me.

I could scarcely believe it after all that the Book which I so loved and valued, and had learnt, and was only last term still learning so much from, bore my name in such a place. And I assure you your word "unbroken" quite thrilled, nay startled To think that for about three and thirty years such a word should have been absolutely and literally such a fixed fact as day and night-How can I enough thank God in Christ for such an "unbroken" friendship, so truly "close'," and without, that I recollect, ever one single hour of break from any boyish difference or any mannish parting. If I am sentimental, you make me so. But I am sure this sort of sentiment is not only blended with, and a part of, but in a way it's an image of one's religion. I wish my boys may make each such a friendship, and I wish nothing more grand and elevating for them.

I send you the new iron-my prospectus about Temperance. You'll think I meddle with "ower many" things-but you couldn't help it if you lived in a place like this. It's awful to see so much wit and work take to drink and death.

My Working Men's Bible Class is very nice, but the people who come to it are every way better than their master, so that does no new good.

Ever your affectionate,

E. W. BENSON.

To a friend, who had been assisting the Chancellor in the night school, and had been discouraged by finding his class unruly.

MY DEAREST FRIEND,

14 Nov. 1876.

I feel sure that my zeal has somehow been a blind one and that I have run against you in my dark and hurt you. Do be eveons and forgive me if I have. I did not mean that your own gentleness will not be more effectual than the bluster and hardness of any people whom you may think I am conceited enough to fancy more fit to cope with North District. But you do me a wrong if you think so-i.e. if you think I think so.

I am quite persuaded that Androcles or Una are the true

1 The dedication runs :-"In affectionate and grateful recognition of a long, close, and unbroken friendship."

Lion tamers; not Milo, who may spoil five animals without taming them. But I mean that Androcles and Una must attain and exhibit full belief in those powers which they possess beyond others.

I did not know how many you had sent away, and perhaps you have done enough in that way.

But of course the roughness, the callousness, the indifference to learning, are just the very things which we want to replace by different spirits. They are rather the bad material which we have to work up, and we can't complain of it any more than the ironworker of the hardness and stubbornness of the iron he has to hammer into shape. This is what we have to evangelise, first civilising it into capability of evangelisation. I believe the glow of your love is the best fire to heat said iron,—but you must show you believe in those powers. Do not ever again, I pray, distress me by thinking that I want you to undertake easier work. This is not too hard, and I know you will succeed because you believe in prayer having very visible, tangible, hard, real answers. Having just succeeded in gaining quiet and order, from this point forward your hold on that school will be irresistible. You will be able to do anything with it.

Why should you not re-examine them yourself as the first step; Mantle will give any amount of help for this—and if the personnel of your teachers wants a little change, I dare say it could be done.

Your ever most affectionate,

E. W. BENSON.

To the same.

2 Dec. 1876.

DEAREST FRIEND,

I cannot but trouble about the double grief for the School and for you. Nor add anything to what you have said about the unhappy incongruity of the secular arm.

We must see about some rearrangement for the remaining nights.

Meantime, ut Sacerdos, ut Amicus, let me suggest that there is a deeper point for personal consideration.

I thought that in the last few weeks your own analysis would bring out to you the secret cause of the weakness of your will in this case of the night school.

Reconsidering your touching address on Thursday, I have said to myself many times-What was the jarring string of sentiment and action there? Why the gentle Hindoo attractive', and the Lincoln loon repulsive, to the Gospel-bearer? Not for Jesus' reason "because he was lost," for the lostness of Lark Lane' Boys is much more apparent.

It is for some reason which lies in ψυχική not πνευματική and I thank God more freely than I did that I was not tempted to Calcutta.

But, dear man, you have cherished a gradually growing rebellion against a task which you embraced at first with fervouras most Christian-most Church-like-most reconciling;-you remember your words.

This rebellion has undermined your strength of will in that particular direction-and subtle instincts perceived it.

I should (not like, but ought to) mention one other illustration-but not now-μǹ μéλavı kaì xáprw*—we must recover breath.

Meanwhile, oremus.

Your loving friend and fellow in sorrow,

E. W. BENSON.

1 The Chancellor's correspondent had lately returned from Mission work in India.

2 A street in Lincoln.

3 The natural, not the spiritual region.

A free quotation from 2 Ep. of St John v. 12 dià xáprov kai μéharos, "with paper and ink."

ADDENDUM

(see p. 365)

Until the time of Chancellor Massingberd the special functions attached to the Chancellorship of Lincoln Cathedral had been in abeyance, for many years. Chancellor Massingberd, however, being anxious to revive as far as possible the individual characteristics of the office, delivered a course of Lent Lectures in 1864 in the Morning Chapel of the Cathedral; in the Advent of the same year he delivered an Advent Lecture in the Nave of the Cathedral. He offered to undertake gratuitously the office of Inspector of religious education in the Diocese, and shortly before his death he hired a house in which the students of a "restored school of Divinity" might reside.

CHAPTER XII.

TRURO.

"Suscitabo tabernaculum David, quod cecidit; et reaedificabo aperturas murorum ejus, et ea quae corruerant instaurabo, et reaedificabo illud sicut in diebus antiquis." AMOS.

"Lacrimas introrsus obortas

Devorat, et clausum pectore vulnus habet." OVID.

THE foundation of the See of Truro was the outcome of a long and patient effort carried on for over thirty years with the greatest perseverance by a small body of clergy and laity. Among the earlier workers, who in the face of repeated disappointments never allowed the idea to drop, the names of the late Earl of Devon, Archdeacon Hobhouse, Prebendary Tatham, Dr Walker and Mr Edmund Carlyon are most conspicuous. At last in 1876, Lady Rolle, of Bicton, widow of Lord Rolle of Coronation fame, herself a Trefusis, the daughter of a Cornish clergyman, by a splendid gift of £40,000, completed the endowment. A certain annual sum, fixed by the Act, was transferred to the new See from the revenues of Exeter, and the remaining money, necessary to produce an income of £3000 a year, was raised. The arrangements were completed towards the close of the year 1876. On Dec. 15 the See was actually created by Order in Council.

The Bishopric of Rochester was also vacant by the

creation, under an Act of 1875, of the new Diocese of St Albans out of the original See of Rochester. Bishop Claughton, who was advanced in years, preferred to accept the less arduous position, and became Bishop of St Albans. It was thought by many people that my father would have been named for the See of Rochester, but Canon Thorold of York, Vicar of St Pancras, was appointed.

One morning in the Winter of 1876 my father was dressing to go to the early Cathedral Service. He was talking to my mother of his great happiness at Lincoln, the steady growth of his many plans, and his determination not to leave his work. While he was dressing, the post came, and the letters were as usual laid on the hall table, which stood under a window commanded, across a little court, by the window of my father's bedroom. He saw the letters gleaming white on the table, and had a presentiment, he said afterwards, that they contained some momentous news. He went down, and my mother from the window saw him open them; among them he found a letter from the Premier, Lord Beaconsfield, offering him the newly constituted See of Truro.

His own impulse was to refuse. He did not think that he ought to leave his Lincoln work so soon. But after much humble prayer and asking the advice of his best friends, he came reluctantly to the conclusion that he must go.

Prebendary Maddison says:

I remember his saying that in the morning the Premier's letter offering the Bishopric came, he had just said that he was never so happy in his life, when the post arrived, and he had to decide whether to go or remain. His decision was characteristically told to me in a few lines in which he said he was going to "take care of Temple's Sixth Form." He went, and Lincoln never seemed quite the same place again. One missed him everywhere.