And the bright heart went flashing round and round F. BENEDICTI-hys quip And the syghte is overlefe. In the early seventies the Greek Archbishop of Syra and Tenos came, as I have said, to stay at Lincoln: my father was much interested in him; the Greek Archbishop attended the Consecration of Dr Mackenzie as first Bishop Suffragan of Nottingham, in St Mary's, Nottingham, about which my father wrote: Did I mention to you how much I was struck with the impression made by our Consecration of the Elements on the Greek Archbishop? If not let me tell you on the other side. Only be merciful. He watched it most intently as did his chaplain, each time that a new consecration for the multitude of communicants was required, and he put out his hands making faint half gestures to himself of crossing and blessing the bread and wine with such a strange dreamy mystical look. While the Consecration was going on in the body of the church, he talked quietly to the deacon about it for some time-and I saw him imitating with his finger and thumb the easy way in which the Bishop of London transferred the bread from the credence to his paten; and then with a half pitying smile he raised his eyebrows and nodded and put out both hands as much as to say, "Did you ever see the like?" He wrote the following sonnet on the same : Ο THC CYPAC ΚΑΙ ΤΗΝΟΥ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ and how he kept festival with us of the Epiphany of Christ in St Mary of Nottingham. Bronzed of Aegean summers, bowed with power Erect above us kneeling, hour by hour, Veiling his raven tresses' lustrous flood, 1 His words to Bishop Mackenzie. Tenos and Syra's Alexander prays Forgetting Delos' sheen 'mid our dim grays. Prayed-smiled full soft-and smiled and prayed again. Of his own gorgeous, antique mysteries.— Ah Lord!-ah! for Thine undivided reign Splendid as Heaven, and as Thine upper chamber plain! I subjoin a hymn written in 1873 by my father at the request of a neighbouring clergyman, the Rev. H. S. N. Lenny, Vicar of Crowthorne, whose Church was dedicated to St John Baptist and consecrated on May 5th of that year. Crowthorne was a little hamlet close to Wellington College, and in the Parish of Sandhurst. A Hymn for the Festival of St John Baptist. June 24. Praise we the Baptist's living Lord Who evermore shall crown For His dear Church the ageless Word Of Him Whose Name we own. "Behold the Lamb of God," he cried- "Behold the Lamb of God: He stands Bright with baptismal fires, His hands So still our spirits, Spirit-stirred, "Behold the Lamb of God!" he sounds A more soul-piercing strain: God's spotless Lamb and ours the wounds— For this world's Life is slain; And mystery of mysteries, We touch, we taste that sacrifice. Great Three in One, Who didst o'er-gleam That mystic ministry, Father in cloud, and Son in stream, And Spirit hovering high, More blest Thy kingdom's youngest child Than the dread prophet of the wild! CHAPTER IX. WELLINGTON COLLEGE. "Sonantem plenius." HORACE. IN the year 1869, Bishop Temple was appointed to Exeter. There was a good deal of High-church opposition to the appointment, headed by Bishop Wordsworth, who regarded the Headmaster of Rugby as a dangerous heretic. My father was not only a most loyal admirer and friend of Dr Temple's, but knew how deep and ardent his holiness was; he wrote both in the Newspapers and to private friends most firmly in defence of the strength, wisdom and faith of Dr Temple, and sent to the Bishop of Lincoln copies of his published letters, enclosing a resignation of his Chaplaincy. The Bishop of Lincoln smiled and threw the letter into the fire; and my father became Dr Temple's examining chaplain as well as the Bishop of Lincoln's, and held both appointments simultaneously for a few months. My father wrote to the Times concerning the Temple Controversy. The letter is dated "Wellington College, Oct. 16," and was printed Oct. 22, 1869. A few paragraphs may be quoted. I hope not to be thought presumptuous if I venture to raise a voice for the honour of one on whom the whole fight is turning. The same motives which have kept Dr Temple silent so many years under misconstruction may very likely keep him silent still. His better and abler friends are silenced, too, some by their position, some by the party cries which would challenge their advocacy, and some of those who know him best, and therefore value him most, by the immediateness of their connexion with him and his work. In these circumstances I venture to write as one lying under none of these disabilities, whose religious and ecclesiastical opinions, so far as they may be known at all, will be known to differ "by the whole sky" from the unhappy book, the worst page of which is turned to-day, and as one who, nevertheless, may claim Dr Temple's friendship as one of the best parts of his life....... There has never been quoted an unorthodox dictum of Dr Temple's. He is incapable of uttering or holding one. If he held one he certainly would utter it, for his worst enemies allow him fearlessness, and those who have had the very slightest contact with him know well that there is "such an honest nature in the man" that to obtain or retain one office or gift at the price of concealing an opinion is not in him....... My own opinion is that the book' not only went infinitely beyond this, but that the conception was a mistake and the proposed treatment uncalled for; that theology no more suffers than any other science from conventional terms and definite language, and that it is no more advisable to call "the Law" "a rule," or to call a conscience enlightened by the Divine Spirit "principle," than it would be desirable, as the late Master of Trinity humourously proposed, to adopt the same method in physics, and treat of the "impenetrability of matter" as the unthroughableness of stuff." But the choice of phraseology, at any rate, is a matter of opinion, and there is good precedent even for such attempts to bring philosophy down among men. 66 He goes on to say that Dr Temple's Rugby Sermons are the best answer to the charges brought against him by Dr Pusey. He continues : I read the beginning of the second sermon: "The return of Easter should be to the Christian life like the call of a trumpet. It is the news of a great victory. It is the solution of a great perplexity. It crowns the work of Christ. It was expected by prophets, it was witnessed by apostles, it is the 1 Essays and Reviews. |