7 LIFE OF WILLIAM EDWARD COLLINS 4 fc. l-'roiti a photograph by J. Russell & Sons, London LIFE OF WILLIAM EDWARD COLLINS BISHOP OF GIBRALTAR ARTHUR JAMES MASON, D.D. WITH A PORTRAIT LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1912 All rights reserved PREFACE IN these days, when so many biographies are written, it seemed wrong not to leave to posterity some record of a man who was not only in himself a remarkable personality, but who also had more share in guiding the contemporary history of the Church than most people were aware of. Perhaps it was the more necessary in the case of Bishop Collins, because an account of him had obtained a wide currency, which might, if not supplemented, have given an untrue impression of his character. The little book alluded to is indeed most tenderly and delicately true. From a single and limited point of observation it portrays the Bishop not only with deep and reverent devotion, but with extraordinary insight and fidelity. But it was not, and was never meant to be, a complete presentation of the Bishop ; it was only intended to show him as he was in one beautiful and sacred relationship, during his last pathetic years. There are other things which it was important to tell about him. Bishop Collins was indeed a man of many sides. He might, from one point of view, be considered as almost a chronic invalid, with occasional accesses of illness which cut him off for longer or shorter periods from public work. He made no concealment of his illnesses, though he made no parade of them. The sympathy which they drew out from others he received with unaffected gratitude, and re- paid with an unmeasured outflow of affection. He came to be on terms of great intimacy with many different sets of people. But these intimacies were marked not only by an unreserved disclosure of his own heart ; they were marked 2067482 vi PREFACE by two other things. One was an entire reticence about his relations with other people. He never gave away the confidence reposed in him, and some of his closest friends never knew of similar friendships which he had formed else- where. He was reserved even to secretiveness with regard to them. The second thing which marked these relationships was that with all their tenderness there lay at the bottom of them that element of severity, that constant demand of moral effort, which cannot be absent from Christian sanctity. I have greatly failed in the task which I set myself, if the reader of these pages fails to see in Bishop Collins, alongside of an almost woman-like power of attachment, the character of a strong man. His intellect was a strong man's intellect. He had a vigorous grasp of principles, and at the same time a most remarkable faculty for amassing and mastering detailed information. He saw the meaning of a problem swiftly, and he was not contented until he had strenuously examined and co-ordinated the facts which gave the clue to the solution. His was no second-hand learning, no unverified acceptance of other men's opinions. Yet the student's passion was never allowed to become predominant in him. These pages mention a warning sent to him in early life not to let his " absorbing intellectual interests encroach " upon his " spiritual and pastoral life." If the warning was needed, it was heeded. One who knew him well wrote, after his death, to draw this as the main lesson from his life " the grace by which he made the intellect subserve the spirit, counting as nought the things of the former, where they failed to make clearer and more attainable the things of the latter." " In that missionary life," this writer says, " the old pursuits of reading and research, writing and quiet deep thinking, were renounced, cheerfully sacrificed to the routine and demands of his enormous diocese ; but when he became persuaded that such was the will of God, he turned his back on the life which offered these dear delights with the cheeriness and whole- heartedness which he himself would have called in another ' playing the game.' " l We have often heard of a sacrifizio 1 Miss Rolt in the Guildsman, December 1911. PREFACE vii dell' intettetto : in this case it was a sacrifice which contained nothing that was not admirable. Next to this steady concentration of aim, the most marked characteristic of the man was his physical and moral courage. A letter from a layman, who was one of his best friends, lies before me. The writer says : " The two features of his character must always be the breadth of his mind and his extraordinary personal courage, both rooted in a simple and unassuming confidence in the Almighty's decrees. Whatever it was to be, it must be right : one only goal in front of him, to make for it regardless of all, whether on the right hand or the left, so long as the object aimed at was reached." The courage of which this friend speaks was not shown only in crises of imminent danger, but in the way in which the Bishop at the last deliberately took his life in his hand, and travelled and laboured and ministered when any one else would have retired to the sick-room. Yet even when most venturesome, he took every precaution that the circumstances admitted, and was never foolhardy or (in these ways) self-willed. That imperious will of his not only undertook heroic tasks, but set itself patiently to use all means that prudence might suggest for their accomplish- ment. I have to thank many friends for help of various kinds in the work which is now offered to his memory. I thank the Bishop's father, Mr. J. H. Collins, and his sister-in-law, Miss Steiiand, for much information and encouragement. I thank his executor, Mr. Wilfrid Barnes, for putting un- reservedly at my disposal all papers that might serve the purpose of this memoir. I thank those who have given me, sometimes unsought, sometimes at my request, accounts of particular passages in his life ; perhaps I may mention especially Professor Caldecott and the Bishop's pupils at King's College, whose names I have mentioned in that connexion ; Miss S. Boycott, Miss G. M. Bevan, Miss P. M. Bishop ; those who have written to me about his work in the West Indies and in South Africa ; the Hon. Mrs. H. N. Gladstone for her account of his work at Messina ; Bishop Montgomery, the Bishop of Wakefield ; those who have viii PREFACE written to me about the closing scenes. I thank Mr. Lomas, of Territet, for lending me the volumes of the Anglican Church Magazine, which contain much information about his diocesan work. I thank all those who have lent me letters of the Bishop's ; some of them I may not name, but I may mention in particular Lord Rendel, the Hon. Madame Wiel, the Rev. O. Blogg, the Rev. A. T. Barnett, the Rev. J. H. Toy, Miss Cavendish-Bentinck, the Rev. J. H. Ritson, the Rev. Dr. Robinson. I thank Lord Northbourne for constant help and guidance, and in particular for reading all the proofs for me. I thank His Grace the Archbishop of Canter- bury for allowing me to use papers in his possession with regard to the Lambeth Conference of 1908, as well as utterances of his own. I thank the authoress of the little book referred to at the beginning of this Preface for leave to use her materials freely, and for much else besides. Finally, I thank Messrs. Russell & Co., of Baker Street, for permission to reproduce without charge their beautiful photograph of the Bishop as a frontispiece to this memoir. It may perhaps be not unsuitable to state, in connexion with the frontispiece, that the Bishop was twice painted. In one of the two paintings, by Mr. F. Cadogan Cowper, now in the possession of Lord Northbourne at Betteshanger, he was represented as St. Francis of Assisi, listening to the music of an angel. The picture was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1904, and drew much attention, though few people knew whose features the artist had depicted. The second painting, by Mr. Streatfield, is a grave and impressive portrait of the Bishop in his cope. Since the Bishop's death it has been acquired for Selwyn College at Cambridge, and hangs in the College Hall, as a memorial to the first alumnus of the College to be made a Bishop. CANTERBURY, Nativity of the B.V. Mary, 1912. CONTENTS PAGE I. EARLY LIFE - - i II. ALLHALLOWS BARKING AND KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 8 III. EPISCOPATE 64 INDEX 189 I. EARLY LIFE. THE life which is recorded in these pages began in London on the i8th of February in the year 1867. The Bishop, whose Christian name was William Edward, was the second son of Mr. Joseph Henry Collins and of his wife, Frances Miriam. Mrs. Collins died when William was 21 years old, but Mr. Collins survives him. There were nine children in all, including one sister who died in infancy. Mrs. Collins was of Irish birth, and the Bishop liked to think that he had Irish blood in his veins, and told people that he could feel a thrill when he went near the shores of Ireland. A few months after the Bishop's birth the family removed into Cornwall. The removal was occasioned by his father's appointment as Lecturer and Assistant Secretary to the Miners' Association of Cornwall and Devon ao appoint- ment in which he succeeded the late Sir Clement Le Neve Foster. A little later he was also made Secretary to the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and County Analyst, and later still, Honorary Secretary to the Royal Institution of Cornwall. In the year 1874, Mr. Collins, who had made for himself a distinguished place among the scientific men of the West, began also to practise as a consulting Mining Engineer an employment which soon took him much away from home, and into far countries. The frequent absence of the father threw upon Mrs. Collins a heavy burden of responsibility in bringing up her family. She was a devoted mother, and received in return the whole- hearted affection of her children, especially, it may be said, of William. He cared less for out-of-door pursuits than the A 2 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS other boys, and made himself her " right hand " in the duties of the home. The eldest son, Henry, went to the Truro Grammar School, the school of Henry Martyn and other famous men, and under his father's tuition obtained at a very early age a Royal Scholarship at the Royal School of Mines, and so began a successful career as a Mining Metallur- gist. William and his younger brothers were placed, as soon as they were of school age, at the Collegiate School in Lemon Street, Truro, kept by the late Mr. F. Nuttall, where they were well grounded in the ordinary branches of education. It had been intended that they also should pass to the Grammar School ; but in 1881 Mr. Collins took an appoint- ment at the Rio Tinto Mines in Spain, and the family, with the exception of the eldest son, removed to that country. It was at this time that the connexion between the present writer and the subject of this memoir began. Bishop Benson had put the parish of St. John's, Truro, into the charge of myself and my colleague, the Rev. F. E. Carter, during a vacancy. The Collins family were parishioners of St. John's. The boys were rather young to be confirmed, William not 14, and Arthur only 12, but their parents were uncertain what opportunities there might be of getting them confirmed abroad and desired that it should be done before they left Cornwall. Seldom can a priest have had a more delightful task laid upon him than it was to prepare the two eager, intelligent, open-minded, pure-hearted boys for their Con- firmation and first Communion. A more beautiful tender- ness of conscience than theirs it would hardly be possible to imagine. At this early age began William Collins's connexion with the country from which in after life he was to take his title. He was very happy at Rio Tinto with his brothers and sisters. He edited a little family magazine, full of observation and humour. He acquired the Spanish language. But it was found that the climate did not suit him. After several voy- ages to England and back, he was sent home for good, and lodged with his eldest brother in London. It was now deter- mined that he should take up law as his profession. He was put into the office of Sir Albert Rollit in Mincing Lane. An EARLY LIFE 3 incident in his career as a lawyer's clerk is remembered. Late one evening he was told to go and serve a writ upon a butcher in Wapping. The man was known to be a violent and reck- less character, and the neighbourhood was not an inviting one. As young Collins was starting on his errand, the head clerk said to him : " By-the-bye, I suppose you don't carry a revolver about you ? " No, he did not. " Perhaps you have a good strong pocket knife ? " He had not even that. " Here, then ; you had better take the office ruler with you." So armed, he went to Wapping. He succeeded in getting the butcher to come down and open the door, and thrusting his foot in, so that the door might not be shut, got the writ into his hand. When the man saw what it was, he aimed a heavy blow at the young clerk, but Collins managed to ward it off with the ruler, and fled. The law, however, was not his vocation. He had set his heart upon being ordained. His father entered his name for the Scholae Cancellarii at Truro, founded a few years before by Bishop Benson, which was under the guidance of Chan- cellor Whitaker. Just about this time I was called up to London, to serve the Church of Allhallows Barking, near Mincing Lane, and was brought again into close relations with William Collins. It seemed a pity that so fine an intellect should not have the advantage of a University education. With a large family growing up and a limited income, his father was not in a position to give him this advantage un- aided. The boy had not been sufficiently taught to help himself by obtaining a scholarship. I was permitted to enlist the sympathies of a few friends. Mr. Munro, the editor of Lucretius, and Mr. Wheatley-Balme, an old friend of my father's and a generous benefactor of Selwyn College, promised substantial contributions ; and with this assistance a project which we had for some time discussed was carried into effect, and Mr. Collins was able to send the boy to Selwyn, where he began residence in October, 1884. His undergraduate career was not particularly happy. The College had only been opened two years before, and the men had scarcely, perhaps, fallen into the ordered ways of those in older Colleges. Collins suffered a good deal of 4 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS " ragging." He was determined to be like a Nazarite and to allow no razor to touch his skin. This was resented by the others, and long arguments and entreaties from parents and older friends were required before his natural obstinacy was overcome and the offence removed. I cannot find that he made any real friends among his fellow undergraduates, though he did among the dons. He worked very hard, and lived very severely, so much, indeed, as to injure his health. He chose the Mathematical Tripos to work for principally because he knew more mathematics to begin with than any- thing else. He thought also that the study of mathematics would supply what he considered to be a defect in his own mind. Greek he had never learned till he began attending classes at the Birkbeck Institution in London with a view to entering the University, and to the end of his life he had only a fair working acquaintance with it. At the end of his three years he obtained quite a creditable place, near the top of the Junior Optimes. But while he made Mathematics his Tripos subject, and treated it with dutiful respect, he was giving his spare time and thought to other branches of learning. Nothing came amiss to him. He was an omnivorous reader. Already the study of history, and especially of history in its bearings upon religion, had begun to engross him. As soon as he was set free from the trammels of his Tripos, he began to read for Dr. Lightfoot's University Scholarship, which is given for proficiency in Ecclesiastical History, but in Ecclesi- astical History in its connexion with History in general. I was appointed to examine for the Scholarship that year, 1888, in conjunction with Dr. Hodgkin, the author of Italy and her Invaders. Collins showed an extraordinary and detailed knowledge of the special subjects set ; but his com- petitor, Mr. Townsend- Warner, a Fellow of Jesus College, had done brilliantly in the History Tripos of the previous year, and so had the start of him in general historical learn- ing. Nevertheless we were unanimous in publishing the statement that the merits of W. E. Collins, B.A., of Selwyn College, were very nearly equal to those of the successful candidate. I declined to examine again the following year. EARLY LIFE 5 Collins was then elected without any hesitation, and in the year after (1890) he received the award of one of the Prince Consort Prizes, for a dissertation on the Conversion of Frisia. Parts of two letters written at this time by Mr. Lyttelton, then Master of Selwyn, will show something of what was felt about him by the authorities of his College. The first refers to the Lightfoot Scholarship, the second to the Prince Consort Prize. " May 5, 1889. ... I cannot refrain from a line of congratulation, most heartfelt and thorough. It is a real moral triumph over physical difficulties, and one of which you may be far prouder than of the intellectual feat, considerable though that is. I hope you are fond enough of the College to sympathize with my great pleasure over the credit you have won for it." " February 5, 1890. ... It is a very satisfactory sort of prize to get, and I shall look forward to adding the essay to the Library with great pride the first genuine Selwyn publication. ..." Collins, however, was not satisfied with the essay, and never worked it up into a condition to be published. Meanwhile a bereavement had befallen him which greatly affected his home life. The family had returned to England in 1884, and were domiciled in London, the father practising as a Consulting Mining Engineer, with frequent absences abroad. At each recurring Christmas, if not very frequently at other times of the year, William used to join those members of the family who were in England. There was constant correspondence between them, even when they did not meet. On Good Friday, in the year that William took his degree, his mother died. Mr. Collins says : " I was away in Transylvania, Arthur in Norway, Harry in Spain. Will and George were at home, but both were engaged elsewhere when she died, only the little daughters and her mother being actually present. It fell to Will to summon us home by telegraph and to make all the funeral arrangements. Arthur and I reached home in time for the 6 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS funeral ; Harry could not leave Spain just then, and could only telegraph his grief and sympathy. He joined me soon after in Transylvania when I returned there after the funeral. Will was still more engrossed in his studies after the death of his mother ; and from that time for several years, although there were many casual visits and much affectionate corres- pondence, he had scarcely any part in our family life." It may be well to say, in reference to this last sentence, that there was never anything of the nature of an estrange- ment between the Bishop and his own kinsfolk. To his brother Arthur, in particular, he was most deeply attached. Although they met so seldom, for Arthur spent several years of his life in the service of the late Amir of Afghanistan, besides prolonged sojourns in Mexico and in South America the two were devoted friends. Few sorrows touched the Bishop so profoundly as the death of this able and gallant younger brother, who was killed in 1902, at the age of 33, by anarchist miners on strike in Colorado, refusing to listen to any warnings that his life was in danger. To his father William always sent everything that he wrote. When his sisters were married in 1896 and 1907, it was he who married them. He baptized his nephews and nieces. After his consecration his intercourse with the family became closer than before. He paid frequent visits to Crinnis, in Cornwall, where Mr. Collins had settled, and to his elder brother at the Cordova Copper Mines in Spain. The ties of natural affection were never weak in the Bishop ; but in early life his studies and his main interests lay in a different direction from those which carried his father and his brothers all over the world, and the death of his dearly loved mother at what was for him a critical age served to throw him more and more upon the sympathies of friends unconnected with him by birth. In these he was already rich. In the Clergy House of Allhallows Barking he was surrounded by men who knew how to appreciate him. The late William Bellars, after- wards Vicar of Margate, a man of thought and learning ; the late David Evans, son of the famous Greek Professor at Durham, and a sharer in his father's genius ; Cyril Bicker- steth, Reginald Adderley, Herbert Thornton ; these were EARLY LIFE 7 the first group of associates with whom he was there thrown. That house, 7 Trinity Square, E.G., was for many years to be more of a home to him than any other. Before he was connected with Allhallows, he had been attracted to Christ Church, Albany Street, first under Mr. Burrows, then under Mr. Festing, afterwards Bishop of St. Albans. He taught a class there, and served as a reader in the church. The attachments there formed were permanent. Bishop Festing made him one of his Examining Chaplains. His friendship with Dr. W. J. Sparrow Simpson, then Assistant Curate at Christ Church, lasted throughout life. At Cambridge, after his degree, he found a congenial home in the house of Mr. H. M. Gwatkin, now Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History. Mrs. Gwatkin became a second mother to the delicate young man, who stood in such need of loving care, and the sym- pathetic and stimulating guidance of Mr. Gwatkin was of in- calculable benefit to him in his chosen studies. Another home , not less motherly, was opened to him at Wimbledon. Mrs. Thurston Holland, the daughter of the immortal authoress of Cranford, took him into her house. He spent almost the whole of 1889 there. He used to give " lecturettes " in the schoolroom to the children and friends of the family. And he needed the nursing which he received. The long strain of reading for the Lightfoot had told heavily upon his heart. One day I was telegraphed for ; the doctor at Wimbledon thought he had not long to live. He told me that with such an enfeebled remnant of a heart he did not expect William Collins to live more than a few months at the outside. But Dr. Symes Thompson, who was very good to him, gave a more hopeful account. He said that, with care, he might live to fifty, but not beyond. II. ALLHALLOWS BARKING AND KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON. IN the year 1890 Collins was ordained deacon, and priest the year after, by Bishop Temple. His title was a curacy of Allhallows Barking. The Bishop was not altogether willing to admit him on that title. There was little parochial work for him to do, and the situation was rather abnormal. But Collins had not the physical strength for an ordinary curacy. The Bishop soon found that it was no common man that he had to deal with, and gave way. He made the further con- cession of allowing Collins, during the Ember week, to stay in the kind and cheerful home of Mr. and Mrs. Etherington Smith, at Putney, just opposite Fulham, where he was well cared for. The work committed to the clergy of Allhallows, over and above the service of the venerable church one of the few which escaped the Great Fire of London and of the parish attached to it, consisted of Missions and Retreats in various parts of the country, courses of sermons and instructions, and lectures of different kinds. Collins took his share in these duties. We endeavoured to keep the share as small as we could, but it was not easy to restrain him. Naturally, lectures on English Church History formed a large part of his engagements, and courses of this kind which he gave at Maidstone, at Belvedere, and at Croydon, were largely attended, and made a great impression. One of his chief friendships of those days bound him to the house of the scholarly Dr. Monckton of Maidstone, where he was a constant visitor, when lecturing at that centre. ALLHALLOWS BARKING 9 Two of our colleagues at Allhallows record their first impressions of him there. Dr. Arthur Robinson, the present Vicar, says : " My first sight of Willie Collins, as he was then familiarly called, was in the summer of 1887, at the Mission College on Tower Hill, not long before I myself joined the staff. He was then a young layman fresh from Cambridge, making up his mind as to his future course. I remember the impression he left upon me of blended modesty and ability, and a talk we had as to the possibility of combining historical study with the work of a curacy, perhaps in the East End of London. The solution of that problem was most happily found when he too became a member of the College of Allhallows, which had its old City Church and its little parish, both of them full of unusually varied activities and interests. In all of these he took his share. Sympathising heartily with the parochial side of things, he preached with freedom and fervour, and early shewed his remarkable gift of winning the affection of individuals, sparing no pains to be of use to them. Some of his sermons are well remembered still ; as for instance, one on St. Paul's dream vision of the man who beckoned him over to Europe." The Rev. G. C. Fletcher, now Vicar of Newchurch in Pendle, writes : " I recollect Willie Collins, as every one called him, coming to Trinity Square a lad of 17 or 18, with his pale face, and his great eyes, and his wondrous knowledge. I remember how the wonder of his encyclopaedic knowledge grew upon us. We expected him to know a good deal of Church History ; but his experience with his father in Spain, and then his insight into the law, as a clerk to a solicitor, had given him such a quantity of unusual knowledge. I suppose it was a good deal later that he undertook the Bible Class for the elder lads ; but I remember his remark- able experience coming out in his reply to one of them, who introduced a Bible difficulty, the shooting forth of the olive leaf after the Flood. ' Well,' said Willie, ' I remember perfectly well, after the great flood in Spain in the year (whatever it was), that I saw with my own eyes that the io LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS olive was the first tree to shew any leaves ! ' After his ordination, I remember his sermons, tightly packed with material for three in each of them, and I remember how much we were all amused to see how closely he set himself to imitate [an older man to whom he was attached]." In the letter in which Mr. Lyttelton congratulated him on obtaining the Prince Consort Prize, he added : " I have been hearing about you from Samuel Bickersteth, 1 who is staying with me. He is full of your lectures and the impression they are making. I hope you find the people responsive. . . . I seldom have to think of one of my Selwyn men being ordained with such unalloyed pleasure as I feel in your case, and my hope and prayer for you is that you will have strength and health granted you to carry out the promise with which you have begun. You will, I know, be alive to the danger of letting your absorbing intellectual interests encroach upon your spiritual and pastoral life, and the position to which you are called will be a great safeguard against this." A year after this letter was written, the Master wrote again " to tempt him away from Allhallows," by the offer of a post as lecturer at Selwyn, which was speedily followed by a similar offer from St. John's. The double offer was very flattering, and he had serious doubts whether it did not conceal a snare for him. He kept a letter from a wise friend at Cambridge which helped to remove his doubts : " Perhaps your health would be better for lighter and more regular work, with less scurrying after trains. Perhaps you are rushing at your life's work too hastily, and would be none the worse for a quieter time just now. Either of these would be a weighty reason. You need not be modest about your degree, for you have done quite enough History to go upon. And as for ' spiritual gifts/ the less we think of such things the better. If we are doing our duty, our place matters little ; and, indeed, we are not often wise enough to say whether one place is spiritually better than another. 'A 1 Then Vicar of Belvedere. ALLHALLOWS BARKING n College don's life should be spiritual ' and so should the grocer's. You will not sink into the rut if you keep the highest call before you rather than these lower ones of station and opportunity." He accepted the invitation, and for the next two years did excellent work in the two Colleges and in the University. Besides his teaching in Church History, he lectured on Political Science and kindred subjects, and his lectures were highly appreciated. Of this period Mrs. Gwatkin writes to me : "All the time he was a don at Selwyn, he spent part of Sunday with us ; and when he left Selwyn, but still kept on his Lectureship at St. John's, he stayed every week with us when he came down for his lectures. No words can tell what a joy and blessing his love and sympathy were to me all those years. It is something to thank God for all one's life. At that time he was in very bad health, suffering so much from his heart, and I used really to listen with anxiety in the morning to hear if he was moving overhead, but I have never known anyone who more resolutely refused to allow health to interfere with his work." There was not much to record in the uneventful life of the University student and teacher ; but he came into close relations with men who left their mark upon him. Chief among these was the Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Mandell Creighton, afterwards Bishop of London. At a time when many earnest Churchmen saw in Creighton only a brilliant and somewhat scoffing epigrammatist, Collins was allowed to see the Christian. He formed a devoted attachment to him, and if any man could be called his master in regard to a broad outlook upon history and life, it was Bishop Creighton. After Collins left Cambridge, Lord Acton became Professor there ; and common studies then brought them together and they were friends. But it was Creighton to whom Collins owed what he became as an ecclesiastical historian and statesman. The effect of his teaching upon pupils and fellow teachers alike was all that his friends expected. At the beginning of the year 1893, Mr. Lyttelton vacated the Mastership of 12 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Selwyn for the vicarage of Eccles. He wrote to Collins on February 21 : " You have been associated so long and so closely with the College that my thoughts turn very soon to you when I think over the change. I cannot but thank you very deeply for all your help, not only in these later years as a Lecturer, but from the first as an undergraduate, and one who has done the College so much credit. I am sure that my going will not diminish your interest in it, and your devotion to it, and it is a great consolation to me to feel that." Mr. Lyttelton's departure from Cambridge was followed at no great interval by Collins's own. The Professorship of Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London, fell vacant, and Collins applied for the post. On November 4, 1893, Mr. Lyttelton wrote again from Eccles : " I am so sorry for the College, and for your colleagues, and a little bit for myself in losing one of my chief ties to Selwyn. But of course you come first, and from what I have heard from Knight 1 and from the Master 2 I have been reluctantly facing the probability that the ' experiment ' we made, and which for some time seemed to be really succeeding with you, must come to an end. Last term, indeed, I saw that you were all wrong in health again, so your news came as no surprise. . . . Let me preach to you once more I shan't venture when you are a Professor about overwork. Interest in a subject doesn't make it any the less noxious if pursued when you ought to be in bed, as I have sometimes found myself, though I have never tried the ex- periment on your scale. You may do such good work for the Church and for knowledge that it is a duty to others, as well as to yourself, to take care of your health." Collins, though only twenty-six years old, was elected to the Professorship, which, as he loved to remember, had once been held by Maurice, though Maurice, to the disgrace of the history of the College, was ejected from it. His imme- diate predecessor in the office was the amiable and learned John Mee Fuller. The Principal of the College at the time 1 Now Bishop of Gibraltar. J Bishop J. R. Selwyn. KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 13 of his appointment was Dr. Wace, now Dean of Canterbury ; but during his tenure of the Professorship Dr. Wace was succeeded, in 1897, by Dr. Robertson, now Bishop of Exeter, and he again, in 1903, by the present Principal, Dr. Headlam. It was a period of crisis in the history of the College, and the part which Collins took in the development of affairs has been kindly sketched for me in the following paper by Dr. Caldecott, than whom no man is better qualified to form an opinion on the subject : " As last century drew to a close a problem of great interest had come to a crisis, namely, how far the Church of England was prepared out of its own resources to maintain in London a purely Church College. The situation of King's College, founded in 1829, brought this problem to the necessity of a decision. For some years the Treasury had been making grants to University Colleges outside Oxford and Cambridge, and King's had had its share of them. But when Sir William Harcourt was Chancellor of the Exchequer, this share was withheld on the ground that the College was not an open one ; the consequence of this was that the College was unable to keep its place in line with the other Colleges in London and elsewhere. The restriction of the College did not, indeed, extend to the students : for some years a con- science clause had been in force, and widely claimed. But all members of the Council which governed the College were assumed to be Churchmen, and the principal members of the staff, with the exception of the Professors of Oriental and Modern Languages, had specifically to declare themselves members of the Church of England. This declaration was liberally interpreted ; it was made on appointment and nothing further was required. Still it undoubtedly restricted the range of selection for vacancies ; and it stood there as a bulwark from one point of view, as a barrier from the other. " An appeal to the Church to supply the deficiency in funds was decided upon. Lord Salisbury came forward and supported it in a speech at the public meeting which was called, and it was widely circulated. But the appeal failed. Some 30,000 was raised, while not less than 100,000 was 14 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS asked for and was indispensable if the College were to be independent of the Treasury grant. " Further, as the formation of a teaching University for London was coming into sight, a fresh need for reform became obvious, as it was certain that the limited constitution of King's would bar its admission as a constituent college in any Faculty except Theology, and that it would cease to be in any substantial sense a University College at all. " Dr. Wace was the Principal at this time, and he stood for the continuance of the original constitution at all costs : the Council was understood to be divided. It was in this situation that Dr. Robertson, now Bishop of Exeter, suc- ceeded to the headship of the College. The members of the general staff were restless and dissatisfied, especially when the failure of the appeal was manifest ; but they were un- willing to take action in opposition to the declared policy of the Council, and were reluctant to seem to oppose their colleagues in the Theological department. A movement for reform that would not break up the College could scarcely have begun elsewhere than within the Theological staff itself : if a plan were devised that would not be opposed by them the general staff would cordially welcome it. Such a plan was not far to seek since at Oxford and Cambridge recent legislation had thrown open all governing bodies and teaching posts both in the University and in the several Colleges, whilst retaining provision for religious worship and religious instruction according to the principles of the Church of England. What was recognised at King's was, therefore, that a similar method should be adopted in place of the original close constitution for the Council and the Professor- ships ; while the Theological department should be con- tinued on its old lines and the privileges of worship and instruction be offered to the students in all Faculties. The continuance of the College as a place of preparation for Holy Orders would be on the same footing as the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. " Some members of the Theological staff had for a long time been convinced that this was the proper constitution for King's as a London College in the new and more promising KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 15 circumstances of University Education in London, and would enable it not only to share in all grants, but to take a high position in the new University. But no member's opinion was so important at this juncture as that of Collins, and when after long deliberation he decided to add the weight of his judgment to that side, others followed, and the Theological Staff decided for the reform policy with the approval of the Principal. This being made known the general staff now saw its way clear to express their opinion : there only re- mained the Council. Of this body, Dr. Wace, who had become Dean of Canterbury, was an active member and he still advocated persistence in the original constitution, carry- ing with him some members of the Council. But the majority decided for the reform and it was promptly carried out by an Act of Parliament, which limited the requirement of a declaration of Church Membership to the Professors and Lecturers in the Faculty of Theology ; a step which was carried still further when by the Act of Incorporation of 1908 the Council was, except for the Theological side of the College, replaced by a Delegacy of the Senate of the University. " What has been the consequence ? There is no longer in London a College which is in government, teaching and students a purely Church of England College, maintained solely by endowments, fees, and the subscriptions of Church- men. The idea of such a College has many attractions, but on the condition that its staff and its equipment be at least equal to those of other Colleges of University rank : to be inferior in quality could only be mischievous to all concerned. As we have seen, this idea did not appeal to Churchmen with sufficient force to produce the necessary financial support, and the idea remains only as that of what might have been, but has not succeeded in establishing itself in actuality. What we have instead is the present King's College, sharing in the Treasury grants to the extent of .8,000 a year, sharing also in grants from the London County Council and other municipal bodies to an increasing extent ; and, what is even more important, a constituent College of the rapidly advancing University of London : the second College in size, the first in the comprehensiveness of 16 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS its range of work. It has already supplied the University with a Vice-Chancellor in the person of Dr. Robertson, its Principal ; Professors and Lecturers are prominent in the work of the University on every level, in the Senate, the Faculties, the Board of Studies and the Examining Boards ; and five hundred of its students are enrolled as Internal Students of the University with all the privileges signified by that status. The Theological department on its part has shared in the general advance. By the remarkable organis- ing capacity of the present Principal, Dr. Headlam, re- arrangements have been made which have raised the number of men preparing for Holy Orders from an average total of about sixty to a hundred and eighty ; and for the supply of clergy to the three London dioceses especially (London, Southwark, and St. Albans) the contribution of the College has become quite indispensable. "The efficacy of the action of individuals when great changes are effected affords a subject of perennial interest. It is possible that the forces impelling the course of Uni- versity Education in London would have led to the present situation at King's in any case. But to those who watched the actual working out it seems as if the decision of Collins, with all the confidence that he carried with him on the Theological staff, was an indispensable factor in the change. If this is so, it was one of the most momentous acts of his life. And there is no difficulty in discerning in it that blend of high respect for the past with confidence in the future amid all changes, which invariably characterised his mind and guided his action." The effect which Collins produced upon the students of the College was immediate. One of them, the Rev. J. Evan Franks, writes to me : " Professor Collins came to King's College when the staff consisted mostly of ' potent and reverend signiors,' . . . and I remember how startled we were when, instead of our grey- headed lecturer, there came into the lecture-room a surpris- ingly young-looking man. " Our first thoughts were that we should have to teach him, but after a few lectures, full of research and information, KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 17 without any of what we used to call padding, and for which he either had no notes or hardly ever referred to them, we realised that the authorities had been more than justified in their choice, and that a higher standard would henceforth be required of us. We found this to be the case in a change he made, which was not agreeable to all, when at the end of term he placed several names under a line as not having passed in the examination. " Professor Collins spared no pains to make us learn. I remember on one occasion his making me jump into a cab with him, when he was going to the British Museum, and, on the way, vehemently clearing up some difficulties which I had about his lecture on Wycliffe. " Party feeling ran very high in those days at King's. Professor Collins thus had a difficult task before him, as he had to endeavour to make his teaching useful to both parties. He put before us historical facts in such a way that one felt that there was no special pleading or party- spirit in his treatment of the subject, but impartiality and fairness in stating all sides of the question. Thus he could admire all that was best in the Roman Communion, com- paring the Papacy to the watching servant in the parable who was rewarded by being made ruler of his master's possessions ; whilst at the same time he had an equal admiration for Puritan earnestness ; but neither of these considerations in any way militated against his firm con- viction that the Church of England was the Catholic Church in this country." The same writer, after speaking of Collins's accustomed tact in not arousing unnecessary opposition by using words which give offence, adds : " But in dealing with the unintelligent ceremonialist, the penny-catechism expert, or the prejudiced Protestant, his gentleness and tender smile would vanish, and we could some- times see a struggle to overcome a latent irritability of temper. With Professor Collins things had been so thought out, and become so clear, that he could not patiently tolerate the crude dogmatic utterances of those who tried to twist history to suit their own preconceived notions. B i8 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS " Two of his most ardent desires were to improve the more directly spiritual influence of the College, and the esprit de corps of the students, which must always be a difficulty in a non-residential Theological College. The Hostel now, I believe, is a great help in this direction. Towards this end, Professor Collins ardently supported the scheme for a day's retreat for the students, as also the arrangement that on the Saints' Days, when there was a late celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the students who practised fasting Communion should not be urged to communicate. " I think he found it rather an effort outside the lecture- room to bring himself down to our ordinary level. His efforts in this direction were rather like the unathletic priest, who feels he has to study the cricket and football news, in order to gain the respect of the choir boys. He never seemed at home in ordinary small talk and one felt impelled, in talk- ing to him, to bring up to the front all one's reserves of learn- ing, when he would be quite at his ease. " I saw little or nothing of him after leaving King's, but shall always be grateful for his influence and teaching, which at a critical time in my life was a great help to me, especially in making me apprehend the spiritual realities which lie on the other side of the Sacraments, and the Catholicity of the Church of England." Another student, the Rev. G. W. Gillingham, says : "As to the man. He had a charming personality which endeared him to all the students at King's, and during the whole time that I was there, I never heard a single word spoken against him. We were rather a mixed lot ; high church, low church, broad church ; but his Christianity was so transparent that every one loved him ; it was simply impossible to do anything else. " He fascinated us all with his lectures upon Church History, which, owing to the extraordinary faculty he had for picking out underlying principles, he always contrived to make interesting no matter how dull the period we happened to be studying. He held, of course, decided views on this and other subjects ; but he never allowed his own predilections to prevent him from placing before us both KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 19 sides of any given question and he was never bitter or sarcastic towards the side which was not his own. " It was not at all an uncommon thing for him to spend half an hour or more after a lecture, in trying to clear up a difficulty which had arisen in the mind of a student. This was only one of the many traits which served to show that the guiding principle of the man's life was ' to serve others.' " The Quiet Days which he conducted at King's from time to time were spiritual delights which will live for ever in the minds of those who attended them. Indeed, it was largely due to him that these became a regular part of our college life. And I don't think I shall be very far wrong in saying that it was he more than anyone else at King's who inspired us with a real affection for our daily services in chapel. " If there is anyone to whom he might be compared, I think it is the ' beloved disciple,' at least so it struck many of us at the time. He was brimming over with love for everybody and everything except sin." Another, the Rev. C. D. Read, says : " Like everyone else, I used to enjoy his most delightful lectures very much. They were illustrated from all sorts of unexpected sources, and showed again and again the extra- ordinary scope of his reading. His expounding of History was a revelation. It was no mere list of facts and party tags, but a real endeavour to unravel the mysteries of a living past and to understand the slow yet sure processes by which the Holy Spirit works. Perhaps the point he emphasised most was the slow and irresistible working of Providence." Yet another, the Rev. Albert Smith, writes : " He carried with him the calm of one used to habitual prayer. Before his lectures he would lean his head on his hands for a few moments, and one realised that it was not merely for collection of thought. Another thing that we students were conscious of was that his unfailing gentleness sprang from a heart of unbounded sympathy." One more testimony may be given, that of the Rev. L. V. Edwards : " Not long before my going to King's College in 1902, Bishop Collins had edited a book with sketches of the lives 20 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS of some great English Churchmen, himself contributing the last chapter, on F. D. Maurice. This was quite enough for one who was a hero-worshipper of Maurice to stir excitement at the thought of sitting under such a teacher. I soon found, on taking up residence at King's College Hostel, that the Lecturer on Church History had a great repute amongst the students. Everyone was full of his praises. In one respect he had a unique position amongst the Professors. There was a knot of students of the rather rigid High Church type, and with them Professor Collins was the one trusted figure. Everything he said was law. How exactly he obtained this position it is difficult to say, for when challenged he never concealed his opinions, but expressed them quite clearly.... " Though the students were all preparing for Holy Orders, ' ragging ' during lecture was not unknown. The Bishop, however, had no difficulty in this respect. He seemed to expect perfect discipline, and obtained it quite easily. One incident in his lectures stands out very clearly in my memory. He happened to be speaking of Oliver Cromwell, and men- tioned that if he had broken all the images and coloured windows with which he was credited, he must have spent his whole life in doing nothing else. This statement brought forth a cheer from the ' protestant ' students. A minute or two afterwards he happened to make some trifling statement, such as that Confirmation was sacramental, and this in turn produced a cheer from the ' spiky ' side. Instantly he stopped lecturing, and said very sternly, ' Never let that happen again,' and so long as I was at King's it certainly never did. . . . He would delight in pointing out how certain things had gradually become customary under certain conditions, and had passed little by little into unbending laws. With his lectures there was no nice balancing of two views, leaving you to form your own opinions. He gave us his own opinions quite dogmatically. I remember once his saying that the North Galatian theory was now discredited, and that everyone knew that St. Paul had not abandoned the main roads and towns of commerce. This was rather startling to us who had been spending nearly a whole term under another teacher learning all the pros and cons of the ALLHALLOWS BARKING 21 North and South Galatian theories, and trying in vain to balance the probabilities of the case. " One of the Bishop's habits was at the beginning of term to open his lecture with the collect for St. Philip and St. James's Day, and always he prayed quietly at the lecture desk before beginning the work for the morning. His favourite attitude for lecturing was with both hands in his pockets, his face beaming with eager delight in his subject. When he touched on some vital truth of the Christian faith, his voice would imperceptibly change into deep solemn tones. At the beginning of a year he would occupy his first lecture with general subjects, trying to instruct us how to consult books of reference in libraries, and give us the secret of extracting in a short time just the information needed. I remember one of his obiter dicta was to read books by authors who wrote from a different standpoint to your own (giving as an instance Martensen's Dogmatics), as likely to teach you more than authors who wrote from your own particular point of view." With his return to London in 1893 as Professor at King's College, Collins's connexion with Allhallows Barking was resumed. He was again licensed to the church. He became again a resident member of the House in Trinity Square. For a while he even attempted to retain his connexion with Cambridge, and ran thither each week for two days to lecture at St. John's. About the same time he became an associate of the Community of the Resurrection, then under the guidance of the present Bishop of Oxford. About his work and life at Allhallows, Dr. Robinson, under whose direction he spent so many years there, writes as follows : " In the outside work of the House he bore no inconsider- able part. Besides all he had to do as Professor of Ecclesi- astical History at King's College, he constantly preached in London and in various parts of the country. Occasionally he conducted Retreats, and more rarely Missions ; going as far afield as the Riviera and the West Indies. Often he astonished and alarmed us by the journeys he made. It seemed quite natural to him to arrange to lecture at Croydon 22 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS in the evening, after reading a paper earlier in the day at a Church Congress in the Midlands. How he got through all he undertook was inexplicable. It is not an exaggeration to say that he did the intellectual work of three ordinary men. Even if that work did not as a rule entail what is called ' original ' thinking, the demands upon memory and the labour of composition were incessant. Whatever the subject, the requisite knowledge was always forthcoming, and the article or the lecture never failed to leave the readei or hearer with a sense that there was much more behind than had been expressed. His power of lucid arrangement was most en- viable, and his judgments were unusually careful and sound. How the frame of the man could endure the strain was a perpetual puzzle. He must have possessed an extraordinary constitution to bear up as he did under his serious physical infirmities. There can be no doubt that he suffered much. The toils of the day, he would say, were not to be compared with the labours of the night. Heart trouble made a lying position distressing to him, and indeed he made use of his bed as little as possible, to judge by the hour at which he could be heard going out in the early morning to post his bundles of letters. Food was apparently no more necessary to him than sleep. I used in vain to try to persuade him that, if only he would eat more, he might be able to do less ! He loved movement, and wrote with ease in a train. It was always a delight to him to meet people, and to encounter a new fact. Perhaps omniscience was his foible. Certainly it was hard to discover anybody or anything he did not know. When we were doubtful as to a point in the geography of Heligoland, he at once appealed to the last communication which he had himself received from the Governor of the island. If it was a question of seamanship, we were made aware that he had passed the examination for a mate's certificate. And it was clear that he felt a real satisfaction when he could counter a statement with the assertion : ' that is exactly what it is not.' " But there was a singular gentleness beneath all the assur- ance and intrepidity; and we often trembled to think how un- certain a tenure of life his was. The change which sent him ALLHALLOWS BARKING 23 away from London, and to the work on the Continent, was timely and wise. He lived the longer for it, and found yet wider scope for his manifold gifts. It was not in him to rest until he was compelled to do so. He had put a full seventy years' work and experience into his little more than forty. Of his episcopate I need not tell. Others will bear abundant evidence to its fruitfulness. I am only anxious that some justice should be done to the twelve good years during which he was preparing for it here at Allhallows Barking. During those years he was the untiring student, to whom a life of spiritual devotion was more important than all the activities and achievements of the intellect ; and the sympathetic teacher, who was never out of touch with the difficulties of ordinary people, and never too busy to be at the service of the many who instinctively turned to him for help." A much valued colleague at Allhallows, the Rev. W. P. Dott, obligingly sends me a few reminiscences of his life there : " I lived under the same roof with him for eight years and saw him in various moods. Once I remember him stopping a fight in Trinity Square by throwing himself boldly between the fighters at the risk certainly of being roughly handled both by the combatants and the crowd of ' roughs.' He was returning from a lecture at King's College, and in a moment his quiet thoughtful mood was changed for one of equally quiet courage in facing danger. With the American poet, in little things as in great, ' He saw his duty as a dead sure thing, And then and there he went for it.' A few words of reasoning with the two men, and he walked into the house as if nothing out of the way had happened. " He would amuse and astonish us at table sometimes by quoting (and singing) the latest comic song. He had heard it in the train or the street, and with his unfaltering memory could give the words as though he had carefully learnt them. In his lighter moments he was full of quips, and taught the lesson in these moods of how good a thing it is to throw off the strain of an arduous life. 24 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS " I persuaded him to occupy a seat in Cheapside to view the Diamond Jubilee Procession, and never have I seen him so animated, nor exhibit so much miscellaneous knowledge, as that day. He knew the records of all the regiments that passed by ; the attainments of all the prominent officers ; he recognised most of the visitors from distant shores and could tell of their reputations ; and his loyalty to the throne was shown in unmistakable enthusiasm when the central figure of the procession came in sight. " It was my privilege to visit him frequently during the serious illness when he was a patient in Guy's Hospital. He made light of his sufferings and filled his waking hours with fresh studies, bearing his ills with astonishing courage and hardihood, drawing the warm admiration of doctors and nurses upon himself, so that they were almost sorry when he left their hands." Perhaps the first occasion on which Collins came before a larger public was in connexion with the Missionary Con- ference of the Anglican Communion in 1894. So far as I can ascertain, he had no share in the origination of the Conference > which was mainly due to the late Sir James Erasmus Phillips ; but Collins took an active interest in it, was one of the guarantors, and a member of the Executive Committee. Three times he spoke in the course of the Conference, once to protest a paper which he considered at the same time " inflammatory " and " very despondent " about the state of church affairs in Japan; once to urge that we should discriminate between the essentials of a Church which desires to be in Catholic Communion, and those things which may be left for free development ; the third time to suggest that not the same standard of intellectual attainment was neces- sary for clergymen working among very simple populations as for those elsewhere. 1 The tendency of all three speeches was against "Anglicising " those amongst whom our mission- aries are at work. The Conference was very useful at the time, and it prepared the way for the great Pan-Anglican Congress of 1908, in which Collins took a more conspicuous. 1 Report (S.P.C.K., 1894), pp. 227, 476, 508. LAUD COMMEMORATION 25 part. It may be added, in reference to the subject of Collins's third speech, that when Bishop of Gibraltar he ordained to the diaconate and to the priesthood an elderly man who had long laboured with great success among the sailor folk of the Mediterranean, whose standard of learning was not that of a home diocese, but whose spiritual qualification was beyond doubt. Among the special tasks which devolved upon Collins during this period was one which deeply interested him, both for the sake of Allhallows Barking, and as a Professor of Church History. It was the management of the commemo- ration of Archbishop Laud, which took place hi 1895. Laud was beheaded on Tower Hill, just outside the windows of the house where Collins lived, on January 10, 1645, and was buried on the following day in the Vicar's vault under the altar of Allhallows, " a church " as Heylin says, " of Laud's own patronage and jurisdiction," of which his nephew, Edward Layfield, was Vicar at the time. It was determined to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this event. An influential committee was formed, under the patronage of the President of Laud's College at Oxford. In the handsome chamber which had recently been erected over the porch of Allhallows Church an extraordinarily interesting collection of Laudian objects was exhibited. It included, besides the parochial registers of Laud's burial and subsequent removal to Oxford, the cap which he wore on the scaffold, and his ivory-headed walking stick, his copy of Bishop Andrewes' Devotions in the hand- writing of Andrewes himself, 1 one of the shirts worn by King Charles I. at his execution, many portraits of the Archbishop and pictures of places connected with him, and a wonderful assemblage of books and pamphlets relating to him. On the first day of the commemoration, January 10, a few minutes after one, the choir of the church, reinforced from a few neighbouring choirs, came into the snow-covered garden of the square. No effort had been made to attract numbers, but a considerable body of clergymen in surplices 1 It lay open at the place where Andrewes refers to his own baptism, in the church of Allhallows Barking. 26 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS followed the choir. The Te Deum was sung, and Heylin's account of the last scenes was read aloud to the sympathetic and reverent assemblage. It was a sight not easily to be forgotten. Later in the day, Mandell Creighton, then Bishop of Peterborough, lectured in the church on Laud's position in the history of the English Church. All the time that the exhibition was open, that is to the end of the month, lectures were given on various aspects of the work and character of the great Archbishop. Collins himself lectured on Laud as a Statesman, Professor Margoliouth on Laud's Educational Work, Mr. Hutton (now Archdeacon of North- ampton) on Laud in Controversy, and Mr. C. H. Simpkinson of Farnham on Laud's Personal Religion. The commemora- tion received a great deal of attention in the papers. The Times, on January n, had an exceedingly fine leading article on the subject, in which it repudiated " the prejudices of the illustrious writers who built up the great Whig legend in the first half of the century." Collins's labours in connexion with this celebration were great, and they did not end with the closing of the exhibition. For months in that year he was hard at work preparing for the press the valuable memorial volume, entitled Archbishop Laud Commemoration, 1895. The volume begins with an account of the commemoration itself ; then follow the lectures above mentioned ; then an elaborate bibliography of Laud's own writings, and of books and pamphlets relating to him, with an appendix of writings of his which were hitherto unpublished or not easily accessible ; and then the Catalogue of the Exhibition. It is an admirable example of what such a volume should be. The research which it indicates is wonderful, and Collins kept a copy by him, and added to it from time to time fresh material which he had discovered. Upon his personal life that commemoration had an effect which was not foreseen at the time. Among the generous contributors to the exhibition was Lord Northbourne. He saw in the papers the notice that was put forth beforehand requesting the loan of Laudian objects, and lent one or two rare and curious volumes. He visited the exhibition, and there made the acquaintance of the erudite young secretary. CHURCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY 27 What the friendship then formed became to Collins from that time onwards, no words can tell. His life would have been wholly different without it. A work of a wider kind, in which Collins had a large share, was that of the Church Historical Society. The period in which he became a Professor at King's College was one of recrudescence in the Roman controversy. The pushing and hectoring policy associated with the name of Cardinal Vaughan had started gaily on its career. A great organisa- tion for " the Apostolate of the Press " had been formed. Throughout the country unsleeping enemies seized every opportunity of injuring the Church of England and lowering it in the eyes of the people. It was, if I am not mistaken, the Rev. J. Sadler Phillips, now Vicar of St. Etheldreda's, Fulham, who first formed the idea of starting a counter " apostolate." Its duty was to keep an eye on the news- papers, especially the provincial newspapers, and mark any false statements about the Church that might be made there, not only by Romanists, but also by their allies the Libera- tionists, or others. Too often the cause of the Church of England had been taken up by zealous men who were in- sufficiently equipped for their task. They had rashly written to the papers, and had been gradually dragged into waters too deep for them. Skilled disputants on the Roman side intervened, and the weight of argument appeared to be on their side. This was the state of things which it was desired to remedy. The new society was to form a centre to which people all over England might turn for aid if the Church were assailed in their neighbourhood, with the certainty of finding expert knowledge to guide them in their defence. The Society got together quickly and quietly. The Presi- dency of it was accepted by Bishop Creighton, who held it till his death, when he was succeeded by John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury. The first Chairman of the managing Committee was the Bishop of Stepney, now Bishop of Bristol, who gave to it ungrudgingly of his time and energy, as well as his great knowledge. Mr. Phillips was a most active Secretary. Bishops like Stubbs and Westcott consented to act as referees. Dr. Bright and Father Puller, and Mr. Dixon, 28 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS the historian, took a lively interest in the work. Well-known men like Mr. Riley, Mr. Birkbeck, and Mr. Brinckman came diligently to the Monday meetings of the Committee at Sion College. But there was no one who threw himself into the project more heartily than the Professor of Church History at King's College. He was always at the Committee, of which he became Chairman when Bishop Browne left London, full of resource and suggestion, and untiring in listening to the reports which came in from the members and correspon- dents of the Society in various quarters. Besides this "Apostolate of the Press," the Society aimed at diffusing correct information and establishing right opinions by means of lectures in different centres. Naturally it was not possible for a Professor engaged in daily teaching to go far or often afield during the College terms ; but Collins did more even in this way than probably any other Professor would have done. In organising such work by others he was indefatigable ; and in yet another department of the Society's work the publication of short studies or papers he took a very large part. These papers were generously printed and published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. I have not a complete list of the papers which Collins wrote for the Church Historical Society, but I find the following : What was the Position of the Pope in England in the Middle Ages ? (1895), The Teaching Power of the Church, I. and II. (1896), The Authority of General Councils (1896), The Internal Evidence of the Letter " Apostolicae Curae " as to its own Origin and Value (1897), Unity, Catholic and Papal (1897), The Nature and Force of the Canon Law (1898) , The English Reformation and its Consequences (1898), The Canons of 1571 (1898), Four Recent Pronouncements (1899), Queen Elizabeth's Defence of her Proceedings (1899) , Suggestions for the Study of English Church History (1900), Church and State in England before the Conquest (1903), Thomas Becket (1903), Suggestions for the Study of Early Church History (1903), The Rights of a Particular Church in Matters of Practice (1904). Besides the papers which were all his own, he had a share, sometimes the principal share, in papers or books in which several authors combined, such as the volume of Typical English Church- CHURCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY 29 men from Parker to Maurice (1902), The Conditions of Church Life in the First Six Centuries (1905) , and Hancock's Peculium, to which he contributed an admirable and erudite introduction (2nd edition, 1907). The labour of criticising and editing the papers of other authors fell mainly upon him. He continued to be Chairman of the Society even after his consecration to the see of Gibraltar. Work of this kind naturally brought Collins into con- troversy with other people in various directions. Cardinal Vaughan, who, with all his excellent qualities, was not intellectually equipped for controversy, preached a sermon on March 14, 1897, in which he ventured to claim the support " of the Eastern and Russian Churches " for his view that Anglican orders were invalid because our priests did not " claim the power to produce the actual living Christ Jesus by transubstantiation upon the altar." I remember that in the summer of that year the present Archbishop of Peters- burg and Ladoga was in Cambridge, where I had the oppor- tunity of more than one conversation with him. A similar utterance of Cardinal Vaughan's about the Eucharist was shown to him. The Archbishop exclaimed in horror, and said that the words were " more suited to one of Pharaoh's magicians than to a Christian priest." Collins, conjointly with Mr. W. J. Birkbeck, exposed the defective information upon which Cardinal Vaughan's utterance was based, and showed that the Russian Church had only after important modifications accepted (in 1838) the articles of the Synod of Jerusalem (of 1673), deliberately rejecting any approach to the coarse materialism which the Cardinal supposed that it shared with himself. An authority far greater than the Cardinal possessed was summoned to his aid. No less a scholar than Mr. Edmund Bishop wrote to say that, after all, the doctrine of the Russian Church on the subject was not so far from that of the Council of Trent. He did not venture to say how far it was from the Cardinal's. Mr. Birkbeck Collins was at the moment out of reach had little trouble in showing that Mr. Bishop, who had, it must be owned, been induced to make an excursion into a field that was hardly his own, was mistaken with regard to the authority 30 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS of the work on which he had relied, and that the language " deliberately chosen by the head of the Roman Communion in England " could only be most offensive to Russian theologians. The correspondence was printed in a little pamphlet of great value. The position which Collins held about this time with regard to matters agitating the Church of England may be learned from an important Memorandum on Recent Developments of Worship, agreed upon at a meeting held in London, May 2, 1898. The Memorandum, which may be found in the Guardian for May 25, was mainly drawn up, if I am not mistaken, by Collins and two others of the signatories. " Our chief difficulties at the present time," they said, " arise out of a return to certain practices which were explicitly or by implication abolished at the Reformation, or out of a resort to certain foreign developments which never had any footing in the English Church." In the first place they affirmed that in their view developments of this kind could not rightly be introduced except under the sanction of authority, sub- jection to which is a first principle of Catholicism. In the second place, they set forth the authority by which they con- ceived that they were bound, and the organs through which it finds expression. Briefly, that authority is the English Church, and not any foreign one. No " variable rite or ceremony " can have valid authority which the English Church has definitely repudiated. Disciplinary rules or usages do not become binding upon a National Church, so that it cannot set them aside for its own members, merely because they have obtained for a time in other Churches or even throughout the whole Church. Authority expresses itself through the Bishops, jointly when they promulgate canons, after legislation by Convocation, and severally when within the limits received by the Church of England they give instructions to those under their jurisdiction. In the third place, the signatories said how they regarded the Declaration of Assent made by the English clergy. It is a pledge to use the Prayer-book, as opposed to neglecting it ; to consider it as a sufficient rule and order for the ministra- tions of the Church ; any private prayers that may be INCENSE CASE 31 introduced in the course of the service are to be inaudible and confined to the necessary pauses in the rite. They con- cluded by pointing out the large liberties already possessed by the English clergy, and by repudiating the opinion that the Ornaments Rubric sanctions the use of all the ornaments referred to for all the purposes for which they were formerly employed. The Memorandum was signed, amongst others, by Messrs. Bodington and Body, Brightman, Brooke of St. John's, Kennington, Coles, Currie of Wells, Charles Gore, H. Scott Holland, Johnston of Cuddesdon, Lacey and New- bolt, Puller, Villiers and Whitworth. In the year 1899 Collins was called in to aid as an expert in a Ritual case. Mr. Westall of St. Cuthbert's, Philbeach Gardens, and Mr. Ram of Norwich, were forbidden by their Bishops to use incense in Divine service ; but it was arranged all parties concerned being desirous of ascertaining the real state of the law of the Church of England and of conforming to it to treat the matter as one of those points of doubt which should be sent, as the Prayer Book directs, " for resolution thereof to the Archbishop." Mr. Westall and Mr. Ram, therefore, appealed against the judgment of their Bishops. Archbishop Temple accepted the duty of hearing the case and deciding upon it. If he was not qualified for the duty, like his predecessor, by liturgical studies, he had at least an honesty of purpose, a clearness of perception, and a fearlessness in regard of consequences, which gave every hope of obtaining a judgment that would carry conviction with it. He invited the Northern Primate, Archbishop Maclagan, to sit with him and assist in the hearing. The counsel for the appellants were Mr. H. C. Richards, Q.C., Mr. Hansell, and Mr. Thurnam. They had the assist- ance of Mr. W. H. Frere, of the Community of the Resurrec- tion, and of Mr. T. A. Lacey, as liturgical experts. The counsel for the two Bishops were Mr. (now Sir Lewis) Dibdin and Mr. Errington. It might seem strange that Collins should have been invoked to aid on that side. Probably his own predilections would have been in favour of the use of incense, as of other adornments of the church and its services. There was certainly no gulf of ecclesiastical sentiment to 32 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS separate him on the one side and Mr. Frere on the other. But his historical spirit was aroused. The contention on the part of the appellants and their counsel was that the state of things referred to in the Ornaments Rubric was not the order established by the First Prayer Book of Edward VI., but the order which that book had done away with. Con- sciously or not, they pleaded that incense was a good and beautiful thing and therefore ought to be allowed ; they did not address themselves with sufficient directness to the legal or historical question, whether, as a matter of fact, the use of incense is allowed by the existing rules of the Church of England. Collins worked hard at the question. Besides reading books of all sorts, ancient and modern, he examined parochial registers in many directions, and amassed a great deal of evidence which he placed at the disposal of counsel. I find a note from Mr. Dibdin to him a month after the hearing, in which he thanks him for a " fresh crop of obligations." At the hearing itself, he made a short but able speech after the two lawyers had concluded. After reminding the Arch- bishops that the question at issue was not, whether the use of incense is desirable, but whether under the rubric it is or is not lawful, he went on to show that at the time when the rubric was made, incense whether rightly or wrongly was held to have no primitive sanction. With as much humour as learning he exposed the contention that the symbolism of incense was " transparently clear," and offered further evidence, of a novel and very interesting kind, that the reformers under Edward had, as a matter of fact, done away with the ceremonial use of incense. The judgment of the Archbishops was in accordance with this view, although to some extent it was influenced by other considerations than those adduced in the hearing, 1 considerations which Collins would perhaps have wished to be excluded. In regard to matters of wider policy, I may refer to a deeply interesting paper which Collins read at the Church Congress at Leicester, in October, 1902, on the subject of J The speeches on this side were edited by Mr. J. S. Franey, and published by Messrs. Spottiswoode & Co., 1899. HOME REUNION 33 Home Reunion. He laid it down that " truth is even more essential than peace. Truth first, peace afterwards ; such is the Scriptural order." " We cannot purchase reunion by giving up anything that we believe to be essential, and we cannot wish that others should do so either." This point of principle was followed by a point of practical wisdom. " It would be futile to remove difficulties on one side by giving up things non-essential, if we were thereby only causing fresh difficulties on the other. . . . We may not advance Home Reunion to the detriment of the reunion of the whole Church. Not even with a view to satisfying the scruples of English Nonconformists should we be justified in making concessions which might naturally give offence to the Roman and Eastern communions. We cannot forget that we are guardians of a common heritage ; witnesses to a Catholic Church which includes both Eastern and Western com- munions." The special point to which these premisses led up was that there could "be no tampering with the historical ministry of the Church." " We cannot treat the Apostolical ministry as a thing indifferent : we cannot endanger it by treating those who do not possess it as though they did. To do so would be an act of the greatest practical unwisdom. It would set up a far more serious barrier than any which it could break down, for it would be a grievous blow to all hopes of a restored fellowship with our brethren of the Greek and Roman communions. It may be doubted whether it would even, in the long run, bring us nearer to the Nonconformists ; for signs are not wanting amongst them of a yearning after this very historic ministry. But more than this : it would involve a very grievous breach with our own past, and a betrayal of the heritage committed to us. For if there be such a thing as the grace of the Christian Ministry at all, and no student of the New Testament can doubt that there is, it must surely be a matter of the utmost importance whether a man possesses that ministry or not. Are we to hold that everybody who feels an inward prompting to minister possesses it ? or only he who has been chosen by a congregation ? or only he who has received a laying on of 34 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS hands ? or he who has received the laying on of the hands of those who have themselves received it by an orderly and uninterrupted transmission from the Apostles downward ? We need not attempt to limit that grace, for it is the grace of God, and God overflows His channels of grace. But at least it cannot be doubted that that which is transmitted in the last of these ways, by what we have been taught to call the Apostolical Succession, is the historic ministry of the Church. " I know that it has been urged recently, with no little earnestness and eloquence, that modern historical study has exploded the theory of the Apostolical Succession. I can hardly imagine a more unwarrantable assertion. No doubt it is true that the Apostolical Succession has often been stated in a crude and unsatisfactory fashion ; but making every possible concession and allowance to opponents, we may assert without doubt that the Apostolical Succession is not a theory, but a fact. . . . " I cannot but think that grievous harm has been done by the rash and ill-considered way in which this subject has been dealt with. An entirely false issue has been placed before us. It is not the question whether there were once ministers who had received no ordination, or had been ordained by presbyters. If there were, it does not touch the case of such as derive their ministry from a presbyter who had expressly received authority to consecrate the Eucharist, but not to ordain ; or the case of those who have no con- secutive ministry at all. At the very least, it is clear that these are not the same thing as the historic ministry ; and the Church which possesses that ministry must needs hold it fast. The English Church does not go out of her way to condemn other ministries, for the Catholic faith does not consist in negations ; indeed, in her twenty-third article of religion she pointedly refrains from condemning them. But she holds fast that which she has, and must needs do so ; she cannot jeopardise her holy gift in the historic ministry of the Church by treating those who do not possess it as if they did. This ministry, therefore, together with the ancient creeds of Christendom, must needs be the basis of every effort HOME REUNION 35 after reunion. It does not, of course, follow that she should repel from it the ministers of other bodies when they are willing to enter her pale. There is no reason why they should be required expressly to renounce their former ministry ; Bramhall was far too wise and charitable to make such a requirement. . . . But it is necessary that they should recog- nise and receive the historic call of the Church through her authorised minister the Bishop." The paper closed with an earnest appeal for prayerful efforts after reunion such as had been instituted in Scotland. " We may not know how reunion is to be effected, but God does. It is not important that we should know, but it is important that we should watch and learn and pray, that we may be ready when the time comes, and that we may be fitted to do His work." Collins's view of the position of Episcopacy is expressed more fully in a lecture which he gave a little later in 1903 in a series arranged by Mr. James Adderley in Marylebone. The lecture has been published in the volume of sermons and addresses entitled Hours of Insight, and other Sermons (Murray, 1912). The precedent of Bramhall 1 to which he referred in the Congress paper was quoted by him in 1901 in a memorandum which he drew up for Archbishop Temple on the subject of Moravian Orders. This memorandum was never published, and it is now superseded by the Report of a Committee, of which he was a member, appointed by the present Archbishop in preparation for the Lambeth Confer- ence of 1908 ; but it shows what was thought of the Professor at King's College that Archbishop Temple should have set him to investigate single-handed this delicate question ; and indeed Archbishop Temple's predecessor, as early as 1895 or 1896, had commissioned the young expert to search for any sign that Moravian Orders had been recognised by the Church of England. Always ready to do what he was asked, Collins added to his professorial duties at King's College in every direction. He examined for Triposes and University Scholarships at Cambridge. For two years at any rate, 1893 and 1894, he 1 Bramhall's Works (ed. Haddan) I. xxxvii f. 36 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS examined in everything at the little Theological College of St. Alphege, Southwark, then under the direction of the Rev. A. B. Goulden. When the University of London was recon- stituted, it fell to him to take a prominent part in organising the Faculty of Divinity in it, in conjunction with leading Nonconformist and Jewish scholars in London, and he spent months of hard labour in drawing up regulations for procedure in the Faculty. The Honours Syllabus in Church History was almost entirely his work. Professor W. H. Bennett, in writing to me on the subject, says how much the Nonconfor- mist members of the Board appreciated Collins's scholarship and sound judgment, and that they found him a delightful colleague. When Archbishop Davidson proposed a scheme for conferring diplomas in Divinity upon qualified women teachers, it was to Collins, in the main, that he turned to work the scheme out in detail ; and it was Collins, in the main, who did the work of testing the candidates. As if he had not enough to do in other quarters, Collins consented in 1899 to tne request of Sir D. M. Wallace that he would assist in the preparation of a new supplement to the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, by act- ing as editor of all the articles in it dealing with religion. The ninth edition of this work had begun to appear as far back as 1875, and the twenty-fourth and concluding volume came out in 1889. The proprietors determined, in con- junction with the Times newspaper, to publish eleven addi- tional volumes, containing new matter and information that would bring up to date the articles contained in the four-and- twenty preceding volumes. They could hardly have made a better choice than in asking Collins to act as departmental editor for theological subjects. He was in relation with all the most recent workers in those subjects, and able to deal fairly with men representing very different views. The first of the new volumes was issued in May, 1902. The advance which it marked in regard to religious topics may be seen by reference to Collins's own articles which had nothing corresponding to them before on the Anglican Communion and (in a somewhat different field) on the Apostolical Con- stitutions, and to Mr. Frere's article on Anglican Orders or LITERARY WORK 37 Dr. Charles's on Apocalyptic and Apocryphal Literature. It may be imagined how much correspondence was involved in these editorial duties. His own Prefatory Essay on Methods and Results in Modern Theology attracted much attention. On December 4 of that year, 1902, Collins took the degree of B.D. at Cambridge, and on November 26 of the following year proceeded to that of D.D. The works which he sub- * mitted as exercises for the two degrees were his contributions to the Reformation volume of the Cambridge Modern History, entitled " The Catholic South," and " The Scandinavian North." The bibliography appended to these two chapters is some evidence of the width and also of the minuteness of his professional research. All this while, the Professor was diligently writing articles and reviews for various periodicals, the Guardian, the Church Times, Church Bells, the Pilot, the Saturday Review, and others. Thus, without attempting either completeness or classification, I find that in these years he reviewed the following books : Professor Altamira's Historia de Espafia y de la Civilacion Espanola, Donaldson's Bishopric of Truro, Gairdner's English Church in the Sixteenth Century, Zimmer- man's Carmel in England, Van Dyke's Age of the Renascence, Merry del Val's Truth of Papal Claims, Corvo's Chronicles of the House of Borgia, Hindobro's Historia del Cardenal Jimenez de Cisneros, Bowen's Crisis in the English Church, Robinson's Ministry of Deaconesses, Wakeman's Reformation in Great Britain, Rainy's Ancient Catholic Church, Henson's Godly Union and Concord and Cross Bench Views, Taunton's Thomas Wolsey, the same author's Jesuits in England and the controversy arising out of it, Lord R. Gower's Tower of London, M'Cabe's 52. Augustine and his Age, Fairbairn's Philosophy of the Christian Religion, Oliphant's Rome and Reform, Mann's Lives of the Popes, J. M. Robertson's Short History of Christianity, Frere's Relation of Church and Parlia- ment, Gillow's Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, Mortimer's Creeds, Drury's How we got our Prayer- book, Maiden's Canonization of St. Osmund, Eckenstein's Woman under Monasticism, Bright's Age of the Fathers and 38 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Kidd's Letters of W. Bright, Merriman's Thomas Cromwell, Carson's Reunion Essays, Lempriere's Compendium of Canon Law. During the same period he wrote valuable original articles on the Third Order of St. Francis and on Alfred the Great in the English Historical Review, and the account of his dearly loved master, Bishop Creighton, for the supplementary volumes of the Dictionary of National Biography, besides a noble article upon him in the Pilot for January 19, 1901. Two independent volumes of his own came out, besides, during his tenure of the Professorship. One was his Begin- nings of English Church History, the outcome of lectures delivered in connexion with the thirteenth centenary of the coming of St. Augustine. The other was his admirable book on The Study of Ecclesiastical History in Dr. Robinson's series of " Handbooks for the Clergy." It is something of an education to read the list of books suggested or recommended at the end of this work, at once so full and so discriminating. His own character comes out on every page. It will be remembered that the enormous mass of work that Collins was doing was performed in spite of continual ill health. In the summer of 1901 matters came to a kind of crisis. He went down to his friends the Sterlands at Southgate on July 10, and they saw at once that something was wrong with him. He told them that the surgeon whom he had that day consulted at Guy's Hospital said that he must undergo at the earliest possible moment an operation for a kind of trouble which had not before been suspected. Guy's in those days was in very close relation with Allhallows Barking. Successive Matrons and many of the Sisters were attached to the ancient church across the water, and the clergy of Allhallows were frequent visitors to the Hospital. Within its walls a few years earlier, Edith Sterland, a sister of Collins's friends, and very dear to him and to others at Allhallows, had succumbed under an operation. It was, therefore, no strange place that he moved into, when on the I3th he took up his quarters in the private room in Stephen Ward. The next day was Sunday ; and on Monday morning MISSION IN JAMAICA 39 Mr. Robinson of Allhallows administered the Holy Com- munion there to him and to Miss Mary Sterland. The operation was performed in the afternoon. It lasted an hour. Not till two hours and a half had passed was Miss Sterland allowed to see him again. He had just opened his eyes, and knew her. " Deo gratias," he said ; " is it really over ? " He told her that he had had a vision ; but she could not allow him to describe it. His heart was so feeble that the doctor would not permit any reassuring telegrams to be sent until after eight o'clock that night, and even then said that for eight-and-forty hours there must still be grave anxiety. As soon as he was able to be moved, the invalid was con- veyed to Betteshanger, in Kent. Lord and Lady North- bourne were not then at home, but had arranged everything with the tenderest forethought, and Collins and his attendant had the beautiful place to themselves. There he remained from August 10 till September 16, when he was thought well enough to go and spend his holiday in the West, from which he returned to the usual work of the term at King's College in the beginning of October. He wrote to a friend on October 16 : " I am back and at work, and well again, excepting for a little weakness. As to being able to enjoy life again, I was well able to do that all the time ; for I don't think anything was ever more enjoyable than my last three months have been." At the close of the year he started on an errand which took him further afield than he had yet gone. Some years before, in 1895, he had dashed to Cairo, to conduct the devotions of Holy Week in All Saints' Church. This time it was the West that called him. By the invitation of Arch- bishop Nuttall, whom he had seen just before he went to Betteshanger, he went out to conduct a series of Missions and Retreats in Jamaica during the Christmas vacation. He arrived at Kingston on December 27, and left again on January 28. The days between were crowded with such a mass of engagements as makes the mind dizzy to think of them. A full week's Mission at Spanish Town, beginning on Saturday, December 28, another at Port Antonio, beginning the day after the ending of the first (Sunday, 40 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS January 5), a Diocesan Retreat at Spanish Town be- ginning on Thursday, January 23, were the principal items in the campaign ; but besides these there were many other sermons and addresses in different parts of the great island and to various classes of people. The last im- portant effort was a sermon in the Cathedral at Spanish Town on Saturday, January 25, on the combined occasion of the opening of the Diocesan Synod and of the unveiling of a memorial to Queen Victoria by Sir Alfred Hemming, the Governor. The central point of the sermon, which was on the text Isaiah Iv. 10, n, was that amidst all that passes away and perishes, the Church of God contains that which not only satisfies the needs of the moment, but provides like- wise for the future. The Churchmen of to-day are the trustees for those who are to come after. It was a sermon which took deep effect upon all who heard it. Collins published a few years later some of the impressions which this work had left upon him. He said : " The work of a Mission in Jamaica is very much like one in England, excepting for a few particulars. As the people come to church whenever the bell rings, the services can be changed more easily. Whereas in England people are apt to shrink overmuch from Communion, in Jamaica the tend- ency is all the other way, and the people can with difficulty be kept back when they ought not to communicate. All day long come applicants for interviews, not only of the kind that one is accustomed to in England, but others who recall to one's mind the inquirers whom missionaries have to do with in India. Some, it may be, will bring questions on the Bible ; others will want information for themselves, or the means of refuting Seventh-Day Adventist teaching, or that of the Bedwardites, or one of the other obscure sects that flourish in Jamaica. . . . Others again will sit and weep, or sit and smile, and you have to guess as best you can what it is that they want ; or they will be voluble about the faults of others and their own miseries, or ecstatic and unintelligible, and you can do nothing with them until you can make them kneel down and pray." * 1 The East and the West, vol. i. p. 108. MISSION IN JAMAICA 41 He doubted beforehand whether he would get on with the black people : " The first time one came to see me in the vestry of Spanish Town Cathedral my heart sank, for I could scarcely under- stand a word he said, and it was all the harder because he had only about one tooth in his head. But he understood me quite well, and before long I found that it came easier to me too." 1 It was not long before he was quite in love with the warm- hearted race of grown up children. Not all his time in Jamaica was occupied in hard work ; and with his usual power of getting all that he could out of his surroundings Collins contrived to see and to enjoy most of the attractions of the island. A few extracts from the brief journal of a companion may give glimpses of what he saw : " Thursday, December 26. Came in sight of Hayti very early. Got to Jacmel at about 10 and lay to. Crowds of shouting negroes in boats came around the ship a gruesome sight quarrelling and snatching for the cargo. After about two hours we steamed away. All day we coasted along the island, very mountainous and bare and rocky. Saw a wrecked steamer which had been run ashore by a Pro-Boer captain, who wished to destroy his cargo of mules for us in South Africa. " Friday, December 27. Up very early. Saw the dawn from the beginning. Got on deck to see the approach to Port Royal and Jamaica, a most wonderful and glorious sight in the tropical dawn. . . . A large deputation of clergy and others came on board to meet W. . . . The Archbishop had an ordination at 7, so could not come : he sent his secretary and his carriage, however. . . . Reception in after- noon of clergy and their wives. Went to see Theological College. " Thursday, January 2. W. went to Hartlands to lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Wigan, and saw their orange and banana estate. They sent for him in the morning and drove him back in time for evening service. 1 P. 107. 42 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS " Friday, January 3. At 2.30, Mr. Lynch called for us and drove us to the Bog Walk. Stopped to explore the ruins of the old Spanish Governor's house, and the remains of the great tamarind avenue. The nice farmer's wife, Mrs. Davi- son, gave me cocoa, and beans, and a cake of it. Then we drove on to the power-house, where the water is taken from the Rio Cobre for Kingston electric works. It was a lovely drive along the river, through limestone rocks, and beneath high cliffs clothed with glorious vegetation, enormous bam- boos, etc. Picked coffee-berries. " Sunday, January 5. Port Antonio. Torrents of rain during the night. . . . We had to stay in church for ages after the service until it slackened a little. The river came down in flood, and carried away the bar at its mouth, wash- ing down palm trees and canes, and filling all the bay with mud. " Friday, January 10. Fine morning at last. At 12, Mr. Harty, W. and I drove in Mr. Hopkins's buggy along the shore, across several streams and a mango-swamp, about 7 miles, to Blue Hole, a curious inlet of the sea surrounded by hills and cocoanut palms most lovely spot and a glorious drive. Mountains shrouded still in clouds, but down below sunny and blue, and vegetation wonderful. The coast and coral beaches lovely. Had cocoanut water at Blue Hole, where a boy climbed and threw them down. " Wednesday, January 15. We went by the morning train to Montego Bay. Long journey through the mountains greater part of it very lovely. Most remarkable railway ; short zigzags up the mountains and down. Cockpit country very interesting." The two days before Collins left Jamaica were busy days. On the Sunday, January 26, he preached in three different churches, and on the Monday he spoke to a great missionary gathering of children at the Deaconesses' Home and preached to men at night at Port Royal. Next day he attended the Synod, which was sitting at Kingston. Before he entered the room, the Archbishop, in his presidential address, had already spoken warmly of the valuable teaching and spiritual counsel which Professor Collins had given, and added, " We MISSION IN JAMAICA 43 thank him for the visit. It has been a great help to us and (as we hope) not unpleasant to him. I think you are now ready to support, with earnestness and without misgiving, the design I have long expressed and the plans I have laid for securing the occasional visits of such spiritual teachers and leaders from the Mother Church. Besides other benefits, they will help to save us from the mental and moral torpor and narrowing influences which our isolation and routine of labour tend to foster." The whole Synod rose when the Professor entered. An address was presented to him, in which the clergy expressed their gratitude, and promised that they would " treasure in their hearts the wise counsels so lovingly and impressively given." The Archbishop then added a few more words, saying that he wished to impress upon the clergy " the unquestionable value and lightness of the Professor's method the not relying on isolated texts ; the not formulating technical rules of conduct ; the not repeating statements merely because they were orthodox, but striving to get at and state clearly the broad, deep, under- lying, eternal principles of the divine word." Then they took their leave. The little journal says : " The Archbishop prayed, and then we said good-bye to him, and he told me to write to him from Barbados. Said farewell to scores of the clergy all very kind. . . . We got off at last and drove down to the quay, our hearts very full of love to all these kind friends. . . . Went on board. . . . Heaps of the clergy came." He never ceased to think with affection of the people of Jamaica. To Guy's Hospital Gazette on February 15, 1902, he sent a touching paper on one incident of his mission a visit to the Lepers' Home at Spanish Town. In the first number of East and West in 1903, he expressed his sympathy with the work of the Church in the West Indies in an article on "The Church in Jamaica, past and present," from which I have given an extract above. For the Archbishop he formed the deepest admiration ; he always spoke of him as " a king of men," as indeed his subsequent conduct at the time of the great earthquake in Jamaica showed him to be. 44 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Collins reached Barbados on February ist, and spent a delightful fortnight there, not entirely idle, for he preached once or twice, and conducted a day's Retreat at Codrington College, but for the most part resting and reading, walking and bathing, watching the humming birds and the fire-flies, and recruiting his forces after the tremendous strain of the work in Jamaica. As in Jamaica, so in Barbados, all who heard and all who met him received undying impressions of love and power. Dr. Bindley, who was then Principal of Codrington College, says : " He was with us a fort- night, I think, altogether, and wrote the Introduction to Typical English Churchmen in my library at Codrington CoUege. " I shall never forget his brave resolve to throw off evident weakness and lassitude after his arduous work in Jamaica, when he was asked to give us the benefit of his counsels in Barbados. ' I can do it, and will ; but ask Mary.' She advised repose, but he persisted and did. " Nor will my wife and children forget his boyish glee and delight when we took him down to the coral-reefed beach, and we were all obsessed with a passion for paddling in the surf. He was the lightest-hearted of us all. ' Please let us drop titles,' he said, after a few hours' talk, ' I feel as if I had known you all my life.' And one felt indeed that his quick, bird-like glances penetrated to one's soul, and that his intense sympathy and acumen made him your friend at once." Almost from the beginning of his work in London, Collins was accustomed to put a portion of his time at the disposal of Bishop Wilkinson for the use of the diocese of St. Andrews. Again and again he took charge of various congregations in Perthshire or Fife for longer or shorter periods, and con- ducted Retreats for different classes of people, and the devotions of Holy Week. There was in him a combination of gifts, and a proportion in his views of religion, which specially commended and endeared him to the saintly Bishop in the north. Collins in turn was influenced by the deep spirituality of the Bishop. WATCHERS AND WORKERS 45 One thing which Bishop Wilkinson did for him was to bring him into connexion with the Society of Watchers and Workers. In the year 1893, as a beautiful paper by " E. H." in the Watchword for May, 1911, informs us, he accepted the post of Chaplain of St. John the Evangelist's Watch, at the Bishop's suggestion. He threw himself into the work as if it had been his main duty. " E. H." says : " From that time he let all the members of the Watch take their part in his work by sending to tell them of dates of the various missions beforehand, and asking their prayers, and each member felt that he had an interest in them and prayed for them individually. As an instance of this, I remember having a pencil line from him on his way to Southampton en route for his West Indian Mission, saying he had left his list of the members behind, and asking me to send him one at once, for ' though I think I know all the names, I don't like to trust to memory only.' " In 1904 he wrote : " I am afraid it 1 must of necessity mean that I must cease to be Chaplain of our Watch. Badly as I have been able to do the work, it has at least had a big place in my thoughts and prayers. But the joy is that this can't un- make links ; no change of work can undo the personal links which it has led to." The Watch to which he belonged started, in the year 1897, what they called a " Watch Dove," a little manuscript book, which went flying from one to another, each member contributing something to it. The Chaplain heartily approved of the idea. "A written letter seems more real than a printed one, and a few words of greeting, or advice, or request for prayer, from each one of us, will come home to all the others in a way that few other things could. The book which has passed from hand to hand and gained some- thing at each passing ought to become rich and eloquent to all of us." He began the book himself, with a paper on Illness which well deserved the greater publicity given to it by being printed in the Watchword for May, 1911. A few characteristic sentences from it may be quoted here. 1 His appointment to Gibraltar. 46 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS The problem is stated thus : " We should answer at first sight, ' Of course it [illness] is from God : it is one of God's good gifts.' But here a difficulty seems to come in : for if it is of God, surely (so it might seem) we ought to accept it passively, and acquiesce in it, without trying to get well. This we at once feel to be wrong. . . . We know that we ought to try to be well. " But this makes a difficulty on the other side. If we are to fight against illness, how can we think of it as coming from God's hands ? And I know people who have felt this so strongly that they actually came to the conclusion that illness was an evil in itself, and the work of the evil one, and that the fight against it is exactly like the fight against temptation. Of course we feel at once that this is going too far the other way." After showing that illness, as coming from God, must be the best thing for the sufferer in his actual conditions, even when it contains an element of punishment, he goes on : " But now we come to the heart of the whole matter. A gift is not good in itself, but in its use. . . . And as God's gifts are manifold, so they are intended to be used in many different ways. Health is a gift, sickness is a gift, but they are not to be used in the same way. . . . " God, then, has given me His gift of sickness : how am I to use it ? As He has given it me, it is good for me to have and use ; but it may be that the way in which I am to use it is by trampling over it. ... I am not meant simply to lie still and welcome illness. I am meant to long and pray for fuller life. ... As surely as our Lord healed divers diseases when He walked this earth, so He does now. I know it. He does not always give back all the joy of living, but at least He gives enough to enable His servants to do their work, and sometimes He gives all. Only, as when He was on earth, He needs our faith that He should do this for us. He says to us, ' Dost thou believe ? ' . . . As Christians, we ought to be laying hold of our Lord by faith, and calling upon Him to heal us. It may be that there are more than we know of, to whom, if they would but do their part, He would say, ' Come, and take up thy bed GUILD OF THE HOLY CHILDHOOD 47 and walk ' ; and this, we must remember, would be to His glory." How much of the writer's own life was a commentary upon this text ! If his heart went out to sufferers, it went out no less to children. There never was a more devoted child-lover than he. He was always perfectly at home in the nursery. It was natural that when a guild for nurses the " Guild of the Holy Childhood " was founded, its founders should turn to Collins. Its object is denned to be " to bind together for the purposes of spiritual fellowship those who have taken as their life work the care and training of little children." Besides rules for prayer and communion and almsgiving, such as all guilds have, this guild has the characteristic rules that " members shall endeavour to study continuously some devotional or theological book," and " shall engage, as far as they may be able, in some collective or individual work for Home and Foreign Missions." Miss Sophie Boycott, the foundress, writes : " In 1902 a need was felt by members of the Guild of the Epiphany for a guild to be started for nursery nurses. Professor Collins drew up the rules, gave it the name of the Guild of the Holy Childhood, and acted as its chaplain, Miss S. Boycott being secretary. The first members were admitted in April and May, 1903. In November of the same year, Professor Collins gave an address at the Norland Institute to the nurses on Churchmanship. When Professor Collins became Bishop of Gibraltar, he decided not to give up the work, but to be Warden of the Guild, and appointed the Rev. F. E. Baverstock as his chaplain. The Bishop always took a keen interest in the work and used to look up members in his diocese. He was very sympathetic with them, and entered so into the life of a nurse and the children under her charge. One of the members wrote : ' Even now, seven years ago, I can remember the magnetic sort of sym- pathy which spread around him in one's intercourse with him. I shall never forget him admitting me into the Guild.' It was the privilege of one of the Guild of the Holy Childhood to be able during his last days to help in little ways for him, 48 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS for which she was very thankful. There are now over 50 members in the Guild." Another work in which he took part, having for its ultimate object the welfare of children, was that of the Society of the Holy Family. This is a society connected with the Community bearing that name, of which my sister is the head. Collins was the chaplain ; he took the utmost pains with the preparation of the rule of the Society. He presided and gave an address at the first meeting of the Society in 1897, and continued to do so each year until he was carried away to episcopal work. One of his latest letters was to express his disappointment at not being able to attend the annual gathering within a short time of his death. It will readily be understood that a man so attractive and sympathetic, and at the same time so deeply spiritual, was much sought after as a guide of souls. From the very beginning of his ministry people came to him as if he had had a long experience of life. His guidance was marked by clear insight, by intense affection, and by unhesitating definiteness. A few specimens of the innumerable letters which he wrote during his London life may be given here before we enter upon the account of his episcopate some of them addressed to his spiritual children, some of a more general character. Confession Depression. Exmouth, April 7, 1894. I am very glad to know that you received help in Holy Week. It is indeed a most wonderful time, and it generally happens, I think, that most help comes when our need is sorest. For when all is said, far more comes from the Gospels and Epistles and Lessons, and the prayers, than from the preacher : at any rate, it all comes from God, and God gives most when we need most. And I rejoice with you that He has been good to you now ; for it is always hard to have to begin a new life, so to speak, and away from any who gave the old life its chief charm. . . . LETTERS 49 Now, to answer questions as far as I can. 1. Yes, I should certainly call on the Vicar, if I were you, and ask him to give you work. Delay is never desirable. Many things might happen to delay his call ; and more- over it is always a vast help to a parish priest in his work when others spontaneously come forward and meet him half way. So do so as quickly as possible, and God speed you. 2. It is never easy to make a general statement with regard to the use of private confession ; for it is a thing which applies to the individual. Of course, in cases of special difficulty or temptation or fall it is almost essential ; and I think, as nearly all who have tried it will tell you, that it is a vast help in the spiritual life in nearly every case. It is especially useful in fighting against a besetting sin, or habitual depression such as you speak of. But, " let every man be persuaded in his own mind." If you make use of this means of grace, it must be because you feel that you need it, not as an experiment, or because others use it. For a confession carelessly made is not a useful or helpful thing. You would find, however, that difficulties of reticence or shyness or the like would be merely minute, and the counsel of a wise and faithful spiritual father would probably help you greatly. Do not let yourself be influenced too much by this, however. The real question is for your- self, after prayer and careful thought. Do not act in a hurry. 3. It is not easy to deal with this depression and spiritual dryness until it comes, otherwise than by setting a watch over all the little things of life. Nearly every Christian has to fight with it at some time or other, and nothing is more terrible : perhaps, too, the worst thing about it is that one is " alone "in it. And there is the glory of it : because He was really alone, we can never be. He is there if we will but open our eyes. We know it, even before we can feel it. And then there are one or two other things to be said, (i) The depression in itself is not sin ; only to give way to it is sin. (2) A little fervent prayer, however hard and seemingly worthless at the time, is often worth more then than when 50 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS it comes more easily. I am glad that you use a book of Devotions so sober and really reverent and " unemotional " as Before the Throne. A rule of life. 7 Trinity Square, E.G., November 8, 1897. Yes, this is the sort of thing. But I am sending it back because I think you will do well to make it much more brief. To be of service, it should be simply under heads a sheet or half sheet should hold it all. And it should contain (i) only what is personal to yourself, as distinguished from what would apply to any Christian who wished to do right ; (2) only Rule, not comment or aspirations. Experience will, I think, show that it will be most useful to you if you have only the points on paper, and the rest in your mind. A distressing ailment. Zennor, August 22, 1898. I am afraid that your burden is, and will be for some time, a heavy one to bear. May God of His mercy lighten it to you and give you those comforts which He alone can give. Only be very sure of this : that the illness and disappoint- ment are no sign of God's anger, but just the reverse ; and that instead of refusing to receive your work He is just giving you your work to do. For the present at any rate it is clear what He would have of you. You have to bear with patience and cheerfulness. Perhaps you may have noticed in the case of others that the example of one who bears pain, and especially any disheartening and worrying illness, with patience, is a greater help and comfort to others than almost anything else. Well, this is what our Father has given you to do : will you not endeavour to do it for Him as unto God and not as unto men ? I have rather broken down, and have brought my books down here, trying to rest and work at one and the same time. For I have too much to do this summer to be able to take an entire holiday. LETTERS 51 Cheerfulness. 7 Trinity Square, E.G., December 23, 1898. It is good, as you say, to be amongst those staunch North Devon folk, who speak the truth, and are faithful in their friendships. And be very sure that it is right and good to appear cheerful as long as ever you can, and that it has nothing hypocritical in it. To aim at appearing cheerful would be wrong ; not so to aim at being cheerful. And the only way to aim at being cheerful is to try to cheer others, to see the bright side, and to show one's best. Just as we try to become good by doing painfully what we might perhaps do easily if we were already good. And God does not leave us alone, so doing. Joy comes by giving joy, often when things look most unpromising for ourselves. Endurance. Truro, May 31, 1901. I have only time for a word, for this Retreat has given me not a moment free, and in fact the addresses have to be given quite without preparation. . . . Sometimes all that we can do is to stand still and bear, and go on bearing as best we can, sure that it all comes from God's hand and so must be good for us, good for the whole of His creatures, somehow, that we should bear it all for the sake of the Lord, who bore the cross and shame, and the weight of our sins. Try and think of it so, my child ; and may He of His mercy help you. Communion in time of depression. Deanery, Worcester, December 2, 1902. No, you must not excommunicate yourself because the struggle is so hard : it would be doing just the wrong thing. You need Him not less, but more. It would be wilful to take matters into your own hands and " punish " yourself ; and even if it were otherwise, that could not be a right way to punish yourself. Let God punish, if He think good ; 52 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS His holy will be done. Try to accept all that comes from His hand as comfort when you need it, and penance when that is necessary, and then you will find (as indeed I know you have already) that even punishment from Him can be a means of blessing. For the rest use your communions as fully as ever you can : and do not fear that it can be too often, provided you come humbly and in penitence. And of course you must communicate late, or whenever you are well enough, and as you can. It would not be really reverent to do otherwise, would it ? That is one of the good results of being ill : you get to learn that rules were made to serve us and not we to serve rules. And it doesn't matter what has to go of the rules of devotion that one loves, provided that it only goes so as to make it possible for you to come nearer to the Saviour. I am getting very tired, and am very busy. But I have a week's work to do in Rome presently, and hope to get another week's rest there, perhaps. And it will serve the purpose of getting into a warmer climate too. Limitations in Ceremonial. Zennor, September 5, 1899. Just a word or two about Church questions at the present time. I will only state a few things for you to think over quietly. 1. You prejudice the whole case when you speak of an " unholy compact." No doubt, if we have made an unholy compact, we are bound to break away : but let us be sure that we are not simply selfish in it. I knew a married man once who wanted to break what he called " unholy bonds " because his lot seemed too hard. Why should it be unholy for the Church to accept things laid before it by the powers ordained of God ? There are very few things, in externals, which have not come thence originally. 2. Moreover, in this case l this is not the question. I can only wonder how many people have really read the decision itself at all. The Archbishop simply adduces the 1 The decision about Incense. LETTERS 53 Act of 1559 as evidence of what the Rubric was really held to mean by all men : not as making a law for us, but as contemporary evidence of what the Rubric meant. If he had brought forward as evidence the fact of what was done, nobody would have thought anything of it : this stands on precisely the same footing. 3. It is certain, and always has been, that if the English Church is really agreed in wanting anything whatever, it will certainly get it : but if a party (the party, if you will, which expresses best the true Catholic spirit) tries to get its will, it certainly must fail. 4. Nothing is more clear than that, as at present constituted, hosts of devout souls would be hurt by things which are perfectly innocent in themselves and useful to us. But they would certainly be hurtful to them at the present time, as we can see by the temper which has been aroused amongst them. The true Catholic surely is the one who thinks of human souls, and not who aims at human privileges. 5. Is there not a tendency to be a little unreal about the Church ? I mean, to speak as if things ecclesiastical (i.e. the externals of worship) were holy as contrasted with things secular. It seems to me that we have not learned the lesson of the Lord's humiliation fully, if we kick against the con- ditions of our life. By all means let us work to change them ; but we must do it by educating those who do not see, not by exciting those who do. No doubt there is a false patience as well as a true patience, an easy-going self-satisfaction as well as a strenuous growth. But it seems to me that if our Lord obeyed the laws of the order in which He lived, we must expect to see the Church compassed about and in humiliation (as He was not otherwise) for us men and for our salvation. It is always easy for us to say, Let us break away and be free : the Lord might have called the legions of angels, but He did not. Think of these things. It does not follow that what seems, on the surface, to be most obvious, is therefore most true : and I cannot but feel that they are to blame who so fluently speak shame of those who are over them, and so 54 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS readily assume that they are " Erastian," or " truckling to the civic power." I cannot but fear for the future when our cause is denied in ways like these, when so much of men's self seems to champion it. Form of Admission for Deaconesses. Guy's Hospital, Aug. 5, 1901. 1 feel that I owe you an abject apology for keeping you waiting so long ; but it has really been quite unavoidable, and all the time that work left me has been taken up with special commissions from those who have a right to direct me. Latterly, too, I have been ill, and I am now writing from a couch in hospital, where I am recovering (very happily) from an operation. I think, after consultation with Mr. Frere and others, that the time has come for a definite ruling from the Bishops on one or two points, and that this must necessarily precede any healthy revision of the Ordination Service. 1 No revision of the service could be anything but blind and blundering without this, for the service must necessarily reflect the view which is held of the office itself, and if the latter is vague, the former cannot safely be revised on any plan. The main points which call for an authoritative determina- tion are these : i. Is this service intended to be a service of Ordination, or not ? i.e. is it intended to confer character, to constitute those for whom it is used into a definite Order in the Church ? Or, on the other hand, are the Deaconesses to be regarded as members of a Religious Society, admitted with the blessing of the Bishop, but not part of the clergy, and having no definite ecclesiastical " character " ? This is obviously a vital question, and one which can only be decided by the Episcopate. And it is essential to the re- modelling of the service, because, in the former case, the service ought to be on the model of the Ordination Services, as the present one is, whilst, in the latter case, it ought to be 1 For Deaconesses. LETTERS 55 a service absolutely different in structure, like the mediaeval services for the blessing of a nun, or the like. I know, of course, that Deaconesses claim the former character, and it is one which, in my opinion, undoubtedly answers best to the character of the Deaconess-office in ancient days. But it is unquestionable (in my opinion) that there has been nothing to give such character to the office as revived so far ; and it needs to be definitely given, and by the Episcopate. 2. Is the Deaconess to rank with the Deacon, or as a Minor Order ? Here I should say that, at first, the men and women deacons rank together, but that later on, as more and more definitely ecclesiastical functions were conferred on the deacon, the deaconess came to rank with the Minor Orders, and not on a level with them. The importance from the point of view of the service is this : if the deaconess ranks with the deacon, the service ought always to be in the Eucharist, before the Gospel ; otherwise, it should be else- where, and the analogy with the Ordination of Deacons should be done away. 3. In any case, all that has to do with the position of a deaconess as member of a community should be removed and relegated to a separate service. A deaconess may or may not be a nun : in the case of your Community of course she is. But in any case the admission to the community is an altogether distinct thing from the admission to the office of deaconess. I should, then, strongly advise that nothing be done with the service till a definite settlement of these questions can be obtained, and that such a settlement should be sought for. And if nothing can be done yet to obtain such a settle- ment, I should strongly advise that the present office be used exactly as it is until it can. It would be a grievous mistake to remodel the office inadequately on doubtful lines, and so hamper free development in the future. 1 1 The lady to whom this letter was addressed had been referred to Professor Collins by Mandell Creighton, then Bishop of London. She acted upon Collins's advice and sought the ruling of the Episcopate, but it has not yet been given. 56 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Scientific Theology. 7 Trinity Square, E.G., Feb. 18, 1901. I entirely agree that, although we speak of theology as a science, we are usually only too unscientific in our ways of dealing with it. To doubt that Theology i.e. our grasp of the Eternal Truth with regard to God and our relation to Him grows and expands is surely ridiculous : we have only to read the books of any earlier day to find that, whilst they may still be far above us in some ways and on particular points, our whole conceptions are as much larger and fuller as could possibly be. That being so, the true position of a Theologian must be that of a seeker, not of a doubter, but of one who is at all times ready to test his results and, if necessary, restate them. And our sympathies must always be with the seeker rather than with the traditionalist. At the same time, we must be truly scientific : a science, the chief evidence of which is derived from a living personal experience, cannot throw over its life-evidence, and has to test by life, as well as by the philo- sophical theories which happen, at any particular moment, to accompany the scientific results of any particular day. As a matter of fact, we have, I think, everything to gain, and nothing to lose, at the present day, by the recovery of the scientific temper. It was not so thirty years ago : then there was a materialistic temper in much of the science of the day. But that has passed away, and scientists recognise to-day (a) that their results are concerned with phenomena ; (b) that an act of faith is needed to make even such a general proposition as that twice two makes four : all that we " know " in the scientific sense is that whenever we have tried it, we have found it so ; (c) that nevertheless all science points to an order and a growing purpose in the universe ; (d) that order and purpose speak to us of mind. For the rest, it must be remembered that as the natural science of theologians is generally a little out of date, so is the philosophy or theology of natural scientists. This must needs be so : and on neither side must one accept what is,, after all, merely irresponsible dogmatising. LETTERS 57 Our duty is plain : to study loyally and fearlessly, to sympathise and endeavour to understand all sides, to remember always that if God has revealed Himself in life, life according to the truth, so far as we see it, is the key to truth. As for books, I don't know that particular books help much, and yet everything that one reads (excepting " cock- sure " church newspapers) gives one some help. I have just been giving some lectures at Sion College which might help a little, reported in the Churchwoman last week, and this, and next (though I haven't seen the reports). Westcott's Gospel of Life you know : Maurice's Life, and Robertson's, you doubtless also know : Professor James Ward's Gifford Lectures is a really great book. On the strictly theological side there is less of value, perhaps because the spirit of traditionalism is so strong amongst us just now. Never mind ; we need to be large-hearted, yet not forgetting what treasures we bear in the earthen vessels. For us to try and exchange them, or reset them, would be ruinous. We only need to set them forth more faithfully in their reality as regards ourselves. If we do so, even though our statement may be in many ways imperfect, God will be working out a new and truer statement. 1 Devotional reading for a young Clergyman. (ON A POSTCARD.) Avignon, March 29, 1895. S. Gregory, de Cur a Pastor ali. S. Bernard, de Amore Dei, Sermons on the Canticles. De Voragine, Legenda Aurea. Herbert, Country Parson. S. Athanasius, de Incarnatione. Geo. Fox's Journals. Fioretti di San Francesco. 1 The recipient of this letter says that at one time he looked over and corrected the answers to papers which he set for members of the Guild of the Epiphany, and this letter came as his comment upon an answer given to one such paper. 58 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Baxter, Saints' Rest (with care, and an unaltered edition, it is excellent reading). Bp. Andrewes, Preces Privatae. Bp. Wilson, Sacra Privata. Bp. Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying (of course). S. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises. S. Augustine, Confessions. S. Thomas a Kempis (of course), in Latin by choice. S. Francis of Sales, the Spirit, Spiritual Letters. Revelations of Mother Julian of Norwich. S. Theresa, Of the Love of God, etc., etc. Life of S. Philip Neri. Life of F. D. Maurice. George Herbert. Here is a scrappy list of rather unequal merit, which may serve your purpose. I have put one or two here which everybody would not, simply because they happen to have helped me. The great rule is, I think, to read what you feel (1) either to be giving you fresh, original thoughts, or else (2) to be quite beyond you. I.e. devotional books, like poetry, ought to be real makers, and are valuable or the reverse precisely as they draw one out or the reverse. If a book feels to be beyond one, or if one has been told to read it, reading it grimly and desperately is likely to do good, but not, in general, what gives one nothing in particular. Dangers of penitence. St. John's College, Cambridge, Oct. 18, 1894. Yes, all that part of Dr. Pusey's Life is wonderfully moving and sacred. I do not wonder that it has moved you so deeply : it certainly did me. But now let me try to set down the bearings of it all with regard to what you say about yourself ; for I want you to think them over. Sometimes a thing like this, which burns deeply into one's own conscience, makes all one's past professions seem almost unreal, and one's righteousness (as it is) filthy rags. Seen by such a standard, all one's confessions have been mere lip-confessions, all one's communions seem almost LETTERS 59 mockeries, and all life hitherto a hideous sham. Thank God that He does send us such revelations. But then there is a danger lest we, in the excitement of the moment, forget how far the Lord hath helped us hitherto how He is the surety that our life hitherto has not been in vain, a danger, in fact, lest we should deny the grace that we have already received. I have known devout penitent souls pull down their Christian life in the desire to undergo such a self- emptying, as they think it. You have no desire to do that, of course : but all the same it is very necessary to learn one's lessons of humiliation and penance without doing despite to what God has done in us already. Blessings on work. Cairo, Easter Tuesday, 1895. Everything has gone wonderfully well here : even had I not felt sure of it before, it is impossible now not to see that it was in every way right and necessary to come. God has blessed all that was done most wonderfully with His grace. It has been most joyous to see so large a number of men set right or helped in their life, in what is, I believe, one of the most terrible places to live a godly life in, in which Englishmen were ever placed. I have been touched, too, to find " Evangelicals," living and working here, who have come regularly to services throughout, including the Three Hours, listened to words which must have at least sounded strange to them, and helped one with their prayers and sometimes at least with the most large-hearted sympathy. And now, as you have helped me with your prayers, so too you must help me to thank God. It has been very hard work in some ways ; and the great heat during part of the time has not mended matters ; so that just now I am tired out and almost prostrate. And now that the worst of it nearly all in fact is over, I do not seem to mend. But the change of air to Alexandria will probably set me right, and at any rate when I am once at sea, on Thursday at 10 a.m., I do not doubt that I shall feel well at once. 60 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS A heavy Sunday. 7 Trinity Square, E.G., Oct. 28, 1895. Yesterday was rather a heavy day, and with a bad cold I am feeling the effects of it. I had to preach in the morning at short notice, near here, as well as in the afternoon and evening. Deptford was most interesting : a great church full of men, who behaved very well, considering all things. To be sure, they said " Hear, hear," occasionally, and I heard a few other remarks in a quiet tone, all of which showed they were listening. And one thing that was said delighted me : a broad, unmistakable Somersetshire voice asked " Would 'ee mind saying that over again, zur ? " And outside, I had several questions asked some wise and some other-wise : among them a well-meaning but puzzle-headed Roman wanted to know whether I believed in Lourdes (Miracles was my subject). " Beloved Italy." Bordighera, April 18, 1898. You will be surprised at the address from which I am writing, but the charm of my beloved Italy was too strong. So directly Holy Week was over I moved on [from Ste. Maxime] to Bordighera, and am very much better for the change. I don't quite know what makes it so different ; sea and air are much the same, though the people differ not a little, and here they are far more truly Christian. Nor is it only the glory of the palms and olives of Bordighera, though they are most dear. It is simply that the one is Italy : the other is only France ! Resting upon Christ. Pitfour, Glencarse, April 10, 1899. Now we can understand how desperately hard you found it to rouse yourself, and we can actually see the reason in this illness. You will not suspect me of trying to make you slack or careless, but is it not possible that at other times too you have been anxious and troubled overmuch about LETTERS 61 your own deadness ? overmuch, because it was really the result of health and out of your own control all the time. At any rate I am sure that you have every right to rest more readily than you do upon the love of our Lord, and His all-sufficient merit, and His power to renew us when we reach the other side, and to repair the ravages both of illness and sin, and to restore to us in new strength the wills which we have almost lost through our own wilfulness. I know well that it is hard to learn under pain and anguish, and yet it is to be learned, that resolute acceptance is as much a part of the Christian life as strenuous effort is. A Christmas holiday. Rome, Dec. 28, 1899. I am just beginning to feel now how thoroughly tired I am, scarcely fit for anything. But it is such delightful weather here, so spring-like, that it cannot but do one good. There is a good deal of rain between whiles, but the rest of the time it is very bright and clear. The sun in the Piazza of St. Peter's on Sunday at midday was so hot that one could hardly bear it without a covering : in fact many of the Italians there had up umbrellas. I hope to get a little work done at Bologna after January 8, at the Inquisition Records ; but here I am going to do nothing but make a few pilgrimages and enjoy the beauty of Rome. To-day I went, with the friends with whom I am staying, to the great Basilica of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, where it is quite possible that St. Paul's body actually lay. There I heard Mass the High Mass, with Palestrina's music, far more reverently sung than is usually the case at St. Peter's, and then went on to the Abbey of S. Paolo dei Tre Fontane. This is the present traditional place of his death : but I should think the three springs were a pagan holy place centuries before he lived. Yesterday I went to see the Abbe Duchesne, and found Cardinal Vannutelli with him, upon whom I am to call to-morrow. The latter suggests that I should go to see some of the other Cardinals ; but I don't think I shall. 62 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS The Boer War. Florence, Jan. 13, 1900. I can quite understand ail that it means to D., if her brother is really to go out. In one way one does hate it all so, and long to see such terrible things impossible. But in another, it is good to fight in a cause which takes us outside our own petty likes and dislikes, and spites and quarrels ; and I rejoice in all the unselfishness and self-devotion that it calls out. That it is a real duty to go out, for those who can and have no greater claim, I cannot doubt ; and certainly not least because it means much of self-denial and danger. It is like so many more terrible things : you can see God's hand in it, and God's call in it, simply because it is sufficiently terrible to drag us out of our conventions and unrealities. Kind sternness. Guy's Hospital, Aug. 2, 1901. Thank you for telling me about your poor boy. I am glad there is news of him ; but it is all the more necessary that he should not be allowed home, or have the way made easy. God has now opened a new way for him, and to try to reopen the old would be to close this. He must be sent away to make his own way as best he can. Hardship is more likely to help than anything else, and to make him work and suffer privation is a truer kindness than any other could be, hard as it naturally is for his poor mother to see it. But I trust she will try. I am allowed up on a sofa now, in the afternoon. His brother's death. 7 Trinity Square, E.G., Dec. n, 1902. I wonder if you remember my brother Arthur. Probably you will, the one next to me in age, and always my closest companion. We heard just a fortnight ago that he had been shot at and wounded by an anarchist striker at Telluride LETTERS 63 in the State of Colorado, where he was in charge of large silver mines, but that he had every prospect of recovery. And the next day came another telegram to say that he is at rest ! It seems too sad to believe almost. He leaves a wife and two little boys, and she, I am glad to say, was able to be with him at the last. We still await full details, but we know that he was bright and collected, though in terrible pain. It will be good to think afterwards how sympathetic and kindly he always was towards all that could be sympa- thized with in labour troubles ; and he died at his post as truly as any soldier ever did, the dear fellow, knowing well during the last month or so that his life was in danger. We were confirmed together, and he was always a good true Christian. The following letter from a friend who was with him on an Easter holiday in Cornwall in 1903, brings out a side of him which was at least as characteristic as any that his own letters have displayed : " Hannafore, West Looe. " I wish you could just see Willie now, in the zest and delight of holiday time. It is always a joy to me the boyishness and fun and sweet gentleness with which he makes every- thing a source of enjoyment. He is so gay and light-hearted, with all he has to do and suffer. He always reminds me of those lovely lines of Keble's on St. Matthew ; one is always catching the melody of the everlasting chime. He is certainly wonderfully well just now, considering the fatigues of the last term, and the last fortnight especially. 1 We came down here on Monday. It is a charming little place, and we have hit upon delightful rooms with a lovely view over the sea, standing high on the edge of the cliff. Yesterday was glorious, and we spent the whole day wandering on the cliffs amid masses of golden gorse, or in primrose-lined lanes, so lovely." 1 He had been conducting the exercises of Holy Week at St. Albans. III. EPISCOPATE. IN the latter part of the year 1903, Bishop Sandford of Gibraltar resigned his office, and very shortly after died. On November 27, the day after taking his Doctor's degree at Cambridge, Collins went by invitation to Lambeth, and the Archbishop offered him the vacant see. It was in many ways an adventurous appointment. Collins was young for the position he was now 36 and he was a man of pro- nounced opinions. But there were also marked qualifica- tions. He had the learning which would enable him to move about intelligently amongst the representatives of other forms of Christianity. He had although people at large knew less about it at the time than afterwards the deep sympathy which fitted him for what is largely a pastorate of individual souls, many of them invalids, and many in circumstances of solitude and temptation. And, in spite of his frail health, he was a great lover of travelling, especially by sea, and less wearied and shaken by it than many more robust persons are. His acceptance of the office was made known on December 19. The chorus of just approval with which, at the same time, his book on the Study of Ecclesi- astical History was received, gave promise of his accept- ability as Bishop. On the evening before his consecration, he preached his last sermon at Allhallows as one of its clergy. The day was the eve of the conversion of St. Paul, and he took for his text the words, " Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." These sentences CONSECRATION AND MARRIAGE 65 are reported to have come in the sermon : " Jesus Christ loved minorities. He loved the things people were ready to die for without seeing any results. If the best things we can think of were to claim success, they would be very poor things. Christ cares for the infinitely little, and for any one particular thing to succeed is often a very bad thing. . . . Men can only see Christ if we show Him in our work and in our lives. Our duty is not that of trying to ameliorate the conditions of life, nor that of trying to get people to join our party, but that of communicating to them of the unsearch- able riches of Christ." He was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on the Festival of the Conversion of St. Paul, 1904, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by many other prelates, in the presence of a great congregation. As one of his oldest friends, I had the honour of preaching the sermon. He was presented to the Archbishop by the Bishop of London, his diocesan, and the Bishop of Bristol, with whom he had worked, and was still to work, so cordially on the Church Historical Society. Early on the day after his consecration, he was married. The cultured and devoted woman who became his wife was Mary Brewin Sterland. She had long stood in a very close and peculiar relation to the Bishop. When first (in 1878) I became acquainted with her and with her younger sister, Edith, she was governess to the daughters of Mr. Stanhope Rashleigh, Rector of St. Wenn in Cornwall. At the time when William Collins became an inmate of the clergy-house at Allhallows Barking, Miss Sterland had passed to the house of Mrs. Thurston Holland at Wimbledon. It was there that the attachment began between her and the delicate and engaging boy to whom Mrs. Holland, as I have said, gave a mother's care. From Mrs. Holland's house, Miss Sterland moved to the family of Mr. F. A. White, the friend and treasurer of so many good causes ; though in this posi- tion she did not live in the house, but took rooms for herself and her sister. Edith Sterland, whose touching death has been already mentioned, became governess about the same time to Margaret Wilkinson, daughter of the Bishop of 66 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Truro, between whom and the Whites there was a special bond of intimacy. All these circumstances tended to draw William Collins and Miss Sterland together, and by degrees he came to be looked upon as a member of the Sterland family. He began to spend most of his spare time with them. They went together for their holidays in Cornwall or elsewhere. A thorough student herself, Mary was able to help him in his- torical researches, in examining and copying documents. At length it was regarded as a settled thing that Mary and he were brother and sister. The arrangement was unusual and unconventional ; but even so careful an observer of pro- prieties as Bishop Wilkinson sanctioned it. In a state of health like his, and the lady being a good deal senior to himself, people felt it natural enough. Miss Sterland, after Edith's death, travelled with him and took charge of him. She watched over him at the time of his operation in Guy's Hospital, and during his long convalescence at Betteshanger. For many years he wrote on the first leaf of his little pocket- book of engagements, " In case of my death or illness I ask that a telegram be sent at once to Miss M. B. Sterland," and the address. She accompanied him, I believe at Archbishop Nuttall's suggestion, on his mission to the West Indies, and was everywhere received as his sister. In presenting to him the thanks of the Synod for his labours in Jamaica, the Archbishop made a graceful reference to the care taken of him by " his sister," without which he could never have got through all that he had done in the island. It was clear, however, that it would be impossible for him to do in his new office what had been possible while he occupied a private position. The two felt it best to put their relationship on a footing more easily understood by entering the married estate. They were married in the early morning of January 26, 1904, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in Lambeth Chapel, with the Holy Communion following. Lord Northbourne, from whose house she was married, gave the bride away, and Dr. Robinson was in attendance upon the bridegroom. Among the friends who sat down to breakfast MRS. COLLINS 67 afterwards in Lambeth Palace, besides their host and hostess, were Lord Northbourne and the Bishop's respected father, Mr. J. H. Collins, and Miss Sterland's elder sister. No words could express the pathetic beauty and tender- ness of the relation now relieved of what to some extent had before been embarrassing. Some glimpses of it have been given by a little book which, though unpublished, has become widely known, bearing the curious title, " Especially William, Bishop of Gibraltar, and Mary, his wife." The writer describes how she first made acquaintance with Mrs. Collins at Gibraltar in 1908. " She told me how frightfully tired the incessant travelling made her, and the crowds of fresh people at every place. ' We can never go to a quiet inn and rest ; it is always receptions to meet the Bishop and crowds of people waiting to see him everywhere, and I can't spare him any of it ; they want him and I can't see them instead. When we married, I thought I could save him from being killed with the life, but I can scarcely help him at all.'" " In pouring rain," the writer proceeds, " I walked down the hill with her back to Government House in the evening. I remember so well, when I said something of what a marvel- lous marriage theirs must be both so utterly devoted in the great work of their lives and to each other how she stopped short, in the middle of the storm, and said with a sincerity of emphasis which preached a whole Gospel, ' Yes ; but no marriage, no earthly love, can satisfy. One must have Him Jesus. I could not go on living without Him, though it's often only just saying His name to myself over and over again.' " The day after the wedding, the Bishop was hard at work upon an article on Early Missions in China ; the next day was spent in interviews and letters, and the day after that, the two embarked for Gibraltar, where he was enthroned on Sexagesima Sunday, February 7. They stayedat Government House with Sir George and Lady White, and so began their acquaintance with the diocese under the happiest auspices. From Gibraltar they went on to Marseilles, Hyeres, and Cannes, where they were the guests of Lord and Lady Rendel at Chateau Thorenc, and laid the foundations of one 68 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS of the most delightful of friendships. Then they passed along the Riviera, meeting all sorts of interesting people. At Rapallo they parted. She waited there, while he travelled night and day to Malta to be installed in what might be called his second Cathedral, and to do some work at Naples and Rome on the return journey. At Livorno they met again, and worked their way back by Florence, Genoa, and Turin, to London, which was reached on March 30. The Quarterly Paper of the Gibraltar Mission to Seamen, in giving the list of his engagements for February, headed it with the words, " What the Bishop can do in one month." A few lines from a letter of Mrs. Collins gives a picture of part of that first tour, which may stand for many subsequent tours : " Bordighera, Feb. 24, 1904. " You will like to have news of him, as I don't think he can have had time to write much. . . . "We sailed for Gibraltar on January 2gth, and had a dread- fully rough voyage, which was very trying, coming as it did on the top of all our fatigue. But we had a splendid week at Gibraltar, staying with the Governor, Sir George White, who with Lady White and his family did his best to spoil us. Charming as it is to see so many delightful and kind people, it is certainly tiring to have perpetual receptions and dinners. Still, it is the only way in which the Bishop can meet his people ; and it won't be so bad another time, when all the honours have been paid. There are such lots of interesting people at Gibraltar ; we came away with great regret. The enthronement on the Sunday was a most stately function, and the Bishop looked splendid in his scarlet. He is winning all hearts, as he always does ; and though there are many difficulties to be settled, and a terrific amount of work, he is well and happy. " We had a capital voyage from Gibraltar to Marseilles, which was our next stopping place. I wish you could hear the Bishop's Confirmation addresses ; they are simply beautiful. He has held six Confirmations, and loves them. ... In each place there is much the same round, a recep- tion of the Bishop, special service in church, Gibraltar LETTER TO THE DIOCESE 69 Missions to Seamen Meeting whenever possible, and so on. . . . We have a lot of friends here, and Willie left such a fragrant memory behind him four years ago, that they can scarcely let him go. . . . " On March 2 we travel together as far as Rapallo, where I am to stay, while the Bishop makes a rapid rush down to Sicily and then over to Malta. . . . We shall have to be away from each other for about a fortnight, which is horrid to think of ; but the travelling is so expensive that I can't go everywhere with him." He had prepared the way for this first journey by a printed letter, from which the following is an extract : " 7 Trinity Square, London, E.G., January i8th, 1904. " My dear Brethren, I must send you a few words of cordial greeting before I enter upon the exercise of my Office. I thank you most heartily for the very kind letters and messages which have already reached me, and for the prayers which have been so freely offered on my behalf. These last are the foundation and the earnest of my hope that we shall be able to work happily together, to the glory of God and the furtherance of His Kingdom. " I am taking up the charge which He has entrusted to me with many searchings of heart, and with a keen sense of my own insufficiency ; and this is not diminished when I think of the good Bishop whose place I am called to fill. But I rejoice to know that the work which he has done during his long episcopate (and in particular, if I may single out one thing, by the agency of the Gibraltar Mission, the founding of which was an act of spiritual genius) has knit together the whole jurisdiction of his See as nothing else could possibly have done, and has made the work of his successor far easier than it could otherwise have been. And it will ever be to me a source of strength and comfort to know that he had heard, only two or three days before his death, that I was proposed as his successor, and that the news made him glad and thankful. This I value and prize as in a sense his death- bed benediction. 70 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS " I cannot but know that, in a task of peculiar difficulty and intricacy, you must soon realise the difference between my inexperience and his ripe wisdom. But I ask that you will give me time, and that you will extend to me your sympathy and consideration even where my action is not such as com- mends itself to the judgment of many. I do not think that you will find me lacking in sympathy when brought into contact with ways of thinking other than my own, or with methods of working which I do not myself make use of. I ask in return that you will trust me, give me credit for a desire to be just under all circumstances, and allow to me that same liberty of action and opinion which you claim for yourselves. . . . " I am trying to arrange matters so as to be able to cover the whole ground every year, not indeed visiting every single chaplaincy yearly, but getting every year to some of the chief centres in each region, so that chaplains and others who desire to see me on any matter may be able to do so with as little difficulty and inconvenience as possible, and that candidates for confirmation, in cases of need, may be ' brought to ' me for the purpose." To the sailors so considerable a portion of his charge he wrote : " I can assure you that I had learned to care for sailors, and work among them, long before I ever thought of coming to the Mediterranean, that I have many friends amongst sailors, and that I want to make a great many more. I shall try, as soon as possible, to pay a visit to all our Insti- tutes, and shall claim fellowship with all of you whom I can find there. And I hope that you will come and speak to me whenever we do meet, and give me the pleasure of a handshake at any rate. And remember that there are more sailors than bishops, and that it is easier for you to recognise me than for me to recognise you. So you must please forgive me in case I forget, and help my memory by making yourselves known to me. Be sure that I shall always be glad to see you." It was Wednesday, March 30, as I have already said, MISSION TO SOUTH AFRICA 71 when they reached London, and were welcomed by Lord and Lady Northbourne. On Saturday, April 2, which was Easter Even, after two busy days, they sailed for Cape Town, on the Mission of Help ; Lord Northbourne went down to Southampton with them and saw them off. The history of the Mission of Help has been published by Dr. Robinson. Reference has been made to it by the present writer in his Memoir of Bishop Wilkinson, with whom, in a way, it originated. There is no need to repeat the account of it here. But it ought to be understood that a very large part of the labour of preparation for it had been laid upon Collins's shoulders. He had long promised to take part in the Mission itself, and he did not think right to beg off in consequence of his appointment to Gibraltar. In the letter to the diocese from which I have quoted above, he says : "As some of you are already aware, I have been engaged in the preparation for it from the beginning ; and at the time of my nomination I was already pledged to go out to South Africa for almost the whole period of the Mission. Moreover, owing to the accidental circumstance of my being in London all the time, as Chairman of the Executive Com- mittee I have had a great deal to do with the arrangements which have been made ; and it is urged upon me in the strongest possible terms by those who are responsible for the Mission that, although my place can very easily be supplied later on, it is most essential that I should be in South Africa at the beginning and during the earlier period. I feel that such a claim is imperative, and have therefore undertaken to leave England for this work, if God so wills, on April and, 1904, returning not later than August. The Archbishop of Canterbury permits me to say that the course which I am taking in this matter has, under all the circumstances, his full approval and sanction. " I am taking this course with a full sense of its gravity and importance. I ask you, for the sake of our brethren in South Africa, to bear your share in such inconvenience as it may cause, and to join with me in making this offering of our service. And I ask you to invite your people to do the 72 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS same. We shall be the richer, not the poorer, if we can thus share in the blessedness of giving. There will be, after all, something very fitting in the fact, if you will send forth your Bishop across the whole length of a continent to help our brethren in their need ; if I, who have charge of English Church people along the north coast of Africa, may be permitted to go to work amongst their brethren in South Africa. Already, too, you have taken some part in the matter ; for I rejoice to remind you of the fact, and to place it on record, that the fund which has been raised by the Ladies' Committee in England for the expenses of the Mission of Help had its beginning in a very large gift which was raised for the purpose in one of our Chaplaincies, viz., by the English Church people at Bordighera." He arrived at Cape Town on Tuesday, April 19, and was warmly welcomed by the Archbishop at Bishopscourt. Between him and Archbishop Jones there had for some time past been an affectionate friendship. The Archbishop was one of the many people who had put his learning and his good nature under contribution, and Collins had spent time and labour in helping to frame disciplinary canons for the Church of South Africa. Cape Town, however, and the diocese of Cape Town were not to be the chief field of his work in the Mission of Help. During the week that he spent there, he preached in the Cathedral and elsewhere, held a confirmation among the lepers on Robben Island, and attended conferences and addressed meetings of workers. But as soon as the main body of the Missioners arrived he preceded them by seven days and had received the public Benediction of the Archbishop, he left the Bishop of Burnley to direct the Mission at Cape Town, and went off with his own contingent to the diocese of Grahamstown. His stay in South Africa extended from Tuesday, April 19 to Wednesday, August 10. During that time he preached regular Missions at Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown, Kimberley, and East London, and did similar work for shorter periods at Humansdorp, Sidbury, Alexandria, Cathcart, Jansenville, Klipplaat, Burghersdorp, Bloemfontein, Wakkerstroom, MISSION TO SOUTH AFRICA 73 Nottingham Road, Maritzburg, and Durban. To a man with his historical instincts it was of the deepest interest to visit the scene of Gatacre's disaster at Stormberg, and to inspect the ground, where every mile records a tragedy, round Ladysmith and Colenso. He enjoyed the novelties which nature offered, the wonderful views from the mountains, the colouring, the sight of baboons scampering up the hill, of toucans (if such they were) and secretary birds, and above all, the glimpses of native life which he obtained. A priest who was working in Kimberley at the time of the Mission there, the Rev. C. S. Hill, now Rector of Harri- smith, writes as follows about the work at Kimberley : " The Bishop only took a small part and left before the Mission was over : but this part was perhaps the most valuable of the whole Mission. He preached on the first Sunday, and gave four or five mid-day addresses to business men on the following week days, which were very helpful, and much appreciated. Besides this, he made it his work to see personally the leading diamond merchants and busi- ness men and had a wonderful influence with them. There was much discontent and controversy in the parish at the time, and the Bishop's influence did much to steady men's minds. He specially applied himself to the leading hard- headed business men, whom most clergymen find it hardest to get hold of. " I shall never forget the impression which his mid-day addresses made. As he stood on the chancel steps in his purple cassock and pectoral cross, one could not but be struck with his youthful appearance his bright eyes and spiritual face reminding one of the figure of ' Christ among the Doctors ' in Hofmann's well-known picture. He used to come from the vestry punctually on the stroke of the clock and speak, watch in hand, very rapidly for twenty minutes never going a moment over his time. Yet, though he spoke so rapidly, he spoke so plainly that everyone could follow and understand. Each address was illustrated by quotations from Browning. They were very practical and heart searching, and entirely different from anything which I have ever heard. . ' 74 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS " The following story illustrates what men thought of his addresses, though the effect is hardly what the Bishop would have liked. One man who seldom came to church, attended the Bishop's addresses regularly. When someone suggested that now he would probably go to church more often, he surprised him by replying, ' Never again/ He was asked why he would not. Had he not thoroughly appreciated the Bishop's addresses ? ' Never again,' he repeated ' it would spoil the impression ! ' ' The Mission at East London was one which made a great mark. It had been well prepared for, especially by the men of the congregation visiting from house to house. The Bishop won his way at once with the men, and to this day, I am told, he is spoken of with affection by many, and his photograph is still pointed to with pride in their houses. The addresses were of a very high tone, free from any excitement, yet of a telling and searching nature. " The part I remember best," says my kind informant, the Rev. L. Moxon, Vicar of Sibford, " was the Instructions, after the service, when he would walk up and down the aisle in his violet cassock, just talking to the people. These Instructions were deeply spiritual, very plain and direct in their teaching upon the Sacraments, Confession and the Church, with a few telling illustrations. " The congregations increased every evening until the end. He addressed a meeting of men during the dinner hour at the large railway works, and also a large meeting in the town hall on the Sunday night after a full service. He was also very good with the children ; they loved his stories, and I remember his making them sing hymns, standing until they came to a verse of prayer, when we were all told to kneel." It was his method on these occasions to ask the local clergy very little about the parish, and to make little use of them during the Mission. They were told to attend the services like any of their parishioners. It was his way to do everything himself and take over the whole parish for the time being not always, perhaps, to the liking of the clergy concerned. MISSION TO SOUTH AFRICA 75 A lady who was present at the Mission at East London says : " His wonderful personality and calm spiritual strength seemed to attract me most strangely, and I was seized with a longing to tell him all my heart, which was full of sad thoughts at that time, and to seek counsel and advice from him. I was the last to leave the church, and as I stood in the porch, wondering how I could obtain an interview with the Bishop, I looked up and saw him standing beside me. A few minutes later he had taken me into the vestry and I was talking to him freely and unrestrainedly of all that had troubled me in the past and in the present, and of the con- flicting duties which so often came into my life. His wonderful sympathy and power of understanding made me tell him more than I could ever have told a stranger. After he had spoken to me for some time, and we had knelt while he prayed for me, I left him feeling a great and wonderful sense of peace and calm, the memory of which I shall carry with me always. I have tried to follow the advice he gave me ' If two duties have to be faced, the harder one will almost invariably prove to be the right one to follow.' " The Bishop parted from his wife at Madeira on the return journey, and went on a tour through Portugal and Spain. Then, after a short visit to England, they started for Odessa and the East. At Constantinople, in full canonicals, he paid his first state visit to the Patriarch, Joachim III., who was most cordial, and knelt before the altar of the Patriarchal Church and kissed the Gospels. This was on October 14, and next day he went over to the island of Halke", to call on the ex-patriarch, Constantine, and to inspect the great Theological College, where a week or so later he witnessed the ordination of an old King's College pupil of his, Mr. Teknopulos, to the priesthood. The whole st;ay at Constantinople was full of fascinating interest. Mr. Pears conducted him over the walls of the city, and everyone else was most kind. At Smyrna he conducted a kind of mission, lasting a week ; but he managed to escape for a day to Ephesus, where Mr. Hogarth showed him the sites. 76 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Such was his first acquaintance with the scenes amidst which his life was to end. It would be vain to attempt to narrate the Bishop's journeyings to and fro during the seven years in which he governed the jurisdiction of Gibraltar. To the Apostle Paul it was a trial to " have no certain dwelling place " : the same trial awaited Bishop Collins and, to some extent, his wife. They had, it is true, a kind of home at Sliema, in Malta, where they often stayed for a few weeks together. During the last two or three years of his life they had a house of their own at Hampstead, 12 Fellows Road, which was his headquarters during the summer months, when there was less to be done in the Mediterranean. But at the outset of his episcopate he had not even that comfort. His English address at that time, 24 Steeles Road, N.W., was the house of Miss Frere and her sister, who undertook to forward his letters, and did for him the work of commis- saries. But what furniture he had, and the bulk of his large and much-loved library, was warehoused or stowed away, and he himself was a wanderer. It soon became impossible for his wife to accompany him ; her health began to fail under the strain. She had to stay behind at Sliema, or at the ever-open house of Lord and Lady Northbourne, or with other friends, or in lodgings ; and he travelled alone. In spite of entreaties, he would not take a chaplain. Through the thoughtful kindness of Lord Northbourne, a yearly sum was raised among his friends to diminish the cost of these journeys to his pocket, but nothing could save him the fatigue. He seemed to think nothing of travelling from Genoa to London to attend a committee and returning the next day. Often his means of conveyance from one part of the diocese to another was a cheap trading steamer, with wretched accommodation and horrible food. Many of his long-distance runs, to the south of Russia, or across Spain, were accomplished in trains which had no restaurant car and no sleeping berths. He had a story of one such run, when all the food he could obtain for a whole day was a piece of half-cooked sucking-pig wrapped in paper, which he DIOCESAN WORK 77 threw into the rack of the carriage until sheer hunger compelled him to attempt it. A sense of adventure might sometimes carry him along ; but when he was ill, it was a serious thing even to climb up into the lofty carriages of a Spanish railway, where there might be no one to help him. Wherever he was known, he was sure of help ; but there were many places where the obvious fact that he was a priest made the railway people less disposed to be of use to him. His work took him, of course, to conspicuous places and into high company. He conducted the services of Holy Week at Rome, or Florence, or some other centre where cultured English people assemble. He sat at dinners and luncheons beside governors and princes of the blood. He was a welcome guest in the houses of famous scholars, and authors, and statesmen. But a great part of his work con- sisted in visiting out of the way places, where a few Cornish- men were working in a Galician mine, or an English manager was superintending oil-works by the Caspian, or an English governess or two were teaching in Roumanian or Russian families. To cheer a lonely little group of English believers where there was no English church or chaplain was a great happiness to him. And naturally, wherever he went along the sea coast, our sailors obtained his attention. He went on board the men-of-war or the merchant ships and addressed the crews. He visited their Institutes ; and a great part of his time was taken up in holding meetings along the Riviera and elsewhere on behalf of the Gibraltar Mission, which has the welfare of the seamen for its object. He made it his practice, wherever he went, to cultivate friendly relations, as far as possible, with the native religious authorities of the place. A Waldensian ordination, the opening of a place of worship for the Reformed Lusitanian Church, attracted him. Occasionally he even attended a service in a synagogue. But he was unfailing in his respect for the Roman Catholic prelates in whose dioceses he ministered. He called upon them, and explained that his work lay solely among English people, and that the English Church has no desire to proselytise. He seldom failed to obtain a kindly response. The interview sometimes ended 78 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS by the local Bishop taking the Englishman to the Cathedral, or sending one of his Canons with him, to show him the building and the treasures of the sacristy, and escort him to the station on his departure. It was not always, of course, that relations of this kind could be maintained. The opening of a new church for English services at Barcelona in 1905 brought about a lamentable explosion of bitterness, the consequence, no doubt, of complete ignorance with regard to the character and aims of the Church of England. Except at Seville, where the church of a dismantled convent had been purchased for Anglican use, Barcelona was the first place in Spain where the English congregation were able to worship in a consecrated building. The municipal authorities passed the plans for the beautiful church without objection ; but in the latter part of 1904 an agitation against it was begun. A Professor of Canon Law in the University of Barcelona published an article in the following spring, denouncing the new building as " the greatest monument of shame " in the city. The Bishop of Barcelona, Cardinal Casanas y Pages, petitioned the King and the Government against it. The King replied sympathetically, deploring " this fresh attack upon the faith of our fathers and the religion of the State." The Government determined that the two crosses which had been erected on the building must be taken down. This was quietly done very early in the morning of Saturday, May 6, 1905, and the day following the church was solemnly consecrated by Bishop Collins, according to the form drawn up by the Bishop of Salisbury and published by the Church Historical Society. In 1910, with the King's consent, the order which forbade the display of religious symbols by " dissident " religious bodies was revoked, and the Bishop had the pleasure of knowing that the church at Barcelona had been restored to its original condition, and was no longer deprived of the sign of our salvation. This was not the last occasion when he met with official obstruction in the course of his duty in Spain. With the Oriental prelates he naturally found it easier to deal. The Report of the Eastern Church Association for THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 79 the year 1910 speaks of him as "an ideal Bishop to re- present the Church of England." " We could always feel that in the hands of the Bishop nothing would be done which would in the least compromise the Catholic position of the Church of England, while his grasp of the things essential and his intense sympathy made it possible for him to go a long way in meeting the Eastern Church." It was to him that the Ecumenical Patriarch expressed his desire that a few English students might be sent to prepare for the sacred ministry in the Theological School at Halke", in order that some among us, at least, might know the Orthodox Church from inside. In fulfilment of this wish, Mr. P. R. B. Brown, a former Scholar of Pembroke College, Cambridge, spent about a year in that institution as the guest of the Patriarch. It is to be hoped that others will follow his example with equal profit. Bishop Collins did not hesitate, however, to tell these great dignitaries the truth. When he visited the Patriarch in September, 1906, he assured him of the sympathy with which the Archbishop of Canterbury, and English Churchmen in general, regarded the distress of the Christian population of Macedonia, and recognised the diffi- culties which beset the action of the Patriarchate ; but he was careful to explain that the Church of England regarded the matter purely from the religious point of view, and could not take sides in a political movement. The Rev. M. R. Swabey, who at that time accompanied him, has brought to my notice an incident which reveals the extraordinary promptitude of the Bishop's well-stored memory. " If the first impression," he says in the Report above-mentioned, " made by him on the Easterns was that of youth, the second and abiding impression was that of knowledge. In the course of a conversation with the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, in the year 1906, a discussion arose on the relationship of the divine and human natures in the person of our Blessed Lord. The Patriarch quoted a canon of an Armenian Council dealing with the question. The Bishop courteously suggested that the particular canon belonged to another Council, and the Patriarch acknowledged that he was right." 8o LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS The constitution of his anomalous diocese gave the Bishop much to think of. In order to promote a sense of unity, he began to hold a series of Diocesan Conferences or Synods in London. Conferences on a smaller scale had been held before in certain fairly denned districts, like the Riviera, and these were still continued ; but the Bishop aimed at some- thing much more. The first of these Diocesan gatherings was held in the summer of 1905, with great success. It was decided that they should be held periodically, and every other year was fixed upon for the purpose. A yearly gather- ing appeared to be impracticable. The Bishop was determined to make more of a reality of his See and Cathedral than had hitherto been the case. After much correspondence and enquiry, on Sunday, Novem- ber 19, 1905, he admitted the Ven. D. S. Govett, who had been for twenty-three years Civil Chaplain and Archdeacon of Gibraltar, to be the first Dean of the Cathedral. This step was taken " with the advice and consent of our Synod of Clergy holden in the private chapel of the Dean of West- minster, July 14, 1905, and with the sanction of the Most Reverend Lord Randall, by Divine Providence Lord Arch- bishop of Canterbury, and with the approbation of His Excellency, General Sir F. W. Forestier Walker, Governor of Gibraltar." All future Canons of Gibraltar were to be installed in the Cathedral by the Dean or his deputy. Five or six years later, this strengthening of the Cathedral centre was followed by a similar action in regard to St. Paul's Church, Valetta, in Malta. " Ever since its founda- tion by Queen Adelaide, seventy- two years ago," we read in the Anglican Church Magazine for March-April, 1911, " it was intended that the Church should have a collegiate body attached to it ; and although nothing of the kind has taken place, the intention has left its mark in the commonly used description of the church as ' The Collegiate Church of St. Paul.' When the See of Gibraltar was founded, in 1841, and the Bishop was given a residence (then known as Gibraltar Palace) in Valetta, a proper episcopal throne was erected in St. Paul's ; the church became a second cathedral church for the Bishops of Gibraltar, and its GIBRALTAR AND MALTA 81 description as the Cathedral Church of St. Paul has been in use ever since." On January I, 1911, the Statutes which the Bishop had prepared were promulgated ; the Bishop, hi accordance with the Statutes, was himself installed as Dean, Mr. A. F. Newton as Chancellor, and Mr. H. J. Shaw as a Canon, to whom shortly after Mr. F. C. Whitehouse of Constantinople was added. In the communique above referred to, which evidently comes from the Bishop's pen, it is contemplated that possibly in the future St. Paul's in Malta might form the Cathedral for a new jurisdiction. The Bishop made much of the local Festival of the Ship- wreck of St. Paul (February 10), and appointed that a Chapter of the Collegiate Church should be annually held on that day. In the year 1906, the Bishop showed his care for the spiritual welfare of his flock in Malta by arranging for a Mission, in the special sense of the word, to the fleet and garrison. The Mission began on Saturday, April 28, and lasted a fortnight. It was carried on regularly at the Colle- giate Church of St. Paul, the Military Gymnasium, the Dock- yard Church, and at Pembroke Barracks, besides other places. The Bishop was himself the principal Missioner. He was assisted by Mr. Bernard Wilson of Portsea, and Mr. Austin Thompson, the Diocesan Missioner at Canterbury, both of whom had served with the Bishop in old days at Allhallows Barking, and by Mr. Valentine of Walden, who had been with him on the Mission of Help in South Africa. A simultaneous Mission to members of the various " Free Churches " had been arranged, and was conducted by the Rev. John M'Neill. It was somewhat unfortunate that just at the moment of the Mission troubles arose with Turkey, which necessitated the despatch of three regiments from Malta, and of a large part of the fleet ; but in spite of these hindrances, the Bishop looked back upon the Mission with deep thankfulness. He wrote a short account of it which was published in the Guardian, 1 in which he said that no attempt was made in the Mission to lay special stress upon particular moral perils 1 May 16, 1906, p. 814. 82 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS to which soldiers and sailors are exposed, but to preach the full Gospel of redemption, which appeals to all human beings alike, and that the experience gained had deepened the con- viction of the missioners that this was the right method. " There has been," he said, " a widespread and touching readiness to hear and to respond, a reality in facing the con- viction of sin and the claims of the Lord which has put us workers to shame, and a courage in facing the unexampled difficulties of the life of a Christian soldier or sailor which has made us thank the Lord and take courage." This was the last time that the Bishop conducted a Mission in the strict sense. It has already been mentioned how deeply the Bishop was concerned for the welfare of the sea-going portion of his flock. One address of his on behalf of the Gibraltar Mission to Seamen, delivered at Nice on March 2, 1907, has been recorded, and gives a vivid sense of the way in which he understood the men's needs. 1 " Of course, in speaking of sailors, I refer to two quite different bodies of seamen the ordinary sailor, pure and simple, and the firemen, stokers, engine-men, mecanicisns, or whatever else you like to call them, that great division of sailors which has been called into existence by the growth of steamships. Fifty, sixty, and seventy years ago the class which has to do with engineering and stokeholes was un- known. Now the lot of the engineer, the fireman and the stoker is far harder than that of any other individual on board a ship ; and the lot of the sailor has become harder just in proportion as sailing-ships have gone out, little by little, and been replaced by steamships. I wonder if any of you know what the engine-room of a great transatlantic steamship is like ! It is not a pleasant place at the best of times. The heat is something tremendous ; and when you go from the engine-room to the stokehole it is as bad as going from the deck to the engine-room. Terribly, terribly hot, and reeking all the time with the unpleasant smell of 'A report will be found in the Anglican Church Magazine for 1907, p. 51, foil. THE MISSION TO SEAMEN 83 warm oil. You can hardly keep from fainting. It is all heat and fire around you, and beneath you, and you are cramped and confined to a degree. The engine-room is not a pleasant place to be in, and when you come up out of it, you are all covered with grease and oil, and get into a row for being in such a mess. What does it mean to be down there for four or five hours at a stretch, or perhaps two hours consecutive work shovelling in coals for all you are worth, black and grimy from head to foot, and covered with oil and coal dust from the engines ? I really do not think there could be any other work so difficult, and at the same time so unpleasant, as that of a fireman on board a great steam- ship." 1 " The general standard of comfort in modern civilisation has increased," the Bishop went on to say, " but the standard of comfort in a sailor's life remains exactly where it was. Since the advent of steamships things have become still worse, if possible, and the comfort has certainly become less. That part of the ship in which the sailors live is smaller and more confined, more pointed and narrow, than it used to be in the old wooden hulks of our forefathers. The modern narrow steamships, plated with steel, are by no means so comfortable for the sailors to live in as the old ones used to be. The fo'c'sle is not a pleasant place to have to sleep in. There is a movement abroad now to alter all that. . . . Later on, I think they will succeed." He then spoke of Sunday labour, discouraged now by foreign legislatures, but increasing in British ships. " Take a place like Seville, for instance, a great and beautiful city, and the chief port of southern Spain. Of recent years the port of Seville has been greatly improved, and ships can now come right up the Guadalquiver into Seville itself. It is only British ships, belonging chiefly to one important Scottish house, that at the present moment do any loading and unloading on a Sunday. This is really a very serious thing, and gives rise to much reflexion. At the port of Fiume, in Hungary, no working on a Sunday 1 Compare a letter from Lord C. Beresford, in the Times of April 22, 1912, in connexion with the loss of the "Titanic." 84 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS is ever permitted, and there is a fine for those that break the law. Well, it is only British ships that ever do break the law there. They find that, though the penalty may be heavy, it is nothing compared to their loss if they give up Sunday labour. So, as competition is keen, they find it pays them well to incur a penalty which is a mere nothing in comparison with the profit that can be made by breaking the law. At the mouth of the Danube again, they tell me the English have become a bye-word. The Mahommedan's holy day is a Friday, and nothing will ever make him work on that day. The Jew's holy day is a Saturday, and you cannot get the Jew to do any work on a Saturday. The Christian's holy day is a Sunday, and if he is British, you can easily get him to work on that day. ... It is a terrible national disgrace." Upon these facts he based an appeal for the Gibraltar Mission, with its Sailors' Guild, and its lending library, and other works, especially its Institutes. "After all," he said, " most of our work has to be done in port, when the sailors come ashore. You can prepare somewhere for them to go to when they land. You know, yourselves, perhaps, what it is like to land in a strange place you have never been in before. You have no guide-book, and you are tired of wandering about, and after two or three hours of it, with nowhere to sit down, and nowhere to rest, you begin to wish you were back on board again. But the restraint on board has been tiring too, so you try to enjoy yourself on land as best you can. The people speak a language you don't understand. You are hungry and want something to eat, and do not know where to get it, or how to ask for it. What do the sailor and the fireman do when they come ashore in a strange place ? Suddenly they find themselves set free from the restraint of shipboard. There are no officers and captains, and no orders to obey. Our sailor despises all the lingoes he hears, and is generally very thirsty. He has been living on the salt water for a long time, and he would very much like to be able to sit down and have some amusement on land. But there is nowhere for him to go, except some horrid, disgusting little beer-shop : there DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER ACT 85 are always plenty of those, you know the kind, in every port. He goes there. He is very thirsty, and they give him some ' top shelf,' if he has not the money to pay for anything else. And so he drinks that ' top shelf,' vile, fiery poison, and it soon produces the effect it is meant to produce. The man is made drunk as quickly as possible, and then he is turned out. These things go on daily. "About a month ago I received a letter from the chaplain at Patras we have managed this year for the first time to have a chaplain there. There landed at Patras, from Newfoundland, a shipping boat, with salt cod. One of the crew went ashore by himself. Some three or four men came and met him. They wanted him to drink with them, and he refused. They set upon him, and tried to force him, and at last there arose a terrible struggle, and one of the three struck him with a stick, which, entering his eye, pierced his brain, and the man died. The chaplain heard of it, and he managed to arrange an English funeral. Then the whole facts of the case came out. Some one had seen it all. ... This is the sort of thing which may happen any day to any well conducted sailor, quite as much as to the others who are always getting into scrapes." Bishop Collins was always desirous of giving explicit guidance to those who worked under him, and in the latter part of 1907 he found it necessary to issue instructions to the chaplains within his jurisdiction on the subject of the Deceased Wife's Sister Act, which had recently passed through Parliament. He prefaced his instructions by a clear state- ment of the varying conditions under which marriages were solemnised in the countries under his supervision. He then pointed out that the new Act made no alteration in " the law (or rule) of the Church," but only that one particular " law (or rule) " of the Church could no longer be enforced by the statute law, a clergyman who solemnises a marriage of this kind being no longer liable to the penalties to which he would otherwise have been liable. " No doubt," he wrote, " a certain element of confusion has been introduced by the fact that the word ' law ' has 86 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS come to be used by lawyers in a stricter sense than it once was ; to denote the precepts which are enjoined by the sovereign power under a sanction, and nothing else. Accord- ingly, it has been pointed out that the English Church has not, and cannot have, a ' law ' which is contrary to, or not answerable to, the law of the land, since it is not, and cannot be, an imperium in imperio. That is quite true, but it is only by a confusion of terms that it can be held to have anything to do with the matter. Nobody doubts that the Church is bound by the law of the land, like any other society ; nor yet that this involves, in the case of the English Church, a position of exceptional privilege, and correspond- ing restrictions upon our freedom of action. But within these limitations the Church, like any other society, has its own principles, its own methods, and its own rules, which may rightly be spoken of as its ' laws,' in just the same way as we speak of the laws of cricket, or the statutes of an order of chivalry, or the rules of a club. As a matter of fact, a very large part of the ordinary life of the Church depends upon and expresses a Rule and an Order which existed before our statute law began, is not based upon it, and could not by any stretch of imagination be brought within its terms. " One such Rule or Law of the Church, which is expressed in, but does not originate in, the ggth of the Canons of 1603, forbids the marriage of a man to his deceased wife's sister. Formerly this was enforced by the law of the land ; now it is no longer so enforced. But the law of the land, as we have seen, explicitly recognises the fact that it still exists ; and it is hard to see how anybody can suppose that it can be altered but by the action, explicit or implicit, of the Church itself. " Yet it is not to be wondered at that the position of the English Church in the matter has been so largely misunder- stood ; and, as usual, we are ourselves largely to blame. The use that has been made in the past of the argument from Leviticus cannot but seem unreal to those who reflect that we should never dream of conforming our social life to some other precepts of the Hebrew ceremonial law. . . i There has DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER ACT 87 been far too much loose and irresponsible speech about ' the law of God,' as though, with our partial vision and imperfect insight, we were able to lay down dogmatically what is and what is not justifiable for other men, who stand or fall before their own Master, and not before us. In question-begging ways such as these we have largely incapacitated ourselves for bringing home to the consciences of men what are the real objections to the new law ; and yet we are in no doubt as to what they are. Briefly, we hold that it makes a grievous and unnecessary inroad upon the family circle kit introduces an unfair and unjustifiable distinction in t\e treatment meted out to women by men ; and it sows the seeds of future dissension by introducing a contradiction between the marriage law of the State and that of the Church. " Personally, nevertheless, I can think of it as quite possible that the rule of the English Church in the matter might be altered in the future in the direction of the new law. I have the strongest sympathy with what has been said by the Bishops of Hereford and Carlisle, as to the extreme undesirability of anything which should narrow down the position of the English Church into that of a mere section. We might, of course, be compelled to take up such a position, in the interests of the Faith, or of morals ; but I had rather that it should be done in the interests of the central truths of the Faith rather than of some particular point of doctrine, to vindicate some great moral principle rather than to preserve a particular point of practice upon which, highly as I esteem it, minds after all may differ. " For it must never be forgotten that it is the man and woman who actually contract the marriage ; they, not the officiant, are the ' ministers.' Some such marriages there are which this or that realm does not recognise as valid. Others there are upon which the Church will not bestow its blessing. But in any case, the primary responsibility rests with those who contract the marriage. There are not a few marriages which English clergymen and others are called upon to solemnise, which might occasion us very serious misgivings but for this fact. ... In all these cases, 88 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS after having done whatever hi us lay to set things right, we should all hold, I suppose, that only a very clear and decided conviction would justify us in refusing to solemnise the marriage, the ultimate responsibility for which must lie with the parties themselves. It is to my mind quite conceivable that a similar course of action should be taken here, and that the Church might come to the conclusion that its blessing should not be withheld in this case from those who, contracting a marriage which they hold to be justifiable in God's sight, humbly and heartily desire His blessing upon it. " But whatever the future may bring forth, what I have said only places in clearer relief the fact that the rule of the Church against such marriages is at the present time clear and definite ; and the rule is one which can be lightly esteemed by no faithful son of the Church." After applying very clearly the principle thus laid down to the three different classes of chaplaincies with which he had to deal, the Bishop went on to say : " I think it is important that we should dissociate our- selves entirely from the language which has been used by some people in this matter, as though marriages of this description were no true marriages, or even worse. Such an attitude is surely unworthy and unjustifiable, and would seem to be based upon a misapprehension of our message. For here, as elsewhere, the Church is called upon to bless, not to ban ; not to deny what others have, but to defend \fhat God has entrusted to us. The function of the Church is not to appraise marriages, but to proclaim the sacredness of marriage in itself, and to set before men the ideal towards which all marriages should be conformed. Moreover, it does not appear to me that it can reasonably be contended that they who have contracted a marriage allowed by the laws of the Christian land to which we belong are ' open and notorious evil livers ' in the sense of the rubric at the begin- ning of the office for the Holy Eucharist ; and I must hold that none are to be rejected from Communion on the ground that they have contracted marriage with a deceased wife's sister." THE BIBLE SOCIETY 89 Among the causes which the Bishop warmly espoused was to the surprise of some of his friends the cause of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Of all the resolutions passed by Societies at his death, none was more appreciative and discerning than the minute adopted by this Society on April 3, 1911, in which, after a review of his career, they said : " On the shores of the Mediterranean his journeyings brought him often into close contact with the work of the Bible Society. No greater encouragement has been given to that work than the knowledge that it enjoyed the confidence and support of Dr. Collins. He presided regularly at the meetings of the Auxiliaries in the Riviera, and rendered valuable help in the negotiations over the Modern Greek Version. In 1910 he was appointed a Vice-President of the Society." Miss P. M. Bishop, Secretary of the Riviera Auxiliary of the Society, writes to me : " Four out of the seven years he was our bishop, he presided at the annual meeting at Cannes. The year 1908 was the Auxiliary's 2ist anniversary, and he spoke of the occasion being ' a call to action to new effort to a fuller, larger, wiser way of doing our duty to see how much more there is to do, and to think how much more we can do. One thing in addition to what is already done would be to con- solidate the work of the Riviera Auxiliary ; that it may grow geographically as well as deeper in love than in the past.' A few days later he wrote : ' March 23, 1908. My idea with regard to it is that if it is made again, in reality, a Riviera Auxiliary and not merely a Cannes one (as to all intents and purposes it is now), it will gather interest which at present is not only scattered, but in effect lost. And I think that the very fact of all the Cannes Chaplains and myself being connected with it will help people, and especially High Church Chaplains, to consider the matter from a larger point of view and so support it. But I should not feel it to be right to put pressure upon them to do so ; one volunteer is worth ten pressed men, and a moving spirit as contrasted with a law of force, in all but what is 90 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS necessary for order, is the very difference between Christian- ity and Judaism.' " Then followed his suggestions in detail suggestions which afterwards were successfully carried out. In 1909, when all his plans were changed because of his illness, he wrote from Bordighera, November 26 : ' I am so sorry that I shall not be able to be at the first meeting of the Bible Society under the new system ! it wouldn't have mattered so much at another time, but now . However it can't be helped, and we must hope that there may be some- where at hand, at Nice or elsewhere, some " big gun " that we can make use of for the purpose.' " His last message to the Riviera Auxiliary was in February, 1911, about six weeks before his death, from Marseilles, where he told the deputation how deeply interested he was in the Bible Society's work, and asked him to say at the meeting what ' a real self-denial ' it was to him not to be able to preside and how earnestly he wished them success, and sent his blessing." One of the Secretaries of the parent Society, the Rev. J. H. Ritson, obligingly sends me several of the Bishop's letters, from which I give the following extracts : " The Convent, Gibraltar, Dec. 18, 1907. You may like to know that I was at Etchmiadzin in October last, and saw the press given by the British and Foreign Bible Society to the Armenian Church for the print- ing of the Bible, in good order, and showing signs of use." " 12 Fellows Road, Hampstead, N.W., Aug. 4, 1909. It is very tiresome that the Foreign Office objects to Mr. Gardner [the chaplain at Athens], taking up this work. I have talked with one of their people this morning, who tells me, as indeed I had supposed, that their objection is not to his undertaking more work, but to a possible confusion on the part of the Greeks of the Society's work with official action. . . . There is need for extreme caution in Greece. I remember one occasion on which political capital was THE BIBLE SOCIETY 91 made, or attempted to be made, out of the fact that I went to the Metropolis attended by a Legation dragoman." " Train [in Sicily], Jan. 9, 1911. I am very sorry that the Greek Church authorities have taken this line, and in a way all the more so because, as I gather, it is with them (in part at least) only a move in a great political scheme. For the present, at any rate, I fear there is no hope of their ' coming down/ and we must just hope for a change of policy, or, better still [for greater enlightenment in certain quarters]. Meanwhile, your article must do good, and I do not think it could be improved upon in any way. It is right that they should know what we think of it." The Bishop wrote to the Rev. J. Gardner-Brown, the English chaplain at Rome : " Bishop's House, Sliema, Malta, Dec. 7, 1910. In your place I should have no hesitation whatever, and should certainly go and support the Bible Society. It is just the kind of work in which, as it seems to me, we can all join ; and the Society has really been very careful to stick to its true work : circulating the Scriptures, with every care to choose versions which are properly authorised by the Church, wherever practicable, and no proselytising. If colporteurs are sometimes indiscreet, and not true to their principles, I am afraid that sometimes applies to Bishops too ! So I should go, not by way of concession, but as assert- ing our Churchmanship. That is the only way to help a good work to be even better done in future. . . . God be with you." It was, of course, impossible for a busy traveller like the Bishop to write any more books like those which came from his pen before he left King's College. I do not know whether he continued even to review the books of others. The Guardian, however, from time to time, received interesting notes of travel from him. Thus I find articles of his headed, 92 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS " In Servia and Bulgaria," " Trebizond," " Batum and its neighbourhood," " Nicomedeia and its neighbourhood " J articles in no way inferior to those with which Mr. E. A. Freeman was wont to delight the readers of that paper. They were not the work of a man who had left off reading. Even if to a certain extent precluded from studies of his own, he was indefatigable in encouraging the studies of others. Mention has already been made of one work for the promotion of theological learning in which he took a principal share, especially during the central years of his episcopate. Miss Bevan, the Honorary Secretary of the Archbishop's Examination in Theology, has favoured me with the following account of it : "A movement which was started in 1899 at the initiative of Miss Margaret Benson for promoting theological learning owes much to his wise counsel and his active co-operation. The movement began with the founding of the St. Paul Association, the members of which met about once a month in London for the study of some New Testament subject. The papers read at the meetings were then circulated so that those who could not be present might follow the course of study. A library of theological books was also formed for the use of members. Other movements have grown out of this, amongst them, in 1903, the Vacation Term for Biblical Study, which, intended primarily but not exclusively for mistresses in secondary schools, is held every year for three weeks at one of the Universities, and has increased till in the summer of 1910 it numbered three hundred students. The Bishop from the first gave the Vacation Term his support, and helped its promoters with advice in the arrangement of the lectures. " In 1905 the Archbishop of Canterbury instituted a scheme for training women who desire to become teachers of theology. The large and increasing part taken by women in religious education, the extreme responsibility of such work, and the special difficulties with which it is beset at the present time, all these were felt to show that an urgent need exists for well-qualified teachers who should have received no less 1 Guardian, Oct. 21, Nov. 18, Dec. 30, 1908 ; Jan. 20, 1909. WOMEN'S THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 93 careful training and preparation than is required for the teaching of other subjects. It was believed that if the work of women engaged in Church teaching were to be definitely recognised by ecclesiastical authority, and accorded a place of its own in the organisation of the Church, this would come as a call to many to give their lives to a work so full of great and sacred responsibility. With this view the Arch- bishop instituted the Diploma which is awarded to candidates who are successful in the Examination, and the Licence for those who, having received the Diploma, desire to devote themselves to Church teaching. But as comparatively few would find it possible to go through a complete course of theological study at one of the Universities, any scheme to be of general use must be framed on a wide basis, and com- bine the essential requirement of a course of systematic study under expert guidance with great elasticity in the manner in which it might be carried out. To devise such a scheme, and set on foot an entirely new undertaking of this nature was no easy matter, but at the request of the Archbishop the Bishop of Gibraltar threw himself into it, and the lines upon which it was drawn up were largely due to the determination in which the Bishop concurred with the Archbishop, that a high standard of efficiency should be maintained, and to the Bishop's remarkable faculty of estimating the tendency of different methods, their practical disadvantages, or their value in effecting the object to which the work was directed. " This, however, was but the beginning of his labours, for having accepted the office of director it devolved upon him to take the oversight of the candidates' preparation. In the case of those who presented theses in lieu of examination the theses were carefully read by him, and to him all applica- tions and schemes of study were submitted. Every detail received his personal and thorough consideration. The length of time which should be given to each subject, the choice of teachers, the special circumstances of the candidate, and the possibilities of training had all to be taken into account. To carry on such a work would in any circum- stances have been one of considerable difficulty, requiring very unusual powers of insight and judgment. In the 94 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Bishop's case it had to be carried on, as a rule, whilst he was traversing his vast diocese by land or sea, somewhere between Gibraltar and the further shores of the Caspian. But he never failed to devote to it the most scrupulous care and attention, never grudging the serious addition it made to his already immense correspondence, or the trouble which it involved, even when such trouble might well have been spared him. During the five and a half years since the movement began, no less than 114 letters were received from him, besides numerous shorter notes. All who worked with him know well the decision with which he was wont to express his views in all the part of the work for which he felt obliged to accept the full responsibility. But they will remember no less his readiness to trust those with whom he was associ- ated, and his generous recognition of their desire to do the part assigned to them to the best of their ability. In all the difficulties and perplexities connected with the work of the Archbishop's Examination, the sense of possessing the Bishop's confidence was a continual encouragement. " During the last two years of his life, notwithstanding the pressure of trouble and illness, his interest in his labour of love never flagged, and this, the last letter, returning some papers, was written from Constantinople when he was dying. His handwriting, usually so characteristically forcible and clear, bears the mark of the difficulty with which the letter was written. ' In Bed, British Embassy, Constantinople, Mar. 7, 1911. My dear Miss Bevan, I'm sorry these are delayed somewhat. I arrived here in a dilapidated state. . . . By all means let Miss do what she can after Easter with Mr. to count towards her preparation when she is able to fill in the complete course of study. Mr. isja good scholar and a first-rate teacher. God bless you ever. Yours very truly, W. E. GIBRALTAR.' " WOMEN'S THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 95 A lady writes from India : " For some years I was a member of his theological class in connexion with the Guild of the Epiphany. I should like to send a few words to express what I, in common with so many educated women, feel we owe to his sympathy and guidance at a very critical time in our spiritual lives. I for one am under a debt of gratitude for his help and counsel when doubts and difficulties rose which had to be faced and conquered. We studied Martensen's Christian Dogmatics under his direction. To-day I was referring to my papers and his notes and comments on my work, and one or two of his letters, written ' in the train ' mostly, which were so inspiring and suggestive. " I seldom saw him, but when I said good-bye to him before I first sailed for India, I shall never forget his words, or the help I found from his letters which he sent regularly, until he had, through pressure of work, to give up the class." Besides superintending the studies of the ladies who were reading for the Certificate and Diploma, the Bishop continued to watch over the work of other students. He freely lent them volumes out of his own large library sometimes a dozen at a time. He took a deep interest in the progress of Miss Shipley's English Church History for Children, and Miss Granger's Black Letter Saints, looking over proofs, correcting, criticising, suggesting, writing prefaces, and tak- ing as much pains as if the books were his own. And yet Miss Shipley tells me that she never saw him they only knew one another by correspondence. The Bishop's methods with his diocese were not such as everybody could, in all points, imitate. Wherever he went, his personal charm dissolved opposition. Difficulties seemed to disappear when he touched them. Quarrels were made up, and malcontents were reconciled to the Church. Yet not everyone found it easy to work with him and under him. Mr. Bodington tells me that much amusement was caused at a certain meeting when Bishop Collins said that some of the clergy evidently thought that the word episcopus meant, not an overseer, but an over-looker. That was not his view of 96 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS his office. He said to a friend in private, when he was first appointed, that he intended to rule, and so he did. " He ruled me with a rod of iron," wrote, after his death, one of his most willing servants. But undeniably his action was sometimes autocratic. He came into conflict with powers that had long borne what looked like episcopal sway in his jurisdiction. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts has not the reputation of disloyalty to the bishops of the Church ; but at one moment, if I was rightly informed, the Society felt almost compelled to go to law with the Bishop of Gibraltar, and the scandal was only averted in consideration of the fact that the Bishop's wife was so ill at the time that a prosecution would have been inhuman. Yet, in spite of his masterful ways, he never took it amiss when his own opinion was not adopted. He readily admitted the right of others to think for themselves. The friend who wrote about a " rod of iron " added : " and yet he always allowed me to say my whole say against anything he proposed. Nearly always he did what he had intended to do, but smiled kindly at my often strongly expressed opinions. No one could have invented such a man ; had they tried, they would have left out his intensely human side, which made him so lovable. There was to me something most fascinating in that strange mixture of genius and simplicity, of humility, and of wonderful powers and charming weak- nesses, great independence and a yearning for sympathy and affection." A correspondent writes : "His decided views and firm pronouncements never clashed with his tenderness as a judge. He could come down like a hammer upon the cowardly or tyrannical. He would not appear to agree with people against his convictions in order to save their feelings but he managed to disagree without hurting them ! Withal he was courtesy and chivalry per- sonified. Amid the ' care of all the churches ' he yet would remember to write a letter of comfort or encouragement to a soul here and there, in need of, but little expecting, help from an overworked bishop carrying on the intricate corre- spondence attendant on the working of a huge jurisdiction." ANECDOTES 97 Miss Emily Bishop, the Secretary of the Society of Watchers and Workers for the diocese of Gibraltar, writes about this side of his episcopate : " The Bishop wrote of a friend : ' A man has time and strength to do what he loves to do in the way of work.' And he loved small beginnings, and nursing them. When he came to the diocese, its branch of the Society of Watchers and Workers was one of the small things he at once interested himself in. And when, later, his opinion was asked on one point, it led to his taking the whole thing into his personal care. And after that, every detail of the working he wished to be told, that he might help in it not during his visitations only, but by letter. Nothing was too trifling or insignificant in his eyes everything was an opportunity for taking trouble and being faithful. ' Yes, our Watchers and Workers Society is a great blessing,' he wrote. From time to time he sent petitions for diocesan needs, to be used by the members. And he kept with them their yearly Quiet Day, wherever he might be. He visited any invalids he could hear of during his visitations, and especially the members of the branch when strength permitted." A few little anecdotes may help to illustrate some aspects of the Bishop's character. An English clergyman, who did not know him, writes : " In the summer of 1908 I was ill and was undergoing treat- ment for a bad heart in a nursing-home in Westminster. I was allowed out for short walks as far as strength permitted. One afternoon I was walking out, leaning on the arm of a young assistant curate, who had come to take me out for a turn. The Bishop of Gibraltar caught us up and passed us. The situation was obvious. A sick vicar was being taken care of by a devoted and youthful curate. The Bishop took it in at a glance, and though he was personally unknown to me, he turned round, and saluted us courteously and with a smile of tender and sympathetic encouragement, which illuminated his whole face, and which I afterwards described in telling the story, as truly ' seraphic.' I remember being much cheered by this evident token of tender sympathy 98 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS towards a sick and unknown priest, which must have sprung out of his personal knowledge of sickness and ill-health. I remember that I felt as if I had passed under a spiritual benediction which conveyed a sense of real joy and uplifting though the incident only lasted a few seconds." Mr. Blogg says of him : " He loved children, and they soon took to him. In October last (1910), two little boys and a little girl were brought down by their nurse to see the Bishop. The Bishop explained that I was a sailor and a clergyman. The older boy turned to his sister, and said : ' And he/ pointing to his lordship, ' is only a bishop.' The Bishop laughed heartily." "A. K. C." wrote to the Guardian soon after his death, and said : " I have seen him cross the Black Sea in a petroleum boat, and I have come across the men of the steamer some months afterwards, and they one and all said, ' What a remarkable man for a bishop ! He is clever, yet he makes you feel perfectly at home.' The sick always looked forward to the Bishop's visits in the various hospitals we visited together : he always had a word of cheer both to the English and the foreigner. At the sailors' concerts he made an ideal chair- man, and even after a tedious journey he always remained until the concert was over, though some kind lady would try to persuade him to return with her for a comfortable rest and dinner." A former chaplain at a Spanish port writes about one of his visits : " His stay was but a short one, but it was long enough to win the hearts of most of us, even of some of the Spaniards. Our maid asked if she might attend the Confirmation Service which he held at our little church. She came in her mantilla and knelt all through the service, and though she could not understand any of it, she said she was sure that all he said was good, ' for he had the face of an angel.' And that was no doubt the reason why several little Spanish children came up to him, as we were walking along the quay, and asked to kiss the cross he wore." There happened, some one writes, to be a family at A. A SERIOUS ILLNESS 99 perhaps only husband and wife who were rather overlooked in the English set. The Bishop heard of it, and although terribly hard worked at the time, and his throat so bad, he wrote to them saying he should very much like to dine with them. Of course, added my informant, their position will be quite assured in the future. The year 1907 saw him take the most adventurous journey of his life, for the promotion of unity among Christians. He began the year, or ended the previous one, with an alarming illness. Fortunately for him, it seized him at Costebelle, where he had the affectionate care of the family of Sir Mark Collet to help him through. Writing on January 3, 1907, Mrs. Collins says : " The Bishop is really improving, though very slowly at present. He has been up for a few hours for the last three days, and though he cannot yet stand alone, we are hoping to be able to leave for Gibraltar on the I2th. He has been very, very ill. That horrible Spanish fever was followed by serious complications, causing just as much pain as can be borne, and for several nights and days we were poulticing every hour. We telegraphed to Nice for a nurse, and she has been doing the night work. Now we are able to do without her, and I hope and trust progress will go on steadily. . . . The Bishop lay on the balcony for a couple of hours yesterday morning, enjoying the sun and exquisite view." They came to England for a few days in February, partly to consult Dr. Goodhart. Mrs. Collins noted in her diary on the 22nd : " He does not think there is anything organically wrong with W.'s heart : says it is terribly overstrained, and that he must have six weeks' rest immediately, and a good three months' holiday in the summer." Obedient as he always was to the doctors, he went straight to Corsica, where he had spent a pleasant time the year before, and did his six weeks most of the time at the charm- ing and unsophisticated hill-village of Evisa. Then came work at Florence, Naples, Taormina, Tripoli, Tunis, in Malta, at Athens, Trieste, Venice, Milan, the Italian Lakes, and so ioo LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS back to England. The Archbishop lent them his house at Canterbury, and there they rested the greater part of July. On the 22nd of that month they went down to Crinnis, his father's house in Cornwall, for the wedding of his sister Gwendolen next day. August and September were spent quietly in England. I find record of only one sermon preached ; it was at Brampton, on behalf of the Church in Jamaica. On October 4 he started on the far errand, leaving Mrs. Collins in London. The object of the journey was to visit Mar Shimun, Catholicos of the East, and to help forward the work of the Archbishop's Mission to the venerable Church over which Mar Shimun presides. That Mission was first sent by Arch- bishop Benson in 1886, at the urgent request of the Assyrian Church, whose very existence, after a long and wonderful history, was imperilled by the assaults of Kurdish and Mussulman neighbours on the one hand, and by Roman Catholic and American Presbyterian emissaries on the other. Ignorance, born of oppression and poverty, made them unable to meet their enemies, and they turned to the Church of England for instruction and spiritual aid. The Assyrian Church has long borne the epithet of " Nestorian," but there seems to be no reason for thinking that it is committed to the form of belief usually associated with that word. In view of the Lambeth Conference to be held in 1908, it was thought well that a legatus of high standing should confer with the rulers of the Church which we had so long befriended, in order to see whether a closer union were possible or to be desired. The Bishop of Gibraltar undertook to penetrate into their mountain fastnesses ; and he hoped by starting in October to achieve his purpose before the worst of the winter interfered. He printed an account of his expedition in the following year, first in his diocesan organ, the Anglican Church Maga- zine, and afterwards, with additions, in pamphlet form, under the title of Notes of a Journey to Kurdistan. But the pamphlet was not published, and is not easily obtainable. I have no hesitation, therefore, in reproducing here large extracts from it. JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 101 Arriving at Erivan on Tuesday, October 22, the Bishop met Mr. Wigram, the head of the Archbishop's Mission, and Mr. F. J. Blamire Brown, who was on his way out to join the Mission. Erivan is near Etchmiadzin, the Canterbury of the Armenians. His first steps were turned to Etchmiadzin and to the venerable Patriarch of the Armenians, Meguer- dich, of whom he wrote an interesting account a few weeks later in the Guardian of December II, 1907. This is his narrative of the expedition : " Tuesday, October 22. I arrived at Erivan about 7 a.m. . . . We resolved to drive to Etchmiadzin to-day, it being impossible to start on our longer journey till to-morrow, no horses being forthcoming. It was a beautiful drive of about 14 versts (10 miles), first across the old bridge and below the Persian citadel of Erivan (taken by the Russians in 1826) on its rocky cliff above the river, then between gardens and vine- yards bordered by poplars. Then we came out upon the open plain, and drove over open moors covered with a beautiful red-brown shrub ; we had the noble snow-crowned mass of Ararat in sight on the left, rising above a range of lower mountains which bordered the plain to the south, as a second but lower range did to the north. "As we approached Etchmiadzin several churches [came] in sight, in addition to the great mother church and monastery of the Blessed Virgin itself. The original cathedral was at Artaxata ; about 400 A.D. it was removed to Vagharshapad, now Etchmiadzin ( = the only-begotten Son came down), where St. Gregory the Illuminator had built a little chapel in 303 A.D., on the spot where he had seen the Son of God descending in a vision ; afterwards removed again, owing to hostile invasions, but fixed at Etchmiadzin about 1400 A.D. About this mother sanctuary many others gathered, some now in ruins, each formerly with a convent attached : the great church of the Angels, once the Cathedral, now ruined (out of sight, on left) ; the church of St. Rhipsime (close to road on right, finest and most beautiful of all) ; the church of St. Gayanai (beyond the great church, also ancient) ; that of Shogagath (the Divine Light), now in ruins ; and others less interesting and more modern. We 102 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS passed a strange ancient graveyard of the monks, with huge masses of rock covering the tombs. Presently we came to the cathedral monastery : a huge courtyard surrounded by high walls, partly of squared stones from the church of the Angels, partly of mud ; within this the great church with its five domes, the monastic buildings, school, printing press, etc., and, just outside, the guest-houses. Wigram had written to say we were coming, but the letter had miscarried, and we were not expected. After a short wait in the guest- house, however, there arrived the Vartabad Karapet to receive us, he being not only Librarian, but at present Secretary to the Catholicos, and indeed the chief person in the monastery after him. (Vartabad = preacher ; the title corresponds to archimandrite in the Greek Church). Spoke French ; told me that the Catholicos had become very feeble of late, and was confined to his bed, but that he would gladly receive us if we could wait till later in the day. Mean- while he himself would show us the monastery. " So he led us by gardens and vineyards to the huge tank, over 100 yards long, which secures them water all the year round, in the midst of a great grove of poplars : then through the gate into the court of the monastery. In the centre stands the great church of St. Mary, with fine seventh- century porch, beautifully carved ; the church itself, with five domes, is much later, and the effect largely spoiled by the red paint with which these are covered. By the porch are alabaster monuments of two Catholicoi, and close to the west wall of the church the monument of Sir John Macdonald, a British envoy to Persia in the eighteenth century, who died there ' from the effects of the climate and over- fatigue.' Within, the effect is very fine and good. Under the great dome (like the little church of the Portiuncula in Sta. Maria degli Angeli at Assisi) is the little shrine said to have been built by St. Gregory the Illuminator, on the place of his vision, which has set the type for the porches of Armenian churches ever since. Here the Catholicos is still consecrated. In the nave there is a fine throne of walnut, given by Pope Innocent XI. (another of ivory, given by Armenians of Smyrna, is at present in the museum for repair). In the JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 103 sacristy are many interesting things : a huge silver-gilt vessel, 18 inches across, for the holy oil ; many old and good vestments, including some in China silk, with figures of Our Lord and the Apostles in Chinese dress, with long moustaches and pigtails. . . . We could not see the Treasury, with its relics, as there are three keys, and the holders of two were absent. Altogether the monastery gave the impression that the Long Vacation was still going on, and most of its apart- ments were empty. " We also went to the Museum several cuneiform inscrip- tions, many interesting antiquities and to the famous Library. The latter is very fine ; there are more than four thousand manuscript volumes (about fifty thousand separate writings), mostly Armenian, a few only Greek and Syriac. I inquired after the newly discovered work of St. Irenaeus on the Apostolic Tradition (in an Armenian version), and was delighted to find that our guide was the discoverer of it. It is now in his rooms, where, later on, he showed it to us, and he and Erwand gave me a copy of the edition of it, with a German translation, that they had just published in Harnack's Texte und Untersuchungen. Then we visited the printing house. It is interesting, with several good machine presses ; also a hand press, given by the British and Foreign Bible Society for the printing of the Armenian Bible. "Then after this we paid our visit to the Patriarch, to whom I had a letter of introduction (official in form and properly sealed) from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Patriarch of Etchmiadzin is Catholicos of all the Armenians, and the present holder of the office, now in his eighty-seventh year, is a man of very high character and true sanctity, who has been the real leader of his Church and people ever since the Berlin Conference of 1878. We found him lying in bed, but properly arrayed, wearing his hat and veil, with a little cross of brilliants in front, and a large jewelled pectoral cross ; a fine venerable man, with a face of great strength and gentle- ness combined, beautiful eyes, and firm, aquiline nose ; aged indeed, but showing no signs of mental decay. I presented my letter, which he received with both hands, and then gave io 4 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS to the Vartabad Karapet, who interpreted it. He welcomed us warmly, spoke of his visit to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Tait) in 1878, and of the House of Commons, of which he evidently had a very vivid recollection. He asked many questions about the English Church, and expressed his great regard for it. When I spoke of our sympathy with the Armenian Church he seemed to be moved, but made it clear that he had been much saddened by the little interest in his Church that had been shown when he visited England. When I expressed our affection for, and sympathy with, his Church, he thanked me, and gave me both hands, saying : ' Yes, I understand, and I believe your Church cares. But the world is strong, and time will show.' It was clear that he was very tired, and that his memory was failing ; so we did not stay longer, and took our leave of the venerable old Patriarch. " After this we were summoned to dinner (3 p.m.) with the Vartabads Karapet, Erwand, Komitas, the headmaster of the school, and one or two other dignitaries of the monastery. They gave us caviare and other sakuski, " borch " (or vegetable soup), meat of several kinds, cheese, and delicious grapes, and drank our health in their own excellent wine. There was much questioning on both sides : as to our journey and as to their life. They have some two hundred scholars in the schools, from thirty to fifty monks in the monastery itself, and often many visitors ; whilst the whole colony dependent upon the monastery is much larger. They invited me to stay with them as the guest of the Patriarch on my return journey, told me how gladly their brethren in the monasteries about Van would welcome me, and urged me, if possible, to visit the famous monastery of Achtamar, on an island in Lake Van, the seat of a patriarchate which is temporarily suppressed. So, with much friendship on both sides, we parted." On Friday, October 25, they crossed the frontier into Turkish territory : " We arrived at the top of the pass at 9.30 ; an open glade some 7,000 feet up, with the Russian guard-house and the cottage of the serjeant in command, and 200 yards further JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 105 on the first Turkish sentries. Beyond this the ground fell abruptly, with magnificent views over the plain below, and out towards the Persian and Turkish mountains. Our goods were dumped on the ground just outside the frontier line, and we remained there, cold and hot by turns as wind or sun prevailed, and I troubled not a little by difficulty of breathing, which always attacked me at any height, especially after the least exertion." When they reached the Turkish Customs Station, he says: " Presently the doctor came to examine us, as there is quar- antine against Russia, letting us through, however, without difficulty. The Customs' examination was more severe. The chief officials and their friends, ten or twelve in all, took their seats on the divan in the inner room, where (as it was Rama- dan) we gave them tea, and let them smoke, in order to propitiate them. Every single package had to be brought in and emptied before them, they making voluble criticisms and showing the liveliest interest and curiosity. Meanwhile the outer room was crowded with sightseers, who came in from the rain outside, and gradually vitiated the air, and trod our floor into a sticky mass. It was nearly three hours before we were rid of them ; after which we had our own supper of tea and coarse bread, unrolled our beds on the wet stable-floor, and slept the sleep of the just. " Saturday, October 26. A fine morning after the storm, but very cold : the plain very wet, but the broken ground behind us sprinkled with snow, and the mountains covered. I was up early to see the village, the first Kurdish village we have come to. It is a large burrow, or warren, consisting of a series of earth-mounds of large size, some with solid roofs that can be walked on, others that the occupants anxiously warn one off. . . . The whole thing strongly suggests the underground dwellings in Cornwall, at Chysauster or Treryn. " Sunday, October 27. This was the first of many Sundays on which, alas ! we had to do without our Eucharist, and to travel all day, doing the best we could to keep ourselves in the atmosphere of Sunday none the less. . . . We started io6 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS at 6.45, and Wigram, Blamire Brown, and I said Mattins together as we climbed up the mountains above the village, on our horses. . . . Our path climbed right into the mountains, to a steep and narrow ridge over 9,400 feet high ; and as we were close to the Persian frontier, across which Kurds can disappear after a raid, our zaptieh had secured a guard of six soldiers, who accompanied us most of the day. The climb tired our horses and us ; and at the top, which was bleak and marshy, with a few patches of old snow, I found it very difficult to breathe and no wonder, for I had never been so high up before. Then we descended into a great open valley, which was the beginning of a huge region, hundreds of square miles in extent, simply covered with lava- flows. There were not a few volcanic peaks about, in addition to Ararat, the queen of them all ; but Wigram and I agreed that much of the lava must have come from great horizontal fissures rather than from peaks. In the open valley which we now followed, in a bitterly cold wind, the whole surface for miles was covered with great craggy masses of lava, like a petrified stormy sea, with waves sometimes 20, 40, or even 100 feet high. We ought to have gone on as far as Bayazid Agha ; but our guides told us that the road did not go near it, and that there was no other village in front, so at four o'clock we halted at Terchik, a beautiful Kurdish village looking out across the plain towards the Persian mountains to the south and east, which were ominously covered with newly fallen snow. The people offered us a very small room, with clean-looking mats, a fire-place, and a ' port-hole,' six inches across, in the roof. . . . They were actually able to give us a pilaf (rice cooked with butter) and eggs, so that we fared well. " Monday, October 28 (SS. Simon and Jude). Alas ! no Eucharist ! A hard frost in the night. They covered our ' port-hole ' with turf to keep us warm, and we had it opened again that we might not suffocate ; but the icy air fell like a waterfall upon us, and my bed (a i-inch mattress with two blankets and a rug) was not sufficient to keep me warm. In the morning I had to break through ice nearly an inch thick, on a large horse-pond, for my ablutions ; the rest, I JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 107 believe, contented themselves with the regular Eastern wash. We started at six, under the stars, through beautiful open country, but with the great plain of lava never far off, through which the river has cut a deep bed for itself. After two or three hours we came to Bayazid Agha, where we ought to have stayed last night. Our guides were not in the least ashamed of deceiving us, and I learned afterwards that there is no word in Turkish for ' a lie,' as distinguished from ' a mistake." That night they spent at the large Armenian village of Kordzut. About 12.30 a.m. they were startled by hearing several shots outside. They at once turned out. On inquiry, it appeared that Kurds had attacked the village, and actually broken down a corner of the sheep-fold in order to steal the sheep ; but the alarm had frightened them, and they had made off without any plunder. " Tuesday, October 29. I was up at 3 a.m., and went to the stream to wash, where it flows through a deep hollow some way from the village. As I arrived, a snarl and a growl, and out there came a large wolf, looking in the moon- light as big as a donkey. I stood some time, afraid to go on, for I could not see what had become of him ; then decided that funk was worse than wolves, so went down and washed. We could not get off till after 5 a.m., for what they told us was a ten hours' journey to Van. Crossed two passes, each of about 7,500 feet, and then at length descended to Lake Archag, along the east side of which we had to ride. The lake is very beautiful, deep blue in colour, with a white margin of alkali-stained sand ; it has a little basin of its own, within, but unconnected with, that of Lake Van. We halted for lunch on the north shore, where bands of gaily dressed Armenians passed us, returning from a pilgrimage church. Then we made our way along the shore of the lake, up and down along a sloping path in fierce sunlight, till, at 4 p.m., we left the lake and turned towards Van. By this time the baggage animals were obviously tired out, and we found that the men had deliberately taken us somewhat out of our road in order to stop another night on the way. So we sent them off with the zaptieh to a neighbouring io8 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS village, with orders to come into Van as early as possible next day, whilst we three decided to make a push for it, although it was already getting dark and the horses were very tired. ... At length, about 9 p.m., we reached the Mission House in safety. We had been nearly sixteen hours out, and I had been actually in the saddle all the time excepting half an hour for lunch, and about fifteen minutes when we climbed down a very rough place after dark. " Our knock was at once answered, and we were received with joy by the thirty-five boys of the Mission School, who kissed our hands, seized our impedimenta, and seemed not to know how to do enough for us. Mr. Bowdon, the Missioner in charge, received us not less warmly. They had gone out across the plain to meet us more than once, and had given us up for the day. But food was quickly ready, after which we were glad to get to bed, tired out and somewhat chilled, but otherwise none the worse." Van was at that time the headquarters of the Arch- bishop's Mission ; it has since been removed to Amadia, on the Mosul side of the mountains. There was much to interest the Bishop in the place and its neighbourhood, and he lost his heart to the little deacons and others attending the Mission School. But he only stayed there two nights, and on Thursday, October 31, he resumed the journey towards Qudshanis, the home of Mar Shimun. The worst was yet to come. He had scarcely felt tired thus far with the long hours of riding ; and though he had found difficulty in breathing on the high ground, the difficulty was not pressing, so long as he was on horseback. " Thursday, October 31. We had our Allhallowmas Eucha- rist this morning at six o'clock, by anticipation. I celebrated, wearing mitre and vestments. We used incense, as the Mission is authorised to do on festivals by the Archbishop, and sang the whole service, though I could barely manage my part for lack of breath. (Van is only 5,500 feet above the sea, but for some reason the rarefaction of the air seems especially great.) All the boys were there, standing in a dense mass at the back of the chapel. They joined in the Creed in their own tongue, and evidently followed the whole JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 109 service intelligently. I shall never forget their rapt faces and the look of awe and reverence in their dark eyes. " Meanwhile, all arrangements had been made for our journey to Qudshanis. As we were going to return to Van, we were able to reduce our luggage ... to one horse-load ; my baggage consisting of a sack, and a handbag with my robes, etc. After our experience by the shores of Lake Archag, I thought it wise to guard against the sun, and Bowdon care- fully prepared a pugaree for my soft felt hat. As it turned out, I never once needed it ; on the other hand, I was thank- ful for every thick thing that I had. ... All these, how- ever, proved quite inefficient to keep out the cold. "At 8 a.m. on October 31 we started, being accompanied across the plain for nearly two miles by the boys, with Bowdon and Blamire Brown and the Syrian priest. The party consisted of our two selves, Gregor, the Armenian steward at the Mission-house (who speaks Turkish but not English), two kartajis, and four horses mine a chestnut. The zaptiehs who were to accompany us had not turned up, so we left directions that they should follow us. " There are several routes to Qudshanis. The shortest and hardest, impassable all the winter, takes three days ; another, by Bashkala, takes about five days ; whilst occa- sionally this also is closed for a time and further detours become necessary. We took the shortest without misgivings, for although the weather was doubtful, and the mountains in sight full of snow, some of the boys had come down recently bj> it, and it is usually open for more than a month later. In this case it proved otherwise, and we did not reach Qudshanis till the eighth day was well advanced. " The start was rather unfortunate ; we missed our way when two hours out, and had to retrace our steps for an hour or more. The zaptiehs had not yet turned up ; so after we had crossed the first line of hills, Wigram made a detour to a village to the right to requisition one or more, whilst I went straight on to the Armenian village of Intosh, beyond which our path could be seen, climbing up a very steep gorge between two peaks of the range in front, the pass being about 9,000 feet high. Owing to recent heavy rain, the whole no LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS marshy plain beyond Intosh was under water, and the ford of the Norchnk Su impassable ; so I, with the beasts, had to make for a bridge a huge way off to the left, close to which was a ruined fort of (I think) Sassanian or Roman work. It was nearly three o'clock before we met (Wigram having obtained two zaptiehs, who were to take us to Merwanen only), and getting dusk before we began to climb to the pass. As we stumbled on it became quite dark. My horse did his best, but could not carry me up ; so I got off and walked a few steps, then rested, leaning against him, then up again. The others were not much better off, excepting Wigram, who strode on to the top, and there awaited us. At length, scrambling among loose stones and patches of snow, panting and aching, we reached the top, a mere ledge, in darkness. The descent was more gradual and the path better, which was fortunate, as we still had a long, dark march before us, across rough ground, over which our horses snorted and stumbled, occasionally whimpering in the most pathetic way. At length, at 9.30, we reached Kaseriki (Kurdish). At the first house we tried we could not get admittance. ' My children are with me in bed ! ' was apparently the reason. We resolved to go on to the Agha's house ; but ere we reached it we were taken in at another house, and given a fair-sized room, half for the horses. There was decent ventilation, however, and the good people produced some eggs. We ate our suppers as quickly as possible, got to bed at once, and slept. "Friday, November i. A strange Allhallowmas Day. Up at four, but could not get off till nearly six ; the kartajis a little cross and irritable, as they often are in Ramadan. The Agha's house is a huge castellated mass with a solid semi- circular bastion, which might be of any age ; it is now much dilapidated, and has been added to in modern days. We did not see the Agha, who was still in bed ; but he sent out a kind message, and we promised to stay with him if we returned that way. Again a long march, climbing most of the way, and at length entering a long and grand defile, where we saw several magnificent eagles. Much rain and a little snow, so that we were glad to take shelter in a shepherd's JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN in hut at midday (the only sign of human habitation we passed) . On again, down a steep ravine, and across the Bohtan Su, which is the main branch of the Tigris ; up the other side, and on till we reached Merwanen, our first Syrian village, where the Malik of the district resides. He is a peasant, who keeps a little store ; and he received us with great honour. He said that there were about thirty Syrian families in the village, besides two Armenian and about five Kurdish. I asked if they had a Qasha (priest) in the village. ' Yes, a kinsman of mine/ he replied. Presently he came, a fine old man and a most picturesque figure ; shocks of white hair, turbaned, about a dark, rugged face of noble expression, with fine, deep-set eyes. He took us to see the church. The Qasha told us that not long before a party of nomadic Kurds . . . had broken into the church, and destroyed every- thing they could lay their hands on. He showed us a large recess full of fragments of MS. books, cut to pieces with swords, or rather knives. The Malik said that they had stolen some of his sheep at the same time ; that it was always the same, they could keep nothing, and that if he could he would sell out, and go off to some other country. . . . Thus the poor nation is weakened. The old Qasha trembled with delight at our visit. When he kissed my hand at parting I kissed his cheek ; and the tears started to his eyes as he seized my hand and laid it on his head." It turned out afterwards that Merwanen was right on their way, and that they might have stopped there ; but they did not know it, and set off about 5 p.m. for Sekunis, a large mixed village, mainly Armenian, which they reached after daik. All seemed promising there ; but gradually their lodging filled up with Turks and others, who kept arriving and departing, eating and smoking, drinking tea and talking nearly all night, so that they got no rest at all. " Saturday, November 2. Up at three, and off soon after five. When I went out to wash bathed, in fact, in a large stream close at hand it was very cold, but the sky was fairly clear. It was very thick, however, when we started, with a little rain, which soon turned to wet snow, so that we began to get very wet. Then came drier snow, and it ii2 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS snowed and blew worse and worse as we mounted higher. At length we came out upon the Akarag Dagh, a broad range of broken craggy peaks, with upland valleys between them, forming good upland pasture in summer, at a height of 8,000 to 10,000 feet, but now terribly bleak, and deep in snow. It got worse and worse as we struggled on. The horses floundered about, and could not see for the snow (nor could we), and kept coming down. This was quite unavoid- able : they got their feet into holes in the deep snow, and were bound to fall ; and the only thing to do was to get free from the stirrups and throw one's self clear of them into the soft cushion that lay there ready. Poor Gregor did not distinguish himself. As a rule, he kept to the rear ; and whenever things got difficult we could hear him crying out, ' Rabbi, rabbi,' in a voice like that of a sick sheep. He says that if he gets back safely to Van, nothing will ever induce him to visit the mountains again. "As we went on the weather grew steadily worse. The wind increased into a blizzard, driving the snow before it into our faces till it cut like so many knives. Gradually it froze on our eyebrows and ears, and Wigram's beard became a solid mass. We began to feel symptoms of frost-bite. Both my ears, one cheek, and fingers of both hands were frozen, so that after rubbing the latter with snow I had to keep them in my pockets, guiding my horse as best I could. At length, when we had hardly strength to face the storm any longer, and our horses were even more exhausted, and their feet bleeding from slipping against the rocks, the guide whom we had taken from Sekunis, and the two zaptiehs who had joined us there, confessed that they had lost their way completely. So, as we could not hope to get through, or indeed to hold out much longer at all, we resolved to make for a place of shelter, and turned off to one side. It was easier going now, but we had still a long way before us, down and up again, until at length our eyes were gladdened by the sight of some mounds above the level surface of the snow, which we knew to be a cemetery ! Thus death became a sign of life to us, and about 12.45, half-frozen and wholly exhausted, we reached the village of Shinzaga, about 8,000 JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 113 feet up. One of our zaptiehs said that if we had gone on fifteen minutes more not one of us could have survived to tell the tale. It was not perhaps so bad as that, but we were certainly in considerable danger, and most mercifully preserved. Our men behaved well throughout, and so did the horses, two of which were simply done, whilst most were badly cut about the feet. " Our arrival created no little excitement. We were given a small ' room/ where we soon had our beds spread and a fire lighted, and took off some of our wet things. Our host was the headman of the village, and an officer of the Hamidieh irregular cavalry. He came in to greet us, wearing his military greatcoat, medals, etc., and coughing as if he were in the last throes of consumption. Presently other people crowded in, too, till we could hardly move, and although the hole in the roof let in the snow whilst it let out the smoke, the air was heavy and stifling. . . . We settled down as best we could to rest and read, and get our bruises and our frozen fingers healed. I took the opportunity, moreover, of making a more thorough inspection of the ' house ' than I had been able to do before, under similar circumstances, when we generally arrived after dark, and left at daybreak, if not before. I made a rough plan of it. ... "As our men were not a little disheartened, as well as fatigued, and had behaved well, we resolved to make them a present of a sheep, which cheered them up at once. It was brought in for our inspection, poor thing ; a nice black creature with a huge fat tail, and its price two medjids (seven shillings). Soon after 6 p.m. a strong smell of tallow told of the roasting of him, so we went into the large living- room to see what was being done. They had burned wood and tezek in the tellura till it was nearly red-hot, and half full of ashes, then put in a layer of wet leaves and grass (I think), and then the sheep, wrapped up in his own tail- fat. We sent them a handful of tea to go with it, and they brought us a portion of the roast sheep, with which, a tin of soup, and a bowl of yaurt (a kind of junket, a favourite and very useful Turkish dish) , we fared sumptuously. The men seemed to be eating the greater part of the night. H4 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS " There was much discussion as to what we were to do next. The general opinion was that we could not possibly get across the pass to Qudshanis, since it was sure not to be open again this year. Our host, however, talked of another attempt if the weather was good on the morrow. If it failed, we should have to go round, which would take much longer. That is very awkward for me, as I have no time to spare ; but it would be wrong to go back now, so I must try to squeeze things together later on. " Sunday, November 3. Somewhat rested, but stiff and sore, and the frozen fingers and one ear tiresome. It snowed most of the night, and was still coming down at 7 a.m. We said Mattins together, and sang a hymn. Made a start at eight, as it looked better, with the headman as our guide. At first the sun shone, and the glare, in spite of our snow spectacles, was very great ; but soon the sky clouded over, and the snow and wind began again. It was not so bad as yesterday, and we were not facing it ; moreover, we had a guide whom we could trust ; still, it was pretty severe. The snow was much deeper than yesterday ; in fact, in some drifts the horses went in right up to their ears, and we came off more than once. Passed several large cemeteries, relics of deserted villages, and two ancient hill-forts ; saw several eagles and vultures. But our attempt at the higher ridges failed ; we could not get through the snow, and the wind was still almost unbearable. So when we reached Pagana, about i p.m., we decided to stay there, on the urgent advice of our guide and the zaptiehs. The horses had done nearly as much as they could manage, and we were far from well ourselves ; besides, there was no other village in front that we could reach before night, and it would not have done to be exposed to the bitter wind. . . . " Here we remained the rest of the day, going out from time to time into the biting wind and hard frost. . . . Later on the Agha arrived, on a magnificent horse ; a fine, tall man, in the uniform of a colonel of the Hamidieh cavalry, with a gorgeous turban having a jewel in front. About 5 p.m. there came in many people of the village, including the Mullah, in his white turban (we were greatly struck by the JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 115 devout Mahomedanism here ; we saw nothing like it either before or after). . . . Alter this there followed much talk, especially on the part of the Agha, who is indeed a jewel amongst Aghas. He could not imagine why the Sultan had interfered with the Persian provinces. Everyone knew that they had been Persian for over a hundred years, and God gave us our possessions that we might govern them rightly, not that we might defraud our neighbours. This province had been ruined by bad government, and did not need enlarging. . . . " The Agha asked where we were going, and was much interested to hear of our errand. . . . He said that he was great friends with Mar Shimun, and loved him as a father. He promised also to start with us to-morrow, to show us the road, and to let us have a guard of four men, who would at least help to make the road passable. We certainly ought to get on the better for the fact that so many people are making it a point of honour to see us safely through ! " During all this, the Mullah had sat alone at the upper end of the room. Now the Agha arose and went to him, and, with two or three more, said the evening prayers of the Mosque ; we saying our prayers meanwhile. After which he retired, and we went to bed. " Monday, November 4. A disturbed night. At 1.30 a.m. they brought in a meal for the Mahomedans, who were keeping Ramadan. The meal ended in smoke and talk, and we got little more sleep. They were asleep again by 4.30, when we got up, so as to be ready by 6.30, when we had arranged to start. We had to wait till 7.45 for the Agha, who was ready at last, with his fine horse and the four men on foot ; then, after affectionate farewells to the little son, we started. The sun shone at first, but it soon got over- cast, and snowed and blew fiercely, so that the day was a very exhausting and breathless one, up and down amongst the high mountains, twice or three times up to 10,000 feet and never below 8,000. We managed to cross the water- shed, but all our efforts to get over the pass towards Qud- shanis failed, owing to the weather and the soft snow. So, after directing us towards the upper valley of the Zab, the n6 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Agha took his farewell, giving his gloves to Wigram as a present. We turned in the direction pointed out, along a depression which would lead in time to a stream which would flow ultimately into the valley of the Zab. It was very hard work ; the snow soft, the streams half-frozen, and covered with ice. Often our horses fell, the baggage animal especially, whose load had to be pitched off into the snow, and repacked. Sometimes they put their feet apart and slid down long slopes of snow ; one horse which had given much trouble from the start proved quite an expert tobogganist. We got very tired, but there was nothing for it but to press on before the blizzard. We passed a few tracks of wild creatures, but little else, though we saw signs of human habitation far off our route. At length, about five, we reached a large mixed village, Arkinis, with very large flocks and herds, and many fierce dogs. Here they put us into a kind of loft, with two small windows covered with cloth, and fortunately a decent stove ; and they brought us a dinner of bread, yaurt, and dried apricots. I was about done when we arrived, and Wigram's hands were in a very bad state. These persistent high altitudes are trying, and the weather keeps bad. The wind is roaring outside now. We use the prayer for fine weather, modified, in our daily Offices. " Tuesday, November 5. As hard a day as we have had harder for Wigram. We did not start till 8 a.m., to give the horses rest, and descended steadily by a precipitous path for 1,300 feet to the Black River (Awarosh Syr., Karachi Turk.), the chief of the branches which together make up the Greater Zab. Here we had actually left most of the snow ; but we were by no means ' in clover.' Our way lay at first in the river-bed over large rough boulders, and we had to cross it twice where it was rather swift, though nearly covered with ice. Once, and once only, Gregor took the lead. But the poor fellow slipped off his horse into the ice- cold water, and had to be wrung out, after which he retired into obscurity. After following the river through a rocky gorge (the path by the waterside being flooded), and for miles along a slippery ledge, we found that we had to climb up the left bank, several thousand feet, into the snow again, JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 117 and on in a snowstorm, which got steadily worse. At this point a mutiny broke out in the caravan. We had passed the highest point, near which there is a village, and descended nearly a mile in the deep snow, when the zaptiehs caught us up with the news that the two kartajis had flung down their horse-loads in the snow and refused to go on. (Of course, the zaptiehs ought to have prevented it ; it was just what they were there for.) We were at the point where some remarkable red rocks rise into the air with a cuneiform inscription, it is said, though we did not see it ; these gave a little shelter from the biting wind and the snow, which gradually changed into rain. So we waited there while Wigram returned on foot after the kartajis, climbing at a great pace. He found one load in the snow, the other brought back to the village and deposited there, and one of the kartajis on the look-out. Taking no notice of him, he promptly found two new horses, hired them, and brought the loads on, the whole thing occupying some three hours. Meanwhile, the rest of us Gregor the Armenian, the two zaptiehs, the Kurdish guide, and I waited with the horses. Presently, without a word to me, the three first-named slipped away, leaving the Kurd and me with the five horses, and made for the village about twenty minutes below. As soon as I realised what had happened, I took two of the horses and the Kurd the other three, and we made our way down, getting soaked on the way. After much searching I found Gregor and the two zaptiehs making themselves comfortable over a tellura in one of the huts. I promptly upset them on to the ground and boxed Gregor's ears it was the only thing to be done and made them make room for the Kurd at the fire and dry such things of mine as I could spare, for of course we were both wet through. Presently Wigram arrived, even wetter if possible, with his capture. Finding that the zaptiehs had announced that we were going to stay there, we resolved to go on to the next village, the name of which I forget, some two miles away. It was still raining, and the half -frozen slush and mud were very slippery ; but we arrived at last, long after dark, soaked again and fagged out. Our whole caravan had to share a large ' room ' with a Kurdish n8 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS family ; but we had one end to ourselves, with a hearth, and soon stripped and put our things out to dry, partaking of the ' cup that cheers ' in our beds, upon which the rain dripped all night in a way that was hardly cheerful. A bad cough kept me awake for hours. " Wednesday, November 6. Our things were not nearly dry. My sheepskin coat was no longer available, as its padded sleeves were soaked through, and the coat which I got out of the sack was already wet. So was the burca ; but I still found it very useful over my knees. During the night, the rain and melted snow fell freely through the roof. One of my boots, which had been unfortunately placed, con- tained nearly enough water to wash with ; while a masterly attempt had been made to steal my goloshes, which I found, after much searching, hidden behind a water- jar. It was still raining hard, and very slippery. But our horses are really wonderful, whether on ice, or slippery mud, or narrow ledges, where it seems hardly possible to stand. They are shod with solid plates of iron covering the whole hoof, with a round hole about as large as a halfpenny in the middle. . . . We climbed down to the valley of the Black River, then up again, with hard rain all the time, by narrow slippery ledges that one would have hesitated to go by on foot. Passed a fine vulture on a pinnacle of rock, so near that we could examine him perfectly. About midday we saw the junction of the Black River with the other branch, forming the Zab, and rode on with the most magnificent views on either side. The Zab has been identified with Hiddekel ; and certainly this might be the Garden of Eden country. The valley of the Zab itself is deep and wide, with fine wooded slopes, and stretches of good alluvial soil here and there at the bottom. Above there are magnificent precipices, with huge projecting rock masses and snow mountains at the sky-line ; and each of the side valleys looks more enchanting than the last. . . . "At 6.30 we reached the Syrian village of Kirmi. Wigram was already well known, and I was introduced as the Bishop from England. They received us with open arms, and gave us a good-sized room, with a tellura in a rough, uneven floor. QUDSHANIS 119 Our only fellows in occupancy were two buffalo calves, a cat, a puppy, and some chickens ; but it seemed to be on the way to every other part of the house, and people passed through more than once. We took care to spread our beds at the highest point of the rough floor, and partially dried our wet clothes over the tellura. But we were too tired to rest much." The next day the Bishop at last reached the goal of his expedition. " Thursday, November 7. A wonderful and never-to-be- forgotten day ! They had sent on a runner before us to Qudshanis, to say that we were coming. We started at 7 a.m., with one zaptieh, the baggage coming on after. One of the horses died on the way of fatigue. We made our way out of the snow and down a breakneck ridge into the valley of the Zab. As I had already noticed, it contains great stretches of fine alluvial land, capable of high cultivation, full of small trees in their autumn colouring, many of them laden with berries, and a few flowers. I saw terebinth, tamarisk, yew, laurustinus, and many varieties of willows ; and amongst the flowers several species of ever- lasting flowers, poppies, and various flowering daisies. After two hours we turned up the narrower and bleaker valley of the Qudshanis River, and followed it for half an hour to" a beautiful open glade where three streams met, crossed by a tree-trunk bridge, which, however, had been swept away, so that we had to ford the streams. Here there was a large encampment of wandering Kurds, with their tents (of black skins across a ridge-pole), their crowds of children, and flocks and herds and fierce dogs. It was late in the year to see them, as they usually take shelter in some ruined village as soon as the snows begin. We followed the stream to the left for an hour and a half, amid scenery which became wilder and grander every minute, and by a path which at times was a mere crumbling ledge, so that we slipped down the sloping bank more than once. Here, however, two Syrians came down to meet us, greeting us most enthusiastically. They now took charge of the proceedings, helping Wigram's horse and mine (the zaptieh had fallen behind) over difficult places, 120 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS and finding an alternative route where the path was hopelessly broken ; in fact, I don't think we could have made our way without them. At length the river divides again, and the sharp ridge between leads up to the platform on which Qudshanis stands, up amongst the clouds, like the kingdom of Prester John. We crossed a bridge formed of one huge stone, and followed the right branch, which became a series of torrents and falls as we ascended, and then we turned off up the rocky pathway to the plateau. Half-way up a crowd of boys met us, and at the top (where the wind blew keenly and the ground was covered with wet snow) stood Mr. Browne and the whole body of the Syrian clergy now here, who escorted us in triumph across this wonderful little ' alp/ amongst the poplar trees and the great masses of rock apparently left by glacial action . . . past the new Mission House, where Browne lives, and not far from the patriarchal church (familiar to me through many photographs), and on to Mar Shimun's house. "At the door he received us with great warmth ; took me by the hand, then I kissed his ring, and he mine, and then we kissed on the cheek. Next he introduced his brother Dawid and his sister Surma (who speaks good English), and soon we were sitting in his reception-room, still in our wet clothes, drinking tea and coffee, and receiving the almost rapturous greetings of these dear people, whilst the wind and snow redoubled their violence outside. They told us that when first the bad weather began they hoped that we might get through ; that then they became anxious lest we should have fallen ill, or been sncwed up, and that latterly they had given us up altogether, and prayed that we might have got back safely to Van. Early this morning, however, Browne's servant, Shamsha Petros, . . . came to him, saying that in the night he had seen us in a dream. We were coming up the river, ' the Abuna i.e. Bishop, ' my father ' wearing a black hat, and the Rabbi a white one.' Some hours after- wards came the runner to say that we were on the way, and then we arrived, I wearing a black fur cap, and Wigram a white helmet ! . . . " We sat till lunch at I p.m., which we ate in Eastern QUDSHANIS 121 fashion, at two low tables, Mar Shimun, Surma, the Arch- deacon, Browne, Wigram, and I, after which they were passed on to the others present. Fine thin bread, eggs, honey in the comb, two vegetable dishes, excellent melons, yaurt, and kabobs for Wigram and me ; everything that we ate, so Surma told me, came from the place itself. Then they left me to unpack my things. These were for the most part wet through, and I spread them out to dry at the lower end of the reception-room, which is warmed by a stove and a fine brazier ; for I was to stay here as Mar Shimun's guest, and make use of it. Shamsha Abner took away the wettest things, together with handkerchiefs, etc., for the wash. To my amazement the latter came back, beautifully done, in an hour or two. Then I was taken over the patriarchal house. It consists of an ordinary Syrian house, but of large size, and not half underground, together with a large room used for the daily diwan (native in style, with an Eastern floor and mats), several private rooms for members of the family, and the reception-room, of which they are very proud. This latter is a long room, with wooden floor well covered with rugs, a raised platform at one end, walls plastered in white and green, and a fine ceiling of walnut. At one end is a fine painted Syrian cross, at the other a recess painted in colours on gypsum in the Turkish style. " At four we went to evening prayers in the cathedral. It was still snowing, but we were able to see something of Qudshanis on the way : the great wall of rock, over 2,000 feet high, at the upper end of the triangular plateau ; the deep valleys on either side, with the steep snow-covered ranges beyond ; the beautiful little view of distant ranges beyond the dip at the foot of the plateau ; on the plateau itself, the little groups of houses here and there, amid the snow-covered pasture, and the clusters of poplars and orchard trees. The patriarchal church of Mar Shaliba stands finely not far from the point, and overlooking the valley, in the midst of its little cemetery. It is solidly built of large stones, and dates from about two hundred and twenty-five years ago, when the patriarchate was settled here, but it is in the style of a much earlier day. To enter it you cross a sloping 122 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS ladder over a gorge, and climb through a low doorway (less than 3 feet high, so that it is no easy thing to enter a Syrian church with one's vestments on !) into an inner court, partly covered, where the daily Offices are said in summer. Then through a very low square doorway with a fine sculptured pattern all round it in low relief, . . . into the church itself a dark, square building of large stones with only one little window, I think, and a barrel-roof of stone, supported on two great round arches. The graves of about twelve former patriarchs are built into the wall on the north and west sides. A ladder leads up into the baptistery and treasury. The sanctuary recess is covered by a curtain, and there is a vestry, with an oven for baking the holy loaf, on the eastern side. The service itself, and the singing, were striking ; still more so the rugged-faced clergy grouped about the reading- desk, reading by the light of a single twisted wax taper placed upon the book. " Then we went into Mar Shimun's daily diwan, at which we appeared in academical dress, that being the dress of the missioners or ' apostles/ as they are called by the Syrians for state occasions, by Archbishop Benson's appointment. Here I presented the Archbishop of Canterbury's letter of introduction, and a more formal welcome was given me for the benefit of all and sundry who were present. I asked if the Liturgy was to be celebrated on the morrow ; Mar Shimun answered that it was a dies aliiurgiciis, but that there should be a special celebration of the Eucharist so that I might be present with them. Then questions of all kinds began to pour in upon me, and conversation gradually became more general. The question was asked in diwan how many of those present had been in a train. We found that out of about thirty, two had seen the train at Tiflis, but none had travelled in it. Surma has been to Van once, but Mar Shimun has never left his own country. . . . " Friday, November 8. Called at five, by Qasha Awimelk, 1 for the Syrian Eucharist at six. Still very bleak, and much new snow on the ground. My cold rather troublesome. Qasha Ephrem celebrated. Mar Shimun vested me in stole 1 Now Mar Timotheus, Bishop of the Syrian Church of Malabar. QUDSHANIS 123 (blue) and girdle with over-shoes, and took me into the sanctuary. In former days clergy of other Churches have been allowed to celebrate there, according to their own rites ; Dr. Cutts did so, and Browne has done so. But towards the end of the late Mar Shimun's life a Roman Catholic (Uniat) priest who visited Qudshanis was allowed to do so, and sprinkled the whole sanctuary with holy water by way of purification. Since this profanation, as they regarded it, none but Syrians had been allowed to enter, until now. It is a very small sanctuary, but lofty for its size. It contains a stone baldacchino, on pillars, with a low altar roughly vested with a covering reaching to the ground, on which there are two candles, the Book of the Gospels, and a wooden cross of peculiar shape, about 18 inches long, leaning against the wall at the back. Incense is used. The deacon came and kissed Mar Shimun's hand at each censing, and then mine. The proper thing to do at the censing is to lean forward and draw the smoke towards you with both hands. The paten and chalice are both huge, of silver, and apparently of old workmanship. The administration of the former took place at the south end of the curtain, of the latter at the north. "After the Liturgy we returned for breakfast, and I thanked Mar Shimun for the opportunity of joining in their service. I had noticed that once or twice the ministrants had stopped, and discussed quietly what was to come next. I mentioned this, and said how much more reverent it was to wait and settle such a point quietly, if it arose, than to beckon and whisper and fuss about it as we sometimes do. He answered that there was a special reason for their un- certainty to-day. As it was a dies aliturgicus there was no proper service for it, but he had told them that it was the Feast of the Visitation of the English Abuna, and that they were to choose what was most suitable. O that I could have understood it all ! "After breakfast we had a long and most important con- ference with Mar Shimun as to the future of the Church and the work of the Mission, Browne interpreting. We spoke in particular of the future relations of our Churches. I told him that the English Church had no desire to lord it over i2 4 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS other Churches, and, in fact, that our message was the freedom of Churches, as contrasted with the Papists, who wished one Church to lord it over all the rest, and the ' Presby- terians ' (i.e. the American Mission), who practically abolished the Church. He was so pleased with this that he made me repeat it, and subsequently wrote it down in his note-book from my dictation. Then we spoke of the possibility of intercommunion in the future, and the obstacles on their side and on our side respectively. He said that he hoped for it some day, but was sure that his people were not ready for it yet ; it would rouse much opposition, and cause troubles with those outside which they were not yet strong enough to face ; but that he looked forward to the time when the men trained at Van and Urmi had leavened the Church, when it would be possible ; it was what he, above all, desired. I agreed that it was not possible yet, and asked if there were any other obstacles on their side. No, he said ; there was nothing against it in the Canons (this he repeated quite decidedly), and so far as authority went, he could direct to-morrow that we should be admitted to Communion. In fact, he had done so in a particular case : a cousin of Lord Percy's, a devout Anglican, had asked permission to make his Communion with them, and he (Mar Shimun) had given the permission, which had been used. I asked if they had any scruples as to our doctrine or the like. He answered, very emphatically, No; that such difficulties as his people might feel were based, not on objections to any particular doctrines or practices, but simply on the fact that we were strangers, and therefore suspect. " Then we spoke of difficulties on our side. I said we made no difficulty in admitting individual members of the old Churches of the East to Communion when they were deprived of the ministrations of their own clergy ; that I had already given directions for this to be done in the case of members of the Orthodox Eastern Church and Armenians, and that I should gladly do it in the case of a Syrian ; but that when it was a question of permitting members of any Church to communicate freely with us, we naturally asked for satisfaction as to their substantial orthodoxy. ... In QUDSHANIS 125 the case of the Christians of the East their past history gave ground for seeking such satisfaction. It was natural that we should ask, ' Is this the faith that you hold ? ' Not that we should ask them to disavow their Fathers, not that we should ask them to revise their doctrinal books or to make a new creed, but simply that we should say, ' This is the Faith as we hold it. Is this what you believe ? ' I asked Mar Shimun if they would welcome a letter from us asking such questions as this. He answered most emphatically, Yes ; that they could not and would not disavow their past leaders, but would willingly answer any questions that would give satisfaction to us or others. " Then we spoke of the methods that such possible inter- communion might take, and its natural limits. Ultimately I suggested : (i) Communion on their part with us on our Easter and Christmas, and on our part with them on theirs ; and (2) free admission of any member of either communion to communicate in the Eucharist of the other when he had no Church of his own to resort to, provided that he did not infringe the discipline of his own Church by doing so. ... With this also he expressed himself in entire agreement. " Then I told him of the forthcoming Lambeth Conference, and said that I hoped that it might be possible for some resolution to be framed which would facilitate such action on our side. He was much interested, and plainly greatly struck when I told him that there would be nearly two hundred and fifty bishops there from all parts of the world. He said that he would pray for our great gathering, that God would bless and guide us. " So much for our conference. It was extremely inter- esting, and in all ways satisfactory." The next day the Bishop was obliged to leave Qudshanis again. " Saturday, November 9. A cold bright morning, the ground hardened by frost. Up at 5 a.m., again wakened by the Archdeacon, and across to celebrate in the Mission Chapel at six. The Archdeacon and several of the Syrian clergy present. We sang the Eucharist, and had Syrian anthems at the pauses in the service ; it was very touching and uplifting. 126 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Breakfast, then across to finish packing ; then a farewell reception. Mar Shimun gave me two of his own stoles, woven, with crosses and his name on them, and he and Suite l gave me a fine pair of gauntlets. I gave him a mitre, with which he expressed himself greatly pleased, and promised to wear it. Browne also gave me three Syrian stoles. " Our farewell was very touching. Mar Shimun promised to pray for me, and begged me never to forget them. I promised to write to him, and to remember him and his Church and people always on the festival of Mar Shaliba (September 18, O.S. ; October I, N.S.). We could hardly break away from the dear folk who crowded to take their farewell. At length we mounted, and rode across the plateau. Presently we had to dismount, in order to descend the icy path to the cascade ; then we mounted again, and were helped by willing hands far along the road. The venerable Browne, with three more, stood at the edge, and waved to me till at length we turned the corner, I blessing them with the Sign as they passed out of sight. It has been a wonderful experience, and the Missioners are full of what it has meant to them and the Mission. On the way we more than once said that the bad weather must have been the work of the Evil One. If so, his work had been overruled ; for undoubtedly these dear people have all valued our visit the more because getting there was not a ' picnic.' They have become precious to me ; and I have found very real friends in Mar Shimun and Surma and their little circle. " I can hardly exaggerate the effect which these people have made upon me. That they are very ignorant and back- ward goes without saying ; it could hardly be otherwise after centuries of seclusion and persecution. The Mission has not yet done its work of instruction amongst them, and will not have done it for very many years. But there is a naturalness, a simplicity, and a spontaneity about their religion which is very attractive. In many ways they seem to me to illustrate the life of Christians of very early days, both in its strength and in its weakness ; and again, whilst they have plenty of ethnic superstitions of their own, there is a remarkable 1 Mar Shimun's aunt. ETCHMIADZIN AGAIN 27 absence of modern ' corruptions ' in their religion, or of such a mixture of pagan and Christian superstition as is to be found, for example, amongst the Orthodox in some of the Greek islands. Altogether, I feel that Christendom would be vastly the poorer without this little Church. " It was nearly 10.30 when we started. ... As it was impossible to make a long day's march, the horses being still very much exhausted, we stopped for lunch in the glade of the three streams, just beyond the Kurdish camp. Then on again, and reached Kirmi before 4 p.m., when we were given the same ' room ' as before, with the puppy, chickens, two buffalo calves, and a cat ; also the whole ' spread eagle/ i.e, the inner organs of a sheep, hung by a nail to the centre post of the ' room.' But we were now dry and rested, and slept comfortably." The rest of the return journey, though full enough of discomforts and adventures, was comparatively free from dangers. The route by Bashkala, which they followed, was easier. But the Bishop was sorely in need of attention. Not only were his clothes torn to pieces ; he had a great sore on his forehead, his feet were frost-bitten, two finger nails were gone, and there were minor ailments. The trouble in his feet for some time got worse and worse. He could not walk, and could hardly stand, without pain. He felt the effects of the exposure till the following Easter. He visited Etchmiadzin once more, and condoled with the monks for the death of the Patriarch Meguerdich, which had taken place since he had left them. " After breakfast," he writes, " I was formally received by the Vice-Patriarch in Synod, the assembly consisting of four metropolitans and four vartabads, all aged and fine-looking men, with Vartabad Karapet to interpret. They received me with great honour, and pressed me warmly to stay ; and there was much cordial conversation, some of an intimate kind. I told them that we in England thought that their methods of agitation were often quite wrong, and that they were trying to do the Lord's work with the devil's weapons. The Vice-Patriarch took it very well, and said : ' Yes, but you must remember that we 128 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS have been a down-trodden Church for centuries, and cannot act as if things were in our own hands, as you can ' ; which is all too true. They asked many questions about my journey, and hoped that it would not be the last visit of an English Bishop. At the end they told me that as the late Catholicos had been unable to send a reply to the Arch- bishop's letter, it would devolve upon the Vice-Patriarch to do so ; but they would like me to bear witness with how great joy they welcomed a message from the head of our Church." In 1910 he sent to the Great Church at Etchmiadzin, as a memento of this visit, a magnificent chalice veil, which was worked under his direction by Miss Sophie Boycott. On December n the Bishop and his wife met again at Marseilles. She had mercifully been spared the knowledge of what he was passing through, and had received only occasional and much-delayed telegrams from various places. " W. arrived from Mentone," she notes, " at n p.m. It seems scarcely possible to think he is really here. He is very tired and battered, and still his frost-bitten feet are troublesome, and he has a cold, etc. ; but he is better than I had dared to hope." Their joy in meeting again was tempered by receiving a telegram to say that the Bishop of St. Andrews had died that day suddenly in Edinburgh. The year (1908) which followed that in which he went to Kurdistan was a busy year for the Bishop. Over and above all his usual work, it was the year of the Pan- Anglican Congress and of the Lambeth Conference. No one espoused with more ardour than he Bishop Montgomery's great conception of a consultative gathering of all Anglican Christendom with reference to every topic of the Church's life and work. In regard to the Bishop of Gibraltar the difficulty must have been to determine which topics he was not to touch, when there were so many which appealed to him. He gave an address on " The Church and Human Society " at the first meeting of that section in St. Paul's Cathedral on June 16. He gave another on " The Church's Call to Prayer " at the last meeting of the Congress in the Albert Hall, on June 23. But all PAN-ANGLICAN CONGRESS 129 the rest of his time was engrossed by the section on the Anglican Communion, of which he was chairman. He wrote for it one of the " Preliminary Papers," though for some reason it is not reprinted in the Report of the Congress. He presided twice a day at the meetings of that section, on June 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, and in the morning of June 20. The subjects discussed at these meetings were, " The Anglican Communion, its Place in Christendom," " The Common Element in Service Books, Ceremonial and Formularies," " Things Essential and Things Non-Essential, " " The Historic Episcopate," " Possibilities of Intercommunion," " Possibilities of Re-union," " Local Churches, their Early Growth and Equipment," " Local Churches, Steps towards Permanent Organisation," " Problems of a Native Episco- pate," " Relations between Individual Organised Churches and the whole Communion," "A Central Authority." It will be seen that many burning questions were touched which required both skill and knowledge in the chairman. The Archbishop of Canterbury has lately referred to Bishop Collins's conduct in that capacity. "Among the memorable discussions," he says in his recent Charge, 1 " which make those weeks live and glow in the recollection of thousands of ordinary people, no debate, if I may judge from the testimony which has continuously reached me, stands out more vividly or profitably than the full discussion which took place under the alert and brilliant chairmanship of Bishop Collins of Gibraltar upon the topic our topic to-day ' The Anglican Communion. Its place in Christendom. What is our distinctive message and work ? ' ' It would be hard to give a better epitome of the Bishop's views as an ecclesiastical statesman, or a better sample of his powers, than by reproducing the series of short speeches in which he summed up the discussions of those six days. 2 This, for instance, was the close of his speech at the end of the first session : " (i) I yield to no one in reverence for the great Empire to which most of us here belong. But if I am asked to make 1 The Character and Call of the Church of England, p. 42. 2 They will be found in Vol. VII. of the Report. 130 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS empire the criterion in matters that concern the Church of God, I must decline. (2) What are we to understand by ' English.' The word is a very elastic one, as we soon find when we go beyond the seas ; for ' they little know of England who only England know.' It grows as we move onward ; it comes to express new types of character, new ideals of life. But even so it cannot satisfy us here. The Anglican Communion is English in origin, but before our very eyes it is being shown that it is more than English, even in the most comprehensive sense of the word. When I am asked to regard our Communion as merely English, racially English, my answer must be ' No.' (3) We who have studied the facts of life in the light of the Incar- nation have come to see that the centre of all history, and of nature itself, is to be found in the Life and Person of the Incarnate Lord ; to that point all converges, from that point all takes its beginning. But can we regard any other age, or event, or series of events in this way ? I yield to none in reverence for the English Reformation ; but if I am asked to see in it the formative period of our Church history, to regard it as the norm of our development in perpetuity, I can only say that I will not do so. " Turning now to our discussion as a whole, I see one very significant fact. All our speakers seem to agree that the right way for us is the way of expression, not the way of suppression. They do not formulate their ideals for the Anglican Communion in the same terms, but they are agreed that our characteristic features are not to be whittled away, but to be expressed even more faithfully, if possible. This surely is right. To us the life of nations is a guide, not a snare ; differentiation is to us the work of God, not of the devil. We would deal with positives, not with negatives ; with facts, not with negations. We stand for historic con- tinuity ; we must be more careful to keep the deposit committed to us. We stand for liberty ; we must fight for it more fearlessly. "And what is our especial danger as a Church ? Surely it is that which faces us constantly in our every-day life : our worldliness, our selfishness, our lack of care for all these PAN-ANGLICAN CONGRESS 131 things. We expect matters to right themselves : we are moderately earnest, as one has said, instead of being earnestly moderate. And thus we rest on our oars when we should be up and doing ; we let opportunities slip which can never recur. We close open doors, not of deliberate intent, but of sheer lack of realisation of their possibilities. It is better to make mistakes than to make nothing ; but we make mistakes through the very inertia which prevents our doing what we might do. For all these things the Lord of the Churches calls us to account : bids us learn and amend even here and now." The Bishop of Salisbury said frankly at the morning meet- ing on the last day, that he was there " not to speak, but to listen to the summing-up of the Bishop of Gibraltar." Many must have been in the same position. A writer in the Anglican Church Magazine, with perhaps a touch of pardonable pride in his own diocesan, gave the following as his after-impression of the gathering : " The outstanding feature of this section it might almost be said, of the whole Congress has been the personality of the Bishop of Gibraltar. One looked forward to his sum- mings-up with a certain anticipation of an intellectual and spiritual treat, and they were nothing short of masterly. They showed a grasp of the whole subject and a keenness in selecting the exact points to emphasise which were simply delightful ; while the deep earnestness which characterised his utterances, and the spirituality of his dark ascetic face, produced an effect which I shall never forget." 1 And it will be remembered that these admirable utterances were not, like papers, carefully prepared beforehand, but were the outcome of the actual discussion, which served to evoke out of his well-stored mind reflexions as incisive and striking in their form, as they were large and courageous in their substance. Looking back upon the Congress from the present time, Bishop Montgomery writes to me : '" Bishop Collins was of priceless value in Section F. As soon as everything was arranged in regard to the various 1 Anglican Church Magazine, 1908, p. 103. 132 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS sections and their general subjects, we approached Bishop Collins to become Chairman of the Section, and I requested permission to be Secretary, as it was the subject that interested me most. From that time we were closely associ- ated for months. It was he who drew up the details of the subjects under that head. We had constant correspondence with him from various parts of Europe. I think I may say that every point in an exceedingly interesting set of sub- sidiary questions was his work. I was immensely struck with the way in which he seemed to touch every important point in his subject. " Then came the actual Congress Meeting. We claimed and obtained the large hall at the Church House. The hall was almost always filled to the utmost extent, and it would be impossible to speak too highly of his summings-up at the close of each session. I sat next to him and therefore had an unrivalled opportunity of knowing his mind. He was terribly in earnest, and could not bear anything like a joke. He was determined, if possible, to have no applause, and though he did not quite succeed in that, he gave a tone of intense seriousness to the whole of the week's proceedings. Naturally, too, his remarks sotto voce to me upon the speakers at times were delicious. I think his austerity in the chair would have been resented from anybody else, but his intense seriousness and his extraordinary ability and complete know- ledge of all the questions concerned, gave him an influence over the audience which I shall never forget. Ever since that time I have always felt very near to him. It is especially touching to me to remember that almost his last letter was written to my wife about an article of mine in the Mission Field in March, 1911, upon the difficulties of a Chaplain in a Treaty Port. He spoke more than kindly of my attempt. " On the whole, I think Collins's work at the Pan- Anglican Congress was the best achievement of the whole Congress, but perhaps I am biassed, as that was my section, and I never had any opportunity of even visiting the other sections. I never saw even the buildings ; it could not be helped." This popular gathering was followed immediately by the more august and responsible gathering of nearly two hundred LAMBETH CONFERENCE 133 and fifty Bishops in the Lambeth Conference. The Con- ference began with a group of sessions lasting from July 6 to July n, in which the subjects to be dealt with were opened by selected speakers, before being considered in detail by separate Committees. The Bishop of Gibraltar spoke in these introductory sessions five times. The first of the five speeches insisted on the importance of holding to the definite historic facts of our Lord's life, and not slighting them in favour of the spiritual or metaphysical ideas which they suggest. The second was on the familiar subject of Reunion and Intercommunion, the third on Organisation within the Anglican Communion. The fourth speech was one of determined opposition to anything like making the Unction of the Sick a ministerial act of the Church, though the Bishop desired to leave people perfectly free to use it un- officially. The fifth, which probably took many of his hearers by surprise, was a vehement and reasoned argument against tying the Church down to the use of wheaten bread and the fermented juice of the grape in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. He criticised the resolution on the subject passed by the Lambeth Conference of 1888. He said that it was not accurate. " From as early a date," he said, " as we have any definite account, in the Church in Portugal the unfermented juice of the grape has certainly been used, even though it be in a few instances." The Fourth Council of Braga, in 675, " the whole class of Frankish liturgies," Panormitanus, St. Thomas Aquinas, the customs of Upper Egypt and Abyssinia, the use of " dibs " in Palestine James of Volaterra and the concessions of Innocent VIII. to the Church of Norway, Jewell's reply to Harding the book called Social England, were all laid under contribution. He asked whether it were more important to do exactly what our Lord did, without regard to circumstances which might involve reclining on couches and celebrating in the evening, or to act in the spirit of His action. "Are we to hold (I do not myself see how we can) that the history of the Church is to become a history of ever-increasing bondage that the number of things we can do is being diminished day by day, and the number of chains we have to bear is increased day 134 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS by day as the years go by ? A great Russian ecclesiastic (so great that I would rather not name him) said to two of us once, that he hoped we in England might come to agree with them in doctrine, but that we should never place upon our shoulders the bondage of ceremonies which neither they nor their fathers could bear." The Bishop was placed upon five out of the eleven Com- mittees of the Conference, those on Liturgical Questions, on the Conditions requisite to the due Administration of the Holy Communion, on Marriage Problems, on Anglican Organisation, and on Reunion and Intercommunion. He was no sleeping partner in the business of those Committees. When the whole Conference reassembled to discuss their Reports from July 27 to August 5, the Bishop of Gibraltar perhaps took a less prominent part in speaking than he had done in the earlier week ; but there were many occasions when he intervened with effect. He again combated the proposal to restore Unction to a place in the Prayer-book, or to define too closely the material to be used in the Eucharist. It is clear that he did his best to persuade the Conference to take the line which it ultimately took with regard to marriage questions. Personally, as he explained to the Conference, he was disposed to adopt the more rigorous line, but he desired earnestly not to carry resolutions which would give offence to a large and important section of the Conference. Whether in consequence of his advocacy or not, the outcome of the discussions showed a certain hesitation and reserve of judgment in reference to these matters, which many at the time deplored. His advice was always in the direction of width and progress. He desired the Bishops to acknowledge in " the democratic movement " of our time " a revelation of the mind of God." He thought it an anachronism now to take " the geographical view " of a Bishop's office, as the Bishop of an area, rather than of the people. The Report on relations with the Orthodox Eastern Church, and with the Separated Churches of the East, was entrusted to him for guidance in the debate, and was carried through skilfully and promptly. If he did not speak so often during this fortnight, his work LAMBETH CONFERENCE 135 was none the less effective. Those who were behind the scenes knew that he took an important share in drawing up the Encyclical Letter which summarised and interpreted the Resolutions of the Conference. The central conception of the Encyclical, which made everything turn on " service," was due, if I rightly understand, to another eminent prelate ; but night after night the Bishop of Gibraltar was at work with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Oxford in drafting fresh paragraphs of the Encyclical, to be put into final shape by the three or four Bishops who were entrusted with the preparation of the complete document for the consideration of the Conference as a whole. Unquestionably the figure of Bishop Collins was one of those which stood out most clearly in the recollections of the members of the Conference. The Bishop of Wakefield, who was one of the secretaries of the Conference, has kindly sent me this account of Bishop Collins's part in it : " No one who was at the Lambeth Conference in 1908 could fail to be vividly impressed by the personality of Bishop Collins of Gibraltar. Those of us who knew him well were not wholly taken by surprise, but to many he seemed to come quite as a revelation. He sat not far from the middle of the room, just a little towards the right of the President. Slight, almost frail, with his pale and delicate features, high forehead and clear eyes, he seemed the last man to sway an assembly of this unique kind, which comprised men of independent minds, tot reguli, as Archbishop Benson used to call them accustomed to rule and to express themselves with decision. Yet the moment he rose to speak, and that clear penetrating scholarly voice began, we all felt that a master mind had been at work, and the subject assumed a new importance. "What struck me most of all, perhaps, was the sure-footed way in which he intervened in so many problems, some of them of a difficult and intricate character. His knowledge was as astonishing in its variety and range as it was accurate in detail. Facts, dates, names of less known writers, customs of many lands, came pouring out upon some particular point, 136 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS as if from an erudite article in an encyclopaedia, leaving the shorthand writer almost breathless in pursuit. And this remarkable and ready information was matched by a singu- larly clear and ripe judgment. When the conclusion was reached, you felt as if the last word on the subject had been said, and were not surprised to find that he had powerfully influenced the final resolution or report in question. "And this surenessof knowledge and judgment were coupled with a lofty conception and a dignified yet humble spirit, that held us at times quite spellbound with admiration. Whether he was laying down great principles or precedents, or surveying present conditions with profound insight and sympathy, there was the same decisiveness and quiet con- fidence, against which there seemed no appeal. And with all this quietness there was a suppressed fire in him, which was ready to blaze forth against any unrealities or fantastic theories, and he could be uncompromising, inexorable and stern in face of errors. He was extraordinarily clear in his vision of the Church of England, as combining liberty with order, and progress with fidelity to Apostolic faith and disci- pline. He saw her, as Bishop Lightfoot had done, as the potential mediator between great communions, the rallying point for different standards of faith. As such he fought for liberty of custom for her where some would have feared to concede it, while on the other hand he would not surrender one single part of the heritage he believed she was intended to guard in the expression of her faith and worship. " This is, I fear, a poor account of the impression left on my own mind by this remarkable man. But it would be in- complete without one more touch which gave distinction and grace to all that he said, namely, the evident spirit of prayer and nearness to God which breathed through it all. His was a big soul in a delicate frame, a brave undaunted spirit betraying itself every moment under unusual limitations of bodily strength. The Church has lost in him a saint, a scholar and a theologian, of a type which perhaps only our own Church produces, and that only once in a generation." This brilliant year closed, for him, in an achievement of MESSINA 137 another kind. On Sunday, December 20, he preached in the little English Church at Messina, and met all the members of the English colony there, numbering about 120 souls. It was understood that he was to return and spend the last day of the old year with them. On Monday, December 28, the great earthquake took place, which destroyed Messina. The Bishop was in Malta when it occurred, where his wife was lying ill. He started at the first possible moment for Sicily. The papers that were read at home said little about him. A telegram from Malta in the Times of January 5, 1909, said, " The Bishop of Gibraltar has returned here after visiting Messina " ; another on the nth said, " The Bishop of Gibraltar is proceeding to Messina." That was all. His work was not done to be reported. It would be difficult for those who did not know the Bishop to imagine from these telegrams what the man was about. Fortunately, the Bishop himself gave to his friends some account of his time at Messina not in writing, as he did when he returned from Kurdistan, but in speech. He did so mainly with a view to obtaining aid for those who had suffered in the earthquake, or were in spiritual perils which the earthquake illustrated. The Hon. Mrs. H. W. Gladstone, who was staying with her parents, Lord and Lady Rendel, in their house at Cannes, Chateau Thorenc, when the Bishop paid them a visit in the following February, has kindly given me these notes, which she took down at the time : "The Bishop of Gibraltar has been staying here, and has told us a great deal about the earthquake at Messina ; in fact, it seemed hardly possible for him not to talk about it ; it seems in a way to be a relief from the overstrain and excitement that he has been through, although his voice and throat are both affected, and he is conscious that the horror of it all may be too great for those who have not themselves lived through this terrible and abnormal experience. He said to me : ' Tell me if you cannot bear it,' and I must confess that it haunted me a great deal. . . . " Forty-eight hours after the earthquake he returned to Messina on board the ' Minerva/ which was at once made into a floating hospital ; and a little hospital for first aid 138 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS was established on the quay. The sailors themselves had to undertake the nursing of those men, women and children who were brought on board ; and when told that a second bay or mess would be wanted, and that it had been left to them to volunteer to clear out, they came to the Bishop and asked him how much more room was likely to be needed. The Bishop's answer was, ' All the space that we can possibly get ' ; whereupon the whole of the lower deck was cleared, scrubbed with carbolic, and made ready. " Great discrimination was shown among the men them- selves as to the tending of special cases, the married men looking after the women and children, etc. One sailor, presumably the father of a family, made, in the most in- genious manner, a feeding-bottle for an infant, who had been born actually during the earthquake and had been brought on board alive. The child's mother had perished in the earthquake, or died from the shock. The bottle was made out of a soda-water bottle, the glass tube of a siphon placed in it, and a flexible tube, made out of a neatly-sewn piece of sail-cloth. The triumph was the teat for the baby to suck through. The sailor came to the deck cabin, and said, ' Have any of you gentlemen got a fountain-pen ? Well, it's not the pen I want, but the thing you fill it with.' The Bishop produced a filler, and so the bottle was completed with the bulb of the filler belonging to the Bishop's stylo and all in about a quarter of an hour ! " The arrival of the Queen of Italy on board the ' Minerva ' he described as a most touching incident. She had come off in a cruiser, even before the King. The poor patients on board recognised her immediately, and held out their arms those who could crying out, ' Madre, Madre ! ' The Queen stood there, unable to speak or move, the tears pour- ing down her face ; then, when she could speak, she went round to hear their separate tales of woe ' Madre, come to me, I have lost my husband and my children,' or whatever sad tale it might be, or to let them show their wounds and tell of their sufferings and fright. After going round to each, she visited the hospital on the quay, but was mercifully not allowed to go further inland, or to leave her cruiser MESSINA 139 again. The Bishop was most deeply impressed by her behaviour, and said that no one came out better, or as well, as the King and Queen. The Archbishop of Messina, and his brother, the Prefect, had fled after the shock. The Archbishop returned, but the Prefect did not, and one of the first actions of the King was to dismiss him publicly. " The Bishop said much more might have been done in saving life, had there only been time to organise the work of excavation. At Reggio, great thoroughness and method was shown by dividing the work into different areas ; this was instituted and worked by an Italian naval captain. At Messina the Italian admiral in command was too old and too weak a man to carry out such an organisation. The result was that digging was done wherever groans were heard, and that work done by one party of sailors was repeated by another, so that the second party sometimes even undid the work of the first. ' ' The Russian sailors worked with the English sailors, but showed more callousness in sometimes leaving their ex- cavating to go where there was more chance of success. The English sailors worked on, on the most desperate chance, and in consequence failed perhaps to save as many lives as the Russians. The Bishop worked a great deal with the Russians, as he could speak something of their language ; and one night he worked on alone, where moaning and a cry for help had been heard. He felt he could not leave his task, but he became so exhausted that he finally fell asleep over his digging, and when he awoke all sounds had ceased. "But a happier and more successful incident, amongst many others, was one when he was again working with Russian sailors. They were digging in between two houses, where the space became so confined that the Bishop was the only one who could get down to it on account of his slightness. After a time he found he could not move or make any progress because of a heavy mass of masonry, and all he could do was to scoop out a small hole from underneath in front of him. But by this means he managed to pull out, bit by bit, a mattress, and then a small boy, alive, but delirious with fever. The child said, when given some water, ' I could 140 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS drink up the sea.' He was, poor child, the only member of his family rescued. " During this same excavation another slight shock occurred, and the Bishop had a very narrow escape (he told me that he had not told his wife about it) . In a mass of masonry, two beams became loosened, and moved towards him. All he could do was to stand upright against the wall, and see them coming nearer and nearer. They stopped moving when actually against his breast. " It was the Bishop to whom came the knowledge, or the thought, that the Consular Office, though not entirely demolished, was left entirely unprotected. (The Consul had had his wife killed by his side, and his boy badly hurt, and had disappeared, with him.) The Bishop knew that most important cyphers were kept there, so with a few blue- jackets he went to try and see what could be done. He first took the precaution of having some pick-axes forged on board the ' Minerva.' On making their way to the ruined street, they thought that their task might prove quite impossible, owing to the condition of the adjoining houses. Owing partly to his intimate knowledge of Messina, they were finally able to enter the office, after scaling huge heaps of rubbish and broken walls. In the office were two safes ; one they broke open with their picks ; the other, built into the wall, resisted their efforts, and to force it more would probably have brought down the wall and the adjoining house. The safe they had broken open proved empty, and no keys could be found, but the Bishop thought it possible that they might be in the Consul's own apartments. These rooms were in a house at some distance, and the district and street were in a still worse state. So dangerous indeed it was, that they were absolutely forbidden to make the attempt. The Bishop, however, determined to make it, and alone ; but was persuaded finally to allow a young lieutenant (Kennedy, I think, was his name) to accompany him. He could not have accomplished his task alone. Unlike the Consulate, the rooms were very high up in the house, and on arriving, after much more difficulty than they had in reaching the Consulate, they found the staircase had, in many parts, MESSINA 141 disappeared. To reach the first floor they had to find a loose beam which they could put upright, and then swarm up pull it up after them, and again in the same manner reach the next story ; and so on. After much searching in the Consul's rooms, where such were the horrors of this awful time they found the dead body of the Consul's poor wife lying, they had almost given up their task, when they found an old wooden box, open. Inside was a cash box containing two bunches of keys. After a very perilous descent and scramble, they returned safely to the Consulate, and managed to secure the precious papers, which included the ' Cypher Y.' This incident the Bishop told us then in confidence, and we understood that hardly anyone knew of his action. He did not wish it to be known, and said that had any unscrupulous person got hold of the papers, they could have been sold for a very large sum of money, and caused great trouble throughout Europe. " The English chaplain (Mr. Huleatt), his wife, and some ladies living with them, all perished in the total collapse of one of these tall houses. It is hoped that they were in- stantaneously killed, as the rubbish and debris was of such immense proportions that no attempt could be made to excavate or dig into it. The Bishop managed to climb down into the little English church from above, and found nearly everything destroyed, but, I think, saved a small cross which had stood on the altar, and one or two fragments, a hymn- book, and so on. And I know he told me that he actually picked up a scrap of one of his own notes of the sermon he had preached there on the Sunday, aoth December." Another lady adds the following recollections : " Though not personally acquainted with him, I had often met him and heard him speak when he journeyed backwards and forwards on the Riviera. On three of these occasions he left an impression I shall not easily forget. . . . The third and last time was when he came in 1909 to where I was staying, to plead, as was his wont, for the Gibraltar Mission to Seamen, in which he was so deeply interested. It will be remembered that the terrible earthquake in Sicily had taken place at the end of December 1908, and he chose on this 142 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS occasion, not so much to plead for the support of the Mission, as by his graphic and impressive words to try and convey to our minds some of the unique and awful experiences gone through by those on the spot. " I remember that ... he began by telling us of the last days he had spent at Messina with the chaplain and his family, only a week or so before the catastrophe, and how he had noticed in his room the crack in the wall, the result of the last earthquake. 1 He left them, to return two days or so after the event, to find the house in ruins and not one out of that household of nine persons left alive. With difficulty he made his way to the little church, of which hardly a portion was left standing, climbed in by a window, and found the Christmas carols lying there, which had been sung on the Sunday night. From there he tried to reach the Sailors' Rest, also in ruins, and where, looking down among the debris he saw a shipping guide, which he succeeded in reaching. On consulting it he discovered that an English steamer was due to pass through the Straits of Messina in a few hours, and with the help of the Consul or other officials, the ship was stopped, and the captain was persuaded to take 600 destitute refugees to a place of safety. He told it all so simply and so graphically, and explained to us the peculiar nature of the small English congregation at Messina, many of them being the descendants of those English who came there during the occupation of the island in the early part of the nineteenth century, and told us of their poverty, and through it all of their love for and support of their Church, and he ended up his story by recounting how some of these faithful members of the Church had spent what was to most of them their last night upon earth. Evening service was over in the little church, where the Christmas hymns and carols had been sung, and four members of the congregation, two men and two women went on their way together to their respective homes, where, as they passed the doors of one of the worst wine shops in Messina, they saw a sight, too common, alas ! in those parts. Four English 1 It took place in September, 1905. See the account by Mr. Huleatt in the Anglican Church Magazine for that year, p. 175 foil. MESSINA 143 sailors, belonging to a ship then in harbour, had been drugged and robbed of every penny, and turned out into the street. Instantly these brave men and women determined to save these men from further ill-treatment, and each taking possession of one sailor they walked them down to the harbour, and sent them safely to their ship. 'And/ added the Bishop, ' I am not going to tell you the name of that ship. She is far away now, but among the many rescuers in the morning that followed, none worked so hard or so bravely as the men of that ship. It was the last act on earth in the lives of three of those four brave souls/ "So he ended, appealing to us for help to raise the new church, to be built, not in the doomed Messina, but in the safer position of Catania. I feel sure that none who listened to his earnest and appealing words will forget that account of the earthquake at Messina." Another kind informant writes : " His courage and endurance were boundless, and however ill he was he seldom could be persuaded to cut an engage- ment or relax in any duty while on his episcopal visits. " He told me once his nerves did what he told them to ! and he certainly evinced marvellous control over them. " During the earthquake at Messina (whither he sped from Malta among the first), when he was digging with the Russian sailors to rescue the entombed, he continued to dig for hours after the sailors left (bound through duty to return to their ship), until at dawn he utterly collapsed. The piteous cries of a buried woman had impelled him to his hopeless task. His behaviour while with the Russian sailors must have earned him their deep respect and admiration, for I know that he was received with all honours when later he visited the ship. " He did not take a gloomy view of the earthquake or allow the unspeakable horrors he witnessed to depress him or us. He made us see the wonderful and beautiful side of the tragedy : how in most instances, by some token or other, or by the attitude of the unearthed victims, the self-sacrificing or protective instinct in man was revealed ; how the suffer- ing was mitigated further than we could imagine, the lapse 144 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS of time and anguish being minimised for the buried through merciful stunning or sleep ; how the severe injuries and wounds were felt less than the scratches and slight hurts encountered afterwards. Then again, the highest and best was brought out in the sailor rescuers. The wounded men, women, and children were nursed and cared for on the ships by some sailors with motherly tenderness and tact, and beauty and mercifulness shone through the whole. "But did not the brave Bishop, caring for his little English colony of Messina, develop a septic throat through his indefatigable labours among that ghastly wreckage, which caused him much after-suffering and ill-health ? " Through the tales of daring, self-sacrifice and tenderness (which escaped journalistic ears), he made us, not marvel at the severity or callousness of powers which permit the ravagings of Nature and horrors attendant on catastrophes, but see God's love and pity in a world which produces heroism ; see divine compensation in loss, separation and distress ; attribute marvellous escapes to His watchful care ; acknowledge divine outcomes from calamity and suffering. "Indeed, I know that the Bishop, by his faith, raised many from doubt, strengthening by his hope and enlarging souls by his love and charity." The horrors of those days at Messina were indeed beyond description. Not for a long time after could the Bishop sleep without starting up, imagining that he heard the groans of buried people. The smell of the place did not leave his nostrils. On one occasion the Bishop was obliged to hack away a corpse with his own hands, because, embedded in the ruins, it got in the way of delivering a live person im- prisoned within. It would perhaps be hard to picture a more astonishing figure than that of the frail English Bishop toiling away by himself all through the night amidst the dying and the dead in ruined Messina. His labours in connexion with the earthquake did not cease when the rescue work came to an end. For a long time he was engaged in raising a fund for the relief of the British sufferers, and in administering it. Between 600 and 700 for this object passed through his hands. HIS WIFE'S ILLNESS 145 He returned from Messina to Malta to find his wife worse. She had written to her sister the day he left, but she never wrote again. What was the matter with her was difficult to tell. She had been in poor health for years, and now the travelling, and the anxiety for the Bishop, had done their work. At one moment the doctors spoke of nerves ; at another they suspected a tumour in the brain. He got her across to Cannes, where she had the advantage of the advice of the eminent specialist, Dr. Erd, of Heidelberg. The Bishop wrote to Lord Rendel on May 3, from Cannes : " I did not find my wife really better ; and as Dr. Erd advises that she should have special electrical treatment, which can be given better at Heidelberg than anywhere else (though he did not suggest this), I decided to take her there as soon as possible that it might begin without delay. So I have ordered a through carriage to Heidelberg for this after- noon at 5.32, and we set off then, arriving, all being well, about 9.30 to-morrow (Tuesday) p.m. Her favourite nurse, Miss Bartlett, is going to stay on with her, and Miss Wells goes too. I shall be there long enough to see her installed and the treatment begun, and then shall have to start on my travels again. She will be there for a month's treatment, from which we hope great things ; and then, all being well, I shall be able to take her back to England." She did not improve at Heidelberg. The Bishop left her there while he came to England to preach the Ramsden Sermon at Oxford. 1 He fulfilled engagements in North Italy, coming back to her at every available moment. " There has been no sign of loss of memory or perception," he wrote in May, " not a sign of irritability or the like, only weakness and loss of power, and if ever strength was made perfect in weakness it is with her." 2 But the weakness increased. At last, in the beginning of July, he came to the desperate resolve to bring her back to England, to Sir Victor Horsley. He engaged a special carriage in the express from Mannheim on the 7th. To join the express with greater 1 Published in Growth through Vision, being the sermon which gives a name to the volume. 2 Especially, p. 9. K 146 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS comfort for the invalid, he took a motor from Heidelberg, a distance of twenty or five-and-twenty miles. It poured with rain the whole way. The summer of 1909 was a very wet one, and the road was completely broken up by the rains. At one place on the journey the car became so firmly stuck in the mud that the chauffeur declared that there it must stay. Nothing but the sheer force of the Bishop's will got that car out and made it reach Mannheim. When they arrived at Mannheim, the hour of the express was long passed ; but mercifully the train also had been greatly delayed, and they were able to put Mrs. Collins into it, with scarcely a minute to spare. The passage, by night, from the Hook of Holland, was frightfully rough, and she had always been a bad sailor. She was so weak that she could not turn her head as she lay on deck. Hour after hour he sat by her, supporting her on his arm. The wonder was that she did not expire a dozen times on the long journey ; but she reached their house in Fellows Road alive, where the thoughtfulness of her friend Miss Margaret Rolt had got everything ready for her. There she was joined by her sister, Miss Sterland. Sir Victor Horsley came, and per- formed an operation with his accustomed skill, in the drawing-room of their own house, but she had no power of recovery, and on Thursday, July 15, she died, after receiving the Blessed Sacrament with him. As she passed away, the Bishop and those who were with him sang the hymn, " How bright those glorious spirits shine." The Bishop himself was mortally stricken by her death, but he bore it, not only with courage and patience, but with a faith which could be pathetically cheerful. The funeral took place on Monday, July 19. The first part of the service was held in St. Mary's, Primrose Hill, the church served by the Bishop's kind friend, Mr. Dearmer, where there had been a celebration of the Holy Eucharist at an earlier hour. From the church the body was conveyed by road to the cemetery at New Southgate, and buried in a grave close by her sister Edith's. The Bishop's father, his elder brother, and other members of his family, and of hers, were present, and Lord Northbourne and other friends. At Mrs. Collins's own desire, WIDOWHOOD 147 the widower lifted his poor marred voice to read the words of committal to the grave. Here is a little note which he wrote to one of the many acquaintances who condoled with him. " 12 Fellows Road, N.W., July 18, 1909. So many thanks : I value your letter. It makes the future very dreary : but I had always prayed that it might be I left alone and not her, and I have so much to give thanks for that a lifetime is not too long." Here is another : " This is only a word to thank you for your letter of sympathy with me in my bereavement. We have always been everything to one another, and the blank is the greater. But I know full well that death and separation are the transi- tory things, not love ; and now I have to try and live in that knowledge." The beautiful little book Especially tells of the visit to Eden Gate, in Westmoreland, which brought him the consolation which tender sympathy and the artless affection of children can minister. He went into Devon and Cornwall, to some of the old haunts. " I got back last afternoon," he writes, " from my hurried visit to her sister at Braunton and her brother at Boscastle, and brought with me heath to make a cross which I took at once to the dear grave. She loves Boscastle so, and its sea, and its moors. . . . So full of interviews and other work. And Mary, bless her, is very near." 1 Then, all alone, he started for a long journey in the East. It would have seemed that the utmost that he was capable of was to drag his own body to the places where he had to go ; but Bishop Collins was never put off from serving the needs of others, and he had strange powers of resourcefulness. The Hon. Madame Wiel has sent me an account of one incident of this extraordinary journey. She says : " The following story was told me by the Bishop of one of his experiences on board a Russian ship, when the cargo was 1 Especially ', p. 30. 148 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS chiefly composed of Russian peasants suffering from an out- break of small-pox. The Bishop heard of their sufferings, and went down into the hold to see what he could do. He found some of the victims with faces swollen to such an extent as to have lost all likeness to human beings. He ordered a quantity of mutton fat to be melted down, and as soon as this was ready he proceeded to daub it over these wretched creatures, and swathe their faces and heads with such bandages as he could get hold of. He then had them removed to another part of the ship and with the assistance of the captain caused the hold to be scoured out with boiling water, and disinfected to the utmost. Two victims had died before the Bishop began his operations, two were so ill that he obtained leave for them to be taken on shore at some port. On reaching his destination the Bishop was presented with a scroll in some language to him unknown, but which on being presented to the Turkish authorities was found to declare that his quarantine fees were paid and that he was free to land forthwith without further ado. He himself never knew nor found out who had made himself answerable in this way for him, or if it was an unobtrusive way of recognising his work among the miserable small-pox victims, and expressing in a really practical way their gratitude for all he had done." l At this point I insert a number of letters written by the Bishop between his consecration to the office and the last few months of his life. Occupation : Past and Future. San Remo, February 26, 1904. The time is so fully occupied that I may not attempt more. At each new place I find not only the regular public work to be done, and fifty people who want " only a few minutes," in which, however, I have to make momentous decisions at 1 1 have followed the authoress of Especially (p. 31), in placing this incident here ; but I do not feel sure that it did not occur on some earlier voyage in the Black Sea. LETTERS 149 a moment's notice, but also a good many sick people who would like to see me, and some only of whom, alas ! I can manage to see. I am so sorry that things are going hardly with you, and especially when I am far away and cannot help you. But you must never make the mistake of thinking that all the past is worthless because the present seems so barren and unworthy. That is a hopeless thing to do, and just a temptation of the evil one, who always tries to make us think that our good aspirations were worthless and unreal. The mistake is, just starting from the assumption that we are the centre, and the present time the point from which things are to be judged ; whereas Christ is the centre, and He sees things as they shall be. So do not give way. It was only what was to be expected that you should be dis- heartened ; and the vital question is whether you will hold on, and get outside it, so to speak. The Gospel of Love. Durban, July 28, 1904. The new home must be somewhere where you will be at least within easy reach of the preaching of the Gospel of Love ; for I am sure, with you, that that is what we want more than all else. Out here there seems to be nothing else to preach, hardly ; and certainly things are more wonderful than one could think or imagine. It is the results which nobody can tell, and no accounts summarise, which have been most wonderful, and no part of my work has been more wonderful than that at Kimberley. Spanish Travel : To the Lord Rendel. Santiago de Compostella, September 26, 1905. A word would reach me at the British Embassy, Madrid, on October 7. I am travelling about, and should not be sure of getting it before. On Sunday I was at Vigo, minister- ing to some 40 clerks of the Eastern Telegraph Company 150 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS there, who have no chaplain anywhere near ; now, on my way to Cortina (a seven and a half hours drive by diligencia) , I am at the greatest of all mediaeval pilgrimage places, a strange little granite-built town, in country like Brittany or Cornwall, with the most glorious Cathedral and not a few other great buildings. At Corufia we have a service for the very few English people there, and I go on by Lugo, Leon, to Bilbao (where we have a chaplain), then by Zaragoza to Tarragona and Valencia, to Madrid and so on. My wife is in England during this very rough journey, but rejoins me at Gibraltar. To the same. Malaga, October 23, 1905. Here everything is in a terrible state owing to the drought, and there is much illness. The peasants have lost everything ; and it is not a thing of which the results will pass away, for by a wretched compact between the emigration agents and the local money-lenders the peasants are being forced into emigration. And poor Spain, already weakened to death, is being yet further drained of its best blood. For here the peasant blood is the best. To the same. Till December i [?igo6], , The Convent, Gibraltar. It is good, after all my travelling, to be stationary for a little while, and the new Governor, 1 with whom I am staying, is a man whom it is a privilege to know. But although it is a change after all my journeying, it is not much rest ; for the arrears of letters have to be made up, and what with Army and Navy my time is about as fully occupied as it could possibly be. It was a grievous mistake to leave Gibraltar and Malta alone so long ; but in one way I reap the benefit, for they come to me about everything, and treat me with the most extraordinary consideration. 1 Sir F, Forestier- Walker. LETTERS 151 Words of Good Cheer. Le Bocage, Costebelle, December 12, 1904. I do not wonder that you lose heart at times and that these winter months are terrible to face. But they do not go on for ever, and there is an Eternal Spring which is surely coming, and which is even now not so far off, hard though it is to realise that it is so near. . . . Be very sure that God feels for you far more than any human friend can. ... It is the grace of God which has enabled you to bear hitherto, and that has given you such strength as you have. The Power of Suffering : His own Work. Malta, December 29, 1905. You remember what Shakespeare says about the words of the dying : " O, but they say the tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony ; Where words are few, they're seldom spoke in vain, For they breathe truth who breathe their words in pain." It is just the same with the thoughts and words, the works and the prayers, of the suffering. And there must be some- thing of good in it, mustn't there ? when our powers for good are made larger. . . . As you know, we are always travelling. Malta is one of the places where we stay longest, having an English colony of some 20,000 people. But we are only here till January 8 (having arrived on St. Thomas's Day), and excepting here and Gibraltar our stay is never more than two or three days. We go to Sicily next, then Crete, Greece, Italy, etc. ; in the middle of February I am in England for about five days, preaching before the University of Cambridge, lecturing and giving addresses, consulting with the Archbishop in London, etc., and then abroad again. It is very interesting, and, I think, profitable work, but it is tiring, and the opportunities 152 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS for connected study and writing are not great ; and it is easy to get " dissipated," i.e. to live in a scrappy sort of way, in a life which is so broken up. A Pastoral Journey. The Convent, Gibraltar, December I, 1905. It has been such a busy time for me first travelling four or five thousand miles to and in the Spanish Peninsula, then a very busy time here (I never come here without wishing that we could be here longer), then back to some of the Spanish mines, during this last fortnight. Amongst other things I had a long journey on mule-back in the mountains, and came back here from Cadiz on a torpedo-boat destroyer, doing target practice on the way, in the course of which I aimed and fired one of the guns, making a fair shot too I To-morrow I am off, this time by torpedo-boat, to Tangier, and thence, next week, to many places, and so to Malta. Doesn't it almost take one's breath away ? . . . They are very anxious days just now in some ways. I hear much that is terrible from the South of Russia, and would far rather relieve our chaplains in Odessa and else- where than merely tell them (as I must do) that it is their duty to stay there until the Consuls declare it unsafe for our people to remain. Then there are the perpetual questions as to the possibility of keeping up chaplaincies in little places, and helping scattered groups elsewhere. A State Visit. Constantinople, St. Matthew's Day, 1906. I am in the midst of the most interesting things here. Yesterday I went through the streets in an open carriage, robed and with decorations (you can do anything in Con- stantinople), to see the Ecumenical Patriarch, and the Armenian Patriarch (their chief representative in Turkey). And to-day the Metropolitan of Chios, the Protosyncellos, and the Archdeacon, have just returned the call on behalf of the former. It is so interesting. LETTERS 153 Alicante. Fonda Iborra, Alicante, October n, 1905. This is a strange place by the sea a long double or treble line of houses on a fine bay, dominated by a great castle on a high white-grey hill, and with little but palm trees growing everywhere, bearing dates that are nearly ripe. There are very few English here, and the Consul is a Roman Catholic ; but I am going to give some of them their Communion to-morrow, and also to consecrate the burial ground here, in which Professor Freeman the historian was buried. He died here, of small-pox, about twelve years ago. It is very interesting, though very tiring, going about ministering to these little knots of our people. I wish it were possible to do more for them ; but it can only come by little and little. Work in New Russia. [Hughesovka, June, 1906.] The company in question is largely an English one, which owns large coal mines and steel works here. We have just arrived, after two nights and a day in the train from Odessa, and a fourteen-mile drive across the steppe, which is not so flat as I had imagined it, but perpetually covered with dust in the summer, mud in the spring and autumn, and snow in the winter. It grows corn in abundance, with weeds, and a few beautiful, though not delicate, flowers ; but about here the smoke from the furnaces has spoiled things entirely, and there is nothing but bare earth, slag, and a very ramshackle town. But there are some two hundred English people here with their chaplain, and when things are quiet and peaceful there are a hundred more ; whilst things in Russia are so disturbed, however, most of them have sent their wives and children home. . . . Everything is greatly disturbed all over Russia, but it doesn't really make it dangerous for us in any way. Troubles occur almost daily at Odessa, and yet people go on living their lives bravely and quietly. They have grown steadily in spite, if not because, of the troubles ; and on Ascension Day, out of a colony of some 350 people in all, I confirmed thirteen adults. 154 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Fasting Communion. Galatz, Roumania, June 22, 1906. To answer your question first, just as it stands : I don't think that you will get any light on the subject from the practice of the Reformers. That fasting Communion con- tinued to be a general custom (it would be going beyond the evidence to say the universal custom) after the sixteenth century, and indeed after the Restoration, is quite clear. But the question was not one, if we may trust the evidence (and I am sure that for this purpose we may), which was consciously before the mind of the Reformers as of pressing importance, and they neither made any effort to settle it, nor did they consciously and deliberately leave it an open question. In my opinion, the best way to approach the whole question is this. It is ambiguous and misleading to speak of the rule of fasting Communion at all. If by rule is meant regula, precept, law, or even definitive canon, there is no such rule of the Church. There are rules of the Church about fasting ; there are rules which set apart certain days of fasting or abstinence ; but there is no rule of fasting Communion. On the other hand, there is a custom of fasting Communion, and a custom of the highest degree both of antiquity and of range. Now such a custom is to be highly honoured and carefully observed : no reverent man can treat it lightly. On the other hand, a custom is not a law : it may be disregarded, or rather not followed, for a sufficient reason. And further, the sufficient reason must be relative to the individual case, and not merely a kind of general exception to a rule. On the other hand, no Catholic-minded man will lightly imagine "sufficient reasons," and he will, if he is wise, and the occasion is one which is likely to recur, seek to make his action regular by the sanction of authority where possible. I have myself given a dispensation to a priest who cannot fast for many hours ; I have also refused one, in one case, where there seemed insufficient reason. 1 1 The Bishop went on to refer his correspondent to the Introduction to Dr. Wickham Legg's Papal Facilities for Dispensation from the Fast before Communion, LETTERS 155 An Earnest Parliament. Le Bocage, Costebelle, March 21, 1906. How stirring things have been in England ! To see a House of Commons again consisting of men who are in earnest, and who realise that God has not said His last creative word in human life, is a fine thing ; whether one is in every detail with them or not is so small a point in comparison ! Father William's " Workless and Starving." Smyrna, September 18, 1906. I ought to have written before to thank you with all my heart for your pamphlet Workless and Starving, which I read with a full heart and a stricken conscience, and which has often been in my mind since. Without doubt you are right ; what is wanted is not merely measures of palliation or relief at particular times, . . . but an entirely new conception of the meaning and the dignity and the duty of labour, a revelation, not a poultice. That we may make many inadequate experiments if we try to do something is obvious ; but the terrible evil now is that most people, who are Christian in their own lives, are purely fatalistic in all that concerns labour, and take it for granted that because a struggle for existence in brute beasts follows out an inevitable course, all that concerns labour is equally mechanical and dead. But we are learning, all slowly though it be. And every trumpet call does good, though it seems to fall on deaf ears. "Prophet eyes can catch a glory slowly gaining on the shade " ; but only where we are at least trying to learn, and to do each thing as we learn it. God speed you all who are engaged in the battle. 156 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS The Education Bill. La Pinedo, Costebelle, January 7, 1907. You must be greatly disappointed, as I am, about the Education Bill. The whole thing is a great muddle, and (as is generally the case) I don't find myself in full agreement with anybody ; but I was far more in agreement with the Bishop of Hereford than with any other of the Bishops. When I come to think of it, I don't want to find myself in entire agreement with anybody, so far as opinions go. I value my opinions as much as most people, and should wish to be prepared to die for them ; but I know too much about their one-sidedness and narrowness to wish anybody else to think exactly the same ! There is a broader basis of fellowship than that. Work for the Sufferer to do. At Sea, between Sicily and Crete, June 4, 1907. All that you tell me of the difficulty of realising God and His love, and seeing spiritual things, must make it infinitely harder ; but I do not think that in themselves they ought to dishearten you. They must be mainly or altogether the effect of the disease itself, and God knows all about them too. You must only try not to let anything slip that can be held firm, and remember that amongst so much that He has taken from you, He has still left you the opportunity of work for Him. Your pain itself helps you to witness for Him, and every word of hope and thoughtfulness that you can manage to say to others will tell with them much more than what others might say. So God has still true and deep work for you to do ! Aiid if you find that you can't carry your thoughts beyond the grave to the joy and glory and peace there, it is only because they are so wonderful and beyond all our possible experience. LETTERS 157 Knowledge of his Flock. Chateau Thorenc, Cannes, Marth 12, 1908. Yes, I will gladly tell people at Gibraltar about : in fact, I am writing to-day to the Dean, and to Mr. Carey, one of our best Army Chaplains, who looks after the Eastern Telegraph Company's men. Of course I know them well, and generally pay a visit to their quarters when I am in Gibraltar. They live together college-fashion, and are a very good set of men in all ways. But their hours and their rules make them keep very much to themselves, and they go out little ; though they have plenty of games, etc. Rumour of his Translation to Chichester : to the Rev. Dr. Robinson. The Convent, Gibraltar, December 23, 1907. Rumours are troublesome things. ... So far as one can come to a conclusion on a problematical question, I decided to stay here. As things are, I get opportunities, perhaps increasingly, of consulting with high people in England on most of the points that arise ; and it does not follow that I could do more, were I actually on the spot. It is my weakness that I too easily get absorbed in the details of work ; and whereas here, with every community differing from every other, it perhaps serves a good purpose, in England it would hardly do so. Then again this work of mine is gloriously many-sided, and, I hope and believe, really fruitful : so far as strictly " diocesan " work is concerned, I don't think that anywhere are the opportunities so great, and the opportunities of fellowship with other Churches are not to be despised. On the other hand, I am conscious of having failed entirely of finding the right permanent basis of work yet : in a jurisdiction like this it is most important that the Bishop should come into actual and frequent contact with places and people, seeing that they cannot get into the train and visit him when things go wrong ; and yet I 158 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS doubt whether other Bishops would be able to travel so much. . . . Yes, we are indeed the poorer for the death of the beloved Primus, so far as our counsels are concerned. We have his example still, and surely his prayers. Just as I left England early in September he wrote to ask me to go and stay with him, " to take counsel about the movement for unity here in Scotland, and to think about our duty in the Lambeth Conference." How I wish that it had been possible, and now more than ever ! Messina : to Mrs. Collins. H.M.S. " Minerva," December 31, 1908. We got in at 9 on Wednesday, and as soon as possible I got ashore, with a packet of biscuits, my flask, and two ship's water bottles. Already on the " Chesapeake " a British ship in the harbour we had found some refugees. ... I found the Huleatts' house a huge pile of ruins. . . . Then I went to one or two other houses which I thought might give news of our people, and soon found X., his wife and child, in a destitute condition. After helping them as well as I could, and making arrangements for them to go to the "Minerva," I attached myself to a Russian rescue party, and we climbed up and over mound after mound, as people came and told us that there were sounds below, or as we heard them. In such cases it meant literally digging them out, or excavating amongst ruins till we could reach them. In one case, deep in the ruins, we got to a boy of 12 or so, and at last, through a deep narrow hole I was able to reach down to give him water. There were two great beams in the way ; so the only thing was to reach down with a knife, cut the mattress below him, and draw out its contents through the hole, till he sank far enough down for us to get at him by a new hole below the beams. But we got him out, thank God, his eyes bright with fever, and bruised, but not much worse otherwise ; and this was one of six or seven whom we got out before dark. . . . I have spent a good deal of time with our sick we have had two deaths to-day trying to write letters for them in LETTERS 159 Italian, talking to them, trying to explain to these sailor- nurses what they want, nursing babies, and so on. They are so patient and good. As for the sailors, they are magnificent so gentle and tender as nurses. All the sweets in the canteen have been bought up by them to give to the children, and they speak a lingo all their own to them, as relay after relay has come to us since yesterday morning, which seems a year ago. . . . I am well and not too tired. Everybody is good to me Captain Wake and all his officers, and the men especially, who make much of me, and ask me to interpret with their patients, and bring me all sorts of scraps of would-be Italian to interpret. The Earthquake at Messina. H.M.S. " Lancaster," January 12, 1909. I am here again at this city of the dead, making a few final enquiries and arrangements for some of our folk who have been saved, and burying some of the dead who have been recovered. I came down with the Duke of Connaught in the "Aboukir," have visited the hospital, and have been here [in Messina] all day for a heartrending day, digging in the rain with a party of stokers. We have found four bodies, greatly decomposed ; but there are many more below. Personally, I should like to have this work given up entirely ; for I should prefer any I loved to remain embedded in these masses of lime, rather than have all this terrible work. But people feel so differently about these things ! The Earthquake at Messina. S.S. " Palermo," at Sea, January 20, 1909. Then came the terrible earthquake, and I set off at once for Messina and Reggio, and have been there half the time since December 30, going to and fro in warships. You may imagine what a heartrending time it has been utterly unlike the accounts in the newspapers, which appear to have been written for the most part by people who were nowhere near the earthquake, but worse by far. Only it was good to be 160 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS there, and to help with the wounded and homeless, and to dig out one after another of those who were buried under the ruins. And our sailors were quite splendid, working all day long under conditions of great difficulty and no little danger, and ministering like trained nurses to the wounded, and giving up their berths in order that we might have more hospital space. Well . . . these things are certainly not less terrible from within than from without; but I think that near at hand you see God's love better than far away, in all the love which suffering calls forth whence ? And if " love is all and death is nought " as we know it is, however hard it may be to live up to it one can understand a little bit that God is over the earthquake. Only we could not understand unless the Son of God had come down to suffer and to die for us. His Wife's last day : to Miss Cavendish-Bentinck. 12 Fellows Road, N.W., July 14, 1909. I must send you a word that you may know of God's dealings with us. You know how ill my Mary has been for long, and for some little time now we have known that it was either a tumour or abscess on the brain, and that there was but little hope of recovery if the latter, none, if the former, since it was evidently so deep-seated. To-day, Sir Victor Horsley operated, an operation intended partly to relieve some of the worst symptoms, partly to see if more could be done. The operation has passed safely, but they find that there is a very large solid tumour, much dispersed in area, and that there is no hope at all. So we are trusting that at least she may have relief and that God of His mercy will give her a peaceful passing. She is very weak, but we trust going on well. That is all that there is to tell, excepting that she is just bearing it all and using it all as the saint that she is, and that we are not unhappy, and are full of thankfulness. I ought to have nothing but praise for the rest of my life ; and we are thankful to have been able to bring her safely to England ; LETTERS 161 and we have had much precious time together lately, and have been able to speak quite openly and get behind and above separation and things present and things to come or any other creature. I wanted you to know and dear Mrs. Scott, that you may think of us with dear Mr. and Mrs. Jeaffreson. Ferrol. British Vice-Consulate, Villagarcia, Spain, October 20, 1910. You remember Ferrol ? The place where there were 300 of our people and a Plymouth Brother ? . . . The people have now grown to nearly 500. And although they are mainly Scotch Presbyterians or Nonconformists, before we left they were keen that I should send them a chaplain some- how, and I think it may be done soon if we can find the right man to go there as schoolmaster and chaplain. There are 80 children delightful ones and at present only 40 of them go to a little school kept by a nice teacher, a girl. Well, it looks hopeful, and such a " parish " f or a man to work in. Ever since I landed I have been in telegraphic communication with our Ambassador in Madrid about a Naval Cemetery which is to be consecrated here ; the Spanish authorities have been putting all sorts of difficulties in the way. Now, the Ambassador tells me, we have certainly done all that is legally necessary and are quite free to consecrate ; but they are still making little administra- tive obstacles. But last night the Vice-Consul, at my request, sent a message to the local Alcalde (Mayor) to say that I intend to consecrate it to-day, inviting him to be present, and adding that I am going to do myself the honour of calling on him afterwards. He has sent back to say that he will not be responsible, but evidently realises that he has neither the duty nor the right of interfering it is always right enough with these people if you keep within legal limits and know your own mind ; but this matter has been dragging on since April between the Vice-Consul, the Spanish authorities, and our Admiralty. 162 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS Home Politics. Bordighera, December 16, 1909. My thoughts are very full of our poor at home, for things are going to be very bad, I fear, this winter. The worst of it is that " prosperity " does not help them now ; it only means that work goes on feverishly for a time, and that then as soon as it ceases to be remunerative in the highest degree, they are rather ruthlessly discharged, instead of being kept on constantly, good times or bad times, as they used to be. It was time that some effort was made to adjust taxation more fairly to the rich and the poor ; and whatever faults in detail there may have been in this Budget, it was at least a brave and honest attempt to do that. And I hope it has done it ; for no future government will dare to fall back from the new order of things which it has shown the way for. Unction : to a familiar friend. Bordighera, February 12, 1910. I should say that Unction is in its essence an Act of Faith, just like the many others that people make, or ought to make, in illness. Of course, they don't make them nearly enough, or there would be less illness ; and it is a very good thing in such an Act of Faith to have a concrete act, a psy- chical moment on which the mind can grasp. For most of us do nothing particular with our lives just because we don't particularly try ; i.e. have no definite aim or aims, never come to the point. All that is good, then. But so far it is not a new thing in kind ; it is what has always been done in the Church, now in one way, now in another ; and what we have gained at the present day is a more definite recognition of a duty and a right which it always belonged to us to exercise. When, however, people speak of Unction as the " lost Pleiad of the Church," or as having a grace peculiar to itself, they seem to me to be talking nonsense, and a very bad kind of nonsense. To take an illustration of what I mean : had the Church been without the Eucharist for centuries, it LETTERS 163 might have had many gifts and many graces, but it would have lacked the grace of the sacramental feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ. Here, it is quite otherwise. There is no grace which the Church has lacked, in that a rite which was never strictly a rite of the Church has fallen into desuetude. The grace of healing has been given all along, in answer to the prayers of the Church, to particular prayers, to acts of faith of all kinds. Most priests in visiting the sick, lay hands on them. Often they call for special efforts, sometimes even say, "Arise and walk," and it is done (/ have known cases). All these are different illustrations of the same thing, healing in the Church through the power of Christ. On the Church : to the Rev. J. H. Toy. Bordighera, February 23, 1910. The matter about which you write is one which is attract- ing a good deal of attention, and I think we shall hear more of it yet. Briefly, there are four things which must be borne in mind about it. i. The fact itself is very much exaggerated. Formerly, people used to speak vaguely and ignorantly about the Dark Ages, and it was true, as S. R. Maitland replied, that the main reason why they were so dark was that people were so much in the dark about them. Now, by a swing of the pendulum, it is all the other way. People are now as ridiculously ready to assume that everything was good in the Middle Ages as they were formerly ready to assume the reverse ; and on the other hand, nothing is too bad [for them] to say about the period previous to the Oxford Move- ment. The fact of the matter is that the slackness of that period (especially in the matter of Baptism) is very greatly exaggerated. It is much the same with other things. I hardly know a single instance of so-called " Puritan " neglect which is not in reality, and demonstrably so, a survival from the Middle Ages ; and the neglect of Baptism, and above all of Confirmation, in times before the Reformation must have been incomparably greater than most people realise. If I 164 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS were to look for the greatest uncertainties in the transmission of Holy Orders in times past, I should not find it here. There are things far more serious elsewhere. But the fact is that one does not need to look for them. People are starting from the wrong end when they try to build destructive arguments on things such as these. 2. They are equally wrong-headed when they base their theory of the Church on a mechanical idea of a chain in which a broken link invalidates all that comes after. The whole point of corporate life is that one weak spot does not, and many weak spots do not, destroy the body. A truer image would be that of a coat of mail, in which one broken link does not destroy the continuity of the rest, or a rope, which is continuous even though no single fibre subsists for more than a foot or two of its length. Of course the truest image of all is a living body, in which the life of all is not only not destroyed by local failure, but the life of the whole actually repairs and makes good the need of the part. A mechanical theory which forgets the solidarity of the body is hopelessly wrong. 3. And again, Christ is not divided ; the Creed is not a series of twelve, or a hundred, or a million propositions, but a whole, of which we see now this aspect, now that. A theory which separates the ministry from the living Church, or the particular lives of individual Christians from the life of the Body, is unchristian and therefore uncatholic. In their eagerness to assert the Apostolic Ministry, people are apt to forget that it is a function of the Body, of the Apos- tolic Church ; and that the life of the Body is in a true sense the guarantee of the maintenance of the Apostolic Ministry. (It is the true strength of Scottish Presbyterianism that it bears witness to this fact.) 7 should not hesitate to say that the very meaning of the corporate life of the Church is that it guarantees to us the continuity of the Ministry, and makes good accidental defects, where the intention of the Church has been maintained as regards its Ministry, and where its practical action has been continuous. The idea is not familiar to us, but it is quite in accordance with primitive use, and quite familiar in Eastern theology, that LETTERS 165 that is Holy Order which the Church recognises as such, and that the Church of its inherent life makes good any defects which there may be in that which it recognises. 4. But the chief thing after all is that which you speak of the ever present care of Our Lord for His Church. There is a mechanical way of talking of the Sacraments, into which many people fall, which is not only hideously irreverent, but which " destroy eth the very nature of a sacrament." The fact is that Baptism is not a kind of curse against the un- baptised, but a revelation of God's Eternal Will of Love and the application of that Will to him who receives it. The Eucharist, and Confirmation, and Orders are of the same order. In each case, two things are involved, an Act and a Life : in the language of scholastic theology, an actual gift and a habitual grace : an act of baptism and a habit of baptised life, an act of receiving and a habitual (i.e. constant, continuous) feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ. To say that he who shares the habitual life of the baptised but has not received Baptism is outside grace would be an act of dogmatic negation ; and no negation is part of the Catholic faith, or can be. Of course, to say that he is in the same position as if he were baptised would be an act of presumption, putting our own ideas in the place of that which we know by faith ; but to say that the life of the body is null, or that the Body is outside grace because some indi- viduals who went before had never received Baptism, would be a return from a Gospel to a Law, from the Life of Christ to the bondage of the Evil One. At every point, grace rests upon His Will. It is a Present Christ, who speaks now, not an Absent Christ, who spoke once, who is the Giver of Grace, the Minister in every Sacrament. I am here getting well, please God, from a serious illness. May He bless you ever, my dear Toy. A Favourite Motto. Villa degli Angeli, Fiesole, April 13, 1910. So my path is clear for the present simply to do all I can to get well, and try to follow Bishop Hacket. That motto 166 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS of his, " Serve God and be cheerful," has always been a favourite one of mine ; I wonder if you have ever come across any of his books ? Prayer for Health. Fiesole, April, 1910. Now let me try to answer your question about the prayers, (i) I am quite sure that God is to me all that the most loving Father and Mother is, and infinitely more : all this in the most complete, ideally perfect fulness. (2) And because that is so, I ask, and know I ought to ask, for just the very thing that I feel the need of : not some idealised picture of it, or what I think it may be proper to ask, but it. That is the most child-like thing I can do, to take my own trouble to Him, and really to ask for that which is my heart's desire. "An infant crying in the night " is most childlike. I claim a son's rights ; I call for the satisfaction of a child's needs. (3) I realise all the time, or rather learn progressively to realise, please God, what a bad child I am, and how little I know about my own needs ; and the best thing of all is when I begin to learn that what I really want is not an it, but Him who with Himself " freely gives us all things." But this does not in any way modify the single- heartedness of my asking. Some day I may come to see that what I asked for was not what I want ; then I will ask differently : but here and now, because I want this, I ask for it, and not for something else, and I am childlike in proportion as I do so. (4) " In My name " certainly isn't a limitation of the asking, but an enlargement of the spirit of the asking, so that we know already that the prayer is to be answered ; that it is His will, and not simply our will, which is the basis of answered prayer. And certainly bodily health is not to be excluded from the asking. I cannot doubt that we have not asked enough, and that there has been far too little " faith-healing " in the past. The only pity is that reaction is the least healthy way of growth. When we learn more about healing in the Saviour, in an age which is morbidly fearful of pain, there is LETTERS 167 a danger lest even our good New Light should be received as a way for our old selfishness to walk in. And they who realise for the first time that the Gospel is, amongst other things, a Gospel of Health, are apt to forget that all down the ages the sick have been healed by the prayer of faith. You will not think I mean, however, that we are not to use our New Light. Forrest's "Authority of Christ " : to a Student of Theology. 12 Fellows Road, Hampstead, October 5, 1910. It is, I think, most interesting, and very valuable. I don't think I remember any part that is not in accordance with any specific teaching of ours. The difference, if any, is rather one of the proportion of the faith, and so far as I remember I should put it under two heads, (i) We have learned so much from the new light, and from what is at present also the misleading glimmer (in parts) of psychology, that we have for the time lost our orientation, and are all floundering. . . . We shall get it again in a newer and deeper way. Just now the tendency is to make Atonement centre too much in ourselves. No doctrine of Atonement can be ultimately satisfying which does not in a real sense centre in God. (2) One needs the doctrine of the Church more ; not, of course, the polity thereof, of which perhaps we get too much just now. The fundamental question is between Westcott and Newman in the Apologia. The former finds himself face to face with three final existences self, the world, and God ; the latter God, and his own soul. The former is the basis of Catholicism ; is not the latter the basis of most other -isms ? I am not saying that J. H. N. always occupied this position : he did not. . . , But no doctrine of the Atonement can be adequate which does not build upon Ephesians and I St. John. 168 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS The Lisbon Jesuits : to the Rev. Dr. Robinson. Gibraltar, Allhallowmas Day, 1910. I came here three days ago from Lisbon, on a Dutch ship which brought also thirty-one Portuguese Jesuits, priests and students, who had been deported by the authorities. We made friends, and I have been able to help them a little here. But when one of them introduced his fellow to me as " another of our Confessors," I could not help protesting, and asked them whether they thought it was justifiable to use such a description when they had been shut up by the police to protect them from molestation by their own people. The feeling is amazingly strong against them, partly on political, partly on other grounds. (I, too, have seen the underground passages from the chief Jesuit house in Lisbon, but of course it is outrageous to give only a bad interpreta- tion to things such as these.) Of course there is a con- siderable amount of mere secularism, but most of it is " anticlericalism " pure and simple, and one cannot but think, " O f or a Savonarola ! " Prayer-book Revision : to the same. Malta, November 16, 1910. I am so thankful that so far Convocation has done the right thing, and congratulate you heartily on your share in it. I only hope that the result will not be frittered away by either a mere tinkering of details, or a concentration of attention on the two burning questions of the Quicumque and the Vesture. I long to see two things more : (a) a plain recognition of a moderate dispensing power, so that in particular cases special modifications may be made, within limits, with the authorisation of the Bishop ; (b) a plain recognition of the fact that rubrics are not canons i.e. that a rubric records simply how things are done (i.e. unless there is valid reason for some other course), and that it is the func- tion of a canon to prescribe how things shall be done. Of course each of these opens large questions ; but I don't like the idea, which seems to satisfy many very good people, of THE LAST PERIOD 169 first making the directions of the Prayer-book " reasonable " (according to the ideas of 1910 or 1911), and then saying, "All these you shall observe to the last iota ! " It has already been mentioned that at the time of Mrs. Collins's death the Bishop had partially lost his voice. He could make himself heard, but with difficulty, and the voice was painful to listen to, it was so husky. The mischief began soon after his labours at Messina ; and he was inclined to believe that he had there taken some septic poison into his system. He put himself under the best medical direction, hoping that his throat might be set right. But it did not improve during the months that he spent in England that summer. In the autumn the doctors silenced him altogether. He was not only forbidden to preach or take services ; he was not allowed even to speak not so much as in a whisper. Conversation on his part was cut down to what he could write on slips of paper. Even this was so tiring for him that it was not much encouraged. He took up his winter quarters at Poggio Ponente, near Bordighera. From that place he sent out a printed circular in December, saying : " I am unfortunately in the hands of the doctors, who have forbidden me to travel, or to speak or preach for the present, and have sent me here for special treatment for my throat, etc. So the above will be my address till further notice." In sending the circular to Lord Rendel, he added : " What is printed on the other side is for the world at large : for your own ear, let me add what is amiss. It turns out that my throat and lungs are tuberculous, and I am here for proper open-air treatment, which is already doing good. But my work, and letter-writing, are cut down to a minimum." To another friend he wrote on the circular with pathetic humour : " The silence is so essential because they are afraid that one of the vocal chords is destroyed altogether. I make the doctors laugh by whistling a few bars of The Lost Chord when 170 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS they come ; but of course it is rather serious, for it means that I shall never be able to sing any more, if so." In sending the same to Madame Wiel, he said : " I am particularly anxious that my brethren should not put off telling me things on the ground of ' not troubling me ' and so add greatly to work afterwards." It was obvious to urge him not to travel again without taking a chaplain with him, or at least a valet ; but his reply was : " Nice as it would be in some ways, I don't think it would be really feasible for me to have a chaplain with me. It would at times, when I am on the Riviera or in big centres ; though even then he would often be of more use in London, amongst my papers and books, than with me. And in the outlying districts, which after all take more than half my time, he would hardly help me at all, and in some ways add to work ! There isn't any Bishop's work quite like this of mine which is, of course, one of its many charms. Then again there are times when a man-servant would be a help, but many more when he would only be in the way ; and I should dislike it of all things ! And I know that St. Paul had companions on his journeys : so do I when I go to Kurdistan ; but when it is a question of travelling by train, don't you think it would have made a difference ? But I will try and be good about it I will ; and certainly the more for your letter." He wrote to Lord Rendel again on January 13, 1910 : "All is going on well, and I am decidedly better than I was, so far as the lungs are concerned. With the throat, which is of course the centre of the mischief, there is little or no change as yet ; but that was bound to be a very slow business. No, the London doctors were quite decisively against the Alps : they would be as bad for other things as they might be good for the mischief itself ; and indeed I have had not a little tiresome heart-trouble as it is. However, that is better too, I am thankful to say. And in other ways I am very well off. It is a little awkward at times not to be allowed to speak, but not really unpleasant, for with it there comes a very pleasant restfulness too. Everybody is THE LAST PERIOD 171 good to me, and I have many willing helpers, and a most delightful nurse ; and it makes it easier in many ways that she knows all about last year, having taken care of my wife so devotedly. And God has blessed me with peace of mind. I am of course setting my will in the direction of getting well ; but if it were to be otherwise, I own that I should be happy, for the sake of that which is ' far better/ Of course it isn't possible to make plans yet, but, though the doctor will not even look upon it as possible, I dream of being able to do two months of journeying in the more important regions before the summer. The chief anxiety, if it can be called one, is whether I shall have any voice. I could make myself heard (before I was put to silence), though with difficulty and the expenditure of about three times the ordinary amount of energy. But it seems more than likely that one vocal chord is gone altogether ; and if so I can hardly hope to sing again, or take a real physical pleasure in speaking. However, all that is happily not my concern ! "As I can't talk, I am not allowed to see many people ; but there is a good chaplain here, who is one of my own private chaplains too ; 1 and kind Mrs. Scott and Miss Cavendish- Bentinck, in whose garden I spend the afternoon, are old friends of ours ; and Miss Wells is just coming out to Bordighera and will be able to work for me, as she has done before. And I get a certain amount of reading done, and have a good many books with me, and a capital library near at hand ; so it is quite a good place to be ill in. " How critical the state of affairs at home is ! I trust that all may go well, but there has not for some time been an election in which it was so hard to foresee the result." He wrote brightly a few days later to Madame Wiel : " Poggio Ponente, Conversion of St. Paul, 1910. To-day is the sixth anniversary of my Consecration : to-morrow of our wedding. We had planned, if we could, to make it in a sense a sabbatical year to travel as little as we could, and stay longer at Gibraltar and Malta, and possibly 1 The Rev. A. T. Barnett, to whom he was deeply attached. 172 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS to get longer for rest in England this summer. My dear one rests. . . . " (January 30.) This place has become almost the centre of the universe lately ! All sorts of friends of mine are coming out here to get a glimpse of me, or to hear at any rate. The Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Davidson are here now, and come to see me daily ,' and I am rather expecting the Pope before long, and the Dalai Lama, and the ex-Sultan, and perhaps Dr. Cook." At the end of the year 1910 the Bishop sent out a Pastoral Letter to the people under his charge. After telling them of the state of his health, he said : " Limitations such as these are somewhat irksome, but I am sure that it is right for me to face them, and to try and do my work under them. I believe that you would wish to bear them with me rather than that I should give up ; and every single voice that I can hear on the subject strengthens this belief. Above all, those who speak with authority are quite clear that I ought to go on, keeping well within the limits of what is possible, and doing everything that can be done to help forward a complete recovery, if that be in God's providence for me. And you have always shown me such wonderful loving kindness that I am writing now with the object of taking counsel with you, my friends, as to what we can do to make the most of such powers as I have, and to secure that the Lord's work shall suffer, and His people be straitened, as little as need be in the circumstances. " I think these are the chief points involved, (i) It is, of course, absolutely impossible for me to preach. To me, at any rate, this is a very heavy deprivation ; for I have always been able to enter into the words of George Herbert with regard to the Country Parson, that ' the pulpit is his ]oy and his throne.' Yet silence may have its advantages. Long ago, when my dear wife and I used to make plans for the future, it was one of our dreams that my seventh year as Bishop should be a Sabbath rest from preaching (at any rate from preaching in season and out of season), so that I might have an opportunity of sitting at the feet of my brethren. THE LAST PERIOD 173 The seventh year has come, and it is to be a year of silence, but in a very different sense from that which I had thought of ; and how different in other ways, too ! Well, it is a privilege to sit among the hearers. And yet I will ask my brethren of the clergy to believe that it is a matter of real regret with me that I shall not be able to relieve them of the strain of having to preach only too constantly. I know well that there are many who seldom hear any voice but their own. " (2) But whilst I am wholly unable to preach, there is not quite the same difficulty with regard to other services. Throughout my illness I have been so far blessed as to be able to celebrate the Eucharist weekly of course in private every Sunday, with but few exceptions. Now I shall be able to do so in church, when there are only a few people present, and where the church is so arranged that they can come quite near : and when I am going to celebrate in any church I shall be grateful if the chaplain will ask the people beforehand to come into the chancel or otherwise to draw as near as may be. ... I can of course confirm in a very low voice ; and so many letters have reached me from those who are or were looking forward to their Confirmation, urging that if possible they should be confirmed by their own Bishop, that I have decided to do so wherever I can, writing a charge that can be read for me by my chaplain or some other person." After urging that the cause of Christ and the Church should not suffer by his restrictions, and in particular the Gibraltar Mission to Seamen, he concluded : " I need only add one word more. You see that this is a business letter ; but that with which it is concerned is the Lord's business, as indeed all our business is, if we could but see it. This is not ' the best of all possible worlds ' : it is marred by our blunders, our failures, and our perverse self- will. But we Christians have a right to believe and to be sure that God makes the best of us and of His world, and takes and uses even these things for our well-being. We know, if we really think of it, that not things, or even other people, but we ourselves have been the chief obstacles in 174 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS the way of our own true progress, and that the one thing we really need is to trust ourselves to, and to follow after, Him that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, and who with Him will freely give us all things. To His love and care I commit you." This was the Bishop's last message and testimony to his diocese and to the Church at large. To go back a little, after a few months at Poggio Ponente it was thought, contrary to the expectation of his friends, that the Bishop might be moved. He was taken to Fiesole, where Mrs. Jeaffreson, the widow of his loved and honoured chaplain, Herbert Hammond Jeaffreson, had prepared a cottage for him hi the grounds of her beautiful Villa degli Angeli, looking out over Florence. It was there that I saw him for the last time, in April. At Livorno, on his journey to Florence, he had seen a famous specialist, who had examined him before ; the specialist said that the silence must last till the following October at least, but that there was marked improvement, and that he might well hope by the end of the year to have a voice, though not his old voice, but " una voce raucosa e profonda." This put him in good heart. The sea always did him good ; and after a good rest at Fiesole he was sent, with a nurse, on a long cruise not to work, but to get the sea air. He started from Venice on May 19, and went down the Adriatic to the Levant, getting his first glimpse of the Holy Land. He returned by Genoa, Algiers, and Gibraltar to England, arriving on June 23. The improvement was so marked that the doctors were astonished. One of them told him that if he liked to set the improvement down to the power of prayer, he was not in a position to put it down to anything else. That his mental powers were unimpaired may be seen by a story which his friend the Archbishop of the West Indies related to his Synod in February of this year (1912), in an address which has been published. The occasion was, no doubt, a meeting of the Consultative Body appointed by the Lambeth Conference, of which Bishop Collins was a member. It sat for two or three days at the end of July in THE LAST PERIOD 175 1910, and he attended the sessions. Archbishop Nuttall says : " There were several Bishops discussing a matter of import- ance on which they had to make a practical recommendation. Something turned on historical precedent. Bishop Collins was not able to use his voice, but he had small tablets of paper on which he could write, and which he could pass on for others to read what he wished to say. All the other members had spoken on the subject except himself and myself. I then ventured to say that I could not agree with the opinions expressed, for although I could not at the moment recall facts and dates, I was quite satisfied that in several periods of Church history long ago incidents had occurred which furnished the precedents needed to establish my view. While I was speaking Bishop Collins was writing, and as I sat down he passed on to me the paper on which he had written and which I read to the meeting. It contained dates, and names of individuals, and of places where the facts occurred, sub- stantiating what I had said, but which I could only refer to as an impression. He was thus able to recall, in a moment, details of transactions which occurred hundreds of years ago, the record of which was to be found in the by-paths of history, and which he had had no time to look up, and which, when stated circumstantially, of course shaped the opinion of the meeting accordingly." The Archbishop proceeds : "During this period when there seemed some possibility and even probability of Bishop Collins recovering his health, if not sufficiently for diocesan work and public speaking, yet sufficiently to enable him to carry on his studies and his writings, I tried hard to persuade him to come to Jamaica to spend the winter with us, promising him rest in a suitable climate, and the sympathy and help of a host of friends. I hoped it would prolong his career. I still think it might have done so ; but he was bent on returning to the work of his unique diocese. He did so, and there finished his earthly course." The authoress of Especially gives a touching account of a visit that he paid to Devonshire in the month of August 176 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS a month that was saddened for them both by the death of General Sir F. Forestier Walker, whom the Bishop regarded " as the very type of a true and loyal Christian gentleman." He also visited his friend Mr. W. J. Birkbeck, at Stratton Strawless. There was no doubt that he was better. The voice did not return ; but perhaps because it was then clear that nothing would ever bring it back, the rule under which he lived was so far relaxed that he was now allowed sometimes to whisper. He wrote to Lord Rendel on Septem- ber 21, 1910, from Hampstead, to which he had returned : " I am still voiceless, and the doctors don't give a very hopeful forecast in that respect. But in other ways I am decidedly stronger, and have been able to see a great many chaplains and others, and so to make up in part for not having been able to get about last year. Now they are letting me go to some chief centres for a month or more at a time and do what I can for them : confirming in a whisper (with a charge read for me), and at any rate keeping the reins in my hands. (I personally hope to get about more than they say, with care as to avoiding bad days, taking a chap- lain with me when possible, and so on.) So I start for the North of Spain early in next month, going on thence to Gibraltar for a fortnight, then to Malta for two months, and so on. Of course it remains to be seen how far I shall be able to carry all this out ; and I am to see the ' medicine man ' again before definitely fixing my plans." He started. He was accompanied for a good while by his devoted chaplain, Mr. Oswald Blogg a former pupil of his at King's College, who obtained temporary leave for the purpose from the naval authorities. He visited Ferrol, Corufia, Lisbon, and Gibraltar ; a letter of his has been already given, describing how the vessel conveyed from Lisbon a number of Jesuits and other priests who had been expelled from Portugal. The writer of Especially tells a little anecdote of a service held on this occasion in the Spanish Cathedral at Gibraltar : "A Roman Catholic gentleman who was present told a friend of mine that he noticed a priest with a very saintly face come in and kneel down close to him, following the THE LAST PERIOD 177 service in his book and praying with such devotion, that he wondered to which of the Portuguese orders he belonged. While leaving the Cathedral he whispered to a man he knew, ' Isn't that a wonderful face ? which of them is he ? ' and received the reply, ' That man ? He isn't one of them at all ; he's the English Protestant Bishop.' ' And if only he had not been gone by then, I declare I should have liked to kiss his feet,' concluded the man. My friend said that this was not the whole of the story, for as our Bishop came out of the door the people pressed about him, Spanish fashion, to kiss his hand. ' But I am the English Catholicos,' the Bishop whispered in Spanish. ' We know who you are,' was their reply." 1 From Gibraltar he passed to his own house in Malta, and spent Christmas there. He wrote from Malta to Madame Wiel on the Holy Innocents' Day : " We leave here on Monday : we = my chaplain Mr. Shaw 2 and myself for a fortnight in Sicily, at all the chap- laincies : then I go to Gibraltar again, and South Spain (alone), and then probably to Constantinople. But it isn't easy to make plans long in advance, when one works under limitations. " I am writing this at intervals of attending to a little patient of mine a wee kitten, which turned up in my little garden here ten days or more ago, absolutely starving and caked with mud and dirt, and claimed sanctuary. Of course I adopted it, and directly it had eaten some food the poor little thing tried to wash itself, but had no soap (i.e. natural soap), and could not even sit up, but tumbled over. It still has some bad internal ailment as the result of its privations, but is getting better, and follows me everywhere, with its tawny coat and its dear little pinched face, like a baby lion. It will let me do anything to it in the way of clumsy healing gives a single little whimper, like a baby, if I hurt it, but then stops, and will let me do anything so long as I whisper to it all the time. How dear ' the lower creatures ' are ! and how poor the world would be without them ! Don't 1 Especially, p. 85. 2 Mr. Blogg had been compelled to leave him. 178 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS you think that ' His jewels ' must include the cairngorms and olivines and beryls and tourmalines, and all those beautiful stones of Corsica that are too soft to be cut for the market, as well as all the orthodox ' precious stones ' ? I'm sure of it." The year 1911 began for him in Sicily, but before the end of January he was at Gibraltar. " He was only here for a week," we read in Especially, " but he used every inch of his strength in the time. And his Sunday ! Two celebra- tions and three services ; people to meet him at luncheon, out to tea at the Colonial Secretary's, and out to supper at the General's. The only speck of comfort was that church did really rest and uplift him beyond anything, and I fancied he had grown more accustomed to hearing his sermons preached for him." Every week he wrote one or two, to be thus used. On the seventh anniversary of his wedding day he left the loving friends at Gibraltar first for Seville ; then to meet his eldest brother and his family at Huelva ; then for Rio Tinto, where his home had been for a while in boyhood ; then for other places in Spain. He was all alone. He got through his work, though he confessed that he was so tired that he hardly knew what to do. At Tangier he met again the lady who has given so moving an account of his last years, and her daughter, and after his work there crossed with them for one last night under their care, and then sailed to Genoa, took train to Venice, and then sailed again to Constantinople. On the voyage he wrote his last letter to Lord Rendel, looking forward to a visit to Valescure in April, before spend- ing Holy Week at Bordighera. " S.S. ' Serbia ' for Constantinople, February 18, 1911. Whilst the labour is undoubtedly great, and the limitations many, I begin to wonder whether, in this altogether excep- tional diocese, it may not be possible for a voiceless Bishop to go on and do his work, when under the circumstances of an ordinary diocese it would be plainly impossible. If so, CONSTANTINOPLE 179 I can go on cheerfully, though I do not say how gladly I shall face release when it does come. Nor should I have said that, but that it slipped out. It is not healthy to think on those lines. . . . " The function of realities which we know as worship must be capable of taking other forms too : the resolute setting our face towards the highest ideal we can form or seize hold of, the attempt to realise it in all our dealings with other people, and the definite drilling ourselves into each of these, must be one of such forms. But words soon fail us here, and thoughts go deeper than words. And (you will not see the connexion) even though the fatigue may not hurt you, I wish you may not have to take that hurried journey to England. God bless you all. ... " ' This is Ancona yonder is the sea.' So I can say, sitting on deck here." The Bishop could not have spent his last weeks on earth in a house where he was more tenderly cared for than in the British Embassy at Constantinople. A warm friendship already existed between him and Sir Gerald and Lady Lowther, and one motive which constrained him to take this voyage, when he was well aware that it might be his last, was his desire to confirm Lady Lowther, who was one of the candidates awaiting him there. He arrived at Constantinople on Saturday, February 25, and attended one service in the Embassy Chapel next morn- ing. After that he only left his room on one day. A chill contracted on the boat developed into congestion of the lungs and pleurisy. Although warned by Dr. Clemow, the Embassy physician, that he ought to do no work, he persisted in reading and writing, and even in seeing a few visitors. He lay in bed in a large room overlooking the Embassy grounds and the Golden Horn ; but his impetuous spirit would not let him rest, and whenever he felt a little better, he insisted on getting up, lay on the sofa in his purple cassock, and jotted down notes for Mr. Whitehouse, the Embassy Chaplain, to fill out into letters, on every con- ceivable question of Church order and discipline. After a few days, his breathing became very laboured, and as he 180 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS expressed it in writing to friends, the doctor put him " on a nourishing and sustaining diet of strychnine, oxygen, and milky food." Through it all, he insisted that he meant to take the two Confiimations at the Embassy Chapel and the Crimean Memorial Church on the appointed day. " I shall be better," he repeated over and over again ; "I shall be better " ; and he literally forced himself to be better, though it was only for a short while. The day came. It was Monday, March 13. He got up and dressed. He was carried to the Embassy Chapel in a sedan chair by Turks in fez or turban. Usually he wore cope and mitre in confirming these ornaments had been presented to him by the diocese in 1905, and he valued them 1 but on this occasion he felt unable to wear them ; he confessed that the weight of them would be too great for him. The service was very simple. There were only two candidates. The chaplain read the service ; the Bishop in a whisper read the Prayer of Invocation, and performed the act of Confirmation. There was no Charge ; but the candi- dates were directed to attend the afternoon Confirmation at the other church. Once more in the afternoon, he was carried in the sedan chair. He sat at the bottom of the chancel steps ; he could not get up them. His Charge, which he had written during the last few days, was read for him by Mr. Whitehouse, and then he repeated the prescribed words two-and-twenty times over the candidates. His bodily weak- ness was so great that he could with difficulty raise his hands to place them on the candidates' heads. He looked to be dying. " The scene," Mr. Whitehouse says, " was most impressive the spare, disease-stricken form, the whispered words, the palpable effort of an indomitable will determined to overcome the frailties of the flesh so impressive that many present were moved to tears." " To see him stand to bless the people in a whisper," writes one who was present, " was the most pathetic sight I ever witnessed." The chaplain of the Memorial Church, the Rev. R. F. Borough, says : " I shall never forget the affecting sight of the dear man 1 See Anglican Church Magazine, July- August, 1905, p. xiii. THE LAST CONFIRMATION 181 as he sat in his chair while his Confirmation charge was being read a bowed, shrunken figure, with head bent and chin sunk on his chest, but the great eyes burning with a lustre that seemed to look beyond the walls of the church, his crozier resting over his shoulder with its foot on the ground and seeming as if its mere inert weight would slowly crush so frail a thing to the ground. And as he let it rest without placing his hand upon it, or his arm round it, it was more like a corpse sitting in state." The Bishop wrote next day to the .author of Especially : "Although everything went well yesterday, and I appreci- ated the eighteenth century feel of being carried through the streets in a sedan chair, it was a very fatiguing day, and to-day my breathing is in a poor state, and I am being dosed with oxygen. Still, it is done, and is a new point to start convalescing from on a higher level." 1 The Bishop was still looking forward to future work. He wrote to Mr. Price, the chaplain at Venice, on March 12, and again on March 14, asking him to meet him at Trieste on March 30, and to make arrangements for his journey to the Riviera. He set to work after the Confirmation to write a Pastoral Charge to the congregation of the Memorial Church, to be read to them on the following Sunday. There had been divisions of opinion and sentiment in the congregation ; and the way in which he pronounced upon the matters at issue showed that his judgment was as penetrating and sound as ever. " It has been a very sincere grief to me," he said, " that I have been unable, owing to serious illness, to see anything of you during my stay in Constantinople, but God's will be done. You have been very constantly in my thoughts, and I have endeavoured so far as it was possible, to consider and to weigh not only what I had heard already about the difficulties as to the Services, but also the many letters which I have received during these weeks specifying particular points on which they ask for change, or for the restoration of something formerly used. May I ask each and all to believe 1 Especially, p. 121. 182 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS that I have considered and much value their letters ? and that I do not write to everybody concerned simply because I have not the strength for it. ... " In case of any differences arising on the subject [of the Church Services], it is the plain rule of our Church that the Bishop is to hear and consider the whole matter, and to resolve them to the best of his ability, for the good of all concerned. It is this which I have endeavoured to do ; and I would ask and call upon you, as your Father in God, to accept my ruling in the matter (made in weakness and some pain), not with any jealous scrutiny, but with a willing resolve to accept for the good of all what may not be pleasing to each individually, and thus to make it the basis of a new and fuller life." With the special points in question we are not here concerned. Noting further unfavourable symptoms, those around him begged that his friends in England might be communicated with, but he absolutely forbade Mr. Whitehouse to write. " I am prepared for any and every eventuality," he said, and would discuss the matter no further. The Ambassador, however, took steps to inform the Archbishop of Canterbury of the state of the Bishop's health. " The keynote of the Confirmation charge," Mr. White- house writes, " had been, ' Go on/ and it was evident that he was urging himself, in spite of the bonds of weakness and suffering, to ' go on ' until the very end. He did not even like being asked how he was ; but he admitted to one of his nurses that he felt the end could not be long delayed. The Holy Sacrament was borne frequently to him straight from the altar of the Embassy Chapel." His death was expected daily by his flock at Constanti- nople, and every effort that loving hearts could prompt was made to keep him at the Embassy to the last. But he would take no advice. He had made up his mind that if he were alive he would confirm at Smyrna, as he had con- firmed at Constantinople. Nothing could shake his deter- mination. The utmost that he could be prevailed upon to concede was that he should take a nurse with him. He would HIS DEATH 183 not hear of being accompanied by anyone else, though many offered to go with him. Fortunately, a kind nurse had been found for him in Constantinople, a Greek lady of the name of Bolas, who had had three years' training in the London Hospital, and who was in Constantinople for a holiday. Tickets were bought for him and Miss Bolas, and in the afternoon of Thursday, March 23, Lady Lowther drove with him down to the port, and he was carried on board the " Saghalien " of the Messageries Maritimes. " His spirit was as bright and shining as ever," says one who was there, " and his marvellous smile as radiant and ready. His ' God bless you/ whispered fervently, I shall always carry with me through life." The tears were in his eyes as he said good- bye to the friends who saw him off. Some of them thought that they saw a change come over his face as they left him, which betokened the nearness of the end. The boat left the port at 4.30 p.m. The Bishop, who had been lying down, seemed to enjoy his tea at 5. In spite of the nurse's entreaties, he insisted on getting up and dressing for dinner soon after 6. He ate well ; but at 7.30 the oppres- sion upon his chest grew heavy. His cough became very troublesome. At midnight oxygen was administered. Soon after, when the nurse felt his pulse, he saw that she looked anxious and alarmed, and assured her that there was nothing amiss, and that he only wanted to rest. But before long he began to be unconscious, occasionally rallying for a while. Once or twice Miss Bolas heard him murmur to himself the words, " The fellowship of loneliness." The Greek nurse and the ship's French doctor did all that could be done, but at 7.50 in the morning of Friday, March 24, the breathing ceased, and the indomitable spirit passed to Him who gave it. " The nurse performed the last offices," Mr. Whitehouse writes. " ' I permitted no one but myself to touch his holy body,' she said with tears ; ' and I called in the captain, and made him seal up all the Bishop's luggage.' " With flag at half mast the French vessel proceeded on her way past Mitylene, and up the Gulf of Smyrna, until she cast anchor in the port. 184 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS At Smyrna the " Saghalien " was anxiously expected. The Confirmation candidates were assembled in the Church of St. John the Evangelist, awaiting the arrival of the Bishop. Mr. A. S. Hichens, a devoted chaplain of the Bishop, and Mr. Brett, the chaplain of St. John's, knowing how ill the Bishop had been, had procured the loan of a steam tug, and arranged to bring him straight from the " Saghalien " to the nearest point for the church, and take him back immediately after the Confirmation. Accom- panied by two other English priests, they went out to the vessel, only to find that the Bishop lay dead on board. Returning to St. John's, Mr. Brett announced to the congregation what had happened, and Mr. Hichens read to them the charge which the Bishop had sent him a few days before. The Bishop's body, clothed in his purple cassock, was con- veyed, at the Consul's desire, to the British Seamen's Hospital. There it lay until the Sunday. Information had been telegraphed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to Mr. Johnson, the Bishop's brother-in-law, whose address was found in his pocket-book ; and on the instruction of the Archbishop, who had communicated with the Bishop's father, arrangements were made for burying the sacred body at Smyrna. The hospital is near the church, and on the Sunday the coffin was removed to the chancel, awaiting burial on the morrow. The grave was prepared in the vault below the west window of the nave, the marble floor of the nave being taken up that the body might be easily lowered to its place. On the Monday, March 27, the funeral took place at 3.30 p.m. It was attended by the Consul-General and his staff, in uniform, the clergy of the three English churches of Smyrna, Bournabat, and Boudjah, with a great many members of their flocks, and some other English priests residing there. It was further attended by the Greek Arch- bishop of Smyrna, and the Greek Bishop of Tralles, who came attended by several of their priests, and by the Armenian Bishop, the French and German Protestant pastors, and several members of the American Mission and College. An BURIAL SERVICES 185 address was given by Mr. Hichens. After the body had been lowered to its resting-place, the Archbishop of Smyrna gave an address in Greek, in which he spoke sympathetically of the interest which the Bishop had taken in the work of union between the Churches. There, then, his body lies, in the bosom of that Church of Smyrna, to whose Angel St. John was bidden to write, " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." To the first known Bishop of that Church perhaps already Bishop when the Apocalypse was written the martyr Ignatius wrote, praising his " resolution in God, settled as upon an immoveable rock," congratulating himself upon having had the privilege of seeing his " blameless counten- ance," which he hoped would be a never-ending joy to him in God, and urging him to " extend the course " which he had already run and to " exhort all men, that they might be saved." "Assert thy position with all diligence, fleshly and spiritual. Take thought for unity, which is the best of all things. . . . Devote thyself to unceasing prayers. Ask for even more understanding than thou hast. Be watchful, possessing a spirit that never slumbers. . . . Where work is hardest, great is the gain. . . . The time demands thee . . . Stand firm like an anvil under the stroke. It is the part of a great athlete to receive blows and to conquer. . . . Study the times, looking for Him who is above time, eternal, invisible, who was made visible for us intangible, im- passible, who for us was made passible and for us in every way endured." If St. Ignatius could have foreseen the career of the English Bishop who is buried at Smyrna, and desired that there should be a likeness between him and St. Polycarp to whom he wrote, could he have traced the features better ? On the same day that the Bishop was buried at Smyrna, a memorial service was held in the chapel of Lambeth Palace. It was attended by prelates who leant upon his counsel, by Lord Northbourne, his well-tried friend, by his father, Mr. J. H. Collins, and all the other members of his family in England, by many of the Bishop's spiritual children, and a large company of those who loved and 186 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS honoured him. A writer in the Watchword for May, 1911, said : " In the early Keltic Church in lona, he used to tell us that when anyone ' passed to the Lord in the Heavenly Fatherland/ the others were told, ' You must chant praise to-day for . . .' The echo of that praise rang through the service that morning. We sang his favourite setting of the Twenty- third Psalm by George Herbert, ' The God of love my Shepherd is,' and ' Now the labourer's task is o'er,' and when the five-fold Alleluya of the last beautiful hymn ' Ye watchers and ye holy ones, Bright seraphs, cherubim and thrones, Raise the glad strain, Alleluya ! ' wafted down to us from the organ loft, it was difficult to believe that one could not catch his voice in the Alleluya." The Archbishop of Canterbury, who was only just re- covering from an illness, gave the following address : " May I say a very few words here and now about the friend and brother, the guide and teacher, whom we have lost ? I may have at present no other equally appropriate oppor- tunity. There are very few men in the Church of England to-day whose call to pass into the larger life beyond would leave such a blank as that which we are now conscious of, at the core and centre of our Church's thoughts and plans and energies. It is well that in this ancient chapel, at this spot of all others, we should together quietly and deliberately thank God for him to-day. He loved this place. At this altar-step he was married seven years ago. Here in his last days in England, not yet six months since, he joined with us in prayer and Sacrament. It was appropriately so. For, little as the world saw and knew of it, he has for years been one of our central forces of inspiration and counsel, and in several different fields of thought and difficulty those especially in which we deal with Churches other than our own it was to his mature knowledge of past and present, and to his devout and chastened vision, that many of us had learned to look. In some of the gravest labours of the Lambeth Conference of 1908 he bore a leading, sometimes BURIAL SERVICES 187 even the foremost, part. His broad and accurate learning historical, literary, and ecclesiastical was of the unusual sort, which is readily, almost momentarily, available when it is needed, and its contributions to the common good were quietly given with a deep and solemn reverence for the Church's living Lord, which was, perhaps, its most obvious, as it was its profoundest, characteristic. I have felt again and again in him the living reality of each severally of the seven Pentecostal gifts the spirit of wisdom and under- standing, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, and of holy fear. " And now he has gone. They tell us that it was his indomitable courage which kept him with us even so long. With Pauline tirelessness he worked in Pauline and other lands, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers (as Kurdistan can show), in perils in the city (let Messina tell), in perils in the sea, in weariness and painful- ness, in watchings often. And now, from those things at least, he is at rest. We shall no more on earth be stimulated by the eager look, or wait a few quiet moments for what has, of late, been the whispered counsel, or the swiftly written sentence of epigrammatic force, and go away with a fresh lesson as to the power of mind over matter, and the influence of a personality so vivid in its buoyant spring. None realised better than he latterly did himself the perils which belong to that masterful spirit which dominated both his own life and sometimes the wills and the wishes even the reasonable wishes of other men. " We shall not easily see his like again. We are here as those who knew and loved him nay, rather who know and love him still, the women whose studies he has guided, the Societies in whose counsels he has taken part, the pupils he has trained, the colleagues with whom he has ministered in word and Sacrament, and, most of all, the men and women who, through his love, learned more about the love of God. What his loss means to me I cannot easily express. " He is in the presence of the Lord Whom he served and loved with an intensity which was in itself a potent influence upon us all. In that eager service he spent and was spent to i88 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS the last hour, taking his final Confirmation only a day or two before the characteristic close of his earthly life upon the sea which he had traversed with such persistent and effective zeal. Our thoughts to-day yes, and his are three : Love, Joy, Peace. Let us give thanks unto our Lord God, It is meet and right so to do. ' Nor dare to sorrow with increase of grief When they who go before Go furnished ; or because their span was brief, When in the acquist of what is life's true gage, Truth, knowledge, and that other worthiest lore. They had fulfilled already a long age. For doubt not but that in the worlds above There must be other offices of love, That other tasks and ministries there are, Since it is promised that His servants there Shall serve Him still.'" 1 Archbishop Trench's Poems, p. 102 (ed. 1874). INDEX. Africa, Mission to South, 71 foil., 149. Allhallows Barking, 3, 6, 8, 21, 25. Apostolical Succession, 33 foil., 164. Barcelona, church at, 78. Barnett, Rev. A. T., 171. Bartlett, Miss, 145. Bennett, Rev. Professor W. H., 30. Benson, Archbishop, 2, 3, 35, 100, 122, 135. Bevan, Miss G. M., 92. Bible Society, 89 foil. Bindley, Rev. Dr., 44. Birkbeck, Mr. W. J., 28, 29, 176. Bishop, Miss E., 97. Bishop, Miss P. M., 89. Blogg, Rev. O. W. C., 98, 176. Bolas, Miss, 183. Borough, Rev. R. F., 180. Boycott, Miss S., 47, 128. Brett, Rev. W. H., 184. Browne, Bishop G. F., 27, 65. Caldecott, Rev. Dr. A., 13. Cavendish-Bentinck, Miss V., 160, 171. Church Historical Society, 27 foil. Collet, Sir M. and family, 99. Collins, Bishop W. E. ; his parentage and early life, I foil. ; gains the Light- foot Scholarship, 4 ; death of his mother, 5 ; of his brother Arthur, 6, 62 ; ordination to Allhallows Barking, 8 ; Lecturer at Selwyn and St. John's, 10 ; Professor at King's College, London, 12 foil. ; Missionary Con- ference of 1894, 24; Laud Com- memoration, 25 ; Church Historical Society, 27 ; on developments of worship, 30; case of Incense, 31; on Home Reunion, 33 ; on Episco- P ac y> 35 5 tne Encyclopaedia Bri- tannica, 36 ; proceeds B.D. and D.D., 37 ; publications, 37 foil., 64; serious illness, 38 ; mission in the West Indies, 39 foil. ; " Watchers and Workers," 45; "Guild of the Holy Childhood," 47 ; "Society of the Holy Family," 48 ; spiritual guidance, 48 ; letters, 48 foil., 148 foil.; consecration, 65 ; marriage, 65, 66 ; enthronement, 67, 68 ; pastoral letters, 69, 70, 172 ; Mission of Help to South Africa, 71 foil.; Constantinople, first visit to, 75 ; Roman Catholic prelates, rela- tions with, 77 ; Orthodox do. , 79 ; diocese, organisation of, 80 ; Mission at Malta, 81 ; seamen, care for, 70, 77, 82 foil., 173 ; marriage questions, 85, 134 ; Bible Society, 89 ; women's examinations in theology, 92 ; anec- dotes, 96 ; illness, 99 ; Kurdistan, journey to, 100 foil.; Etchmiadzin, first visit to, 90, 101 ; second visit, 127 ; Pan- Anglican Congress, 128 foil.; Lambeth Conference, 133 foil.; Messina, the earthquake at, 137 foil., 158, 159 ; his wife's illness, 145, 160; and death, 146 ; ministry to small- pox patients, 148 ; on Fasting before Communion, 52, 154; the Education Bill, 156; Unction, 133, 134, 162; the Church, 163 ; Prayer-book Revision, INDEX 1 68; his loss of voice, 169 ; beginning of fatal illness, 169 ; attends Consul- tative Committee of Lambeth Con- ference, 174; Gibraltar, last visit to, 178 ; Constantinople, arrival at, 179 ; last Confirmation, 180; leaves Con- stantinople, 181 ; death at sea, 183 ; burial, 184; memorial service at Lambeth, 185 foil. ; portraits of him, viii. Collins, Mr. A., the Bishop's brother, 2, 5, 6, 62. Collins, Mr. H., the Bishop's brother, 2, 5, 146, 178. Collins, Mr. J. H., the Bishop's father, i, 5, 6, 67, 146, 185. Collins, Mrs., the Bishop's mother, I, 5- Collins, Mrs. W. E., the Bishop's wife, 66 foil., 68, 99, 100, 128, 145 foil., 160. Communion, the elements for Holy, 133- Confession, 49. Constantinople, Joachim III., Patriarch of, 75. 79- Creighton, Bishop, II, 26, 27, 38, 55. Davidson, Archbishop, 36, 64, 65, 66, 71, 92, 93, 100, 129, 135, 172, 182, 184, 186. Deaconesses, 54. Dibdin, Sir L., 31, 32. Dott, Rev. W. P., 23. Eden, Bishop, of Wakefield, 135. Edwards, Rev. L. V., 19. Episcopacy, 33, 35. " Especially William, "etc., v., 67, 147, 148, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181. Etchmiadzin, 90, 101, 127, 128. Testing, Bishop, 7. Fletcher, Rev. G. C., 9. Forestier Walker, Sir F. W., 80, 150, 176. Franks, RCT. J. E., 16. Frere, Miss, 76. Frere, Rev. Dr. W. H., 31, 36. Gibraltar, Cathedral of, 80. Gillingham, Rev. G. W., 18. Gladstone, Hon. Mrs. H. W., 137. Guy's Hospital, 24, 38, 62. Gwatkin, Professor and Mrs., 7i n Hichens, Rev. A. S., 184, 185. Hill, Rev. C. S., 73. Holland, Mrs. Thurston, 7, 65. Incense, Lambeth hearing on, 31. Jamaica, 39 foil. Jeaffreson, Rev. H. H. and Mrs., 161, 174. Jesuits, the Portuguese, 168, 176. Jones, Archbishop W. W., 72. Karapet, the Vartabad, 102 foil. King's College, London, 12 foil. Lambeth Conference, 133. Laud, Commemoration of Archbishop, 25- Lowther, Sir G. and Lady, 179, 182, 183- Lyttelton, Hon. and Rev. A. T., 5, 10, II, 12. Malta, 76, 80. Marriage questions, 85, 134. Meguerdich, Armenian Patriarch, 101, 103. Messina, earthquake at, 137 foil., 158 foil., 169. Monckton, Dr., 8. Montgomery, Bishop, 128, 131. Moravian Orders, 35. Moxon, Rev. L., 74. Northbourne, Lord, 26, 39, 66, 67, 71, 76, 146, 185. Nuttall, Archbishop, 39, 41, 42, 43, 66, 174. INDEX 191 Pan- Anglican Congress, 128. Phillips, Rev. J. S., 27. Qudshanis, 1 20 foil. Read, Rev. C. D., 19. Rendel, Lord, 67, 137, 149 foil., 169, 170, 176, 178. Ritson, Rev. J. H., 90. Ritual questions, 30, 31, 52. Robinson, Rev. Dr. A. W., 9, 21, 38, 39, 66, 71, 157, 168. Rollit, Sir A., 2. Roll, Miss M., vi, 146. Sandford, Bishop, 64, 69. Seamen, Gibraltar Mission to, 69, 70, 77, 82 foil. Shaw, Rev. H. J., 81, 177. Shimun, Mar, Catholicos of the East, IOO, 1 2O foil. Shipley, Miss M. E., 95. Smith, Rev. A., 19. Sterland, Miss H. G., 146, 147. Sterland, Miss M. B., 38, 39, 65, 66. See Collins, Mrs. W. E. Sunday labour, 83. Swabey, Rev. M. R., 79. Temple, Archbishop, 8, 31, 35. Thompson, Dr. E. Symes, 7. Toy, Rev. J. H., 163. Unction of the Sick, 133, 134, 162. Vaughan, Cardinal, 27, 29. "Watchers and Workers," 45, 95. Wells, Miss C., 145, 171- White, Mr. F. A., 65. White, Field Marshal Sir G., 67, 68. Whitehouse, Rev. F. C., 81, 179, 180, 182, 183. Wiel, Hon. Mme., 147, 170, 171, 177. Wigram, Rev. Dr. W. A., 101 foil. Wilkinson, Bishop G. H., 44, 45, 65, 66, 71, 128, 158. William, Father, 155. Wordsworth, Bishop John, 27, 131. GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.