doctrine, you are more than ever bent, as a politician, upon the 'social justice' one, and you expect to obtain through the medium of Parliament real advantages to the Church' without asserting the high principle upon which those advantages (so to call them) are due from us as a nation-an expectation which I, for one, do confess I am content to abandon.' You see, therefore, that I am still so unreasonable as to prescribe that miserable,' mad,' and, humanly speaking, utterly hopeless,' course which you no less peremptorily decline. Yes-if it must be so-constant irritation,' 'certain defeat.'1 The 'ruin' of your policy will (it may be) be more distant; but I believe it is no less certain; and when it does come, being, as it appears to me, disgraceful and unblest, it will be irretrievable. But God grant I may be mistaken, and that you, having seen the truth, may have the glorious opportunity to which you are now aspiring to do it! I am, my dear Gladstone, Ever yours most truly, The day after the foregoing letter was written, and before he could have received it, Mr. Gladstone was called away from London, the state of his wife's health requiring his presence at Fasque; and on the journey he pencilled, in the railway-carriage, a long note which, whilst kindly submitting to me certain leading propositions,' made no reference to my difficulties. The consequence was that when the election came I did not vote. It did not seem to me honest to join in voting for a man, as my Representative in Parliament, who, howsoever estimable and howsoever admirable in other respects, would not only not represent me, but would use the power which I had helped to give him in a way which I thought injurious to the best and highest interests of the nation. At the same time, it 1 These expressions, as well as those quoted in the former paragraph, refer to passages in Mr. Gladstone's letter to Mr. Warter, a contemporary of ours at Christ Church, who afterwards became Southey's son-in-law. What effect the letter had upon him I do not know. must be recorded to Mr. Gladstone's honour that, much as he naturally desired to have my vote,-Mrs. Gladstone told me that my declining to support him was his greatest disappointment in the course of the contest-he would give me no pledge, he would make to me no concession whatever, in order to obtain it. He was returned, considerably below Sir R. Inglis, but by a majority of 173 above Mr. Round. CHAPTER IV TRINITY COLLEGE-1847-48 The Two Alexanders '--Expulsions from College-A Painful IncidentThe White-rob'd Choral Band'-Canon McColl-Tidings from an old Servitor SHORTLY after the memorable consecration of the chapel at Fasque I had the privilege of preaching on another and still more interesting occasion-the consecration of two Bishops at St. Andrew's Church, Aberdeen, on October 28, the joint festival of two Apostles, St. Simon and St. Jude. In a letter referring to my sermon Dean Torry wrote: I cannot mention a higher praise of it than that I saw at least one of the heads of our Church, the Bishop of Glasgow (Russell), a man made of no melting stuff, moved to tears. May we all profit by the sound advice it contained!' The two Bishops were Alexander Ewing, for the Diocese of Argyll, and Alexander Penrose Forbes, for the Diocese of Brechin. The great interest of the occasion lay in that not only were they both remarkable men-genuine Scotchmen-and men, I may say, of genius in their different ways: so much so that their names and characters are probably better known and appreciated beyond the limits of our own Church than those of any other of our Bishops consecrated during the present century-but their divergence in theological views and opinions was also, I suppose, wider than that of any other two to be found in the roll of our Reformed Episcopate. I ventured to refer to it many years afterwards—indeed, after the death of both-when speaking at a public banquet, on occasion of the consecration of the present Bishop of Aberdeen, in the same church, on May 1, 1883.1 In my sermon at their consecration, I spoke of the two Alexanders as 'men who afterwards greatly distinguished themselves, though in very different lines and schools of thought, so different that they may be quoted as exemplifying the comprehensive character of our Church.' I have alluded to the same divergence in another form. The reader, I trust, will understand that by the following verses no disrespect was intended to either of my brethren. They are simply a jeu d'esprit depicting an imaginative situation, and suggested by the fact that my diocese lies between those of Argyll and Brechin. For both Alexanders I entertained sincere esteem, and for one the affection of a valued and warmly-cherished friendship. Two Alexanders on one fatal day Rose to the Church's throne, and pastoral sway; War ceaseless waged. Great Sandy, King of Greece! To go back to Glenalmond. When the school reopened after our Midsummer holidays (September 7, 1847), the The request to me to preach came from Mr. Ewing (September 29, 1847), who, as the senior, had the right of appointment. number of boys rose to twenty-six; but with increase of numbers came increase of anxiety. The admission of newcomers was, indeed, the most anxious matter with which I had to deal. If we were to form and sustain a good moral and religious tone among the boys (than which nothing could be more essential), we must prevent the life-blood of our infant society from being poisoned at its source. It may be remembered how strongly Dr. Arnold felt upon this point when he first went to Rugby: how he insisted upon the power to expel or remove boys whose presence, from one cause or another, he considered to be injurious to the character of the school.' It was, of course, not possible for me to take so high a line; but I did the best I could to carry out the principle, and in a letter which I had occasion to write to Dean Torry (Nov. 4, 1847) I find myself expressing my consciousness of the difficulty and of my resolution to cope with it. The fact is, I have come to the conclusion that it will be absolutely necessary to exercise some discretion respecting the admission of boys into this College; and without this I could not undertake to carry on the institution. We began with admission of all sorts, . . and the consequence has been that we have had already a fit of indigestion (as well we might with so much bad matter upon our stomach), which has nearly torn us to pieces. Seriously, it is a merciful Providence which has ridden us of three out of four' strange children,' . . . and left the others untouched. I must add, it is all-important for the success of this institution under present circumstances (i.e., in its infancy) not 'quocunque modo' to increase our numbers, but rather to admit none but such as are likely to bring with them a good healthy moral tone, and whose friends have really the welfare of the place at heart upon the highest grounds. My correspondent was not quite satisfied, and I felt it necessary to reply to his demurrer (Nov. 8, 1847) as follows: 1 See Life by Stanley, Vol. i. pp. 71, 111 sq., 116. |