In the Advent of 1878, a year and a half after his consecration, I went down to Truro to be ordained by him. I can see him now as he sat at the end of the dining-room table at Kenwyn in his purple cassock, giving us candidates a Greek Testament reading on the first day of the Embertide Retreat. It was always a great feature of his days with the ordinands. Each one had to translate a verse in turn and as every blunder was unsparingly corrected, it was, to begin with, rather a formidable and dry proceeding. But when he began to go back over a section and draw out-largely by questions-all sorts of unexpected meanings and applications, the whole class soon caught something of his warmth. His way of ejaculating "eh!" after a sentence, with an eager look to one and another as if to gain assent to his meaning, will be remembered by many. Our reading that day was on the Seven Epistles of the Revelation; and I well remember the tender words with which he closed after expounding the Epistle to Philadelphia. "Now, dear friends, do put yourselves in an attitude of adoring love to this Lord to-day and to-morrow. He gives you the key of David. All you have to do is patiently and quietly to fit it into the wards of the hearts of your young men and people, and turn it.... No combativeness! no party names! And whether joyousness comes or goes, do your day's work determinedly, till the day shall come when He shall give you the name which no man knoweth save he to whom it is given!"

All through those earliest years at Truro, we lived and worked in an atmosphere of ideals of which he was the inspirer. The position was full of delicacy, at every turn, for both leader and led. Not only were the Dissenters watching, in many quarters with considerable suspicion, every new move of the Church: but some of the clergy and laity of the old régime were not unnaturally a little sceptical about the issue of all the new plans and organisations which were being floated. But his radiant presence carried us all along—at any rate, those who were working more immediately round him-with unbounded enthusiasm and hope. He made us, great and small alike, feel that we had a share in a splendid venture of Church life and that every task and every detail in it might have an infinite worth. I am sure that one great secret of his influence over men lay in his power of revealing the greatness of things that seemed commonplace and little to ordinary eyes. He ennobled everything and while he was not at all prodigal with his praises, he let you see how entirely he 34

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trusted you, how he expected you to do the right thing. It seems almost absurd to say that there was not one atom of officialism or pomposity in his manner. His delightful freedom and naturalness-and at times gaiety-set anyone who had to work with him at their ease-and often thrilled one with pleasure. I remember an accountant at Truro who had periodically to make up some school accounts with him, telling me what a delight his hours at Kenwyn with the Bishop were. He was indeed a man of many moods. He could be on occasion severe and peremptory -and even at times, I have thought, unfair in his judgment on anything that seemed like weakness or, yet more, egotism. member how at that Bible reading which I have described, when some unfortunate candidate interposed a well-meaning, but, as the Bishop thought, an ill-timed question, he turned on him in a moment, "Think, Mr—, I want you to think. Don't talk." I once saw him in his study blaze out with wrath on a man who was really very dear to him, because he had reported to the Bishop some gossip that was rife in a certain parish. "What do you tell me such things for? You make me as miserable as yourself. Gossiping ears are as bad as gossiping tongues." But the high temper was sure to be succeeded by some delicate tenderness of manner or speech, which only deepened one's devotion to him. But egotism or vanity stirred him to the depths. I once accompanied him to a Confirmation where the candidates were shamefully few and the service indevout. Afterwards at the Vicarage the parochus a shallow garrulous Irishman-was talking of his work and his workers in the most self-satisfied tone. I saw the Bishop's face darkening. At last we started in the carriage-and almost before we had turned the corner of the drive he positively shook me, by way of relieving his feelings, crying "Oh! that wretched man! my parish!-my workers! Did you ever see such a miserable state of things?"

One element of the charm which he exercised over most of us was, I think, his power of listening, with such genuine interest, to what one was trying to say. It would never have occurred to describe his manner as being "very kind": a phrase that so often suggests a studied condescension of manner which is apt to betray weariness and even contempt behind it. He really seemed to want to get beneath your words, to know what you were thinking and wishing. It was this exquisitely natural courtesy coupled with such uɛуaλожρéжeia of presence and voice which, as much as anything

else, won the hearts of the Cornish people as he moved up and down the Diocese. He once said to me that the way to deal with the Cornish was to surprise them. Certainly he surprised them into admiration and-though reverence is not one of their striking characteristics-into reverence for him. I am sure that his words were often hard sayings to them. And I doubt if he always satisfied the Dissenters of his being a "converted" man, for neither his mind nor lips could shape the kind of pious speech to which they attach such value. But they felt that the knowledge of them and their surroundings and their history, and his interest in them, was quite boundless-and the best of them, at any rate, yielded readily to his spell. "A fine man, Mr Benson," a burly farmer in North Cornwall once said to me, belonging to a parish where the Bishop had once spent a summer holiday. "A clever chap, he is," I once heard one working man say to another, when leaving the wooden cathedral after one of his lectures on Cyprian. I have often dared to think that his greatness was more apparent as Bishop of Truro than as Archbishop. In Cornwall he was a creator: and the very simplicity and romance of his surroundings, and his remoteness from great centres, only made the characteristic features of his character shine out more attractively. But perhaps I am a prejudiced and partial critic. It will be more to the point if I were to tell the story of one bit of work which brought me for the first time into close contact with him and which illustrates his extraordinary power of seizing and glorifying an opportunity which in other hands must have been reckoned trivial or even neglected. At the end of my first year in Cornwall, just before Advent, he sent for me to tell me that he wanted me, or as he put it, "Would I not like to go and take charge of Endellion,” a vacant parish on the North coast. He had the churchwarden's letter in his hand, telling of the death of the Rector -a wonderful old man whose life, if it were written, would rival the romance of Hawker of Morwenstow. Then the map was brought out, and the whole story of the parish was told to me-how Endellion was the only one of the old collegiate churches in Cornwall that, by some strange chance, had kept its ancient prebends, though they had been sinecures and held by non-residents time out of mind-how the parish included the little fishing-town of Port Isaac with 900 souls, with no church, no ministrations-and how the whole parish had been pitiably

neglected. It was just a situation of affairs to fascinate him. And off I went with most exact and inspiring directions as to what I was to do. All through that winter I lived down in Port Isaac, sending him constant reports of progress and difficulties. Here is his reply to my first report, in which I told him of a failure to get the Board school for a service. "Thank you for your excellent and delightful letter-with all its interest and spirit.... Do not have one other word on the subject of even asking to have the Board school. On the contrary, let Sir Roger Bigot" (referring to a member of the board who had opposed me) "have speech of you, and quite cheerfully, and by merely a passing shot assure him that nothing could induce you to go there. But see and talk seriously to as many people, especially men, down at Port Isaac-not as making a set at them for the Church, but as one who cares for their souls and is quite clear of his own position. 'Sursum cor' as you approach each man, and God will give you a mouth and wisdom for passing remarks as much as for your sermons. Don't set such a man as Sir Guy of Warwick" (a play on the name of another Dissenter of whom I had told him) "imagining." Could any counsel to a young clergyman be more exhilarating, more tender, more wise? Here is a scrap written hastily on a half sheet later on, about a curate whom I had nearly secured for Port Isaac, but who doubted whether he would be doing justice to himself and his future by going to such an out-ofthe-way place. (I had sent the Bishop his letter.) "I think it will be better if I have not seen this letter. No 'call '-no Comforter-no Christ or Master. Only 'work' for man: only 'what I owe to myself.' What does one owe to oneself? I shall not release him, but you needn't know that. Only I'm sure that you would feel sure of it. The case isn't exceptional in the least. If he were allowed to go, he would be one more of the lost, ruined, tumble-down creatures that are about. I should have liked to see you once more. Best love. I'm ashamed of going and leaving you all, but I am afraid I am at the end of my steam!"

It was with letters like this that he was always guiding and stimulating and delighting all who looked to him for counsel. Many such are treasured by clergy and lay people in Cornwall.

To his daughter Mary Eleanor.

MY DEAREST DAUGHTER AND Love,

TRURO.
8 March, 1882.

I have had a delicious ride with Hugh this afternoon, out by Piran road, then to right at Short Lanes, round towards St Allen, and striking off to the right to go through Bishop's Wood, and past the Mills home by Idless. Birds singing, palms fresh out, trees purpling to burst, fields being harrowed, lime-dust blowing in puffs off the new-spread fields, and as we splishsplashed along the soft lane through the woods, the child laughing behind me as St George' splashed him and Charlie' from head to foot.

I had such a drive across Cornwall yesterday-first from Launceston early to Altarnun (i.e. Altar of Nonna, St David's mother), then a Confirmation in grand old Church with great screen, and among some bits of stone I picked out basin and shaft of a Norman Piscina which the parson had never seen! But Church matters very feeble there.

Then a long drive to Southill-and a Confirmation of 60 attentive people, old and young-and again a rapid drive over the Cornish highlands-out of sunshine up into a cold blind fog-and down again into air as warm as milk-and home by 8 o'clock.

Some holidays or other you must go with me on one of my turns and read and talk to me in the carriage between the Churches-I had rather have you than the best of Rural Deans— good and kind as they be.

Your most loving father,

E. W. TRURON.

To Henry Bradshaw, on the new Chapter of Truro.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

TRURO, 22 March, 1882.

I burn to ask you on the spot and within the granite walls of the future (nay almost existent) choir, how to people it properly for the great practical age that is coming.

And (though I ought not to say it to

1 The Bishop's horse.

any one less indulgent

2 The pony.