CHAPTER XXVI 1872. AGED 53. OPENING OF CHESTER CATHEDRAL NAVE-DEATHS OF MR. MAURICE AND NORMAN MCLEOD CATHEDRAL STALLS AND LEARNED LEISURE-BISHOP PATTESON-NOTES ON MODERN HYMNOLOGY -LECTURE AT BIRMINGHAM AND ITS RESULTS-LECTURES AT CHESTER-CORRESPONDENCE ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED-A РОЕМ. "No man can justly blame me for honouring my spiritual mother, the Church of England, in whose womb I was conceived, at whose breast I was nourished, and in whose bosom I hope to die. Bees by the instinct of Nature do love their hives, and birds their nest. But, God is my witness, that, according to my uttermost talent and poor understanding, I have endeavoured to set down the naked truth impartially, without either favour or prejudice, the two capital enemies of right judgment. The one of which, like a false mirror, doth represent things fairer and straighter than they are; the other, like the tongue infected with choler, makes the sweetest meats to taste bitter. My desire hath been to have Truth for my chiefest friend, and no enemy but Error." BISHOP BRAMHALL. THE year began at Eversley with the usual winter's parish work, night-schools, Penny Readings, &c., which were only interrupted for a few days by his going to Chester for the opening of the Cathedral nave. CHESTER: January 24, 1872.]-"Service this afternoon magnificent. Cathedral quite full. Anthem, 'Send out Thy Light.' Collection, £105. Cathedral looks lovely, and I have had a most happy day. Every one glad to see me, and inquiries INCREASING LABOUR, DECREASING STRENGTH. 285 after you all. I do love this place and people, and long to be back here for our spring residence." Mr. Maurice's death and Dr. Norman McLeod's saddened him, and warned him of the consequences of an overworked brain. Of the former he said in writing to a friend, "You too saw that his work was done. I had seen death in his face for almost two years past, and felt that he needed the great rest of another life, and now he has it;" of the latter, "he is an instance of a man who has worn his brain away, and he is gone, as I am surely going." At the great gathering round Mr. Maurice's grave at Highgate, many eyes were fixed on Charles Kingsley, his much-loved disciple. "As I think," said one of those present, "of that warrior face of his, like the countenance of one of those old Vikings, whose glories he loved to sing of, with the light of the western sky shed on it, as he stood, strong as he was, with ill-concealed emotion, by the grave of his beloved master, Frederick Maurice, on Easter Monday, 1872, the man's whole aims, character, and work seemed revealed to one in a moment." Work of all kinds seemed now to redouble; and the mere letters refusing sermons, lectures, church openings, and kind invitations from friends in England and Scotland, who were eager to give him the rest and refreshment which he so sorely needed, gave constant employment to his home secretary. On returning to Chester, he found the Natural Science Society so well established that though he still arranged all the expeditions, he gave fewer lectures; for over-work of brain had brought on a constant lassitude and numbness of the left side, which led him to apprehend coming paralysis, and forced him to confine his work more to preaching and the never-ceasing correspondence. He gave his President's address to the Natural Science Society, then numbering 250 members, on his return from his first sight of the English Lakes, and told them of the feelings which the grave of Wordsworth, that "great poet, great philosopher, great divine," called up in him. After speaking of the grand and sacred physical laws, whether of light, heat, gravitation, &c., "they are," he says, "but the dead body, at least, the dead machinery of the universe; and grander to us and still more sacred is the living soul of the universe, which the microscope and the scalpel can show no man, which the microscope and the scalpel may have tempted him in grim hurry to forget; grander and more sacred than all the machinery of nature is the poetry of nature. "A presence that disturbs us with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense of something He quoted the whole passage from Wordsworth's Ode, expressing his gratitude that his own "soul had been steeped from boyhood in that poetry, had learnt from it how to look at and feel with Nature, and had been preserved by Wordsworth's influence from those shallow cynical and materialist views of the universe, which tempt the eager student of science in his exclusive search after the material and the temporary to neglect the spiritual and eternal. . . . ." ".... Go forth, my dear friends, with microscope, hammer, dredge, and collecting box; find all you can, learn all you can. God speaks to you through physical facts; but do not forget to take with you at times a volume of good poetry-say 'Wordsworth's Excursion,' above all modern poetry. For so you will have a spiritual tonic, a spiritual corrective, which will keep your heart healthy and childlike, to listen to that other and nobler voice of God which speaks through the æsthetical “LEARNED LEISURE” NO LONGER ATTAINABLE. 287 aspects of nature. So, instead of bewailing, like poor Keats, that there was an awful rainbow once in heaven, whose charm was gone now that the laws of refraction had been discovered, you will be ready to say with Wordsworth, however thoroughly you may be acquainted with those laws. And so he toiled on, dreaming of that time of "learned leisure" rather than of "increased activity," for which a Canonry he held should provide; but which did not as yet fall to his lot; and those who watched him most closely and loved him best felt that if rest ever came it would come too late. "Better," however, he said, "to wear out than rust out." He agreed with Dean Goulburn in thinking that the proposed changes in cathedral establishments would involve with increasing work, decreasing scholarship, and writes to him: If, February 28, 1872.]-"I have long seen a desire, on the part of certain bishops, to acquire, under the name of organization, powers hitherto unknown in the Church of England, to be exercised not directly by themselves, but by nominees and servants of their own, archdeacons and rural deans. That this encroachment, if allowed, would destroy the manly freedom which English rectors have long enjoyed . . . . is clear. in addition to this, the bishops . . . remodel the cathedral bodies till they become mere working diocesan machines, then ❝ increased activity' may be obtained; but the Holy Orders of the English Church will have become no fit place for scholars. ... Meanwhile, if you speak further on this matter, let me beg you to warn the rectors, that, when our liberty as canons goes, theirs will soon follow." 6 TO PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER.]-"I have read your gallant words about Bishop Patteson in the Times. I did not know him; but it is at least a comfort to me to read words written in such a tone in this generation. By all means let us have a memorial to him. But where? In a painted window, or a cross here in England? Surely not. But on the very spot where he died. There let the white man, without anger or revenge, put up some simple and grand monolith, if you will; something at least which the dark man cannot make, and which instead of defacing he will rather worship as a memorial to the Melanesian and his children, which they would interpret for themselves. So, indeed, 'he being dead would yet speak.' Think over this." This spring Dr. Monsell requested Mr. Kingsley and other friends to help him with suggestions for a new Hymnary. Being much over-worked, he had only time to make a few brief notes in the book sent for his remarks, from which the following are selected : "36.-O Paradise, O Paradise! "Whence did the author of this hymn learn that 'the world is growing old?' I object much to the use of 'I want to,' instead of 'I long' or desire. "No. 40.-Hark! hark, my soul, angelic songs are swelling. "I object to this hymn, as a direct invocation of angels, and as also 'unreal.' People do not hear the angels singing over fields and seas. "No. 61.-For thee, O dear, dear country, our eyes their vigils keep. "Congregations do not lie awake or weep, thinking of heaven. I dread all exaggerated language. “No. 102 is exaggerated for a whole congregation. "Lord, in Thy mercy's day, Holy Jesus, grant us tears. |