extremely important to the welfare of nations-all these things are strongly on the side of your staying where you are.

It is so great a matter in these days to be allowed to be a pworηp ev kóσμ1, especially such a world as that, that to keep Faith strong, to atone for the bad character of many, to show young Englishmen going out there that it is possible to be just and pure-handed, to make the ideal of Englishmen and Christians a reality, seems to me a noble vocation. I rejoiced to think that a Wellingtonian is called to it. You must remember that these things stand out with a clearness to us here which perhaps amid the details of it you miss.

You have other ties to consider in which you alone must judge. But you ask my advice on what seem to me to be very grand points, and an English lady and gentleman cannot do what you are doing without some self-sacrifice. The question is "Is it worth it?" You would have self-sacrifice in England, but it would be of a less fine nature, and for poorer ends.

I hope you will have a good set of pupils. The difference between them is very odd, and the effect of the difference immense; one gets quieter in manner and tone as one gets older in teaching, and never gets angry, and this makes all the difference to one's effectiveness, and one's influence and one's store of strength.

I want to send you another little book which will I am sure interest you. (The above written with oblivion of the fact that Minnie had sent one off on my birthday.) I send them to give an idea of what I am doing. The training of men for the Priesthood becomes one of the most important questions. All the Fellowships and Scholarships which were founded to create a highly cultivated clergy, have been secularized at both Universities. Openings to India, Civil Service, Army, America, have multiplied twentyfold. Parents are ambitious that their sons should grow rich or ruling, and Scepticism has a havoc of its own. 1 A light in the world, Phil. ii. 15.

We want therefore both to increase our powers of educating the old class, and to call a new class into existence. This is a problem. The religious life of the Universities is probably more real, and the Churchmanship more diffused than it was-but the shadows are darker too.

Another question is very trying. Just as the Church, i.e. the laity, had woke up to the Grace and wisdom of frequent Communions, comes in Ritualism and its teachings of Fasting Communion and Non-Communicating attendance, and draws religious people away from what had been so greatly blessed. In such a movement one almost sees a subtle hand mingling tares with wheat.

Your ever loving brother,

E. W. BENSON.

To E. M. Oakeley, on his becoming a House Master at Clifton.

THE CHANCERY, LINCOLN.

26 Feb. 1877.

MY DEAR OAKELEY,

Let me congratulate you on becoming a House Master-the importance of which position is incapable of over estimation-almost every look, and certainly every word known to tell somewhere:-and yet naturalness and absence of thinking about effect felt to be the very and only condition of usefulness.

One has to fight and wrestle to get at one's true self in wonderful wise, and I can only speak of my own experience when I say how slowly I learned in practice (not in theory of course) the vast difference between communing with oneself and praying. And I stood at the end of my Headmastership where I ought to have stood at the beginning of my School-house tutorship-taking everything little and big to God-not as a Parson, but as a grown boy among growing boys.

I shouldn't deserve the delightful affection of your letter, which has done me a world of good, if I did not say thus much about myself.

It will be delightful to me, if ever I can-to stay under your roof: may it be a true Home, full of blessings to you and your boys.

Ever yours most affectionately,

E. W. BENSON.

CHAPTER X.

ACCEPTANCE OF CHANCELLORSHIP.

"Oh let me, when thy roof my soul hath hid,
Oh let me roost and nestle there!"

GEO. HERBERT.

THE friendship with the Wordsworths of which I have spoken led to important results. Miss Wordsworth writes:

My father (Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln), though con siderably past sixty, had all the animation and eagerness of a boy, and the two together were full of schemes for work in the diocese, and more especially for the Theological College and the "Scholae Cancellarii" as they were appropriately called.

To this date belongs your father's article (Quarterly Review) on Cathedrals', and a sermon "Where are the schools of the Prophets?" which I find referred to in a journal (May 2nd, 1870) as follows:-The faces of the audience were the best commentary, the men's especially-we all were delighted, one of my father's comments being, 'Well, you really seem as if you believed what you were saying.' By his desire it was called 'Where are the schools of the Prophets?'

Dear old Chancellor Massingberd (who had a look of Mr Keble about him) was most sympathetic and friendly, but his gentle, poetical and refined life was not destined to be of much longer duration. He passed away in 1872, taking with him many old memories and many tender associations of bygone days: a quaint little touch of conservatism long remained in the little brass candlestick (relic of days before gas was introduced into Lincoln Minster) which at his desire was left in front of his stall.

1 Vol. 130, p. 225.

2 Chancellor of Lincoln from 1862: author of the History of the English Reformation, Law of the Church and State, &c.

The Bishop of Lincoln thereupon offered my father the vacant Chancellorship, and the residentiary Canonry annexed to that office. It will be seen from the correspondence, that the Bishop began by attaching to the offer certain conditions as to residence and work, but my father refused to pledge himself, and was eventually appointed unconditionally.

From the Bishop of Lincoln, offering him the Chancellorship.

MY DEAR BENSON,

RISEHOLME, LINCOLN.

9 Dec. 1872.

You are aware that the Chancellorship of Lincoln Cathedral is vacant by the death of our dear friend Chancellor Massingberd.

You will also, I am sure, feel with me in the deep sense I have of the solemn responsibility under which a person lies who is called upon to fill up the vacancy; and you will, my dear friend, unite with me in prayer that I may be able to discharge this duty so as best to promote the Glory of God, and the Salvation of souls; and the good of the Cathedral, the City and Diocese of Lincoln, the Church of England, and the Church Universal.

There are certain conditions which it seems to me ought to be satisfied by anyone who is appointed to that Office. He ought to devote himself wholly to it, and its duties, as prescribed by the Statutes, so far as they are not repealed: and the more so, inasmuch as Cathedral bodies, on account of the reduction of their numbers, and impairment of their powers, require now more than ever the entire devotion of those who belong to them.

I could not, therefore, offer the vacant Chancellorship to anyone who could not engage to devote himself entirely to the study of Theology, and to the training of Theological students for the sacred Ministry of the Church; and to the work of Christian Education, especially in the City of Lincoln, according to the Statutes.

And now, my dear Benson, let me add that I have had great comfort in my personal connexion with you as one of my

examining Chaplains, and I should be sorry to lose you as a Chaplain, if I were to gain you as a Chancellor.

Might I then asking you to consider carefully, as I am sure you will do, all that I have written-request you to let me know whether, on these terms, I may have the pleasure of nominating you to the Chancellorship of Lincoln Cathedral ?

And may God, of His infinite mercy, guide us aright!
Ever, my dear friend,

Yours affectionately,

C. LINCOLN.

P.S.-I believe that in the Consecration of the Holy Eucharist your use at Wellington differs from ours at Lincoln: but I am sure you would follow, in such matters as this, the advice of St Ambrose, and "do at Rome what they do at Rome."

To Bishop Wordsworth, on the offer of the
Chancellorship of Lincoln Cathedral.

MY DEAR BISHOP AND LORD,

II Dec. 1872.

I may venture to ask a very little while for prayers and for thought and for counsel.

Two friends and my dear wife' I must ask. But they will answer me, with prayers that God will guide their advice, I know. Nothing however should detain the expression of my more than gratitude, and the joy that even after consideration, and with the sense of solemnity and responsibility as to such appointments in these times which you, perhaps more than any one in authority, entertain, you should still think fit to ask me to sit in that conThis alone is a Bath kol, and I hasten to say that as to the obligations which you conceive to attach to the place, there is not one of them that I should not ex corde atque animo embrace,

sessus.

1 My mother was away in Germany for her health.

2 Bath kol, "filia vocis," was an expression used by Rabbinical writers to denote a species of revelation ranking lower than the revelation of prophecy, and granted in the place of prophecy, when the ancient prophetical spirit ceased. E. W. B. was no doubt alluding to the Select Discourses of John Smith (the Cambridge Platonist), who has a short discourse on Bath kol; v. the ed. of 1857, Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 268-271. It is used here in the sense of a special inspiration vouchsafed to an individual at a crisis.