to church. 
 
 Thoughts of this kind awakened the wish to mark the 
 day by some special effort to tell the story of the day to 
 those who treated it with indifference, and never went to 
 church. Hence the Good Friday Committee. 
 
 At first there was difficulty : the clergy of Leeds were 
 not sympathetic ; they feared that such a meeting would 
 compete with the church services. For a year we had to 
 hold our hands : then, after a meeting in which I set my 
 views before the clergy, I was rewarded by their acquiescence. 
 I promised that the special service should not begin till the 
 usual evening services were over. I told them that I pro- 
 posed that the committee should consist of all the beneficed 
 clergy of Leeds, together with five lay representatives from 
 each parish. Thus the committee was formed. Practically 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 145 
 
 the work was done by the lay members of the committee. 
 As there were fifty parishes in Leeds, the nominal strength 
 of the lay members of the committee was two hundred and 
 fifty. They came together willingly : two hundred and 
 fifty men, who were occupied in hard and onerous work all 
 through the week : they comprised men of all kinds of 
 calling ; but, speaking generally, they were all what would 
 be called working men. Dear, good, strong, sturdy, simple- 
 hearted, Christ-loving, loyal men — a joy and a support to 
 me for more than twenty years. 
 
 We met for consultation, for prayer, for social inter- 
 course, for recreation ; we learned by experience the best 
 way of carrying out our object : soon, men possessed of 
 special skill came forward, and gave us the valuable aid 
 which only experts can give. One man, skilled in the use 
 of lantern slides, became our operator, and through the 
 many years of our work never once failed us J another, 
 once a sergeant in the army, undertook the task of building 
 the platform ; besides special work such as these, the work 
 of the committee was to distribute the tickets for our Good 
 Friday service. This was a task which needed judgment as 
 well as zeal. Our aim was to invite and admit only men 
 who went to no place of worship : we wished to reach those 
 who were outside the influence of ordinary religious organi- 
 zations. It is to the credit of the committee that this task 
 was so well fulfilled. The further duty of the committee 
 was to act as stewards on the night of the service. Thus 
 we had scattered throughout the hall of meeting, two 
 hundred and fifty men, members of the committee, dis- 
 tinguished by the badge of their stewardship. It was in 
 
 L 
 
146 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 1890 that we made our first attempt to hold this special 
 service : Good Friday fell that year upon April 4. The 
 only hall available that year was the drill hall — a large 
 empty building, destitute of furniture. As the hall was 
 not even provided with seats, we had to do the best we 
 could to provide them ourselves. Then I first discovered 
 the genuine and solid zeal of the men of my Good Friday 
 Committee. No difficulties daunted them. Seats were 
 needed : sitting accommodation must be provided. If we 
 could not have seats, we would hire boards. Boards were 
 brought in : rough benches supported upon blocks of wood 
 soon filled the hall. The men worked hard, bravely and 
 quickly. The vigorous earnestness of the committee 
 overcame all obstacles. The night came : the platform on 
 which I was to stand was provided. At a distance from this, 
 in the centre of the hall, another platform was erected for 
 the lantern : Mr. Reed, of whom I have spoken, had charge 
 of the lantern : near him sat my wife, who handed to him 
 the slides as they were required, keeping to the order which 
 she and I had arranged beforehand. 
 
 It was an anxious moment when the hour came for 
 the service, which was an experiment and, in the view of 
 some, an innovation : the hall was full of men : the hymns, 
 which were thrown upon the screen, were taken up with 
 zest. There was no organ, but the committee led the sing- 
 ing with such energy, that soon it seemed that the whole 
 assembly had joined in the hymn. Happily it was York- 
 shire, and in the West Riding of Yorkshire they know 
 how to sing. 
 
 It was at this meeting that I had a small experience 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 H7 
 
 of telepathic influence : for a moment I feared that my 
 memory would fail on a matter which, especially at 
 an experimental service, might be of importance. In 
 arranging the order in which the slides were to appear, we 
 had put them into four or five groups : each group was 
 divided oflF from the others by a hymn, for we had three 
 hymns, I think, at intervals during the address. My task 
 was to remember the slides which were to appear in these 
 several groups. When we had reached the last hymn but 
 one, and while they were singing it, I bethought myself 
 that I had better run over in my mind the slides in the 
 order in which they were needed in the next group. I 
 went over the first three or four, and then my mind was 
 blank : I could not pick up the recollection of the next 
 slide. Time was running on : the verses of the hymn 
 were diminishing : I must recall the whole number of 
 remaining slides : I was lost for want of the fourth or fifth 
 slide, which I could not recall. The fear that I could not 
 recall it in time only served to paralyse my power of recol- 
 lection. Then I deliberately tried telepathy. 1 set my 
 mind hard to influence my wife's mind, and I mentally 
 asked her. What is the fourth or fifth slide for the next 
 group ? Then, as if by magic, after a short but sensible 
 interval, it came back to me, and I was able to follow the 
 order of the closing slides. 
 
 Now there is nothing remarkable in this so-called 
 telepathic experience. Indeed, it will be said, as I said 
 to myself at the time, there is no evidence of any telepathy 
 here ; all that happened was, that the memory recovered 
 itself, and gave back the missing slide. Yes, that is just 
 
148 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 what I said to myself might have been the case ; but I 
 carried the matter a little further : I wished to ascertain 
 whether, at the moment when 1 was mentally asking for the 
 slide, my wife was aware of my influence upon her mind ; 
 so, without telling her of my experience, I questioned her 
 about the service and the singing ; and then she told me 
 that when the last hymn but one was being sung, she was 
 enjoying the wholehearted way in which the men were 
 joining : she was happy in just listening to the volume of 
 sound given forth by such united singing. While thus just 
 listening, it came suddenly into her mind that she must go 
 over the slides for the next group, and accordingly she did 
 so. It came as a kind of necessity upon her at the moment 
 when I was exerting my mind to influence hers for that 
 very thing. I am not pressing this as an instance of 
 genuine telepathic influence, for it is obvious enough that 
 the experience both of myself and my wife might be 
 accounted for in another way ; but I may here say that the 
 experience does not stand alone. More than once I tried 
 the same mental effort with the object of arresting my wife's 
 attention and getting her help, and, whatever the full and 
 true explanation may be, I found the experiment successful. 
 For example, once when I was holding an ordination in 
 the private chapel at Ripon, I noticed, in the middle of the 
 Litany, that the Bibles and New Testaments which were to 
 be given to the candidates for Orders, had been forgotten, 
 and were not in their place at hand. I was at the east end 
 of the chapel : my wife was at the extreme west end ; but 
 again I fixed my mind to arrest her attention : I fastened it 
 on the thought of the missing books : I looked towards 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 49 
 
 her : she saw my look, and in a moment, without any 
 hesitation, she sent some one for the missing books and they 
 were brought in. These are trifling matters from one point 
 of view ; but they were not trifling at the time, and the 
 success of my experiments, however they are to be ex- 
 plained, was a great relief to me both in the chapel and 
 in the drill hall. 
 
 The service in the drill hall was the beginning of the 
 work which my Good Friday Committee carried on with 
 me for twenty-two years. Our first service was held in 
 1890 : and it was held for the twenty-second time in 191 1, 
 my last year as Bishop of Ripon. I took the service, by 
 the wish of the present Bishop of Ripon, in 19 14, but 
 this lies a little outside my own record, though it was a joy 
 to meet again those loyal helpers, who for upwards of 
 twenty years had never failed me. 
 
 The bonds between us were drawn more closely as 
 the years went on. We understood one another : we loved 
 one another. We had taken several excursions together, 
 and an intercourse when visiting towns of interest, in meet- 
 ing the fatigues and pleasures of the journey, served to 
 make strong the bonds of a friendship which was begun 
 in a joint endeavour to be of help to our brother men. 
 
 The excursions — we had fifteen in all — included, besides 
 our house at Ripon, Brussels, Cambridge, Oxford, Windsor, 
 Belfast, London, Chester, York and Ryther. The tale of 
 our adventures on these excursions would be too long to 
 tell. Brussels was, I think, the most remarkable, as it was 
 the most adventurous of them all. It was not to be 
 expected that many could aflTord the time or money for 
 
I50 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 a visit to Brussels — nevertheless, as many as fifty joined in 
 the trip. They left Leeds on the Friday night before 
 Whit Sunday : they reached Brussels early on Saturday : 
 we took them out to Waterloo : there we had lunch ; we 
 brought them back to Brussels and took them to the 
 Exposition, which was then open. The engineering section 
 attracted some of our party, and it was amusing to see an 
 eager Englishman trying to get a mechanical explanation 
 from a Belgian who knew no English. We had to act as 
 interpreters on more than one occasion. We had, indeed, 
 more than one laughter-provoking experience. The men 
 were much impressed when they saw, as they journeyed 
 through Flanders, the women working in the fields. 
 " Eh," said one of the party, " the next time I marry, I 
 shall marry one of these women who can work, and 
 besides, when she scolds me I shall not understand her." 
 
 The buildings in Brussels were a kind of revelation to 
 some of the party. " This," said one of them, as we came 
 up to the Palais des Beaux Arts, " this reminds me of the 
 age of Sardanapalus ! " On the Sunday we attended the 
 English Church : it was an imposing party which entered 
 the church that morning : more than fifty of us, all of 
 whom joined lustily in the singing. " Aye, didn't we lift 
 the roof off?" was what was said. We made a goodly 
 addition to the number of the communicants in the little 
 church. 
 
 On Monday we went to Antwerp, saw the churches and 
 the Zoological Gardens, and returned to Brussels in time 
 for dinner, after which the party started back for England 
 and were landed at Leeds on Tuesday morning. 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 The arrangements for the excursion were undertaken by- 
 Messrs. Lunn, and they were admirable. A courier was 
 with the party all the time, and he relieved us of a great 
 many small details of business : he made himself respon- 
 sible for the tips and prices of admission to the various 
 places we visited. I think that our party caused great 
 astonishment to the hotel-keepers : the party was scattered 
 for sleeping purposes among three hotels ; but all met for 
 the principal meals in one hotel. The men of the com- 
 mittee were accustomed to sing the grace before and after 
 their meals, and when the fifty men lifted up their voices 
 for the purpose, there was grave astonishment, which 
 bordered on alarm, among the officials of the hotel. 
 However, before the Monday was over, they had accepted 
 the position, and no doubt regarded the singing as another 
 proof of the madness of the English. 
 
 The Brussels excursion was in every way a great success, 
 and I feel sure that many of those who were with us in 
 1 897 feel their interest in that happy excursion deepened now 
 as they have read of all the savage and wanton cruelties 
 which an unscrupulous and ruthless enemy has brought 
 upon that land which we saw then peaceful, industrious 
 and happy, little dreaming then that sinister ambition would 
 tempt a powerful people to violate their pledged word and 
 stain their honour with a stain which centuries of virtue can 
 hardly wash away. 
 
 Perhaps next to this visit to Brussels our excursion to 
 Belfast possessed the greatest interest : it had a characteristic 
 of its own ; for it was marked by the ready hospitality shown 
 by the working men of Belfast to those of Leeds. 
 
152 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 It came about in this way. The Bishop of Down and 
 Connor (Dr. Welland) had been a lifelong friend : his 
 father and my father had been friends, and the friendship 
 descended to the next generation. To Dr. Welland I 
 owed much : in days when I was a schoolboy, and he was 
 an undergraduate, working hard for honours, he came as a 
 visitor to our house. He was a most industrious student, 
 and I admired the indefatigable diligence which he showed 
 even in those days which he might have reckoned as holidays. 
 It so happened that I was at that time face to face with a 
 step forward in my education : I had to commence Greek, 
 and in the initial stages our guest, Mr. Welland, gave me 
 useful help. I used to say in after years that he taught me 
 my Greek alphabet. Time went by : he found himself 
 bewildered in a question which in those days exercised the 
 minds of theological students in a degree which would 
 amaze the students of to-day. There were those who, lay- 
 ing heavy emphasis on the doctrine of Election, would have 
 it that our Lord's death purchased, as it were, the body of 
 the elect, and only these : the benefits of His death and 
 sacrifice did not avail for others. Only the elect would 
 be saved, therefore only the elect had been redeemed, 
 otherwise the sacrifice was in part a failure, which was 
 unthinkable. The question, therefore, which was raised 
 took this form : Did Christ die for all men or for the elect 
 only .'' The Calvinistic view, as it was called most unfairly, 
 for it was contrary to Calvin's teaching — the Calvinistic 
 view or the view which advocated a limited redemption by 
 Christ's death, fascinated young Mr. Welland. My father, 
 who took a deep interest in him, wrote a long letter on 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 the subject, and the letter was the means of liberating 
 Mr. Welland's mind from the narrow and harsh concep- 
 tions of this so-called Calvinistic doctrine. 
 
 Later, when I had won an open scholarship at Cam- 
 bridge, and we were spending the summer in Ireland, Mr. 
 Welland again helped me by coaching me in mathematics : 
 and three or four years afterwards, on the Sunday after my 
 ordination, the first church in which I officiated was the 
 church in Dublin in which Mr. Welland ministered. Thus 
 in the earlier part of my life my lot was often cast near to 
 Mr. Welland. Years passed by, and our lives were sun- 
 dered ; he remained in Ireland : my lot was cast in England : 
 and during those years we scarcely saw one another. In 
 process of time he became Bishop of Down and I became 
 Bishop of Ripon, and I ventured to invite him to come over 
 and preach for our diocesan charities. He kindly came, and 
 our friendship revived. While he was with us I had to 
 meet my Good Friday Committee, and he accompanied me. 
 He did more : he spoke a few kindly words to the men, 
 and as he heard of our excursions he very cordially invited 
 the committee to visit Belfast. I think that the Bishop 
 was surprised at the alacrity with which his invitation was 
 accepted ; the moment he mentioned the idea, the consent- 
 ing acquiescence and appreciation of the meeting expressed 
 itself in long and loud plaudits. 
 
 So the visit to Belfast was arranged, and as it happened, 
 it was fixed for a most appropriate time : it coincided with 
 the opening of the Belfast Cathedral. It was marked 
 by the warm and generous hospitality of these northern 
 men of Ireland. A committee of working men, brought 
 
154 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 together in much the same way as our Leeds committee, 
 aided in arranging the hospitality : in this way every 
 member of our Good Friday Committee was received as 
 a guest during his stay in Belfast, More than this, on our 
 arrival, we found that an excursion to the Giant's Causeway 
 had been arranged. This meant that we were conveyed to 
 Portrush by train, that lunch was provided for us on the 
 train, that from Portrush to the Giant's Causeway we were 
 taken by the light railway. We rambled over the great 
 mass of pillared stones. The angles formed by the 
 stones had been discussed, and one of our party was thence- 
 forward intent upon finding what he called " the octopus 
 stone " — *' I want to find that octopus stone." At every 
 point some unexpected and unknown friend appeared eager 
 and ready to help us on our way. We returned to Belfast 
 in the evening : on Sunday we attended the cathedral. On 
 Monday we saw the great dockyards of Harland and WolfF : 
 the Baltic, if I remember rightly, was nearing completion. 
 We saw over her, and her name became familiar to us later 
 on ; for on the occasion of my two visits to the United 
 States, in 1904 and 19 12, we travelled by the BaUic, and 
 found her to be a steady and comfortable vessel. 
 
 The members of our Good Friday Committee left 
 Belfast amid the warm cheers and enthusiastic farewells 
 of the Belfast men, whose hospitality they had enjoyed. 
 Friendships were formed, and a happy sense of brotherly 
 kindness between the two cities was created. Our com- 
 mittee greatly wished to return the hospitality of our Irish 
 friends ; but, unfortunately, some difficulties arose which 
 prevented the realization of this hope ; but I have very 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 155 
 
 little doubt that the interchange of visits between the 
 working men of different towns works for good in creating 
 good feeling and a good understanding based on mutual 
 respect and sympathy. 
 
 Our excursions to other places had their peculiar interest. 
 I think that our working men will never forget the personal 
 interest and almost princely hospitality which was shown 
 them by the Warden of Merton (Mr. Brodrick) when we 
 visited Oxford, or the lunch given us in Trinity College 
 Hall the day we visited Cambridge. 
 
 These little sketches will seem dull and uninteresting to 
 my readers ; but, dear reader, forgive me. If you had 
 known these dear men of Leeds as I knew them, if you 
 had seen their devotion to our task, their natural chivalry 
 towards my wife and daughter during these excursions, 
 their heartiness, their generosity, you would find in every 
 chronicle of their sayings and doings a deep and abiding 
 interest. 
 
 I might chronicle some of their sayings : 1 might tell 
 the tale of other excursions, but, full of interest as these 
 were, I am inclined to think that perhaps their visits to us 
 at Ripon were among the happiest of our experiences. On 
 the two excursions to distant places only a certain propor- 
 tion, something from thirty to forty per cent, of our members, 
 could command the necessary time ; but when they came to 
 Ripon, nearly all could come for the whole or part of the day. 
 Moreover, they could bring their wives with them, and this 
 gave an added zest to their enjoyment. Then games and 
 contests were planned : prizes competed for ; we had lunch 
 in the open air, if the weather allowed : happily it, generally 
 
156 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 speaking, was favourable. Our last act on these occasions 
 was the little farewell service in the chapel, when the men 
 lifted up their voices in hymns of praise. The last act, did 
 I say ? No, there was one more, but it was not on the 
 programme. As they went out, they clustered round the 
 porch, and one of their number proposed a vote of thanks 
 to my wife and myself ; it was readily seconded, and carried 
 with cheers ; and then, amid cheers and waving of hats 
 and hands, our dear friends of the committee left us, and 
 they left behind the benediction of their simple-minded 
 loyalty, their hopefulness, their helpfulness, and their 
 prayers. 
 
 As a token of the bond of our common work, I designed 
 a badge for the members of the Good Friday Committee. 
 It was in the form of a Maltese or eight-pointed cross. 
 The eight points represented the eight Beatitudes : here, 
 then, was the cross lying within the circle of the Beatitudes. 
 The cross — the highest symbol of self-sacrificing love — had 
 too often been employed as the emblem of persecuting 
 bigotry. It was needful to remind the Church, and the 
 Knights of Malta set up their symbol to do so, that the 
 cross ought to be carried in the Spirit of Christ. Tp make 
 this clear, our badge bore monograms which represented 
 the initials of the leading words in the Beatitudes. Happi- 
 ness, we reminded ourselves, does not lie in merely bearing 
 the name of Christ, but in being filled with the spirit of 
 Christ. On the other side of the badge we had the XP, 
 the monogram of Christ, and the words Beati in Christo 
 (Xto). Thus the badge claimed our loyalty to our Lord, 
 not in letter only but in spirit. 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 157 
 
 The Beatitudes became the little canticle of our meetings. 
 Whenever we met for prayer, we united in saying together 
 the Beatitudes. 
 
 This chapter is a tribute to the loyal-heartedness of 
 the body of men who worked with me as brothers in enter- 
 prise, and perhaps the best way in which I can close this 
 chapter is by adding here the little record which we issued 
 as a souvenir when we had completed the full twenty-one 
 years of joint work. The souvenir gives the memorial 
 letter which I wrote as a record and a farewell to my 
 much-loved comrades : it gave also the list of places which 
 were included in our periodical excursions. Those who 
 know what bonds of confidence are created and strength- 
 ened by common work and common travel, will realize 
 how strong was the tie which bound us together and how 
 affectionate are the memories which remain. 
 
 Here, also, I gladly record the fact that the Good Friday 
 Service is still held, and that it was conducted this year 
 (19 1 6) under conditions which seem to promise its happy 
 continuance. I am grateful to those whose fostering care 
 has made this possible, and I can only hope and pray that 
 future vicars of Leeds will show the same loving care 
 which the present vicar (Dr. Bickersteth) has shown in the 
 enterprise, and that future bishops of Ripon will support 
 it with the same kind sympathy which the present bishop 
 (Dr. Drury) has given. 
 
158 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 GOOD FRIDAY MEMORIES, 1 890-1 911 
 EXCURSIONS OF THE GOOD FRIDAY COMMITTEE. 
 
 The Palace, Ripon 
 The Palace, Ripon 
 Liverpool 
 Brussels 
 The Palace 
 Cambridge 
 Oxford 
 The Palace 
 Windsor 
 Belfast 
 The Palace, 
 London 
 Chester 
 The Palace 
 York 
 Ryther 
 
 Ripon 
 
 Ripon 
 
 Ripon 
 
 Ripon 
 
 July 19th, 1890. 
 July 1893. 
 Summer 1895. 
 June 4.th to 7th, 1897. 
 1899. 
 
 May 26th, 1900. 
 June 29th, 1901. 
 July 26th, 1902. 
 August 15th, 1903. 
 June 3rd to 6th, 1904. 
 July 15 th, 1905. 
 
 July 7th, 1906. 
 
 August 31st, 1907. 
 
 June 27th, 1908. 
 
 July 27th, 1911. 
 September 1 6th, 1 9 1 1 , 
 
 TO THE MEMBERS OF THE GOOD 
 FRIDAY COMMITTEE 
 
 On the 4th of April, 1890, we made our first attempt 
 to have a Special Service for Men on Good Friday Even- 
 ing ; we met that night in the Drill Hall ; the Drill Hall 
 was not provided with seats, so we were obliged to bring in 
 boards and build up rough benches as best we could. In 
 this the vigorous earnestness of the members of the 
 committee showed itself ; and difficulties were overcome. 
 
 In the next year, 1891, we met in the Town Hall for 
 the first time, and since that date our service has been held 
 there. We tried an experiment in 1891, however, which 
 we did not repeat ; before the service in the Town Hall, 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 59 
 
 we held a service at the Miners' Hall. Good Friday that 
 year fell upon March 27th, the day after my Jubilee of 
 life ; so that I was fifty when we held our first Town Hall 
 service, and I was seventy when we held our last service this 
 year. 
 
 I am glad to know that my successor will continue to 
 hold the service, if we can secure permission to use the 
 Town Hall. I am glad for every reason ; we should not 
 like to see the service discontinued ; it has, we venture to 
 believe, been a means of doing good ; it stands, moreover, 
 for ideas which we wish to keep before the minds of men. 
 It is the witness that there are great truths and abiding facts 
 connected with Good Friday. To commemorate a birthday 
 is common enough ; to commemorate a day of death is in 
 the history of religions unusual ; no note of triumph is 
 heard when a great leader or teacher passes away, but the 
 death of Jesus Christ our Lord awakens a whole series of 
 thoughts which have brought to the Christian world a teach- 
 ing more noble and more permanent than surrounds the 
 cradle of great men. The world is not to be won except 
 by the Cross ; it is only when we learn to die that we learn 
 to live ; it is only when we lose ourselves that we truly 
 find ourselves. This truth enters into the heart of Christian 
 teaching ; it is symbolized in our Baptism ; it is continually 
 commemorated in Holy Communion ; we are buried with 
 Christ in Baptism ; we avow ourselves partakers of His 
 death in the Holy Communion. 
 
 Thus the death of Christ becomes the witness of an 
 abiding fact ; the death was a fact in history, but it becomes 
 an abiding fact, for it needs to be a fact in our spiritual 
 
i6o FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 history also ; only as we share this great sacrificial spirit of 
 Christ do we fulfil the end and purpose of our Creator ; 
 for we can only reach the highest by sharing the spirit of 
 the highest, and the spirit of the highest is love, and sacrifice 
 of self for love's sake is the supreme test and witness on 
 earth of the Spirit of Love. 
 
 We, as a cornmittee, have represented varying schools 
 of thought ; some members have been connected with 
 churches which might be called High ; some with those 
 which might be called Low ; and others moderate and 
 others broad. But by whatever name the world might 
 call us, we were united in the desire of glorifying Christ 
 by proclaiming the power of His Cross, and by carrying it 
 in the spirit which He taught and showed. 
 
 And so, the badge which we have worn for many years 
 past has expressed this principle. The Cross of Christ 
 carried in the Spirit of Christ. Too often the Cross has 
 been uplifted in the world in a spirit the very opposite of 
 that of our Lord. It has been lifted up in arrogance, and 
 in pride ; it has been held aloft as the victim writhed and 
 perished under the persecuting hand of cruel and Christless 
 men ; it has been clung to as a charm ; it has been saluted 
 as a banner on the battlefield ; its original value and virtue 
 has been forgotten ; worldly thoughts and ambitions have 
 overlaid its first beautiful significance ; but through all the 
 perversions and ignorances which have grown around it, 
 there have been men and women who held to the spiritual 
 principles which it expressed ; these found the inner joy 
 which comes to Christlike souls, who have been able to 
 say, " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 Our Badge is designed to keep alive this truth, that the 
 Cross is to be carried in the Spirit of Christ, for thus only 
 will the Beatitude of the Cross be realized. So we took the 
 dear words of our Lord, those which tell us what con- 
 stitutes the foundation of inward happiness ; the Beatitudes 
 became the little canticle of our meetings, and when we 
 sought to gather together men to hear the Story of Divine 
 Love, we knew that we were striving to bring them to that 
 joy which is within — the joy not of outward possessions, 
 but of that disposition of soul which could find gladness 
 independent of earthly conditions, and which in the con- 
 sciousness that God's love shone all through life could 
 understand that there was a gladness in sacrifice as v/ell as 
 in success, and could, therefore, enter intelligently and 
 heartily into that exclamation of St. Paul, " God forbid 
 that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and 1 unto 
 the world." 
 
 The only way, dear friends, to live in the world is to 
 live with hearts, above the world ; and the only way to live 
 above the world without conceit or cynicism is to live in 
 the Spirit of Him Who loved us and gave Himself 
 for us. 
 
 I have put down these thoughts, as they express — though 
 lamely — the aim which has been ours in the mission work 
 to which we have put our hands for more than twenty 
 years. We have thought together of Christ's character and 
 of the Love which inspired it, of Him who saved others, 
 not Himself ; we have sought to explore the heart of this 
 happiness which was stronger than shame and pain ; we 
 
 M 
 
1 62 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 have marked the consistency of His Love in utterance and 
 in action ; we have seen the difference between the Cross 
 met with petulant resentment and the Cross carried in love ; 
 we have noted the Cross as the sign of the victory of good, 
 as the symbol of spiritual freedom, changing the attitude of 
 the world towards suffering ; we have touched on the power 
 of that Cross in the history of mankind ; we have seen how 
 it tests character, and humbles and elevates the soul, banish- 
 ing the evil dreams of sin and unfolding the all-embracing, 
 all-sustaining power of love ; and lastly, we have marked 
 the loyalty of Christ's love to man, and we have felt that 
 the Cross is a challenge and call to our loyalty to Him 
 who revolutionized the world by the revelation of the 
 Father's Love. 
 
 These have been some of our thoughts — may He who 
 lived them and inspired them enable us all to live in 
 Him, and to breathe forth the beatitude of His presence 
 wherever we go. 
 
 This little preface to a souvenir of our meetings I write 
 for you, my dear brothers in Christ, who for twenty-one 
 years have given your time, your work, your prayers, your 
 patience and your love to an enterprise which has been dear 
 to us all and has bound us together in the realization of a 
 love which change cannot disturb and which death cannot 
 destroy. 
 
 W. BOYD CARPENTER. 
 
 6 The Little Cloisters, 
 
 Westminster, S.W. 
 
 Christmas, 191 1. 
 
GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 CHRIST IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 
 
 THE BADGE MEANS 
 
 O.N ONE SIDE 
 
 XP(R), /. e. the first two Greek letters of the name Christ. 
 Be.iti in Xto. i.e. Blessed in Christ. 
 On the other — 
 
 Four Monograms, viz : 
 
 1. PHMC. Poor — Heaven. Mourn — Comforted. 
 
 2. MEHF. Meek— Earth. Hunger— Filled. 
 
 3. MPG. Merciful— Mercy. Pure— God. 
 
 4. PCPRK. Peacemaker— Children. Persecuted for 
 
 Righteousness — Kingdom. 
 
 The Badge thus reminds us of the Eight Beatitudes (Matt. 
 V. 1-9). It tells again who are truly blessed. Happiness 
 does not lie in bearing the name of Christ, but in being filled 
 with the Spirit of Christ (Rom. viii. 9). 
 
 Those who wear this Badge bind themselves to seek to make 
 Christ in all things pre-eminent (Col. i. 18), and to begin to do 
 so by seeking to make the Spirit of Christ the pre-eminent power 
 in their spirits. They will not be content to do the work of 
 Christ unless they do it in the Spirit of Christ. 
 
 It is suggested that those who wear this Badge should 
 (i) repeat to themselves every week the Eight Beatitudes, adding 
 a pr.iyer for the Holy Spirit's help to enable them to live in the 
 Spirit ot Christ ; (2) remember one another at Holy Communion 
 once a month . 
 
FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDSHIP 
 
 It is ill writing one's reminiscences, if one can only 
 chronicle human affairs. Man's life, no doubt, is social, 
 and the interplay of mutual influences, thoughts and 
 emotions contributes to its interest ; but man is surrounded 
 by creatures of humbler creation, as we say ; and man's 
 treatment of these creatures measures his character, and 
 they in their turn influence his moral growth. Professor 
 Huxley used to say that he respected the house of which 
 the cat was an honoured inmate ; he felt that a certain 
 largeness of humane feeling was indicated by the affection 
 and care bestowed upon the harmless, necessary cat. How- 
 ever this may be, I can chronicle the way in which a cat 
 claimed and won a place — yes, a very kindly place, in my 
 regard. 
 
 Betty — I called her so — Betty was not beautiful ; she 
 
 could not claim admiration for her long silky hair, for her 
 
 brilliant colouring or her alluring eyes. She had no record 
 
 of infantile attractions on which she could rely ; she did 
 
 not come to us as a fluffy round ball, full of fascinating 
 
 kittenish ways, hunting some rolling thing or prettily 
 
 entangling herself in a ball of string. She had no claim of 
 
 young, graceful movements or mature beauty on which to 
 
 rely for her maintenance. She just came to us — how, I do 
 164 
 
FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDSHIP 165 
 
 not know ; in fact, she planted herself upon us without 
 invitation or apology. And she was not beautiful ; she 
 was just commonplace — a grey tabby cat, and not fair to 
 look upon when measured by other tabbies ; she was lean, 
 grey and unkempt in appearance. Yet, with all her dis- 
 advantages, she won an established position among us ; her 
 quiet persistency, her quiet assumption that we could not 
 refuse her hospitality ; her faith in our goodness was a 
 subtle and successful kind of flattery, and we succumbed ; 
 and Betty became an inmate of our house. 
 
 I was then at 50 Highbury Hill — the house I occupied 
 when I was Vicar of St. James's, Holloway — and Betty 
 became by degrees my study companion. Perhaps the 
 children were too noisy and too demonstrative in their 
 attentions ; the dining-room had attractions, no doubt, but 
 the nurseries were too vibrant with startling activities ; 
 there was peace in the study, and so Betty found her way 
 to the study and was my comrade while I read or wrote. 
 She soon discovered the cosiest corner in which to repose ; 
 she selected the one easy chair, and curled herself up in it 
 with calm dignity ; she had appropriated it as her own, and 
 had I been never so desirous of lounging irt it, I believe I 
 should never have dared to assert my claim. To do so 
 would have seemed to have infringed sovereign and well- 
 established rights. In reposeful comfort, therefore, Betty 
 yawned and stretched, curled up and slept in the soft arm- 
 chair. I can hear the critic say : " And you really tolerated 
 this utterly selfish conduct ? " Dear critic, I did ; call me 
 weak, if you will ; but bethink you, Betty was a refugee 
 who sought my protection and hospitality. She dreaded 
 
1 66 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 the children ; but even more she dreaded the onslaughts 
 of Charley. Let me explain : " Charley " was my aunt's 
 dog. She had come to keep house for me, and she could 
 not be parted from Charley. Charley, to my unsympathetic 
 mind, was a most detestable dog ; he was by way of being 
 an English terrier, but I doubted the purity of his pedigree ; 
 he was broad-set, brawny, self-indulgent, arrogant ; he 
 would tolerate no rival ; cats he regarded as belonging to 
 a despised race ; they were to be hunted, harassed, chased 
 and chivied wherever they were found. So Charley at once 
 declared war upon Betty, and the only sanctuary open to 
 Betty was my study. There she sought and found peace ; 
 there Charley never came ; and there, there was to be found 
 an inoffensive and quiet creature, who welcomed her and 
 allowed her the choice of the most comfortable chair. From 
 the storm and turmoil of the house, and from the outrageous 
 persecutions of Charley, Betty sought and found an asylum 
 in my study. 
 
 And Betty became very companionable. At first she 
 was content to slumber in my armchair ; but after a time 
 she began to show an interest in me ; her interest then 
 grew to what I may call a grateful affection ; and she used 
 to descend from the chair, leap upon my writing-table 
 and put out a timid and appealing paw, as much as to say : 
 " We are companions in misfortune, and we are happy in 
 this quiet refuge." If I continued writing, she would pat 
 my pen and demand my attention. I soon understood her : 
 she wanted to be talked to and to be petted ; so I would 
 stroke her and talk soothing nothings to her. She seemed 
 to enjoy it all, and was reluctant to leave me. Then I 
 
FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDSHIP 167 
 
 would say : " Now, Betty, that is enough ; I have work to 
 do, and you must go back to the chair." She soon under- 
 stood, and would be content if once or twice in the 
 morning she might jump on the table and be petted and 
 stroked and talked to ; then she would gravely and grace- 
 fully retire to her slumbers. She was only an ugly, 
 uninteresting tabby ; but she had affection, and she showed 
 a real interest in the man who stood to her as protector and 
 comrade. 
 
 Probably the sad loneliness of that time heightened my 
 sense of Betty's companionship. There were moments in 
 which I felt that she and I were the victims of common 
 misfortunes ; we were both lonely, and we both desired 
 quiet. So a subtle sympathy drew us together. If you 
 talk to an animal much, and give it your trust and tell it 
 your confidences, you humanize it by degrees, and a bond 
 of common feeling will grow up between it and you. I 
 know that I felt sympathy with Betty ; I think that she 
 had, in some sub-conscious fashion, some sympathy with 
 me. 
 
 " Cats have no personal attachment. Their love is for 
 places, not for people." This is the common opinion, I 
 believe. It was expressed, I remember, when I had to 
 migrate from Highbury Hill to Paddington. " You will 
 never take Betty with you," some one said ; " she will 
 remain with the house ; she will never accept a changed 
 residence." So the opinion went. However, I believed in 
 Betty's attachment, and I took her with us when we moved. 
 1 brought her to my study in Queen's Gardens ; the old 
 chair was there ; the writing-table was there, and I was 
 
1 68 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 there ; and Betty accepted all ; she showed no signs of 
 uneasiness. She slept in the chair ; she leaped on the table 
 for her mid-morning caress ; she patted my pen till I put 
 it down and stroked her and talked to her. The change of 
 house did not trouble her. She had what she wanted and 
 she was content. Like human beings, she found quiet and 
 comfort in kindness and in familiar things ; so the old 
 habits of friendly intercourse were continued as before ; in 
 the new house the attachments were the same as they had 
 been in the old. 
 
 Do you wonder that I grew fond of Betty ? Do you 
 wonder that I felt for her in the hard, harsh days when 
 Charley and the children terrified her .'' Do you wonder 
 that in those days I commemorated Betty in the following 
 fashion ? — 
 
 POOR BETTY. 
 
 Poor Betty, with your soft warm fur 
 
 And gentle loving ways. 
 You only of the household now 
 
 Bear memory of past days. 
 
 The cosy fender was your own, 
 
 Where peacefully you purred, 
 There one fond hand would stroke your coat. 
 
 And speak the kindly word. 
 
 Then you would rise and arch your back, 
 
 And give contented yawn ; 
 Or rub your cheek confidingly 
 
 As nearer you were drawn. 
 
 Or you would bound the staircase up, 
 
 And purr and leap before 
 The steps of her who welcomed you 
 
 Within her chamber door. 
 
FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDSHIP 169 
 
 And you would sit beside her hand 
 
 And peer within the glass ; 
 Or leap upon her shoulder 
 
 And round her fair neck pass. 
 
 And she, she loved you well, poor Bet, 
 
 And watched your kittens play. 
 For she loved all joyous guileless things. 
 
 With her bright, pure heart of May. 
 
 But now the warm sweet love of home. 
 
 Has passed from out the door. 
 The children all are scattered 
 
 And the mistress gone before. 
 
 Strange faces round the kitchen glance, 
 
 Strange hands light up the stove. 
 Strange voices in the house are heard, 
 
 Strange feet on stairways move. 
 
 The hard, rough dog your peace assails. 
 
 And wearies you with chase, 
 Snatches your best-loved morsel. 
 
 And curls up in your place. 
 
 Your presence meets with doubtful looks, 
 
 No welcome voice you hear. 
 No gentle hand caresses you, 
 
 Or fondly draws you near. 
 
 Poor Betty, you are lonely now, 
 
 Ah ! Betty ! so am I ! 
 You crave to meet a touch of love. 
 
 Poor Betty, so do I ! 
 
 Yet come, poor Bet, sit near me now ; 
 
 We both may take some ease ; 
 Enjoy this quiet, foe-free hour, 
 
 Be still, and purr in peace. 
 
 " George " was, for a season, the chief personage in our 
 house at Ripon. From the hour when he first came to us 
 
I70 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 till the day when he breathed his last, he was unique and 
 supreme, the centre of attraction. 
 
 George — when he came to us — was a dear, round, fluffy 
 ball of a creature, who could lie on one's hand— a wrinkled- 
 faced, black-nosed pug he was — a delight, a curiosity, a 
 charm. He grew to be an institution. Let little people 
 learn how important they may become. If they knew the 
 story of George's powerful reign, they might take courage. 
 The early days of George's life were days of affectionate 
 admiration. All sorts of sweet and kindly nonsense were 
 poured into his ears. He learned to take everything for 
 granted, and he learned quickly. The one thing which, 
 perhaps, he was slow to learn was that church was a pro- 
 hibited area. We thought we had taught him this fairly 
 well, before we took him to Niton, in the Isle of Wight, 
 where we had hired a house for a few weeks in the summer. 
 But whether George thought that the Isle of Wight was 
 under different laws from Ripon, or whether he thought 
 that laws were suspended during vacation time, I cannot 
 tell ; but the fact is that, though we thought him left at 
 home in safe security, he pursued us to church. When he 
 arrived at the church door he was smitten, I suppose, with 
 modesty or influenced by reverence ; for he did not search 
 us out in our seat. He contented himself with taking 
 refuge under a seat near the church door. How long he 
 would have remained there in decorous silence I cannot 
 say ; but an accident cut short his laudable quietude. It 
 was a hot summer day, and drowsy insects were on the 
 wing. Among them an active wasp intruded into the 
 church, and dived down to where George sat with quiet and 
 
FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDSHIP 
 
 patient dignity. I fear that the wasp was guilty of some 
 assault ; for George on a sudden roused some sleepy 
 members of the congregation, as he dashed precipitately 
 from the church. This, I believe, was George's solitary 
 act of transgression of the established order of Sunday and 
 church. 
 
 George was an imitative creature. At one time we had 
 two great St. Bernard dogs, yclept Dante and Gemma — - 
 Dan and Gem for short. They were fine creatures — good- 
 tempered and friendly ; but they aroused, I think, some 
 jealousy in George's breast. He would sometimes, perhaps 
 in play, but more probably, I think, in resentful jealousy, 
 assail them ; they bore it with good-natured toleration for 
 a time, but occasionally, when George's persistence became 
 offensive, they would give him a warning nip. In the 
 winter, when the snow was on the ground, the joy of the 
 St. Bernard dogs was supreme ; they raced over the land ; 
 they buried their noses in the snow and tossed it in the air. 
 Then a ludicrous sight might have been seen. George 
 would not be behindhand in any performance which 
 attracted attention ; but the spectacle of George trying to 
 bury his snub nose in the snow, then ridiculously endeavour- 
 ing to toss it over his head, was a spectacle of mirth — 
 indeed of a mirth which came close to contempt. It is to 
 provoke an amusement perilously near to disdain, when 
 creatures attempt to do something which is beyond their 
 nature or their skill, I think we understood Michel's 
 feelings about David, when we saw George trying to sport 
 with the snow. 
 
 George was a trial in one serious matter ! We kept 
 
172 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 sheep on the land in Ripon, and gradually there came in 
 complaints about George. He was worrying the sheep. 
 At first we paid little attention to these complaints. It 
 seemed absurd to suppose that a small dog like George 
 could do much damage to sheep which were three or four 
 times his size ; but the complaints became more frequent 
 and more serious, till at last I was told that George was 
 responsible for the death of no fewer than seven sheep. 
 It had become a very grave matter. However much we 
 liked George or were diverted by his pranks, it was out of 
 the question that we could keep him to prey upon our 
 sheep. It was difficult to bring the matter home to George. 
 Punishment, if not clearly connected with the offence, was 
 useless. At last, however, my opportunity came. As I was 
 walking one day up the drive, George suddenly made for 
 the sheep, who fled, frightened, from their foe. 1 pursued : 
 I caught George ; with the help of the bailiff a sheep was 
 seized, and then we bound George tight to the sheep's side. 
 When we had made the bonds firm and fast, we let the ill- 
 matched pair go : George was compelled to go as the sheep 
 returned to its comrades ; but I followed, and I chased 
 George and the sheep in and out among the other sheep till 
 George was faint and tired. Then I gave him, after I 
 loosed him, a goodly thrashing. 
 
 Thus George was cured. He had been exposed to three 
 painful experiences : fear was his when he found himself 
 helplessly bound, dragged and chased among the flying 
 and disordered sheep ; disgust was his, for the smell of the 
 sheep was odious to him : but he was tied so fast that he 
 was compelled to sniff up the oily odour of the sheepskin, 
 
FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDSHIP 173 
 
 and lastly came pain when his beating reminded him of his 
 offence. George was cured : only once afterwards did I see 
 a sign that the chasing instinct was not wholly gone. Once 
 he made a half-start, as though he would pursue the sheep ; 
 but a word of warning checked the impulse, and ever after 
 George left the sheep in peace. 
 
 This was George's great offence, and we were all much 
 relieved when it was purged. It is ill chronicling the faults 
 of one's pets : it is a pleasanter task to record their amusing 
 tricks and their virtues. At dinner George was a constant 
 source of interested observation. I am afraid that I must 
 admit that George was self-indulgent and greedy ; but out 
 of his greediness came one of his accomplishments. I 
 would place a piece of biscuit a little way from the edge of 
 the table : George, standing on his hind legs, would try to 
 reach it. If too far for his mouth, he would try to sweep 
 it near with his paw. As he succeeded I placed the piece 
 further and further from the edge, till at length George, 
 educated by failure and success, was able to sweep a fairly 
 wide area of the table with his extended paw. With age 
 George grew fatter and the exertion of biscuit hunting was 
 too much. He loved ease, and he would sit before the fire, 
 groaning with a kind of apoplectic enjoyment of the warmth 
 and comfort. 
 
 But if George had small accomplishments and some 
 faults, he had one great virtue — magnanimity. This was 
 displayed in one great and conspicuous instance. We had 
 at this time a handsome blue Persian cat — a stately creature 
 whom we called Sultan. Sultan was more like a dog than 
 a cat in his habits and temper. He never scratched unless 
 
174 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 he were attacked : he never showed his claws when an 
 accident occurred which might have provoked a nervous 
 reaction. I once trod upon him in the dark upon the stairs : 
 he only moved himself away with quiet dignity, he showed 
 no ill feeling : he understood us and he knew the difference 
 between a mishap and an unkindness. Sultan was master 
 in his own house : he had his own establishment ; but he 
 never allowed one of the kittens to come beyond the pre- 
 scribed limits : if one thrust its little nose round the edge 
 of the blue baize door which led to the kitchen, it was 
 cuffed and sent back by Sultan. It was with regard to 
 Sultan that George displayed his magnanimity. George 
 and Sultan were rivals. Sultan was privileged and lived a 
 good part of his time in my study : he was free of all the 
 living rooms ; this was pain and grief to George, who could 
 tolerate no rival in our affections, but in spite of jealousy 
 George was magnanimous. 
 
 One cold winter night in December, when the snow was 
 on the ground, I was awakened by George's barks. George 
 slept in the outer hall. I listened to the barking ; I hoped 
 that it would soon cease, but George continued to bark at 
 intervals, and at last it was clear that I must go down 
 and see what was the matter. I descended the stairs and 1 
 opened the door of the outer hall. George frisked with 
 delight and wagged a welcoming tail. " George," I said, 
 "you are a humbug : you only wanted some one to come 
 down to talk to you ; there's nothing wrong : you are a 
 humbug ; go to sleep, and don't disturb us again." Having 
 said this in a solemn and self-assertive way, I began to with- 
 draw ; but George would not have it. As I began to close 
 
FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDSHIP 175 
 
 the door, he barked again, and I had to return. George 
 looked wistful : there was evidently something for me to 
 do ; but what it was I could not gixess ; so, interrupted now 
 and then by George's half-barks, I returned, and then I 
 understood. Outside the front door I heard the faint mew 
 of a cat. I opened the hall door, and in stalked Sultan, 
 proud and indifferent, while George gambolled round him 
 with delight. There was a good fire burning in the grate, 
 to welcome the exile, who exchanged the snow and the 
 bitter cold without for the warmth and shelter. 
 
 George's barking was now explained. I have little doubt 
 that his efforts resulted in the saving of Sultan's life ; but 
 Sultan treated the incident without emotion : it was George 
 who indulged in manifestations of joy. In this there seems 
 to lie a parable. 
 
 George received his name because he had the air of 
 the first gentleman in Europe, and George retained his fine 
 manners to the end. Even when he was ill and under the 
 veterinary surgeon's care, his scrupulous maintenance of 
 polite usage impressed his host. There was pathos in the 
 way George preserved his dignity to the end. 
 
 George was succeeded by Prempeh, a lithe and active 
 dachshund. Prempeh was light brown in colour : he moved 
 like lightning : he early showed his love of comfort, and 
 his power of adapting himself to the ways of the house 
 was remarkable. We determined to provide Prempeh with 
 a wife, and two candidates were sent to us on approval. 
 Prempeh was allowed a free choice : it was soon made. 
 After a cold interview with one, a somewhat stout and 
 thick-set animal, Prempeh began the most joyous game 
 
176 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 with the other. Like children they played, and showed 
 a touching gladness in each other's society. So the wife 
 was chosen : her name was Julia, but we called her Ju. 
 They were a happy couple, almost inseparable : indeed, 
 they formed a comradeship in wickedness which caused 
 not a little trouble ; for they took to hunting, and Ju 
 was the instigator of every adventure. 
 
 Near the house was a gravel pit, which was the happy 
 home of rabbits. This pit was the realm of temptation to 
 Prempeh and Ju. Ju, Eve-like, was the leader. She would 
 come to the drawing-room, where Prempeh was reposing in 
 happy contentment : she would look at him with eager in- 
 vitation in her wicked eyes, and Prempeh would obey. She 
 could not carry on the hunting without Prempeh's aid : he 
 was smaller, thinner, and more active : it was his part to 
 enter the rabbit holes and drive the frightened rabbits before 
 him. Ju stationed herself at the further outlet, and stood 
 ready to pounce upon the victim as it emerged into the open. 
 Such ardent hunters were the pair that they literally cleared 
 the pit of rabbits ; and then came their banishment. The 
 instinct of hunting was too strong for the couple, and, having 
 driven the rabbits from one ground, they extended their 
 researches and* depredations further afield. They invaded 
 our neighbours' land, and soon complaints were made. The 
 havoc wrought by Prempeh and Ju was more than our 
 neighbours could stand. To cure the couple of the pro- 
 pensity, which had become a habit, was impossible. Our 
 only resource was to banish them. And so, with much 
 regret and many an ache of heart, we found a home for our 
 dear little dachshunds : it was far away, somewhere in the 
 
FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDSHIP 177 
 
 Shakespeare country. I have a photograph of the naughty- 
 pair, which their new and kind hosts sent us as a remem- 
 brance of two of the happiest, most fascinating and most 
 mischievous little dogs which ever delighted the hearts of 
 their owners. Dear little joyous friends they were : they 
 knew the order of the house, and they availed themselves 
 of every privilege which that order offered. As soon as 
 the servants were stirring, the pair knew that their chance 
 had come. They flew up the stairs : they scratched, eager 
 and impatient, at our bedroom door : they would take no 
 denial. They were admitted ; they leaped upon the bed, and 
 buried themselves under the eiderdown quilt. There they 
 lay in happy warmth. The bell for chapel would sound, 
 but they did not stir ; but the moment the gong sounded 
 they were up and tore downstairs. They did not favour 
 religion, but they were ready for breakfast. 
 
 In pursuit of food, Prempeh developed extraordinary 
 skill. I tried the same plan which I had tried with George. 
 I placed a piece of biscuit near the edge of the table : 
 Prempeh could not, being small, pat it with his paw and 
 draw it within reach ; but Prempeh, being light, could leap. 
 He soon learned to leap and seize the morsel with neat 
 dexterity. Gradually 1 increased the distance, till the 
 biscuit would be six or seven inches from the table edge ; 
 and Prempeh would leap and seize it with unerring aim, 
 without damaging or disturbing anything on the table. 
 He was a beautiful and clever dog, and it was a sorry day 
 when we had to part with him and his less nimble but 
 more naughty comrade in mischief. 
 
 N 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 I NEVER heard Frederick Robertson preach : I never 
 
 saw him. 1 his was my loss ; but probably I should not 
 
 have been able to appreciate him : I was too young, for 
 
 he died when I was twelve years of age. Mr. Frederick 
 
 Harrison, in his interesting letter to the present Dean of 
 
 Durham, says that, " his appearance, voice and manner were 
 
 the very ideal of a fashionable preacher." The only other 
 
 description of Robertson's preaching which I have heard 
 
 was given me by the late Rev. Canon iVIoney, who was for 
 
 some years Vicar of St. John's, Deptford. It came about 
 
 in this way. We were both present at a meeting, the object 
 
 of which I cannot recall. Among the speakers was one 
 
 who addressed us as a man who was thinking out a subject 
 
 and quietly giving us the result of his thoughts : he had 
 
 not the air of a man who has completely mastered his 
 
 subject, with its divisions and subdivisions and conclusion 
 
 all clearly arranged beforehand ; nor was it the air of a man 
 
 who is nervously anxious to say what he has to say and to 
 
 get people to agree with them then and there : it was rather 
 
 the air of a man who sees truth coming to him and lets 
 
 others share it as it comes. There was little change in the 
 
 expression of the face : the gestures were few, and not in 
 
 any sense dramatic ; they only added a kind of occasional 
 
 emphasis to what was said. When he had finished and an 
 178 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 179 
 
 opportunity came, Canon Money turned to me and said, 
 " That is very like the way Robertson preached." 1 have 
 no means of endorsing the view thus expressed, for 
 Robertson was only a name to me : my only acquaintance 
 with him was through that medium by which he held 
 converse with the whole world — his published works. 
 
 Everyone knows how widespread was the influence of 
 his sermons — how they were read by thousands who would 
 never read ordinary books of divinity or the stately dis- 
 courses of antiquated divines or the pompous reiteration of 
 cant phrases which won the title of " sound " sermons. 
 
 But though I was not privileged to know or hear 
 Robertson, I nevertheless seemed to be brought near to 
 him by family association. He was, for a time, curate tc 
 my uncle Archibald Boyd, then Vicar of Christchurch. 
 Cheltenham, and afterwards Dean of Exeter. My aunt 
 Fanny often stayed with her brother in Cheltenham, and 
 through her I heard much of Fred. Robertson. He was 
 a sort of hero to her, at any rate for a time, and she 
 would give me vigorous and pathetic sketches of the man 
 whom she so greatly admired. 
 
 She has passed away, but among her papers were found 
 a little bundle of Robertson's letters. They possess a varied 
 interest. Some of them were written when he was travelling 
 abroad, and give pictures of his journeyings : some touch 
 on his experiences when he was ministering at Oxford : 
 some allude to matters at Cheltenham, and others again to 
 his task at Brighton. Thus, through my aunt, 1 was 
 brought into closer touch with Robertson than otherwise 
 would have been possible. 
 
i8o FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 My uncle was, I know, somewhat troubled when 
 Frederick Robertson's Life first appeared, as it seemed to 
 suggest that there had been a personal conflict or quarrel 
 between Robertson and himself. This he very emphatically 
 denied, and I believe that I am right in saying that the 
 publishers were quite ready to give Mr. Boyd an oppor- 
 tunity of telling his own story on the subject. I do not, 
 however, think that this ever was done. It may therefore 
 be interesting if I set down here one other thing which came 
 from my uncle on the subject of his relations with Robertson. 
 
 In reading these we ought, I suppose, to recall the 
 atmosphere of Cheltenham at the time. The residents 
 were orthodox, according to the fashion of the day ; and 
 many of them possessed that sleepy character of intellect 
 which rests on words and phrases, and resents the intro,- 
 duction of any new vocabulary which might necessitate 
 exertion of mind. 
 
 On one occasion Robertson preached a sermon: I think 
 the subject was our Lord's temptation. The pews were 
 disturbed : something unlike what was customary had been 
 said ; the unexpected had happened, and the unexpected 
 must be heresy. Complaints were heard, and letters of 
 expostulation were addressed to the vicar, Mr. Boyd. He 
 held his peace ; but a few weeks later, he was preaching on 
 a kindred topic, and he set forth what he felt to be the 
 truth about our Lord's temptation. When the service was 
 over, and vicar and curate entered the vestry, Robertson 
 turned to my uncle and, with a light in his face, said, 
 " Thank you, thank you ; you said what I tried to say." 
 
 I do not, of course, mean to imply by this story more 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 i8i 
 
 than what applies to the incident in question. I do not 
 think that there was, or could have been, absolute intellec- 
 tual agreement between my uncle and Robertson on all theo- 
 logical points : I think that their formulae would have re- 
 mained different on many matters : they were a generation 
 apart. But I think that what really happened was this : my 
 uncle was able, as he listened to his curate, to discover what 
 the congregation missed, the essential ideas which Robertson 
 wished to express. The vicar, with greater experience and 
 longer practice, was able to say in language more consonant 
 with the thoughts of his people what Robertson really wished 
 to say. The truth which was uppermost at the moment in 
 Robertson's mind was capable of being stated in language 
 which would not arouse suspicion. Further, it may be said 
 without cynicism that the congregation would listen with 
 much less keen scent for heresy to the vicar, whose ortho- 
 doxy was. taken for granted, than to a curate about whose 
 orthodoxy they were not assured. Whether this be a true 
 account of the matter or not, the anecdote is pleasant, as it 
 shows a magnanimity on the part of both vicar and curate. 
 
 Once, only once according to my uncle, did any shadow 
 fall to chill the friendly feelings between Robertson and 
 himself. There was a time in which my uncle admitted 
 that he became aware that a certain aloofness of feeling 
 had arisen between them. It 'was one of those apparently 
 causeless impressions which might contain the seed of later 
 personal alienation. It may have had its origin in some 
 heedlessly repeated piece of gossip : the theological temper 
 of Cheltenham at the time was favourable for the diff"usion 
 of misunderstandings. When my uncle realized the situa- 
 
1 82 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 tion he sought for some way to put an end to it. The 
 chance of doing so came to him as he was out walking. 
 Suddenly, as he turned a corner, he encountered Robertson. 
 In a moment there flashed upon him a happy thought. 
 He went up to Robertson and, shaking hands, he said, 
 "Robertson, shall you and I agree that Lot's wife was 
 a very foolish woman " For a few seconds Robertson 
 looked bewildered, then, as the significance of the question 
 broke upon his mind, his face broke into smiles as he said, 
 " Certainly," From that time forward there was no looking 
 back, no brooding over insane fragments of gossip, and the 
 friendliness of their personal relations was unbroken. 
 
 These things, of course, belong to what we may call 
 ancient history. It must be nearly seventy years since 
 Robertson left Cheltenham. It is impossible, I should 
 think, to test the accuracy of every event or incident which 
 marked Robertson's life at Cheltenham ; but it seems only 
 right to record anything which sheds a kindly light upon a 
 page which has been, perhaps, looked upon as one of almost 
 unrelieved blackness. 
 
 The regard and even affection which Robertson felt 
 towards Mr. Boyd is expressed with clearness and perfect 
 frankness in the following letter — 
 
 9 MoNTPELiER Terrace, 
 Brighton, 
 
 January \lth, 1849. 
 
 My DEAREST Miss Boyd, 
 
 1 will enter at once upon the subject of your 
 questions, without adverting to the other parts of your 
 kind letter. " Did I ever complain of your brother's 
 unkindness " " Had I ever cause to complain } " 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 183 
 I reply to the second first. 
 
 Never from the moment I began to work at 
 Christ Church till the moment I left It did your 
 brother cease to act towards me in a liberal, kind, and 
 Christian way. Never can I be sufficiently grateful 
 for his repeated acts of considerate solicitude. Except 
 Charles Jackson, I do not know any man from whom 
 I should have received so many. And you have my 
 free permission to say to any one, as emphatically as I can 
 express it, that I do not believe it would be possible to 
 find any parish in England where the relations of an 
 Incumbent towards a curate were more faultlessly sus- 
 tained. But to say this is only half the truth. They 
 were not only faultlessly, but affectionately sustained. 
 I am not now giving vent to feeling, but answering 
 your question in a businesslike way. 
 
 Perhaps, however, from the significant way in 
 which your second question, " Did you ever com- 
 plain," etc., is put, I ought to go a little deeper into 
 the matter before I answer it. 
 
 What I have already said would seem to make a 
 reply to this superfluous, and if it were not that your 
 anxious tone seems to imply that some real expression 
 or other of mine has been repeated, or exaggerated, or 
 distorted, I should answer at once '* Never." And I do 
 answer, I recollect nothing which could have been so 
 understood. But a negative extending over six years 
 back is hard to make, as sentences often pass the lips 
 on the impulse of the moment which are forgotten in 
 an hour, unless treasured up by some benevolent peace- 
 maker. I must, therefore, with pain, advert to another 
 part of the matter. 
 
 I once told your brother frankly and openly that 
 
1 84 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 (justly or unjustly so far as my expectations were 
 concerned) I had been disappointed during the latter 
 portion of my stay in Cheltenham by the cooling of 
 his manner towards me ; that I had given him a very 
 ardent attachment, and that for many months he had 
 exhibited a growing coldness — that, of course, I had no 
 right to claim friendship in return for friendship, but 
 that it had galled me much to go on as we had been 
 doing lately, that nothing but the feeling of his kind- 
 ness, which had been once so hearty, could have kept 
 me in a disagreeable post so long — that when that 
 heartiness ceased, the disagreeable character of the 
 position became intolerable — that 1 had not a single act 
 of omission to complain of, but that I had missed that 
 which gives the flavour to acts, and that the point 
 which turned the scale at last in the decision of giving 
 up was this. 
 
 We had a long explanation ; and your brother 
 mentioned several circumstances which had insensibly 
 led to all this. 
 
 These feelings indisputably were on my mind — I 
 expressed them to your brother. I do not remember 
 that I hinted them to any one else — except to one 
 person, and if I did in that case, it was, I believe, only 
 vaguely. But it would be very rash to declare posi- 
 tively that I never did so — for, when a thing weighs 
 heavily on the mind, in particular moments it is apt to 
 come out. As such a feeling certainly did exist, I will 
 not, therefore, affirm that during three or four years 
 last past no sentence has ever escaped my lips upon the 
 subject — especially as you refuse to give me the name 
 of the person to whom it is alleged to have been said, 
 and do not even tell me what was said or affirmed to 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 185 
 
 have been said. But this I can say, that my memory 
 is a perfect blank upon the subject ; though 1 assume 
 that there must have been some expression of dis- 
 appointment of mine on which all this is grafted. I 
 do not know that I ought to have given an answer 
 at all unless your informant had been willing to give 
 his name. But I am far more anxious to satisfy you 
 than to insist upon the strict justice of the matter. 
 If it be a man who has told this story, and if it be by 
 his own wish that his name is concealed, you may con- 
 vey to him my opinion that he is a coward — if it be a 
 lady, you may tell her what I should have thought had 
 it been a gentleman. 
 
 My reply, therefore, on the whole is this. Youi" 
 brother's active kindness to me was uniform ; beyond 
 what I received ; substantial, real, true, and except for 
 a few unfortunate occurrences in which I believe mis- 
 understanding was the cause of all, most affectionate. 
 In the reciprocation of warmth I was disappointed, 
 latterly, perhaps unfairly and over sensitively and 
 exorbitantly. I told him himself that I was dis- 
 appointed, I do not know that I told any other person 
 so. But I will not be positive in so very wide and 
 vague an assertion. The feeling was within ; it may 
 have got out. But I am not aware that it did. I 
 think, however, I may be pretty positive that I never 
 said the words which have been repeated, whatever 
 those are. 
 
 But it is exceedingly painful to go on in this way, 
 qualifying denials in the dark, and as you may not tell 
 me any more, I feel that what I have said now will 
 amount to a presumptive proof that the story you 
 allude to is correct. 
 
86 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 Blessed are the peacemakers ; and accursed are 
 the mischief makers. I would stake a great deal on 
 the conviction that your informant is a " pious person," 
 which is a compendious equivalent for busybody, 
 mischief maker, slanderer and hypocrite — now, as 
 1849 years ago. 
 
 Of this letter you may make whatever use you 
 like. Not a sentence of it is private. 
 
 Ever, in unchanged friendship, 
 
 Most affectionately yours, 
 
 {Signed) Fred. W. R. 
 
 The time came — it was bound to come — when the strain 
 and uncongeniality of Cheltenham life was too much for 
 Robertson, The spirit of petty gossip, the hopeless inability 
 of ossified orthodoxy to understand ethical enthusiasm, the 
 need for more leisure for study, the craving for an atmo- 
 sphere of intellectual comradeship, made a change imperative ; 
 but when the parting came there was a feeling of regret on 
 Robertson's part. The following letter shows clearly how 
 kindly and affectionate were the relations between him and 
 Mr. Boyd, and all under his roof. 
 
 My dear Miss Boyd, 
 
 I feel it due to your great kindness to tell 
 you myself and not let it come through a third person, 
 that I have to-day given up the curacy of Christ 
 Church. It is not necessary to go into all the reasons. 
 It is partly in compliance with medical advice, and 
 partly from a feeling of unfitness for ministerial work 
 which becomes day by day more depressing. Possibly 
 I may not take duty again, but this is a thing for after 
 consideration. 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 187 
 
 I should utterly mistake your warm and friendly 
 heart if I did not feel sure that this will be a matter of 
 sufficient interest to you to excuse my writing. 1 was 
 much touched by your kindness last week, and shall 
 not easily forget it. Your sisters and yourself have 
 treated me like a brother, and you will forgive me if 1 
 say that 1 feel all a brother's regard and warmth of 
 affection for you. I do not attempt to express all I 
 feel in this parting from you and your brother. I am 
 not happy. 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 
 Frederick W. Robertson. 
 
 Rodney House, 
 Friday. 
 
 In my uncle's view Robertson needed mental repose ; he 
 suggested that he should close his books for a time, and 
 take a holiday, and, unburdened by anxious thought, give 
 himself the opportunity of entire rest. There may have 
 been wisdom in the suggestion ; but it was a course which 
 was impossible, I should think, to a man of Robertson's 
 temperament. Among the clergy there are some men who 
 are like lawyers : they speak to their brief, and they can 
 handle the case committed to them with effective force. 
 Such men know little of the mental struggle which is the 
 portion of those who cannot accept a brief till they have 
 satisfied themselves that it is drawn in harmony with the 
 facts. As long as these different classes of mind exist, 
 there may be friendliness, but there can hardly be perfect 
 intellectual sympathy between them. The difference of 
 temperament does not imply lack of mental honesty on 
 
1 88 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 the part of either ; it only means that to one the ministry is 
 the continuous opportunity of presenting an aspect of truth 
 which has become a conviction ; to the other the ministry is 
 the perpetual duty of following truth through the various 
 aspects it assumes, as knowledge grows, and experience 
 shows fresh disclosures of life. To the one the message is 
 a fixed and divinely authenticated message ; to the other 
 the message is never felt to be divine till it can be translated 
 into some human form. 
 
 We have had both classes of teachers in the Church of 
 Christ, and both have served to enrich the thought and 
 revive the spirit of faith. 
 
 There is no doubt to which of these classes Robertson 
 belonged, and the freshness of his message to men was due 
 to the scrupulous intellectual honesty of his thought, and to 
 the attractive human form in which he could present truth. 
 
 I have mentioned the letters which he wrote to my aunt. 
 They prove that he regarded her as one who had both the 
 capacity and the wish to sympathize with his struggles to 
 reach a satisfactory outlook upon his life of ministry. He 
 gives expression in one of his letters to the happy freedom 
 which he feels when he has exchanged the climate of 
 Cheltenham for that of Oxford. In this letter he rejoices 
 to find that his admiration of Tennyson as a poet is shared 
 by many thoughtful men at Oxford. The implication is 
 clear enough. I can well believe that the Cheltenham of 
 1847 could not receive Tennyson. I can recall a con- 
 versation which I heard twenty years later in a Blackheath 
 drawing-room, which probably illustrates the Cheltenham 
 standpoint. Some adventurous person asked the company 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 " Who was the greatest living poet ? " A man recognized 
 as a leader of evangelical thought took upon him, with 
 amazing promptness, to answer the question. *' Oh, Bonar, 
 no doubt." I gasped ; I was silent ; there are some occasions 
 in which amazement makes speech impossible. Could there 
 be a more cruel thing to an excellent, pious, hymn writer like 
 Horatius Bonar, than thus to thrust him among the gods .'' 
 It was one of those fatuous utterances which do much to 
 alienate thinking men from a form of religion which could 
 produce such undiscriminating and ignorant judgments. 
 
 This reminiscence of mine may serve as an introduction 
 to Robertson's letter in which the verdicts upon Tennyson 
 are referred to. It illustrates, I think, and helps to explain, 
 the joy which Robertson felt in breathing the air of Oxford. 
 There he was no longer living in an exhausted receiver. 
 The fresh currents of free and impartial thought were 
 circulating in the colleges and common rooms ; ecclesi- 
 asticism had not then begun to strangle common sense 
 and honest judgment. Ideas were abroad, and organization 
 had not yet had power to destroy them. 
 
 4, Queen Street, 
 Oxford, 
 
 June 29. 
 
 A letter is such a joy to me here in banishment ! 
 I found yours lying at my door this morning, where 
 my letters are always put, reclining against a taper 
 earthen vessel, containing water, a hint taken from 
 Punch's surmise of the i lb. loaf of bread standing 
 beside Lord John Russell's door at Windsor. I took 
 it up in a kind of delirium, or trance of ecstasy — put 
 it on the table, and endeavoured to go through the 
 
I90 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 usual rehearsal of my previous day's reading with 
 which I occupy that morning half-hour. But, alas ! 
 my toilette lucubrations for to-day were not worth 
 much, broken and disconnected. Glimpses of expected 
 pleasure — recollections — visions in the shape of a female 
 form, flitted and glittered and danced before me in the 
 intervals of Gerando's French philosophy and the 
 dark depths of Schleiermacher's metaphysics — like pale 
 threads of starlight that you see with long intervals 
 of black, in a long line up to the horizon when the 
 sea is agitated and nervous. 
 
 And now to touch on points in your letter. I 
 have not heard of the appointment of my successor, 
 and only a week ago the Bishop told me he had found 
 no one. He asked Mr. Tucker of Madras, but he 
 unfortunately had just accepted a church. However, 
 the report may be true. People here are very anxious, 
 almost feverishly so about it, for the Tractarian reign 
 in this parish had brought the congregation down to 
 twenty-five or thirty. Taking it all in all, though, 
 there are many drawbacks ; if only the stipend were 
 a little better, I should prefer remaining here to going 
 to Brighton. There is much that is very encouraging, 
 and I am free and happy. My congregation is chiefly 
 composed of tradespeople, but unfortunately a large 
 proportion of it is from other parishes. In term time 
 gownsmen were beginning to come, and I would rather, 
 far, far rather, work among such than among the 
 pampered theologians of the upper classes, whose 
 profound ignorance makes them obstinate in their 
 own narrow, silly orthodoxy. Rather a great deal 
 would I deal with the honest radicalism of my chief 
 parishioners here, who stand firmly against the foolish 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 assumptions and the arrogance of Oxford clerical high 
 churchism, but are ready to give a manly, independent 
 and candid attention to anyone who will stand on 
 generous though firm ground, than with those petrifac- 
 tions of a fashionable watering-place whose liberality is 
 chiefly liberality of certain flames to which they consign 
 those who differ from them. I do not dispute their 
 title to deal with those flames. Very likely they have 
 a clear right of property therein, which at all events I 
 will not attempt to rob them of. But of the two, the 
 Romanist who presents his antagonist with the flames 
 of this world and the Protestant who talks of private 
 judgment, and promises everyone who contravenes his 
 judgment a liberal supply of the flames of the next — 
 (witness Baptist Noel !), I can only say the latter is 
 the worse Papist and Apostle of infallibility of the two. 
 It is not a beautiful spectacle in the eyes of Him Who 
 is Love. The Romanist excommunicates the Protes- 
 tant. The Protestant reciprocates, from his Coward's 
 Castle in the pulpit and platform, curses loud and deep 
 amidst the clatter of parasols and the applauses of 
 ignorance, against the Romanist. The Tractarian 
 sneers at the Evangelical from the University pulpit : 
 in acknowledgment of which politeness the Evangelical 
 in his accredited formula of oath, not swearing — oh, 
 
 no ! — sends the Tractarian to Dr. Hook, whom 
 
 I heard a few days ago, says publicly that every man 
 who does not hold baptismal regeneration in the 
 Church of England is as much a rogue as he who 
 does hold the doctrine of Transubstantiation : and a 
 few weeks ago I heard himself abused as a Papist 
 in dense darkness. Mr. Ward cuts up Luther, and 
 Archdeacon Hare excoriates Mr. Ward with flagella- 
 
192 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 tion and vituperation. The Unitarian looks on and 
 says, this is Christian unity ! till, like the celebrated 
 exclamation of Tarn o'Shanter which brought the whole 
 legion of witches on his luckless mare, the Unitarian 
 receives a significant proof that these combatants can 
 upon occasion realise unity, by the peal of deafening 
 and combined curses with which they altogether salute 
 the intruder upon the amiable meeting. You look 
 into his controversies, and you find he has not been 
 much behind them. For curses he has returned con- 
 tempt. What a striking historical picture all this would 
 make, especially if over it there were written Prize 
 Picture, composed on a subject as proposed by the 
 R.A., " A new Commandment give I unto you, that ye 
 love one another ! " 
 
 I did not attend any of the Lectures, a very 
 Gothic proceeding on my part, I have no doubt you 
 will think ; but the truth is I wanted to avoid all 
 excitement and keep my mind and heart calm for 
 work. I have three sermons a week, besides Con- 
 firmation classes and instruction in the school, which 
 occupy six hours every week : besides visiting the sick. 
 And I could not do this thoroughly if I suflFered myself 
 to get into the exciting worlds of though which are 
 being presented now and which so dissipate the mind, 
 as you run about from section to section. I was and 
 even still am much tempted to go, for I hear on every 
 side accounts of intense interest recited. Yesterday 
 Prince Albert came amidst the ringing of bells, and a 
 salute of twenty-one guns which the townspeople fired 
 in his honour, but I left those who think a prince the 
 real standard of human greatness to run after him. 
 I would rather have seen the great and good Chevalier 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 193 
 
 Bunsen. I know nothing grand in this world except 
 adorned human nature. Goodness is grand, and genius 
 in a smaller way is great, though I am no worshipper 
 of talent, or Titans. But princes and rank and such 
 small fry I would not turn out of my way to see. 
 Manhood and the mysteries of the human heart I can 
 find without a title : and this world holds little now 
 for me that is marvellous, except that. Sir Peregrine 
 Maitland received an honorary degree in full uniform 
 at the commemoration — a man disgraced for doing his 
 duty in India. I gave him a deep and hearty cheer, 
 as the fine old fellow stood meekly and unmoved and 
 simple amidst his thunders of applause. And when 
 I saw him afterwards in a great meeting shrinking into 
 a corner and sitting listening like a child, I felt that, 
 after all, the despised life of Christ is the only grand 
 thing this earth has seen (except that which resembles 
 it). Jesus Christ and the crucified — by which our 
 Evangelicals understand that they are to preach only 
 or chiefly the crucifixion of Christ — robbing the whole 
 passage of its sublime significance, as if the Apostle 
 did not mean to say this, that he gloried in a Saviour 
 humbled : shamed, not applauded : crucified, not en- 
 throned : that this is the true majesty of man : that 
 he would not do as the Roman Catholic missionaries 
 did, represent Jesus as a victorious conqueror, but as a 
 martyr for the truth. He did not say he would preach 
 chiefly the Crucifixion of Christ : but that whatever he 
 said of Christ should not obscure the fact of his 
 humiliation. He would preach Christ : but that 
 Christ a humbled one. He would speak of goodness, 
 nobleness, purity, heroism : but never should it be 
 forgotten in his teaching that the Divinest form of 
 o 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 these is Condescension. Let the world run after its 
 Marquises, Dukes, Prince Alberts, and lionise them in 
 its way. The homage of his heart should be prostrated 
 before love and manhood even in disgrace ; the love 
 which sacrifices itself for others — the manhood which 
 is as dazzling to the heart in the cottage of a labourer 
 as in the state carriage of a noble. 
 
 I am happier and more at rest in heart here 
 than I have been for a long, long time. Except this 
 week I have scarcely spoken to any one except my 
 parishioners and bookseller. I am alone. But I have 
 plenty of work — elasticity of mind to do it all without 
 any effort greater than what is a healthful exercise of 
 mind — know that when I preach, I preach not to be 
 judged, but to say out what is in me, one heart impart- 
 ing its earnest convictions to other hearts, and not 
 troubled with reflex work upon itself, self-conscious- 
 ness, self-measurement, self-criticism, but revelling in 
 entire self-forgetfulness. Even when University men 
 of high talent are present, I have been at ease— preached 
 not for them, but for my tradespeople — knowing that 
 they, as men of talent always do, will make allowances. 
 And oh, what a lesson has it read me and might read 
 Cheltenham of humility ! I have talked with and 
 preached before briUiant and gifted men, who differed 
 from me, who were intellectually as far above me " as 
 the sunlight to the moonlight," &c., with more con- 
 fidence, and received from them more respect, more 
 unwillingness to differ — more distrustfulness of their 
 own judgment and reverence for another's, than during 
 five years I ever met from the beings in Cheltenham 
 who read the Record, Charlotte Elisabeth, and 
 D'Aubigne on the Reformation ! 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 195 
 
 I had nearly forgotten to tell you that Tennyson 
 is deeply admired here by all the brilliant men. 
 Stanley, our first genius, rates him highly. Hannah, 
 who has guided nearly all the first and double first- 
 class men for the last three years to honors, told me 
 he considers his poetical and psychological powers 
 more varied than any poet he knows. And the 
 Dread, a choice selection of the most brilliant among 
 the rising men, have pronounced him to be the first 
 poet of the day. So you see I have some to keep me 
 company in my judgment. And at all events he is 
 above ridicule. Pray inform Miss Dalzell of all this. 
 One of our first professors raves about him. 
 
 I have left myself no room with all this chatting 
 strain to tell you how angry I am with you for sup- 
 posing that I was annoyed by not receiving a letter 
 from you. One letter is precious enough to amply 
 repay and outweigh ten of mine, even though you 
 write so large and say so little, and send such dis- 
 appointing sheets containing three words in a line and 
 four lines in a page. 
 
 Pray put my address in full next time you write. 
 My name is no longer in the Oxford Calendar, and as 
 I had just come and was not known as one of the 
 parochial clergy, the post office could not tell at what 
 college they should apply. Brasenose would have 
 found me. And now, dearest Miss Boyd, farewell ! 
 
 Ever most sincerely and affectionately yours, 
 
 {Signed) Frederick. W. Robertson. 
 
 His life at Oxford was a happy interlude, and its in- 
 fluence helped in preparation for his work at Brighton. 
 Whatever may have been his own feelings respecting the 
 
196 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 relative comfort of work in Oxford or in Brighton, it will be 
 with Brighton that Robertson's name will be always associ- 
 ated. He was Robertson of Brighton to the men of his own 
 day, and he is Robertson of Brighton to the thousands who 
 to-day rejoice in the inspiration which they owe to him. 
 
 The spirit in which he contemplated the change from 
 Oxford to Brighton is made clear in the following letter, 
 which possesses the added interest of the language in which 
 he speaks of the then Bishop of Oxford, who in his turn 
 was a man, as we know, viewed with suspicion by a certain 
 section of Churchpeople. 
 
 This morning I received a letter from the Bishop 
 of Oxford, informing me that he has appointed a tem- 
 porary successor to St. Ebbes, and that I am therefore 
 free after next Sunday. So my work is nearly done, 
 over which I cannot rejoice, for it has been very de- 
 lightful : regular, hard, and not unblest. I am quite 
 certain that I could be of service here — both in the 
 town and the university — more so, perhaps, than any- 
 where in England. However, it is very plainly not 
 my appointed post. If Brighton resemble Cheltenham 
 I shall soon be at Home, in the still Country. My 
 spontaneous thoughts more and more shape them- 
 selves now into longings for rest — Rest in God — Rest 
 in the place where mysteries are solved and heartaches 
 cured. Five years of Cheltenham have been to me 
 as ten elsewhere. I am not the man I was — temper, 
 mind, character, all are deteriorated and degraded. 
 Here, once more in life, the ghost of former thoughts 
 has hovered round me, strength of will, high aims, 
 and inward harmony. One last, beautiful dream — 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 197 
 
 such as you only get when your working hours alone 
 are spent with men (and those hard and severe), the 
 hours of relaxation in quiet, alone, and with God. 
 However, it is drawing to an end — and now hurrah ! 
 for bustle, glare, restlessness — and the drag of existence, 
 that will drag on ! 
 
 The Judge has just passed my window to the 
 assizes with music, shouts and holiday. What arc 
 people shouting for Good fun ! He is gone to 
 make some wretched hearts more wretched still. What 
 a contrast their feelings must present to the sounds 
 outside ! Surely the only sensation which sinners have 
 a right to feel tov/ards sinners is a sensation of pity. 
 The wretched, suffering, tempted poor — how little 
 they get of anything beyond platform and pulpit 
 sympathy. 
 
 The Bishop of Oxford preached here a few Sun- 
 days ago, before all the savants and great men. They 
 crowded to the church, which was filled to suffocation 
 — a sea of men, the ladies occupying a very small pro- 
 portion of the space. It is said to have been very 
 brilliant. But he is wearing himself out, burning away 
 fast. And as usual with all men who will not be 
 partisans, he is suspected, reviled and charged with the 
 meanest motives on every side, except by those who 
 know him intimately and well, and they admire and love 
 him in a way I have seldom known. His Master had 
 exactly the same life of it. 1 do admire the Bishop of 
 Oxford — and admire him the more for the hearty, 
 enthusiastic admiration that he can feel for others' 
 excellence. It quite did my heart good in a conversa- 
 tion with him the other day to hear the warmth of his 
 generous praise of one or two men to whose writings 
 
198 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 he acknowledges a great debt. For seven years now 
 I have felt that he was a true man, and defended 
 him. Now I feel more sure of it than ever. And 
 now, dearest Miss Boyd, farewell. 
 
 Ever most affect. 
 Yours, 
 
 (Sgd.) F. W. R. 
 
 It is interesting to notice the hesitations which men 
 show in life. Hesitations are of different kinds, but once 
 we can classify the hesitation which a man has displayed in 
 any crisis we have a key to his character — or, at any rate, we 
 feel that we know him better. Fredk. Robertson was a 
 man whose powers grew with sympathy and would have 
 withered under indifference. He was sensitive to the 
 influence and, above all, to the sympathetic support of 
 others. His was one of those natures which would reach 
 its best under what we may call a mothering influence : 
 under it his energies quickened, his thoughts grew in 
 amplitude and clearness, and in the outpouring of the ideas 
 which sympathy released, he felt his way to clearer con- 
 ceptions of right and truth. Such a nature suffers from a 
 continual and painful self-distrust : it needs comradeship 
 that it may talk out its thoughts : it does not surrender its 
 own right of decision, but it yearns for the support and 
 guidance which the interchange of ideas can give. The 
 letters written to my aunt convince me of this aspect of his 
 character. He found in her one to whom he could speak 
 freely, letting his thoughts run on, groping their way to 
 foundation principles, and striving to reach that aspect of 
 truth which scorns " the falsehood of extremes." Truth 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 199 
 
 was to him not mere correctness of thinking, but sincerity 
 of feeling and integrity in action. The following extract 
 from a letter written from Oxford shows us the worthy and 
 honest hesitation which he felt in choosing the place of his 
 future career. Is it to be Oxford or Brighton was the 
 question of the moment. He distrusts himself : he wishes 
 that the question shall be decided for him. 
 
 The reader will perhaps recall Mr. Frederic Harrison's 
 view that, at Brighton, Robertson's appearance, voice and 
 manner were the very ideal of a fashionable preacher. How 
 far Robertson himself was from desiring such a reputation 
 the following extract will show — 
 
 " I must tell you, however, that nothing yet is de- 
 cided respecting my future location. I have referred 
 the whole decision to the Bishop of Oxford. Having 
 agreed to take his opinion as God's guidance, I was 
 tempted at first to think that though his release left me 
 free in honour to accept which I chose, yet it would be 
 playing fast and loose with God, as Balaam did, to de- 
 sire a second reply to a ruled decision. But on second 
 thoughts, 1 perceived a great difference in the cases. 
 New circumstances, unsought and unforeseen by me, 
 have arisen : difficulties on the one hand in the failure 
 as to the curate and the house, and a way unexpectedly 
 opened on the other by the committee's application to 
 the Bishop. I am therefore bound to inquire which is 
 God's guidance. I was willing to take Oxford when 
 it seemed my duty. Am I equally willing to follow a 
 new path, if distinctly pointed out .'' There is a re- 
 markable similarity in the two sets of circumstances. 
 Both Oxford and Brighton were refused by me once, 
 
200 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 and both a second time pressed upon me. 1 dread 
 Brighton because of its temptations — to vanity, to 
 lightness, to live for popularity instead of God, to 
 be satisfied with superficial instead of deep religion — 
 to sink, with all high and pure aims, into a mere popu- 
 lar preacher at last, i. e. if I could ever be popular. 
 But I have put the matter out of my own hands and 
 asked the Bishop to decide — not what is best for me, 
 but what I ought to do. So at least I act honestly." 
 
 The Bishop, as we know, decided for Brighton, and 
 Brighton had the six years of devoted ministry. I feel that 
 I must add one letter : it differs from the rest in that it deals 
 with religious matters from an experimental point of view. 
 His clear and sane readiness of thought does not desert him, 
 but with it is allied the happy simplicity of religious faith. 
 
 My dear Miss Boyd, 
 
 I return your list with a few marked, which 
 I believe would suit your purpose. I have added two 
 or three more, which are valuable. It seems to me 
 that biography, where there is not sentimentalism but 
 reality, is the most likely way to win an appreciation of 
 what is peculiar in Christ's religion from those who 
 know it not in power. I say likely, because of course 
 the success depends on God's sovereign will, and all 
 our best contrived expedients may be baffled, while the 
 result is brought about by means the most apparently 
 improbable. But we are insensibly moulded after that 
 which we admire, so that we even catch the tones and 
 peculiarities of those whose character is venerated for 
 quite other qualities. It seems just on this principle 
 that our Lord's pattern works upon the heart when 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 it is truly admired and studied, so that we, first 
 " beholding," are then " changed into the same image — 
 from glory to glory." 
 
 But after all, the selection must vary with the 
 character of mind for which it is intended, and our best 
 plans may err. Your surest effort will be unfainting 
 prayer for the friend in whom you desire a change 
 which nothing of human contrivance can effect, and 
 which is supernatural. If your desires are crowned by 
 God, there will be a purity in the joy, which no other 
 feeling on earth can give. I pray that it may not be in 
 vain. 
 
 Yours ever sincerely, 
 
 (Sgd.) Frederick W. Robertson. 
 
 Saturday Evening. 
 The following lines are probably new to the world ; 
 they breathe the spirit of pure and happy friendship, and 
 they express the grateful emotions of a man who found the 
 sustaining strength of womanly sympathy, in days which 
 were darkened by doubt and trouble, with the painful 
 consciousness of weakness. They show us something of 
 the struggles of spirit by which he was tried, in days when 
 there was probably fighting without, and undoubtedly fears 
 within. 
 
 PARTING LINES TO MISS F. B. 
 We may meet not beyond to-morrow, 
 
 But one word before we part ; 
 It must be a tone of sorrow, 
 
 But its music is vent to the heart. 
 There are thoughts too free and glowing 
 
 For the trammels of common speech ; 
 There's a tide in the heart's depth flowing, 
 
 Too high but for song to reach. 
 
202 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 Thou hast known me in days that are over, 
 
 As weak as the spent sea wave ; 
 And hast seen me unmanned discover 
 
 What were shame to the firm and brave. 
 
 Yet through all thine unaltered spirit 
 
 For weakness itself could mourn, 
 And was blind to each fault which could merit 
 
 One curl on the mouth of scorn. 
 
 Farewell to the lip that trembled 
 
 For me with a sister's fear ! 
 Farewell to the eye that dissembled 
 
 The start of a woman's tear. 
 
 The hour of that weakness is over, 
 Though lost be the earnest of life ; 
 
 And if need be, Resolve can cover 
 Each swell of remaining strife. 
 
 Oh ! strange are the shapes which Feeling 
 
 Can assume to disguise its throe, 
 When sarcastic calm is concealing 
 
 The quiver of heart below. 
 
 There's a laughter whose light animation 
 Is the knell of a hope that's gone — 
 
 The bitter and proud isolation 
 
 Of a soul that would suffer alone. 
 
 Love itself may be frozen — yet never 
 Shall my heart be congealed to thee ; 
 
 To the spell of thy kind tones ever 
 My spirit flows clear and free. 
 
 On the sward by the mouldering ruin, 
 
 Still green is the fairy ring ; 
 And thy name, in life's cold undoing, 
 
 Will be one last spot of Spring. 
 
F. W. ROBERTSON 
 
 203 
 
 Farewell to thee, sister dearest ! 
 
 There were friends in the bright years past ; 
 But to her who in sadness was nearest. 
 
 One blessing from me at last. 
 
 F. W. R. 
 
 January 1847. 
 
 Six years later he died. Six years of work at Trinity 
 Church, Brighton, closed without his friends or his congre- 
 gation realizing how wide and lasting his influence was 
 destined to be. He died on August 15, 1853, exactly six 
 years from the day on which he commenced his work at 
 Brighton. " My friends," he said, after two hours of 
 agony, " My friends, I must die. Let God do His work." 
 They were his last words spoken, but the work did not 
 end with his death. His words went out far and wide, and 
 God worked by him long after his voice was silent. 
 
J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE 
 
 Among happy memories few are brighter than the 
 recollection of those acquaintances which ripened into 
 friendship. Among these I must reckon the v/arm attach- 
 ment which sprang up between Mr. and Mrs. Shorthouse 
 and ourselves. I met Mr. and Mrs. Shorthouse first at the 
 house of a parishioner of mine, Colonel RatclifF, when 1 was 
 at Lancaster Gate. In one of those unaccountable ways we 
 seemed to find each other, and a correspondence, happily 
 broken by interchanged visits, gave continuity and strength 
 to our friendship. " Friendship," said the late Professor 
 Jowett, " should be carefully fostered." In this case it was ; 
 and letters and visits nursed the growing affection between 
 us. It began very simply. 
 
 There was a paper written by Mr. Shorthouse which was, 
 I think, unique, in the pages of the Nineteenth Century. It 
 covered, if I recollect right, a single page of the magazine. 
 It was a parable drawn from a game of whist. The cards 
 were dealt, and as they fell without any sign of order or 
 sequence on the table, and suits were mixed up with one 
 another, the cards, noting the haphazard fashion of their ex- 
 perience said, " We are the sport of chance." The cards 
 were gathered up and the game began, and the suits were 
 kept to themselves ; spades followed spades, hearts followed 
 
 hearts, and so on, with such regularity that the cards now 
 204 
 
J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE 205 
 
 declared that they were under the rule of inevitable and 
 inexorable law ; they said, " We are the victims of fate," 
 Then somebody played a trump, and the cards saw that 
 thought and will entered into their destiny, and they said 
 " Our lot is ordered by intelligence." ' 
 As I wished to recover the paper I wrote to ask the 
 date of its publication. This will explain the allusion in the 
 commencement of the following letter. In the same letter 
 I was able to tell him, in confidence, that Queen Victoria 
 appreciated his writings. IMy letter brought the following 
 reply— 
 
 Lansdowne, Edgbaston, 
 
 December 12, 1883. 
 
 My dear Canon Boyd Carpenter, 
 
 The little " apologue " you refer to appeared 
 in the Nineteenth Century for July 1882. I seem to 
 have only one copy, and that a poor one, or I would 
 send you one at once. I have no doubt, however, 
 that they are to be procured. 
 
 I have always regretted that I saw so little of you 
 when we met at Colonel RatclifF's ; my wife was more 
 fortunate, as she sat by you at dinner, and in conse- 
 quence greatly enjoyed the evening. 
 
 I am naturally much gratified by what you tell me 
 in confidence. I had the honour of being allowed to 
 present a copy of John Inglesant to H.R.H. the Duke 
 of Albany, and also, at the request of the Librarian, to 
 send a copy to the Queen, but yours is the first inti- 
 mation I have received of personal interest in the book. 
 With kindest regards from my wife, 
 
 I am. Yours very sincerely, 
 
 {Signed) J. Henry Shorthouse. 
 
 The Rev. Canon Boyd Carpenter. 
 
2o6 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 In my reply I asked what he wished me to do with 
 some verses he had sent, and as in the following reply he 
 put them at my disposal, I feel that I may now give 
 them to my readers. 
 
 Landsdowne, 
 
 Edgbaston, 
 
 April 1884.. 
 
 My dear Canon Boyd Carpenter, 
 
 Many thanks for your kind letter ; we were 
 quite ashamed at sending you so many books, and 
 very glad that you are not overwhelmed. 
 
 The verses on the Prince belong to you^ I do not 
 mean to make any further use of them. I could not 
 let the week, which began so happily for us in Windsor 
 Castle, pass without expressing in some feeble way my 
 sympathy in the sorrow and compassion which the 
 nation is feeling ; and the obvious adaptation of the 
 Dean's (Stanley) poem struck me as very forcible, 
 which no doubt others will make use of. 
 
 If you think that the Princess would like to sec 
 the lines, make what use of them you will. I am not 
 sure whether the first three verses would not end 
 better — 
 
 «' He travelled Here." 
 
 With kindest regards to Mrs. Carpenter, 
 From 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 {^igned^ J. Henry Shorthouse. 
 
 The verses were given a title derived from a phrase 
 employed by Dean Stanley. They were called — 
 
J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE 
 
 "THE UNTRAVELLED TRAVELLER" 
 
 Through Science' mazy lore, 
 Through Art's environment, 
 Through Music's blandishment, 
 
 He travelled once. 
 
 Through Love, our Human Love, 
 Through Hearts of Peasant-born, 
 Through courtly life and purified. 
 
 He travelled once. 
 
 For good of suffering men, 
 For love of Human kind. 
 In travailing for Truth, 
 
 He travelled once. 
 
 And now beyond the stars, 
 
 Beyond the passion of our trembling love, 
 
 Beyond our groping quest 
 
 He travels still. 
 
 The Eternal Spaces opening, 
 The Love, not ours encompassing, 
 Travail, not ours inspiriting, 
 
 He travels on ! 
 
 The Iris born of Love, 
 
 The Halo round the face of Love, 
 
 The welcome of the Man of Love, 
 
 The Throne of God ! 
 
 J. H. 8. 
 
 ^th Sunday in Lent, 1884. 
 
 One little work by' Mr. Shorthouse, Little Schoolmaster 
 Mark, interested me in a special way, and my interest 
 was stimulated by a letter from Mr. Shorthouse which 
 challenged my ingenuity. 
 
 This letter I regard as very characteristic. Mr. Short- 
 house had a very strong feeling that the stories which he 
 
2o8 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 wrote had been given him : he was but the instrument of 
 transmitting them to the world, and though they were his 
 work, their full or truest significance might be as much 
 a mystery to him as to the reader. The questions he 
 raises have their origin in this conviction of his, that the 
 products of his pen were not the results of previous 
 imagination on his part, but were visions with messages 
 which it was for him as well as others to seek to under- 
 stand. As in this letter he, as it were, challenged me to 
 suggest a solution of the problem, I gave the matter some 
 thought, and I ventured to write a second part or continu- 
 ation of the tale. There might have been an impertinence 
 in doing this, but 1 know, from my personal and friendly 
 acquaintance with him, that he would welcome rather than 
 resent such a sign of interest in his work. 
 
 The letter was as follows — 
 
 Lansdowne, 
 Edgbaston, 
 
 December 15, 1883. 
 
 My dear Canon Boyd Carpenter, 
 
 Many thanks for your letter. At the risk 
 of troubling you I should like to tell you that Mr. 
 Ainger, the Reader of the Temple, whom I have 
 the great pleasure of knowing, preached on Little 
 Mark some Sundays ago, and sent me a very in- 
 teresting (as all he writes must be) extract from his 
 sermon. He takes the moral of the story to be, that 
 if Religion is made a plaything or an art instead of an 
 absorbing passion, it will die. 
 
 I would rather say that the story is that of one 
 of many failures to reconcile the artistic with the 
 
J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE 
 
 spiritual aspect of life. If I knew the solution to 
 this problem I would gladly write a second part. Can 
 you help me to it ? Is religion always to be a stranger 
 and alien from life's Feast ? 
 
 The Prince was not a strong man, but I have 
 great sympathy with him. Was it not the Princess 
 Isoline's disappointment in her extreme phase of religious 
 life that killed Mark 
 
 Yours --.'ery sincerely, 
 
 {Signed) J. Henry Shorthouse. 
 
 In reply to this challenge to make suggestions, I wrote 
 my solution. This was the postscript which I wrote. 
 I do not know that I should, at the present day, agree 
 with the line of thought I then adopted. I place it here 
 as an incident in our correspondence. 
 
 I called it "An Afterthought." I submitted it, with 
 a thousand apologies, to the author of Little Schoolmaster 
 Mark, and I prefaced it with the lines — 
 
 No cunning hand is mine to touch the lyre, 
 Yet let my voice be heard within thy choir. 
 
 But Little Schoolmaster Mark was not dead. 
 He only lay in a trance, motionless and still as death ; 
 so that all around him thought that he was dead. 
 He looked very fair as he lay there. A calm and 
 sweet expression, with a touch of happy wonder in 
 it, was seen upon his face. One after another came 
 and looked upon him, where he had been laid out 
 in the little temple-like building which adjoined the 
 house, and where once worship was carried on. It 
 chanced that the Princess [wife] and the Princess 
 p 
 
210 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 Isoline found themselves face to 'face one day with 
 Little Mark's body lying between. A flush of half 
 pity and half shame was gathering in the Princess's 
 face when she looked up and met the Princess Iso- 
 line's countenance, which was wet with tears. For an 
 instant a touch of defiance seemed to tremble on 
 the Princess's lips, and then she drooped her head 
 and her eyes fell on the calm, marble angel face of 
 Litde Mark ; and she said gently, " He was very 
 good." And Princess Isoline whispered in choked 
 accents, " And so beautiful." " Beautiful and good," 
 said a voice near at hand. The two ladies looked 
 up ; the Prince was there. *' The things fair are 
 sweet : sweeter than I knew," said the Princess Iso- 
 line. " The things good are sweeter still, my sister," 
 said the Prince's wife. " Both good and beautiful 
 met in Mark," said the Prince ; " and only in him 
 of all men I ever knew," he added, as if speaking to 
 himself. " 1 wonder why," said both the ladies, 
 speaking at once. 
 
 But Little Mark's mind was far away. When the 
 sudden fall came he lost all thought for a time, and 
 then a deep and exquisite repose was his. He seemed 
 to be in an air so light that he hardly touched the 
 ground ; and so pleasant — neither too hot nor too 
 cold — that a dear delight of being took possession 
 of him. He seemed to be in a garden-house, where 
 birds were flying and flowers were blooming. On a 
 branch of a tree he saw two birds : one was of most 
 brilliant plumage, dazzling as a bird of Paradise, the 
 other was a dull and dowdy-featured bird. It began 
 to sing ; its voice was sweet and clear as an angel's, 
 
J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE 
 
 211 
 
 but the brilliant-featured bird only uttered a harsh 
 note. A sadness came over Little Mark. " The 
 fair is never sweet, nor the sweet fair — not even in 
 heaven," he said, for Mark thought he was in heaven. 
 And then a quiet, patient feeling came upon him, and 
 he said to himself, " I must wait." He watched ; 
 and presently a servant came in and spread some food 
 upon the ground. The birds flew down and devoured 
 it ; and Little Mark, looking at the pearly white food, 
 said, " It is manna." But the birds soon had eaten 
 it all up ; and then a wonder took place. The dull- 
 featured bird sang, and as she sang her plumage grew 
 bright and fair ; and the splendid-winged bird looked 
 on, and tried to sing. As he saw the wings and 
 feathers of his companion bird grow beautiful, he 
 seemed to find voice, and his croak grew into a song, 
 loud and sweet. And the two birds lifted up their 
 voices together and sang till the voices seemed but one, 
 *'and they shook out their fair v/ings and made their 
 nest together. Then Little Mark turned to the ser- 
 vant and asked what food it was which made the fair 
 grow sweet and the sweet grow fair. And the servant 
 answered, " It is Angels' F'ood." 
 
 And then the vision faded, for the trance was fast 
 coming to an end ; and he heard the voice near him, 
 which was saying, " 1 wonder why." And Little Mark, 
 still dazed with his vision, and not knowing that he 
 was brought back to life, or that it was the Prince 
 who was speaking, answered, answering his own 
 thoughts more than the question, "All because of the 
 angels' food," he said. 
 
 " What is that angels' food ? " said the Prince. 
 And Mark answered, still half dreaming out his own 
 
212 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 thoughts, " The only food of angels is love, for they 
 feast their hearts on God, and God is Love." 
 
 " Mark is right," said the Prince, as Mark started 
 up and looked round him in surprise. " Mark is 
 right ; only when the good and the beautiful are 
 nurtured in love can they be wedded." "That is 
 it," said Mark. " 1 see it now. Good is not good 
 that springs not from love, nor can fair be the fair 
 that grows not from love : love only is the seed from 
 which alike the fruits of life and the flowers of life 
 can grow." 
 
 No more was said. The wife of the Prince and 
 the sister of the Prince kissed one another, and the 
 Count was banished from the court, and sweet songs 
 of praise were heard in the little neglected temple. 
 And Little Mark was happy. 
 
 Lansdowne, 
 
 Edgbaston, 
 March 7, 1884. 
 
 Mv DEAR Canon Boyd Carpenter, 
 
 Many thanks for your kind letter and most 
 kind wish to see us at Windsor this month. I have 
 read your final chapter to " Little Mark " with the 
 greatest pleasure and interest. The opening is singu- 
 larly like what I have written, only I think Mark is 
 dead and I fear the Princess (wife) must go through 
 a longer purgation. Your idea, I think, is just what 
 we want — the ideal of the Greeks — xaXoxayaSoj — the 
 godlike and the beautiful in one — what we want is 
 to apply it to real life. We all understand that Art 
 should be religious, but it is more difficult to understand 
 how Religion may be an Art. 
 
J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE 213 
 
 I am not without hopes that it may gradually 
 work itself out. 
 
 As to your most kind invitation, we very seldom 
 leave home in the winter, as we are neither of us at 
 all strong, and are very dependent upon warmth, espe- 
 cially my wife. Your offer is so very attractive that 
 we can hardly deny ourselves such a pleasure. We 
 should be at liberty after the 21st (as we have engage- 
 ments up to that day). Should you like us to spend 
 Sunday with you, or would the Monday or Tuesday 
 be better .'' We should much enjoy a couple of days 
 with Mrs. Carpenter and yourself. 
 
 You will not let us come unless it is absolutely 
 convenient to Mrs. Carpenter in every way. 
 
 With kindest regards from my wife, 
 I am. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 [Signed) J. Henry Shorthouse. 
 P.S. At Col. Maurice's request I have written 
 an article on his father for the Nineteenth Century. 
 It is a wonderful subject and a great honour, but 
 rather terrible. 
 
 I was asked to give the Annual Address to the members 
 of the Midland Institute at Birmingham, and I wished 
 to refresh and enlarge my acquaintance with Birmingham 
 worthies, and I bethought me of the help Mr. Shorthouse 
 could give me. The result was the following letter which 
 I print because it possesses an interest of its own, and 
 because it discloses a side of Mr. Shorthouse's mind 
 which would hardly be suspected by those who delighted 
 in his works — 
 
214 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 Lansdowne, 
 
 Edgbaston, 
 Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, 
 
 St. Michael and All Angels, 1895. 
 
 My dear Bishop, 
 
 Mrs. Carpenter, at the end of her very kind 
 letter says, " Can Mr. Shorthouse tell the bishop a few 
 of the most important Birmingham worthies " I am 
 not sure whether is meant past or present worthies. 
 The fast would take a lot of thought and writing, 
 and the present would imply a very inodorous task, 
 which I would rather not attempt, but a few thoughts 
 occur to me which, while not mentioning names, seem 
 to indicate some phases of Birmingham life which, I 
 think, are not without use in the present day. 
 
 Birmingham was a free town., not a corporation., and 
 outside the " Five Mile Act,'' and in the days of the 
 Restoration a sort of Cave of Adullam. Anyone might 
 come in and set up in business, or Religion, or any- 
 thing else. This accounts for the great preponderance 
 of Dissent which has always obtained : although it 
 is worthy of remark that the rector of St. Martin s 
 (the parish church), at the Restoration, was John Ryland, 
 a Cavalier parson of the best type ; a man of such a 
 character that these chief of Dissenters, together with 
 the rest of the people, never spoke of him except as 
 " that Holy man.'' 
 
 It is a remarkable thing that this " freedom of 
 the City " has continued to the present day. Scarcely 
 a single man who occupies an important position was 
 born in the City. I do not think that any one of the 
 Members of Parliament was born in Birmingham. / 
 am not sure of Mr. Dixon. 
 
 But what I want to arrive at is the statement of 
 
J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE 
 
 what seems to me to be a continuation of the best 
 form of the Feudal System which, to my certain 
 knowledge, after an experience on my own part of 
 nearly fifty years, and on the part of my family 
 of more than 150, of the manufacturers of Birming- 
 ham — a close and friendly relationship between the master 
 and his best workmen. This did not imply any non- 
 sense of Socialism, or any interference on the part of 
 the workman, but a thorough recognition of the 
 relative value of the position as master and servant, 
 and a firm response to the duties of responsibility on 
 both sides. I am far from claiming this characteristic 
 as peculiar to Birmingham ; I have no doubt that it 
 existed, and still exists, in Yorkshire and other great 
 manufacturing centres. I am sure that it exists in 
 Birmingham at the present day : but the establishment 
 of Limited Liability companies naturally tends to do 
 away with this feeling, and I seem to feel that such 
 a thought as this, put in your inimitable way and 
 words, would not be without use in an address to 
 Birmingham men in their town hall. I remember 
 when I was a boy, just in business, seeing a distin- 
 guished manufacturer, a man who Hved in a beautiful 
 country house in a little park — there were such places 
 within two or three miles of the centre of Birmingham 
 fifty years ago — sitting on one side of the old-fashioned 
 carved mantelpiece of his office with an old workman 
 (not a manager but a foreman in his working dress) 
 on the other side over a friendly cup of tea, engaged 
 in important and interesting discussion on manufac- 
 turing matters, and whenever a workman, old or 
 young, displayed any industry or any talent, he did 
 not miss his reward. I know that the same sort of 
 
2i6 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 thing is going on now ; but not, I fear, to such 
 a universal extent. 
 
 I cannot close this letter, seeing that you are to 
 be guest of Mr. Chamberlain, without saying that 
 I am very much impressed by the unquestionable and 
 striking success of the great idea and scheme which 
 he originated for the advancement of Birmingham to 
 the rank of a county metropolis, and the consequent 
 improvement and advantage of all its inhabitants. 
 Coming as this does from a perfectly impartial source, 
 from one not at all prejudiced in favour of Mr. 
 Chamberlain, it may be of some value, and at any 
 rate it will end my letter, as I began it, in recog- 
 nition of the work of Birmingham people who were 
 not born in the city. 
 
 We shall only have a few days' holiday in 
 October at Weston-Super-Mare, so must postpone 
 the pleasure of a visit to Ripon to a future year. 
 I am, my dear Bishop, 
 Yours very affectionately and admiringly, 
 
 (Signed) J. Henry Shorthouse. 
 
 Mr. Shorthouse delighted in hearing good stories, and 
 he had a way of turning them over in his mind, and then 
 presenting them to his friends in a form edited and em- 
 bellished by himself. I remember well how he came down 
 one morning at Ripon, and rehearsed with great delight his 
 own adorned version of a tale I had told him the previous 
 night. His genuine enjoyment of things beautiful and 
 things humorous gave a charm to his visits : he had none 
 of that timid conventionality which lives in a perpetual 
 panic lest it should by accident lose its correct pose. He 
 
J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE 217 
 
 understood that in this life God had given us all things to 
 enjoy, and he rejoiced in all the play of nature in its beauty 
 and in its mirthfulness. All that was base and unworthy 
 was outside the circle in which he lived. His spirit was 
 citadelled, like the New Jerusalem ; without there might 
 be dogs, but within there were the lovely, joyous and 
 laughable things in which men's hearts could take delight. 
 
 This happy spirit remained with him, I believe, to the 
 last. I saw him on what was practically his deathbed : he 
 was worn with his long illness — he was painfully emaciated, 
 and I feared that he might be unequal to any conversation. 
 My first instinct was to leave as soon as I could ; but I was 
 soon undeceived. His mental vigour and clearness were 
 remarkable : he entered into discussion of many points with 
 his old eagerness and quaint originality. I spoke of his 
 little parable of the playing cards, and he told me that a 
 poem containing the same idea had been sent him from 
 America. We spoke of other matters, still deeper and 
 diviner, and the happy, childlike spirit of trust breathed 
 through his utterances. 
 
 When I left him 1 knew that I had seen him for the 
 last time, and it was, and has been ever since, a joy to look 
 back and recall the joyousness of one who lived as though 
 the upper atmospheres of life were as real as the lower, and 
 were those with which his soul had the nearest affinity. 
 
MY HOURS OF SICKNESS 
 
 Do you know what it is to be smitten with an illness 
 which brings no pain, but just powerlessness ? When you 
 take up a book, and its weight is too much for your inert 
 hands ? When you begin to read, and the weary brain 
 cannot take in a single idea, and the words and letters seem 
 a concatenation of senseless symbols ? When you can only 
 lie still, and all power of reaction is faint ? When you are 
 too feeble to be other than content, but yet are conscious 
 that days are monotonous and uninteresting ? When you 
 easily become the victim of some familiar tune which 
 tyrannously repeats itself to your inner hearing ? When 
 you wonder whether any happy distraction could deliver 
 your brain from the reiteration of impish ghostly sounds ? 
 When everything seems to have come to a standstill: when 
 the hopes that the time of illness may, by its enforced 
 leisure, give you time for reading, are proved to be vain ? 
 When the blood forsakes the brain, and the indifference 
 which- comes from weakness reigns supreme over the low 
 and stagnant life ? 
 
 I have known such days — prolonged into weeks — when 
 sleep refused to refresh my nights or thought my days : 
 when my wife would read to me night after night for 
 hours at a time, till I heard in her voice that much-needed 
 
MY HOURS OF SICKNESS 219 
 
 slumber was calling to her to cease, while my bloodless 
 brain only caught fugitive fragments from the legends of 
 Don Quixote or Gil Bias. Then we would try to sleep ; 
 but as soon as the light was put out and the story put away, 
 wakefulness would come to me with a yearning for the 
 happy unconsciousness of sleep. And then some tag of 
 painfully appropriate poetry would begin to haunt me — 
 
 " O Sleep ! it is a pleasant thing, 
 Beloved from pole to pole." 
 
 But though the lines would jingle in my ears, the blissful 
 sleep did not glide into my soul. 
 
 One day during such weary experiences my wife said to 
 me, " Why not paint " Paint ! I had never had a lesson 
 in my life. Was it not Cato that began to learn Greek at 
 sixty That was more reasonable and possible than that I 
 could learn to paint at fifty-three ! However, if I could 
 not paint, I might play the fool with colours, and a paint 
 brush is not too great a weight for a tired hand. I copied 
 some water colours, and a fine mess of things I made ; but 
 at length I amused myself with clumsy efforts to give form 
 to passing fancies. I suppose I felt like the builders of our 
 abbeys and cathedrals when they were left free to run riot 
 with their imagination over fantastic designs for gargoyles 
 or the mouths of water spouts. 
 
 I tried painting objects — a glass filled with flov/ers ; but 
 my wayward fancy scorned to be tied within such limits. 
 There is a curious humorous instinct which visits us in 
 times of illness, and I wanted to be amused ; and so I tried 
 to amuse myself. If the reader will forgive the exhibition 
 
220 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 of my frailty, he shall have the opportunity of laughing with 
 me, or at me, as the mood may suit him. 
 
 Here are some of them. Call them the perverse fancies 
 of a sick brain if you will ; yet they served to pass away 
 some weary hours, in which strenuous effort of body and 
 mind were alike out of my power. 
 
 They will explain themselves ; but 1 make a few notes 
 here. The death duties, or rather the ways in which they 
 are levied, seem to me neither wise nor considerate. The 
 hour of death brings sorrow and distraction enough, without 
 adding the inquisitorial power which comes to reduce re- 
 sources at a time when, perhaps, financial pressure is great. 
 If the Government had adopted the suggestion of a well- 
 known banker, the country would have benefited in revenue 
 and the present harsh and oppressive system would have 
 given place to a method more generally acceptable. But 
 the British public show great patience and forbearance, even 
 if they do not manifest much wit, in allowing the present 
 unwise and burdensome system to remain. 
 
 The banker's suggestion was that the death duties should 
 be raised by a system of insurance payments, and that the 
 Government should be their own insurers. An annual 
 payment would gladly be borne by many whose great desire 
 is to secure the welfare of wife and children. Such a system 
 would have given to the Government a much steadier 
 revenue, besides the possible profit on the insurance 
 business. 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 
 There is some fitness to-day in recalling memories 
 of the Crimean War. It stands out in my memory 
 with special vividness, not only because it was the first 
 European war of my lifetime, but because I had kinsmen 
 who fought in it and who were associated more or less 
 closely with its vicissitudes. 
 
 I shall never forget the day when as lads we stood 
 behind the railings of St. Nicholas' Church and saw the 
 troops marching by on their way to embark. The old 
 tunes and songs of that day sometimes ring in my brain, 
 I think that " The girl I left behind me " and " Three 
 cheers for the Red, White and Blue " were among the most 
 popular. 
 
 I remember how, a little later, when we were in Ireland, 
 we bade good-bye to my cousin, William Boyd, who was 
 going to join the Scots Greys. He, poor fellow, never came 
 back : he was one of the cholera victims. Talking of 
 cholera, 1 recall a story told me by Lord Strafford, when 
 he was Colonel Byng. I often met him at Windsor, and 
 the tale he told was one of the most curious I have 
 ever heard. 
 
 It was during the terrible Crimean campaign, when 
 cholera and disease were working havoc among our troops. 
 
 221 
 
222 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 One day it was reported that a certain officer was dead — a 
 victim of cholera. The same evening, when a few brother 
 officers were gathered, the conversation turned on the dead 
 man. He was senior in years to many of the officers ; he 
 was one of those men who had retired from active service, 
 but who, on the outbreak of the war, had offered to fight for 
 his country : he joined the regiment as what would to-day 
 be called a " dugout." It had been a question among the 
 younger officers whether the Major (I think that was his 
 rank) wore a wig ; and now, as the little brotherhood of 
 officers gossiped in the tent, they reverted to the question 
 of the wig : Did the Major wear a wig .'' " Well," said one, 
 " we can settle that now by going and looking." The regi- 
 mental doctor was present ; he had given the certificate 
 that the Major had died of cholera, and he was ready to 
 go with the party to the mortuary. A doctor attached to 
 another regiment accompanied them on their expedition of 
 investigation. They entered the mortuary : there lay the 
 cold, impassive form of the Major who had challenged their 
 curiosity. As they were looking, the doctor from the other 
 regiment exclaimed, "That man is not dead." The regi- 
 mental doctor differed. " The question is easily tested," said 
 the other doctor. The test was applied : a slight prick and 
 the blood began to flow. The man was not dead. It was 
 a case of cholera trance. Restoration measures were taken 
 and the Major's life was saved. Those who love to mark 
 the part which little things play in the drama of life will 
 reflect that in this case the Major owed his life to the legend 
 of the wig. We, have heard of a man's life hanging on a 
 hair, but never before of its hanging on a wig. 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 
 223 
 
 In the Crimean War I had several relatives. The most 
 distinguished soldier of these was Sir Colin Campbell, after- 
 wards Lord Clyde. I have explained in my previous 
 volume the story of his early life and of his connexion 
 with my grandmother — I have a cousin now alive who 
 went to the Crimea with a letter of introduction from my 
 grandmother to Sir Colin. When this cousin of mine 
 visited my grandmother, she said to him, " When Colin 
 Campbell left he gave me a seal, and he promised that 
 whenever I sent him a letter sealed with that seal, he would 
 do, if in his power, whatever I asked him — I am now going 
 to seal my letter of introduction with that seal." My 
 cousin, Duncan MacNeill, took the letter and went to the 
 Crimea. He joined his own regiment, the Scots Greys ; 
 and now he tells me in his happy, whimsical way what he 
 did — or rather did not do — with the letter. He never 
 presented it to Sir Colin. " I argued," he says smilingly 
 to me, " I argued to myself in this way : If I present the 
 letter Sir Colin will put me on the staff, and I shall have 
 to leave my own regiment. I will stay where I am." So 
 he remained with his own men, and took part in the siege 
 of Sebastopol. 
 
 When Sebastopol fell, he was among those who entered 
 the fortress to occupy and guard it. He was full of curiosity 
 to see the small defence-chambers which the Russian soldiers 
 had used, and he obtained leave to examine one. Soon after 
 he came out, a young English officer was seen to emerge 
 from one of these dens : he had a book in his hand. The 
 commanding officer hailed the young man, and demanded 
 the book. It was given to him. The commanding 
 
224 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 officer glanced hastily over its pages and, looking up, he 
 said, " I don't suppose that many of you can read Russian ; 
 but here is a curious thing. This book which has been 
 left behind by the Russian soldiers is a Russian translation 
 of Dickens' Pickwick Papers." So our opponents in the 
 Crimean War were able to amuse themselves during the 
 long hours of the siege with the works of an English writer 
 — probably the most popular writer of the time. It is a 
 happy omen when the interchange of literature can continue 
 between peoples even in time of war. The brotherhood of 
 letters is a bond of peace, and it is a deplorable thing that 
 Germany should have used up so much literary energy in 
 sowing seeds of distrust and hostility during recent years. 
 This has added a bitterness to strife which had no counter- 
 part among the combatants in the Crimean War. 
 
 The story of the Crimean War was, like most of our wars, 
 a story of stupefying blunders. The sufferings of our troops 
 in the Crimea were great, and the surprising part of the 
 matter was that they were needless. For long the troops 
 suffered in patience, but at last the tale of their pains and 
 privations became known. Public opinion demanded in- 
 quiry, and in deference to it, two commissioners were 
 appointed. One of these was Sir John MacNeill, whose 
 brilliant and heroic work in Persia had done so much for 
 British influence there : as his comrade in the commission 
 Colonel Tulloch was appointed. They set off for the 
 Crimea, animated by the simple desire to report truthfully 
 and advise as wisely as they could for the health and feeding 
 of the army. They were not welcomed too warmly by 
 the officials of the army, who felt that their efficiency was 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 
 225 
 
 questioned by the appointment of the commission. Like 
 all who are conscious of shortcomings they resented inquiry. 
 In spite of difficulties a report was drawn up. It was 
 inevitable that it should call attention to blunders and 
 negligence. Supplies were in Balaclava harbour, while the 
 soldiers were suffering from want : food in plenty could be 
 had from Black Sea ports. Our troops were starving amid 
 plenty, because the transport was inadequate and the com- 
 missariat unintelligent. It was the usual story of well- 
 intentioned blundering. The commissioners had done their 
 work : they presented their report to Parliament ; and then 
 the curse of political partisanship began to show itself. To 
 shield some cabinet minister from blame, the facts brought 
 to light must be obscured, and to do this the commissioners 
 must be disparaged. Military pride, which had resented a 
 parliamentary inquiry into army affairs, joined with political 
 necessity to belittle or ignore the services of men who had, 
 at the bidding of Parliament, undertaken a difficult and 
 ungrateful task. Further inquiry was demanded, and to 
 appease official jealousy and to protect discredited incom- 
 petency the further inquiry must be conducted by the 
 military. This was the device of incompetency to cover 
 uncomfortable facts. To crown all, the commissioners who 
 had made their report were to be summoned before the 
 new board of inquiry as though they were accusers instead 
 of authorized investigators acting under Parliament. The 
 position was absurd. Either the commissioners should 
 never have been sent, or they should have been supported. 
 Parliament had sent them : the Government had acquiesced 
 and had sanctioned their mission, and now that difficulties 
 Q 
 
226 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 created, not by new facts, but by wounded officialism, had 
 arisen. Government left their own commissioners in the 
 lurch and sought, like Pilate, to wash their hands of the 
 affair. 
 
 Sir John MacNeill, as might have been expected of a 
 self-respecting man, declined to attend the new inquiry. 
 He had done what was asked : he had given his report ; 
 so far as he was concerned the matter was finished. He 
 had nothing to withdraw, nothing for which to apologize. 
 It was a slight on his integrity to expect him to attend. 
 The Government must bear its own shame if shame there 
 was. His hands were clean as his report was honest. His 
 refusal to attend was the only dignified course. Not only 
 was no recognition of his services forthcoming : the Govern- 
 ment allowed him to be victim of unjust and unworthy 
 suspicions. 
 
 Happily for England, the public mind is often more 
 healthy than the official mind. While the Government was 
 seeking to conciliate jealousies and accommodate political 
 differences, the people of the country saw clearly the 
 immense services which the commissioners had rendered. 
 The people knew that somebody had blundered : that the 
 commissariat department had been hopelessly mismanaged ; 
 the people recognized the public spirit and clear honesty of 
 the two commissioners, and there was presented to them 
 an address of public thanks, which did much to compensate 
 for the lack of official recognition. It was certainly more 
 valuable, because more genuine, than the precarious approval 
 of politicians blinded by partisan timidities. 
 
 Later on. Government gave in a halting fashion tardy 
 
WAR MEMORIES 227 
 
 and inadequate recognition to the men who had courageously 
 rendered such invaluable public service. 
 
 GORDON AND WOLSELEY 
 
 I suppose that wc ought to dwell only on happy 
 memories ; but, if so, we should be dropping out of our 
 thoughts some of the experiences of life. I recall one time 
 when, in common with the greater number of Englishmen, 
 my heart passed through the stages of anxiety, doubt, hope, 
 and disappointed indignation. It was the time when all our 
 thoughts turned to the East, and we were watching the 
 lonely figure of the man who, in solitude, represented the 
 majesty and honour of England — when it became clear to 
 most of us that Gordon's life was not secure in Khartoum. 
 Now his statue is there and stately buildings have arisen, 
 which tell the tale of the power which even after death may 
 be wielded by a good and honest man. But then apprehension 
 filled our hearts ; for Gordon was alone and unsupported ; 
 his word was not being made good to the peoples around 
 him ; the Government seemed apathetic — indifferent to the 
 fate of the man who represented his country in a distant and 
 doubtful land. Public feeling began to stir. If the Govern- 
 ment would do nothing, the country was ready to do it. 
 The Times was ready to lead in the equipment and dispatch 
 of a volunteer army to go on an expedition of rescue or 
 support. The columns of our newspapers were filled with 
 letters which expressed surprise, indignation, anxiety, but 
 all animated by the same spirit of readiness to help an 
 enterprise which all thought was the duty of Government, 
 
228 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LTFE 
 
 but which, if the Government failed, the country was bound 
 in honour to undertake. 
 
 It was some relief to our anxiety when at last the 
 Government broke silence. We were assured that the 
 Government was quite alive to its responsibilities concerning 
 General Gordon. We took this to mean that they were 
 prepared to send a mission of relief ; but we were mistaken, 
 for we did not weigh or measure the words of politicians, 
 and so we failed to realize that to be assured that the 
 Government were alive to their responsibilities did not mean 
 that they recognized special responsibility for Gordon's 
 safety. We were mistaken, fatally mistaken ; the official 
 words reassured the anxious, and the practical steps for the 
 raising of a relief force were abandoned. 
 
 But time went on, and no rescuing force was sent out ; 
 as the season advanced the difficulties of a successful enter- 
 prise increased. We all know what happened. Gordon 
 was killed ; our expedition was too late. It seems to be an 
 English failing — or rather a failing of English governments. 
 There is a proverb which says " To be wise too late is the 
 exactest definition of a fool " ; but to the Government which 
 let Gordon perish a stronger word ought to be applied. 
 The deceived people of this country ought to have ostracized 
 the Government which allowed this dishonour to befall 
 them. 
 
 One eager apologist for the Government was in the habit 
 of declaring that the expedition had been sent at the time 
 which, in the opinion of experts, was sufficiently early and 
 the fittest. Once when he made this statement in my hear- 
 ing, I ventured to express a doubt. I had good reason for 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 
 229 
 
 it, but I could not at the time disclose my authority, which 
 came from Queen Victoria, so I was obliged to be silent as 
 the defender of the Government reiterated, with an air of 
 unquestionable confidence, his statement. Later, I had the 
 opportunity of asking Lord Wolseley what were the facts 
 of the case. I happened to sit next to him at the Royal 
 Academy dinner. It was in 1888, and the evening was 
 memorable to me because of the high order of the speak- 
 ing, and the very striking speech of Lord Rosebery, who 
 had to speak in a discouraging atmosphere, and showed 
 great skill and self-command under very difficult circum- 
 stances. During a quiet interval I asked Lord Wolseley to 
 tell me, if he was at liberty to do so, whether the Gordon 
 Relief Expedition had been sent out at a fitting time. He 
 told me quite readily and frankly that he had urged that 
 the expedition should be sent months before ; that Lord 
 Hartington wished to send it, but that Mr. Gladstone would 
 not. He spoke of his affection for Gordon ; so that 
 personal as well as professional reasons made him wish to 
 start while there was time to secure the success of the 
 expedition. 
 
 The dilatoriness— to call it by no worse name — the 
 dilatoriness of the Government was bad enough ; but after 
 the assurance which disarmed public anxiety for Gordon, the 
 delay was criminal. It was a blot, and a serious blot, upon 
 the record of a great career. 
 
 Lord Wolseley was full of interesting recollections, and 
 once he gave me the story of an adventure of his in early life, 
 and the encounter with Lord Clyde which followed it. He 
 told me this when we met at Canterbury in the opening 
 
230 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 days of the twentieth century. This was the story : As a 
 young officer he took part, as we know, in the siege of 
 Lucknow. He received orders from Lord Clyde to seize 
 and hold a certain tower which would give command of 
 one district ; on entering the town he made for this tower, 
 and after a struggle succeeded in occupying it. When he 
 took notice of the neighbourhood he discovered that near at 
 hand there was another tower which would, if taken, give 
 him an improved position ; he accordingly gathered his 
 men, attacked the place, took the loftier tower, and was able 
 to establish himself in a stronger and more commanding 
 situation. " After I had done it," he said, " and when things 
 were settling down after the fight, I took care to keep out 
 of Lord Clyde's way ; for I knew that he would scold me." 
 But the interview could not long be postponed, and soon 
 Lord Clyde met him, and let loose his tongue in vigorous 
 and emphatic terms, blaming him for exceeding orders. 
 Lord Clyde, I gathered, could use strong language when he 
 chose ; he indulged in it that day ; but when he had finished 
 his set speech of condemnation, he shook Wolseley warmly 
 by the hand and said, " But you did quite right." So the 
 sting was taken out of the censure ; the cause of discipHne 
 was maintained, and the promptness of courageous initiation 
 was approved by the old veteran. 
 
 He also told me that when the soldiers entered the 
 town, nothing would or could keep them from drinking 
 any wine they came across. They had been warned that the 
 natives had poisoned the wine, but fear did not restrain 
 them — indeed, the men believed that the tale of poisoned 
 wine had been invented to prevent them taking it. For- 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 
 231 
 
 tunately, the wine drunk on the occasion did not prove to 
 be poisoned. 
 
 There are some who say that justice has not been done 
 to the services which Lord Wolseley rendered to the army 
 in promoting its efficiency, and improving its fighting power. 
 This is a matter beyond my judgment. I can only narrate 
 things which interested me, and which were told me in 
 simple and soldier-like fashion by Lord Wolseley. He 
 was always, as I knew him, kindly and natural in manner, as 
 became one who had served his country well. 
 
 LORD ROBERTS 
 
 From time to time I have heard conversations in which 
 the characteristic qualities of various races have been dis- 
 cussed. Some of these have possessed special interest, 
 either because of the experience of those who have taken 
 part in them, or because of the coincidence of opinion which 
 has been brought to light ; or perhaps the way in which 
 some popular delusion has been shattered. Of this latter 
 class I may mention the Irishman, who is as little under- 
 stood in England as is the Hindoo. The Irishman on the 
 stage is usually as unlike an Irishman as the stage parson is 
 unlike the real thing. Perhaps, however, it is better to 
 let popular delusions have their way ; they are at least 
 picturesque, and though hopelessly inaccurate, they serve to 
 preserve a type of character which it is pleasant to believe 
 represents a class or type. 
 
 The Irishman is supposed to be an inexact thinker, a 
 man who refuses to take a serious view of life, because he 
 
232 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 is always fascinated by the humour of things, and he prefers 
 a joke to any piece of business ; he is, moreover, an im- 
 prudent and usually an impecunious creature ; money slips 
 quickly through his fingers, and he is as careless of coin as 
 he is about keeping his roof weather-tight and his bedding 
 in repair ; he is untidy, and he does not mind living in a 
 dirty and slipshod fashion ; he is plausible and amiable, and 
 if he does not tell the truth it is only because his amiability 
 refuses to wound or dishearten you. The happy-go-lucky 
 Irishman goes laughing through life, waving his shillelagh, 
 flinging out his jokes, and carries his childish insouciance to 
 the grave. Such is an approximation to the picture of the 
 Irishman that is accepted by a large proportion of the B'-itish 
 public. 
 
 But Ireland, like England, is a country of contradictions, 
 and when we speak of Irishmen, it would be well to ask 
 whether we mean a man of the north, or a man of the 
 south ; or indeed of east or west. Races in Ireland have 
 blended, and Celt, Saxon, Dane and Scot — yes, and Spaniard 
 too, have left their mark upon the old country. The 
 fabled Irishman whose portrait I have sketched is not, 
 after all, to be found as a matter of course anywhere in 
 Ireland. You may meet him now and again in Dublin, and 
 you may find him in a Wicklow village. You will not find 
 him in Belfast, and I doubt whether you will be likely to 
 meet him in Galway or Cork. The man of Celtic race is 
 the man who would be selected by most people who were 
 looking for a typical Irishman ; but the man of Celtic race 
 bears little resemblance to the laughing, irrelevant creature 
 of the stage. The Celt is timid and practical, tenacious of 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 
 233 
 
 family ties, and willing to sacrifice himself for family interests ; 
 he is affectionate, and his affection, blending with a timid 
 dread of the future, creates a certain inconsistency of 
 character which, because it puzzles people, is generally 
 ignored. The strong sentiment of family affection gives 
 rise to a momentary extravagance ; but the apprehension of 
 the future establishes an almost penurious thriftiness. It is 
 here that British judgment is so greatly astray. If we measure 
 an Englishman with an Irishman on money matters, you 
 will find that the money-saving instinct is much stronger 
 in the Irishman than in the Englishman. The Englishman 
 possesses a self-reliance which tempts him to ignore the 
 future and the chance of a rainy day. The artisans of 
 England are not given to thrift. They spend their wages up 
 to the hilt ; for they believe that what has been done and won 
 once can be done and won again. This difference explains, 
 1 think, the fact that the savings' banks returns in Ireland 
 are so much higher in proportion in Ireland than in England. 
 Many an Irishman who lives in a hovel, which probably an 
 Englishman would disdain to occupy, has a store-stocking 
 up the chimney, and could cross your hand with silver if he 
 would. But this timidity which leads him to provide against 
 bad times does not imply any lack of courage. On the 
 field of war the Irishman will not be one whit behind the 
 Englishman or Scotchman in deeds of daring. 
 
 One morning at breakfast, at Sandringham, three or four 
 guests met who were leaving by the morning train. Lord 
 Roberts and Mr. Arthur Balfour were at the table, and 
 presently we were joined by a Foreign Minister whose 
 name I have forgotten. The conversation turned on the 
 
234 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 behaviour of English, Irish and Scotch troops in the field. 
 I think that I started the topic by asking Lord Roberts if he 
 had noticed any characteristic differences among such troops. 
 
 He said, " If you see a specially brilliant thing done 
 in the field, you will find that, nine times out of ten, 
 it is an Irishman who has done it." He described the 
 English as being steady and trustworthy in fight, and 
 especially good in defence ; but he said, " Take them for 
 all in all, I think 1 would rather command Scotch troops : 
 they have more elan than the English and more steadiness 
 than the Irish." But I gathered that, if it was needful to 
 defend a diflScult position, the Englishman would make 
 the most of it. 
 
 Parallel to this view of race qualities may be placed 
 the following opinion given by one who knew sailors well. 
 He was a chaplain who had ministered in some Seaman's 
 Mission, and knew sailors belonging to all nationalities. 
 He said, " Taking sailors all round, one is as good as 
 another : the Swedish, the Dutch, the French, the Irish, 
 the Scotch sailor is as good as the English ; but if it is 
 a dirty night, and there is an ugly job to be done on the 
 topmast, you must get an Englishman to do it." This is 
 a view resembling that of Lord Roberts : the man needed 
 at the last resort is the Englishman. 
 
 I am tempted here to tell another tale which bears a 
 similar moral. I was dining with the manager of The 
 Times. Among the guests was the Rev. John Watson — 
 better known as Ian MacLaren, the author of The Bonnie 
 Brier Bush. Mr. Watson, as a Scotchman, was eager 
 to know how young Scotchmen acquitted themselves in 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 
 235 
 
 journalism, and he plied our host with questions. At last 
 our host gave the following general opinion on the quali- 
 ties and powers of English, Irish, and Scotch leader-writers. 
 " You know," he said, " that our leading articles are not 
 devised by the men who write them. We talk to our 
 young writers and tell them the line we want to be taken. 
 If the writer is an Irishman he requires twenty minutes' 
 talk before he writes ; if he is a Scotchman he will need 
 half an hour ; if he is an Englishman he will need an hour." 
 
 " Well, and with what result ? " asked Mr. Watson. 
 
 " Oh, the Irishman writes the most brilliant article." 
 
 *' But what about the Scotchman ? " 
 
 '* Well," said our host, " the Scotchman writes a good 
 article, but he is apt to put into it some idea of his own 
 which we don't want. If, however," he added, " we want 
 an article which requires special care, because some very 
 important issues hang upon the tone and phrases of it, we 
 must have an Englishman to do it." 
 
 All these three anecdotes lead up to one conclusion : 
 The Englishman is the emergency man of the world. 
 
 Perhaps it is not making too long a leap from these 
 stories of racial qualities to record here a judgment given 
 concerning the late Prince Consort by Lord Palmerston. 
 It was told mc by Lord Mount-Temple. Of the Prince 
 Consort, Lord Palmerston said, " He was a man who would 
 have come to the front, whatever vocation in life he had 
 adopted. If he had been a soldier, he would have become 
 a general. If he had been a lawyer, he would have been 
 a leader of circuit and a judge." This opinion, given by 
 one who had good opportunities of judging, seems to me 
 
236 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 to give a pathetic interest to the life of the Prince Consort. 
 He had the capacity to distinguish himself in some active 
 career : with the capacity th,ere was, no doubt, the desire 
 for some sphere of individual self-expression ; but the con- 
 ditions of his life denied him such outlet for his energies. 
 He turned to the only things that were open to him : 
 arts and letters ; and yet, when he sought to help in the 
 organized recognition of Art in English life, his efforts were 
 misunderstood and misrepresented. His earnest wishes 
 to help were treated as uncalled-for interference. When 
 he proposed to make Kensington a great centre of art 
 treasures. Punch represented him as almost a purloiner 
 of national pictures. Activity checked, and the natural 
 energy deprived of every legitimate outlet, robbed life for 
 him of much of its savour. We are not, perhaps, surprised 
 to find him saying, when speaking of the King of Portugal's 
 illness (it was typhoid fever), " If the Queen had been 
 taken ill with it she would have recovered, for she wishes 
 to live ; but if I had been attacked 1 should have died, 
 for I have no wish to live." I remember that Queen 
 Victoria said something of the same kind to me, which 
 confirmed this view of the difference in temperament and 
 feeling between her and the Prince Consort. I have met 
 in some quarters a tendency to belittle the Prince Consort. 
 I never knew him, so I have no personal experience to 
 draw upon ; but I think that this disparaging tendency is 
 perhaps due to the fashion which treats with disdain every- 
 thing early Victorian. From all I have heard I am inclined 
 to believe that this disparagement is mistaken. Those 
 who knew and met the Prince Consort frequently formed 
 
WAR MEMORIES 
 
 237 
 
 different views. I can recall with what affectionate admira- 
 tion an old servant at Windsor Castle spoke of him. This 
 official had charge of the royal plate, and understood and 
 appreciated the artistic value of it. To him the memory 
 of the Prince Consort was the memory of one who pos- 
 sessed the knowledge and taste of an expert in these and 
 all other works of art. 
 
 The theme of racial characteristics started this chapter. 
 It leads me to recall some characteristic memories. I have 
 often asked men what was their earliest recollection, and at 
 what age did their conscious memory, as it were, begin .'' 
 The variety of answers has astonished me. The most 
 remarkable discrepancy in age which I met with in my 
 inquiries was that between the early recollections of Lord 
 Goschen and Mr. Henry James. I found myself on one 
 occasion, which I might call historic, seated between these 
 two men : Lord Goschen on my left and Mr. Henry James 
 on my right. I put my question to both of them. Lord 
 Goschen replied, " The first thing I can remember was 
 riding my little pony from Charlton to Blackheath to begin 
 my time at Blackheath Proprietary School, and I remember 
 the many indecorous questions with which the boys at the 
 school assailed me ; but so little do I remember of my time 
 there, that, though I remained four years at the school, I 
 cannot say whether I was happy there or unhappy." I 
 then turned to my right-hand neighbour and asked the 
 same question. 1 received a more astonishing reply. " I 
 remember," said Mr. Henry James, " what took place 
 before I was twelve months old." He explained his reply 
 as follows : " When I was six or seven years of age my 
 
2 38 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 parents took me to Paris. When 1 arrived I said to them, 
 ' I have been here before.' The second visit revived some 
 memory of the first : the objects seen were famihar." 
 
 Naturally this was only the evidence that the buildings 
 seen by the child a few months old had impressed them- 
 selves on the retina or brain. This was the revival of an 
 impression rather than a conscious recollection ; but it 
 quite harmonizes with the story told by Dr. W. B. 
 Carpenter in his Mental Physiology (pp. 430, 431). 
 
 The story related to the Rev. Septimus Hansard, who 
 was for some years rector of Bethnal Green. Mr. Hansard 
 visited Hurstmonceux Castle, which he was desirous of 
 seeing. When he reached the ruin he found it to be 
 familiar to him. He searched his memory and he could 
 not recall any visit to the place. He wrote to his mother, 
 who replied that when he was about twelve months old, he 
 had been taken to Hurstmonceux and left outside while 
 his father and mother went over the castle. The child 
 outside had had the features of the building impressed 
 upon his eye, and the visit paid in later years simply 
 recalled these earliest impressions. These seem to me to 
 be the raw material of recollection. 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 The montli of May 1910 will have a mournful memory 
 for thousands. In the closing days of April, King Edward 
 the Seventh returned from Biarritz. The people were con- 
 tent to believe that he returned invigorated and refreshed 
 by his stay abroad. On the ist of May he was at Sandring- 
 ham inspecting some alterations and improvements made 
 in his much-loved country home. That day week the 
 churches were draped in black ; the gay colours of May 
 vanished from the streets ; the people went about in 
 mourning dress ; voices were lowered ; vehicles were driven 
 slowly and softly past Buckingham Palace, where the Royal 
 Standard, which for a week had floated bravely, was half- 
 mast high. On Saturday, the 7th of May, it was known in 
 every part of the world that King Edward the Seventh was 
 dead. 
 
 The news was received with profound and startled 
 emotion. The loss came upon the majority of the King's 
 subjects with bewildering suddenness ; for though he as- 
 cended the throne comparatively late in life, there had 
 been no sign of what is commonly called failing health : the 
 probabilities pointed to a longer reign than the nine short 
 years which had passed since his accession. But in the 
 midst of the regular activities of his royal office, and at a 
 time when all eyes looked to him as the one person in 
 239 
 
240 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 whose hand was the key to unlock the gate of pressing 
 difficulties, the end came, and the subjects of the empire 
 were plunged in deep and dismayed grief. They were left 
 also to understand, if they could, the full significance of the 
 loss which had befallen them. 
 
 Their first thoughts leaped irresistibly to the gracious 
 lady who, the first day she set foot upon our shores, had 
 awakened their admiring welcome, and who, by virtue of 
 her charm of manner and simple goodness, had won their 
 trust and their love. To her first went forth the people's 
 sympathy ; and their prayers and their solicitude were for 
 the widowed Queen. But in the early days of sorrow any 
 estimate of the meaning of the sad event was impossible. 
 
 After the first shock the leading minds of the country — 
 the statesmen, the writers, the teachers — began to measure 
 the national loss. When they did so, and when they en- 
 deavoured to express the loss in words, the general harmony 
 of opinion which was expressed seems to attest the correct- 
 ness of the conclusion which had been reached by so many 
 independent minds. What was said was accepted as true : 
 the eulogiums on the late King caused much emotion but 
 no surprise. And this fact is the most surprising fact of all 
 connected with the King's death ; for the mourning and 
 sympathetic words which summed up the value of the reign 
 described the late King' s influence and power in a way 
 which would have seemed extravagant and impossible in 
 1901. 
 
 Ten years before, while Queen Victoria still lived — or 
 even nine years before, when the King was commencing his 
 reign — few could have anticipated the high reputation and 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 widespread renown which these days of mourning proved 
 King Edward to have won. He was a well-known and 
 popular figure in England and throughout Europe, and, as 
 far as acquaintance with his character and talents went, some 
 forecast of his reign might have been attempted by those 
 who had watched his career ; but not the most courageous 
 or sanguine of his friends and admirers could have dreamed 
 that within little more than nine years his death would evoke 
 such an unbroken flood of eulogy and such widespread testi- 
 mony to his work and worth as a king. He was then, as he 
 always has been, a popular favourite — a country gentleman, 
 alive to agricultural interests and alert to accept and promote 
 every well-tested method of improvement, and yet not a 
 mere farmer-prince, a keen sportsman and a travelled man, 
 whose figure was familiar in the health and pleasure resorts 
 of Europe — and who possessed in a high degree the joie de 
 vivre and a warm wish that others should enjoy life also. 
 It is true that in the later years of his venerable mother's 
 life he discharged with that grace and bonhomie which were 
 peculiarly his own some of what may be called the orna- 
 mental functions of royalty ; but none of these duties were 
 adequate tests of kingly capacity. Everyone knew when he 
 ascended the throne that the new sovereign was a kindly 
 man, possessed of gracious manners, quick perception, and 
 native dignity ; but few, if any, would have ventured to 
 predict that his reign would close among tributes to the 
 wide and effective influence of his reign. 
 
 Let anyone go back in memory ; let him forget for a 
 moment the record of that reign of nine years ; and then let 
 him read the eulogiums of later days, and he will realize how 
 
 R 
 
242 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 far they go beyond anything that could have been imagined 
 at the commencement of King Edward's reign. Let me 
 take, first, the public utterances of our responsible leaders 
 in the Houses of Parliament. 
 
 Lord Crewe spoke as follows : " We look back at these 
 last nine years with thankfulness and pride. I think we all 
 recognize that at the time of the late King's accession the 
 task before his Majesty was one of exceptional difficulty. 
 He succeeded at a comparatively advanced age to the great 
 Queen who had become in her lifetime almost a legendary 
 figure, and whose person seemed to be, as it were, part of 
 the British Constitution itself. Whatever King Edward's 
 reign might be, it could not be the same as that of Queen 
 Victoria ; and now, as we cast our thoughts backwards, we 
 are able sincerely to declare that, though different, the late 
 reign has not suffered by comparison. The prosperity, the 
 orderly progress of the nation, the strengthening of imperial 
 ties, and, above all, the maintenance of peace, if these be the 
 signs of a great and glorious reign, they are fulfilled in that 
 of which we are now lamenting the close.". 
 
 Lord Lansdowne followed : " The nation," he said, " is 
 absolutely unanimous at the present time. We know at 
 this moment no distinction of party, race, or religious per- 
 suasion. . . . The nation has lost an illustrious head. . . . 
 His Majesty had established relations with the chiefs of 
 other states and with the public men of other states which 
 enabled him to bear unostentatiously, and strictly within the 
 limits of the Constitution, a distinguished and useful part in 
 international affairs ; and, to my mind, amongst the many 
 remarkable attributes of the late King, none was more re- 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 markable than his power of creating what I can only describe 
 as an atmosphere of international goodwill and good feeling 
 — an atmosphere the presence of which diminished asperities, 
 if asperities were there ; made difficulties easier of solution, 
 if there were difficulties ; and contributed immensely, if I 
 may use the words of the Address, to the consolidation of 
 peace and concord throughout the world. At this moment 
 I am convinced that there is not a Chancellerie in Europe 
 which does not recognize that by the death of Edward the 
 Seventh a great international force has been removed from 
 the public affairs of Europe — a force which always operated 
 to the public good, and which I think all are justified in 
 believing will not cease entirely to operate now he has 
 left us." 
 
 Mr. Asquith, in the House of Commons, said : " In 
 external affairs his powerful personal influence was steadily 
 and zealously directed to the avoidance not only of war but 
 of the causes and pretexts for war. He well earned the title 
 by which he will always be remembered : the Peacemaker of 
 the world." 
 
 Mr. Balfour — after pointing out that ordinary diplomacy 
 is no part of the monarch's duty — said : " We must not 
 think of him as a dexterous diplomatist. He was a great 
 monarch, and it was because he was able naturally, simply 
 through the Incommunicable gift of personahty, to make all 
 feel — to embody to all men — the friendly policy of this 
 country, that he was able to do a work in the bringing 
 together of nations which has fallen to the lot of few men, 
 be they king or be they subject, to accomplish." 
 
 Lord Rosebery, a few days later, in London, spoke no 
 
244 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 less emphatically : " It is not too much to say that our late 
 King — I say it in my heart and conscience — in view of the 
 character and the weight that he had established in the 
 councils of the world, in view of the efForts he was con- 
 stantly making for the promotion of peace, in view of the 
 sympathy by which he was enabled to knit together nations 
 other than his own, was at the time of his death one of the 
 greatest agencies for good existing in the world." 
 
 It would be impossible to give even a summary of the 
 public eulogies of great personal authorities — all of which 
 were cast in the same strain of honest and genuine admira- 
 tion of the late King's personal force and influence — but 
 two utterances which come from more private sources will 
 be of interest. In Egypt the foreign element spoke of the 
 King as the chief of European sovereigns, and a responsible 
 French official declared that the death of the King would be 
 worse than the death of the President. Perhaps the most 
 felicitous eulogy came from the German Emperor, who 
 telegraphed these words : " King Edward represented the 
 incarnation of the fine qualities of his country. Britain, in 
 mourning him, mourns herself." 
 
 These words of warm appreciation are not the words of 
 careless rhetoric. They have been uttered or written by 
 statesmen of tried position — possessed of wide experience 
 of men and affairs ; they have been uttered for the most 
 part in the hearing of those who carefully watch every 
 phrase, who are ready to consider and criticize the words 
 selected, weighing whether they are adequate, and who 
 would resent empty panegyric as strongly as they would 
 unkindly depreciation. And it is interesting to note what 
 
KING EDWAR THE SEVENTH 245 
 
 we call the common denommator in which all agree. We 
 may remove from our thoughts the obvious and surface 
 features of their appreciation. The late King loved sport, 
 and the English people love it too ; he took pleasure in the 
 recreations of his people ; he felt also for their sorrows, and 
 he desired to see the sufferings of his people alleviated by 
 all that human skill could devise and achieve. To this his 
 practical interest in hospitals and the establishment of the 
 fund which bears his name amply testify. He possessed 
 a ready kindliness : a thousand stories of the late King's 
 quick thoughtfulness were told throughout the country. 
 One which is typical of his prompt sympathy may be cited. 
 At a great public function in a large provincial city a lady 
 was present whom the King had met, perhaps, half-a-dozen 
 times before. His quick eye noted her in the crowd ; he 
 immediately stepped forward, and showed how exact and 
 kind his remembrance of her was by expressing with genuine 
 solicitude the hope that her health was now re-established. 
 But these, pleasing features as they are, were not those to 
 which the greatest weight was attached. The loss recog- 
 nized by all was the loss of one whose influence was a 
 steadying factor in great matters. This was the common 
 denominator of their appreciation. He was one whose place 
 and personality made him a force on the side of national 
 stability — a force valuable at all times, but more than ever 
 valuable in times of national anxiety. 
 
 This is the great feature upon which the wise men of 
 our day have been led to dwell. 
 
 The Zendavesta speaks of a kingly glory made by 
 Mazda — a glory that cannot be forcibly seized. There is 
 
246 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 such a glory, which shows itself in unasserted but real 
 strength ; it is a glory of character which cannot be gained 
 by force — either physical or intellectual : it can only be won 
 by habitual rectitude in one's calling — by virtue of that 
 simple-minded and loyal devotion to the life-task which is 
 given to each of us. The value of this glory and strength 
 is plainly told in the English history of the last eighty or 
 ninety years. The predecessors of Queen Victoria had not 
 done much to endear the Throne to the people : they lacked 
 the kingly glory which is above force. It was reserved for a 
 woman into whose girlish hands the sceptre was given to win 
 by her blameless life, by her tender and ready sympathy, by 
 her genuine and unselfish industry in national affairs, the 
 affectionate loyalty and reverent attachment of the people. 
 
 When King Edward ascended the throne at an age when 
 all that needed to be learned must have been learned before- 
 hand, men hoped more than they expected from his reign. 
 But soon, to the qualities which all knew that he possessed 
 other powers were displayed, and the nation recognized that 
 the sceptre was in the hands of a prince possessed not only 
 of attractive but of right kingly attributes. His rare saga- 
 city, his unerring tact, his happy, alluring grace of manner 
 were enough to transform foes into friends, and lukewarm 
 friends into staunch champions ; but beyond all these there 
 was in him that kingly rectitude of spirit, which never de- 
 scended to intrigue, never sought, as other monarchs have 
 been tempted to do, to create a king's party ; in short, he 
 knew that he was a constitutional sovereign, and he unflinch- 
 ingly accepted those limitations which often meant the lonely 
 endurance of much anxious responsibility ; and in spite of 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 conditions which must have made him crave for sympathetic 
 conference with old and trusted friends, he went through his 
 task with heroic silence and remained chivalrously loyal to his 
 constitutional advisers. It is not given to very many to 
 know when and how to speak ; it is given to fewer to know 
 when to be silent ; it is given to fewer still to keep silence, 
 even when silence is best. But King Edward the Seventh 
 was able to do this with such constancy and consistency that 
 it is not too much to say that he was himself a martyr to 
 his own ideal of constitutional duty. In this he showed 
 that quality which, as Tennyson sang, marked the Prince 
 Consort's character — "sublime repression of himself." Thus 
 he could keep silence, but wherein he could rightly express 
 himself he was happy in his utterance : when the needs of 
 others was the theme he could plead warmly and bravely 
 on their behalf. In all good causes he sought, and success- 
 fully sought, to enlist the sympathy and co-operation of 
 others. In this the recognized loyalty of his nature increased 
 the range of his influence ; and when the cause for which 
 he worked was the amity of nations he was able, without 
 transgressing the code of diplomatic etiquette, to promote 
 that spirit of personal friendliness which of itself works 
 against international friction. He knew personally the 
 leading men of other lands, and he was able, as Lord 
 Lansdowne said, to create that " atmosphere " which was 
 favourable to the growth and development of friendly 
 international relationships. 
 
 When we ask what was the secret which made the late 
 King such a strong national and international power, the 
 answer is to be found not in the record of definite actions 
 
248 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 or conspicuous achievements, but in the unconsciously exer- 
 cised power of his personality. This was the power which 
 created the atmosphere of which I have spoken. It was 
 the effluence of a characteristic personality — genuine, loyal, 
 single-minded — which made his influence strong. His 
 power was not due to deliberate effort, but for that reason 
 it was more effective than any conscious exercise of force. 
 For, as love is stronger than logic, because it is the output 
 of the whole personality, so is that influence which springs 
 from what is the essential being, more powerful and more 
 abiding than the mere intellectual forces, however brilliant 
 and attractive they may be. 
 
 The powers and gifts of the late King were in a great 
 measure hidden. As clear water conceals its depth, so his 
 attractive manner and unmistakable kindliness concealed 
 much of the real force which lay behind. Here I may be 
 forgiven for speaking of two scenes indelibly fixed upon my 
 memory. I saw him first nearly sixty years ago in Liverpool. 
 It was a day of cloud and continual rain : as we waited for 
 the royal procession, the crimson carpet which stretched 
 along the pier-side and down the bridge to the landing-stage 
 was drenched and robbed of colour : once, if not twice, fresh 
 strips of carpet were laid down. At length we saw the 
 royal visitors : the Queen and Prince Albert passed, but 
 my clearest recollection is of the fair boy, about my own 
 age, whose sunny hair made a brightness upon the grey 
 scene, as he lifted his cap in answer to the salutations of the 
 crowd. Even then, boy as I was, I noticed the native and 
 unaffected grace with which he bore himself. The last time 
 I saw him, he lay with folded hands, calm and still upon his 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 249 
 
 narrow bed. It was hard to believe that I was looking upon 
 the one whose bright, boyish and untired face I had seen 
 more than half a century earlier ; for in the hour of death's 
 carving, something unrecognized before comes out, and the 
 quiet face and noble head I looked upon showed marks and 
 features of force and power which in life were sweetly veiled 
 by the brightness of his smile and the charm of his manner. 
 
 The final lesson of the King's reign is the simple and 
 continuous lesson. We are tempted, in estimating life, to 
 attach wrong values to things ; we rate our powers of mind 
 too highly ; we adorn with fictitious importance our theories; 
 we cling superstitiously to the narrow range of prejudices 
 which we call our opinions ; meanwhile, we forget that the 
 total man is more than his views : the aura of his influence 
 widens and shrinks not by what he thinks and says, but by 
 what he is : the outflow of his personality spreads further 
 than his v/ords and flows into other hearts with penetrating 
 power. 
 
 The survey which I have thus briefly made is, from the 
 nature of the case, incomplete, but it includes, I venture to 
 think, the essential factors of that great problem which is 
 continuously before us in the history of nations. The 
 problem is that of national longevity. Does a nation, as 
 Herder taught, follow like a plant the regular law of birth, 
 growth and decline Are the virtues and vices which it 
 displays merely matters of mechanical condition ? What 
 place has reason and freedom in their destiny ? To those 
 who accept the mechanical theory of national life — whether 
 in the optimistic form set forth by Herder or in the pes- 
 simistic form of M, Taine — vice and virtue in a nation's 
 
2 so FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 history are mere products, like vitriol or sugar. But to 
 those who discriminate between the character of the laws 
 which prevail in the physical realm and those which 
 prevail in the realms of thought and moral feeling, vice 
 and virtue are related to human will and human reason 
 and cannot be classed as subject to identically the same laws 
 which rule the physical world. The confusion of thought 
 which proclaimed the existence of natural law in the spiritual 
 world has wrought a great deal of unintentional harm. The 
 reign of law may be, and probably is, complete ; but it is as 
 needful to ascertain the laws of the moral and spiritual world 
 as it is to discover those in the material world. And it is a 
 mere indolent assumption to suppose that the laws of the 
 world spiritual are identical with those that prevail in the 
 physical realm. It is absurd to read human history or nationa^ 
 history as though it were governed by merely physical agents ; 
 blind forces forming organizations — which we call nations or 
 men — in precisely the same fashion as a chemical body is 
 formed of a combination of simple elements. The true 
 reading of human history is the understanding of the ideas 
 and personalities which have mingled in its making. Great 
 ideas have animated a family or a tribe : they have found 
 expression in one or more great personalities, and the tribe 
 has grown into a nation. The great idea of a protecting and 
 governing God, of the possibility of a splendid future, en- 
 forced by the example, the eloquence, and the commanding 
 personality of a great leader like Moses, laid the foundations 
 of Israel's glory. Parallels can be found in the stories of 
 other peoples. Humanity, broken up into families which 
 become nations, learns to follow some great idea — as Israel 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 followed the Shekinah which led to the land of promise, in 
 doing so humanity enters upon its splendid struggle against 
 the tyranny of mere material forces. Follow the migration 
 of the human race from the East to the West, note its 
 long journey from Asia to Europe, from India to France, 
 and at each stage you will see lessened the fatal power of 
 nature : the influences of race and climate become less des- 
 potic. Humanity, once overwhelmed, paralyzed, enervated 
 before the tremendous forces of nature, slowly emancipates 
 itself. Fatalistic conceptions become rarer. Nature is better 
 understood. Man becomes aware of his power : he realizes 
 that nature is his keeper, not his tyrant ; his ideas widen 
 with growing knowledge and with the happy confidence 
 which strengthens as his knowledge of the world he inhabits 
 increases. The realization of great ideas is possible if men 
 wiU put their lives at the service of such ideas ; but the 
 devotion of the life is the essential condition of victory. 
 Man accepts the condition : the hero and the martyr be- 
 come figures in history : they are recognized as the men of 
 light and leading, the true benefactors of the race — 
 
 " Figlio del sangue e vero." 
 
 And among such benefactors we may rightly place King 
 Edward VII — a great English king among kings, some 
 of whom were great indeed. " We have lost a great king, 
 one of the greatest in history." This sentence from an 
 admirable leader in T^he Times may seem precipitate in 
 judgment, but there is a sense in which even to-day we 
 may recognize its truth. Greatness is not of one kind 
 alone. The greatness of conspicuous action is not open 
 
252 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 to all ; but there is a greatness which, if not dazzling, is 
 of abiding value. There is a greatness which recognizes 
 clearly the limitations which bound its activity, which dis- 
 cerns what may be done within the limits assigned by 
 Providence. In the final verdict upon men and their lives, 
 the judgment will not be according to the public splendour 
 of their deeds, but according to the use they have made of 
 their gifts within the limit of their legitimate opportunities. 
 In other words, it is the character inspiring and directing 
 our activities which gives them their true value. 
 
 I had often met King Edward at Windsor or at Osborne 
 when he was Prince of Wales, and he had invited me to 
 preach at Sandringham from time to time. I remember 
 that at my first visit I was anxious on the Sunday morning 
 to be at church in good time. I watched the clock, and 
 when it left me, as I believed, about twenty minutes before 
 service, I started for the church. I had hardly set foot 
 upon the threshold, when I heard a voice calling after me, 
 " Bishop ! Bishop ! " I turned, and found that the Prince 
 of Wales was summoning me. " You are going too soon," 
 he said ; " there is nearly an hour before service." Then 
 my mistake became clear : I had forgotten the trick of 
 the Sandringham clocks, which were kept half an hour in 
 advance of the real time. Theoretically it was very easy 
 to readjust one's ideas about time or to reset one's watch, 
 but practically one found that one was the victim of a 
 haunting doubt whether the clock or watch one looked 
 at represented Greenwich or Sandringham time. 
 
 This, however, was a trifling matter, and one more for 
 self-amusement than vexation. The time at Sandringham 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 253 
 
 was always most enjoyable. There was a freedom which 
 sprang from the genial kindliness of the King and from 
 the sweet graciousness of the Queen. The household 
 officers and those in waiting were all filled with the same 
 gracious and kindly spirit which the royal hosts possessed. 
 
 At Sandringham, too, one met interesting people. I 
 can recall very vividly my meeting there with Cecil Rhodes. 
 It was dark when I reached Sandringham. At the station 
 one of the gentlemen-in-waiting said to me, "The King 
 wishes you to drive up with him." I entered the carriage ; 
 it was too dark to discern any one. The King, however, 
 motioned me to sit beside him, and, as we started, he intro- 
 duced me to a figure on the opposite seat. I just caught 
 the name, Mr. Rhodes, but I felt uncertain whether I had 
 caught it correctly. However, on reaching the house I dis- 
 covered that my fellow-guest was the great empire builder. 
 
 The next day, Sunday, I preached at Sandringham 
 Church. The collections at the morning service were 
 given to the Gordon Boys' Home, in which King Edward 
 took a keen interest. This interest may be judged by the 
 fact that on the corresponding Sunday in the previous year 
 I had been given the duty of commending this charity to 
 the generosity of the guests at Sandringham. The last 
 time I preached at Sandringham — five months before the 
 King's death — the collection was given to the same object. 
 On this Sunday Mr. Rhodes did a characteristic thing. 
 Walking with Sir George Higginson, he asked, " How 
 much would it require to pay for the keep of one lad 
 always at the home " — in other words, what sum of money 
 would yield an income to endow for ever one lad's main- 
 
254 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 tenance. A sum of something over ;^400 was mentioned. 
 Mr. Rhodes gave his cheque for the amount, and remarked 
 that he disliked piecemeal or unfinished work : he liked to 
 do things with completeness. 
 
 In the evening Mr. Rhodes came and sat down beside 
 me. He said, " Bishop, how is it that ideas come into 
 one's head — great thoughts which drop unexpectedly Into 
 one's mind — the origin and suggestion of which one cannot 
 trace .'' " 1 reflected a moment and I said, " I think that 
 when great and noble ideas come to us they are the gift 
 and suggestion of the divine spirit : they are God's mes- 
 sage." He answered with a reverent voice, " I don't think 
 I could claim that." And then in a whimsical way, he 
 added, " I call them microbes of the brain." 
 
 As I recall those pleasant Sundays at Sandringham, one 
 or two interesting recollections spring to my mind. I 
 recall one Sunday evening in which I sat near the King 
 while the band played. Some piece of Verdi's started a 
 memory in the King's mind, and he told me that when he 
 was young he paid a visit to Italy, and at that time Verdi's 
 name roused the greatest enthusiasm among the Italian 
 people. It was not, however, merely because he was a 
 popular composer, but because the letters of his name stood 
 for the national hopes of the people. Wherever the name 
 was written the prophecy of Italy united under the rule of 
 the Re Galant'uomo was read : Verdi stood for Vittorio 
 Emanuele Re d'ltalia. 
 
 The last time I had the privilege of speaking to the 
 King was on May 3, 19 10. The King had fixed noon 
 that day for the homage of a newly appointed bishop. I 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 255 
 
 was in attendance as Clerk of the Closet, The King 
 went through the little ceremony with his usual grace and 
 cordiality, but I felt that it needed more effort on his part 
 than usual. He was pale and looked fagged ; but his 
 kindliness did not desert him. When the formal function 
 was over, the Bishop rose from his knees and the King 
 addressed him with a few sympathetic words. " You have 
 a large diocese," he said to the bishop, " and a great many 
 parishes in it," and then, with a half-humorous air, he 
 said, " and some of them are not as good as they ought 
 to be," and he looked at me as he added, "we know that, 
 don't we ? " I admitted the truth. Then the King said 
 to the newly made bishop : " They will need a firm hand." 
 This closed the interview. We bowed ourselves out. It 
 was the last time I saw him alive. It was a Tuesday. On 
 the Friday night he passed away. 
 
 On the Monday Queen Alexandra sent for me. Soon 
 after noon I was at the palace ; after a little delay I was 
 taken to the Queen's room. The Queen came in, she drew 
 me to the sofa, and we sat down. She said that she felt 
 like stone. I could only say that it was perhaps merciful 
 that we could not realize the full meaning of such a loss 
 at the first. On her return from Greece, when she passed 
 through Venice, she told me how a strong impulse, as though 
 a premonition of coming danger, had led her to shorten 
 her stay abroad and to hurry home. " Stay if you will," 
 she had said to her travelling companions, '* I must be with 
 my husband." She told how, when she arrived, the King 
 had stood up and walked to meet her, how, forgetful of 
 himself, ill as he was, he had asked her about everything 
 
256 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 and wanted to hear her news. She told how restlessness 
 took hold of him as the end drew near : even when sadly 
 weakened he tried to walk into the next room, how at 
 the last she stood near him with his head resting on 
 her shoulder — how the end came after an interval of 
 unconsciousness. 
 
 Then she said, " You would like to see him." She 
 led me through two or three rooms till we came into the 
 King's own bedroom. An oblong room with windows on 
 the left as we entered ; the greater part of the room was 
 free of furniture : at the far end on the right was a folding 
 screen. The Queen passed behind it ; I followed : near the 
 wall, parallel to the windows, was a small single bed, covered 
 with a simple white counterpane ; and there, lying with his 
 hands just touching one another across his breast, lay the 
 dead king. The face was pale ; the expression calm and 
 placid ; he might have been asleep. 
 
 I went forward and fell on my knees beside him and 
 kissed the cold right hand which was near me, and for a 
 few moments I prayed. I rose and looked at the Queen. 
 I could say nothing. I kissed her hand : the tears were 
 in both our eyes : my voice refused utterance. At last I 
 stammered out some commonplace remark that he looked 
 peaceful, and that such a peaceful expression would leave 
 a happy memory with her. She spoke about prayer, 
 wondering whether prayers at the bedside of the uncon- 
 scious could do much good. I said, " It can never be 
 a mistake to tell God what we need and what we feel. All 
 times are good for prayer." Then I added, " Shall we 
 pray now " We knelt by the bedside. I prayed, saying 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 257 
 
 what came uppermost from my heart. We rose, the tears 
 were in her eyes. I said, " Shall I leave you here ? " 
 She said, " Yes," and I left her with her dead. 
 
 It seemed but a day since I had been with her at 
 Osborne, when she wept as the sense of the responsibility 
 of sovereignty came over her. Further back my thoughts 
 went to the day in March, forty-eight years before, when 
 as an undergraduate I had witnessed the rejoicings and 
 the fireworks on Parker's Piece in Cambridge and was 
 nearly crushed to death by the crowd which had gathered 
 to do honour to the Prince of Wales' wedding day. 
 
 The King is dead : Long live the King ! So go the 
 old words of national faith and hope. From the past 
 we look to the future. The King died at a moment of 
 national anxiety. There were moments in which our 
 fears of national feud were great, but outward events 
 have driven away the clouds. External peril has united 
 the hearts of all. 
 
 When King Edward died I ventured to say that such 
 an event called for national searching of heart — now 1 can 
 reiterate the thought with greater emphasis. 
 
 Professor Sir Charles Waldstein, in one of his addresses, 
 
 told the story of a great foreign statesman who, after 
 
 a discussion on international affairs, sadly said : " I have 
 
 been sometimes tempted to ask myself whether the 
 
 prosperity or continued existence of my own nation is 
 
 really needful or useful to the world." Whatever answer 
 
 independent thinkers in different lands may give to such 
 
 a question, one thing is sure — the nation or people which 
 
 is not wanted in the world will perish out of it. The 
 s 
 
258 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 conditions of national existence and true national prosperity 
 are simple and clear. The peoples of weak character — 
 deficient in moral force, destitute of self-reliance, disdainful 
 of truth, lacking the instincts of freedom, and justice — quickly 
 fall under the domination of stronger peoples. In estimating 
 the secret of Anglo-Saxon power, M. Demolins placed it 
 in the self-reliance in which British lads were trained. In 
 estimating the source of the strength of Ancient Rome, 
 another French writer found it in manliness and reverence. 
 Byron struck the same note when he wrote of Rome — 
 
 " 'Twas self-abasement led the way 
 To villain bonds and despots' sway." 
 
 The old Hebrew taught the same truth when he said : 
 " Righteousness exalteth a nation." Here, then, at this 
 trying and terrible moment of our history, may we not well 
 pause and take stock of our national inheritance .'' If in 
 this great national crisis all party lines vanish, if all 
 can stand, as Lord Lansdowne said, shoulder to shoulder 
 in this common distress, can we not stand together also in 
 the determination that henceforth we will sanction no 
 laws, tolerate no fashions, which tend to the weakening or 
 demoralization of national character If health depends 
 upon the quality of the blood, national health and vigour 
 depend upon the moral sympathies and ideals which are 
 accepted by a people and incorporated into their thoughts 
 and activities. And as it is easy to undermine health by 
 adopting a diet which impoverishes or pollutes the blood, 
 so is it easy also, through lowered ideals, lowered manners 
 and customs, to spread weakness, and with it, perchance, 
 seeds of decay throughout national life. Love of sport is 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 259 
 
 good ; but it is evil when sport falls into professional hands 
 and the public interest is less in the achievements of the 
 field than in the opportunity of some gambling gain. 
 Pleasure is natural and good : " all work and no play " is 
 proverbially bad for men as well as boys ; but a dislike 
 of work, with a feverish love of pleasure, soon works disas- 
 ter : play ceases to be pleasure, and discontent follows, and 
 meanwhile the capacity for effective and successful work 
 is destroyed. Philanthropists have often striven to secure 
 for downtrodden races their rights, but it is a sign of 
 national decline when men clamour for their rights and 
 speak lightly or seldom of their duties. 
 
 To be elected for a constituency and to be privileged 
 therefore to write " M.P." after his name may attest, 
 and probably does attest, a man's personal capacity — some 
 energy of will and some measure of judgment ; but it 
 does not always carry with it the pledge of undeviating 
 rectitude and singleness of purpose. It has been allied 
 with flexibility of principle and flabbiness of character. 
 Parliamentary government will suffer, and suffer justly, in 
 public esteem should the House of Commons degenerate 
 into an assembly of men gathered together to register the 
 wishes or will of that section of their constituents which 
 has secured their return. " If government were a matter 
 of will upon any side," said Mr. Burke to the electors of 
 Bristol, " yours, without question, ought to be superior. 
 But government and legislation are matters of reason and 
 judgment, and not of inclination ; and what sort of reason 
 is that in which one set of men deliberate and another 
 decide, and where those who form the conclusion are 
 
26o FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear 
 the argument ? To deliver an opinion is the right of all 
 men : that of constituents is a weighty and respectable 
 opinion, which a representative ought always most seriously 
 to consider. But authoritative instructions — mandates issued, 
 which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, 
 to vote and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest 
 conviction of his judgment and conscience — these are things 
 utterly unknown to the laws of the land, and which arise 
 from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenour 
 of our constitution." ^ It follows from this that to sur- 
 render his conviction of what is really right and good for 
 the country to the demands of party is, on the part of 
 a member of Parliament, a betrayal of trust. 1 shall never 
 forget the shock I once received when a member of 
 Parliament waited upon me one Sunday afternoon and 
 requested me to sign a petition praying the House of 
 Lords to reject a certain measure for which he himself 
 had voted in the House of Commons. Men who act in 
 this fashion are lowering the standard of public morality, 
 and promoting so far the slow decline of national character 
 and national vigour. 
 
 The death of King Edward was a national loss : it 
 stirred our emotions. Since then has come the war, and 
 another set of emotions has been stirred ; the value of such 
 feelings of loyal sorrow and ardent patriotism will only be 
 secured if sentiment is translated into action, and if the 
 nation which has experienced a common peril and common 
 
 1 Burke — Speech at the conclusion of the poll at Bristol, li'orks, 
 vol. iii. pp. 19, 20. 
 
KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH 261 
 
 grief is henceforth animated by some higher principle of 
 life. We need to resolutely set ourselves to revive those 
 ancient virtues which won for us our freedom at home 
 and our reputation for truth and honour abroad. The 
 deep reverence for the British flag everywhere springs from 
 the recognition of our love of liberty, duty and truth. 
 
 One of the London newspapers reported some words 
 spoken by people in that marvellous crowd of sorrowful 
 and reverent mourners who passed through Westminster 
 Hall to pay their last homage to their dead King. One 
 person said, " It is beautiful." Another said, " It is won- 
 derful." A third said, " I should like to stay here and 
 pray." The writer of the report made the just comment 
 that the third speaker expressed most truly the feeling 
 which filled the hearts of that vast concourse of British 
 people. If the spirit of this feeling remains with us, if 
 stronger trust in God and a more genuine recognition 
 of Him in life and conduct fills the soul of the nation, 
 it will do much to raise the tone of popular thought and 
 expel what is selfish and, therefore, vulgar among us. 
 
 The best tribute which we can pay as we recall the 
 memory of the late King is to resolve on earnest and 
 unselfish devotion to the welfare of the kingdom which 
 he loved and served so well, and, remembering how 
 much he was able to accomplish for his people by the 
 influence of his personality, to turn all endeavours more 
 to the making of noble character than to the passing of 
 new laws. Laws may be good and useful, but character 
 is a far greater national asset. It is this lesson which 
 national loss and danger are teaching us, and, if we can 
 
262 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 learn it, our pain and peril will not have been in vain. 
 If henceforward men of upright character, inflexible honesty 
 of purpose, and unselfish lives are gathered round our King 
 to support and encourage him ; if the lofty and gentle 
 influences of his happy and united home life are reflected 
 in the homes of our country ; if the passion of service expels 
 the spirit of self-seeking ; if personal character is accepted 
 as the real strength of the nation, then the lessons of King 
 Edward's short and glorious reign will not be wholly thrown 
 away. 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 
 
 Gentle reader, I bespeak your charity and righteous 
 judgment as you read this chapter. You will approach it, 
 I fear, with certain preconceived opinions. I do not blame 
 you ; for I do not see how it can be otherwise. The man 
 who is the subject of the chapter looms too large in the 
 imagination of men to-day to be ignored, and his actions 
 in policy and war have been necessarily brought under the 
 judgment of his contemporaries. People have, as it were, 
 made up their minds about him, and they pronounce their 
 opinions with emphasis and without hesitation. I am not 
 here challenging the views of any who have formed their 
 judgment of the Emperor on adequate and carefully con- 
 sidered grounds. 1 am not putting forward my own opinion 
 as being better than theirs. I am content to say that we 
 can only speak, each of us, from such knowledge as we 
 possess ; we are all responsible to take care that our 
 judgment is brought strictly within the compass of our 
 knowledge, and that the impulses of resentment or dis- 
 appointment, of hasty ignorance and even natural passion, 
 should be allowed no place in the formation of our judgment 
 of our fellow men. 
 
 To speak the final truth — we are none of us qualified to 
 sit in judgment upon one another, and all that wc can do is 
 263 
 
264 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 to set down our impressions based on knowledge, and even 
 these should be set down with the reservation that they are 
 not designed to be more than contributions towards right 
 estimates, and in no sense final verdicts. 
 
 Let there, then, be no misunderstanding concerning the 
 drift and purpose of this chapter. I desire only to put 
 down facts within my own experience, and at the same time 
 to express my own views on those later facts which are 
 known to the world. In speaking of my experiences I may 
 be thought to throw into over-strong relief the attractive 
 and good features of the subject : in speaking of the later 
 facts I may be blamed for passing to another extreme. 
 This, I fear, may be inevitable, but I trust that I shall 
 neither set down anything in malice, nor yet, because of the 
 warm attachment of other days, appear to condone things 
 which ought to provoke just indignation. 
 
 The method which I propose, therefore, is to set out as 
 clearly as I can the picture of the man I knew, and the 
 traits in his character which did not fail to attract me and to 
 awaken an attachment which was genuine and, I think, 
 justified. And you, kind reader, will, I hope, understand 
 that it could not be my part now or at any time to traduce 
 the memory of a friend, even when in bitter disappointment 
 I found myself unable to approve or defend his actions. If 
 you, therefore, should think that I have dealt with undue 
 tenderness at any moment, kindly remember that it is due 
 to an affection which memory holds dear, even though now 
 the wide estranging sea of difference separates our hearts 
 and hopes and purposes. As I write, whatever I may be 
 writing — words of censure or words of appreciation — there 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 265 
 
 sounds continually in my heart, like the tolling of a funeral 
 bell : " He was my friend." 
 
 My first picture will be one in fair colours, because it is 
 painted before the atmosphere clouded and the thick dark- 
 ness enveloped us all. It is the picture of the man I knew 
 — towards whose life and friendship I was drawn by circum- 
 stances. It was in circumstances tinged with sorrow that I 
 first met him : it was in circumstances just touched with the 
 early clouds of impending storm that 1 last saw him. In 
 the intervening years — twenty- five in number — the links 
 which fastened the bonds of friendliness increased in 
 strength ; and it would be an unworthy thing in me to 
 deny or belittle the growth of affection and of sympathetic 
 hope which sprang up in my heart during those years. At 
 times I have been tempted, in sheer dismay, to be silent 
 altogether ; but I have reflected that, whatever may be the 
 darkness which these last years have brought upon his 
 reputation and the censures which have been so widespread 
 and severe, it is only right that the other side of the picture 
 should be shown, and even at the risk of being, perhaps, 
 misunderstood, which is easy ; or misrepresented, which is 
 not difficult, I ought to put on record the experiences which 
 were mine in days when I hoped that the securities of peace 
 and the forces which work for the welfare of the world 
 would be strengthened and promoted by the influence which 
 I knew he could wield, and which I had good ground for 
 believing that he would wield, for the realization of our best 
 ideals. 
 
 Had we not often together indulged in dreams of what 
 the world might be under the united influence of those 
 
266 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 powers which seemed to share common ideals ? Yes, I 
 know — I know that other and sinister influences were at 
 work, and that the force of brutal and unworthy ideals was 
 making itself felt throughout Germany ; but of these evil 
 powers we knew nothing. I say " we " : I certainly knew 
 nothing of the poisonous teaching which was debasing the 
 vision of the German people, and my impression is that 
 these influences had not then flowed into the immediate 
 home circle of the Emperor. I think that there were 
 visions of a noble life, order and influence which rose upon 
 his thoughts, held his imagination, and satisfied his soul. 
 That there were other and less worthy visions which invaded 
 his mind later may be quite true. Every one of us who 
 has any knowledge of himself must know that there are 
 moments when the lower self seizes upon and draws pictures 
 which in our better moments we should repudiate as below 
 the call — the sacred call — of life. 
 
 Understand then, dear reader, that what I am drawing 
 now is the picture of what I thought my friend to be, and 
 of what I think he genuinely wished to be in- the happy 
 time before lower influences swept in upon his life and bore 
 him away upon a disastrous flood of wrong. 
 
 My first conversation with the Emperor William took 
 place at Osborne in 1889. It was in August, during the 
 Cowes week, a few months after he had succeeded his 
 father. It was a Sunday evening. As Osborne House 
 was very full of guests, I stayed with my wife at Canon 
 Prothero's. The Queen invited us to dine in the evening. 
 After dinner, in the drawing-room the Emperor came across 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 267 
 
 the room and shook hands with me very cordially. He 
 placed himself with his back to the door, and with a very 
 rapid movement swept one arm behind his back. He com- 
 menced conversation by saying that he was pleased to meet 
 me, of whom he had heard. This did not give me much 
 opening, but as there had been reports of strikes in some 
 parts of Germany I asked him if he could tell me how they 
 originated. In reply he spoke rapidly and well : he showed 
 himself to be acquainted with the details of the strike 
 movement and with the conditions which had led up to 
 it. He marshalled easily the facts and factors which 
 needed to be known if a fair judgment was to be reached. 
 He gave details of the geography of the affected districts, 
 the racial and religious qualities of the population. The 
 strikes in Westphalia he attributed to three causes : first, 
 the strong Polish element in the district — a people ignorant 
 and fanatical ; he illustrated the diiiiculties by telling of two 
 men who were decapitated for offences — outrage followed 
 by murder, " crimes I never forgive." A second cause he 
 believed to be the custom which led rich men to leave the 
 district as soon as their fortunes were made. The methods 
 of these employers of labour seemed to be fairly open to 
 criticism. The Poles were ready to work for comparatively 
 low wages : fortunes were made, and the emigration of 
 those who had made their fortunes left the place in a forlorn 
 condition. The third cause was the absence of any Govern- 
 ment works in the district. Wherever Government works 
 existed the scale of living of the artisans improved : decent 
 houses were built. Thus a standard of general comfort and 
 respectability was set up, as in Silesia ; but in Westphalia 
 
268 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 this stimulus to a better condition of things did not exist. 
 Hence, partly owing to the character of the population, 
 partly to the heedlessness or v/ant of sympathy of the 
 employers, and partly to the lack of Government example, 
 things were in a bad way, and the population ripe for 
 strike. 
 
 The conversation then changed from Germany to Rome, 
 which the Emperor had recently visited. He spoke in a 
 vivid and interesting way of his reception at the Vatican. 
 The Pope read a statement very carefully prepared. Its 
 theme was the restoration of Rome to the authority of the 
 Pope. The Emperor interrupted the statement, and asked 
 how it could be expected that the Protestant Emperor should 
 restore it. The Pope paused, made no reply, but continued 
 his set speech. Later, the Emperor, raising his voice so 
 that all who were present might hear, said : " I tell you that 
 if the King of Italy left, the people of Rome would rise 
 against you and make the Vatican and its Library national 
 property." In the view of the Emperor the policy of the 
 Pope was to make war between France and Italy, in the 
 hope of thus regaining Rome. In such a war Germany 
 would be neutral. Speaking of France, the Emperor said : 
 " France is the surprise box of Europe. Boulanger might 
 come to the front and be emperor — who knows t " 
 
 He gave me a graphic picture of Windthorst, a man 
 much in public view at the time. All through this conver- 
 sation I was struck by the mastery of details he showed and 
 the fresh and vivid manner of his speaking. 
 
 Early in 1905 I had a letter from Lord KnoUys telling 
 me that the German Emperor wished that the King would 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 
 
 269 
 
 send a prince, a peer and a prelate to attend the ceremony 
 of the dedication or opening of the new cathedral, or Dom 
 Kirche, in Berlin, and that he wrote to intimate to me the 
 King's wish that I should go to Berlin as the prelate of the 
 party. Prince Arthur of Connaught was the selected 
 prince, and Lord Churchill the selected peer for the 
 occasion. 
 
 Our party reached Berlin soon after seven on Sunday 
 morning. A guard of honour met our train, the stalwart 
 and imposing troops made the station pavement resound 
 with their martial tread. The sight of these men lifting 
 their knees up to the level of their navels and bringing their 
 feet down with a stunning force had to me an air of musical 
 comedy, but comedy spoilt by the deafening echoes which 
 their stamping made. Prince Arthur and Lord Churchill 
 were taken to apartments in the Schloss. Captain Wyndham 
 and I were whisked off to the British Embassy. There I 
 was shown to my room, and after the long and dusty journey 
 I rejoiced at the opportunity of a bath, feeling that there 
 was time to take things quietly, as the only engagement I 
 knew of was that of my promise to preach at the English 
 church at eleven o'clock. I was proceeding leisurely when a 
 knock came to my door, and a voice from without announced 
 to me that the Emperor would receive us at half-past nine. 
 It was then getting close to nine o'clock. I hastily com- 
 pleted dressing. 1 scrambled down to the breakfast-room. 
 I managed to seize some toast and to swallow half a cup of 
 coffee. We flung ourselves into the carriage and were 
 whirled off to the Schloss, where we arrived for the reception. 
 We were shown into a room which bristled with models 
 
FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 of ships of war. The sight of these, I confess, startled me. 
 1 was not prepared for such a manifestation of marine 
 ambition. 
 
 The Emperor came in ; he was very cordial and in high 
 spirits ; his quick eye detected something wrong in Captain 
 Wyndham's uniform, and he chaffed him about it. As he 
 greeted me he said, " It is a shame first to make the Bishop 
 sick and then to make him preach a sermon." The 
 suggestion, however, was needless, for we had had a calm 
 crossing. Two things were in the Emperor's mind : the 
 trouble in store for England through the German action 
 against the Jesuits ; those who found things too hard 
 in Germany would find refuge in England. The other 
 matter was the recent fire in Long Acre, which had destroyed 
 some large show-rooms for motor cars. The misfortune 
 would be good for German trade. These topics were 
 lightly and laughingly touched upon. I was growing 
 apprehensive about my engagement in the English Church 
 at eleven. However, we were dismissed before long, and 
 I had just time to go back to the embassy, to robe and 
 to reach the church. 
 
 In the evening I dined with the Emperor at the Schloss. 
 There were perhaps forty guests. The party broke up early, 
 and I was not sorry to get to bed. The following day, 
 Monday, was the day of the great ceremonial which had 
 brought us to Berlin. The new cathedral was solemnly 
 dedicated. The new building was the first Protestant Dom 
 erected in Germany. It cost half a million of sovereigns. 
 Its dome rose to a height nine feet greater than St. Paul's. 
 It replaced the simple old church, which was erected some 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 
 
 271 
 
 hundred and fifty years earlier by Frederick the Great, 
 and which had sheltered the remains of the Great Elector, 
 of King Frederick I (of Prussia), and King Frederick 
 William II. The cathedral had been eleven years in 
 building. At the dedication service addresses were given 
 by Dr. Dryander and Dr. Kritzinger. " Ein' feste Burg " 
 was sung between the two addresses and " Nun danket 
 alle Gott " was sung at the close. 
 
 The service lasted about two hours. The stately dome 
 was filled by a distinguished congregation ; dazzling uni- 
 forms were to be seen everywhere, against which the black 
 robes and white collars of the Lutheran clergy looked 
 sombre. We lunched at the Schloss ; I found myself 
 seated between the Grand Duke of Baden and Admiral 
 Zechiarias of the Danish Navy. After lunch we attended a 
 levee, being first introduced to the Emperor, who, thanking 
 me for the little silver clock I had sent in commemoration 
 of his silver wedding, said he had never seen one like it. 
 The arrival of the clock had caused, I may here mention, 
 considerable misgiving among the oflScials of the palace. 
 When the parcel arrived, some suspicious servant detected 
 the ticking of the clock. Immediately imagination suggested 
 danger. What infernal machine was this which was intro- 
 duced to the Imperial abode Not till inquiry had been 
 made and I had assured them that the parcel only contained 
 an innocent clock was the gift handed over to the Emperor. 
 The clock was one in which the minutes were marked on 
 the pages of a little book. There was a kind of poetry about 
 the structure ; an invisible finger turned the pages of the 
 record of time. Every minute a tiny page was turned. I 
 
272 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 had sent it to the Emperor the night of my arrival, and with 
 it I had sent the following lines — 
 
 Take, Gracious Sir and Madam, with my rhyme, 
 My little gift, a chronicler of time. 
 Whose quiet finger, like an ancient -sage. 
 Doth firmly hold, then turn the frequent page. 
 Thus quick and bright, like stars that disappear, 
 The passing days have brought the silver year. 
 Glad days they were, despite the hours of grief. 
 And sweet their tale ; for love did turn the leaf. 
 And for the leaves unturned you have no care. 
 Nor seek to read the future written there ; 
 For God is love, and be life long or brief, 
 God marks the days, and He doth turn the leaf. 
 
 But this is a digression anent the little clock, the like of 
 which the Emperor said he had never seen. Of course, in 
 such a levee, where guests were received one by one, the 
 audience was the briefest possible to each. From the 
 Emperor's presence we were passed one by one into the 
 Empress's audience chamber, and here only a few kindly 
 words were spoken. 
 
 In the evening there was a splendid banquet — some 
 three hundred guests sat down ; but before the dinner I had 
 one of those surprises which fling upon one unexpected 
 responsibility. I was in the room where the guests were 
 rapidly assembling, when the Emperor appeared ; he came 
 to me with an envelope in his hand. This he gave to me, 
 saying, " I want you to look at the enclosed. Study it, and 
 let me know after dinner what you think of it." The 
 envelope contained an analysis of Mr. Houston Chamber- 
 lain's book on the Philosophy of Kant, The Emperor said a 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 273 
 
 few words about it and then left me. Almost immediately 
 afterwards the signal was given and the guests streamed 
 into the banquet -room — the Weisesaal. We took our 
 places. It was a large room panelled with white marble and 
 adorned with life-sized statues of the kings of Prussia. 
 The guest on my right was an old veteran of the Franco- 
 German War, who spoke of the numbers engaged in the 
 Russo-Japanese War compared with those who fought in 
 1870. He thought that the numbers engaged in some of 
 the heaviest battles of the earlier war were about equal to 
 those which joined in conflict in the struggle then going on 
 in the East. The battle of Mukden had not then been 
 fought. During the dinner the Emperor looked down the 
 table, and when he had caught my look in response he 
 smiled and took wine with me. 
 
 Meanwhile I was anxious to study the letter he had 
 given me ; 1 managed to take one or two surreptitious 
 glances at it, and this was what I found — 
 
 This author, Mr. Houston Chamberlain, has adopted a most 
 ingenious method of defining the character of man in its double 
 composition respecting the terrestrial and the religious man in him, 
 namely — 
 
 Man (as the bearer of experience) 
 
 Knowledge (Science) 
 
 Religion 
 
 Nature 
 1 
 
 . 1 
 Liberty 
 
 Understanding 
 
 Personality 
 
 Laws 
 1 
 
 Prescriptions 
 
 Theoretical reason 
 
 1. 
 
 Practical reason 
 
 Man (as reason). 
 
 T 
 
274 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 Happily, the analysis told its own tale, and enabled me 
 to master the general line of thought which was to be 
 discussed. 
 
 The dinner over, the guests were marshalled into the 
 long drawing-room — strictly a broad corridor of the castle, 
 flanked with pictures. Conversation went on freely as 
 groups were formed, and as the evening wore on 1 worked 
 my way towards the doorway through which the Emperor 
 must go, as I felt bound to show myself ready to meet his 
 wishes and to discuss the problem he had put before me. I 
 noticed that he was surrounded by a small knot of Lutheran 
 clergymen to whom he was talking with great animation. 
 Amid the buzz of conversation I heard the court chamber- 
 lain say : " The Empress is getting tired ; Lmust do some- 
 thing." Presently the Emperor moved away towards the 
 door. It was then late, after eleven o'clock, and I had 
 made up my mind that my presence would be dispensed 
 with and the projected discussion postponed ; but it was not 
 to be. The Emperor came along, speaking a word here 
 and there to his guests. When he came near, he drew me 
 with him, saying, " Now, if you want a chat, come and have 
 tea with us." Whereupon we passed through several large 
 rooms ; in each a guard of honour was stationed, placed 
 down the sides of the room ; there was history in their uni- 
 forms, and we seemed to pass from the middle of the 
 eighteenth century to the dawn of the twentieth ; the 
 uniforms of one of the earlier guards recalled the troops 
 which might have fought at Dettingen ; the last room was 
 made splendid with the white uniforms and glittering orna- 
 ments of the Imperial Guard. At length we reached a 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 275 
 
 solid mahogany door through which we passed into a 
 spacious and well-furnished library. Here the Emperor 
 introduced me to the superintendent of the royal theatres. 
 I was interested in the national recognition of the Drama, 
 and I took the opportunity of seeking to ascertain the 
 method of supporting and encouraging dramatic art in 
 Germany. The cost appeared to fall very largely upon the 
 Emperor's private purse ; he used to contribute something 
 to all theatres which were officially recognized as royal, 
 whether at Berlin or Hanover or elsewhere. As the con- 
 versation then turned on the drama I gave the Emperor a 
 brief sketch of a drama which I had written, and as I did so, 
 he translated at times for the benefit of the superintendent 
 any point or incident which the superintendent had failed to 
 follow. 
 
 Soon, however, the conversation left the drama behind 
 and turned upon Biblical criticism. This, the Emperor 
 said, had restored to him the reality of Bible characters. 
 Instead of being shadowy figures they had become living 
 human beings. Abraham, who had been little more than 
 the shadow of a shade, was now veritable flesh and blood. 
 He described the picture which, helped by the account 
 given him by an officer who had travelled in Asia Minor, 
 presented Abraham as a powerful sheikh, a man who could 
 command some five thousand spears, and whose spacious 
 tent could accommodate perhaps five hundred guests. 
 
 There was not much to be said about Mr. Houston 
 Chamberlain's views of Kant — indeed, the conversation 
 naturally drifted in other directions and took on a more 
 serious religious turn. As we were talking, a door behind 
 
276 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 the Emperor slowly and quietly opened and the face of the 
 Empress appeared. The Emperor did not see her ; she 
 evidently wished to be unobserved and she withdrew as 
 quietly as she came. Her face was the affectionate and 
 anxious face of the wife who fears to intrude, and yet fears 
 that in his eagerness her husband may overtax his strength. 
 The day had been an arduous one for the Emperor. 
 Personally, as we talked I felt my powers of attention 
 beginning to flag through sheer fatigue. Only the wonder- 
 ful readiness and fascinating camaraderie of the Emperor 
 made one forget fatigue in the vivacity and interest which 
 he brought into the conversation. 
 
 It was long after midnight when we reached the British 
 Embassy, where the kind and thoughtful hospitality of 
 Sir Frank Lascelles compensated for all our fatigue. 
 
 Here is a little story of the Emperor. If it could be 
 read without the pressure of perplexity which the war has 
 brought upon our judgment, it would be read as a happy 
 record of kindly thought and sympathy. Perhaps even 
 now it may be read as disclosing another view of a character 
 which bewilders us with its inconsistencies. 
 
 Some years ago the Emperor was cruising in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Sicily. He recalled to his mind a very beau- 
 tiful garden, which he wished to visit again and to show to 
 some of his officers. He landed and asked permission to 
 see the garden. The lady of the house came to receive the 
 Emperor. She had been left a widow since the Emperor's 
 previous visit. The party, however, went round the garden. 
 As they walked among the beauties of the place, the Emperor 
 saw that the effort she was making to entertain them was too 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 277 
 
 much for the lady. When he perceived this, he turned to 
 her and said, " You don't want us here : it is too much for 
 you : we must go away." The kind words and the kindly 
 sympathy overpowered the lady : the bulwark of her self- 
 restraint gave way. As she burst into tears the Emperor 
 led her to a bench near at hand. They sat down, and the 
 poor lady told the burden of anxiety which lay heavy on her 
 heart. Her husband had not been a strict observer of the 
 outward forms of religion. The widow's heart bore, besides 
 the weight of her loss, an added anxiety : with her sorrow 
 mingled a dread concerning her husband's fate : the religious 
 advisers round about her had spoken hard and harsh words : 
 in their view the husband was one upon whom a dark and 
 eternal doom had fallen. To the poor, broken, bruised and 
 bewildered heart, the Emperor spoke the gospel of divine 
 love : he combated the terrors which a superstitious and 
 cold-hearted theology had aroused : the words of a better 
 hope, based upon the love which never fails, fell like refresh- 
 ing dew upon that suffering soul. Thus, in the middle of 
 a holiday excursion an opportunity of helping a sorrowing 
 fellow-creature came in his way, and in thought and sym- 
 pathy the Emperor was ready to minister to the heartbroken 
 woman. 
 
 I heard the story from the Emperor's lips. It was told 
 with simplicity, without a scintilla of egotism : it was recited 
 only as an illustration of the hard and cold teaching which 
 prevailed in some quarters and which seemed to ignore the 
 amplitude and tenderness of divine love. 
 
 In putting together these reminiscences it is by no means 
 my aim to make finished studies of any whom I have met. 
 
278 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 The hour for such finished studies has not come. At the 
 best we can only make approximate guesses at the true 
 character, even of our most intimate friend. If the heart 
 nearest our own fails to follow the reason of our smile and 
 of our sigh, it follows that a just view of human character 
 is almost wholly beyond human range of measurement. We 
 may know ajittle : we may infer a little : we may guess or 
 imagine a great deal ; but when we have done all there are 
 depths in the human soul which we cannot fathom. Every 
 man is finally a mystery to his brother man. God alone, 
 who knows all, can measure all, and His judgment will be 
 more merciful because more just, and more severe because 
 more merciful than the fierce and faulty judgments of men. 
 David, when the prophet proposed to him three choices of 
 the judgments which should fall upon him, replied with the 
 condition, " Let me not fall into the hand of man." Better 
 and more tolerable was the judgment of God. Our Lord 
 would have us judge nothing before the time ; and however 
 much we may be tempted to pass judgment upon one who has 
 disturbed the peace of Europe and let loose the fierce beast 
 of war in our day, it is still not for us to attempt to deter- 
 mine the ultimate and unerring verdict which will hereafter 
 be given on his character. All that I can do is to set down 
 some of the Emperor William's utterances, and leave to those 
 who read to harmonize them or otherwise with the theories 
 they have formed of his character. 
 
 I set down here a few extracts from his letters. They 
 will serve to illustrate some traits which are not widely 
 known. They touch on matters of family feeling, religious 
 conviction, and political ideals. Under ordinary circum- 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 
 
 stances some of these quotations would not have been made: 
 they would have been reserved for private or later record. 
 But the war has altered conditions, and it cannot be said 
 that any of the following extracts are likely to increase any 
 existing prejudice against the Emperor. To me it seems 
 that their publication here and -now may lead some people 
 to ask themselves whether their judgment has not been 
 formed on partial knowledge. The conclusions to which I 
 myself have come I shall reserve till later. For the present 
 I must let the following extracts, which will follow, speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 It will, however, be well to recall, as a kind of preface, 
 the immediate circumstances which led to our interchange 
 of letters. 
 
 In 1 90 1 I was brought more closely into contact with 
 the Emperor. In that year the Empress Frederick died. 
 She had expressed to me some of her last wishes,^ and de- 
 sired that the English Burial Service might be used. When 
 her death took place, it appeared that others had not known 
 of her wishes. I was, happily, able to say definitely what 
 she had wished. I went over to Germany by the Emperor's 
 wish, as I have told in my former volume, and the sacred- 
 ness of the occasion forged another link in the friendly 
 character of my acquaintance with the Emperor. On my 
 arrival at Homburg I had an interview with him at the 
 Schloss. He spoke of his early home life, of phases of 
 religious thought which his mother had experienced, of 
 the days when her mind inclined to free-thinking, and of 
 his ignorance of the later phases of her religious thought. 
 1 See my former volume, Some Pages of My Life, p. 305 . 
 
28o FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 We spoke of the divergent forms in which the religious 
 spirit expressed itself. He agreed that the spirit was more 
 than the letter. I said that I thought individuality in men 
 demanded or could only accept religion in some form which 
 appealed to it, and that consequently we must expect that 
 there would be varieties of form, even when the faith was 
 the same. I cited Alfred de Musset's line — 
 
 " Mon verre n'est pas grand, mais je bois dans mon verre " — 
 
 and I reminded him that our Lord used water as the image 
 of the faith. " Yes," he said, " water, clear as crystal." 
 
 The same evening, at six o'clock, we had the English 
 service in the Friedrichshof : the Emperor and all the 
 members of the family were present. When the service 
 ended, the Emperor knelt for a few moments in silent 
 prayer by his mother's coffin : against his mourning dress 
 the red, white and blue of the Union Jack, which covered 
 the bier, stood out in strong contrast. The German 
 Funeral Service was held on the Sunday (August ii). 
 After the service I went to Friedrichshof and saw the 
 Emperor. He told me that he had spoken to the King, 
 and had his leave to offer me a decoration. I thanked 
 him, but said I hoped he knew that love had brought me. 
 
 A few months later, in January 1902, I had a letter 
 from the Emperor, in which he referred to the sad days at 
 Cronberg. He referred to those awful August days when 
 the beloved mother was removed after the most terrible and 
 hard-fought battles Heaven ever sent man to fight. " It 
 was," he said, " an awful year : to think I had to attend at 
 the passing away of dear grandmamma and my mother — - 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 281 
 
 mother and daughter, two great queens, each in her way. 
 But I am thankful to the Lord that I was able to live 
 with them, and hope that I shall never be unworthy of 
 them." 
 
 It is pleasant to find this note of grateful remembrance 
 and reverent affection in the letter. 
 
 Other letters followed, and the correspondence between 
 us was fairly regular up till January 19 14. 
 
 The traits of character disclosed by these letters may be 
 grouped under three headings, viz. : personal afFection or 
 attachment, religious conviction, and ideals of peace for the 
 world. 
 
 A warm heart and a generous capacity for friendship, and a 
 ready appreciation of the good qualities of others are seen in 
 these letters. One or two illustrations will suffice. Thus 
 on the death of the late King Edward, after saying, as I 
 have already quoted (p. 244) that 
 
 King Edward represented the incarnation of the 
 fine qualities of his countrymen — Britain in mourning 
 him mourns herself — 
 
 he continued — 
 
 My heart yearns to be with my Aunt and King 
 George and his family to help them to carry this awful 
 burden and to assist them through the trying hours. . . . 
 May God help us all ; His will be done. 
 
 His experience had led him to value simple and un- 
 affected friendship, and to dislike and distrust the empty 
 and conventional amiabilities met with in fashionable circles. 
 He hated social insincerities, and quoted with approval 
 
282 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 Emerson's words : " I much prefer the company of plough- 
 boys and tin-pedlars to the silken and perfumed amity, 
 which only celebrates days of encounter by a frivolous 
 display, by riches in a curricle and dinners at the best 
 taverns." " This," the Emperor says, " ought to be brought 
 home to the young generation of to-day when one sees the 
 way they treat poor friendship. Friendship is like a musical 
 problem. " Two friends are and ought to be like two instru- 
 ments of music equally tuned, touch the one and the other 
 will respond in the same key." (March 1908.) 
 
 The letters show a strong family affection and a yearning 
 to realize a genuine and unartificial friendship. Blood-ties 
 were much to him. When he found himself on English 
 soil, he felt himself at home, and his spirit quickly responded 
 to the generous affection which met him. " I am so glad to 
 be here again " (the words are written from Windsor), " and 
 most touched and grateful for all kindness shown to us by 
 everybody." The date is November 1907. 
 
 Religious convictions show themselves in these letters, 
 and if I am not mistaken, their expression suggests a deep 
 and truly spiritual grasp. They are not doctrinaire or 
 speculative ; they breathe a spirit of personal and practical 
 conviction. 
 
 His wish is that the personal communion of the soul 
 with Christ were more widely understood. This, I take it, 
 is the meaning of the following aspiration — 
 
 Would that mankind learnt to appreciate the 
 Saviour's personality more. (December 1907.) 
 
 That I have interpreted rightly the underlying thought 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 283 
 
 of these words will be clear, if I am not mistaken, when 
 we place other utterances alongside it. Thus he writes in 
 1 9 10 — 
 
 The discussion about Christ is very animated here 
 just now . . . spiritual and religious questions are on 
 the platform, showing that there is a thirst and seeking 
 for light. Thank God ! 
 
 Or, again, referring to a book which brought out the 
 happy intercourse of our Lord with men, he writes — 
 
 That is a manner which must appeal to the most 
 dull -minded and dull-souled person alive. The 
 person of the Lord is humanly brought into con- 
 tact with you, so to say, on a level with you as 
 never before, and then by a clever description of the 
 psychological changes through which the Saviour passes 
 during His work at a soul, He slowly rises from out 
 His worldly brothers, etc., and soars high above them, 
 the Son of God, but the Saviour at the same time. 
 (January 1909.) 
 Or, take this intimate self-revelation — 
 
 Often moments come when in a dilemma of 
 choice I was at a loss how to act, and fell back upon 
 His (Christ's) admonitions. I chose His side. The 
 result was not what I anticipated, even the contrary. 
 But then what feeling of hope and trust even in the 
 adversest of moments pervades you, " the conviction of 
 having done right, of having a good conscience," and 
 thereby feeling Him on your side. Also in distress, 
 what a stafF to lean upon. (December 1906.) 
 
 We can readily see how a little grain of self-deception 
 may enter into the kind of choice here spoken of, and what 
 
284 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 a harvest of spiritual blundering may ensue. Nevertheless, 
 the spirit which seeks to express itself here is not that of 
 affectation or insincerity ; it is the language which a genuine 
 Christian soul has often used. The conviction of the real 
 guidance which the Lord gives to His single-minded dis- 
 ciple is always breaking out in these letters. He finds 
 pleasure in a book sent to him, because this aspect of 
 Christ's work is given prominence. 
 
 It (the book) corresponds to my mode of thinking 
 and is very attractive by the able manner with which it 
 shows the marvellous and versatile way in which the 
 Lord takes a soul in hand, revealing His talent in the 
 knowledge of man, and the victorious power He wields 
 over their souls. (March 1910.) 
 
 How genuinely he rejoices in any sign of religious 
 movement among his people. Thus, in the letter just 
 quoted, he tells how a professor " in public lectures had 
 started the idea that Christ never existed." He tells what 
 followed. The next Sunday " over 20,000 people stood 
 before the cathedral and the palace, hats off, singing 
 Luther's thundering war-hymn, ' Ein' feste Burg ist unser 
 Gott,' and even now the churches are crammed by people 
 craving to hear about the Saviour." 
 
 He longs to see the fire of religious fervour spreading 
 among the people through a strong personal grasp on what 
 was once called experimental religion. He will do all he 
 can to encourage such a spirit. 
 
 I shall do everything in my power ... to fan 
 the flame of a fire of which the Lord Himself said, *' I 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 
 
 285 
 
 have come to kindle a fire upon earth " ; I wish it was 
 already aflame. (January 1914.) 
 
 Alas ! it was another fire which, seven months later, the 
 Emperor allowed to be kindled among the nations. 
 
 Naturally, in the light of present events the Emperor's 
 utterances about peace will prove the most interesting ; and, 
 as a fact, the subject which is more touched upon than 
 any other in these letters is the subject of peace. It will, 
 perhaps, set forth his views more graphically if his words on 
 this question are placed in chronological order. I propose 
 to quote the passages selected without interpolating any 
 comment ; thus their cumulative value will be best felt. 
 
 The first extract bears date January 17, 1905 ; it is as 
 follows — 
 
 It seems to me that the principles laid down in 
 the Christmas Evangile are not well-respected in these 
 latter years, and that we are still far from Peace on 
 Earth and good will among men. If one has till now 
 managed to assure peace to one's own country, one 
 must be very thankful to Providence, and pray that no 
 one else may arise to disturb it or break it, and do 
 everything in one's power to keep one's own sheep 
 from flying at each other within the fold. 
 
 The second touches on the relations between Germany 
 and England ; its date is December 27, 1906 — 
 
 My wishes are sincere and warm for you and 
 for your country for 1907. Quod bonum, felix, 
 faustumque sit populis Anglicis et Germanicis. 
 
286 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 The next 1 give deals with the difficulties which beset 
 diplomatists in 191 3, the year before the war broke out. 
 The date is January 5, 1913 — 
 
 I need not assure you that I am working with the 
 utmost energy to try and secure Peace for the world. 
 The task is arduous and necessitates patience, as the 
 Powers, though in principle are all agreed to preserve 
 Peace, yet some of them have their back thoughts and 
 clandestine ambitions not always in harmony with 
 peaceful issue. However that may be, I don't despair, 
 feeling as I do that I am working at the bidding of a 
 Higher Power, who said, " Be ye content with My 
 grace ; My power is strong in the weak : " and as my 
 work is for the good of mankind. 
 
 My last interview with him was in June 19 13. I went 
 to Berlin to offer him a congratulatory address on the 
 twenty-fifth year of his accession. The Archbishop was 
 unable to go, and by his wish I was invited to accompany 
 the deputation, which represented an Alliance of Christian 
 Churches on behalf of friendly relations between the two 
 countries. They were busy days. Berlin was crowded ; 
 the length of the Unter den Linden was brave with banners 
 and flags ; happy-faced people jostled one anoj:her in friendly 
 fashion on the pavement ; gay uniforms flitted about the 
 streets. There was a State performance at the Royal Opera 
 House ; the house was brilliant with flowers ; festoons of 
 green and pink flowers adorned the upper galleries ; the 
 lower gallery was gorgeous with rich red flowers, which rose 
 into a bank in front of the Emperor's seat. The perform- 
 ance was one act out of Lohengrin ; after the performance 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 287 
 
 there was a reception at which I met many friends. It is 
 sad to recall them now, as, perhaps, never again in this world 
 shall we meet. I had no word with the Emperor that night, 
 but on the Monday after the State banquet in the Weisegaal, 
 the Emperor sent for me. He was quite cordial, but he 
 spoke with a note which was new to me ; it was no longer 
 the note of hope and joyous anticipation ; he seemed to me 
 to be apprehensive ; he spoke of the dangerous position in 
 which Germany v/as placed between two powers which under- 
 stood one another and might prove hostile. When I left 
 him, I felt that the Emperor was under the influence of a 
 great fear. " He is changed," I said to myself. 1 was afraid ; 
 for I knew that there was no passion so cruel as fear. 
 Fear blinds the judgment and hardens the heart. " Their 
 eyes will be blinded through the fear of their hearts," wrote 
 an ancient seer (Enoch xlix. 8, 9). It was a curious ex- 
 perience after the words of hope which had been uttered in 
 addresses presented to the Emperor from various bodies. 
 Most of them cherished the dream of a peaceful Europe, and 
 regarded the Emperor's influence as a factor powerful to 
 secure it. 
 
 We left Berlin, our memory of it as of a bright, happy 
 and hopeful city ; its citizens thriving and vying with each 
 other in their loyalty to the Emperor. I may never set foot 
 in it again, but I hope to live till the day when the victorious 
 armies of the Allies pass under the Brandenburg gate, 
 and make plain to the German people by a triumphal 
 march through the Unter den Linden that the days of 
 Prussian militarism and Prussian domination and Teutonic 
 treachery are at an end. 
 
288 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 In conclusion I can only say that it is hard to write when 
 one's heart is sore with the sense of bitter disappointment. 
 It is perhaps impossible to write with absolute justice of any 
 of our acquaintances. There is such a large area of the soul 
 of man which lies concealed from all but God. Neverthe- 
 less, I may be allowed to set down my thoughts, I hope, 
 without prejudice, and certainly without malice. My 
 thoughts, if I let my heart speak, would run in this fashion. 
 I knew him ; I thought I knew him well ; he was so frank 
 in speech and manner that it was natural to believe that he 
 spoke from the sincere emotions of the moment. I knew 
 him, and 1 had learned to feel for him a deep and genuine 
 affection. So free and unrestrained had been our intercourse, 
 and so ready was he to respond to one's best and inmost 
 thoughts that there was nothing about which I should have 
 hesitated to speak. He sent for me to speak with him as 
 opportunity arose ; he often wrote to me, and his letters 
 covered a large range of subjects — from some discovery 
 throwing light on Biblical archasology to a new book on 
 Kant's philosophy ; from a new process in photography to 
 questions of European peace ; from a happy family event 
 to the significance of certain aspects of spiritual experience. 
 He wrote to me often ; his letters and telegrams treat of a 
 variety of subjects; they create — I think that they would 
 do so in the mind of any impartial reader — they create an 
 impression of absolute sincerity ; they negative the idea of 
 being letters written to lull suspicion or to conceal some 
 sinister purpose. Briefly, I knew him, and I had learned to 
 love him well. I saw him as the emperor of a great and 
 prosperous people, devoted and rightly devoted to their 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 289 
 
 welfare ; he was alive to his duties to his own country and 
 keen to discharge those duties well. He was nevertheless, 
 in spite of his sense of Teutonic responsibility, happy when 
 chance brought him within the congenial atmosphere of 
 English life. He found a genuine pleasure in being on 
 English soil, in meeting English friends, and in follow- 
 ing English ways. It seemed as though then the spirit of 
 his English ancestry woke and he felt a strong home feeling 
 when he breathed English air. Then the ideals consonant 
 with such surroundings rose before him as the noblest, the 
 purest, the best. And those ideals were not those of war 
 and conquest, but of a friendship which, made strong by 
 kinship in blood and faith, might work for the maintenance 
 of European peace and for the general good of mankind. 
 Nor ought it to be forgotten that in coming over to England 
 when the monument to Queen Victoria was unveiled he 
 encountered a strong adverse current of German opinion. 
 By paying this homage of affection to the grandmother 
 whom he loved and the empress-queen whom he honoured 
 and admired, he risked his popularity in his own country. 
 
 But these were not the only influences at work. There 
 was always the steadily applied power of the military party — 
 strong and increasing in strength through the foolish pride 
 of the Prussian aristocracy, who knew no occupation worthy 
 of their sons save that in the army. There was the ready 
 intrigue of those officials who sought to force the Emperor's 
 hand by occasionally contriving to make him unpopular by 
 representing him as too much the friend of England ; there 
 was the resentment of the populace at some diplomatic 
 
 failure, as the Morocco fiasco ; there was the sinister influence 
 u 
 
290 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 of the irresponsible Crown Prince, who sought to make up 
 by partisan popularity what he lacked in capacity and 
 character, and there was the growing apprehension, carefully 
 fostered by the war party, that dangerously hostile peoples 
 were vigilant and menacing the flanks of the empire ; there 
 was the dream of conspicuous conquests, which might carry 
 Germany to the pinnacle of world-greatness, and lift its 
 emperor to a throne loftier than any of which Bismarck 
 dreamed. It is possible for the human soul to cherish con- 
 tradictory dreams, and to feel the influence of inconsistent 
 ideals. Every man's character is ultimately the resultant of 
 a contest between a lower and a higher spirit. This fact, 
 which is so often forgotten, explains why it is that men are 
 often such mysteries to one another. We are compelled, 
 when we consider the story of any great or conspicuous 
 personage, to acknowledge that a clear and full understand- 
 ing of him is beyond us. It is, perhaps, not too much to say 
 that we must leave such among the unsolved enigmas of 
 history. 
 
 One thing I would deprecate — the spirit which dresses 
 up a character only in one suit of clothes. The lesser 
 dramatists have sometimes given us their hero in this fashion. 
 There is no change of suit. Tamerlane is always resolute 
 to have might and to use it : he knows no hesitation. We 
 say he is a strong character — yes, but is he a character at 
 all ? Is he not rather an embodied representation of one 
 quality only ? Human beings are medleys as a rule. The 
 cruel man is kindly at times : the strong man has his weak- 
 nesses, and the weak man his times of strength. To picture 
 a man as Mephistopheles, set on evil and deliberately mask- 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 291 
 
 ing his unswerving purpose of evil by a show of good or of 
 religion, is not to draw a human being but a devil. In all 
 of us there is an admixture of good and evil. Our dreams 
 are sometimes of being really very good — kind, generous, 
 humble, active in service and patient in suffering. At other 
 times the desire of some material gain will seize upon us, 
 and we become mean and hard. Sometimes the vision of 
 a generous life is ours, at other times the wish to die rich 
 masters us. Our course is being constantly deflected from 
 its true orbit by external influences ; but more than this 
 may be the case. We may form rival and contradictory 
 ideals, and according to our mood both may in turn assert 
 their supremacy over us. 
 
 With these facts in mind I can well imagine that, to a 
 man in the Emperor's position and with his sensitive tem- 
 perament, the ideal of living and dying as the monarch who 
 had preserved peace to the world may well have seemed 
 to him at times the desirable thing, and that often this 
 ambition ruled his policy and his action. This is no idle 
 speculation : official correspondence confirms the view by 
 telling us that the Emperor's disposition was towards peace. 
 As examples we may take the following — 
 
 Lieut.-Col. Serret (Military Attach^ to the French Em- 
 bassy at Berlin) writes, on March 15, 1913 : "Germans 
 wish for peace — so they keep on proclaiming, and the 
 Emperor more than any one." ^ The Emperor's declara- 
 tions were regarded by the French officials as genuine. 
 M. Stephen Pichon (Foreign Minister) received a confi- 
 ^ Diplomatic Correspondence published by the French Government, 
 P- 4- 
 
292 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 dential report, dated July 30, 19 13, in which twice over 
 the Emperor's influence is spoken of as a force in favour of 
 peace — the Emperor's " pacific disposition," the " will of 
 the Emperor," are referred to in the dispatch, and it is 
 concluded that Germany will not declare war in view of 
 defensive alliances and the " tendencies of the Emperor," ^ 
 And in the letter from M. Jules Cambon (French ambas- 
 sador at Berlin, November 22, 1913), in which he says the 
 Emperor is no longer the friend of peace, he comments 
 on the change as being a surprise, since all the world 
 thought that the Emperor, " whose personal influence had 
 been exerted on many critical occasions in support of peace, 
 was still in the same state of mind." ^ There is evidence 
 in the diplomatic view of things that the Emperor had, 
 in practical action, followed the ideals of peace. 
 
 But it is quite consistent with the existence of this ideal 
 that other visions less worthy may have, at times, flashed 
 before his mind : the man who sees the vision of handing 
 down to posterity his name as a Peace-making and Peace- 
 keeping sovereign may, at times, dream of the dazzling 
 glory of conquest, or of making his country a praise in the 
 earth. And there were not wanting influences which made 
 such a dream attractive, or which, at times, seemed to coerce 
 him to play the role of war king, and to rattle the sabre to 
 please the pride of the nation. The Berlin Foreign Office 
 was not above unworthy intrigues to force the Emperor to 
 seek popularity or avoid public resentment by posing as 
 
 1 Diplomatic Correspondence published by the French Government, 
 pp. 16, 17, and 20. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 21; cf. also p. 22. 
 
THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 293 
 
 war lord rather than as peace-loving monarch. The mili- 
 tary party were ready to work upon his fears and to flatter 
 him with cheap prophecies of success : the shallow popu- 
 larity of the Crown Prince, who " flattered the passions of 
 the Pan-Germans," who was the victim of foolish and 
 unreflecting ambitions, and who, having lost the respect of 
 the worthy, desired to rehabilitate his forfeited reputation 
 by appearing as the champion of his country's greatness, 
 may have awakened a natural jealousy, which might provoke 
 the wish to prove his own energetic patriotism. 
 
 These influences cannot have been without effect upon 
 a man of his " impressionable nature." Their combined 
 force may well have put new and attractive colouring into 
 the vision of lower glory which arose in competition with 
 the nobler dream of peace. That nobler dream appealed to 
 his best nature ; it was strongest in him when he was upon 
 British soil, and when the British ideals were clearer in his 
 mind, or when the inner claims of religion were making 
 themselves felt, and the vision of a world won by Christ 
 rose before his soul. 
 
 In the end the power of the lower vision prevailed : 
 mixed motives and varied influences gave it potency. A 
 mistaken patriotism, mingled with an unworthy jealousy, 
 and driven into activity under the pressure of a genuine fear 
 of the growing power of the nations on both flanks, led him 
 to surrender his best principles of action to the unhappy 
 opportunism which was preached, in season and out of season, 
 by a restless military party and by a disloyal and unscrupulous 
 Foreign Office. 
 
 The parting of the ways came and he chose the lower 
 
294 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 path, and commenced that downward career which was the 
 sorrow of his friends and will be the overthrow of that 
 empire which his grandfather and Bismarck built up with 
 such care. 
 
 And this is the pity of it all : he might have been so 
 great. He might have left to history the record of a reign 
 which had done good to the world, and at the same time 
 conferred glory and prosperity on his own country ; but 
 now for all time he will be known as the man who was 
 chiefly responsible for the wickedest war ever waged, for the 
 awful carnage, for the world-wide sorrow, and for the sad 
 alienation of hearts which it has brought in its train. For 
 one fact stands out clear and certain to all who read the 
 official correspondence : a word from the Emperor in those 
 critical July and August days of 19 14 would have made 
 war impossible, and that word was not spoken. 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 
 
 I WONDER whether [ can tell the story of a wonderful 
 friendship which has been mine, and which lies, like the 
 scenery of the stage, unchanged, behind the busy activities 
 and entrances and exits of the actors. It has been like the 
 sky, which is always there, no matter what scenes have been 
 enacted below. It has been like my own identity — some- 
 thing which is the same, whether my years were few or 
 many. I can hardly tell when it began, but it must have 
 been when I was very young that I first became aware of 
 this friendship — not that I called it or could have called 
 it friendship, for 1 was too young to know what friendship 
 meant ; but nevertheless early, very early, the feeling of 
 a comradeship to which I might turn came to me. 
 
 One of the tests of friendship is the power to with- 
 draw one's presence at fitting times : to be sensitive to the 
 inopportune moments of life. Herein this friend showed 
 his true friendliness : he was never intrusive. He never 
 spoke of his friendship : he was never eager or forward to 
 assert it : he never put forward absurd or impossible claims 
 upon my attention or my regard : he was dexterously self- 
 effacing. 
 
 Can I ever tell the story of this marvel-working friend- 
 ship ? There are associations with our fellow-men which 
 we sometimes out of politeness speak of as friendships 
 295 
 
296 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 — saying with an odd carelessness, " Oh yes, he is an 
 old friend of mine." There are other comradeships 
 more close and intimate, allowing of confidences in hours 
 of perplexity, when long experience tells us we can trust 
 the companion tried through many years. And yet, and 
 yet, is there in these friendships no neutral ground — a 
 territory which your friend can never enter ? There are 
 rooms in the soul to which such friends are strangers. Is 
 it not so ? 
 
 But, therefore, all the more I wonder whether I can 
 tell the tale of a friendship which passed beyond all these, 
 and which crowned my life with a comradeship which grew 
 into a friendship and which surpassed all the intimacies 
 of other companionships. As I contemplate it now with 
 seventy-five years of life behind me, I am filled with wonder 
 at the way this friendship grew. I did not seek it. I might 
 say that it was thrust upon me, but that word would con- 
 tradict the reticence, the delicate reserve, which marked this 
 friendship. 
 
 " Thine own friend and thy father's friend, forsake 
 not," wrote the wise man of the East, and as I look back 
 upon this friendship which so gently and gradually disclosed 
 itself to me, I feel that though it was always personal to 
 me, yet that it was, at least in spirit, an inherited friendship. 
 It came with a kind of unspoken assurance that it was no 
 new thing, sprung suddenly upon my life : it did not come 
 with one of those violent fascinations which create a fast 
 and furious friendship of a few months, and end in the 
 regret of confidences given and secrets told which had been 
 more wisely withheld. It came as a thing which grew — 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 
 
 like an unnoticed bit of rusty green, unrecognized as a 
 flower, developing with subtle and unobserved quietness, so 
 that though not welcomed and made much of, it yet became 
 so much a thing accepted that, had it gone, it would have 
 been missed. 
 
 And one feature there was about this friendship : it was 
 not, as I have hinted, intrusive, but it was always there. 
 It was like an unused and unappreciated sea-wall, which 
 never hears its praises sung but which stands steadfast, 
 reaching its protecting arm as a shelter to the ships which 
 are anchored in the harbour. 
 
 But this kind of image is too passive : it fails to 
 express the activity, as it were, of this wonderful friend- 
 ship ; for it often brought me unsought help. The silent 
 friend who had joined his life to mine, yet never intruded 
 his friendship, seemed sometimes to move alongside mc 
 and say, " You need me now : 1 am here to help." Look- 
 ing back, I feel that this was always his tone to me, but 
 as he sweetly left me unembarrassed by his presence, I did 
 not always realize how near and prompt was his help. 
 So for long this friendship was one of watchfulness and 
 readiness for service — a friendship which was ready to give 
 and asked nothing in return. 
 
 Who, looking back upon his life, is not often ashamed 
 to recall how eagerly the friends of the passing hour were 
 welcomed and feted, while the dear old friend, whose 
 features had grown so familiar that we thought no more 
 of his presence than we did of the clock on the mantel- 
 piece, or the hatstand in the hall, has been left ungreeted, 
 and has taken no ofFence, but has mingled among the 
 
298 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 guests, doing to one and another some little service which 
 we as hosts had omitted. 
 
 Friendship ! Yes, we often measure it by the gay- 
 hours of laughter which we have spent together. The 
 little cosy dinner at some choice restaurant, followed by 
 the two or three hours at the play when we felt drawn 
 towards one another by the physical comfort and pleasant 
 enjoyment of the passing hour. But these things do not 
 fill the requirements of our hearts when we think of 
 friendship. We know other moods than those which smiling 
 hours bring us. What about the hours when we take 
 ourselves to task, and though we would fain shake off 
 the troublesome power within which tells us that we have 
 fallen below ourselves What friend comes to us in such 
 hours and what would he say Do we want some 
 one who bids us give no heed to the voice of self-reproach ? 
 
 0 ! yes, we often listen to such friends, and we are inclined 
 to accept their oracular sedatives ; but when they are gone, 
 and we are again alone, do we not know that we repudiate 
 their counsel 
 
 Here, again, was the wonder of that friendship. Silent 
 and near at hand, the friend who never intruded upon my 
 privacy, seemed to me to judge of matters concerning 
 which my heart was in debate. He spoke no word, but 
 
 1 knew that he could not speak flattering words, and still 
 less words of untruth. So from his very silence there 
 would come counsel, and I knew that, unlike lighthearted 
 friends, he believed in me, and in the greatness of the 
 future which awaited me, after a fashion which to other 
 friends was impossible. 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 299 
 
 How weak and foolish we sometimes are in our inter- 
 course with one another ! we seek to please when we 
 should seek to help. The baser self prompts us to accept 
 the words which give pleasure ; but I think in our hearts 
 we often long for the words which will help, even though 
 they do not please us. So as I try to measure this great 
 friendship of my life, I know that this quiet, self-repressive 
 friend never fell into the weakness which sought only to 
 please. His grave face and silent lips would often pass 
 on to me the message of true helpfulness ; and before me 
 would rise the vision of some nobler thing before which 
 all base things were condemned. 
 
 There came a time when my heart asked more of this 
 quiet friend. I felt that I wanted this friendship to become 
 one of closer confidence. Was it always to be a silent 
 friendship ? If the present footing of friendship was to be 
 changed for one of friendly converse, which of us was to 
 begin it ? Hitherto I had been heedless and he had been 
 silent. Should I break the silence or would he .'' Even 
 if I began : would he respond .'' So I abode in doubt, for, 
 let me confess it, a certain awe possessed me. His very 
 silence, his unobtrusive watchful presence, filled me with 
 a sense of his greatness ; and awe kept me silent. 
 
 But this could not continue. We had reached a stage 
 of comradeship when more was wanted ; and for this my 
 heart began to hunger. I made some fugitive efforts to 
 cultivate converse ; and there were moments on the road 
 of life when in low tones he would speak wonderful things ; 
 and as he spoke I saw how life opened the possibility of 
 greater things. And I think that it was his converse which 
 
300 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 led mc to tread, not the path I had marked out for my- 
 self, but another, which in the years before I had never 
 contemplated. He said to nie, " There is a path which 
 can gratify desire, but there is a path in which you can 
 be helpful ; the choice is before you, and the choice must 
 be your own." And so it came to pass, chiefly, I think, 
 because I feared to tread the path of my desire, I chose 
 the path he spoke of ; for I had learned to trust him, 
 and I did not trust myself. Thus the whole scope and 
 prospect of my life was changed, I cannot say that any 
 new enthusiasm possessed me for the path which was then 
 chosen. It was perhaps a dread of following my own wish, 
 a fear lest I should be swallowed up in the lower ambitions 
 of life : it was a choice made by my will under the influence 
 of the will of a friend whom I had learned to trust, 
 and whose friendship was becoming more distinctly personal 
 to me. 
 
 And about this time I can trace a real intercourse 
 between this strange, silent friend and myself. I would let 
 loose the thoughts and emotions of my heart to him : I was 
 filled with the persuasion of his sympathy. Thus, though 
 our comradeship was still that of two silent friends, yet 
 there were occasions on which I was constrained to break 
 the silence, for my desires were for a companionship in 
 which no reserves were practised. I was drawn more and 
 more to him, and often I was led to think that he held 
 aloof from me. Thus, though at first this friend came to 
 me as a comrade when I had not sought him, so now the 
 positions seemed to be reversed : I was minded to seek him, 
 and he did not seek'me. 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 301 
 
 But let it be understood that this feeling that he held 
 himself aloof did not make me doubt the stability of his 
 comradeship. Still he was constantly at my side : still, 
 whenever I was confronted by difficulty, or exposed to 
 conflict of any sort, he was at hand : still he, by some 
 quiet gesture or by some whispered word, gave me counsel. 
 So, with a growing expectation of his guidance, and a grow- 
 ing distrust, perhaps, of my own judgment, I lived, taking 
 life as it came from day to day. 
 
 Round me there were snares — snares of which men 
 freely spoke, though not always speaking of them as snares ; 
 and as I look back, I almost wonder that I escaped them ; 
 for there was that in me which might readily have taken 
 fire, and so have caused me to fall a victim to such snares ; 
 yet the protecting comradeship of this friend was a shield 
 against such dangers, and this comradeship, joined to a 
 happy ignorance on my part, and to a worshipfulness of 
 love which I had learned from another, set an atmosphere 
 around me which had a power to quench all outside flame. 
 Thus I passed unscathed through dangerous days. 
 
 Then love herself came to me in bright and youthful 
 guise ; but new companionship, and hours of dear and 
 novel friendship, made no difi^erence to the old friendship. 
 The old comrade still journeyed with me. As before, 
 ready to help, to suggest, to counsel and to protect. Here 
 I met with some of the kindest encouragement from him : 
 here I learned from both his silence and his speech to rely 
 upon him as I had never done before ; for, in these days, the 
 little bark of my life was richly laden, and I might well fear 
 disaster from stormy seas. Often my heart sank at the 
 
302 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 prospect of some tempest. My soul misgave me, as I asked 
 whether I could hope to bring such argosies to port. Then 
 came days in which fortune seemed to beckon me, and I was 
 tempted eagerly to go forward at her bidding. Yes, there 
 were times in which I might well have sought the help of 
 less worthy friends, and followed counsels which, though 
 not dishonourable, were yet such as would have affronted 
 my self-respect. Pleadings to act with common sense or 
 ordinary worldly prudence gave strength to the temptation 
 to follow such counsels ; but ever as I turned and looked 
 into the face of my long-tried comrade and read in his calm 
 and sober aspect his message of quiet confidence, I let all 
 lesser and lower counsels pass by me. I judged that I was 
 happier, safer and wiser, in cleaving to his unspoken 
 guidance. Thus again, as I look back, 1 see that this dear, 
 faithful, comrade-friend saved me by his wisdom from lines 
 of conduct which might have planted the bitterness of self- 
 reproach in the midst of success. 
 
 I chronicle the tale of this friendship, and I do so in the 
 hope that it will make plain the truth that this friend was 
 truer to me than those who would have flattered me more, 
 or measured out their counsel by my wishes or even my 
 interests. Here was the great difference between him and 
 others who were kind, that he always thought of what 
 would lead me to take the higher path : he always thought 
 of that which would make me better rather than that which 
 would better my fortune. For this reason my confidence 
 in him was never shaken — no, not even when the path he 
 pointed out was the path of disappointment. Well I can 
 see now that he, out of wisdom and kindness — yes, and 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 
 
 justice too — withheld me from things which perhaps my 
 ambition and perhaps my indolence desired. It was as 
 though he always said " God's providence is best, and if the 
 fear of Him is the beginning of wisdom, trust in Him is 
 the path of peace." Thus this friend was sober mentor to 
 me ; and so much so, that I longed for freer intercourse 
 with him, knowing well that his counsels were strength, 
 but ever wishing some deep sympathy, as well as counsel, 
 from him. I think this came, or rather that some hint of it 
 came, at a later time, when I stood in sore need of help. 
 A great and desolating sorrow came upon me : the storm of 
 it swept from my embrace the dearest thing that was mine, I 
 had to steel myself against over-much indulgence in sorrow, 
 and some said, " He is forgetting his grief." What could 
 they know How could they know the deep, unspoken 
 pain of my lonely spirit then " Why, O my heart, do you 
 not break " I had asked myself, speaking to the poor 
 beating, bruised and fluttering heart. Hard to bear was the 
 cruel bruising of my benumbed and grief-stricken heart. 
 So, hearing of this thought of those who did not know, 
 but who guessed that I was getting over the loss, when it was 
 still but three months raw, I wrote, that " my heart seemed 
 to me one petrified agony : mine," I said, " is not sorrow, 
 it is just suffering, suffering." Outward tears I could not 
 shed, but the tears fell inward, filling with bitterness the 
 myriad voids in my bruised heart. Yet against the flaming 
 grief I had to struggle, and to cry to the storm voices of my 
 sorrow, " Peace, peace," for the sake of duty and of others 
 who were dear. 
 
 In those days I went about stricken with deafness. The 
 
304 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 shock of grief had smitten my hearing. I walked the 
 streets : I saw the noisy carts' and rattling cabs in their 
 courses, but I moved in a silence which might be felt. It 
 was in these days that there came to me the melody which 
 I heard and in which I found sympathy and comfort. My 
 friend still silently kept companionship with me : his foot- 
 steps, no doubt, were beside me, though I heard them or 
 heeded them not. But then I heard, as the deaf may hear, 
 music more sweet than unstopped ears can hear. I was in 
 the noisy roadway, one of the great open thoroughfares of 
 London, when I heard it, clear and strong at first, then clear 
 and sweet as the voice of a glad soul singing. Did my 
 friend say " Listen " Somehow it seemed to me that his 
 friendship bade me hearken, and then upon my ears, closed 
 to the sounds of earth, there stole heavenly music — first as 
 a glorious choir, and then as of a single happy voice. I 
 heard : I listened, transported : I knew the voice. Had I 
 not heard it often during years of sweet fellowship The 
 grave could not silence that voice, and I, deaf to earth's 
 sounds, heard it clear, though the roar of the traffic must 
 have been rolling round me. Then I knew that it was 
 given to me to hear this clear singing, so that my stricken 
 heart might have some message of assurance. Thus, in 
 spite of grief, restless, imperious grief, there came into my 
 heart the sign of peace, because I had seemed to hear that 
 dear voice uplifted among angel voices. I think that my 
 quiet comrade so wrought upon me that I was able to hear 
 this music and to accept its sweet assurance. 
 
 When I looked upon him his face was still grave, almost 
 impressive, and yet I seemed to catch in it some marks of 
 
THE AUTHOR 
 (From a photograph by Lafayette) 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 305 
 
 lingering emotion, as of one whose heart rested content in 
 some kindness done. Often, often did I speak to him in 
 those days of my sorrow ; my mourning found incessant 
 utterance, and pleaded with him for some sympathetic help. 
 Many perplexities attended my life at that time. I was 
 like one who had to draw forth into power of use a sadly- 
 entangled ball of string — who makes some vigorous and 
 thoughtless effort, draws forth a clear portion, only to find 
 that he has drawn the meshes tighter together. 
 
 And my friend ? He might have looked at me with 
 good-natured, half-cynical amusement as he marked my 
 efforts ; but never once did a smile of contempt or con- 
 scious superiority cross his face. Still, as always, his 
 countenance was one of kindly gravity and his air that 
 of one who waited ready to help. 
 
 And in the end, it was he who unravelled and straight- 
 ened out the tangle of my life, and made it possible for me 
 to weave its thread for some new pattern. Where I would 
 have gone, he kept me from going ; and he held me wait- 
 ing till the right and clear path opened. He thrust aside 
 a difficulty here, and met obstacles and removed them. 
 When I encountered more than one serious hindrance, 
 which for a moment seemed menacing, he counselled a 
 quiet trust on my part, and he was justified. Others came 
 forward, took up the difficulty, removed its menace, finding 
 a simple and natural solution. My friend became the 
 clearer away of difficulties, and always he maintained the 
 same peaceful and calm face, which bore with it an ever- 
 present counsel of calmness to me. 
 
 Thus, by degrees, there came into my life quiet and 
 
 X 
 
3o6 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 refreshment, and love began to sing in my home once 
 more. And he, my lifelong friend, was as before, the 
 unfailing comrade of my hours of restored gladness, as he 
 had been in hours of stress and sorrow and storm. Ever 
 his counsel was : " Do right, and trust. Judge nothing by 
 wishes ; judge all things by love and right." And always 
 we resolved to follow his bidding. 
 
 Sometimes it was hard, and life's difficulties appeared to 
 grow more bewildering as we sought to put right first ; but 
 the value of right cannot be tested in a day. It takes time 
 to prove its worth and its power. So we proved it, and I 
 think that this, at least, my faithful friend taught me, viz. : 
 that he who struggles, doing right, through the dark and 
 doubtful day, will find that peace comes with the sundown, 
 and light at evening time. 
 
 It is said that if two live or work together, soon one 
 will be leader or master and the other follower or pupil. 
 I found this to be true in my experience of this friendship, 
 for more and more it came to pass that I was learner, and 
 he teacher or master. I did not resent this, for life brings 
 knowledge, and we soon find that it is well to have some one 
 upon whose wisdom we can rely, and whose friendship 
 secures that sympathy will work hand in hand with judg- 
 ment. Perhaps, then, the best lesson I learned at this time 
 from this happy friendship was reliance upon the providence 
 of God. I well remember that in this period of my life 
 there arose a prospect of my being moved to an independent 
 post — or promotion it would be called by some. There 
 were many reasons why such a move would have been 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 307 
 
 acceptable to me. The growing family, and. a feeling that 
 my association with another in work had been sufficiently 
 long, and other thoughts, contributed to make me wishful 
 for change. There were weeks of suspense, but my friend 
 had taught me that God's providence was always best. In 
 those days the collect for the eighth Sunday after Trinity 
 was daily used by me. Before I opened the morniiig letters 
 I read or repeated the collect. On the day which brought 
 the decision I did so. I saw among the letters the letter 
 which, I knew, would tell me the verdict, but I checked my 
 anxious curiosity : I read the wise prayer. I opened the 
 letter. The verdict was against my wishes and hopes ; but 
 the sense that God knew best beat down the pain of dis- 
 appointment. So my friend had become strength to me, 
 and we learned to look to his guidance, for he led us to 
 God, I think. 
 
 But this principle, when used as a governing principle 
 
 of life, may lead to much perplexity. The questions, 
 
 Where does God's providence lead me now ? and, What 
 
 course does that providence point out to me are questions 
 
 which we cannot always answer. I grant it frankly, and as 
 
 completely as any one will desire. As a fact, there came a 
 
 time when we were anxious — yes, I may say resolved — to 
 
 take no step without being assured that it was allowed or 
 
 indicated by God's providence. The old saying, that he 
 
 that watches providence will never lack a providence to 
 
 watch, or the old Chester house motto, " God's providence 
 
 is mine inheritance," became dominant in our thoughts ; 
 
 and when I turned my inquiring face to the wise comrade- 
 X 2 
 
3o8 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 friend who still walked beside me, I heard his voice saying, 
 " When you see no right thing to do, do nothing : wait." 
 There are times in which the spirit of patient waiting is 
 needed in life. And so, in much anxiety, and pressed often 
 by needs and bewildering conditions, I had to live by 
 patience for many days ; to be more exact, I think it was 
 for some four or five years. It was curious to watch how, 
 one after another, the conditions of life changed, and slowly 
 the obstacles which seemed to bar the road were chased 
 away, and at last the path opened straight before me, and 
 with its opening there came a new support into my life. 
 Even then, though obstacles disappeared, difficulties re- 
 mained, and life called for patience — yet more patience ; 
 and we, who had home and many affairs to manage, found 
 it a happy thing that the quiet and often silent comrade of 
 the road was still near and ready to advise. Like the 
 husbandman, we have to wait in life with long patience for 
 the harvest of our efforts and of our prayers, and ever at 
 my side the friend would whisper, " Be patient : in due 
 season you will reap, if you faint not." 
 
 How true in thought he was — as true in thought as he 
 was tender in sympathy. How true in thought ! Though all 
 that I hoped for in patience is not yet seen, yet I have seen the 
 flowers grow to fulness of beauty and the cornfields ripen. 
 I saw one flower which grew out of the dust, and I watched 
 it through many seasons, and my grave friend, who had 
 taught me something of the pricelessness of a love which 
 can wait and watch with silent patience, began to look at 
 me, and though he did not speak, he seemed to say, " You 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 309 
 
 see how the flower is changing from one beauty to another." 
 He was right : I saw it ; and as the years went by I saw it 
 gain a beauty which outstripped all dreams of beauty which 
 I had formed of it. It grew to be a comely tree, rich with 
 an avalanche of flowers, and spreading everywhere a gentle 
 and a grateful shade ; like the tree of the gospel, the birds 
 of the air would lodge in the branches of it. So sweetness 
 and beauty waited on love and patience. 
 
 Then came one of the most piercing and revealing expe- 
 riences of my life. A trouble fell upon me. A flower 
 which I had planted in my garden, and which I had watched 
 with care for many days, had grown into unimagined 
 beauty : I call it a flower, but indeed it had become a tree 
 laden with fair and fragrant flowers. Like Jonah under 
 his gourd, I rejoiced in the beauty, the sweetness and the 
 shelter of this loved and cherished growth. Then the 
 trouble came : some strange and evil thing began to sap 
 away its life : leafage and twig and stem began to droop. 
 I hoped that coming spring and summer would bring new 
 vigour to my plant. Still with me was my grave and kindly 
 friend, and when my heart grew anxious about my loved 
 tree, I spoke to him ; and he said, " I can save it, but to its 
 own loss." They were mysterious words, but they were 
 spoken so clearly that I could not mistake them, I must 
 have caught his thought, without, perhaps, translating it into 
 full concrete meaning. He seemed to mean that we might 
 pay too high a price for keeping what we loved ; and I 
 answered, as one whose spirit moves in harmony with the 
 spirit of him who speaks, and moved more by spiritual 
 
3IO FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 harmony than by mere words, I cried, " Oh, not that ! " for 
 1 could not wish other than the highest good to what I 
 loved. My disappointment or my loss must not count in 
 such a case. 
 
 And so the full trouble fell. The fair, flower-laden tree 
 withered away. No more were its beauties there to delight 
 my eyes : no more its shelter for me to rest in and rejoice. 
 And then came a strange thing. This loss became a revela- 
 tion to me. Deprived of the pleasant shade and loveliness, 
 as I sought to appease my sense of loss I discovered that I had 
 allowed ill weeds to grow up apace. I knew my negligence, 
 and never had I felt so dismayed and despondent as I 
 walked about and measured and appraised my garden. It 
 was as though a heavenly light had fallen, and had disclosed 
 the ugly growths which unaware had sprung up. 
 
 My heart was broken and depressed, and a conflict with 
 ill weeds fell upon me. I was as a man who had gone on 
 content and blind, but who is by some new light bidden to 
 see and thereupon becomes discontented. I often looked 
 at my grave comrade-friend. He walked with me still, but 
 as one who did not see what I saw, or who would not let 
 me perceive that he saw. For months, I think, I went 
 almost lonely, for though he was always near, his com- 
 panionship seemed withdrawn. 
 
 Then one day he spoke, and all was changed. He 
 seemed to come nearer to me, and I said, or thought I said, 
 " I have learned something. Light has shone straight into 
 my heart, and I have seen darkness there — there, where I 
 want only light to dwell ; for what is a heart, if it be not 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 
 
 one which thrills only to good, instead of responding to ill ? " 
 And he said, "None can search out the heart but God only, 
 and for this, perhaps, this experience has been yours." So 
 as I went I prayed, " Cleanse the thoughts of my heart " ; 
 and then sweet music broke upon my ears : a choir was 
 singing, as if it would give expression to my thoughts ; 
 and the words they sang were the words of the psalmist, 
 " Try me, O God, and search my heart : try me and 
 examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way 
 of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 
 Then with a threefold " Amen " the music ceased, and my 
 comrade-friend was at my side ; and he spoke : " It will be 
 well with you." " It will be well with you " : and then, as 
 I thought what this might mean, he said, softly yet clearly, 
 one word — " Victory." 
 
 I cannot explain all that he meant, for this is a record 
 of experience, and explanations of experience must wait 
 often for fuller light. This, however, was certain : I felt 
 that my grave friend had drawn much nearer to me, and I 
 thought that the friendship of years might grow into one of 
 sweet intimacy. And sometimes it has : then I have known 
 a satisfaction of spirit which compensates for a hundred 
 disappointments : then I have been lifted above the lower 
 environment which seems to hamper our freedom. The 
 gladness of such moments has been exhilarating and, I am 
 tempted to say, all-sufficing ; but such moments are rare in 
 all friendships. 
 
 Love is the bond of friendship, but it needs not to 
 be paraded in words, and seldom indeed did we speak of 
 
312 FURTHER PAGES OF MY LIFE 
 
 love as a power below our friendship. Once, I think, he 
 asked, *' Do you love me ? " but that was an appeal to my 
 courage. For the rest, I have known many sweet and 
 happy friendships — some very sweet for the short time 
 they lasted, but very dear because of the happy fidelity 
 which these constant hearls showed me. But sweet and 
 happy as they have been, this one friendship of which I 
 have written was much greater than all ; for it was a friend- 
 ship which unflinchingly sought my welfare. It taught 
 me to know myself ; to perceive weaknesses which might 
 have been concealed from me. It has plunged me into- 
 fear as it showed me the tenacity with which evil things 
 clung to me, or the irresolution with which I clung to 
 things which were good. It depressed mc with self-know- 
 ledge. It never despaired of me, though I might well have 
 despaired of myself. And perhaps above all, it stood beside 
 me in sorrow, in joy, in depression and in exaltation. Its 
 loyal constancy : its silent lovingness : its quiet insistence 
 that I should still go on, even when weary : its wonderful 
 aloofness, and its more wonderful nearness : its words of 
 counsel : its whispered encouragements : the music which 
 it caused me to hear : the visions and experiences of love 
 which it brought me : all these set this friendship above 
 all others. 
 
 I know that whatever may happen to other friendships, 
 this friendship will not fail. There has been no demon- 
 strativeness in it, though it has brought me times of 
 superlative gladness — a gladness calm, peaceful and heart- 
 sufficing. Its virtues have been its constancy, its tenderness 
 
THE GREATER FRIENDSHIP 313 
 
 and its sanity. Thus it has had a character of its own, and 
 it fills me with a confidence that I may rely upon it to the 
 last ; and perhaps when that wondrous hour comes when 
 the road leads down the last slope which all must follow, 
 and I come near to the dark waters over which the evening 
 mists lie thick, I shall find that true, faithful friend will be 
 near at hand to give me a last word of cheer, and perhaps a 
 first word of welcome when I set my foot upon the shore 
 which is so far ofF and yet so near. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Mr., 66 
 Ainger, Canon, 208 
 Albany, Duke of, 205 
 Alexandra, Queen, 240, 255-257 
 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., 243 
 
 Baden, Grand Duke of, 271 
 Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 233, 243 
 Bickersteth, Dr., 157 
 Bonar, Horatius, 189 
 Boulanger, General, 268 
 Boyd, Dean, 180 et seg. 
 
 , Miss, 182, 186 
 
 , William, 221 
 
 Boyd Carpenter, Miss Annie, 65 
 
 , Archibald, 67 
 
 , Henry, 67 
 
 , Miss Jessie, 63 
 
 , Miss Minnie, 63 
 
 , Mrs., 35 et seg., 47 ei seg., 60 
 
 ei seq. 
 
 , Mrs. Matilda, 76 et seg., 148, 
 
 15s. 213 
 Brodrick, Canon, 155 
 Bunsen, Chevalier, 193 
 Burgon, Dean, 143 
 Burke, 259 
 
 Cambon, M. Jules, 292 
 Carlisle, Earl of, 28 
 Carpenter, Archibald, 71 
 
 , Henry, 18 seg., 25 ei seg. 
 
 , Rev. Henry, i4eiseg. 
 
 , Mrs. Hester, 14 et seq., 62, 64 
 
 , Robert, i8 
 
 , Dr. W. B., 238 
 
 Chamberlain, Houston, 272, 273, 
 275 
 
 , Rt. Hon. Joseph, 216 
 
 Churchill, Lord, 269 
 Clyde, Lord, 223, 229, 230 
 Connaught, Prince Arthur of, 269 
 
 Consort, The Prince, 192, 235-237 
 248 
 
 Cook, James Parsons, 1 2 
 Crewe, Lord, 242 
 
 Crown Prince of Germany, 290, 293 
 
 Dalzell, Miss, 195 
 Dante, 36, 59 
 Davey, 132 et seq. 
 Davidson, Archbishop, 286 
 Demolins, M., 258 
 Dixon, Mr., 214 
 Drury, Bishop, 157 
 Dryander, Dr., 271 
 Durham, Dean of, 179 
 
 Edward VII, King, 239 et seq.., 280, 
 281 
 
 Farmer, Henry, 128, 129 
 Frederic, Empress, 279 
 Frederic I, 271 
 Frederic William II, 271 
 Eraser, Bishop, 122 
 
 Gerando, 190 
 
 Germany, Empress of, 274, 276 
 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 229 
 Goodwin, Bishop Harvey, 122, 124 
 Gordon, General, 227 et seq. 
 Goschen, Lord, 237 
 Graham, Bishop of Chester, 38 
 
 Hansard, Rev. Septimus, 238 
 Hare, Archdeacon, 191 
 Harland and Wolff, 154 
 Harrison, Frederick, 179, 199 
 Hartington, Lord, 229 
 Harvey, Canon, 66 
 Herder, 249 
 
 Higginson, Sir George, 253 
 Hill, Bishop Rowley, 122, 123 
 
 31S 
 
INDEX 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 31 
 Hook, Dr., 191 
 
 Italy, King of, 268 
 
 Jackson, Charles, 183 
 James, Henry, 237 
 
 Kaiser, The (see William, Emperor) 
 Kant, 275 
 KnoUys, Lord, 268 
 Kritzinger, Dr., 271 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 242, 247 
 Lascelles, Sir Frank, 276 
 Lawson, Mrs., 2 
 Lightfoot, Bishop, 122 
 Lunn, Messrs., 151 
 Luther, Martin, 191 
 
 MacLaren, Ian (Rev. John Watson), 
 
 234. 235 
 MacNeill, Duncan, 223 
 
 , Sir John, 224, 226 
 
 Maitland, Sir Peregrine, 193 
 Mary Ann, 5, 7, 8, 9 
 Maurice, Colonel, 213 
 Millwright, Mr., 137 ei seg. 
 Money, Canon, 179, 180 
 Mount-Temple, Lord, 235 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 138 
 
 Oxford, Bishop of, 196, 197 
 
 Pagildeafilda, 1 5 ei seg., 22 
 Palmer, Dr. William, 12 
 Palmerston, Lord, 235 
 Peers, Rev. William H., 45, 49, 76 
 
 , Mrs., 76 
 
 Pichon, M. Stephen, 291 
 Pope Leo IX., 268 
 Portugal, King of, 236 
 Prothero, Canon, 266 
 
 Ratcliff, Colonel, 204, 205 
 Reed, Mr., 146 
 
 Rhodes, Rt. Hon. Cecil, 253, 254 
 Riddell, Lady Frances, 49 
 Roberts, Lord, 233, 234 
 Robertson, F. W., 179 ei seq. 
 Roche, James Jeffrey, 32 
 Rosebery, Lord, 229, 243 
 Ryland, John, 214 
 Ryle, Bishop, 122 
 
 Saxe, Marshal, 83 
 Schleiermacher, 190 
 Serret, Lieut. -Colonel, 291 
 Shorthouse, J. H., 204 et seq. 
 
 , Mrs., 204 
 
 Sims, G. R., 57 
 
 Singleton, Mrs., 47 
 
 Smith, Father, 95 
 
 Stanley, Dean, 206 
 
 Stewart, Rev. David Dale, 49, 66 
 
 Strafford, Lord, 221 
 
 Taine, 249 
 
 Tauler, John, 83 
 
 Temple, Archbishop, 127 et seq. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 188, 189 
 
 Thomson, Archbishop, 122, 124 
 
 Tucker, Mr., 190 
 
 TuUoch, Colonel, 224 
 
 Verdi, 254 
 
 Victoria, Queen, 205, 229, 236, 240, 
 242, 248, 266, 289 
 
 Waldstein, Professor Sir Charles, 
 257 
 
 Ward, William, 191 
 Welland, Shepherd, 49 
 
 , Bishop, 49, 152, 153 
 
 Whitehead, Taylor, 46 
 Wilberforce, Bishop Ernest, 122 
 William, Emperor of Germany, 263 
 
 et seq. 
 Windthorst, 26S 
 Wolseley, Lord, 229-231 
 Wyndham, Captain, 269 
 
 Zecharias, Admiral, 271 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD