CHAPTER XXIX.

1873-4.

AGED 54-5.

HARROW-ON-THE-HILL-CANONRY OF WESTMINSTER-HIS SON'S RETURN-HIS MOTHER'S DEATH-PARTING FROM CHESTER-CONGRATULATIONS-SERMON AND LETTERS ON TEMPERANCE-PREACHING IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY— VOYAGE TO AMERICA-EASTERN CITIES AND WESTERN PLAINS-CANADA -NIAGARA-THE PRAIRIE-SALT LAKE CITY-YO SEMITE VALLEY AND BIG TREES-SAN FRANCISCO-ILLNESS-ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND COLORADO SPRINGS-LAST POEM-RETURN HOME-LETTER FROM JOHN G. WHITTIER.

"ONE of the kind wishes expressed for me is a long life. Let anything be asked for me except that. Let us live hard, work hard, go a good pace, get to our journey's end as soon as possible-then let the post-horse get his shoulder out of the collar. .... I have lived long enough to feel, like the old post-horse, very thankful as the end draws near. Long life is the last thing that I desire. It may be that, as one grows older, one acquires more and more the painful consciousness of the difference between what ought to be done and what can be done, and sits down more quietly when one gets the wrong side of fifty, to let others start up to do for us things we cannot do for ourselves. But it is the highest pleasure that a man can have who has (to his own exceeding comfort) turned down the hill at last, to believe that younger spirits will rise up after him, and catch the lamp of Truth, as in the old lamp-bearing race of Greece, out of his hand before it expires, and carry it on to the goal with swifter and more even feet.

"C. K."

(Speech at the Lotus Club, New York, February, 1874.)

CHAPTER XXIX.

SOME months of this year were spent at Harrow, where his youngest son was at school, a change to higher ground having been recommended for some of his family, to secure which the Bishop gave him leave of non-residence: but he went regularly for his Sundays to Eversley, and himself helped to prepare the candidates for the first confirmation that, thanks to the kindness of Bishop Wilberforce, had ever been held in his own parish church. The letters are few this year. He writes to a clergy

man:

HARROW, March 12, 1873.

"I found a letter to-day from you, which deeply touched and comforted me when I received it, but which I know not whether I answered; but I think not. Pray forgive me. It came at a time when I was not only on the move here, but needed comfort from sad circumstances. . . . Your letter, I say, touched me deeply, and all the more, because it came from one who had been a sailor. But your kind words about 'Hypatia' touched me more than those about 'Westward Ho'; for the former book was written with my heart's blood, and was received, as I expected, with curses from many of the very Churchmen whom I was trying to warn and save. Yet I think the book did good. I know that it has not hurt me, save, perhaps, in that ecclesiastical career to which I have never aspired. I am trying to make the Church party with whom are my deepest sympathies, understand that if they would conquer they must be themselves-what their formulæ rightly understood, are already-the most liberal and wide-minded men in Christendom. Whether I succeed or not, is in the hands, thank God, not of my weakness and ignorance, but of Christ who rules His Church, and happily in His own way and not mine."

While at Harrow it was with mingled feelings that he received on Lady Day a letter from the Prime Minister.

"I have to propose to you, with the sanction of her Majesty, that in lieu of your canonry at Chester, you should accept the vacant stall in Westminster Abbey. I am sorry to injure the people of Chester; but I must sincerely hope your voice will be heard within the Abbey, and in your own right."

There was a strong battle in his heart between the grief of giving up Chester and the joy of belonging to the great Abbey a position which included among many advantages the blessing he had long craved for, of laying down his pen as a compulsory source of income, at once and for all, and devoting his remaining writing powers and strength to sermons alone. His feelings are best told in his own letters. The day before he received Mr. Gladstone's letter, he had been writing to a member of his scientific class, his friend and coadjutor, Mr. Shepheard of Bridge Street Row, Chester, on some point connected with his work there, which ends thus. "Give my love-that is the broadest and honestest word-to all the dear Chester folk, men, women, and children, and say that I long for May 1, to be back again among them." But on the 27th he wrote in lower spirits:

"A thousand thanks for the MSS., which have been invaluable to me. The programme of your Society for the year makes me at once proud and envious. For now I have to tell you that I have just accepted the vacant stall at Westminster, and shall, in a week or two, be Canon of Chester no more. Of course, I had to take it for my children's sake. Had I been an old bachelor, I would never have left Chester. Meanwhile I had sooner be Canon of Westminster than either dean or bishop. But I look back longingly to Chester. Shall we ever go up Hope Mountain, or the Halkin together again, with all those dear, courteous, sensible people? My eyes fill with tears when I think of it.

"Give them all my love. I must find some means, by the papers or otherwise, of telling them all at once what I owe to their goodness of heart.

"Ever yours,

C. KINGSLEY.".

His eldest son, to his father's great joy, had just returned from a railway survey in Mexico for a holiday; and his aged mother, now in her 86th year, and so long the inmate of his home, just

Chester Mourning.

407

lived to know of, and rejoice in, her son's appointment, and to see her grandson once more before her death on the 16th of April.

Letters of mourning and congratulation poured in from Chester. Canon Blomfield, the first canon who welcomed him there in 1869, writes:

"Of course one might expect that such an event would occur, and before very long. It was quite clear that you ought to be lifted up to a higher degree in the scale of ecclesiastical preferment, and to find a larger sphere for your powers. But yet, when the time comes to lose you from Chester, it comes as a blow on one's feelings. I don't know how the Chester people will get over it. They will be like the schools of the prophets when Elijah was taken from them. We shall no less miss you in the cathedral, and in the Chapter, and in the matter especially of the King's School. And then whom shall we have to replace you?"

Such words from a man so much his senior, and whom he so deeply respected, are a strong testimony, and as Canon Blomfield generously writes:

"A sincere one, to a man, whom, to know, was to love and to reverence as one who indefatigably employed his great powers in the good of his fellow men and for the glory of God."

"It will be pleasant," says Canon Hildyard, another valued member of the Chapter, also his senior, "among the regrets felt by the Chapter, to remember what we had. I say we, because I think each member of the Chapter will say and think the same of you in all your bearings to us. The whole of Chester mourns."

One of the oldest residents in Chester, a highly cultivated lady who had joined his scientific class two years before, speaks of

"The distress of the old city,' and how terribly she feels her own selfish sorrow. You have brought together people,' she adds, 'in so marvellous a manner, and awakened tastes and sympathies, that I trust will out-live you, though I much fear we are too feeble yet to walk alone. . . . . I almost wished, when the news first came, that we had never known you all.' . . .

"You would have been both glad and sorry," writes one of the members of his Scientific Society to Mrs. Kingsley, "if you had been at the cathedral last night, and could have seen the sorrowful little groups