il Hi Ml" )"i>liii,iuil4 iiilililiiiiiiiiiiuimuiii' .iini,.s... Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029450545 EDWARD KING SIXTIETH BISHOP OF LINCOLN '■^79 -J '/^ iSgi EDWARD KING SIXTIETH BISHOP OF LINCOLN A MEMOIR BY THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL AUTHOR OF *' COLLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS " Sicut lUe est, et nos sumus in hoc mundo. Epist. B, Joannis Apost. I, WITH A PORTRAIT BY GEORGE RICHMOND, R.A. NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. LONDON : SMITH, ELDER & CO. 1913 \_All rights reserved} PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED LONDON AND BECCLES INSCRIBED TO CHARLES LINDLEY VISCOUNT HALIFAX IN HONOUR OF ONE WHO WAS TO BOTH OF US A FATHER IN THE FAITH NOTE The task of writing this memoir was entrusted to me by Bishop King's Literary Executors. It was too high an honour, and too rich a privilege, to be dechned ; but it was undertaken, and has been completed, with a profound sense of unworthiness. At every stage of my work I have been aided by the generous kindness of the Bishop's family, and of friends outside the family who loved and revered him. A list of the names of those to whom I am thus indebted would be too long for insertion here ; and as, in each case, my thanks have been personally tendered, a formal enumeration will, I doubt not, be graciously excused. G. W. E. R. Epiphany, 1912. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Beginkings 1 II. CUDDESDON 14 III. The Pastoeal Professorship 35 IV. Lincoln 85 V. The Trial 143 VI. Calm after Storm 211 VII. Towards the Sunsbtting 281 Appendix 1 311 „ II 337 „ III 343 „ IV 353 Index 355 EDWARD KING SIXTIETH BISHOP OF LINCOLN CHAPTER I. BEGINNINGS. When God forms a human life to do some appointed task. His pre- paratory action may be traced in the circumstances of hereditary descent not less clearly than in other provisions whether of Nature or of Grace. H. P. LiDDON. The family of King is said to have originated in Westmor- land, and to have migrated to Yorkshire before the beginning of the seventeenth century. The landed property which they acquired in the West Eiding remained in their pos- session for over three hundred years. Robert Kmg was Incumbent of Kirkby Malhamdale, and died there in 1621. In 1622 his son, Thomas King, built a house in the parish, which is now used as the Vicarage. This Thomas King had a son Robert, a grandson James, and a great-grand- son Thomas, whose son James was Dean of Raphoe. Dean King had five sons, of whom the third, Walker (1751-1827) became Bishop of Rochester. Bishop Walker King was an intimate friend of Edmund Burke, an executor of his will, and editor of his works. Some ornamental pieces of gold and silver, presented to Burke by an Indian Rajah after the impeachment of Warren Hastings, are still in the 1 B 2 EDWARD KING possession of King's descendants. In 1885, the Eev. George Trevor (1809-1888) wrote: "One of my very earliest recollections as a little boy is leading the bhnd Bishop of Kochester by the hand— in the other he carried a gold-headed cane as long as a footman's, given him by Burke, who had it from one of the Oude Begums." The Bishop had a son, also called Walker (the maiden name of the Bishop's mother), and this Walker King (1797-1859), became Eector of Stone, in Kent, and Canon and Archdeacon of Kochester. He married, in 1823, Anne Heberden, daughter of William Heberden, M.D., and grand-daughter of the famous physician whom Cowper extolled as " Virtuous and faithful Heberden," and whom Dr. Johnson styled " UUimtis Romanorum, the last of our learned physicians." Mrs. King survived till 1883, a typical lady of the old school, full of tranquil dignity. The Archdeacon had ten children, five boys and five girls — of these, the third child and second son was EDWARD, who was born on December 29, 1829. Before her confine- ment Mrs. King came to London, in order to be near her father, Dr. Heberden, who lived in Pall Mall. The child was born at No. 8, St. James's Place, privately baptized by his father on January 4, 1830, and registered at St. James's Church, Piccadilly. On February 4, Mrs. King writes from London : " Little Ted is quite well," and soon afterwards the family returned to Stone, where " little Ted " was formally received into the Church. Archdeacon King lived at Stone Park, which was his own property, the Rectory House having been condemned as unhealthy ; and here Edward King was brought up. His elder brother had been roughly used at a Public School, and the parents resolved that Edward, who showed some CONFIRMATION 3 signs of delicacy, should be educated at home. After some teaching from his father, he became a daily pupil of the curate at Stone, the Eev. John Day ; and, when Mr. Day removed, first to Flintshire and then to Shropshire, Edward King went with him. Mr. Day, an adherent of the Tractarian school, was incumbent of Bllesmere, and there Edward King first took part in the active service of his Church, singing in the choir, and conducting a Bible- class for men.* When he was at home in Lent, he suggested to his sisters to join him in a daily service, in the school-room, at 8 o'clock in the morning ; he plajang the Gregorian Chant to which they sang the psalms of the day. The Archdeacon was what is termed " a Churchman of the old school," untouched alike by the Evangelical and by the Catholic revival. When the time arrived for Edward to be confirmed, his father called him into the study, asked him if he knew the Catechism, and then gave him a card and told him to get on his pony and ride over to Foot's Cray, where the Confirmation was to be held that day by Archbishop Howley. It happened that some of the neighbours were giving a dance that evening, and, when Edward returned from his confirmation, Mrs. King said : " I suppose, Edward, you would rather not go to the dance." He replied that he would rather stay at home, and so was left to his own meditations. * A memorial of King's life at Ellesmere survives in a Prayer Book, bearing this inscription : — To EDWARD KING THIS Book o» Common Pkayeb is PEESENTED BY THE ChOIB OS ElLESMBEB, in token of their atpbctionatb eegabd and grateful remembrance. July 19th, 1848. 4 EDWARD KING The Archdeacon's eldest child, a daughter, lived only a few months. The eldest son took Holy Orders. Two other sons went into the army, and the youngest went to Australia as a sheep-farmer. The second daughter, Anne, died young, and three daughters married. Edward King was on the most affectionate terms with all his brothers and sisters, but it was his relation with his sister Anne that made the deepest impression on his life. She was an invalid for twelve years, and he often spent the whole night by her bedside. He learnt Italian in order that he might share her love of Dante ; from her he derived his interest in botany ; and in his constant attendance on her he developed that tactful, sympathetic, and unfussy manner in visiting invalids which always marked his ministry. But, in spite of this early contact with the graver realities of life, there was nothing morbid or austere about the youth and early manhood of Edward King. He was fond of dancing, fishing, and swimming, and he was an excellent horseman. Tradition says that, failing a better mount, he would go out hunting on the family carriage- horse. He had a keen eye for all that is beautiful and interesting in the natural world, and he was specially devoted to birds and flowers. But throughout life his chief recreation was in foreign travel, Switzerland and Italy being his favourite haunts. From very early days, he had looked forward to Holy Orders as his appointed sphere of work, and on February 10, 1848, he matriculated at Oxford as a member of Oriel College, " looking older than his real age, as he was already the possessor of a handsome pair of whiskers." Among the Oriel men of his time, either slightly senior or slightly junior to himself, were his eldest ORIEL 5 brother, Walker King, afterwards Rector of Leigh ; Charles Lyndhurst Vaughan, Vicar of Christ Church, St. Leonards' ; George Joachim Goschen, Viscount Goschen ; and George Howard Wilkinson, Bishop of St. Andrews'. Oriel was then ruled by the austere and punctilious Hawkins. A contemporary relates the following incident at " Collections " — the formal review of work and conduct — at the end of King's first Term. " The Provost was never happy unless he could find something unfavourable to comment upon concerning each undergraduate who came before him. Among other things, the record of Chapel- attendances was always on the table, and referred to for praise or blame. The Provost, after looking at it, said : ' I observe, Mr. King, that you have never missed a single chapel, morning or evening, during the whole Term.' But, instead of a word of praise, the Provost went on to say, ' I must warn you, Mr. King, that even too regular atten- dance at chapel may degenerate into formalism.' " From what has been already written, it is clear that the old-fashioned Churchmanship in which King was trained had already been modified by the more gracious influences of the " Oxford Movement," or " Catholic Revival " ; and at Oriel those influences were deepened by his intercourse with the Rev. Charles Marriott (1811-1858), Fellow and Tutor of the College, and coadjutor of Dr. Pusey in the " Library of the Fathers." Marriott described King as " a royal fellow," and in after-life King used to say : " If I have any good in me, I owe it to Charles Marriott. He was the most Gospel-hke man I have ever met." One of the most marked effects of the Oxford Movement was an extreme and methodical strictness in daily life and devotion. It is on record that King, when an undergraduate » 6 EDWARD KING was a scrupulous observer of the Churcli's rules of fasting and abstinence, always absenting himself from Hall on the days assigned by the Prayer Book for those observances. With regard to the diligent attendance at Chapel, in which Provost Hawkins saw so little to commend, the contemporary already quoted says — " I have had many a pleasant afternoon's walk with Edward King, but he would never consent to go with you unless you promised to be back by Chapel-time, which was 4.30. I myself spent a good deal of my afternoon recreation-time on the river, and was also a member of the College Cricket Club ; but I cannot remember King ever joining in either of those pursuits. He may indeed have done so, but his strict rule about afternoon Chapel would have made boating difficult, and cricket quite impossible, as our cricket-ground at that time was on Bullingdon Common, some way out of Oxford over Magdalen Bridge." As regards cricket, this is no doubt a true testimony ; but that King did not abstain from boating is proved by the statement of another contemporary, belonging to another college — " The first time I ever met Edward King was, oddly enough, in passing through the lock at Iffley. Someone in our boat knew him, and saluted him by name." Yet another undergraduate of those days, who entered Oriel just as King was leaving it, says : " I can only remember being greatly impressed by the singularly high estimation in which his character was held by all sorts and conditions of men." And one, already quoted, says with regard to Marriott's spiritual influence — " I should have thought that King was the one undergraduate in college who needed it the least." King did not read for honours ; but, under the able FRIENDSHIP 7 tuition of such men as D. P. Chase and C. P. Chretien, he was well grounded in Plato, Aristotle, and Butler. In 1898 he wrote — " Bishop Butler has been one of my life-long and most valued companions." To the end, he used " The Eepublic," and the " Ethics " as text-books, on which he grounded his social and moral teaching, and he had a curiously strong sense of the ethical value of the Satires and Epistles of Horace. He took his B. A. degree on November 13, 1851, and his M.A. on June 14 , 1855. So few of King's early letters have been preserved that it may be well to introduce two written to his friends, Garnons and Richard Davies Williams, sons of the Arch- deacon (afterwards Dean) of Llandaff, and both looking forward to Holy Orders. (To R. D. Williams.) "July 17, 1851. " My dear Williams, " It seems a long while since I heard from you, but perhaps it is my own fault for not writing. " I hope you have been getting quite strong again, and intend coming up to Oxford next Term ; but I want to tell you what we have done. Old Hale, Cox, and myself have taken a house {i.e., the rooms) in the High opposite Embling's, the tailor, it belongs to Green, an Upholsterer — we have three sitting-rooms and three bedrooms. Now it occurred to us all that, as your coming up is altogether hypothetical, and as, if you come, it would not be worth your while to take rooms by yourself, by far your best plan will be to live with us, and just trot into College of a night. Just think this over quietly. You see we shall 8 EDWARD KING all be reading for our Degree, and I really think it would be an advantage to all parties to be together. You will say, ' Yes, it is very nice, but I should not like to live on my friends.' Now, if you would be so very kind as to do so, you would greatly oblige your humble servants ; but, my dear fellow, you shall not have this excuse, for you shall take a share of our expenses, as far as tea, candles, etc., etc. " I really think that it might be a good thing for you, for it would be perfectly quiet and yet we could take care of you, which after six months at home you will require. It will be quiet, for we have agreed to preserve our individuality, and the rooms are some way apart. By this plan you could come up when you like and go down without any bother of rooms. I need not say that, if you would consent to live in my room, I should be dehghted, but this is being too selfish; however, you ought to know that you are most welcome. Turn it over, and ask Mrs. Williams if a warm, cheerful, family circle is not better for you than a solitary, damp, cold, dreary, hovel by yourself. Just do — please. " Ever, my dear WilUams, your most sincere friend, " Edward King." Richard Da vies Williams died on October 25, 1851. Fifty-seven years later. King wrote to his friend's sister — " Your dear brother, Davies, still links me back to the days before the rougher work and anxieties of life began. His was a singularly unworldly, guileless spirit, to which I ever look back with reverence and affection." The following letter is addressed to the elder brother, Garnons Wilhams, now ordained, and afterwards Preben- dary of St. David's. A PILGRIMAGE 9 "September 24, 1852. "My dear Williams, "I hope you have heard from others of my absence from England, or you will think worse of me than I deserve. Indeed, since I last wrote to you I have seen a good deal. I ran away from the cold weather last winter in the first week in February, and wandered on till I found myself on the shores of the Dead Sea ! I think I might interest you with things I heard and saw, but in a letter it is impossible to select one or two out of so many new ideas — but first let me ask how you are, and all your family ? I trust all well . I think I heard or saw that you were ordained, but where you are I do not know, so I must send this to Llanvapley, and hope that it will be forwarded. Do send me a line soon to say how you are, and your little brother Herbert. I should like to see him again. " Now I shall return to where we left off — I have never yet thanked the Archdeacon for the book he was so very kind as to send me. The fact was that it was packed up with my things from Oxford and never unpacked till I was just starting in the winter. I should feel much obliged if you could some day find an opportunity of thanking the Archdeacon for me, as I do not like to trouble him by writing myself. I must not write more on this, to me, most dear of subjects,* which has afforded me an unfailing source of reflection wherever I have yet been, for we must act, and you are already at the work — when I shall be ordained I do not quite know, but not before next Trinity Sunday. " I must give one word to the poor old Duke ! f and for the present I will not write you a longer letter, but I shall * Ordination. t The Duke of Wellington died September 14, 1852 10 EDWARD KING hope to hear from you soon. I must beg you to give my very kindest remembrances to the Archdeacon and Mrs. Williams and all your family, and believe me, my dear Williams, ever to be yours, "Most sincerely, " Edward King." Mr. Garnons WilUams died in 1905, and King wrote to his sister — " It has been a real comfort and help to me in a difficult day's work in London, to think of the old Oriel days, and your dear brothers ; and now to think of them in safety and peace." The allusion to the Dead Sea in the foregoing letter recalls King's visit to the Holy Land, which occupied him from February to the end of June, 1852. In old age he wrote to a friend who was contemplating a similar pilgrim- age — " It is fifty-five years since I was in the Holy Land, and my visit is still a source of comfort and pleasure to me." After returning from his travels, he acted, for a short space, as private tutor to Lord Lothian's brothers ; and now the time drew near for the fulfilment of his long- cherished purpose. In 1854 he received the offer of a curacy from the Eev. Edward Elton, Vicar of Wheatley, near Cuddesdon, in Oxfordshire. He was ordained deacon by Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, in the Parish Church of Cuddesdon, on Trinity Sunday, June 11, 1854, and priest, by the same prelate in the same church, on June 3, 1855. In recommending him to Mr. Elton, the Bishop had used the emphatic words — " A gentleman and a Christian." Wheatley was at that time a peculiarly rough and lawless place, and Mr. Elton's attempts at moral reformation had WHEATLEY ii roused the utmost hostility. He had just lost his wife, and he invited his new curate to live with him at the vicarage. King's buoyancy and cheerfulness brought light into the darkened home. He loved to share such simple amuse- ments as botany and egg-collecting with the Vicar's children, and his zeal in pastoral work powerfully reinforced Mr. Elton's efforts in the parish. Though always a delicate man, and not looking forward to a long life, he went about his parochial work with splendid activity and courage. When a virulent form of typhus broke out in the village, he in- sisted on attending the most dangerous cases, saying that the Vicar had others dependent on him, whereas he had none. The sanitary conditions of the village were amply sufficient to account for the epidemic ; an open stream which ran through the main street acted at once as the common sewer and the principal water-supply. The Vicar and his curate endeavoured to convert this stream into a covered drain, but this reform was stoutly opposed by the villagers ; and in order to eSect it the clergy procured the establishment of a Local Board of Health. The Church was dilapidated and the schools were inadequate. Church and Schools were rebuilt by Mr. Elton, who found his curate a most valuable coadjutor, not least in the difficult task of raising money. It was in dealing with the boys and youths of this rough parish that King first manifested that remarkable power of influence, which was the special character of all his later ministry. With some of those who were young people at Wheatley when he was curate there he maintained an occasional correspondence to the end of his life. Thus he wrote in 1895 — " It seems only yesterday that you used to 12 EDWARD KING come down to my room witli dear G. and J. and we used to sit and talk together. I was thoroughly happy with you all at Wheatley. I did not think I should live so long. ... I must stop now. I forget we are not sitting over the fire at Wheatley. It was very nice, wasn't it ? " In 1905 : " In heart I feel just the same as when we were all at Wheatley together. Your letter pleased me very much, because there was a spirit of content and happiness which I was most glad to see, and the love for your flowers brought back the memory of our old walks. I still love flowers and birds as much as ever." The remembrance of his curacy was still dear to him half a century after he had left it. " The simple life at Wheatley," he wrote, " and the affection of the people were more congenial to me than this public and controversial life." And to his old Vicar — " I should be quite happy to go back to those old Wheatley days ; they were a great happiness and blessing to me, and I always feel deeply grateful to you for putting up with my ignorance and many shortcomings." The Eev. E. W. Carew Hunt, Vicar of St. Giles's, Bead- ing, supplies the following reminiscence : " One day, about the year 1900, when I was Vicar of Hughenden, I was walking into High Wycombe, and on the way I overtook a man who was going in the same direction. He was an odd-looking creature, no longer young — a ' tatterdemalion ' sort of fellow, half tinker, half pedlar, a true wayfaring man. We walked along together for some distance, talking about many things. Presently I said to my companion, ' I suppose you don't often go to church nowadays ? ' ' Bless me, sir,' he replied, ' it's years since I have been inside a church. I don't know as there is anything would A TRAMP'S TRIBUTE 13 get me in there except one.' ' What's that ? ' I said. ' Well,' he replied, ' if I could only 'ear a chap named King preach, I'd go. I heard 'im years ago at a village called Wheatley, and I shall never forget 'im. He was curate then, or summ'at. I wonder if he be still alive. I should dearly like to hear 'im again. I'd go many a long mile to hear 'im.' ' Your curate is a Bishop now,' I said. ' Lord, is he ? But I would like to see 'im again. I remember that there sermon, though it's years ago since I heard 'im.' I could not help feeling how glad the holy Bishop would have been if he had known how, through all the ups and downs of life, that man had cherished the words he had heard in the village church of Wheatley." CHAPTER II. CUDDESDON. Some summer Sunday, perhaps, we wandered here, in undergraduate days, to see a friend ; and from that hour the charm was at work. The little rooms, like College rooms just shrinking into cells, the long talk on the summer lawn, the old Church with its quiet, country look of patient peace, the glow of the Evening Chapel, the run down the lull under the stars, with the sound of CompUue Psalms stUl ringing in our hearts. It was enough. The resolve that lay half hidden in our souls took shape. We would come to Cuddesdon when the time of preparation should draw on ! H. S. Holland. Samuel Wilberforce was consecrated to the See of Oxford on November 30, 1845. In January, 1846, he noted among the " Agenda " of his episcopate " a Diocesan Training College for Clergy to be established at Cuddesdon." There were considerable difficulties in the way, but the Bishop persevered in his design. The first stone of the building was laid on April 7, 1853, and the College was opened on June 15, 1854. The first Principal was the Eev. Alfred Pott, Vicar of Cuddesdon and afterwards Archdeacon of Berkshire ; the Rev. H. P. Liddon was Vice-Principal, and the Rev. Albert Barff, Chaplain. At first all went well ; but presently the College fell under suspicion of Romanizing tendencies. In 1858 Bishop Wilberforce, alarmed by the Protestant outcry, determined to make some changes in the staff, and his thoughts turned to the 14 CUDDESDON 15 young curate of Wheatley (who had sometimes officiated at Guddesdon) as one whom he would like to enlist in the service of his College. On March 31, 1858, Edward King wrote as follows to his father : — " My DEAR Father, " The cloud which I predicted when you were here rose yesterday morning above horizon of imagination, and is now plainly in view. " Pott sent for me yesterday, he being ill, and as I expected, it was to talk about the College. The Bishop has been at Cuddesdon, and is determined on a firm change of tone and persons. . . . Then comes the great difficulty of towing the Leviathan without a fatal slip. As you have already concluded, the Bishop wishes me to try ; he has not asked me himself, but he has more than once told Pott to bring it about, and the Bishop will ask as soon as he returns. Now, my dear father, what am I to do ? Against it there is — " 1. My present work. " 2. The extreme difficulty of the undertaking. " I can see plainly the great judgment it requires. The Extremes will be in arms, the old work will be called spoilt, and the new man not up to his work, etc., etc. ; but this is all human. There is on the other side — " 1. The Bishop's positive wish (if expressed as I expect). "2. My present work is at a certain point, and not without dangers to myself on the score of popularity and personal gratification. " 3. I cannot but feel that my impaired health would not warrant my plajang the short game ; I ought at least to fit myself for an average life of work. Three or four i6 EDWARD KING years at the College might supply the lack of knowledge which will be especially required by me if, as we have said, my line is to be to take a large, rather than a small, living and guide a curate. " Pott told the Bishop that I did not wish to move, but he still persisted. Of course, I should not for a moment entertain the idea if it was merely to fill the place of the old chaplain ; but the case alters if they want to do a hard work, and ask you openly to come and do it, viz. change the tone. " They are, no doubt, in a fix. " I have written this at once before the Bishop speaks. But I am sorry to trouble you ; only these are the turns of life which one is so unwilling to take alone. " I will write again as soon as the Bishop has been here, though I do not expect him till the Confirmation on Saturday next. " With best love to all, " I am, my dear father, " Your most affectionate son, " Edward King. " P.S. — I have not the least committed myself to Cud- desdon. I told Pott I should ask you and consider." In later life, King used to recall the decisive scene, him- self standing by the stile that leads into the wood between Wheatley and Cuddesdon, while the Bishop on horseback was talking to him about leaving his curacy and going to the College as Chaplain. At last the Bishop kicked his horse, and went ofi saying, " Well, I think you ought to go." The Bishop carried the day. King resigned the curacy. PURGATION 17 and entered on his office as Chaplain of Cuddesdon College at Michaelmas, 1858. The duties attached to the chaplaincy were to conduct the daily services in the College Chapel, and to supervise, as opportunity presented itself, the spiritual life of the students. But the Bishop's process of purgation did not stop at a change of chaplains. The Vice-Principal, afterwards known to all the world as the greatest preacher in the Church of England, was already a man of marked character and strong influence. It appears that his teaching on the Holy Eucharist and on Confession was too frankly Catholic to suit the Bishop, whose churchmanship was of a very moderate type, and at the beginning of 1859 the Bishop " came with a torn heart " to the conclusion that Liddon must go at the ensuing Easter. He wished, and even pressed, King to be the new Vice-Principal, and the following letter from Liddon throws an interesting light on the position : — " June 16, 1859. "My dear King, " I earnestly advise you to accept the Vice-Principal- ship. As to Oxford opinion, it is formed by, and depends upon, causes widely removed from its personal question of who is engaged in the direction of Theological Colleges. So far as it is hostile to these Colleges, it is due (1) to a one- sided and jealous academical spirit, which would make the Facility of Theology responsible for the education of the clergy of the country, and much more (2) to a secular spirit, which thinks the whole machinery of religion and the Church a great bore, and would keep it out of sight as much as possible. Dr. Heurtley, etc., represent the first, Goldwin Smith the second phase. i8 EDWARD KING " The first class may, by God's mercy, be won to some- thing better by observing the aspect of hopeless impotence of the University when called upon to aid the Church of England by more and better-trained clergy. The second will certainly drift further and further away from all allegiance, even to the most meagre conceptions of a Real Revelation. Meanwhile, those who know anything about Cuddesdon would hail your appointment to the Vice- Principalship with unfeigned satisfaction. That which will attract, and do most real good, in these Colleges is not the intellectual but the moral element which it is in their power to foster ; and while, if I might be permitted to say so, you are quite equal to all that is wanted in the way of lecturing, you know, much better than any one else whom the Bishop could procure from a distance, how much there is to be done in clearing the spiritual sight, and forming the characters, of those who place themselves under the teaching of the College. The real difficulty of your position is this : that, in the presence of gigantic evils with which you have to contend, any moral and spiritual system which does not include private Confession and Absolution must (as it seems to me) be feeble, and unequal to the occasion. But you cannot help the backward condition of religious conviction in our Church in respect of this matter ; and there is still left a large margin in which it is possible to do a great amount of good. I have often thought with regret of the many avenues of influence which might have been employed, and which I neglected while at the College — such, I mean, as a systematic plan of interesting men in Missions, and a greater care of the ' visiting ' part of the day's work. You will, I ho'pe, comply with the Bishop's wishes. I have too often feared that your previous decision HOSPITALITY 19 on this head was influenced by motives connected with the circumstances of my leaving the College, rather than by the one question of ' fit or unfit/ which alone ought to decide it. I beg you to believe that your being V.-P. will give me personally unfeigned satisfaction, because I think that, more than any other appointment, it will further all that we both should most value in a most im- portant cause. " Your ever afiectionate, " H. P. LiDDON." However, King stood firm in his refusal ; another Vice- Principal was appointed, and King applied himself to his work as Chaplain with all his winning zeal ; but he did not forget his old friends and neighbours at Wheatley. One who was then a student at the College gives the follow- ing reminiscence : " It was at the end of the year 1859. I had only been at Cuddesdon a very short time. It was just after Christmas, and all the men, with the exception of myself and the Eev. Augustus Gurney, who was curate of Cuddesdon, and the Chaplain, had gone down. The Chaplain said to us, ' I am going to have a supper-party of my old Wheatley friends on my thirtieth birthday. Would you like to join the party 1 ' and we both said ' Yes.' The Chaplain had only been chaplain a year, the four previous years having been spent at Wheatley, where he was much beloved. The evening arrived, and up came his Wheatley friends. We all sat down to supper in the College Hall, to the number of thirty, and I must not omit to add that there was one more added to the number — that saintly man Henry Hutchinson Swinny, who had just become Principal in succession to Mr. Pott. 20 EDWARD KING The supper ended, the Chaplain got up and made such a speech as no other man than he could do, making his Wheatley friends feel quite at home, and in it all one noticed the great efiect for good and high morals that pervaded it. Looking back to that long-distant day, over more than fifty years, one recognizes the power of the man over others, which proceeded from his naturalness, and holiness of life ; and this no doubt was the secret of his influence over those hundreds of men who came under it, and now give thanks to God that they have been permitted in their lifetime to know Edward King." The nature and effect of King's ministry when he was Chaplain of Cuddesdon are to be clearly traced in a stout packet of closely-written letters, carefully preserved to the end of his life, and docketed in his own handwriting. Many are from young men employed in some capacity about the College, as servants or minor officials ; some from village school-masters, and choirmen of the Parish Church, or village boys who had gone out into service ; but the bulk are from past or present students. These begin," My dear Chaplain," and soon pass on into " My dear King," as the writer emerges from pupilage into the responsibilities of ministerial life. Some, of course, deal with spiritual or theological difficulties, some seek counsel in parochial perplexities, and some are most delightfully trivial. Some- times the Chaplain is away from Cuddesdon, and then the letters are full of Cuddesdon cricket and Cuddesdon music, and the sayings and doings of the College, the village, and the adjacent " Palace." Sometimes the writer is at home for the vacation, and then he writes about country walks and local botany ; reports the birth of an anxiously BROTHERHOOD 21 expected puppy, or asks the Chaplain to forward a bunch of keys inadvertently left behind. Letter after letter contains such expressions as " I wish you would come and visit us here," " I should love to introduce you to my father and mother." Everything breathes the most afiectionate feeling for the Chaplain, the warmest gratitude for good gained at Cuddesdon, and a singularly keen sense of brother- hood among Cuddesdon men who have passed out into the world. The following letter from the Principal, addressed to King when abroad, recovering from an illness, aptly illustrates the tone and spirit of the College : — "August 21, 1861. " You have heard of E. W. Lear's most merciful escape.* I am quite glad you were away. You would have been sure to have been sent for, and you would have been made quite ill. So I do not doubt that this is one of our mercies ; numberless and immeasurably great they are ! He is going on famously, and his being laid by is drawing out all the best feelings of the men, who are, as he himself bears witness, like so many brothers. Thanks — primarily, to God's Grace ; mediately, to your example of self-negation. " Ever yours most affectionately. « p.S. — I will gladden your heart. At dinner, Elsdale looking round the table, said, ' Who's taking the post of honour — with Lear ? ' I exclaimed, in my joy, what a blessed sentence it was. He reddened, and said there was nothing in it. But, my dear brother, only Christian lips could have uttered it. God grant that this may be ever the spirit of Cuddesdon and those who leave it. Amen." * rrom an accident which severed an artery in his leg. 22 EDWARD KING The truly saintly man who wrote this letter became before long seriously ill. On November 25, 1862, Bishop Wilberforce wrote to him : "I know I did not, because I could not, show you any of the deep affection I bear you, or of my continual remembrance of you labouring on in your high calling, in the midst of such weakness of the body. Believe me, it is a spur and incentive to my idleness that you cannot dream of." A month later Mr. Swinny died quite suddenly, when saying good-bye to a student of the College. Bishop Wilberforce wrote in his diary for December 23 : " Just before starting for Colnbrook, the news of dear Swinny's sudden death smote on my heart. What a loss to his family, the Church, the Diocese, the College, Cuddesdon, me ! God be merciful. Quite over- set by it." The loss to the College, and to Cuddesdon, was repaired by the promotion of the Chaplain. King was appointed Principal of the College and Vicar of Cuddesdon early in 1863. His health was very far from strong. Even when he was curate of Wheatley, he " had to be pulled by his lads up the steep hill which leads to Cuddesdon," and in the winter of 1861-2 he had been forced to take a prolonged leave of absence from the College. The spirit in which he entered upon his new duties is well expressed in a letter to his friend Porter, the first student who entered Cuddesdon * : — "February 16, 1863. " My deae Poetee, " I must send one line, tho' I have no time for more, to thank you for your kind letter and sympathy. '' I need not tell you that my present position is not from * Now the Rev. Canon 0. F. Porter. THE PRINCIPALSHIP 23 my own seeking — ^indeed, I hoped I had succeeded in refusing, and that Sir George Prevost would have taken the responsibility from me ; but at last it came simply to an act of faith and obedience : and I felt that I should really be fearing to risk my pleasant position for a harder one if I refused ; and so I have undertaken it. I trust it is God's Will, and if so I have no fear. " Our present Vice-Principal * remains ; he is a most excellent teacher, and I think we shall get on well together. * * 4c IN * * " My earnest desire is to Uve for the College and to pre- serve the unity which we have enjoyed. Do not forget us in your prayers. " Your most affectionate, "Edward King." The phase of life and duty which now opened before King was, in some sense, only a continuation of what had gone before ; but it was a continuation with a difierence — a freer hand and a more independent position. By the terms of its foundation, Cuddesdon College was to be under the " sole management and control of Samuel, Lord Bishop of Oxford and his successors." But, as all readers of Bishop Wilberforce's Life are well aware, the Bishop, who possessed the secret of ubiquity, spent comparatively little of his time at Cuddesdon ; and, as years went on, the control of the College passed more and more exclusively into the hands of the Principal. Pott and Liddon and Swinny had laid the strong foundations : King built on them the Cuddesdon that we know. The only difficulty in describing his career as Principal arises from the * The Rev. W. H. Davey, afterwards Dean of Llandaff. 24 EDWARD KING abundance of available material. It is scarcely an exaggera- tion to say that every one who passed througli his hands has some characteristic memory to record : it is no exaggeration to say that all testimony agrees about the irresistible quality of his influence, and his power of attracting love. An old pupil writes : " The Principal in those days suffered greatly from his heart, and his favourite position during an attack was to lie full length on his back on the rug. Now it happened that he was very keen about the lectures on Hooker, which he gave at the Vicarage once or twice a week ; so, on days when we saw that he was bad, we used to pack the men ofi for walks, and then one or two of us would saunter across from the College to the Vicarage a few minutes after three, and say, ' Principal, dear, we are afraid there won't be any Hooker to-day.' On his remonstrating, and begging us to go and fetch the men, we used to say, ' It's no use, dear Principal, they have gone out some time ago.' And then, using a little loving compulsion, we used to get him upstairs to lie down and rest." Riding was always King's favourite exercise, and at Cuddesdon it was particularly convenient, as he was able to get a pleasant canter over the far-seen crown of Shot- over, and so drop down into Oxford by a short cut. It is related that one day one of the villagers, whose subsistence depended on a horse and cart, came to tell King that the horse was dead. King's sympathy was always practical, and he presented the bereaved carter with his own cob. The students, hearing of this, clubbed together to buy him a new one, but, having bought it, they were too shy to present it to him ; so they tied it to the bell-handle of his front door, and then ran away. A student writes — TRAPS 25 " One of the first days after my arrival, I was invited to go for a walk with him. It was the season when the hazel-bushes were showing life, and he drew my atten- tion to them, with a little explanation in the way of nature-study. In later years his ' Parochiaha ' revealed the fact that this was one of his little traps to catch men." Once caught, he held them, scarcely more by his directly spiritual power than by his fun and playfulness. To Charles Edward Brooke, afterwards the much-loved Vicar of St. John the Divine, Kennington, who was doubtful about attending a ball in the vacation, and had written asking for counsel, the Principal simply telegraphed: " Dance, pretty creature, dance." In old age he wrote to a former student : " The old Cuddesdon days sometimes look like a dream, but a very wonderful and pleasant one ; only I sometimes tremble to think of the opportunities I missed for helping you all. Yet God was most merciful, and took care of you." The gaiety and easiness of his nature come out amusingly in the testimony of a neighbour at Cuddesdon. " When he was Principal, he said one day that he had given a party to his own servants, and those of the Palace and the College ; and that for some time he struggled in vain against their intense propriety. ' I felt as if I would have given almost any money to some one who would come in and play the fool.' " In 1865 he wrote to a depressed clergyman : — " You must not let yourself be dull. Sometimes, of course, the sun does not shine so bright as others ; but never mind that — it is the same for us all. . . . " I hope, if it please God, I shall be able to do my work at Cuddesdon as long as my mother lives ; after that, if 26 EDWARD KING I am knocked up, it won't so much signify. I have not given up thinking about Australia. I shouldn't wonder, after all, if I were to shake my fist at all you idle fellows living snugly in England, and see what could be done to start a good Church state of things in the Colonies. So you had better look sharp, and marry a wife, and then say you can't possibly come ; or else you will have to come out with me, and teach a choir of young Bush-rangers. Now I have put plenty of sense and nonsense into your mind to prevent your being dull. Work away, and may God bless you and keep you." Perhaps the most notable quality in King's natural character (apart from the richer gifts added to it by grace) was shrewdness. No one in the world was more difficult to deceive ; no one had a keener eye for humbug and pretence. Speaking of some one whom he frequently met at dinner at Cuddesdon Palace, he said : " He likes to catch me and talk to me in the middle of the room directly we come out of the dining-room, but all the time I can see his eye roving round in search of higher game." Surely a life-like touch. An intending student, who now describes himself as having been at that time " a most hardy and robust sinner, rowing, running, boxing, etc.," wrote and asked the Principal if he might keep a horse at Cuddesdon ; to which question the Principal, who probably had heard something of his young friend's physical condition, suavely replied that he might certainly do so, if his doctor said that the state of his health required horse-exercise. The greater part of King's intercourse with the students of Cuddesdon cannot be disclosed in anything like detail, for it passed in the most sacred of all confidences. And THE DOCTRINE OF THE KEYS 27 hereto hangs a fragment of spiritual biography. Although, of course, King had learnt from his Tractarian teachers the doctrine of Priestly Absolution, he had not, when he became Principal of Cuddesdon, sought its benefits for himself. But, when he was requested to hear a student's confession, his reply was — " I must make my own first." He made it to Dr. Pusey, and he told a friend in later life that the penance had been the 103rd Psalm. To another he said, describing Dr. Pusey's practice after hearing a confession : " It was wonderful to hear that Saint, kneeling by one's side, pour out his whole heart to God on one's behalf." Five years before his death he wrote — " Of course, I go to Confession still ; " and, on another occasion — " I go three or four times a year, not more." From the days of his Principalship onwards, he taught the Doctrine of the Keys with frank and simple courage, though always guarding it with its Anglican limitations. One who was curate at Cuddesdon says — " King did not think it wise to be always preaching about Confession (as was rather a tendency then in some churches), but he liked to preach a definite sermon about it every Lent and every Advent. The conclusion of one such sermon was : ' But, dear people, you will be saying — " this is Eoman Catholic." No, it isn't ; there is a difference, and I will tell you what it is. The Eoman Catholic Church says you must go to Confession once a year. The English Church says you may go whenever you like.' " In this, as in everything else. King was wholly anti- Roman. Long after he had left Cuddesdon, a former student, who was acting as English Chaplain at Rome, wrote to him as follows : — " My experience of Cuddesdon teaching was that (among 28 EDWARD KING other blessings it conveyed to me) it taught me to feel the rock upon which our position rests, and two of my Cuddes- don note-books always come with me to Rome, because they furnish me with weapons ready at hand, if I find any Roman invader attacking our camp." One who was a student towards the end of King's time at Cuddesdon, has thus described the life and spirit of the College : — " Cuddesdon life was felt to be the most delightful life which we had ever experienced. Our numbers were not too large for a sense of family affection and closeness of intercourse. There was a tinge of cloistered retirement, of common spiritual interest, which made it possible, without any sense of presumption or sacrilege, to speak of the long- ings and aspirations closest to our hearts, and for those to whom spiritual life was comparatively a new thing to be aided by the longer experience of more proficient friends. Example also was most efiective. It was impossible to see the effect of careful thanksgiving after Communion and of regular meditation in Chapel upon the lives and even the faces of the devout students, and not be drawn to strive after some share in it. But above all there was the influence of the life and instruction of Dr. King. We had never known such sermons, such meditations. It was a new experience to find a good man full of such affectionate interest in our individual spiritual welfare. His lectures on systematic Christian doctrine were a veritable theologie affective, in which the dry bones of dogma were clothed with the sensitive flesh of living, loving devotion, and lit up with the glow of poetic contemplation, under the guid- ance of Dante. We were first awed by the consideration of the responsibilities of the preacher, and later inspired PAROCHIALIA 29 with the longing to put in practice the directions which made it seem possible for us to speak for God to souls. The student-preacher of a written sermon twice a week after Evensong before the College had the right to dine at the Vicarage, and receive a detailed criticism after dinner ; the extempore preacher once a week had a short stroll in the garden, or an interview in the study, after Mattins. Practical hints on the visitation of the sick were enhvened by details of personal experience, and we learnt the possibility of training a devout chronic sufierer to appre- ciate the ancient offices of the Church. Hooker was illus- trated by reference to questions of the day; Butler by application of his principles to what had just happened in the village or the College. The dominant note of all was intelligent sympathy. There was a genuine ring in the ' Dear People ' from the pulpit. . . . We felt it most for ourselves. We were most tenderly, yet most unflinchingly compelled to face our lives before God. Until now we had never understood ourselves. At last the tangle was un- ravelled by one as famihar, it seemed, with its every twist and turn as if he had himself lived it out along with us. Doctrine, sermon, meditation each went home with direct personal application, until it was plain that our only course was to submit our lives and difficulties, our temptations and sins, our hopes and fears, to one who seemed to know them all without needing to be told, and so benefit by the guidance for the future of one who had shown himself clairvoyant of the past. Qui non ardet, non incendit — we struck out the negatives as we looked up to him, but we found them for ourselves. Mundamini, qui fertis vasa Domini — we dared not stretch out our hands for consecra- tion, uncleansed with the purification of the Sanctuary. 30 EDWARD KING The result was that men felt that they ' owed their souls ' to him." A characteristic sample of King's teaching to his students, on a plane of thought lower than the highest, is supplied by the Eev. Canon Wood, sometime Warden of Radley : — " The main point of a lecture which I remember was to urge men to be natural. ' There is a great tendency to imitate what we admire and oratory which seems to be efEective ; and in this Diocese' (every one knew to whom he was alluding) * ' a great example of eloquence comes before us. Do not, let me entreat you, imitate the outcome of gifts which you do not yourselves possess. In manner, expression, tone — even, I think, sometimes in handwriting, I often recog- nize a well-known type. Others may take a difEerent one, but, whatever it may be, do not copy peculiarities. Each of us has his own gifts, one in one way, another in another. Improve these to the utmost, but let there be nothing artificial. Do not work yourself up to anything unnatural. Avoid what I call " tail-lashing." Your words will go much further and be more impressive to your hearers, if they seem to them to be what they ought to be, the quiet utter- ance of conviction.' " But King's work at Cuddesdon was not exclusively confined to the students of the College. As Vicar of the parish, he regularly ministered and preached in the Parish Church, and was brought into that close contact, which he always loved, with the hearts and homes and lives of the poor. Thirty years after, he wrote to a former student : " Oh, those Cuddesdon days were very wonderful ! I look back to them with unfailing gratitude, though I fear I have * Of course, Bishop Wilberforoe. PRESENTIMENTS 31 fallen below the high aim and hopes we had then. It is hard, sometimes, when people go wrong ; but, thank God, I believe in the People, and love them down to the ground. I am never happier than when I go to the little country parishes, and talk to the dear things." A former curate of Cuddesdon writes : — " Once an epidemic of smallpox broke out in the village. The Principal was away on his holiday, but came back at once. There was one particularly bad case of a man who lived in a cottage at the end of the road. He died, and none of the neighbours would venture to help the poor widow, as they were so terrified at the disease. The Principal (I need hardly say) was with her constantly, and with his own hands helped her to perform the last offices. The frmeral was a weird sight. At midnight. Men with torches. The service in the Churchyard, as it was not considered safe to take the coffin into the Church. " Some years afterwards I was told that in one of his Lectures or Addresses King was speaking about the danger of thinking too much of presentiments. And he gave as an example a presentiment he had had very strongly for a long time, that he should die in a particular year. That year, he said, smallpox broke out in his parish and, when he heard of it, he said to himself, ' That is to be the way of my death.' I little knew at the time what was under- neath that act — sufficiently courageous in itself. " He used to think he did nothing in the Parish, as his time was so taken up by the Theological College. And I believe in his answer to the Visitation- question of the Bishop, ' What do you find your chief hindrance in parish work ? ' he used to write as the answer, ' The Theological 32 EDWARD KING College.' But, of course, he was quite mistaken. He knew all his people, and he knew all about them, and his influence was great. ... He always gave up Friday night to seeing any people from the parish who might wish to come to him. Then he was to be found in his study, and his study-door was, as you know, close to a door which led into the garden, and was then to be found open. One night, I remember, he said that when he went to lock up this door before going to bed, he found a man who had been lingering about for three hours wishing to come and see him, but not having the courage to do so. He gave it as an instance of the ' shyness of souls,' and how gentle and accessible we ought to be. One day he told of a man whom he was trying to get to Confession, who said, ' Why, Sir, if I did such a thing I could never bear the sight of you again.' He made his confession, however, in the end, and was most devout. f The Principal was very much pleased because all the farmers in the parish were comLmunicants, and at the Harvest Festival would all send corn from their several farms, out of which the ' Eucharistic Loaf ' was made. " His Cuddesdon sermons were wonderful. It was a strange mixture, the congregation. In the Chancel some twenty 'Varsity men. Just in front of the pulpit the Palace party, with their visitors (I remember Lord Coleridge * and Miss Charlotte Yonge, amongst others). Then the farmers, and beyond them the villagers also. The Principal would get up and preach a sermon which would rivet the attention of every single person in the Church. So simple that the most ignorant and imeducated could not fail to understand it, yet such deep thoughts * Brother-in-law to Bishop Maokamess. PREACHING 33 that the most learned and far advanced would find food for their minds and souls." Another says : " The Principal used to insist on the duty of a preacher to look at the congregation, saying, ' I always do, and the dear things think my eye is upon them, and have no idea that I can't see one of them.' Not seldom when he read a Lesson, he would help the people to under- stand it, by one or two sentences calling attention to its most important idea, or explaining some difficultyin the language." " In his advice on preaching he used to say it was good to begin with an allusion to something that was in people's minds — ' to jump on the winning horse.' I remember two instances — one at All Saints', Clifton, when he was preach- ing one of the Octave Sermons, on Guy Fawkes Day. We had gone to church through squibs and crackers, and such things. He began his sermon by saying, ' My subject to-night is the Discipline of the Church. But let us think first of all whether Discipline is a good thing in itself, or whether it is one of those things we should like to hhw wp.' The other was at Brighton. ... It was Advent. He preached a most beautiful sermon on the Sheep and the Goats. He began by saying how at the last there would be the Great Separation. ' Now, I remember reading how a great many years ago there was a storm at Brighton, and the Chain Pier was damaged. The centre part got broken by the waves, and the people who were on the end had to be got back by ropes or some such way. But at the Last Day there will be no getting back again. On whichever side you are you will have to stay for ever.' " Among the students of Cuddesdon for whom King had a D 34 EDWARD KING specially warm regard was Stephen Gladstone, afterwards Kector of Hawarden ; and this fact, coupled with the cir- cumstance that Gladstone's father had become Prime Minister in 1868, led people to gossip about the chances of preferment for the Principal. To a friend who had reported some such speculations King wrote on January 28, 1872 : — "Thanks for your kind letter. I have not heard a word of any sort about the Deaneries from any one. " As long as I am not hurting the work, no place would be like Cuddesdon to me, but of course one feels how very much more anybody else would do with such opportunities. " I only wonder I have not been removed before. I don't mean to a deanery, but simply out of the way. " P.S.— Eejoice with me! This is my 284th letter! Hope for the Eeprobate ! " The postscript refers to a real, or supposed, incapacity to answer letters ; and of this we shall hear again. But meanwhile the purveyors of ecclesiastical gossip were nearer the mark than is usually the case. CHAPTER III. THE PASTORAL PROFESSORSHIP. " He went forth to the spring of the waters." If there is a sense in which Oxford is this to England, certainly there is a sense in which Oxford life is this to you. What is it that gives its real dignity, its real interest, its real pathos, to a scene like this ? Is it not the knowledge that we " stand here by the well " of a thousand lives — that here, and not else- where, is the bounding -up of that spring, of which the stream is to be the life of Time, and the ocean the life of Eternity ? C. J. Vattghan. The Eev. Charles Atmore Ogilvie, first occupant of the Chair of Pastoral Theology at Oxford (which had been created by Sir Robert Peel in 1842), died on February 17, 1873. On the 23rd of the same month the Principal of Cuddesdon received the following letter : — " February 22, 1873. " My dear Sir, " I have to propose to you that you should consent to assume the Chair of Pastoral Theology in Oxford, vacant by the demise of Dr. Ogilvie. " Allow me to assure you, though perhaps it is needless, that in submitting your name to her Majesty, with whose sanction I now write, I have been moved by no other consideration than that of what I believe to be your gifts and merits, and the promise they afford of a tranquil, but 35 36 EDWARD KING powerful and deep, religious influence on young men within the precincts of the University. " I remain, my dear Sir, with much regard, " Faithfully yours, "W. E. Gladstone." " Eev. the Principal of Cuddesdon College." The Prime Minister's letter was soon followed by another, in some respects even more gratifying, from King's old chief, Samuel Wilberforce, now Bishop of Winchester. "February 23, 1873. " My dearest King, " Gladstone allows me to write to you on the offer which is going by this post to you. No one perhaps can so thoroughly as I can feel the responsibility of advising you at this crisis, because no one perhaps knows so well what has been the priceless worth of your work at Cuddesdon. But I am most anxious that you should accept this ofEer. " Gladstone has had pressed upon him very strongly and very influentially a different appointment, the effect of which would be to throw the whole weight of that Chair into the strengthening of the hands of the neologian party. What he could do if you refuse I cannot dare think ! " But I very earnestly hope that you will not hesitate. I know that it must be a great wrench to you to leave Cud- desdon ; and I know that your extreme modesty will make you think that you are not fitted to fill with full effect this great Chair. But on that point others are really better able to judge than you are, and I have not a shadow of doubt that, in that wider sphere which Oxford will open to you, THE PROFESSORSHIP 37 the good you have been able to do from Cuddesdon will be multiplied many-fold to the Church. I cannot doubt, too, that you would not long have borne the exceeding strain of the Cuddesdon Principalship, and therefore for every reason I see in this the Hand of God. May you take the office and may He bless you in it. " I am, " Your ever afEectionate, « S. WlNTON." One can guess the sort of terms in which King would have accepted Mr. Gladstone's offer ; and it is not unhkely that he may have referred to the fact that he was not to be numbered among the Prime Minister's political supporters. Something of the sort seems to be shadowed in Mr. Glad- stone's reply : — " February 25, 1873. " My dear Sir, " I am very sensible of your honourable frankness ; but I receive the announcement of your acceptance with pleasure, and your appointment will now at once go forward. " Believe me, " Very faithfully yours, "W. E. Gladstone." One who was then curate of Cuddesdon writes : — " I remember St. Matthias' Day, 1873, well. It was very cold and the ground covered with snow. We were all in a great state of mind, hearing that some very important letter had come that morning, and the Principal had gone into Oxford. Nothing was known till the evening, when at 38 EDWARD KING Compline in the College Chapel he said that the last Sunday he had been preaching about the Crown of Thorns, and now he was called upon to wear it — that he was called to leave Cuddesdon and go to Oxford." It was, says another, " a never-to-be-forgotten scene in the old chapel after Compline, when Dr. King briefly stated that he had felt it his duty to accept the offer of a University Professorship. Strong men, well-known athletes, might be seen sobbing like children. To them the Principal made Cuddesdon. Who, if he left it, could do such work ? To think of the College without him, and with another in his place, seemed almost sacrilege." One who heard King's farewell sermon in the Parish Church of Cuddesdon writes : " It was characteristic. The general impression left was that he had been an entire failure as a parish priest ; he said he had that day looked over the Eegister of Burials since he had been Vicar, and felt he was responsible for each soul, and how little he had done for them. But there were two things which cheered him : one was that he had led some of them to know and practise Confession, and the other that he had taught them Fasting Communion." As soon as the Pastoral Chair became vacant, a rumour went abroad that the Principal of Cuddesdon might be called to fill it. Archbishop Tait, anxious as ever to check the Catholic movement, addressed to Mr. Gladstone two letters of remonstrance against this suggested appoint- ment, displaying the most ludicrous misapprehension of King's aims and methods. Twenty-two years later, Arch- bishop Benson noted in his diary : — " It is strange that a great many years ago, when I was Master of WeUington, I remember Dean Wellesley's showing MISGIVINGS 39 me some most strong letters to the Queen and Ministers against King's being made Professor at Oxford — on the ground of intellectual inadequacy. The Dean gave me plenty of indication of the untruth of the allegation. I recommended him to persevere with the recommendation of King. The attacking party were not likely to be so strong against what was purely to their advantage, and they must have had their own reasons for expecting this influence for the Church and Christianity to be great. And so it has proved." " A High Churchman of the Old School " * in a violent attack upon the Eitualistic party, entitled " Quousque ? How far ? How Long ? " thus expressed his melancholy misgivings : "It is impossible not to feel the greatest distrust of the newly-appointed Pastoral Professor at Oxford. A man of no University distinction, his only recommendation seems to have been the success which he has had at Cuddesdon, mainly by his personal influence, in training priestlings, under the auspices of two Bishops of Oxford. At the Leeds Congress he is reported in the Times of October 12, 1872, as exhorting his hearers not to shrink from the discipline which the Church ofiered them in Confession and Absolution.f What will Pastoral Theology become in his hands ? " Ah ! what, indeed ? But others felt more cheerfully. The Eev. J. W. Burgon, afterwards Dean of Chichester, wrote from Oriel : " I had no idea till I reached Oxford yesterday evening, what good fortune had befallen us. I am really more glad than I can tell you of your appoint- ment." The Eev. E. C. WooUcombe wrote from Balliol : * The Rev. W. E. Jelf. t King signed Dr. Pusey's Declaration on Confession, December, 1873. See Puaey's Life, Vol. IV. 40 EDWARD KING " You, with only a very few others, have been labouring long and well in this field already ; you will, I am sure, gladly afresh devote yourself to what has been, I suppose, the work of your life ; and to those of us who desire above all things that the work of the Church of England may be strengthened, it is a matter of deepest thankfulness that in the midst of the trials of our time your labours should be transferred to Oxford." King was installed as Canon of Christ Church on April 24, 1873, but he did not vacate the Principalship of Cuddesdon till after the Annual Festival of the College.* That festival is always held on the Tuesday after Trinity, and Tuesday, June 10,1873, was naturally a day of unbounded enthusiasm. Liddon was the preacher. In his sermon on " The Moral Groundwork of Clerical Training," | he spoke as follows: — " To-day is an anniversary, in some respects of more than ordinary interest. It is a day of many congratula- tions, natural and legitimate. Never before the present year has this College, in the person of any of its working officers, received such emphatic recognition from high * On Bang's retirement from the Principalship, a Testimonial Fund was raised by Cuddesdon men, past and present. Part of it was bestowed on the beautiful portrait, which was painted by George Richmond, R.A., presented to Mrs. King, and, after her death, given by Eling to the CoUege ; part on furnishing his study in Christ Church, and supplying it with fine copies of SS. Chrysostom, Athanasius, Ambrose, Leo the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory the Great, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyprian, Basil, Bernard, Jerome ; of TertuUian, Alcuin, Bede, Petavius, Martene, Goar, Morinus, Suicer, Tromm, Lightfoot, and Ugolino's Thesaurus in 34 FoUo Volumes. In the first volume of each work is the following inscription, printed upon red leather in gold letters : — " Edvardo King, CoUegii Cuddesdoniensis decern annos Prsesidi, pise in Christo cura3, laboris, et exempli memores, discipuli et amici ducenti dono dedere, Anno Salutis M.D.CCC.LXXni." t Sermon II. in "Clerical Life and Work." QUOUSQUE? 41 quarters of the services which it has been permitted to render to the Church. That recognition, many of you will feel, however grateful in itself, is purchased at a very heavy cost ; and therefore to-day is a day, perhaps, of some great regrets and even of some inevitable misgivings." At the luncheon, in responding to the toast of his health, the outgoing Principal affirmed that the Guardian Angel of the College must have kept the accounts during his last ten years, since any such achievement was quite beyond his powers. Reference has just been made to Quousque ? and that egregious pamphlet furnished Dr. Liddon, who spoke at the luncheon, with the material for one of his most charac- teristic speeches. He pictured King riding into Oxford on his cob to take up his new duties at Christ Church, and find- ing himself stopped by an old gentleman, with not much to do, on Magdalen Bridge, who is saying, " Quousque, Mr. Professor of Pastoral Theology ? How far 1 How long 1 " Then he gave King's imagined answer in a series of retorts which flew like pistol-shots round the tent, each beginning, " I am not going to stop until ..." The climax was reached when he said, " I am not going to stop until I have convinced the young men of Oxford that the Church of England is something more than the shell of an establish- ment." The degrees of B.D. and D.D. were conferred on King by Decree of Convocation on June 14, 1873 ; and he had scarcely established himself in his new home in Christ- Church when, in common with the whole Church of England, he was horror-stricken by the news of the fatal accident which, on July 19, 1873, befell his old chief. Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. Between the Bishop and the Principal of Cuddesdon there had been the closest and most affectionate 43 EDWARD KING sympathy. When the Bishop was qviitting the diocese of Oxford for that of Winchester, he wrote in his diary: " October 2, 1869. To Liverpool by rail. Mackarness joined me. Oxford offered to him. He means to carry everything on just as now. I wrote to reassure King."* And in the last year of King's life he wrote to the Bishop's daughter-in-law : " The old Bishop, and all round him, had a large place in my earlier life." On July 21, 1873, he wrote as follows to Ernest Wilberforce, the Bishop's second surviving son, and Domestic Chaplain : — " My dearest Ernest, " I cannot say anything I would. I only must just assure you of the most sincere and affectionate sympathy, and our earnest prayers that you may be enabled to stand this terrible shock. You know how much I owe to your dear, great Father, and how sincere my Love is for him. Keep as quiet as you can. Perhaps none but a sudden departure could have been in harmony with such a Life of intense activity and work ; he worked to the end. Years of weakness might have been very painful to him and made some forget the great lesson of his bravely lived life. " I can't write. I only just want you to be sure that, among many others, my Mother and I offer our most sincere and affectionate sympathy. " I am always your most affectionate, " Edward King. " Don't answer.'! * This promise was abundantly made good, and King's relations with his new diocesan were as friendl Siwith the former. BISHOP WILBERFORCE 43 A few days later he wiote with reference to the Bishop's funeral : — " My dearest Ernest, " Thank you so much for writing. I was so sorry not to be with you, but we were together in spirit. It is indeed, dearest Friend, terrible for all, but for you more than for all. This we all feel — you had given up all to be with him, and you must feel now terribly left. " I am most glad you have been able to undertake work at Leeds. You will have full occupation and the most sincere sympathy. If ever you could come to us, you know how pleased we should be to have you. I cannot say what I owe your dear, great Father. Tho' he was so far above me, I felt I could sincerely love him, and few if any pleasures of my life have been greater than his kindness to me. " But I will not write — only be sure of a constant Prayer and sincere sympathy and love. " God bless you and support you and guide you, Dearest Friend. "lam " Ever your most truly afEec. " Edward King. ;.' My kindest remembrance to your Brothers." One of the deplorable consequences of Bishop Wilber- force's death was that it let loose the persecuting zeal of Archbishop Tait, which the Bishop had consistently en- deavoured to restrain ; and when, in the following February, Mr. Gladstone ceased to be Prime Minister, the 44 EDWARD KING Archbishop thought that the moment had arrived for a final attack on such of the clergy as were labouring to restore the dignity of Eucharistic Worship. So, on April 20, 1874, he introduced his ill-starred Public Worship Eegulation Bill, with a good deal of plausible rhetoric about " young and inexperienced men," " the just rights of Parishioners," and " the substitution of summary process for the present system of protracted litigation." Disraeli; now Prime Minister, at once detected and exposed the pious fraud. " This," he said, " is a Bill to put down Eitualism." But he beUeved that it would be popular, and, with his assistance, it passed into law. Nowadays people, if they recall the Public Worship Eegulation Act at all, recall only the ludicrous failures of its operation, the scandalous imprisoiunents of clergy to which it led, and the triumphant endurance of those who sufiered under it. But, in 1874, it was regarded with serious apprehension. Episcopate, Government, and ParUament were to all appearance of one mind in their determination to crush the Eitualists ; and even brave men's hearts were failing them for fear, and for looking for those things which were coining on the Church. But, through all the storm and stress, King maintained his beautiful equanimity. On August 2, 1874, he wrote : — " The speeches in Parhament and Convocation have been very trying and disappointing. I suppose we shall have to go back about 20 years in outward things if the Ornaments Eubric is given up by Convocation. Evidently the People are not yet won to Chuich Principles. I confess I was longing for rest too soon. We must turn- to again, and teach in the quiet Early Tractarian way. That seems the thing to do. Not to lose heart, or get THE P. W. R. ACT 45 hard with disappointment ; but to get a help in Humility, feehng that Parliament does not like us or want us ; and to set to work again with individuals in the clear and healthy atmosphere of Unpopularity. We have perhaps lost of late years by gaining the masses — I mean lost in purity of intention and unworldhness. If we can only not lose heart or temper, but retain a patient energy and love, I do not fear." And again : — " I don't trouble the least about Parhament. If we keep quietly on in increasing nearness to God, we shall attract and hold the People. The most spiritual and un- worldly Church is the one that will attract and win the People. If we were more evenly and quietly hke People going to another world, and gaining information about It, and able to tell people the dangers and helps to be met with in the Road, that is what People want. The World is very beautiful and wonderful, but it is only the vestibule to the real Temple ; and people know that, more or less, only they are afraid to admit it ; so try and rest here, and then they find it fails them. Old Mr. Gibbs * told me once that he looked upon life like a tour in a foreign country, which was very beautiful, and in which you meet many kind people with whose kindness it would be wrong not to be pleased, but which could never make you think of settling, or forgetting Home and those who are there. I thought it was just right. Some people won't accept the kindness the world offers, and others settle down in it — the other is the way.". During this unquiet summer. King was writing thus * Founder Of Keble College. 46 EDWARD KING tranquilly to a young Student of Christ Church,* who was engaged in liturgical research : — " A final edition of the Liturgies may be beyond us. » . j But, supposing no final edition is reached, yet great good may be done. Take Dr. Neale, how much he has done ! He says in his preface to the Tetralogion that hardly any clergy possessed the Greek Liturgies. They were very rare, and very expensive ; but now, through Neale's work, very many of us have gained some idea of what the services were. If we can get out one, or more. Liturgies, with some notes, cheaply, we may, please God, get the clergy and Laity more and more acquainted with the general features of the great Altar-service, and we shall accustom them to see the antiquity (without fighting for the actual test of the Liturgies for fifty or a hundred years) of the Real Presence, the Sacrifice, and the Commemoration of the Departed. These 3 points are not sufficiently held in England, and we shall do an essential piece of work if we can secure their ground more firmly. It is sad that the Romanists should claim the early Liturgies for Transubstantiation, and cut us out of any share in the matter, like Calvinists, and other Protestants. ... I should think you might compare the translations of the Coptic and other Oriental copies with the Greek, and, collating all important difierences, ask Payne Smith, and Churton, and Malan, and others in England, and then refer their answers to some German, French, and Eastern scholars. " It would be a valuable result of work, if we can gather together all existing information, and popularize it, as you say. It would be worth considering how to get into com- munication with the Archbishops of Syra, Athens, and * The Rev. E. T. Gibbons (1850-1876). A GOOD LENT 47 Chios. We can talk it over when we meet, and we might try to get a Liturgical Conference in England another year ; it would be very valuable, and not impossible ; but we must make ourselves masters of all existing information before we can see just when to push on." On Easter Eve, 1875, he wrote from Christ Church to one of his sisters : — " My dearest Fan, " Just one line, as I know you have been fagging along, and it is pleasant to feel others are in sympathy. I hope you have had a good Lent. I think we have, thank God, had quite a valuable quiet time. We have not done very much, but we have marked the season plainly by keeping quiet, and on Wednesdays and Fridays we have been to St. Mary's. The sermons have not been very well attended, but it was quite good for me to go as a member of a Congregation, a position which I have not been in for 20 years. I quite realized the value of steady services. Last week we had evening service in the Cathedral, and it was very well attended. We got on a little this year by having a Celebration on Maundy Thursday, and we are to have one this Easter Monday and Tuesday, so I hope things are a little more alive. It will be a great pleasure if we can get the Townspeople to look to the Cathedral for Holy Week, and then by degrees they may like it more. We have had very good services yesterday in nearly all the Churches. " Altogether, I hope we are settling down to steady work, that is what we want, I think, in England now. We have learnt our lesson from abroad now, and we must remember 48 EDWARD KING to be grateful to them, but now we must do it. We want to make people respect England. We have looked so much abroad during the last 25 years, but now we are trying to work and produce English books of all kinds, not only Theology, which are up to the mark ; and we are beginning to do the same in Theology. We must work. And the same in personal life, we know the machinery now for Saint- making, and we have got the stuff, only we must work and make them. I want to see English Saints made in the old way by suffering and labour and dihgence in little things, and the exercise of unselfish, untiring love ; quiet lives lived away in holes and corners and not known to the public while alive. I want to begin to write some 2d. Lives of English Saints, with the names of counties and parishes and people we know, so that others may read them and try to do the same. Do let us try and rear a few quiet English Saints ! But forgive all this. You are tired out, I know, with slaving for everybody ; however, that is the way ; by degrees one gets to see things a little clearer, only one needs a lot of discipline. I hope to start fresh to-morrow and try and get within the outer ring of decency before Advent comes. Now, good-bye, mind you come here in May. I want a great deal of nice talk, we must try and do something. With love to Stephen and all Easter joy to you all. "Your ever most affectionate Brother, "Edward King." " The dear Mum is quite well and comfortable." Work was now beginning to thicken about the Pastoral Professor, and not all of it the sort of work which his Chair OVERWORK 49 was founded to promote. On May 12, 1875, Dr. Pusey sent the following letter across " Tom Quad.'! " My deaeest King, " I hear very serious accounts of your work, not in the way of your Professorship, but because people will stick like a leech, if any one goes near the pond where they are. Work breeds very fast. A. wants this, because B. had that, and thus it goes on through I know not how many alphabets. We are an ill-manned garrison ; and so every one who will work is made to work twice as much as he ought. I did it, years ago ; and so broke down again and again. During Term-time, I am sure that you should do nothing except your Professor's work, and hear a certain number of confessions. I was shocked to find that a maid of mine went to you. Any one could hear her little simple confession. Your time and mind ought to be kept for more difficult cases. " It is only three weeks, I hear, since you were beaten down by influenza. People have noticed how ill you have been looking, and how changed you seemed during the past year. ... I hear that the cause of your weakness is the ceaseless flow of individual applications which you allow to stream in upon you — during the time of rest or exercise which you really need. I know, too, what it is to have anxious cases. . . . ' One hour's harass,' I said to a physician once, ' is worse than 10 hours' work.' Then your sympathizing nature makes you feel things so much, that it becomes a strain upon powers, which, economized, are of such value to the good cause here. " You only can tell what you can do, but you must learn to say ' I can't,' when you doubt. You must not let the E 50 EDWARD KING work hinder sleep, or the exercise which you need, or make you go on, when you feel a doubt whether you can work. Minds are not in such a desperate hurry. Anyhow, the self-denial of a little delay will do them good. ," Now, don't let this worry you, because then I should be doing the very thing which I wish not to be done, " Your very afEectionate, ." E. B. P." Partly with a view to obtaining the rest which he so sorely needed, and partly with a view to improving his German, King spent part of the Long Vacation in Germany. On July 14, 1875, he wrote from Dresden to his sister — " It is very funny how we are all scattered about. I am here in a lodging with a German family. I have only just come in to-day, so I cannot tell what they will be, but they seem nice. The father and mother can't speak a word of English, and the one daughter only a very few, so I am very fortunate, as we must blunder on in German. It is rather dull at times being alone, but that is necessary to learn. The Hotels are so full of English that one does not get a chance. There is a very nice Church here I believe, and a very good man from Cambridge is taking the Duty, Dr. Hicks.* They have daily Morning Service and Weekly Communion, which will help one on. I had a very interesting week at Leipzig, and saw most of the chief Theological Professors, Delitzsch, Ludthart, and Thorluck at Halle, about 20 miles off. They are very simple, and work very hard at their books ; but not very much * Afterwards Bishop of Bloemfontein. GERMANY 51 more, I think. I think in England we have a wider-reach- ing, and better-balanced, work than the Germans have ; they have confined themselves almost to the cultivation of the intellect. I don't think it will hold the whole man ; he needs cultivation of Heart, Feelings, Afiections, etc. as well. I spend the day struggling at German in different ways, and refresh myself with Dr. Kay's ' Isaiah,' which is wonderfully full of the mind and spirit of Scripture ; it is quite a pleasure to find his proofs and quotations almost always from some Book of the Bible instead of from some German writer. I have got a nice room with a bed in one corner. I am to have breakfast and supper with the family, and go in and out when I like to talk ; I suppose we shall mostly spend the evening together. I wish you were here to spend it with me too ; then it would be great fim, but we must each do our bit. I hope we shall meet again before long ; do you think you can manage August 21 ? * If not, we can keep a distant sort of octave ! Such a great Festival may well spread over some weeks. " 10.10 P.M. Since I wrote thus far, I have done my first evening ! It was very pleasant. I went in to tea at 7.15, and found only Mrs. and Miss, so down we sat and blundered on. They are capital for me, as they can't speak any English. Every now and then we came to a hopeless stop, and no amount of signs or explanations could get us out ; so we had to leave that and start afresh. I proposed reading out loud in turns, which they seemed to like, so the two ladies and I read aloud one of Andersen's German tales ; it did very well, and about 9 I left them. One certainly learns much more than in an Hotel, as one must keep on saying something. You would laugh at my * The birthday of the Bishop's mother. 52 EDWARD KING audacious efiorts. The old father is a pious old Lutheran, nearly blind; the ladies are also Lutheran, but more cheerful. Now I must go to bed. God bless you, dearest Fanny, and give you strength for all you have to do. " I have had very good letters from the dear Mum, she seems quite comfortable and well." The Public Worship Eegulation Act, passed in 1874, came into operation in the following year. On Sep- tember 5, 1875, King wrote thus to a young missionary in Zanzibar : — " At home things are peaceful ; no prosecutions have taken place since July ! The good clergy at St. Alban's have made rather a confusion, but it is difficult to say what they could have done.* I hope the Bishops will generally take the line of leaving people alone where they feel confidence in the loyalty of the clergyman, and where he has the consent of his people. So with Prudence and Patience, I hope we shall get over the difficulty, and the good will be a certain sifting of the Kitualistic movement which is needed. " At Cuddesdon all flourishes beautifully. I went over to see the new buildings a week or two ago, and thought them a great improvement. I was quite satisfied that it was right that I had left. I never should have made the changes ; but they are a clear gain, and put the college on a stronger and better basis, so that is quite comfortable, and one can think of it with gratitude and hope that all is so good." • The Rev. A. H. Mackonochie, Incumbent of St. Alban's Holbom, had been suspended for alleged irregularities in ritual, and during his suspension the congregation had been advised to worship at St. Vedasts', Foster Lane. MATERIALISM 53 [King is here referring to a considerable enlargement of the College, and especially to the erection of a new and more appropriate chapel, which had been carried out as a Memorial to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, Founder of the College. The new buildings were opened, and the chapel was dedicated on May 25, 1875.] " You have heard, I daresay, that Copleston, a Fellow of St. John's, Oxford, is going in December as Bishop to Ceylon ; he is quite young, and very clever, and good, and I hope, please God, he may do a great work with the Buddhists and the more philosophical side of Indian mis- belief ; and the Warden of Keble, Holland, Wordsworth, and one or two more are going to start a house * in Oxford for training clergy, partly for England and partly for missionary work. I hope it may be successful. You must write and tell me some hints. " I have been in Dresden this Long Vacation, working at German. It is very interesting seeing the wonderful up- growth and power of the German nation, but the unbelief is very sad ; only 3 per cent., they say, go to any sort of church in Berlin, and unbeHef is quite open. They seem to have passed through the stages of Eationalism and Pantheism, and now they have almost ceased to care about the meta- physics which we have been following, and worshipping in them, and they are devoting themselves to physics. That means, I fear, for many, materialism. Luthordt says this plainly, meaning by materialism love of money, or power, or pleasure, this seems to be the leading danger now — that people will try to be respectable, but with- out God; to separate morality from religion, to devote * St. Stephen's House. 54 EDWARD KING themselves to civilization and culture and forget God. The results of physical science are so directly beneficial to society that it pays in the eyes of the world, and yet one ought to know by this time, after the example of Greece and Eome," that culture may exist without morality. " But I must come to an end. Of yourself, dear friend, I quite understand your letters. You must not be surprised that you find your nature little changed by the change of life ; but I do not doubt God has a blessing for you — as the good Bishop of Bombay said, ' God will not let Himself be any man's debtor ; ' only we need discipline, and trust, to show us how bad we are and make us thoroughly humble — humble enough to accept God's gifts without pride. Trial shows us our sinfulness, and so should help us to cling to Divine Grace. I see more and more how perfectly God leads and disciplines each as is best ; even this we do not often see that we need the discipline at first. "Now, goodbye, dearest Randolph. I need not say that your life of self-denial and ready self-devotion helps to keep us up in the presence of luxuries. You are doing in England more than you can see, and how much more in Africa He only knows ! " My good mother sends you her love. Mine I need not send, for you have it always. " God bless you and protect and support and comfort you, and give you grace to see the reality of your work." A word must now be said about King's professorial method. In his hands Pastoral Theology, which had meant a dry system of perfunctory lectures, became a living, moving, and effective power. Of course, his official duties were primarily concerned with the candidates for Holy PASTORAL THEOLOGY 55 Orders ; but his influence extended to a much wider circle. Men who, with no thought of seeking the priesthood, were yet in earnest about religion, found themselves drawn by an irresistible attraction to the private lectures which he gave at his house in Christ Church. Those lectures dealt, not with disputed points of doctrine, but with the deepest (and often the most secret) facts of moral and spiritual experience. His power of sympathy amounted to genius, and gave him an almost supernatural insight into human hearts. He combined the keenest spirituality with a sanctified common-sense which good people sometimes lack. He spoke to us of our past lives, of oux future prospects, of our present temptations, of oiur besetting sins, with an intimate penetration engendered by long experience in personal contact with souls. He told us truths about ourselves which were part of our con- sciousness, but which we believed to have been hidden from all except ourselves. It was the same when he preached before the University. There was no rhetoric, no striving after effect, no parade of learning, no attempt to be startling, or novel, or paradoxical. There was the face, deeply furrowed but still of almost faultless beauty ; the hair, sprinkled with grey, but thick and curly to the last ; the head prematurely bowed ; the searching gaze, the exquisitely modulated voice which " made you squirm," as one imdergraduate said ; " which felt like cold water down your back," as another put it. There was the clear statement of theological truth, so gently worded that even the most fiercely-controverted questions were touched without offence or jar. There were plain lessons of moral duty, from which one might shrink, but which one could not gainsay. And every now and then there was some 56 EDWARD KING keen phrase about our experience, past or present, which, once heard, was never forgotten — " Some of us look back to-night to old school-friendships when Satan was trans- formed into an angel of hght.". The words linger in memory. One who is now an Incumbent in London writes — " I once heard him preach the University Sermon at St. Mary's. It consisted mainly of a long and learned list of authorities for the doctrine of Absolution. But, at the end, his eyes went up from his manuscript. He stood erect, and spoke straight from his heart, like one inspired with passionate love for the good of souls. We kindled as we heard those glowing words, and they seemed to have been all too short in proportion to the rest, when the preacher ended his discourse, and we walked in serious mood away." Of what Dr. King was in the Ministry of Eeconciliation it is not becoming to speak at large ; but this much may be said — his sympathy with the tempted and his love of souls made him an almost too lenient judge. Thankfulness for what had been avoided, rather than horror at what had been done, was the note of all that he said. In matters of Direction, too, his tendency was the reverse of ascetic. " In the world, but not of it " : " Using, as not abusing." These texts seem to sum up his teaching. Two illustrations may be given. To a young man, going into all the gaieties of the London season, he said that the sight of the gowns, the jewels, and the beautiful rooms might be turned to advantage as lifting the heart towards the Source of all Beauty ; and, at a Retreat in 1879, he said, in the hearing of the present writer, that the " illsthetic " mode of furnish- ing and decoration, then coming into vogue, was valuable as PREPARATION FOR ORDERS 57 a reversion to the true idea of Beauty, too long obscured by conventional ugliness. The Eev. J. A. Robertson, M.A., M.B., writes as follows : — " While at Oxford as an undergraduate (1874-77) I attended three courses of Dr. King's lectures at Christ Church. At the last lecture of his, which I was privileged to attend, at the end of Summer Term, 1877, he gave his students what I then thought, and still think, very sound advice, which ran somewhat as follows — 'Avoid, if possible, rushing straight from the University into Holy Orders. Seek rather to learn as much as you can of human nature, by mixing with men and women, studying their characters, and learning their needs. Travel, if you can ; and, if need be, work at any honourable calling to support yourselves, until you have learned how to reach the hearts of men and women. I consider that a man is yoimg enough at thirty to take Holy Orders.' " At a private interview afterwards, I told Dr. King that I had an opportunity afforded me of remunerative work in a Scottish University City, where I could study medicine, he said ' Seize this opportunity, and take, if possible, the full Medical Course ! I know no course of study so well qualified to give you a knowledge of human character and human needs as the medical curriculum.' 'And what,' said I, ' if I become enamoured of Medicine and stick to it 1 ' ' Never mind,' was the answer, ' you will be able to do just as good a work for God as a doctor, as you ever can as a priest.' I became enamoured of Medicine, and worked as a doctor for nearly a quarter of a century. Now I am a priest-doctor, organizing the Medical Missions of the ' S.P.G.' '! 58 EDWARD KING At Dr. King's professorial residence in Christ Church his undergraduate friends found a bright and constant hospi- tality. His house was kept by his truly venerable and beautiful mother, who, as became her age, was a lady of the old school, and made it a boast that she never departed from the scale of wages which prevailed in the earlier days of her married life. The truth was that, when she offered a new cook £20 a year, Dr. King used secretly to add the promise of another £20, saying : "But don't tell Mrs. King, for she likes to think that things are still as they were when she was young." It is impossible to imagine a more charac- teristic trait. If King was a delightful host, he was not less a welcome guest ; and he was often to be met at Mrs. Liddell's evening parties at the Deanery, and at the small and friendly dinners in which Oxford abounded. But he was easily tired ; he began his day early, and came home sleepy. The present writer well remembers a suggestive hint : " If I am going to dine out, I always say my evening prayers when I dress for dinner.". On April 29, 1876, King wrote to his young friend in Zanzibar — " Dearest child, you are just the same impulsive, brave creature. How I should like to hear you floundering in Swahili parentheses ! I thought of you so much last week when the Bishop of Derry was staying with us, and he spoke of some Irishman who made long, entangled speeches, and he said he thought he was ' born in a parenthesis, and had never got out of it ! ' You see I am as unkind as ever ! The last great event here has been the opening of Keble Chapel. It is very splendid, not quite what we BETHEL 59 are used to, there being a great deal of colour and mosaics ; but it is altogether magnificent, and cost about £50,000. The Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishops of Ely, Oxford, Salisbury, Kochester were there. Dear old Dr. Pusey preached, but we could nor hear a word, and Liddon in the evening, but we heard very little of that. I fear it is a bad place for sound. We had some valuable speeches. The Archbishop did his best to be kind. Poor Lord Lyttelton's death caused a gloom in some ways, but it was altogether a most successful day.* * * * * * " Term is just beginning. We get along very nicely, I am thankful to say. Last Term I started a little ' Bethel ' in my garden ; it was a wash-house, and we cleaned it out and put cocoa-nut matting and chairs and a Harmonium — very simple, but very lovely. We had a sort of Meditation every Friday evening at 8 p.m. We did the Seven Deadly Sins just like Cuddesdon. I enjoyed it immensely. We are having them again this Term, only at 9 o'clock, because of the boats ! Poor things, they were so good ; the place was crammed. « * « * * " May 6th. — This letter must go now. We have had a week of Term, and I have begun again in the Bethel. We are doing the Lord's Prayer. It is a great pleasure to me." " Bethel " soon became perhaps the most important point, as it is the most endearing memory, of King's work in Oxford. One who used to frequent it wrote thus of " Dr. King's Friday evenings " — " We used to pass through the house into the garden behind, and there, guided by * April 25, 1876, 6o EDWARD KING lamps placed near the ground, found our way to a building at the further end (originally, I believe, a brew-house or wash-house) fitted up as a simple oratory. At the further end was a sacred picture, and below, a faldstool and a harmonium. Dr. King came in, in surplice and stole ; a hymn was sung heartily by all, a few prayers said, and then came a simple, earnest address, the whole concluding with another hymn." The writer might have added that Dr. Ottley, who now sits in the Chair of Pastoral Theology, was for several years the organist in " Bethel." He writes : " The old harmonium still remains in situ." King's next letter belongs to a later period, but as it relates to the experience of " Bethel," it may be inserted here — " Thank you very much for your letter. It falls in with my own feelings with regard to last Term. I did not feel to have quite that higher touch with them, which I generally have felt, and I think the attendance was not so good, and one certainly told me that he thought it was beyond him because he had not begun Aristotle. On the other hand, I am most grateful that this should be so, because it is just the result we should desire, viz. that to go from the Bible to Aristotle is to go hack and to go down, and to narrow your hold on, and sympathy with, men. The old taunt, ' Oh ! can't you write a better " Ethics " ? Why as Christians do you keep going back to Aristotle ? ' is answered. We do see the deficiencies in Aristotle. We are not satisfied with him. We can, and do, supply the deficiencies — in Revelation. This is a most valuable experience, and to have seen the dulness come over the Bethel from Aristotle as compared to the light and ARISTOTLE 6i increasing fire and flame from the Gospels, and our Lord's Life, is worth having lived for. " It is just as one would have wished. But I hardly know what to do. I sometimes feel as if it were my work to get this lower moral stage clear for the men, and to try to do it so that they may go into the villages and towns and do the same for the quite Poor. It is a pity they should not give their minds to the scientific study of a good Life, as well as of a sound Body — a pity not to study, and get all the good they can from one who is at least one of the greatest moralists who has ever written. Dante, you know, calls him ' The Master of them that Know.' I had thought of taking the 8th and 9th Books on Friendship, and trying to save some from fatal mistakes and to lead them on to true ' Detachment.' Then I thought this would lead up to the Communion of the Saints, as Aristotle says, Koivwvla jdp 17