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 UNIVERSITY OF CAI.irORNIA. SAN DIEGO 
 LA JOLLA, CAlirnRMi'^
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MADRAS 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO

 
 LIFE OF 
 
 BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM TEMPLE 
 
 BISHOP OF MANCHESTER 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1921
 
 COPYRIGHT
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The invitation to write the Life of a man whom one pro- 
 foundly honours, and to whom one is bound by ties of the 
 deepest gratitude, is hardly to be refused. I undertook 
 the work as an obligation and a privilege, but without any 
 expectation that I could do justice to the theme. Percival 
 was not a prolific letter-writer, nor was he one who kept 
 a record of events or impressions in a diary. The material 
 has been very scanty. I have tried to avoid mere comment, 
 as far as possible to let Percival speak in his own words 
 where they are available, and to call reliable witnesses for 
 those periods of which I could know nothing at first hand. 
 There was little of subjectivism in Percival, and his bio- 
 graphy should be as objective as it can be made. 
 
 Naturally I have been at all points dependent on others. 
 I hope the obligations are duly noted in the text, but some 
 are so conspicuous as to call for a special reference. First, 
 I must name the members of the Bishop's family — Mrs. 
 Percival, The Rev. Preb. L. J. Percival, and Mrs. Johnson — 
 who have given me every kind of help and support. For 
 the earlier chapters I have received invaluable assistance 
 from Canon J. M. Wilson, Sir Herbert Warren, Bishop 
 Robertson, and Mr. G. F. Bradby. The chapters dealing 
 with the Hereford episcopate I could not have handled at 
 all without the aid of Canon Bannister, who supplied me 
 with a great quantity of documents admirably sorted ;
 
 vi LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 Prebendary W3mne Willson and the Archdeacon of Hereford 
 also gave me help of the utmost value. 
 
 I have further to thank the Rev. F. A. Iremonger for 
 reading the whole work in proof, and Mr. E. M. Oakeley, an 
 old friend of the Bishop, for the laborious work of preparing 
 the index. 
 
 Besides all of these I have to thank my wife for great help 
 in the sorting and copying of documents, and for continuous 
 criticism and suggestion. To her the book owes most of 
 any merit it may possess in arrangement of subject-matter 
 and continuity of narrative. 
 
 W. MANCHESTER. 
 
 September 1 9 2 1 .
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Early Years ....... i 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 
 Clifton . . . . . . .11 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 Trinity College, Oxford . . . . .64 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Rugby .....•• 93 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Early Days at Hereford . . • • .130 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Mainly Diocesan . . • • • -143 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Education Bills . . • • • -177 
 
 vii
 
 viii LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 CHAPTER VHI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Boston Peace Congress, 1904 . . . 200 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A Visit to Egypt and the Soudan . . . 209 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Politics ....... 224 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 National Education . . , . .258 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 Later Years in the Diocese .... 284 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Reunion and the United Communion Service . . 309 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 Appointments ...... 335 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 Last Years ....... 354 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 An Address delivered at the Memorial Service, St. 
 
 James's, Piccadilly, ON December 7, 191 8 . . 373 
 
 INDEX . . . . . . .377
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 John Percival, Bishop of Hereford. From a photograph taken 
 
 in 19 1 6 by H. Walter Barnett . . Frontispiece 
 
 John Percival, 1858. From a Daguerreotype 
 
 Headmaster of Clifton, 1878. From a photograph 
 by M. Guttenberg & Co. 
 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 I I 
 
 The Bishop, and his youngest grandchild Douglas Percival, 
 taken on his Eightieth Birthday. From a photograph 
 by Elliott & Fry, Ltd, . . . . -354 
 
 IX
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EARLY YEARS 
 
 The increasing pace of modem life has done much to rob 
 the world of great personalities. The ease of movement and 
 of communication has made almost impossible the relative 
 isolation in which marked individuality is shaped. We run 
 to and fro, and knowledge is increased. But the men of our 
 generation have httle time to strike deep roots ; they are 
 not thrown upon their own resources ; they do not fully 
 find themselves. The average of moral and intellectual 
 attainment is probably higher than in former times. But 
 the overcoming of obstacles, which were too great for the 
 many to surmount, was strengthening and stimulating to 
 the few who were successful. The nineteenth century was 
 marked by many great and outstanding figures, who made 
 their own careers, to a great extent developed their own 
 minds, formed and expressed their own judgments, firmly 
 went their own way, Uved in a certain detachment from the 
 world about them, and therefore influenced that world as 
 none who more fully shared its life and outlook could ever 
 do. Such a figure was John Percival. One who knew him 
 intimately in old age said of him that in memory he stood 
 out like a sunlit promontory. It is an apt figure.! The 
 recollection of him is of one who stood rooted in his own 
 conviction ; storms and conflicts of opinion and passion 
 might surge round him ; but he still stood firm, and not 
 only firm, but calm, peaceful and bright, because he knew 
 his own mind, and the grounds on which he had made it up, 
 and the God to whom it was utterly devoted, 
 
 I B
 
 2 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 His circumstances in boyhood were such as to encourage 
 to the full the development of individuality. His father was 
 a Westmoreland " statesman," that is to say, a farmer owning 
 his own land, and apparently a typical dalesman. This 
 William Percival lived at Brough Sowerby with his father 
 until his marriage. In 1834 he was married by licence in 
 St. Michael's Church, Brough under Stainmore, to Jane 
 Langmire, daughter of William and Ann Langmire, who was 
 bom in 1809 in the farm-house known as Laitha and was 
 baptized on August 24 of that year. It was at the house 
 of his mother's parents that John Percival was born on 
 September 27, 1834. 
 
 William Percival lived for some years at Winton, and 
 then at Brough Sowerby. He was a man of strong, fearless 
 character, not given to speech, but straight and courageous 
 in all his dealings. He had a vigorous brain as well as a 
 powerfully built body, and read widely. Later on, his son 
 used to send him supplies of books. He was a great wrestler, 
 winning many prizes. Concerning two of these prizes John 
 Percival wrote many years afterwards to his son the Rev. 
 L. J. Percival. 
 
 Thk Palace. Hereford, 
 May 13, 1914. 
 
 Dear Lance — I had a letter from Janie ^ this morning, in 
 which she asked if I thought you would like to take charge, on 
 Jack's behalf, of a silver snuff-box which was won long, long 
 ago by my father in some wrestling match. . . . My father 
 was a famous wrestler in his youth, and when in London won 
 the prize at the Cumberland and Westmoreland wrestling. This 
 was a silver cup. You and I would both feel that it is a draw- 
 back to the cup that, as the inscription on it records, it was won 
 on a Good Friday. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 When John was only three years old his mother died, 
 on July 28, 1838, at the age of twenty-nine. Writing many 
 years later, in 1882, to Mr. Furneaux, afterwards Dean of 
 Winchester, he said : " The only thing I remember at all 
 distinctly of my mother is the look on her face as she lay 
 dead ; and the longer I live, the more I feel how the early 
 
 1 His half-sister.
 
 1 EARLY YEARS 3 
 
 loss impoverished and saddened my life." His father 
 engaged a housekeeper to look after the house, and in 1848 
 married her. On his mother's death, John Percival and his 
 baby sister, Ann, then one year old,^ were sent to live with 
 their uncle and aunt, Richard and Elizabeth Langmire. The 
 little boy first went to school at Winton. Later the uncle 
 and aunt went to Uve at Helson, near Lowther, and he was 
 sent to the school at Hackthorpc. He used to look enviously 
 at the boys who went to Appleby Grammar School, and 
 when he was twelve years old his ambition was satisfied, 
 for he was transferred to that school on the advice of friends 
 who had marked his promise. 
 
 He was an ardent scholar, not at all ready to substitute 
 work in the fields for his school work. One day his uncle 
 said : " You can't go to school to-morrow, John ; there's 
 too much to do afield." He asked what it was that required 
 doing, and, having been told, took care to be up next morn- 
 ing at the first peep of light ; by breakfast time he had 
 done his share of the job, and afterwards went off to school 
 as usual. 
 
 Mr. W. Robinson, who knew Percival in his school days, 
 writes : 
 
 Being also a native of dear old Brough I still retain a vivid 
 recollection of the late Bishop Percival's school-boy days, though 
 he was my senior by a few years. One incident connected with 
 those far-off times, before the opening of the Eden Valley Rail- 
 way, still lives in my memory — seeing him trudging to and 
 from Appleby Grammar School with a blue linen bag of books 
 over his shoulder, in his clogs, in the winter time. 
 
 Sir James Whitehead once remarked in a letter about old 
 times that he, too, remembered John Percival's clogs : "He 
 wore clogs with brass sides when he first came to Appleby 
 School, and he made all the rest of us very jealous of his 
 superior turn-out." Sir James Whitehead became a life- 
 long friend. In 1876 his son, George, went to Clifton to 
 be under Percival, who insisted on receiving him as a guest 
 for his first term, and returned the amount of the boarding 
 
 1 She died on June 17, 1851, aged fourteen.
 
 4 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 fees, paid in advance, with the request that it should be 
 invested for the boy's benefit when he should require it. 
 
 Miss Thomson, the granddaughter of a Mrs. Breeks at 
 whose home the boy was always made welcome, writes : 
 
 My grandmother and her daughters were living at Warcop, 
 which is almost half-way between Brough and Appleby, and 
 when John Percival began going to Appleby Grammar School, 
 old Dr. Jefferson, the vicar of Brough, wrote to my grandmother 
 and asked her to be kind to the boy. I believe he stayed the 
 week with friends in Appleby and went home for the week-end 
 in winter, and in summer rode in daily from Brough.^ It became 
 quite a custom for him to drop in on my grandmother for tea 
 on the way back, and the result was a lifelong friendship with 
 her and my aunts. 
 
 The story of him riding to school at a headlong pace and 
 with infinite clatter up the Appleby streets still lives in those 
 parts. Many years afterwards Dr. Percival was waiting for 
 a train at Rugby, when the old night-stationmaster came 
 up and said that he used every morning, as he swept out 
 his father's shop in Appleby, to see young John Percival 
 ride by at top speed on his way to school ; he was always 
 on a chestnut pony and his own red hair was always flying 
 in the wind. 
 
 In after life Percival always maintained that he owed 
 everything to his Aunt Ehzabeth and, later on, to the 
 splendid teaching of Mr. Richardson, the Headmaster of 
 Appleby. His aunt made him learn some portion of the 
 Bible every day ; that is why he knew most of the Psalms 
 by heart, for he never forgot the passages and psalms which 
 he learnt in those early days. 
 
 At Appleby he came under the influence of the Rev. John 
 Richardson, who was then Headmaster and was giving his 
 boys an excellent education on the lines then usual in 
 grammar schools, that is to say, an excellent grounding in 
 mathematics, and in Latin and Greek grammar and com- 
 position, with few efforts to stimulate flights of speculation 
 or refinement of appreciation. He was also fortunate in 
 
 ^ He was not then living at Brough, but at Helson. A daughter of this 
 Mrs. Breeks mentioned above married George Moore, the philanthropist, 
 with whom Percival became intimate. See pp. 40-43.
 
 I EARLY YEARS 5 
 
 the friendship of the Rev. Henry King, at whose house he 
 was always welcome and through whom he made many 
 friends. 
 
 It was a strenuous childhood, in which the boy was 
 thrown very much on his own resources. The death of his 
 younger sister at the age of fourteen left him without com- 
 panions of his own age at home. The long walk or ride to 
 school gave much time for the growing mind to form habits 
 of independent thought, and created in the young Percival 
 a readiness to think for himself and to be much alone in his 
 opinions. The whole scenery of the region must have had 
 a great influence on him. It is beautiful, but with a curious 
 reserve in its beauty. It is wild without tragedy. The long 
 valleys with bleak sides and notched sky-hnes are in strong 
 contrast with the mingled luxuriance and barrenness of the 
 Lake District with its brilUantly green valleys and sharply 
 individual mountain peaks, or with the long rolling York- 
 shire moors. There is a kind of quiet suavity, which is 
 only broken by hints of sternness in the protruding rock. 
 Percival as Headmaster and Bishop bore some real re- 
 semblance to his native dales. 
 
 In 1879, the year in which he left Clifton for Trinity, 
 T. E. Brown saw him among his own hills and dales, and 
 thus describes the scene in a letter to Mr. J. E. Pearson : 
 
 We were climbing up frcm the town (at Appleby) to the 
 station, when suddenly far above us, on a high bank against 
 the sky-line, was P., a solemn and almost awful figure and face, 
 not melancholy, but stern and hard, far-reach of eye, the pose 
 of memories and back-seeking. His old school lay beneath 
 his feet, his old church, his old river, his old self,^ 
 
 In 1855 he was elected a Taberdar, or open scholar, at 
 Queen's College, Oxford, and immediately went into resi- 
 dence. Few memories of his undergraduate career survive. 
 It was a time of almost uninterrupted labour ; but Lord 
 Bryce and others testify to his reputation as a man of 
 pecuUar strength ahke of character and of intellect. A 
 year after going into residence he obtained a Double First — 
 in Classical and in Mathematical Moderations. He had 
 
 1 Letters of T. E. Brown, vol. i. p. 84.
 
 6 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 already won the Junior Mathematical Scholarship, and some 
 consternation was caused when the first question put to 
 him in a viva voce examination on the rudiments of Latin, 
 Greek, and Mathematics, which all undergraduates had to 
 pass, was, " How do you spell parallelogram ? " He 
 answered correctly, and was asked why he had spelt it 
 wrong all through his Euclid paper. He replied that he 
 had not offered Euclid at all, but Algebra. The examiners 
 had confused his papers with those of another candidate. 
 Two years after his success in Moderations came another 
 Double First — in Greats and in Mathematical Finals. 
 Soon after taking his degree he was elected a Fellow of 
 Queen's College. 
 
 Such is the bare record of the facts ; and it explains why 
 there is little else to record. A career marked by those 
 successes had little room for sport or for the amenities which 
 provide material for anecdote.^ 
 
 He was keenly alive to the spiritual and intellectual 
 influences at work in the world at this time, and to the end 
 of his life he appreciated the privilege of passing his youth 
 in a period so full of promise for the world. Preaching to 
 the undergraduates of Cambridge at Great St. Mary's on 
 February 28, 1909, he said : 
 
 Contrast for a moment the conditions of your own youth 
 here to-day, and mine fifty years ago. When I was a young 
 man, as you are, breathing the atmosphere of undergraduate 
 life as you breathe it to-day, forming habits of thought 
 and purpose under its influence, and looking forward, as you 
 are looking, the time was pregnant with far-reaching changes. 
 Its thought was inspired and dominated by unusually great 
 personalities. Carlyle, Ruskin, Wordsworth, SheUey, Tenny- 
 son, Bentham, MiU ; these were names to conjure with. 
 Browning, Spencer, Darwin, were just rising above the horizon 
 in front of us. It was the birth period of Darwinian evolutionary 
 thought, and of all the new speculation of which that thought 
 is the parent. On the other hand, it was the beginning, or 
 
 ^ He had been very fond of cricket, but while playing on one occasion 
 had hurt his knee so badly that it was thought he would always have a 
 stiff leg. After some years it was cured by Hutton, but he could never 
 play cricket again.
 
 I EARLY YEARS 7 
 
 near it, of the great industrial, commercial, scientific develop- 
 ment, and the vast and greedy geographical expansion which 
 have brought a multitude of changes into our hfe and habits. 
 
 The young Percival noted the movements of the age at 
 once with appreciation and with criticism. He was quite 
 capable of selecting the influences to which he would open 
 his soul. He was zealous to receive all that was best in his 
 environment, but quick also to mark the tendencies which 
 in his judgment should be resisted. 
 
 At this time, however, it seemed as if all hopes were to 
 be disappointed. He had always been delicate ; he was 
 threatened with serious chest trouble. No insurance office 
 would insure his life either at this time or four years later 
 at the time of his marriage. He had attempted the Honours 
 History School, but could only take two of the papers. In 
 them he reached the standard of a First Class, and was 
 awarded an Aegrotat. But his strength was exhausted. 
 The strain indicated by his academic record had been too 
 much for him. One doctor said that he would never do 
 another day's work. It was Mr. Symonds, whose daughter 
 was to be his second wife, who sent him abroad. He went 
 to his old friends, Mr. and Mrs. King, who were then at Pau ; 
 and Mrs. King arranged for him to stay in rooms immediately 
 below those occupied at the time by an English family. This 
 event had an important sequel, for one of the ladies of that 
 English family became his wife a few years later. 
 
 It was in the winter of 1858-59 that he went to Pau. 
 In i860 he was back in England. In that year he was 
 ordained deacon, and accepted Dr. Temple's invitation to 
 join the staff at Rugby. 
 
 The first suggestion that he should go to Rugby was 
 made in the following letter from Mr. Jex Blake, afterwards 
 his predecessor in the Rugby Headmastership, and later 
 Dean of Wells : 
 
 Rugby, 
 August 23, i860. 
 
 My dear Percival — Temple has offered a Classical Master- 
 ship to a man now abroad, and does not hear from him. If he 
 does not hear from him in three or four days at most, he must
 
 8 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 find a substitute till October term begins at Oxford. If it is 
 offered you (£90 or £100 with it) will you take it and come at 
 once ? How soon ? 
 
 I am not told to offer it ; but to ask, will jyoM take it if offered ? 
 Pray say, Yes. If you come here for seven weeks or so. Temple 
 will like you ; and when a Mathematical vacancy occurs, he 
 would (in my opinion) offer it you. You would like this place 
 much ; and by coming temporarily would see how you would 
 like it permanently. 
 
 The temporary work now is Classical, in the Lower School ; 
 not hard, and not long hours. Pray consent (if the offer comes) 
 to extricate yourself from work for the time ; or to sacrifice 
 a little tour, or money. I think it improbable that the man 
 now abroad can answer in time. 
 
 Write at once. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 T. W. Jex Blake. 
 
 Percival consulted the Provost of Queen's before replying. 
 The Provost at this date was the redoubtable Thomson, 
 afterwards Archbishop of York ; his advice was : "I quite 
 agree with Blake that you should take what would be a very 
 nice thing and cannot fail to do you good." So he went to 
 Rugby, and became a member of the permanent staff. 
 
 Of his short first period at Rugby few tales survive. But 
 it is recorded that he brought upon himself a rebuke from 
 Patey, the School Marshal, with whom he lodged, by giving 
 boys beer for breakfast when he invited them to take that 
 meal with him. 
 
 It was not his first experience of teaching, for Mr. 
 Richardson had made him an " usher " at Appleby before he 
 went up to Oxford. But the contrast between that teaching 
 work and this must have been immense. He found himself 
 the member of a brilhant society ; the Rugby staff then was 
 a wonderful one. It had indeed lost two of its brightest 
 luminaries. Benson had lately left to launch Wellington on 
 its career ; and Bradley to become the second founder of 
 Marlborough. But those who remained were a most re- 
 markable group of men. Notably, Tom Evans was delight- 
 ing " the Twenty " — its scholars by his exquisite learning, 
 its idlers by his indifference to indolence. J. M. Wilson was 
 introducing Natural Science for the first time into a Public
 
 I EARLY YEARS 9 
 
 School curriculum, and even experimenting with Mill's Logic 
 as a school subject. From that splendid veteran comes the 
 following impression of Percival at this stage : 
 
 Percival joined the staff at Rugby in September i860. I 
 had been appointed early in 1859. The school and staff were 
 growing rapidly. Of the staff of that date I am the sole survivor. 
 One clear impression, and one only, stands out after nearly 
 sixty years — that he already was then what I felt him still 
 more clearly to be in every subsequent decade of his life. In 
 speaking of him at Clifton, at the College Jubilee in 1912, I 
 said that " he never was young, and never was old." At Rugby 
 we all knew, even then, that he was unhke us, maturer, at a 
 different stage, and that he had some future. He played no 
 games ; he had no hobbies ; he made no intimate friends among 
 masters or boys. He was always agreeable to meet ; not at 
 all unsociable. But he stood alone. 
 
 The Rugby staff was then a very strong staff ; and no 
 advanced work of any sort was found for him. He had in 
 Classics a form of some thirty-five boys of the standard of an 
 Upper Third ; and probably in Mathematics he taught nothing 
 beyond arithmetic and simple equations and the first book of 
 EucUd. There is no doubt that he did not enjoy his work, 
 and that he was not very successful in it. He was not at ease 
 nor sympathetic with boys averaging perhaps about fourteen 
 years old, made hard both to teach and to control by the free 
 intermixture of backward and lazy fellows of sixteen and seven- 
 teen ; for there were then no rules for superannuation. We had 
 the impression that he would not long be content with school 
 work, and that he would return to the University, or take up 
 public hfe in some form. 
 
 Memory of incidents is, of course, very scanty after so long a 
 time. But one scene stands out. Some half-dozen of us young 
 masters had started a " symposium," dining together in the 
 middle of the day at a confectioner's in High Street. A new 
 master, James Robertson, afterwards the distinguished Head- 
 master of Haileybury, joined the staff, and was invited to join 
 the " symposium." He came in on the first day of term when 
 we had all sat down. Some of us saw him then for the first 
 time. He was a formidable - looking person, with brawny 
 shoulders and an expression at first sight alanning. He took 
 his scat after our greeting, and there was silence. Suddenly 
 came his grim question — " Do any of you fellows box ? " 
 Percival was equal to the occasion. " I think," he said, with
 
 10 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap, i 
 
 his gentle voice and smile, " I think we should like a few lessons 
 first." 
 
 I have said that some of us expected him to give up school 
 work. But we all felt that Temple alone had read him right 
 when he suggested the daring appointment of Percival at the age 
 of twenty-seven, to take Clifton College instead of the great 
 and well-known Fifth Form master at Rugby, Charles Evans, 
 who had at the last moment thrown over Clifton in order to 
 become Headmaster of his old school at Birmingham. The 
 selection showed a deeper insight than any of us possessed.
 
 JOHN PERCIVAL. Oxford, June 15, 1858. 
 
 HEADMASTER OF CLIFTON, 1878.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CLIFTON 
 
 In September 1862 Clifton College opened with sixty boys. 
 The Council had consulted Dr. Temple, then Headmaster of 
 Rugby, who recommended an undeniably suitable candidate, 
 Charles Evans, to take charge of the new society. The 
 Council appointed him, and announced the appointment. 
 But before much had been done to complete the arrange- 
 ments, the Headmastership of Evans's own old school fell 
 vacant, and he desired to be a candidate. Delay on the 
 Clifton side was impossible ; the Council naturally desired 
 to be in a position to announce another name as soon as the 
 appointment of Evans to Birmingham was announced, if it 
 was to take place at all. Accordingly, Canon Guthrie, on 
 behalf of the Clifton Council, again approached Dr. Temple. 
 This was a surprise to many, who thought that as his first 
 candidate had deserted Chfton, he would not be consulted 
 again. His judgment of the men under consideration 
 included a very strong recommendation of Percival, who 
 was not yet twenty-eight years old. Undoubtedly it was a 
 bold action to recommend so young a man for " the building 
 up of Chfton College on the green fields of the Bristol downs." 
 But Temple promised that if he were appointed he would do 
 for Chfton what Arnold had done for Rugby. 
 
 Canon Guthrie arranged that Percival should receive a 
 telegram from Evans to tell him the result of the Birmingham 
 election ; he wished that, if Evans were elected, Percival 
 should at once travel to Bristol so as to be in readiness for 
 an interview if the Council, which was to meet that day, 
 
 II
 
 12 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 could be persuaded to see him then. In this way Guthrie 
 hoped to secure that the election of Percival at Clifton might 
 be announced on the same day as the election of Evans to 
 Birmingham, and thus pubhc confidence with regard to the 
 nascent College might not be undermined. But it was plainly 
 very difficult for Percival to go to Bristol on such terms. 
 He might have found himself in an utterly false position. 
 So he consulted his chief, and received the following reply : 
 
 Alvechurch, Aug. 25, 1862. 
 Rugby to-morrow. 
 
 Dear Percival — If Charles Evans will aUow you to use his 
 name, so far as to say that you go to Canon Guthrie by his 
 recommendation, it wHl be well to go. But otherwise I think 
 it would be out of place. I had a note from Guthrie the day 
 after I saw you asking my opinion about yourself and Bradley. 
 I gave him full answers. He did not directly ask for a judg- 
 ment between you, and I did not give one. 
 
 I think you will have this to bear in mind in the present 
 queer conjuncture. If Evans resigns CHfton and then fails at 
 Birmingham, you will hardly have any choice but to give him 
 back Clifton if it has meanwhile been given to you. 
 
 I quite understand your growing desire to succeed. You 
 men who want to get married can never be held when once the 
 chance of an opening has shown itself. — Yours ever, 
 
 F. Temple. 
 
 It was not found possible to proceed with quite so much 
 expedition as Canon Guthrie had hoped. The Council met 
 on August 29, but it was decided to postpone a decision until 
 September 4. Writing on August 29 to Percival, Canon 
 Guthrie says : "I may say for myself that the impression 
 was evidently most favourable to yourself. The delay does 
 not rest with me and is mischievous to all parties. But it 
 will pass." 
 
 When the interview took place, one member of the 
 Council observed, " You are very young, Mr. Percival." 
 " And unmarried," added another. " A few years will 
 correct the former," rephed the candidate, " and a few 
 weeks the latter." The Council appointed him, and the 
 place of CHfton among the great Pubhc Schools was from 
 that moment secure.
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 13 
 
 A few days later he received a letter from his former 
 Provost, who had become Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, 
 and was soon to be translated to the Archbishopric of York : 
 
 Penmaenmawr, near Conway, 
 Sept. 6, 1862. 
 
 My dear Percival — Most heartily do I wish you well in 
 your new office. To be appointed to such a charge so young 
 puts a great responsibility upon you. But with a generous 
 mind this will only produce a greater wish to do good service. 
 
 I trust you will be blessed with the power, not only to teach 
 the minds of your pupils, but to imbue their souls with a sense 
 of the importance of their life here and with love to God. — Ever 
 most truly yours, 
 
 W, Gloucester and Bristol. 
 
 There was an abundance of business to be done, and he 
 
 had to pay a visit to his old home in Westmoreland. Of 
 
 this visit a record remains in two letters from Mrs. and Miss 
 
 Breeks, two members of the family with which he used to 
 
 have tea on his way from the school at Appleby to his home 
 
 at Brough : 
 
 Eden Gate, 
 
 Sept. II, 1862. 
 
 My dear Mr. Percival — Seeing in the Times that you were 
 appointed Headmaster to the Clifton College, I beg to offer 
 you my sincere congratulations, together with my daughters, 
 on the event. It is highly complimentary, for so young a man, 
 to be presented to so responsible a position, and I sincerely 
 trust you may be blessed with health to fulfil the duties and 
 enjoy the privileges of the situation. All we Westmoreland 
 folks are proud to call you a neighbour, seeing you have so 
 highly distinguished yourself, only in future we shall feel afraid 
 of you and have to hide our diminished heads. . . . With our 
 united kind regards and every good wish for your future. — Believe 
 me, yours very sincerely, 
 
 E. Breeks. 
 
 My dear Mr. Percival — I cannot resist the pleasure of 
 enclosing a wee note to you in mother's letter, to express more 
 individually EUen's and my warmest congratulations on your 
 new appointment, and our hopes that your brightest anticipa- 
 tions of honour and success will be realised, and that you will
 
 14 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 reap the full reward of your labours. Clifton is a nice place, 
 and the country must be well known to you after your frequent 
 visits to the neighbourhood, and I hope the climate will suit 
 you as weU as the more bracing breezes of your native hills do. 
 
 I almost wrote to you on our return home, after seeing you 
 start on your southward journey waving so frantically Close's 
 book ! How could you waste your money on such folly ! how 
 could you patronise such a man ! We stood transfixed on the 
 bridge and could hardly believe our senses, and were so petrified 
 we could not pull our handkerchiefs out in time to return your 
 passing signal, though we wished you heartily a pleasant journey 
 and much intellectual enjoyment with your yellow companion ! 
 
 Again begging you to accept our heartiest congratulations 
 and kind regards. — Beheve me, yours very truly, 
 
 E. Breeks. 
 
 Sept. II, 1862. 
 
 On October 11, 1862, the new Headmaster was married 
 to Miss Louisa Holland, whose acquaintance he had made 
 four years before at Pau. She was a daughter of James 
 Holland and her mother was a Hardwicke — both Lincoln- 
 shire names. Percival had found it impossible to manage 
 the School House alone, so Canon and Mrs. Guthrie tele- 
 graphed to Miss Holland to come to them. From their 
 house she was married, and from the same house drove 
 with her husband to Clevedon for a two days' honeymoon. 
 On their return the school met them, took the horses out 
 of the carriage and dragged them home. , It was to his 
 wife that Percival owed the happy home life which formed 
 the background of his work at Clifton, Oxford, and Rugby, 
 and for a brief spell also at Hereford. Some glimpse of this 
 life and of the social circles at Clifton is given in a statement 
 by Mrs. Lewds Campbell, widow of Dr. Lewis Campbell, the 
 famous Professor of Greek at St. Andrews and biographer 
 of Jowett : ^ 
 
 My first acquaintance with Dr. Percival dates from the 
 summer of 1858, when he was the first visitor received by me 
 and my husband, in our home at Milford Vicarage, Hants. 
 Mr. Percival was then very tired, after obtaining his First Class 
 at Queen's College, Oxford, where my husband had been his 
 
 ^ Mrs. Lewis Campbell died in February 1921.
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 15 
 
 tutor since 1856. He went afterwards to the Pyrenees for 
 rest and change, and it was there that he met Louisa Holland, 
 who soon after became his wife. In 1862, at the age of twenty- 
 seven, he was appointed Headmaster of Clifton College, which 
 was then just starting. I wish I could give any idea of what 
 he and his wife were at this time, and of the way in which they 
 both carried all before them for the good of the school. He, 
 with his tall figure and powerfully firm grave countenance, 
 which on occasion broke with the sweetest smile ; she, with 
 her small figure and face with brilliant brown eyes, Ut up with 
 tireless energy and keen power of enjoyment, made a most 
 vivid and valuable contrast. 
 
 The masters formed quite a society within the bounds of 
 the School. T. E. Brown, H. J. Wiseman, G. H. WoUaston, 
 S. T. Irwin, C. H. Cay, Graham Dakyns, E. M. Oakeley, 
 T. W. Dunn, etc., etc. Of these, T. E. Brown, C. H. Cay, and 
 T. W. Dunn were my husband's most intimate friends. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Percival gathered about them every one of 
 interest in the neighbourhood who might also contribute to the 
 success of the School. The family of Dr. Symonds, the Misses 
 Susannah, Catherine, and Alice Winkworth, Miss Frances 
 Power Cobbe, the Alleynes, the Foxes, the Waits, the Battersby 
 Harfords of Blaize Castle, Lewis Fry and his family, and many 
 others. We paid them a visit each summer, so that we got to 
 know the School well, and marked its growth. We watched 
 the cricket matches, and joined in picnics organised by Mrs. 
 Percival, in which she and Mrs. George WoUaston were the life 
 of the party. 
 
 Children came to them quickly^ — but nothing abated the 
 energy of the brilliant and original little mother, who now had 
 to spend herself on the needs of her young family, as well as the 
 School and her friends. 
 
 Miss Ahce Winkworth, who knew the CHfton and Bristol 
 of those days, writes : 
 
 The estabUshment of Clifton College, and the coming of the 
 Percivals to the School-house, brought a new element into 
 Chfton society, which had been up till then much divided into 
 exclusive chques. Chfton was almost entirely conservative 
 in its politics, while Bristol was equally radical in opinion. 
 But at the School-house dinner-table people belonging to different 
 
 ^ The names of the eight children were Robert Hard\\'icke, EUzabeth 
 Ann, John Guthrie, Charles, Launcelot Jepherson, Arthur Jex Blake, 
 FrpcJerick and William. Charles and William died in early childhood.
 
 i6 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 cliques met each other and found they had something in common, 
 and the young people of various " sets " were brought together 
 to practise part-music for Mrs. Percival's musical parties. 
 
 Certainly Mrs. Percival's energy was magnificent. Owing 
 to a carriage accident before her marriage one lung was 
 useless and she had a long spell of coughing every morning. 
 Besides attending to her family she managed the School 
 House with its seventy boys and nineteen servants, the 
 two School Sanatoriums and a dairy farm and laundry four 
 miles away. She was hostess and almost mother to the 
 younger masters. Every week she had a musical party for 
 young people and there were many evening parties. Almost 
 always there were visitors sta5dng in the house. But Mrs. 
 Percival was equal to it all and put life into everything. 
 
 Mrs. Watson, the wife of an old Clifton master, writes of her : 
 
 I wish I could write down all that I feel with regard to Mrs. 
 Percival, or give any idea of what she was to me — ^how warmly 
 she welcomed me as a new-comer to Clifton, how she made me 
 feel that I could go to her at any time for help and counsel, 
 though if any illness or anxiety occurred she never delayed to 
 come and cheer and help in every possible way, but flew to one's 
 bedside or fireside, breaking down all reserve and going straight 
 to one's heart, so that it was impossible not to love her ; and she 
 was so bright and cheery herself, that she bi ought brightness 
 wherever she went. And the warm-hearted kindness that she 
 showed to me was, I know, given to all around her without stint 
 and without fail, from the most important of those about her, 
 to the lowliest of her dependants and their belongings. I need 
 hardly say, what is so well known, that she and Dr. Percival 
 made Chfton College quite a social power in the place, and that 
 their influence was widely felt in the neighbourhood, as well as 
 in the College. After they had left Clifton it was always a joy to 
 meet Dr. and Mrs. Percival again, whether there or in their later 
 homes, where we always had the warmest of welcomes from both. 
 
 An incident illustrating the gentleness which was always a 
 deeper element in Percival than the severity often more con- 
 spicuous is told of the early Clifton days by Mr. J. R. Mozley^: 
 
 1 Mr. J. R. Mozley and the Rev. E. A. Abbott (late Headmaster of the 
 City ol London School), two distinguished Cambridge Senior Chancellor's 
 Medallists, joined the Clifton staff in 1864.
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 17 
 
 In the year 1866 I was staying with the Percivals, and another 
 ex-master (since then distinguished in hterature) was staying 
 there with me ; we two, to while away a summer's day, planned 
 an expedition to Cheddar, and took with us a lady who was 
 also a guest in the house. It was a delightful day as far as 
 Cheddar was concerned ; but our study of Bradshaw had been 
 imperfect, and we missed our trains marvellously. Long after 
 midnight, a good deal abashed (especially on the lady's account) 
 we rang the bell at the School-house door. Percival himself 
 met us ; I confess I feared he might show some annoyance ; 
 but his hospitality was far too genuine for that. " We have 
 been battling with the railways," one of us said. He smiled, 
 and simply answered, " Yes, and you won " ; and the words, 
 combined with the manner, soothed our self-reproach. His 
 courtesy had root in Christian humiUty, which was a true part 
 of his nature. 
 
 Percival's task was to build up an adequate staff. No 
 part of a headmaster's duty is more important than the 
 selection of his assistants ; here Percival was supreme. He 
 cared comparatively little for technical quaUfications, but had 
 an unerring eye for individuality and character. His Clifton 
 staff was one of the most brilHant ever gathered together at 
 a single school. 
 
 The method by which he secured assistant masters may 
 be illustrated by the experience of the late Dean of Win- 
 chester. Mr. Furneaux, as he was then, was taking an 
 Oxford pupil in his rooms in Grove Street. Shortly before 
 12 o'clock there was a knock at the door and the visitor 
 announced himself in the words : "I am Percival of CHfton. 
 Can I speak to you ? " Mr. Furneaux asked him to take a 
 chair, saying that he would have done with his pupil shortly 
 and would then be glad to hear what Percival had to say. 
 Percival, however, went out and sat on the stairs. A few 
 minutes later the pupil left and Percival came in. He said : 
 " I want you to come and be my Sixth Form master at 
 Chfton. I have been speaking to your old Headmaster, 
 Bradley, about you, and he told me to come and sit here till 
 you agreed. That's what I mean to do." Furneaux 
 explained that he meant to take parish work. But Percival 
 stayed on, until at about 1.30 he suggested that Furneaux 
 
 c
 
 i8 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 should come to Clifton as an experiment. Furneaux 
 suggested coming for a term. Percival insisted on a year, 
 and ultimately this was agreed on. A little later on, Fur- 
 neaux was offered a mastership at Marlborough, a school 
 then more fully established than Clifton had as yet become, 
 and when Furneaux consulted Percival about it he found that 
 Percival had originated the idea. He said : " You would 
 make a very bad parish priest and had better stick to school- 
 mastering." Furneaux accepted, and was a master at 
 Marlborough until he became Headmaster of Repton. 
 
 Such irresistible tactics appear to have been adopted from 
 the very first. As soon as he knew that he was to go to 
 CUfton, Percival decided that one of his colleagues must be 
 H. G. Dakyns, whose home was at Rugby. While Percival 
 was still there, but was already arranging about the opening 
 of the school at Clifton, he confirmed the appointment of 
 Dakjms as one of his staff. According to the victim's account 
 in later days this tornado of a Headmaster said, " When can 
 you begin, Dakyns ? " " Oh, quite soon," Dakyns replied ; " in 
 two or three days at most." " There's a train in an hour's 
 time," said Percival ; " they are rather hard pressed down 
 there. I think you had better take that." And Dakyns did. 
 
 Some impression of the staff which resulted from 
 Percival's insight and determination is given in Canon 
 Wilson's description of Clifton as he came to know it when 
 he succeeded Percival in the Headmastership : 
 
 I wish that I could give some adequate description or im 
 pression of that vague reality- — the tone of Clifton College when 
 I became its Headmaster. But it is forty years ago ; and at 
 that distance of time recollections are untrustworthy. I will, 
 however, offer one or two such recollections. 
 
 The men on the staff were beyond all question men of unusual 
 ability and personality. I am quite sure that in saying this I 
 am no mere laudator temporis acti. And they were extra- 
 ordinarily well fitted for their several posts. I cannot fancy 
 a Sixth Form master better in any way than the much loved 
 and deeply regretted Norman Moor ; an old Cliftonian, wisest 
 of advisers in all school matters, and a fine and true scholar ; 
 and he was well supported by E. H. C. Smith, still on the staff. 
 Then the form below the Sixth was in the hands of C. Vaughan,
 
 II CLIFTON 19 
 
 scholar, historian, and lover of hterature ; a great and enthusi- 
 astic, not to say fiery teacher, who left his mark on every one, 
 later a well-known Professor of English Literature. Who could 
 have more sympathetically drawn out the love of hterature and 
 scholarship than W. W. Asquith and Irwin, Fifth Form masters ? 
 These three men have aU become recognised far outside the 
 school world. 
 
 And then there was T, E. Brown. What he was I will not 
 attempt to say. But any one who knows his poems and his 
 letters, edited the one by Dakyns and the other by Irwin, his 
 colleagues, can imagine what an inspiration and delight Brown 
 was on the staff. Our Science again was in the hands of two 
 men who both rose to eminence in the world of science— Professor 
 Macgregor in Physics, and one who is now the well-known Sir 
 WiUiam Tilden in Chemistry. Every man seemed made exactly 
 for the place he filled. That was one impression left on me. I 
 ought of course to mention others. Dakyns, for example, and 
 Oakeley ; Grenfell and Tait ; and Hall and Stevens, so widely 
 known in the mathematical world— all men of rare personality 
 and utter devotion to the School. And so I might go on. 
 Percival had the rare gift of choosing men of character, of putting 
 them where their genius would find a suitable field of work, of 
 giving them large freedom, and thus getting the very best out 
 of them. It is a rare gift ; but one most precious in a man placed 
 at the head of a large staff. 
 
 Then as regards the boys, two things struck me specially. 
 One was their modesty and good manners, and the other was 
 their high standard of industry and intelligence. I cannot be 
 wrong in thinking that the Sixth Form, which in fear and 
 trembling I took in May 1879, was a remarkable one. The 
 long list of those who obtained scholarships that year bear 
 witness. The great University honours to be won by those who 
 were then schoolboys were scholai ships at Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, one of which fell that year to H. H. Turner, now Professor 
 of Astronomy at Oxford ; and the six scholarships or exhibi- 
 tions at BaUiol. For those six in the following November we sent 
 up three boys. The result shall be told in the words of Mrs. 
 Percival. " I went," she wrote, " at the hour fixed for putting 
 up the hst at BaUiol. I could not get near enough to see, but I 
 heard some one exclaim, ' Clifton has got three— the beggars.' " 
 
 There is every proof that when Percival left the School it 
 was at a very high standard of character and industry and 
 scholarship and literary taste. 
 
 And there is what every one knows as the " moral tone " 
 of the school : a public opinion and conscience as to honesty
 
 20 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 in work, bullying, smoking in private, swagger, betting, and 
 indecencies in language and act. Schools, and sometimes houses 
 in the same school, differ amazingly in these most important 
 matters. 
 
 Forty years ago there was a society of assistant masters 
 known to its members, and to a few others, as the U.U.'s. Not 
 more than two assistant masters selected from each of the great 
 Public Schools might be members. " United Ushers " we called 
 ourselves. (Temple once heard our short title and declared it 
 stood for " Uneasy Underlings.") We met at one another's 
 schools frequently, and discussed everything ; and nothing was 
 more evident than the great moral difference between schools, 
 or more perplexing on the surface than the causes of these 
 differences. We used to speak with entire frankness : many 
 reasons affecting the schools were considered ; material arrange- 
 ments, home influences, tutor systems, punishments, vigilance, 
 sermons, preparation for confirmation, private talks confession, 
 etc. — everything we could think of. But there was one thing 
 on which we were agreed : that far the most important element 
 was the personality of the Headmaster, felt in waj^s not easily 
 traced ; through his influence on his staff, on the Sixth Form, 
 and in Chapel. I think all, or nearly all, of the U.U.'s in early 
 days were laymen ; not disposed to overestimate religious 
 influences ; and yet we felt that religion, the real thing, the 
 sense of responsibility to God for the use of life, was at the bottom 
 of the influence of a Headmaster. It was his reality ; but it 
 was something more than that. We knew of Headmasters as 
 real and whole-hearted in their faith as men could be, highly 
 gifted and eloquent, who, however, only influenced a very few 
 boys of their own type, while the school was untouched by 
 them and went their own way. And there were others, and 
 Percival was one, whose words somehow rang true in the ears 
 of the not naturally religious boy, and enlisted him on the side 
 of right, of public spirit, of purity, of large-heartedness and 
 courage, of virtues which appeal to a boy. 
 
 It is the personahty behind the words. The school sermons 
 of men Hke Temple and Percival and Arthur Sidgwick,^ to name 
 those I knew best, may be read without evoking in the reader 
 the response that was felt by the hearer. That cannot be 
 reproduced. Where there is that personality, that reality, and 
 that simplicity in the preacher, school sermons are a real power, 
 though the majority of the school listen very Httle to them, 
 and absorb but an infinitesimal fraction of the emotion and 
 the insight they contain. 
 
 ^ See his School Homilies (Sidgwick & Jackson).
 
 n CLIFTON 21 
 
 So I am sure it was with Percival. One great centre from 
 which his influence radiated was the School pulpit. Those who 
 wish to understand it may well read Sir Henry Newbolt's school 
 novel, The Twymans, which plainly has embodied some of his 
 old school recollections of Chfton College. 
 
 The passage in which Sir Henry Newbolt gives his 
 recollection of the impression made on him and on the 
 School by Percival as a preacher is as follows : 
 
 His eloquence— in Percy's opinion stirring beyond all com- 
 parison—was eloquence only to those who heard it. His 
 thought was clear rather than rich, forcible rather than subtle ; 
 it was expressed in language which had no special beauty of 
 its own. The printed record of his sermons or his speeches 
 could scarcely tell more to a reader who had never known the 
 living voice than the score of a sonata could convey its moving 
 power to one unskilled in music. But the instrument once heard, 
 the bare notation will suffice to bring back the full sound to 
 memory. Percy could never afterwards read a line of these 
 brief and unadorned utterances without seeing instantly and 
 with the clearness of life the tall spare figure, the chiselled face, 
 with its lofty and remote air, saved from too dominant an 
 austerity by the grace of the slightly stooping head, or without 
 hearing again in every sentence the lingering North-country 
 accent that gave so curious a distinction to the voice, and the 
 unconsciously melancholy cadence that softened its strenuous- 
 ness with a grave beauty of resignation. . . . 
 
 The very phrases, insisted upon again and again, were old 
 and well known ; yet such was the strange pathos of the voice, 
 the dread seraphic intensity of the presence from which they 
 issued, that they seemed, like music itself, to gain rather than 
 lose in meaning by constant repetition. 
 
 Speaking of Percival's Clifton sermons Canon Wilson 
 said, when preaching in the College Chapel on the Sunday 
 after his death : 
 
 It was his constant effort to lift up the soul of this School 
 above the heavy mists of indifference, sloth, and self-complacency, 
 that always gather over us, so that we might see things in their 
 true light, as we may imagine God Himself to see them. And 
 in his early years, at least, when I knew him best, he was 
 incorrigibly hopeful. He felt human nature to be far more 
 plastic, he believed it to be far more capable of ideals, and of 
 greatness, than most of us did. He looked at such a sight as
 
 22 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 is now before me in this Chapel with the thought of the immense 
 store of spiritual and intellectual force here available for the 
 service of God, if only it can be set free from what may smother 
 it. To awaken every one of the young souls before him to their 
 possibilities as children of God, born with the very life of God 
 in them, born to be God's fellow-workers in the creation of a 
 society of high ideals, was not only from the first his aim, but 
 it was his conviction that it was attainable. And his conviction 
 was so strong and so contagious, that he attained it to a degree 
 to which in schools I know no parallel. He made immense 
 demands on human nature, on both masters and boys : nothing 
 seemed too much to ask or give. 
 
 He rarely dealt with intellectual difficulties either of the Bible 
 or of Christian doctrine. At that time they were less widely felt, 
 and less defined, than they came to be somewhat later. But 
 along with the foundations of the Christian Faith, he so plainly 
 taught the then less familiar truths of progressive revelation, 
 both of God and of Nature, and of progressive morality and 
 knowledge, that the doubts and difficulties which then, at the 
 Universities and elsewhere, were sweeping young men off their 
 feet, were to his old pupils as to himself no difficulties at all. 
 Clifton boys, I was then told, had Httle to unlearn. They had a 
 firm grasp of familiar principles, in presence of which many 
 difficulties could not even be stated. When I was appointed in 
 1879 to succeed him here, a weU-known Head of a College in 
 Oxford told me how Cliftonians there seemed to retain and 
 widen their faith, while many others who came up were, as he 
 expressed it, " scattered like a covey of last year's partridges." 
 
 Dr. Percival rarely spoke at School dogmatically of the great 
 doctrines of our faith as formulated in past ages by the Church ; 
 and his reticence was sometimes commented on unfavourably. 
 But he was wiser than his critics. " Men reason on the Cross 
 of Christ," he said, " as they stand afar off, and feel none of its 
 power : but not so when they come close and stand before it ; 
 not so when they listen to the witness of the heart, and kneel at 
 the foot of the Cross, and feel its very presence." And somehow 
 his deep sincerity brought his young hearers, even the seemingly 
 careless, into that presence. Some of them long remembered an 
 occasion when his usual reserve gave way, and he spoke freely 
 of " Christ sacrificing Himself for us," and of God's love thus 
 shown. That God Himself, from everlasting to everlasting, was 
 grieved by men's sins and suffered with them, was part of his 
 faith in God ; and it was this faith that moved him so deeply 
 when he taught how " we crucify the Son of God afresh if we 
 are living a bad and sinful life."
 
 II CLIFTON 23 
 
 He spoke little, it was sometimes remarked, about the Church. 
 And it is true that there is a type of religious teaching in which 
 the Church is dominant, and for this type he had little sympathy. 
 But no one taught more earnestly or more frequently than he did 
 the truth which gives value to timely teaching about the Church. 
 That truth has been expressed by a philosophic writer — Dr. 
 Royce — by saying that " the membership of a divine spiritual 
 community is necessary to the salvation of men." 
 
 That membership, in the case of those whom he taught here, 
 had been first realised in the home ; and loyalty and love to 
 parents and home marked his teaching. And next came loyalty 
 to the School ; and loyalty to the School meant on his lips the 
 mutual moral responsibility of each for all. The School, he felt, 
 is our spiritual community. This is our Church : and through 
 loyalty to the School he illustrated what the Church was in the 
 mind of Christ. He taught how " Christ's first act was to gather 
 a society round Him in the midst of the common working-day 
 world, and to build up His Kingdom on the foundations of social 
 life." That building up of the kingdom must be begun in schools. 
 None who knew him could doubt his fervent belief in such a 
 Church, loyal to its Head, as the only means for calling out men's 
 highest powers in the great world. 
 
 His teaching on the Holy Communion was similarly an appeal 
 to motives and faith which the young can truly make their own. 
 It was a Sacramentum — a soldier's act of open, renewed, and 
 joint allegiance to Christ as the Lord of our lives here and now, 
 and the Captain in our ceaseless war with evil. 
 
 Some felt his preaching to be cold. There was no action ; 
 httle modulation of voice ; no flowers of speech ; careful 
 avoidance of exaggeration. His sermons made demand for 
 close attention : they were not colloquial. But it was shallow 
 criticism that described them as cold. Those who were in tune 
 with him felt the glow of white heat below the quiet dehvery. 
 
 Percival's style in preaching to boys varied little from 
 his first sermon on Tuesday, September 30, 1862, when 
 CUfton College was opened, until the end of his life. One 
 sermon, delivered many years afterwards at Rugby, will be 
 given in full at the end of the account of his Headmastership 
 there. His first Chfton sermon was based on the text, 
 " Neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, 
 but God that giveth the increase." It bears the marks that 
 were always characteristic of his religious discourses — great
 
 24 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 simplicity of diction, an exacting moral demand, intense 
 earnestness, and an intimate association of the thought of 
 Duty with the thought of God. It was a somewhat stoical 
 type of faith that he exhibited and encouraged. But it was 
 well fitted to call forth the strongest and manliest elements 
 in those boys who could answer his appeal, A fine illus- 
 tration of his manner is afforded by the close of the first 
 sermon which he preached after the opening of the School 
 Chapel ; and it is interesting to compare this utterance to a 
 School still young with the appeal to a great tradition which 
 characterises the sermon at Rugby, printed later in this 
 volume. It was delivered on June 23, 1867 : 
 
 " What house will ye build me ? saith the Lord : or what 
 is the place of my rest ? " This is the kind of question which 
 the echoes of this Chapel call upon us to answer. It is no small 
 privilege to be the first generation of those who worship in a 
 place like this. It is no mean work which you have an oppor- 
 tunity of doing, you members of this young society. We are 
 only laying our foundations as yet, and just beginning to feel 
 that we have a life of our own. Consider the time when those 
 who fill your places will have a history and a tradition on which 
 to look back ; and consider what you would wish that tradition 
 to be. To-day it is in your hands to make it what you resolve 
 to make it by your own life ; a few years hence and you will 
 have done your work upon it. At the very best I know that 
 the building up of a great school on any sure foundation must 
 be a slow and precarious business ; but I should leave the work 
 in despair if I did not feel that you too are anxious, even as 
 I am, to build us up into an honourable house. Three hundred 
 workers of this generation, if we put our hands to the task with 
 a genuine will, we cannot fail, I think, to grow up into something 
 that deserves to Uve. But are we thinking of doing this ? It 
 is not enough to wish it and leave it to others. It is your work 
 to do, or it will not be done. 
 
 In the quiet and daily round, in the habitual course of our 
 common life, these foundations of the future are being silently 
 laid. The waUs of our temple are slowly rising, and what shape 
 are they beginning to assume ? You who know our inner life 
 better than I do, how would you describe it ? What is the 
 name which you see written on this temple of our society which 
 is thus rising and growing ? Is it the temple of the God of 
 heaven or of some other god ? These outward gifts are of no
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 25 
 
 use if they should be ulcered under with a life that is not worthy 
 of them. To what purpose is this Chapel and its beauty, if 
 we who come to it should prove ourselves unworthy of it ? 
 
 What if the spirit of idleness should take possession of us ? 
 What if you, who are here to-day, should leave, as your inheritance 
 to those who follow you, low or mean notions about truth, or 
 honesty, or manly openness ? That the great mass of you 
 should do this I have no sort of fear. It cannot and will not 
 be. But yet this is a time for all of us to consider whether 
 we are giving ourselves, with a true and genuine loyalty, to the 
 building up of a living temple in which the God of truth may 
 be seen to dwell. Is there no petty selfishness, is there no mean- 
 spiritedness, is there no frivolous folly leaving its unseemly mark 
 amongst us, and spoiling the work which we are endeavouring 
 to do ? We have it in our hands to-day to take a high place 
 among the schools of England ; or I should rather say that 
 it is in the hands of you boys who are sitting before me ; and 
 may God inspire you to show yourselves worthy of this high 
 privilege. 
 
 " Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and the servants 
 whom I have chosen." 
 
 Percival's creative power lay mainly in the department 
 of social organisation. Clifton, as he guided its formative 
 period, was partly an imitation of Rugby, but was also an 
 expression of his own personality. His presence was felt in 
 every department of school life, though, with so brilliant a 
 staff as he had collected, it was possible to leave much of the 
 detail entirely in the hands of his assistants. The following 
 record, given by the Rev. H. C. Watson, affords an im- 
 pression of his relations with masters : 
 
 In the early days of teaching I went to Percival rather than 
 to CUfton. A Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, giving 
 advice to me about a scholastic career, said to me : " You 
 should try and be under Percival or Benson " ; and after the 
 lamented death of C. H. Cay, who was Senior of the Mathe- 
 matical Staff at CUfton, I was appointed at Easter 1870 to his 
 post, which I retained for thirty years. It is impossible for 
 me to express all that I feel I owe to the influence of my old 
 chief during the eight years that I worked with him. It was a 
 great gain to be alwaj^s in contact with one of his strenuous 
 activity, to be often listening to the suggestions of a leader who 
 was always aiming high. I was never associated with a man
 
 26 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 who worked harder, and who talked less about himself. Fre- 
 quently at the end of term his face and general appearance 
 showed that he had been putting a heavy strain upon himself ; 
 and only the change of good rest, or travel, or Swiss air, sent 
 him back to us fit again for another term's work. The teaching 
 staff at CUfton was young and capable, and he expected them 
 to follow his lead in personal effort. On one occasion I felt 
 obliged, for health's sake, to decline taking a class regularly 
 immediately after a meal, and losing a short walk. I remember 
 his answer, illustrative of his own habits : " You could easily 
 take your exercise another day." Judging from his own vital 
 power, which his long life has shown him to have possessed, he 
 expected to see his own strenuousness reflected in the work of 
 his colleagues ; and he may perhaps have sometimes unduly 
 pressed a willing horse ; but his system was successful, if tested 
 by the atmosphere of vigour and enthusiasm which prevailed. 
 He would often throw out suggestions for the rearrangement 
 of working-schemes, for the improvement of methods, for the 
 raising of tone, and leave it to heads of departments and others 
 to carry them out. To the Sixth Form, acting under his guid- 
 ance, he gave very ample powers ; but to be efficient leaders, 
 they were led to understand that they were to be prominent 
 in the class and also in the School-close ; and the successful 
 representatives of Clifton in the public services, in the army, 
 and in India, have borne witness to the wisdom of this principle. 
 Percival always assumed that in every competition, by the 
 individual or by the School, there was to be no question of not 
 winning ; that excuses for failure were inadmissible ; and it was 
 this spirit, steadily handed down, which produced such con- 
 tinued success in teaching, in scholarship, in games, and sub- 
 sequently in service to the Empire. He looked upon 
 disciplinary power as essential for the schoolmaster : no man, 
 however accomplished in science or in classics, could survive 
 on the staff unless he possessed this primary requisite. Woolner's 
 bust, which is in the College Library, shows on one side the 
 genial look which in later years became very attractive ; but 
 on the other side of the face you see an expression of firmness 
 verging on severity ; and he could indeed be severe in look 
 and tone when the occasion called for it. I do not remember 
 ever seeing any outbreak of temper ; but of strong indignation, 
 yes ! As when he would speak to the assembled School, after 
 morning prayers, in words of indignation and contempt, of 
 some base or mean act of an undiscovered culprit, laying bare 
 the enormity of the offence in scathing words which could never 
 be forgotten.
 
 II CLIFTON 27 
 
 I remember Percival as a man of strong personal convictions. 
 \^Tien he made up his mind that a thing should be done, his 
 courage never wavered in carrying it out, and he overcame in 
 the end all that he considered to be unreasonable opposition : 
 hence there were naturally some who strongly objected to what 
 they considered to be autocratic or harsh decisions ; but they 
 were really only the conscientious acts of a just and determined 
 ruler. While never forgetting the stimulating influence of his 
 impressive personality I shall remember thankfully the con- 
 sideration which he always showed me. I kept for many years 
 a letter of kind appreciation and encouragement which he wrote 
 to me at the end of my second term ; and he was always ready 
 to listen to some suggestion about the mathematical side, or 
 to help in some difficulty connected with one's Boarding House, 
 
 Much of Clifton tradition was formed and preserved by 
 means of notices sent round by Dr. Percival through the School 
 Marshal, John Skelton, to be read aloud by each master to his 
 class or set. They were notices affecting the tone, habits, 
 behaviour, health of members of the School, generally suggested 
 by some defect which called for attention. These notices were 
 preserved in a book ; they were subsequently passed in review 
 by a committee ; and those which were selected and arranged 
 were put into the form of a printed memorandum book for 
 distribution to masters and house-masters, for their guidance 
 in Clifton tradition. 
 
 None of his Chfton pupils kept up a more intimate 
 relationship with Percival than Sir Herbert Warren, the 
 President of Magdalen. He joined the School in 1868, when 
 just over fifteen years of age. But it was in January 1869, 
 when he got into the Sixth Form, that the daily contact 
 began, from which the lifelong friendship grew. The 
 President writes the following account of his experiences at 
 Clifton under Percival : 
 
 I still remember his opening speech to us on the duties and 
 opportunities of the Sixth Form. I was to some extent pre- 
 pared for it by my early reading of Tom Brown, a book of which 
 I had long been fond. But I was still young, and at first I 
 regarded these lofty admonitions and appeals as meant rather 
 for the responsible grandees, for as such I then regarded them, 
 of eighteen and nineteen on the upper bench. At first too I 
 was rather absorbed in my own intellectual development. 
 Gradually, however, repeated as they were from term to term, 
 they gained upon me with an accumulative force.
 
 28 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Let me try to sum up the whole effect of his regime. Dr. 
 Percival was in certain ways, though not in all, a pre-eminently 
 good teacher intellectually as well as morally, and we were 
 fortunate in coming at a time when the Headmaster taught a 
 good deal himself. 
 
 Certain authors he obviously enjoyed, and these he taught 
 exceedingly well— the Speeches of Thucydides, and Plato's 
 Republic, and the Odes and Satires of Horace. There were 
 tags in these last of which he was specially fond. One in 
 particular I was amused to notice him quoting again in after 
 years more than once from the Episcopal Bench : 
 
 Si quid novisti rectius istis 
 Candidus imperti, si non his utere meciim. 
 
 He had the paramount gift of making us enjoy our lessons. 
 Divinity, the Old Testament on Sunday and the New on Monday 
 morning, was specially interesting. He had a great idea of 
 introducing us to new and suggestive books and to the 
 best commentators. Stanley's Jewish Church and Sinai and 
 Palestine, Alford on the Gospels, Lightfoot and Vaughan on 
 the Epistles, were perhaps obvious. But he also initiated us 
 into Westcott's Bible in the Church and Introduction to the Study 
 of the Gospels, and into the Psalms by Four Friends, of which 
 the two last I remember made a distinct mark on my mind. 
 In the same way he took us through Merivale's Fall of the 
 Roman Republic, and part of the History of the Empire, as well 
 as Sismondi's Italian Republic. What was more bold was his 
 using French books to teach us at once French and ideas, Guizot's 
 Histoire de la civilisation and Bastiat's Harmonies economiques. 
 Looking back, I think perhaps he encouraged us to " spread 
 ourselves " almost too much. In some ways I remember I 
 found the ShiUetonian scholarship and precise " pure reason " 
 of Mr. T. W. Dunn, a young philosophic Cambridge classic, a 
 welcome corrective to all this " Oxford Greats " ideology. Yet 
 it "^'as a great thing to be introduced to these various and living 
 interests, and he did his best to make them live for us. 
 
 It must be remembered that his own studies had been 
 unusually wide. Beside his double Double Firsts in Classics 
 and Mathematics, he took Honours in History in a few weeks, 
 reading with the great " coach " of those days — Professor 
 Montagu Burrows. 
 
 His standard of industry was extremely high. He had a 
 great belief in perpetually adding here a little and there a little, 
 and making one acquainted with the whole range of possible 
 knowledge. Week by week he used to recommend books and
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 29 
 
 pages of books to be " looked at," and used to leave these volumes 
 in the Sixth Form room for us "to turn over at odd moments." 
 Gradually the pile accumulated till their very mass daunted 
 and defied any attempt to overtake them. He had certain 
 phrases with which, delivered in his North-country accent, we 
 became very familiar and turned into a friendly jest among 
 ourselves. " Dawn't live the life of a cabbage, maan ! " 
 
 He showed a strong love of poetry. He quoted Wordsworth. 
 I remember his quoting with melancholy empressement : 
 
 'Twill murmur on a thousand years. 
 And flaw as now it flaws. 
 
 Tennyson, the great living singer of our era, he rather left 
 to our own enthusiasm and that of one or two of the assistant 
 masters who shared it. But I remember his quoting " The 
 Idylls " and " In Memoriam " with evident enjoyment and 
 effect. A phrase of George Eliot, given to the world a little 
 later, about not " debasing the moral currency " exactly suited 
 him, and he often used it at Oxford. His special abhorrence, 
 against which he was always warning us, was what he called 
 " law tawn." There was great excitement among some of us 
 over Swinburne's new metre and other audacities in the 'seventies, 
 and I well remember our surprise at his bringing in the first 
 edition of Atalanta in its white cover, and recommending it 
 as the beautiful work of a " somewhat dangerous " writer. I 
 think, though he did not say so, that he may have known him 
 through the Old MortaUty Club at Oxford. 
 
 His main secret was that he swept us all along, boys and 
 masters together, with a great moral impulse. He caused us 
 to feel that the School had a great future, but that it was young 
 and in the making, and that we were making it along with him. 
 Along with him we were striving to reach some far-off goal. 
 Certain things — the growth of the School in numbers, the addition 
 of new houses, the winning of the first Balliol Scholarship, and 
 the first Cheltenham match, E. F. S. Tylecote's 404 not opt, 
 E. J, Davies' " record " in the Broad Jump — were felt to make 
 epochs, to be milestones, or rather " stepping-stones," on which 
 we were " to rise to higher things." " Animer, entrainer, veiller, 
 surveiller reste la premiere tache dcs chefs," were the words of 
 Marshal Foch to General Petain in a letter written at the crisis 
 of the final 1918 struggle. They exactly express what Percival 
 did as chief at Clifton. His sermons in the College Chapel 
 enforced the same lessons. Week by week they came as a sort 
 of trumpet call. The effect and manner of them have been well 
 described by a Cliftonian of a generation a Uttle junior to my
 
 30 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 own — Sir Henry Newbolt. What I chiefly recall are the 
 melancholy timbre of his voice, and the vibrant, penetrating, 
 sad earnestness of his utterances. Their appeal seemed 
 irresistibly urgent, Uke a voice coming from and summoning to 
 another world, yet summoning also to more serious and strenuous 
 effort in this hfe. There was one sermon in particular on the 
 Agony in the Garden and the slumber of the Disciples, which 
 I shall never forget. " Could ye not watch with me one hour ? " 
 " Sleep on now, and take your rest " ; " Rise, let us be going " ; 
 with a sad tragic insistence, as if charged with a special solemn 
 message, he brought out the awfulness of sloth and failure in 
 a supreme crisis, and of an unique opportunity for ever lost. 
 
 It was preached at the end of a Summer Term, and is called 
 in the well-known little volume, " Parting Reminders." Often 
 he seemed to us a strange mixture of strength and weakness. 
 " Who would have thought that this sandy-haired, consumptive- 
 looking young clergyman had so much energy ? " an old Bristol 
 magnate is said to have remarked. I think it was the same 
 person who, when he first came to Clifton, thought it his duty 
 to warn him that his experiment had often been tried in Bristol, 
 and that no Bristol school had ever achieved lasting success. 
 We too had an idea that he was delicate, and it was heightened 
 by the spectacle of his cup of beef-tea which used to be taken 
 into his study at eleven o'clock in the morning, and by his 
 frequently weary and drooping looks. 
 
 But we knew too that he had plenty of vigour. We saw him 
 galloping on the Downs— he loved a spirited horse— his long 
 figure swaying easily in the saddle. Once I remember a Sixth 
 Form boy, careering downhill on a " bone-shaker " bicycle, 
 nearly ran into him, and made his horse shy right across the 
 road. His revenge the next day, when the rider, who was a 
 science scholar, stuck in his Horace, was to say with a humorous 
 irony, " Now then, B., get mounted and be off." For he had 
 a humour, if it seemed at times rather grim. We were greatly 
 excited when in 1869 Dr. Temple, newly appointed to the 
 Bishopric of Exeter, made him his Examining Chaplain. He 
 was away for a night or two ; a rare thing. When he came 
 back he seemed rather tired and more awful than usual. He 
 said, " I thought there couldn't be any worse Latin ' prawse ' 
 than yours here ; I've learned that there can." On another 
 occasion he took one of our copies and twisted it into a torch 
 with which to hght the gas. " I think it'll just do for that," 
 he said. To the last almost we had this awe of him. It was a 
 revelation and a relief to me to find it shared by others in un- 
 expected quarters. All old Cliftonians of the earlier generations
 
 II CLIFTON 31 
 
 will remember the School Marshal, John Skelton, a tall raw-boned 
 ex-soldier, with a large aquihne nose and luxurious early-Victorian 
 whiskers. He had a North-country " burr " or brogue which 
 was a rougher or more rustic echo of the Headmaster's, and 
 some even went so far as to say that he was a foster-brother 
 or distant cousin whom the chief had imported from their common 
 Cumbrian fells. He was very formidable. When I became 
 Head of the School I found that one of my duties was, along 
 with this great functionary, to present the School Accounts, 
 the statement of the expenditure on games and athletics, for 
 inspection by Dr. Percival, at the end of the Summer Term. 
 We met by appointment in the little passage just outside the 
 study door. The formidable marshal seemed strangely nervous, 
 his face was pale and his gaunt figure seemed almost to tremble. 
 " Aw dawn't loike gawn in with these accoonts," he said to me. 
 " He is always sa dawn upon you." And sure enough, when 
 we got in, the H.M. or J. P., as we called him, at once fastened 
 on a piece of new expenditure — leather shoes I think it was for 
 the horse which drew the roller in the close — and said in an awful 
 voice, " What's this item ? It's a new charge, eh ? " And then, 
 " It's very easy to spend other people's money." 
 
 " I sometimes think you'd ' condawn ' any crime," he once 
 said in a somewhat similar mood to the upper bench when some- 
 thing had gone wrong, which we did not realise it was our 
 province to prevent. 
 
 Yet gradually, I can honestly say for myself, and I think 
 for our generation, we came by and by not only to respect and 
 admire but more and more to love him. " Praise seldom " 
 was his practice, but when it came the praise was additionally 
 sweet. When he warmed into affection it was like the sudden 
 glow of sunshine on one of the rocky peaks of his native country- 
 side. And we recognised tones of real affection when he spoke, 
 for instance, of the first Head of the School, H. W. Wellesley, 
 grand-nephew of the Duke of Wellington, who went into the 
 I.C.S. and died young in 1878 ; or of Charles Cay, a dehghtful 
 young Mathematical Master who fell an early victim to con- 
 sumption, and whom he buried at Mentone in 1869. 
 
 The success of the School, too, seemed to mellow him. His 
 speeches at the Commemoration gatherings became more genial 
 and humorous. The new generation, while admiring him even 
 more, seemed to fear him less. What were the secrets of his 
 success ? The greatest, I think, was his power of using all 
 kinds of human tools, and compelling them all to his will. He 
 certainly gathered round him an extraordinary collection of 
 colleagues. His appointments were singularly bold — H. G.
 
 32 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Dak3'ns, T. E. Brown, E. M. Oakeley, F. Armitage, T. W, 
 Dunn, G. H. Wollaston — some of rare genius since recognised, 
 all men of original force and individual character so strong 
 that it would have seemed impossible to harness them to the 
 dull, limited routine of school life, yet out of each and all of them 
 Percival seemed to compel or conjure original and effective 
 results. Very bold was his appointment of Evelyn Abbott, 
 crippled by paralysis of the lower limbs, " dead from the waist 
 down," who to many would have seemed an impossible assistant 
 master, but proved a most valuable asset, alike to Clifton 
 and, later, to Balliol. Not less enterprising was his enlisting of 
 the services of John Addington Symonds, a brilliant, young, 
 artistic, aesthetic scholar and critic, a votary of Hellenism and 
 the Renaissance, with the result that the Clifton Sixth Form 
 heard the Studies of the Greek Poets before they were given 
 to the world. One Summer Term he got Professor Nichol 
 of Glasgow to lecture to the Sixth on English and Scotch Poetry. 
 From each of them he drew something which only they could 
 give. " Uncovenanted service " was a phrase of which he 
 was fond. He expected an assistant master to work for love 
 as well as for hire. A later, more prosaic generation said that 
 he sweated his assistant masters. They did not think so. Like 
 patriots, they found their reward in the success of the School. 
 
 In the matter of studies and curriculum he was, especially 
 at first, far in advance of his time. He made provision from 
 the very start of the School for the teaching of Natural Science. 
 Among his very earliest appointments made in September 1862, 
 three years before the date at which Canon Wilson tells us 
 Science was introduced into the school course at Rugby, was 
 that of his first Science Master, Mr. (afterwards Professor) Leipner. 
 Five years later, in 1867, he was able to open the first School 
 Laboratories, then and for long, far in advance of what aU 
 but a few schools possessed, and introduced in the next few years 
 a series of distinguished scientific teachers — Dr. Heinrich Debus, 
 an eminent German chemist, afterwards Professor at the Royal 
 Naval College, Greenwich, and no less than four men who in 
 succession became Fellows of the Royal Society, Professor 
 A. W. Reinold, Brofessor John Perry, Professor (now Sir William) 
 Tilden, and Mr. A. M. Worthington. No Public School in the 
 country at that time, if indeed later, could show anything 
 approaching this series. And yet to these must be added 
 also Mr. M. J. Barrington Ward and Mr. G. H. Wollaston, who, 
 if not so scientifically eminent, were singularly successful in 
 encouraging the studies of Natural History, both Zoology and 
 Botany, and developing the Scientific Society of the School,
 
 n CLIFTON 33 
 
 which was launched as early as 1869 with an inaugural lecture 
 from Canon Kingsley ; and the School Museum, started in 1871. 
 WTien Dr. Tilden came on the scene Dr. Percival showed at 
 once his good generalship by making him Head of the Science 
 Department, and gi\dng him the freest possible hand. 
 
 The introduction of Natural Science showed singular 
 foresight and courage. CHfton was founded to be one of the 
 " PubHc Schools," and none of them included it in their 
 curriculum. But Percival determined to give it an im- 
 portant place, and to secure the best possible teachers. Of 
 his success in this department Sir William Tilden, F.R.S., 
 writes : " The world is much indebted to Dr. Percival's 
 insight, for without any knowledge of Natural Science he 
 saw how important some knowledge of that kind was going 
 to be in the days to come." Certainly the names of the 
 CHfton Science Masters in the early period make an impressive 
 Ust, quite equal in distinction to the galaxy of talent in 
 Classics and in EngUsh Literature which Percival brought to 
 the school. 
 
 Music was another subject, then usually neglected at 
 PubHc Schools, which received great attention from Percival. 
 The Clifton music was much helped by Mr. E. M. Oakeley. 
 The Headmaster of a new school, growing as CHfton grew, 
 must have had plenty to think about. But he was always 
 ready to attend to the suggestions of musical reformers. 
 Indeed, it seems that the suggestions were often his ow-n, 
 and he worked them out with the deliberation habitual to 
 him. So it came about that he once wrote to Mr. Oakeley : 
 " I have been thinking about the Sunday evening music ; 
 but thoughts don't always come to anything. So don't 
 indulge hopes." As a matter of fact, the thoughts came to 
 something very practical, and for many years a lecture with 
 music on Sunday evenings was a great institution. On 
 another occasion he sent the suggestion : " Would it not be 
 desirable that all boys in a school who are learning the piano 
 should be classified — not taught together in any way, but 
 counted as belonging to a particular class ? And for each 
 class there should be certain stipulated work term by term ? " 
 
 He was greatly interested in the compiling of the School 
 
 D
 
 34 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Hymnal, demanding the exclusion of " sentimental religion " 
 and " sugary tunes," and the choice of such hymns as were 
 likely to be sung by the whole School. In the technical sense 
 he was " unmusical," but his taste was usually that of the 
 most advanced reformers of Church music. 
 
 The strain of the first years at Clifton was very great, 
 and Percival did not spare himself. On this subject he 
 received in 1869 a word of warning from Jowett, to whom 
 he had written inquiring about the performance of two 
 Chftonians in the Balliol Scholarship Examination : 
 
 Balliol College, Oxford. 
 
 Dear Mr. Percival — I have been careless in not sooner 
 answering your letter about the two Clifton boys. [A report 
 on their work follows.] 
 
 Let me speak to you of another matter, respecting which 
 I have long had a mind to write to you. I hear from several 
 persons that you are seriously injuring your health. They tell 
 me that nothing can be better than the success of the College, 
 but they also think that it is quite impossible that you should 
 go on much longer in your present way of working. I have 
 been in this -state myself, though not, I think, so badly as you 
 seem to be, and I know quite well that one's first instinct is 
 to rebel against the person who tells you this. The greatest 
 symptom of weakness is the resolute determination to go on. 
 I hope that you will look this in the face and first see how much 
 you can superintend and how little you can do ; drudgery is 
 not the right sort of thing as you get older ; and secondly, 
 that if desirable you will take a six months', or a twelve months', 
 entire holiday. If you put in a good substitute you will find 
 that the impetus will last until you return.— With kind regards, 
 believe me, ever yours truly, B. Jowett. 
 
 The general scheme of the School organisation was largely 
 adopted from Rugby. In particular, the " Sixth Form 
 system " was introduced ; that is to say, the system by which 
 all members of the Sixth Form are " School Prefects," and 
 no others. But Percival added a demand of his own by 
 enacting that the Head of the School, that is, the senior 
 member of the Sixth, should not only be " Head Prefect " 
 but also of necessity Captain of Football. This led to some 
 curious results. Sometimes the captain was not himself a 
 member of the team, and had to depute nearly all his duties
 
 11 CLIFTON 35 
 
 to a substitute. On one occasion a Head of the School, after 
 the season had run some part of its course, put himself down 
 to play in a School match to the great indignation of the 
 School ; for he had achieved no eminence in the game 
 hitherto. But he justified his action by subsequently gain- 
 ing his Blue and becoming an " International." No doubt 
 Percival's object, when he made this curious arrangement, 
 was to secure that the boys who occupied the chief posts of 
 influence should, in that formative period of the School's Ufe, 
 be boys with whom he came into frequent contact. The 
 requirement concerning the Captain of Football did not long 
 survive his departure, but the Sixth Form system remains. 
 A Headmaster who presides over the infancy of a school 
 must needs concern himself with every department of its life, 
 and Percival gave much thought to the organisation of the 
 games, into which, at first, it was difficult to infuse the right 
 spirit. Health and circumstance had prevented him from 
 taking any active part in games himself, but he set a high 
 value on them as a factor in education. He encouraged his 
 staff to take part in them, and Chfton learnt Rugby football 
 from H. G. Dakyns, the brilhant scholar and lover of litera- 
 ture, to whom J. A. Symonds dedicated his Studies of the 
 Greek Poets. " CUfton," writes Sir Herbert Warren, " early 
 became distinctly an athletic school. The neighbourhood 
 was favourable to this development. Gloucester and 
 Somerset were sporting counties. It was the era of the 
 denouement of the Grace family. Athletic sports at the 
 Zoological Gardens were fashionable. Percival was an 
 advocate of compulsory games and encouraged athletics in 
 reason. He was very careful about keeping them within 
 bounds, about not letting foreign matches encroach on School 
 hours, and so on. But those who remember the Rugby 
 tradition of Tom Brown, and later of Arthur Butler and 
 C. C. Bowcn, a hero of Percival's, will not be surprised that 
 he recognised at once what a healthy element they are in 
 school life. What he had a horror of then as later was 
 loafing. He did not play our games himself, though he was 
 very fond of skating and golf, but he encouraged the staff 
 to do so, and he certainly came and looked on in his half-
 
 36 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 interested, half-melancholy, abstracted way, brightening up 
 and unbending on the occasion of any special achievement. 
 He very artfully established a School standard that no 
 captain of the Eleven was to go to Oxford or Cambridge 
 without a Scholarship or Exhibition, and he was very proud 
 of the three Tylecote brothers, ' C. B. L.,' ' E. F. S.,' and 
 ' H. G.,' and on one occasion at the Guthrie secured great 
 applause by saying of the then captain of the Oxford Eleven, 
 in the course of his speech, ' I need hardly tell you that 
 Evans is a much greater power at Oxford than any Head of 
 a House.' He went up with Oakeley to stay in London 
 and witness the first match played by Chfton at Lord's 
 against M.C.C. in August 1871, and no one was better pleased 
 than he by the wonderful performance and victory of the 
 School, winning as it did by an innings and 61 runs." 
 
 While Percival was securing his hold upon the boys he 
 also drew the parents within his grip. One of his successors 
 learnt rather dramatically the way in which they had been 
 led to submit to the yoke. This later Headmaster was sitting 
 in his study one morning, soon after the beginning of his first 
 term, when a card was brought in bearing the name of one 
 of the leading citizens of Bristol. On entering the room the 
 visitor said, " I have come to ask a favour of you." " Oh," 
 said the Headmaster, " of course I shall be glad to do any- 
 thing in my power." " Well," repUed the visitor, " I have 
 some property in the Isle of Wight and I have to go and look 
 at it. My wife has not been very well lately, and a couple 
 of days in the country would be very good for her. Would 
 you give me leave to take her with me ? " " Of course," 
 gasped the Headmaster, " I should be delighted." Inquiry 
 revealed the fact that the visitor was father of one of the 
 day boys, and Percival had made a law that the parents of 
 a day boy were never to be both away from home at once 
 during term-time, except with the knowledge and approval 
 of the Headmaster, 
 
 Perhaps such wise and strict regulations had something 
 to do with the preference that Percival always felt, as a result 
 of his experience, for Day Schools over Boarding Schools. 
 He had also secured that the day boys at Clifton should
 
 n CLIFTON 37 
 
 have a fuller share of corporate life than they usually obtain. 
 Indeed this was one of his chief aims and a main part of his 
 achievement. And his means to this end consisted largely 
 in the enUstment of the parents as school officers charged 
 with enforcing the school rules. His verdict on the day boy 
 system is beyond dispute. In October 1911, when speaking 
 at the prize-giving at the Whitgift School in Croydon, he 
 declared that " his experience at Clifton led him to the 
 conclusion that the best education in EngUsh hfe was not to 
 be had in a boarding school, but was obtained by the boy 
 who hved in a good home and attended a good school near 
 his home — a school well organised, well instructed and of 
 high tone. Many of the most distinguished boys at Chfton 
 were day boys, and their Hving at home involved no dis- 
 advantage. At Chfton they devised a plan whereby all the 
 day boys were allotted to various " houses " with a master 
 in charge. 1 This involved a certain amount of duty on the 
 parents to see that at home the boys observed all the rules 
 of the school just as if they had been boarders there, and that 
 in every respect they were under the same disciphne. Under 
 that system, boys who hved in really good homes obtained, 
 perhaps, the best form of education which was to be obtained 
 anywhere in England." 
 
 It would appear that Percival had to meet some opposi- 
 tion from the School in his efforts to gain for the day boys 
 what seemed to him their proper place. One old Clifton 
 boy, at any rate, who had passed into the Indian Civil 
 Service, and who was evidently on terms of warm friendship 
 with the Headmaster, wrote from Mysore a letter containing 
 this passage, after much jubilation at recent successes of 
 the Cricket XI. : 
 
 I hope what my brother tells me is only juvenile bumptious- 
 ness, viz. that " a fearful lot of snobs " are coming into the 
 school. I don't think a school can be too exclusive. As the 
 Indian phrase is " pucka " gentlemen only ought to be admitted, 
 and the parents ought to be " quite the topping people of the 
 
 ^ This does not mean that day boys were attached to Boarding Houses ; 
 they were themselves divided into two groups, called Houses — North 
 Town and South Town — which took rank for school purposes with the 
 Boarding Houses and had each a master in charge.
 
 38 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 place." I fancy the drawback to Clifton will always be the 
 large numbers of town boys, who inflate the school to an enormous 
 size, while they don't add to its prestige in games and studies— 
 the rubbish which daily pours out of semi-detached villas with 
 comforters round its neck, three-cornered notes in its pocket, 
 and querulous mamas and papas who each want a master to 
 themselves in the background. But I am very likely wrong, 
 and if so, please pardon my free-spokenness. 
 
 Certainly the education provided at CUfton under Percival 
 was in no way inferior to the best obtainable. For seventeen 
 years he worked at his task as architect of a school's greatness. 
 The record of that period is astonishing : fifty scholarships 
 at Oxford and Cambridge ; forty admissions to Woolwich 
 and Sandhurst ; twelve to the Indian Civil Service. It is 
 questionable whether any other school has such a record to 
 show of the first seventeen years of its existence. One con- 
 spicuously successful achievement was the passing of boys 
 direct from school into the Army without cramming. 
 Among Percival's pupils who were afterwards distinguished 
 soldiers must be mentioned Lord Haig and Sir William 
 Birdwood. 
 
 But Percival was not content with success in the School 
 as an isolated institution. He was active in many ways in 
 promoting the general welfare of the city in whose neighbour- 
 hood the School was planted. Into these wider interests 
 Percival sought to carry the boys as a part of their own 
 training in citizenship as well as for the sake of the town. 
 He started the first school mission, as that term is generally 
 understood. On this subject Canon Wilson writes : 
 
 I have always understood that among Public Schools Upping- 
 ham, under Thring, was the first to attempt to interest itself 
 in the work of poor parishes in great cities. I seem to recall 
 that Thring used to send annually some £$o from school collec- 
 tions to the vicar of a poor East End London parish. 
 
 Percival, however, had a great city close at hand ; and 
 besides his wish to interest the school in the religious, social, 
 and material welfare of Bristol, he aimed at establishing some 
 link by which personal acquaintance and mutual respect might 
 grow up between givers and receivers to the advantage of both. 
 As early as 1869 the College started and supported a " ragged
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 39 
 
 school," as it was then called, in the Dings of Bristol. This was 
 closed about five years later, as the opening of a Board School 
 rendered it unnecessary. Then, in 1875, the new idea was 
 suggested by Percival that the College should assist the Vicar' 
 of some large city parish in advancing the welfare of some special 
 district within it. A committee of masters and boys approved ; 
 the parish selected was St. Barnabas ; and early in 1876 Mr. 
 Rawnsley entered on his work as Clifton College missioner in 
 the Newfoundland Road district. 
 
 Percival talked the whole matter over with me before he 
 left. He was, however, disappointed with the results. It was, 
 as he said, one of the problems he left unsolved. But I think 
 there is no doubt that the original conception of a school acting 
 as " Big Brother " to a poor city district is due to Percival. 
 
 His aims for the Mission at the outset are outlined in two 
 letters to Mr. Fumeaux, to whom he turned in the first 
 instance in the hope that he might consent to be the first 
 missioner : 
 
 The Collegf, 
 
 Clifton, Bristol, 
 
 Feb. 12, 1875. 
 
 My dear Furneaux— I am going to trouble you with a 
 few lines which I hope you will not consider it loss of time to 
 think over. We have had in Bristol for some httle time a 
 Mission clergyman working under the Bishop, and supported 
 by the Church Aid Fund. Experience seems to show that a 
 good man has a field of usefulness open to him in such a work ; 
 and we have been considering lately whether we could support 
 such a missionary as the College contribution to this work. If 
 we had a prospect of getting the right man, I have no doubt 
 we could support him quite easily, but everything in such a 
 case, where the work requires an unusual combination of gifts 
 and graces, and is as yet experimental, must depend on the fitness 
 of the agent. My own thought at once was that if you should 
 be thinking of ministerial work, and felt a call to such a work 
 as this, all my desires in that respect would be fulfilled. 
 
 I hope you won't dismiss the matter without some thought. 
 
 The field of work is one which requires a man of thorough 
 devotion, fearless, strong, conciliatory, independent. 
 
 If you were to undertake it I should ask you to come and 
 preach to the school about once a month, and perhaps give 
 your experiences in other ways, so as to keep the work con- 
 stantly before the minds of all of us ; and God knows we all
 
 40 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 require to be reminded of many things which the other end of 
 Bristol has for our learning. If you should wish, or be willing, 
 to add to this a little work with my Sixth, say four or five hours 
 a week, taken on two days out of the six so as to have the others 
 free, I should of course be delighted : but you will understand 
 that it is the spiritual mission of which I am specially thinking. 
 Possibly you may say that if you take to ministerial work, 
 you feel it must be under the immediate direction of some older 
 man ; but I should not feel that as one of the things you need ; 
 and to a man who has a call upon him, the sense of a special 
 mission is worth a great deal of human guidance. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 Yours sincerely, J. Percival, 
 
 The Palace, Exeter, 
 Feb. 20, 1875. 
 
 My dear Furneaux— I was not surprised at your decision, 
 though your conception of the work to be done, and your feeling 
 of your own unfitness to my mind prove your qualifications— 
 and after aU, our fitness is relative to that of other instruments. 
 
 I can't recall any part of the work which the circumstances of 
 my life have led me to attempt for which I did not feel my want of 
 fitness. In fact, I could prove it now on very reasonable grounds. 
 
 I am here for the Ordination.^ — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 There can be no doubt about the earnestness of Percival's 
 feehng with regard to the Mission and the problem with 
 which it brought the School into contact. Many years later, 
 at the inaugural meeting of the Rugby School Mission, he told 
 the school there how at Clifton he " would stand out on the 
 Downs in the stillness of the night and hear the subdued 
 murmur of the city down below — ' the still sad music of 
 humanity.' " 
 
 His efforts for social reform were not confined to Bristol. 
 In 1865 he had been much distressed by the Registrar- 
 General's return of illegitimate births in Westmoreland and 
 Cumberland. He wrote to George Moore, at whose house 
 near CarUsle, called Whitehall, he and Mrs. Percival were 
 frequent guests, and Moore sent the letter to The Times. 
 
 Samuel Smiles tells the story in his Life of George Moore : ^ 
 
 ^ He was Examining Chaplain to Bishop Temple at Exeter and after- 
 wards in London. 2 p j^2.
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 41 
 
 A great stir was roused in 1865, by a letter addressed by 
 Dr. Percival of Clifton College to George Moore, on the morality, 
 or rather the immoraHty, of Cumberland and Westmoreland. 
 Dr. Percival was himself a Westmoreland man, and, like George 
 Moore, was an ardent admirer of his native county. Yet here 
 was a blot upon the morality of both counties, revealed by the 
 Registrar-General's returns, which he thought ought to be 
 obliterated. Eleven out of every hundred children bom in 
 Cumberland and Westmoreland were illegitimate. The Times 
 published the letter, and followed it up with a leading article on 
 the Modem Arcadians of Cumberland. " How is the matter 
 to be remedied ? " said the writer. " We know of no agency 
 capable of reaching it except publicity. Let it be clearly under- 
 stood and widely made known that the labours of clergymen, 
 schoolmasters, and scripture readers are thwarted and defeated 
 by conditions of life in these counties which ought to be curable." 
 
 The following is from George Moore's diary : " Had three 
 
 hours' talk with Mr. H as to illegitimacy. I find that he 
 
 does not Hke my doings. Still he was kind and sensible. He 
 said I had raised the anger of some of the upper ten thousand. 
 He believed that if I persevered, I should lose my political 
 influence. This I am prepared to lose. Excelsior ! must be 
 my motto." In the midst of these inquiries Mr. Moore went 
 to Carlisle to see the hiring fair. " I was shocked," he says, 
 " to see men and women bought like sheep in a market, and 
 engaged without knowledge, or references, or character." 
 
 Numerous letters appeared in the local newspapers. The 
 subject was taken up at the conference of the Evangelical Union 
 at Keswick. George Moore was blamed for publishing Dr. 
 Percival's letter, and for throwing dirt upon Cumberland and 
 Westmoreland." 
 
 In November 1876, George Moore was most anxious to 
 make it possible for clever poor bo3''s to get higher education. 
 He consulted many people of high educational authority. 
 Samuel Smiles says on p. 224 : 
 
 It was, however, to Dr. Percival, headmaster of CHfton 
 College, that Mr. Moore owed the working out of a practicable 
 plan. Dr. Percival's early life, his distinguished honours, and 
 the high position he occupied in the educational world, enabled 
 him to ascertain the weak places and the difficulties of the 
 proposed scheme, and how the money endowed might prove 
 of the best possible use. At length, after much time and pains
 
 42 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 had been given, and many consultations and meetings had 
 been held— after Dr. Temple, Bishop of Exeter, had been con- 
 sulted and given his advice freely and fully— the plan was at 
 length determined on. It was drawn up in a rough draft by 
 the Education Department and printed. All that was wanted 
 was the final settlement and George Moore's signature. Twelve 
 thousand pounds was the amount of money which he had set 
 apart for the purpose. And thus the matter rested. 
 
 On November 20th, George Moore asked his wife to write 
 to Percival. He said : " Ask him to arrange for a meeting 
 next week. I must have one more reading of that scheme, 
 then we can get it fairly launched." A few hours later he 
 was killed in the streets of Carlisle by a runaway horse. 
 The scheme was launched, but as a memorial to him by a 
 great multitude of friends. 
 
 Before his death Moore's friendship for Percival had 
 expressed itself in an enduring form. 
 
 " Early that year (1876)," writes Mrs. Johnson, the Bishop's 
 daughter, " George Moore told my mother that he wanted to 
 give her a portrait of my father, by G. F. Watts. He was then 
 sitting to Watts for his own portrait, and he asked him to under- 
 take the commission. Watts refused, saying that he liked to 
 choose his own subjects and did not wish to paint a school- 
 master. George Moore, determined to get his own way, sent 
 my father a telegram—" Come to us to-night : most important." 
 Father, thinking that something was seriously wrong, went up 
 from Clifton to George Moore's house in Palace Gardens, to find 
 a large evening party in full swing. Watts was there, and as 
 father came into the room, Watts rushed up to George Moore, 
 " Who is that man ? I must paint his portrait." " That is 
 my schoolmaster," said George Moore, " and you shall have the 
 cheque for the portrait to-night." 
 
 " The cheque, for £500, was sent to Watts, and the day 
 my father went up for the first sitting was the day he heard 
 that George Moore had been killed. It was a terrible blow to 
 him and to Watts, and the portrait has the sad expression that 
 Watts saw that first day. It was a beautiful painting. (To 
 my great joy I was allowed to go and watch it being painted.) 
 
 " It was hung in the Royal Academy next to a man in a 
 scarlet gown which made father's portrait yellow, so Watts 
 repainted it as it hung, and when my father and mother came 
 up for the Private View, Watts met them and forbade them to
 
 n CLIFTON 43 
 
 look at it, saying he had quite spoilt it. He had it back and 
 painted it again. It was four years before we got it, and it 
 was never as good a portrait as when first finished." 
 
 Percival never rested on his oars ; he was always looking 
 out for opportunities of improvement. Towards the end of 
 his time at Clifton he inaugurated the Jewish House. He 
 was gravely dissatisfied with the method that scattered 
 Jewish boys through the other houses, cut off from any 
 facilities for their own observances. So in 1878, after 
 consultation with Mr. Montefiore and Mr. Mundella, he 
 opened a special House for them with ten boys. It has 
 several times been enlarged and is now the same size as the 
 other Houses. This was the first experiment of its kind, 
 but several schools have since then followed Clifton's example. 
 
 The seventeen years' reign at Clifton was twice in danger 
 of interruption. At the end of 1869, Dr. Temple left Rugby 
 for the See of Exeter, and Percival was a candidate for the 
 vacant Headmastership. Temple greatly desired his appoint- 
 ment. But the fact that he was " one of Temple's men " 
 was enough to secure his rejection at the hands of the still 
 unreformed body of Trustees, who chose Dr. Hayman 
 because he was the only indisputable Conservative who came 
 forward. How this event was regarded in Bristol and 
 Clifton is seen in the following letter from Canon 
 Girdlestone : 
 
 Canon's House, Bristol, 
 
 Nov. 25, 1869. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Percival — . . . Bristol and Clifton in general, 
 and we in particular, are rejoiced to think that you are not 
 going to run away from us, and we hope that your remaining 
 here may in the end prove as advantageous to you as it must 
 be to us. As for Rugby, one almost sees its now long-continued, 
 bright -shining sun setting in clouds of conservative haze and 
 High Church incense. — With much kind regards, I am, very 
 faithfully yours, E. Girdlestone. 
 
 Hayman's rule at Rugby was disastrous. Rightly or 
 wrongly a group of masters came to the conclusion that it 
 was desirable to precipitate a crisis ; they formed an organised
 
 44 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 resistance ; the school went hterally to pieces ; numbers 
 rapidly fell ; and after four years the reformed Governing 
 Body dismissed Hayman. There was an immense contro- 
 versy, with bitterly contested law-suits. But the right of 
 the Governors to dismiss the Headmaster was upheld, and 
 Disraeli presented Hayman to the Crown living of Aldingham 
 in the diocese of Carlisle " in recognition of his services to 
 Homeric learning." ^ 
 
 Percival was this time strongly pressed to stand. The 
 senior Rugby master, Mr. C. T. Arnold, urged it almost with 
 passion. But Percival hesitated. One of the candidates 
 was Dr. Jex Blake, on whose invitation Percival had first 
 gone to Rugby, and against whom he was unwilling to 
 compete. The Bishop of Exeter expressed himself vigorously 
 on this point : 
 
 Exeter, 
 January 4, 1874. 
 
 My dear Percival — It never seems to me to be right to 
 let considerations of personal friendship interfere with pubHc 
 conduct. A man may be justified in sa3dng that he will not 
 be a competitor against his own brother or against his own 
 father. But it is not just to public interests to allow considera- 
 tions of this nature to go beyond the very narrowest limits. 
 A man's competition can do no harm whatever to his friend 
 unless, in the opinion of those who are appointed to judge, and 
 who may be presumed to be in the right and nine times out of 
 ten will be in the right, he is a better man than his friend. And 
 if he is a better man he has no right to rob the public of his 
 services. 
 
 And to this is to be added that even if he stand aside, there 
 may be nevertheless a better man than his friend, though inferior 
 to himself, in the competition. And in this case (not at all an 
 unlikely case) he has robbed the public and positively hurt his 
 friend by exhibiting the fact that he is not only not first, but 
 not even second. 
 
 And all this is tenfold more true in the case of Rugby, which 
 is really damaged by narrowing the field of choice of Headmasters 
 just now. There are plenty to say : " Men will not come forward 
 because the governing body behaved so ill, because the assistant 
 masters are ungovernable, because the school is hopeless, because 
 
 ^ He had published an edition of part of the Odyssey, which receives 
 honourable mention in J. B. Mayor's Guide to the Choice of Classical Books.
 
 11 CLIFTON 45 
 
 it is a duty to protest against Hayman's dismissal." If any 
 think like this let them stand aloof. But at this crisis every 
 true friend of education and of high principle in school govern- 
 ment ought to offer to take charge of Rugby, if he be able to 
 offer. 
 
 Jex Blake mentioned you to me ; but so did several others ; 
 and most certainly if he had never been at Rugby that would 
 have made no difference in your coming. I have not the sHghtest 
 notion how the election will go. There is a talk of Bradley. 
 There is a talk of a School Inspector called Sharpe. And a 
 few others will turn up. 
 
 But if I were in your place at such a crisis I should stand, 
 even if I were certain to be beaten, and if my dearest friend 
 were standing too. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 F. ExoN. 
 
 With what eagerness the matter was watched from the 
 Palace at Exeter is made clear by the following letters 
 written to Mrs. Percival by Miss Temple, the Bishop's 
 sister : 
 
 The Palace, Exeter, 
 December 21. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Percival — So it has come at last,^ and I 
 must be thankful for the School and Masters and for the 
 Bishop that the weary battle is over, and yet to make us quite 
 happy we must want to hear that the wretched man has some- 
 thing given him to do. And now will my best dream come true, 
 and shall I live to see Mr. Percival in my brother's place, doing 
 more than he had to do, helping all with calm, quiet wisdom 
 to forget the past and lead a new life ? And how I shall like 
 to think of (nay, I hope to see you) cheering them all with all 
 your warm, affectionate, loving way. I feel as if I wanted to 
 see you to express half of what I feel about it. I do long to 
 have you both there so intensely. My love to the children and 
 a happy Christmas to you all. — Ever, dear Mrs. Percival, yours 
 most affectionately, J. O. Temple. 
 
 The Palace, Exeter, 
 December 24. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Percival— No. I feel even if such a mis- 
 fortune again befell us, as that Mr. Percival was not elected, 
 still I do most earnestly desire that he should lead the forlorn 
 hope to the rescue ; that he should show that he at least did 
 
 ^ Dr. Hayman's dismissal.
 
 46 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 not think it impossible that the old noble traditions should be 
 revived and was willing to try. I do so want Rugby men to 
 feel proud of their school, and the very fact of his standing will 
 help them. The circumstances are so exceptional that I believe 
 even his own school would consent that he should offer to do 
 a work so very few could do at all, much less as he can. Dear 
 Mrs. Percival, do not keep him back ; just because he is your 
 very best give him to this work and do not let the idea of rejec- 
 tion weigh with you, but rather say go ; if you are not taken 
 you will have done your part. 
 
 I say all this, and yet I cannot in my own heart believe but 
 that if he stands he will be elected. Many happy Christmasses 
 to you both. — Ever yours most affectionately, 
 
 J. O. Temple. 
 
 The Palace, Exeter, 
 January 8. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Percival — I am so thankful Mr. Percival 
 is going to stand, and yet I feel as if we had sacrificed our best 
 friend for Rugby, and can only repeat to myself that whether 
 he is elected or not, it was the noblest part to stand. 
 
 Dr. Hayman and his friends will be sure to attack him as 
 the friend of the Bishop and call it a plot. 
 
 I have not a shadow of doubt as to the absolute recovery of 
 Rugby if he is elected, but it is impossible to foresee what a 
 Board will do, and the newspapers have been so taking for 
 granted that he was going to Rugby that some of the governing 
 body may be put into antagonistic feeling towards him. Still 
 I shall try and hope. . . . — Ever yours most affectionately, 
 
 J. O. Temple. 
 
 During this anxious period the Council of Clifton College 
 wrote to express their sense of the value of the Headmaster's 
 services and of what they hoped from them if they were not 
 too soon interrupted. 
 
 Clifton College Company, Limited, 
 Secretary's Office, 
 The College, Clifton, 
 Jan. 5, 1874. 
 Private and Confidential. 
 
 Dear Sir — Although we are sure that you cannot fail to 
 be aware of the great value in which your services as Head- 
 master of the College are held by this Council, we think it right 
 at this time to endeavour again to express to you how warmly 
 we feel on this subject.
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 47 
 
 For some time past every succeeding year has been marked 
 with a success for the College which has excited the admiration 
 not only of all interested in the institution, but of the scholastic 
 world, and elicited from those best quaUfied to judge, expressions 
 of astonishment at the brilliant achievements which your ability 
 and indefatigable exertions have found means so quickly to 
 attain. In fine, under your rule the College is fast taking root 
 as a great Public School, and we state with confidence our belief 
 that in a very few years, under your guidance, it will take rank 
 as a permanent institution. 
 
 Under these circumstances we cannot as a Council thank 
 you too much for your exertions in the past, or express too 
 earnestly our hopes that they will still be given to us in the 
 future. 
 
 We venture to suggest to you that the building up of an 
 English Public School is no unworthy object of a high ambition, 
 and that, fair as the prospects of the College now are, a change 
 of the Headmaster must be a source of grave anxiety and peril 
 to so young an institution ; pardon us if we add our belief that 
 your stay with us a few short years will suffice for you to gratify 
 that ambition and to avoid that peril. 
 
 In endeavouring to set before you in the strongest manner 
 our estimation of your services to the College, and the importance 
 we attach to them, we are acting in the simple discharge of our 
 duty, but we should fail to do justice to ourselves if we did not 
 say that it affords us the greatest pleasure, individually and 
 collectively, thus to express ourselves to one whom we all regard 
 personally with such warm sentiments of esteem. — I remain, 
 dear Sir, yours faithfully. 
 
 On behalf of the Council, 
 
 James Heyworth, Chairman. 
 
 The election took place on February 19. Fercival had 
 gone to London to be interviewed by the Governors. Soon 
 after mid-day he telegraphed to Mrs. Fercival : 
 
 Jex Blake is elected. Don't be disappointed, as you know 
 I am not. Expect me by train due eight fifteen. 
 
 At Exeter the disappointment was bitter. 
 
 The Palace, Exeter, 
 February 19. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Percival^I wrote to you this afternoon, 
 went out to make a call, and came home to find the telegram.
 
 48 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Alas, it does seem too hard that he should try twice and be 
 passed over. I can only comfort myself by thinking that he 
 would have been pained, when it lay absolutely between himself 
 and Dr. Jex Blake, to have got what the other so intensely 
 longed for. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Percival, I cannot retract what I said ; better go 
 and fail than not at such a time go in at all ; and yet now I 
 feel as if we had indeed sacrificed our best friend. 
 
 Please write to me. My best love to you both. — Ever yours 
 affectionately, J. O. Temple. 
 
 Exeter, 
 Feb. 20, 1874. 
 
 My dear Percival — I am mortified and sorry, and also 
 feel as if you had a right to complain of me. Yet I confess I 
 did very much wish you to stand for the sake of Rugby, and 
 not only for the chance of success. The voting was 7 to 5. 
 How each voted I have no right, and indeed in some degree no 
 power, to say. 
 
 You suffered in some measure by the accident of not having 
 been known to great folk, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 but still more because you were a candidate last time. It was 
 felt that to elect a man now instead of Hayman, to whom Hayman 
 had been preferred some years ago, was a kind of slap to the 
 Trustees. This I had not at all foreseen. 
 
 You are quite at liberty to say that the voting was nearly 
 even and that I told you so, or Mrs. Percival may say so to any 
 one. This perhaps may sooth your Council or your colleagues 
 if they are disposed to be angry with us and to think that we 
 have snubbed them. . . . — Yours affectionately, 
 
 F. ExoN. 
 
 At Rugby also there were some at least who were sorely 
 disappointed. 
 
 School Field, Rugby, 
 
 Feb. 19, '74. 
 
 My dear Percival — A deep feeling of disappointment has 
 fallen, I fear, on all here — and this, I think, that you should know, 
 that every one I beHeve of our community felt that you could 
 best do what was needed in this time of trial ; and I am sure 
 that every one is grateful to you for coming forward. 
 
 It's the more necessary to say this now, because Jex Blake 
 having been elected it becomes the duty of every one who cares 
 for Rugby at aU to be unanimous in forgetting this last four
 
 11 CLIFTON 49 
 
 years of dark trial, and especially for all working here to allow 
 no feeling of any kind to interfere for one moment with his 
 spirit of self forgetfulness and devotion to work, with eyes fixed 
 on the future as the only hope of forgetting a miserable past. 
 Neither you nor Jex Blake, nor any one else can know the black- 
 ness of that time as I know it ; and it will be long, if ever, before 
 I can get rid of the seared feeling of this frightful time — and 
 yet personally it has not pressed on me. All that can be done 
 is to bury it and to let no thought rest on it. 
 
 Selfishly, it is a matter of rejoicing to me that Ernest does 
 not lose your friendly guidance. , . . — Ever most sincerely 
 yours, 
 
 C. T. Arnold. 
 
 The Master of BalUol was an interested spectator of these 
 events. 
 
 Balliol College, 
 Dec. 21. 
 
 Dear Mr. Percival . . , Are you going to become a candi- 
 date for Rugby ? You would be almost certain of succeeding. 
 But is it worth while to leave an institution which you have 
 created, and a place in which you have so great an influence, 
 to undertake the revival of Rugby ? Young trees only should 
 be transplanted. — Yours most truly, 
 
 B. JOWETT. 
 
 Balliol College, 
 Feb. 22. 
 
 Dear Mr. Percival — Many thanks for your telegram. I 
 am both sorry and glad that you are not Headmaster of Rugby : 
 sorry, because this result may be a disappointment to you. 
 But glad for selfish reasons, and also because I beheve that your 
 present position is better for you, and really one of greater 
 distinction. As to being beaten by another man I do not think 
 that of any consequence. From what I hear you must have 
 lost the election almost by accident and not on any question of 
 comparative merit. — With kind regards to Mrs. Percival, believe 
 me, my dear Percival, yours most truly, 
 
 B. Jowett, 
 
 Balliol College, 
 March 15, 1874. 
 
 Dear Mr. Percival — I meant to have written long ago to 
 thank you for your kino note. I am sure that it is better for 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 you to remain at Clifton, and that you have been saved from a 
 great deal of pain in leaving it. Though I think that you would 
 have succeeded at Rugby, I do not think that you could really 
 have succeeded so well or have done so much as you will at 
 Clifton in a few years time. And when you are tired of CUfton 
 or find the work too much for your strength, if you are not 
 translated to a higher world, you must come back to Oxford 
 as Provost of Queen's. These headships of colleges, although 
 not very distinguished positions, are good places in which to 
 grow old. ... 
 
 With best regards to Mrs. Percival, I remain, my dear Percival, 
 yours most truly, 
 
 B. JOWETT. 
 
 Whatever the feeUngs may have been elsewhere, Clifton 
 v^^as jubilant. T. E. Brown had signed on behalf of the 
 Assistant Masters a glowing testimonial to his chief. Now 
 he wrote : 
 
 My dear Mrs. Percival — We've had enough and more than 
 enough of this Rugby. Let us turn our backs upon it. But 
 let me at the same time take the opportunity of saying how 
 intensely I feel bound to devote all that is within me to making 
 Clifton worthy of your husband. 
 
 Now to Prep ! — Ever yours, T. E. Brown. 
 
 Other letters expressed the same feelings : 
 
 Clifton College. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Percival — The present rejoicings — which are 
 by this time both deep and general, now that one's first indigna- 
 tion at our defeat is past — extend to every comer of every 
 department of our life, and amongst other things which have 
 been put into tune may be counted the piano in Big School, 
 whose first desire is now to accompany you in the Bugle song, 
 by way of allegory, as feeling in every nerve, from shivering A 
 in alt to grumpiest bottom D ; what a loss we have been on the 
 brink of. The Piano (if I may be permitted to speak as its 
 representative), " feeling so deeply as it does the musical possi- 
 bilities of the place now that you and Mr. Percival are to stay 
 with us " — but here the emotion of the instrument interrupts 
 me — [but as far as I can gather it intends to challenge the thing 
 that calls itself an organ, now resident in the Big school at 
 Rugby, to an open competition on the earliest opportunity] . . . 
 but not if I had an hundred Big School pianos could I express
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 51 
 
 in measured language at present all that I feel : the season is 
 one of throwing up of caps and other outward and visible signs 
 of jubilation. Mr. Brown, alone of men, was enabled by his 
 genius to light up language of the requisite strength yesterday. 
 It certainly did one good to hear him. 
 
 I began this note merely intending to ask you to try the 
 Bugle song after Choral on Saturday ? Then the pen took the 
 bit in its mouth. — Yours ever, 
 
 E. M. Oakeley. 
 
 The boys were not behindhand in their expression of 
 satisfaction ; the Sixth Form passed the following resolution : 
 
 Feb. 20, 1874. 
 
 With reference to the result of the election for the Head- 
 mastership of Rugby, it was resolved : 
 
 That the Vlth wish to express to Mr. Percival that, while 
 they are far too proud of him not to regret deeply that he has 
 suffered a disappointment, they have not words to tell their 
 thankfulness that he is saved to Clifton and themselves in- 
 dividually, bound to him as they are by ties of respect and 
 affection, the strength of which perhaps they never fully realised 
 till they seemed about to lose him. 
 
 The feelings of friends in Chfton may be represented by 
 a note from Mrs, Fox to Mrs. Percival : 
 
 I neither know this name nor do I care to know it. Thank- 
 ful as far as this place is concerned — disgusted at all else except 
 that we keep you both here. 
 
 I have been hanging about the close to-day hoping to catch 
 news of this and the BaUiol. 
 
 Jane Fox. 
 
 The relief and joy at Chfton soon found expression in a 
 more permanent form. The following letter was circulated 
 to all old members and friends of the School : 
 
 Clifton College, 
 March 6, 1874. 
 
 At two meetings held immediately after the Rugby election, 
 it was agreed by boys and masters, severally and independently, 
 that an attempt should be made to commemorate a happy crisis 
 in the history of the School.
 
 52 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Had Dr. Percival gone, doubtless the moment would have 
 been seized as a fitting one at which to record in some symbol 
 our deep and grateful affection towards him, whose spirit alone 
 would have been left. To-day — regret may well be merged 
 in gladness, and gratitude in self-congratulation ; but the 
 occasion, it is felt, is no less suitable to give some practical and 
 appropriate expression to the common feehng. 
 
 Among the various forms in which such a sentiment might 
 aptly manifest itself, none has seemed more happy than that 
 for which we now beg to ask your aid and sympathy. 
 
 The idea proposed is to complete the north wing of the 
 quadrangle by adding a Museum to the half already built, at a 
 cost of about £1500. 
 
 This sum we feel sure can, by united effort, be easily raised ; 
 and the whole edifice will rightly be named the " Percival Library 
 and Museum," the earher half of that building forming his own 
 gift four years ago, the latter given in his honour at the present 
 time. 
 
 Enough perhaps has been said to make clear the history and 
 intent of the proposed scheme ; but in a circular like this we 
 feel we may be allowed to add a warmer word. Clifton to-day 
 has not only experienced a crisis, but attained to a point of 
 consciously-realised growth. She begins — with modest pride 
 indeed as befits her youth, yet confidently — to rank herself 
 among the great schools. If she is young, she is also strong 
 and full of strenuous ambition : and what the patriotism of 
 Eton and Rugby, Harrow and Marlborough, have repeatedly 
 achieved, Clifton may surely emulate. 
 
 Signed on behalf of the Committee, 
 
 T. E. Brown, Chairman. 
 
 For five more years Percival ruled at Clifton to the great 
 benefit of the School. But the strain was too great. He 
 was scarcely ever alone ; the masters turned to him for every- 
 thing. During his last three years at Clifton he had terrible 
 nightmares and his wife was very anxious about him. In 
 1879 he was asked to accept the Presidency of Trinity College, 
 Oxford ; and he decided to go. The news came to the 
 School with a great shock. At CHfton, as afterwards at 
 Rugby, the confidence in him was of that absolute kind 
 which made the mere conception of his absence unthinkable. 
 By a kind of instinct those who were under him at either 
 School, whether as boys or masters, agree in expressing their
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 53 
 
 feelings in the words : " We regarded him as one of the laws 
 of nature." It was only when the fact of his imminent 
 departure had to be faced that the latent love for him 
 rose above the threshold of consciousness. Canon Wilson 
 describes his own impressions of Percival's grounds for the 
 change in the following memories of conversations with 
 Percival at the time : 
 
 It was a great surprise and shock to nearly the whole of the 
 staff of Clifton College when Percival announced his intention 
 of resigning the Headmastership and becoming President of 
 Trinity College, Oxford. I do not know with any fulness or 
 certainty what were his reasons for this great change. They 
 were plainly not financial. My recollection of conversations 
 with him at Clifton at that time may throw some light on his 
 motives. 
 
 First I should place his sense that Oxford needed a new 
 impulse at that time. He felt it to be out of touch with the 
 newer desires for education as manifested by the local University 
 Colleges springing up everywhere. Bristol University College, 
 which owed much to his initiative, was indeed warmly supported 
 by Jowett, H. J. S. Smith, and George of New College. But 
 he thought that he could do something more for this movement 
 if he were at Oxford. 
 
 In other matters too he was anxious to see new influences 
 at Oxford. He wished, for example, to see boys of seventeen 
 going up to the University, instead of waiting at school till 
 they were nineteen. And I think he felt that fresh impulses 
 towards intellectual Hfe and research, and towards a greater 
 sense of rehgious and moral and political leadership of the 
 nation, were needed at Oxford. He hoped, in a word, that the 
 same sort of unity of ideal could be impressed upon the University 
 that he had seen springing up at Clifton. 
 
 Such is the general impression left by our conversations at 
 that time ; and my recollection is borne out by a very distinct 
 memory of later conversations with him after experience at 
 Oxford of its immobihty and lack of unity. I remember his 
 saying that " Oxford had as much feeling of unity as a rabbit 
 warren ; each Head of a College was seen at the mouth of his 
 burrow ; but if anything was suggested, in he dived." He was 
 disappointed with Oxford, though not with his College. Such 
 were, however, I think, the high hopes which moved him to 
 accept the Presidentship of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 But I gathered also that he felt the strain and anxiety of his
 
 54 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 post at Clifton ; he wanted a change. And he told me quite 
 frankly that there were some matters through which he had 
 not seen his way, and that he hoped I might contribute some 
 new light on them. It may be of some interest if I put down 
 here explicitly what those matters were. They had all arisen 
 from the unprecedented rapidity with which the School had 
 grown to numbers far beyond those which were originally con- 
 templated. 
 
 New class-rooms were urgently wanted. Let any one who 
 knows the College try to picture how 600 boys were taught, and 
 taught well, when there was no eastern side to the quadrangle 
 and no Tower ; when their site was a botanic garden, and there 
 were no buildings east of the Percival library, except some 
 wooden sheds, the racquet and fives courts, the baths, and the 
 Junior School. How did we manage ? I cannot say. But 
 we did. 
 
 And where was the money to come from ? This was the 
 immediate need. The College was heavily burdened with 
 borrowed money. Then there was the pressing need of more 
 land. We at that time did not own a yard of land outside 
 the close. Our cricket was absolutely first-rate ; but the close 
 was dangerously, even impossibly crowded. 
 
 And there was the problem of promotion for masters. There 
 was a staff of forty ; but the few seniors had the boarding 
 houses, and all alike were young. What chance was there for 
 a young man of rising to a well-paid post ? 
 
 The modem side offered another unsolved problem. He 
 had staffed it with first-rate men, such as Brown and Grenfell 
 and Tait. But it had disappointed him. It had become a 
 refuge for the less cultivated and the less capable. There was 
 no goal such as the University put before it. It had become 
 the home of the unambitious, the unliterary, the stagnant. 
 AU their lessons, except the Sunday Old Testament lesson of 
 the Sixth, were taken apart from the classical side ; it had 
 become a school side by side with another and a better school. 
 It was developing a different tone. It was a disappointment. 
 That was one of the problems which in our talks he bequeathed 
 to me. 
 
 And there was the School Mission. Percival had set it on 
 foot, and he had been much disappointed in it. The first 
 two curates whom he had placed successively in charge of the 
 selected district, as curates under the Vicar of a large Bristol 
 parish, had resigned in despair ; and no one could be found to 
 take up the post. Our Mission had dwindled to the support 
 of a coffee-house that did not pay.
 
 II CLIFTON 55 
 
 More and more I felt as we talked over such questions as 
 these, and the financial problems connected with the School 
 and its obhgations, that Percival felt too tired to face them with 
 the freshness which he felt they needed. His instinct demanded 
 a change of scene and a new sort of work. In fact he not only 
 wished to go to Oxford, but deeply as he loved Clifton he felt 
 it to be a relief to leave it. 
 
 To his old friend, Sir James Whitehead, Percival wrote : 
 
 Clifton, 
 
 October 28. 
 
 My dear Whitehead— Please accept my very best thanks 
 for your kind note. I am sorry to think that I shall not see 
 your two boys through their school time, but I may hope to 
 renew my acquaintance with one or other of them perhaps at 
 Oxford, and I can say that they are pretty certain to get some 
 one in my place at Clifton who will do well by them. 
 
 It has been rather a difficult question for me to decide, and 
 the offer was so unexpected that I had to decide it aU at once. 
 I hope I have done right, though it involves amongst other things 
 becoming a comparatively poor man ; and I have not paid 
 sufficient attention to saving for my children hitherto. — Yours 
 sincerely, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 One of the attractions whicli Oxford offered was the 
 opportunity of affording a centre for the Old CHftonians at 
 the University. Among those who wrote to express their 
 mingled feeUngs — sorrow for CUf ton's loss and joy for Oxford's 
 gain — was Sir Herbert Warren, who had been elected Fellow 
 of Magdalen in 1877 and Tutor in 1878. To him Percival 
 replied : 
 
 Clifton College, 
 Clifton, Bristol, 
 Nov. 9, 1878. 
 
 My dear Warren — I hardly know how to thank you for 
 your most welcome letter, and that is mainly why I have let 
 two or three days pass. In fact, it's useless for me to attempt 
 to talk about it. I have not received, nor do I expect to receive, 
 any letter to touch me in the same way as yours. 
 
 As regards Clifton, I hope that the change may really bring 
 good to the School. In some ways I have been long enough here, 
 and if the right man comes he may bring fresh life, though I
 
 56 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 need not say that I feel some anxiety ; for I am conscious that 
 we have acquired a certain character among schools, difficult 
 to define, and yet distinctly appreciable, which I desire to see 
 growing and deepening ; and I should feel it bitterly if by any 
 mischance this should get lost, and it is one of those subtle 
 things that may go, one scarcely knows how. But I am sanguine 
 enough to hope that all that is best in the place is well rooted, 
 and that new roots will be struck. 
 
 And it will be pleasant to be able to do something towards 
 making a centre for Old CUftonians at Oxford, and to see you 
 and others more frequently and freely ; whilst at Trinity I 
 hope I may be of some service, when I get settled there. 
 
 I am particularly thankful on account of the quiet for Mrs. 
 Percival, as she is not strong enough for the life here. 
 
 The Council will not let me go entirely till after Easter, 
 though I shall reside in Oxford a good deal meanwhile. I am 
 hoping to go up next Tuesday and to stay till Friday, so that 
 I shall very likely see you. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 " If the right man comes." That was the one great 
 anxiety. Percival had no doubt about his ovm desires. He 
 wished to be succeeded by a man whom he had known at 
 Rugby many years before, and in company with whom and 
 with Arthur Butler he had walked from Lucerne to Engelberg 
 and Meiringen in the July of 1862, when Butler was about to 
 launch Haileybury and he himself was about to launch 
 Clifton on their great careers. The story shall be told in 
 Canon Wilson's words : 
 
 I stayed at the School House with Mr. and Mrs. Percival 
 for a few days, and helped to get their home in order. My 
 chief share was hanging their pictures. After this we seldom 
 met, and rarely corresponded during the seventeen years of 
 his Headmastership, so that I was entirely taken by surprise in 
 the autumn of 1878, when he asked me to let him put my name 
 before the Governors of the College as his possible successor. 
 In that summer I had had a great sorrow and shock ; and felt 
 unable to continue school work. I had arranged to resign my 
 Mastership at Rugby, and Temple, then Bishop of Exeter, was 
 to ordain me at Christmas for work in his diocese. I refused to 
 entertain the thought of Clifton. Percival, however, pressed me 
 hard to come and see him and the masters and Governors, 
 and reconsider my decision. So also did Temple. And
 
 II CLIFTON 57 
 
 T. E. Brown, my still older friend and school-fellow, wrote me 
 a long letter of masterly analysis of the whole situation, and 
 very warm appreciation, not without criticism, of Percival. 
 To my great regret that letter has been lost in some of my moves. 
 I can only recall one passage and that but imperfectly. I 
 cannot do justice to Brown's vivid picture. " Percival," he 
 wrote, " was like an inspired demonic conductor of an orchestra. 
 He has lashed us into Bacchic fury, — wind and strings and 
 voices — forte, forte, fortissimo. At the end of term we sink 
 back on our seats and mop our foreheads and pant. He is 
 divine ; but we want rcst.^ Come and trust us ; we are all 
 inspired, and we will work for you without the lash. Come." 
 So I came, in fear and with great reluctance. 
 
 The departure from Clifton involved the breaking of very 
 many ties. Apart from the School, which was so largely his 
 own creation, he had many intimate associations with Bristol, 
 as a result of his activities for educational and general progress 
 in the city and neighbourhood. ^ His feehngs in the period 
 when the wrench had just taken place, as well as some of his 
 deepest interests in Clifton and Bristol, find expression in a 
 letter which he wrote to Mr. Kilhgrew Wait — perhaps the 
 most intimate of his Bristol friends — in answer to a proposal 
 that he should accept some form of testimonial. 
 
 Trinity College, 
 
 April 17, 1879. 
 
 My dear Wait — As my wife finds it difficult to answer 
 your last kind note, and is besides rather tired, I think I had 
 best endeavour to express my own feelings ; though I may as 
 well say at once that it is not possible for me to convey to you 
 in particular or to all our other friends rhy sense of the over- 
 flowing kindness which has made our connection with Bristol 
 so pleasant, and the memory of our leave-taking so precious 
 for the rest of our lives. As regards the memento that you have 
 in hand, my only regret is that it could not have been something 
 quite inexpensive, so that you need not all have spent so much 
 upon us. However, looking this matter in the face as it now 
 presents itself, I feel no objection to some plate which may 
 remind my children hereafter of the kindness of Bristol friends 
 to their father, and may be an encouragement and a stimulus 
 
 ^ Cf. Mr. Bradby's account of Percival at Rugby, p. 123. 
 * See pp. 258-264.
 
 58 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 to them to do their duty ; but / must ask you to let the hulk of 
 the subscriptions go to some public object. It nded not be specially 
 associated with the College. If it could be used so as to help 
 forward any poor boys of ability, who might be rising through 
 the various grades of Bristol schools, I should hke that. I 
 suppose that the city has more than enough of endowments in 
 the way of exhibitions, free tuition, etc. ; but possibly some 
 need may occur to some of you. I have sometimes thought 
 that a small trust for supplying poor boys of talent with good 
 books, if well administered, might be of great service. It must 
 often happen that such boys are very much handicapped and 
 hampered, in cases where the parents cannot understand the 
 need of certain books, and could not afford to supply them if 
 they did. 
 
 If this sort of thing were thought worth considering it would 
 be easy to form a small Board of Trustees, whose duty it would 
 be to administer the fund, in accordance with some simple rules 
 securing that the help should go to the most deserving. I make 
 this suggestion with some little diffidence, not because I have 
 any doubt of the value of such a scheme if carried out, but 
 because of my want of familiarity with the resources of Bristol 
 as they are to be administered under the new order of things. 
 
 I hope this may be of some service to you on Saturday and 
 may help to save you trouble. In spite of all these testimonials 
 which keep telling me that a chapter, the main chapter, of my 
 life is closed, the whole thing seems still a dream and I can 
 hardly reahse that I am not coming back, or that my home 
 is no longer at Gifton. — With best regards to Mrs. Wait, ever 
 yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 It was only in a geographical sense that his home was 
 no longer at CUfton. His association with the School was 
 intimate until his death. As Chairman of the Council he 
 was closely linked with its development, and no School 
 function was complete without his presence. It is impossible 
 to enumerate his visits ; they were times of deUght to himself, 
 to his old friends, and to new members of the School, both 
 boys and masters, who rejoiced in the opportunity to make 
 the acquaintance of the founder of their tradition. No one 
 who was present will forget the emotion which he displayed 
 at the Clifton College Jubilee on July 13, 1912. He had 
 preached in the College Chapel from the text that he chose
 
 II CLIFTON 59 
 
 for his first sermon : " Neither is he that planteth anything, 
 nor he that watereth ; but God that giveth the increase." 
 He had dwelt on the wonderful growth of the School. " Fifty 
 years ago the ground on which we now stand was a green 
 field without a history or human associations or a human 
 interest. As we gather on it to-day it is a shrine, sanctified 
 by many a sacred memory, enriched with the affection and 
 devotion of those who grew up here and went out from us to 
 bear the name of their School and exhibit its spirit in the 
 various fields of life and duty in almost every quarter of the 
 globe." Speeches had been made by the Headmaster and 
 the Lord Chancellor — Lord Haldane — and Canon Glazebrook. 
 The advertised ceremony was at an end. But the President 
 of Magdalen rose to present to the Bishop of Hereford an 
 address signed by those Old CUftonians present at the cele- 
 brations who had been his pupils at the School : 
 
 We, the undersigned, who were boys at Clifton during your 
 Headmastership, and now have met to celebrate the Jubilee of the 
 School, wish to say how glad we are that you have been spared 
 to see, after fifty years, the great results of your work for the 
 School ; and to express to you our deep personal gratitude for 
 all that it has meant to us to have been at Clifton under you. 
 
 The Bishop had not known that any such presentation 
 was intended. He was unprepared and overwhelmed. The 
 phrases in which he rephed convey nothing but conventional 
 thanks when read in cold print. But his emotion was deep, 
 and showed to the assembly how profound was his love for 
 the School and for his old pupils. 
 
 Later on the Bishop wrote to the President to express 
 his thanks more formally, and received in reply a letter 
 which tells the origin of the presentation : 
 
 Hotel Mount Pleasant, 
 
 Great Malvern, 
 
 Sept. 6, 1912. 
 
 My dear Lord Bishop — It was a very great and real pleasure 
 to me to receive your letter here yesterday — and it will be not 
 less so I know to Cookson and Cannan when I pass it on to them. 
 The original idea of the Address was Cookson's, but we were
 
 6o LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 all instantaneously of one heart and memory and mind and 
 voice directly it was thought of. And that was what we were 
 and shaU be always now in thinking of the great mercy and 
 blessing, for such it truly was, of the Clifton Jubilee. I really 
 cannot tell you what it was to me to sit again in the old way in 
 Chapel and hear your sermon linking the years together, with 
 their hopes and memories and resolves — resolves especially. 
 For these indeed I feel we need to renew and reinforce — to take 
 up with the light of long experience yet with the refreshed 
 aspiration of revived youth our old ideals— the ideals which 
 you set before us forty and fifty years ago, and have set before 
 us once again the other day. ... I am, my dear Dr. Percival, 
 always your attached friend and pupil, 
 
 T. Herbert Warren. 
 
 It is fitting that the School which he led to greatness 
 should be his last resting-place. But while he lived it could 
 be no place of rest for him. He never felt that the ideal 
 which he had in view had been attained. That ideal could 
 not be better described than in the following paragraphs 
 from his sermon at the Jubilee : 
 
 As I look round on our EngUsh world the sense of need is 
 with me still. I have to confess to you that I feel, as I felt 
 thirty-five years ago, that there is still a new name to be won 
 by that school which shall first find out the secret of how to 
 train up and send forth, not a select few only, but the great 
 mass of its sons, the rank and file of its members, distinguished 
 by a new combination of qualities and gifts. 
 
 I still dream of the time when from some school, under some 
 influence which as yet we know not, there shall go forth year 
 by year a new generation of men, who shall be characterised 
 not merely by some social, athletic, or literary accomplishment, 
 some conventional varnish or culture, but by a combination of 
 gifts and strength and moral purpose, which shall stamp them 
 as prominent workers, if not as leaders and prophets in the 
 next stage of our country's evolutionary progress. There is stiU 
 abundant room, to say nothing of the crying need, for these 
 social missionaries of a new type, who shall be men of simple 
 and pure tastes, the declared enemies of luxury and self-indulgence 
 and greed, whether vulgar or refined ; men in whom public 
 spirit, public duty and social purpose shall be practicable and 
 guiding motives, not vague and intermittent sentiments ; men 
 who shall feel the call to alter the conditions of life, and remove
 
 11 CLIFTON 6i 
 
 the manifold temptations which are working so destructively 
 among the multitudes of our poorer classes ; men who, with all 
 this, are not bigoted, but who reaUse that earnestness of purpose 
 and a tolerant spirit are not incompatible, and, above all, men 
 whose life shall be guided by a serious and humble and reverent 
 spirit, who may fairly be described as true Christian citizens — 
 strong, faithful and not afraid. During the years that have 
 intervened since I thus felt, it can hardly be said that the vision 
 has been realised or the need more fully supplied. In our 
 unprecedented industrial and commercial prosperity, the higher 
 moral ideals have, on the whole, lost rather than gained in power 
 and influence. During the last thirty years we have seen a 
 marvellous increase in wealth and its attendant luxury, and, 
 as a consequence, a corresponding increase in habits of pride 
 and self-indulgence. The atmosphere of our life has thus been 
 less favourable to moral ideals and purposes ; ordinary men 
 are more under the influence of pleasure, of sport and amuse- 
 ment ; things that are more excellent seem farther away from 
 the daily aims which make up the distinguishing character and 
 purposes of our common Enghsh life. Under such circum- 
 stances of the time we live in, you may feel that the thought of 
 such a race of Pubhc School men as I have been dreaming of, 
 who shall give a new tone to the national hfe, pouring a new 
 spirit into it and hfting it to higher levels, is nothing better than 
 the idle vision of an old man's dream — 
 
 A vision unfulfilled, which we 
 
 Who watch and wait shall never see. 
 
 But, even so, I have still, in my old age, to hold on to the hope 
 of it as the vision of the only city which hath foundations, 
 whose maker and builder is God. So then, looking through 
 and beyond our present imperfect life, with all its negligences 
 and its ignorances, its failures and its waste, I venture to repeat 
 to you my hopes of long ago — that from schools such as this, 
 and from this school in particular, there may go forth, year by 
 year, an ever-increasing number of such men as I have described, 
 to be the purifying and preserving salt of the life of their time. 
 
 In service of that same ideal he was now to toil under 
 different conditions, in an atmosphere largely alien and in 
 circumstances which he had less authority to shape. But 
 his achievement at Clifton must have been an encourage- 
 ment to himself as it remained an inspiration to others.
 
 1 
 
 62 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 After his death the Council of Clifton College showed its 
 sense of his services to CUfton by passing the following 
 resolution : 
 
 Clifton College. 
 
 At the first Meeting held since the death of Dr. Percival, the 
 Council of Clifton College resolve, before performing any other 
 act, to record their deep sense of the rare fortune which gave him 
 to the College as its first Headmaster, and later enabled them to 
 enjoy his services for so many years as a Member, and as Chair- 
 man, of their body. Created, established and maintained in large 
 measure by his force, his guidance and his generosity, and im- 
 pressed with his genius, the School, they feel, owes him an unique 
 debt, in gratefully acknowledging which to his relatives they desire 
 also to add their sincere while respectful condolence with them 
 in their personal loss through the termination of so noble and 
 valuable a life. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The following benefactions to CHfton College were made by 
 Dr. Percival at various dates : 
 
 Percival Benefactions 
 
 1870. A gift of £800 towards the cost of the Library. 
 1899. £100 for the foundation of the " Louisa Percival Prizes " 
 for knowledge in the New Testament, in memory of his 
 wife, the late Louisa Percival. 
 1910. £2223 for the foundation of three Scholarships, to be of 
 the value of £33 a year for day boys. The Scholarships 
 to be called — 
 (i) " The Louisa Percival Scholarship," in memory of 
 his wife, the late Mrs. Louisa Percival. 
 
 (2) " The Frederick Percival Scholarship," in memory 
 
 of his youngest son, killed by an accident, June 
 1881. 
 
 (3) " The Robert Hardwicke Percival Scholarship," in 
 
 memory of his eldest son, died August 1908. 
 1915. £1000 foundation of the " Arthur Percival Scholarship," 
 in memory of his son, Lieut.-Col. Arthur Jex Blake 
 Percival, D.S.O., killed in action, October 1914.
 
 II 
 
 CLIFTON 63 
 
 Dr. Percival is also commemorated at Clifton by the following 
 memorials : 
 
 In 1874 the Library and Musemn buildings were completed, 
 partly by the subscriptions of masters and Old Cliftonians, on 
 condition that the building should be called the " Percival 
 Buildings." 
 
 In 1880 the " Percival Scholarship " of £20 a year was 
 founded by Old Cliftonians in memory of the Headmastership 
 of Dr. Percival.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 It was in the spirit of adventure that the Fellows of Trinity 
 College, Oxford, invited Percival to accept the Presidency ; 
 and it was equally an adventure when he decided to accept it. 
 Seventeen years is a long spell for work so concentrated 
 as that of a Headmaster. Some Headmasters, indeed, have 
 thought it possible, after gearing up the school-machine 
 according to their standards, to let it run almost of its own 
 accord. Percival could never do that. He must needs 
 watch every detail ; and the strain was too great to be 
 indefinitely continued. He had already informed one of his 
 colleagues — as Mr. E. M. Oakeley narrates in his sketch of 
 Percival's career — that he was only deferring his resignation 
 till he could be sure that a suitable successor was in sight. 
 While he was thus conscious of the need of change the 
 invitation of the Fellows of Trinity reached him, and he 
 decided to accept it. Indeed it would appear from the 
 following letter that he had been desirous of some such 
 appointment before the invitation came : 
 
 Oct. 4, 1878. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Percival— From what I can learn I imagine that 
 the Election at Queen's is a foregone conclusion though I have 
 not heard this directly from any of the Fellows : meanwhile there 
 is another Headship vacant in Oxford— Trinity— and a rumour 
 has reached me that there may be a chance of Dr. Percival being 
 elected. 
 
 I have written to those of the Fellows whom I know, to urge 
 upon them that they could not do a better thing for the College 
 
 64
 
 CHAP. Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 65 
 
 and for the University. Do not be sanguine, but there is a 
 chance. — Ever yours truly, 
 
 B. JOWETT. 
 
 The appointment was naturally of extreme interest to 
 Old Chftonians at Oxford. One of them, now President of 
 Magdalen and then a Fellow of two years' standing, writes : 
 
 It came as an intense surprise not only to Clifton but to 
 Oxford. Trinity had always been a distinguished and spirited 
 College justly proud of its own alumni, and much beloved by 
 them. What, Oxford asked, had happened ? That any College 
 and specially Trinity should go outside its own sacred circle 
 did indeed surprise not only Percival but Oxford generally and 
 Trinity men in particular. With them it is no exaggeration to 
 say it was extremely unpopular. How it came about was never 
 exactly revealed. Why " Sammy " Wayte, the previous President, 
 a kindly, old-fashioned gentleman, somewhat of an Academic 
 Whig, who had been at school with my father, resigned, remained 
 somewhat of a mystery. Some said he did not want to be Vice- 
 Chancellor, but he could easily have passed this office. By an 
 odd coincidence he retired to live very quietly in CUfton, where 
 from rime to time I used to call on him and tell him the Oxford 
 gossip. I was a young feUow at Magdalen, and one of our Senior 
 Fellows, the Rev. Thomas Henr^' Toovey Hopkins, was an old 
 and attached Trinity man, a boating man, and blunt of speech. 
 One of his sisters was married to the Rev. North Pinder, an old 
 FeUow and Tutor of Trinity, an excellent classical scholar. He 
 had edited a book in which I greatly delighted and to which I 
 owed much. Selections from the less known Latin Poets, the title 
 of which, we were told, as it contained excerpts from Catullus, 
 gave much umbrage to Robinson Ellis. Canon Pinder was a 
 very kindly sensible man, and would have made an admirable 
 Head of the old type. Hopkins naturally thought he ought to 
 have been elected President rather than any outsider, and said 
 so. The choice of Percival was generally put down to the 
 influence of Raper, then and later the Trinity " Kingmaker." 
 Dr. Percival had told us at CHfton " that he was going to a very 
 critical place." He had before him the example of Bradley at 
 University and what he himself called Bradley's " very explosive 
 Common Room," but he could hardly have known to what 
 special criticism and thwartings he would be exposed. Con- 
 servative and clerical Oxford, and Oxford was then far more 
 Conservative and clerical than it became later, looked at him 
 
 F
 
 66 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 askance as an extreme Liberal, and a Latitudinarian and an 
 ally of Jowett, though doctrinally I think he never was quite 
 that. If he was, we boys did not discover it. His sermons do 
 not at all show it, nor I think would Lord Selborne have made 
 him as he did a Canon of Bristol had he been so. 
 
 The emissary of the College was the well-known Latin 
 scholar, Professor Robinson Ellis. Legends have grown up 
 about his visit to CHfton. It is rumoured that he was 
 nervous, and seeking for alleviating circumstances. His host 
 began by expressing surprise that he should have been 
 selected. " Ah, my dear Percival," said the Professor, " I 
 do not wonder at your surprise, but you see we had such a 
 very small field." He had found Percival alone, and clutched 
 at a straw. " You are unmarried, Mr. Percival ? " " No," 
 was the reply. " I am married, but Mrs. Percival is upstairs 
 to-day as she is not well." " Ah," said the Professor hope- 
 fully, " then she is in poor health." 
 
 Not many would have sought comfort in precisely this 
 direction. But nervousness was widely felt. The invitation 
 to a stranger, not even a member of the College, to accept 
 the Presidency, was not sent wdthout keen searchings of 
 heart among the members of the Senior Common Room. 
 The story is here told in the words of Bishop Robertson, 
 then one of the Fellows, and afterwards Bishop of Exeter : 
 
 When, to our surprise and regret, in the Long Vacation of 1878 
 President Wayte resigned his Headship and left Oxford for 
 Clifton, we most of us had our first experience, and I my only 
 one, of a Presidential election. I should like to say at the outset 
 that although more than one of the then existing Fellows was 
 named as a possible candidate, there was a total absence of 
 rivalry, self-seeking or bitterness in the election, before it or 
 after it. We were all of us desirous to do simply what was best 
 for the College. I may also say that I was quite a Junior Fellow 
 at the time and my vote represented the sum total of my influence 
 on the election. Personally, the candidate of my choice would 
 have been North Pinder, a distinguished scholar, late Fellow of 
 the College and then Rector of Grays near Henley. A few years 
 later he would have commanded several votes, but at that time 
 he was but little known among the actual Fellows. So my 
 problem as a voter was simply to choose among the other candi-
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 67 
 
 dates likely to find support. Among the other Fellows named 
 as possible President, Raper would probably have had a few 
 votes, but decidedly the most likely candidate was H. G. Woods, 
 Bursar and Tutor, afterwards President, and later on Master of 
 the Temple. There was, however, a feehng, shared by many 
 of the Fellows, that the College wanted new blood, and that 
 Woods' time had not quite come. As Raper constantly reminded 
 us, we had " the whole clerical world " to choose from. It was, 
 I think, Raper himself who first suggested Percival, then Head- 
 master of Clifton. Of that School he was, by common acknow- 
 ledgement, the creator, while seventeen years of conspicuously 
 successful work amply justified him in looking for another sphere 
 for his energy. The proposal to elect Percival was warmly taken 
 up by Robinson Ellis, and Charles Gore afterwards Bishop of 
 Oxford. 
 
 Raper, having thrown out this important suggestion, seemed 
 disinclined to act upon it and was regarded as a supporter of 
 Woods. On that side also stood Franklin Richards, tutor, 
 and M. H. Green, lecturer and librarian. Gent (now the County 
 Court Judge), who would have supported Raper, ultimately 
 voted, I think, for Woods. Whitehead (now Bishop of Madras) 
 and I hardened in favour of Percival ; last, but not least, 
 the venerable Vice-President, Thomas Short, who had been 
 Newman's tutor in the teens of the century, voted for Woods, 
 hardly realising that there was another serious candidate. 
 The eve of the election came, we had a prolonged discussion in 
 Raper's rooms, and it was reckoned that Woods would have a 
 majority of one. Next morning (Tuesday, October 22), we were 
 to meet in the Chapel and complete in due form the solemnities 
 of the election. In the morning, before the time for chapel had 
 come, Raper announced himself a convert to the side of Percival. 
 This decided the election. It fell to my painful lot a day or two 
 later to explain to Short that the election had not been merely 
 pro forma, but that Percival was the elected candidate. I should 
 explain that the College statutes required that two names should 
 be submitted to the Visitor, of which he had the right to choose 
 one. The names of the two candidates who received most votes 
 were accordingly taken by a deputation of the Fellows to Bishop 
 Browne at Famham Castle, and the election of Dr. Percival was 
 duly ratified in view of his majority at the College scrutinium. 
 A few past members of the Foundation appealed to the Visitor to 
 appoint Woods, but the Visitor very properly deferred to the 
 wishes of the College, as embodied in the majority of votes cast 
 at the election. Accordingly, on Thursday, October 31, at 
 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the new President was formally
 
 68 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 admitted by Vice-President Short. The new President dined 
 in Hall for the first time on Wednesday, November 13. 
 
 Looking back on the election over one-and-forty years, it is 
 easy to reaUse that what was done was the cause of misgiving 
 among old members of the College. At that time the election 
 to a Headship of a member of another College, totally uncon- 
 nected with the College of his electors, was, I believe, without 
 precedent in Oxford. But it is right to say that this precedent 
 has been freely followed since then in other Colleges of Oxford, 
 to say nothing of Cambridge. 
 
 On the whole the election justified itself, not only by the 
 subsequent expansion of the College and addition to its buildings, 
 but by the stimulus to the life and work of the College which can 
 unmistakably be traced to the advent of the new President. 
 This is no derogation whatever to those who had hitherto had the 
 guidance of the College in their hands. However well guided, an 
 institution is liable to become too much the bond-servant of its 
 own excellent traditions. The College traditions of Trinity were 
 excellent, but perhaps the College was ripe for innovations which, 
 planted in a good soil, were destined to bear fruit for the good 
 of the society. 
 
 It is necessary, but not quite easy, to say a word as to the 
 personal factor in the new conditions. Of the main thing there 
 can be no doubt. Percival was a man of high-minded austerity 
 in all that concerned duty, and the whole College was the better 
 for the Headship of a man of his lofty character and ideals. 
 Accustomed to the Headship of a Pubhc School, where his 
 colleagues were absolutely at his beck and call, virtually appointed 
 and dismissable by his unfettered choice, he did not easily 
 accommodate himself to the University conditions where the 
 Fellows were his colleagues, but with quite independent rights, 
 doing their duty, but in their own way, not necessarily in the 
 President's. Accustomed to summary methods, he may have 
 been at times impatient of the give-and-take method, which alone 
 succeeds with undergraduates, resentful if treated as schoolboys. 
 Possibly also the new President may have felt the change from 
 a governing body like that of Clifton, virtually a company of 
 directors, leaving all expert matters to the judgment of the 
 Headmaster as managing director, to a College meeting, the 
 individual members of which were his juniors, but which in its 
 collective action was supreme. Percival was not an accommodat- 
 ing character, nor quick to yield a point to an adverse majority. 
 All this may be truthfully said without going into unnecessary 
 detail. But with all deductions, we felt that he was a great and 
 good man and a bracing influence, not only among the under-
 
 in TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 69 
 
 graduates but among the Fellows. I will venture to illustrate 
 my feeling by recalling a conversation with my dear old friend 
 A. M. Worthington (afterwards F.R.S.), who was a master at 
 Clifton under Percival and after. Worthington was, I should 
 mention, a Unitarian. Walking together on Clifton Down he 
 turned to me : 
 
 " Robertson, do you like Percival's sermons ? I can't bear 
 them." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " I dislike being kicked." 
 
 " No doubt you do," said I, " but he's always trying to kick 
 you upstairs and that is something." 
 
 There are many courses open to the holder of an academic 
 office. He may merely carry through an existing routine 
 with cultured urbanity ; he may devote liimself to research 
 in his own department of learning ; he may occupy himself 
 with the training and teaching of the undergraduates ; he 
 may set himself to make more thorough and efficient the 
 educational institution to which he is attached. Percival's 
 two dominant interests stood out strongly during his time at 
 Trinity : he was before all else a reformer and an educator. 
 His new post gave him abundant scope for activity along 
 both these hnes. At Clifton his reforming energy had taken 
 the shape of creative work with an ideal steadily before him — 
 the ideal described in the School Jubilee sermon from which 
 quotations have been given. He was, as Bishop Robertson 
 has said, little interested in problems of research, but " pro- 
 foundly insistent on the question. What are our under- 
 graduates going to be in later life ? " Oxford as a whole he 
 regarded as primarily concerned with turning out men who 
 would truly serve the nation. No doubt he would have 
 admitted in argument the place of learning for its own sake ; 
 but in practice he made httle allowance for it. Professor 
 Bywater is credited with a comment on some utterance of 
 Percival : " There are no such enemies of learning as the 
 educationalists." But perhaps the converse is equally true, 
 for there is a tale of a junior don who asked the Professor to 
 recommend him an edition of Aristotle's De caelo ; he at 
 once named several, giving their characteristics, and then 
 asked why the information was wanted. The young don
 
 70 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 replied that a pupil of his was interested in it. " Oh," said 
 the Professor ; " now you take my advice. Don't you start 
 working for your pupils. If you once start working for your 
 pupils, there's no end to it." 
 
 Oxford is a learned society ; and though most of Uni- 
 versity and College officers are engaged in teaching, it is 
 mainly with the intellectual development of their pupils that 
 they are concerned. Direct moral influence is for the most 
 part confined to occasional disciplinary actions. Probably 
 this is wholesome ; a stage of life has been reached when 
 men must begin to choose their own ideals. Percival, how- 
 ever, felt that most of them were drifting without any 
 deUberate choice at all, and that those who had a definite 
 aim in Ufe had often accepted rather a low one. He missed 
 in the general social hfe any sense of a moral purpose per- 
 vading and guiding it all. Long afterwards, when preaching 
 one of those Sunday evening sermons which he himself 
 instituted in the University Church, he said : 
 
 I have again and again been moved to lament the extreme 
 individualism of college life here in Oxford, an individualism 
 which lingers as a sort of survival of the days when men thought 
 less of moral solidarity and social duty and calling than most 
 men do to-day, an individualism which very possibly still affects 
 some of you in your relations with the life immediately around you. 
 
 Those of you who have come — as many of you have — from 
 one or other of the best of our public schools, accustomed there 
 to the moral responsibilities of the prefect's acknowledged and 
 accepted position, and having been very jealous of the purity 
 and honour of your corporate life and of every individual's 
 contribution to it, knowing as you do what a purifying, strengthen- 
 ing, and uplifting influence that system of sixth-form responsi- 
 bility and authority has had upon the common life of your house 
 or school — such members of one college or another in this Uni- 
 versity must have felt when they first found themselves in the 
 extremely individualistic society of their college, no man seeming 
 to recognise any responsibility for the character, conduct, or 
 tone of his neighbour, as if they had suddenly dropped into some 
 lower stratum of social intercourse. So long as these contrasts 
 remain in our educational system, our training for life remains 
 a thing of shreds and patches, and the higher gifts and possibilities 
 consequently run to waste in many a soul.
 
 in TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 71 
 
 Is it not then a pertinent question to ask whether these con- 
 trasts between school and college ought to continue ; and 
 whether it is altogether right and well that so many young lives 
 should be flung at the opening of manhood into such an artificial 
 and unchartered freedom as sometimes prevails here, with so 
 little of moral instruction or social guidance ? 
 
 It is at any rate permissible to dream of undergraduate life 
 so ordered that every young student during his earliest residence, 
 and when gathering his first impressions, should be first of all 
 instructed by some gifted and inspiring teacher in what we might 
 call the ideal history and ideal purpose of his college and the 
 university around it, and made familiar with its great names and 
 its inspiring examples, and thus stirred to feel at the outset the 
 greater possibilities of his own manhood and what should be his 
 preparation for it. 
 
 We may dream also of an undergraduate college life more self- 
 governed than hitherto, in which, through the influence of the 
 most thoughtful, the most instructed, the most high-minded 
 among you, there shall be no tolerance for the man of bad 
 language, or low tone, or wasteful extravagance, or sensual vice, 
 or any form of bad example or influence, bringing discredit on 
 the society and moral risk to those who enter it. 
 
 And no man can deny that we greatly need the realisation oi 
 such dreams, so as to raise to its maximum the moral and spiritual 
 influence of university training. 
 
 We need it because, on the one hand, your life is beset by the 
 dangers of wealth and materialism, by the prevalence of luxury, 
 self-indulgence, and sport ; and because, on the other hand, the 
 call is so urgent for such as you to be morally and spiritually 
 fitted to take your due share in all the new developments of our 
 Enghsh life, which are coming upon us like a tidal force through 
 the uprising of a new democracy, with all its new claims and 
 new aspirations. 
 
 This sermon, delivered more than twenty years after he left 
 Oxford to return to Rugby and to school hfe, points to the 
 source of his dissatisfaction with Oxford. It was not that, 
 having tasted the autocratic powers of a Headmaster, he 
 chafed at the constitutional restrictions which hmit the 
 authority of the Head of a College, though no doubt his eager 
 temperament was very sensitive to all the checks which 
 hindered him in the reahsation of what seemed to him a 
 manifestly fine ideal. The source of dissatisfaction and of
 
 72 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 friction when it arose, was the conflict of ideals. Not for his 
 own sake, but for the sake of the undergraduates and their 
 future service of the nation, he desired to make Hfe in a 
 College a great deal more Hke life in a school than it now is. 
 There were times when the College, or at least some 
 members of it, felt that he was acting too autocratically, and 
 a proposal was made to pass a new statute putting all College 
 officers, including the President, under the complete control 
 of the College meeting. This called forth from Percival a 
 memorandum which is of interest for the general principles 
 stated in it as well as for the comments on the particular 
 proposal. 
 
 Memorandum on Section 17 of the Draft Statutes 
 OF Trinity College, Oxford 
 
 Being unable to concur in the opinion of the College as set 
 forth in the following words of Clause 17 — " The President shall 
 in the performance of his duties be subject to the direction of 
 the College ; and anything done by him may (without prejudice 
 to any rights of third parties lawfully subsisting thereunder) be 
 modified, countermanded, or reversed by the College." I desire, 
 in the interest of the harmonious and efficient working of the 
 College in the future, to express my dissent from this portion of 
 the said clause, and respectfully to ask your consideration of my 
 reasons for so doing. 
 
 The Fellows have, as I understand, been led to adopt their 
 view of the expediency of such a clause by their recollection of 
 difficulties experienced some years ago, and I heartily sympathise 
 with their desire to obviate any possible recurrence of such 
 difficulties hereafter. 
 
 At the same time I am unable to see how such difficulties could 
 be avoided by the provision which is now proposed. If the 
 words mean that the President is to be subject to the constant 
 interference and direction of a College meeting as to the mode 
 in which he sets about and performs his recognised duties, or any 
 detail relating to them, the clause must in practice prove to be 
 either inoperative or intolerable. In any ordinary state of 
 feeling it would of course be inoperative, whereas, if feeling were 
 very much strained, either the President for the time being or 
 some section of the Fellows exhibiting an interfering or im- 
 practicable temper, its operation could only aggravate any 
 mischief that might exist, and would produce a state of things
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 73 
 
 scarcely endurable in a small community, and very detrimental 
 to its interests. 
 
 I agree entirely in the view that the duties of individuals in a 
 corporate body cannot be too clearly defined. Every possible 
 cause of misunderstanding should be removed, and every pre- 
 caution should be taken to secure the best interests of the Society ; 
 but this done, I would submit that every oflEicer should be con- 
 sidered to be free from interference as to the mere modus operandi 
 in the discharge of his duties. Otherwise, if interfering clauses 
 have any effect at all, they only tend to produce irritation and 
 estrangement on the one hand, and on the other timidity and 
 general ineffectiveness. 
 
 What I have said with regard to this part of Clause 17 applies 
 with even greater force in some respects to the corresponding 
 words of Clause 35, as the officers referred to in that Clause are, 
 with the exception of the Tutors, elected from year to year. 
 
 My experience hitherto has been that the only certain way of 
 combining the conditions of a harmonious life with real vigour 
 and efficiency in administration is to define duties with the 
 utmost clearness, and then to repose entire confidence in indi- 
 viduals as to their mode of performing their duties. Judging them 
 by the results of their work. 
 
 In dealing with clauses of this kind it has also to be borne 
 in mind that the natural and inevitable tendency of small 
 collegiate bodies in a University is always towards excess of 
 criticism, with a corresponding weakness or timidity as regards 
 administration or practical vigour ; and yet every College is 
 mainly dependent for its success on the vigour and enthusiasm 
 of its officers. 
 
 I may, I trust, be permitted to add as another argument against 
 the adoption of the provision to which I object that I have not 
 seen any such provision in the statutes of any other College. 
 
 J. Percival. 
 President, Trinity College. 
 May 7, 1880. 
 
 There can be no doubt that in manner and method 
 Percival sometimes played the Headmaster, and whether or 
 not undergraduates ought to be treated in some degree Hke 
 schoolboys, it is certain that they greatly resent it when 
 they are. He had, moreover, certain prejudices which were 
 becoming old-fashioned, of which one was a horror of tobacco 
 except in rigid privacy. There is a story of his once fining 
 an undergraduate a sovereign for wearing a straw hat on a
 
 74 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Sunday afternoon in the College garden. But irksome as 
 his rule was to some, the result was indisputable. One well- 
 known FeUow of the College complained that he felt obhged 
 to go round to the Oxford wine-merchants and apologise for 
 the small consumption of wine accomplished by Trinity 
 undergraduates under Percival's rule. 
 
 Perhaps the most celebrated story that is told to illustrate 
 his magisterial methods is that which concerns the first day 
 of his first term. It was the custom for undergraduates to 
 absent themselves from Chapel on the first morning after 
 their return from the vacation. Percival was not prepared 
 for this. He sent for the entire College, bidding them all 
 come to him at an appointed hour. Only a few could get 
 into the study, and the rest were kept waiting in the entrance 
 hall. It was still unfurnished and uncarpeted ; also it was 
 distinctly cold. Some ingenious youth suggested a dance, 
 and in a few moments the President's hall was a chaos of 
 whirling couples. Percival appeared at the study door, 
 either to stop the noise or else perhaps to summon the next 
 batch to his presence. He gazed for a moment on the 
 unexpected scene, and then sent the whole assembly about 
 its business. The episode was regarded as closed. 
 
 An illustration of his method is afforded by the incident 
 of the circular, of which Canon A. J. Galpin, a scholar of the 
 College from 1879 to 1883, and afterwards classical lecturer, 
 gives the following account : 
 
 I remember during my first term finding one day on my table 
 a printed paper signed by the President and containing a string 
 of questions rather after this style : " Are you reading for an 
 Honour School or for a Pass Degree ? " " How many lectures 
 do you attend each week ? " " How many hours do you give 
 to private study during the week ? " and so forth. I thought it 
 a little inquisitorial, but, not being versed in the methods pursued 
 by Heads of Houses in general, I felt no particular vexation. 
 Far otherwise was it with the second and third year men. The 
 place was soon buzzing with a strange blend of ridicule and 
 indignation. Other Colleges were highly amused. The cari- 
 caturist of the day at once had Percival up in Shrimpton's 
 window as a sandwich man, displaying on his board the derided 
 questions and wearing the plaintive look of one who has missed fire.
 
 in TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 75 
 
 The President was even more permanently involved in 
 contention with the Common Room than with the under- 
 graduates. He vexed the Fellows by his refusal to accept 
 or admit defeat. If his proposals were not accepted by the 
 College, he reiterated them at a later meeting with a com- 
 bination of unruffled patience and unswerving persistence 
 which was pecuUarly irritating to those who thought that a 
 proposal was killed by defeat on a division. Perhaps in his 
 own College, certainly in the University, he was an object 
 of suspicion and anxiety because of his well-known desire 
 to make the University accessible to poor students, and 
 especially to working men. He was known to be utterly 
 indifferent to the superficial marks of " good form," and to 
 face the prospect of a thoroughly democratised Oxford with 
 no shuddering horror but rather with an eager hope. He 
 thought such an Oxford would work harder and bring more 
 benefit to the nation. 
 
 Of his general position in the College and the University 
 Sir Herbert Warren writes : 
 
 There was, as perhaps there always has been, a prejudice at 
 Oxford against Schoolmaster Heads of Houses. He was thought 
 to be out of sympathy with " research." He was thought by 
 some to be too eager to reform not only Trinity but Oxford. 
 " That's a very ambitious young man, Warren," I remember my 
 own " Head," dear, dignified, old Dr. Bulley, beautiful in his 
 placid benignity, saying to me as we walked together down the 
 High Street from St. Mary's after hearing one of Percival's 
 sermons when he was select Preacher. All this was natural, and 
 might have been foreseen. What I think was hard was that the 
 prejudice against Schoolmasters, and the after effects of the 
 Trinity discontents, hampered and prejudiced him with those 
 who should have been his friends. I well remember how when 
 he was proposed at one of the first Caucuses I ever attended of 
 the " holders of Liberal opinions " gathered at Oriel College, as 
 a candidate for the Hebdomadal Council, he received the support 
 of Jowett and Henry Smith, Barth Price, and Alfred Robinson, 
 but was cold-shouldered not only by Sir William Anson and the 
 Moderates, but by Pelham and his friends. In his own College, 
 too, he met wth cold support, if not open opposition from some 
 of the very persons who had been most active in bringing him in 
 as Head. One man I always thought behaved with the most
 
 76 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 generous loyalty. This was his chief rival, the Bursar Henry 
 George Woods, afterwards himself a most successful President, 
 and later Master of the Temple. A caricature displayed in 
 Shrimpton's window, just opposite Trinity gates, showed Dr. 
 Percival as a successful cock standing on the top of the College 
 waU and overcrowing his defeated rival. About this caricature 
 Mrs. Percival told me an amusing story. Coming up from 
 Clifton to look at the new house and bringing her second small 
 boy " Guthrie " with her, she saw this representation in the shop 
 window and went into the shop and bought it. " If you're 
 interested in these caricatures," said the man, " we have another," 
 and proceeded to take it out of a drawer. " Oh, mother, that's 
 not nearly so like father," cried the child, to Mrs. Percival's 
 amusement, but to the consternation of the shopman, who could 
 only stammer, " I assure you, madam, I had no idea you were 
 connected with the new President," 
 
 For these reasons among others I think, and it certainly was 
 the prevailing opinion, that Dr. Percival was never quite happy 
 during his sojourn at Oxford, nor indeed did he seem so. He 
 gradually, indeed pretty rapidly, won his way, and made friends 
 amongst young and old, and struck many good strokes for the 
 causes which were dear to him. It must, I think, be admitted 
 that in nine short years he did a very great deal for his College. 
 Always distinguished, it had rather gone to sleep and fallen 
 behind. He certainly roused and raised it. He carried through 
 the erection of the new buildings, he introduced new Tutors, 
 notably his old CUfton pupil, Mr. Charles Cannan, of Corpus, an 
 intellectual force, as the world has been recently reminded by his 
 loss, of a very high order. As at Clifton he attracted energetic 
 and ambitious students to his CoUege, the barometric curve of 
 its Honours List began to mount. As so often happens, much 
 of the College success was won after he left. He laboured, and 
 others entered into his labours. Outside the CoUege he devoted 
 himself to the cause of women's education. He was one of the 
 prime movers in the establishment of Somerville College, and 
 rendered it an incalculable service by securing Miss Shaw Lefevre 
 as the first Principal, a characteristically bold and unconven- 
 tional appointment. He gave much time to the establishment 
 of the University College at Bristol, since developed into Bristol 
 University. To me he remained the kindest and most paternal 
 of friends, continually asking me to his house or to dine with 
 him in Hall. In the Christmas vacation of 1880-1881 I took 
 what soon after became common enough, but then was hardly 
 known, a winter trip to the Engadine. It was a delightful 
 experience. There were one or two amusing episodes. The
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 77 
 
 first was when, at a Station Hotel just before starting from Paris 
 for Bale, we were grossly overcharged for a poor dinner and still 
 poorer washing accommodation. I can see my old Headmaster 
 now, annoyance and wrath at being imposed upon and a north- 
 countryman's canny desire for economy commingled in his looks, 
 towering over the little French waiter who presented the " addi- 
 tion," and saying in north-country accents, " Taake it away 
 maan, there's some mistaake in the figures. Taake them away 
 and get them chaanged," and my surprise when the bill was 
 brought back reduced. The next adventure was with a different 
 nationality. We were driving from Chur in the brief winter 
 day over the JuUer to St. Moritz, tired and sleepy with our 
 previous night's journey and some good " Veltlin " wine. 
 Suddenly the sledge ran off the track and slid down the steep 
 bank ; we were tumbled into the powdery snow, losing the 
 warmth we were carefully preserving with our rugs, and abruptly 
 shaken up. Dr. Percival once again attempted to remonstrate 
 in his best magisterial manner, but the Swiss driver paid not the 
 smallest attention, only shouting directly he had got the horses 
 and the sleigh straight, " Shteeg een, shteeg een, esh kommt 
 Abend." 
 
 One social and ceremonial event during this period is of 
 peculiar interest because of the personalities that it brought 
 together. Very soon after Percival became President of 
 Trinity, John Henry Newman, already an Honorary Fellow 
 of his old College, became a Cardinal. Immediately after 
 his return to England from the Consistory at which he 
 was invested, Percival wrote asking him to dine with the 
 College at the Gaudy, on Trinity Monday, 1880, and the 
 Cardinal accepted the invitation. It is interesting to reflect 
 upon the divergence of view between the President and his 
 guest ; it could hardly be wider. The representative 
 character of the meeting from an intellectual point of view 
 was, however, not so complete as Percival tried to make it. 
 One of the distinguished Oxonians invited to meet the 
 Cardinal on this occasion was Mark Pattison. 
 
 Lincoln College, Oxford, 
 May 15, 1880. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Percival — Let me write, what I have already 
 expressed to you, my thanks for your kindly including me in the 
 party you invite to meet the Cardinal, and to add that my regret
 
 78 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 at not being able to avail myself of your invitation is much 
 softened by what you have told me, viz, that Newman had 
 expressed a wish to see me. . . . — Believe me, dear Mrs. Percival, 
 
 Mark Pattison. 
 
 The Cardinal stayed with Percival for a few days. From 
 this time onwards Percival often wrote to him, and being 
 in Rome in 1887 sent him a painting of his Church — San 
 Pietro in Vellabro, — which Newman always kept in his room 
 and caused to be hung at the foot of his bed when he was 
 dying. 
 
 In the following year a terrible blow fell upon the 
 President and Mrs. Percival. Their youngest son, Freddie, 
 a specially clever boy, full of spirit and with a gift for 
 music, was killed through an accident when out riding on 
 Portmeadow. It was a lifelong sorrow, and in the first 
 months it was very hard to bear. Jowett wrote to Percival 
 in the following winter : 
 
 I sometimes fear that you are disappointed with Oxford. No 
 wonaer that the sky should seem dark and heavy to you after 
 the calamity of last year. I miss the little fellow though I hardly 
 knew his name. He used to touch his cap and come and walk 
 with me as though he thought that I was a friend of his because 
 I was a friend of yours. I do not suppose that I can quite reaUse 
 the agony which the recollection of him causes to you and his 
 mother. But you must endeavour to get over it, or it will do 
 you great harm, worse than the long overwork of Clifton. You 
 must leave him where he is — with God. If you are depressed it 
 makes you less fit for work in College and in the University. 
 And you are no longer able to take that hopeful view of things 
 which is the soul of success. 
 
 Three years after his election at Trinity, Percival's 
 connection with Bristol and Clifton was renewed by his 
 appointment to a Canonry of Bristol Cathedral. It was 
 Loid Selbome who, as Lord Chancellor, brought this about. 
 
 Blackmoor, 
 
 West Liss, Hants, 
 
 Oct. 3/82. 
 
 Dear Mr. President — You are, no doubt, aware that there 
 is a vacant Canonry at Bristol : and probably you may also 
 know that it would give pleasure to many of your friends, there
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 79 
 
 and elsewhere, to see it conferred upon yourself. I have such 
 entire confidence in you, that I should not hesitate to be governed 
 by your own judgement as to its compatibility, in point of 
 residence and otherwise, with your present duties in Oxford. 
 You would, I feel sure, agree with me, that in these days a 
 Canonry in a Cathedral Church ought not to be conferred, or 
 accepted, as a sinecure or mere preferment ; and that it is an 
 of&ce, the duties of which ought to be regarded, not as hmited 
 to the necessary performance of services in the Cathedral during 
 certain months of residence, but as extending to every kind of 
 salutary influence which may be made to radiate from the 
 Cathedral as from a centre. That you have the gifts and personal 
 qualities, and also the due sense of the high calling of a Christian 
 minister, which are necessary for the exercise of such an influence, 
 I feel sure : and, if you have no doubt as to its compatibility 
 with the duties of President of Trinity, I shall have none. — 
 Believe me, dear Mr. President, very sincerely yours, 
 
 Selborne. 
 
 Trinity College, Oxford, 
 Oct. 9, 1882. 
 
 My dear Lord — I have now given my best consideration to 
 the question which you have so generously left to my decision, 
 and I have also consulted two or three friends whose judgment 
 I believe to be sound and dispassionate. They advise my 
 acceptance of the Canonry, and are so good as to say that it 
 affords an opportunity for Christian work in Bristol that I 
 should under the circumstances do wrong to decline. I say little 
 of my own judgment because it is so difficult to eliminate feeling 
 in a personal matter, but I see no obstacle to a proper discharge 
 of my combined duties as Canon and Head of a College ; and I 
 therefore accept the Canonry with much gratitude for the 
 confidence you have reposed in me. I will only add that I shall 
 take up the office as a sacred trust and hope by God's help to be 
 enabled so to discharge its duties as to fulfil in some degree what 
 I know to be your wishes for the good of the Church and the City 
 of Bristol. — I am, etc., 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 Blackmore, 
 
 West Liss, Hants, 
 
 Oct. 1/82. 
 
 Dear Mr. President — I am very glad that you have seen 
 your way to accept the Canonry, and I have not the least doubt
 
 8o LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 that the appointment will turn out to be much for the pubhc 
 advantage. 
 
 With hearty good wishes to Mrs. Percival and yourself, 
 believe me, ever yours truly, 
 
 Selborne. 
 
 This involved the estabhshment of a second home in the 
 neighbourhood of the Cathedral, and such a home was found 
 — after a period of " residences " in " furnished rooms " 
 — in Callender House. As Canon of Bristol he was able 
 to do one great piece of work, for it was he who started 
 the Sunday evening services in the Nave of the Cathedral. 
 Those services have been from that time onwards a great 
 feature in the religious life of Bristol and a strong spiritual 
 influence on the community. But they were not started 
 without difficulty. Dean Elliot at first refused permission 
 to use the Nave : " You cannot preach there ; there is no 
 pulpit and the chapter will not provide one as no one would 
 come." Percival replied by asking, " If I can get a pulpit, 
 will you give permission for the services ? " Permission 
 was given. Percival at once went to a cabinetmaker ; the 
 pulpit was made, at Percival's expense, within a week, and 
 the Nave was crowded every Sunday evening. It was a 
 great disappointment that the pulpit was removed and the 
 services discontinued at the end of his " residences." 
 
 Mr. Vaughan Nash gives the following account of 
 Percival's activities in Bristol at this time : 
 
 I used to see Dr. Percival now and again during the period 
 when he was dividing his time between Oxford and Bristol. As 
 a junior recruit to the movement for starting evening schools, 
 which he was looking after, as well as an onlooker on the out- 
 skirts of some rather forlorn industrial movements, one had 
 opportunities from time to time of watching him in action, of 
 observing that great and moving personality as it revealed itself 
 in committee-work, on the platform, and even sometimes in 
 tete-a-tete talk duly manoeuvred for. Three of my brothers had 
 been at school under him at Clifton, which perhaps detracted a 
 little from the presumption. 
 
 I recall him in the chair at the evening school's committee 
 at Goldney House and other places, listening with grave patience 
 to our fumbUng reports, beaming encouragement on hopeful
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 8i 
 
 suggestions and on work accomplished, chilling us to the marrow 
 when it came to inviting explanations as to why the bright ideas 
 of the previous meetings had got no further. I remember also 
 his visit one evening to a school with a big complement of unruly 
 boys, and how he admonished them, with extreme sternness, on 
 the virtue of reverence, the lack of which had led to disturbance. 
 How were the little band of worried teachers to elicit reverence 
 from these urchins when that august presence, cold, shrouded, 
 awful as an Alpine peak, bespoke it, alas ! in vain ? Again 
 I recall him at a nightmare of a meeting convened by the Trades 
 Council to consider the project of a Hall — a Percival project ; 
 there was an audience of less than a dozen, and he had come down 
 on purpose from Oxford, armed with plans and an address. But 
 the plans were unfolded, the details tranquilly set forth, the votes 
 of thanks fearfully proposed, and we went home from the tragedy 
 with a heavy sense of sin, but unreproached. Dr. Percival put 
 much labour into what are in contemporary language known as 
 " wash-outs," and there was in those days, I really think, some- 
 thing about the atmosphere of Bristol-cum-Clifton that conduced 
 to wash-outs. 
 
 However that may have been, to the workmen of the city his 
 sympathy and support were given without stint, and he was 
 a noble advocate. Percival saw what movements like Trade 
 Unionism and Co-operation meant, and the fervent and whole- 
 hearted backing he gave them counted for something in those 
 prehistoric days, though they were a cause of perplexity to some 
 of his friends. His sermon at the Plymouth Co-operative 
 Congress would, I think, if the fittest sermons survive, remain 
 on record. 
 
 Others, who knew him well, can speak of the impression he 
 made on them in personal intercourse. To me, as little more 
 than a boy, the charm was deep. By some magic as it then 
 seemed, the austere man melted into the gentle, friendly, com- 
 panionable being — a contemporary who ranged himself alongside 
 as if to invite and bestow confidences. Since .those days fortune 
 has permitted me, at a respectful distance, to come within ken 
 of many distinguished men in various walks of life, but his 
 personality, with its wonderful blend of beauty, dignity, and 
 nobihty, remains to me the most illustrious of them all. If Mr, 
 Hardy had known him, one fancies that he would have been 
 tempted to place him with the Presences and Beings. 
 
 The sermon to which Mr. Vaughan Nash refers was 
 delivered on Whit-Sunday afternoon, June 13, 1886, in 
 
 G
 
 82 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 St. Andrew's Church at Plymouth. Its message is familiar 
 now, though still but little heeded. In 1886 it was some- 
 thing of a portent when uttered from a pulpit of the 
 Estabhshed Church. 
 
 Competition is neither more nor less than the expression in 
 your social activity of individual selfishness. However we wrap 
 it up and disguise its character, when we come to examine it we 
 find that it is at bottom nothing else but the endeavour to make 
 gain for ourselves out of the struggle for individual success. It 
 is, in fact, a sort of strife or warfare. 
 
 Competition, then, is antagonistic in its very essence to the 
 principles of Christianity, for Christianity is rooted in love and 
 sacrifice, in the sense of membership in Christ, and in the care 
 for the weak and suffering, whilst St. Paul and his contemporaries 
 would have said quite plainly, " competition is rooted in anti- 
 christ." 
 
 We may take it as an axiom that every attempt to remedy 
 the evils of life will end in failure, if it relies upon law to effect 
 the cure, while it leaves the nature and the tempers, the aims and 
 affections, and the spirit of men very much as it finds them. 
 
 Thus it is that Socialism without Christianity has no chance 
 of enduring success. You cannot create a new world except by 
 creating a new heart and a new purpose in common men. " He 
 that would reform the world," said some writer, " must begin 
 by reforming himself." And it is true. If you really desire to 
 make the world better, your first act will be the constant prayer 
 — " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit 
 within me." 
 
 The Report of the Archbishop's Fifth Committee of 
 Inquiry — on Christianity and Industrial Problems — was 
 rightly hailed in 1918 as marking an epoch. The ethical 
 criticism of economic systems and doctrines received from 
 its pubhcation a quasi-official church sanction. But in 
 principle it only expands what Percival preached to the 
 Co-operative Movement in 1886. 
 
 At Trinity as elsewhere Percival was active in schemes 
 for reform. He aimed at increasing the usefuhiess of Oxford 
 as a whole and of his own College in particular. He had
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 83 
 
 already urged upon the various colleges a scheme whereby 
 they should plant some of their Fellows in the great pro- 
 vincial centres as Professors in a kind of University College.^ 
 He now followed the same ideal by enthusiastic woik as a 
 pioneer of the University Extension Movement.^ But he 
 also meditated a starthng step with a view to the develop- 
 ment of the non-collegiate system as a means whereby poor 
 men might genuinely obtain, in almost unUmited numbers, 
 the benefits of a University education. 
 
 10 Princes Buildings, 
 
 Clifton, Bristol, 
 
 Dec. 29, 1882. 
 
 My dear Vice-Chancellor— . .. I see by the Times that 
 Kitchin has resigned. This gives an opportunity which might 
 be made of great service to the unattached. I wonder where you 
 will look for his successor ? 
 
 Supposing you to be at a loss for a suitable man, should you 
 think it a mad thing for me to offer to undertake it, resigning 
 Trinity for the purpose, if I found on reckoning up that I could 
 afford to do it financial!}^ ? At present I don't know the value 
 of the Censorship. 
 
 I don't suppose I shall ever be able to do much good for 
 Trinity ; and if I were to go they might probably elect Raper, 
 who would make a very suitable Head in many ways. 
 
 As Censor of the Unattached, I suppose I should be pretty 
 free to work out a good system, and the work would interest me 
 more than ajiything else in Oxford. 
 
 The two drawbacks that occur to me are (i) that it might 
 involve my family in sacrifices which perhaps I ought hardly to 
 lay upon them, and (2) that average people, who are the majority, 
 might think it either an eccentric or flighty thing to do, or else 
 suspect some ulterior object and oppose or thwart ; and either 
 of these might suffice to bring about a failure. 
 
 But if you thought it really worth doing in order to make the 
 system effective (i) for poor men, and (2) for elder men wishing 
 to pursue some particular branch of study, I should be tempted 
 to try it if the delegates would give me the chance. Only in that 
 case I should have first to look carefully into the money question. 
 — Yours ever, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 ^ See pp. 261 et seq. * See pp. 265 et seq.
 
 84 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Balliol Collfge. Oxford, 
 Dec. 31. 
 
 My dear President — I am very glad that you take an 
 interest in the Non-Collegiate students. There are two things 
 most pressing in English education : (i) The improvement and 
 extension of intermediate schools ; (2) the extension of the 
 Universities to a larger class of students. 
 
 What will be the future of the Non-Collegiate students at 
 Oxford is rendered uncertain by the resignation of Kitchin, who 
 has accepted a Tutorship at Christ Church. The great error 
 hitherto has been the indiscriminate admission of them. Either 
 they should come by special permission for the study of a special 
 subject, or they should be up to a little-go standard of proficiency. 
 
 I would strongly advise you not to hint to any one an intention 
 or desire to give up the Presidentship. It would be a great error ; 
 you would be embarked on a very difficult enterprise without 
 the advantage of a considerable Oxford position. The Vice- 
 ChanceUor and Proctors would be too glad to appoint you, but 
 is it quite certain that you could do as much for the students in 
 the position of Censor as you might as President of Trinity ? 
 Unpaid service, if a man is wiUing to give it unsparingly, goes 
 further than paid service, and by having a lecture for the Non- 
 Collegiate students you might get to know as many of them as 
 you could really help without interfering with your own College 
 business. 
 
 I think also that you are mistaken about your success at 
 Trinity. You have surely got on very well. Does not the 
 CoUege increase in numbers ? You have helped female educa- 
 tion ; you have gathered a pleasant society about you and your 
 hospitality is greatly valued. No one who has a great deal of 
 energy wiU long be popular in Oxford, especially if he does not 
 express the feelings of any party. He is suspected of doing 
 things and meaning to do things which the majority do not like. 
 There is intense childish sensitiveness and jealousy, and so a 
 good deal of personahty arises. No good man works for popu- 
 larity, but most of us like sympathy : of this at Oxford we must 
 not expect much from our equals and contemporaries, who would 
 for the most part like our enterprises to fail : there is a great deal 
 — often exaggerated — from undergraduates. Good preaching is 
 one of the few things that command respect. For some reason 
 or other, perhaps egotism, or the love of independence, there is 
 very little fidehty to one another— less than in the old days of 
 College life. Men betray one another in the most curious 
 manner, often unintentionally and from mere thoughtlessness.
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 85 
 
 But I am drawing rather too unfavourable a picture of them : 
 what I was myself slow to learn in Oxford is that if you want to 
 do any good there you must be indifferent to public opinion, and 
 must not expect to be placed where you could be most useful. 
 
 If you leave Trinity at all you should either go to a Bishopric 
 or to the Deanery of Bristol. — Ever yours sincerely, 
 
 B. JOWETT. 
 
 10 Princes Buildings, 
 Clifton, Bristol, 
 Jan. 8, 1883. 
 
 My dear Master — I should have thanked you for your kind 
 letter earlier, but I thought I would let the matter rest in my 
 mind for a few days. What set me thinking of the unattached 
 Censorship was my long-cherished belief that the system might 
 develop into something reaUy creditable to the University, and 
 of service to the country. 
 
 It is not that I feel uneasy where I am. The College is in a 
 much better condition in various ways than when I came ; but 
 I expect it would go on well in its quiet little way under any 
 fairly good Head ; and if there was an opportunity of doing a 
 really good piece of work, life is short and it might be worth 
 while to try it. 
 
 The Censor's work seems to me to need, if it is to be well 
 done, appreciation of new conditions, some power of initiative, 
 and adaptation, sympathy with poor men, organising faculty 
 and the gift of inspiriting and stimulating. The Censor should 
 also be known to some extent outside Oxford, and should have 
 the confidence of those interested in education in populous 
 places. I hope I am not ridiculously egotistic in thinking that 
 in some of these respects I should probably suit the place as well 
 as any one who is hkely to be available ! 
 
 Still, I feel the force of what you say, and I shall probably 
 have an opportunity for a little conversation with you next week. 
 Meanwhile I may say this : that if in the present state of affairs 
 it were thought undesirable to appoint a permanent Censor, and 
 the following suggestion was not altogether unpractical, it would 
 be at your service : 
 
 Mr. Kitchin having been unexpectedly appointed to a post 
 which necessitates his resignation of the Censorship, it is thought 
 desirable that no permanent appointment should be made at 
 present ; 
 
 As an ad interim arrangement the President of Trinity has 
 agreed to perform the Censor's duties without salary till June 
 1884, if required ;
 
 86 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 The Censor's salary would be in the meantime at the disposal 
 of the Delegates for the payment of Tutors, or for such other 
 provision for the students as the University has undertaken to 
 make as soon as possible. 
 
 The purpose of this ad interim arrangement is to give time 
 to the University to arrange finances and see what kind of 
 permanent provision for the Non-Collegiate students would be 
 most beneficial to their interests and those of the University 
 generally. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 The proposal was not adopted. But it shows beyond 
 question its author's zeal to make Oxford accessible to poor 
 men. It is also congruous with Percival's preference for a 
 Day School over a Boarding School that he should have 
 considered the Non-Collegiate system capable of such develop- 
 ment that through it a large number of men could gain the 
 chief advantages of membership of the University. To have 
 resigned a Headship in order to become Censor of the Un- 
 attached Students would have been an almost revolutionary 
 action in the Oxford of that, or indeed of any other, date ; 
 and most people will agree with Jowett that it could hardly 
 have resulted in increased usefulness. 
 
 Trinity College therefore remained his immediate sphere. 
 The chief development made in that sphere during his reign 
 and its abiding monument was the building of the new 
 quadrangle. For this he himself surrendered a year's salary 
 and persuaded the Fellows to do the same. He also had 
 to give up his stables and large kitchen-garden. The 
 acquisition of Kettel Hall, which stood between Trinity 
 College and Broad Street, was a necessity if the plans 
 were not to be sadly cramped and spoilt. Percival showed 
 admirable persistence and tact in regard to its purchase. 
 It was the property of Oriel College ; the Provost and 
 FeUows were at first unwilling to seU. Percival obtained 
 plans from Mr. (now Sir) T. G. Jackson, showing the 
 difference which the possession of Kettel Hall would 
 make. As soon as the Provost and Fellows of Oriel were 
 convinced of the great difference involved for Trinity 
 College, they agreed to the sale, Percival having given the
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 87 
 
 assurance " that we have no thought of the sale interfering 
 with the present occupancy of the Hall." Many colleges 
 were enlarging their borders at that time. For Trinity there 
 were special difficulties. It needed a man of great determina- 
 tion to overcome them. Percival's methods sometimes 
 created friction ; but by the same quahties he saved his 
 College from losing its position by a failure to grow in 
 numbers when such growth was the order of the day. 
 
 Those were days of expansion. But it was never of 
 expansion alone that Percival was thinking. Constantly his 
 mind was at work upon the moral and spiritual influences in 
 Oxford which would help to determine the future lives of its 
 students. As he left a visible memorial of his reign at 
 Trinity in the new quadrangle, as well as an invisible memorial 
 in the traditions of the College, so he left an abiding institu- 
 tion in the Ufe of the University. Few influences in Oxford 
 are so important as the Sunday evening sermons for under- 
 graduates in St. Mary's. There undergraduates have the 
 opportunity, Sunday by Sunday, of hearing the Christian 
 doctrine and way of life set forth by its most competent 
 exponents, and many have been set to think afresh or led to 
 dedicate their lives in service by the appeals made on those 
 occasions. The undergraduates who attend the official 
 University sermons are few ; the evening sermons are the 
 one spiritual influence steadily directed to the under- 
 graduates of the University as a whole. Those sermons 
 were instituted by Percival when he was President of Trinity. 
 The following is the letter in which he made the proposal to 
 the Vicar of St. Mary's : 
 
 Trinity College, 
 April 7, 18S0. 
 
 My dear Sir — I hope you will pardon the liberty I take in 
 venturing to intrude upon you with this note. 
 
 Being anxious to do some little work for the undergraduates, 
 and having long felt that the Sunday evenings afford an oppor- 
 tunity which might perhaps be turned to good account, I have 
 thought of trying to organise a series of Sunday evening lectures, 
 addresses, or sermons for the next Michaelmas and Hilary terms 
 if I can get promises of help from suitable persons. It is very 
 possible that with your long and large experience of University
 
 88 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 life you may think such an experiment Hkely to fail, but if the 
 proposal commends itself to your judgment, may I ask whether 
 you would be willing to mark your approval by allowing the use 
 of St. Mary's ? 
 
 I had thought of 8 o'clock as probably a suitable time, and I 
 should of course be ready to take all the trouble of the business 
 on my own shoulders, giving one or two of the lectures each term 
 myself, and finding lecturers for the other evenings. Such a 
 course would necessarily involve some little expense on account 
 of hghting, warming, cleaning, and attendance, and for all this 
 I should hold myself responsible. 
 
 If you approve of the idea you will probably wish to ask 
 various questions before giving an answer to the request I have 
 been so bold as to make. If so, I should be very pleased to caU 
 on you at any time convenient to yourself, and meanwhile I 
 must beg you to pardon my intrusion. — I am, my dear sir, yours 
 faithfully, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 This was the inauguration of one of the most important 
 religious institutions in the Hfe of the University. At first 
 Percival invited the preachers, but the evening sermon 
 survived his departure from Oxford. On February 21, 1909, 
 in a sermon from which quotation has already been made,^ 
 he said : 
 
 I have a singular interest in these, your Sunday evening 
 gatherings in this place of manifold associations. Twenty-eight 
 years ago or thereabouts, by the kindness of the Vicar of this 
 University Church, I was permitted to start and personally to 
 manage these courses of Sunday evening sermons, inviting the 
 preachers, and responsible for all arrangements, and sometimes 
 I may myself have preached to the fathers of some among you. 
 Thus you will readily understand how I see other faces than 
 yours as I look around me, and my thoughts are occupied with 
 crowding memories. 
 
 It is probably a small proportion of the Heads of Houses 
 of whom it could be said that their preaching was a vital 
 part of their work. But Percival was not content with 
 organising sermons in the University Church. At Trinity, 
 as at Clifton and Rugby, his influence was concentrated 
 
 1 P. 70.
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 89 
 
 in his sermons in the Chapel, where he preached once or 
 twice a term. In those sermons, Bishop Robertson writes : 
 
 Little was said of anything touching the ecclesiastical side of 
 Christianity, dogmatic or organic, but immense stress was laid 
 on all that went to the building up of life and character, setting 
 us high and exacting aims and spartan severity in following them 
 up. There was little to win or conciliate, but much to search, 
 probe, pull up and stimulate character and will. 
 
 It is clear that these sermons greatly impressed both 
 dons and undergraduates. Canon Galpin helps us to picture 
 the scene : 
 
 I shall never forget those evenings. The Chapel lighted up 
 in its primitive way by rows of candles fixed on to the pews— 
 the splendid carvings of Grinling Gibbons just catching the gleam 
 here and there — and Percival standing in the President's stall at 
 the west end, his head slightly on one side, his fine, clean-cut 
 features showing up against the candle-light with a strange 
 chiaroscuro effect, his voice retaining still the accent of his 
 northern home as he upheld the sanctities of life and poured out 
 vials of scorn on all that was " low and degraded." 
 
 Exactly the same impression is given by the graphic 
 words of Bishop Gore : 
 
 His sermons were fine exhibitions. Wc felt that a great, 
 strong, righteous will was expressing itself amongst us with pro- 
 found astonishment at our being content to be such fools as we 
 were ; and this was to me very bracing. 
 
 Perhaps that is the best summary that could be given of 
 the impression which Percival made at Trinity : " We felt 
 that a great, strong, righteous will was expressing itself 
 amongst us." 
 
 Such a will could hardly be satisfied with such an arena. 
 When the Headship of Eton became vacant by the appoint- 
 ment of Dr. Hornby to be Provost, he refused to stand, as he 
 was asked by many friends to do, but let it be known, as 
 Sir WilUam Anson informed Sir Herbert Warren, that he 
 wovdd be willing to undertake the duty ; but the Governors
 
 go LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 of Eton were not then inclined to break the old rule of pre- 
 ferring an Etonian or to pass over the obvious Etonian 
 candidate, Dr. Warre. Shortly after this, Harrow became 
 vacant ; he was asked to stand, and again refused. The 
 choice fell on another Etonian, Dr. Welldon. In 1886, 
 Rugby was again needing a Headmaster, and the Governors 
 of their own motion invited the man they had twice passed 
 over. On November 17, 1886, the Bishop of Worcester wrote 
 on behalf of the Rugby Governing Body to offer Percival the 
 Headmastership. He immediately decided to accept. The 
 following is the letter in which he gave the news to Professor 
 Robinson Ellis for communication to the Common Room : 
 
 Trinity College, Oxford, 
 Nov. 18, 1886. 
 
 Dear Ellis — I believe Mrs. Percival told you yesterday 
 evening of the offer that had just been made to me and of my 
 acceptance of it. I only returned from Bristol this morning, so 
 I could not write to you earlier myself. 
 
 But I feel that I ought to lose no time in letting you know, 
 and through you the other Fellows, that my duties will com- 
 mence at Rugby after the Easter Vacation — that being so, I 
 should gladly go on with my work here till Easter if that is 
 thought best, but I should like to add that I should be ready to 
 resign the Presidency at such time as the Fellows may think most 
 convenient and most advantageous to the College. There may 
 possibly be disadvantages in deferring the change till the Easter 
 Vacation, and if after deliberation it should seem desirable that 
 a new election should be made earlier, I hope that you will let 
 me know, so that I may fix the date of my formal resignation in 
 accordance with your wishes. 
 
 If some one is elected in January, the College will probably 
 allow me to remain in our house till the end of term, or to leave 
 our furniture in it, should we desire to do this, using February 
 and March for the purpose of a holiday. 
 
 I cannot conclude this letter without confessing to you that 
 I have accepted the Headmastership with very mixed feelings. 
 We shall all be very sorry to leave Trinity and Oxford. 
 
 I am truly grateful to the Fellows for all their kindness, and 
 feel that I owe an especial debt of gratitude to yourself and 
 Woods. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Percival.
 
 Ill TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 91 
 
 Mrs. Percival had, on receipt of a telegram, sent a note 
 the previous day, which called forth the following letter 
 from the Professor : 
 
 Trinity College, Oxford, 
 Nov. 18, 1886. 
 
 Dear Percival — I received a note from Mrs. Percival last 
 evening, at 5, conveying the very unpalatable news that you were 
 going to leave us. To me personally it is quite a heavy blow, 
 but the position of Head of Rugby is probably one of the most 
 important in England, and it would have been folly, I think, if 
 you had rejected it. So I must submit to what I deprecate, but 
 cannot avoid. As a Rugby man I feel very glad that you will 
 carry on the best traditions of Amoldian teaching ; and perhaps 
 with more effect that you were not a Rugby boy. I can only 
 regret the inevitable feeling of dreariness which the country 
 about Rugby can hardly fail to produce ; in that respect Oxford 
 and CUfton are very greatly to be preferred to your future, 
 perhaps your permanent, residence. 
 
 Your acceptance of Rugby seems to show that the com- 
 parative rest of Oxford has restored you to your healthy tone of 
 body and mind ; which at the time of j^our election in 1878 had 
 visibly suffered. I earnestly hope that the renewal of school 
 work will not be dangerous to you. 
 
 Speaking of Trinity College, I feel myself how often this must 
 have displeased and even deeply offended you. Some scenes at 
 College meetings have left a painful impression on my memory ; 
 and I have from time to time tried to express to Mrs. Percival 
 my sympathy. But, after all, it is most satisfactory to reflect 
 that your Presidency must for ever be remembered as epoch- 
 making in the history of the College ; our new buildings, I firmly 
 beUeve, would never have risen without your active and steady 
 support ; and the numbers of the College have increased so con- 
 spicuously during your Headship as to have made it in every way 
 more notable and prosperous than it can ever remember to have 
 been. 
 
 As regards the time of your resignation, I should not fancy 
 that any of the Fellows would be anxious to hasten it. I have 
 not indeed spoken to any of them yet about it ; but as you could 
 not well leave before Easter, it seems highly improbable that 
 any one will wish to hurry it on. 
 
 It is somewhat tantahsing that the new President's house will 
 never be occupied by you and Mrs. Percival. For her, indeed, 
 Rugby will be a not altogether acceptable change.
 
 92 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap, m 
 
 Again expressing to you my profound satisfaction that you 
 have been our Pope longer than most who have held the papal 
 chair, and that like all the successful pontiffs you have stamped 
 your activity on the external form and look of the College. — I 
 remain, dear Percival, yours very truly, 
 
 Robinson Ellis.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 RUGBY 
 
 It was quite natural that the Governing Body of Rugby 
 School should in 1874 have chosen Dr. Jex Blake for the 
 Headmastership. He was an old Rugbeian, a former Rugby 
 master, and at that time the conspicuously successful 
 Principal of Cheltenham. The grounds for the choice were 
 obvious. The situation at Rugby required the most deHcate 
 handling. Percival had only been on the staff there for 
 two years, and that short period had been twelve years 
 before. A man with intimate knowledge of the School and 
 its traditions would have a great advantage. Moreover, 
 conciliatory methods were called for. The Governors' choice 
 was justified by the history of the next few years. Peace 
 and harmony returned ; numbers rose again ; funds were 
 collected in abundance for the greatly needed extension of 
 buildings. The four years of chaos and disaster became 
 only an interlude and a memory. 
 
 In 1886 Dr. Jex Blake announced his resignation on his 
 acceptance of the Rectory of Almchurch. The Rugby 
 Governors, without inviting other candidatures, approached 
 the President of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 The Bishop of Worcester to Dr. Percival 
 
 Hartlebury, Kidderminster, 
 Nov. 17, 1886. 
 
 My dear Dr. Percival — I have been requested by the 
 Governing Body of Rugby School to invite you to undertake 
 the office of Headmaster of the School on the retirement of 
 
 93
 
 94 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Dr. Jex Blake at Easter 1887. They are not unmindful of the 
 position which you now hold after many years' service in the work 
 of education ; but they are willing to hope that you may not 
 refuse to resume such work at Rugby ; and they feel all con- 
 fidence that the best interests of the School will be safe in your 
 keeping. 
 
 May I add my own personal wish, as Chairman of the Govern- 
 ing Body, that I may have the pleasure of announcing to them 
 your acceptance of our invitation.— Yours very truly, 
 
 H. Worcester. 
 
 Dr. Percival to the Bishop of Worcester 
 
 To the Lord Bishop of Worcester. 
 
 Nov. 18, 1886. 
 
 My dear Lord — I will not attempt to express my sense of 
 the honour the Governing Body has done me, but will only say 
 in reply to your letter that I gladly and gratefully accept the 
 trust which you have put into my hands. I am aware that in 
 writing this I undertake a great responsibility, and that I may 
 need the indulgence of the Governing Body and of my Colleagues, 
 but such powers and energies as I possess will be devoted without 
 reservation to the service of the School. 
 
 I cannot conclude without thanking you for the very kind 
 words you have added to your official communication, and no 
 one could come to the work more conscious of the deep debt he 
 owes to the School and of what is required of its Headmaster. — 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 The appointment evoked universal applause. The Times 
 celebrated the event with a Leading Article. Letters of hope 
 and of congratulation and delight arrived by shoals. Some 
 are here quoted as an indication of the estimate which men 
 well qualified to judge had formed of Percival. 
 
 From Mr. H. Lee Warner 
 
 The Paddocks, 
 
 swaffham, 
 
 Nov. 17. 
 
 My dear Percival — I earnestly hope that to-day will see 
 you invited to come over to Macedonia and help us. We are not 
 heathen, but we are rather slowbellies, and we want the calm
 
 IV 
 
 RUGBY 95 
 
 firmness and quiet resolution which made Qifton a rival to 
 Rugby, now to reverse the operation. You are indeed blest if 
 you have the strength to undertake that task : for Rugby is a 
 place one never tires of loving, and to which one can only give 
 one's best work. And I believe that you are the only man that 
 Rugby wll welcome unitedly, though (forgive an aside) I hope 
 that some of the staff will only stay long enough to welcome you. 
 
 Jex Blake will leave you good material, and a school more 
 simple and moral (I believe) than most schools. But " Town " 
 wants organising and enlivening ; the forms want to be 
 diminished in numbers ; the Chapel wants a voice that can force 
 itself on boys' attentions ; the spirit of work which Jex first 
 infused into the Vlth wants a fresh pair of bellows. 
 
 Forgive my writing thus at length. It is very impudent, but 
 I do love the place very much and I long to hear you have 
 undertaken it. — Ever j^ours, 
 
 H. Lee Warner. 
 
 From the Headmaster of Clifton 
 
 Clifton College, 
 
 Clifton, Bristol, 
 
 Nov. xjj&b. 
 
 Dear Percival — I thought as much. I saw Temple the 
 other day and pressed this on him. I am truly glad. No one 
 else could so instantly restore public confidence in Rugby. You 
 will have ten years' more of good work in you, and put Rugby 
 on a sound footing and in excellent spirits. — My best wishes to 
 you. — Very truly yours, 
 
 J. M. Wilson. 
 
 From Mr. H. G. Dakyns 
 
 3 Upper Belgrave Road, 
 
 Clifton, Bristol, 
 
 Nov. 1 8, 1 886. 
 
 My dear Dr. and Mrs. Percival — I write a fine to offer to you 
 both and all our best wishes and congratulations. Unless there 
 is anything in the step which causes pain or hesitation to your- 
 selves (and I feel sure it must to some degree be painful to uproot 
 yourselves from Oxford), I for my part am wholly satisfied and 
 rejoice greatly. As a friend I am well pleased that you should 
 have a new sphere of action open to you, and that an ancient and 
 laudable ambition to sit in the seat of Arnold should be satisfied. 
 As a schoolmaster and Englishman I applaud the wisdom of the 
 selection. As a Rugby man I dance about and am mad, and
 
 96 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 can only sing out (to the scandal of my more impassive and more 
 ultra-Cliftonian friends) magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur 
 ordo. It does reaUy, I think, begin again — the great order of 
 the years since you began your great work here twenty-five years 
 ago — the great order of the still longer aeon since Temple left 
 Rugby — ^or shall I not rather say since Arnold was removed ? And 
 I do devoutly hope and expect and believe that another Rugby 
 will ere long arise, and that you will not only have created one 
 school at a time of life when some thought you too young, but 
 at an age when some, judging by their own inertness and senilities, 
 may look upon you as too old, you will recreate another. So 
 may the blessings of Heaven keep you safely. God speed your 
 work and guard your goings. — Your affectionate friend, 
 
 H. G. Dakyns. 
 
 From the Archdeacon of Bristol 
 
 Nov. 19.86. 
 
 My dear Percival — The Leader in yesterday's Times took 
 me by surprise, and it was only on second thoughts that I began 
 to see how this offer had come to be accepted. 
 
 But the more I considered it, the more I seemed to understand 
 that it would be in many ways a relief to you. Arnold used 
 to quote Herodotus, exQiorrj ohvvq ttoAAo, ^poveovra [xrjSevog 
 Kpardeiv. 
 
 Here we are construing those words every day : seeing 
 clearly how this Cathedral Chapter might be to this City of 
 250,000 souls a great centre of spiritual energy, and how its 
 crazy constitution hinders it. And at Oxford I can well believe 
 — though in less degree — your daily experience is of like kind. 
 " Saxum grave Sisyphus urget." 
 
 At Rugby there wiU be the delight of seeing progress — uphill 
 progress no doubt, but still progress. 
 
 Then again your Ufe won't be any longer a divided life, 
 divided between duties that are hard to reconcile. For Mrs. 
 Fox tells me to-day, what selfishly I am sorry to hear, that you 
 mean to give up your home here. 
 
 You have helped us so much here by strengthening our protest 
 against the curse of Cathedrals — selfishness in high places — and 
 by helping to knit together in some faint degree the interests of 
 our Church and the interests of the City — that we miss you much 
 in our counsels. 
 
 What is to become of us I know not ! 
 
 Anyhow, the manner of the offer must have given you un- 
 alloyed pleasure. And to me as an old Rugbeian it is dehghtful
 
 IV RUGBY 97 
 
 to think that the School will be under a master who will view 
 his work as a cure of souls. — Ever yours faithfully. 
 
 J. P. NORRIS. 
 
 From the Principal of Somerville 
 
 SOMERVILLE HaLL, OxFORD. 
 
 Dear Mr. President — 1 ought to congratulate you on your 
 appointment, but I can only bring myself to think how fortunate 
 Rugby is that you have consented to take it. But it is very hard 
 to see how you are to be spared from Oxford, where you have 
 done and are doing so very much. No one does so much for 
 Oxford as you do, and every wise and important measure has 
 been promoted and pushed forward by your strength and 
 influence. I feel as if everything would come to a standstill now. 
 
 Somerville is but one of the many works you have begun and 
 carried through, and no one knows better than I do what it owes 
 to you and the time and trouble you have so freely given to help 
 us on. My only hope is that you will not desert us now, for it 
 would be the greatest misfortune to us if you did not continue 
 to take the lead as you have done. 
 
 I must entreat you not to let your leaving Oxford make any 
 difference to us. 
 
 I have not had courage to tell any one here of your appoint- 
 ment, but I think all will share in my dismay. Fortunately 
 Rugby is not very far off, and you will be much in Oxford, I hope, 
 but I cannot really face the idea of your leaving Oxford yet. — 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 M. Shaw Lefevre. 
 
 From Mr. Arthur Sidgwick 
 
 Woodstock Road, Oxford. 
 
 My dear PREsroENT — (Not long to be so addressed) — I was 
 truly sorry to find you out when I called — the first free moment — 
 to shake your hand to-day. 
 
 I can't help thinking of that day when I was in bed with 
 malaria at Perugia (19 Feb. 1874), being an exile from Ha5mian, 
 and had the telegram that Jex was appointed at Rugby — and 
 how I turned my face to the wall that it was not you. 
 
 Since then I have learned to do more justice to Jex Blake, as 
 a generous man, a sincere man, a brave man, and a good man. 
 
 Your task will be harder now than in 1874, inasmuch that 
 almost any man who came after Hayman must have succeeded, 
 
 H
 
 98 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 at least at first, if he was honest and a gentleman ; what had to 
 be set right there was a chaos of which boys, men, and the world 
 were equally tired. But now Rugby is a good school, but what 
 is wanted is spirit and a leader. It is hard ; but it is because 
 we all felt and feel that if you would 5^ou could give us what we 
 wanted more than any man, that we have all been hoping to see 
 this day, and now we see it— we know— I say we, for I truly 
 believe that those who make up the real Rugby all over England 
 are united on this matter— that it must cost you something to 
 take up the heavy work and responsibility again, after you have 
 already done a work enough for an ordinary man ; and we give 
 you from our hearts the gratitude which such an effort deserves, 
 in full measure beforehand. 
 
 I shall hope to see you presently ; but, after all, I can say 
 better on paper perhaps the thanks and the joy and the hope of 
 which I am full. — Yours ever verily, 
 
 A. SiDGWICK. 
 
 With such greetings to cheer him, the brilliant founder of 
 a new school set himself to the task of ruling and rejuvenat- 
 ing an ancient school, proud beyond almost all others of its 
 own traditions He was fully conscious of both the ad- 
 vantages and the difficulties which such a pride of tradition 
 brings with it. Near the beginning of his reign he wrote to 
 his Clifton friend, Mr. E. M. Oakeley : 
 
 School House, Rugby, 
 
 May 4, 1887. 
 
 My dear Oakeley — At present I find this place very absorb- 
 ing. I cannot attempt to describe to you how kindly I have 
 been received by the masters. They seem determined to do 
 everything they can to make it easy and pleasant for me : all 
 which fills me with some tremors lest they should be grievously 
 disappointed bye and bye ; but I must do my best. You would 
 say that it is natural for a man who feels himself in the presence 
 of Arnold and Temple, both ready to call him to account for his 
 stewardship, to feel somewhat nervous.^ 
 
 1 The following letter from a pillar of the Rugby world brings together 
 the three names in a way that will be of interest to Rugbeians. Percival 
 had written from Hereford to ask Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw to stay at the 
 Palace during the Archbishop's stay, when he was to be there for the 
 opening of the Cathedral Library ; he had also asked for help in the 
 composition of an address on Dr. Arnold. Whitelaw replied as follows :
 
 IV RUGBY 99 
 
 The life has begun to run its usual course, but we have decided 
 to go back to one or two ancient ways ; so that I hope people 
 will look on me as a returned colonist of Conservative proclivities. 
 — Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 Accounts given by Rugbeians who were in the School at 
 the time of the transition show plainly that, when the 
 prosperity, lost between 1870 and 1874, had been restored, 
 a period of comparative quiescence had set in. After the 
 exuberant vitality of the 'sixties, and the alarums and 
 excursions of the early 'seventies, this was natural enough. 
 Indeed, a period of consoUdation was needed before new 
 progress could be undertaken. Such times, however, are 
 the most dangerous. 
 
 Outwardly all went well ; but, as always happens at a 
 school where energy so much as flags for an instant, the 
 general tone was sinking. One reliable witness, who was 
 in the School-house from 1882 till 1887, and soon after 
 returned to Rugby as a tutor, declares : 
 
 Rose Bank, 
 West Malvern, 
 April 20, 1897. 
 
 Dear Bishop Percival — My wife and I had arranged before your 
 letter came this morning (as I was tired with bicycling to Tewkesbury 
 yesterday) to go over by train to Hereford, see in any case the Cathedral, 
 and take our chance of seeing you. I wish we had been fortunate enough 
 to find you. It is exceedingly good of you to ask us to stay at the time 
 of the Archbishop's visit. There is nothing we should like better. But 
 after we leave here we have two visits to make before term begins, and 
 we must be away from here next Wednesday at latest. However, I 
 certainly mean to contrive, if possible, just to see you somehow before 
 I go. 
 
 I am afraid my ideas about Arnold would be of little use. I have 
 often and often reproached myself for not feeling more distinctly and 
 directly stimulated and inspired by the thought of teaching in the place 
 where he taught. I say to myself, " there thou dost lie in the gloom of 
 the autumn evening," and am not specially stirred by it, except as I am 
 stirred by the earnestness and sincerity of the poem. And I suppose 
 the School — the boys — as a rule are not conscious of Arnold as an influence 
 in their lives at all. But then I console myself with thinking that, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, we are all of us influenced by him, and power- 
 fully influenced, every day. Whether we at Rugby are more influenced 
 by him than other schools, I do not know. It is a much grander and 
 more inspiring thought that all English schools are influenced by him 
 (in proportion as they are good) equally with us : and that all, in propor-
 
 100 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 When I first went to Rugby there was a good deal of bullying 
 and a tradition of much worse things in the recent past. The 
 bulljdng was easing off while I was there ; I don't think it was 
 merely that I grew bigger. And there was a great deal of foul 
 talk and immorality — a great deal. 
 
 When I came back in 1890 the tone had quite changed, and 
 I believe immorality was practically dead. 
 
 I was only one term under Percival, and that term he was 
 looking round and seeing how things were — though one could 
 feel there was a strong hand over us ; but next term he began 
 to clean out and did it thoroughly. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Percival was surprised and 
 disappointed to find how low the tone of Rugby had 
 become.^ Indeed he was broken-hearted, for Rugby 
 
 tion as they are doing good work, are working with his ideas, on his lines 
 — consciously or not. And even consciously, I suppose there are boys 
 (and masters) of imagination who feel his presence, both directly some- 
 times and as reaching them through others. It must be, even if we do 
 not always or often think of it, that in many ways he caters as a factor 
 into the atmosphere of the place, and so still " performs the word of the 
 Spirit in whom he lives." I am thinking as I write of the work which 
 you did there : how you purified and refined the moral atmosphere. I 
 never cease to be thankful for it : I feel continually that it is good for 
 us to be there. The air is wholesome. It is permeated by good influences 
 - — aT/pai cLTrb xpr/trrcDf Tbirwv (pipovaat vyLeiav. There are — I don't know 
 how many boys there are to whom in my thoughts I stand con- 
 tinually in Arnold's phrase " cap in hand." And I know that it is no 
 disparagement, quite the reverse, to the new and original and moral 
 impulse which you brought to the life of the School, to think of your work 
 in it as most truly a continuation of Arnold's work. 
 
 I do not like the bust of Arnold which has been set up in our midst. 
 But the Archbishop's visit (for the unveiling of it) was most inspiring. 
 He spoke with astonishing eloquence and fire, and with great simplicity, 
 dwelling on just the essential thing — the paramount importance of moral 
 and spiritual aims. He spoke as one who had been himself inspired by 
 Arnold. I am sure his words must have gone home to many boys, and 
 done something for the time — done a great deal — to bring the School 
 into a new and living relation with Arnold himself. I know that they 
 were really stirred by him — his sermon, his speech, his presence. 
 
 I have rambled on : I hope I have not written too much. — Ever 
 sincerely yours, R. Whitelaw. 
 
 1 For the story of the moral reformation of Rugby, I am mainly in- 
 debted to Mr. G. F. Bradby, from whose account of Percival's reign there, 
 contained in an impression which was sent to me in the form, not of a 
 history, but of a private letter, I shall quote freely in the course of my 
 narrative.
 
 IV RUGBY loi 
 
 had always been his ideal school. He realised that 
 he would have to do a great deal in a short time. He 
 could not wait to develop his policy. Had he been a 
 younger man he would probably have settled the moral 
 question before he went on to the intellectual one. As 
 it was, reforms in all directions had to be pushed forward 
 simultaneously ; the inevitable result was the maximum of 
 friction. He had to remake Rugby with a narrow time- 
 limit. How far such thoughts had been from his mind when 
 he accepted the Headmastership is shown by the fact that 
 when asked what he intended to do there he repUed, " I 
 don't know yet. The one thing I do know is that I am 
 going to introduce a pension-scheme for masters." That 
 pension-scheme was never even outUned — so great was the 
 rush of unexpected problems. It is astonishing that in the 
 midst of that pressure he was able to build so surely and 
 strongly ; there was no opportunism in his work ; he was 
 always following a consistent policy. 
 
 The first real insight into his character which the School 
 as a whole was able to get was in the Lent Term of 1888, 
 when he expelled five boys on the spot, striking their names 
 publicly off the School fist, and sent away many others at the 
 end of the term. His power lay in the fact that he really 
 did hate evil and never believed that it was inevitable. 
 He lashed vice itself with white-hot scorn and disgust ; and 
 then with slow, deUberate strokes he beat the " moral 
 cowardice " of the majority who dishked the thing but were 
 responsible for it by their cowardice. " Nobody who was 
 present at that gathering in New Big School will ever forget 
 it. One could feel the School wincing and writhing — the tall 
 stem figure on the platform (he seemed about forty feet high), 
 the white face fit up with intense but controlled moral 
 indignation — the pause, and then the word or phrase that 
 fell hke a lash. And behind it all the feeling of power and 
 righteousness and judgment to come. The School went out 
 smarting, some of them angry, all of them frightened. Like 
 Lady Macbeth, they had suddenly reaUsed in the face of 
 another the horror of their own deeds." * 
 
 1 G. F. Bradby.
 
 102 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Percival fuUy accepted Arnold's principle : " The first, 
 second, and third duty of a Headmaster is to get rid of 
 unpromising material." 
 
 During the former reign, minor athletic distinctions had 
 greatly multiplied. Percival regarded these as unwhole- 
 some, tending to give a privileged status to boys who had 
 done nothing to deserve it and were likely to abuse it. He 
 swept them away wholesale. The first football distinction 
 is a " flannels "—dating from the time when to obtain this 
 distinction was to be allowed to change into flannels for the 
 game ! It is now represented by the substitution of black 
 stockings for grey on the football field. In 1887 it also 
 carried with it the right to wear a thin gold braid on the 
 house-cap. No act of Percival's was so unpopular as the 
 abolition of that braid. But the suppression of minor 
 " swells " was an important factor in the restoration of 
 strong moral disciphne. 
 
 Fundamental to his whole scheme was the revival of a 
 sense of corporate responsibility in the Sixth Form, which 
 he restored to its historic room from the place in the new 
 building to which Jex Blake had moved it. Very early he 
 had opportunity and occasion to insist on the responsibility 
 of the Sixth for moral discipline. One morning, after a short 
 pause, he began to speak in his most northern accent, which 
 was always intensified when he was roused. " The other 
 day," he said, " an auld Rugbeian came down to this school ; 
 he proposed to send his boy to his auld house. He went into 
 his auld house ; and he was met with such a flood of filthy 
 language that he said, ' I shall not send my boy to that 
 house.' " Then he glared round, and the Sixth Form had 
 the experience, to them a novel one, of feeling that somehow 
 they were regarded as collectively responsible. 
 
 Along with the direct reformation of morals went the 
 intellectual development. In part the two were, as always 
 at a school, inseparable. Idleness is neglect of duty, and is 
 therefore immoral in itself ; it also leads to immorality of 
 other kinds. When Percival first came to Rugby the School 
 as a whole was very idle. He gradually introduced " that 
 bugbear alike of the educational idealist and of the idle boy
 
 IV RUGBY 103 
 
 — test questions on paper at the beginning of a lesson." ^ 
 He created quite a sensation by treating persistent idleness 
 as a moral fault and flogging a boy who had got a very bad 
 half-term report. But he was determined not only to insist 
 on more industry but to raise the level of intellectual quality. 
 To this end he increased the value of and number of scholar- 
 ships, squeezing the necessary money out of the masters, 
 chiefly the house masters, after collecting what he could 
 from Old Rugbeians in memory of Lord Derby, Theodore 
 Walrond, and others. 
 
 From the first he took a keen interest in games, as he 
 had done at Chfton. Mr. H. C. Bradby, now a Rugby House- 
 master, was astonished at being sent for to explain the 
 mysteries of " Belows, H Belows, and HI Belows " — the 
 names given to the ordinary inter-House games at Rugby. 
 He insisted on knowing on what grounds they played, who 
 captained them, what clothes they wore, who paid for the 
 footballs, the cricket material, and so forth. In order to 
 improve the quahty and raise the status of cricket, he 
 brought Tom Emmett to Rugby as cricket professional. 
 Visitors to the Headmaster's study were often surprised to 
 hear the old Yorkshireman discoursing within on the whole 
 theory of batting. 
 
 But games, though he cared for them, were only a part 
 of his system. He was constantly walking about the Close 
 in his top hat, with uphfted chin, watching football or 
 cricket. A glance would be enough for him to mark down 
 any manifestation of " bad form," and he would mentally 
 note the individual or the House. He had an unerring eye 
 for the unwholesome boy. In the Close, or from his place in 
 Chapel as he watched the boys filing out, he formed his 
 impressions, and they were wonderfully accurate. To some 
 extent they guided his disciplinary action. On one occasion 
 he sentenced two boys to a birching for being absent from 
 luncheon one Sunday in order to go birds'-nesting. At the 
 request of the Head of the House, a House Tutor intervened, 
 telling him that there was a general feeUng that the punish- 
 ment was excessive and unjust. Percival thanked the tutor 
 
 1 G. F. Bradby.
 
 104 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 and commuted the sentence. But the subsequent history 
 of the culprits led the tutor to think that Percival's first 
 severity was justified. He had a keen eye for symptoms, 
 and could diagnose the disease behind the apparently trivial 
 or isolated symptom ; he knew that acts of a certain kind 
 at school are seldom isolated acts. Some breaches of dis- 
 cipline are harmless ; some are usually indicative of general 
 laxity. Such incidents Percival described in a favourite 
 word as " symptomatic." 
 
 He had no qualms about the appeal to fear as an element 
 in the moral training of boys ; he employed it on principle. 
 And he certainly employed it with effect. " The rod in his 
 left hand was no toy weapon," ^ and its terrors were greatly 
 multiplied by the scathing remarks which he was commonly 
 supposed to address to the victim between the strokes. 
 " It'll hurt ye, but it's for your good ; " "I mean ye to 
 remember it every day of your life." The methods were not 
 those of an age when men are to be found who solemnly 
 discuss whether any child should be taught anything until 
 he has expressed a desire to learn it. But he did what he 
 set out to do, and Rugby will for ever honour him. 
 
 In everything he relied greatly on Mrs. Percival, regarding 
 her as fully a part of himself and in some sense as his inter- 
 preter. She was by nature expansive as he was reticent, 
 and he often left her to say what he found it difficult to say. 
 Thus he sought to unbend by proxy. She was the only 
 person on whom he was really dependent, and without her 
 he would have been very different. She was the channel 
 through which he was in touch with the human, as distinct 
 from the official, side of his surroundings. Moreover she 
 did much to make him intelligible to others. She created 
 an atmosphere of intimacy and cordiality in which his 
 shyness relaxed, and in the School House drawing-room 
 there was no sense of austerity. 
 
 At Rugby, as at Clifton, Percival showed astonishing 
 capacity in the choice of assistant masters. He did indeed 
 inherit some men of special distinction, chief among them 
 being the renowned scholar and truly great teacher, Robert 
 
 1 G. F. Bradby.
 
 IV RUGBY 105 
 
 Whitelaw. But his own selection raised the level even of 
 the Rugby tradition. Several of the men whom he chose 
 became distinguished Headmasters of other schools. The 
 two " Benches " of the Sixth were taken conjointly by 
 himself and George Smith (now Headmaster of Dulwich) in 
 the case of the Upper Bench, and J. L, Paton (now High 
 Master of Manchester Grammar School) in the case of the 
 Lower. When, in Dr. James's time, George Smith left to 
 become Headmaster of Merchiston, he was succeeded by 
 another of Percival's men, Frank Fletcher, afterwards 
 Master of Marlborough and now Headmaster of Charter- 
 house. The present Dean of Hereford, lately Principal of 
 Cheltenham, and Dr. David, who was one of Percival's 
 successors both at CHfton and at Rugby, were also among 
 those added to the staff by Percival. The list might be 
 greatly lengthened, but only one more name shall be 
 given — G. F. Bradby — poet, historian, ideaUst, satirist, 
 the unfaihng source of mental stimulus to many genera- 
 tions of boys and masters to whom he is linked in ties of 
 the most dehghtful friendship. 
 
 It took the ex-President of Trinity a little time to recover 
 the sense of a school atmosphere in matters intellectual. At 
 first he expected the Sixth to be up to the Oxford " Greats " 
 standard, and to find " learning " in the assistant masters. 
 But this did not last long. He brought a steady flow of new 
 masters — young, active men with brains — straight from the 
 University. He had no belief in " previous experience " ; he 
 Uked to get men fresh and train them. " He kept his eye 
 on them ; came in occasionally to examine their Forms and 
 ask impossible questions, e.g. from forms near the bottom of 
 the school whose history period was the reign of George HI. 
 ' In what order did the American colonies revolt ? ' — 
 expressing grave dissatisfaction when nobody could give 
 the answer. Pinpricks were a part of his policy for keeping 
 young men up to the mark. Any one who sent him a letter 
 or a batch of papers to which the scent of tobacco clung, 
 would receive a ' little note ' by return, containing such 
 phrases as ' low undergraduate tone.' He knew all about 
 his younger masters, their discipUne, and their activities,
 
 io6 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 and always backed them, right or wrong, if they were 
 genuine triers. When one went to him after a grievous 
 collapse of discipline and offered to resign, he only smiled 
 and told him not to be discouraged. His weakness on this 
 side was that he was always afraid of praising and could 
 never unbend ; it was a kind of shyness that made it im- 
 possible for him to be intimate, coupled with a fear of show- 
 ing partiality and being ' unfaithful to his duties.' Even 
 where relations were closest, they seldom got beyond official 
 intimacy — free exchange of ideas about school problems. He 
 was not a man who could sit in an arm-chair in front of the fire 
 and let himself go. And he had no small talk. But he hked 
 people who talked to him naturally and were not afraid of him. 
 
 " Once when I went into the study he looked up with a 
 smile and, handing me a letter, said, ' Read that.' It was 
 from X. Y., and began ' Dear Dr. Percival, the time has now 
 come when either Z. or I must leave this School.' [Both 
 X. Y. and Z. were pillars of the Rugby world.] ' It's the 
 third time,' said Percival, with another smile. 
 
 " A considerable increase in the numbers on the staff, 
 due to the expansion of the Modern Side and Army Class 
 and the claims of Natural Science, added a financial problem 
 to the many others he was called upon to face. The question 
 of salaries is always a thorny one, especially where vested 
 interests make any drastic solution impossible. Percival 
 was laudably anxious to reduce expenses and keep the 
 school fees within the means of the professional classes. 
 But, though personally generous with what was his own, 
 it was generally felt that as a steward of public funds he 
 was inclined in the matter of salaries to push the claims of 
 economy to a point at which they became irritating and 
 even unjust. Perhaps some instinct for a bargain, inherited 
 with his northern blood, influenced him unconsciously in 
 matters of this kind, where he was thinking in terms of the 
 institution rather than of the individual. Certainly the 
 revised scheme which he rushed through at the close of his 
 reign failed to remove a sense of grievance and proved 
 unsatisfactory in the working." ^ 
 
 1 G. F. Bradby.
 
 IV RUGBY 107 
 
 An impression of the result of his work at Rugby is 
 given in the following words of his successor in the Head- 
 mastership, Dr. H. A. James, now President of St. John's 
 College, Oxford : 
 
 It is no small addition to the problems and difficulties of a 
 Headmaster to find, on his accession to office, that he has to 
 arrest a fall in numbers, to restore public confidence, to re- 
 organise discipline, to create new ideals of work. It is true that 
 Dr. Percival, on becoming Headmaster of Rugby, was not con- 
 fronted by such a task in anything like the same degree as his 
 predecessor. Dr. Jex Blake, had been ; but none the less, there was 
 much left to be done in the way of reform, and Percival brought 
 to the emergency the same power of organisation and of stimulus, 
 the same high standard of duty and of far-reaching activity, 
 which had stood him in such good stead as Headmaster of Clifton. 
 The consequence was that when, on his appointment to the 
 Bishopric of Hereford, I was privileged to succeed him at Rugby, 
 I found little or nothing to be attempted beyond the continued 
 maintenance of the high traditions which he had so sedulously 
 developed. He left me a loyal and capable staff of assistant- 
 masters, and an equally loyal and capable Sixth Form, both alike 
 largely imbued with his own sense of responsibility and of the 
 possibilities, as well as the dangers, of public school life. The 
 Arnold tradition of governing through the Sixth had, in his eight 
 years of rule, received a new stimulus and a new life. 
 
 It is by no means easy, in recalling the good tone which 
 prevailed at Rugby in 1895, to estimate accurately to what extent 
 it was due respectively to the old traditions of the school, the 
 influence of assistant-masters like Robert Whitelaw, and the 
 personaUty of Dr. Percival. But there were two or three special 
 characteristics of the school in which I seemed more particularly 
 to trace his handiwork. 
 
 (i) In no other public school with which I have been con- 
 nected (and I have served at four), was there so much private 
 reading, outside their prescribed work, done by the higher boys. 
 In the School House alone, I remember well one boy who read 
 through Gibbon, another who grappled with philosophical works 
 of by no means an elementary character, a third who was an 
 Egyptologist, and who taught himself Sanskrit, a fourth who, 
 though an excellent classical scholar, spent much of his leisure on 
 micro-photographs on scientific lines. These are only examples. 
 Nowhere else have I found so high a standard of knowledge and 
 power of thought, ahke general and specialised, as in the Sixth
 
 io8 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Form at Rugby ; and I cannot but think that this tradition, 
 which, I am clear, was one of the secrets of the success of the 
 school in the Scholarship examinations at such colleges as Balliol, 
 Trinity (Cambridge), and elsewhere, was due largely to Percival's 
 insistence, in school sermons and addresses, in his teaching and 
 private conversations, upon the duty of individual reading, left 
 to a boy's own choice. 
 
 (2) Much has been said about the undue worship of athletics 
 at public schools. Dr. Percival did not undervalue them ; after 
 all, they have killed bullying, and taught the spirit of fair play 
 and of putting the side before the individual. But he did much 
 to keep them in their proper place : for one instance, he aboHshed 
 many of the marks of distinction which the minor athletes were 
 allowed to wear. That was, naturally, an unpopular thing to 
 do ; but he was, as a rule, not only absolutely fearless, but entirely 
 regardless of outside opinion, so long as he was doing his duty 
 and consulting the interests of the school. 
 
 (3) He knew his boys ; and his knowledge helped to mould 
 their character and to raise the tone of the school. I remember 
 asking him, just before I went to Rugby, to tell me something of 
 the boys in the School-house at the time. He sent me a printed 
 House-list with quite short notes of each boy's character as he 
 conceived it. It showed, even in that brief form, how well he 
 had measured their individual capacities and influences. 
 
 I am sure that he was a great Headmaster, and that Rugby 
 owes him a deep debt of gratitude. One master, who had been 
 a Rugby boy under Temple, and a master under Percival both at 
 Qifton and at Rugby, told me that he thought him in no way 
 unworthy to take rank with that great predecessor in his capacity 
 as ruler of a pubhc school. No greater praise could have been 
 given him ; and I for one think it was deserved. 
 
 H. A. James. 
 
 A record from the boys' side, of the time when Percival 
 had moulded the school to his hking, is suppHed by Professor 
 H. E. Butler, who became Head of the School-house in the 
 year after Percival's departure : 
 
 When I entered the School-house in 1891, Dr. Percival had 
 been Headmaster for more than four years, and had already 
 restored Rugby to a position she had not held since the 'sixties, 
 I therefore saw him not as the reformer or reorganiser, but as 
 the just and wise ruler of a community to which he had restored 
 order and prosperity. It is naturally impossible for me to
 
 IV 
 
 RUGBY 109 
 
 distinguish between him as Headmaster and Housemaster, since 
 I knew him in both capacities. But such a distinction is un- 
 necessary. A member of the School-house was privileged to feel 
 his influence more directly and to regard him as more approach- 
 ably human, but he was the same in both capacities, and what is 
 true of him as a Housemsister is true of him as Headmaster. 
 
 I do not think that any boy ever approached him without a 
 certain feeling of awe, due to his magnificent presence and the 
 sense of power that both look and voice inspired. He was bom 
 to command, and perhaps, bom radical though he was, he would 
 have shown autocratic tendencies in whatever sphere of life he 
 had been placed : for compromise was wholly aUen to his nature. 
 But under the austere surface there was, in spite, at times, of 
 appearances, a real sympathy, abundance of kindness, and a 
 genuine sense of humour. Above all, his simplicity of character 
 was no less remarkable than its strength. If his rule revealed 
 an almost despotic firmness and austerity, it was based on trust, 
 on a frank delegation of responsibility and a comprehension of 
 human weakness. He was trusted absolutely. To play him 
 false would have been next to impossible for any of those to whom 
 he looked for the maintenance of discipline, and no Headmaster 
 ever had more loyal support from his Sixth Form. Even outside 
 the inner circle of boys who came into immediate contact with 
 him, though there could not exist the same feeling of confidence 
 or affection, there was no mistaking his influence. His person- 
 aUty was so strong, his ideahsm and manhness so manifest, that 
 there were few who did not undergo his influence in varying 
 degree. 
 
 His sermons were probably over the heads of many, for he 
 never talked down to his audience, and there was perhaps a 
 certain monotony of insistence on certain duties and aspects of 
 school life, w^hich was not lessened by the somewhat monotonous 
 intonation of his fine north-country voice. But he could rise to 
 heights of real eloquence, and few that heard him will easily 
 forget his sermon on the loss of the Victoria, or the last which he 
 deUvered as Headmaster, while to the older and cleverer boys his 
 preaching was a real source of interest and inspiration. But if 
 his pulpit utterances failed, to some extent, to make a general 
 appeal, he was at his best when speaking informally to his House 
 or to the School on moral questions or matters of disciphne. His 
 language was frank, well-chosen and direct, utterly devoid of all 
 trace of sentimentahty, and inspired by an exalted common sense ; 
 and behind it all was felt a moral fervour and idealism of a rare 
 and pecuhar intensity, as a result of which the influence of his 
 words on such occasions was unmistakable.
 
 no LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 For real evil-doing he had no mercy, and he was a terror to 
 the evil-doer ; but if he was stem, he was also inexorably just. 
 His anger was terrible, not because it was violent or explosive, 
 but in virtue of a certain quality of white heat and of the power 
 which he possessed to inspire the conviction that his anger was 
 just. Like all men he made mistakes. But they were in minor 
 matters. His denunciation to the School-house of Hot Cross 
 Buns on the ground that they were " a relic of paganism and an 
 excuse for guzzling," or his regulations as to the exact length of 
 " footer shorts," may have caused irreverent amusement or ill- 
 disguised irritation. But in his general control, and as regards 
 all the bigger things that really mattered, as a disciplinarian he 
 was unsurpassable. 
 
 The same thoroughness characterised his teaching. A sound 
 rather than an elegant scholar, he insisted on an exactitude of 
 preparation which was probably unique even in an exceptionally 
 well-taught school : he was clear, lucid and unfaltering in his 
 translation and exegesis ; th^re was nothing mechanical about 
 his teaching, still less any trace of cramming. He was, however, 
 sound rather than inspiring, though in dealing with an author 
 after his own heart, e.g. St. Paul, he could be intensely interesting. 
 And he certainly instilled into his Sixth a standard of industry 
 that indirectly influenced the whole attitude of the School 
 towards intellectual work. 
 
 In his personal relations with boys he was uniformly kind and 
 sympathetic without being expansive. He had no trivial small 
 talk, and kept games in their proper place, though he realised 
 their value and had a genuine interest in cricket. To many it is 
 probable he gave the impression of a certain coldness. But he 
 was always natural and simple ; there was nothing formal or 
 pedagogic about him, and though he was undeniably felt to be 
 alarming, his real and unfailing sympathy were such that few 
 would have shrunk from going to him when in difficulty or 
 distress. 
 
 He was perhaps the last of the older and best type of Head- 
 master. The average of headmasters is probably as high to-day 
 as ever it was, rjpwojv Se yevos Kara yaia KaXvTrrei. 
 
 His departure from Rugby came with a sense of shock to all 
 those who had come under his immediate influence : they felt 
 that a power was passing from their midst, and to-day many of 
 them still feel that the debt which they owe their old Head- 
 master is one which is beyond price or estimate. 
 
 This impression may be supplemented by the account
 
 IV 
 
 RUGBY III 
 
 which Mr. Arthur Davies gives of his Divinity teaching ; 
 He writes : 
 
 What I chiefly remember of Percival is his teaching of the 
 Bible, especially of the Old Testament, to the Sixth, and the 
 fearless and inspiring way in which he gave us the results of the 
 Higher Criticism. I remember essays we had to write on The 
 Discrepancies between the Gospels in the story of the Resurrec- 
 tion ; and on the remark of some bishop (was it not ?) that the 
 Sermon on the Mount could not be applied to international 
 relations. But perhaps the lesson that I most clearly recollect 
 was when we read the story of Jael and Deborah's praise of Jael's 
 conduct. " She spoke," said Percival, " as if Jael deserved the 
 blessing of God. To-day, if we heard of such conduct, we should 
 say that it was inspired, not by God, but rather by the devil." 
 And so we were introduced to the idea of a progressive revelation 
 of God, an idea which Percival developed when we read with him 
 the psalms and the prophets, and learnt by heart many of their 
 most beautiful passages. 
 
 I heard in after years that he was supposed to have " shaken " 
 our " simple " faith, I imagine he really helped to make it 
 wholesome and reasonable and strong. 
 
 With his Chfton experience fresh in his mind, he set 
 himself early in his reign to accomplish one great reform. 
 The " Town " at Rugby is now a " House " ranking as the 
 full equal of the Boarding Houses. The number of day 
 boys in the School is only about equal to that of one House, 
 and it is not possible to avoid some sense that a boy in the 
 " Town " gets less of the full life of the School than a member 
 of one of the other Houses. But all that was possible 
 Percival did. Before he came the Town boys were not 
 allowed to play games in the Close. Mr. Paton tells how, 
 when he first became Town " Tutor " — the Town boys had 
 formerly been attached to School-house Tutors — the Town 
 boys had no resting-place of their own ; if they went for a 
 run, they had no place to put their coats and sweaters, 
 using, in fact, the side door-step of a shop (Pepperday's) 
 and the cleaners' room in New Big School, which was no 
 more than a magnified cupboard. Percival, believing in the 
 combination of home life and the Public School tradition, 
 set himself steadily to improve the status of the " Town."
 
 112 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 When he left, it never occurred to any one to regard it as 
 other than one among the Houses, joining as a House in all 
 games and competitions ; hardly any one even remembered 
 that it had ever been anything else. 
 
 Percival relied greatly on the impression which he could 
 create by addresses to the School or to any section of it ; 
 and well he might. The Rugby term usually began on a 
 Thursday or Friday, the boys returning in time for evening 
 prayers at 9.30 on one of those days. At morning Chapel 
 on the Friday or Saturday, as the case might be, he spoke 
 for a few minutes from the pulpit, in addition to the sermon 
 or the afternoon of the first Sunday of term. So he recalled 
 the School to a sense of its corporate life and the individual 
 responsibilities involved in it. It is probably true that the 
 senior boys at a good school have a considerably higher 
 standard during term than in the holidays. At home they 
 are not in the same way responsible for boys junior to them- 
 selves or for the general life of a society, and are justified in 
 spending their time chiefly in amusement ; at school they 
 are responsible for a quite perceptible influence, and many 
 of them have also definite spheres of responsibility allotted 
 to them. Upon these senior boys the well-being of the school 
 chiefly depends ; to recall them to the sense of the school 
 life and its claims at the outset of every term was a settled 
 point in Percival's policy. 
 
 But it was not only the senior boys who were in his mind. 
 After breakfast, on the first day of term, all but new boys 
 were sent to their form-rooms of the previous term ; the 
 names of those who were promoted were read out, and these 
 adjourned to their new forms. When the new forms were 
 thus assembled, the term's time-table was dictated, and also 
 the hst of books required. While this was going on, all new 
 boys went to New Big School. There the names were 
 " called over " by the Headmaster, and as each boy answered, 
 the keen, searching eyes were fixed on him for some seconds. 
 After this came an allocution. On the occasion when I was 
 one of the new boys, I remember that he spoke for some time 
 in a genial and kindly manner about the opportunities and 
 even the delights of life at a Public School. Then the tone
 
 IV RUGBY 113 
 
 abruptly changed, and the north-country accent became 
 more pronounced. " There are many bad boys here ; there 
 is a lot of evil in the place." The words of the warning that 
 followed I cannot recall, but they were of prophetic earnest- 
 ness. At the end came a ray of comfort in the assurance 
 that it was good for us to have temptations to face, and that 
 if we did our part we should have strengthened our char- 
 acters in addition to serving the School. Then came a pause ; 
 a concentrated glare ; a rapid turn, and he was at the door. 
 But he was not gone ; he had passed the door, and it was 
 nearly closed ; then it swung open again, the magnificent 
 white head reappeared, and the voice, a good deal raised, 
 cut the silence like a knife : " Eh, I shall be watching you 
 every day of your Uves." The door banged, and this time 
 he was gone. The School Marshal told us our forms and 
 how to find the form-rooms ; we moved thither a somewhat 
 cowed set of little boys, feehng quite as smaD as we were. 
 
 His disciphne was absolutely firm, and to evil-doers he 
 was a terror. He had, moreover, a deceptive trick of smiUng 
 when he was angry — a cold, steely smile. This warning 
 signal appeared unfaiUngly if a boy produced a plainly 
 invented excuse ; but it was often taken for a sign of 
 encouragement, leading the culprit to extend the tangled 
 web which could only increase his undoing. Perhaps tliis 
 had been the beginning of a scene once witnessed by an 
 assistant master who came in by the turret-door, that leads 
 from the study to the Close, and was asked to wait a moment. 
 He found a boy pouring out a strange tale, obviously con- 
 cocted, by which he hoped to secure his escape ; Percival 
 was sitting quite still and interjecting at intervals, Uke a 
 minute gun : " I am going to whip you." The clear pro- 
 nunciation of the letter " h " in " whip " but added terror 
 to the words. It may be added that the boy in question 
 was certainly guilty of the offence for which he had been 
 " sent up " — " cabbing " in examination, " cab " being 
 Rugbeian for " crib " — and had boasted to his friends that 
 he meant " to have the old man on." 
 
 Yet he was perfectly free in disciplinary matters from 
 anything mechanical, and was prepared to act in ways which 
 
 I
 
 114 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 some would regard as over lax. Every half -holiday there 
 was, as there is at most schools, a Call Over of the whole 
 School ; it took place at three o'clock. To miss it was one 
 of the greater disciplinary offences. Near the beginning of 
 my second term I was reading in my study one half-holiday 
 afternoon and suddenly realised with horror that it was 3.15 
 and that " Co," as it was called, must be over. I promptly 
 wrote a note consisting of the words, " W. Temple, Leave 
 off CO., " and took it up to Percival. I found him in his 
 entrance hall, just returned from a ride. He took the note, 
 glanced at the clock, and said, " Where were you ? " "In 
 my study." " What were you doing ? " "I was reading, 
 and forgot the time." " What were you reading ? " " The 
 Strand Magazine." Here the cold smile came, but he signed 
 the note as he said, " Eh, you ought not to get so absorbed 
 in that kind of stuff." 
 
 I found afterwards that I was regarded as having per- 
 petrated a colossal piece of impertinence, and was told to 
 thank my stars that I had not been flayed alive. But that 
 was a misjudgment. I had got out of a form the previous 
 term ; Percival had no reason to suppose I should be in 
 serious mischief ; moreover, I had presented myself before a 
 competent authority at about the proper time — which was 
 the purpose for which CO. existed — and it was quite accord- 
 ing to his principles to save a boy from wasting time over 
 the writing of hues for a technical offence. No man ever 
 drew a sharper distinction between moral and disciplinary 
 regulations ; indeed this was the secret of his greatness as 
 a discipUnarian. 
 
 His control of the School was complete ; and it rested on 
 respect fully as much as on fear. A test was offered by his 
 unusual method of arrival for House Prayers one evening. 
 The staircase, much worn in the treads, curls round a pillar 
 and finds its lower end at the door into Hall, On one 
 occasion Percival slipped near the top and arrived at the 
 entrance to Hall feet foremost, having toboganned down 
 most of the flight in a sitting posture. Many boys must 
 have witnessed the descent ; still more, saw the entry ; but 
 there was no faintest titter. With a perfectly unmoved face.
 
 IV RUGBY 115 
 
 he rose to his feet and walked as usual to his place on the 
 dais. Probably he was quite unconscious — certainly he 
 seemed unconscious — of the immense compHment which had 
 been paid him in the gravity and silence with which the 
 House had received him. The same gravity and silence 
 were only just perceptibly interrupted when, having given 
 the Sixth leave to attend some function, he took Call Over 
 at evening prayers himself, and hearing no answer to the 
 first name he called, looked up with a gently inquiring smile 
 and said, " Eh, did he say he wasn't there ? " 
 
 He was universally and profoundly respected ; and he 
 was feared, not with terror (except by the genuine evil-doer) 
 but with awe. And in a sense — the deepest sense — he was 
 loved. But he was not " popular." He was too remote 
 and distant for that. He knew his boys inside out ; but 
 only a few of them felt that they knew him. Probably the 
 general feeUng among both boys and masters was first and 
 foremost that he was a task-master. He exacted the last 
 ounce of work. Also he was temperamentally a Puritan, 
 and insisted on regulating every detail according to his 
 notions of propriety. One of his deepest aversions was the 
 habit, at one time fashionable, of wearing a cap so far back 
 on the head as to show some hair on the forehead. There 
 was an occasion when he met two boys out walking, one of 
 whom was conforming to this fashion. " Eh," said the 
 Headmaster ; " you look hke a coal-heaver " ; and then to 
 his companion, " Take him back to the House and comb 
 his hair and put his cap on properly for him." 
 
 Near the end of his reign he became annoyed at the 
 curtailment of football shorts. He enacted that they were 
 to be cut so as to reach the stocking ; no bare knees were to 
 show. Of course the presence of loose flannel flapping about 
 the knees is a horrible inconvenience in running, and the 
 boys turned up the ends of the elongated shorts. Then 
 suddenly all shorts vanished, and reappeared not only 
 lengthened by the required amount, but equipped with an 
 elastic band which gripped the leg just below the knee and 
 could by no means be worn above it. But this was in his 
 last winter, and the portentous garments were restored to
 
 Ii6 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 normal length and form before the next football season 
 came round. 
 
 But there was a more serious side to his Puritanism, He 
 was ready to trust absolutely an individual boy who had not 
 forfeited his confidence ; but in the boys as a whole he put 
 little or no trust. He feared liberty ; with all his liberalism, 
 he feared liberty. He wanted to see the whole day mapped 
 out and to know what every boy was doing at any moment. 
 This led, undoubtedly, to some stereotyping of character. 
 Dr. James refers to the tradition of wide reading in the 
 School ; but this, though very marked, was confined to the 
 cleverer boys who could do their out- of -school work in half, 
 or less than half, the time allotted to it. The filling of the 
 whole day with allotted occupations intensified one unfor- 
 tunate consequence which the organisation of school life is 
 bound in some measure to produce. Most schoolboys do in 
 fact feel lost when they reach a University. Having had the 
 task of every hour scheduled, they are only bewildered at 
 being told to master certain books by the end of the term, 
 or perhaps in the course of eighteen months. There is no 
 way of teaching boys to work for themselves except by 
 giving them the chance to idle ; there is no way of teaching 
 boys to use time except by giving them the chance to waste 
 it. Percival was so sure that Satan would find some mis- 
 chief to fill any empty comer of the time-table, that he sought 
 to leave no empty corners. He allowed ample time for 
 games, but wished to see them organised with the same 
 thoroughness as work. He left httle scope for the boy of 
 unusual tastes or interests. He represented in this respect 
 the extreme development of one tendency in education. At 
 all schools the hours and the minutes were getting organised 
 by authority. In all schools the pendulum has now swung 
 back considerably. The extreme point was probably reached 
 at Rugby under Percival, 
 
 But if he had some of the weaknesses of the Stoic and 
 the Puritan, he had all their strength. That he should 
 make an unnecessary to-do about bare knees or over-fill the 
 time-table are small matters to set against his intense moral 
 earnestness and passion for righteousness. That fiery zeal
 
 IV RUGBY 117 
 
 was the dominating fact of Rugby life while he presided 
 over it. And the fact that it expressed itself in fearless 
 action outside the sphere of school life only added to its 
 influence. Boys, who tend to conservatism, would object 
 to the particular line which he took ; but they knew in their 
 souls what was the motive that prompted him, and his 
 courage increased rather than diminished his influence on 
 their characters. 
 
 Moreover, he endeavoured at Rugby, as at Clifton, to 
 draw the boys into his own enthusiasm for the welfare of 
 the people by making the School responsible for a definite 
 bit of social work. A Boys' Club had been founded in 
 Notting Dale by Arthur Walrond ; under Percival's influence 
 and guidance the School adopted this as the Rugby School 
 Mission, at the same time founding a similar club in Bir- 
 mingham. This is not the place to describe the effect of 
 the Mission on the neighbourhoods in which it was placed ; 
 but its influence on many of the best Rugbeians has been 
 immense. At the clubs, or in the Camp at New Romney, 
 they have come into close touch with boys of antecedents 
 and experience totally different from their own, and this has 
 often been the awakening of new and wider sympathies. 
 The School Mission is a great educational asset, for which 
 the School has largely to thank John Percival. The story 
 of its inception is told as follows by Mr. W. G. Michell, the 
 member of the staff who served for many years as Secretary 
 to the School Mission Committee : 
 
 It was in 1888 that the feeling that there was room for a Home 
 Mission as well as for the Fox Mission in the life of Rugby first 
 found definite expression. Payne Smith and Westcott were the 
 most active supporters of the idea. It was very fully discussed 
 at several masters' meetings, and finally a meeting of old and 
 present Rugbeians was held in New Big School on March 16, 1889, 
 at which it was resolved that " immediate steps be taken to 
 estabUsh a Rugby Home Mission." The project had throughout 
 the warm support of Dr. Percival, and his opening speech at this 
 meeting was one of the most impressive and persuasive speeches 
 that I recollect. His guidance of the Committee, which was 
 then elected, and his careful steering through some rather serious 
 difficulties, were of the utmost value, as was his bold suggestion,
 
 ii8 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 when the claims of London and Birmingham seemed Hkely to 
 divide the Committee, that Rugby should undertake a Mission 
 in both. He cordially endorsed, too, the wise policy of declaring 
 that the work undertaken should be " Club work for the benefit 
 of young men and boys." He was emphatic that a non-parochial 
 mission was most likely to attract the sympathy of the School. 
 
 Accordingly, in the course of the year 1889, the two Clubs were 
 opened. In London, advantage was taken of the work already 
 done by A. F. Walrond (O.R.), for some five or six years in 
 Walmer Road, Notting Hill. His Club was taken over by Rugby 
 and moved into enlarged premises. In Birmingham a Club was 
 opened in the parish of St. Paul, Balsall Heath, and at the first 
 annual meeting held at Rugby, March 1890, Dr. Percival was 
 able to announce so hopeful a start at both Clubs, that the 
 permanence of the work, now happily proved by over thirty 
 years' experience, was practically assured. 
 
 Throughout his reign Percival held the School in his hands 
 and never in any degree neglected its claims. He was very 
 rarely absent during term and was always accessible. But 
 he refused to withdraw from his other main interests. When 
 the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church first became a 
 burning question and the leaders of the Church of England 
 were organising opposition to any measure for this end, 
 Percival, knowing well how unpopular his action would be, 
 sent a long letter to The Times, which was pubUshed on 
 May 4, 1894. 
 
 Welsh Disestablishment — An Appeal to the 
 English Bishops 
 
 Sir — It is felt by a large number of churchmen that our 
 Bishops are incurring a grave responsibility, and doing serious 
 injury to the prospects of the Church by their tone and attitude 
 in regard to the legislative measures of the present Liberal 
 Government, and yet hardly any one inside the Church ventures 
 publicly to express in plain language the deep disappointment 
 so widely felt at their lack of wise statesmanship and foresight. 
 
 It is true that an Address was presented to the Primate the 
 other day which no doubt originated in the widespread discontent 
 caused by the action of the Bishops in the House of Lords in 
 regard to the Local Government Bill ; but this Address was 
 couched in such vague terms and so wanting in plain directness
 
 IV RUGBY 119 
 
 of speech, that it seems to have missed its mark. It was,* I 
 imagine, really intended to say to the Archbishop : 
 
 " Your Grace and your colleagues have caused much pain 
 and disappointment to aU Hberal churchmen by your failure to 
 show any earnest sympathy with the undoubtedly beneficial 
 purpose of the Bill, and by acquiescing in the cynical and selfish 
 tone of the House of Lords in dealing with it. It is probable that 
 your example may have a mischievous effect on the minds and 
 attitude of many clergymen, while it may be taken as certain 
 that it has tended to rouse suspicion and bitterness in the minds 
 of many of the poorer class, and we therefore venture most 
 respectfully to urge your Grace to do what you can to make 
 amends for your mistake." 
 
 Had the memorialists adopted plainer and more emphatic 
 language of this kind, they would have given truer expression to 
 a very widespread feeUng. 
 
 But what urges me to write this letter is not a desire to criticise 
 past action, but concern and anxiety for the future. From the 
 utterances of the Bishops in convocation and elsewhere, it seems, 
 alas ! only too probable that by taking up an attitude of un- 
 compromising hostility to the Welsh Disestablishment Bill, they 
 are about to make another mistake which can hardly fail to be 
 disastrous in its consequences. 
 
 Is it, then, too much to hope that some may be found who 
 wiU have the wisdom to say to their episcopal brethren : 
 
 " None of us believe that establishment and endowment are 
 necessary to the life of the Church — when the Apostles went forth 
 with nothing but their staff and scrip they lacked no spiritual 
 power which we possess ; we beUeve, on the contrary, that there 
 may be circumstances in which establishment and endowment 
 are a positive hindrance to our Master's work, and it is becoming 
 more and more evident that this is so in the Principality of Wales. 
 The Welsh Church is admitted to be the Church of a minority, 
 the voice of Wales in the House of Commons is almost unani- 
 mously against it, and the prevailing sentiment of the Welsh 
 people is irreconcilably opposed to it as an estabHshment. In 
 the face of such facts as these, it is hardly possible to doubt that 
 the cause of true rehgion is damaged by its maintenance in a 
 privileged position, and it may safely be predicted that, if the 
 Church is disestabUshed and started afresh in the free and open 
 field, much of the hostile political sentiment which now prevails 
 will disappear, and the spiritual influence and power of our 
 Anglican communion will increase as never before. 
 
 " We therefore accept the principle of this Bill, believing that 
 it wiU prove a blessing to our Church in Wales, and because it is
 
 120 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 based on the just principle that in matters of religion, above all 
 things, a people should be free to choose for itself, and no external 
 power should presume to interfere or dictate. 
 
 " And let us not be misled by the pedantic, and we might even 
 say sophistic, argument that the Welsh Church is only so many 
 dioceses of the Enghsh Church. The distinct nationality of the 
 Welsh is practically recognised as an accepted fact for all sorts 
 of other purposes ; a fortiori it should be accepted for the settle- 
 ment of their religious relationships. 
 
 " As Englishmen and outsiders we hold that, whatever our 
 personal sympathies may be, we have no right in such a matter 
 to withstand the clearly-declared will of the Welsh people, just 
 as, on the other hand, if at any time the disestablishment of 
 the English Church is proposed, we shall claim that neither Irish- 
 man nor Scotchman nor Welshman shall have any determin- 
 ing voice in the matter, but, seeing that it is a purely English 
 question, it should in common fairness be left to EngUshmen 
 to decide." 
 
 If our Bishops or any of them can be persuaded at the eleventh 
 hour to advocate this wiser poUcy they wiU deserve our gratitude 
 as having done what is at once just and fair to the people of 
 Wales, and Ukely to give a large access of spiritual influence 
 to the Welsh Church, and, moreover, as having established a 
 precedent which may be of the greatest service to the English 
 Church in the not very remote future. 
 
 But the great obstacle seems to lie in the thought of dis- 
 endowment, and here also we appeal to our wiser leaders to 
 consider the matter as statesmen, and to discard and discounten- 
 ance the heated and misleading rhetoric which is so much in 
 vogue. 
 
 It is beyond question that the funds of the Church with which 
 the BiU proposes to deal are pubUc property ; and no one 
 ventures to deny that ParUament is simply exercising its legiti- 
 mate powers in deciding how these funds are in future to be 
 administered ; surely, therefore, it is the part of wise statesmen 
 to accept these principles, and, having accepted them, to use all 
 their forces to secure that the funds shall not be wasted or 
 misappropriated. 
 
 The principle to be safeguarded is clear enough. These funds 
 have been dedicated to spiritual and philanthropic uses ; and 
 for such uses they ought as a matter of common justice to be 
 reserved. 
 
 However great the temptation may be to party politicians, 
 they should not be squandered or misappHed with the view of 
 reUeving either individuals or the State, either taxpayers or rate-
 
 IV RUGBY 121 
 
 payers, from duties and obligations which ought to be discharged 
 from other resources, and would be so discharged if these funds 
 did not exist. 
 
 By taking their stand on this principle, opposed alike to the 
 pohcy of cupidity and to the policy of selfish privilege, and 
 amending the Bill as it is in their power to amend it if they will 
 approach the question in a Hberal and conciUatory spirit, the 
 Bishops might do a great and lasting service, whereas through 
 their angry protests and their encouragement of unreasoning 
 hostility they are unhappily alienating what it is the fashion to 
 call the New Democracy, and helping to drive it towards an 
 irreligious or anti-rehgious socialism. 
 
 Since writing the above I have read in your columns Mr. 
 
 Balfour's paradoxical appeal to this New Democracy, and also 
 
 the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury declaring that the 
 
 issue now before the Church of England is the gravest that has 
 
 been before it since its planting. Whether the issue is indeed so 
 
 grave as the Archbishop declares it to be or not, it is at all events 
 
 grave enough, for it can hardly be doubted that, rather than 
 
 maintain in Wales the establishment of a privileged minority 
 
 Church in the face of a deep-rooted popular sentiment, the New 
 
 Democracy will sweep the whole English establishment over the 
 
 precipice towards which Tory statesmen and ecclesiastics are so 
 
 recklessly leading it. — Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 Rugby, May i. 
 
 This letter produced a great outcry. Many boys whose 
 names had been entered for Rugby were promptly with- 
 drawn. Some eager souls, including some old Rugbeians, 
 were active in the West End Clubs " to make the place too 
 hot to hold him." But by such considerations he was 
 wholly unmoved. One letter that he received at this time 
 from a church dignitary was of a kind especially ill-calculated 
 to move him. 
 
 Durham, 
 June lo, 1894. 
 
 Dear Percival — I think it only right to say that I was 
 extremely glad to see your view about the Welsh Church, but 
 was extremely surprised to see that you were incautious enough 
 to express it, with possible injury to Rugby and certain injury 
 to yourself in reference to the clerical promotion which you deserve 
 and were certain to get.
 
 122 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 In days like these, I cannot wish for you the terrific fag of a 
 Bishopric, but I had always thought of you as a most proper 
 candidate for the Deanery of Durham, which (in value, £3000) 
 carries with it the Wardenship {i.e. the perpetual F^cg-Chancellor- 
 ship) of the University. 
 
 "VVTien our Dean talked of resigning two years ago, when 
 Gladstone was in [who would have listened to me, as he did when 
 it was vacant in 1869], I thought Kitchin the most suitable 
 candidate, and you, second, because I think that he is not fit for 
 a see (and you are, or were), and that he has not had the pro- 
 motion from our political friends which he merits. But the 
 more the delay in the Dean's resignation occurs (he won't now 
 resign, I believe), the older Kitchin gets (he must now be sixty- 
 six) ; and we really need a man of fifty, who will work actively 
 the Newcastle branch of the University. 
 
 Rosebery, of course, knows nothing of churchmen. If our 
 Deanery comes vacant at any time, I don't know how he can be 
 got at. I fear that Temple, after your Welsh Church letter, 
 would not \ie\pyou. He has become a fanatical, bigoted Apostate, 
 full of crotchets about rehgious education. I cannot approach 
 Rosebery, as I could Gladstone. If the contingency should arise 
 soon (but our old boy is awfully vigorous), I should certainly try 
 (i) to get Rosebery (or Salisbury, or any other Premier) in- 
 structed that our Deanery is not mainly a Cathedral and theo- 
 logical post, but an educational and University one. (This I 
 think I could do) ; but (2) — which is more difficult — I should like 
 to suggest, if the Liberals are in, Kitchin' s name and yours. If 
 the Tories are in, I rather think that Canon Browne ^ of St. Paul's 
 would be about as likely a person as we could select from a party 
 of fools. 
 
 It wiU put both you and me at your ease if you refrain from 
 answering this letter. But I wished you to know my thoughts. 
 I am getting old, and can honestly say that for thirty years I 
 have worked and do work for this little University and town and 
 Cathedral as not one of my younger colleagues does or ever did, 
 and therefore I feel intensely wishful to see an energetic and 
 honest Head put in for the future, who will work industriously 
 and unselfishly for the place when I am in the grave forgotten. 
 What I dread is one of the self-advertising, promotion-hunting, 
 fussy churchmen or educationahsts, who make a gain of godliness. 
 — Yours affectionately. 
 
 P.S. — On reading over my letter I see that I have omitted to 
 impress upon you the hint — Don't, in leading a forlorn hope 
 
 1 Afterwards Bishop of Bristol.
 
 IV RUGBY 123 
 
 about the Welsh Church, go and damage your own chances of 
 
 future usefulness and promotion. Imagine incautious old 
 
 inculcating such an idea ! 
 
 There can be no doubt that Percival would have delighted 
 in the Deanery of Durham. But no arguments less Ukely 
 to sway him can be conceived. Indeed one wonders whether 
 such a letter may not have strengthened the determination 
 which led him shortly afterwards to preach a sermon in 
 Westminster Abbey denouncing GambHng and lamenting 
 a racing Prime Minister, when Lord Rosebery had lately 
 won the Derby. He never feared the unpopular line, or 
 thought that a schoolmaster should hide his convictions for 
 fear of aUenating parents. The schoolmaster, he held, can 
 only do his best work for his pupils if he is perfectly honest 
 and open, so that parents should respect his courage, if he 
 acts or speaks in a way likely to attract obloquy. Those 
 who could not appreciate courage must send their boys 
 elsewhere. And the hberty that he claimed for himself 
 he allowed to his staff. At a time when Irish Home 
 Rule could scarcely be advocated in polite society an 
 eminent Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament was pass- 
 ing through Rugby. The Liberals of the town organised a 
 small deputation, inviting one of the masters at the 
 School to join it. The leave of the Headmaster was 
 asked, and was readily given, with the addition : "I 
 don't see that one need always be on the respectable 
 side in politics." 
 
 The strain that he was putting on himself was seriously 
 telling on his health by the end of his reign. " He had 
 done his work at a furious pace. To be honest, in spite of 
 the immense respect felt for him by everybody who was not 
 hopelessly small, the sense of loss at his departure was 
 tinged with a feeling akin to relief. He had strung us up to 
 such a pitch that the tension was sometimes unbearable, and 
 we needed to be let down half a tone to give our best. That 
 was because he had been working against the clock. Under 
 him one was moving towards noble ends along a sure road ; 
 but he did force the pace till one almost dropped from 
 fatigue. After the first weeks of term one was always
 
 124 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 submerged under papers — Intermediates, Long List Latin 
 Proses, Grammar Papers, General Intelligence Papers — apart 
 from the ordinary paper work of a large form. And he 
 would listen to no plea for mercy. He was working just as 
 feverishly himself. He was Hke a bit of rough-hewn granite 
 with a core of intense spiritual heat. Some stupid people 
 bumped against the granite, found it hard, and could not 
 see the glow, or only counted the cold patches on the 
 surface. But, though sternness was the outward and visible 
 sign of his rule, he achieved what sternness alone can never 
 achieve. He was a great spiritual and creative force. The 
 spirit blows where it lists and no man can tell whence it 
 comes or whither it goes. Men and boys are generally more 
 conscious of its departure from their lives than of its presence. 
 In fact, it is the very unconsciousness of spiritual force 
 that makes it creative. Percival possessed that force in a 
 remarkable way. What he said always counted ; but what 
 he was counted still more. He inspired Rugby with an ideal 
 of life in which service ranked higher than popularity and 
 duty came before enjojnnent. Sternness (and, after all, love 
 must be stern, if it is to be bracing) was for him an inseparable 
 part of his duty as a headmaster. But it would be a mistake 
 to imagine that it was a congenial part. The very fact that 
 it was uncongenial, sometimes led him to exaggerate it, lest 
 he too should be yielding to weakness ; and it was noticeable 
 that in his last Term his eyes and his smile expressed a 
 benignity which some had never suspected. He seemed to 
 realise that the need for severe self-repression had passed, 
 and that he could, without being ' unfaithful,' indulge his 
 natural kindliness." ^ 
 
 Among the boys, as has been said, he was respected and 
 feared, and in the true sense loved. But the love was mostly 
 unconscious. The stoic aloofness and the exacting ideahsm 
 prevented what is ordinarily called popularity. Only when 
 it was known that he was leaving did the deeper feeling 
 reveal itself. At once the School became conscious that it 
 not only revered and trusted but genuinely loved him. It 
 was the severing of close personal ties, despite the fact that 
 
 1 G. F. Bradby.
 
 IV RUGBY 125 
 
 he had so Httle encouraged intimacy There were no 
 circumstances to call out the more emotional expressions of 
 feeling, such as have sometimes marked the departure of 
 Headmasters ; but no one in the School at that time can 
 question its reaUty or its depth. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The following sermon is printed here in full, both as an 
 excellent example of Percival's manner in addressing boys and 
 as an expression of his sense of the value of such a tradition and 
 history as Rugby School possesses. It was delivered from 
 Arnold's pulpit on Sunday, June 25, 1905 ; he had unveiled the 
 medallion of Archbishop Temple the previous day, and many 
 old Rugbeians of many generations were present. 
 
 The Cloud of Witnesses 
 
 Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, 
 let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, 
 and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto 
 Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. — Heb. xii. i, 2. 
 
 There is a peculiar interest attaching to any such gathering 
 as this in a school chapel at a commemorative season, when 
 former members of the society, returning from various walks of 
 Ufe, far or near, sit or kneel once again in the old famiUar place, 
 and renew the memories of bygone days. 
 
 In such an assembly those who are of the older generation 
 hear once more the tones of voices which for other ears are hushed 
 in silence— the choir invisible. 
 
 We can still see or feel the presence of friends who are gone 
 beyond recall. We stand or sit in the midst of a congregation 
 invisible yet very real to us. 
 
 They look out upon us from one and another famiUar seat as 
 you may have sometimes seen the angel faces looking, faces 
 woven into the clouds of a great master's picture, and forming 
 or suggesting its spiritual background. 
 
 It is no doubt with some such feelings, memories, visions of 
 days which do not come again that a good many members of this 
 congregation are here this afternoon. 
 
 And amidst the thoughts that rise under such circumstances 
 I know not any more appropriate to be impressed on the mind
 
 126 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 and memory of 3'^ou who are to-day the boys of this historic 
 school, Uving its Ufe, and maintaining its traditions, than the 
 thought that Rugby has been pre-eminent through several 
 generations for the great and strong and striking personalities 
 that have belonged to it. 
 
 This being so, we do weU to commemorate them ; for there is 
 no greater inheritance into which any boy or man can enter than 
 the inspiring influence of some noble personality. This, indeed, 
 is the one pecuharly enviable privilege of the sons of noble 
 ancestors ; and this is a privilege which every member of a great 
 school can fully and freely share, if he is in any sense truly 
 conscious of the high fellowship into which he has been admitted, 
 and if in the purpose and character of his life he is worthy to be 
 a member of it. 
 
 With and through a succession of such members, growing up, 
 one generation after another, sitting, kneehng, praying, listening 
 in this sacred spot from childhood to manhood, with the speaking 
 monuments all around you, seeing the effigies, or tablets, reading 
 the words inscribed of one and another, hearing their voices, you 
 inherit the spirit of their life, and you feel yourself stirred and 
 called upon to do your part here and hereafter to perpetuate this 
 spirit. And to every boy among you, from the eldest to the 
 latest comer, let me say this much — as you hope to Uve the life 
 of a true Rugbeian you will often think of these greater ones, who 
 have been here before you and have left you their examples, and 
 you will take care to live your daily life remembering — " Of this 
 great fellowship I am free." 
 
 When so remembered, these typical spirits live on in the place 
 of their former activities : 
 
 Their seed shall remain for ever. 
 
 And their glory shall not be blotted out. 
 
 Vitai lampada tradunt. 
 
 We who live and labour outside in the common life of the 
 world, mixing with the multitudes day by day, seeing something 
 of the lot of the dim populations in town and country, as we 
 think of you boys growing up in our great schools, your privileged 
 life and happy homes, as we think of the inheritance into which 
 you have entered in places hke this, and the poor uses you some- 
 times make of it, I confess to you that we lament the large amount 
 of waste we see in the many lives that come and go, having missed 
 the inspiration and the strength, the character and the moral 
 purpose, which they should have gained in these homes of their 
 boyhood. foriunati nimium, sua si bona norint ! 
 
 Yes, indeed, your privileges are great in great schools if only
 
 IV 
 
 RUGBY 127 
 
 your souls are awake to see and embrace them. But what we 
 have so often to lament, as we follow the hves of pubUc school 
 men of whom we might have hoped higher things than selfish 
 indulgence or cynical indifference, or low tone in pubhc or private 
 affairs, is that in their impressible school-days, the seedtime of 
 hfe for good or ill, their souls can never have been truly wakened 
 in them to feel the greatness of their inheritance ; their aspira- 
 tions have never really hfted them into the nobler forms of hfe. 
 Such men have lived and grown up in these temples of the great 
 ones, never truly or deeply feehng the greatness of the presence 
 in which they have been living all the time. 
 
 Such men go out into the world uninspired and unblessed to 
 a hfe of moral impoverishment and spiritual bhndness. 
 
 In this Chapel, and in this school of all others, it should 
 not be so with any of you, if you are to quit you hke men, 
 who are to be not unworthy of your inheritance and your 
 privileges. 
 
 Of the great fellowship you are free, every one ; and what a 
 fellowship it is, if you know it ! 
 
 Around you on these walls every day are all these witnesses 
 to the strong, the strenuous, the simple, the pure, the unselfish, 
 the noble life, the hfe of moral thoughtfulness, and intellectual 
 striving, the hfe of search for truth, and of high endeavour, the 
 life fearlessly dedicated to the best causes, seeking always the 
 things that are more excellent. 
 
 Seeing then that your schooltime here is set in the midst of 
 such a cloud of witnesses, you feel how God is calling you to live 
 here and grow up — each one of you with this thought in his heart : 
 " I must lay aside every weight and any sin which may be in 
 danger of besetting me ; I must run the straight race which is set 
 before me afresh by all these examples." 
 
 And how various are the types recorded on the walls of this 
 Chapel, types of high purpose and life and character, with which 
 you have the happiness to grow up famihar. 
 
 There is no poem, said Dr. Martineau, and no biography 
 actual or possible, which I had rather read than the secret spirit 
 history of Rugby Chapel. May you boys and your successors 
 grow up here with souls receptive of all that is best in this spirit 
 history, so that through aU your years you may keep open the 
 door of communication between the world of daily life and that 
 higher life of the spirit, which lives in the memories enshrined 
 within these walls. 
 
 As you stand by the grave of Dr. Arnold himself, you come to 
 feel the glow of his intense moral and rehgious purposes, the 
 magnetic power of a prophet among men, and henceforth you
 
 128 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 know how to estimate the greatness of great personalities, and 
 how truly it was written that : 
 
 The greatest gift the hero leaves his race 
 Is to have been a hero. 
 
 Here again Matthew Arnold should draw you upwards by his 
 culture, and his pathos, and his fine aesthetic sense, and his 
 immortal poems. 
 
 Or in Arthur Stanley you wiU learn to know not only the 
 supremely gifted biographer, but a fervent and beautiful soul, 
 that Uved and laboured for the enlargement of the Christian 
 Church, and taught us to feel afresh, how the essence of Christi- 
 anity is to be sought and exhibited in Christian character. 
 
 Or you will learn some of the deepest lessons of the personal 
 hfe from Arthur Clough, the boy of whole-hearted devotion to 
 the good of this school, the man of whom his friend could say that 
 there was in him no taint of littleness, who was pre-eminent 
 among his contemporaries for high principle and unworldliness, 
 the unresting searcher after Truth, her never-faihng worshipper 
 who sang : 
 
 It fortifies my soul to know 
 
 That, though I perish. Truth is so — 
 
 With her is no variableness, neither shadow of turning — 
 
 That, howso'er I stray and range, 
 Whate'er I do. Thou dost not change. 
 I steadier step when I recall 
 That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. 
 
 Truly such an one is not far from Him who is the Way, the 
 Truth, and the Life ; and it is a great thing for you who are boys 
 to have had such men before you in the fellowship of your school. 
 
 And as you look round the tablets on the walls or the storied 
 windows and learn their history, those who know will teU you 
 how they have variously enriched the inheritances of our life — 
 the mathematician, the scholar, the philosopher, the soldier, the 
 traveller, the man of affairs, the minister of Christ at home and 
 in the mission field — faithful unto death. 
 
 And among them will stand out through aU time the great 
 name of him whom we commemorated yesterday, Frederick 
 Temple, the strong and just Headmaster, strenuous and steadfast 
 in every duty, independent, tolerant, hopeful, tender of heart, 
 a great example to carry with you. 
 
 As we, who are nearing the end, look on your young life with 
 aU its possibihties, we cannot but wonder what this hfe of yours,
 
 IV 
 
 RUGBY 129 
 
 yet in the germ, is to be hereafter, and what you will make of it ; 
 and we pray that you may hold fast to these examples which 
 have made the great name of your school, and that you may 
 live, as they did, the life of Christian manUness and Christian 
 idealism. 
 
 And for such a life and such a character, as Dr. Temple said 
 many times over in varying phrase from this pulpit, that which is 
 required above everything else is a strong sense of personal duty 
 — duty should be your morning star. Such a character, he 
 added, if it be dedicated to the service of Christ, and so learns 
 to add love to duty, becomes the highest that we know on earth. 
 
 With this ideal in j'our heart, duty inspired by love, may 
 every one of you quit you like men, looking unto Jesus the Author 
 and the Finisher of your faith. 
 
 K
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 EARLY DAYS AT HEREFORD 
 
 Soon after the beginning of the Lent term of 1895 Dr. Percival 
 received the following letter : 
 
 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, 
 Jan. 31, 1895. 
 
 Reverend and dear Sir — I am extremely anxious that you 
 should fill the vacant see of Hereford. It is not merely that your 
 standing, experience, and ability give you a claim to a bishopric \ 
 but the circumstances of Hereford make it of the highest import- 
 ance that it should be presided over at this juncture by one who 
 entertains large and liberal views as to the true nature and 
 function of church establishments. I have some reason to hope 
 that your views (as expressed last year) and my own as recently 
 stated at Cardiff are, at any rate to a considerable extent, in 
 agreement. Now the diocese of Hereford includes at present 
 some (12 or 13 I think) parishes which belong to the Church in 
 Wales, and I believe that if you saw your way to accept my 
 proposal the possibihty of friction would be diminished or 
 obviated. At any rate it is extremely desirable that a Bishop 
 of your opinions should be placed on the marches of Wales. 
 
 One word more. I was concerned some time since to learn 
 that your health required change and some degree of repose. 
 I am very far from insensible to the heavy work that devolves 
 on Anglican Bishops in these days. But Hereford is not one of 
 the heavier sees, and I trust that you will not be deterred from 
 undertaking it by fear of undue pressure. — Believe me, reverend 
 and dear Sir, your faithful servant, 
 
 ROSEBERY. 
 
 To this letter Percival replied as follows : 
 
 My DEAR Lord — I am very grateful for your kind proposals 
 with reference to the See of Hereford, and more especially for the 
 
 130
 
 CHAP. V EARLY DAYS AT HEREFORD 131 
 
 terms of your letter. In considering the matter my first feeling 
 has been one of grave doubt whether with my democratic 
 sympathies and general views I should be justified in taking 
 charge of such a Diocese as Hereford. On the other hand I am 
 bound to admit that what your Lordship says with reference to 
 the Welsh Disestablishment question has so far influenced me 
 that I venture to ask to be permitted to weigh the matter for two 
 or three days before deciding, and to consult in confidence a 
 friend whose judgment I should greatly value. I also feel that 
 my wife, who is at present in Algiers, has a claim to hear from 
 me before I take a decision which might mean so much to her as 
 well as to myself. I hope, therefore, that by thus taking counsel 
 I shall not be trespassing too much on your Lordship's indulgence. 
 — I am your Lordship's faithful servant, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 A few days later doubts had been removed, and he gave 
 his acceptance as follows : 
 
 School House, Rugby, 
 February 5, 1895. 
 
 My dear Lord — Since I ventured to ask for a little delay 
 before replying to your letter about the See of Hereford, I have 
 given the matter my best consideration. I have also taken 
 private counsel, and the result is that I have decided to put aside 
 my personal misgivings. If, therefore, your Lordship should 
 recommend me for the of&ce, and her Majesty is graciously pleased 
 to approve of the recommendation, I shall accept it gratefully, 
 and I will by God's help do my best to justify the confidence thus 
 reposed in me. — With my best thanks, I am your Lordship's 
 faithful servant, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 The offer had not been expected, nor was the post one 
 which he would have chosen. His desire was to work in the 
 industrial North, and there can be no doubt that his gifts 
 would have found more scope in that field. 
 
 To Mr. E. M. Oakeley 
 
 School House, Rugby, 
 /a«. 22, 1895. 
 
 Dear Oakeley— Your letter has found me just launched 
 and beginning all school arrangements again. I am not in very
 
 132 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 good condition, but hope by obeying doctor's orders till May to 
 be set on my legs for another bout. ... I don't think Hereford 
 will come my way. Indeed, I hope it won't, as I should not care 
 for it in the least and should have to say— No thank you ! 
 
 If they would only send up Kitchin and give me Durham, 
 I should be glad ; but he is placed for life. — Ever yours 
 affectionately, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 When the appointment was announced, congratulations 
 of course poured in. To some of these Percival sent answers 
 revealing his own mind. 
 
 To Canon Alexander 
 
 School House, Rugby, 
 Feb. 8, 1895. 
 
 Dear Mr. Alexander — I am very grateful to you for your 
 kind words and good wishes, which I value more than I can say. 
 Also I am thankful that you have felt able to say anything of 
 what I endeavoured to do in Oxford, My critics, who as a rule 
 don't know Oxford from the inside, are fond of speaking of my 
 Presidency at Trinity as a comparative failure, but for my own 
 part, though I am sufficiently conscious how much better others 
 might have done, I sometimes think when I remember what the 
 Hfe and conditions of the College were in 1878, and what they 
 were in 1887, that I helped in some really good and successful 
 work. The fact is that one gets a good deal of both praise and 
 blame that are not deserved. . . . — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 To My. Killigrew Wait 
 
 School House, Rugby, 
 February 18, 1895. 
 
 My dear Wait — No good wishes were more welcome than 
 yours or will be more highly prized ; for I have few such friends 
 left as you and Mrs. Wait. As for the office to which I am 
 designated, I can only pray for God's grace to enable me to serve 
 Him in it faithfully, as I shall enter on it in all humility. 
 
 The offer was altogether unexpected, and came just after I 
 had got leave of absence for two months on doctor's recommenda- 
 tion, and had ordered tickets for myself and Mrs. Percival to the 
 Second Cataract of the Nile. We had expected to enjoy the next
 
 V EARLY DAYS AT HEREFORD 133 
 
 full moon at Luxor or Assouan or Abou Simbel. So man proposes 
 and has to counter-order his tickets. 
 
 Amongst all the mixed feelings involved in the change, this 
 one is very pleasant that we shall be so near to you again as to 
 feel hke neighbours. With my best regards to Mrs. Wait and 
 Mrs. Perrin, whose good wishes are I know with us on this 
 occasion, and to all your circle. — Always yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 To Mr. E. M. Oakeley 
 
 School House, Rugby, 
 Feb. 26, 1895. 
 
 Dear Oakeley — Pray forgive my delay in answering your 
 kind note. I need not attempt to say how I value all the kind 
 things you say, but this I may say, that anything that came to 
 me would lose not a little of its sweet savour if I felt that you 
 and a few other friends would not approve. 
 
 It all came as a great surprise, just when I had ordered our 
 tickets for the Second Cataract, the doctor having insisted on 
 my getting a two months' leave of absence. 
 
 Now we have to do our best to wind up everything here by 
 Easter, and I am beginning to feel anxious about a successor. If 
 a good man comes, he will have a good time, as the School is in 
 a good condition, with a rare set of young boys. As I look at 
 them I wish I had been young enough to stay another five years 
 and see them all landed at Oxford and Cambridge. — Yours 
 affectionately, 
 
 J. Percival. 
 
 A letter from Dr. Martineau, to whom he had sent con- 
 gratulations on his ninetieth birthday, must have been 
 especially welcome : 
 
 35 Gordon Square, London, W.C, 
 April 20, 1895. 
 
 My dear Lord Bishop — I am deeply touched by your 
 remembrance of so purely private a date as the close of my ninth 
 decade. True it is that the hfe which it brings so near its end 
 has been, I beheve, mainly devoted to moral and spiritual interests 
 akin to those which have long been under your watchful care, 
 and now look up to you with more security and brighter hopes 
 than ever. But instead of being the very ground and material 
 of action and administration, they have had with me no instru-
 
 134 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 ment but " winged words," whose only trace, at best, is a moment- 
 ary ripple as they fly. If in simply seeking and telling what I 
 could not but accept as sacred experiences I have ever reached 
 a responsive chord in other hearts, I welcome the fellowship with 
 grateful joy as the promise of a unity which cannot stop till all 
 are of one fold and one shepherd. 
 
 With warmest thanks for your words of benediction and 
 kindest remembrances, in which my daughters unite, to Mrs. 
 Percival. — I remain yours very faithfully, 
 
 James Martineau. 
 
 The preliminary formaUties took their usual course, and 
 on March 25, Lady Day, the Consecration took place in 
 Westminster Abbey. It was a Monday ; my elder brother 
 and I had gone home from Rugby, where we were both at 
 school, to Fulham Palace on the Saturday in order to attend 
 it. Dr. and Mrs. Percival joined us there on the Sunday 
 evening. On that Sunday a terrific gale had swept over the 
 Midlands ; no less than seventeen great elms were blown 
 down in the School Close at Rugby — including the last of the 
 Three Trees familiar to readers of Tom Brown. Percival 
 stood at the window watching the desolation until it was 
 time to start for his train. When he reached Fulham some 
 three hours later he was still almost in tears. 
 
 He was consecrated by Archbishop Benson, being pre- 
 sented by the Bishops of London (Temple) and Peterborough 
 (Creighton). The preacher was Canon (now Bishop) Gore. 
 
 Percival returned to Rugby for the conclusion of the 
 term, and himself took the School confirmation, which at 
 Rugby is always held towards the end of the Lent term. 
 This was his first episcopal act. His first diocesan act was 
 also a confirmation. The circumstances shall be narrated 
 in the words of the Rev. C. H. Brooke, who was then vicar 
 of Criggon, in Montgomeryshire, which was the parish 
 concerned. 
 
 On the death of Dr. Atlay there was an interregnum, during 
 which the affairs of the Diocese were administered by a Clerical 
 Prelate. A confirmation had been announced, and I was invited 
 to take my six peasant candidates to the Mother Church of 
 Alberbury, our population numbering but one hundred and
 
 V EARLY DAYS AT HEREFORD 135 
 
 fifty-seven. I had spent all the energy and pains I was possessed 
 of in impressing on my young people the extreme importance 
 of this step, and had with great difficulty obtained the release 
 of one from his work in a nonconformist place of business for 
 the occasion, when to my surprise and indignation I found 
 that the date had been changed and the confirmation over 
 without my being informed of it. 
 
 Finally I decided to write and lay the matter before the 
 Bishop-Designate still at Rugby, not uncooling my vexation, 
 and adding that no Disestabhsher could have dealt us such a 
 blow, this being a spiritual wound. 
 
 A prompt reply told me that the first act of our new Bishop 
 would be to come and confirm those six peasants. " Tell your 
 people this," were the opening words of the letter, which un- 
 fortunately I cannot lay hands upon just now, but which I read 
 out from our little altar. 
 
 Now, my farmers were staunch Conservatives, and had a 
 holy horror of Liberals and Radicals, so that they did not look 
 with favour on the appointment of Dr. Percival, nor were they 
 prepared to give his Lordship a very hearty reception ; and it 
 was with difficulty that I persuaded my churchwarden to agree 
 to read an address of welcome. 
 
 It was my great privilege and pleasure to receive Dr. and 
 Mrs. Percival as my guests for the week-end, Easter 1895. Mrs. 
 Percival, who was then suffering from insomnia, remarked with 
 a smile that Criggon was the only place she had been able 
 to sleep in for some time 1 The humihty and tolerance of 
 the " Schoolmaster Bishop " were especially remarkable. He 
 seemed to esteem other people's sentiments, opinions, and con- 
 victions as sacred as his own. 
 
 It was one and twenty years since the last episcopal visit, 
 for Criggon is the most distant and isolated parish in the Diocese, 
 thirteen miles from the nearest available railway station, and, 
 moreover, one which would have suffered by the Disestabhsh- 
 ment Bill I So, in spite of political prejudice, and owing to the 
 Bishop's genial, quiet, earnest manner, he was worthily received. 
 Willing hands had erected a triumphal arch over the Church 
 gate, and the labourers who were at work from 6 a.m. till late 
 in the day, and who refused to take any pay for their work, 
 were men who did come to Church ; and the Bishop, on hearing 
 of their self-denying act, sent the chief labourer a signed portrait 
 of himself, which to my subsequent delight I found sharing the 
 previous monopoly of the cottage wall with the Rev. Charles 
 Spurgeon. 
 
 The Bishop celebrated at the 8 a.m. Eucharist, conforming
 
 136 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 to our local use, preached at ii, and again at 3.30, after which 
 the aforesaid address was duly read in the School-room. 
 
 I cannot say how grateful I felt to Dr. Percival for this great 
 act of sympathy with out-of-the-way, forgotten folk, who rejoice 
 and take fresh courage on finding that some one does care. 
 
 It was not tiU after Easter that the enthronement took 
 place. In the following day Mrs. Percival wrote to Mrs. 
 Wait a description of the scene : 
 
 The Deanery, Hereford, 
 April 19, 1895. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Wait — Yesterday was such a busy day I 
 had not one moment to write and thank you for all your loving 
 kindness to us. You can never know what a real blessing those 
 two days with you were to us. We were very worn and tired 
 out when we came to you, and we left you quite other beings- 
 refreshed and strengthened. 
 
 Yesterday was a very trying day. I felt foolishly nervous 
 as the immense congregation all turned towards the western 
 door and breathlessly waited for the first sounds of the knocking 
 for admittance. At last he came, the doors were thrown open 
 aad the oaths administered, then the procession began their 
 long walk to the East end, the choir preceding them singing 
 " O praise the Lord." The organ pealed forth, and I felt every 
 nerve in my body quivering as I saw my dear one led up the 
 nave, the Dean holding one hand and the Canon in residence 
 the other. Amongst aU the crowd of white-robed clergy he 
 looked calm and dignified, though his face was very white. I 
 am most thankful that these tremendous functions are over. 
 
 The service was sung most beautifully. It was followed 
 by a tremendous public luncheon at 2 o'clock, where we had to 
 listen to a very long Ust of toasts. The Mayor and Corporation 
 presented an address in the hall of the Palace ; and at last we 
 were free to hide our heads in the quiet shelter our good Dean 
 had given us here. Presently we are off to Gloucester, to-morrow 
 to Fulham, and back to our home on Monday. Mrs. Temple 
 teUs me that we were too late for the 8th May drawing-room and 
 are now down for the next — date not known, but I mean to be 
 ready. With our dear love and best thanks to you all. — Ever 
 your affectionate and grateful friend, 
 
 L. Percival. 
 
 Life at the Palace was full of happiness. The Bishop
 
 V EARLY DAYS AT HEREFORD 137 
 
 and Mrs. Percival rejoiced to entertain, whether his own 
 friends or people collected for diocesan purposes, or children. 
 Every one praised their hospitality. Prebendary Wjnine 
 Willson, the Rector of St. Nicholas', Hereford, who was his 
 domestic chaplain in the early days of the episcopate, writes : 
 " He has been called a puritan, but those who knew him at 
 home surrounded by young people saw his power of enjoy- 
 ment, his deUght in merriment. He was no foe of sport or 
 games ; it was the debasement of them by gambling that 
 he fought against. In those days he rode regularly, played 
 golf in his hoKdays, and played ' drawing-room ' games with 
 the greatest zest." 
 
 There was opposition to him from the outset, not at first 
 for his ecclesiastical views or theological sympathies (for 
 these were comparatively unknown), but for his notorious 
 radicahsm, and especially for his support of Welsh Dis- 
 establishment and for his poHcy with regard to voluntary 
 schools. This, as his first letter to Lord Rosebery makes 
 clear, was what he had anticipated. But those who came 
 into contact with him individually were usually won from 
 alienation to affection, even while their opposition to his 
 political attitude was as pronounced as ever. Dr. Chapman, 
 who was his medical adviser throughout his twenty-two years 
 at Hereford, tells how his own respect and affection were 
 won immediately by the Bishop's simplicity and courtesy. 
 
 He did nothing in modification of opinions or utterance 
 of them with a view to concihating opposition. At his first 
 Convocation he made a long speech in opposition to the 
 official poficy of the Church with regard to Welsh Dis- 
 estabhshment. He urged that DisestabHshment should be 
 accepted and a poficy of concurrent endowment put forward. 
 The subject came up on May 14, 1895, and Percival felt 
 bound to intervene : 
 
 Holding, as I do, that the various refigious denominations 
 have an equitable claim upon these ancient gifts {i.e. the ancient 
 endowments of the Church), the method of appropriation 
 which I should wish to see adopted would be a very simple one 
 — that if the Church is disestablished and disendowed the funds 
 should be simply distributed to the authorities of the various
 
 138 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 religious denominations, and that under those circumstances 
 the denominations should be required to render year by year 
 an account of their use of the funds, and that due provision 
 should be made that the capital sum should not be dissipated. 
 
 The Bishop of St. Asaph. — May I ask whether the Church 
 would be included among those to whom funds are to go ? 
 
 Certainly. My view would be that the funds should be 
 distributed afresh from time to time, and over intervals of years 
 in what we may call a fair proportion to each of the different 
 denominations. I cannot but feel that in this way the Church 
 would still retain a fair share of these ancient emoluments, and 
 that we should create a new state of things in which the various 
 reUgious bodies would start afresh, free from the political rivalry 
 and the social discontent which now prevails. 
 
 The Conservatism of Herefordshire was not likely to be 
 propitiated by such a proposal. Yet the kindliness, the 
 obvious sincerity, and the abundant hospitality of the 
 Bishop won him personal friendships on every side. What- 
 ever men thought of his opinions, they admired the courage 
 with which he expressed them, and rejoiced in the happy 
 life at the Palace which made it a veritable home for the 
 whole diocese. 
 
 But this happiness was soon overshadowed by a great 
 grief. Mrs. Percival fell ill, and, after a long period of 
 painful anxiety, died. On Whit Sunday, 1896, the Bishop 
 wrote to Canon Alexander, who was coming to Hereford as 
 examining chaplain for the ordination retreat : 
 
 I am sorry to say that Mrs. Percival is in the doctor's hands, 
 and he won't allow her to do any work, or have any guests at 
 present, so we must make our ordination time a bachelor's affair, 
 and I must apologise to Mrs. Alexander for taking you away 
 from her for two or three days. 
 
 Mrs. Percival was taken to live quietly at a farm-house 
 outside Hereford, in the hope that with perfect quiet she 
 might be restored. But it was of no avail. She died on 
 June 13, 1896. The blow, when it fell, was almost over- 
 whelming. Always reserved and very shy of his own or 
 other people's emotions, Percival relied exceedingly on those 
 who were really close to him. His wife's death left him
 
 V EARLY DAYS AT HEREFORD 139 
 
 very lonely, " living," as Mr. Wynne Willson says, " only 
 for his work and those times when his family and their 
 friends came to see him." He showed little of his grief in 
 public, but his household knew that late in the evening he 
 often went to the terrace walk beside the river — a very 
 secluded place — and there sobbed alone till he could bear 
 to go to bed. 
 
 On the very next day after that on which Mrs. Percival 
 died the Bishop wrote to the doctor who had attended her : 
 
 Sunday evening. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 June 14, 1896. 
 
 Dear Dr. Chapman — Before the day closes I desire to say 
 how very grateful I and my children are for all your kindness, 
 skill, and care on behalf of my dear wife. 
 
 I shall always feel that the best possible was done, and that 
 nothing could have saved her life, so that I am very thankful 
 we adopted the plan of trying Ashgrove Farm and not any other. 
 If she had remained at home we might have reproached our- 
 selves thinking we had not given her every chance of rest. 
 
 For myself, I feared from the beginning of her illness that 
 at her age, and after all the wear and tear of life, she had not 
 the strength to bring her safely through. 
 
 Forgive my taking up so much of your time. I do so only 
 because I wish to assure you of my gratitude. — Yours very 
 
 sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 It was on the same Saturday of the Christian Year, fifteen 
 years ago, that our youngest boy, beside whom she will be 
 buried, was killed riding. He had brought home the Collect 
 for the second Sunday after Trinity to leam.^ It was a fearful 
 blow to her, and I shall never forget the beautiful way she 
 dropped on her knees when the coachman stepped into the 
 drawing-room and said what had happened. 
 
 Of many letters received at this time two shaU be quoted 
 here : 
 
 ^ " O Lord, who never failest to help and govern them whom Thou 
 dost bring up in Thy steadfast fear and love ; keep us, we beseech Thee, 
 under the protection of Thy good providence, and make us to have a 
 perpetual fear and love of Thy holy Name ; through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord." In later years he would mention this as his favourite collect.
 
 140 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 From Bishop Talbot 
 
 Bishop's House, 
 
 Kennington Road, S.E., 
 
 June 1 8, 1896. 
 
 My dear Bishop — I write a line with true brotherly sympathy, 
 and with the sympathy of old acquaintance, to tell you of the 
 sorrow which the news of your sorrow put into my heart. You 
 wiU know how it comes home to me. We started so near together 
 — " two together," and now " one taken and the other left." 
 
 May God strengthen you with His only comfort in such loneU- 
 ness coming at such a time. 
 
 She was always so warm and friendly to us : and I well 
 remember the affectionateness of her words when we left Oxford. 
 
 We both feel it as the loss of a friend, I venture to hope 
 that the recollection of how she bore up under the great stroke 
 of sorrow which fell upon you both at Oxford may be one help 
 for you in this terrible day. . , . — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Edward Roffen. 
 
 From Canon Scott Holland 
 
 I Amen Court, 
 St. Paul's, E.G. 
 
 My dear Bishop of Hereford — I have feared to write, for 
 I know so Httle of the inner heart of your deep trouble ; and 
 yet vague and ignorant sympathy, however real, can only wait 
 outside in silence. Its words can but seem hollow and im- 
 pertinent. Yet you may be wilhng to let me assure you that, 
 in the silence, there were those waiting, and remembering, and 
 feeling, and sorrowing, who could not venture to intrude within 
 the secret of your personal grief. 
 
 In the meantime, our best work was to try and secure that 
 your own effort on behalf of the suffering Armenians ^ should 
 not fail through the stroke that had fallen on you, and we have 
 struggled along with the Appeal. . . , — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 H, S, Holland, 
 
 In reply to letters of condolence from Mr, and Mrs. Wait, 
 the Bishop wrote : 
 
 Jnne 19, 1896. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Wait — You will forgive my inability to write 
 much or to express my gratitude to you all for your sympathy. 
 
 ^ See p. 254.
 
 V EARLY DAYS AT HEREFORD 141 
 
 I ought to feel nothing but thankfulness that we have had her 
 so long, and perhaps that feeling will prevail over the sense of 
 desolation by and by. One of her friends tells me that when we 
 lost our Freddie she wrote — " I hope he will be waiting for me 
 when my turn comes, and perhaps our Heavenly Father may 
 permit him to be my sweet guide to show me the wonders and 
 the glories of the Eternal home." God grant her hope may have 
 been realised in this or some better way. — Ever yours affec- 
 tionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 Your husband will take this as my reply to his letter, so 
 good and kind. 
 
 The Bishop was specially touched by a message of 
 sympathy from the people of the parish where he held his 
 first confirmation. In reply he wrote : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 July 6, 1896. 
 
 Dear Mr. Brooke — Nothing has touched me more at this 
 sad time than the kind words and prayers of your parishioners ; 
 your and their kind thoughts of us and your welcome when we 
 came was a constant source of grateful recollection to my dear 
 wife and to myself ; and I know your sympathy is genuine and 
 from the heart, and most heartily do I thank you every one for 
 this loving kindness. 
 
 May the blessing of God rest upon the parish and every home 
 in it. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 During the summer he went abroad, and on his return 
 to England received a letter from his Bristol friends, to 
 which he replied as follows : 
 
 St. Margaret's Bay Hotel, 
 
 Dover, 
 
 September g, 1896. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Wait — I have just received Trix's note telling 
 me that your dear mother has been taken to her rest, and your 
 long and loving attendance on her is over. Just now no doubt 
 you are feeling the sadness of the breaking of this last tie with 
 your earliest years, but you have happy memories at the back 
 of your sorrow, and the thought that her weariness is relieved, 
 and the hopes of the life beyond the veil.
 
 142 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap, v 
 
 I landed at Dover yesterday with Bessie and her husband. 
 She is fairly well again, but not as strong as usual, and they 
 will stay here for a week. I go to London to-morrow, and to 
 my sohtary home on Friday. — With every good wish, yours 
 very sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 Even in the twelve months that she had been at Hereford, 
 Mrs. Percival had made a multitude of real friends ; her 
 marvellous gift of sympathy and her infectious vitality had 
 endeared her to all who met her. By her death the Bishop 
 was deprived of a wonderful helper in his work, for she 
 had been able to interpret him to others when his own 
 reserve had made it hard for them to understand him.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MAINLY DIOCESAN 
 
 Bishop Percival had not been long in his Diocese when he 
 was first called upon to deal with the troubles that arose 
 from partisanship within it. He had very definite con- 
 victions, and those who dissented from his convictions often 
 represented him as himself a partisan pure and simple. He 
 was thought to approve of everything Protestant and of 
 nothing Cathohc. This was, of course, totally untrue. In 
 1896 a Church Association van visited the parish of Lingen, 
 a small parish on the Welsh border, of which the vicar was 
 the Rev. C. L. Edwards. The agent, after making fun of 
 a sermon which the vicar had preached, gave it out that 
 he was doing a work of which the Bishop approved. Mr. 
 Edwards wrote to the Bishop to inquire, and at once received 
 
 the following reply : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 Dec. 9, 1896. 
 
 Dear Mr. Edwards — I am sorry to hear what you tell me 
 of the visit of a Church Association van to your Parish. 
 
 Tin I received your letter I did not know that there was such 
 a van anywhere in the Diocese, and I regret to hear of its going 
 about, as I believe that controversial agency of this kind, to 
 whatever party in the Church it may belong, does a great deal 
 more harm than good, inasmuch as it sows seeds of bitterness 
 and misunderstanding, and creates mischievous divisions instead 
 of promoting sound morality and Christian peace and goodwill 
 among our country people. 
 
 A controversial lecturer is hardly ever a safe guide. That 
 is the warning I should hke to give to our people in this connec- 
 tion. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 143
 
 144 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 In a subsequent letter he gave Mr. Edwards permission 
 to make any use of what he had written and show it to any 
 clergy who might be confronted with the same circumstances. 
 The van soon disappeared. 
 
 Mr. Edwards gives the following record of his dealings 
 with the Bishop as evidence that " he was very fair if trusted 
 and consulted " : 
 
 In 1898 I told him that many of my parishioners knew nothing 
 about Holy Communion, and that to teach them I proposed 
 having occasionally a simple choral eucharist and inviting non- 
 communicants to attend, worship, and learn. He approved, 
 provided, of course, that I told them non-communicating attend- 
 ance was not sufficient. 
 
 In 1900 I had grave trouble with a schoolmaster. We 
 discovered that he was a man of bad life. The Bishop gave 
 most valuable and shrewd advice, and when the reaction came 
 and the parishioners felt that the Managers had acted somewhat 
 unmercifully he came to the Parish on Saturday evening and 
 stayed till Monday morning, his object being to uphold the 
 Managers and new teachers. His programme was : 
 
 Saturday Evening. — Address to church workers, on Loyalty 
 to Christian principles, and to the vicar when he stood up for 
 purity and truth. 
 
 Sunday, 8 a.m. — Holy Communion. (The Bishop, contrary 
 to his favourite ritual, did exactly as I was wont to do, i.e. East- 
 ward Position, Light, Mixed Chalice.) 
 
 10.30 A.M. — Visit of encouragement to Sunday School. 
 
 II A.M. — Mattins and sermon — very plain and earnest. 
 
 3 P.M. — Service for men — one of the grandest addresses I 
 ever heard. 
 
 6.30 P.M. — Evensong and a very vigorous sermon. 
 
 Monday, 9.30 a.m. — Visit of encouragement to new teachers 
 in the day school. 
 
 It is perhaps worthy of notice that he did not allow his 
 personal attitude to make him contemptuous of the prin- 
 ciples and scruples of others, however Httle he might feel 
 these himself. A CathoHc layman in the diocese writes, 
 enclosing a letter and saying, " It goes to show, I think, that 
 he was quite sympathetic with those whose views of Church 
 Discipline were supposed to be far removed from his own.
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 145 
 
 His was a delightful personality, and it was to me quite 
 wonderful that so many of us were so attached to him when 
 our views in matters of Church and State were so far removed 
 from his." 
 
 The letter is as follows : 
 
 Private 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 February 22, 1896. 
 
 Dear Sir — In so far as I have authority, I gladly give the 
 dispensation from fasting which you ask so as to reheve your 
 mind of any scruples ; and I trust you may thus be strengthened 
 to do the good work on which you are daily engaged in Christ 
 our Lord. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 P.S. — I must ask you to forgive my delay in writing — I 
 have been from home, moving about my Diocese, and in London ; 
 and when in London I waited a day before answering, hoping 
 to find a resolution of Convocation which I thought had been 
 passed on the subject, with the view of sending it to you ; but 
 I think I was mistaken, as I could not find one. 
 
 During the winter of 1895-96 a Canonry fell vacant 
 which the Bishop had to fill. He wished to appoint his 
 friend, the Rev. S. A. Alexander, now Canon of St. Paul's, 
 then Reader at the Temple ; but this was found to be 
 impossible on legal grounds, for Mr. Alexander had not been 
 in Priest's Orders for the whole of the required six years. 
 He then appointed Canon WilHams, a definite Catholic, 
 much respected in the diocese. Concerning this choice he 
 wrote to Mr. Alexander : 
 
 I think the Canonry appointment will prove to be all right- 
 It is of no moment what people say. Of the clergy in the Diocese 
 who might have been considered to have claims, it was clear 
 to my mind that Williams is the most distinct spiritually minded 
 and endowed with some real spiritual power. His present 
 tendency is not so extreme as I thought it was, and I believe 
 he will be useful, as he is a truly devout and good and sym- 
 pathetic man. 
 
 L
 
 146 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Percival's appointments to the Canonries in his Cathedral 
 became the subject of heated controversy, of which an 
 account must be given in due course. Meanwhile his action 
 on this occasion should be borne in mind if justice is to be 
 done. 
 
 An interesting ceremony took place at Hereford in 1897 
 when the Cathedral Library was opened by the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury. The Primate's Cross-bearer on that occasion 
 was the Rev. E. H. Winnington Ingram, Vicar of Ross, and 
 afterwards Archdeacon of Hereford, one of Dr. Temple's 
 Rugby pupils. Percival had invited the great Rugby 
 scholar and teacher, Robert Whitelaw, to stay at the Palace 
 to meet the Archbishop, on whose staff at Rugby both of 
 them had been masters. But Whitelaw was unable to come.^ 
 
 While he was ready and eager to help good men in their 
 work, and to avoid embarrassing them by failure to conform 
 to their practice, he made no concealment of his own point 
 of view. An opportunity for expressing it was afforded by 
 his First Visitation Charge in 1898. 
 
 The six charges delivered by the Bishop at his triennial 
 Visitations form an interesting series. They are not devoted 
 to the discussion of some one main topic of the day, but deal 
 in every case with fundamental principles. Each of the 
 Charges except the last is divided into two sections : in the 
 first the Bishop reviews the returns made by the clergy and 
 churchwardens, laying stress on what seem to him the chief 
 needs of the diocese and of the various parishes within it ; 
 in the second he turns to some large matter of Church doctrine 
 or practice. And in each section there is continuity of 
 interest and treatment throughout the series, so that in 
 reading the Charges we receive a vivid impression of the 
 spiritual development of the diocese during his episcopate. 
 It will be most convenient, however, to summarise the first 
 section of the whole series of Charges at this point. It is easy 
 to estimate the relative importance or urgency of different 
 questions in the judgment of the Bishop by noticing those 
 to which he returns in every Charge. The Conduct of Public 
 Worship was handled with especial care in the First Charge, 
 
 ^ See p. 98, note.
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 147 
 
 delivered in 1898, special attention being given to the 
 provision of frequent opportunities for parishioners of all 
 ages and of every class to receive the Holy Communion. 
 This topic was not dealt with in the Second Charge, but in 
 each of the remaining four it finds a prominent place. The 
 subjects which recur in every one of the six Charges are 
 Intemperance, Impurity, and the importance of the clergy 
 teaching personally in the Church Schools. The Housing 
 Problem finds a place in four of the Charges. 
 
 These facts give a true indication of the Bishop's sense 
 of the Church's duty. He deals with the various problems 
 and methods of Church work in its narrower sense ; he offers 
 advice both as regards general principles and practical detail ; 
 but his constant pre-occupation, as shown in his most 
 dehberate utterances, was with the moral and spiritual Ufe 
 of the whole people of the Diocese. His interest was not 
 the intensive cultivation of a select few, but the permeation 
 of the national life with the Spirit of Christ. 
 
 It appears that in the earUer years of his episcopate there 
 was a shght tendency to resent the nature of the inquiries 
 which he issued, and to refuse information. The Bishop 
 contented himself with an allusion to the " very small 
 number of what I may call autocephalous parishes, which 
 seem to have no information to offer to the Bishop ; and I 
 hope that they are in the proverbially happy and peaceful 
 condition of those countries or communities which have no 
 history." 
 
 The Visitation of 1898 gave him his first opportunity 
 for a formal expression of his convictions on fundamental 
 issues. He was a whole-hearted Protestant, and devoted the 
 second part of his First Charge to a statement and defence 
 of the principles of the Reformation. He greatly deprecated 
 the development of ritual in public worship, and had a 
 somewhat unexpected account to give of it. After referring 
 to the great progress of physical science and the consequent 
 expansion of wealth, he said : 
 
 How, then, is all this affecting or likely to affect men's religious 
 faith and practice, as members of our English Church ? In 
 the first place, it undoubtedly weakens faith, though it may at
 
 148 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 the same time add comparative strength to the Established 
 Church. 
 
 Those who are not deeply moved by religious principle, or 
 are comparatively indifferent to the spiritual life, naturally if 
 they profess any religion at all, drift towards the religion of 
 the privileged classes. 
 
 Only the more earnest souls are unaffected by the influence 
 of social attraction and this drift of the social current, so that 
 Nonconformist bodies may be expected in such a period to 
 show some diminution in numerical strength, especially among 
 their wealthier and upper class members, on whom the force of 
 the social current acts most strongly ; but we should not too 
 hastily infer from this that a diminution in numbers necessarily 
 means a corresponding or proportionate lessening of influence 
 on the hfe and thought of the nation. 
 
 What really seems to happen is that the Church strengthens 
 its position as the Church of the upper and wealthier or 
 materiahsed classes— the classes on which this present world, 
 with all its possessions, powers, ambitions, enjoyments, and 
 attractions, exercises the strongest and most engrossing influence 
 —the classes in which faith in Christ and membership of a Church 
 is almost universal as a profession, but very often extremely 
 weak as a dominating and determining force in hfe and conduct. 
 
 Under the influence of these predominant classes, or in the 
 endeavour to obtain their allegiance, or to rouse and satisfy 
 their higher aspirations, the Church is insensibly drawn towards 
 a more elaborate and spectacular worship, and the tendency is 
 to appeal more and more to the senses. 
 
 Worship becomes more aesthetic and symbolic, more calcu- 
 lated to please and to captivate the eye and the ear, the aim 
 being to reach the inner life through these channels of outer 
 sense. 
 
 Such worship is natural, men say, to a materialistic and 
 luxurious age ; and it has the great advantage or recommenda- 
 tion of being undoubtedly the kind of worship that appeals 
 most directly to the sensational or emotional cravings of such 
 an age, and it is undoubtedly popular. 
 
 But its spiritual VcQue needs to be constantly and vigorously 
 tested, not by its general acceptance or popularity, but by its 
 moral and spiritual fruits, its effect on individual and national 
 character, and on purpose in life and conduct. A great and 
 ever-present danger connected with it is that, being sensuous, 
 it is very hable to deteriorate into an emotional worship, which 
 satisfies a mood, but does not regenerate and sanctify the life ; 
 and the greatest difiiculty that confronts thoughtful readers
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 149 
 
 of the New Testament in regard to their acceptance of it as the 
 true representative of the Christianity of Christ, is that it is so 
 very hard to make it fit with the spirituality of the Gospeh 
 If these obser\^ations are correct it would seem to be our special 
 duty in such an age as ours to hold fast in our religious life and 
 worship to the two curative and regenerating elements of sim- 
 phcity and spirituality ; and to beware how we yield to the 
 sensational tendency, which, by its very nature, always draws 
 men from one gratification of sense to another, instead of vivify- 
 ing and strengthening their spiritual character. 
 
 Later on in the same Charge the Bishop said : 
 
 The lessons of history on these subjects are indeed very 
 significant, for history is very apt to repeat herself by producing 
 the same fruits from the same stock in successive harvest fields. 
 Sacerdotal claims, and sacerdotal mediation and authority, 
 seem always to have ended in intellectual obscurantism and 
 in artificial distortion or debasement of moral standards ; and 
 they are thus condemned by the fruits they have borne. 
 
 With equal distinctness history warns us that the sacra- 
 mental theories towards which so many men and women seem 
 to be drifting back — theories which have their most complete 
 example in the Roman Church — invariably carry their votaries 
 towards a sort of sensuous mysticism, or mystic materialism, 
 which cannot be made to fit with the doctrine and spirit of our 
 Lord and His apostles, and would have been condemned by Him 
 as being not of the spirit but of the flesh. 
 
 Behind the objection based on principle lay a definite 
 practical fear : 
 
 In the spirit of gratitude and reverence we should desire to 
 beautify our churches and our worship, giving them of our best, 
 as our acknowledgment that " the earth is the Lord's and the 
 fulness thereof." 
 
 But we should at the same time weed out of our ritual all 
 that undoubtedly symbolises or fosters erroneous doctrine, or 
 tends to adulterate our worship with sensationalism, or draws 
 worshippers into dangerous proximity to Romish superstitions. 
 
 Thus it becomes our duty to check the craving which seems 
 to admit no finahty in the accompaniments of Divine service, 
 and is constantly driving men and women, especially in the 
 luxurious classes, to introduce now one ceremony and now 
 another.
 
 150 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 These novelties are the more to be deprecated, because they 
 are almost always imitations of some Roman practice, and also 
 tend to weaken the moral fibre, which needs every possible 
 tonic and support in a luxurious and sensational age. 
 
 With the Roman Church always watchful, and unforgetting, 
 and unchanging in character — semper eadem ; with all her 
 aggressive claims, all her deep-seated antagonism to educational 
 and intellectual enlightenment, and to individual freedom of 
 conscience ; with all her mediaeval superstitions, and her modern 
 decrees, her Mariolatry, her image-worship, her Jesuitry ; with 
 all these at our gates to tempt and to mislead the weak or the 
 unwary, it is, to say the least, extremely unwise to daUy, as 
 many do, with her doctrinal ritual and observances. 
 
 In other parts of this First Charge the Bishop deals with 
 Biblical study, selecting especially two subjects for comment. 
 Referring to the Higher Criticism of the Bible he says : 
 
 Within the last two years these methods have received, so 
 to speak, the stamp of orthodoxy through their adoption by 
 such prominent members of the High Orthodox party in the 
 Church as the writers of Lux Mundi. 
 
 Following their lead, the mass of younger clergy and other 
 Bibhcal students no longer hesitate to accept the principles of 
 Biblical interpretation to which these writers have given their 
 adhesion. 
 
 This, when rightly understood, amounts to a momentous 
 change ; how momentous it may eventually prove to be it 
 would be premature on my part to speculate. 
 
 Hitherto the use of this new instrument has been mainly 
 confined in our Church to the books of the Old Testament, but 
 it is sure to go forward, unhasting, unresting. Thoughtful 
 students in this and the next generation will be moved to extend 
 the application of these scientific methods, and the result may 
 possibly be a considerable modification of the Orthodox Church- 
 man's views on some articles of his traditional Creed. 
 
 The other main subject considered under this head is the 
 nature and origin of the Christian Ministry, and here the 
 Bishop confines himself to quoting with full approval long 
 sections from Lightfoot's Essay on the Christian Ministry 
 and Hort's Christian Ecclesia, though he pauses to deprecate 
 the attacks on these w^orks by Dr. Moberly and Dr. Gore. 
 The whole Charge ends with a tribute to the blessings
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 151 
 
 brought to the EngHsh Church and Nation by the Reforma- 
 tion of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The Charge was, of course, published and was the 
 occasion of many comments. Some of these had been 
 forwarded to the Bishop by Canon Alexander. In reply the 
 following letter was written : 
 
 Lambeth Palace, S.E., 
 June 23, 1898. 
 
 Dear Alexander — Best thanks for your kind note. It is 
 pleasant to know that such men as you mention approve of my 
 poor charge. One letter I have received says, somewhat ex- 
 aggeratingly, nine-tenths of the clergy will hate it, and nine- 
 tenths of the laity will thank you for it. 
 
 I'm here for a Bishops' meeting which we held yesterday, 
 and go again to-morrow morning. We seem to do little but 
 mark time, but I hope to press it home to some of my brother 
 Bishops that it is not quite creditable to be such friends with 
 E.C.U, and Church Times, and to submit so tamely to their 
 mode of governing the Church by arrogant bluff and bullying. 
 It will be interesting to know how the Bishops take it. — Yours 
 sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford, 
 
 A little later this Charge and a speech on similar Hnes 
 deUvered by Percival to his brother Bishops led to the 
 following correspondence between him and Bishop Talbot : 
 
 Frohburg, 
 
 July 8, 1898. 
 
 My dear Bishop — I wish I had written to thank you for 
 sending me your charge. I enjoyed all the earlier parts of it 
 very much as others have done. May I try to tell you why the 
 later part and what you said in Convocation were so little 
 agreeable to me — as to very many others. I have been so much 
 in accord with you on many matters, such as social questions 
 and that of Armenia, that it is a great shock to me to find you 
 taking a line which separates us so entirely. I know you have 
 been much drawn over the same things to men Hke Gore and 
 Holland and others. One way of putting my difficulty would 
 be to ask whether you would really wish to see the Church of 
 England clear of men like them, with whom .1 must in this 
 respect join myself ? I am sure you would not. Yet it is difficult 
 to see to what other end your language tells. Certainly they 
 would repudiate it as energetically as the " advanced " men.
 
 152 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 And this suggests one chief point. Is it not the need and 
 pohcy of the moment so to speak and act as to sift the loyal 
 from the disloyal or the moderate from the advanced, and the 
 really English from the Roman-minded ? 
 
 But your common invective would rally all to one flag. 
 Forgive me for even referring to The Church Times, because I 
 know that in one article they contrasted you and me. But, 
 indeed, The Church Times in its editorials has really been very 
 reasonable and reconcilable (wonderfully different from what 
 it was), and its strong language towards and about yourself is 
 really one mark of what I mean. 
 
 When I think how possible it is that you may rise to higher 
 position yet, I confess that it appals me to think that you 
 might then handle such a matter in the same way. 
 
 But you wiU perhaps say that policy is good but principle 
 is better. That is true, and if there is nothing in the Christian 
 Priesthood and in its powers but superstition and abuse, then 
 no doubt it is right to give it no quarter, even though the result 
 must be with unerring certainty to split the Church of England, 
 and to part alike from a great part of its best worth to-day and 
 of its authorities and theologians in the past. But is this so ? 
 To me it seems quite certain that our task is to keep the doctrines 
 of Priesthood and Sacrament right by keeping them in pro- 
 portion : right in proportion to the whole work of God, whose 
 special appointment they are ; right in relation to Christ, whom 
 they must serve without obscuring Him ; right in regard to the 
 whole body of Christian People with its covenant position and 
 priestly character ; right, therefore, as executant (on earth) and 
 representative of the Priesthood of Christ, and organ and mouth- 
 piece (inseparable in many respects from that for which it speaks) 
 of the Priesthood of the Holy People. 
 
 Moberly's book may have many faults ; surely it is worth 
 very great consideration. " Chester " is certainly a very 
 moderate sacerdotalist ! You heard what he said of it. 
 " Oxford " added to me privately that he thought Moberly had 
 completely answered Lightfoot. I should feel very much dis- 
 posed to think that Lightfoot himself would have gone very 
 far to meet Moberly. Pardon me, dear friend, if I say that I 
 am perfectly certain Lightfoot would never have written those 
 sections of your charge or made your Convocation speech. If 
 he had, how could he have gained the wide, almost universal 
 trust which he did from men of different kinds who knew him 
 well and were close at his side ? 
 
 It is because I feel so strongly with you the dangers of over- 
 technicalising and materialising the economy of Grace : the
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 153 
 
 real tendencies in certain quarters to the treatment of priest- 
 hood and priestly power which as Anglicans we believe to weaken 
 and not strengthen reUgion and morals — that I do desperately 
 wish to see you touch those subjects with another hand and in 
 another tone. 
 
 Puritanism will never remedy Romanism. For one thing 
 it commits the very same error of knowing too much, only in 
 the negative direction. And the only difficulty for Sacerdotalism 
 is to interpret the moral and spiritual elements which it repre- 
 sents and embodies, to see that it does not go ahead without them, 
 or in advance of them, and that the other parts of truth which 
 hold it in place and proportion are not forgotten. 
 
 But now I am beginning to repeat myself, so I had better 
 stop. I am afraid of my own boldness ; or that you may think 
 me rude or arrogant in tone. But I hope you will see that 
 whatever I have done I have meant to write in real friendship, 
 though as a friend greatly pained and aggrieved (in a public 
 sense) and also not a little puzzled. — Your sincere friend and 
 brother, 
 
 E. ROFFEN. 
 
 My dear Bishop — You will, I fear, have wondered that 1 
 did not write in reply to your letter from Switzerland. But 
 the fact is that I sent for your address at once, and then decided 
 that I would not trouble you during your holiday — and after 
 this I became so busily occupied with some pressing duties that 
 I fear I have allowed you to be at home again some little time 
 without an acknowledgment ; and now I hardly know what 
 I had best say beyond the one word which is uppermost, a word 
 of grateful thanks to you for writing to me in that spirit of true 
 Christian friendliness which, if I may venture to say so, always 
 so happily characterises you. 
 
 I am the more grateful because what I may say or do might 
 very well have been treated by you and by others as a negligible 
 quantity. I sent my Charge to my old friend the Primate, and 
 afterwards stayed with him the best part of two weeks, but he 
 never made the slightest allusion to it ; and so I concluded 
 that it was outside my own diocese a document of little moment 
 or interest. 
 
 As regards my speech at the Bishop's meeting, so far as I 
 can recall it, I don't think I said anything which I could not 
 justify ; but it is quite possible that I may have expressed 
 myself awkwardly, as I often do, having no command of language 
 on the spur of the moment ; and the day had been a very trying 
 one. The Archbishop had allowed the morning to be entirely
 
 154 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 spent on small points with reference to prayers for the Dead, 
 without touching the real point, which is the Roman dogmatism 
 and that of Roman imitators who speak in their ignorant rash- 
 ness as if they had penetrated all the mysteries behind the veil 
 and knew all about the purgatorial condition of souls of every 
 degree. . . . Thus our sitting was ending and I was disappointed 
 and irritated. . . . Such is my poor apology for anything in 
 the tone of my remarks which may have hurt you. As to the 
 substance, I hold to it, being convinced that it represents what 
 needs to be very seriously considered by some of our brethren, 
 though I fear they won't consider it to any good purpose. As 
 regards Moberly's book, Moberly himself deserves all praise as 
 an earnest ana devout student, and I would sooner accept his 
 authority than that of men of decidedly partisan mind like 
 , although I hold his acknowledged principle of " presup- 
 positions " to be utterly unworthy of this. 
 
 As regards what I said about the seminarist type of young 
 clergy manufactured in some theological colleges and the 
 grave responsibility of the Bishops who foster them, I have a 
 very strong conviction again, and I shall probably repeat my 
 remarks. I have a very strong conviction again as to prints 
 like The Church Times. I should not think them deserving of 
 notice but for the lamentable fact that they pervert the judg- 
 ment and degrade the temper of such a large part of our clergy 
 and their wives and families and other well-meaning women. 
 For a Bishop to say, as " Chester " did, " I never read The 
 Church Times " is simply to show how little he notes or under- 
 stands the perverting influences at work, unless he sympathises, 
 and in that case his reply is evasive and no more need be said. 
 Seeing the thoroughly unchristian influence of The Church Times, 
 as I do, on the mind, spirit, and temper of many well-meaning 
 but ignorant people, I feel that if the proprietors, whoever they 
 may be, are devout and inteUigent churchmen, they ought to 
 be ashamed of their share in it ; and if the Editor claims to 
 be a devout churchman he ought to be ashamed of himself 
 for deliberately spreading and feeding the spirit of insolence 
 and detraction which has been so strong in the paper. 
 
 Referring to my Charge. I feel from your letter that you 
 have been unduly alarmed by its plain language, and I doubt 
 if you have given its substance dispassionate consideration. 
 I am not surprised, as your party has been so long unaccustomed 
 to plain, dispassionate criticism, the Evangelicals ha\dng, as a 
 rule, proved themselves either a fanatical or a feeble folk in 
 their utterances. But I did not expect you to confound 
 my position with what I understand you to mean by Puritanism,
 
 VI 
 
 MAINLY DIOCESAN 155 
 
 and this brings me to the only other point with which I will 
 trouble you, for I have taxed your kindness and patience far 
 too long already. The Bishop of Durham, as you will, I think, 
 find, is at one with me in what I have said on the burning ques- 
 tion of the moment, which means that he holds to Hooker's 
 views on the Sacrament and to Lightfoot's demonstration of 
 the true position of the priesthood, and to Thirlwall's unrefuted 
 language on ritual. 
 
 The vital mistake of your friends (in my poor judgment a 
 disastrous mistake) was made when under whatever influences 
 they persuaded Keble in his old age to make or agree to that 
 unfortunate alteration of his hymn, " As in the hands." Since 
 then you have been on the treacherous slope that leads, and 
 will continue to lead, ordinary minds downwards to the sacra- 
 mental superstition of the darker ages. 
 
 And herein lies the urgency of my appeal the other day, that 
 it is our duty to look behind the apparently extravagant doings 
 of the modern ritualists and go to the root of the matter, instead 
 of treating them as the Archbishop and the Bishop of London 
 seem anxious to do. These ritualists, unless I misread them, 
 have given far more thought to the matter than Bishops who 
 treat them thus. 
 
 If only the High Church party in this their day could go back, 
 say under your leadership, resolutely and openly and without 
 regard to consequences, to that parting of the ways, and say our 
 position is that of the earlier Keble and of Hooker his master, 
 and of Lightfoot, the greatest interpreter of the New Testament 
 revelation in our day, what a blessed thing it would be for the 
 Anglican Communion. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 It was in the same year as this First Visitation, 1898, that 
 Percival started the Diocesan Messenger, a monthly magazine 
 such as is officially issued in most dioceses. It was a means 
 of keeping the diocese informed about the various activities 
 which were going on within its borders ; it helped to break 
 down the isolation of the remote country parishes, always 
 one of Percival's chief objects ; and it afforded the Bishop a 
 means of communication with his clergy and laity. In every 
 issue he wrote a letter deahng with some large question of 
 national or diocesan concern. Certainly it could never be 
 said that he failed to " give a lead," though he often led in 
 a direction where only a few were ready to follow him. At
 
 156 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 first the Diocesan Messenger was run at a serious financial 
 loss, which the Bishop paid himself. Later on, advertise- 
 ments were secured and an annual balance was available, 
 which year by year the Bishop assigned to diocesan needs. 
 At this time the Bishop had much anxiety on behalf of 
 his son Arthur, who was an officer in the army which marched 
 up the Nile under Kitchener. Just after the battle of 
 Omdurman he wrote to Mr. KilHgrew Wait : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 September 5, 1898. 
 
 Dear Wait — My youngest boy Arthur being in Kitchener's 
 Army, I have had a week of intense anxiety, and you will sym- 
 pathise with me in my relief this morning when I learnt that 
 the battle is over and he is apparently untouched.^ I thank 
 God for His goodness to me. The engagement seems to have 
 been a terrible butchery rather than a fight. Anyhow, the 
 victory is a great blow for civilisation over barbarism and for 
 the happiness of multitudes in the Valley of the Nile. — Yours 
 sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The love of Rugby never faded in his heart, and when 
 Thomas Hughes (" Tom Brown ") died in 1897 Percival was 
 glad, amid all his diocesan and other activities, to associate 
 himself with Rugby and the author of its famous story by 
 offering a memorial of Thomas Hughes in the shape of a 
 gift of his books to certain boys each year. The offer was 
 acknowledged in the following letter from his old Rugby 
 chief, Dr. Temple, who had become chairman of the Rugby 
 Governing Body during Percival' s Headmastership. 
 
 Lambeth Palace, S.E., 
 
 December 11, 1897. 
 
 My dear Bishop of Hereford — The enclosed Resolution 
 was passed at the last meeting of the Rugby Governors, and 
 you will see that it lays on me the duty of conveying to you 
 their thanks for your gift to the School. I write accordingly, 
 and am very glad to be the medium of the interchange of courtesy. 
 — Yours affectionately, 
 
 F. Cantuar. 
 
 ^ Arthur Percival was, however, severely wounded by the explosion of 
 a Dervish mine soon after the hostilities were over.
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 157 
 
 [Enclosure] 
 Rugby School : Extract from Minutes, 1st December 1897. 
 
 It is unanimously resolved : 
 
 That the offer of the Bishop of Hereford to give a sum of 
 money to provide an annual gift of books, by the late Mr. 
 Thomas Hughes, to a certain number of boys in the School as 
 a memorial of Mr. Hughes, be accepted ; that all details as to 
 the selection of the boys for this purpose, the inscriptions in the 
 books, and other matters connected with the gift, be left to be 
 settled from time to time by the Headmaster, after consulta- 
 tion with the Bishop of Hereford, and that the Chairman be 
 requested to convey to the Bishop of Hereford the thanks of 
 the Governing Body for his gift to the School. 
 
 By the close of 1898 the period of sohtude at the Palace 
 was Hearing its end. The Bishop married an old family 
 friend, the daughter of the famous physician who had 
 virtually saved his Ufe when his health broke down as the 
 result of his heavy work as schoolboy and undergraduate. 
 It was characteristic of him that he should announce the 
 event in a letter circulated to the clergy of the diocese. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 November 29, 1898. 
 
 My dear Brother — I am writing this letter to say that, 
 having been continuously at work since February, I find I must 
 shortly take a brief period of comparative rest or quiet ; and 
 consequently I propose to be absent from the Diocese from 
 January 17 to the end of February, 
 
 If, therefore, you have any matter in which I can be of service, 
 and which you feel to be urgent, I hope you will give me the 
 opportunity of attending to it before January 14. Should any- 
 thing arise during my absence, which may seem to you to require 
 immediate attention or consideration, I would ask you to con- 
 sult the Archdeacon or Mr. Beddoe. 
 
 In addition to these matters, I desire to inform you by direct 
 personal communication that I hope to be married in the early 
 part of next year to one who has long been a family friend. 
 Miss Symonds, daughter of the late Mr. Frederic Symonds, the 
 well-known doctor at Oxford. 
 
 Two and a half years ago when my dear wife was taken from 
 me, I owed so much to the tender sympathy of the clergy, sym-
 
 158 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 pathy never to be forgotten by me, that I should not Hke any 
 one of these my friends and fellow-labourers to hear first from 
 some outside source of the step I contemplate. 
 
 During the interval I have had constantly to trespass on the 
 kind indulgence of the Diocese in regard to many duties with 
 which I had not the strength or the gifts to cope alone. And 
 knowing, as no one but myself knows, how much of all that was 
 best in my life and work I owed to a devout and loving com- 
 panion, and having experienced my inability to do alone many 
 things which as a Bishop I ought to endeavour to do, I trust 
 that the change in my home life may enable me to serve you 
 and the Church in our Diocese better than I have hitherto been 
 able to do. 
 
 Asking your prayers on my behalf, I am, yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 P.S. — I hope you will kindly understand that this letter 
 calls for no reply or acknowledgment. 
 
 The wedding took place in Westminster Abbey on Janu- 
 ary i8, 1899. Prebendary Wynne Willson, who was " best 
 man," narrates his nervousness that the bridegroom would 
 not be in time, owing to his insisting on attending a meeting 
 in the Church House immediately before the ceremony. 
 
 To a letter of congratulation from Mrs. Wait which 
 reached him as he was starting with Mrs. Percival for their 
 honeymoon, he replied : 
 
 Lord Warden Hotel, 
 
 Dover, 
 
 January 19, 1899. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Wait — It was most kind of you to write to me 
 on the i6th. The letter reached me yesterday morning, and 
 I have not till now had time to thank you for it. Nothing will 
 ever make any difference to my friendship to you and Mr. Wait, 
 and so long as you will have me I shall always wish to come and 
 see you when I can, and I shall always wish you to come and 
 stay quietly with us when you feel inclined to say you are coming. 
 As hfe grows shorter, memories and the things which bind one 
 to dear friends become all the dearer ; and the wife who is now 
 to be my dear compaiiion wiU do her part very lovingly in giving 
 you both an affectionate welcome. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 At about this time the custom had grown up in the
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 159 
 
 Cathedral of singing the Benedictus qui venit immediately 
 before the Prayer of Consecration. Percival beheved this 
 to be illegal, and informed the Dean of the fact, with the 
 result that the custom was abandoned, the Dean writing to 
 the Bishop that he would " be sorry that we should permit 
 any innovation at the Cathedral which should be the means 
 of leading astray any incumbents in the diocese." Percival 
 was here acting conscientiously according to his interpreta- 
 tion of the law ; he was not following any mere preference 
 of his own. Prebendary Wynne Willson tells how on one 
 occasion " coming out of the Cathedral after a choral Com- 
 munion at which the Benedictus had been sung, he said, 
 ' How beautiful the Benedictus sounded, breaking in suddenly 
 upon the solemn silence of the Cathedral.' " The fact is, 
 as the same witness testifies, that though he could appreciate 
 beautiful effects, " to him worship was of the heart, not the 
 eye. No one could Uve with him and not see and feel the 
 reality of his piety. By any one entering his study late at 
 night unexpectedly he would be found reading the Bible. 
 He never failed to exhort people to read the Psalms and the 
 Gospels. His dishke of high ritual was based on its com- 
 plexity, rather than occasioned by the doctrines it repre- 
 sented, much as he opposed these in his pulpit utterances. 
 He frequently gave offence by speaking of ' spectacular 
 communions.' On the other hand, any slovenUness in the 
 service, any evidence of lack of care for the Church, earned 
 his whole-hearted condemnation." 
 
 In his official action he was always guided by his inter- 
 pretation of the law. For example, he held that " Vest- 
 ments " were illegal, and accordingly he refused to institute 
 to parishes priests who refused to give an assurance that 
 they would not wear them. This happened on two occa- 
 sions. The matter was not taken to the Courts. In both 
 cases the patron ultimately decided to present another 
 candidate. 
 
 He was eager to do what lay in his power to deepen the 
 spiritual hfe in the diocese. With this object he acceded 
 to a request in the year 1900 that he should conduct a 
 Bible Class at the Palace during Lent. Accordingly, he held
 
 i6o LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 such a course on Wednesday evenings at 8.30, dealing with 
 " the Sermon on the Mount in its bearing on common Ufe." 
 But it was, of course, only a few in Hereford and the im- 
 mediate neighbourhood that he could help by such means. 
 For any wider influence he rehed on his own visits for 
 Confirmations and otherwise, on the Diocesan Mission, and 
 on the Scheme for Bible and Prayer Book Examination, 
 which had been instituted by Bishop Atlay. 
 
 With regard to the visits for Confirmations, Prebendary 
 Wynne WiUson writes : 
 
 Arduous as was the work of Confirmations in this rural 
 diocese, owing to remoteness and lack of train service, yet he 
 always enjoyed it. Wherever he could, he drove. He revelled 
 in the country and the beautiful scenery of his diocese. If he 
 had to drive from a station to a parish he would say, " Tell 
 them to send a dog-cart ; I don't like the cab. smelling of stale 
 tobacco." The scent from a bean-field or a clover-field delighted 
 him. No place was too remote for him to visit. His capacity 
 for addressing country children at Confirmation Services was 
 amazing. It was not a matter of adapting himself to his audience 
 — he seemed naturally at home with a rustic congregation, the 
 result, no doubt, of his ancestry. 
 
 The Rev. R. Burges Bayly writes that " most of those 
 who knew the Bishop would agree in saying that in none of 
 his important diocesan work was he so thoroughly happy 
 as when holding Confirmations." 
 
 The Bishop seemed especially to enjoy his visits to the different 
 parishes on these occasions. His whole strength and love seemed 
 to be manifested in this work. I have known him get up from 
 a sick bed and face a long cold drive of more than fifteen miles 
 rather than aUow a Confirmation arranged for to fall through. 
 
 During the last seven years of his Episcopate it was my 
 privilege to serve as his Hon. Chaplain, and I was frequently 
 in attendance on him at these times. He thoroughly under- 
 stood young people. He not only arrested and held their atten- 
 tion during his addresses, but he fairly won their hearts. Few 
 will forget the impressiveness of those Confirmation scenes — 
 no description can convey a sufiiciently clear idea of their 
 solemnity. When he stood up to deliver the first address, his 
 beautiful face seemed to light up, and as he proceeded with his 
 strong, loving counsels to the candidates, reminding them of
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN i6i 
 
 the difficulties and dangers before them, and telhng them of 
 the strength and power by which they might be met, and of 
 the source from which this power came, there must have been 
 few hearts that were not deeply touched. The reverence and 
 solemnity with which he conferred the actual laying on of hands 
 deeply affected all around him. 
 
 His joy in Confirmations was no doubt largely due to 
 the fact that there alone did his work bring him into touch 
 with young people. But while this was so. Confirmations 
 were also a chief means by which he was able to foster the 
 spiritual hfe of the people. The addresses at Confirmations 
 are primarily directed to the candidates. But they are 
 heard by the parents and friends, and the parishioners 
 generally, who attend. Percival preferred to hold Con- 
 firmations on Sundays, on the ground that on that day more 
 people could and would attend than on any other. Perhaps 
 this is not unconnected wdth the fact that during his 
 episcopate the diocese of Hereford rose to the head of 
 the list of dioceses for its proportion of communicants to 
 the population. Certainly the solemnity of his addresses at 
 these times must have impressed the people with the serious- 
 ness of moral questions. " No man can live long enough to 
 see the end of any sin that he commits." " The flames of 
 hell have never been put out ; I see them burning up the 
 lives of men." " The greatest gift a hero leaves his country 
 is to have been a hero." Such were some of his most 
 frequently reiterated sayings. His main stress was always 
 upon the moral influence which every one is bound to exert 
 for good or ill upon his neighbours, and the need of all the 
 aids which the Church supplies if this responsibiUty is to be 
 met worthily. 
 
 However hard a Bishop works he cannot be his own 
 missioner, and for the further deepening of the spiritual life 
 of the diocese as a whole he instituted the Diocesan Mission. 
 The general plan of this effort may best be shown by quota- 
 tion of a letter to the Rev. F. B. Philps, to whom the Bishop 
 had already written to inquire whether he would consider 
 taking up the work for a time in succession to a clergyman 
 who had been obhged to resign on grounds of health. 
 
 M
 
 i62 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 August 27, 1906. 
 
 Dear Sir — I am glad to have your letter and send the follow- 
 ing particulars : — 
 
 My last missioner, who has had to give up missioner's work 
 owing to delicacy of health, Uved here when not out on mission 
 work. He received ;^i50 a year and his travelling expenses, 
 and his board here free of cost, of course. His work consisted 
 of — (i) week-end visits to parishes by arrangement with the 
 Incumbent ; Friday evening to Tuesday morning. (2) Two or 
 three Ruridecanal visits in the course of a year. A Ruridecanal 
 visit extends as a rule over four Sundays, and the missioner to 
 begin with attends a Ruridecanal Chapter and arranges with 
 the clergy to visit some five or six neighbouring parishes, taking 
 such services, and giving such addresses, etc., as may be agreed 
 upon. He spends the whole month in the Rural Deanery, and 
 hospitality is provided by the clergy. We find this usefid type 
 of mission in Rural Parishes. (3) Possibly one or two ten-day 
 or fortnight missions in a larger parish in the course of the year. 
 (4) Some courses of sermons in Advent and Lent. 
 
 I would suggest that you should, if convenient, come and 
 see me, as this would enable both of us to see whether the opening 
 is suitable. I expect to be at home and free to receive you 
 for any night before September 7. — Beheve me, yours very truly, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Diocesan Mission was, in the Bishop's mind, an 
 effort to help the spiritual life from the centre, and to break 
 down the isolation of the remote parishes. It was not merely 
 the provision of a preacher to the various parishes at different 
 times. He thought of it rather a pastoral activity on the part 
 of the Chief Pastor of the diocese through his chosen agent. 
 Mr. Philps, who accepted the Bishop's offer, and was for a 
 time one of the series of Diocesan Missioners, says : "I 
 used, in each parish I visited, to commence my work by 
 reference to the connection of the Bishop with parish and 
 people expressed in my visit, its marking of his pastoral love 
 and care for them and of his desire to know how they were 
 getting on. This gave them a new view of the Bishop in 
 many places." 
 
 Side by side with this directly spiritual work was the 
 endeavour to develop an intelUgent study of the Christian
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 163 
 
 religion. Bishop Atlay had inaugurated an Examination 
 on the Bible and Prayer Book to encourage study by giving 
 it an objective. The Rev. J. Davies, of Stoke Prior Rectory, 
 Leominster, sends the following account of Percival's 
 activities in relation to this scheme : 
 
 When Bishop Percival entered upon his Episcopate at Here- 
 ford, he, as might have been expected, took great interest in 
 all matters connected with the schools and Religious Education. 
 Most of the elementary schools were Church Schools. There 
 were several organisations for their maintenance and progress, 
 and especially for the keeping up of a high standard of rehgious 
 knowledge and training— an excellent syllabus, a system of 
 inspections, training of pupil teachers, with examination and 
 prizes, etc. 
 
 One scheme, known as the Bible and Prayer Book Prize 
 Examination Scheme, had been in existence for just quarter 
 of a century in 1895. It was managed in connection with the 
 Diocesan Schools' Associations by the Bishop, the Archdeacons, 
 a Secretary, and a Board of Examiners. Its object was to 
 encourage interest and enthusiasm in the religious work of the 
 schools by giving prizes to children on the results of an annual 
 written examination, the questions being set by the Examiners 
 and sent to each school. 
 
 The subjects were a book of the Bible, generally a Gospel, 
 and some portions of the Prayer Book, and the whole of the 
 Catechism. The elder and more intelligent children in a school 
 Avere sent in. 
 
 Previous to the time of Dr. Percival, some hundreds of children 
 had sat for the Examination in several different years. But 
 just at the time that he came, for some reason or other, the 
 numbers were very low. 
 
 He at once showed his interest in the scheme, and did all he 
 could to induce more schools to send in candidates. His letters 
 in the Annual Reports show how keen he was about the religious 
 training of the children, and how anxious he was that this scheme 
 should prosper. 
 
 He took very practical steps to help it. He increased the 
 number of " the Bishop's Special Prizes." He also provided 
 a prize book for each of the candidates in the second class. After 
 the death of Mrs. Percival he gave an endowment of £100 to 
 provide twelve prizes in her memory, now known as " The 
 Louisa Percival Memorial Prizes," given to the six boys and 
 six girls who do best in the examination.
 
 i64 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 On seventeen occasions during his episcopate he annually 
 invited all the children who had gained prizes, their parents, 
 the head teachers, and the clergy from the successful parishes, 
 to the prize distribution and tea at the Palace. The guests, 
 as a rule, amounted to several hundreds. 
 
 A word should be said about these days, for no pleasanter 
 picture of the Bishop will live in the memory of those who were 
 present on the prize-giving days. After a short special service 
 in the Cathedral, at which all the guests were present, an adjourn- 
 ment was made to the Palace grounds, where in the brightness 
 of a summer afternoon the venerable Bishop, with all his simple 
 and courtly dignity, his face lit up with that charming smile 
 of his, first said a few earnest and encouraging words to the 
 children and to those assembled, and then distributed the prizes 
 with a word of congratulation to the winners of them. The 
 prize-giving was followed by tea for all on the lawns, the 
 Bishop himself seeming to enjoy the whole day as much as the 
 children. Teachers still, and children now grown up, speak 
 with pleasure of those days. 
 
 When the war came and prevented the issue of reduced railway 
 fares, the Bishop offered to pay the difference between the 
 former specially reduced fare and the then existing fare, so that 
 even children from the poorest parishes might not be prevented 
 from attending on the day. 
 
 As a result of the Bishop's efforts the numbers of candidates, 
 and of schools entering, reached, during his Episcopacy, the 
 highest point in the history of the scheme. 
 
 At the Annual Meetings of the Examiners, when the Class 
 lists were drawn up, the Bishop presided and helped the 
 Examiners and Secretary by his advice and judgment. He 
 always wished a high standard to be maintained, and at the 
 same time to encourage schools and children where there were 
 difficulties. 
 
 Of his relations with his clergy, on which the effectiveness 
 of a Bishop in his diocese must chiefly depend, it is not 
 possible to speak in a few phrases. The opposition aroused 
 by his attitude on many pubhc questions — especially Welsh 
 Disestabhshment and Church Schools in the early days, in 
 the later time modernism and reunion — created a hindrance 
 to the establishment of intimate intercourse. Apart from 
 this, Percival was not an easy man to know. He was deeply 
 sympathetic, except on the intellectual side, but he did not
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 165 
 
 easily show his sympathy. Those who took the first step 
 found that he welcomed approaches, but it is not easy for 
 the ordinary country clergyman to take the first step 
 towards intimacy with his Bishop. Consequently there 
 were to the end many who knew him only as an official and 
 as a controversiahst on what was in their judgment the 
 wrong side. And it cannot be denied that, when known 
 only in this way, he seemed both formidable and chilling. 
 
 There are some men who are attractive to all save those 
 who know them well ; they are universally applauded ; 
 their praises are in the mouths of all men ; but intimate 
 friends tend to qualify the general approval. There are 
 others whom the world is slow to praise, yet who are revealed 
 to intimate friendship as tender, noble, and self-sacrificing 
 souls. Percival belonged to the latter class. Only those 
 who could penetrate his reserve ever knew his greatness of 
 spirit or his tenderness of heart. To others he seemed 
 austere, remote, and even rather contemptuous. Just as at 
 Rugby he would trust individual boys, while putting little 
 trust in the School as a whole, so at Hereford he honoured 
 his clergy taken singly for their devotion and ungrudging 
 labours, but he had no high opinion of the clergy as a whole, 
 whether in his diocese or out of it. Unfortunately, most of 
 the clergy come into contact with their Bishop most fre- 
 quently at gatherings where the general rather than the 
 individual aspect is most prominent, and where those public 
 matters are brought into discussion, on which Percival 
 generally found himself in opposition to the view held by 
 nearly all the clergy. 
 
 He was an ogre for work. One of his chaplains had been 
 a journalist, often working fourteen hours a day ; but he 
 found that Percival " worked him off his feet." Prebendary 
 Wynne Willson writes : 
 
 People often used to say to me what a difficult task it must 
 be to work with so exacting a master. He expected work, and 
 at times very hard work. I quote a letter written when I left 
 him : " Take pauses for refreshment, recreation, thought, and 
 enjoyment ; and don't let ' parochial claims ' interfere with 
 these." That was his attitude. Naturally he was quick-
 
 i66 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 tempered, and capable of anger, but he had the most absolute 
 control. He was most patient, and if and when hitches occurred, 
 he was very merciful. Cruelty, injustice, slovenliness, and neglect 
 of duty angered him, and he expressed himself at times very 
 strongly. He was quite easy to work with, for he was never 
 capricious or arbitrary. 
 
 The frequency with which he stood alone, or with only a 
 small following, is quoted as a mark of his unpopularity. Never- 
 theless, his courage and sincerity won universal respect. On 
 the occasion when the late Dr. Sinclair was presented with his 
 robes as a Doctor of Music, a large concourse of people were 
 present, most of whom disagreed with his ecclesiastical and 
 pohtical outlook. In the course of his speech, he said, " I shall 
 not be alone, though you know I am often alone in my opinions." 
 This was followed by a burst of applause, which showed the 
 popular estimate of his character — great respect in spite of 
 difference of opinion. 
 
 This episode is evidence that as he came to be understood, 
 though the opposition to his views remained, he also came 
 to be respected and, by those who understood most fully, 
 to be loved. And his own energy in work bore its fruit. 
 
 His hindrances were heavy. He was a radical amongst 
 bigoted conservatives, a liberal churchman and reformer amid 
 a population whose soft relaxing climate caused them to disHke 
 effort, and whose remoteness made them suspicious of new 
 thought. He was a keen temperance reformer amongst a cider- 
 making, hop-growing community. He was not always loyally 
 served by men whom he himself appointed to positions of im- 
 portance. But there is no doubt that his power of organisation, 
 and to still greater extent his power of awakening a sense of 
 duty, achieved the main purpose of a bishop's life, that of 
 getting his diocese to work.^ 
 
 It has been said that his sympathy was deep except on 
 the intellectual side. At this point there was a real failure. 
 He had not the capacity of understanding why men cared 
 for the views which seemed to him mistaken. To this must 
 be attributed his strange inability to convert men to his 
 point of view. It is remarkable how little he accompHshed 
 in this direction when the extent to which he won respect 
 
 ^ Preb. Wynne Willson.
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 167 
 
 and affection are remembered. He would make a speech 
 which thrilled with delight those who had agreed with him 
 from the outset ; they would expect the immediate capitula- 
 tion of the hostile forces ; and then to their dismay they 
 had to realise that the enemy was totally unaffected. No 
 man, broadly speaking, can convert another intellectually 
 unless he can first do full justice to that other's position. 
 This Percival could rarely do. He simply did not under- 
 stand, for example, the Cathohc party. He admired their 
 devotion and their conscientiousness. But he thought 
 their intellectual position stupid, which manifestly it is not. 
 They knew he had not appreciated the grounds of their 
 position ; consequently they were merely unmoved by his 
 attack, though somewhat irritated that he should have 
 made it. 
 
 The fact is that he was httle interested in intellectual 
 problems for their own sake, and had not that power to 
 approach questions from a variety of angles which such an 
 interest inevitably confers. Mr. J. R. Mozley, who was 
 one of his Clifton staff for a time and always a strong 
 admirer, writes : 
 
 That Percival was a philosopher could hardly be said : "I 
 have got my principles," he said to me once ; this was in reply 
 to a mention I had made of Hegelianism as a possible guide to 
 thought ; and he added, " I have seen the results on men of 
 reading Hegel." The results, of course, might be different in 
 different cases, and I am sure that he would not have refused 
 his sympathy to that distinguished Oxford Hegelian, T. H. 
 Green. His sympathies were wide, though he shunned argu- 
 ment, in the early days at any rate ; and when, in later life, he 
 did more or less take to it, politics was more congenial to him 
 than any other subject. 
 
 Such irritation as was felt, however, existed mainly, 
 though not solely, outside the diocese. Inside the diocese 
 it came to be reahsed that though he could not understand 
 the position of High Churchmen (except of the very moderate 
 variety represented by his intellectual leaders, Lightfoot and 
 Westcott) he appreciated them personally and had no desire 
 to drive them from his diocese. He was much misrcpre-
 
 i68 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 sented in regard to this. A leading Catholic clergyman in 
 the diocese is reported to have complained that Percival 
 wished to drive the Catholics out, though he had himself 
 been appointed by Percival to a much sought after living, 
 to a rural deanery and to a prebendal stall. He certainly 
 tried to be just to those with whom he disagreed. More- 
 over, the knowledge of his sympathy with anything in the 
 nature of trouble or distress began to spread. An instance 
 of this sympathy in one direction is given by the Rev. 
 Maxwell F. Webb, who writes : 
 
 First, I held the living of Donnington, near Ledbury, it 
 was one of the poor livings in the Hereford Diocese. It was a 
 little country parish with a small Church. The Friday before 
 a Sunday in Lent, I was taken suddenly ill. I telegraphed at 
 once to the Bishop's Secretary, whom I knew, and asked him if 
 he could find me a helper for the Sunday. On Saturday morning 
 I received a letter from Dr. Percival, saying that he would be 
 very pleased to take the services in my Church himself. 
 
 The Bishop arrived at lo o'clock on the Sunday morning, 
 having driven all the way from Hereford. He took my services 
 himself, at ii o'clock and at 3.30 p.m. He would not partake 
 of any food in the Rectory, because he knew that the living 
 was a poor one, but he brought his own sandwiches with him. 
 When the afternoon service concluded, he drove back to Hereford. 
 
 He fully appreciated the difficulties of the country 
 parson's work. Mr. Philps, writing of his work as Diocesan 
 Missioner, says : 
 
 The men and the parishes were reviewed by the Bishop 
 before my visits. It was our custom to speak together of my 
 work before I went out to do it. In this way he helped me 
 beyond words. And though speaking intimately of short- 
 comings here and there, he never said an unkind word to me of 
 one of his clergy, but always and without exception sought for 
 some excuse in the isolation of the parish, or circumstances of 
 the house, or in some other way. 
 
 The channel through which his sympathy chiefly showed 
 itself was a constant generosity in rehef of the poorer clergy. 
 As a rule even his chaplains only knew of the gifts which he 
 sent through seeing the letters of thanks which they brought.
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 169 
 
 Especially at Christmas time would gifts of money be sent 
 to needy priests, and quite as readily to those who opposed 
 him, or even who organised opposition to him, as to others. 
 The Rev. C. L. Edwards writes in this connection : 
 
 He used frequently to send presents, usually anonymously, 
 to the poorest of his clergy at Christmas ; generally ;^io. In 
 one case he asked a clergyman who had opposed him repeatedly 
 and vigorously in the Diocesan Conference and the Press to act 
 as his almoner — to give his presents " from a friend who wishes 
 to remain anonymous." By his choice of this particular almoner 
 he threw the recipient off the scent. 
 
 It was his rule to spend the whole of his official income 
 on the diocese. None of it was spent on holidays or on 
 personal needs, beyond the expenses of the house, which 
 was largely used for entertaining. 
 
 Canon Bannister had an experience which illustrates at 
 once the Bishop's sympathy and the reasons why it was so httle 
 understood. Shortly after coming to the diocese, Canon 
 Bannister found that the vicar of a neighbouring parish had 
 lately died, leaving a widow sadly burdened with a debt of 
 which the existence had been forgotten. He wrote to the 
 Bishop, who replied, without a word of sympathy, merely 
 asking to whom the debts were due ? Were they people who 
 would be greatly damaged if they could not recover their 
 money ? What were the resources of the executors ? and 
 so forth. Canon Bannister did not then know the Bishop, 
 and, feehng rather sore, wrote to say that he would raise the 
 money himself and not trouble his Lordship further. But 
 when he set about the work of doing what was wanted he 
 found that the Bishop had made his inquiries through other 
 channels, had satisfied himself with regard to the facts and 
 the need, and had paid the whole debt out of his own 
 pocket. 
 
 There was no doubt about the tenderness of his heart. 
 But it is not easy for the prophet of righteousness to sym- 
 pathise with moral weaknesses. As Bishop Gore says of 
 the impression he left on his colleagues and pupils at Trinity, 
 " We felt that a great strong righteous will was expressing
 
 170 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 itself amongst us with profound astonishment at our being 
 content to be such fools as we were " — so in his diocese men 
 who were guilty of any moral failing felt only his amazed 
 indignation, and perhaps, when that was called for, his 
 official censure. This temper enabled him to be peculiarly 
 bracing to the strong, but more terrible than helpful to the 
 weak. 
 
 For the spiritual life of the clergy of his diocese he tried 
 to provide assistance through the organisation of an annual 
 retreat ; he secured the help of leading men of every school 
 of thought for the conduct of these retreats, and, though 
 they were much valued by those who came, he was dis- 
 appointed that so small a proportion of the clergy availed 
 themselves of this opportunity. 
 
 It must, however, be admitted that he himself found 
 the special organisations of a devotional period rather un- 
 congenial. This was apparent in the days before ordinations, 
 when the time was insufficiently organised and less valuable 
 than it might have been. But he tried to create a sense of 
 the vastness of the Church's task by always requiring a 
 missionary book to be read for the examination. He also 
 set two books on which the candidates were examined by 
 himself or some one chosen specially — not by the examining 
 chaplains. These were Hort's Christian Ecclesia and Light- 
 foot on the Ministry. 
 
 He tried to become acquainted with all the clergy and 
 church-workers of the diocese, and as Hereford is only a few 
 miles from the southern border of a diocese extending some 
 seventy miles from north to south, he used to take a house 
 in the Shropshire archdeaconry for six or eight weeks in the 
 summer, inviting the clergy and church-workers of the 
 neighbouring parishes to a series of small, informal garden 
 parties. It should be added that he was a keen supporter 
 of the scheme for a Shropshire diocese, and proposed that 
 each Bishop concerned (Hereford, Lichfield, and St. Asaph) 
 should surrender £600 a year towards the endowment of the 
 new see. 
 
 Amid all his cares and conflicts he kept up his contact 
 with old friends :
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 171 
 
 To Mrs. Killigrew Wait 
 
 Thk Palace, Hereford, 
 January i, 1900. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Wait — This is my first writing of the new date 
 and, as I need hardly tell you, the note comes laden with all my 
 best wishes to the dearest of friends, and with the hope that you 
 have been enjoying some real Christmastide happiness. It has 
 been, I know very well, transfused with eventide thoughts, and 
 something of eventide sadness. It could not be otherwise, 
 but it is none the less God's good gift. I also desire to thank 
 you for your kind share in the memorial in the College Chapel 
 to my dear Loo. She was so faithful to her Bible and had such 
 love for the College that it is just the memorial she would have 
 hked to think of, and it is the gift of friends she loved most 
 dearly. To-morrow — January 2 — will be the anniversary of 
 her birth. — Always yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The year 1901 was that of his Second Visitation. On this 
 occasion he selected as the chief topic of general interest the 
 problem of Church Reform. He had Kttle hope of the 
 " Convocations Bill " promoted by the Church Reform 
 League, which was gradually transformed into the Enabhng 
 Act of 1919 ; and he had no sympathy at all with attacks on 
 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the Final 
 Court of Appeal in Causes Ecclesiastical. But he had 
 practical suggestions to make which derive a pecuhar interest 
 from the subsequent course of events. He did earnestly 
 desire to give the people a real share in the control and 
 direction of church life at the point when it immediately 
 affects them, that is in the parishes. 
 
 Under these circumstances, as I have ventured publicly to 
 urge on several occasions, we should do well and wisely, in the 
 best interests of the Church, to begin our reforming legislation 
 where the shoe pinches, that is, by the estabUshment of a Church 
 Council in every parish ; and the constitutional basis on which 
 to establish such Councils should be broad enough to safeguard 
 the national character of the Church. 
 
 This, I incline to think, would be reasonably secured, if it 
 were enacted that every parishioner, who is a member of the 
 Parish Vestry, and claims to be a member of the Cliurch of
 
 172 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 England as by law established, shall be qualified to vote in the 
 election of the Church Council. 
 
 Every such parishioner should also be qualified to serve upon 
 the Council on declaring that he attends or desires to attend 
 the Church as his habitual place of rehgious worship. 
 
 If it is asked what powers should be given to a Church Council 
 so elected, my reply would be that these powers should be 
 embodied in some such provisions as the following : 
 
 (i) It shall not be lawful for the Incumbent or Curate-in- 
 charge of a parish to introduce any changes in the mode of 
 conducting public worship without giving due notice and obtain- 
 ing the consent of his Church Council. If this consent is with- 
 held, the Incumbent or Curate-in-charge may appeal to the 
 Bishop for his decision on the subject, and the Bishop, after 
 conference with the Incumbent or Curate-in-charge and the 
 Council, and after full and careful consideration of the matter, 
 shall make an order embodying his decision. 
 
 (2) If the Council desires any reasonable and lawful change 
 to be made in regard to the conduct of public worship, and the 
 Incumbent or Curate-in-charge declines to make it, the Council 
 may appeal to the Bishop, who shall, after full and careful 
 consideration of the matter, make an order embodying his 
 decision. 
 
 (3) If in any case the Bishop's order is objected to by either 
 party, an appeal shall be allowed to the Archbishop, whose 
 decision shall be final. 
 
 (4) If during a vacancy the parishioners through the Church 
 Council petition the Bishop with reference to the mode of con- 
 ducting public worship which the parishioners desire, it shall 
 be the duty of the Bishop to make an order on the subject, 
 having due regard to the wishes of the parishioners, and this 
 order shall be binding on the new Incumbent. 
 
 (5) Any Incumbent or Curate-in-charge who shall disregard 
 the order of the Bishop or Archbishop given under this Act, 
 shall be forthwith admonished by the Bishop. 
 
 If he fails to obey the admonition within three months, this 
 failure shall ipso facto involve the immediate voidance of the 
 benefice, or the lapse of his licence, as the case may be. 
 
 The Charge closed with words that have a special appro- 
 priateness to a time when the effects of a war more desolat- 
 ing than that in South Africa are present on every side. 
 
 As we enter on a new century, the thought inevitably haunts
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 173 
 
 us, the inquiry arises persistently — What are Hkely to be the 
 fortunes and influence of our Church of England in the coming 
 time ? But these thoughts and these inquiries are, I fear, 
 hardly profitable. It may well be that our Lord would answer, 
 " What is that to thee ? Follow thou me." 
 
 The one thing which is only too clear at this moment is that, 
 as a nation, we do not begin the new century very well. 
 
 We begin it involved in a desolating war — a war in which 
 the Church has given little guidance ; " her prophets have 
 found no vision from the Lord." 
 
 We begin it with heavy burdens of taxation and debt newly 
 laid upon us, and much needed social reforms indefinitely post- 
 poned in consequence. We begin it with the materialistic spirit 
 and the greed of wealth very strong in the midst of us, and with 
 many doubtful signs on the horizon in front of us. 
 
 Under such circumstances we may do well to set our faces 
 towards the uncertain future and its difficulties and dangers in 
 a chastened spirit. 
 
 England in the Victorian age has been very prosperous, 
 replenished like ancient Tyre, and made very glorious in the 
 midst of the seas ; and if, as we grow wealthy by reason of our 
 commerce and the multitude of our wares, we were infected 
 in some degree by that spirit which the ancient Greeks called 
 v^pLs, the insolence of pride, we have had our reminders, and 
 these may be for our ultimate good, that v^pcs is followed 
 very close by vcfieais, its inevitable attendant. 
 
 One good result of all this for which I pray is, that it may 
 help our Church to shake herself free from that spirit of political 
 subserviency and timidity which paralyses her prophetic powers, 
 so that she may do more than hitherto to impress on our English 
 life the spirit of Jesus, her Lord ; but to do so we must hark 
 back continually and unreservedly to the gospel sources ; we 
 shall have to discard many ecclesiastical traditions, and lay 
 fresh hold on the principles embodied in the Saviour's manifesta- 
 tion of the Divine life ; we shall have to emancipate our hearts 
 from their slavery to selfish instincts and materialistic influences, 
 and to persuade men to adopt the spirit of Christ in its reality, 
 as the dominating and determining spirit in pohtical, no less 
 than in individual, conduct, in public as in private affairs. 
 
 The proposal made in this Charge that the people of a 
 parish should have control over any change in the services 
 puts into a more definite and formulated shape a suggestion 
 that he had already made in his address to the Diocesan
 
 174 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Conference in 1898. The Act of Uniformity Amendment 
 Act (1872) lays it down that a special service may not 
 contain anything which does not form part of the Bible or 
 the Prayer Book excepting anthems and hymns. This if 
 literally interpreted would go far to make the composition 
 of special services suitable to different occasions impossible. 
 Archbishop Temple had ruled that the Act was to be 
 interpreted as permitting anything that expressed the spirit 
 of some part of the Bible or of the Prayer Book, giving as 
 an instance the Collect for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, 
 which he declared would be within the Hmits allowed by the 
 Act even if it were not already in the Prayer Book. This 
 had brought Sir William Harcourt into the lists with a series 
 of letters to The Times on " The Crisis in the Church." Of 
 these, and a great deal more commotion, the Archbishop, 
 according to his wont, took no notice whatever. He had, 
 as a matter of fact, discussed the matter privately with 
 several Judges and had virtually assured himself that if the 
 matter came into the Courts the decision would be in his 
 favour. Percival, however, was not prepared to trust the 
 Bishops with so large a liberty. Too many of them regarded 
 doctrines, which he held erroneous, as "in the spirit of the 
 Bible and Prayer Book." But by means of an elaborate 
 system of checks and counter- checks he thought safety could 
 be secured ; the real importance of his proposal was its 
 introduction in a very prominent way of the rights of the 
 laity. On September 21, 1898, he addressed his Diocesan 
 Conference as follows : 
 
 On one subject of present interest and permanent importance 
 to the Church I feel that you may expect me to dwell for a 
 moment on such an occasion as this. I refer to what it seems 
 to be the fashion to describe as the Bishop's jus liturgicum, or, 
 in plain English, his power to draw up or sanction special forms 
 of service for use in our churches. This power is limited by the 
 words of the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act (1872), which 
 declare that a special service must contain nothing which does 
 not form part of Holy Scripture or the Book of Common Prayer, 
 excepting anthems or hymns. On the real meaning of this 
 clause in the Act authorities are not fully agreed. It is held 
 by some that the reasonable understanding of this provision is
 
 VI MAINLY DIOCESAN 175 
 
 that it gives power to a Bishop to sanction any prayers or services 
 which, though not in the exact language of the Bible or Prayer 
 Book, are in his judgment in accordance with the spirit and 
 doctrine of the Bible and the Prayer Book. This at first sight 
 would seem to be a not unreasonable contention, but when 
 examined more closely it is found to open the door to an amount 
 of liberty of interpretation which can hardly have been intended, 
 and which, notwithstanding my personal devotion to liberty, 
 I feel almost afraid to contemplate. In all such matters we 
 have to look not simply at what might be done to-day or to- 
 morrow, or by any one of us, but in course of time. And what 
 might be the result in course of time of the exercise of this vaguely- 
 defined power by thirty-three Diocesan Bishops, all liable to 
 be influenced in the process, I might even say " squeezed " by 
 their various clergy, I do not venture to predict. One thing, 
 however, is tolerably certain. The Prayer Book would be over- 
 laid by a mass of clerically-made services, made no doubt by 
 pious men, and with the best intentions, but in part dug up 
 from all sorts of ecclesiastical quarters, and full of idiosyncrasies, 
 services which had not, hke the Prayer Book itself, received 
 the assent of the Crown, or been submitted in any way to the 
 judgment of the laity. Thus it would in effect constitute a 
 new departure ; it could hardly be described as constitutional 
 in its spirit, and I fear it would be fraught with no little danger 
 for the future. How, then, in practice are these dangers to 
 be avoided while giving that amount of reasonable and whole- 
 some Hberty which we cannot refuse if we have a genuine desire 
 to foster and strengthen the spiritual life of the community by 
 every available means ? The natural and safest way of doing 
 this in accordance with the spirit of our Church and of our 
 national life would seem to be by what might be caUed the process 
 of a carefully -regulated local option ; in other words, by requir- 
 ing the sanction of the people of the parish for any extra uses 
 subject to the veto of the Bishop if they contravene the law or 
 doctrine of the Church. Such local option in concrete shape 
 might run thus : " If it is desired on special occasions, as hither- 
 to, or for reUgious purposes not provided for in the Book of 
 Common Prayer or under the Acts of Uniformity, to hold addi- 
 tional or extraordinary rehgious meetings or services in the 
 Church, and to use some special form of prayer, or to offer un- 
 written prayers, the holding of such meetings and the forms of 
 service to be used must be approved beforehand by the In- 
 cumbent, and also by the majority of the parishioners assembled 
 in public vestry, or as otherwise ordered, and any form of service 
 and any printed prayers thus used must be sent to the Bishop
 
 176 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap, vi 
 
 beforehand, that he, as guardian of the law and doctrine of the 
 Church in his diocese, may have the opportunity of intervening 
 to stop the proposed meetings or services, if they are contrary 
 to the law or doctrine of the Church of England. If the Bishop 
 gives his approval this shall in all cases be subject to the sanction 
 of the Archbishop, so as to avoid the confusion of different inter- 
 pretations of law and doctrine in different dioceses." I would 
 require such a reference to the Archbishop because I deprecate 
 the growth of separate diocesan uses, and the tendency to split 
 the Church into dioceses in such matters constitutes what might 
 easily become a growing danger to Church unity. In this way 
 it ought to be possible to so combine loyal obedience to the 
 Bible and the Prayer Book, the spirit of unity in diversity, 
 constitutional order, and the free enjoyment of a reasonable 
 and wholesome liberty, as to satisfy every earnest and devout 
 worker in any section of our comprehensive Church. 
 
 In this, as in so many other matters, the ultimate issue 
 seems likely to be in detail and method very different from 
 Percival's proposal. Yet the principle which he laid down 
 is now being increasingly applied, and no one doubts that the 
 new Parochial Church Councils, established on a statutory 
 basis under the Enabling Act of 1919, will afford a channel 
 through which the laity will exercise a far greater influence 
 than in the past over the form of services in the Parish 
 Church. He was a true pioneer ; as we look back, we can 
 disentangle the principles he advocated from the particular 
 proposals in which he embodied them, and can see how truly, 
 in many ways, he was sowing the seeds of future progress. 
 
 But in this proposal we have also an illustration of what 
 constantly occurred in Percival's hfe. Over and over again 
 he made suggestions which were in principle adopted many 
 years later. But he was liable to work them out in detail 
 at the time when he first put them forward, and that in a 
 shape calculated to ahenate rather than to attract those 
 whose support was indispensable for success. He was a man 
 in advance of his time ; that was his greatness. But along 
 with this went a real defect, for he was also a man intel- 
 lectually aloof.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 EDUCATION BILLS 
 
 The earlier years of Percival's episcopate were largely filled 
 by controversy about Voluntary Schools and the various 
 Education BiUs introduced by successive Governments, The 
 whole period of this controversy lasted from 1895 till 1906, 
 but the one important measure to be passed into an Act was 
 that of 1902-3. The history as a whole must be studied 
 elsewhere ; but Percival took an important part in it, and 
 there can be little doubt that the long struggle had a great 
 influence on his own general position. Percival was almost 
 alone among prominent Churchmen in the advocacy of the 
 scheme which seemed to him the right one. He thought 
 that the pohcy officially adopted by the Church was really 
 due to a whole conception of the Church which he regarded 
 as false. Hence the constant and sohtary opposition to the 
 Church policy somewhat hardened him in his resistance to 
 the prevailing movements in Church life during the years 
 when he was a Bishop. 
 
 In the autumn of 1895 the Church leaders determined to 
 approach the Government with an appeal for further State 
 Aid to Denominational Schools. Until 1870 the greater part 
 of the education given to the children of the poorer classes 
 was given in denominational schools. In 1870 Mr. Glad- 
 stone's Administration made elementary education uni- 
 versally compulsory and set up the School Boards. In 
 what were then called Board Schools, and now Provided 
 Schools, undenominational religious instruction was given. 
 Lord Sahsbury's Administration had followed the line of 
 
 177 N
 
 178 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 logical development by making the Board Schools free. 
 This was a serious matter for the denominational schools, 
 which began to be left behind in equipment. In November 
 1895 a strong deputation, led by the two Archbishops and 
 comprising most of the Bishops as well as a large group of 
 distinguished clergy and laity, waited on Lord Salisbury, 
 and presented a memorial appeaUng for further help for the 
 voluntary schools. In The Times of November 21, 1895, is 
 to be found both the report of the speeches made on this 
 occasion, and also the following letter from the Bishop of 
 Hereford : 
 
 Additional State Aid to Voluntary Schools 
 To the Editor of " The Times " 
 
 Sir — As one of those Churchmen who are not able to support 
 the memorial to Lord Salisbury, I desire, with your indulgence, 
 to state very briefly why we cannot do so. 
 
 In some of the requests contained in this memorial we could 
 very heartily concur if they were duly conditioned, but in two 
 respects it is highly objectionable to those of us who, while 
 desiring to secure to Churchmen their legitimate rights and 
 freedom, cannot forget that as members of the national Church 
 we ought not to encourage a separatist and internecine policy in 
 this matter of national education. 
 
 Thus we hold that in aU schools that are largely supported by 
 public money the local public, as being that portion of the con- 
 tributors primarily concerned, ought in common justice to have 
 some share in the management ; and this memorial to be satis- 
 factory ought to have expressed the readiness of Churchmen to 
 accept such representation, provided that the denominational 
 principle for which the memorialists are contending is duly safe- 
 guarded. 
 
 We may be told that they are indicating the right and claim 
 of parents to determine the character of the religious instruction 
 provided for their children ; but there is a good deal of in- 
 sincerity in the common use of this cry. The real object of the 
 present struggle is to secure larger grants from the State, and 
 yet to hold on to the exclusive denominational management of 
 schools and the exclusive denominational appointment of teachers, 
 so that not the parents but the managers may determine the 
 character of the religious instruction to be provided. Hence the
 
 VII 
 
 EDUCATION BILLS 179 
 
 objection to giving to the people any representative share in the 
 management. 
 
 In connection with this part of the question there is another 
 point to be urged. Subject to the same safeguards for the 
 denominational principles, I submit that no Voluntary School 
 ought to receive larger grants from the public purse so long as 
 its managers are prohibited by its trust deeds from employing any 
 teacher who is a Nonconformist. In thousands of parishes where 
 there are no Board Schools this prohibition, if I am correctly 
 informed, actually closes the door of the teaching profession to 
 the children of conscientious Nonconformist parents, and con- 
 stitutes an injustice and a hardship against which Churchmen 
 would rebel as intolerable if the case were reversed, so that over 
 a large portion of England the children of Church people could 
 not be trained and employed as teachers without abandoning 
 their Churchmanship. This being the case, it is to be regretted 
 that the memorialists should have omitted or declined to express 
 their readiness to do away with such a disability. 
 
 While thus omitting what it should have contained, the 
 memorial, on the other hand, contains one request which, if 
 granted, would take us back, so to speak, to the days of King 
 Stephen, for it amounts to nothing less than demanding the right 
 to levy private war on Board Schools. 
 
 Lord Salisbury is asked to give " Liberty to provide in any 
 district annual grant schools where the department is satisfied 
 that no satisfactory provision exists for the children for whom 
 this school is intended, regard being had to the rehgious beliefs 
 of the parents." 
 
 It is not easy to imagine that the Cabinet and the House of 
 Commons could ever be persuaded to pass such an enactment ; 
 but, supposing it to have become law, how will it be used ? The 
 answer is almost too obvious to need categorical statement. It 
 wiU be used by Romanists and extreme Churchmen as an irre- 
 sistible instrument for the crippling or capturing of Board Schools 
 by means of funds largely suppUcd from the public purse. In 
 one place and another enthusiastic denominationalists will be 
 persuaded to build a school almost next door to existing Board 
 Schools ; means will be found to fiU it with children attracted 
 from the neighbouring Board School ; and the application for 
 an annual grant under this clause will then be made in terms 
 which it will be impossible for the Department to resist. It may 
 be left to the imagination of your readers to picture the local 
 divisions, heartburnings, and bitterness which would ensue as 
 the natural fruits of such a pohcy. The little child would be set 
 in the midst of such a society as the symbol of theological strife
 
 i8o LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 and contention ; and yet we say that nothing is nearer to our 
 hearts at the present time than Christian union or reunion. 
 
 Some of the fair-minded men who have joined in framing this 
 memorial would, no doubt, be among the first to deplore such a 
 use of this annual grant clause as I have indicated ; but they 
 would be absolutely powerless to prevent it, and their militant 
 friends would snap their fingers at any remonstrance. It would 
 be as reasonable to present a rifle or revolver to a Turk or Kurd 
 in Armenia with a pious hope that he would kindly abstain from 
 ever using it against a Christian as to give this liberty to those 
 dogmatists who have expressed their hatred of the Board School 
 system, and expect them not to employ it for the cripphng or 
 capture of Board Schools whenever opportunity might arise. 
 It is painful to be obliged to point out these grave objections to 
 a memorial which has received such distinguished support ; 
 but in a matter of such moment it becomes a plain duty to put 
 conviction before respect of persons ; and it is commonly believed 
 that many of these eminent men in their hearts regret this ill- 
 omened controversy, which the majority of sober-minded 
 Enghshmen, interested as they are both in the Christian educa- 
 tion of our children and in the promotion of peace and goodwill, 
 sincerely deplore, though they have not always the strength to 
 stand firm against the current of the moment. Most sincerely, 
 therefore, do I hope that the Cabinet may be wiser than their 
 petitioners, and may say to us, "a predominant portion of the 
 electors throughout the country evidently desires freedom for 
 denominational teaching, and we are prepared to give this freedom 
 under reasonable conditions ; but in all cases any additional 
 grant of money from public sources must in common fairness be 
 accompanied by some amount of local public control ; and we 
 will allow no hberty to partisans of either denominational or un- 
 denominational schools to wage internecine warfare at the public 
 cost, to the detriment of education, and to the destruction of 
 local peace and goodwill." By such action a Conservative 
 Cabinet would be adopting a truly Conservative policy, and would 
 save Churchmen from their own lack of faith in the people, a lack 
 of faith which is all the more curious because we Churchmen so 
 consistently affirm and believe we have the people on our side. — 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 November 20, 1895. 
 
 To this letter a vigorous reply was made by Archdeacon 
 (now Canon) J. M. Wilson, as a liberal Churchman who had
 
 vii EDUCATION BILLS i8i 
 
 signed the memorial to Lord Salisbury. The controversy 
 continued ; measures were introduced which did not pass. 
 It was not until 1902 that matters came to a head. In that 
 year Percival stated his position in a paper read to the 
 Church Congress. After some preliminary observations he 
 offered the following policy for consideration : 
 
 As regards generalities, I will only ask you to accept two or 
 three statements which I take to be the expression of funda- 
 mental principles not to be disregarded or forgotten. 
 
 (i) Equity or fair dealing, as between citizens of different 
 religious denominations, requires that there should be within 
 reach of every poor man's child an efficient school, managed 
 either by a committee, of which the majority is publicly appointed 
 and locally representative, or by the religious denomination to 
 which he himself belongs. 
 
 (2) Public rates and taxes, whether used for education or any 
 other purpose, should be administered by persons appointed by, 
 and responsible to, the contributing public. 
 
 (3) Efficiency and economy in our elementary education alike 
 demand that small schools should not be needlessly multiphed. 
 
 What, then, is the sort of scheme which under present circum- 
 stances it is the duty of Churchmen to aim at as being most likely 
 to fulfil the various conditions I have here indicated ? 
 
 I submit that it should be a scheme which is sufficiently varied 
 to meet the very diverse conditions of rural and urban life, and 
 that it should not involve the divorce of secular and religious 
 instruction, that is to say, the establishment of two systems of 
 management, one for religious and the other for secular education. 
 Such a divorce might all too easily end in the loss of all systematic 
 religious instruction to multitudes of children, and this is a risk 
 we ought not to run. Therefore I rule out all suggestions of com- 
 promise based on this divorce. 
 
 Turning now to my scheme we find that the country, educa- 
 tionally surveyed, consists of two kinds of area, first the single 
 school area of our rural districts, where there is only one 
 elementary school within reach, and parents have no alternative 
 but to send their children to this school ; and secondly, the area, 
 generally a city or town, in which parents have a choice, accord- 
 ing to their preference, and which we may for convenience 
 designate the local option area. 
 
 For clearness I present my scheme in separate parts, but I 
 must beg you to bear in mind that it hangs together and is to be 
 considered as a whole, pervaded by the spirit of mutual concession,
 
 i82 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 and thus making for peace and goodwill and efficiency and 
 progress. 
 
 We fix our attention first on the single school area. Here 
 the school is either a Church School or a Board School. The 
 Roman Catholic School, which might have caused us trouble, is 
 practically confined to those areas in which there is a choice of 
 school, and will consequently be dealt with when we come to the 
 local option area. 
 
 If the only available school is a Board School, its successor 
 under the Bill will be a Local Authority School, managed either 
 directly by the Local Authority itself or by a committee of its 
 appointment. In every such school I propose that Biblical 
 teaching (subject of course to the conscience clause, which I 
 assume to operate in aU schools) shall be given at stated times 
 by fit and competent teachers as a regular part of its curriculum. 
 Thus there will be no purely secular schools in these areas, and 
 it will be noted that my proposal lays on the managers the duty 
 of satisfying themselves by all necessary inquiries concerning 
 the teachers whom they appoint to give Bible lessons, as to their 
 fitness and competency for this responsible work. This provision 
 amounts to a highly valuable and very reasonable amendment of 
 the Cowper-Temple Clause, the objectionable thing in connection 
 with this clause being, not that it prohibits the teaching of 
 denominational formularies or catechisms, but that it prohibits, 
 or has been interpreted as prohibiting, the managers of a school 
 from inquiring into the fitness and competency of a candidate 
 for office to give Biblical instruction. 
 
 Further, I would admit to these schools denominational 
 teachers provided by any denomination at its own cost, whether 
 members of the school staff or otherwise, to give denominational 
 rehgious teaching to children of that denomination, either at the 
 beginning or end of a school meeting, but outside the regular 
 hours of school attendance. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the only school available is denomina- 
 tional in character, let us say, for example, a Church School, my 
 proposal runs as follows : 
 
 The committee of management shall be counted as a com- 
 mittee of the Local Educational Authority, and shall be appointed 
 one-third by that Authority, one-third by the Parish in which 
 the school stands, and one-third by the Church owners or trustees 
 of the building. 
 
 The teachers shall be appointed by the whole committee of 
 management, all posts being equally open to candidates of 
 different religious denominations, except that if a majority of 
 the children belong to the Church, the managers representing
 
 vii EDUCATION BILLS 183 
 
 the Church may, at the time of appointment, require the head 
 teacher to be a member of the Church. 
 
 The rehgious instruction shall consist partly of Bible lessons 
 on stated days as arranged by the managers, and partly of 
 instruction in the doctrine and formularies of the Church, for 
 which the clergy of the parish are to have free access to the school 
 at reasonable times. Ministers or other duly authorised teachers 
 of other denominations are to have liberty to give special religious 
 instruction to the children of their own denomination before or 
 after a regular school meeting, but outside the ordinary hours of 
 school attendance, and at the cost of their denomination. 
 
 Such is the scheme I advocate for the single school area. I 
 advocate it as giving what is just and fair to other denominations, 
 whilst the Church has nothing to fear from it. To put the matter 
 in its most concrete and practical form, my belief is that there is 
 hardly an Incumbent in this room who under this scheme would 
 not find himself with a working majority of Churchmen on the 
 managing committee of his school ; and if there should be one 
 here and there who could not secure so much support in his 
 parish, his clerical neighbours would probably have to admit that 
 he has deserved his fate ; and I am perfectly certain that there 
 is not one Incumbent amongst us who would be in any way 
 hindered under it from instructing his children fully and freely 
 in the doctrine and practice of our Church. 
 
 On the other hand, it would bring us the blessings of religious 
 peace in place of religious dissension on this subject, because it 
 would so far satisfy reasonable nonconformists as practically to 
 put an end to nonconformist agitation, or to reduce it to com- 
 parative insignificance. 
 
 We turn next to the local option area, which may be defined 
 as an area in which there is both a Local Authority School and also 
 a denominational school — it may be a Church School or a Roman 
 Catholic School, according to denominational requirements — • 
 within reach of every child. 
 
 The Local Authority School will be managed and conducted 
 just as in the single school area, and open to all children whose 
 parents do not prefer the denominational school, so that in this 
 area, it will be observed, parents have no religious grievance. 
 
 The denominational school, whether Anglican or Roman 
 Catholic, or belonging to some other denomination, may under 
 these circumstances be equitably managed and conducted as 
 follows : 
 
 The committee of management to be a committee of the Local 
 Educational Authority, and to be appointed as in Clause 7 of the 
 Bill.
 
 i84 LIFE OF BISFIOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 The teachers to be appointed by the managers. 
 
 The rehgious instruction to be given in accordance with the 
 Trust Deed, where such Trust Deed exists, subject, of course, to 
 a conscience clause, by the clergy of the denomination or other 
 fit and competent teachers, the necessary arrangements being 
 made by the managers. 
 
 Under this arrangement, Roman Catholics should be satisfied, 
 and also our Anglican clergy, whilst, as I have indicated above, 
 the parents have no longer any grievance, as they have free choice 
 of school. If there be a grievance left to deal with, it is solely 
 of the political or constitutional character, and should not be 
 insuperable. It may be argued that it is unconstitutional to 
 hand over public monies to be administered by these Roman or 
 Anglican school committees, two-thirds of which are nominated 
 or appointed by the denominational owners of the school buildings. 
 Seeing, however, that under this scheme such committees occupy 
 the subordinate position of committees of the publicly-appointed 
 Local Authority, and bearing in mind that the rights of parents 
 have been completely safeguarded, it will, I hope, be generally 
 acknowledged by practical and fair-minded men that substantial 
 justice is secured by it. 
 
 Such is my suggested scheme. You may, if you will, call it 
 a compromise, or by any other name that seems more suitable, 
 but by whatever name it is called, I earnestly desire its acceptance, 
 because I am convinced that the sectarian warfare which threatens 
 us, unless it can be averted by the general acceptance of some 
 such scheme as this, will prove disastrous alike to the progress of 
 popular education, to the work and influence of our Church, and 
 to the general spirit of true religion among both Churchmen and 
 Nonconformists. 
 
 It offers a practical settlement of differences which, as I 
 believe, is still possible, and I hold it to be at this moment our 
 primary duty as Churchmen, laying aside all prejudices and 
 partial affections, to consider such a proposal dispassionately on 
 its merits, and to support it by our influence, unless we have 
 something else to propose which we have reason to believe will 
 be more likely to bring peace and goodwill. 
 
 So I conclude with Horace's very reasonable request, which I 
 take the liberty of addressing equally to Mr, Balfour and Cardinal 
 Vaughan and Dr. Chfford, and to every Churchman here present — 
 
 Si quid novisti rectius istis 
 Candidus imperii ; si non, his utere mecum. 
 
 In October 1902 Percival published in the Nineteenth
 
 VII 
 
 EDUCATION BILLS 185 
 
 Century a " Plea for Mutual Concessions." He did not like 
 the BiU as it was drafted by the Government ; but he could 
 not join in mere condemnation of it. Neither party, how- 
 ever, was disposed to make concessions. The Bill went 
 through, and though amendments were made in the course 
 of its passage, these made it more rather than less distasteful 
 to the Nonconformists, and to those who held that no public 
 money should be available for denominational instruction. 
 But, after all, only a fraction of the Bill dealt with denomina- 
 tional questions ; it was truly an Education Bill, and the 
 greater part of it was concerned with the unification and 
 development of the national system of education. 
 
 It is particularly characteristic of Percival that when 
 actually dealing as a member of a legislative body with the 
 Bill proposed by the Government, he complained far more 
 of its timidity in advancing education as a whole than of its 
 treatment of the religious question. This was the keynote 
 of his speech on this subject in Convocation, and also of his 
 speeches in the House of Lords. The most important 
 amendment which he moved during the Committee stage of 
 the Bill, during which he was most assiduous in attendance 
 and in comment, was as follows : 
 
 Subject to the approval of the Board of Education the County 
 or Borough Council may, if they think it desirable, make attend- 
 ance at a reasonable number of continuation classes compulsory 
 either over the whole of their area or over any specified portion 
 of it for young persons under seventeen years of age and no longer 
 attending school or receiving other equivalent instruction. 
 
 The substance of this proposal, in a strengthened form, was 
 enacted in 1918 ; in 1902 it found little support. 
 
 The passage of the Bill did not end the trouble. " Passive 
 resistance " kept it aUve and discussion raged ceaselessly. 
 In 1906 Mr. Birrell made an attempt to satisfy those who 
 felt themselves injured by the measure of 1902. Percival 
 did not accept his Bill as it was drafted, but felt bound to 
 resist the root-and-branch opposition to it organised by the 
 Church party. His own position, in this case a mediating
 
 i86 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 one, is expressed in an appeal to Mr. Birrell which he pub- 
 lished in May 1906 : 
 
 Those of us Churchmen who are of opinion that the Education 
 Bill affords the basis of a reasonable settlement (and we are much 
 more numerous than is just now apparent amidst the dust of 
 controversy) thankfully recognise that the general tone of the 
 opposition to it is becoming more sober and moderate as its aims 
 and possibilities are better understood. 
 
 And we have the hope that the storm of opposition may be 
 allayed if the Government are able to offer reasonable concessions. 
 
 To some of us the following amendments of the Bill seem to 
 fall under this category : 
 
 (i) That teachers who may be willing to give denominational 
 instruction at the appointed hours should not be precluded from 
 so doing if their services are not otherwise required in the school 
 at the time. 
 
 To lay upon the teachers this restriction or disability would, 
 to my certain knowledge, be felt to be a very harsh measure in 
 many rural schools ; and I venture to submit to our Noncon- 
 formist friends, who may be afraid of this concession, that it 
 carries with it no risk of unfair dealing and might be safeguarded 
 by a requirement that in appointing all teachers regard shall 
 be had solely to their qualifications for their obligatory duties. 
 
 (2) That facilities for denominational teaching should be 
 granted in all schools without any distinction between transferred 
 and provided schools. 
 
 Wherever the parent has no choice of schools — and in rural 
 districts this is generally the case— it would be quite unreason- 
 able to maintain this distinction. An illustration may serve to 
 make the matter plain. I take two neighbouring parishes in my 
 diocese exactly similar, Fownhope and Woolhope. The former 
 has a Church School, the latter by some accident came to have a 
 Board School. Owing to distance the parents have no choice 
 of school in either case. Wliy, then, under the new circumstances 
 of this Bill should the parents of Woolhope be denied facilities 
 which are granted to their neighbours in Fownhope ? It must 
 be admitted that the distinction would be altogether irrational ; 
 but our further plea is that to grant facilities in all schools is the 
 statesmanlike plan, and that to do so would greatly help towards 
 a final settlement, whilst refusal would leave an open sore. 
 
 (3) In regard to the proposed Commission, if appointed, we 
 would urge that some right of appeal should be reserved. 
 
 (4) A Local Authority should not be allowed arbitrarily to
 
 VII 
 
 EDUCATION BILLS 187 
 
 refuse special facilities where the children in a school are virtually 
 all of one denomination, and there is for others a choice of schools 
 within reach. In case of refusal under such circumstances it 
 would surely be reasonable to give a right of appeal to the Board 
 of Education or other authority. 
 
 It should be added, in conclusion, that there is, as we are led 
 to believe, a very general desire among Churchmen and Non- 
 conformists alike throughout the country, that the simple Bible 
 teaching afforded by the Bill should be given within the obligatory 
 school hours. 
 
 We are aware that the option allowed to the parent to keep 
 his child away from school during this hour of rehgious instruction 
 was given by the late Government in their so-called model bye- 
 law on the subject ; but many of us felt constrained to oppose 
 that bye-law when Lord Londonderry introduced it, and we 
 earnestly hope that the Government may now see their way to 
 enact that during the first hour of obligatory attendance every 
 day religious instruction shall be given, but that all children 
 whose parents desire it shall receive secular instruction instead 
 of the religious lesson. 
 
 If Mr. Birrell should be able to give us hope of such modifica- 
 tions as these my behef is that they would be gratefully accepted 
 by the majority of Church people, and many of those who have 
 felt in conscience bound to protest would cease their opposition. 
 
 My last word is this. To some Nonconformists it is possible 
 that these concessions may seem excessive ; but the plea which 
 I venture to address to them is that they contravene no principle 
 of equal justice, and that we may fairly ask them to meet us thus 
 far in the spirit of good citizenship and for the promotion of peace 
 and goodwill. 
 
 On August 3, 1906, Percival spoke strongly in support of 
 the main principles of the Bill during the Second Reading 
 debate in the House of Lords. His emphasis was chiefly on 
 the value of the Open Bible. He based himself on the 
 principle of Christian citizenship, and urged that only trust 
 in the Local Education Authorities could lead to any whole- 
 some issue. The Lords amended the measure so completely 
 as to transform it. The Commons rejected the Lords' 
 amendments en bloc. At this moment Percival made one 
 more appeal in a letter to the Tribune :
 
 i88 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 " A Critical Moment " 
 
 STRIKING LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF HEREFORD 
 
 To the Editor of the " Tribune " 
 
 Sir — As one of those who have throughout the education 
 controversy aimed at a compromise which would be reasonably 
 fair to all parties in Church and State, and believing that the 
 Government Bill as passed through the House of Commons will, 
 with a very few concessions, prove a good and satisfactory Bill, 
 I venture to hope that it may neither be dropped by the Govern- 
 ment nor wrecked by the extremists of the House of Lords. 
 
 There are two or three things on which little has been said, 
 which should be kept distinctly before the minds of those who 
 have the final issue in their hands if they are to arrive at a right 
 and just decision. 
 
 There is first of all the unwarranted assumption, unblushingly 
 reiterated in certain quarters, that the Church of England is 
 united against the Bill. 
 
 Many High Anglican denominationalists, both clerical and 
 lay — some of them more Roman than Anglican — have acquired 
 the habit of posing on platforms and in the Press as the Church 
 par excellence. We speak, they say, on behalf of the Church ; 
 we represent the Church ; even bishops sometimes try our 
 patience by countenancing this assumption ; and what I feel it 
 my duty to submit is that statesmen will make a mistake if they 
 are influenced by this baseless assumption of a small but aggres- 
 sive minority, which happens to be prominent in Parliamentary 
 circles out of all proportion to its numbers, because of its social 
 connections and advantages, and because it is so largely clerical. 
 Its voice is not really the voice of the people at large. A good 
 many Evangelicals have, it is true, been persuaded to join this 
 High Church section against the Bill, because Conservative 
 politics have been very dexterously interwoven with the opposi- 
 tion to it, and some men don't like to part from their political 
 friends ; but apart from political considerations. Evangelical 
 Church people would, as a rule, be perfectly satisfied with that 
 reverent teaching of the Bible which, under this Bill, would be 
 the general rule in all our citizen schools. 
 
 Another fact should be borne in mind. The opponents of 
 the Bill point to the number of denunciatory petitions which have 
 been presented against it, as if these proved that the country 
 generally is opposed to it ; but these petitions in no sense repre-
 
 VII 
 
 EDUCATION BILLS 189 
 
 sent the real and deliberate opinion of the mass of Church people 
 on this question of religious instruction. Many of them, indeed, 
 are so wildly denunciatory that they have found an appropriate 
 place in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament, from which they 
 may cry quite harmlessly, Flectere si nequeo superos Acheronta 
 movebo. 
 
 For my own part, I have not had the courage, when asked, 
 to present such imprecatory language in the House of Lords ; 
 and any importance they may seem to have is discounted by the 
 fact that they have been so largely engineered in our country 
 districts by two partisan societies — one the National Society, 
 greatly fallen from its high estate of forty or fifty years ago, and 
 doing much prospective harm to the Church of England by its 
 present policy and methods ; and the other a Manchester society 
 which seems to embody the spirit of ecclesiastical bitterness and 
 violence. It is a grave misfortune to our Church that these 
 societies have been allowed by those who might have led us in a 
 spirit of conciliation so to dominate our educational policy and 
 to embitter the controversy as to endanger the passing of this 
 Bill, and thus to bring us very near to a secular system, which 
 would make the Bible a closed book to multitudes of children in 
 our great cities, and would rob thousands of teachers of the work 
 and the opportunities which they prize above all else in their 
 profession. 
 
 It is with great reluctance that I give these warnings, but the 
 moment is critical, and the agents or instruments of these 
 partisan societies represent and foster a spirit which must be 
 exorcised, if we are to have hope of a continued system of religious 
 education. Only a week ago I paid a pastoral visit to one of my 
 country parishes, and I found that a representative of one of 
 these societies had lately been there, and had, to the distress of 
 good parishioners, fulminated from the pulpit of the Church 
 against this diabolical Bill. 
 
 Happily men who are capable of using such language in the 
 House of God are exceptional and rare, but they represent a 
 spirit which is entirely hostile to the growth of Christian unity 
 in our national life, and should be exorcised. 
 
 But I fear it wiU not be exorcised until this education con- 
 troversy is got out of the air, and, therefore, I hope that the two 
 Houses of ParUament may be able by mutual concessions to 
 come to a lasting agreement on the subject. 
 
 I myself have pleaded for certain concessions in the Bill, and 
 I still hope that some of these may be obtainable, although the 
 uncompromising political spirit displayed in opposition to the 
 Bill, both in the House of Lords and outside, has, as I greatly
 
 igo LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 fear, rendered such concessions less probable than they were 
 before. Men will naturally say that it is useless to concede, 
 unless with some guarantee of religious peace and educational 
 efficiency. 
 
 On one point of primary importance, the liberty of the teacher 
 to give denominational instruction during school hours, if free 
 from other duties, I had hoped that some agreement might be 
 within the range of possibility, but the spirit shown by the 
 extreme denominationalists, and left unrebuked, if not encouraged, 
 by the Episcopal Bench, has led me sorrowfully to the conclusion 
 that this concession is hardly to be any longer expected, though 
 I still hope that existing head teachers or heads of departments 
 who are now giving denominational instruction may be left free 
 to do so for a limited period ; but our recent experience renders 
 it very doubtful whether more than this is either possible or in 
 the long run desirable in the interests of religious peace and 
 educational efficiency. 
 
 These discussions have convinced me that what we most 
 sorely need at the present time is to sink the ecclesiastical spirit 
 in the spirit of good citizenship. 
 
 Still, I venture to hope that the House of Commons will agree 
 to give us all possible concessions which make for peace, and are 
 not hostile to educational efficiency, and do not unduly hamper 
 the local educational authority. 
 
 Should any existing teachers be disappointed, I would ask 
 them to bear in mind that their best field of educational work and 
 influence is kept open for them in this Bill. Their best work is 
 done as they teach the children committed to them the simple 
 and divine gospel story ; and all truly good teachers of the 
 young in doing this will forget the particular denomination to 
 which they may themselves belong, remembering only our 
 common fundamental Christianity, and that they are exercising 
 the great privilege (there is none greater) of thus training the 
 children of our poorer fellow-citizens in the Christianity of Christ, 
 as one flock under the One Shepherd. 
 
 But this, we are told, is a New Religion. Well, then, if so, 
 let us have it pervading our schools for the upbringing and the 
 blessing of a united Christian people. — Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, Dec. lo. 
 
 The Lords insisted on their amendments and as a result 
 of the clash between the two Houses the Bill was dropped. 
 Percival was deeply depressed :
 
 VII EDUCATION BILLS 191 
 
 To Canon Alexander 
 
 December 20, igo6. 
 
 Dear Alexander — ... I am just starting for home after 
 looking on at our wreckage proceedings in the H. of L. It is, 
 I think, quite possible that our Bishops and Balfour may all 
 alike live to regret them. They are not specially gifted with that 
 insight which is the gift of true prophecy. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 To the Rev. R. Burges Bayly 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 December 21, 1906. 
 
 Dear Mr. Bayly — I am much obliged for your kind note. 
 The last month's experiences certainly leave one in low spirits, 
 though I hope we may still get a simpler and better Education 
 Bill ; but what you say about the effect of estabUshment is I fear 
 only too true. We are beginning to see to what an extent it 
 throws Bishops and Clergy into the army of the privileged and 
 worldly classes and despiritualises the Church. So when dis- 
 establishment comes it will be by no means an unmixed evil ; 
 and in Wales things have come to such a pass that the sooner 
 it comes the better it will be for the Welsh people, as it has proved 
 to be a benefit to Ireland. In England, however, I don't expect 
 to see it in my time.— Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 We must do our best to keep the Bible an open book in the 
 schools. 
 
 The controversy still raged, and Percival still sought to 
 promote agreement on what seemed to him the only healthy 
 Unes. Both in his Visitation Charge of 1907 and in his 
 Presidential Address to his Diocesan Conference in that year 
 he urged the following principles, which he also advocated 
 in a letter to The Times : 
 
 A System of National Schools 
 
 1. That it be the duty of the Local Education Authority to 
 provide a public elementary school within a reasonable distance 
 of every home. 
 
 2. Every such school to be managed by a Representative 
 Committee, responsible to the Local Education Authority, and
 
 192 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 consisting of six managers, of whom three shall be nominated 
 by the Local Education Authority, two shall be elected by the 
 parish or school district, and one by parents of children in the 
 school. 
 
 3. Bible lessons suited to the capacity of children to be given 
 as part of the daily curriculum in all such schools ; but no 
 formulary or catechism distinctive of any particular religious 
 denomination to be taught in them. Alternative secular instruc- 
 tion to be provided for all children withdrawn by their parents 
 from the Bible lesson. 
 
 4. No teacher in such schools to be subject to any denomina- 
 tional test or required to give Bible lessons unless desirous of 
 doing so. This would mean in practice that in the choice of 
 teachers no preference should be shown to one religious denomina- 
 tion over another ; but all teachers offering to give Bible lessons 
 would of course be required to produce evidence of fitness for this 
 portion of their work, just as for any other portion. 
 
 5. The Local Education Authority to make use, whenever 
 possible, of existing non-provided schools, if the owners or 
 trustees are willing to let them for the school hours at a fair rent 
 on a repairing lease. Should the owners be unwilling to let, or 
 should negotiations fail, the Local Education Authority must 
 give public notice to the parish or school district of their intention 
 to provide a new school, and of the probable amount to be raised 
 by a rate levied on the parish or school district for its share of 
 the cost of the building. If, after such notice, negotiations still 
 fail, a new school must be built to take the place of the non- 
 provided school. 
 
 6. Facilities to be afforded in all schools for denominational 
 instruction of those children whose parents wish them to receive 
 it outside the hours of obligatory attendance, that is, either at the 
 commencement or the close of the school day, according to 
 arrangement. Such instruction to be given at the cost of the 
 denomination ; and all teachers who may desire to take part 
 in such instruction to be as free to take part in it as any other 
 person. 
 
 Aided Schools 
 
 7. Due provision for a system of national schools having been 
 made as prescribed above, the owners of any recognised de- 
 nominational school may continue their school under a body 
 of six managers — three nominated by the Local Education 
 Authority, two by the owners of the school, and one by the 
 parents of the children in the school. These managers shall 
 receive the due proportion of grants for secular instruction only.
 
 VII EDUCATION BILLS 193 
 
 and for reasonable wear and tear during the hours of secular 
 instruction, but no other payment from public funds, whether 
 for rent or repairs, or any other purpose. 
 
 No school to be recognised as an aided school (a) unless it is 
 kept up to the standard of a national school in respect of buildings, 
 sanitation, equipment, qualifications, and remuneration of staff, 
 and general educational efficiency, as certified by His Majesty's 
 Inspector ; and {b) unless the number of children in the parish 
 or school district is, in the judgment of the Board of Education, 
 sufficiently large to justify their recognising two schools, due 
 regard being had to economy of public money and educational 
 efficiency. 
 
 Provided that all the above conditions are fulfilled the Local 
 Education Authority shall similarly recognise any denomina- 
 tional school which may be hereafter estabUshed as an aided 
 school. 
 
 As a practical educationist, familiar with every type of school 
 both in town and country, I claim for such a scheme as this the 
 support of all moderate Churchmen who desire to serve the best 
 interests of both Church and State. Under such a scheme the 
 religious education of the children would be amply secured ; 
 every legitimate interest of the Church would be abundantly 
 safeguarded ; and the parochial clergy would be relieved of a 
 heavy burden of anxiety in regard to their schools, and they 
 would find themselves practically as free as before to exercise 
 their pastoral influence among the children of their parish. 
 
 At the end of this period the controversy with regard to 
 elementary schools was further embittered by Mr. McKenna's 
 celebrated regulations affecting secondary schools. Into this 
 conflict also Percival entered vigorously. His views are 
 sufficiently indicated by the two letters to The Times which 
 follow : 
 
 The State and Secondary Education 
 
 To the Editor of " The Times " 
 
 Sir — With your kind permission I desire to make one or two 
 comments on the discussion at the recent Headmasters' Confer- 
 ence on the Regulations of the Board of Education for Secondary 
 Schools. 
 
 As a former headmaster I have to confess that the general 
 tone of the discussion surprised and disappointed me ; and I 
 
 o
 
 194 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 should be sorry if those of your readers who are interested in 
 educational progress were influenced or misled by it. 
 
 They ought, at any rate, to be told what these regulations 
 are which the Headmaster of Charterhouse speaks of as unhappy 
 and deplorable. 
 
 The chief points in these regulations are the following : 
 
 A. — To every recognised school a grant of £2 per annum is 
 offered for every scholar between 10 and 12 who has previously 
 spent two years in an elementary school, and £5 per annum for 
 every scholar between 12 and 18. 
 
 B. — A school, if generally efficient, is recognised, and these 
 grants are given on the following conditions : 
 
 1. It must have a conscience clause exempting scholars 
 
 from religious instruction or observance if the parents 
 so require. 
 
 2. If the school is a boarding-school with houses of a particular 
 
 denomination and no exemptions allowed in them, the 
 governors must, on the application of a parent, make 
 proper provision for his child outside in accordance with 
 the Endowed Schools Act of 1869. 
 
 3. No catechism or formulary distinctive of a particular 
 
 denomination may be taught unless the parent or 
 guardian requests the governors in writing to provide 
 such denominational teaching for his child. 
 
 4. Teachers must not be required to belong to any one 
 
 particular denomination. 
 
 5. The majority of the governors must not be required to 
 
 belong to any one particular denomination. 
 
 6. Free places must be reserved, if required, for scholars from 
 
 elementary schools who on examination are found to 
 be duly qualified for admission, such scholars not to 
 exceed 25 per cent of the whole number in the school. 
 
 7. If a school now on the grant list insists on retaining de- 
 
 nominational management, atmosphere, tests, and 
 instruction, the grants of public money will be £2 and 
 £2 los. per scholar instead of £2 and £5 ; but the Local 
 Education Authority may give the full grants of £2 and 
 £5 if in their view the school is necessary as part of the 
 Secondary School provision for their area. 
 
 8. The school must be efficient, must not compete unduly 
 
 with a neighbouring school, must be open to inspection, 
 and must not be conducted for private profit, and its 
 curriculum must be submitted to the Board of Education 
 for approval. 
 
 9. In addition to the above-named grants special grants
 
 VII 
 
 EDUCATION BILLS 195 
 
 may be made towards the expense of experiments for the 
 improvement of secondary education. 
 
 To me as a former headmaster of 25 years' experience these 
 regulations and conditions, so far from being deplorable, seem 
 to be entirely reasonable and to deserve our grateful recognition, 
 acceptance, and support. Let us examine it, then, for a moment. 
 
 They give liberal grants to encourage and aid secondary 
 education on an unprecedented scale. No such liberal help has 
 ever before been given, and the result is that those classes which 
 bear some of the heaviest public burdens^ — farmers, small trades- 
 people, the poorer members of the professions, and others — are 
 being provided with opportunities for the good education of their 
 children which have hitherto been entirely beyond their reach in 
 many districts. 
 
 For instance, in my own county of Hereford two ancient 
 and strugghng schools have been already reinvigorated by this 
 new policy of the Board of Education, and three or four new 
 schools will shortly be established ; and it may safely be asserted 
 that these schools would have had no chance of success without 
 this new aid from the Board, and the case of every other rural 
 county is, I presume, just the same. 
 
 Such a policy, I repeat, bringing as it does the possibility 
 of good education within reach of many thousands of homes, 
 deserves the grateful recognition of all parents in our country 
 districts and of all others everywhere who beheve in the education 
 of the people. 
 
 Moreover, these regulations, by requiring that the doors of 
 every aided school shall be open to duly-qualified children from 
 elementary schools, give a new opportunity to the clever children 
 of the poor, and it is high time that this opportunity should be 
 given, and the talents of such children made fully available for 
 the good of the national life. 
 
 As regards religious instruction, it should be noted that the 
 regulations are carefully drawn so that parents have no grievance. 
 If they object to the Biblical teaching which the schools are left 
 free to give as hitherto they can withdraw their children from 
 it ; if, on the other hand, they desire the catechisms and formu- 
 laries of their own denomination to be taught to their children 
 they have only to write to the school authorities, who are left as 
 free as before to give this denominational instruction, only taking 
 care, as is reasonable, that the expense of such teaching is defrayed 
 out of the pupils' fees or from other sources, and not out of the 
 grants of public money. 
 
 As to the supposed loss of freedom in school management of 
 which the headmasters seem to be afraid, the Board certainly
 
 196 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 requires guarantees of efficiency and suitability of the education 
 to be given. It could not without neglect of plain duty require 
 less than this in return for such liberal grants of public money. 
 There is no attempt to establish a uniform or cast-iron system 
 of education. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that in this new and generous policy the 
 Board of Education has entered on one of the most productive 
 of all the pieces of educational work that have been done in 
 England for centuries ; and the attitude of the headmasters 
 towards it is the more disappointing and surprising because many 
 of them are, I presume, working their schools under the provisions 
 of the Endowed Schools Act of 1869, ^^ which the new regulations 
 are largely based, with such modifications as these new grants 
 of public money necessarily require. 
 
 And what is even more surprising, most of these headmasters, 
 including those of the great public schools, have been conducting 
 their own schools very much on the lines to which they now 
 object, at least so far as rehgious instruction is concerned. 
 
 Unless things have greatly changed within the last decade 
 the religious instruction given in schools is in most of the great 
 schools exclusively Biblical, except to candidates for confirma- 
 tion, and this instruction is largely given by lay masters who have 
 submitted to no statutable test. 
 
 Even the headmasters themselves, like most of the public 
 school members of the House of Commons and the House of 
 Lords, including the Episcopal Bench, were, I take it, thus 
 educated. Such are some of the ironies of political life ; and 
 my hope is that the parents of the middle and working classes, 
 who are the persons specially concerned in this matter, for the 
 good of their children will give no heed to carping criticisms, 
 whether political or ecclesiastical, but will gratefuUy accept and 
 use the new educational advantages thus provided for the benefit 
 of their children by this new and generous policy of the Board 
 of Education. — Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, December 27. 
 
 The State and the Training Colleges 
 
 To the Editor of " The Times " 
 
 Sir — My attention has been called to a letter in your columns 
 from Sir Frederick Milner, in which he makes a sort of appeal to 
 me. Sir Frederick invites me to observe that a letter of mine
 
 VII EDUCATION BILLS 197 
 
 on the new Regulations for Secondary Schools, which appeared 
 in your issue of December 28, was refuted by Sir T. D. Acland 
 in the same issue. Sir Frederick writes, I feel sure, with the best 
 intentions, but apparently with inadequate knowledge, as, un- 
 fortunately for his contention, Sir T. D. Acland's letter and mine 
 dealt with quite different subjects. 
 
 My letter described the chief points in the new Regulations 
 for Secondary Schools, and showed what a stimulus they are 
 giving to good educational work all over England. Sir T. D. 
 Acland's letter dealt entirely with the colleges for the training 
 of elementary school teachers. It would almost seem as if Sir 
 Frederick Milner is under the impression that these very different 
 types of institution are one and the same. His remarkable 
 letter deserves another word of comment. It concludes with a 
 passage which is at once incoherent and grossly unfair to Mr. 
 McKenna ; but such a letter serves one good purpose. It shows 
 conclusively the need of some dispassionate examination of 
 Mr. McKenna's new Regulations for Training Colleges. So much 
 controversial dust has been stirred up around them that I doubt 
 whether the public in general reaUy understand what new con- 
 ditions they impose ; and many of my fellow Churchmen have 
 been needlessly alarmed. The regulations deal, in fact, first of 
 all with the existing training colleges already recognised, and 
 then with any new colleges to be established or recognised after 
 August I, 1907 ; and it is necessary for a true understanding of 
 the matter to consider the two classes separately. 
 
 First, .then, let us look at the case of the existing colleges. 
 There are, I beUeve nearly forty denominational training colleges 
 in England ; and of these the greater part, about thirty in all, 
 belong to the Church of England. Formerly we Church people 
 bore a considerable proportion of the cost of maintenance for 
 each student in them ; now, however, our contribution seems to 
 have sunk to something under 5 per cent of the total cost, the 
 remaining 95 per cent (except such payments as are made by 
 the students themselves) being contributed by the grants from 
 the Board of Education. These grants of public money having 
 become so preponderating, the responsible Minister of Education 
 feels that the doors of colleges thus supported ought to be open 
 to students of all religious denominations, as they are practically 
 maintained in operation by aU denominations. Well, then, we 
 ask, what new conditions does he impose ? 
 
 The only new regulations made which are of any moment in 
 this controversy are the following : (i) No duly quaUfied candi- 
 date may be refused admission on the ground of religious faith. 
 (2) Every college must have a conscience clause. (3) Every
 
 198 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 college must keep a register of applications for admission in the 
 order of their application. (4) Candidates must be admitted on 
 the King's Scholarship examination, and must not be required 
 to pass any additional or private entrance examination. 
 
 It would be easy to show, if space permitted, that these 
 requirements are necessary and inevitable under present circum- 
 stances, and that no one need fear lest they should upset either 
 the teaching or discipline or tone of a well-managed college. 
 And it should, moreover, be borne in mind that every one of these 
 existing colleges is left with its denominational character un- 
 disturbed, its denominational management, its denominational 
 principal and staff, its denominational teaching, its denomina- 
 tional worship, and its denominational atmosphere. When Sir 
 T. D. Acland wrote that the new regulations undenominational- 
 ised the training colleges, he must have overlooked all this ; and 
 it is not quite fair to Mr. McKenna to forget or ignore it. Indeed, 
 I anticipate that the general verdict as regards the existing 
 coDeges will probably be that denominationalists have no reason- 
 able ground for alarm or complaint. 
 
 Let us now turn from these existing colleges, which include 
 all the colleges which Church people have hitherto thought it 
 necessary to establish, to the case of new colleges hereafter to 
 be recognised. For these, on the constitutional ground that the 
 State now pays 95 per cent of their maintenance (excepting such 
 payments as are made by the students themselves), Mr. McKenna 
 issues new regulations which are very similar to those for the 
 grant-aided secondary schools. He lays it down that (i) no 
 member of the teaching staff shall be required to belong to any 
 particular religious denomination ; (2) a majority of the govern- 
 ing body must not be required to belong to any particular religious 
 denomination ; (3) no catechism or formulary distinctive of any 
 particular religious denomination may be taught in the college 
 except in cases where the parent or guardian of a student requests 
 the governors in writing to give such teaching ; (4) students 
 must not be refused on the ground of their religious faith, and 
 there must be a conscience clause. 
 
 Even here in the new colleges, chiefly maintained by the 
 State, it should be noted that if any parents desire denomina- 
 tional instruction they have only to apply in writing to the 
 governing body and it may be given to the students concerned. 
 Consequently the parents can hardly be said to have any legiti- 
 mate grievance ; and for my own part my school and University 
 experience has led me long ago to this conclusion, that it is far 
 better for the training of the young throughout their educational 
 period, and especially for those who are to be themselves teachers
 
 VII 
 
 EDUCATION BILLS 199 
 
 of others, that they should be trained as much as possible in the 
 spirit of Christian unity. 
 
 The fundamental teachings of Christian life, faith, and con- 
 duct, based on the Gospel revelation, are essentially the same 
 for the different Christian denominations, and can without 
 difficulty be given in common ; and children and young people 
 should be brought up to feel that they are the same and that, in 
 spite of all denominational differences, we are one body in Christ 
 Jesus, The separatist, sectarian, denominationalist tendency to 
 segregate our children into rival pens for all rehgious instruc- 
 tion may produce Pharisees, but hardly Christians. Indeed, 
 this denominationalist spirit, which has taken such a strong hold 
 on some sections of our clergy and a few laymen, is doing much 
 harm to the national Church and the national life. It is quite 
 foreign to the spirit of an enlightened evangelical Christianity ; 
 and we should keep it as far as may be out of all our educational 
 system. 
 
 Our aim and desire should be towards unity of spirit and 
 friendly co-operation between the Established Church and the 
 great Nonconformist bodies ; and it is our plain duty to avoid 
 everything that may deepen and widen the cleavage caused by 
 the unhappy divisions of darker days. — Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 The Palace, Hereford, Jan. 8. 
 
 The controversy is over, at least in the form in which it 
 raged from 1895 to 1907, though the question at issue is by 
 no means settled. It has been necessary to tell the story of 
 Percival's part in it at length, both because it reveals his zeal 
 for education, and also because it largely explains how it 
 came to pass that in his later years he had the air of one 
 fighting alone against great odds. On the burning question 
 of the day he had been opposed to his brother Bishops. He 
 thought their action due to a fundamentally false conception 
 of the Church. Consequently he had Uttle hope that, by 
 waiting till they were persuaded, he might be able in other 
 departments of Church Hfe to advance the cause that seemed 
 to him right with their approval or support. Collective 
 advance seemed to him unattainable. He set himself more 
 and more resolutely to go forward alone.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE BOSTON PEACE CONGRESS, I904 
 
 In the autumn of 1904 Bishop Percival went to America to 
 attend the Peace Congress at Boston. He sailed from 
 Liverpool on September 22. Just before reaching the 
 American continent he kept his seventieth birthday and 
 wrote to his wife in commemoration of the event : 
 
 s.s. " Republic," 
 Sept. 27, 1904. 
 
 My dear Mary — ^Three-score-years-and-ten to-day. That 
 is the meaning of the date I've just written, and I ought to be 
 thankful that at such an age I am strong enough to be careering 
 across the Atlantic as I am doing. 
 
 The letter was finished after his arrival in America, where he 
 was at first the guest of Dean Hodges, the Principal of the 
 Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge : 
 
 c/o Dean Hodges, 
 
 The Deanery, Cambridge, 
 
 Sept. 30, 3 P.M. 
 
 Here I am, installed in a beautiful house and with a particu- 
 larly nice host and hostess ; and it seems to be arranged that I 
 stay here till next Thursday, when I am to be the guest of Pro- 
 fessor Goodwin, a famous Greek scholar. He and his wife are 
 very nice people, and I met them in Egypt years ago — ^hence, I 
 suppose, the kind invitation. After that I am to go to Bishop 
 Lawrence's sister for the rest of my stay. 
 
 We ended our voyage by running into Boston Harbour in 
 beautiful sunshine about 11.30 this morning, and I feel a new 
 man for the rest and sea air. 
 
 200
 
 CHAP. VIII THE BOSTON PEACE CONGRESS, 1904 201 
 
 Bateman ^ also has enjoyed his voyage. He looks after me 
 most carefully. — Your affectionate husband, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Dean has two or three dinner invitations and as many 
 luncheons, and one or two meetings accepted for me, so you see 
 I shall be kept going till I am on board ship again. 
 
 On Sunday, October 2, the Bishop preached at Emmanuel 
 Church, Boston, on the words of Micah : " They shall beat 
 their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning 
 hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither 
 shall they learn war any more." He said : 
 
 This vision of the prophet is recognised as one of the great 
 visions of history. But, my brethren, the strange and humiliat- 
 ing thing is that the vision of peace, so beautiful and so universally 
 recognised as expressing some of the highest and best aspirations 
 of the human heart, still remains unrealised even in the most 
 advanced and most Christian communities. 
 
 Some 2600 years have elapsed since this prophet of the people, 
 this friend of the poor and suffering multitudes who invariably 
 gain the least and suffer most by war, saw in his vision the 
 happier and better day for which he was yearning in his heart. 
 But it is still only the dreamer's vision of the future. We are 
 still looking, as Micah looked, toward the " issue of the days," 
 and most of us here to-day, if not all of us, will very likely go 
 down to the grave, like the patriarchs of old, not having received 
 the promises, but having seen them afar off. 
 
 From this ideal picture of a peaceful world, permeated by 
 the spirit of security and contentment and national goodwill, we 
 turn to the actual reality that meets us all the world over, 
 whether civilised or unciviUsed, from North to South, from far 
 East to far West. If I do you wrong by seeming to include you 
 of this country, forgive me that wrong, and be thankful that the 
 spirit of peace is predominating in all your individual and national 
 life. 
 
 Looking around we see Christian nations — my own included 
 —squandering their wealth and their manliood on armies and 
 navies and all the accompanying implements of destruction. In 
 my own country last year we spent ^^7 1,750,000 on the army and 
 the navy. During the last ten years we have, I think, doubled 
 
 ^ Mr. Bateman, his faithful servant and friend, accompanied the 
 Bishop on the visit to America.
 
 202 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 our expenditures for these purposes of warfare. Such, brethren, 
 is Christian progress in Christian Europe. 
 
 If we are to maintain, to extend and strengthen the influence 
 of Christ in our common Hfe in all our affairs, we must learn that 
 selfish or unscrupulous greed is as mean a thing in a nation as it 
 is in an individual. It stamps both with the mark of degrada- 
 tion. We have to learn to feel that the jingo spirit which 
 swaggers in its pride and delights in warfare and aggression is 
 in the main a survival of those brutal instincts that should be 
 eliminated from every civilised and Christian life. 
 
 On the afternoon of the same Sunday he preached again, 
 and in the evening delivered an address at the Consecration 
 Service in Symphony Hall. This address was one of his 
 greatest utterances. A vast audience of over four thousand 
 people gave him an ovation when he rose, cheering again and 
 again before he could begin. WTien he had finished he could 
 hardly be got away for the crowds of people pressing to shake 
 hands with him. His own account of the day in his letter 
 to his wife was characteristically minimising both as regards 
 the size of the audience and the reception of himself and his 
 speech. 
 
 Oct. 4, 1904. 
 
 Since I wrote to you my letter on arrival here I have been 
 pretty much on the run all the time. On Saturday my host 
 carried me off to a luncheon given by the Twentieth Century Club 
 — a crowded room and speeches to follow, about three hours 
 altogether. That evening I got ready for my Sunday work — two 
 sermons and an address. For the sermons I had large congrega- 
 tions, and the address in the evening was in a great Hall with 
 something like 3000 people in it. It was a sort of service and 
 very impressive. The people were pleased with my little address. 
 
 The following is the text of the " little address " : 
 
 Standing here, on the invitation of the highly honoured 
 President of your Peace Society, a stranger in your city, although 
 a kinsman, I am reminded of the words of a distinguished foreigner 
 to whom I hstened in England the other day. 
 
 " Whenever I come to a foreign land," he said, " I make it a
 
 VIII THE BOSTON PEACE CONGRESS, 1904 203 
 
 rule, and every traveller," he added, " should do the same, to 
 ask myself the question — wherein does the greatness of this 
 country consist ? " And I hope that I may on the present 
 occasion appropriately adopt and expand this question, lingering 
 over it for an introductory moment or two and asking — wherein 
 does not only the greatness but the singular attraction and the 
 happiness of your country consist ? 
 
 On the greatness of the United States I need not dilate. It 
 is known and understood of all men. 
 
 I turn rather to the secret of its attractive power. We 
 travellers from the older world are attracted not so much by the 
 fascination of your unbounded energy, the energy of a people 
 who, like the ancient Greeks, are always young, as by the beUef 
 that here we may see, if not the realisation of our highest hopes 
 for human society, at any rate the surest promise of it — freedom, 
 equality, brotherhood, peace, growing as in a native and virgin soil, 
 unhampered by those opposing and overshadowing influences 
 which are a part of our inheritance in European life. 
 
 We come from amidst the survivals of darker ages, from the 
 contradictions and discords, the jealousies and enmities, of our 
 older countries, as to a land of industrious peace. Possibly some 
 of you may be moved to say that the reality of your life is not 
 altogether what we have imagined it to be — that we have con- 
 templated it through the golden haze which tinges and glorifies 
 the western sky as we follow the sun. 
 
 It may be so ; and yet I hold on to my conception even 
 though it may prove to be in some degree an illusion. 
 
 I go even further and venture to say to you that the American 
 people will prove untrue to their beginnings and unworthy of 
 their ancestry and of their great opportunity if they should ever 
 in any degree, or under any influences from the old world, 
 abandon their ideal that this Repubhc is to be in a special sense 
 the home of equal liberty, justice, brotherhood, and Peace. Your free, 
 unfettered, equal life on this great continent, under no ancient 
 military despotism, with no hampering feudal traditions, and 
 barring the one stain of slavery, which you have chivalrously 
 swept away, no privileged or dominant classes— all this marks 
 out your country as the natural meeting-place of those who are 
 seeking to establish and to realise peace on earth among men 
 of goodwill. 
 
 Your Christian ancestry, the spirit and aims of the founders 
 of this City and State, and of your Republic, their high purposes, 
 their profound faith, their illustrious names, their never-to-be- 
 forgotten words — all alike mark you out as a nation called in the 
 providence of God to be in the vanguard of the great army of
 
 204 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 freedom and peace which is destined, as we beUeve, to transform 
 the hfe of the world. 
 
 It is no word of flattery which I am addressing to you. It is 
 simply my profound belief in your true vocation, in the high 
 destiny that lies open to you, if only you know it and hold on 
 to it. 
 
 This is surely the revelation of duty, private and public, which 
 should rise before every American citizen, and determine all your 
 policy as a nation. May your young men see and surrender 
 their souls to this revelation of national duty, and in their old 
 age be able to say with Paul : "I was not disobedient to the 
 heavenly vision." 
 
 Well then, we are met here to-night from East and West to 
 help forward the cause of peace among the nations of the earth. 
 In what capacity do we come ? That is my first question to 
 myself : and the answer is very plain — we come simply as 
 disciples of Jesus of Nazareth — as Christian men and women. 
 
 Looking over the past history of mankind I see no sure 
 evidence, and looking forward I see no sure prospect of any real 
 advancement, any certain victory in the warfare against war 
 unless it be through the growing influence and power of the 
 spirit of Christ. 
 
 In Europe I see some men spending their lives in this great 
 cause of Peace, who do not acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus. 
 I honour such men for their noble self-sacrifice. They put many 
 of us Christians to shame. They are fighting the battle of Christ, 
 casting out devils, though not in His name ; but this I would say 
 to them and to all others— there is little hope of any large or 
 enduring success in the cause of Peace, imless we can inspire both 
 the peoples and the Government of the modern world with a 
 sense of the pre-eminent and paramount claims of those virtues 
 which Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 There is no disparagement then of the pagan virtues — wisdom, 
 temperance, justice, courage. These hold their high place in 
 Christian life, as in all Hfe ; but Christ has exalted and enthroned 
 a new type of virtues. He gives us a new ideal of Hfe and a new 
 conception of human perfection. He breathes a new spirit into 
 human society— the spirit of humiHty, patience, forgiveness, love 
 of righteousness, love of souls, love of peace. Here we have the 
 well-spring, the never-faiHng source of that peace movement 
 which has brought us into this Hall of Symphony to-night ; a 
 stream of Divine influence in our life, flowing from this source 
 Hke the stream of Holy Waters in the Hebrew Prophet's Vision, 
 and destined, as we believe, to become a river which no man 
 can pass over.
 
 VIII THE BOSTON PEACE CONGRESS, 1904 205 
 
 It is just in proportion as this Christian enthusiasm of humanity 
 grows in the hearts of men that the cause of Peace among nations 
 will grow and prosper. Therefore, we are here as followers of 
 Jesus, the Prince of Peace ; and that is the first thing to bear 
 in mind. 
 
 But under what circumstances do we come ? 
 
 The circumstances, it must be admitted, to those who come 
 out of the atmosphere of European life, or survey the politics of 
 the great powers of the old world, are by no means favourable. 
 
 One of the most high-minded, most dispassionate, and greatest 
 of our living English statesmen— Mr. Leonard Courtney— speak- 
 ing at Manchester not long ago in this cause of Peace, after 
 pointing to the lurid and discouraging facts of the moment, 
 as seen in the Far East and elsewhere, said : " We have to 
 recognise the state of feeUng amongst civiUsed countries, a feehng 
 which is pregnant with danger of war, instead of the old desire 
 for pacific relations. 
 
 " Instead of a temper of trust and confidence in our neighbours 
 there has come over Europe, and there is extending beyond 
 Europe, a temper of aggression, a temper of annexation, a temper 
 of extension of influence and authority, a temper of pride which 
 is very threatening to the future peace of the world." Such are 
 the words of one of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet Ministers. 
 
 This temper of national greed and pride is mainly responsible 
 for that mischievous and debasing influence in English life, 
 commonly described as jingoism, that bastard patriotism which 
 it should be the aim of every good citizen to eradicate and 
 destroy, planting in its stead the true Christian patriotism whose 
 aim is righteous dealing, peace, and goodwill. 
 
 It is the same spirit of self-interest, pride, and mutual distrust 
 which has caused the great Powers of Europe to incur at Con- 
 stantinople what Mr. Gladstone truly called indelible disgrace. 
 
 Had the spirit of Christ gained any real and paramount 
 influence in the council chambers of monarchs, statesmen, and 
 ambassadors, we should never have seen what must now remain 
 as a dishonouring stain upon the civilisation of our time — the 
 humiliating picture of the armed powers of Europe, in their 
 mutual jealousies and rivalries, and selfish antagonisms, looking 
 on, or shall we say holding the lists, whilst the Sultan of Turkey 
 whom they prop on his throne pursues his infamous policy of 
 robbery, outrage, lust, and murder, among his unoffending 
 Christian subjects. 
 
 Here, then, in this great field of international politics we see 
 a whole dark continent of human life to a great extent given over 
 to what in the language of the New Testament is branded as
 
 2o6 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 pleonexia, or covetousness — the spirit of greed — embedded, as 
 you know, in the letters of St. Paul in the very centre of all the 
 vices. 
 
 This selfish greed is the malign power which makes war its 
 instrument, and is everywhere opposed to peace and goodwill. 
 
 Such is that spirit of commercial militarism which has spread 
 through a great part of the political life of Europe like some 
 dangerous epidemic. 
 
 If it should threaten to invade your country, my prayer is 
 that you may escape the danger and be true to your destiny as a 
 great democracy inspired and ruled by the spirit of industrious 
 and generous Peace. Only yesterday I read in a noble address 
 on the Principles of your Founders, given by one of your own 
 citizens, these words : " Our whole great group of Massachusetts' 
 poets — Emerson, Bryant, Whittier, Holmes, Longfellow, and 
 Lowell, have sung together the song of peace and order and 
 humanity. All alike have ceased to be quoted for our national 
 purposes in the last five years." 
 
 Is it, I wonder, for a poet like Rudyard Kipling that your 
 popular writers have deserted these great ones ? 
 
 If so, it is an ominous desertion ; for Kipling, whatever his 
 genius, is the exponent of strife and violence, we might even say 
 of brutality. His ideals are those of the barrack-room. Com- 
 pared with your own poets he voices the baser elements in human 
 life, and his influence is downwards. 
 
 So, I repeat, my prayer is that you — this American nation — 
 may hold on ever faithful to your own founders and leaders, and 
 to the policy of Freedom and of Peace — the Abdiel of the nations, 
 if all others fall away. 
 
 And, finally, what is it we have to do in and through the 
 teaching and the influence of Peace Societies all the world over, 
 among men and women, young and old ? Once more I quote 
 Mr. Leonard Courtney. We have to do in particular two things. 
 
 We have to do our best to persuade every great nation, and 
 so to compel every government to recognise the authority of 
 Law instead of Force in all international disputes, just as we 
 recognise it in private affairs, so that more and more under a 
 High Court of the Nations men may live in peace and harmony. 
 
 And, lastly, we have to endeavour to breathe into the life of 
 the various countries to which we belong a passionate desire, a 
 new enthusiasm, to put an end as between civilised nations to the 
 barbarities of warfare with all its burden of hardship, privation, 
 and sorrow to the unprivileged multitudes, that is to the great 
 majority of men and women in every land involved in war. 
 
 And we meet here in Boston, in this home of the early peace
 
 VIII THE BOSTON PEACE CONGRESS, 1904 207 
 
 movement, with good hope that just as that small company which 
 met in the study of Wilham EUery Channing years ago, has grown 
 into a host in all lands — the little one has become a thousand — 
 so this movement may go forward, unhasting, unresting, increas- 
 ing in power and volume until it establishes the reign of Peace 
 and concord among all the truly civilised nations of the earth. 
 
 This noble appeal to the American people produced a very 
 wide and deep impression. The editor of The Springfield Re- 
 publican in returning the manuscript said, " Permit me, as 
 one American citizen, to thank you warmly for your stirring 
 call to my countrymen to perform their great and obvious 
 duty to mankind." 
 
 From Boston the Bishop went for a brief visit to New 
 York. On October 12 a meeting in connection with the 
 Peace Congress was held and he was the chief speaker. In 
 the course of his address on this occasion he said : 
 
 The progress of the future is to be marked by righteous dealings 
 between nations, as between individual men. Old as I am, I 
 hope to see the American nation combining with my own people 
 to lead the van of the great peace movement of the world. Even 
 in America, I take it, you have still some progress to make in 
 this matter. Only this morning in the State House of Boston 
 I read a motto, which I believe is the motto of the State of 
 Massachusetts, Ense petit placidam sub libertate quieiem, " With 
 the sword this State makes the calmness of peace under the flag 
 of liberty." I know it is difficult to improve on anything found 
 in Boston. But I hope you can improve on this motto in New 
 York by leaving out the reference to the sword. Make all the 
 beauties and harmonies of peace, not by the sword, but by the 
 power of law. 
 
 On the Sunday next after his great address at Boston he 
 was present, with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 
 Bishop of Ripon (Boyd-Carpenter), at the opening of the 
 American Church Convention. 
 
 The whole visit lasted only a fortnight, but it was a time 
 of great stimulus and refreshment. Old friendships were 
 revived and new friendships formed. The rest during the two 
 voyages, the change of scene and the cordiality of his recep- 
 tion, were all rejuvenating to an old man who had for many
 
 2o8 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap, vm 
 
 years been fighting solitary battles. And the beauty of the 
 American " Fall " was by no means lost upon him. But he 
 had to hurry home for his Diocesan Conference, for which 
 he made the final arrangements in letters written from his 
 ship on the outward voyage.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A VISIT TO EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 
 
 In 1905 the Bishop's youngest son, Arthur Percival, who 
 was then Colonel of the Camel Corps in the Soudan, proposed 
 to his father that he should come out to Egypt and, after 
 making his way to Khartoum, ride to El Obeid. He said 
 that this meant — 
 
 Ten days' camel ride, doing about 20 miles a day, and you could 
 ride horses and donkeys as well. Of course it would be an open- 
 air life and no houses, but I could give you a tent and make you 
 pretty comfortable. 
 
 Arthur Percival himself had had some curious adventures 
 in the previous few years, as appears from the two following 
 letters : 
 
 To Mrs. Killigrew Wait 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 August 24, 1903. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Wait — I had forgotten about Arthur's photos 
 and can pick them up when we come. He writes cheerfully 
 from his African desert. Lately he had a quite oriental ex- 
 perience. His cash box, containing his medals and his money, 
 was stolen one night out of his room, in which he keeps two young 
 cheetahs as pets. In the morning he sent at once for a native 
 tracker who tracked the footsteps of the thief over sand covered 
 with hundreds of the footprints to Arthur's own Unes and thence 
 out into the desert, where he found the cash box buried, and 
 further on a packet of cigarettes buried. Then he traced him 
 back to the lines, and did all this, covering about two miles in 
 twenty-live minutes. So Arthur called out 400 men, drew them 
 
 209 P
 
 210 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 up in a line and made them march barefooted fifty paces. The 
 tracker then ran across the footprints and spotted the thief's 
 foot without a moment's hesitation. Measurements verified 
 this, and when they took him back to the place where he buried 
 the box, he confessed. Arthur is to join the Camel Corps next 
 month. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 To Miss Wait 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 January 29, 1905. 
 
 Dear Mary — Bessie may have told you that Arthur had 
 been sent off in October on a long march through untried country 
 with a little Battalion he had recruited and drilled for the pur- 
 pose. We have just had a letter from him, posted in the Bahr- 
 el-Ghazal, December 23. He had just arrived after an interest- 
 ing but in parts very rough and trying experience ; and he was 
 to start on another expedition about January i. Part of his 
 march, lasting for some weeks, had been over a vast plain largely 
 covered with grass 6 to 8 feet high, intersected by rivers, and 
 mostly inhabited by elephants, rhinoceros, lions, and all sorts 
 of game. His men were so fever-stricken that about sixty 
 had to be lifted into their saddles for some time. He himself 
 escaped fever. My love to Mabel. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 To propose to a man of seventy-two that he should set 
 out for a ten days' camel ride is somewhat audacious. But 
 the Bishop determined to accept the invitation. The story 
 of the trip may be told in selections from his letters to 
 Mrs. Percival. 
 
 Jan. 10. Cairo. — We ^ landed at Port Said yesterday about 
 3 P.M. . . . We have to start this evening at 6.30, and are due 
 at Assouan to-morrow. As yet I have not seen an English 
 paper or heard any news. I expect there is nothing going on 
 but electioneering, and it is rather nice to be out of the turmoil 
 of it. In this calm Eastern air one feels humbled by the thought 
 of the littleness of our personal concerns. 
 
 Jan. II, 1906. Luxor. — Here we are stopping at Luxor for 
 
 ^ His eldest son, Robert, was with him until they returned to Khartoum, 
 when the Bishop proceeded alone to Cairo and thence to England, leaving 
 his son in the Soudan.
 
 IX A VISIT TO EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 211 
 
 two days, as I got a telegram from Arthur after writing to you 
 at Cairo to say that he cannot meet us at Duem till the 24th. 
 This being so, I decided to see Luxor these two days and Assouan 
 Saturday to Monday, when we shall start for Khartoum and 
 arrive there on the i8th. At Khartoum we are to be the guests 
 of Bonham-Carter, who is Legal Secretary of the Soudan. He 
 is an old Cliftonian and a friend of Lance's, and he sent a message 
 to Cairo that he is expecting us. Arthur also says that he has 
 sent his servant to meet us at Khartoum and take charge of us. 
 This Uttle delay suits us very well, as we see Luxor and Assouan 
 going up, and we get to the warmer chmate gradually, and then 
 we can return straight from Khartoum to Cairo without stopping. 
 
 We arrived here — Luxor Hotel — at 9 a.m. on a lovely morning, 
 quite cool, and we are fairly plunged into the gorgeous East. 
 This hotel is near the river, and outside the garden is the great 
 temple of Luxor with its splendid pillars, and a very fine obelisk 
 standing at the entrance. . . . This afternoon we are to ride 
 on donkeys a dusty ride to show Bob the temple of Karnak, 
 about two miles away. They have, I believe, done some fresh 
 excavations since I was there, and have also had an earthquake, 
 so I may find it changed. 
 
 Jan. 12. — We did not get to Karnak yesterday afternoon 
 as I expected, not having got our tickets of admission, so we 
 went after dinner and saw the stupendous place by moonhght. 
 Very impressive — the avenue of Sphinxes outside looking so 
 dignified and mysterious, and the huge pillars and the two 
 obelisks inside so immense. To-day has been our one great 
 day of sight-seeing, and in glorious sunshine. . . . We started 
 with a dragoman at 8.30, crossed the river and rode on donkeys 
 across the plains and up the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings — 
 bleak and bare, with high reddish rocks on both sides — the 
 tombs being in the sides of the mountains. You go down long 
 galleries with some side chambers, all brilliantly coloured with 
 hieroglyphics and figures of the various gods and the great 
 persons buried there — a sight which fills one with wonder at 
 every visit. We saw three tombs to-day — (i) Rameses VI. 
 (about 1200 B.C., I suppose very beautiful and in excellent 
 condition) ; (2) Seti I., the father of the great Rameses II., who 
 was the Pharaoh that oppressed the Israelites (this also is very 
 fine and interesting) ; and (3) Amenophis II., whose date I 
 forget, probably about 1400 B.C. — only discovered three years 
 ago, and it has never been opened or rifled ; so you go down the 
 beautiful galleries tiU you come to a decorated chamber with 
 four columns in the middle, and the beautiful mummy case in 
 the centre, and the body lying with folded hands and face bare.
 
 212 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 just as it was placed there some 3000 years ago. The mummies 
 have been taken away from all the other tombs. As the tombs 
 are now lighted by electric light they are much more interesting 
 to see than when I was here before. Next we came over the 
 hill that separates this valley from the plain of Luxor and saw 
 the whole plain with its intense greens and other shades — a 
 lovety picture in the sunshine, and having had lunch at a " rest 
 house," we saw an interesting temple of Queen Hatasan, a very 
 strong-minded lady who ruled Egypt about 1500 B.C. and was 
 succeeded by a brother, Thotmes III., who obliterated from the 
 walls of her beautifully decorated temple every portrait of 
 her except two, which he seems to have overlooked ; and, like 
 aU those monarchs, she left no end of portraits of herself. After 
 this we rode on our homeward journey to the Ramesseum, the 
 temple of Rameses II., the great oppressor of the Israelites. 
 His idea was to make everything bigger than anything of the 
 sort had ever been made before ; so this is a temple of huge 
 pillars and rows of figures to match. His own granite statue was 
 about 57 ft. high — an absolutely enormous thing. How it 
 was hewn and brought here from Assouan and carved so finely, 
 and then set up, I don't know. No doubt he expected it to 
 stand for ever, but such is the irony of things, that it lies all 
 smashed and disfigured, as a sort of symbol of the fife of the 
 proudest autocrat. I think he reigned about sixty-seven years 
 over both Lower and Upper Egypt. He had some scores of 
 children, and was nearly 100 when he died. His mummy lies 
 beside that of his father, Seti L, in the Museum at Cairo, and 
 you wiU see his face when I take you there. At the time of the 
 discovery of the mummy, when old Dr. Schhemann had been 
 to see it, and came back to Athens, where we were at the time, 
 he paid me what he no doubt considered the compliment of 
 saying I was very like Rameses to look at. It will be interesting 
 to see whether you recognise the likeness. 
 
 Jan. 14, 1906. Assouan. — My last letter was from Luxor 
 Hotel. Yesterday we came on here. Six and a half hours' 
 journey, very dusty and pretty hot, but we were not uncomfort- 
 able, as a young man came up to me at Luxor and said he was 
 one of my boys in School-house, Rugby, and he is now in charge 
 of the railway from Luxor to Assouan, so he reserved a carriage 
 for us, and we had it to ourselves all the way. The railway runs 
 up the east bank of the Nile, and we had the most beautiful 
 sunset I have seen for many a day — the sky first of all golden, 
 then shot all through with streamers of pink and yellow, hke 
 an Aurora Borealis, and palms standing high up between us 
 and the sky. Here we are at a great hotel built at the lower
 
 IX A VISIT TO EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 213 
 
 end of the Cataract since I was here — an enormous caravanserai 
 with every modem luxury, and the finest dining-hall of a Moorish 
 type I have ever seen. 
 
 The Cataract is a series of rapids with rocks sticking up all 
 over the river, making it of course dangerous for any boats, 
 though the natives seem to know their way about in it. At the 
 upper end of the Cataract is Philae, with its beautiful temple 
 and the new Dam or Barrage. This we expect to see to-morrow 
 when we go on board our steamer for Haifa. -This morning I 
 went at 8 a.m. to the service in the Enghsh Church, which has 
 been built in a fine position near this hotel, and in a suitable 
 oriental style. The chaplain is Bishop Morley, a nice retired 
 C.M.S. Indian Bishop. Finding he had no assistance I offered 
 to take the celebration for him at his mid-day service, which 
 I did ; and now I am enjoying a day of rest. This is, I think, 
 the best air in Egypt, so dry and bright, with a breeze always 
 blowing up the Nile at this season. 
 
 A great bed of granite runs across the valley here, making 
 the Cataract, and it is from the quarries here that the great 
 granite obelisks and statues were dug in ancient times. 
 
 Jan. 15. — We have just returned from our donkey ride in 
 the desert to see the obeUsk half cut out of the rock some 
 thousands of years ago, and a statue of Rameses in the same 
 condition — the figure all carved but lying on its back never 
 detached from the granite bed ; quite lately some vulgar tourists 
 have chipped off part of the nose to exhibit no doubt as a trophy 
 somewhere or other. We are going to our steamer at Philae 
 after lunch, and expect to be in Khartoum on Thursday. . . . 
 Before the steamer starts this evening we hope to get a look at 
 the Great Dam or Barrage at Philae as we start from there. 
 
 Jan. 16. — We are just passing Korosko, one of the most 
 beautiful spots on this part of the Nile, and nearly half way to 
 Haifa from Assouan. 
 
 We left our hotel yesterday after lunch and came down 
 on board our steamer, and had two nice single cabins allotted 
 before the mail train arrived. We then took a boat with a 
 nice agent of the Bible Society who is going up the Nile on a 
 tour of inspection, to see the temples of the island of Philae. 
 
 This used to be a picturesque httle island with a large temple 
 of Isis, and the beautiful smaller temple known as Pharaoh's 
 Bed. The Dam has now raised the water so that this island 
 has disappeared and the palms and temples stand up out of 
 the water. Instead of chmbing up the bank of the island we 
 were rowed in our boat between the tops of the columns of the 
 great colonnade and through Pharaoh's Bed, and the beautifully
 
 214 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 painted pillars in the Hypostyle Hall of the Temple, which Bessie 
 painted, are all beginning to lose their colours. The whole 
 effect, however, in the sunset was wonderfully beautiful. We 
 left about 7 p.m., with about twenty ist class passengers, all 
 men and mostly officers, soldiers, and men of business ; and 
 we are having a very beautiful and restful day, as both scenery 
 and air are delightful. One element of special beauty is the 
 contrast between the two banks of the river. The east bank 
 is all green, while the western is beautiful golden sand. We 
 shall soon pass the famous rock temple of Abou Simbel, with 
 its four immense sitting figures of Rameses the Great guarding 
 the entrance and facing the rising sun, about 10 or 11 o'clock 
 to-night, and so I expect we shall not see anything of it, as the 
 moon does not rise before 11. We are said to be due at Haifa 
 at 7 A.M., and shall begin on twenty-eight hours of railway across 
 the desert at 9, I believe. 
 
 Jan. 18, 1906. 10.45. — About 40 miles from Khartoum. 
 
 Since I posted my letter at Haifa we have had a good journey, 
 hot and dusty, but not overpoweringly so, and in a good sleeping 
 compartment quite enjoyable ; and I have got through the 
 twenty-six hours quite comfortably — reading and sleeping and 
 looking out on the ocean of sand and low rocky hills standing 
 out of it at intervals. Most people see a great many mirages — 
 water with trees reflected in it, being really the shimmer of sun- 
 Hght on the sands and the reflection of the hills in it. I have 
 only seen it twice — whether owing to my defective eyesight or 
 my freedom from delusions, I hardly know. In some places the 
 sand is covered with thorny mimosa bushes, which our soldiers 
 used to cut down for a protecting hedge at night or in battle, 
 called a zareba ; very unpleasant to get through, I imagine. 
 We have passed some battlefields, and from Berber or beyond 
 it our soldiers had to march all this distance in the Omdurman 
 Expedition. ... At Haifa, just after writing to you, I received 
 a telegram inviting us to dine with the Governor-General — that 
 is the Sirdar — to-night ; after that I may be able to tell you 
 something about Khartoum society. 
 
 Jan. 19, 1906. Khartoum. — Here we are very comfortably 
 settled till Tuesday, when our boat goes to Duem. 
 
 We arrived at noon yesterday and found Mr. Bonham-Carter 
 on the platform, and Arthur's servant, who has come from El Obeid 
 to take us in charge, so now we have only to go as we are led. 
 
 Mr. Bonham-Carter is a nice young man, exactly Lance's 
 contemporary at Clifton and Oxford. He is a great man up 
 here, and he has built himself a nice house, and he is running 
 it bachelor fashion with another Cliftonian and Oxonian,
 
 IX A VISIT TO EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 215 
 
 who has charge of the Land Department, and Mr. Currey, 
 also an Oxford man, who is Principal of the Gordon College 
 and Head of the Educational Department of the Soudan, so 
 they are very pleasant and easy hosts. Yesterday we went 
 to call on Lady Wingate. They live in the new Palace built on 
 the ruins of Gordon's Palace on the bank of the Nile, a very 
 stately place with a large and most lovely garden. 
 
 We found her very pleasant and friendly, and in the evening 
 we enjoyed their dinner party, mostly officials, except ourselves 
 and Dr. T. Kayper, late Prime Minister of Holland, a very 
 distinguished and pleasant man, who helped to bring the Boer 
 War to an end. 
 
 The Sirdar was particularly nice to us, and is lending his 
 launch for our little trip to see Omdurman to-morrow, and to 
 see the battlefield this afternoon. He and Lady W. both speak 
 very warmly of Arthur, and I find that his last winter's march, 
 and the way he brought it off without any mishap or any blood- 
 shed, and the condition in which he brought his troops back, 
 has given him quite a reputation. 
 
 You would be amused if you saw Arthur's servant looking 
 after me. He is very black, dressed in a sort of white cassock 
 with a bright red sash, a beautiful dress, and he grooms and 
 brushes me, as if I were an Arab pony, and his manners are 
 nice and quiet, like those of all the natives outside the tourist 
 resorts. It is warm here, but not overpoweringly hot, and there 
 is a nice breeze blowing. The sky, though sunny, is a little 
 grey. 
 
 Jan. 20. — After writing yesterday, Mr. Bonham-Carter took 
 me a pleasant afternoon excursion to see the battlefield of 
 Omdurman, Arthur's first battle. It is six or seven miles down 
 the river from here, and the Sirdar lent us his little launch, and 
 on landing we found Mr. Carter's ponies waiting for us, and rode 
 to the central part of the field and had a good view of everything. 
 We passed the gully where the Lancers made their gallant but 
 foolish charge and got cut up, and so were of no use for following 
 up the Khalifa when he ran away. The whole field is an 
 immense brown barren plain, with ups and downs and a 
 high hill in the middle of it, the hill running along one side of a 
 range of hills ; in the distance, on the other side, Omdurman, about 
 six or seven miles to the west. We got back about 7.30, and 
 two or three of&cials came to dinner, one being S latin Pasha, 
 the former captive of the Mahdi and now Inspector-General. I 
 forget whether you read his Fire and Sword in the Soudan. He 
 is a wiry man, still under fifty, I should say, a great talker and 
 very entertaining, so we had an interesting evening. This after-
 
 2i6 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 noon Mr. Bonham-Carter takes us over to visit Arthur's fellow 
 officers at Omdurman, to see the town and dine with them, 
 and come back late again in the Sirdar's launch. They are 
 wonderfully hospitable and very pleasant. . . . 
 
 Jan. 22. — We went, according to arrangement, to Omdurman 
 and were very hospitably entertained by the three officers now 
 in charge of the 15th Soudanese ; Rawson, who succeeded 
 Arthur, and Ryan, second in command, and Stewart, a nice 
 young fellow lately joined, son of Sir Herbert Stewart who was 
 killed on the Nile in Gordon's time, Ryan took us over the 
 Khalifa's house, a very curious, rambling place, with an immense 
 square alongside it, where he assembled the whole population 
 daily for prayer ; and through the market, which is very large 
 and one of the most interesting places I ever saw. After this 
 the officers gave us dinner and their band played outside. 
 
 On Sunday morning I had to preach ; the service is held in 
 the ballroom of the Sirdar's Palace, and there was a very good 
 congregation, and they got the largest collection they have had 
 since Christmas Day. The palace is a fine new white building 
 on the site of Gordon's Palace, a stately place with a large and 
 most lovely garden, and the Sirdar and Lady Wingate are 
 particularly nice. They insist on our staying with them the 
 two nights we have to spend at Khartoum on our way back. . . . 
 To-morrow morning at 9 o'clock we are off on our voyage up 
 the White Nile to Duem and then across the desert on ponies, 
 a regular route, I find, and much frequented, to El Obeid. . . . 
 
 Jan. 23. — I am writing this on a very comfortable steamer 
 on my way to Duem, where we are due to-morrow. We left 
 Khartoum at 9.15 this morning. The White Nile, or western 
 branch, which we are sailing up, is a very fine river between 
 low banks, and I suppose about a mile and a half broad. The 
 water is of a brownish-grey colour, whereas the Blue Nile at 
 this season is clear, and in some lights looking a beautiful blue. 
 When writing last night I forgot to mention that we went for 
 a little evening ride with Mr. Bonham-Carter, and had a wonder- 
 fully beautiful sunset, with the palms which abound in Khartoum 
 waving their branches in front of the gorgeous western sky. 
 Khartoum is a city of palm trees, and the Sirdar told me it nearly 
 lost them all, as the Khalifa, when he heard the English were 
 near, gave an order to cut them all down ; but his son per- 
 suaded him to wait, as the infidels might not really come, or 
 might be driven back : so they were saved. It must have been 
 a dismal time in Khartoum and Omdurman in the Khalifa's 
 time. Slatin, as his prisoner, lived in his house, and he told me 
 that on one spot which he occupied daily he must have said
 
 IX A VISIT TO EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 217 
 
 16,000 to 18,000 prayers, els he had to conform and say his 
 prayers five times a day. 
 
 Jan. 24. — After writing yesterday we had an uneventful 
 voyage till sunset, when we anchored for the night, the one 
 excitement being the sight of our first crocodile, a huge creature 
 lying alongside a sandbank. Since then Bob has seen four or 
 five, and has shown me one enormous fellow, at least 20 feet 
 long, I should think. He went under water as we passed, except 
 head and tail, and then chmbed slowly on to the sand again. 
 The river here is very wide, and the banks are low and sandy, 
 with bushes scattered about, so that I feel as if I were on a vast 
 lagoon (without Venice) or the lower part of Lake Garda. Here 
 and there we pass a large flat sandy island, which perhaps a 
 crowd of natives from some village are just beginning to irrigate 
 and cultivate for a crop to be reaped before the Nile rises again. 
 They will have a scorching time for three months. We have 
 a nice breeze blowing up the river behind us, so that we are 
 getting along very comfortably ; and a nice young English 
 engineer, who is in charge of the boat, is very attentive to us. 
 This afternoon about 4 we expect to reach Duem and to see 
 Arthur's beaming face to welcome us. We understand he is 
 expected to be there. He is known and spoken of in these 
 parts as Percival Bey. I think I told you that the Sirdar and 
 all the men in Khartoum who spoke of his last winter's expedi- 
 tion said it was one of the best things that had been done out 
 here, perhaps the best, as he brought all his men and mules, etc., 
 through in such good condition. It is evidently a good mark 
 in his favour. To-night, I beheve, we stay with the Civil 
 Governor at Duem ; then we go on by easy stages to El Obeid, 
 taking about a week. It is a regular high route with rest houses. 
 . . . We shall get about a week at El Obeid and then a week 
 back to Duem ; and we come on board this steamer on the 15th 
 of February for return journey. 
 
 Jan. 25, 1906. Duem. — We arrived here yesterday and 
 Arthur came on board to take us off. 
 
 The Governor of this province, Butler Bey, came with him, 
 a pleasant, cheery officer a few years older than Arthur. He 
 lives in a low brick and plaster house with a colonnade towards 
 the river, spreading about 40 or 50 yards in front, and there 
 is a nice cool breeze all round me in the sunshine. 
 
 It was a great delight to meet Arthur, sturdy and strong as 
 when he left us, and the men he has with him are very fine- 
 looking fellows, coal black, in white dress with sashes ; he has 
 brought about twenty fine camels and three or four ponies, so 
 we shall be a fine caravan when we set off this afternoon. He
 
 2i8 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 says he has brought the easiest camel in the Soudan for me 
 to ride, much nicer than a horse ; we shall see, and I will tell you 
 when I have tried him. The Governor took us a ride through 
 the town just at sunset, quite an interesting sight, streets of 
 mud huts, with shops of all sorts, and lots of dignified-looking 
 natives, who all get up and salute us as we pass. One part a 
 street of blacksmiths — all Persians — who settled here some time 
 or other ; and the market near the river has heaps of grain lying 
 about, scores of big sacks full of grain, which is the great product 
 of Kordofan. Every sack is worth about thirty shillings. . . . 
 This afternoon we are to begin our march and go about 12 
 miles to our station for the night. Here the Governor is making 
 a garden, laying out and planting and watering, and Bob has 
 been enjoying himself in the garden all the early morning. . . . 
 
 Jan. 30. Um Duem. — I am writing this on a fine breezy 
 hot day while we rest, as the post from El Obeid passes here 
 to-night, and will, I hope, land this at Hereford about February 
 16. We left Duem towards evening of the 25th, and I have 
 kept no diary since, as Bob has done the necessary records. . . . 
 We set out for Duem with twenty-one camels and four or five 
 ponies. . . . The first thing that happened was that my pony, 
 a strong grey Arab stallion, having only a snaffle bridle on, 
 took the bit in his teeth and practically ran away with me for 
 two or three miles, when I brought him up, and at last changed 
 to another nice and easy one, and we got along very pleasantly. 
 The desert is, of course, in a sense monotonous, mostly covered 
 with long dry grass growing out of the loose sand, the colour of 
 ripe barley, and with them bushes about the size of a hawthorn, 
 and in places broom scattered all over it. As it stretches away 
 on every side of us there is something fascinating about it in 
 the changing fights and through the long still hours. 
 
 There are very few birds, chiefly hawks, and here and there 
 a bustard, but the sharper eyes of the boys see many gazelles 
 flash in and out among the bushes, and some other little shy 
 animals. Arthur has shot one each day for food, a treat for 
 the escort, and giving us some beautiful chops like delicate veal. 
 
 Our daily routine is to be waked up at 4.30 to 5, drink a cup 
 of tea and mount our camels and ride two to three hours 
 at about four miles an hour, and then stop for breakfast and 
 rest tiU lunch, and then rest again tiU 4, generaUy at some 
 " rest house." After tea at 4 we start again and ride until 6.30, 
 when camp is pitched, generally in the open under the stars, 
 and we enjoy a good dinner, then to bed about 8.30, with aU 
 the beautiful stars looking down on us. I have now got well 
 used to my camel riding, and jog along quite comfortably with
 
 IX A VISIT TO EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 219 
 
 an orderly leading the way in front. In the early morning, 
 before sunrise, it's rather weird ; there come all the changes of 
 hght very quickly on the bright fresh air ; again, towards sunset 
 and after it the riding is very pleasant. The sunrises and 
 sunsets are not very brilliant, but the evening afterglow is 
 lovely, and we have had the most beautiful silver crescent moon 
 sailing high up over the sunset every evening lately. 
 
 This place is about 100 miles from Duem, and is the capital 
 of the district, with an Egyptian officer as Governor under the 
 Egyptian Governor of the province. He rode out in state to 
 meet us this morning, and the whole place is hung with scores 
 of little red flags, with Crescent and Cross on them ; and he and 
 his officers gave us an excellent breakfast ; and the [natives ?] 
 with their band outside our enclosure nearly all day— a sort of 
 tin kettle din not unhke the beating of carpets. Altogether the 
 mixture of the Bedouin Ufe of the desert, unchanged since the 
 days of Moses, and our western civilisation is rather odd. Break- 
 fast of porridge and milk, eggs, marmalade, etc., and all other 
 needs in proportion, and Arthur allows me to drink nothing but 
 Apollinaris with lime juice or whisky, and very refreshing it 
 is. We are all in excellent condition, and expect to reach Bara 
 in two days ; and after a short stay there to go on 38 miles to 
 El Obeid for three or four days, and then back to Duem by 
 February 15. . . . Arthur is Percival Bey all over this district 
 and a great person. ... I am writing on my knee, which accounts 
 for defects. . . . 
 
 Feb. 2. Bara. — You will have got a telegram yesterday 
 telling you we had arrived here all right and well after a pleasant 
 journey of about thirteen marches altogether since we left the 
 Nile at Duem. The ride into Bara was deUghtful, the plain of 
 rich reddish sand is dotted all over with thorns, looking like 
 hawthorns, and many of them overgrown with a luxuriant 
 emerald-green creeper, so that one thinks of a vast forest within 
 the desert. 
 
 And now we have had a rest of a day and a half and propose 
 to start for El Obeid about 30 miles away at 5.30 to-morrow 
 morning. This military station is the place that Arthur built 
 two or three years ago. He cleared an immense square for 
 parade, about 800 yards across, and made the compound for 
 his officers' quarters, conical huts, verandahs, kitchens, etc., 
 and outside the square the soldiers and their families live in 
 huts, making two villages ; and further away by the wells there 
 is the large native village. He has 150 camels here at present. 
 
 Bara has one advantage which is very rare in this part of 
 the world. There is abundance of water about 20 feet below
 
 220 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 the surface, so they can irrigate and grow all sorts of green stuff, 
 and his gardens are already very good, and some day, no doubt, 
 they will be a sort of paradise in the desert. 
 
 At Um Duem, where I wrote you my last letter, the wells, on 
 the other hand, are 130 feet deep, and drawing water in buckets 
 is a laborious process. 
 
 W^ile I have been doing nothing but rest here these two 
 days, and Bob doing a httle gardening, Arthur has been squaring 
 up his work. We divide our journey to El Obeid into three 
 marches of 12 or 13 miles each. Two to-morrow and one from 
 5 to 8 on Sunday morning, in time for breakfast. I expect we 
 shall leave El Obeid on the 8th, so as to reach Duem for the 
 steamer on the 15th or i6th. 
 
 Feb. 4. — Here we are comfortably settled in for five or six 
 days, and the post leaves to-night ; this should reach you in 
 London about ten days in front of me. I expect to arrive on 
 the 4th March. 
 
 We had a nice ride from Bara. There are about five English- 
 men at the Mess here at present — five young fellows of about 
 Arthur's age [36], others are scattered over the country 
 at this season. Two of these are officers, the others are 
 Inspectors or Assistant Governors. It is curious to think of 
 these young men commanding troops of soldiers and governing 
 a vast territory with all sorts of tribes in it. There has, I suppose, 
 been nothing quite hke it since the days of the Roman Empire ; 
 and it is interesting to hear them at their Mess cheerily discussing 
 their work and criticising and chaffing one another. We have 
 hardly seen El Obeid yet as the camp is outside ; but this being 
 a Mohammedan festival, we saw one picturesque procession 
 this morning — a long train of natives mostly in white, with 
 flags and music, and carrying in a sort of sedan a very old and 
 holy man of 100 j^ears or more. He has built his own tomb in 
 the city, a high and conspicuous building, and lives in it greatly 
 venerated. It is very hot during the day, and from breakfast 
 to tea-time we simply keep quiet ; but for the rest of the twenty- 
 four hours the air is dehghtful, and with a slight breeze as a 
 general rule. . . . 
 
 Feb. 18, 1906. s.s. Cairo. — I am here safe on the Nile, 
 sitting in the cool morning air very comfortably on the deck 
 of the Cairo, an excellent screw-wheel steamer, as she floats 
 leisurely down the Nile between the low, lovely banks just tinged 
 with green. We are due at Khartoum about 2 p.m., and I pro- 
 pose to post this there so that it may reach you two or three 
 days before I arrive myself, as I hope to do at the Lollards on 
 Sunday, March 4.
 
 IX A VISIT TO EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 221 
 
 I began my last letter at El Obeid on February 5, and filled 
 a couple of sheets while there ; but, alas, a camel ride gave my 
 paper and books such a shaking that it is all illegible and too 
 dirty to handle, so I must just pick out one or two notes. 
 
 We reached El Obeid February 4, and I think I sent you a 
 letter up to date that night. 
 
 We were warmly welcomed there with many demonstrations 
 of native officers, and hved very comfortably in the best house 
 in the place, and as guests of the British officers. Arthur seems 
 to be very popular, or else they think his father a big Sheykh, 
 as they make so much of us. You would have been amused 
 to see the picturesque figures that came to pay their respects 
 and the bowing and salaams. 
 
 Feb. 5. — ^The native officers of the Camel Corps, Arthur's 
 own staff, gave us a great reception at afternoon tea, which was 
 spread in a large tent. We approached on arrival down a long 
 avenue of flags all strewn with special sand for us to walk on, 
 and a guard of honour of the men in their beautiful white dress 
 with white turbans and black ostrich feathers and green silk 
 sash. It was an uncommonly pretty sight, and they had a 
 regimental band from one of the Soudanese Battalions playing 
 to us all the time. 
 
 Feb. 6.— We were taken to pay a visit to a very old Sheykh 
 over 100 years of age, a very holy man, whose tomb, by which 
 he lives, is the highest building in El Obeid. We were received 
 by his eldest son, a man of seventy or more, and a crowd of his 
 tribesmen, and conducted to the old man with much ceremony. 
 He is quite blind, but stood up to receive us, and made com- 
 plimentary speeches and asked after the King's health, and 
 insisted on my sitting beside him. Had glasses of lemonade 
 served and coffee to all of us, and when we left said he would 
 remember me in his prayers. 
 
 It was altogether an impressive sight : coming out we find 
 ourselves in a circle of those who had received us, who, led 
 by the eldest son, sang some religious strain with gesticula- 
 tions so violent that some lost their turbans, and one or two 
 leapt and danced in a wonderful way. 
 
 If we had been in the middle of such a crowd eight or ten 
 years ago in El Obeid, I expect we should have been despatched 
 pretty quickly. As it was, we were dismissed with many salaams. 
 Feb. 7.— The officers of the 8th Egypt Battalion gave us tea 
 and had a football match between two battalions for our enter- 
 tainment, and I had to kick off ; also a remarkably good gym- 
 nastic display and a band of music. 
 
 Feb. 8.— About 4 p.m. we started on our ride back, being
 
 222 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 escorted for three or four miles by apparently all the native 
 officers in the place on their ponies, and after much shaking of 
 hands set our faces towards the desert again, and slept under 
 the stars. 
 
 Feb. 9-16. — Steady trekking three or three and a half hours 
 in the morning, beginning at 4.30, and about two hours in the 
 evening, 4.30 to 6.30. Always sleeping under the open sky. 
 
 The weather has been altogether exceptionally hot, the 
 cold nights we should have had never came, and the days from 
 10 to 4 very, very hot ; the nights, however, and some evenings, 
 were very enjoyable. 
 
 For two or three days I found the heat oppressive and exhaust- 
 ing and rather lost my appetite, but Arthur took wonderful 
 care of me, having provided everything he could think of 
 necessary in the way of food and drink, especially Rosbach 
 water, of which I drank four or five bottles every day. 
 
 Our last day (Feb. 15) was a day of violent sandstorm — a 
 strong north wind blowing such a cloud of fine sand that I never 
 saw the sun that day. 
 
 As I lay in the Rest House in the middle of the day and 
 looked out, it was just as if I were looking out on a snowstorm, 
 everything seemed so white. 
 
 The one consolation of the storm was that it cooled the air 
 to some extent, but as we naturally perspired when riding, the 
 sand made us look like pitmen coming home from their work. 
 That night the wind feU and we rode into Duem at 7 a.m. on 
 the i6th February, all in the best of health and very glad to be 
 there and enjoy a good wash and the hospitable entertainment 
 of Mr. Butler, the Governor. So I parted from my good camel 
 at the end of our 360 miles' trek, and Bechall, my orderly, who 
 rode in front, and Koko, the slave boy^ who waited on us so 
 nicely ; and the journey home is now plain sailing. 
 
 Feb. 20. — In the regions of ink again. Arthur and I arrived 
 at the Palace, Sunday afternoon, and have been most kindly 
 and hospitably entertained, both Lady Wingate and the Sirdar 
 being kindness itself. The Sirdar wanted to talk to Arthur 
 and discuss plans about Kordofan and the army, and I have 
 just seen him steam away on his return journey for fresh work. 
 I wonder when I shall see him again. I start this afternoon 
 and shall only stop at Cairo for Saturday and Sunday night, 
 sailing on Monday, due, I beheve, at Marseilles on Saturday. . . . 
 
 Feb. 25. Cairo. — You wiU, I hope, get with this the letter 
 I had posted at Khartoum, to prepare you for my arrival on 
 Sunday. I don't know when the train will be due, probably 
 ^ Arthur Percival had rescued this boy from slave-dealers.
 
 IX A VISIT TO EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 223 
 
 about 5 or 6 p.m., and one can't telegraph, so you must take me 
 when I turn up. We shall sail from Port Said to-morrow after- 
 noon in the China, and are due at Marseilles on Saturday, when 
 the P. and 0. train will be waiting for us. From Khartoum 
 we began by being six hours late at Haifa — rather tedious — ^but 
 going on to the boat there at midnight on Wednesday. I had 
 a beautiful voyage down to Assouan, arriving at 7 on Friday 
 in good time for the Cairo train, and so reached here yesterday 
 morning about 9. . . .
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 POLITICS 
 
 It has already become abundantly plain that Percival took 
 an active and even a vehement part in general politics. But 
 it was always with what seemed to him definitely moral 
 issues that he concerned himself. He often regarded as a 
 matter of moral principle what was to most men a matter 
 of expediency ; and his general outlook led him as a rule to 
 claim moral sanction for the liberal solution of the question 
 in hand. Yet he did not allow his intense convictions to 
 interfere with personal friendships. In his Chfton days he 
 was no less eager a radical than in later years, but when his 
 friend was a Conservative candidate and carried the poll he 
 could be cordial in his congratulations. 
 
 To Mr. Killigrew Wait 
 
 The College, 
 
 Clifton, Bristol, 
 
 Thursday evening, May 8, 1873. 
 
 My dear Wait — My radicalism gives way entirely, and I 
 ignominiously confess that I'm highly pleased in spite of my 
 better political self and congratulate you very sincerely. I 
 should also congratulate the electors of Gloucester if I knew 
 them. I hope you may have many happy years of membership, 
 though you do go to the House of Commons " clothed in the 
 panoply of constitutional principles," if I may be allowed to 
 borrow for a moment the pen of Joseph Leech. Don't show this 
 to Mrs. Wait or she'll be asking awkward questions as to whether 
 it's a suit that'll be easy to sit down in, and whether it'll wear well, 
 and all sorts of housewife's questions. But, whatever she says, 
 her principles are no better than mine, and she must confess that 
 she also is delighted. — Yours sincerely, J. Percival. 
 
 224
 
 CHAP. X POLITICS 225 
 
 In this chapter an attempt is made to gather up and 
 draw together those poHtical activities into which Percival 
 threw himself at various times, and which had no specially 
 appropriate place in the narrative as told hitherto. It is 
 inevitable that such a record should be rather disconnected, 
 for it is concerned with isolated activities and side-issues, 
 not with the continuous main stream of his Ufe. But the 
 unity of his character and its strong individuality bind all 
 the episodes together. His interventions in the definitely 
 political sphere covered every main section of political 
 activity — Domestic, Imperial, and Foreign. 
 
 I. Social Reform and Domestic Politics 
 
 Percival frequently spoke of two great blemishes in the 
 national life of England — the vice of drunkenness and the 
 vice of gambling. His activities in the cause of temperance 
 were constant, though here he was mainly concerned to 
 support the proposals of others rather than to formulate pro- 
 posals of his own. While President of Trinity, he preached 
 for the Church of England Temperance Society in Carfax 
 Church before the Mayor and Corporation of Oxford in 1881, 
 and was then a Temperance Reform advocate of long stand- 
 ing. But his eagerness in the matter was chiefly displayed 
 in connection with the Licensing Bills of 1904 and 1908. The 
 former of these was strongly opposed by Percival, unless a 
 time Umit to the claim for compensation for non-renewal of 
 licence were inserted. The measure provided for a some- 
 what drastic reduction in the number of public-houses, and 
 contained a scheme for compensation when the renewal of a 
 Licence was not granted. Most reformers agreed that com- 
 pensation was necessary for a period of years, because the 
 renewal of licences had been almost a matter of course, 
 except in a few areas, and therefore, though no legal claim 
 to renewal existed, a " reasonable expectation " had arisen. 
 But it was also held that to give compensation without 
 fixing a period after which it should cease was to create a 
 legal interest which would make further reform more difficult. 
 Percival strongly supported this view. His attitude on this 
 
 Q
 
 226 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 matter is best expressed in a letter to the Church of England 
 Temperance Society which was published in The Times of 
 April 26, 1904 : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 April 25. 
 
 Dear Mr. Eardley-Wilmot — I am particularly sorry that I 
 am unable to attend your meetings this week, as the importance 
 of the decisions to be arrived at can hardly be over-estimated, 
 whether we consider the best interests of our Church or the well- 
 being of the people. 
 
 The new Licensing Bill, as it stands, is so recklessly lavish of 
 public money and unjust to the taxpayer, and raises such barriers 
 in the way of reasonable temperance reform, that I hope every 
 supporter of the Church of England Temperance Society will feel 
 it to be his bounden duty to oppose it to the utmost, unless the 
 Government will accept some essential amendments. For my 
 part I have to confess that I do not understand how any man who 
 gives his vote for it in Parliament without such amendments can 
 be any longer considered a true friend of the temperance cause. 
 By turning a licence for one year only into a freehold it adds 
 enormously to the value of all public-house and brewery property. 
 Having thus created a new freehold interest of enormous value, 
 as a gift to the trade, it proceeds to levy and earmark a new- 
 fangled sort of tax to compensate any holder of this newly created 
 property wherever the justices decide that it is detrimental to the 
 public interest and should be done away with. If ever there was 
 a vicious circle, here is one. 
 
 I would urge that some such amending provisions as the 
 following should be firmly demanded as the minimum ; and I 
 hope that all those supporters of the Government in the House of 
 Commons who really care for temperance reform will show as 
 much nerve as the protectionist members showed on a recent 
 occasion, and will bring as effective pressure to bear on the 
 Government. They will, I hope, insist on these amendments as a 
 condition of their continued support, and will vote against the 
 Bill at every stage if they are refused : 
 
 (i) The Bill to enact that after the lapse of seven years no 
 compensation shall be given for the refusal to renew any licence. 
 
 (2) The discretion of the licensing justices to remain as hitherto, 
 subject only to the restriction that during the next seven years 
 not more than 10 per cent of the existing licences may be refused 
 renewal in any one year, and not more than 35 per cent during 
 the whole period of seven years. This would limit reductions to
 
 X POLITICS 227 
 
 an average of 5 per cent per annum during this period, a limitation 
 which is amply sufficient to reassure the trade, 
 
 (3) For the purpose of securing equitable treatment as between 
 one licence-holder and another in the same district — 
 
 {a) Compensation shall be given for the remainder of this 
 seven years' period to all Hcence-holders refused renewal solely 
 on public grounds. 
 
 (b) The amount of compensation to be agreed upon between 
 a representative of the houses suppressed and a representative of 
 the remaining houses, and approved, or in case of difference 
 settled by, a representative of the Board of Inland Revenue or 
 of the licensing justices of the district, as may seem best. 
 
 (c) This amount to be raised by a special levy on the remain- 
 ing licensed houses in the district. The levy to be spread over 
 the remainder of the seven years' period on each occasion. 
 
 (4) At the end of seven years a new licensing law to come 
 into operation, free from all considerations of vested interests or 
 compensation. 
 
 These provisions would, as I venture to submit, be fair and 
 even generous to hcence-holders, who, it must be remembered, 
 are now in most cases not separate individuals, but brewery 
 companies, which have of late years bought up groups of houses 
 as a speculative investment ; and I plead for this mode of estimat- 
 ing and levying the amount of compensation in each district as 
 being the fairest and the most likely to arrive at the real value of 
 each licence and to do equal justice all round. The time limit 
 should be insisted upon as being the most vitally important 
 provision of all, for without it the Bill is nothing less than a new 
 estabhshment and endowment of the public-house at the public 
 cost, and this cost, however we look at it, must prove to be 
 enormous. It is, I observe, estimated by competent persons that 
 this endowment would mean an increase in the capital value of 
 public-house and brewery property of something like the amazing 
 sum of £300,000,000. And to this stupendous gift must in reality 
 be added the value of the new tax ; for the trade, growing in- 
 creasingly lucrative under a policy of reduction, is increasingly 
 able to pay this tax in return for its highly lucrative monopoly, 
 and the tax ought, therefore, to be levied as a general tax in relief 
 of the general taxpayer's burdens. Thus it becomes a second gift 
 for the benefit of this wealthy trade. 
 
 Here, then, we have a strange paradox. All men profess a 
 desire to hmit this trade and lessen the evils that flow from it, 
 and yet this is the trade of all others which is selected for favoured 
 treatment and for special benefactions of this astonishing magni- 
 tude. Why should speculators in the drink traffic be enriched in
 
 228 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 this lavish and reckless manner at the expense of the long- 
 suffering public ? What benefit have they conferred on the 
 community entitling them to such an unprecedented gift by Act 
 of Parliament ? What, I wonder, have those who have to pay 
 the additional income-tax and the new tea duties to say to it ? 
 
 In the face of legal decisions given by the highest authorities 
 during a long course of years, and of the universal agreement that 
 the number of licensed houses is greatly in excess of all reasonable 
 requirements and should be largely reduced, no equitable claim 
 can be suggested for this kind of political favouritism ; and the 
 supporters of the Government will be without excuse if they 
 allow it, and I hope their constituencies will make this plain to 
 every one of them before it is too late. — Believe me yours very 
 truly, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 When the Bill reached the House of Lords he continued 
 his resistance. On August 2, 1904, he joined in the debate 
 on the Second Reading and declared that the Bill was 
 designed for the benefit of the Brewers : 
 
 I inquire into the genesis of this Bill ? Who assisted at the 
 birth of the Bill ? The Brewers I Who have been the most 
 earnest promoters of the Bill in the other House ? The Brewers ! 
 By whose critical votes in one division after another have the 
 provisions of this Bill been sent up to this House ? Again, by the 
 Brewers ! And who are the most whole-hearted supporters — 
 indeed I might almost say the only whole-hearted supporters — 
 of the Bill in the country ? Again I have to say, the Brewers ! 
 
 The Bill was carried, with the result that when Mr. 
 Balfour's Government went out and a Liberal Government 
 succeeded, another Bill was introduced which provided 
 among other things for a time limit to the claim to com- 
 pensation. This measure, carried through the House of 
 Commons by Mr. Asquith, Percival, in common with most 
 of the Bishops, strongly supported, speaking in defence of it 
 both in the country and in the House of Lords. But the 
 opposition was too powerful and the Bill was lost. 
 
 He always advocated the closing of pubhc- houses on 
 Sundays, and often spoke in support of it. Towards the end 
 of his life he inclined to the poUcy of State purchase :
 
 X POLITICS 229 
 
 To the Rev. L. J. Percival 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 Dec. 6, 191 6. 
 
 Dear Lance — I suggest that you might find it interesting to 
 come on the 19th, as we are to have an important meeting on the 
 20th to discuss the desirabiUty of the State Purchase of the 
 Liquor Traffic. Our Dean is strongly opposed to it, and I am 
 inchned to favour it, because if the State owned all the interest 
 in Beer and Spirits we should get rid of personal interests in 
 opposition to any Temperance Reform, and some Reforms would 
 become possible. We expect Bishop Hamilton Baynes to support 
 and Mr. Leif Jones to oppose the proposal to purchase, so it will 
 be worth your while to come. 
 
 I suppose it is interesting in London at present as Asquith 
 has resigned. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 But though he favoured National Purchase he was much 
 opposed to the Public-house Trust. He allowed a para- 
 graph to appear in the Diocesan Messenger giving a bare 
 statement of the method by whieh it worked ; but he would 
 allow no commendation of it. "It is no business of ours," 
 he said, " to recommend any form of public-house." 
 
 His activities on behalf of Temperance were mainly of 
 the Puritan type. He said far more about the repression of 
 drunkenness and the restriction of the sale of intoxicants 
 than about the provision of wholesome recreation for the 
 common people. This had his sympathy for its own sake ; 
 but it did not seem to him the way to secure the triumph 
 of Temperance. 
 
 In the attack upon the other " blemish in our national 
 life, the vice of gambUng," Percival took a more individual 
 line. He not only made many speeches on the subject, 
 pressed it on the attention of the clergy of his diocese and 
 supported the legislative proposals of others ; he initiated 
 legislative action himself. 
 
 On May 20, 1901, he moved in the House of Lords : 
 
 That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the 
 increase of public betting among all classes, and whether any 
 legislative measures are possible and expedient for dealing with 
 the abuses occasioned thereby.
 
 230 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 This was carried ; the report of the Committee supplied the 
 basis of Lord Davey's Street Betting Act, and so a useful 
 bit of work was accomplished. 
 
 In his further endeavours Percival was less successful. 
 His next effort was not directed immediately against betting, 
 but against one of the great evils arising from the betting 
 habit. On March 3, 1902, he moved the Second Reading of 
 the " Prevention of Cruelty to Wild Animals " Bill. The 
 text of this Bill, and of a Memorandum printed with it, are 
 as follows : 
 
 Memorandum 
 
 This Bill aims at the abolition of certain spurious kinds of 
 sport, and thus at the protection of those animals which, though 
 nominally wild, are in fact kept in confinement and released for 
 the immediate purpose of being hunted, coursed, or shot. 
 
 The Bill does not apply to any form of sport which is concerned 
 with wild animals in their natural condition of freedom, and does 
 not in any way interfere with the hunting, coursing, or shooting of 
 such animals. 
 
 The Cruelty to Animals Acts, 1849 and 1854, excepting one 
 section which relates to fighting and baiting, apply exclusively to 
 domestic animals ; and the Act for the Protection of Wild Animals 
 in Captivity, 1900, does not apply to the hunting or coursing of 
 any animal unless it has been liberated in a mutilated or injured 
 state, in order to facilitate its capture or destruction, so that at 
 present the animals which this Bill is intended to protect enjoy no 
 legal protection whatever from any kind of cruelty in sport. 
 
 The present Bill is in fact nothing more than a much needed 
 extension of the Wild Animals in Captivity Protection Act, 1900, 
 which passed through both Houses of Parliament unopposed. 
 
 A Bill intituled " An Act for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 
 TO Wild Animals " 
 
 Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and 
 with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, 
 and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the 
 authority of the same, as follows : 
 
 I. — (i) The word " animal " in this Act means any beast or 
 bird that is not included in the Cruelty to Animals Acts, 1849 and 
 1854.
 
 X POLITICS 231 
 
 (2) Any person who either — 
 
 (a) takes part or assists in the hunting, coursing, or shooting 
 of any animal, which has to his knowledge been kept in 
 confinement, and is released for the purpose of such hunt- 
 ing, coursing, or shooting ; or 
 
 (b) keeps or uses, or assists in the management of any place 
 for the purpose of such hunting, coursing, or shooting, or 
 permits any place to be so used, 
 
 shall be liable, on conviction in manner provided by the Summary 
 Jurisdiction Acts, to a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds for 
 each day on which he commits such offence, and, in default of 
 payment, to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a 
 period not exceeding three months. 
 
 (3) Any person who receives money for the admission of any 
 other person to any place kept or used for the purpose aforesaid 
 shall be deemed to be the keeper of that place. 
 
 (4) This Act shall not apply to the hunting, coursing, or shoot- 
 ing of any animal which has been released two months before the 
 day when such hunting, coursing, or shooting takes place. 
 
 2. This Act may be cited as the Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Wild Animals Act. 
 
 The House of Lords was plainly unfriendly to the measure 
 and the Bishop withdrew it, " to await a more suitable 
 opportunity." In the following year a similar Bill was 
 introduced into the House of Commons, and Percival wrote 
 to The Times giving instances of the cruelty, such as he had 
 mentioned when speaking in the House of Lords, which it 
 was hoped to prevent : 
 
 The Spurious Sports Bill 
 
 To the Editor of " The Times " 
 
 Sir — I venture to ask your sympathy and support in aid of 
 a Bill which is down for Second Reading in the House of Commons 
 on Tuesday next, introduced by Mr. Corrie Grant — the Bill to 
 prevent cruelty to wild animals let out of captivity for the 
 purposes of sport. 
 
 This Bill, it is widely felt, has a strong claim to pass both 
 Houses of Parliament as an uncontroversial and unopposed 
 measure, and I trust the Prime Minister may throw his influence 
 in favour of it, as being a Bill of this character. It appeals to 
 every man who is opposed to needless cruelty to animals, with its
 
 232 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 degrading and hardening effects upon those who inflict the cruelty 
 or witness it. It appeals also to every genuine sportsman. 
 
 My reason for thus trespassing on your kind indulgence to say 
 a word in its favour is that when I introduced a similar Bill into 
 the House of Lords last year it was brought home to me that 
 many members of Parliament do not at all adequately realise the 
 extent to which the low and vulgar and cruel forms of sport which 
 it would stop are exercising a very debasing and bad influence 
 among various classes of the community. 
 
 As the law now stands it is penal to maltreat a wild animal in 
 captivity. This Bill simply extends that law so as to make it 
 equally penal to do the same wild animal to death when let out 
 of its trap or box or bag or hamper for the purposes of sport. It 
 is at his peril that the hurdy-gurdy man ill-treats his monkey, or 
 the circus manager his performing wild animals ; but gently 
 nurtured men and women may with impunity join in and rejoice 
 over the shooting of the dazed pigeon, let out of a trap for the 
 purpose, or they may still hunt the half-tame carted stag to its 
 miserable death ; and working men and boys may still gather in 
 scores or thousands to see the helpless rabbits dragged from their 
 hamper, shaken in front of the dogs, and then torn in pieces, while 
 they yell around them in wild excitement over their bets. 
 
 You, Sir, I feel sure, will agree with me when I say that if 
 any member of Parliament professes that he is opposed to cruelty 
 to animals, and yet refuses on this occasion to support this Bill, 
 he incurs some risk of being counted a political Pharisee. 
 
 To show the need of this legislation, concrete instances being 
 more convincing than any general appeal, I give the following 
 things which this Bill, if enacted, wiU stop, and it will, I think, be 
 generally felt that they should be stopped in a civilised community : 
 
 (i) The Brighton Standard and Fashionable Visitors' List on 
 February 21 last described what the writer called the wretched 
 fate of one of the deer kept for the edification of those who hunt 
 with the Surrey Staghounds. 
 
 The weather was gloriously fine ; a great crowd of people went 
 out from Brighton to see the start ; the doors of the deer cart were 
 flung open, and the deer, named Lady Gertrude, dashed out and 
 sped away at a tremendous pace. Later on in the hunt, she was 
 seen with hounds and horses stiU in hot pursuit, her tongue lolling 
 out, her head hanging as if her neck were broken, faint but still 
 fleeing, and finally she rushed into the sea, where a strong current 
 carried her away, and her body was washed ashore at Worthing 
 next morning. She had fulfilled her destiny, as with her bursting 
 heart she gave a day's amusement to those ladies and gentlemen 
 of the Surrey Staghounds.
 
 X POLITICS 233 
 
 A still worse mockery of genuine sport is described in the same 
 Brighton newspaper on March 5. 
 
 Things of this type degrade both English sport and the men 
 and women who get their pleasure out of them. Such persons 
 might enjoy sport as good with an unseared conscience if they 
 would content themselves with a drag-hunt. 
 
 (2) About a year ago an eye-witness described to me what he 
 had seen at Tottenham Marsh on a Sunday morning — not, I fear, 
 an altogether uncommon Sunday morning sight either there or in 
 some other places. 
 
 About 10 o'clock several hundred people, chiefly young work- 
 men, assembled with a large number of dogs. The rabbits, about 
 fifty in number, were brought on the ground in bags in a cart, 
 taken in turn from the bags, held in front of the dogs, and let go 
 at a given distance, and their squealing as they were caught and 
 torn in pieces was pitiable to hear. This pastime lasts from 
 10.30 to I, when the public-houses are opened and quickly filled 
 by these Sunday sportsmen. 
 
 (3) In the South Wales Daily News, March 3, 1902, the follow- 
 ing revolting incidents are recorded : 
 
 A large crowd assembled at Caerphilly on Saturday and there 
 were fifty-four dogs in the field. The rabbits were taken, as 
 usual, from a hamper, in which they had been packed for hours, 
 carried through the crowd, shaken roughly, then dropped about 
 eighty yards away, and soon overtaken by the dogs and torn limb 
 from limb in the presence of the yelling mob of spectators. Many 
 dogs were matched against each other and half-a-dozen starting 
 places were used simultaneously, so that the scenes of brutality 
 on the ground may be more easily imagined than described. In 
 the chief match one dog finally won by killing eleven rabbits 
 against seven killed by its rival. In some cases rabbits which 
 had honestly escaped in the race were stopped by the crowd of 
 onlookers and brought back to be torn in pieces by the dogs. 
 
 Another sickening scene was enacted at Morriston, where 3000 
 people witnessed a rabbit-coursing match for a stake of £50, on a 
 Saturday afternoon. The conditions were to kill the greater 
 number of twenty-one rabbits, the result in this case being that 
 one of the two dogs died on the field from exhaustion and the 
 other collapsed and died in the evening. The report adds (and 
 little wonder) that great indignation is expressed in the district 
 at the holding of these barbarous contests. Is it too much to say 
 that, if the members of the House of Commons refuse to stop 
 them, they will deserve to come under the same condemnation ? 
 
 Examples of this kind of spectacle could, if necessary, be 
 multiplied from many parts of England, north and south alike.
 
 234 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Will Parliament leave this brutalising influence to go on doing 
 its demoralising work unchecked, while every one who really cares 
 for English manliness and self-respect and our good name for 
 humanity, is waiting, not without some shame, to see these low 
 amusements blotted out of our English life ? 
 
 This Bill, if passed, will blot them out, while it will in no way 
 interfere with any genuine or manly sport ; and the responsibihty 
 of the matter at the present moment rests in fact with the Govern- 
 ment and their followers in the House of Commons. If they 
 support Mr. Corrie Grant the thing will be done, and I have good 
 hope that we shall not appeal to them in vain for the requisite 
 assistance. — Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, April 3. 
 
 On July II, 1912, Percival moved in the House of Lords 
 the Second Reading of a Bill to restrict Gambling Adver- 
 tisements. The important provisions of this Bill were as 
 follows : 
 
 1. Whosoever shall print, publish, sell, circulate, or publicly 
 exhibit any newspaper, circular, coupon, or document whatso- 
 ever, (i) which contains any advertisement or notification by 
 or on behalf of any person, club or association as to betting on 
 any event ; or (2) which contains any announcement of betting 
 odds, or starting prices or other advice, or inducement to bet 
 on such event ; or (3) which advertises or describes any com- 
 petition or lottery offering monies or valuable things or considera- 
 tions as prizes, rewards or benefits, unless the competition be for 
 a reward presented gratuitously by some individual or educational, 
 artistic, or literary, or scientific body for an essay or other useful 
 work and the prize or reward does not exceed five pounds in 
 value, or such larger amount as may have been authorised by 
 the Home Secretary or the President of the Board of Trade, shall 
 be guilty of misdemeanour. 
 
 2. Whosoever shall cause or attempt to cause any advertise- 
 ment or notification mentioned in this Act to be inserted or 
 published in a newspaper shall be guilty of misdemeanour. 
 
 3. Whosoever shall be guilty of misdemeanour under this 
 Act shall be liable at the discretion of the Court as follows, viz., 
 in the case of a first offence to a fine not exceeding £100 or 
 alternatively or in default of such fine or in addition thereto to 
 imprisonment for any term not exceeding one year with or with- 
 out hard labour, and in the case of a second or subsequent offence
 
 X POLITICS 235 
 
 to a fine not exceeding £250 or alternatively or in default of such 
 fine or in addition thereto to imprisonment for any term not 
 exceeding two years with or without hard labour. 
 
 4. It shall be the duty of the Post Master General in cases 
 where he is satisfied that there is reasonable ground to beUeve 
 any person or persons to be engaged in receiving money or 
 valuable thing in connection with any such coupon or other 
 competitions as are prohibited in the first section of this Act or 
 in connection with betting or unauthorised lottery transactions, 
 or to be issuing advertisements in the form of circulars or other- 
 wise containing betting lists or any inducements to other persons 
 to bet with them or gamble with them, or to deal in Foreign 
 premium bonds, to direct that any delivery of such postal articles 
 as are, or are reasonably suspected of being connected with betting 
 or lottery transactions other than re-delivery to the senders, shall 
 be denied, and to refuse any issue of orders for money to such 
 person or persons, and any faciUties of the telegraph and telephone 
 services. 
 
 This Bill also had to be withdrawn, for there was plainly 
 no hope of adequate support. Later in the same year 
 Percival spoke in favour of a less far-reaching measure 
 introduced by Lord Newton. His efforts in the field of 
 legislation had not been crowned with success ; he had hardly 
 expected that they would be. What he chiefly desired he 
 achieved ; he effectively brought the evils connected with 
 the abuse of sport to the attention of the pubhc. 
 
 On two occasions Percival intervened in fiscal contro- 
 versies. Free Trade was to him something more than a 
 matter of political or economic expediency ; it was a moral 
 principle. In January 1904 he created exceedingly bitter 
 feeling against himself by the publication of a letter written 
 in support of a Free Trade candidate during an election : 
 
 Dear Sir — WTien you asked me for some expression of opinion 
 in support of the Free Trade candidate at the time of the Ludlow 
 (;lcction contest I felt obliged to reply that I could not intervene. 
 It was not, however, from any lack of sympathy that I declined, 
 or because I had any doubt in my mind as to the duty of every 
 disinterested and patriotic citizen at the present crisis in our 
 national affairs. 
 
 On the contrary, my earnest desire and hope is that our 
 country may be saved from all the mischief and misfortune that
 
 236 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 threaten it through this raging, tearing Protectionist propaganda, 
 manufactured in Birmingham. 
 
 Wliat weighs on my mind as I follow the controversy is the 
 thought of the serious moral issues involved in it, the harder 
 conditions of life which it will lay as a fresh burden on our poorer 
 classes, thus making their moral and spiritual progress more 
 difficult, the corruption of politics, the baneful domination of 
 capitalist trusts, vested interests, and monopolies, and so forth. 
 It is not seriously disputed that, should this propaganda succeed, 
 these things will be prominent among the consequences of that 
 success ; and yet benevolent and well-meaning people on all sides 
 seem to disregard them, as if they were of little or no account. 
 
 Those who have been so suddenly converted or captured by 
 Mr. Chamberlain are no doubt in many cases influenced by 
 motives of self-interest. They expect their own trade or industry 
 to profit by the new conditions ; they expect to make gain out 
 of the system of tariffs, preferences, and retaliation ; they do 
 not think of the consequences to all the poorer people around 
 them ; their trade is their policy ; they are traders first and 
 citizens or patriots afterwards. But putting aside this class, so 
 largely represented on his amazing Commission, a great many 
 disinterested and well-meaning persons seem to be following him 
 blindly, without thought, and with a light heart, forgetting what 
 a will-o'-the-wisp he has proved himself to be in his erratic career. 
 They do this, being too young to remember the miseries caused 
 by Protection, and unversed in the principles of economics, and 
 consequently liable to be easily misled by specious promises and 
 by plausible sophistries— and that they are being so misled I 
 feel convinced. 
 
 I shall, of course, be told that I am no expert, but I have been 
 a careful student of such writers as Mill and Bastiat, and I see no 
 reason to doubt that the economic doctrine, the doctrine on which 
 the continued prosperity of the masses of our people depends, 
 is being preached amongst us to-day, not by the Birmingham 
 tract manufacturers, but by such men as Professor Marshall at 
 Cambridge, and Mr. Edwin Cannan at Oxford (to name only those 
 whom I know intimately), and among experienced statesmen by 
 such a leader as Lord Goschen, whose high authority in all fiscal 
 matters no man will venture to aispute, and whose description 
 of the present agitation as " a gamble with the food of the 
 people " will, I trust, be carefully remembered and taken to 
 heart throughout the whole of this controversy by every one 
 who cares for the well-being of our poorer classes. It is a descrip- 
 tion for which every poor man, woman, and child in the country 
 has reason to be grateful.
 
 X POLITICS 237 
 
 But though I feel so strongly the grave character of the danger 
 into which the country is being enticed, I could not interfere at 
 Ludlow for two reasons. 
 
 In the first place, as I am a member of the House of Lords, 
 I might have been blamed for something like a breach of privilege ; 
 but, besides this, I feel it to be my duty to abstain, as far as 
 possible, from taking any personal part in the local contests of 
 my diocese. 
 
 As Bishop, my relationships are with all my fellow Churchmen, 
 and not with one political party among them, and I think I am 
 right in believing that they are friendly and happy relationships, 
 and I wish them to continue undisturbed. 
 
 Consequently, at any time of local conflict, when feeling, or it 
 may be passion, is liable to be in the ascendant, and anything I 
 might say, however reasonable and right in itself, would probably 
 be misunderstood or misrepresented, I feel it is better to stand 
 aside for the moment. 
 
 Now, however, that the Ludlow contest is over and done with, 
 and in the calm atmosphere of a Bank Holiday (the fiscal Sabbath), 
 there can be no sort of reason why I should not express to you 
 my convictions and my fears on what is undoubtedly a matter 
 of very grave national concern. Indeed, convinced as I am that 
 our country is threatened with grave and serious moral danger, 
 I should be blameworthy if I simply acquiesced and said nothing. 
 Moreover, it has, as you know, been recognised from the days of 
 Solon onwards that to shrink from taking a citizen's part in any 
 moment of national crisis is to be unworthy of the status of a 
 citizen. So that I need make no apology. 
 
 Moreover, I have some special justification for giving expres- 
 sion to my thoughts and feelings on this occasion, seeing how the 
 Ludlow portion of my diocese has been flooded by an invasion 
 of political bagmen from Birmingham with their heterodox and 
 misleading speeches and tracts, perverting our simple folk, both 
 clerical and lay, with fictions and pledges that are hardly worth 
 the paper on which they are printed, or the breath that uttered 
 
 them. 
 
 " In Tibcrim defluxit Orontes " — and, as I am bound by my 
 calling to be in a special sense the shepherd and friend of the poor, 
 that is to say, of the labouring man, the working woman, and the 
 poor child, I feel that I should not be justified in ignoring the 
 mischief done to all of these by such an invasion, or in taking it 
 lying down, if I may be allowed to borrow the chaste language 
 of the Birmingham school. 
 
 Every Bishop has solemnly promised to be merciful for 
 Christ's sake to poor and needy people ; but this Birmingham
 
 238 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Gospel is all in the interest of the rich, and is without mercy for 
 the poor and needy. Therefore, as I understand the matter, 
 it is my bounden duty to oppose it. 
 
 In whatever specious garb it may be dangled before men's 
 eves, it is in fact one of those erroneous and strange doctrines, 
 based on selfish interest, appealing to low motives, and fostering 
 feelings of antagonism, jealousy, hatred, and bitterness, which are 
 directly contrary to the spirit of God's word. Consequently 
 every minister of Christ is bound to do his part in banishing and 
 driving it away. 
 
 The doctrines of the retaliatory and Protectionist tariff- 
 monger, making food dearer, clothing dearer, and almost every 
 necessary of Hfe dearer, will sink the poor into deeper poverty ; 
 they will make it more difficult for every labourer to bring up his 
 children in a decent home, or to keep them in good health with 
 sufficient food and warm clothing ; and they will grind down 
 every poor working woman to a still harder lot. And we have 
 to remember that the poor, who will be thus affected — and their 
 name is legion — cannot suffer in this way without losing mental 
 and moral as well as physical vigour. In other words, this 
 Protectionist policy will depress and degrade the poorest and the 
 weakest of our people, and will make the work of the social 
 reformer, the philanthropist, and the minister of Christ, harder 
 than before. 
 
 How, then, can any man who has been solemnly called upon 
 to answer the question, " Will you be merciful for Christ's sake 
 to poor and needy people ? " give any support to such doctrines ? 
 
 Every labouring man who may be induced or persuaded to 
 give his vote for any advocate of these Chamber] ainite proposals 
 can, it is to be feared, only be said to be a fool for his pains ; and, 
 if it were respectful to those well-intentioned but misguided 
 ladies of limited means who go about as Primrose Dames on 
 behalf of Protectionist politicians, one would be tempted to say 
 of them that they are no wiser than such a labourer, seeing that 
 every vote given for a Protectionist or a retaliator is a vote to the 
 detriment not only of the poor, and of the needy, and of the weak 
 amongst us, but of every person who has to live on a fixed income. 
 
 This Protectionist propaganda — what does it represent when 
 stripped of its misleading rhetoric and sophistry ? And, if 
 successful, what will it foster and strengthen amongst us as 
 distinct from our present system of Free Trade ? 
 
 It represents and will foster those elements in our materialistic 
 civilisation which are pre-eminently unchristian, or, it might 
 even be said, anti-Christian. 
 
 It appeals to the lower and baser motives, and will be the
 
 X POLITICS 239 
 
 nurse of antagonisms, jealousies, rivalries, vested interests, 
 industrial monopolies, selfish warfare in trade and industry, both 
 as regards our relationships with one another here at home, and 
 with our Colonies, and with foreign countries. 
 
 It will corrupt and debase our public life by the cabals, 
 intrigues, and lobbying which are found to be inseparable 
 from such a system of preferences, retahation, and protective 
 tariffs. 
 
 It will go far to hand over our industries and our commerce 
 to the baneful influence of trusts, combinations, monopohes, and 
 corners, engineered by unscrupulous capitalists and speculators 
 working in secret places. 
 
 Hitherto the Free Trade system of England with its vast 
 ramifications and far-reaching, expansive activities, and its open 
 door for free and healthy competition from every quarter, has 
 proved the great obstacle or bulwark in the way of these specu- 
 lators in corners and trusts, who, caring apparently for nothing 
 but their own selfish gains, have no bowels of mercy for the 
 suffering poor. And the blind and credulous followers of Mr. 
 Chamberlain are actually proposing to sweep away this bulwark, 
 so that the whole world, civilised and uncivihsed alike, may 
 become an easier prey to the tyranny of these unscrupulous 
 capitalist speculators. 
 
 It is sad to see so many well-meaning and benevolent persons 
 allowing themselves to be made the tools of a policy so fraught 
 with mischief ; for it is acknowledged that the effect of such 
 combinations, which are sometimes quite inhuman in their 
 cruelty, is to make rich men richer, and some few enormously 
 rich, but to do this by making consumers pay unnaturally high 
 prices, and making the poor man still poorer, and bringing untold 
 privation and suffering on the poorest of all, especially on the 
 women and children. 
 
 As regards our Ludlow election the rumour reaches me that 
 many of our clergy supported the Protectionist candidate. I am 
 very sorry to hear this, but I indulge the hope that it may be 
 incorrect ; for of this I feel assured, that every bishop or priest 
 or other minister of the Gospel who may be led to give any 
 countenance or support to any Protectionist candidate for 
 Parliament will fall into the very serious error of aiding the rich 
 at the expense of the poor, and the strong at the expense of the 
 weak. 
 
 I have referred above to my own duty as a Bishop, but all 
 ministers of Christ are by their office called to be the special 
 guardians of the weak, the poor, and the needy ; and the ex- 
 perience of Protectionist countries has invariably shown that.
 
 240 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 whoever else may gain by protective tariffs and industrial or 
 commercial warfare or retaliation, the poorer classes have invari- 
 ably suffered thereby. 
 
 For my own part I look upon this retrograde agitation with 
 the hard-hearted policy of preferences, combinations, trusts, and 
 comers, which it specially subserves, as the newest form of that 
 oppression of the poorer and weaker classes which every minister 
 of the Gospel is bound to oppose, if he truly understands his 
 vocation and responsibiUty. 
 
 Should our good clergy to any great extent take the side of 
 these agitators, then I can only say that once more " blindness 
 in part is happened to Israel," and whenever this has so happened 
 in the past it has been with lamentable results. Most earnestly, 
 therefore, would I beg all our clergy to think many times before 
 they allow themselves to be persuaded either by appeals to 
 party allegiance or by any other influence to give support to 
 this dangerous agitation. 
 
 This letter has run to such a length that I must not weary you 
 with many more words, though there is much that needs saying 
 on the highly objectionable and even immoral methods adopted 
 by the advocates of this mean propaganda. 
 
 All this, however, I must be content to leave alone, hoping 
 that more influential voices may make it plain to every one who 
 is sensitive for the good name of his country that these methods 
 are tending seriously to debase the moral currency of our public 
 affairs. 
 
 One word in conclusion. The first article in the November 
 number of the Independent Review is a masterly exposition of the 
 moral issues involved in this controversy. The writer of that 
 article deserves our gratitude. His words are golden words. 
 They should be studied by every minister of the Gospel before 
 he gives any support to Mr, Chamberlain or any of his followers, 
 and indeed by every one who cares for the morals of our national 
 Hfe. I should like to see them scattered broadcast in every 
 constituency of the land, as the good seed of sound doctrine, to 
 take root and grow and bear fruit after their kind, for both the 
 material and the moral welfare of the nation.— Believe me, yours 
 
 sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 It causes no astonishment to find that such a deliverance 
 created a genuine furore in Herefordshire. The local news- 
 papers were filled with angry correspondence. There was 
 much talk of organising formal protests. At no time, in all
 
 X POLITICS 241 
 
 probability, was the Bishop so unpopular as he became in 
 consequence of this letter, following as it did upon his 
 attitude during the Boer War and his attacks upon the use 
 of Chinese labour in South Africa.^ 
 
 It was zeal for social reform that led him once again to 
 take part in a fiscal controversy and to intervene in the 
 debate on the Second Reading in the House of Lords of 
 Mr. Lloyd George's Finance Bill of 1909. For the Lords to 
 reject the Budget was, in his judgment, to invite revolution. 
 His speech concluded with these words : 
 
 In this House we are too apt to forget the people of England 
 outside, but can any of us really imagine that the people of 
 England will forget— that they are so degenerate as to forget — 
 the great historical struggles for their fundamental liberties, and 
 above all for the liberty and the power of the purse which cost 
 so much and which we have long held so dear ? Can you imagine 
 that these people at the present time are at all likely to forget, 
 or are in any degree likely to surrender, these fundamental 
 liberties under the thin disguise, the very thin disguise, of such 
 a phrase as this Amendment ? 
 
 No, my Lords, you may send this Budget to the country ; 
 but, living among the people, having grown up among the people 
 and come out from among them, I have some knowledge of their 
 fundamental feehngs and ideas ; and my beUef is that the answer 
 will come back to your Lordships in very plain English, and I fear 
 it may come in some form which you may regret. The answer 
 will come, I think, something like this — 
 
 " Never again, never again, in this country shall the funda- 
 mental hberties of the people be endangered by any privileged 
 class." 
 
 It is not the answer I fear, when I regard with something hke 
 dread your Lordships' action, or proposed action ; it is not the 
 answer that I fear so much as the storm and the tumult and the 
 class antagonisms and the strife and the bitterness for which you 
 are making yourselves responsible to-day. 
 
 The Bishop felt that he had not been well treated by the 
 Government in connection with his support of their most 
 important measure : 
 
 ^ Sec pp. 251, 253.
 
 242 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 To the Rev. R. Burges Bayly 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 November 28, 1909. 
 
 Dear Mr. Bayly — My grateful thanks for your kind letter. 
 I think 370U know that your kind approval of anything I try to 
 say or do is one of the things I specially prize. My little speech 
 was made under some difficulties. The Government Whip would 
 not give me any time but the hour of empty benches immediately 
 after adjournment for dinner, and was very particular that I 
 should not occupy more than 10 to 15 minutes even of that 
 dismal time. In their darker days they thought me of more 
 value. — With all best wishes, yours very sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 Percival's attitude towards the Labour Party was partly 
 sympathetic and partly critical. He approved of their aims, 
 but was often in opposition to their methods. " What," he 
 once asked, " would your reply be if I put a pistol to your 
 head and said, ' Be my brother or I shoot you ' ? " But he 
 reahsed to the full how deeply opposed to Christian principles 
 is the economic organisation of life which was growing up all 
 through the eighteenth century and became finally estab- 
 lished by the industrial revolution. Perhaps he under- 
 estimated the potency of national institutions in forming 
 character by their unceasing suggestion of the aims of life, 
 and went too far in his disbelief in political action as a m.eans 
 to moral reform. But in the main, he was indisputably right 
 in wishing the spirit of fellowship to come first and to create 
 for itself the institutions which would be its instruments.^ 
 
 With regard to industrial questions, he was a strong 
 advocate of arbitration, as appears from the following para- 
 graphs in a letter to The Times written during a Welsh Coal 
 Strike : 
 
 Plain folk, invited to use their common sense, look at the 
 matter somewhat in this way. 
 
 The public welfare, they say, requires that in a civilised 
 country two great federated bodies should not be at liberty to 
 carry on their private warfare to the detriment of the nation. 
 
 ^ See his sermon to the Plymouth Co-operative Congress referred to 
 on p. 82.
 
 X POLITICS 243 
 
 When either employers or workmen claim this liberty they 
 are claiming the right to destroy the results of progress slowly 
 and painfully won, and to carry us back to the semi-barbaric 
 condition of the Middle Ages, to a state of things hardly less 
 mischievous and intolerable than was the private warfare of the 
 feudal period. 
 
 These recurring disputes, with all their disastrous and miser- 
 able consequences, bring it home to us that they ought to be 
 made impossible. 
 
 If the electors throughout the country do their duty as 
 Christian citizens they will make it known to their representatives 
 in ParUament that, in their judgment, the time has come when 
 these great combinations of persons united for private gain must 
 be told authoritatively that combination to strike or to lock-out 
 is henceforth illegal, and that if the parties to a quarrel cannot 
 agree they must have recourse to a regularly constituted arbitra- 
 tion court. 
 
 This, I venture to think, is the conclusion to which the great 
 majority of the British people have come with regard to these 
 unhappy and ruinous contests, and it only remains for them to 
 insist on their representatives in the House of Commons giving 
 effect to their views, or else giving place at the next election to 
 those who are prepared to do this good work. 
 
 No reasonable man doubts that a Court consisting of three 
 of our Enghsh Judges could have been trusted absolutely to give 
 a righteous and equitable judgment on every one of the points at 
 issue in this engineering dispute, and that this warfare, with all 
 its waste, its misery, and its bitterness, might have been avoided. 
 
 Surely, then, it is the duty of the Legislature to see that this 
 process must be resorted to in all such controversies if the method 
 of conciliation has failed, as the welfare of the whole community 
 requires it. 
 
 In conclusion, I would commend to your readers some words 
 of an American writer which sum up the common-sense view of 
 this matter : 
 
 " The public have rights as well as the contestants, and when 
 a labour war inflicts a great disaster on the community the 
 community has a right to interfere, put a stop to the war, and 
 compel the contestants to abide by its decision. 
 
 " Concihation, the recognition by employers and employed 
 that they are partners in a common enterprise ; arbitration, the 
 adjustment of all questions of self-interest that cannot be adjusted 
 through conciliation, by reference to a mutually chosen tribunal ; 
 and the intervention of law where public rights are infringed 
 upon by controversy between labour and capitalist — this seems
 
 244 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 to me to be the application of Christ's method for the solution 
 of labour war — until we come to the full recognition of the fact 
 that the working man and capitalist are partners in a common 
 enterprise, and the very motive of war ceases to exist." — Your 
 obedient servant, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 The Palace, Hereford, Dec. 13. 
 
 With these questions of social reform and economic policy 
 must be classed, as a matter of domestic pohtics, both his 
 life-long concern for education ^ and the long struggle over 
 Welsh DisestabUshment. In relation to the latter Percival 
 had entered the Lists while still at Rugby, and his views on 
 this subject had been among the reasons leading Lord Rose- 
 bery to think of him as a suitable candidate for the Bishopric 
 of Hereford.^ He had spoken on the question at the first 
 meeting of Convocation that he attended, advocating the 
 acceptance of Disestablishment and a scheme of concurrent 
 endowment.^ In November 1911, he recapitulated his argu- 
 ment in a letter to Tlie Times : 
 
 The clouds of dust raised by the combatants in the Welsh 
 Church controversy seem to be obscuring the requirements of 
 justice and common sense, and I would ask your readers to 
 bear in mind certain fundamental considerations which are too 
 frequently overlooked. 
 
 As regards Disestablishment, hardly any one will now main- 
 tain that establishment can be justly upheld and continued 
 against the general sentiment of the people immediately con- 
 cerned. And no responsible person wiU deny that the general 
 sentiment of Wales is opposed to estabUshment. For many 
 years, and through one Parliament after another, the repre- 
 sentatives of the Welsh people have persistently demanded the 
 Disestablishment of the Church with an almost unanimous voice. 
 So far as they are concerned it is a settled question. 
 
 The subject of Disendowment is somewhat more complex. 
 It should, however, be borne in mind that the Bill for which we 
 are waiting will, like its predecessors, deal only with ancient 
 endowments. 
 
 These are held by the Church as a national trust given for the 
 spiritual benefit of the whole community in each parish or district. 
 
 But circumstances are so changed that they are now mono- 
 
 1 See Chaps. VII. and XI. » See p. 130. ^ gee pp. 137, 138.
 
 X POLITICS 245 
 
 polised by a comparatively small minority, and it is consequently 
 the duty of Parliament to see that they are equitably distributed, 
 so as once more to serve the spiritual uses of the whole com- 
 munity. Equal justice would seem to require that this should 
 be done. 
 
 We may regret the cases of individual hardship involved in 
 the redistribution. These should be met as far as possible by 
 the State, and by individual Churchmen, in a generous and help- 
 ful spirit ; but the outcry raised as to spoliation and robbery 
 and the iniquity of such proceedings is as unreasonable as it is 
 mischievous. It may, however, fairly be claimed that, as the 
 endowments were clearly given for spiritual purposes, they should 
 not be secularised, but should be retained for spiritual uses ; and 
 the difficulties in the way of such retention, though no doubt 
 considerable, should not prove insuperable. 
 
 For my own part, if no better scheme can be found I hope it 
 might be considered both just and feasible to vest these endow- 
 ments in a Welsh Commission, with instructions to allocate the 
 income year by year in due proportion to the recognised repre- 
 sentative authority of each religious denomination in each parish 
 or district. The grant to be made only on application by this 
 authority, and only for spiritual purposes ; and every authority 
 receiving a grant to send to the Commission an annual report 
 showing how the grant has been expended. 
 
 Some such allocation would, I trust, commend itself to all 
 reasonable people as a just and equitable settlement. 
 
 His chief activities in connection with the matter were 
 concerned with the border parishes which were in Wales 
 politically and in the Province of Canterbury ecclesiastically. 
 It was at his recommendation that Mr. W. G. C. Gladstone 
 moved amendments dealing with these parishes. Mr. Glad- 
 stone also moved for the introduction of a commutation 
 scheme. The Bishop supported both proposals. On Decem- 
 ber 31, 1912, he sent the following letter to The Times : 
 
 The Welsh Bill 
 
 border parishes 
 
 To the Editor of " The Times " 
 
 Sir — With your permission I desire to express the hope, which 
 I beUeve to be largely entertained, that the Government may
 
 246 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 give favourable consideration to two amendments of the Welsh 
 Disestablishment Bill which, as I understand, Mr. William 
 Gladstone intends to move in Committee. 
 
 The first of these is the insertion in the Bill of what may be 
 described as his grandfather's clause in the Irish Act for the 
 commutation of existing interests. 
 
 This clause secured great benefits to the Disestablished Church 
 in Ireland, both by stimulating the public spirit and the generosity 
 of Churchmen and by providing for the Church a large additional 
 income from the interests commuted. Similar benefits would 
 accrue to the Welsh Church from the adoption of this amend- 
 ment. 
 
 The other is to the effect that border parishes wholly Welsh 
 but now belonging to an English diocese should be excluded 
 from the operation of the Bill, if the Welsh Commissioners after 
 due inquiry are satisfied that it is the general wish of the 
 parishioners to be so excluded ; and conversely that a border 
 parish now situate in a Welsh diocese but not in Wales or Mon- 
 mouthshire should be included in the operation of the Bill if the 
 parishioners so desire. 
 
 I venture to submit that this is a reasonable plea on behalf 
 of these border parishes, and that it is in complete accordance 
 with the purpose of the Bill to bring ecclesiastical relationships 
 into agreement with the general sentiment of the people immedi- 
 ately affected by it. 
 
 My own experience of the circumstances of such parishes has 
 led me to believe that in their case it would be reasonable to have 
 regard to diocesan as well as county boundaries, and that the 
 parishioners have an equitable claim to be allowed a voice in this 
 decision. In my diocese I have about a dozen parishes which 
 would be thus affected, and in most of them the parishioners 
 would very strongly object to being transferred into a new diocese. 
 They are not Welsh-speaking parishes, and so far as I know there 
 are no Welsh services held in them ; they are in fact thoroughly 
 Anglicised, and all their associations and traditions connect them 
 immemorially with the diocese of Hereford. 
 
 To avoid misunderstanding I desire to add in conclusion that 
 in making this appeal I do so as a supporter of the Bill and not 
 an opponent. My sole desire is to assist Mr. Gladstone in his 
 endeavour to improve it by the addition of two valuable amend- 
 ments. 
 
 The main provisions of the Bill seem to me to be essentially 
 fair and reasonable under aU the circumstances ; and I do not 
 see how Parliament can with justice any longer disregard the 
 persistent demand of the Welsh people as a whole in a matter
 
 X POLITICS 247 
 
 in which above all others they are the people primarily, if not 
 exclusively, concerned. — Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 December 31, 1912. 
 
 He was engaged at this time in frequent correspondence 
 with Mr. McKenna, who told him that concurrent endow- 
 ment was impossible because the Nonconformists did not 
 want and would not accept endowments from the State ; 
 also that " commutation " had been omitted from the Bill 
 on the ground that the resources of the Welsh Church were 
 not sufficient to make it workable, and that additional 
 facilities for the transfer of an incumbent from one benefice 
 to another, and specially generous retirement terms, had 
 been introduced in place of it. 
 
 He was more in accord with his brother Bishops in his 
 views on the question of Marriage with a Deceased Wife's 
 Sister. On August 20, 1907, he opposed the Second Reading 
 of the measure legahsing such marriages in the House of 
 Lords. He scouted the plea that this was a working man's 
 question. So far as it was difficult for a working man to get 
 his sister-in-law to hve with him and bring up his cliildren, 
 it was because of housing conditions which ought on all 
 grounds to be altered. But when the measure was passed 
 he accepted it, and at his Diocesan Conference in the autumn 
 of the same year he denounced the attempt to maintain an 
 independent law for the Church as inconsistent with " the 
 position and history of our Church as the Established Church 
 of the Realm. . . . Under our constitution the Canons are 
 binding upon us so long as they do not conffict with any law 
 of the Realm and no longer." He added a grave warning of 
 the effects which were in his judgment bound to follow from 
 an attempt to make the Canons of the Church paramount 
 over the Law of the Realm. 
 
 II. Imperial 
 
 The chief question of Imperial politics with which 
 Percival actively concerned liimself was the Boer War and 
 its consequences. He regarded the poUcy on the British
 
 248 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 side which led up to the war as mistaken and unjustifiable. 
 In that sense he was a " pro-Boer." But he neither expected 
 nor desired that the Boers should be victorious. His desire 
 was that they should quickly give way and save a great 
 expenditure in lives and in money. His son, Arthur, was 
 with the Army, and to him the Bishop wrote throughout the 
 period with unfailing regularity : 
 
 Lambeth Palace, S.E., 
 Jan. 19, I goo. 
 
 Just now the interest at home has shifted to the Tugela, and 
 people are very anxious for some good news. The daily telegrams 
 of the last three months have made people almost hysterically 
 nervous and gloomy. It surprises me to see people here in 
 London so wanting in nerve. 
 
 Jan. 26, igoo. 
 
 The Bishop of Liverpool retires next month, so that I expect 
 to take my seat in the House of Lords in March or April. This 
 won't greatly affect the British Empire or your father either, but 
 you may like to know about it. 
 
 London, and indeed the country also, have been nervously 
 anxious this week, but were relieved, I am glad to say, yesterday 
 by the news that Spion Kop was taken by Warren. I must 
 confess that I dislike this hysterical nervousness of the British 
 public. It looks too much as if we were losing grit. Over every 
 Httle victory we shout — see what heroes we are, especially if we 
 happen to be Life-guardsmen or Highlanders in kilts ; and at 
 every check we are all in a tremor as if the Boers were going to 
 eat us up. That is your jingo Briton at home. In camp, thank 
 God, you are of different stuff. 
 
 Feb. I, I goo. 
 
 We got our first bit of real pleasure out of this war when we 
 read Lord Methuen's despatch in The Times last Saturday, with 
 its commendation of you for what you did at the Modder River. ^ 
 I am truly glad and thankful that you got your chance of winning 
 some distinction and made such good use of it. It has made me 
 feel some years younger. 
 
 People here have been very gloomy at home again this week, 
 and it is indeed sad that so many brave lives should have been 
 sacrificed on Spion Kop ; but the tide must turn soon, and we 
 
 1 Arthur Percival was awarded the D.S.O. for his services in the battle.
 
 X POLITICS 249 
 
 are looking for Lord Roberts to develop some new plan of cam- 
 paign. Parliament has just opened, and there will now be no end 
 of talk. The Government don't show much spirit or high- 
 mindedness ; but the thing is practically out of their hands now, 
 and the Generals, backed by the whole nation, must carry the 
 business through. 
 
 March 16, 1900. 
 
 Assuming that you are in Colvile's Division, we have been 
 thinking of you as in Bloemfontein the last day or two ; and it is 
 rather odd to think of the occupation of a " capital city " very 
 little bigger than the town of Ludlow. The inhabitants of the 
 City of Hereford, as a rule, don't realise this or they would feel 
 very proud of themselves. I am hoping that your next letter to 
 arrive may tell us what your movements were to be when the 
 start was made from the Moddcr. The bombarding of Cronje 
 must have been an awful sort of business, and I am afraid there 
 will be more horrors before the war is over. 
 
 Personally I wish very earnestly that the Government would 
 pluck up spirit to make up their minds and say publicly what 
 their terms of settlement are to be. My belief is that, if they 
 would do this, and say they must be accepted in Pretoria, it 
 would help matters to a successful issue. If they hold them back 
 it is feared that the Boers will turn desperate and fight to the 
 bitter end ; and history shows that a war in which men are 
 fighting desperately and hopelessly for independence becomes 
 fearfully savage. However, we can only sit helpless and hope 
 for a speedy end to the fighting. 
 
 March 23, 1900. 
 
 It looks as if this war is going to saddle the country with a 
 very big army. We are rejoicing tremendously over the wave of 
 colonial loyalty, which is expected to do such great things for the 
 Empire. My own private hope is that the colonies may be willing 
 to bear their due share of the expenses of Empire ; but will they ? 
 At present we English taxpayers seem to be paying every colonial 
 trooper about three times the rate of pay received by one of your 
 men, an arrangement which may do for the moment, but won't 
 wear well. 
 
 May 12, 1900. 
 
 I took my seat in the House of Lords on Thursday, and the 
 sight would have amused you. All the boys and Bessie, and Mary 
 and her sister were there to see ; and for the rest the house was
 
 250 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 nearly empty. There was the Lord Chancellor sitting bewigged 
 on the Woolsack like some wise and ancient bird ; and three 
 Bishops in their robes come up the House and make profound 
 bows three times ; and then they go up to the new Bishop's seat 
 and sit down, put on their caps and get up, take them off and bow 
 three times more. I take the oath of allegiance to the Queen, 
 sign the Roll of Peers, and it is all over. 
 
 You seem to be all on the move again, and people are beginning 
 to talk about a Boer collapse. I only hope they may be true 
 prophets ; but many people at home don't seem to understand 
 that they are a fighting race like ourselves. 
 
 June 8, 1900. 
 
 One of the questions exercising people's minds is when the 
 Government will dissolve Parliament, so as to secure their 
 majority for another six years. They will no doubt do it before 
 the khaki fever subsides and the reaction sets in. 
 
 Aix-les-Bains, 
 Sept. 27, 1900. 
 
 Here I am, writing on my birthday — sixty-six to-day — and 
 doing my best to get myself boiled young again. 
 
 In England we are in the midst of an election, and I am glad 
 to be able to read aU about it at a distance. ... I suppose the 
 Government will come in again with a big majority in spite of 
 the mess they have made of so many things ; and I am sorry to 
 think of the further mischief that Chamberlain may do in another 
 five years if they are in. 
 
 October 26, 1900. 
 
 Why our statesmen were such fools as not to offer publicly 
 some reasonable terms instead of their stupid talk about un- 
 conditional surrender, when they occupied Bloemfontein and 
 Pretoria, I cannot understand. Anyhow the conviction is 
 spreading that it is going to be a very long and very dismal 
 business, and I shall be very thankful if this conviction is soon 
 proved to be a mistaken one. 
 
 December 14, 1900. 
 
 Our newspapers, and even official telegrams, keep talking about 
 " raiders " and " guerilla fighting," but it seems to me that the 
 Boer generals have a regular concerted plan, and it looks as if 
 they may give you a great deal of trouble yet ; while this Govern-
 
 X POLITICS 251 
 
 ment of ours doesn't seem to formulate any clear and definite terms 
 with a view to peace. The burning of farms and destruction of 
 crops, and sending away of women and children into camps, are 
 causing a good many searchings of heart at home. Many people 
 don't believe in the method, and many think it barbarous, and 
 all wonder what is to happen at the end of it ; but it's no use 
 speculating ; and I keep hoping that they may give in soon. 
 
 February i, 1901. 
 
 The Queen's death and all the changes involved have occupied 
 people's thoughts this week. I wish the new King would signalise 
 the beginning of his reign by a public offer of some terms to the 
 Boers ; but I fear conciliatory statesmanship is out of fashion at 
 present. It is rumoured that the Government will have to ask 
 for an additional ;^70,ooo,ooo for this year. 
 
 April 19, 1 90 1. 
 
 Last night Sir Michael Hicks-Beach produced his Budget — a 
 very gloomy document : deficit about £53,000,000. He puts 2d. 
 more on Income Tax, a tax on sugar, and a duty on exported coal, 
 thus adding about £11,000,000 to taxation, and he also asks for 
 power to borrow £60,000,000. 
 
 Whatever else this war may be it is at any rate a costly one ; 
 and this Government will go down to posterity as having wasted 
 more good English money than any Government of our time. 
 There has also come a gloomy despatch from Milner, or rather it 
 came two months ago but the Government kept it back for some 
 reason. So the dreary business goes on, and the financial burden 
 is likely to hamper the progress of the country for the next 
 thirty years. 
 
 Percival was called a pro-Boer, and, as has been said, in 
 the sense in which the term was used (so far as it was justi- 
 fiably used) this was true ; that is to say, he distrusted the 
 poHcy that had led to the war and beUeved that all claims 
 could have been peaceably adjusted. He did not desire a 
 Boer victory, but he was in opposition to the national policy 
 which, in his judgment, was responsible for the war. Con- 
 sequently he was for a time a markedly unpopular figure. 
 When peace was at length declared there was " mafficking " 
 in Hereford as elsewhere. Some rowdies suggested the 
 breaking of all pro-Boers' windows, and a large amount of 
 glass was smashed. Then some one suggested an attack on
 
 252 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 the Palace ; the proposal was eagerly taken up ; but the 
 Bishop's coachman heard what was proposed and brought 
 news in good time. The outer gates were closed and barred, 
 and nothing more than a noisy hammering on stout wood 
 could be achieved. The Bishop had already gone to bed, 
 and only heard next morning of the attentions which some 
 of his fellow- citizens had wished to pay him. But he was 
 outspoken on this as on all subjects. It must have given 
 him peculiar pleasure when, rather slyly, he selected as a 
 topic for an address to the students of University College, 
 Aberystwyth, on November i, 1900, the value and the 
 achievements of small nationalities. It was not a frequent 
 topic for eloquence in England while the British Empire was 
 engaged in war against the Transvaal and the Orange Free 
 State. But it could hardly be resented in Wales ! 
 
 When peace was declared the Government had to face 
 a very difficult situation. South Africa was largely im- 
 poverished ; the only way to restore prosperity was to 
 develop industry ; but there was a shortage of labour. The 
 Kaffirs had made large sums of money during the war and 
 were in no mood to work until that money was used up. 
 After much deliberation it was determined to introduce 
 Chinese coolies into South Africa under a system of in- 
 dentured labour. To avoid further comphcating the race 
 problem of South Africa the Chinese were to be strictly 
 confined to " compounds," and after a period they were to 
 be repatriated. This raised many questions of fundamental 
 principle. The Chinese were not to bring women with them, 
 and there were grounds for anticipating moral evils of a 
 serious kind. The whole system made the prosperity of 
 South Africa depend on labour which was excluded from 
 any participation in that prosperity. So far it was a revival 
 of slavery, for it based civiHsation on the labour of men to 
 whom citizenship was denied. A vast controversy arose. 
 Most people omitted to discuss whether the scheme was 
 good or bad, and only argued about the appropriateness of 
 using the term " slavery " as a description of it. A poster 
 which depicted Chinese coolies in chains caused a great out- 
 cry. The fact was that the men were not " slaves " as the
 
 X POLITICS 253 
 
 word is usually understood, but neither were they free. The 
 system had the chief political evil of " slavery," though it 
 was without some of the ethical and economic evils of it. 
 When Mr. Winston Churchill defended the use of the term 
 " slavery," but admitted that it was a " terminological 
 inexactitude," he was supposed to have given the case away ; 
 but in fact he had described the situation with terminological 
 exactness. The whole pother about " slavery " was a side- 
 issue. The only question worth debating was : Is the 
 system in the whole situation right or wrong, permissible 
 or not permissible ? 
 
 On that question Percival had no doubt. He was 
 eloquent both in speech and with the pen in denunciation of 
 the whole policy. The reports gave a gloomy picture of 
 the moral condition of the compounds to which the Chinese 
 were confined, and he laid great stress on this. But his main 
 concern was for the political morality of this method of 
 supplying labour. So, for instance, he declared in the House 
 of Lords on March 21, 1904 : 
 
 If you put it into plain English, I venture to think that this 
 Ordinance means something like this — that we say to the Chinese, 
 " We will not have you in the Transvaal as men, but we will 
 import you as animated implements, and, by and by, when we 
 have done with you, we will export you again, dead or alive." 
 And judging from what we have heard of the statistics, before 
 the three years are over, a great many of the men who go to some 
 of those mines will have to be exported in their coffins. I say 
 that when you strip the Ordinance of all its outer declarations 
 and take away the veil over it, it is nothing less than an iniquitous 
 Ordinance. The spirit of it is altogether unchristian. 
 
 Again on July 6, 1906, he supported the demand for the 
 immediate repatriation of the Chinese — 
 
 ... so that we may be able to say that whenever a man sets foot 
 within the British Empire he is a free man. 
 
 The advent of the Liberals to power under Sir Henry 
 Campbell- Bannerman led to a complete change of policy, 
 the aboHtion of Crown Colony Government, and the estab-
 
 254 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 lishment of the present constitution. In this epoch-making 
 and, as history has proved, conspicuously successful policy, 
 Percival gave the Prime Minister his constant support. He 
 also became a trusted friend of General Botha. His influence 
 was a real factor in promoting a settlement which at the 
 time was variously regarded as reckless and as treasonable, 
 but is now recognised as a crowning act of generous and far- 
 sighted statesmanship, which by its hberahty evoked a 
 loyalty such as more cautious measures could never have 
 called forth. 
 
 III. Foreign Policy 
 
 In relation to Foreign Policy, Percival's activities were 
 confined to the promotion of international peace and the 
 advocacy of the cause of oppressed peoples. In the latter 
 he was a constant champion. He sought to guide the minds 
 of his Clifton pupils along what seemed to him the only 
 Christian lines, and a sermon preached by him in the College 
 Chapel on October 7, 1877, was published as a pamphlet under 
 the title Political Sympathies Astray, and with the sub-title 
 " Is Sympathy with Turkish Rule and Warfare natural to 
 a Christian Englishman ? " How persistent in later years 
 were his activities on behalf of oppressed peoples is clear 
 from the following facts. In 1895 and 1896 he was active 
 and clamorous on behalf of the Armenians. His efforts 
 in the first of these two years drew a letter from Mr. Glad- 
 stone, dated Hawarden Castle, Chester, December 16, 1895, 
 in which the two following sentences occur : " The case of 
 Armenia is indeed terrible beyond words, and we are all 
 sadly impotent. . . . Would God there were more utter- 
 ances like yours from the Episcopal Bench." In 1903 he 
 was again stirred to the soul by the outrages in Macedonia. 
 In 1904 he was eloquent on the mal-administration of the 
 Congo Free State. The principles on which such efforts are 
 based are inevitably unchanging, and one specimen of his 
 utterances on these subjects will illustrate the tone of all. 
 The following is a letter written with reference to the 
 Macedonian atrocities in 1903 :
 
 X POLITICS 255 
 
 In compliance with many appeals and on behalf of many 
 persons, I venture to trouble you with these few words in the 
 hope that we may receive your influential support of what we 
 advocate. 
 
 The published accounts of Macedonian horrors and miseries 
 are so shocking that men are asking on every side, " How long 
 wiU our Government remain silent and do nothing but look on in 
 apparent acquiescence ? " So long ago as March 13 the Foreign 
 Secretary was questioned in the House of Lords as to the atrocities 
 which had then been committed, and an earnest appeal was 
 addressed to him to bring to bear all the influence of our Govern- 
 ment to stop the continuance of such horrors ; but nevertheless 
 throughout the intervening months matters have been allowed 
 to go steadily from bad to worse, until we have before us the 
 accounts of the last few days, so awful that we hesitate to believe 
 them. 
 
 On that occasion Lord Spencer said, very forcibly, " I think 
 it right to impress upon the Government that the people of this 
 country have a deep and strong feeling on this subject. They 
 sympathise very deeply with the suffering populations under the 
 rule of Turkey " ; and Lord Lansdowne in his reply professed a 
 strong and obviously sincere desire to see effective reforms carried 
 out. " We shall closely watch," he said, " the operation of the 
 Austro-Russian scheme of reforms. We have already given 
 instructions that our consuls, who have throughout these events 
 kept us fully supplied with information, are from time to time to 
 report on the progress of these measures ; and I can assure the 
 Right Rev. Prelate that, so far as our opportunities permit, 
 we shall spare no pains to secure the execution of these re- 
 forms. . . ." Thus he seemed to promise effective action. What 
 has come of it ? After six months of weary waiting, and in the 
 lurid light of the horrors recently reported, it is reasonable to ask 
 what the noble Marquis has to say as to the effective fulfilment 
 of this pledge. The people of England have, indeed, been far too 
 patient in this matter. The younger generation of Englishmen 
 have not realised how great is England's responsibility in regard to 
 it. But for the action of our own representatives Macedonia would 
 have been free from the miseries of Turkish misrule during the 
 last quarter of a century, and there would have been none of these 
 indescribable agonies to-day. What a responsibility was incurred 
 with a hght heart and in a cynical temper when this province was 
 handed back to the tender mercies of the Turk ! 
 
 Do the members of our Cabinet sufficiently recognise how this 
 humihating memory, as it becomes fully realised, is stirring men 
 and women throughout the land to remorse and anger, and how in
 
 256 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 consequence they, as our representatives to-day, will never be for- 
 given if, after present events, they make no strong effort to secure 
 such reparation as is still possible by insisting on autonomous 
 government, adequately guaranteed, for this distressful people ? 
 
 If, on the other hand, they brace themselves to the task and 
 succeed in giving effect to the national feeling, their action, even 
 at this late hour, will be very thankfully acknowledged. They 
 have the universal sentiment of the people at their back. Let us 
 hope they will act so as to satisfy it, and see that never again shall 
 such things as are now doing be done in Christian Europe. " God 
 looked for judgment, but behold oppression ; for righteousness, 
 but behold a cry." 
 
 Is this to be the last word ? We cannot believe it. But, if 
 so, what a mockery it is for the Great Powers of Europe to call 
 themselves Christian Powers ; and what a gilded hypocrisy is the 
 coronation service of every Christian Emperor or King ! 
 
 It is no exaggeration to say that the stain of an indelible 
 personal discredit will rest upon every monarch and upon every 
 statesman in Christian Europe who, from whatever motive, can 
 be held to have been in any sense primarily responsible for the 
 continuance of such atrocities as you have to report day by day. 
 
 The cause of Peace was especially near to his heart, and 
 became an ever- increasing concern to him, and here again 
 his persistency is notable. In 1896 he read a paper to the 
 Church Congress at Shrewsbury on International Relations 
 in the Light of the Gospel. In 1899 he was the preacher at 
 the English Church at the Hague on June 11, while the Hague 
 Conference was sitting, and delivered a sermon which was 
 printed under the title The Peacemakers, or the Influence 
 of Christian Principles on International Relationships. In 
 1900 we find him presiding over the Annual Meeting of the 
 International Arbitration and Peace Association. In 1904 
 he travelled to America in the cause of Peace.^ In 1905 he 
 presided over the National Peace Congress at Bristol. In 
 1908 he presided at the Annual Meeting of the Christian 
 Conference on Peace in London. Very shortly before the 
 war he went to Berlin with many Christian ministers of all 
 denominations with a view to fostering better international 
 relations. Soon afterwards, at the National Peace Congress 
 in Cardiff, was read the following message from the Bishop. 
 
 1 See Chap. VIII.
 
 X POLITICS 257 
 
 It has a pathetic interest in the light of what was so shortly 
 to happen. 
 
 Fresh as I am from the visit of the ministers of religion to 
 Germany, I feel more strongly than before that the cause of peace 
 is making real progress in spite of all signs to the contrary. It is 
 impossible to doubt the sincerity of the welcome with which we 
 were everywhere received or of the desire for peaceful and friendly 
 relations with England expressed by the Kaiser and his ChanceUor, 
 by the burgomasters and councillors of every city we visited, and 
 by private citizens in every rank of life, and we were assured that 
 the masses of the working men are solid for peace. Here, then, 
 we have a great and growing people, the greatest on the Continent 
 of Europe, like ourselves industrially and commercially, and of 
 the same stock, equally with us, desirous of unbroken peace and 
 friendship. Surely, under such circumstances, it is not too much 
 to ask that the Governments of the two countries should make it 
 their supreme duty by frank and direct personal indications to 
 establish mutual confidence and goodwill. The statesman who 
 may succeed in doing this — and I hope it may be done — will 
 confer an inestimable boon on all the nations of Europe. 
 
 Bishop Percival pursued his great ideals with perfect 
 consistency. That the last years of one who laboured so 
 long and so strenuously for peace should have been spent 
 under the shadow of the great war was a sad destiny. But 
 in that case he believed whole-heartedly in the justice of the 
 cause his country had espoused, and none rejoiced more 
 deeply than he in the victory of the allied arms over the 
 aggression of despotic militarism. 
 
 He was no " Pacifist," though he was a lover of Peace. 
 He believed there was a place for the use of force in Christian 
 statesmanship. On behalf of oppressed peoples he per- 
 petually urged the employment of force. But he would 
 have it used, not for aggrandisement nor chiefly for self- 
 defence, but for the protection of the oppressed. When he 
 demanded armed intervention on behalf of Armenia or 
 Macedonia and statesmen rephed that it might cause a 
 European conflagration, he was not impressed. His one 
 concern was to be brave in succouring the weak ; the issue 
 he was prepared to leave in the hands of God, whose bidding 
 he sought to obey.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION 
 
 No cause was dearer to Percival than the general develop- 
 ment of education and the offering of educational facilities 
 to all who were shut out from the fullest opportunities of 
 mental growth. In his early days, the education of women 
 was a dangerous novelty ; the education of working men 
 had not been dreamt of. When he went to Clifton in 1862 
 even universal elementary education was still in the future 
 by eight years. What now seem to be simple schemes were 
 then audacious and revolutionary, and certainly those 
 epithets would not be too strong for the view held by many 
 sober citizens concerning the modest but excellent scheme 
 described in the following words of Miss Alice Winkworth : 
 
 In February 1868, Mr. and Mrs. Percival and ten other ladies 
 and gentlemen formed a Committee to promote the Higher 
 Education of Women. Mrs. Percival and Miss Brice were the 
 Secretaries, but gave up the Secretaryship in 1870 to Miss 
 Catherine Winkworth. The responsibility and labour of finding 
 suitable lecturers and making all business arrangements fell to 
 the Secretary, who was greatly helped in this by Mr. Percival, 
 and they obtained the services of most distinguished men as 
 lecturers, such as Mr. J. A. Symonds, Professors Nichol and Grant 
 of Glasgow, Mr. F. W. H. Myers, Rev. M. Creighton (afterwards 
 Bishop of London), Mr. Humphry Ward, Professor Bonamy 
 Price, Rev. J. Franck Bright, Mr. T. Case, etc. 
 
 In 1870, besides the Lectures, there were set on foot Classes on 
 various subjects to aid women in preparing for the Higher 
 Cambridge Examination. 
 
 These Lectures and Classes were remarkably successful both 
 
 258
 
 CHAP. XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 259 
 
 in the numbers attending them and in the quahty of the work 
 done, and they may be said to have raised the whole intellectual 
 tone of Clifton society. In 1876 Dr. Percival felt that the time 
 had now come for Bristol to have a University College, where 
 young men and women could carry on systematic study, and 
 it was decided by the Higher Education Committee not to 
 organise any independent classes, but to circulate the prospectus 
 of the proposed College among their students. They also 
 raised a Fund for Scholarships to be held by women at the 
 College during the next two years, which were replaced by per- 
 manent scholarships raised as a memorial to Miss Winkworth on 
 her death in 1878. Bristol was the first town in England to 
 possess a University College open alike to men and women, and 
 this it owes to Dr. Percival and the Committee for the Higher 
 Education of Women. Miss Winkworth wrote, " Mr. Percival 
 pushes us on and on with a steady pressure. Wlicnever I've 
 arranged one set of classes and feel I may rest on my oars, he 
 smiles gently and says, ' Well, now then. Miss Winkworth, don't 
 you think we may begin so and so ? ' " This is somewhat 
 descriptive of his methods with all with whom he came into 
 contact. 
 
 In 1877 the Percivals and some of their friends felt the need 
 of a High School for Girls in Clifton, and the idea was warmly 
 taken up. The children of many of the best known families in 
 Clifton were sent to it, and it was so successful that in a few years 
 it was decided to start an offshoot in Redland, another suburb of 
 Bristol. This soon grew into a most flourishing institution, of 
 which Dr. Percival remained President. 
 
 That misgivings were aroused by such proposals is 
 evident from the following letter from the poet, Mr. Sydney 
 Dobell : 
 
 6 Harley Place, 
 
 March 19. 
 
 My dear Mr. Percival — The passing handshake of last week 
 allowed no time for what I have been wishing to say ever since 
 our ride on the Down — that any hesitation I had felt as to your 
 project for " the Higher Education of Women " was removed 
 by the talk we had up there. I confess that, at first sight, a 
 clause in the programme you kindly sent me roused some anxiety 
 in regard to your experiment ; because I believe heartily in the 
 immortality of Manhood and Womanhood, and believe therefore 
 that the effort of all human education should be to make us 
 more profoundly and supremely Man and Woman ; but I think
 
 26o LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 that your programme, supplemented by that running — or, to 
 speak quite exactly, that cantering — commentary of yours, 
 represents a cause for which the most sturdy Dissentient from 
 Amazons, Blue-stockings, or however otherwise one may call 
 hoc genus onine (it's a comfort to speak of them in the neuter), 
 must go in with all his heart. My wife and Miss Jolly unite in 
 cordial sympathy with Mrs. Percival and yourself, and pray let 
 me say the same for yours right truly, 
 
 Sydney Dobell. 
 
 As we are not residents here, and can hardly, therefore, hope 
 to offer personal co-operation, perhaps you will allow me the 
 pleasure of a small subscription towards the expenses of whatever 
 mechanique may be necessary. 
 
 Schemes of this type, however, admirable as they were, 
 fell far short of what Percival saw to be required. There 
 were in those days no provincial universities, except 
 Durham; and Durham, being residential, shared in part 
 both the advantages and the limitations of Oxford and 
 Cambridge. Percival, considering the needs of Bristol, con- 
 ceived the idea of University Colleges. 
 
 In September 1872 he wrote a pamphlet consisting of 
 twenty printed pages, in the form of an open letter to the 
 Governing Bodies of the various Colleges in the University 
 of Oxford, and with the title The Connection of the Universities 
 and the Great Towns. In this he dwells upon the loss involved 
 for a great city by their lack of any centre of higher education 
 within itself and upon the value of the influence which such 
 a centre could exert upon its corporate life. 
 
 The object that I have had in view in laying these remarks 
 before you is to ask you to take into consideration the possibility 
 of devising some remedy for this separation between the life of 
 the provincial cities and our University culture. Any reform 
 which might succeed in this would not only be the means of 
 raising the general life of the commercial classes to a higher level 
 of cultivation and taste, but would, at the same time, open a 
 comparatively new sphere of usefulness to the Universities 
 themselves, and give them a fresh hold upon the mind of the 
 nation. 
 
 And the present time would seem to be peculiarly suited for 
 the consideration of this question, as the inquiries of the com-
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 261 
 
 mission now sitting may naturally be expected to lead eventually 
 to some new form of University work ; and, if so, it cannot be 
 too soon to discuss the form which that work might be made to 
 take with most advantage to the Universities and the country. 
 I am, of course, aware that this is in no sense a new question. 
 For many years it is known to have been a subject of considera- 
 tion among the residents of both Universities, how to bring the 
 great towns into closer connection with their work, and it will 
 be remembered that, so long ago as the time of the Durham 
 University Commission, the present Master of BaUiol spoke on 
 the subject in his evidence before the Commission. 
 
 He was eager for the actual influence of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge in the matter. He feared that if institutions under 
 purely local initiative and control were established they 
 would not have the breadth of outlook which he deemed 
 essential : 
 
 If founded under local influences they are certain to have 
 almost exclusive reference to the practical wants of the neigh- 
 bourhood, and will consequently attract only special classes of 
 students and produce little or no effect in the way of liberal 
 culture. Thus they wiU be found to lack the one element which 
 specially distinguishes a University, and which is above all 
 things required in our wealthy trading communities. 
 
 On this account I feel it would be nothing short of a mis- 
 fortune if the older Universities should, from any cause, miss 
 the opportunity which seems now to be offered of establishing 
 their influence in town life, as strongly as they have in times 
 past established it in that of the country ; and I have long 
 entertained the hope that the Universities of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, through their Colleges, may be led to take the matter in 
 hand by offering — under certain conditions — to plant in the 
 chief provincial towns branches or faculties, consisting of various 
 Professorships, which shall be looked upon as integral parts of 
 the parent University. . . . The outlines of the proposal may 
 be stated as follows : 
 
 1. That each of the wealthier CoUeges should convert two or 
 more of its non-resident FeUowships into Professorships, to be 
 held in some great town such as Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, 
 Liverpool, etc., provided that the town be wiUing to comply with 
 the condition on which they are offered. 
 
 2. That the appointment of each Professor be for a term of 
 ten or twelve years. The Professor to be eligible for re-election
 
 262 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 at the end of the time, should it be determined to continue the 
 Professorship. 
 
 3. That the town be required to supply suitable buildings for 
 the work of the Professor established there, and also to provide 
 for each Professor a fixed salary of not less than £200 a year, in 
 addition to the sum received by him from the college, and in- 
 dependent of all fees derived from the students attending his 
 classes. 
 
 4. That all fees be paid into a common fund, but that every 
 Professor receive out of this fund a capitation grant on all students 
 attending his lectures, in addition to the payments mentioned 
 in the last section. 
 
 5. That the provision required from the town be guaranteed 
 in the first instance for each single appointment, but not neces- 
 sarily for a longer period ; so that, if, at the expiration of the 
 ten or twelve years agreed upon, any town should be unable or 
 unwilling to renew its contribution, the Professorship or batch 
 of Professorships might be transferred elsewhere. 
 
 6. That, as a rule. Professorships should not be offered to a 
 town singly, but in such number and variety as to afford some- 
 thing like an adequate university curriculum. 
 
 7. That every Professor should be required to reside, during 
 his tenure of office, in the town to which it was attached, not less 
 than six months every year, and to give during that time such 
 lectures and other instruction as might be set forth in the terms 
 of his appointment. 
 
 8. That in the event of a superannuation fund or system of 
 retiring pensions being established for the benefit of those 
 engaged as residents in the work of the universities, these local 
 Professors should also be included in its provisions. 
 
 9. That all students possessing certificates of having attended 
 the required course of instruction under such Professors, and 
 able to pass the ordinary university examinations, should be 
 entitled to a university degree. 
 
 What I desire especially to urge, as a resident in one of the 
 great towns, is that a scheme of this nature could be brought into 
 operation without much difficulty by means of resources which 
 are ready to hand, and that it would be more effective in extend- 
 ing the influence and work of the universities than any which I 
 have seen proposed. 
 
 The scheme was taken up in some quarters with eagerness. 
 Its warmest supporter in Oxford was Jowett, the Master of
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 263 
 
 Balliol, who secured the support of his own College and 
 sought for that of others. At first this was difficult : 
 
 I have not been able as yet to secure the co-operation of any 
 other college. But I hope that New College is likely to join 
 and I think of applying to Merton. 
 
 Progress was by no means easy. On March 15, 1874, 
 Jowett wrote again : 
 
 The Bristol College scheme has been well received at New 
 College, but not at Merton, and I must try and find some other 
 college to join. Failing that we must go on alone. There is a 
 great jealousy about taking the College Funds out of Oxford, 
 and many persons are greatly provoked with us for offering. 
 However, I hope that we shall proceed. I think that the Uni- 
 versity, moved by King's College, will probably grant to students 
 at such colleges the privilege of counting two years' residence 
 for one at Oxford. The Bristol University College should be the 
 beginning of a movement which we must not allow to let drop. 
 
 The movement inaugurated by Percival, with the co- 
 operation of Jowett, led to the permanent establishment 
 of the University College at Bristol, and later on of the 
 University. 
 
 The College was a true continuation and development 
 of the effort for the Higher Education of Women. It was 
 in 1876 that the preparations were far enough advanced for 
 action, and Percival felt that the time was ripe for a Uni- 
 versity College where young men and women could carry 
 on systematic study. The Committee concerned was not 
 now occupied in organising independent lectures, but in cir- 
 culating the prospectus of the proposed College and in found- 
 ing scholarships for women. Four such scholarships were 
 founded. Bristol thus became the first town in England to 
 possess a University College open to men and women alike. 
 
 Balliol and New College continued their generous support 
 for many years, until they were advised that the funds at 
 their disposal could not legally be used for this purpose. 
 After this " one of the Fellows of Balliol " contributed very 
 largely for some time out of his private purse. This was
 
 264 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 lately discovered to have been T. H. Green. He and Jowett 
 were both members of the Council, and the two Colleges, 
 Balliol and New College, have special representatives on the 
 University Court to this day. 
 
 In 1876 Miss Catherine Winkworth wrote to a friend : 
 " Dr. Percival is happy because his dear new University 
 College is coming to hfe at last." Many years later a new 
 stage had been reached. The gift of £100,000 from Mr. 
 H. O. Wills was announced, and it was known that Bristol 
 would have its fully chartered University at last. Percival, 
 who more than any other one person was the founder of the 
 University College, who had never lost his interest in it, and 
 who was active and influential in obtaining the Charter, 
 was present at thie University Colston dinner when the gift 
 from Mr. Wills was made known, and the way to the 
 long-desired goal was open. The story shall be told in 
 the words of Professor G. H. Leonard, who was present 
 and to whom I am indebted for the greater part of this 
 narrative : 
 
 The speeches had been a little disappointing ; they dwelt 
 rather too much on the material side of things, and the spiritual 
 note, as sometimes happens, was wanting. Then, almost at 
 the close. Dr. Percival was called on and everything seemed 
 to be put right in a moment. I remember just where he stood 
 and how he looked, and the sound of his voice — so unlike our 
 West of England voices. His was a very noble and beautiful 
 figure to look upon in his old age — an old man " of a ruddy 
 countenance," venerable, with the fine white hair which added so 
 much to the natural dignity of his earlier days, drawing himself 
 up to his full height and speaking to us, like a prophet, about our 
 city, the " lantern of the West," and his dreams for it, and the 
 sense that he had of a warfare accomplished, and a work that he 
 left to us, who were present there that night, to carry on in the 
 old spirit. 
 
 The removal from Clifton to Oxford increased the oppor- 
 tunities of working for general educational development. 
 His startling suggestion that he should resign his post as 
 President of Trinity to become Censor of the Non-Collegiate 
 Students, shows how intense and how utterly disinterested 
 was his concern for the development of the highest educa-
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 265 
 
 tional facilities for all classes of the community. He threw 
 himself also into the cause of women's education, becoming 
 the first President of the Council of Somerville College, and 
 he was a prime mover in the inauguration of the Oxford 
 University Extension Movement. 
 
 In the Somerville College Minute Book it appears that at 
 the first recorded meeting, on February 7, 1879, it was resolved 
 " that a Hall should be estabhshed in which no distinction 
 win be made between students on the ground of their belong- 
 ing to different religious denominations." A Provisional 
 Committee was then elected consisting (amongst others) of 
 the President of Trinity (Percival), Professor T. H. Green, 
 Mr. Nettleship and Mrs. Humphry Ward. At the next 
 meeting Professor Green was in the chair, and at the one 
 following the Provost of Queen's (Magrath). On this 
 occasion the question of appointing a permanent chairman 
 was discussed, and it was resolved " that no election to the 
 office of chairman take place without an absolute majority 
 of persons present and voting." Later on at the same meet- 
 ing Percival was elected without opposition. He therefore 
 became the first Chairman of the Council on February 28, 
 1879. So he continued until the Memorandum of Associa- 
 tion was registered in 1881 ; from that date onwards the 
 title has been President, and Percival continued to be 
 President until 1893 ; he remained a member of the Council 
 till 1899. The first Principal of Somerville, Miss Shaw 
 Lefevre, used always to speak of him as a mainstay and 
 guiding spirit in the early and difficult days. 
 
 It was during Percival's Presidency at Trinity that the 
 Oxford University Extension Movement was launched, and 
 no one was more energetic or more influential on its behalf. 
 Sir Michael Sadler, now Vice-Chancellor of Leeds, whose 
 appointment as first Secretary of the Extension Delegacy 
 was secured by Percival, thus describes those early days of 
 the movement : 
 
 As President of Trinity Dr. Percival was one of the pioneers 
 of University Extension. Cambridge under the guidance of 
 James Stuart had led the way. Oxford, Cambridge and London 
 together, with Mr. Goschen as President of the Society, had
 
 266 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 organised University Extension classes in the metropolitan area. 
 And Oxford on its own account had made a beginning, with Mr. 
 Arthur Acland as the first Secretary of its scheme. But in its 
 earlier stages the Oxford movement flagged and for a time was 
 suspended. Dr. Percival's efforts revived it in 1885. With the 
 support of the Master of Balhol (Dr. Jowett), the Provost of 
 Queen's (Dr. Magrath) and the Master of University (Dr. Franck 
 Bright), he persuaded the Delegates of Local Examinations to 
 resuscitate their committee for local lectures. A secretary was 
 appointed to relieve Mr. Lockhart from this branch of the Dele- 
 gacy's work. The Rev. W. Hudson Shaw, Mr. (now Sir) H. J. 
 Mackinder, Mr. J. A. R. Marriott, Mr. E. L. S. Horsburgh, Mr. 
 D. S. M'Coll and Professor OHver Elton were among the first of 
 the lecturers who quickly won public support for the Oxford 
 scheme. 
 
 A few years later, after he had left Oxford for Rugby, Dr. 
 Percival gave decisive encouragement to a further development 
 of University Extension. At a meeting in the Headmaster's 
 drawing-room in the School House at Rugby, Dr. Paton of 
 Nottingham reported his impressions of Chatauqua. Mr. Charles 
 Rowley of Manchester urged that something of the same kind 
 should be attempted in England, and that Oxford and Cambridge 
 would be the best places at which to hold such a gathering. Dr. 
 Percival warmly approved the idea, which a young Oxford 
 graduate who was present brought before the Delegacy at Oxford 
 with the result that the Summer Meeting of University Extension 
 and other students was established. 
 
 Through his knowledge of the needs of Bristol, Dr. Percival 
 was from the first a strong supporter of the establishment of 
 University Colleges in the great cities. He wrote a pamphlet in 
 advocacy of this development of higher education. He held that 
 the older Universities should do all in their power to extend 
 facilities for attendance at University classes both in small towns 
 and in the great centres of population. England needed more 
 Universities and more adult education under University influence. 
 By their active participation in the movement, the ancient Uni- 
 versities might confer upon it prestige. They could supply to 
 it young men of enthusiasm and energy. They could win for it 
 the sympathy of many of the Oxford and Cambridge graduates 
 living in the districts which were lacking in educational oppor- 
 tunities. And by the organisation of systematic courses of 
 lectures and classes, as well as by the stimulus of shorter courses 
 and of Summer Meetings, these older Universities could make a 
 timely contribution to the higher education of women, to the 
 training of the more thoughtful of the industrial classes, and to the
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 267 
 
 foundation of new University Colleges, some of which (as had 
 already been the case in Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds) would 
 in due time develop into independent Universities. 
 
 He had faith in adult education and a deep sense of its need. 
 He saw that the ancient Universities had a great opportunity 
 of leadership. He was free from timidity and from conventional 
 ideas of academic tradition. He was both a prophet and a 
 business man. At the critical moment his influence prevailed. 
 What Archbishop Temple and Sir Thomas Dyke Acland had 
 done for the University Local Examinations, which were the 
 beginnings of University Extension, Percival with the help of 
 Jowett, Magrath, Franck Bright, Arthur Acland and others did 
 for the revival of the Oxford movement for the extension of 
 University teaching. And, stage by stage, the significance of 
 the new development has been more fully disclosed. 
 
 Percival's continuous concern for educational develop- 
 ment led him to take a deep interest in the National Home 
 Reading Union from the time of its inauguration. In 
 September 1892 he went over from Rugby to Sheffield to 
 speak at a meeting in Firth College in support of the Union, 
 then in its infancy. When it is recalled how jealous he was 
 of his time at Rugby and how few causes were allowed to 
 draw him away, this must be taken as evidence of genuine 
 zeal. Dr. Alex. Hill, then Master of Downing College, 
 Cambridge, and now Secretary of the Universities Bureau 
 of the British Empire, himself one of the pioneers of the 
 Union, writes as follows : 
 
 In common with Dr. J. B. Paton of Nottingham and many 
 another enthusiast for popular education. Dr. Percival was 
 inspired by articles contributed to the Fortnightly Review and the 
 Nineteenth Century by Bishop Vincent and Sir Joshua Fitch 
 respectively with a determination to secure the establishment in 
 England of an imitation, with appropriate adaptations, of the 
 Chatauqua Reading Circles of America. At a preUminary meet- 
 ing held at Lord Aberdeen's house in London in April 1889, 
 Dr. Percival was elected Chairman of Council of the projected 
 National Home Reading Union, an office which he held until his 
 death. At the end of the first year of the Union's existence a 
 Summer Assembly was held at Blackpool at which he preached 
 the Union Sermon. No doubt he concurred in the selection of 
 Blackpool as the summer resort of Home Readers, to which it
 
 268 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 was hoped that they would come in their thousands, as their 
 American cousins flock to the shores of the beautiful Chatauqua 
 lake ; but it may be remarked, parenthetically, that it was an 
 infelicitous choice. An extraordinarily brilliant staff of lecturers 
 and a crowd of sympathisers with the propaganda of the Union 
 assembled in the Lancashire seaside town ; the mill-hands and 
 miners whom it was hoped to attract were conspicuously absent. 
 When, after giving Blackpool a trial for two more summers, the 
 Assemblies were shifted from place to place of great historic 
 interest or natural beauty they answered fully to the expectations 
 of their organisers. 
 
 As Chairman of the Council, which met but once a year. 
 Dr. Percival took no active part in the management of the Union ; 
 but sympathising as he did very deeply with its aims, he responded 
 gladly to demands for his presence on special occasions, and was 
 ever ready with his counsel. Thus we find him preaching at 
 Leamington at the Summer Assembly in 1895 a very notable 
 sermon on the Union, of which unfortunately no record was made 
 at the time ; receiving the President of the Union, H.R.H. 
 Princess Louise, at the Imperial Institute in i8gi, when the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and, owing to the Lambeth Conference, 
 a galaxy of bishops were also present ; presiding at public meet- 
 ings in the Salter's Hall in 1908, at Birmingham in 1910, and in 
 the Caxton Hall, Westminster, in 191 1. When the Summer 
 Assembly was held at Ross in 1913 the Bishop and Mrs. Percival 
 received the members at the Palace and gave them most generous 
 entertainment. His services were justly summarised at the time 
 of his death by the Rev. J. E. Flower, who, like him, had been an 
 active worker for the Union from its inception : " The members 
 of the Union of all classes, and in all lands, have reason 
 to be grateful for the influence of this man of simplicity and 
 saintliness, of wisdom and of tact, of courage and of strength. 
 He has left upon the Union the stamp of a gracious person- 
 ality." 
 
 Alongside of the more general schemes promoted by 
 University Extension and the Home Reading Union, Percival 
 concerned himself also with the details of general educational 
 policy, with which his experience had made him familiar. 
 In October 1893, he worked out in a pamphlet the place of 
 the First Grade School, Classical or Modern, in a complete 
 system of Secondary Education. In 1895 he gave evidence 
 before the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, full 
 of detailed suggestion most minutely elaborated. It is
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 269 
 
 interesting to notice his demand for a reform of Matri- 
 culation requirements at Oxford and Cambridge such as 
 to give those Universities " their proper influence in a 
 reformed system of Secondary Education." For this pur- 
 pose he urged that Responsions at Oxford and the Previous 
 Examination at Cambridge should consist of the following 
 subjects : 
 
 1. Any three of the following languages (Latin, Greek, French, 
 German). 
 
 2. Elementary Mathematics. 
 
 3. Elementary Natural Science. (Subjects to be selected from 
 a schedule to be drawn up.) 
 
 4. English. 
 
 " It might be laid down," he added, "that every candidate 
 must pass in at least two of these four groups before commencing 
 residence, and the remainder before offering himself for any other 
 university examination." 
 
 It is to be observed that this proposal involves the 
 abolition of " compulsory Greek " and anticipates in a 
 remarkable way the scheme drawn up in comparatively 
 recent years for the First School Examination by means of 
 which, if a sufficiently high standard is attained, it is now 
 possible to obtain exemption from Responsions at Oxford, 
 the Previous Examination at Cambridge, and the Matri- 
 culation Examination at other universities. In educational 
 matters Percival combined in a remarkable degree the wide 
 vision which can frame a general policy of really compre- 
 hensive scope, and the mastery of detail which makes 
 possible the formulation of practical steps to be taken 
 immediately ; this combination is particularly noticeable in 
 the many addresses which he delivered to the Educational 
 Section of the British Association in the early years of that 
 Section's existence. 
 
 The zeal for women's education which he had shown as 
 Headmaster of Clifton and as President of Trinity never died 
 down. But in this, as in other connections, his proposals 
 did not always please his friends. On May 21, 1897, the 
 proposal to grant degrees to women was defeated at Cam-
 
 270 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 bridge by 1713 votes against 622. Oxford had defeated a 
 similar proposal the previous year. Percival at once came 
 forward with an alternative proposal. The general idea of a 
 University for Women had already been advocated by Bishop 
 Westcott. Percival was ready with a fully developed scheme. 
 A letter embodying it, dated May 22, the day after the 
 Cambridge vote, was published in The Times on May 26 : 
 
 A Queen Victoria University for Women 
 
 Sir — Now that the women's war is ended for the moment 
 and peace reigns once more in the University of Cambridge, I 
 hope it may not be inopportune to make a practical suggestion on 
 the subject of a new University for Women. Encouraged in this 
 hope by your leading article this morning (May 22), I desire to 
 ask of those interested, as indeed we all are, in women's education, 
 and more particularly of the authorities of the Royal Holloway 
 College, favourable consideration of a proposal which I ventured 
 to make some years ago, when it was felt to be premature. 
 
 Stated briefly, my proposal is that amongst the various move- 
 ments of this annus mirabilis one should be the establishment of 
 a Queen Victoria University for Women, of which the Royal 
 Holloway College might be the first constituent college. 
 
 No apology is needed for the proposed addition of one more 
 to the many forms of memorial already before the public, because 
 it will be generally felt that nothing less than a rich variety of 
 memorials will suitably represent to future generations the many- 
 sided and marvellous expansion of England under the rule of 
 Queen Victoria. Indeed, the only reasonable limit to such variety 
 is that every monument should be of an enduring character — 
 acre perennius — and either beneficent or beautiful, and should 
 express the spontaneous loyalty and affection of those who 
 establish it. So considered, a women's university has a strong 
 claim upon our support, as among all the various improvements 
 in English life which give lustre to the Queen's reign, few, if any, 
 are more deserving of special record than the progress of women's 
 education, and it would accordingly be very appropriate if the 
 movement could be crowned on this unique occasion by such a 
 memorial, connecting this growth with the Queen's name for all 
 time to come. 
 
 It may possibly be alleged that the facilities now offered to 
 women at our ancient universities are superior to anything that 
 could be provided in a new institution of a separate kind, and
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 271 
 
 that larger facilities will be given by and by, yesterday's vote 
 notwithstanding. There are, however, various weighty con- 
 siderations on the other side of this question, as has been widely 
 felt during the recent controversies on the subject at Oxford and 
 Cambridge. For my own part I see nothing but good in the 
 opening of the doors of our universities to women students, and, 
 as having taken some share during the last thirty years in helping 
 forward the higher education of women both in the provinces and 
 in Oxford, I trust I shall not be suspected of any desire to check 
 the progress of the movement, or to depreciate the value of the 
 work which the universities have done and are doing in this good 
 cause. All who are familiar with university life and have care- 
 fully observed this movement will acknowledge that two things 
 have been made abundantly clear. On the one hand every 
 anticipation of good results from the facilities extended to women 
 has been more than fulfilled, while on the other hand every 
 prognostication of evil has been falsified. 
 
 And yet it may reasonably be doubted whether this mixed 
 education under a traditional system formed and intended 
 exclusively for men should be the sole kind of university education 
 accessible to women, and there is much force in the argument 
 that for true progress in this, as in other matters, we need liberty 
 with variety of choice. The provision for women's education is 
 not unnaturally felt to be one-sided and incomplete, until the 
 growing liberty to make such limited use of the men's universities 
 as may be accorded to them is accompanied or supplemented by 
 the establishment of a separate university, in which the higher 
 education of women may develop freely along its own lines, a 
 university so constituted as to be the intellectual home or head- 
 quarters of the most cultivated and distinguished women of their 
 time. If such a university were in existence, there can be little 
 doubt that many parents would prefer it for their daughters, as 
 feeling that it would train and enrich their life under the most 
 satisfactory conditions, and as recognising that it would be of 
 very great value to them, if they could thus be brought into some 
 direct personal contact with those women who had become 
 specially distinguished or influential in one or another field of life 
 or literature. 
 
 But, it may be asked, even assuming that the establishment 
 of such a university is in the abstract desirable, and that many 
 parents would welcome it, so as to get rid of the present com- 
 pulsory uniformity involved in a system of mixed education on 
 lines laid down exclusively for men, what hope is there that any 
 such institution could be established with any prospect of 
 success ? And it is my reply to this question which I desire to
 
 272 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 commend to public notice, and for which I ask your considera- 
 tion and support. 
 
 Assuming it to be possible to estabhsh such a university for 
 women, I submit that nothing could be more appropriate than to 
 associate its foundation with the name and memory of Queen 
 Victoria ; and I trust it might be to the Queen herself not the 
 least acceptable of the memorials through which her people are 
 now expressing their gratitude for the extension of her reign and 
 their affection for her as one of the most beneficent and sym- 
 pathetic sovereigns that have ever ruled in any country. And if 
 my proposal should commend itself to the authorities of Holloway 
 College and to a few other friends of women's education it would 
 be an easy matter to carry it into effect. Taking the Royal 
 Holloway College as the point of departure I would apply for a 
 Royal Charter estabhshing the Queen Victoria University for 
 Women, with Holloway College as the first constituent college of 
 the University. New colleges might and would be founded later 
 within the precincts of the University, as occasion might arise, 
 and founders and benefactors might come forward, so that the 
 University would grow just as Oxford and Cambridge have 
 grown. 
 
 The one indispensable condition to be secured at the outset 
 is that it shall not be a paper university, but a localised and 
 living institution, the intellectual home and headquarters of at 
 least a prominent group of the best and most cultivated and most 
 influential women of their generation. This would be secured, if 
 it were enacted through the charter of the University that the 
 senators or governing council shall consist partly of, let us say, 
 twelve women highly distinguished in literature, art, science, or 
 some form of public service ; that they shall in all cases be 
 selected by the sovereign from among the most distinguished 
 women of the Empire, and be designated by some such title as 
 " Students of the Queen Victoria University for Women," or 
 " Queen Victoria Students," thus constituting what might be 
 described as a women's order pour le merite. Such an order would 
 be much coveted, and would form a highly appropriate recogni- 
 tion of the most distinguished women of each generation, and, 
 what is of special importance for the life of the university, would 
 give to it the highest intellectual distinction from the very 
 beginning, enriching it with just the kind of associations which 
 would make it a true University, an inspiring home of higher hfe 
 and culture to successive generations of English women. To 
 make such an order effective for its educational purpose, it would 
 be necessary to provide for a certain amount of residence on the 
 part of the distinguished women selected for membership, and
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 273 
 
 for this end a moderate endowment would be requisite, each 
 Queen Victoria studentship being endowed just as fellowships of 
 colleges are endowed at Oxford or Cambridge, the income to be 
 paid only on condition of a certain minimum amount of residence 
 being kept during the year and in term time, so that the young 
 students may be brought within the range of these distinguished 
 women's personal influence. This minimum period of annual 
 residence might be fixed at two or three months, and the amount 
 of stipend might be regulated by statute as endowments for the 
 purpose flowed in. 
 
 I have ventured to suggest Holloway College as the first 
 constituent college of such a university, because its position is 
 quite ideal for such a purpose, and the establishment of the 
 university on this spot would be an easy matter, if favoured by 
 the authorities of Holloway, as the College possesses beautiful 
 buildings suitable for all the immediate needs of such an institu- 
 tion. And that the scheme is worthy of the acceptance of the 
 governing body of Holloway may be seen from the following 
 considerations. The things which would be required of the 
 College would involve comparatively little sacrifice and might 
 be thus enumerated : 
 
 1. Some small amount of space for a university office. 
 
 2. The occasional use of the noble public rooms of the College 
 for public university functions. 
 
 3. The offer of rooms in the College free of charge to those 
 Queen Victoria students who might from time to time be in 
 residence. 
 
 Until funds were provided for the building of such rooms this 
 might throw upon the College the burden of offering half a dozen 
 sets of rooms for this purpose. On the other hand, the advantages 
 which would accrue to the College would be tenfold. Under 
 present conditions the College can never rise above the position 
 of a provincial college or school, beautiful in its buildings and 
 surroundings, and in certain respects highly favoured, but lacking 
 the associations and the dignity of university life and position ; 
 whereas the proposed change would raise it to a new level. Its 
 teachers would acquire a new dignity, and its young students 
 would breathe a larger and more stimulative atmosphere, as it 
 would at once become a centre of national interest and culture. 
 Should it be thought that I owe some apology to the authorities of 
 Holloway for thus venturing to make proposals which would 
 affect the position and fortunes of their College, I must plead my 
 conviction that, if the possibilities I have indicated can be realised 
 — and with their good-will it should not be difficult to realise them 
 • — the result would be to add greatly to the dignity and the 
 
 T
 
 274 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 prosperity of HoUoway College, while introducing a new and val- 
 uable element into our system of women's education, and giving 
 to women of distinction an honourable recognition which is no 
 more than their due, and would be much appreciated, and could 
 not be given at a time more appropriate than this year of the 
 Queen's reign. — Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 May 22. 
 
 The comments which were received in answer to this 
 letter varied in complexion, but expressed opposition almost 
 exactly in proportion to the writer's intimacy with the sub- 
 ject. Professor Pelham wrote at once : 
 
 20 Bradmore Road, Oxford, 
 
 May 27. 
 
 My dear Bishop — Your letter in The Times of Tuesday 
 on the Women's question has caused myself and others some 
 perplexity. 
 
 Granting that for the present the admission of women to 
 degrees at Oxford and Cambridge is impracticable, and granting 
 also that the ultimate solution of the difficulty may be found in 
 a Women's University, I cannot believe that such a proposal as 
 yours can do anything but harm. 
 
 The foundation in a hurry of a bran-new university would 
 naturally provoke hostility from the existing colleges and halls. 
 These may fairly claim to be consulted before being wiped out of 
 existence or merged in a new corporation. Whatever is to be 
 done in the direction of a Women's University, must be done by 
 building on what exists, not by destroying or ignoring it. 
 
 Are Newnham and Somerville to migrate to Hollo way, or are 
 we to be subordinate Colleges in a university of the London type ? 
 The first alternative can hardly be seriously suggested. The 
 second is open to all the objections which lie against non-teaching 
 universities. 
 
 The whole question requires long and patient consideration 
 and can only be prejudiced by hasty action. 
 
 Forgive my plain writing. — Yours very truly, 
 
 Henry F. Pelham. 
 
 The whole matter was effectively summed up by the 
 Principal of SomerviUe :
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 275 
 
 SOMERVILLE COLLEGE, OXFORD, 
 
 May 28, 1897. 
 
 My dear Bishop — I am very sorry that you cannot come to 
 us on the 19th, as I should have greatly valued the opportunity 
 for a little talk, however brief. May I venture to say that I hope, 
 if an able and willing millionaire should come forward in response 
 to your letter to The Times, that you will beg him to consult 
 women concerned in education before taking hasty action. 
 
 You and others of our kindest friends are bhnded, I fear, by 
 your kindness, and beheve that women have already achieved 
 what we are aiming at. Your scheme is a beautiful one for the 
 future, but we are not ready for it yet and I do not think we shall 
 be for the next fifty years. 
 
 As you know — no one better — the university education of 
 women has only existed at all for twenty-five years, and the 
 beginnings were so small that it is only within the last twelve or 
 fifteen years that the effect has been appreciable, and even yet, 
 as was strongly asserted by our enemies in the recent controversy, 
 women do not carry on their studies after leaving the university 
 or distinguish themselves in research or other original work. The 
 reason is obvious to those who are engaged in the work — nine- 
 tenths of the women who distinguish themselves at college must 
 at once proceed to earn their daily bread, and that usually under 
 exhausting conditions which entirely preclude them from carrying 
 on their own studies. We have not yet the material for a Women's 
 Teaching University of the high standard at which we should like 
 to aim. Money is indeed wanted for women's education, but it 
 is for fellowships to enable them to continue their studies — or 
 some other form of endowment of research — better buildings, 
 better libraries and so forth. 
 
 The number of women really fitted to take up the highest 
 studies will never, I think, be very large— but of these a large 
 proportion thirst to go on with their work, but are unable to do 
 so for want of means. 
 
 The experiment of women's universities has been freely tried 
 in America, and with what result ? Americans will not say this 
 publicly, but privately they admit that the standard in these 
 exclusively women's universities is always tending to drop, 
 because they are in the same position as ourselves and have not 
 a sufficient body of women educated up to the standard of the 
 men teachers in a university of the highest class. . . . 
 
 In the exclusively women's universities, there is no outside 
 standard to be aimed at. Every drop, in what is required of
 
 276 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 the pupils, reflects and perpetuates itself in time among the 
 Staff. 
 
 I should very much dread, at present, the founding of a 
 University for Women only, though fifty or a hundred years hence 
 we may be ready for it, if your millionaire will help us with 
 endowment now. We can work on without the degree, which was 
 largely asked for as a help to bread winning, if we can only get 
 endowment for continuance of study. — Believe me, Yours very 
 truly, Agnes C. Maitland. 
 
 It was clear that the suggestion was premature. But 
 it may yet appear that in this as in so many matters Percival 
 was urging what another generation would see to be advisable 
 or even necessary. It is at least doubtful how far the best 
 interests of boys and girls at school are secured by sending 
 both through the same curriculum ; and if they are not, it is 
 plainly evil that either should be sacrificed to the other. It 
 may quite possibly seem best to those who are guiding 
 educational progress that different courses should be followed 
 by boys and by girls, and that certificates or degrees should 
 be awarded on different conditions. If, when the education 
 of girls and women is sufficiently established for such a 
 course to be adopted without loss, different conditions are 
 in fact laid down, it is almost certain that separate uni- 
 versities for women will be formed, even if they are in the 
 same cities as the men's universities and largely share in 
 their teaching power ; there would at least be separate 
 discipline and separate Boards of Faculty — and that is 
 tantamount to a separate university. Percival's proposal 
 was premature, and its form was unacceptable. Its principle 
 may yet prove to be sound and even necessary. 
 
 The story of Percival's work for the general development 
 of education shows how inevitable it was that he should be 
 asked to preside at that great Conference of Trade Unionists 
 and Educationalists which met at Oxford on August 22, 1903, 
 towards the end of the Extension Summer Meeting. That 
 Conference voted into existence the " Association to Promote 
 the Higher Education of Working Men," soon to be known 
 as the Workers' Educational Association. Percival cordially 
 welcomed the formation of the Association as a further step
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 277 
 
 towards the goal that he had before him in all his efforts on 
 behalf of university extension twenty years before. 
 
 A similar Conference was held in August 1905, under the 
 chairmanship of Dr. Strong, then Dean of Christ Church. 
 The Bishop was again present, and proposed the following 
 resolution : 
 
 That this Conference, representative of co-operative societies, 
 trade unions and educational organisations, having regard to the 
 educational wastage consequent upon young people of both sexes 
 either neglecting or being prevented by conditions of employment 
 from utilising the facilities afforded by education authorities for 
 instruction in the evening, urges the Board of Education to 
 ascertain from the local education authorities how far and under 
 what conditions employers and employed, in their respective 
 areas, would welcome legislation having for its ultimate object 
 compulsory attendance at evening schools. 
 
 Mr. Albert Mansbridge, the founder and for many years 
 the General Secretary of the Workers' Educational Associa- 
 tion, writes as follows about the Bishop's help in the early 
 stages : 
 
 It will be impossible for any one who was present to forget 
 the kindly influence which in itself seemed a combination of 
 labour and scholarship, exercised by Dr. Percival over the epoch- 
 making Conference which confirmed the formation of the W.E. A., 
 or The Association to Promote the Higher Education of Working 
 Men, as it was then called. The gathering was unique, because 
 it was the first time that representatives of Co-operative Societies, 
 Trades Unions and Universities had met together, and it is certain 
 that there was no other person so qualified as Dr. Percival to 
 understand their various points of view, and to weld them into 
 a common whole, as he did. 
 
 It was not possible for him to undertake active work in the 
 Association, but he was ever ready to counsel and to assist. It 
 was a great joy to him to attend meetings. In reality Dr. Percival 
 was the first President, for no one was appointed to that office 
 until 1908. 
 
 Members of the Association were always glad to meet Dr. 
 Percival, and never more than on those happy occasions when 
 he came to Oxford for the purposes of the Summer Meeting. 
 The sermon he preached on one occasion did much to clear away
 
 278 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 suspicions which were Hngering in the minds of some concerning 
 the real intentions and purposes of Universities. 
 
 The movement of the W.E.A. thus owes to Dr. Percival more 
 than can easily be expressed. In my office as General Secretary, 
 I was not only guided and counselled by him, but inspired ; and 
 through him also our work was commended to the world at 
 large. 
 
 On July 24, 1907, the Bishop of Birmingham (Dr. Gore) 
 moved in the House of Lords for the appointment of a Royal 
 Commission on the two ancient Universities of Oxford and 
 Cambridge. Percival, who warmly supported him, said, 
 after reference to Bishop Gore's introductory speech : 
 
 I speak as a somewhat older man, I entered the University 
 of Oxford in 1854, when the great Commission had just con- 
 cluded its labours, and I was the first Fellow elected in my 
 College under the new statutes. I have felt all through my life 
 that I could never be sufficiently grateful to the men who, in 
 Parliament and in the University itself, conferred on the Univer- 
 sity and the nation the inestimable fruits of the work done 
 by that Commission, such men as Lord John Russell and Mr. 
 Gladstone, Dr. Tait and Dr, Jeune, Jowett, Mark Pattison, and 
 in particular, Arthur Stanley and Gold win Smith. As Mr. 
 Mark Pattison well said, the progress and good influence of 
 Oxford were greater during the succeeding twenty years than 
 they had been during the previous 200 years, and I do not think 
 that any one who has made a study of Oxford hfe would for a 
 moment doubt the truth of that statement. 
 
 And now to-day, through the Bishop of Birmingham, we 
 ask His Majesty's Government to consider whether the time 
 has not come for a new Commission in view of the vast changes 
 that have come about in almost every department of English Hfe 
 during the last half century. That period, in Oxford as well 
 as in Cambridge, has been one of very active internal reform 
 and marvellous progress, so that the Oxford of to-day is an 
 entirely different place from the Oxford of sixty years ago. I 
 hope that all who take note of our appeal on this occasion will 
 remember that fact, and will by no means underrate the amount 
 of internal reform which has taken place. It would be quite 
 impossible for any foreign visitor to pass the sort of verdict on 
 the University of Oxford which was passed by a distinguished 
 German visitor sixty years since, who said : 
 
 " Oxford cannot be considered a place of research. We
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 279 
 
 cannot look upon it as a home of scientific education. It is 
 not even distinguished as a home of hberal education, but it 
 has one remarkable and unique distinction — it is a training 
 place for gentlemen — " and he added, with a touch of malice 
 it may be, " especially for Tory gentlemen." Whatever may 
 have been the case with Oxford then, that is not a verdict which 
 could be passed to-day. We who are approaching His Majesty's 
 Government in the hope of a Commission being issued by and 
 by — not immediately — must be understood to come with a full 
 consciousness of the vast amount of good progressive work which 
 has been done. 
 
 But while many reforms have been brought about, yet we 
 feel, as the Bishop of Birmingham has put it, that there are a 
 great many important particulars in which it is not possible 
 for a university to reform itself. Reform from within any 
 institution is very difficult if not impossible, and it is almost 
 always inadequate. With regard to Oxford there are a large 
 number of most far-reaching and important changes which can 
 only be made through legislative action from outside. I will 
 indicate two or three of them by way of selection. There is, 
 first of all, the entrance examination, which really determines 
 a great part of the Secondary Education of the country. The 
 entrance examination at Oxford simply consists of a rather 
 miserable modicum of arithmetic with a little Euclid or algebra, 
 of a book or two of some classic, the elements of Latin and Greek 
 accidence, and the never-to-be-forgotten attempts at Latin 
 Prose. That examination is a survival from early or mediaeval 
 times which no one would think of establishing now ; and yet, 
 the university finds it very difficult, in its relation to the colleges, 
 to alter it. One of the fundamental reforms we might expect 
 from a Royal Commission would be that new subjects of study 
 would be recognised, and Greek would disappear as a compulsory 
 subject. Then, I think the pass examination a bad system, 
 because the student works to attain only a minimum standard 
 of knowledge, and it would be more beneficial if in every univer- 
 sity examination students had the opportunity of winning some 
 mark of distinction. To my mind, the passman ought to have 
 no existence in the university. He should be transformed by 
 this offer of distinction. 
 
 As to endowments, I wish to associate myself with every 
 word that the Bishop of Birmingham said as to the waste of 
 endowments on scholarships at present. Many of those scholar- 
 ships go, not to the most deserving, not to those who, if they 
 had the opportunity, would do the greatest service to the nation, 
 but to those who, from the circumstances of their homes, have
 
 28o LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 been provided with the most expensive education, who have 
 been, so to speak, over-trained during the early years in most 
 expensive estabhshments, and in many cases these men could 
 have gone to the university without the aid of scholarships, 
 which were in most cases intended only for poor and deserving 
 men. 
 
 One of the greatest mistakes made by the Commission of 
 1852 was the throwing open to the unrestricted competition of 
 all the counties of England of endowments and scholarships 
 intended as a stimulus to learning in certain districts. This 
 took away from many able boys the opportunity of obtaining 
 the kind of education which might have made them very valuable 
 servants of the State. Then further a Commission would deal 
 with the whole question of higher education of women, and also, 
 of course, with the powers of Convocation and possibly the 
 .vexed question of Parliamentary representation. 
 
 Probably the most important work the Commission would 
 have to do would be to deal with the relations to be established 
 between the old universities and the new city universities which 
 have sprung up, and, through them, with the new democracy. 
 How are the ancient universities to be brought into closer touch 
 with the leading elements in the new democracy represented in 
 the great Labour Movement ? A Commission would find some 
 very interesting problems in this connection, and the discussion 
 that would be raised throughout the country would be of the 
 highest value to future education. Mr. Chamberlain has in- 
 tentionally or unintentionally done very great service in effecting 
 two great revolutions in English hfe. When he raised the flag 
 of tariff reform he spht his own Party, but he set the nation 
 thinking, and started flowing a new wave of liberal progress. 
 That was one revolution ; the other was the foundation of 
 Birmingham University. Each of them has been directly or 
 indirectly beneficent. 
 
 By establishing the University of Birmingham as the centre 
 and crown of the life of a great city, Mr. Chamberlain destroyed 
 the idea of a federal university, which had prevailed in the 
 Midlands and the North of England, and every great city became 
 ambitious to have its own university— Manchester, Liverpool, 
 Leeds, Sheffiield, and Bristol. Mr. Chamberlain has done very 
 great service to the nation by creating in English cities this 
 new interest in higher education, and by setting flowing this 
 interest through every grade of the community. He has affected 
 and influenced the hfe of all in the new democracy — raising them 
 with new hopes, new expectations, new ambitions. That was 
 one of the greatest services lately done to English life.
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 281 
 
 But these new city universities are still in their infancy. 
 We have not yet had time to know with any certainty what 
 sort of relationship they ought to bear towards the older univer- 
 sities. We may have our visions, but we have not yet had 
 sufftcient experience. I have a vision of all these city univer- 
 sities being connected by an open high road, and of students 
 passing from one to the other, following some famous teacher, 
 or to study some special subjects under the most favourable 
 circumstances, so that we may have an education such as we 
 have never had before. But as yet they are very young, and 
 aS" I hold that this relationship is by far the most important part 
 of what would be the work of the new Commission I am not in 
 a very great hurry to have such a Commission. I should be 
 quite content to have it next year or the year after ; but I do 
 hope that, for the good of the future education of England, 
 before he leaves his ofhce the Lord President of the Council, 
 will take care that this new Commission shall be set on foot 
 to take in hand this most important part of the educational 
 work of the people, for the happiness of the generations to 
 come. 
 
 In August 1907, the year of the Conference which led to 
 the appointment of the first Joint Committee, and so to the 
 inauguration of the Tutorial Class Movement/ Percival again 
 came to Oxford during the Summer Meeting and preached in 
 the University Church. On this occasion a number of work- 
 ing men were present, attending the Summer Meeting. It 
 was the first time that the W'orkers' Educational Association 
 had brought a party to Oxford for this purpose, and in view 
 of subsequent developments must be pronounced a truly 
 epoch-making episode. Every university now has its Joint 
 Committee ; several carefully organised summer schools are 
 held each year in connection with various universities, under 
 the auspices of the W.E.A. One of the working men who, 
 in 1907, visited a university for the first time was Mr. Reuben 
 George of Swindon ; he heard the Bishop preach, and his 
 impression, written twelve years later, may fitly close this 
 story of Percival's work for education : 
 
 ^ Cf. The Tutorial Class Movement by A. Mansbridge (Longmans). It 
 was Dr. Warren, Percival's former pupil, who, as Vice-Chancellor, nomin- 
 ated the University Members of this first Joint Committee.
 
 282 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 He spoke of the influence of Oxford on the life of the in- 
 dividual and of the nation. He told how for a short time we 
 should live the hfe of the university student. He drew the 
 picture of what Oxford stood for, its spiritual life and aspira- 
 tions ; he told us of the schools of Athens, how the world was 
 indebted to them, how the scholars visited them, and how she 
 sent her scholars away right through the world. Then, of course, 
 he drew a picture of Oxford, of her influence and power, and 
 I can tell you that from that moment I felt that I stood with 
 the great scholars, and you may think me vain or foolish to say 
 so, but I feel I belong to that world to-day. I feel I belong to 
 its glorious literature, history, and spiritual life ; all that Oxford 
 has stood for. The sermon was to me a great panorama of 
 great and good men marching along through the world, the 
 great scholars, and preachers, and reformers. I have felt ever 
 since then that I was in touch with the best. Of course you 
 can quite understand I had come to Oxford and met the W.E.A. 
 with good old Zimmern ^ as our host at New College. It was 
 a new world to me, and the sermon filled my spiritual aspira- 
 tions. One thing I noted, how very few of the university 
 students ever reached the fuUness of Oxford life, how very few 
 took in that for which the University stood. I thought of the 
 good old Friars, and men hke Latimer and Ridley, and Cranmer ; 
 men hke Wesley, and William Morris. The sermon and the 
 week following all stirred me, but the beautiful melody of the 
 old Bishop's voice, that supreme dignity, that broadness and 
 charity ! How he spoke of Newman ! And you felt that you 
 could see Gladstone and the many other great men. For word 
 picture I never reahsed anything like it. It gave me the greatest 
 spiritual uplift of my life. To-day I remember it, to-day I am 
 a better man for it. I am a new man, a different man. I am 
 not a saint (you know that), but I have different ideals from 
 that Oxford meeting, and that sermon I feel was the greatest 
 influence at the meeting. When I came out I met a fellow- 
 comrade from Swindon, he like myself was under the dose. 
 He came to me and said : " Reuben, I could pray now." I said 
 I could and we felt that we had touched the eternal, that we 
 had felt the inspiration of the greatest. Beheve me I have had 
 many influences but nothing like that, and to-day I am in the 
 W.E.A. Other influences have helped, but the old Bishop 
 made me believe what I realise ever since, that the spiritual 
 influence was the greatest of all. I shall never forget the tone 
 and ideals of that sermon as long as I live, and if I am idealist 
 
 ^ Now Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth.
 
 XI NATIONAL EDUCATION 283 
 
 I owe a tremendous lot to that sermon. I feel I belong to the 
 great ; the old Bishop made me feel so. 
 
 To have done something really effective towards opening 
 to the common people the treasure-house of beauty and 
 wisdom is the true crown of Percival's never-ceasing efforts 
 on behalf of national education.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 
 
 The story of Percival's diocesan activities was broken off at 
 the point where the education controversy of 1902 began. 
 It is time to take up the thread again. For several years the 
 education controversy raged, but the diocesan work went 
 steadily forward. 
 
 In his third Visitation Charge, delivered in 1904, that is 
 to say during the lull in the education controversy which 
 followed the Act of 1902-3 and preceded the Bill of 1906, 
 he dealt with three general topics : the place of the Church 
 in the life of the Nation ; Relations with Nonconformists ; 
 and the attitude to be adopted towards the critical study of 
 the Bible. The first was the most fully developed ; the 
 other two sections are chiefly important as indications of 
 what was to follow in later years. 
 
 Dealing with the place of the Church in the Life of the 
 Nation he said : 
 
 One of these subjects, which at the present time requires of 
 us in an unusual degree both thoughtful and dispassionate con- 
 sideration, I must, notwithstanding its great practical importance 
 and the misunderstandings that prevail about it, be content to 
 dismiss with a few words by way of reminder and suggestion. 
 It is the share which ministers of Christ, bishops and clergy 
 alike, are called upon to take, as a matter of duty, in the ordinary 
 social and political affairs of their country. 
 
 Our Lord and His disciples, as you know, stood apart. They 
 abstained from all direct criticism of social institutions, and they 
 said no word on any matters of immediate political controversy. 
 Even on such prevalent contemporary evUs as slavery and 
 
 284
 
 CHAP, xii LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 285 
 
 infanticide, or the various forms of injustice or oppression which 
 were all around them, they are almost silent. 
 
 But, when seeking an explanation of this attitude, we have 
 to bear in mind that they were not, as we are, free citizens of a 
 free country. 
 
 They were living under an alien, imperial, and heathen Govern- 
 ment, of relentless spirit and iron hand, prepared at any moment 
 to crush or crucify ; so that as regards what we call political or 
 public affairs, passive obedience or aloofness was their only choice. 
 
 There lies the root of the difference between them and us. 
 When men live under a free popular government, every one is 
 bound to consider his share of personal responsibility for every 
 social or political evil which is allowed to continue — that is for 
 the consequences, good or evil, that ensue from the policy and 
 action of the Government which he helps to place in power ; and 
 the clergyman is equally with all others responsible for a right 
 discharge of the duties of the citizen. 
 
 But he is also a priest, and pastor, and prophet. He is thus 
 under a lifelong obligation to devote himself assiduously and with 
 a single aim to the moral and spiritual welfare of the people 
 amongst whom he is called upon to live and labour, and in 
 particular the welfare of the poor, the weak, and the suffering 
 classes, these being his special charge. He has, therefore, to 
 regulate all his share in public affairs, as well as the habits, 
 practices, amusements, and pursuits of his daily life, by this 
 paramount consideration. 
 
 He is, consequently, bound to see to it very carefully that, 
 if he takes any part in public matters, it must be always with a 
 view of himself applying and teaching others to apply the 
 principles of the gospel Revelation to all social and political 
 concerns, as well as the separate life of individuals. 
 
 . . . Each generation contributes its part to the march of 
 social and religious progress by answering to some special call ; 
 and the greatest of all the calls that have come to us in our day 
 is that which bids us rouse in busy men of all professions and 
 trades the desire to carry the personal influence of Jesus into all 
 their practical affairs and relationships. And if we clergy are to 
 be true to our prophetic office, we must not shrink from the duty 
 of stirring this desire in them. It is a difficult work, because it 
 involves the uprooting of many prejudices, and it is certain to 
 run counter to many conventional notions and practices. 
 
 In doing it we have to preach to our neighbours with untiring 
 reiteration the duty of applying the Christian spirit, and Christian 
 principles, and Christian rules of conduct, to a great many 
 things in social, industrial, commercial, and pohtical life, which
 
 286 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 have hitherto been hardly touched at all by the influence of the 
 gospel. 
 
 It is, for instance, in this spirit that the clergyman is bound 
 by his office, if he is to be faithful, to deal with all such questions 
 such as the drink traffic, its monopoly, and the extension or 
 restriction of it, bearing in mind the temptations, the evil in- 
 fluences, and the obstacles or stumbling-blocks which it has been 
 permitted to raise in the way of a Christian life and of Christian 
 endeavours ; or, again, that other question of the proper housing 
 of the working classes, with all the moral and spiritual con- 
 sequences which it involves to them and to their children. 
 
 Especially he has to bear in mind that in all matters of public 
 policy, as Christ's minister he is bound to be very watchful and 
 jealous for the welfare of the poor, the weak, and the suffering 
 amongst us, whose interests have always been in danger of being 
 overlooked, forgotten, or misunderstood by those powerful trade 
 or class interests which, as a rule, exercise the preponderating 
 influence in public affairs. 
 
 As I look back over the general policy of our Church, and 
 what may be described as the general clerical attitude of late 
 years, and especially since the ill-starred changes in our public 
 life which began in 1886, I feel the exceeding gravity of these 
 considerations. 
 
 It is because of their gravity that I would ask you to take 
 home with you and give them careful, prolonged, thoughtful, 
 dispassionate, prayerful consideration, with your mind removed 
 as far as may be from aU the disturbing influences of political 
 feeling or passion or prejudice. 
 
 The gravity of the matter for us and our Church consists in 
 this — that we seem to any discerning eye to be very near the 
 parting of the ways, if we have not already passed it unseeing. 
 If I am right in this estimate of the situation, the question which 
 demands our most serious attention is whether our Church of 
 England is to drift into being mainly the Church of the upper, 
 the wealthier, the privileged, the Laodicean classes, the classes 
 whose instincts and sentiments have always been anti-democratic, 
 or whether it is to retain or to win the affection of the great mass 
 of the people and exercise its redeeming influence over their life. 
 
 When we read our gospel with open heart and unclouded 
 vision, is it not clear to us that the spirit of the Saviour and of 
 His Apostles is the spirit of social democracy ? 
 
 It is indeed a matter of primary importance that every 
 minister of our more privileged Church, set as it is amidst all the 
 spiritual temptations, the entanglements, and dangers of privilege, 
 should always bear this in mind.
 
 xn LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 287 
 
 From this it follows that, if our Church is to be the instrument 
 for exercising the regenerating power of Christ among the labour- 
 ing masses of our industrial community, it must work in this 
 spirit of social democracy ; if it is to be in any real and living 
 sense the Church of the people in the coming years, their inform- 
 ing and inspiring guide, our clergy must be so imbued with this 
 spirit of the Saviour in the Gospel as not to lose entirely, what 
 we have undoubtedly lost in some degree, the loyal sympathy 
 of the working multitudes and their leaders. 
 
 Those of our clergy will do for their Church this inestimable 
 service of securing her in the affections of the people, who exhibit 
 among them that profound and consuming devotion to the 
 poorer classes, to the weak, the neglected, the sinner, the sufferer, 
 that feehng for their weakness, that S3'mpathy for their needs, 
 that belief in their righteous claims which burns and shines, as 
 a light from heaven above us, on almost every page of the gospel 
 story, making this story the Magna Charta of all true popular 
 and democratic progress. 
 
 Such as I apprehend it, is the Christianity of Christ, and none 
 other. 
 
 The other two general sections of this Charge deal with 
 the attitude of the Church towards Nonconformists and with 
 its attitude towards the Higher Criticism. The former 
 subject is discussed by means of quotations from the Rev. 
 Urijah R. Thomas, of Bristol, at one time Chairman of the 
 Congregational Union of England ; from Canon Hensley 
 Henson, now Bishop of Durham, who was Bishop Percival's 
 successor at Hereford, and from Dr. Armitage Robinson, then 
 Dean of Westminster. It was typical of Percival that here, 
 as in the quotations from Lightfoot and Hort in the first 
 Charge, he should commend his cause by expressing it in the 
 words of men whom he expected to have with his hearers a 
 greater authority than his own. 
 
 His advice with regard to the Higher Criticism is an 
 exhortation to devout and patient study, and an appeal to 
 those who are zealous for traditional orthodoxy to await the 
 verdict of such study. So in speaking of " the distressful 
 controversy concerning the gospel record of the Saviour's 
 birth and infancy " : 
 
 Into this discussion itself I do not propose to enter on this
 
 288 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 occasion. Like all the deeper questions of doctrine or historical 
 research, it should be left as far as possible in the hands of the 
 devout and reverent student with mind and temper adequately 
 equipped and disciplined for so responsible a work. 
 
 It is not for every impulsive or rash hand to steady the 
 Ark of God when it seems to tremble. 
 
 For orthodox and heretic alike the Bishop has a 
 warning against entering with undue readiness into the 
 discussion of great mysteries : 
 
 For my own part, I dislike and deprecate those superficial 
 discussions of the deeper things of our faith and life which, under 
 the influence of a cheap press, tend to become a fashionable 
 excitement. 
 
 Such discussions, in which sometimes curiosity is more 
 prominent than humility, taken up and bandied about by those 
 who have no adequate equipment for them, either in knowledge 
 or in training and mental discipline, no due sense of their personal 
 responsibility in handling them, no due reverence, no cleansed 
 vision, are far from being the best methods for arriving at the 
 true apprehension of the things pertaining to our spiritual life. 
 
 This Charge caused considerable stir and was much dis- 
 cussed in the press. In particular the Liverpool Daily Post 
 declared it to be " as salutary and sane a state paper as any 
 prelate of the Establishment has ever put forth." 
 
 In 1905 a very bitter attack, partly based on this Charge, 
 was delivered against the Bishop by " Father Ignatius." 
 This gave the clergy of the diocese an opportunity of ex- 
 pressing their personal respect for the Bishop, which they 
 were aU the more eager to take because of their frequent 
 opposition to him in public affairs. An address was drawn 
 up in these terms : 
 
 My dear Lord Bishop — We, the undersigned, deeply resent 
 the uncalled for and vulgar attack made upon you at Llanthony 
 on Ascension Day, and desire to express to you our feelings of 
 respectful regard and sympathy. 
 
 This was signed and forwarded to the Bishop with the 
 following letter by the Dean :
 
 XII LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 289 
 
 The Deanery, Hereford, 
 June 9, 1905. 
 
 My dear Lord Bishop — I have much pleasure in sending 
 you a short form of address signed by the Dean, members of the 
 Chapter, Archdeacons, and all the Rural Deans in your diocese, 
 as a protest against the most scurrilous and false abuse of the 
 so-called " Father Ignatius," uttered by him at a large assembly 
 of people at Llanthony on last Ascension Day. There are some 
 who have expressed an opinion that it was scarcely worth while 
 to notice the ravings of such a lunatic, but inasmuch as his 
 address has been inserted in the local papers and is read by many 
 ignorant and foolish persons throughout the diocese, many of us 
 have thought it desirable that it should be known that your 
 clergy, as represented especially by the Rural Deans and others, 
 protest most strongly against such utterances being inserted in 
 the papers, and desire to show the great regard and esteem in 
 which you are held by them. — Believe me to be yours very 
 
 faithfully. 
 
 J. W. Leigh. 
 
 It was in the following year that Bishop Percival in- 
 augurated the excellently conceived and widely beneficial 
 scheme of Book Boxes. The education of the young and 
 the mental interests of the full grown were hampered by the 
 lack of any good libraries — indeed, very often of any libraries 
 at all — in the villages, whether at the schools or elsewhere. 
 In 1906 Percival devised a scheme of Circulating Book 
 Boxes to meet this need. The scheme was described as 
 follows by Canon Bannister in a letter to The Times written 
 on September 6, 1912 : 
 
 To any school in the diocese, provided or non-provided, the 
 Bishop is prepared to send a box of fifty books of standard 
 Hterature (history, biography, science, fiction, etc.). These 
 boxes are exchanged quarterly, a small annual subscription 
 covering the cost of carriage and management. Last year 
 78 schools participated in the scheme, more than 40,000 volumes 
 iDeing issued to readers. 
 
 Another set of Boxes, intended for adults, circulated in the 
 villages. The Bishop was enabled to do this by the help of 
 his close friend, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who supplied any 
 deficit in the funds. He himself took great pains over the 
 
 u
 
 290 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 choice of books. Some were to be books of a general religious 
 interest, but not those written with an obvious religious 
 " moral " ; some were to be books on agriculture ; some 
 novels by the great writers were always included. 
 
 A criticism of the scheme by an Education Officer led to 
 an interesting justification of it by Percival. An official at 
 the Board of Education wrote to Canon Bannister on 
 June 24, 1913 : 
 
 Dear Sir — You were kind enough to procure for me, recently, 
 some information respecting the Hereford Scheme of Circulating 
 Book Boxes which I found most helpful and have since 
 endeavoured to put to a good use. A Director of Education for 
 a Count}^ Authority before whom the scheme was placed by a 
 Welsh Member of Parliament who thought of adopting it in his 
 county has, however, offered the following criticism upon it. 
 If you will not consider me unduly troublesome I should be 
 extremely glad to have your comments (or those of the acting 
 Secretary of the Hereford Book Scheme whose name and address 
 I have unfortunately mislaid) upon what this Education Officer 
 says : 
 
 The Scheme has many attractive features, and would un- 
 doubtedly be productive of much benefit. After considering 
 the matter very carefully, however, I must admit that in my 
 humble opinion the plan of providing a small library of well- 
 chosen books for each individual school has superior advan- 
 tages. Taking the " reading age " of a school child (that is, 
 the age during which a child attending one of our Elementary 
 Schools can be induced to read books for himself) as from 9 
 to 14 years, he can scarcely read more than a total of about 
 250 books. Of course, a child could " skim through " a far 
 larger number of books than this, but it is a part of the duty 
 of the teacher to teach a child how to read intelligently and 
 thoroughly, and every skilful teacher could do this without 
 detracting from the child's interest and pleasure in the books. 
 The expenditure would, therefore, not be prohibitive ; and 
 the amount spent in the Hereford Scheme in distribution, etc., 
 would go far to meet the cost of renewals and repairs. The 
 children and teachers, too, would take a greater pride in their 
 own school library ; the books would therefore be more care- 
 fully handled ; it would be easier to obtain donations of 
 suitable books from parents, managers, and others interested 
 in the particular school ; and anxious parents would place 
 fewer obstacles in the way of their children's using the books.
 
 xii LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 291 
 
 Suitable books for children's use are not expensive, and the 
 
 best and " cleanest " books — so far as my experience goes — 
 
 always appeal to well-trained children most. 
 
 I feel that these criticisms call for a more reasoned reply than 
 
 I am able to give to them without knowing what your experience 
 
 of the Hereford Scheme would lead you to say on the point. 
 
 Hence my troubling you on the matter. 
 
 Canon Bannister consulted the Bishop, who replied : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 June 26, 1913. 
 
 Dear Bannister — The critic of our scheme can hardly have 
 had much experience. The great advantage of the Circulating 
 Box over the Permanent Library is that it excites and keeps up 
 the interests of both teachers and pupils to an extent impossible 
 with a stationary Ust of books. 
 
 Moreover, the books are fresher and cleaner, as in the Station- 
 ary Library they inevitably grow musty. Also it increases the 
 curiosity and interest of parents as to the books that may be 
 brought home when a new box arrives. And finally it is cheaper, 
 to say nothing of the difficulty of raising the capital required for 
 a library in poor rural parishes. 
 
 There is no reason why, where possible, our scheme should not 
 work together with the local provision of a small number of books 
 specially chosen as a Permanent Library for definite purposes. — 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 Percival never limited his efforts for the welfare of his 
 diocese to the ecclesiastical sphere ; his concern for general 
 education led him to such efforts as that of the Book Boxes 
 and to continuous labour for the development of education 
 in both urban and rural areas. The following notes on 
 his educational work at Hereford are contributed by Mr. 
 Theodore Neild of Leominster : 
 
 In 1895 and for many years afterwards education was at a 
 discount in Herefordshire. The care of it had been suddenly 
 imposed upon a County Council elected to look after agriculture, 
 the roads and the rates. An unkind critic was heard to say that 
 the C.C. had but one fixed educational ideal, and that this was 
 not to have any rate for Secondary Education. He would have
 
 292 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 to admit, however, that in recent years many unexpected things 
 had come about, including that very rate. 
 
 The Bishop naturally was co-opted upon the Local Education 
 Authority soon after his entry upon his diocese, and was a regular 
 attender throughout his stay. As might have been expected 
 under the conditions described his influence on that body was 
 by no means equal to his deserts. For while there were those 
 who were aware of his past and respected his earnestness and 
 wisdom, there were also those who hated his politics and his 
 breadth of religious view, and seemed to pride themselves on an 
 ostentatious disregard of his comparatively infrequent utterances. 
 It was typical of his unwilhngness to neglect any opportunity 
 of educational usefulness that his special work on the Education 
 Authority was the chairmanship of the Evening Class Sub- 
 committee, the work of which post he dihgently fulfilled. 
 
 His interest in Elementary Education was less direct, but it 
 showed itself in the plea which he put in from time to time for 
 the supply of fully trained teachers ; if it had been possible 
 he would have excluded all uncertificated teachers. And he 
 expended a sum of money given him by his friend, Mr. Carnegie, 
 in books which were sent about from school to school in boxes, 
 the carriage of which Dr. Percival defrayed himself. 
 
 His interest in Secondary Schools was more direct. He was 
 upon the Boards of the Secondary Schools of the city, and would 
 give addresses at their pubhc functions. 
 
 Perhaps, however, his most strenuous educational effort was 
 his attempt to turn an old educational foundation at Staunton- 
 on-Wye with well situated buildings which had cost £35,000, to 
 better account both for the neighbourhood and for the County. 
 In his capacity as Bishop he was chairman of the trustees of the 
 charity, and felt it to be a serious responsibility that hardly any 
 real educational advantage was accruing to the beneficiaries 
 under the trust, though the many devices for expending the 
 income failed to absorb it. 
 
 The Board of Education consequently had endeavoured to 
 get possession of the endowment for wider purposes, but had 
 been defeated by the trustees. As a result matters had reached 
 a deadlock, for all proposals made by the trustees for the in- 
 crease of educational advantages were regarded by the Board 
 as devices to render the poorly used endowment more secure to 
 the locality. 
 
 In 1910, however, the Bishop felt that a fresh attempt ought 
 to be made ; an influential Sub-committee drew up a fresh case 
 to submit to the Board, and an interview was arranged with Mr. 
 Pease. Probably in consequence of previous failures, only one
 
 XII LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 293 
 
 colleague accompanied him. The Bishop's good faith was be- 
 yond suspicion, but it was only after long and earnest entreaty 
 that leave was given for the trustees to devote any substantial 
 amount of the endowment to the creation of higher classes with 
 a rural bias, and then only as an experiment. 
 
 This much having been attained, the Bishop spared no 
 thought nor pains to render the experiment a success. It was 
 inspiring to those who had known him as head of a college and 
 of two great public schools to see the elasticity of the veteran's 
 mind, to note how carefully he thought out what the needs of 
 an out-of-the-way country parish were, and the route by which 
 the village folk could be led to wish for what was best. His 
 great humility in seeking advice from those who had had any 
 experience with experiments at all in the same direction won 
 him regard and reverence. He drew up the curriculum himself, 
 took great pains to secure the best staff that the school purse 
 would allow, and by personal contact sought to imbue them 
 with his own high aims, and also with the hope that from a 
 somewhat humble beginning would ultimately emerge a Rural 
 Secondary School of importance, that would be of great value 
 to the neighbourhood, to the County, and do pioneer work in a 
 direction that students of education desired to see increasingly 
 taken. He rarely missed a meeting of the trustees or of 
 the managers, though it meant a journey of twenty miles to 
 attend. 
 
 In spite of great difficulties, including the War, the School 
 had a large measure of success ; the experimental period was 
 extended from time to time, and there were indications that 
 the Department was not unfavourable to a scheme which was 
 upon lines on which it was already wishful to travel wherever 
 possible. 
 
 Some of the local trustees, however, who were unable to share 
 his conceptions, or who were afraid that local interests might 
 suffer, or who felt uncertainty as to what changes the end of 
 the War might bring, were insistent that no forward step should 
 be taken until that end came. This was a source of poignant 
 regret to the Bishop, who, in a letter to Mr. Fisher, had expressed 
 the hope that he might see such a school as he had sketched 
 established before he died, and who had, there can be Uttle doubt, 
 remained longer at Hereford in the hope of the realisation of his 
 vision. And almost up to the time of his leaving for Oxford, 
 when not strong enough to speak above a whisper, he was un- 
 willing to forego an interview with a colleague who could bring 
 him news of the progress of the scheme on which his heart had 
 been so set
 
 294 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 It may not be out of place to refer to Dr. Percival's apprecia- 
 tion of the work, educative and other, of Adult Schools, On one 
 occasion he gave the Friends' Adult School in Hereford an 
 address that was felt to be memorable, so " intensely human," 
 simple and strong was it. He said to the men : " the Hebrew 
 prophets were messengers to the people, informal teachers ; 
 inspired laymen who received a call to work for God, Just as 
 some of you have. They belonged to all classes. Isaiah be- 
 longed to the official or court class, whilst Amos and others 
 belonged to the labouring class. Isaiah was one of the best 
 laymen, he was the salt of his generation. Remember God 
 works through the inspired layman." He spoke of our slowness 
 to recognise the brotherhood of coloured races. And he wound 
 up with a.warning against drunkenness, bad language, impurity, 
 and gambling. 
 
 During this period the Bishop was showing his zeal both 
 for education and for overseas missions by his work as Chair- 
 man of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge Missionary Exhibitions Committee. This Committee 
 was established on January 25, 1905, and from that time 
 until his resignation of the see, Percival presided over its 
 deliberations. The scheme was one for providing exhibitions 
 to enable men, who proposed to offer themselves for service 
 as missionaries, to go into residence at Oxford or Cambridge. 
 Percival was very regular in attendance at the meetings of 
 this Committee, and the success of its enterprise owed much 
 to his thoughtfulness and attention to detail. 
 
 Naturally he was eager to help University Extension in 
 his own diocese. Hereford had been one of the earliest 
 Oxford centres, though its career as an Extension centre was 
 not perfectly continuous. One of his first acts on arriving 
 at Hereford had been to attend an Extension meeting, and 
 throughout his episcopate he was Chairman of the Local 
 Extension Committee. He constantly gave evening parties 
 for the Extension students, and was never in better form 
 than on these occasions. As one of his first meetings in 
 Hereford was in connection with this work, so one of the 
 last was a meeting of the Extension Committee, when he 
 went with his accustomed thoroughness into all the details 
 of the balance-sheet. No cause claimed from him a more
 
 XII LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 295 
 
 devoted service than the promotion of Higher Education in 
 aU its forms. ^ 
 
 The fourth Visitation was held in 1907, and the Bishop 
 took occasion to deal with the controversy about Voluntary 
 Schools.^ In the same year he launched what from this 
 time until the outbreak of the Great War was one of his most 
 cherished efforts. At the Diocesan Conference in October 
 1907 the following resolutions were passed : 
 
 (a) That more attention should be given in the public teaching 
 of the Church to the obligation resting on all Christians to apply 
 in practice the principles of the gospel as to the duty of the 
 Christian to his neighbour, with special reference to the moral 
 character of the actual conditions of industrial Ufe, but that care 
 should be taken to guard against the risks involved in any 
 partisan use of the Christian pulpit ; 
 
 (6) That as recommended in the Report of the Industrial 
 Relations Committee of the Lambeth Conference, 1907, it is 
 desirable to form in this diocese, as part of local Church organisa- 
 tion, a Standing Social Service Committee, to encourage the 
 general study of social and industrial problems from the Christian 
 point of view, and to assist in creating and strengthening an 
 enlightened public opinion in regard to such problems, and 
 generally to promote a more active spirit of social service as a 
 part of individual duty. 
 
 (c) That the Bishop be asked to nominate six or more clergy 
 and a corresponding number of laymen to serve on such a Com- 
 mittee ; who shall report to the next meeting of the Conference, 
 and hold of&ce until their report is presented, and shall have 
 power to add to their number. 
 
 The Committee was appointed accordingly, and at its first 
 meeting Sir James Rankin was elected Chairman, Colonel 
 Middleton Vice-chairman, and Canon Bannister Secretary. 
 The Bishop followed its work with the closest interest. Its 
 reports, dealing with such questions as the Wages of Agri- 
 cultural and Unskilled Labourers, the Supply and State of 
 Cottages in Country Districts, the Rent of Cottages, the 
 Extent of Drunkenness, Gambling and Immorality, did 
 much to bring home to the Church people of Hereford the 
 
 ^ See Chapter XI. * See pp. 191-193.
 
 296 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 nature of the problem, and to prepare for better days. The 
 changes brought about through the war have made the 
 particular statements and recommendations of the Com- 
 mittee obsolete ; but at the time of their issue, the statements 
 of fact were thorough and illuminating and the recommenda- 
 tions were far-reaching. The Bishop showed the greatest 
 keenness about this work and was insistent in pressing home 
 the needs which the Committee brought to light. 
 
 On August 14, 1908, the Bishop's eldest son, Robert 
 Percival, had died after a long and painful illness. He had 
 been living at " The Hermitage," a beautiful house on a 
 hill seven miles from Hereford, which the Bishop had bought 
 for him and his wife six years earlier. It was a great joy 
 to the Bishop to ride out to see him whenever he could find 
 time. His death when it came was in the nature of a release, 
 but none the less a bitter sorrow to the old man whom 
 successive bereavements were making more and more lonely. 
 It is one of the penalties of early distinction that it tends to 
 lead a man to make friends with men older than himself. 
 Then, as old age comes, he is left more and more alone ; if in 
 addition he is bereaved of his children, the solitude becomes 
 almost complete. Had it not been for the devoted com- 
 panionship of Mrs. Percival, the Bishop would have increas- 
 ingly felt this sohtude. For since the turn of the centm-y 
 many old and dear friends had gone. 
 
 To Mrs. Killigrew Wait 
 
 (Home to-morrow early.) 
 
 Lollards' Tower, Lambeth, S.E. 
 
 December 11, 1902. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Wait — I hardly know how to write to you on 
 hearing of the sad news of Killigrew's death ; for I am feeling as 
 if one of the dearest threads of my life had been snapped without 
 notice. On you the blows have indeed fallen heavily of late. 
 May God give you His best consolations. And indeed you have 
 many of these in your family around you, and all the happy 
 memories and associations of love and pride when you think of 
 your dear husband, and in the hopes beyond the veil. I knew 
 no one whose soul was more attuned to worship there. 
 
 Perhaps Mary will kindly let me know the day and hour and
 
 XII LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 297 
 
 place of the funeral. Some fixed engagement may make it 
 impossible for me to come, but I will be there if I can. — Always 
 yours affectionately, 
 
 To Miss Wait 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Athenaeum, 
 July 25, 1904. 
 
 Dear Mary — I am grieved to hear that your dear mother is 
 very ill, and that you fear she may not live long. If you feel it 
 desirable to give her the enclosed, you will do so ; if not, please 
 to keep it back and give her such messages from me as you think 
 best. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 To Mrs. Killigrew Wait 
 
 Lollards' Tower, Lambeth, S.E. 
 July 25, 1904. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Wait — I am sorely grieved to hear that your 
 illness has taken a bad turn, and though I cannot express my 
 feelings as I could wish I desire to say what you feel sure of 
 without my saying it that my affectionate sympathy and my 
 prayers are with you every day. 
 
 I shall know no other friends on earth like you and your 
 husband ; and I too begin to look beyond the veil and to think 
 as you are doing more of the meetings than the partings. May 
 our Heavenly Father give you His own support and consolations. 
 — Always your affectionate friend, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 To Miss Wait 
 
 The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, S.W. 
 August 3, 1904. 
 
 Dear Mary — I was very sorry that I could not come yesterday 
 as I was obliged to be in London. My thoughts are much with 
 you in your home, where you must all be feeling the desolation at 
 every turn. For myself I may say that the loss of your father 
 and mother means the loss of the friends who were more to 
 me than any one else outside my own family. — Always yours 
 affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 It was thus in an increasing loneliness that Percival 
 worked on into the evening of his days. But the energy did
 
 298 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 not fail, and no opportunity was missed. Certainly he was 
 not the man to miss any chance of helping forward the 
 social service which he urged upon others. As soon as the 
 Labour Exchanges began to come into operation he circulated 
 the following letter to the Rural Deans of the diocese : 
 
 Labour Exchanges 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 November 1910. 
 
 My dear Rural Dean — May I ask you to be good enough to 
 help me through the parochial clergy of your Deanery to discharge 
 a public duty which arises out of a recent Act of Parliament — ^The 
 Labour Exchanges Act, 1909. The Board of Trade has divided 
 the United Kingdom into ten Divisions one of which — our West 
 Midland Division — has its centre at Birmingham. I am asked 
 by the Divisional Of&cer, Mr. John T. Homer, J. P., to assist him 
 in making known the purpose and value of the Act, and I am 
 very glad to do so. The Act is intended to help all persons of 
 both sexes, and particularly the juveniles, to find work suitable 
 to their capacities, and to help employers to find the workers 
 whom they need. It is thought, and I think rightly, by Mr. 
 Homer, that the clergy are most likely to know of such persons, 
 and particularly of the young people, and that in many cases 
 they can best help them by showing them how to put themselves 
 into communication with the nearest official of the Labour 
 Exchange Department. It is hoped shortly to arrange that 
 notices shaU be posted in many Post Offices and PoUce Stations 
 stating where the nearest officer of the Labour Exchange Depart- 
 ment is to be found. Exchanges are about to be opened at 
 Hereford, Shrewsbury, and Ironbridge. Travelhng officers will 
 also be sent in time to other local centres in Herefordshire and 
 Shropshire. 
 
 The object of the Department is to bring the employer and the 
 unemployed into touch in regard to every kind of labour, trade, 
 and occupation, except indoor domestic service. 
 
 Every one needing employment, from a manager to a labourer, 
 and every employer wanting such a person, is invited to make use 
 of the Labour Exchanges. It must be distinctly understood that 
 an employer has full right of selection from those registered at the 
 Exchanges and that no effort will be spared by the Department 
 to provide the most suitable person for the work. The Exchange 
 does not undertake the relief of distress but seeks to provide an 
 efficient means whereby employer and unemployed may be
 
 XII LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 299 
 
 brought together. Indirectly, of course, it will save much distress 
 and hardship, and make it unnecessary for men and women to 
 wander about in search of work. 
 
 I hope that the clergy will kindly insert this letter in their 
 parochial magazines for January, and will do all in their power in 
 other ways to bring the matter to the notice of both employers 
 and unemployed. The success already achieved by the Exchanges 
 is shown by the Board of Trade figures published about the middle 
 of each month, and any further information about the system will 
 be willingly supplied by the Divisional Officer, 164 Corporation 
 Street, Birmingham. — Believe me. Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The early summer of 191 1 was occupied by a heated 
 controversy. It was the year of King George's Coronation, 
 and Percival held a United Communion Service in Hereford 
 Cathedral. This was the occasion of much conflict, but the 
 story must be told separately. As a result of this contro- 
 versy he was naturaUy much exhausted and in September 
 w^ent abroad with his wife and revelled in the beauty of the 
 Italian Lakes ; but even then he was writing letters all the 
 time in preparation for his Diocesan Conference at which 
 he was especially eager to secure a strong discussion of 
 social questions. In the November of this year he issued 
 a Supplement to the Diocesan Messenger, summarising the 
 results of an inquiry which he had made of all incumbents 
 in the diocese with regard to work for lads and young men 
 which they had found specially useful. Perhaps none of the 
 forms of work described are at all original ; indeed they 
 hardly could be ; but the gathering of them together in one 
 brief statement was a most practical w^ay of helping the 
 clergy to solve " one of the most pressing of aU social 
 problems in a diocese like ours, namely, how to raise the 
 low standard of morals and conduct which still prevail in 
 many of our rural parishes." 
 
 Tliis interest in the welfare of boys carried Percival 
 beyond the Umits of his diocese. Mr. J. H. Whitehouse 
 gives the following account of his work in connection with 
 the National League of Workers with Boys : 
 
 Dr. Percival was the first President of the National League of
 
 300 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Workers with Boys. The Society included the Heads of many of 
 the organisations for boys scattered throughout the country, as 
 well as a large number of schoolmasters and others interested in 
 education. He held the Presidency until his death. The work of 
 the Society is still carried on, but the League has been merged in 
 the Society for Experiment and Research in Education. 
 
 During the years of his Presidency the Bishop took the warmest 
 interest in the objects of the Society, and particularly applied 
 himself to constructive suggestions to deal with the evils of casual 
 labour, bhnd alley occupations for young persons, and the 
 educational neglect of our youth. 
 
 I was in frequent correspondence with him on these questions, 
 and we often met at the House of Commons or the House of Lords 
 to consider aspects which might be brought up in Parliament 
 either in the form of questions or of Bills. 
 
 In the year 1909 there was considerable interest shown in the 
 Press and in Parliament upon such subjects as street trading by 
 children, and blind alley occupations generally, and a Committee 
 was set up by the Home Secretary to enquire into some aspects 
 of these questions. 
 
 In July of this year the Bishop wrote me the following letter : 
 
 " Dear Mr. Whitehouse — Best thanks for your letter of 
 I2th inst. The objections of employers show how entirely the 
 feeling of responsibility for boys whom they are emplojang (and 
 very often at a cheap rate) has disappeared from the minds of 
 employers, and the need of revival. I hope you will stick to the 
 point and I am glad to see your name on a Commission of Inquiry. 
 A short Bill dealing with this subject alone, however modest, 
 would be very useful as a beginning. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford." 
 
 Later in the same year Dr. Percival submitted to me the 
 following suggestions for dealing with the employment of boys 
 under the age of 17 : 
 
 1. Every boy under 17 seeking employment to present a cer- 
 
 tificate stating his age and the occupation for which he is 
 preparing when he reaches the age of 17. 
 
 2. Such certificates to be obtained at the nearest Post Office, filled 
 
 up before the Post Office official ; counterfoil to be kept at 
 the Post Office. 
 
 3. Every employer to keep a record of these certificates, to be 
 
 shown whenever required to the educational or the police 
 Authority.
 
 XII LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 301 
 
 4. Any one employing a boy under 17 without such certificate 
 
 to be Uable to a fine for each case, not exceeding £ — . 
 
 5. No boy under 17 to be employed for more than — hours 
 
 each day. 
 
 6. The Local Authority to be supplied weekly by the Post Office 
 
 (or by the Headmaster of the School when the boy leaves it), 
 with a list of boys in the district certificated for employment ; 
 to make reasonable provision for their general or industrial 
 education, and to have power by bye-laws to enforce attend- 
 ance on such instruction. 
 
 7. Any boys under 17 who have left school and are not in employ- 
 
 ment to be liable to be taken by the pohce to the magis- 
 trates. Regulations to be made for such boys. 
 
 I had many conferences with the Bishop upon these proposals, 
 and he ultimately drew up a short Bill for introduction in the 
 House of Lords. 
 
 He was deeply concerned with the failure of the elementary 
 school system. He wanted to see the school age raised and to 
 control the employment of these boys in order to prevent their 
 going to any work whicli would not give them a career in life. He 
 was always very impressed by the necessity of surrounding work- 
 ing boys with sympathetic influences after they had left school, 
 and I have a number of letters from him in the year 1909 respect- 
 ing a boys' club which he was anxious to found at Hereford. 
 
 On July 28th in that year he wrote to me : 
 
 " We are thinking of establishing a boys' club here, to be 
 joined, as soon as may be, by boys after leaving the elementary 
 school. Can you kindly send me copies of any useful and suitable 
 rules, and any hints or suggestions arising out of your experi- 
 ence ? " 
 
 I do not now remember whether his scheme was successfully 
 carried out at Hereford. 
 
 The Report of the Royal Commission upon the Poor Law was 
 published in 1909, and Dr. Percival took great interest in its 
 constructive proposals, particularly those of the Minority Report. 
 
 He wrote to me from the Lollards' Tower in April 19 10 : 
 
 " I wonder if you could, without trouble, do me a little favour ? 
 On Wednesday morning I have to meet a Convocation Committee 
 on the Poor Law, and I should be grateful if you could tell me in a 
 few words what points you think it would be well for us in our 
 Report to press upon the Government as most urgent for legisla- 
 tion."
 
 302 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 As a result of this letter, we had a discussion covering the chief 
 questions dealt with by the Commission, and he realised that the 
 subject was so vast that it was hopeless to expect a comprehensive 
 measure on the lines of the Minority Report at any early date. 
 He agreed that for immediate purposes the better plan would be 
 to try to induce the Government to take action upon some detail 
 of the problem such as the question of boy labour. He thought 
 it might be possible to induce the Government to take action in 
 this connection, and pave the way for further reforms. 
 
 Dr. Percival retained until his death the deepest interest in all 
 the causes which the Society sought to promote in Parliament and 
 elsewhere. He helped forward a project by which, in the year 
 1912, a large number of educationalists and representative workers 
 amongst boys produced a book entitled Problems of Boy Life, and 
 he wrote an introduction to the book, from which the following is 
 quoted : 
 
 " Being allowed the privilege of writing a few words of intro- 
 duction to this book, I desire to commend it to the sympathetic 
 attention of all who care for social betterment and progress. 
 
 "Of late years the public conscience has been stirred, and none 
 too soon, to a sense of the dangers, moral and physical, involved 
 in the overcrowded and squalid life of the working multitudes in 
 our great cities ; and thoughtful men are becoming unanimously 
 of opinion that for our national well-being it is imperative that the 
 conditions of this life should be altered without longer delay, and 
 no reforms are more urgent than those that deal with the up- 
 bringing of the young. 
 
 " Hence the special value of such a book as this, a value which 
 is enhanced by the fact that the writers claim our attention, as 
 having themselves personally worked at the problems with which 
 they deal and as having thus acquired a first-hand knowledge of 
 both the needs and the difficulties which confront us in our en- 
 deavours to make up for the absent-mindedness of past 5/ears and 
 the unheeded growth of vast slum populations whose lot is a dis- 
 credit to our Christian civilisation." 
 
 Shortly before the Bishop's death it was my privilege to lay 
 before him on behalf of many friends in both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment a proposal to hold a public function in recognition of his 
 services to the cause of the youth of the country. He was too ill 
 to accept this tribute to his work. But I was charged to convey 
 to his friends the assurance that to the end he would do everything 
 in his power to press forward the reforms he and they desired 
 to see.
 
 XII LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 303 
 
 During 1912 a beginning was made with the formation 
 of the Agricultural Labourers' Union in Herefordshire. The 
 Bishop privately subscribed to the first " agitation." The 
 local agent had written to him asking for his support. A 
 few months later this agent, who had attempted to form a 
 union in the District where he was himself a working farm 
 foreman, was brought into the courts. The Bishop promptly 
 sent further help to be used in his defence : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 August 14, 1912. 
 
 Dear Bannister — I am sorry to hear what has befallen 
 
 and I enclose £5, which you will kindly use at your discretion. I 
 hope his prosecutors may hear some plain speaking on the nature 
 of their conduct. 
 
 The way of the man who endeavours to lift his class to a share 
 of the sunshine is certainly a hard one. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J Hereford. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Percival had hoped to be 
 translated to the Archbishopric of York. And he had 
 grounds for this hope. It had been known for a considerable 
 time that a vacancy in that see was imminent, and Sir 
 Henry Campbell-Bannerman had plainly given Percival to 
 understand that he intended to nominate him for the appoint- 
 ment. When the vacancy occurred, Sir Henry was already 
 dead. Mr. Asquith decided on the appointment of a man 
 in full vigour, and wrote to Percival to say that he had felt 
 bound to come to the conclusion that he was now too old 
 to take up new work of so arduous a kind. That it was a 
 deep disappointment is unquestionable. The Dean of Bristol 
 had a letter from him in which he said, " Asquith has sent 
 me my obituary notice." The Dean's brother. Prebendary 
 Wynne Willson, writes : " When I saw him on the day of the 
 announcement of Lang's appointment, he was less reticent 
 than I ever knew him to be. He sketched some of his plans 
 that he had had in view, specially in relation to the new 
 northern universities. Though his best friends knew he 
 could not cope with the work, he himself did not yet feel the 
 limitations of his age."
 
 304 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 He had always hoped for work in the industrial North, 
 and he believed that as Archbishop of York he would have 
 been able to bring the Church into living contact both with 
 the new universities and with the great centres of the Labour 
 Movement. He knew that he had a hold on the working 
 men of the Midlands and the North, for to the very end of 
 his active life the announcement of his name as preacher or 
 speaker would pack any church or hall. It was mainly for 
 the sake of the work that he felt he could still do in con- 
 nection with social progress, and for the drawing together 
 of the Church and the rising democracy, that he desired the 
 opportunity which York would have given him. 
 
 Towards the end of the year in which he suffered this 
 disappointment, and thereby learnt that his work would be 
 at Hereford while strength for work lasted, he formed a 
 scheme for using part of the Palace as a hostel for students 
 of theology preparing for ordination. In December 1909 he 
 circulated the following letter to many tutors at Oxford and 
 Cambridge and to others who were in a position to influence 
 young men in their choice of a Theological College : 
 
 Private 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 December 4, 1909. 
 
 Dear This letter is written for the purpose of informing 
 
 those of my friends who may wish to make use of the information 
 that I am proposing to receive here a limited number of young 
 university graduates who are preparing for Holy Orders, and 
 that the work will commence next July, if a sufficient number of 
 students have applied before Easter, and are ready to begin their 
 course of preparation. 
 
 I am led to enter upon this piece of work partly because of the 
 need of such assistance as can be offered here to candidates for 
 Orders, and partly by the fact that I now have available for such 
 a purpose a very suitable portion of my Palace, and other accom- 
 modation close by, but more particularly because I am so fortunate 
 as to have around me in the Cathedral body, and in the immediate 
 neighbourhood, a group of unusually able and experienced clergy 
 who are desirous of doing some good service for our Church by 
 assisting in the instruction and training of young men for the work 
 of the ministry.
 
 xii LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 305 
 
 The students will be under the immediate charge and direction 
 of Canon Bannister and Dr. Hastings Rashdall (both of them 
 Canons Residentiary in our Cathedral), with one of my chaplains 
 as resident tutor. 
 
 For the courses of instruction in the various subjects required, 
 as also for tutorial guidance, they will moreover have the 
 assistance of : 
 
 The Rev. Canon Capes, Canon Residentiary of Hereford ; 
 
 The Rev. Charles Harris, D.D., Rector of Colwall, Examining 
 Chaplain to the Bishop of Llandaff, and sometime Theo- 
 logical Lecturer at Lampeter ; and 
 
 The Rev. T. W. Harvey, Vicar of Bosbury, formerly in charge 
 of the Clifton College Mission in Bristol, and sometime 
 Warden of the Lichfield Evangelist Brotherhood. 
 
 Occasional courses of lectures will also be given by other 
 distinguished teachers. 
 
 Our Cathedral Library adjoins the Palace and will be at the 
 disposal of the students ; and from my garden the Bishop's 
 Cloister leads into the Cathedral, so that the position and sur- 
 roundings are unusually favourable for the period of devout study 
 and preparation between undergraduate life at the University 
 and admission to Holy Orders. 
 
 Moreover, the city is close at hand, outside my gates, and 
 valuable experience may be gained under the direction of one or 
 other of our city incumbents. 
 
 The inclusive charges will be £20 per term of about eight weeks, 
 the year being divided into four terms, arranged according to the 
 Ember seasons.^ 
 
 Two or three Exhibitions, each of £40 per annum, can be 
 offered to meritorious students, who may require the help. 
 
 Should you have any pupil or friend desiring such preparation 
 as we have to offer, he should make application to Canon Bannister, 
 The Close, Hereford ; or to Dr. Hastings Rashdall, New College, 
 Oxford. — Beheve me, yours faithfully, 
 
 J, Hereford. 
 
 P.S. — If by any chance a sufficient number of students should 
 desire to begin their studies in March next, we could make 
 arrangements to receive them then. 
 
 The scheme, however, found little support, partly, no 
 doubt, because of the type of churchmanship which it w^as 
 
 * Only one paid, and he half-fees. The other two were taken free, 
 the Bishop giving them hospitality for the three terms in the Palace. 
 
 X
 
 3o6 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 expected to encourage, but partly also because the current 
 of opinion was setting strongly towards larger Theological 
 Colleges and away from small hostels. Those hostels which 
 were already established under a leadership which had been 
 tested and proved were able to maintain themselves. A new 
 hostel, even if expected to encourage a school of thought 
 that was acceptable to the majority of Bishops and to a fair 
 proportion of the young men who were seeking ordination, 
 would have had little hope of success. The hostel in the 
 Palace at Hereford had not this advantage. Percival was 
 regarded — ^to a far greater extent than was at all justified — 
 as a partisan of Low or Broad if not even of anti-Church 
 principles ; and the most famous of those whose names were 
 given, Dr. Hastings Rashdall, was widely known as a 
 " Liberal Theologian," while his moral earnestness, his 
 power of sympathy and stimulus with young men, and his 
 deep personal devotion and piety were familiar only to those 
 who had the high privilege of his friendship. So the scheme 
 failed. Only five students ever came, and the attempt was 
 abandoned, to the Bishop's profound disappointment. 
 
 A small storm arose in 1912 with reference to the Atha- 
 nasian Creed. On Easter Day, in that year, the Bishop 
 said to Canon Bannister, as they left the Cathedral together : 
 ' ' How terrible it sounded — those innocent choir boys repeat- 
 ing those awful words, ' without doubt he shall perish ever- 
 lastingly ' in the Athanasian Creed." Canon Bannister 
 replied, " If we have your support we will abandon the use 
 of the Creed." With the consent of the Chapter the change 
 was made on St. Andrew's Day, at the beginning of the 
 Church's year. It was not noticed publicly till just before 
 Christmas when the Minor Canons sent a formal appeal to 
 the Bishop, urging that the new use was a violation of the 
 Cathedral Statutes and of the Declaration signed by all priests 
 at their ordination, and that therefore the Chapter were both 
 acting illegally and were hindering the Minor Canons in the 
 discharge of their conscientious duty. This was sent to the 
 Bishop on December 19, with a request for a prompt reply on 
 the ground that " Christmas is so near, and action we may 
 have to take depends upon what your Lordship may decide."
 
 xii LATER YEARS IN THE DIOCESE 307 
 
 It is clear that on legal grounds the Minor Canons had 
 right on their side. The Chapter modified its decision, 
 ordering that plain Mattins should be said with the Atha- 
 nasian Creed at 8 a.m. and sung without it at 11. This 
 met the legal claim of the Minor Canons and the Bishop 
 replied to their Appeal on December 21 : 
 
 I am thankful that in acknowledging your letter I need do 
 nothing more than express my satisfaction that your difficulty is 
 happily settled by the decision of the Chapter. 
 
 This decision will keep within the guidance of the Rubric, 
 maintain the testimony of the Creed, and at the same time relieve 
 the general congregation who attend the 11 a.m. service from 
 what most thoughtful lay people feel to be very painful — the 
 repetition of the damnatory clauses. No doubt you know how 
 prevalent and strong the feehng is among the mass of educated 
 lay people ; and I think some feel it to be even more painful to 
 hear our boys cheerfully singing the tremendous words — " without 
 doubt he shall perish everlastingly." 
 
 Under the circumstances, and now that the Chapter have made 
 this arrangement in the hope of satisfying the different elements 
 in the congregation, I hope you may feel able to give them all 
 possible help, so as to smooth over any differences that may 
 have arisen. 
 
 Wlioever reads the earlier morning service will, of course, have 
 fulfilled his statutory duties ; but it will make things much 
 happier and will be a very appropriate exhibition of a kindly 
 Christian spirit if you freely offer to take your part as usual in 
 the choral service at 11 a.m., and I sincerely hope you may do 
 this. 
 
 The Minor Canons, however, felt bound to absent them- 
 selves from the 11 a.m. service on Christmas Day, That 
 afternoon the Bishop wrote to his son, the Rev. L.J. Percival : 
 
 We had a beautiful service at ii a.m. without either Minor 
 Canon or Athanasian Creed. 
 
 No doubt you saw in the newspapers that the Dean and 
 Chapter made quite a flutter in ecclesiastical circles by deciding 
 to omit the Athanasian Creed ; and the High Church people 
 round the Cathedral are not pacified by their final decision to 
 have plain Morning Prayer with that Creed at 8 a.m. and the 
 Choral Mattins at 11 a.m. as on other days. They think it 
 derogatory to the Athanasian Creed to delegate it to a plain
 
 3o8 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap, xn 
 
 8 A.M. service, though I suppose this is nearer the Roman Use 
 than II A.M. 
 
 The Bishop did not add, as he might have done, that 
 many of those who insist on the repetition of the Quicunque 
 Vult on the appointed days in the course of Morning Prayer 
 do not themselves recite it at a service where the general 
 congregation is present. If the " chief service of the day " 
 is a Choral Eucharist, the recitation of this document is no 
 longer required of the ordinary worshipper. 
 
 In April 19 12 Percival became aware of rumours that he 
 was on the point of resigning. In sending a statement of 
 this belief, taken from some newspaper, to Canon Bannister 
 he said : 
 
 Needless to say, the enclosed rumour is some person's genial 
 invention. I know well enough that I am not of much use, but 
 I see no reason why I should not " plough my allotted field until 
 my work be done," and I happen to have the advantage of coming 
 of a long-lived race. 
 
 He was eager to work as long as strength lasted ; in 1912 
 no serious failure had begun to show itself. But it is possible 
 that a realisation that his time was short led him to press 
 forward more doggedly than ever the causes which he had 
 especially at heart.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 REUNION AND THE UNITED COMMUNION SERVICE 
 
 Percival had always been keenly interested in efforts to 
 promote more intimate relations with Nonconformists. This 
 is one of the matters on which general opinion has moved 
 most rapidly, and some historical imagination is already 
 required if the motives and results of acts only ten years old 
 are to be properly understood. Not so very long ago even 
 practical co-operation with Nonconformists in social reform 
 and the like was regarded by a large number of Anglicans 
 as a betrayal of the Church. The differences of theological 
 and ecclesiastical principles were often sharpened by political 
 and social differences. Dissent was often condemned not as 
 separation from the outward order of the Catholic Church, 
 but as separation from the National Establishment. This 
 was the prevailing point of view in the days when Percival's 
 mind was chiefly being formed. He never set any high value 
 on the one world-wide order of the Church, His spiritual 
 zeal found its outlet chiefly in the demand for personal and 
 public righteousness in the present and the near future. So 
 it was natural for him to be vividly aware of spiritual unity 
 with Nonconformists, who have often been foremost in 
 the hunger and thirst after righteousness ; and he was 
 comparatively little impressed by the importance of the 
 considerations which have held Church people back from 
 any easy scheme of " reunion all round." 
 
 His first definite activity in the direction of co-operation 
 with Nonconformists was in connection with the " Christian 
 Conference " of which the following brief account is given 
 by Mr. A. G. B. Atkinson : 
 
 309
 
 310 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 The " Christian Conference " was a permanent organisation of 
 Christians of all denominations, formed in 1881. Its formation 
 was due to the initiation of Dr. Fremantle, then rector of St. 
 Mary's, Bryanston Square. It was the object of the Conference 
 to promote mutual knowledge and sympathy between men of 
 various denominations with the intention of making the hfc of 
 EngHsh people more Christian. Upon these lines meetings were 
 held in London twice yearly for twenty years. Later, meetings 
 of a more public character were arranged during the week of the 
 Church Congress, and such meetings were held with much success 
 at Bradford, London, and Newcastle, Thus an open platform 
 was provided during the Congress Week, the Congress rules not 
 admitting Nonconformists to take part. Dr. Percival was a warm 
 supporter of the movement, his most noteworthy contribution to 
 the discussions being at the meeting held in September 1899, 
 intended as a supplementary meeting to the London Congress. 
 Speaking on the general question of reunion, some striking 
 utterances of the Bishop may be recalled : 
 
 " In the Church of England, which I am for a moment repre- 
 senting before you, there may still be some persons, although they 
 are undoubtedly a diminishing number, who feel that a Bishop 
 should hesitate to take any part in a mixed assembly of this kind. 
 
 " To reassure any of my fellow-churchmen who have this 
 feeling, I would refer them to the Resolution of the Lambeth 
 Conference of 1897, declaring that the time has come when efforts 
 should be made to bring us nearer together in visible Christian 
 unity. 
 
 " Such persons would probably remind me that as a Bishop 
 I am bound with all faithful diligence to drive away aU erroneous 
 and strange doctrine, and I am not unmindful of the obligation. 
 
 " In coming here to-night, I come in the full consciousness 
 of my promise solemnly made. The only liberty I claim in the 
 matter is liberty to discard the antiquated, and I trust obsolete, 
 weapons of an exclusive or persecuting church — weapons that 
 belong to times of ignorance, and are very apt to recoil on the 
 heads of those who make use of them. 
 
 " I gladly recognise — thus much is patent to all of us — the 
 growth of kindlier relationships, and freer and more frequent 
 social intercourse, and consequently a better understanding, 
 between different denominations of Christians, with more of 
 mutual respect. I am thankful also to see more readiness to join 
 in common work for the public good, and of a religious character, 
 and to widen the area of such common work. 
 
 " But when I go beyond this I am confronted by two opposing 
 theories, which must finish their warfare before we can hope for
 
 XIII 
 
 REUNION 311 
 
 final unity — on the one hand, the theory of a Church crystalhsed, 
 unchangeable, semper eadem, with creed immutably formulated, 
 a mediatorial priesthood, and specially ordained and exclusive 
 channels of sacramental grace ; and on the other hand, the theory 
 of the Spirit of the Divine Christ working in human life in manifold 
 ways and under many forms — a theory which welcomes as 
 members of the Christian Church all who acknowledge Christ as 
 the Lord of their life, and are moved and regenerated by the 
 power of His Spirit. 
 
 " Those of us who are drawing near to the day of our departure 
 from this earthly scene can hardly hope to see the issue of this 
 conflict. As it has lately been said in another connection, we 
 shall miss some interesting discussions ; but we may go to our 
 rest in the assured conviction that the prospect and promise of 
 an active and beneficent religious spirit working strongly in the 
 hfe of the coming century, and of a gradual growth towards some 
 form of spiritual union in Christ, are becoming constantly clearer 
 and brighter than any one would have ventured to predict forty 
 years ago. 
 
 " In all this I seem to see an augury of the day, how distant or 
 how near no man would dare as yet to prophesy, when the creed 
 of the great msiss of English-speaking Christians may once more 
 be a simpler creed than the creed of Christendom has ever been 
 since Apostolic times ; when doctrinal differences which now 
 separate us may no longer be held an insuperable barrier to 
 communion ; when, with a keener consciousness of the Divine 
 Fatherhood and our common brotherhood in Christ, men will be 
 content to rely for their spiritual union less exclusively on dogmatic 
 definitions, and more on filial piety and that spirit of Christian 
 charity which is the clearest intimation that has been vouchsafed 
 to us of our share in the divine life." 
 
 The Milton tercentenary afforded an opportunity of 
 action which Percival was prompt to seize. Towards the 
 close of 1908 he issued the following letter to various clergy 
 and Nonconformist ministers in the diocese : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 December i, 1908. 
 
 My dear Brother in Christ — The Lambeth Conference of 
 Bishops in 1908 recommended that " Committees should be 
 appointed to watch for opportunities of united prayer and 
 mutual conference between representatives of different Christian
 
 312 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 bodies, and to give counsel where counsel may be asked in this 
 matter." 
 
 This Resolution has, I fear, remained to a great extent a 
 dead letter, the fact being that most of us are liable, after gather- 
 ing in conference and expressing admirable sentiments in general 
 resolutions, to go away and become immersed in our individual 
 concerns, and forget all about them. 
 
 Again, the last Resolution proposed at the Lambeth Con- 
 ference, which was attended this year by about 242 Bishops, 
 runs as follows : 
 
 " The constituted authorities of the various Churches of 
 the Anglican Communion should, as opportunity offers, arrange 
 conferences with other Christian Churches and meetings for 
 common acknowledgment of the sins of division, and for inter- 
 cession for the growth of unity." 
 
 These resolutions and suggestions, coming from such an 
 authoritative source, it will be generally acknowledged, ought 
 not to be practically overlooked or disregarded. 
 
 But they remain of little value, if we simply treat them as 
 pious opinions and take no steps to give them practical effect 
 in neighbourly action and intercourse. 
 
 And, having this feeling in my mind, it has occurred to me 
 that the tercentenary of Milton's birth offers an unusually 
 appropriate occasion for a neighbourly gathering of Christians 
 of different denominations for common worship and conference 
 in honour of his great name and in the cause of godly union 
 and concord. 
 
 To Milton, as to Bunyan, our rehgious and literary life, to 
 whatever denomination we may belong, owes more than any 
 of us can estimate, and our common indebtedness to such 
 supremely gifted souls should help to Hft us above those 
 traditional sectarian barriers which too commonly divide us, 
 stopping the flow of Christian brotherhood and fellowship. 
 
 Consequently I am venturing to invite you to a Conference 
 at The Palace, on Saturday December 12, at 2.15 p.m. Besides 
 our Dean and other Clergy of the Diocese, I hope to have with 
 us the Dean of Worcester and Canon Wilson, the Rev. Dr. 
 Horton, the Rev. Arnold Thomas of Bristol, Professor Herford 
 of Manchester, and the Nonconformist ministers of our city 
 and neighbourhood. 
 
 Also I have arranged, in co-operation with the Dean, for a 
 short service of United Prayer and Praise in the Cathedral on 
 Sunday December 13, at 3 p.m., with a Sermon by Prebendary 
 Bannister. To this service we hope to gather people of good- 
 will belonging to every Christian denomination in the city and
 
 XIII 
 
 REUNION 313 
 
 neighbourhood, and I shall be grateful if you will kindly make 
 it known to your parish or congregation. — Believe me, yours 
 sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Conference duly took place in the Cathedral Library 
 on Saturday, December 12. The occasion was to celebrate 
 the tercentenary of Milton's birth, and the speeches delivered 
 were confined to this topic. The other speakers, beside the 
 Bishop, were the Rev. Arnold Thomas, the Dean of Worcester, 
 Dr. Horton and Dr. Harris. Votes of thanks were proposed 
 by the Dean of Hereford and the Rev. D. Basil Martin. On 
 the following day a special service was held in the Cathedral 
 at 2.45. The Dean read the prayers, Dr. Horton read the 
 lesson and Prebendary Bannister preached the sermon. 
 
 Soon after this the Bishop took a prominent part in 
 establishing a " Christian Ministers' Club " in Hereford, 
 consisting of Canons of the Cathedral, about a dozen local 
 clergy and as many Nonconformist ministers. The club 
 met every month, alternately at the house of a Churchman 
 and of a Nonconformist, for prayer, Scripture study, and 
 discussion. 
 
 A little later, in 1910, largely as a result of mutual inter- 
 course at this club. Canon Bannister, with the Bishop's 
 consent and encouragement, delivered an address at the 
 Wesleyan Harvest Festival in Hereford. The Bishop gave 
 him a letter to " our Wesleyan neighbours," expressing the 
 hope that the result might be "to strengthen the growing 
 spirit of unity and goodwill and co-operation in all good 
 works, which is one of the most hopeful signs in the religious 
 life of our day." Canon Bannister said in the course 
 of his address, with the Bishop's approval, that we must 
 " never rest content until we have learned to join one 
 another in the highest act of prayer — until we have estab- 
 lished the custom of intercommunion, of uniting, from time 
 to time, with those of another household, in the Supper of 
 the Lord." 
 
 All through his life Percival had many intimate friends 
 among the ministers of the Free Churches. Chief among these
 
 314 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 perhaps was Dr. J. B. Paton, the famous Congregationalist 
 divine, whose death fell early in 191 1. Percival attended 
 the funeral and delivered an address at the graveside : 
 
 As we stand at the grave of Dr. Paton, while we mourn the 
 loss of a dear friend, who was one of the finest and most lovable 
 Christian characters of our generation, we think of him, in 
 particular, as having been in a unique sense the apostle amongst 
 us of Christian social service. 
 
 Unresting and untiring in his beneficial activity, endowed with 
 never-failing enthusiasm and an all-embracing charity, he was 
 the soul of the many good causes for which he laboured, and 
 he combined in a remarkable degree the gifts of original and 
 constructive imagination on questions of social well-being with 
 a rare power of embodying his ideas in a practical form. 
 
 Thus he was at once an inspiring prophet and a practical 
 leader in the pioneering work of social service for the love of 
 Christ ; and for my own part as my mind travels over the 
 forty-six years of our intimate friendship, I feel that I have 
 known no one of whom it could be said that he was at once so 
 free from every denominational prejudice and so unselfishly 
 devoted to good works and endowed with a mind so fertile in 
 suggestion, and a Christian enthusiasm so inspiring. The memory 
 of such a life is a great possession, and we thank God for it. 
 
 In the letter of invitation to the Conference which was 
 held to celebrate the Milton tercentenary, Percival alluded 
 to the fact that the Lambeth Conference of 1908 passed 
 various resolutions on the subject of Reunion. In these 
 the essential principles of the Church of England were 
 declared and the hope of Eeunion by ways compatible with 
 these principles was expressed. In particular the Conference 
 reaffirmed the resolution of the Conference of 1897 that 
 " Every opportunity should be taken to emphasise the 
 Divine purpose of visible unity amongst Christians as a fact 
 of revelation." Bishop Percival repeatedly urged that such 
 resolutions were not only useless but hypocritical and harmful 
 if they led in fact to no action. An opportunity of the kind 
 referred to in the Resolution seemed to him to be offered by 
 the Coronation of King George V. It was a time when 
 national unity would be specially present to the minds of all
 
 xin REUNION 315 
 
 men, and it seemed to him desirable to give the completest 
 possible expression to the unity of English Christians. The 
 idea was not suddenly conceived ; he had in the previous 
 year sanctioned the expression by one of his clergy of the 
 hope that such a step might be taken, and on January i, 
 191 1, he had written as follows to his friend Canon Cremer : 
 
 Private 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 New Year's Day, 191 1. 
 
 Dear Mr. Cremer — I hope I thanked you for your letters 
 written last October, but I sometimes fail to carry out good 
 intentions in such matters. Anyhow I have kept them, and now 
 I am writing to ask whether you have looked carefully into the 
 legal points as regards our relation with Nonconformists ? I 
 should rather like at some appropriate time to establish the 
 precedent of a Bishop inviting Nonconformist neighbours to a 
 joint Communion, but they might naturally say in reply — would 
 you or your clergy come and join in our services, and I feel that 
 before taking any active steps one should be quite clear as to 
 what would be well within the limits of the law. 
 
 All this I know you have considered, so that you can, I hope, 
 save me some trouble by telling me your conclusions and the 
 authorities, and I feel sure you will be glad to help me in this way. 
 
 With every good wish for the New Year, ever yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 Jan. 9, 191 1. 
 
 Dear Mr. Cremer — Many thanks for your kind and helpful 
 reply to my inquiry. I will make some further inquiries of 
 some lawyer, so as to see exactly how we stand in the eye of 
 the law. — Yours sincerely, J. Hereford. 
 
 The result of his inquiries was that he decided to hold in 
 the Cathedral a celebration of the Holy Communion to which 
 Nonconformists were invited. He announced his intention 
 in the following letter to the Diocesan Messenger : 
 
 The Coronation. — To assist in the due celebration of the 
 Coronation Day, Thursday, the 22nd of June, the Archbishops 
 of Canterbury and York have commended certain forms of 
 prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God for general use.
 
 3i6 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Cheap copies of these forms can be obtained from either 
 the Oxford or the Cambridge University Press ; and my hope is 
 that they may be adopted by our clergy and used in every 
 church of the diocese as the expression of our sincere and earnest 
 prayer that the blessing of God may rest abundantly on our 
 King and Queen through a long and happy reign, and that it 
 may be a reign of growing peace, prosperity, and goodwill, 
 blessed to their people everywhere in the increase of righteousness 
 and truth, and the uplifting, the purifying, and the brightening 
 of all the common life. 
 
 United Service of Holy Communion. — Such a season of prayer 
 and thanksgiving, drawing together all classes and all denomina- 
 tions in the spirit of loyalty, patriotism, and goodwill, and lifting 
 us by its influence above the atmosphere of religious divisions, 
 must be recognised as peculiarly appropriate for any united 
 religious service in which we can properly join. 
 
 Accordingly, with the cordial support of the Dean, I am 
 venturing to add to our regular Diocesan Services and Festivals 
 of Thanksgiving a celebration of the Holy Communion in our 
 Cathedral at 11.30 a.m. on Wednesday, the 28th of June, to 
 which I propose to invite both members of our own Church and 
 also such of our Nonconformist neighbours and friends as may 
 feel moved to join in our worship on this unique occasion. 
 
 My hope is that such an invitation may be of service in 
 helping to promote amongst us the true spirit of godly union 
 and concord. 
 
 At the same time I am aware that it may possibly raise 
 scruples in the minds of some of our clergy, and I freely acknow- 
 ledge my sympathy with such scruples, though I hope to show 
 that in this case there is no real ground for them. 
 
 As an old man I know how difficult it is for us to emancipate 
 ourselves from the influence and power of any traditional doc- 
 trines or views of our earher years, which the advance of know- 
 ledge may have proved to be no longer tenable, and this difficulty 
 comes to us of the older generation at the present time with 
 unusual force, because we are living in an age of unusual transition 
 as regards Biblical knowledge and ecclesiastical tradition. 
 
 Thus those of us who were taught the traditional doctrine of 
 Apostolical Succession naturally feel that episcopacy is essential 
 to the Church of Christ, and communion with non-episcopal 
 Christians is consequently difficult to accept ; but as it is now 
 almost universally recognised that, whilst episcopacy (to use 
 the language of theologians) is of the bene esse, it is not of the 
 esse of the Church, in other words that, good and valuable as 
 history has proved it and as we beheve it to be, it is not an essential
 
 xin REUNION 317 
 
 and indispensable part of the Church's organisation, there is 
 in fact no sufficient reason why episcopal and non-episcopal 
 Christians, holding the same creeds, and beheving in the same 
 sacraments, should not kneel together at the Lord's Table. 
 
 By such an act of united worship in the spirit of Christian 
 brotherhood we shall in fact be helping to give practical effect 
 to the recommendations of the last Lambeth Conference of 
 Bishops of the Anglican Communion, who were very emphatic 
 as to our duty to join in every reasonable effort towards the 
 friendly relationships and closer union in Christ of all who profess 
 to be His disciples and followers. 
 
 There is, however, another difficulty which may be felt by 
 many loyal churchmen. The rubric at the end of our Con- 
 firmation Service states that none should be admitted to Holy 
 Communion but such as have been confirmed or are desirous of 
 being confirmed. 
 
 This direction would constitute a grave and serious difficulty 
 if it applied to this case, but it is, I think, quite clear that it 
 does not apply ; and it may be helpful to quote some authorita- 
 tive opinions on the subject. 
 
 Bishop Creighton, as we are told in his life, held that this 
 rubric was intended solely as a direction for normal cases in our 
 own Church, and did not contemplate the case of Nonconformists, 
 and he said that Archbishop Benson agreed with him in this 
 view. Archbishop Maclagan held the same view. 
 
 Similarly Archbishop Tait wrote that the Rubric applied 
 solely to our own people and not to those members of foreign 
 or dissenting bodies who occasionally conform. Other leading 
 churchmen might be quoted to the same effect. 
 
 Moreover, as is well known, members of other Protestant 
 churches were in former years freely admitted to Communion 
 in our Church, so that in this invitation we shall be transgressing 
 no rule of church order, whilst we shall be acting on a most 
 appropriate occasion in that spirit of charity and goodwill 
 which is the essential and indispensable condition of true Christian 
 unity. 
 
 On such grounds I invite my fellow churchmen in the diocese 
 to join in our service on the 28th of June ; and I do so feeling 
 confident of their loyal response in the spirit of Christian brother- 
 hood and love. J. Hereford. 
 
 The letter which he issued to the Nonconformist ministers 
 was as follows :
 
 oi8 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 J 
 
 Letter to Nonconformist Ministers 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 May 1 91 1, 
 
 Dear Sir — Seeing that we all desire to assist in making the 
 approaching Coronation season memorable as a time of unity 
 and goodwill amongst all the loyal subjects of our Sovereign, a 
 time for the heaUng of divisions, and the promotion of mutual 
 charity, it has occurred to me and to some of my fellow church- 
 men that it would be a fitting conclusion to our religious services 
 and our loyal thanksgivings if we could hold in our Cathedral 
 a service of Holy Communion in which Christians of all denomina- 
 tions might be invited to join. 
 
 Accordingly, with the cordial support of the Dean, I have 
 the privilege of asking you to convey to members of your con- 
 gregation our invitation to join in such a service on Wednesday, 
 28th June, at 11.30 a.m. 
 
 We feel that a united service of this character will be a truly 
 happy accompaniment of our dutiful and loyal celebration of 
 the new reign of our King and Queen, and we see no reason why 
 those who believe in the same Divine Lord, and accept the same 
 creeds and the same Sacraments, should not at such a time, 
 forgetting secondary differences, kneel together at the Lord's 
 Table ; and our hope is that such a gathering for united worship 
 in the central church of the diocese may be of real benefit in 
 strengthening amongst us that spirit of godly union and concord 
 which all Christian people desire to promote. 
 
 At ordinary times we may feel it somewhat difficult to take 
 any practical steps towards giving effect to this desire, though 
 we know that it can never be really fulfilled or be more than 
 a pious aspiration without some such individual initiative. To 
 this initiative we are specially invited by such an event as the 
 Coronation, lifting us, as it does, from our ordinary surroundings 
 into the higher atmosphere of Christian patriotism and unity of 
 spirit in Christ our Lord. 
 
 In the hope that this invitation may be acceptable to your 
 people, I am yours sincerely, J. Hereford. 
 
 Notice of the service was thus given at the beginning of 
 May. At that time the Convocation of Canterbury was on 
 the point of meeting. On May 4, at the opening of the 
 Session of the Upper House, the Bishop of Winchester called 
 attention to the matter. In the course of his speech, after
 
 XIII 
 
 REUNION 319 
 
 deprecating any idea of carrying a resolution or holding a 
 prolonged debate on the matter, he said : 
 
 I thought it would be well if some one, speaking for the 
 opinion of his brethren here, speaking as he believed in a repre- 
 sentative character for the Episcopate, expressed his conviction 
 that this action of the Bishop of Hereford's was a contravention 
 of sacred principles with which we have no right to interfere, 
 was unconstitutional in the deepest sense of the word — I am 
 not talking of the British constitution but of the constitution 
 of the Church — and was calculated to divide Christian men and 
 women much more than to unite them. 
 
 He went on to point out that the Lambeth Conference, 
 in advocating closer relations with Nonconformists, had not 
 advocated any action of the kind in question, and concluded 
 with these words : 
 
 All I would venture to say is that I believe I speak for a 
 general feeling here as well as for an enormously diffused feeling 
 outside — (the Bishop of Hereford here interposed with the 
 words: "clerical, not lay feeling") — clerical and lay, outside, 
 that this action of his is not according to our principles, is beauti- 
 ful in its motive but unhappy in its effect, and not only is it 
 unconstitutional, giving away more than we have any right to 
 give away, but it divides, and will divide, more than it unites, 
 and leads straight to consequences which, perhaps, the Bishop 
 of Hereford may not have altogether forecast, which probably 
 none of us can altogether forecast. Therefore, I think I must 
 publicly dissociate myself from his action, and others who agree 
 with the general effect of what I have said may, perhaps, be 
 silent, since I have voiced them. 
 
 The Bishop of Hereford, after referring with appreciation 
 to the courtesy with which the Bishop of Winchester had 
 handled the matter, said : 
 
 What I have to say can be summed up in one sentence, that, 
 as I am not conscious of having done wrong, I have nothing to 
 withdraw — nothing to regret in the matter. Any one reading 
 my letter to my people in my diocese will, I think, sec that, in 
 the first place, I based my action on a very considerable number 
 of authorities among our archbishops and bishops. Moreover, 
 by " authorities " I mean not only persons of high position, but
 
 320 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 persons whose views would be respected and probably accepted 
 by every one of your lordships. For the rest, I felt that I was 
 simply, on a very unique occasion in our national life, and a very 
 appropriate occasion as it seems to me, in a very natural way, 
 and with a very slight amount of initiative, giving practical 
 effect to the general exhortations, if I may venture to use the 
 term, which are to be found in the Encychcal Letter of the last 
 Lambeth Conference, and not only of that, but of at least one 
 previous Conference. I have the feeling that unless, as reason- 
 able opportunity arises, we do, under a sense of our own in- 
 dividual responsibility, take some practical steps to give effect 
 to these general declarations or exhortations that come from 
 great national assemblies, we reduce them to the level of pious 
 aspirations ; and if we go on in that way, time after time, and 
 generation after generation, it seems to me the result, certainly 
 on the general mind, is a certain sense of unreality about these 
 things. The Bishop of Winchester spoke of my having contra- 
 vened some principle. I am not conscious of having contra- 
 vened any principle that ought to be regarded. In my letter, 
 as I have already indicated, I referred to certain authorities as 
 being virtually, if not explicitly, of opinion — and most of them 
 have probably expressed that opinion in their own practice — 
 that those whom we have been in the habit of calling our ortho- 
 dox Nonconformist neighbours should not be rejected if they 
 offer themselves as communicants at the Holy Table of the 
 Lord. I have gone beyond those authorities merely in practi- 
 cally declaring to the Nonconformists of my city and diocese 
 that if they come, they will not only be not rejected, but will be 
 welcomed in what I believe to be the true spirit of Christian 
 brotherhood. Remembering as we do the familiar language of 
 Scripture, I do not see how any of us can really in his heart feel 
 that any fundamental Christian principle is being contravened 
 by our kneehng together at the Table with those who believe in 
 the same God and accept the same creed. If my action should 
 cause serious pain, I am profoundly sorry, but with aU of us it 
 must happen that, in the course of our lives, we are obhged to 
 make up our minds between causing pain to some who may 
 not share our views, and being untrue to what we beHeve to be 
 the course of Christian duty. We were all made familiar in our 
 early days with the very useful expression, " Amicus Plato ; 
 major amicus Veritas," and it is on that principle that I have 
 ventured to do this, knowing that it would give pain to some 
 extent to some of my clerical and other friends ; but I base 
 myself on the fact that, as I have ventured to say in my letter, 
 we are living in a transitional time as regards many forms of
 
 XIII 
 
 REUNION 321 
 
 knowledge, and not least as regards our knowledge of our own 
 Christian faith and its history, and, living at such a time, it is 
 impossible to follow in the footsteps of broadening knowledge 
 without causing some pain to those brought up in narrower 
 views. Fully as I appreciate the spirit in which the Bishop has 
 expressed himself, I venture to think that he speaks not in the 
 position of a representative of the great body of our Reformed 
 and Protestant English Church, but as the representative of 
 what I may call the sacerdotal party in it. From them we differ 
 widely in regard to the fundamental principle which should 
 guide us in this matter. My principle, as I have already said, is 
 this : There is no reason why good Christian people, who believe 
 in the same Lord and accept the same creed, should not kneel 
 with us at the same Holy Table. I have had the feeling again 
 and again that it takes off from the sincerity of our professions 
 of friendly relationship and our desire for unity, if we refuse to 
 take steps in this direction. I go even a little further. Within 
 the last month or two I attended the funeral of a friend of mine, 
 and in the course of half a century of intimate relations I was 
 brought to the conviction that he more truly represented the 
 Christian character in our English life than other men whom I 
 have knowledge of ; and I feel that it would surely be a contra- 
 diction of the very fundamentals of our faith and hope if we are 
 not to freely join in our most solemn worship with men of that 
 type because they happen to be divided from us on what are now 
 proved to be minor or secondary considerations. ... As for 
 the suggestion that I am hampering rather than helping forward 
 the spirit of unity, I think we bishops are too much inclined to 
 fear that any individual action which is progressive may be 
 likely to rouse opposition among those who are bound fast in 
 the bonds of ecclesiastical tradition. I have the confident hope 
 that, whatever momentary controversy my action may give rise 
 to, the ultimate result will be that in a degree — I do not claim 
 for it any merit, because I do not think it a great act, but a very 
 natural one at such a time — it will tend, as the motive which 
 dominated me in writing my letter led me to conclude, to godly 
 union and concord throughout our national hfe. 
 
 The discussion was closed by the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, who alluded to the long and rather tangled history of 
 the question of principle. He agreed with the Bishop of 
 Winchester regarding the expediency of making it clear that 
 what was proposed at Hereford was not in accordance with 
 the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference, though he could 
 
 Y
 
 322 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 not have used all the expressions employed by the Bishop of 
 \A'inchester. He concluded by saying : 
 
 I feel that what has been said, whether or not we agree with 
 every particular word — which the Bishop of Winchester did not 
 expect or invite us to do — dissociates the Episcopate from being 
 involved in responsibility for the Bishop of Hereford's action ; 
 and I know that the Bishop of Hereford himself does not in the 
 least intend so to involve us. The words spoken must have 
 made that clear both to the realm and to the Church; I think 
 the two speeches delivered this morning are speeches worthy of 
 the best traditions of this House, worthy — and I can give no 
 higher praise — of the two men who uttered them. 
 
 On May 5, the Bishop wrote to Canon Bannister : 
 
 As you will have seen in to-day's papers the hot water has 
 boiled over, and Convocation has acted more suo. The Bishop 
 of Winchester, whether of his own motion or not, I don't know, 
 solemnly arraigned me, professing to do so in the name of the 
 Church, so that I was obliged to say that he represented not the 
 Church but the sacerdotal party in it. 
 
 The Bishop of Winchester found he had rather a hard task 
 to reconcile what he and his friends call their intense desire for 
 Christian union with their refusal to do anything or countenance 
 any effective steps to bring it nearer. 
 
 It was inevitable that the Bishop's action should involve 
 him in a maelstrom of controversy. He received a multitude 
 of letters from sympathisers all over the country. Canon 
 Barnett wrote from Hampstead : 
 
 I want to say thank you for your action as to the Common 
 Communion. Perhaps one of the greatest needs of the day is 
 bravery, and if only more people would dare they would be 
 surprised to find the many on their side. Your action will, I 
 expect, show that many, many more are hurt by a policy of 
 exclusiveness than by one of generosity. 
 
 Miss Arnold's letter from Fox How must have been 
 particularly w^elcome : 
 
 You have had the courage to bring to a practical test the 
 reahty of the many vague aspirations after unity and Christian
 
 xiii REUNION 323 
 
 fellowship of which we have heard so much but which hitherto 
 have been little but words. It is mournful indeed that such an 
 opportunity should be met by opposition and discouragement. 
 
 I believe my dear father would most surely have been with 
 you in this effort to promote a true " Christian Communion," 
 and it is this conviction that makes me venture to write to you. 
 You will have earned and will have received the gratitude of 
 many who long for a wider and more practical recognition of 
 what they believe to constitute the true bond of Christian unity 
 — the fellowship with all those " who love our Lord Jesus Christ 
 in sincerity." 
 
 A characteristic letter came from Mr. J. L. Paton, High 
 Master of Manchester Grammar School, a son of Dr. Percival's 
 old friend, and a former member of his staff at Rugby : 
 
 My dear Bishop — I can't help writing to you. I see they have 
 been attacking you for asking " schismatics " to join in the 
 Supper of the Lamb, and I want to say to you how much it has 
 been to me that you allowed me to join in the Communion at 
 Rugby. Ever since the unity which is in Christ has been more 
 real to me, the things which separate have seemed smaller. I 
 don't know anything about Canons of 1603, but I do know that 
 the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace is the will of the 
 Master, and they who help towards it are of His Spirit. 
 
 They said things like this about Stanley, and they will say 
 the same of any one who feels that the Church is national. One 
 can only pray for them as Tyndale prayed for King Hal : " Lord, 
 open the eyes of the King of England." 
 
 With all best regard to Mrs. Percival and yourself. — Yours 
 loyally, 
 
 J. L. Paton. 
 
 7. V. II. 
 
 One other letter of S3''mpathy and approval may well be 
 quoted in full ; it is from Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey, the editor 
 of the Spectator : 
 
 I feel I must write a line ,to tell you how admirable I thought 
 your letter to your diocese in regard to the Communion for Non- 
 conformists. I am of course writing on it in the Spectator to 
 back you up strongly, and hope to be able to get what I have 
 written into this week's Spectator. As I daresay you know, 
 I went very closely into the history of the thing, and have
 
 324 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 mentioned, what no doubt you did not refer to for fear of raising 
 more controversy, the case of the Revisers' Communion held 
 in Westminster Abbey under Stanley. It was this Communion 
 Service that one of the extreme clerical papers of the day de- 
 scribed as " casting pearls before swine " ! I am glad to think 
 that we have moved a little since then, for I do not think that 
 even a clerical newspaper could now use language so atrocious. 
 I have also mentioned as a precedent the fact that the Prince 
 Consort and other Royal Princes and Princesses who have had 
 non-Episcopal confirmation have always received the Com- 
 munion without confirmation in our Church. Queen Alexandra 
 is, of course, another case in point. I have also noted the 
 recommendation by the Ritual Commission of 1870, with only 
 one dissentient, of a rubric : " But note, the foregoing directions 
 are not to be held to authorise the refusd of the Holy Com- 
 munion to those who humbly and devoutly desire to partake 
 thereof." I feel convinced that the object of the Bishops in 
 Charles II. 's time was but to prevent young children from re- 
 ceiving the Communion. Therefore they insisted that anybody 
 who was ready and willing to be confirmed, i.e., of a confirmable 
 age and temper of mind, should receive the Communion. If 
 they had meant anything else, why not have kept the old rubric 
 as it stood ? Besides, as is well known, they were making a 
 concession to the demands of the Nonconformists and speci- 
 fically said that they believed the concession to be wide enough. 
 
 I am, of course, immensely pleased by your splendid straight 
 speaking about the subject of Episcopacy. Nothing has been 
 more injurious to the Church than this recent attempt to exalt 
 Episcopacy into an absolute test, and to un-Church all those 
 who do not make it a matter of idolatry. There is nothing more 
 lamentable than the way in which people seem to love grounds 
 for exclusion rather than for inclusion, and yet inclusion as 
 against the exclusion of the Pharisees is the essence of our Lord's 
 teaching. 
 
 Please excuse my worrying you with this letter, which I fear, 
 written at a moment of great pressure, is not very coherent. My 
 gratitude for your fine letter must be my excuse. 
 
 Professor Gwatkin, who journeyed from Cambridge on 
 purpose to take part in the service, writing at this time to 
 Canon Bannister on another matter, added : 
 
 What a row my Lord of Hereford has made. It is no doubt 
 very damnable : but as a matter of fact I believe " the plain 
 meaning " of the rubric never occurred to any one till the bigots
 
 xin REUNION 325 
 
 invented it fifteen or twenty years ago. Surely it is governed 
 by the general statement that in all these our doings, we ordain 
 nothing but for our own people only. But the whole disturbance 
 is an appeal of the Pharisees to the superstition of the Enghsh, 
 that if you take account of anything outside the hteral wording 
 of a statement, you are " not dealing honestly with it." That 
 appeal is a large part of their tactics. 
 
 It was not to be expected, however, that there would be 
 no expression of adverse opinion. Naturally this did not 
 take the form of letters addressed to the Bishop, but consisted 
 either of expression in the Press of the dismay which he had 
 created, or of formal remonstrance. Such a remonstrance 
 was presented to the Dean of Hereford at a meeting of the 
 General Chapter on June 26 : 
 
 To the Hon. and Very Rev. the Dean of Hereford 
 
 We whose names are undersigned have learned with great 
 regret that you have given your cordial support to an indis- 
 criminate invitation to persons unconfirmed and possibly even 
 unbaptized to Communicate in the Cathedral ; and as members 
 of the Cathedral body, we desire to dissociate ourselves from 
 any participation in this action. 
 
 This was signed by the Precentor, the Archdeacon of Ludlow, 
 the Archdeacon of Hereford, one of the Residentiary Canons 
 and sixteen Prebendaries. It had been intended that this 
 document should be private, and some of the signatories, 
 including the Archdeacon of Hereford, had only given their 
 names on this understanding. But it somehow reached the 
 Church Press, together with the names of the signatories. 
 
 The Dean, on receipt of the protest, said that when he 
 gave his consent he had not reahsed the nature of the service. 
 It is clear from the correspondence which ensued, that there 
 had been a genuine misunderstanding or lapse of memory 
 in some quarter. 
 
 Despite the remonstrance the service took place as 
 announced. During its course the Bishop preached on 
 I Corinthians, xiii. 13, and said : 
 
 The Coronation season, as I have already ventured publicly
 
 326 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 to indicate, with its glow of united feeling and its hopes for the 
 new reign of the King and Queen whom we honour and for whom 
 we pray, appeals to us as pre-eminently an occasion on which 
 believers in Christ should put aside those minor differences that 
 separate them on ordinary days and gather round His Holy 
 Table in that spirit of Christian brotherhood and charity which 
 is the bond of peace and of all virtues, and the hope of all religious 
 progress ; and it is in this spirit that we are here for our united 
 sacrifice and service of praise and thanksgiving. 
 
 But my action in giving you the opportunity of thus marking 
 a memorable occasion by appropriate worship has been so 
 challenged and criticised that it has become due to you, as to 
 myself, that I should briefly justify it. 
 
 By some of my fellow churchmen, imperfectly or wrongly 
 instructed in the history of our Reformed Church, the rubric 
 which stands in our Confirmation Service is quoted against me, 
 and I am accused of disregarding the law of the Church. 
 
 But such objectors seem to have forgotten, or they do not 
 know, that this rubric has been interpreted by archbishops and 
 bishops of highest authority to be a purely domestic rule of our 
 Established Church, and I myself so understand it, a rule intended 
 to secure that our children as they grow up to years of discretion 
 should be adequately instructed and of devout purpose before 
 they come to the service of Holy Communion. 
 
 Thus the rubric, rightly understood, has no direct or explicit 
 reference to devout members of other Christian denominations, 
 and consequently it contains no prohibition which I have dis- 
 regarded. 
 
 Moreover, it should be noted for our encouragement that 
 we are here this morning in full accord with the pre-Tractarian 
 sentiment and usage of our Reformed Church, and our action, 
 taken as it has been in the spirit of Christian fellow-citizenship 
 and brotherhood, might fairly be termed a revival, too long 
 delayed, of time-honoured relationships between our EstabHshed 
 Church of England and members of other Protestant denomina- 
 tions, relationships of faith and charity in Christ, our common 
 Lord. 
 
 To estimate the objections that have been made to this 
 our service at their true value, we have to bear in mind that 
 they come from a clerical party in our Church which is separatist 
 and retrograde in character, opposed to the principles of the 
 Reformation, and steeped in the exclusive and uncompromising 
 spirit of the early Tractarians. 
 
 That spirit has created the atmosphere of their life and domin- 
 ated their studies, and is to-day the chief obstacle in the way
 
 XIII 
 
 REUNION 327 
 
 of any really cordial intercommunion between members of our 
 Church and our Christian brethren of other denominations. 
 
 Of these Episcopalian sacerdotalists it has to be borne in 
 mind that their fundamental conception of our Lord's com- 
 mission to His Church and of the early history of that Church, 
 a conception which modern scholars since the rise of the Trac- 
 tarian movement have shown to be a misconception, bars their 
 progress to real brotherhood in Christ Jesus, making it imperative 
 for them to refuse Communion to all Christians who are not 
 professedly Episcopalian. 
 
 Good men of this type having failed as yet to learn that 
 their exclusive theory of Apostolical Succession is built on a 
 misunderstanding of the words and doctrine of Christ, and of 
 the history of the early Church, are not unnaturally opposed to 
 our larger and truer conception of Christian brotherhood. 
 
 The narrow separatist spirit in which they have been brought 
 up, and their attitude of isolation from other Protestant Christian 
 bodies may remind us afresh how, as in St. Paul's day, so again 
 and again in one generation and another, blindness in part 
 happens to Israel. 
 
 But now that the researches of dispassionate, truth-seeking 
 historical scholars have shattered the intellectual foundations of 
 the High Church sacerdotalist party in our Communion, their 
 influence over thoughtful people has become precarious and is on 
 the wane ; and the more it wanes the better and the stronger 
 becomes the hope that our unhappy ecclesiastical antagonisms 
 and divisions wiU give place to the growing spirit of Christian 
 brotherhood and goodwill. 
 
 And in our national progress towards this happier state of 
 more charitable feeling amongst the different denominations of 
 Christian people our united worship this morning may, I trust, 
 have its place as a historical landmark of abiding value. 
 
 But whether this be so or not, it cannot fail to be of good 
 service in our individual and in our common life, as helping to 
 strengthen among all enlightened Christians the sense of unity 
 in our one Lord, and the spirit of mutual goodwill ; for not in vain 
 do men gather, as we are gathered to-day, in this spirit, kneeling 
 and praying together as humble members of that mystic com- 
 munion in Christ our Saviour which is the blessed company of 
 all faithful people. 
 
 So groweth and so abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; 
 but the greatest of these is charity. 
 
 The remonstrance which had been presented made the
 
 328 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Bishop exceedingly angry. Writing to the Archdeacon of 
 Hereford on July 12, he said : 
 
 I have looked at your protest, and it certainly does little 
 credit either to its composer, whoever he was, or to the men 
 who signed and presented it. Its tone is contemptuous, in an 
 insolent way, to Nonconformist bodies, and offensive to the 
 Bishop. ... I am truly sorry that you should all have so far 
 allowed your minds and feelings to be warped by ecclesiastical 
 prejudice and party spirit. 
 
 The Archdeacon replied on July 15 : 
 
 With regard to the remonstrance, I regret its publication as 
 much as you do. I signed it with the proviso that it should not 
 be published. I cannot plead guilty to its wording. I signed 
 it myself solely because I believed the action you had taken, on 
 your own sole initiative, and without ascertaining whether you 
 could carry your diocese, or even your own fellow bishops with 
 you, was calculated to do very grave harm to the cause which 
 you and I equally have at heart. I think that it has aroused 
 more ill-feeling between churchmen and Nonconformists than 
 anything that has occurred for many years, and that it has 
 been a set-back to the cause of Home Reunion from which it 
 will take a long time to recover. If you had taken your diocese 
 more into your confidence before taking such an important step 
 you would have discovered this before it was too late. But, 
 unfortunately, you seem to have taken counsel only with a small 
 number of men of your own way of thinking, and to have been 
 quite unconscious of what was likely to be the effect of your 
 action on the Church at large. ... I have not the least doubt 
 that in this particular matter I represent the vast majority of 
 your clergy. There was not, I am told, one single member of 
 the Chapter who expressed unreserved approval of the proposed 
 service. . . . And I should like you to understand that every 
 signature given was spontaneous and independent. No one, for 
 instance, before signing knew that I had signed, or intended 
 to sign, nor did he know who his feUow signatories were. This 
 fact alone shows how widespread the feeling of distress was. 
 And in spite of what you said in the service, we really are not 
 " sacerdotalists " nor " intolerant," and some of us are not 
 unduly ignorant. One of the most pathetic letters I received — 
 and I received a good many — was from one of your most hard- 
 working and respected " evangehcal " clergy, lamenting the
 
 xin 
 
 REUNION 329 
 
 mischief that was being done in his own parish, and the difficult 
 position in which 3^our action had placed him with his parishioners. 
 So I hope you will not misunderstand us. We all of us recognise 
 the kindliness of heart and the intense longing after closer 
 fellowship between Christians which prompted what you did. 
 We claim unreservedly to share those feelings. But we do 
 think that you committed a grave error of judgment in the 
 means you took to bring it about, and that you have confused 
 people's minds upon very important matters in a way which will 
 make our work in our own parishes a great deal harder than it 
 was before. I have spoken freely in this letter, as I hope I shall 
 always be able to do, while our present relations are maintained, 
 but I trust that I have said nothing inconsistent with the deepest 
 respect both for your person and your office. 
 
 The Bishop in replying said : 
 
 As to the publication of that protest, I accept of course what 
 you say : no doubt you have just cause to complain of some one. 
 
 As regards the clergy, have I not lived among them sixteen 
 years and become familiar with all the results of their seminarist 
 training, and do you imagine that I did not know what to expect ? 
 The fact is that you clergy expect the Bishop to subordinate his 
 judgment to yours, whether you are right or wrong ; and in 
 this case you have simply inherited the tradition of the Tractarians 
 and have failed to learn what scholars have brought to our notice 
 since the days of Newman and Keble. 
 
 Percival made no pretence to act as a " constitutional 
 monarch," and the difficulties of working as one of his 
 colleagues in the administration of the diocese must often 
 have been acute. He knew his own mind and followed it. 
 But here once more he did not really see how the minds of 
 his opponents worked. He knew that they disagreed with 
 him, but he did not see how completely their judgment on 
 the particular question was inherent in their general position. 
 Consequently his arguments left them untouched, and his 
 impatience irritated them. Indeed it is hard to see what 
 phrases in the remonstrance merit the terms, " contempt- 
 uous," " insolent," or " offensive." He had, as the last letter 
 quoted makes clear, quite deliberately acted in a way which 
 he knew would bring him into opposition to the clergy. He
 
 330 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 judged the occasion adequate. But he had no right to 
 object to their expressing their dissent. The expression of 
 it was, to an onlooker, perfectly respectful and restrained. 
 Only by some breach of confidence were his archdeacons 
 presented to the public as opposing the bishop. 
 
 Outside the diocese, indeed, other forms of protest, less 
 creditable to the spiritual sanity of their authors, may be 
 illustrated by a notice which appeared in the porch of a 
 church outside the Hereford diocese : 
 
 Communicants of St. George's please note 
 
 Celebration of Reparation 
 
 For dishonour done to Our Lord and His Church, 
 especially in the Cathedral of Hereford. 
 
 On Tuesday, July i8th, at 6.30 and 7.15, the Holy Eucharist 
 will be celebrated in this Church, with the especial object of 
 making small amends to Our Blessed Lord, and a Litany of 
 Reparation will be said immediately before the Blessing. 
 
 The Bishop took the opportunity for a formal defence of 
 his action which was offered by his Fifth Visitation Charge 
 in 1912. He began by alluding to the new impulse towards 
 unity : 
 
 Owing to the new appreciation of the duty of social service 
 and other causes, our time has seen a marked growth in the 
 desire for religious unity, but owing mainly to the deflection of 
 outlook caused by the Oxford movement, we have not sufficiently 
 realised that this unity, to be practically effective and of bene- 
 ficent influence in our common life, must be unity of spirit with 
 our immediate neighbours, the various denominations of Christian 
 people living at our doors and forming an integral part of the 
 community to which we belong ; and it must be counted among 
 the unhappy consequences of the Tractarian movement that 
 it deflected the clerical mind from the thought of union with 
 other Protestant bodies, which should be the aim of our Reformed 
 Church. . . . 
 
 We were in communion with the other Protestant churches 
 a hundred years ago, and had been so since the Reformation ; 
 we are so no longer. To renew this, all that is wanted is a change
 
 xin REUNION 331 
 
 of opinion among the clergy. The laity are still generally in 
 favour of religious fellowship with the Reformed churches. . . . 
 
 Holding, as I do, the belief expressed above, that our Church 
 has come to the parting of the ways, and feehng that the unique 
 occasion of the Coronation afforded an appropriate opportunity 
 for contributing my humble quota of practical support to that 
 growing spirit of union with our immediate neighbours, which 
 I hold to be of vital importance to our Church and Nation, 
 I invited the devout members of the various Christian denomi- 
 nations in and around Hereford to a joint Communion in our 
 Cathedral. 
 
 From this invitation some of my clergy in their first alarm, 
 when I was attacked by the leaders of their party, made haste to 
 dissociate themselves ; and considering the influences under 
 which they had been trained and passed their lives, this was in no 
 way surprising, but I venture to submit to you that, having regard 
 to the higher interests of our Church and the greater call of 
 Christian charity, their view of the matter was a short-sighted 
 and mistaken view. 
 
 But in issuing that invitation I have to confess that I myself 
 was under one mistake. I had in my mind the exhortation of the 
 Anglican Bishops assembled at the Lambeth Conference, an 
 exhortation thrice repeated, at intervals of ten years, to do all 
 we can to encourage and strengthen the spirit of unity among all 
 Christian people, and to aid in the healing of those divisions that 
 separate different Christian denominations ; and it seemed to me 
 that there could be no real unity of spirit between Christians who 
 were not prepared to kneel together at that Table of the Lord, 
 where there is no distinction of Jew or Greek, of bond or free, and 
 consequently there could be no real or vital meaning in those 
 exhortations unless interpreted as I had interpreted them. So 
 long as we bar the way to the Holy Table against those whom it 
 may be we effusively call our brethren in Christ, our professions 
 of brotherhood have in them the taint of unreality and they are 
 insincere. 
 
 My mistake lay in my belief that my Episcopal brethren who 
 framed and issued these appeals would look upon my action as 
 the natural response to them. 
 
 I did not sufficiently remember that even Lambeth resolutions 
 and appeals for unity might be so limited by many considerations 
 in the minds of those who sent them forth as to be, in fact, little 
 more than pious opinions or aspirations which they hardly hoped 
 to see translated into concrete acts of friendly intercommunion. 
 
 And it certainly did not occur to me as possible that any 
 one of the two hundred bishops taking part in the Lambeth
 
 332 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Conference could join in issuing its appeal to all churchmen, and 
 himself go from the Conference to the great gathering of all 
 Protestant denominations for their World Missionary Conference 
 at Edinburgh, there joining these various bodies in their business 
 and in worship, and not only greeting them effusively as Christian 
 brethren, but making himself in some degree responsible for their 
 missionary work, whether Wesleyan, Baptist, or Congregational, 
 and having done all this, could turn round and attack me in our 
 Canterbury Convocation for an act of Christian goodwill, which 
 was simply a common-sense application of the Lambeth resolu- 
 tions to the actual facts and conditions of our English life. 
 
 The whole incident should be remembered as an instructive 
 object lesson, showing us into what inconsistencies and insin- 
 cerities a neo-Tractarian churchman may unconsciously drift, 
 his kindly disposition and his desire for friendly relationships and 
 co-operation and influence drawing him in one direction, whilst 
 his ecclesiastical presuppositions and prejudices, his party ties 
 and party obligations draw him no less strongly in the other. 
 
 But not by such a poHcy will our Church maintain her influence 
 and power over the mind of the nation, or foster amongst us the 
 true spirit of Christian brotherhood. 
 
 My expectation and hope is that, entering as we are on a 
 period of clearer knowledge of early Christian history, and a clearer 
 understanding of the spirit of our blessed Lord, our Church may 
 gratefully retain and cherish all that is best in the Tractarian 
 movement, while emancipating herself from the sacerdotal and 
 separatist elements of that movement, which are so alien to the 
 true spirit of our Christian faith and must inevitably denationalise 
 her if persistently maintained ; and I trust that, as a practical 
 step towards union of spirit among Christians of different denomina- 
 tions, and the happier relationships which this spirit produces in 
 our common life, it may become in some degree customary for our 
 clergy on appropriate occasions to invite their neighbours who 
 have the status of communicants in their own denomination to 
 join in our service of Holy Communion in the church of their 
 parish. 
 
 No doubt the Bishop realised that his action would lead 
 to invitations to go further ; and it did. In the following 
 letter to Canon Bannister written on August 28, 1912, he 
 gives his answer to a suggestion from local Nonconformists 
 that some leading churchmen should join in their Com- 
 munion Service, and so, as one of them put it, " return our
 
 XIII REUNION 333 
 
 visit." He plainly sympathises in principle, but on grounds 
 of expediency decides against it ; at the same time he 
 discloses his view of simultaneous efforts towards closer 
 relations with the Orthodox Church of the East : 
 
 I think the Nonconfonnists do not quite realise the difficulties, 
 and expect rather more than can be given all at once. 
 
 In old days our bishops and clergy communicated freely with 
 continental Protestants, but the present generation of Church 
 people under Tractarian influences have been imbued with a very 
 different spirit. If a fairly influential body of clergy could be got 
 publicly and jointly to declare their readiness to communicate 
 with non-Episcopalian Christians, that might perhaps be the best 
 thing to secure as a first step. 
 
 The visits to Moscow, probably engineered by politicians and 
 financiers, are not altogether creditable to our church authorities. 
 
 I wonder what would be the best way of moving in the matter 
 of intercommunion. 
 
 The whole episode is very illustrative of the position in 
 which the Church of England then habitually found itself 
 with regard to Reunion. A convinced beHever in one 
 method of approach announces his intention of following 
 that method on one occasion. A storm arises. A wise 
 representative of opposed convictions makes a formal speech 
 dissociating himself from the proposed action, but expressing 
 deep sympathy with the aim, and refraining from the 
 proposal of any condemnatory resolution. Had the Bishop 
 of Winchester delivered a fierce attack, a general conflagra- 
 tion must have ensued ; it is plain that he took up the 
 matter in Convocation precisely in order to prevent the 
 opposition from uttering itself through some less conciliatory 
 spokesman. In the result the episode occurred and was 
 soon forgotten. Such unity as there was before in the 
 Church of England continued unimpaired, but also, of course, 
 undeepened. The cause of Reunion with separated bodies 
 also remained exactly where it was. The protagonist was 
 thanked by those who agreed with him and censured by 
 those who disagreed ; and each group maintained its former 
 opinions. 
 
 We have every ground for hoping that the action of the
 
 334 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap, xm 
 
 Lambeth Conference of 1920 will prove to have opened a 
 door through which we may pass to a new state of things. 
 If that is so, the credit will, in great measure, be due to those 
 who in various ways, according to their several convictions, 
 kept the subject vividly before the Church in the days when 
 no plan for common action had been reached. We look 
 back from the vantage ground won by the noble appeal of 
 the bishops at Lambeth in 1920 to a time of fierce debate 
 when no progress seemed to be made. 
 
 If we have now a hope, then undreamt of, that all may 
 work together for the full realisation of One Holy Catholic 
 Church, we are also bound to recognise that all those who 
 have cared and struggled in the cause have helped to bring 
 us to that hope.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 APPOINTMENTS 
 
 No part of Percival's Episcopal action has been so strongly 
 criticised as his appointments to canonries and other 
 positions in the diocese. Those who opposed his general 
 policy exploited to the utmost his conduct in this matter. 
 As Prebendary Wynne Willson puts it : " Whenever he 
 appointed a Liberal, public notice was taken ; other cases 
 passed without remark." 
 
 The first criticism on this score was due to his attempt 
 in 1896 to appoint to a canonry, Mr. Alexander. As has 
 already been narrated, it was found that Mr. Alexander was 
 technically disqualified on legal grounds, and the Bishop 
 collated to the vacant stall Canon Williams, who was perhaps 
 the most prominent High Churchman in the diocese. But 
 Mr. Alexander's name had been publicly mentioned, and at 
 once there were voices raised in protest. The ground of 
 objection was that Mr. Alexander was being brought in from 
 outside the diocese, and that the clergy of the diocese had a 
 grievance on that account. It appears, however, that this 
 was not felt very widely within the diocese. There it was 
 recognised that a young man would be able to do especially 
 valuable work, and that to choose a young man within the 
 diocese would constitute an even graver slight to the senior 
 men than the importation of one from outside. Anyhow 
 the actual result was the appointment of a priest already 
 well known in the diocese and a strong High Churchman. 
 
 A series of appointments followed, causing no vexation 
 or protest. The appointment of Canon Bannister in 1909 
 
 335
 
 336 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 raised no outcry, but a sentence from the letter in which the 
 offer was made may be quoted : 
 
 I should like him {i.e. the new Canon) to be ready to give me 
 his aid in any diocesan matters in which I might need it — now 
 that I am to spend the little remainder of my working days in 
 Hereford — a sort of Barzillai the Gileadite ; I may want to do 
 some things from time to time for which I shall need efficient 
 help. 
 
 Certainly the Bishop received what he hoped for. Canon 
 Bannister was unfailing, throughout the later years of 
 Percival's episcopate, in ardent support, helpful advice and 
 ungrudging labour. 
 
 Towards the close of 1909 another vacancy occurred and 
 was filled by the appointment of Dr. Rashdall, now Dean of 
 Carlisle. The Bishop's hope was that when his Hostel was 
 opened, Dr. Rashdall would take a large share in the control 
 of it. 
 
 The real tumult only began in 191 1. In July that year 
 Canon WilHams died. It was a time of great stress and 
 anxiety, because of the United Communion Service which 
 took place in June that year. On July 21 the Bishop wrote 
 to Canon Bannister : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 July 21, 191 1. 
 
 Dear Canon — You will have heard that our dear friend 
 Williams passed away this morning. 
 
 I wish I knew where to look for a good successor. I feel I 
 must, if possible, find a good Liberal who will give me loyal 
 support, and a man of distinction so as to stop the mouths of 
 gainsayers. 
 
 Could you make private inquiries as to good men who might 
 be available ? 
 
 Rashdall and Gwatkin might have some names to suggest, 
 and you may know other ways of hearing about suitable men. — 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The result was that Mr. Lilley, now Archdeacon of Ludlow, 
 was appointed — certainly a Liberal, and certainly distin- 
 guished. But the mouths of the gainsayers were not stopped.
 
 XIV 
 
 APPOINTMENTS 337 
 
 A considerable correspondence took place in the Church Press 
 and in the local papers. The main points appear in the two 
 letters here reproduced from the Hereford Times. It should 
 be mentioned that the diocese of Hereford had long previously 
 been dubbed " the Dead See " : 
 
 To the Editor of the " Hereford Times " 
 
 Sir — If what " An Inquirer " says in your issue of last week 
 is correct, may we not trace in the appointments of the residentiary 
 canons, one source of friction between the Bishop and his clergy ? 
 
 It is generally understood that the appointment to the 
 canonries was given to the Bishop of Hereford to make up for 
 the appointment to incumbencies taken away from the See of 
 Hereford and given to the See of Worcester. I write under cor- 
 rection as I can only say what is generally understood, and also 
 point to appointments that were made in the memory of people 
 now living and before the present occupancy of the See, but if 
 this is correct, and no doubt this is the idea of the majority of the 
 clergy, they cannot but look upon the appointments recently 
 made as being, to say the least, " hardly correct." 
 
 Further, that with whatever party they as individuals may be 
 classed — high, broad, or low — by their friends they would aU as 
 a body prefer to see amongst the canons residentiary one at least 
 to whom those who favour those leanings may turn for help and 
 guidance. This view, so rumour goes, was put before the Bishop 
 quite recently by one of the present body before the recent 
 appointment was made. 
 
 Some of us remember the speeches and the happy looking- 
 
 forward when the Bishop came ; all were ready to join, there was 
 
 no question of politics — politics which has been the curse of the 
 
 Nonconformists in Wales. The Church was said to be asleep in 
 
 the diocese of Hereford and we looked forward to a guidance and 
 
 leadership, a great march forward, and what do we find ? The 
 
 laity alienated, and the clergy out of touch with one who might 
 
 have been a great power in the diocese. A veritable dead See 
 
 indeed. 
 
 A Vicar. 
 
 Herefordshire, December 9, 191 1. 
 
 To the Editor of the " Hereford Times " 
 
 Sir — Your correspondent " Vicar," with a sort of perverted 
 local patriotism, and some redundancy, seems to take a pride in 
 
 z
 
 338 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 calling his own diocese " a veritable dead See indeed." For 
 myself, I do not feel competent either to justify or to disprove 
 this grave accusation against the clergy and laity of Herefordshire 
 and part of Shropshire. But assuming, strictly without prejudice, 
 that " Vicar's " charge is true, I seem to remember that it was 
 first alleged against the diocese of Hereford some years before 
 Dr. Percival began his magnificent, but, according to " Vicar," 
 entirely fruitless, attempts at resuscitation — attempts which have 
 attracted the attention of the world outside, and only last summer 
 won for him enthusiastic praise from such critics as the editors of 
 The Times and the Spectator. 
 
 What seems most keenly to have annoyed " Vicar " is the 
 Bishop's appointments to canonries. Like many other vicars, 
 your correspondent dutifully follows his Church Times in giving 
 " under correction " a fantastic suggestion that the Bishop is 
 bound to choose the canons from the clergy of the diocese. Dr. 
 Percival, one may readily admit, has not acted on " Vicar's " idea 
 that canonries should supply old-age pensions to worn-out in- 
 cumbents from the diocese. Yet the Bishop did consider the 
 diocesan incumbents in making his choice. He has during his 
 episcopate appointed six clergymen to canonries. Of these, three 
 were from his own diocese — hard-working incumbents, who had 
 served eighteen, twenty-two and ten years respectively in their 
 parishes. For the other three vacancies he chose men of brilliant 
 reputation, whose names, unknown, as " Vicar " would probably 
 think, to the " dead See," are famihar to scholars throughout 
 Europe. I may say, not " under correction," but on trustworthy 
 authority, that, in the case of two of these canons from outside 
 the diocese the Bishop had never in his life spoken to them. They 
 were appointed, after long and careful consideration of the needs 
 and requirements of the diocese, solely on the evidence of their 
 published writings and their distinguished record— in the hope, 
 perhaps, that they might help to vivify " Vicar's " " dead See." 
 
 In thus choosing from outside some of the canons he has 
 appointed. Bishop Percival has done what other bishops do — and 
 very much what his predecessor did, who, out of six canons 
 appointed by him, chose two from outside the diocese. Bishop 
 Lightfoot again, during his episcopate at Durham, only appointed 
 two canons, one came from the diocese of York, and the other. 
 Canon Body, from the diocese of Canterbury. And there was no 
 protest, which makes one wonder whether it is reaUy the selection 
 from outside that rankles, or whether the grievance is that the 
 new canons are Broad Churchmen. Well, indeed, would it be for 
 the Church of England if every bishop had as clean a record in the 
 exercise of his patronage as the present Bishop of Hereford.
 
 XIV APPOINTMENTS 339 
 
 It is frequently asserted, even in print, that Bishop Percival 
 promotes only " men of his own way of thinking," that, as one of 
 your correspondents elegantly phrased it some time ago, " no 
 High Churchman need apply." Though one is naturally reluctant 
 to mention names, yet a slander expressed in general terms can 
 only be refuted by quoting particular instances. Omitting the 
 canons residentiary of Bishop Percival's creation (two of whom, 
 it wiU be remembered, were Canons Williams and Oldham) the 
 following is the complete list of the present bishop's appointments 
 taken from the Diocesan Calendar : The two archdeacons, twelve 
 of the prebendaries, the incumbents of the following twenty-five 
 benefices in the Bishop's gift ; Bosbury, Brampton Abbotts, 
 Breinton, Bridstow, Brimfield, Brinsop, Bullinghope, Clehonger, 
 Coddington, Colwall, Eaton Bishop, Hampton Bishop, Hereford 
 (Holy Trinity), Holdgate, Kimbolton, Ledbury, Lingen, Little 
 Marcle, Ross, Stanford Bishop, Thruxton, Tupsley, Wellington, 
 Whitbourne and Withington. I confidently challenge any one 
 who knows the present holders of the above preferments to say 
 how many of them are markedly " of the Bishop's own way of 
 thinking." The two archdeacons, at any rate, and seven of the 
 above-mentioned twelve prebendaries signed, if we may trust 
 the Church Times, the protest against the Bishop's action in the 
 matter of the Coronation Communion. 
 
 " Clergymen," says the great Lord Clarendon (who, if I 
 remember right, was no malignant Puritan), " understand the 
 least, and take the worst measure of human affairs of all mankind 
 that can read and write." Without committing myself to any 
 approval of this sweeping assertion, I do strongly suspect that, 
 so far as " Vicar " and his hke are concerned, the very head and 
 front of the Bishop of Hereford's offending hath only such extent 
 as is revealed in the following little anecdote — a true one. " What 
 I admire in the Bishop of Hereford," said a layman to a vicar, 
 " is this — that he thinks more of righteousness than of points of 
 dogma." " Yes," reluctantly agreed the cleric, " but he carries it 
 too far. He puts personal religion above the Church." 
 
 A Layman who admires the Bishop of Hereford. 
 
 Middle Temple, London, 
 December 19, 1911. 
 
 The second of the two letters just quoted gives accurately 
 the facts up to date. But two more appointments were to 
 follow, calculated to create an even greater disturbance. 
 The first, however, was parochial only, and therefore the
 
 340 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 disturbance, though very great, did not spread beyond the 
 diocese. 
 
 At the beginning of 19 14 the Bishop appointed to the 
 living of Bromyard a priest, the Rev. F. E. Powell, who had 
 published a book containing a reference to the difficulties 
 felt by scholars with regard to the Virgin Birth and Bodily 
 Resurrection of our Lord. A petition was signed by a 
 number of the parishioners asking the Bishop to reconsider 
 the matter. Mr. Powell wrote to the Bishop saying : 
 
 This petition I readily acknowledge the parishioners have a 
 perfect right to make, and since, as one of the three founders of 
 the Church Reform League in 1895, I have long advocated the 
 claims of a congregation to a considerable voice in the selection 
 of their clergyman, I make no complaint. And this being so, the 
 feeling indicated in the petition, in so far as it is not engineered 
 from without, hut the genuine expression of those parishioners who 
 have read and understood the extracts from my hook, is one which I 
 desire, nay, am bound to respect. If, therefore, this feeling be 
 that of the leading and influential churchmen of Bromyard (and 
 as to this I have at present no knowledge) may I be allowed to 
 withdraw my acceptance of an offer which, coming unsought and 
 quite unexpectedly from your lordship, I have regarded as an 
 honour and a token of your kind confidence in me ? 
 
 The Bishop refused to reopen the question and the 
 petitioners appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The 
 Archbishop saw no sufficient grounds for his interference, 
 and Mr. Powell was instituted. The Archdeacon of Hereford 
 asked to be excused from inducting the new Vicar, and the 
 Bishop inducted him himself. He took the opportunity of 
 replying to the petition which he had received, saying that 
 he had examined the passages in Mr. Powell's book of which 
 complaint had been made, and did not find them such as 
 ought to preclude a man from serving the Church as a 
 minister. He appealed strongly for support for the new 
 Vicar in his work. 
 
 At about this time a petition had been presented to 
 Convocation, signed by 676 priests in the London diocese. 
 This petition had expressed grave anxiety " in consequence 
 of the unrebuked denial of certain fundamental truths of the
 
 XIV 
 
 APPOINTMENTS 341 
 
 Faith by some who hold office in the Church." Considera- 
 tion of the petition was deferred, and now a similar petition 
 was being circulated in the Hereford diocese. The Bishop 
 supposed that this was the work of outsiders, but it was not 
 so. As he wrote to the Archdeacon of Hereford : 
 
 As regards the memorial I assumed that it was due to outside 
 effort, because, notwithstanding some previous experience, I 
 thought that my own clergy would have felt it to be disloyal to 
 work at a thing of this kind behind my back without saying one 
 word to me on the subject. 
 
 The Bishop then circulated the following letter to the 
 clergy of the diocese : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 March 23, 1914. 
 
 My dear Brother — I am told that a memorial, signed by a 
 number of London clergy, and presented by the Bishop of London 
 to Convocation at its last session, is now being circulated among 
 our clergy in this diocese with requests for signature. 
 
 Who are responsible for this circulation I do not know, but I 
 presume they must be outsiders, and I feel it my duty to express 
 the hope that you will adopt the wiser course of declining to take 
 any part in such a movement. 
 
 All experience shows that memorials or protests of this kind 
 are quite ineffective and do harm rather than good to the cause 
 they advocate. 
 
 Signed as they generally are by many who cannot claim to 
 speak with the authority of trained students or scholars, and 
 substituting protest for reasoned argument they carry no con- 
 viction to the minds of those whose views they condemn, and they 
 give rise to a good deal of unedifying discussion among unthinking 
 people. 
 
 Many years ago I was impressed by some instructive words of 
 a distinguished man of letters. When young, he said, I was made 
 to read on Sundays a Bible Commentary, which set forth all the 
 mistaken heterodox interpretations of important passages, 
 followed by a refutation of those interpretations, but the result 
 of my reading was that I remembered the heterodox opinions and 
 forgot the refutations. 
 
 Just so by their memorials and their protests men sometimes 
 give currency and strength to views which they consider objection- 
 able and wish to destroy.
 
 342 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 This particular memorial deals in part with the mystery of our 
 Saviour's birth and resurrection, subjects which should be dealt 
 with in all humility by means of thoughtful and reverent argu- 
 ments, if our Christian faith is to retain its living reaUty and its 
 influence on the lives of educated men. 
 
 But this memorial also asserts that Episcopacy is essential to 
 a church, and that without Episcopacy there can be no valid 
 ministry of the Word and Sacraments. 
 
 I suppose that all faithful members of our Church believe that 
 experience has abundantly shown Episcopacy to be the best form 
 of church government, and we gratefully recognise and cling to 
 all the benefits we derive from it ; but every one who signs this 
 memorial also stands committed to the assertion that no Presby- 
 terian or other non-Episcopal Church in Christendom has a valid 
 ministry of the Word and Sacraments. 
 
 Now to any one who has really studied the New Testament or 
 followed the history of the early Church, or who dispassionately 
 considers the Christian experience of all ages, this is a stupendous 
 assertion which cannot be justified, and if our clergy commit 
 themselves to it the inevitable effect must be that they will lose 
 the confidence and respect of the educated and thoughtful lay 
 members of the Church, and will render impossible that charitable 
 union of all Christian people which we all alike desire to see. — 
 Believe me. Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Herefokd. 
 
 During the following winter Canon Capes died. It was 
 a great personal sorrow to the Bishop, for the two had been 
 friends since the old days at Queen's College, Oxford. On 
 November 3, 1914, he wrote to the Rev. L. J. Percival : 
 " We feel the loss of Canon Capes acutely. He was in- 
 valuable to the Chapter, and his death is to me the breaking 
 of very old ties. And I have the disagreeable duty of finding 
 a successor." His choice fell on the Rev. B. H. Streeter, 
 Fellow and Dean of Queen's College, Oxford, and already 
 distinguished as a theologian. He had written essays of 
 great value in the volume edited by Dr. Sanday under the 
 title Studies in the Synoptic Problem ; he had been editor of 
 the volume called Foundations ; and he had published a 
 stimulating little book, Restatement and Reunion. The letter 
 in which the Bishop made the offer of the canonry is as 
 foUows :
 
 XIV APPOINTMENTS 343 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 Dec. 1914. 
 
 Dear Mr. Streeter — You have probably seen that we have 
 lost Canon Capes, and this loss, which is to me and to the Cathedral 
 a very grave one, lays on me the duty of finding a successor as 
 Canon Residentiary. 
 
 And it will be a special satisfaction to me if the connection 
 with the College of my early days can be continued. 
 
 This, however, is a minor consideration, and not at all my 
 chief reason for troubling you with this letter. 
 
 A short time ago I was expecting Capes to resign at Christmas, 
 and had a little talk with Armstrong and the Provost and also 
 with Professor Sanday ; and from all of them I came away with 
 my feeling strengthened that I should like to have you here as 
 Capes's successor. 
 
 I know, of course, that if you come, I shall be criticised in 
 certain ecclesiastical quarters, but that is of little moment ; and 
 I am thinking of the good you would do to the tone of our clergy 
 and to our religious life. 
 
 If the prospect attracts you, I should like to know whether 
 you could give us the amount of residence that would be neces- 
 sary. Canon Rashdall steps into the actual vacancy, so that the 
 canonry I have to offer is that now held by Rashdall. He tells 
 me that it has never in recent years been of less value than £450 
 and the house, and sometimes it rises to £500. 
 
 The minimum official residence is three months, the exact 
 months being arranged b}^ the canons amongst themselves, the 
 senior having prior right of choice. 
 
 But I feel that the canon to be appointed could hardly do 
 what is required for the good of the diocese unless he were with 
 us for a somewhat longer portion of each year, so as not only to 
 take his statutable share of the Cathedral services, but also to 
 contribute an influence to the diocesan life outside the Cathedral, 
 as, for instance, by preaching for clergy and giving occasional 
 lectures in different parts when desired. 
 
 What occurs to me is that if you were canon, and could give 
 occasional lectures up and down the diocese on such subjects as 
 those discussed in your Restatement and Reunion you would thus 
 help to imbue our clergy with the spirit of that book, and so 
 would do a great service to our Church. 
 
 But this would mean giving us altogether at least four months 
 in the course of each year. 
 
 Would this be compatible with the work you may wish to keep 
 up in Oxford, or with any other plans you may have in your mind ?
 
 344 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 I have mentioned the three men in Oxford to whom I have 
 spoken on the subject, in case you may wish to talk over my 
 offer with any of these, should you think it deserving of con- 
 sideration. 
 
 I shall be very thankful if this is so, as I feel sure your help 
 would be of great value in the life of the diocese, and we greatly 
 need it. — BeUeve me, Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 After some correspondence, Mr. Streeter accepted the 
 appointment on the understanding that not more than three 
 months of residence should be required in each year. 
 
 As the Bishop had foreseen, there was a great commotion. 
 One leading clergyman of the diocese circulated a letter in 
 which he was fiercely attacked. He discussed this letter 
 with the Archdeacon of Hereford, and a correspondence 
 ensued between the Bishop and the Archdeacon in which the 
 following passages occur. It should be mentioned that the 
 Archdeacon had already frankly told the Bishop that he was 
 alienating the great bulk of the clergy and very many of the 
 laity of the diocese by his policy : 
 
 Bridstow Vicarage, Ross, 
 Feh. 25, 1915. 
 
 My dear Lord — ... I quite agree with you, after reading 
 through the letter, that it is in the worst taste possible, and if I see 
 the writer I shall not scruple to tell him so. But at the same time 
 I must be perfectly honest with you, and say that, while I very 
 much regret a great deal that has been said and done, I cannot 
 but share the dismay in the minds of both clergy and laity 
 throughout the diocese, at what seems to them the mistaken 
 policy which you have recently pursued in making your appoint- 
 ments. The fact that one of your rural deans and one of your 
 leading laymen should have taken the unusual course of criticis- 
 ing their bishop in the public Press over their own signatures, 
 shows how very strong the feeling is. And though, as your 
 Archdeacon, I always try when the matter is mentioned, to put 
 forward what I understand (from the Press) to be your motives, 
 and am always ready to defend the integrity of your intentions, 
 I cannot pretend to be other than seriously alarmed at the effect 
 both on the efficient working of the diocese, and, I regret to say, 
 on the faith of many of our lay people. But in taking the line
 
 XIV APPOINTMENTS 345 
 
 that you have done, you cannot have had your eyes closed to 
 these things, and therefore I can only conclude that you are 
 conscientiously convinced that there are larger issues involved 
 which outweigh in your mind such merely local considerations. 
 I profoundly disagree, but I hope that I do not misinterpret you. 
 — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 E. H. WiNNiNGTON Ingram. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 
 February 27, 1915. 
 
 Dear Archdeacon — I have to thank you for your letter, and 
 am glad you have read again the letter circulated in the diocese 
 and that you now realise its objectionable and contemptible 
 character. 
 
 You are good enough to say quite frankly that you profoundly 
 differ from me as regards my recent exercise of patronage. 
 
 This does not surprise me, knowing how intimately you are 
 associated with the High Church party, and I have no complaint 
 to make. 
 
 This difference may possibly hamper you in your legal dis- 
 charge of your duty as my officer, and I am sorry that I should 
 have felt obliged to lay on you the burden of this difficulty ; 
 but I know you will do your best to impress on the section of 
 clergy who are dissatisfied that the Bishop has been guided 
 solely and entirety by what he conscientiously believes to be his 
 duty to the National Church of which he is a responsible officer. 
 It depends on you more than any one else whether the spirit of 
 political and ecclesiastical bitterness and prejudice is to be 
 exorcised or not. 
 
 I have a good defence for my action, but I will not trouble 
 you with it. My stalls were filled with High Churchmen during 
 my first ten years, and I myself appointed the highest of them, 
 and no one uttered a word of complaint. Now, when I have 
 looked on for twenty years and seen Liberal Churchmen, however 
 distinguished, relentlessly boycotted and passed over with de- 
 preciation and detraction almost everywhere, and have thought 
 it necessary in the interest of the Church to do something to 
 prevent this freezing out of Broad Churchmen and the narrowing 
 of our National Church into a sect, there is raised this outcry — 
 I might reasonably complain, but I know that human nature 
 being what it is some men will use the occasion and some will be 
 honestly alarmed ; but I shall be justified in the long run. — 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 J. Hereford.
 
 346 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Bridstow Vicarage, Ross, 
 March i, 1915. 
 
 My dear Lord— Thank you for your open and generous 
 letter, for I confess that when writing to you I felt rather like a 
 Rugby boy daring to find fault with his headmaster ! Your 
 position is exactly what I supposed it to be, and I should not have 
 written again, but that I think you rather mistake mine, and for 
 the sake of mutual confidence, I should like to make mine clear. 
 I reaUy cannot plead guilty to any conscious identification with 
 the " High Church party," unless you reckon Temple in his 
 later years to have been a member of that party. . . . No, 
 my difficulty does not arise from the " High Church " point of 
 view. I do not even wish the Broad Churchmen to be " snowed 
 under." I quite recognise that they should have their place in 
 the Church of England, unless, and until, they arrive at the 
 position of " denying " Articles of the Christian Faith. But I 
 do very strongly feel that their place is in the intellectual centres, 
 and not in a country diocese. We are a simple-minded people, 
 who have no use for such a philosophical conception as a truth 
 being true while the fact wherein God has enshrined the truth 
 for eighteen centuries is false. ... I am sure that you are mak- 
 ing a mistake if you think that the opposition which has been 
 aroused is wholly — or even mainly — due to a " spirit of political 
 and ecclesiastical bitterness." It is in more cases than you 
 suppose a real — if somewhat inarticulate' — cry of distressful 
 souls. And I do beseech you, if (as I suppose you must) you 
 refer to the matter in your coming charge, to make generous 
 allowance for this feeling, and not to assume that we are all 
 bigoted partisans of some " movement " in a past genera- 
 tion, ... I very seldom come across any one— certainly among 
 the clergy — who does not speak of yourself personally with 
 reverence and even affection. We all realise, I think, your true 
 kindness of heart and your desire to do your duty, even if we 
 cannot always agree with your mode of action. — Yours very 
 sincerely, 
 
 E. H. WiNNiNGTON Ingram. 
 
 There is obviously no need for an answer to this, but I was 
 anxious to make clear to you my own position. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 March 10, 1915. 
 
 My dear Archdeacon— I ought to have thanked you for 
 your letter of the ist before this, but I have in fact had rather 
 more to do day by day than I could get through.
 
 XIV APPOINTMENTS 347 
 
 There are several points in it on which I ought to say a word. 
 
 If I think of your associations and sympathies being with 
 the High Church party, I hope you will forgive me ; I wish they 
 were aU like you. 
 
 As regards Broad Churchmen, the freezing out has gone on 
 so long, and has been to such an extent almost universal, with 
 the result that the cleavage between the best students— earnest, 
 devout, truth-seeking men, such as Dr. Sanday — and the ordinary 
 clerical opinion threatens to be disastrous, that at last after long 
 waiting, I felt it my duty to do something to stop it. And as 
 regards critical scholars like Streeter, it is not fair to talk of them 
 as denying facts of Revelation. 
 
 What I think they would say is that a new and more correct 
 understanding of the Bible record necessitates a restatement of 
 the Creeds in accordance therewith. TiU that restatement can 
 be agreed upon some articles must be understood as in some 
 degree symbolical. Indeed, you yourself, and Bishop Gore, and 
 aU the opponents of the Broad Church student, repeat some 
 articles in this sense. The fact is that a time of transition like 
 this makes heavy demands on the charity and the faith and 
 patience of all thoughtful people. 
 
 ... I am grateful for what you say as to personal refer- 
 ences to myself. I have certainly endeavoured so to act as 
 Bishop that I might say with Samuel : " The Lord is my witness 
 that ye have not found ought in my hand," which could be 
 described as a job. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Bishop subsequently, on the preferment of Dr. 
 Rashdall to the Deanery of Carlisle, appointed the Arch- 
 deacon to the vacant Canonry. 
 
 The appointment of Mr. Streeter to a canonry might be 
 taken as a reply to the Bishop of Zanzibar's attack on 
 Foundations in his pamphlet Ecclesia Anglicana : What does 
 she stand for P To that Bishop it seemed that Percival had 
 betrayed the faith, and he proceeded solemnly and formally 
 to excommunicate him in a document which sets forth at 
 length the grounds for such action, and concludes as follows : 
 
 Therefore do We, Frank, Lord Bishop of Zanzibar, hereby 
 declare and pronounce that, so long as the ground of our com- 
 plaint set forth above remains, there can be, and from this day 
 forward there is, no Communion in Sacred Things between
 
 348 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 Ourselves and the Right Reverend John, Lord Bishop of Hereford, 
 nor between Ourselves and any priest within his jurisdiction who 
 shall make known his approval of the false doctrines now officially 
 authorised within the Diocese of Hereford ; and We do further 
 warn and charge all Our faithful people that, pending the meeting 
 of Our Sacred Synod, they duly observe this Our Declaration and 
 Sentence. 
 
 This document was published in the Church Press, as was 
 Percival's reply : 
 
 I regret the pain it must have caused you to adopt the course 
 you have felt it your duty to adopt. I freely acknowledge the 
 excellence of your motives, and this leads me to regret all the 
 more your lack of Christian sympathy, your apparent inability 
 even to understand the position of those from whom you differ, 
 and your misguided conception of your own position and of your 
 duty. For one bishop to take upon himself to excommunicate 
 another bishop on his own sole authority because of an alleged 
 misuse of the patronage in his diocese is a proceeding which it 
 is not eas}^ to justify and which certainly does not tend to edifica- 
 tion. And I must confess to some surprise that your natural 
 modesty did not suggest to you that if public action was called 
 for it should have been left to the proper authority. Hasty and 
 ill-considered individual action such as yours could hardly be 
 defended under any circumstances, and in this case you would 
 have done well to bear in mind that Canon Streeter has not even 
 been arraigned, much less condemned, before any ecclesiastical 
 Court or Synod, and that he continues to hold a license to officiate 
 from my brother bishop the Bishop of Oxford. Thus I may 
 venture to say, as an old man to a younger, that although acting 
 no doubt in all sincerity and from the highest motives, you have 
 been led to take too much upon you. 
 
 Moreover, the books Foundations and Restatement and Reunion 
 do not, as you suggest, contain any denial of " the historical facts 
 stated in the Creeds," or of any " fundamental dogma," nor can 
 they be shown to contravene either the letter or the spirit of the 
 declaration recently issued by the Upper House of the Canterbury 
 Convocation, to which you refer. Indeed, so far from meriting 
 the strictures you pass on them, the books in question are, in 
 the judgment of reasonable men, positive and constructive in aim 
 and character, and embody a commendable endeavour to estabUsh 
 the fundamental beliefs of Christianity in the face of difficulties 
 which are widely felt at the present time among educated church- 
 men, and which it would be disastrous to ignore.
 
 XIV APPOINTMENTS 349 
 
 I note your statement that you have been unable to take 
 counsel with your Synod, and I can readily believe that the 
 special difficulties and anxieties caused in your diocese by the 
 war have prevented you from giving the subject such careful 
 and serious attention as 3^ou would otherwise have given to it ; 
 but I submit that such attention ought to have been given before 
 rushing into public denunciation, and I anticipate that you 
 yourself on further reflection will come to feel that your action 
 has been precipitate and unwise. Of your earnestness in the 
 work of the Mission field I desire to speak with all respect, and 
 I pray that it may be rightly guided, trusting that in future you 
 will abstain from rash and ill-considered denunciation of your 
 fellow-churchmen and concentrate yourself entirely upon that 
 work in happy and fruitful service of our common Lord. In this 
 distressful time we ought surely to rise above our unhappy ecclesi- 
 astical divisions and pray for more of the spirit of unity in Christ 
 and more brotherhood among men. 
 
 Percival's formal justification of the whole policy which 
 he had adopted in his later years at Hereford was given in 
 his sixth and last Visitation Charge, delivered in 1915 : 
 
 It is, I feel, due to you and also to myself, that I should refer 
 briefly to certain criticisms that have been publicly made on 
 some recent appointments to canonries in our Cathedral. 
 
 I thankfully recognise the immunity I have enjoyed during 
 the twenty years of my episcopate from adverse criticism of my 
 exercise of patronage, and I honestly think that I have deserved 
 this immunity ; for I have certainly treated all patronage as a 
 matter of very serious duty, involving grave personal responsi- 
 bility, and to be dispensed without fear or favour or partial 
 affection. 
 
 And I am grateful that my endeavours so to dispense it, 
 and my desire to do the right thing in each case, seem to have 
 been generally recognised by people of goodwill. 
 
 At the same time, I have not been greatly surprised that 
 one or two of my recent appointments have called forth some 
 objections. Let me give you one or two of my reasons for 
 making them. 
 
 In the course of twenty years I have had the opportunity of 
 appointing seven canons. Three of these were already serving 
 as incumbents in the diocese, and two of them as pronounced 
 High Churchmen belonged to the dominant party in the Church, 
 that party which, during the last fifty years, has secured for
 
 350 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 itself by far the greatest share of the best patronage in our 
 Church of England. One I appointed from the outside to supply 
 an urgent need of our Cathedral, because of his eminence and his 
 unique fitness for the special work required. And when you 
 think to-day of all that Canon Capes did for the preservation of 
 our slowly decaying records and for the administration and well- 
 being of the Cathedral itself, as also for the School attached 
 to it, you will freely admit that my appointment has been more 
 than abundantly justified. 
 
 The remaining three of these seven appointments I have felt 
 it my duty, under very exceptional circumstances, to bestow 
 on men of unusual distinction outside our own diocese. 
 
 And here is my justification for these appointments. I have 
 selected them as leading members of the Liberal Progressive 
 Broad Church School of Theology, that school to which, as it 
 happens, I myself more or less belong. 
 
 It was not, however, on this personal ground that I selected 
 them, but because in the course of a long life I have seen and 
 regretted time after time the persistent neglect and hard treat- 
 ment meted out to this important section of our Church by the 
 higher authorities of both Church and State. 
 
 I have seen a succession of eminent and devout churchmen 
 of this school passed over again and again, and treated with 
 what amounted to a polite but hfelong boycott, and meeting 
 with no adequate recognition of their merit or their work. 
 
 Even statesmen who were supposed to represent Liberal and 
 Progressive opinion have again and again passed them by, 
 possibly influenced by misrepresentation and detraction. Under 
 these circumstances, I have been brought, after long years, to 
 feel that it has become my duty to the Church, regarded as the 
 reformed progressive and National Church, to do what little I 
 have the opportunity of doing to redress the balance of this 
 unequal treatment, and help to remedy the harm which such 
 treatment of an important section of churchmen was doing to 
 our religious Hfe, and, indeed, to the prospects and influence of 
 the Church itself. 
 
 No one can feel more deeply than I do of how httle weight or 
 importance is anything that I can do in the Church at large ; 
 but we should all act on our convictions, however unimportant 
 we may be ; and it seemed to me to be high time that this per- 
 sistent exclusion of Liberal Churchmen from any due recognition 
 should cease, or that some one at any rate should vindicate their 
 claim and do something to re-establish the comprehensive and 
 tolerant character of our National Church, and to save it from 
 becoming practically denationalised and sinking into a sect, and
 
 XIV APPOINTMENTS 351 
 
 from inevitably losing vital influence over the educated manhood 
 of a Protestant people. 
 
 Fortunately it is no function of the biographer to sit 
 in judgment on the actions he narrates. Percival would 
 certainly have agreed that a provincial Cathedral surrounded 
 by a purely rural area was no specially suitable place for the 
 gathering together of a Chapter, brilliant in distinction but 
 keenly sensitive to the perplexities of current thought. But 
 it was the only position that he controlled ; no one else 
 seemed willing to act ; he considered that the Liberal Theo- 
 logians were being boycotted to the great injury of the 
 Church, and he came to the conclusion that he ought to do 
 what lay in his power to correct this state of affairs. 
 
 The question of principle — the only question of principle 
 ^was whether the school of thought, to which the men 
 appointed by Percival in the latter years of his episcopate 
 belonged, had a right to its position within the Church. 
 Percival emphatically held that it had. Holding this con- 
 viction, he bravely acted on it. The points of expediency 
 were two : was a rural diocese a suitable arena for his action ? 
 and, if not, was the total gain to the Church worth the loss, 
 if any, that might be involved to the diocese by the appoint- 
 ment of men less obviously adapted to its immediate needs ? 
 Percival would, no doubt, have preferred an urban centre 
 for the action that he felt bound to take ; he would have 
 preferred all his work to be in urban centres, among the 
 industrial population. But he did not hold that a rural 
 diocese was a definitely unsuitable place for Liberal Theo- 
 logians ; he hoped that a group of scholars at the centre 
 would gradually influence the minds of the clergy so that 
 without any shock to faith the message of the Gospel would 
 more and more be presented in a form immune from any 
 attack by advancing knowledge. He peremptorily denied 
 the saying that " Broad Churchmen have no message for the 
 common people." Consequently he did not feel that he was 
 in any degree sacrificing his diocese ; and he felt that he was 
 benefiting the Church. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that he did exasperate
 
 352 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 the feeling of those who disagreed with him by his charges 
 of unfairness or partisanship. He differed from their whole 
 point of view ; that was legitimate ; but he did not put 
 himself in their position and consider how, holding that point 
 of view, they were bound to regard his action. To have 
 done this need not have led to any modification of his own 
 conduct, but it would have led to considerable modification 
 of his attitude towards his opponents. 
 
 He claimed with justice that, if his appointments were 
 reviewed as a whole, it would be found that he had been fair 
 to all schools. But it also has to be admitted that in the 
 later years his major appointments were chiefly of one colour. 
 His own justification of his action admits this. He had 
 waited tiU he thought it would be WTong to wait longer. 
 Then he adopted a deliberate policy, and followed it with 
 characteristic thoroughness. 
 
 There was undoubtedly a change of direction in his policy 
 from 1902 onwards. He had always been a Liberal in politics ; 
 he had always sympathised with Liberals in theology. The 
 education conflicts led him to feel more isolated than befare, 
 and to adopt a more definitely " Liberal " attitude. He did 
 this, not because the views which he now more insistently 
 emphasised and favoured were his own, but because he 
 thought they were not receiving fair play. If he became 
 himself to some extent a partisan, it was because he thought 
 the party to which he attached himself had a just claim on 
 his championship. Had he possessed greater intellectual 
 sympathy with his opponents, and consequently a more 
 concihatory method of statement and argument, his cham- 
 pionship would have been still more effective. As it was, 
 he created a cleavage between the Cathedral and the diocese. 
 He said in a letter to Canon Bannister written on February 4, 
 1913, " We have hardly any Modern Churchmen outside the 
 Cathedral." 
 
 But he bore his witness to the Church as a whole, and 
 it was not without effect. If he himself hardened in his 
 own position as a result of isolation, it is equally true that 
 " Modernists " are driven sometimes to " negations " by 
 the boycotting process when sympathetic treatment would
 
 XIV APPOINTMENTS 353 
 
 produce another effect. Conciliation breeds conciliation. 
 If men are made to fight with their backs to the wall, they 
 cease to look for points of agreement with their adversaries. 
 If George Tyrrell had remained in the more tolerant atmo- 
 sphere of Anglicanism he would quite conceivably have 
 remained substantially orthodox. The reconciliation of the 
 traditional Christian faith and modern knowledge is necessary 
 in every age, and in every age is difficult. It cannot be done 
 by assertions and counter-assertions, by protests and counter- 
 protests. It can only be done when men speak the truth 
 in love. The position of the Modernist in the Church of 
 England is easier than in some parts of the Catholic Church ; 
 but it is difficult enough. He has his own problem of con- 
 science to face ; he is the object of suspicion to a large 
 section, probably the most active section, of the Church ; 
 and under such handicaps he confronts an acutely difficult 
 intellectual problem requiring the most delicate handUng. 
 If he receives no encouragement from any in authority in 
 the Church, it is small wonder when he becomes antagonistic 
 to the prevailing currents of Church life, to his own and 
 the Church's great loss. Percival sought to make the 
 Modernists and Liberal Theologians feel that at least one 
 bishop valued their efforts and appreciated their difficulties. 
 He may have made mistakes of method ; but his aim was 
 no unworthy one and his pursuit of it showed a courageous 
 constancy. 
 
 2 A
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 LAST YEARS 
 
 The story of John Percival's life has now been told down 
 to the fatal year 1914. That is a date which for all in whose 
 working lives it fell marks a sudden break of interest. Until 
 then men had followed their various aims, sometimes in 
 conflict with each other. In that year one dominating 
 purpose seized upon all Englishmen, obliterating former 
 differences and unitmg them all in the concentrated effort 
 and sorrow of the Great War. But for Bishop Percival sorrow 
 began with the beginning of the year. His son, Guthrie, 
 died most unexpectedly shortly after returning from Mexico 
 where he had lately been. The whole sad story is given in 
 outline in the following letter to Prebendary Wynne Willson : 
 
 Lollards Tower, Lambeth, S.E., 
 Jan. 27, 1914. 
 
 Dear Wynne Willson — I have just received your letter, and 
 am very grateful for its consoling sympathy, which I greatly need, 
 for Guthrie's death is a sore bereavement, and it has all come so 
 suddenly. He left Mexico in the best of health and spirits, 
 hoping to be back again after a few weeks at home ; but when 
 his wife met him at Paddington he could hardly speak or hold 
 up his head, being in the grip of very severe double pneumonia 
 after a bad chill on the voyage. The rest was just a struggle 
 till the heart gave way. The funeral service was at St. Mary's, 
 Bryanston Square, at 11.30 this morning, and afterwards at 
 Brookwood Cemetery. I feel thankful that you were spared the 
 journey. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 354
 
 rilE 15ISHOP, AND HIS YOUNGEST GRANDCHILD DOUGLAS PERCIVAL, 
 ON HIS EIGHTIETH lUk I'lIDAY.
 
 CHAP. XV LAST YEARS 355 
 
 To the sorrow itself was added the bitterness of dis- 
 appointment ; on hearing of his son's ilhiess the Bishop had 
 been on the point of starting for London when he had a 
 telegram to say that his son had had a good night and was 
 out of danger. He did, however, come to London a few 
 days later and was able to have some conversation with 
 Guthrie. Soon after this the end came suddenly, when the 
 Bishop had gone to Bournemouth, 
 
 To the Rev. L. J. Percival 
 
 Bournemouth, 
 
 Jan. 24, 1914. 
 
 Dear Lance — Your telegram gave me a great shock, as I had 
 begun to hope that the poor boy would pull through, though 
 when I saw him last Saturday my heart sank. It has been a 
 dreadfully sad home coming for him, and one can only say God's 
 will be done. ... I am thankful that you are on the spot to 
 give your help. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 At this time he was glad to hope for some help in the 
 spiritual work of the diocese. The last three years had been 
 a time of constant controversy in which the Bishop was in a 
 small minority. He was resisting what seemed to him the 
 mischievous development of Cathohc behefs and practices. 
 But he never ceased to value the influence and work of 
 devoted CathoUcs or to admire the heroism which they 
 showed. In the spring of 19 14 Bishop Hine, formerly of 
 Zanzibar, was retiring from his diocese of Northern Rhodesia, 
 and Percival sought to secure his help in the Hereford 
 diocese. 
 
 To the Rev. R. Burges Bayly 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 March 20, 1914. 
 
 Dear Mr. Burges Bayly — I am glad to hear that Bishop 
 Hine is at last being released ; and I should be glad if you would 
 tell Canon Crowfoot that the Bishop will be doing me a service 
 if, when he comes home, he will come and give us a little help, as 
 my chaplain will by that time be married and living in his own
 
 356 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 house. I should Hke it if the Bishop cared to try the experiment 
 of occupying his rooms in the Palace and assisting us with 
 emergency work, which as you know means assisting an incumbent 
 when ill or being responsible for the work of a parish during a 
 vacancy. A saintly and experienced man like the Bishop going 
 to one parish or another would be of great value to both priest 
 and people ; and I hope he would not shrink from the experiment, 
 especially as he knows Mrs. Percival and is an old friend of her 
 family. 
 
 I should feel obliged if you can make all this known to the 
 Bishop, through Canon Crowfoot or otherwise. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 March 25, 1914. 
 
 Dear Mr. Burges Bayly — I return the Bishop's touching 
 letter with thanks for a sight of it— with what rare and heroic 
 simplicity he writes of the journey in front of him, as if it were 
 little more than a walk through Herefordshire.— Yours sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 During the dark days at the end of July Percival 
 anxiously watched the gathering of the war clouds. His 
 old passion for peace was still strong, and he knew no more 
 than other men of the actual course of the recent diplomacy. 
 Two days before the declaration of war he wrote to Canon 
 Bannister : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 August 2, 19 14. 
 
 Dear Bannister — Do you think we could get the Mayor to 
 call a meeting of citizens to urge the Government to adhere to 
 the policy of neutrality and efforts for peace ? 
 
 I have joined a Committee of protest against the mischievous 
 utterances of our jingo Press ; and I sent last night a letter to 
 every incumbent in the diocese about Prayers in Church, and 
 asking him if possible to call a meeting of his parishioners, and 
 to send to the Premier a resolution from it urging the policy of 
 neutrality and efforts for peace. — Yours sincerely 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 Like many another advocate of peace, Percival was 
 suddenly illuminated by the German violation of Belgian
 
 XV LAST YEARS 357 
 
 neutrality. At once he confessed his conversion, and on 
 August 12 this letter from his pen appeared in The Times : 
 
 THE JUSTICE OF OUR CAUSE 
 The Bishop of Hereford on Militarism 
 
 To the Editor of " The Times " 
 
 Sir — I am venturing to ask the hospitality of your columns 
 in consequence of some wrong impressions abroad as to the 
 patriotism of those who laboured for peace and the ncutrahty 
 of our country so long as it was possible to do so. 
 
 Many of us believe that the great military empires of Europe 
 with their war lords, their cynical reliance on brute force, and their 
 unscrupulous policy, are a standing menace to all democratic 
 and Christian civilisation. Their unceasing struggle for the 
 balance of power, with its accompanying disregard of all moral 
 obligation, brings not only danger, but also disgrace upon inter- 
 national politics. It is difficult to understand how men who 
 in their personal relationships are honest and honourable can 
 submit to be the instruments and ministers of such a policy. 
 So long as these militarist governments dominate the politics 
 of Europe, a concert of leading Powers, acting in the spirit of 
 unselfish duty and goodwill, is practicaUy impossible. 
 
 Thus it was obviously the duty of our Government, as it was 
 its wisdom, to keep clear of all entanglements in the intrigues of 
 the rival Continental Powers. France unhappily became thus 
 entangled through alhance or understanding with one of these 
 Powers in self-defence against another, and was kept in conse- 
 quence within the vicious circle. 
 
 But we were assured by the Premier and Sir Edward Grey 
 that England was free from all treaty obUgations, and conse- 
 quently at hbcrty to remain neutral in the war which the three 
 mihtary empires had provoked, and to labour for peace ; and, 
 many of us, thus assured, as in duty bound, gave the poUcy of 
 neutrality our whole-hearted support. Unfortunately, however, 
 this assurance only covered half the ground. 
 
 While the course of our foreign policy had left us free from 
 treaty obhgations, it appears that in connection with our friendly 
 ententes there had been commitments by way of understandings 
 which, though entered into without authority of Parhament, 
 made it difficult for us as a nation to stand aside with honour. 
 
 However, at this point the German Government (we have no
 
 358 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 quarrel with the German people) solved our difficulties by its 
 shameless cynicism and its flagrant disregard of all moral con- 
 siderations. While breaking its pledged word by its unprovoked 
 invasion of Belgium, it suggested to us the bargain by which we 
 were to condone its action and desert the Belgian people. This 
 proposal the Prime Minister appropriately described as infamous. 
 The proposal, it is true, was accompanied by certain promises. 
 But what is the value of a promise from a promise breaker ? 
 
 Under these circumstances I am brought to the conclusion 
 that in obedience to our treaty obligations, and in support of 
 Belgium's just claim, our country had no choice but to take up 
 the sword if honourable dealing was to have any chance of sur- 
 viving in international affairs — the cynicism and dupHcity 
 against which we are thus called to fight are worse than war, 
 notwithstanding all its horrors and its miseries, and for my part 
 I trust that every Enghshman will do his part in the cause of 
 righteous dealing and to free our civilisation from the maleficent 
 and unscrupulous pride of military despotism. 
 
 And amidst all the gloom of present and impending warfare 
 there is this ray of hope for the masses of the people in every 
 country involved in it — that such a fearful war, so wantonly 
 provoked, can hardly fail to bring us appreciably nearer to the 
 day when the people at large will rise up and insist that these 
 unscrupulous militarist governments must be swept away and 
 give place to governments in which the people rule and are free 
 to Uve in the spirit of international brotherhood, peace, and 
 goodwill. 
 
 Such a war is a hea\'y price to pay for our progress towards 
 the reahsation of the Christianity of Christ, but duty calls, and 
 the price must be paid for the good of those who are to follow us. 
 
 That better and happier day, when the people now under 
 militarist rule shall regulate their own life, is doubtless still so 
 far away that an old man like myself can hardly hope to see its 
 dawning, but amidst all the burden of gloom and sorrow which 
 this dreadful war lays upon us we can at least thank God that it 
 brings that better day a long step nearer for the generations in 
 front of us. — Your obedient servant, 
 
 J, Hereford. 
 
 On August 25 he wrote again to Canon Bannister : 
 
 Yes, the days are dark and one can only pray that the French 
 may be strong enough to roll back the German wave from their 
 frontier.
 
 XV 
 
 LAST YEARS 359 
 
 In the midst of the heavy anxieties of the first months 
 of the war Percival kept his eightieth birthday. He had 
 many letters of congratulation, but it is doubtful if any 
 pleased him more than one which he received from John 
 Percival Wynne Willson, the eldest son of his friend.^ To 
 him the Bishop replied : 
 
 The Palace, 
 
 Sept. 27, 1914. 
 
 My dear Boy — It was very nice of you to send me your good 
 wishes on my birthday, and I am very glad to have them ; and 
 I hope you have a great many happy birthdays before you. I 
 am so very glad to hear that you are getting on so well at school. 
 With my best thanks for your letter. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 Percival celebrated his eightieth birthday in a charac- 
 teristic fashion. He sent smns of money to various poor 
 clergy in his diocese with this note : 
 
 The Bishop, feeling that a thank-offering is due from him 
 for the gift of length of days and good health, thinks it may 
 appropriately be given to some of those who have been doing 
 good work for the Church in the diocese on a very scanty income, 
 
 and he hopes you will accept the enclosed £ and use it as 
 
 you think best. 
 
 In October the news was received that Arthur Percival 
 had been awarded the Legion of Honour. Writing to 
 Canon Alexander to answer congratulations the Bishop said : 
 
 Ihe Palace, Hereford, 
 October lo, 1914. 
 
 My dear Alexander — It was very good of you to send me 
 your kind and welcome letter, and I return my grateful thanks. 
 
 Yes, if my son's mother had lived his distinction as a soldier 
 would have been a great joy to her. What has won him this 
 particular decoration I do not know, as he has told us nothing 
 
 ^ This is the boy of whom his father tells the story, that when quite a 
 small boy he was taken to see the Bishop. On being brought into the 
 study the child saw a tiny chair which caught his fancy, and he took it 
 and placed it beside the Bishop and sat in it. Later, when the child left, 
 the chair was in his perambulator, placed there by the Bishop's orders.
 
 36o LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 about it. He is a very reticent and modest person. I can only 
 suppose that it may be for something he did in that very risky 
 retreat after the battle of Mons. I hope the Germans will have 
 more sense than to threaten London with Zeppelins. They seem 
 to be of little use unless it is useful to strike terror into an un- 
 offending population, and they would certainly make our English 
 people so angry that they would give a stimulus to recruiting. 
 
 You seem to have done well with your finances this last year. 
 With best regards to Mrs. Alexander. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 Soon after this, Arthur Percival wrote to say that he had 
 been told officially that he was to be promoted to a Brigade. 
 But almost immediately this happy news was followed 
 by that of Colonel Percival's death. It was a shattering 
 blow. Writing to the Rev. L. J. Percival he said : 
 
 Thank you for writing. I feel as if this sudden blow had 
 taken all strength and feeling out of my life. We shall miss him 
 sorely every day. 
 
 The aching void was still a constant anguish two years 
 later. 
 
 To Mrs. Arthur Percival 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 Oct. 30, 1916. 
 
 Dear Cecil — I do not remember, if I ever realised, whether 
 the 30th or the 31st was the day on which we lost Arthur. The 
 only thing I know for certain is what a daily sorrow the loss has 
 been to me ever since. Every day my thoughts are with him ; 
 sometimes I try to be thankful that he had a life so congenial to 
 him, and that he was happy, as I believe he was, in all the stren- 
 uous work and amidst all the perils of the last weeks of his life ; 
 and sometimes I wonder what he would have done as a General 
 the last two years. But this is idle, and the sense of loss is the 
 ever present thing, so that I can hardly bring myself to take 
 interest in anything. 
 
 I am, however, thankful to have had him, and I hope you, 
 being younger, are recovering from the sense of loss and able to 
 enjoy the interests of Kfe which you have within your reach. — 
 With my love, I am. Ever yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford.
 
 XV LAST YEARS 361 
 
 To the Rev. L. J. Percival 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 Nov. 3, 1916. 
 
 Dear Lance — I was glad to have your letter this morning 
 and to hear of your All Saints' Day. 
 
 It will always be to us the end of dear Arthur's noble life ; 
 and it is some consolation to feel that he enjoyed it all so fully ; 
 and no doubt his last days were gladdened by the thought that 
 his opportunities were just opening out before him. But God 
 disposes and we must be content. . . . 
 
 We got through our Diocesan Conference — one day only — 
 quite happily. Everything goes very pleasantly nowadays. 
 Dr. Chapman keeps me on my legs by careful instructions, but 
 I am rather tottery and so take no liberties, and I am rather 
 amused when people say, as they do almost daily, I am very 
 glad to see you looking so well. We go to Clifton next week for 
 a council meeting. — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 The love for Clifton lasted till the end ; and the Bishop 
 founded there a memorial of his son for which the thanks of 
 the Council were expressed in a letter from Sir Herbert 
 Warren, the President of Magdalen. 
 
 Magdalen College, Oxford, 
 March 13, 1915. 
 
 My dear Lord Bishop — Wlien you left the Chair the other 
 day the Council asked me to take your place, which in itself I 
 always regard as a privilege. 
 
 The Headmaster then reported to us a proposal from your- 
 self to found a Scholarship of £30 to £40 a year, open to sons of 
 British officers in His Majesty's service, in memory of 3'our son, 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Jex-Blake Percival, Fifth Fusiliers, 
 D.S.O., and Officer of the Legion of Honour, who was killed in 
 action at Ypres on the 31st of October 1914. 
 
 I need not say I am sure that the Council one and all were 
 deeply touched by this proposal, and that they were unanimous 
 in accepting this very precious gift from you. 
 
 They passed the resolution " that the Scholarship is accepted 
 with the best thanks of the Council," and requested me to write 
 to you on behalf of the Council and express their appreciation of 
 this gift.
 
 362 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 I have had the minute from the Secretary, but how shall I 
 attempt to discharge my task ? I think words simple and short 
 win be best. I have tried before to tell you something of what 
 I thought of your splendid and gallant soldier son, and your sad 
 loss. 
 
 I would say now first that we all, your old friends, feel what a 
 help this Scholarship will be to the School. We feel your 
 generosity in giving it to the School, a generosity not new, but 
 for that reason the more marked. We feel how helpful it will 
 be to many parents of boys, exactly of the kind whom the School 
 would wish to aid in the coming years, but before all we feel, 
 and I feel especially, that this Foundation is no common, but 
 rather a very sacred, one, and that the name and example of your 
 son himself, commemorated by it, should be in themselves a 
 stimulus, I hope sometimes something of an inspiration, to the 
 young hearts who in the future history of the School will be 
 the " Arthur Percival " Scholars. — BeHeve me to be. My very 
 dear Lord Bishop, Always sincerely yours, 
 
 Herbert Warren. 
 
 The Bishop's Sixth and last Visitation vi^as held in 19 15. 
 In the course of his Charge, which was mainly occupied with 
 the justification of his policy in making appointments, ^ the 
 Bishop said : 
 
 We meet to-day under heavy clouds : anxiety and sorrow, 
 sacrifice and bereavement, are casting their shadow over so many 
 lives. It is in the hope that we are contributing in some degree 
 to the upraising of the life of nations a little nearer to the standard 
 of Christ's Kingdom and to the promise of happier days for the 
 generations in front of us that we bear unflinchingly, and as a 
 call of God, each of us our individual share of the sure and heavy 
 burden of sacrifice and bereavement in our darkened homes. 
 
 And as we bear this burden it will assuredly be helpful if 
 we are careful to remember and to teach that men learn their 
 best and truest lessons of life and conduct in these hours of 
 supreme visitation and sorrow. Such times call out all that is 
 best and noblest in man's nature. They are our hours of truest 
 insight, and they uplift us into the region of the higher and 
 better life. Strengthened by such reflections, and feeling that 
 along with our Allies we are the predestined instruments to save 
 the Christian civilisation of Europe from being overcome by a 
 brutal and ruthless military paganism, we should make it our 
 
 1 See Chap. XIV.
 
 XV 
 
 LAST YEARS 363 
 
 primary duty to prosecute this warfare at all cost till the victory 
 is won and the law of Christ is firmly estabhshed as the para- 
 mount authority in all national and international affairs. 
 
 From the time when he became persuaded of the justice 
 of the nation's cause there was no wavering of purpose ; but 
 the sacrifice had been great. Such sorrow^s, however, did 
 not interfere with the performance of his duties, or with his 
 enjoyment of the presence of young folk about him. In the 
 summer of 1915 the children of the Rev. L. J. Percival w^ere 
 staying at Hereford, to their grandfather's intense delight. 
 
 To the Rev. L. J. Percival 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 July 2, 1915. 
 
 Dear Lance — Roger's books have arrived, and we have had 
 a httle turn at them together. He seems to have made a nice 
 beginning with his Latin. He is very pleased with himself, as 
 he has a new suit on this morning, and has found a threepenny 
 piece in one of the pockets. This puzzles him a good deal. He 
 cannot tell how it got there, but he knows how it can be spent. 
 
 Douglas is in excellent spirits, but he has no desire to come 
 and show me what he can read. . . . — Yours affectionately, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 He was still able to appreciate a vigorous and racy speech. 
 On August 6, 1915, he wrote to Canon Bannister : 
 
 We had a crowded and enthusiastic meeting in the Shire Hall 
 last night, and Will Crooks addressed us in a very entertaining 
 and stirring way— morg suo. 
 
 The following account of him in these last years is given 
 by the Rev. C. R. Norcock, who was his domestic chaplain 
 from September 1916 until his resignation : 
 
 One's first and last impression of Bishop Percival was that 
 of the combination of reserve and " aloofness " in his manner 
 with the wonderful gentleness and courtesy which he showed 
 towards individuals. On learning that a candidate for deacon's 
 Orders, who was chosen as " Gospeller," was very unwell, the 
 Bishop sent for him before the Ordination, told him that he
 
 364 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 wished him not to miss the distinction of reading the Gospel, and 
 added that to save him from feehng the strain of the long service 
 he had ordered a chair to be put for him in a corner of the Choir, 
 and had also appointed a " deputy " to read the Gospel, in case 
 he should feel at the last moment unable to do so. 
 
 I had to meet some rather unusual difficulties of a parti- 
 cularly trying kind in my first curacy, and received the kindest 
 possible letters of advice and sympathy from the Bishop. It 
 was almost always obvious that his sympathies lay with the 
 curate rather than with the incumbent, when trouble of any kind 
 arose to disturb the relations between them. 
 
 When I returned to Hereford in the autumn of 1916 as 
 domestic chaplain, the Bishop's health was beginning to fail 
 him ; but he had lost none of his extraordinary intimate know- 
 ledge of parochial conditions all over the diocese. Sometimes 
 when engaged on his correspondence with me, if the name of 
 some remote parish came up for consideration, the Bishop would 
 close his eyes and think for a moment, then astonish me with his 
 accurate memory of all connected with the place and its incum- 
 bent. His judgments were usually gentle and most forbearing. 
 " They are feeble folk," he would remark of some particularly 
 fussy and helpless clergy. For ill-health, or poverty, he showed 
 an especially warm sympathy. More than once I have seen his 
 eyes fill with tears on reading a letter from some vicar in distress 
 of mind or body. And then out would come his cheque-book, 
 and a very generous gift would be sent, to call forth a grateful 
 letter of relief and renewed hope in reply. 
 
 He could, of course, be severe when need arose. He had no 
 mercy for double-deahng, or disloyalty in any shape or form. 
 The soul of " straightness " himself in all his actions, he could 
 not understand the shifts and evasions to which some of the 
 less honourable among his clergy had recourse from time to time. 
 But such instances were extremely few and far between. He 
 showed the utmost patience in granting interviews on almost any 
 matter to those who wished to consult him. 
 
 On one occasion a clergyman, whom I happened to have met 
 previously, arrived during breakfast " to pay his respects to 
 the Bishop," who at once went to him, and finding him a complete 
 stranger from another diocese, charmed him with his courteous 
 interest and attention. That was only one of many similar 
 instances of the Bishop's ready accessibility to all. During this 
 last year he more than once confirmed wounded soldiers in his 
 private chapel, and after the service would delight to show them 
 the many sporting trophies, once the property of his own soldier 
 son, which adorned the Hall.
 
 XV 
 
 LAST YEARS 365 
 
 In the Chapel itself he had for long been in the habit of 
 reading the lessons at the daily of&ces, and after the death of 
 his son in action he would himself read the commendation of 
 the Fallen to the divine " redeeming love " and mercy in the 
 special form of " war prayers." At celebrations he was careful 
 that the two lights of English custom should be used, and he 
 would always take the ablutions outside the Chapel at the end 
 of the service. He greatly disliked the use of the " cursing 
 Psalms," and instructed the chaplain to be careful in making 
 his selection of the psalm to be read in the shortened order of 
 morning and evening prayer. 
 
 From time to time one would gain a glimpse of his own deep 
 and earnest faith. I once ventured to put to him the famous 
 question, which was popularly supposed to be asked of every 
 candidate for an army chaplaincy, " What would you say if 
 you were called to the side of a man who had only two minutes 
 (or five minutes) to live ? " The Bishop thought for a few 
 seconds in silence, then answered, " The Twenty-third Psalm ; 
 trust in Christ." 
 
 His comments on books and their writers were invariably 
 characteristic and illuminating. He lent me Bishop Gore's book 
 on Reservation, remarking, when I returned it, that it was 
 good, but that "he argues like a mediaeval bishop." He could 
 not make much of Father Nicholai Velimirovic's book on the 
 spirit of Serbian Christianity, saying only, " It seems to be a 
 kind of mystical pronouncement." But, curiously enough, he 
 greatly enjoyed Mr. G. C. Rawlinson's book of studies in modern 
 French Catholicism, although its author's standpoint was pre- 
 cisely the reverse of his own. Probably the memory of his own 
 meeting and conversation with the late Archbishop of Albi, Mgr. 
 Mignot, had given him an interest in the French Church. 
 
 Another book which he read more than once towards the end 
 of his life was the Bishop of Durham's little volume, called 
 Memories of a Vicarage. He had a special admiration for Dr. 
 Moulc, saying once of him, " He is a very good bishop. He 
 attends to his spiritual duties." He spoke also with deep feeling 
 of Bishop Ellicott's habit of rising early for private intercession 
 for his people. At the ordinations, Dr. Percival invariably 
 repeated aloud to himself the special suffrage in the Litany for 
 the ordinands. He had a great liking and respect for the con- 
 victions of those whom he described as " moderate High Church- 
 men." Indeed, in certain respects his own views approximated 
 to theirs. Lightfoot and Hort to him were the " masters." 
 
 I asked him to lend me the MS. of the wonderfully impressive 
 charge which he delivered on the eve of my ordination. He
 
 366 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 said, " You will find it all, better done, in Lightfoot " ; and after 
 dinner Lightfoot's Ordination Addresses were sent in to my 
 room ! Needless to say, his own most striking words of counsel 
 and warning were not to be found there. 
 
 His " Nunc Dimittis " was beautiful in its peace and resigna- 
 tion. On his last Sunday in Hereford he insisted (against his 
 doctor's wishes) on receiving the Eucharist once more in his 
 Cathedral ; and on the day on which he left for Oxford he said 
 " good-bye " individually to every member of his household. 
 
 To the gentleness and strength which marked his character 
 one must add his deep, though quiet, sense of humour. We 
 dehghted to " draw him out," with his fascinating store of 
 reminiscences of the Oxford of Newman, Pusey, and Mark 
 Pattison. It was to their generation that he himself belonged, 
 and he seemed to sum up in his own character and outlook all 
 that was best and most progressive in the Church of mid- Victorian 
 days. 
 
 To the very end he was dogged by controversy. In the 
 latest years of his episcopate opinion in the Church of 
 England was greatly agitated with regard to the adoration 
 of the Reserved Sacrament. Percival was unable to attend 
 a meeting of bishops at which this was to be considered, 
 and circulated an appeal of M^hich the most important 
 paragraphs are as foUows : 
 
 I have to ask the kind indulgence of my brother bishops for 
 venturing to trouble them with this appeal, which I make (as 
 an old man) in the conviction that the usefulness and influence of 
 the Church of England is gravely threatened by the Romanising 
 section of the Church, and that it is the paramount duty of the 
 bishops to maintain the Church as a pure and spiritual branch 
 of the Church of Christ. 
 
 I suggest for consideration the following as indicating the 
 lines on which a concession may be made with safety : 
 
 1. The rubric forbidding Reservation to remain untouched, 
 recent experience having shown the wisdom of the reformers 
 and the certainty of constant trouble in maintaining any other 
 rule free from abuse under a good-natured, lax, or sympathetic 
 bishop. 
 
 2. To allow a priest the option of an alternative use in the 
 communion of the sick as follows : 
 
 Whenever he has already communicated it shall not be 
 necessary for him to communicate again, and he shall be at
 
 XV 
 
 LAST YEARS 367 
 
 liberty to consecrate sufficient bread and wine for the sick person 
 and those who communicate with him, beginning the Conse- 
 cration Prayer at the words : " The same night that He was 
 betrayed," etc., and he may also with the consent of the Bishop 
 shorten the service as the condition of the sick person or other 
 circumstances may require. 
 
 In this way the estabhshed usage of our Reformed Church 
 may be adequately safeguarded and the present backward drift 
 towards Rome, which is so dangerous to our Church and so 
 retrograde, may be stopped without offence to any loyal section 
 of Church people. 
 
 The aim of this proposal was to find some way of " meeting 
 those who feel a difificulty in regard to communion of the sick 
 and yet are honestly loyal to the spirit of the Prayer Book." 
 Once more Percival was doomed to fail through total mis- 
 understanding of those whose views he did not share. It is 
 inconceivable that any priest who feels a difficulty about the 
 communion of the sick should be relieved by a permission to 
 consecrate for the sick man without receiving the Sacrament 
 himself ; for it is far more integral to the whole doctrine of 
 the Eucharistic Sacrifice that the priest who consecrates 
 should himself receive than that when he receives he should 
 be fasting. Once more the genuine sympathy of feeling was 
 frustrated by the absence of any corresponding sympathy 
 of mind. 
 
 In the last year of his episcopate the National Mission of 
 Repentance and Hope was launched. Percival was already 
 too old to take an active part, but he concerned himself very 
 eagerly with the arrangements in the Hereford diocese, 
 attending personally every service held during a Convention 
 at Hereford that lasted for two and a half days. 
 
 It had been his custom to preach in the Cathedral every 
 year on Christmas Day. But in 1916 he wrote to Canon 
 Bannister to say that he was forbidden to attempt it : 
 
 The Palace, Hereford, 
 December 22, igi6. 
 
 Dear Canon — I am sorry to have to ask you to excuse me on 
 Christmas Day. Dr. Chapman says I must not attempt it, and, 
 what is still more important, I feel unable to prepare a sermon
 
 368 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 or to preach one when prepared. My powers of thinking and of 
 utterance are both going from me, and there is nothing more to 
 be said. 
 
 It is disappointing, as I had got my subject ready — All things 
 new in Christ — but Christ not yet fully recognised in public and 
 international affairs, and the menace to civilisation from the 
 recrudescence of anti-Christian barbaric standards in German 
 policy. 
 
 But you will give us something much better, and I hope with- 
 out great inconvenience. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 J. Hereford. 
 
 That marked the beginning of the end. Physical weak- 
 ness had begun to appear, but his patience and strength of 
 will had greatly concealed it. Moreover he was full of 
 sorrows. Friends of the old days were mostly dead. Of his 
 eight children only two survived. Already he had given 
 notice that if his health showed no improvement he would 
 resign in the following year. No improvement took place, 
 and in the summer of 19 17 he left Hereford to spend his 
 remaining days in Oxford. Of the many letters which he 
 received four shall be quoted here : 
 
 From the Headmaster of Rugby ^ 
 
 School House, Rugby, 
 Sept. 18, 1917. 
 
 My dear Lord Bishop — At the close of your work your 
 friends must all be wishing you to be conscious of the honour 
 and love in which they hold you. When I think of all the men 
 to whom I have owed much, and they are many, I think first of 
 you. Not only did you give me my first real start in life, but you 
 set me a noble example of wisdom and strength and devotion. 
 Once you referred to me in public as your son in the spirit. It 
 made me very proud, and I have longed better to deserve the 
 name. I have used your inheritance not worthily, but at least 
 with continual mindfulness of the gift. My gratitude must be 
 shown, if I can show it, in deeds, but I should like you to know 
 that I shall feel myself your debtor all my life. 
 
 For yourself I hope and pray that the years God may give 
 you yet may be blessed with good health, peace of mind, and 
 happy memories. — Believe me. Yours in grateful affection, 
 
 A. A. David. 
 
 ^ Now Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.
 
 XV LAST YEARS 369 
 
 From the Headmaster of Wellington ^ 
 
 The Lodge, 
 
 Wellington College, Berkshire, 
 
 November 23, 1917. 
 
 My dear Lord Bishop— I have often written to you for help 
 and advice, and now the spirit moves me to tell you of my grati- 
 tude. It is very sincere. Many must be feeling this towards 
 you, and I do hope that the consciousness of it will give a glow 
 to the evening of your days. Often and often when I have come 
 to the ugly corners which sometimes face all headmasters, I 
 have got courage from thinking of the fearless way in which you 
 would have faced such a situation. I am proud that I began 
 my work under you at Rugby and continued it at Clifton, where 
 your spirit can never die. There is change ahead of Enghsh 
 schools, and I hope we shall have the wisdom to meet it, and 
 that all the headmasters in England— and there are many— 
 who have caught some inspiration from you will hand it on to 
 the next generation. 
 
 I don't often come to Oxford now, but when I do I will come 
 to see you, so please do not answer this. I just wanted to say 
 " Thank you."— Yours gratefully and affectionately, 
 
 W. W, Vaughan. 
 
 From the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 
 Lambeth Palace, S.E., 
 Sept. 27, 1 91 7. 
 
 My dear Bishop — It is distressing to us to realise that we 
 are no longer to have you and Mrs. Percival as inmates of the 
 ancient Tower. But I hope we may none the less have oppor- 
 tunity of seeing you, if ^d when you are in London. 
 
 I trust that the quiet of Oxford and the release from diocesan 
 cares may be of real advantage to your health and strength, 
 
 I have valued very highly during these busy years the 
 advantage of your friendship and counsel, and these are not 
 going to be withholden from us in the coming days. May 
 God have you constantly in His keeping. — I am. Yours 
 
 affectionately, 
 
 Randall Cantuar. 
 
 * Now Headmaster of Rugby. 
 
 2 B
 
 370 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap. 
 
 From the Bishop-Designate of Hereford ^ 
 
 Deanery, Durham, 
 
 December i6, 191 7. 
 
 My dear Bishop — I have been down with a bad chill con- 
 tracted a week ago, and am still rather a wreck. Besides, I did 
 not know where you were living until this afternoon, when Mrs. 
 Percival's letter (which had been " snowed under " a mountain- 
 ous mass of letters) came into my hands. 
 
 It has seemed to me plainly my duty to accept a place on the 
 Episcopal Bench, though I foresee that in that place there can 
 be for me henceforth neither peace nor comfort. I hold it an 
 honour to succeed to one who has held so long and so worthily 
 the position of the leader of Anglican Liberalism, and I have 
 allowed myself to hope that you will not be wholly discontented 
 with having me in Hereford. — With much respect, Believe me, 
 my dear Bishop, most faithfully yours, 
 
 H. Hensley Henson, 
 
 For just over a year the Bishop lived at Oxford enjoying 
 the society of many old friends. But strength was failing 
 all the time. At last he became unable to speak, though he 
 still liked to see his friends and showed by movements of his 
 head or by the old quiet smile that he understood what was 
 being said. So he peacefully sank to his rest. On Tuesday, 
 December 3, 1918, he died. In a letter to Mrs. Percival 
 the Archbishop of York expressed the feelings of all friends 
 and pupils of Percival : 
 
 From the Archbishop of York 
 
 BiSHOPSTHORPE, YORK, 
 
 Dec. 16, 1918. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Percival — There can be no grief for him. I feel 
 with all my heart the pathos of the sight of him once so strong 
 imprisoned by infirmity. Now he has been liberated and is in 
 freedom and peace. 
 
 I like to think of him now finding ever more fully the visions 
 and ideals of his life fulfilled and indicated. 
 
 It is a wonderful tribute to his personality that a man who 
 never faltered in the assertion of his convictions even when they 
 were not popular received so large a measure of affection and 
 
 ^ Now Bishop of Durham.
 
 XV LAST YEARS 371 
 
 veneration to his blending of courage and courtesy. In his 
 championship of what he beheved to be right and his fearless 
 opposition to what he believed to be evil, in his boldness, and in his 
 tenderness, he always seemed to me a type of Christian chivalry. 
 I am sure that he will still have a high place in the spiritual 
 army which watches over the course of truth, justice and freedom. 
 I often differed from his opinions but I never failed to see and to 
 reverence the nobility of his spirit. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 Cosmo Ebor. 
 
 He was buried in the Crypt of Clifton College Chapel, 
 among the abiding monuments of his chief creative effort. 
 The four headmasters who succeeded him — Canon J. M. 
 Wilson, Canon Glazebrook, Dr. David and Mr. J. E. King — 
 were all present, as well as a great number of his friends and 
 admirers. His former pupil at Clifton, Sir Herbert Warren, 
 represented the University of Oxford. There w^ere memorial 
 services in Hereford Cathedral, at Trinity College, Oxford, 
 and in St. James's, Piccadilly. 
 
 Looking back at the long career we realise the greatness 
 of the achievement. Starting from the yeoman's home, and 
 the little school, to which in his will he left £1000 to help 
 able boys in need of assistance, he had passed the whole of 
 his working life in posts of high responsibility and in close 
 contact with the leading personalities and dominating forces 
 of his time. He had toiled consistently for liberty, for 
 peace, and for education. If, as he toiled, his own outlook 
 hardened under the stress of controversy, it is equally true 
 that to his friends his nature softened and mellowed. Many 
 who had known him as a headmaster were surprised at the 
 gentleness and accessibihty which they found when they 
 visited him at Hereford. Moreover, he was one for whom 
 the discipline of sorrow was refining. Dr. David spoke 
 truly of him : 
 
 On all he did was the mark of greatness. A friend naturally 
 shrinks from attempting to describe that greatness in cold words. 
 There is something sacred about an influence hke his.
 
 372 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL chap, xv 
 
 We feared him, and we knew the fear was good for us. 
 
 He exacted, he insisted, he was not afraid to repeat again and 
 again in his gentle and rather melancholy voice, often in the 
 same words, his appeals for corporate hfe, for high tone, for un- 
 worldly purpose, for scorn of feebleness, for determined leader- 
 ship. AH this we accepted because we knew that what he 
 demanded of us he gave himself, at cost. And we were aware 
 that there glowed behind it a great- passion for righteousnebs. He 
 grieved at that which baser men sometimes condone. It wounded 
 him. He saw no reason why men or boys should make the least 
 concession to the low, the base, the degrading, and he made us 
 feel that there was no reason. 
 
 He was one of those who led us through many sorrows to the 
 full possession of the love of God. 
 
 And perhaps the heaviest trial was the last. For many 
 months he had patiently endured the misery of weakness. And 
 then God set the strong soul free. 
 
 He was a great individuality. He never shrank from 
 standing alone. Sometimes it almost seemed that he pre- 
 ferred it. But whether he stood alone or with the multitude, 
 he always stood for righteousness as it had been given him 
 to apprehend it. He was a stern fighter, giving no quarter 
 to views that he thought erroneous. He was a constant 
 friend, never failing those who trusted his affection. He 
 was a true prophet, refusing and forbidding to compromise 
 the moral law. He was a man who lived by faith in God.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 An Address delivered at the Memorial Service, St. James's, 
 Piccadilly, on December 7, 1918 
 
 {Reprinted at the request of Dr. Percival's family) 
 
 Remember them that had the rule over you, which spake unto you the 
 word of God ; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith. — 
 Hebrews xiii. 7. 
 
 Such words are appropriate to our gathering here to-day. We 
 are met together to give thanks for a long hfe of noble service, 
 for consecrated spirit. And some of us at least are thinking of 
 ties especially close. For myself, it is the old headmaster, the 
 godfather, the venerable and affectionate counsellor for whom I 
 render thanks. And as I call to mind all that I owe to him I can 
 wish for no exhortation to memor}^ and will more apposite than 
 this : " Remember them that had the rule over you, which spake 
 unto you the word of God ; and considering the issue of their 
 life, imitate their faith." 
 
 From earliest childhood I had learnt to love Dr. Percival. 
 He was an old and specially close friend of my father, under 
 whom he worked as an assistant master at Rugby, and at whose 
 recommendation he was appointed at the age of twenty-seven 
 to be the first Headmaster of Clifton, with all the responsibility 
 of planning the main Hues on which the School should develop. 
 To him now that School looks back as the architect of its great- 
 ness, and most fittingly he has there been laid to rest. 
 
 No one questions his greatness as a headmaster ; he is one of 
 the pre-eminent figures of the nineteenth century, a century rich 
 in great educators. At Clifton his task was to create ; at Rugby 
 it was to revivify, and that perhaps is the harder of the two. It 
 was only for his last two terms that I was at Rugby as a boy in 
 his house. But I remember vividly the perfect strength and 
 mastery which enabled him to treat minor offences with singular 
 lightness, while judging with a truly awful sternness offences 
 
 373
 
 374 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 which are indicative of base or mean character. No one then in 
 the School can forget the sudden realisation of love and trust in 
 the chief whom we were losing that came to every boy at that 
 time. Dr. Percival was a headmaster of the older type. There 
 was no close intimacy, still less familiarity, between him and his 
 pupils while they were still at the School. It was only when it 
 was known that he was leaving us that many began to realise 
 their feelings towards him. He went to a diocese not at all 
 ready to welcome a man of his opinions, but by universal testi- 
 mony he won the esteem and affection even of those who most 
 strongly differed from him. His loftiness of thought and feeling, 
 his personal gentleness combined with clear conviction and 
 indomitable will, his sure faith in God — in fact, the sheer good- 
 ness of the man — drew all hearts to him. 
 
 All men revered him. Were it not that a slight indisposition 
 prevents the Archbishop of Canterbury from being present, it 
 would have been his wish to come and testify to his high apprecia- 
 tion of the friend whom he honoured. That cannot be ; and I 
 have been asked, as one who has special reasons for remembering 
 Bishop Percival with thankfulness, to speak of him here to-day, 
 the pupil speaking of his master. It is difficult to single out 
 special points in such a career or character as most deserving of 
 meditation or gratitude. I will speak only of two. This is a 
 democratic age, and Bishop Percival was a believer in democracy. 
 Yet there has never been a more thorough believer in authority 
 nor a man more expert in the exercise of it. Here was something 
 that is sadly needed to-day. Our progress in democracy wiU be 
 merely an advance to ruin unless there is a full recognition of 
 leadership, and the faculty for reverence receives the training 
 that only comes by exercise. By his keen support of all efforts 
 for the extension of education. Bishop Percival showed his belief 
 in the duty of offering to the children of all sections of society 
 facilities for the fullest development of their faculties ; in that 
 sense all should be equal. But by character and ability some 
 would rise, as he himself had risen, to positions of leadership and 
 authority. Then, though there was still equality of absolute 
 worth, because the only true dignity belongs to the doing of a 
 man's own duty, whatever it may be, yet the dignity of one 
 would be found in his loyal obedience to another, because that 
 other was invested with authority. To command is not nobler 
 than to obey ; the equality of men is in the worth before God of 
 their service, whether they render it as kings or as bondsmen. 
 So he seemed to teach us. The great democrat was a stern 
 disciplinarian. And the two found their reconciliation in his 
 own obedience to conscience and reverence to God.
 
 APPENDIX 375 
 
 This is the other point that I would single out for our recollec- 
 tion. I remember my father saying to me one day after he had 
 visited us at Lambeth : " Merely to be in his presence is to be 
 drawn nearer to God." Experience proved that this was true. 
 There was in him something of the Puritan and a great deal of 
 the Stoic. His faith was founded on the rock of solid intellectual 
 conviction and absolute dedication of will. For this reason he 
 could practise a toleration of doubtfully orthodox beliefs in 
 others which caused dismay in many quarters. He was jealous 
 for full freedom of inquiry and thought, knowing that a faith 
 carefully sheltered from doubts is a precarious support in the 
 greatest trials of life. And he took the consequences of this 
 concern for intellectual liberty, giving appointments to those 
 whose orthodoxy was suspect, because he thought the Church 
 as a whole too slow to recognise the services of those who are 
 battUng for the faith of free men against the mechanical influences 
 of the day. But this course was made possible for him, as was 
 also his contempt for the attacks to which it exposed him, by 
 his own sure faith and purpose. The fear of God of which the 
 Bible speaks, not any cringing or selfish anxiety concerning what 
 God may do to us, but a vivid sense of the awful majesty of the 
 Most High and of man's puny insignificance before Him — this 
 was very living to him and the source of his moral strength. 
 This type of mind is not expansive, and in many ways he was 
 somewhat lonely. But he longed for intimacy and affection, and 
 warmed to it when it was offered to him. 
 
 For this stoicism did not comprise the whole of his spiritual 
 life ; there was a tender and even affectionate devotion to our 
 Lord. It is no accident, I am sure, that as I recall the sight of 
 him in the pulpit at Rugby Chapel, in the days when as a boy 
 of just thirteen I looked up to that beautiful white head rising 
 in sharp contrast above the tall black-gowned figure, the words 
 that come back to me are the words of the familiar Collect : 
 " Daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of His 
 most holy life." 
 
 Such an one it is that we commemorate. " Remember them 
 that had the rule over you, which spake unto you the word of 
 God." Some of us at least will vow to remember. " And con- 
 sidering the issue of their Ufe, imitate their faith." God helping 
 us, we will. One thing we know for certain. That noble beauty 
 of character is not perished. The physical frame which served 
 him through his long life, but became at last a burden, is laid 
 aside. But wc know that with angels and archangels and all 
 the company of Heaven he lauds and magnifies the glorious 
 Name of God whom here he served and worshipped. And some
 
 376 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 of us look forward to a day when we may once more be his pupils, 
 learning from his wise and venerated counsel the lessons of life 
 in another world than this, still strengthened by his quiet and 
 gentle strength, still confirmed by his unshakable assurance, still 
 girded to enterprise by his resolute will, as he points us stiU to 
 his Master and Saviour, bidding us daily endeavour ourselves to 
 follow the blessed steps of His most holy hfe.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Rev. E. A., Clifton Master, 
 afterwards Headmaster of City 
 of London School, i6 (note) 
 
 Abbott, Evelyn, Clifton Master, 
 afterwards Fellow and Tutor of 
 Balliol, 32 
 
 Aberystwyth University College, 
 address there on Small Nation- 
 alities, 252 
 
 Adult schools, 294 
 
 Adventure, a mutual spirit of, 64 
 
 Alexander, Rev. S. A., offer of 
 Canonry to, 145 ; letters to, 132, 
 
 151. 191 
 Appleby Grammar School, 3 
 Arbitration, letter on, during a 
 
 Coal Strike, 242 
 Armenians, sympathy with, 140, 254 
 Armitage, Rev. F., Chfton Master, 
 then Headmaster, Neuenheim Col- 
 lege, 32 
 Arnold, Miss F., letter from Fox 
 How (" My father would most 
 surely have been with you "), 322 
 Arnold, Rev. C. T., letters from, 44, 
 
 48 
 Arnold, Matthew, 128 
 Asquith, H. H., Prime Minister, 303 
 Asquith, W. W., Chfton Master, 19 
 Athanasian Creed, a small storm 
 
 about, 306 
 Atlay, Bishop, his scheme for ex- 
 aminations on the Bible and 
 Prayer Book, 160, 163 
 
 BalUol supports Percival's scheme 
 for a Bristol University College, 
 263 
 Balhol, Master of, see Jowett 
 Bannister, Canon, on Bishop's gen- 
 erosity, 169 ; describes " Book 
 Boxes " scheme, 289 ; addresses 
 
 Wesleyan Harvest Festival Meet- 
 ing, 313 ; letters to him, 291, 
 322, 356, 358, 363 
 
 Barnett, Canon, on the United 
 Communion Service at Hereford 
 Cathedral, 322 
 
 Barrington Ward, M. J., Chfton 
 Master, 32 
 
 Bateman, servant and friend, 201 
 
 Benefactions, Percival's, to Chfton, 
 62 
 
 Benson, E. W., Archbishop, conse- 
 crates Percival, 134 
 
 Birdwood, Sir William, at Clifton 
 under Percival, 38 {note) 
 
 Birrell, A., M.P., his attempt to 
 make peace in the education con- 
 troversy of 1906, 185 
 
 Blackpool, National Home Reading 
 Union Meeting at, 267 
 
 Bonham Carter, E., Legal Secretary 
 in the Soudan, 211 
 
 Boston Peace Congress, 200 
 
 Botha, Louis, General, 254 
 
 Bowen, Lord C. S. C, 35 
 
 Boxing lessons sometimes desirable, 
 10 
 
 Bradby, G. F., Rugby Master, 100 
 (note), 105 ; quoted, loi sqq. 
 
 Bradby, H. C, Rugby Master, 103 
 
 Breeks, Mrs. and Miss, 4, 13 
 
 Bright, Dr. Franck, Master of Uni- 
 versity, 266 
 
 Brighton Standard on " Spurious 
 Sports," 232 
 
 Bristol University projected, 259 ; 
 reahsed, 263 
 
 Brooke, Rev. C. H., on Bishop of 
 Hereford's first Confirmation, 134 
 
 Brough Sowerby, 2 
 
 Brown, T. E., Chfton Master, 15, 19, 
 32 ; gUmpse of Percival at his 
 
 377
 
 378 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 native place, 5 ; letter of qualified 
 condolence on the Rugby Head- 
 mastership election of 1874, 50 ; 
 signs letter concerning " a happy 
 crisis in the history of the 
 School," 51 ; orchestral simile, 57 
 
 Brown's Letters quoted, 5 {note) 
 
 Bryce, Lord, 5 
 
 Burges Bayly, Rev. R., on impress- 
 iveness of Bishop Percival's Con- 
 firmations, 160 ; letters to, 191, 
 
 242, 355 
 Burrows, Montagu, Professor, 28 
 Butler, Rev. A. G. (of " Butler's 
 Leap "), Rugby Master, then 
 first Headmaster of Haileybury, 
 walk with Percival and Wilson, 
 
 56 
 
 Butler, Professor H. E., Head of 
 the School at Rugby, his appre- 
 ciation of his Headmaster, 108 
 
 Bywater, Professor, an obiter dictum 
 of, 70 ; and on an utterance of 
 Percival's, 69 
 
 Callender House, CUfton, 80 
 Call Over note, a Rugby, 114 
 Camel and donkey riding, 209 
 Campbell, Mrs. Lewis, on Clifton 
 
 society in 1865, 14 
 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H., 303 
 Cannan, Charles, 59 ; Tutor of 
 
 Trinity, 76 
 Cannan, E., Professor, 236 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of, see 
 
 Temple, Benson, Davidson 
 Capes, Canon, his death a keen 
 
 personal sorrow to the Bishop, 
 
 343 
 Carnegie, Andrew, helps about the 
 
 " Book Boxes " scheme, 289 
 Case, T., President of C.C.C, 258 
 Cay, Charles H., Clifton Master, 
 
 15. 25. 31 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, M.P., " ac- 
 compUshed two great revolutions 
 in English hfe," 280 
 Chapman, Dr., 137 ; letter to, 139 
 Charges, the six Episcopal, 146 sqq. 
 Chinese cooUes controversy, 252 
 " Christian Ministers' Club," 313 
 " Christianity and Industrial Prob- 
 lems," Report of Archbishop's 
 Committee, 82 
 Churchill, Winston, 253 
 
 Church Times, improved in tone, 
 
 152 
 Clifton College, Chapter II. 
 Cliftonians, Old, address to Dr. Per- 
 cival at Jubilee meeting, 59 
 Clough, Arthur H., 128 
 Cobbe, Miss Frances Power, 15 
 Compliment, a genuine, 115 
 Congress, Church, paper at, 181 
 Congress, Peace, at the Hague, 256 ; 
 
 at Boston, 200 
 Cookson, C, Fellow of Magdalen, 59 
 Courtney, Leonard, quoted, 205 
 Creighton, Rev. M., Bishop of Peter- 
 borough, presents Percival at his 
 Consecration, 134 
 Cramer, Canon, letters to, about the 
 
 United Communion Service, 315 
 Cricket at Clifton, 36 
 Crooks, Will, speaks at Hereford, 363 
 
 Dakyns, H. G., Clifton Master : 
 summarily enlisted, 18 ; edits 
 Brown's Poems, 19 ; teaches 
 Clifton the use of Rugby foot- 
 ball, 35 ; congratulates the Per- 
 civals on going to Rugby, 95 
 
 David, Dr. A. A., appointed to 
 Rugby mastership by Percival, 
 Headmaster of CUfton, then 
 of Rugby, now Bishop of St. 
 Edmundsbury and Ipswich, 105 ; 
 writes on Percival's resignation 
 of Hereford, 368 ; last words 
 about the Bishop, 371 
 
 Davidson, Dr. Randall T., Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, writes on 
 Bishop of Hereford's resignation, 
 thanking him for " friendship 
 and counsel," 369 
 
 Davies, Mr. Arthur, impressions of 
 Rugby Divinity teaching, 1 1 1 
 
 Davies, E. J., 29 
 
 Davies, Rev. J., on Percival's 
 interest in scheme of Bishop 
 Atlay's, 163 
 
 Day Schools v. Boarding Schools, 37 
 
 Debus, Dr. H., Master at Clifton, 
 later Professor at Royal Naval 
 College, Greenwich, 32 
 
 Disraeli succours Hayman, 44 
 
 Dissatisfaction with Oxford, grounds 
 
 of. 53. 71 
 Dobell, Sydney, his misgivings on 
 Female Education removed, 259
 
 INDEX 
 
 379 
 
 Dunn, T. W., Clifton Master, then 
 Headmaster of Bath College, 28 
 
 Eardley-Wilmot, Mr., letter to, 226 
 
 Edwards, Rev. C. L., reports "a 
 friend who wishes to remain 
 anonymous," 168 ; on Church 
 Association vans, 143 ; letter 
 to, 143 
 
 ElUot, Dean, 80 
 
 ElUs, Professor Robinson, his his- 
 toric visit to Chfton, 66 ; letters 
 from, 90, 91 
 
 Emmett, Tom, 103 
 
 Evans, A. H., Captain of Oxford 
 Eleven, 36 
 
 Evans, Rev. Charles, accepts and 
 then decUnes Clifton Headmaster- 
 ship, n 
 
 Evans, Rev. T. S., great scholar, 
 Rugby Master, 8 
 
 Exercise " can be taken another 
 day." 26 
 
 Fitch, Sir Joshua, 267 
 
 Fletcher, Frank, Master at Rugby, 
 later Master of Marlborough, 
 then of Charterhouse, 105 
 
 Flower, Rev. J. E., on the Bishop's 
 services as Chairman of the 
 National Home Reading Union, 
 268 
 
 Foch, Marshal, quoted, 29 
 
 Football at Clifton, 34 
 
 Foundations, by Canon Streeter, 342 
 
 Fox, Mrs. E. L., note to Mrs. Per- 
 cival, 51 
 
 Fremantle, Dr., initiator of Christian 
 Conference, 310 
 
 Fry, Lewis, M.P., 15 
 
 Furneaux, Rev. W. M.. Chfton 
 Master, later Headmaster of Rep- 
 ton, then Dean of Winchester ; 
 letter to, 2 ; secured as a master, 
 17 ; asked to be Missioner at 
 Chfton College Mission, 39 
 
 Galpin, Canon A. J., impressions 
 of President of Trinity, 74, 89 
 
 Games, importance of, 35 
 
 George, Reuben, on Percival's ser- 
 mon at the " Tutorial Class Move- 
 ment " inauguration, 281 
 
 Girdlestone, Canon E., on the Rugby 
 election of 1869, 43 
 
 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 254 
 
 Gladstone, W. G. C, M.P., his 
 amendments to the Welsh Church 
 Bill, supported or suggested by 
 Percival, 245 
 
 Glazebrook, Rev. M. G., Canon (third 
 Headmaster of Chfton), 59, 37 ^ 
 
 Gore, Bishop Charles, his recol- 
 lections of President of Trinity, 
 89 ; preaches at his Consecra- 
 tion, 134 ; moves in the Lords 
 for a Royal Commission on Uni- 
 versities, 278 
 
 Grace, W. G., 35 
 
 Green, Professor T. H.. 167, 265 
 
 Grenfell, J. G., Chfton Master, 19 
 
 Guthrie, Canon, 11 
 
 Gwatkin, Professor, 324 
 
 Hague Peace Conference, 256 
 
 Haig, F.M. Earl, at Chfton under 
 Percival, 38 (note) 
 
 Haldane, Lord, 59 
 
 Hall, H. S., Chfton Master, 19 
 
 Harcourt, Sir W., letters to Times 
 on educational crisis, 174 
 
 Hardwicke, Mrs., 14 
 
 Harfords of Blaize Castle, the, 15 
 
 Harvey, Rev. T. W., 305 
 
 Hayman, Dr., 43 
 
 Henson, Dr. H. Hensley, Bishop 
 Designate of Hereford, on his 
 succession to Percival, 370 
 
 Hicks Beach, Sir M., his Budget, 251 
 
 Hill, Dr. A., Master of Downing, on 
 National Home Reading Union, 
 267 
 
 Hine, Bishop, 355 
 
 Hodges, Dean, Cambridge, U.S.A., 
 200 
 
 Holland, INIiss Louisa, see Percival 
 
 HoUoway College, the Royal, scheme 
 for, 270 
 
 Horace, Percival's love of, 28 
 
 Hort's Christian Ecclesia, 170 
 
 Horton, Dr., at Conference at Here- 
 ford, 312 
 
 Hughes, Thomas, 156 
 
 Humphry Ward, Mrs., 265 
 
 Hutton, Dr., 6 {note) 
 
 Hymnal, Chfton, high aims for, 34 
 
 Irwin, S. T., Chfton Master, 19 
 
 Jackson, Sir T. G., and Kettel Hall, 
 86
 
 38o 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 Leech, Joseph, Editor of Bristol 
 Times and Mirror, 224 
 
 Lee Warner, Henry, letter of con- 
 gratulation on the Rugby elec- 
 tion of 1886, 94 
 
 Legion of Honour conferred on 
 Colonel Arthur Percival, 359 
 
 Leigh, Hon. J. W., Dean of Here- 
 ford, 289 
 
 Leipner, Adolph, first Science 
 Master at CUfton (1862), after- 
 wards Professor at Bristol 
 University College, 32 
 
 Leonard, Professor G. H., 263 ; his 
 account of the Colston dinner at 
 which Mr. H. H. Wills's gift to 
 Bristol was announced, 264 
 
 Lightfoot, Bishop J. B., 167 
 
 Lilley, Archdeacon, appointed Canon 
 of Hereford, 336 
 
 " Loafing," 35 
 
 Lux Mundi, 150 
 
 Luxor visited, 210 
 
 Macgregor, J. G., Chfton Master, 
 afterwards Professor in Edin- 
 burgh University, 19 
 McKenna, Mr., correspondence with 
 
 Bishop, 247 
 Magrath, J. R., Provost of Queen's, 
 
 265 
 Maitland, Miss Agnes C, 275 
 Mansbridge, Mr. A., on Workers' 
 
 Educational Association, 277 
 Martineau, Dr., letter dated on his 
 
 90th birthday, 133 
 Massachusetts poets, 206 
 M.C.C. beaten in one innings in 
 
 Chfton's first Lord's match, 36 
 Michell, Mr. W. G., on Rugby 
 
 School Mission, 117 
 Milner, Sir Frederick, ig6 
 Milton Tercentenary, its sugges- 
 tion to Percival, 311 
 Modern sides, 54 
 Montefiore, Mr., 43 
 Moor, E. N. P., CUfton boy and 
 
 master, 18 
 Moore, George, 40 
 Morley, Bishop, 213 
 Moule, H. C. G., Bishop of Durham, 
 his book. Memories of a Vicarage, 
 365 
 
 ' On which he based a precept no less characteristic — "Collect something, if only postage 
 stamps." 
 
 James, Dr. H. A., President of St. 
 John's College, Oxford, formerly 
 Headmaster of Rugby, his im- 
 pressions of Percival's work there, 
 107 
 
 Jefferson, Dr., 4 
 
 Jex Blake, Rev. Dr. T. W., suggests 
 Rugby Assistant Mastership to 
 Percival, 7 ; Headmaster of Rugby 
 (1874), 47 ; resigns (1886), 93 
 
 Johnson, Mrs. Basil, relates the 
 story of Watts's portrait of Per- 
 cival, 42 
 
 Jowett, Dr. B., Master of BaUiol, 
 warns against overwork, 34 ; 
 advises against standing for 
 Rugby (1874), 49; "sorry and 
 glad " at result of election, 49 ; 
 deprecates disappointment with 
 Oxford, 78, 84 ; urges Oxford 
 friends to support Percival's 
 election to Trinity Presidency, 
 64 ; supports the Bristol Uni- 
 versity College scheme, 262 ; 
 letters to, 83, 85 
 
 "Justice of our Cause" (1914), 
 Times letter from Bishop, 357 
 
 Karnak, 211 
 
 Keble, John, 155 
 
 Khartoum visited, 214 
 
 King, Dr. J. E., Headmaster of 
 
 Clifton, 371 
 King, Rev. H., 5, 7 
 King, Mrs., 7 
 Kingsley, Canon Charles, lecture 
 
 in Big School, Chfton, on " Eyes 
 
 and no Eyes," ^ 33 
 Kitchin, Dean, 83 
 
 Labour Exchanges, 298 
 
 Labour Party, 242 
 
 " Laitha," 2 
 
 Lang, Dr. C. G., Archbishop of 
 York, 303 ; letter of sympathy 
 to Mrs. Percival (Dec. 16, 191 8), 
 
 370. 371 
 Langmire, Ann, Wilham, and Jane, 2 
 Langmire, Richard, 3 
 Latin prose, surprising, 30 
 Layman, a Cathohc, letter to, 145 
 Layman, A, letter in Hereford Times, 
 
 337
 
 INDEX 
 
 381 
 
 Mozley, Mr. J. R. : Percival's gentle- 
 ness, 16 ; T. H. Green and Hegel, 
 167 
 
 Mundella, Mr., 43 
 
 Music at Clifton, 33 
 
 Myers, F. W. H., 258 
 
 Nash, Mr. Vaughan, on Percival's 
 
 Bristol activities, 80 
 National Home Reading Union, 267 
 National Mission of Repentance 
 
 and Hope, his interest in, 367 
 Natural Science at CUfton, 33 
 Neild, Mr. T., notes on educational 
 
 work in Hereford, 291 
 " Neither is he that planteth any- 
 thing . . . ," text of Percival's 
 
 first sermon at CUfton in 1862, 
 
 and of his Jubilee sermon there 
 
 in 1912, 23 
 Nettleship, Professor H., 265 
 New College aids in the Bristol 
 
 University College movement, 
 
 263 
 Newbolt, Sir Henry, CUfton re- 
 
 rainiscences in his novel The 
 
 Twyntans, 21 
 Newman, J. H., Cardinal, visits 
 
 Trinity in 1880, 77 
 Newton, Lord, his BiU on " Spurious 
 
 Sports," 235 
 Nichol, Professor, lectures to CUfton 
 
 Sixth Form, 32 
 Norcock, Rev. C. R., reminiscences, 
 
 363 
 Norris, Canon J. P., 96 
 
 Oakeley, E. M., CUfton Master, 19, 
 32, 33 ; accompanies Percival 
 and Brown to Lord's match, 36 ; 
 letter to Mrs. Percival, 50 ; 
 his " short sketch of a great 
 career," 64 ; letter to him de- 
 scribing Percival's first impres- 
 sions on his return to Rugby, 98 ; 
 letters, Jan. 22, 1895 ("Hereford 
 notUkely to come my way "), and 
 Feb. 26, 1895 (" a great surprise, 
 just when I had ordered our 
 tickets for Egypt. ... I wish I 
 had been young enough to stay 
 at Rugby another five years "), 
 
 132, 133 
 Omdurman, visit to field of, 215 
 Oxford disappointments, 53 
 
 Oxford University Extension move- 
 ment, 265 
 
 Pamphlet on Connection of Uni- 
 versities and Great Towns, 260 
 " Parallelograms " disclaimed, 6 
 " Parting Reminders," 30 
 Patey, George Edward, Rugby 
 School Marshal (notes a lapse), 8 
 Pa ton, the Rev. J. B., 314 
 Paton, J. L., Rugby Master, now 
 Headmaster of Manchester Gram- 
 mar School, 105, 323 
 Pattison, Mark, 77, 278 
 Pau, 7 
 
 Pearson, J. E., Clifton Master, 5 
 Pelham, Professor H. F., 274 
 Percival, Colonel Arthur Jex Blake, 
 awarded Legion of Honour, 359 ; 
 death, when about to be given 
 command of a brigade, 360 ; 
 letters to, 248-251 
 Percival, Cecil (Mrs. Arthur Per- 
 cival), letter to, 360 
 Percival, Charles, 15 {note) 
 Percival, EUzabeth Ann (Mrs. Basil 
 
 Johnson), 42 
 Percival, Frederick, 78 
 Percival, John 
 
 1834-1S55. Parentage, early years, 
 and first schools, 2 ; Appleby 
 Grammar School, 3 ; Taberdar 
 of Queen's, 5 ; Oxford Honours, 
 6 ; a fifth First Class prevented 
 by illness ; medical advice 
 sends him to the South ; 
 sequel, 7 
 i860. A Master at Rugby for 
 
 two years ; then he becomes 
 1862. First Headmaster of Clifton. 
 Temple's forecast, 11 
 
 Marries Miss Louisa Holland 
 (Oct. II), 14 
 
 Glimpses, by Mrs. Lewis 
 Campbell, Miss Alice Wink- 
 worth, Mrs. H. C. Watson, of 
 CUfton and Bristol society, and 
 the Percivals' relation to it, 
 14-16 
 
 The Clifton masters, and 
 some methods of securing them, 
 17, 18 ; Canon Wilson's ac- 
 count of Headmaster, masters, 
 and boys, 18-21 
 
 Percival's sermons described
 
 382 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 Percival, John (contd.) — 
 
 by Sir H. Newbolt, Canon 
 Wilson, and Sir H. Warren, 
 20-29 ; his first Qifton ser- 
 mon's text, " Neither is he 
 that planteth anything, nor he 
 that watereth, but God that 
 giveth the increase " — also the 
 text of his Jubilee sermon there 
 in 1912 
 
 1867. Extract from his first ser- 
 mon in the new Chapel, June 
 23, 1867, 23-25 
 
 1869. Two years later, Dr. Tem- 
 ple becoming Bishop of Exeter, 
 Percival stood for the vacant 
 Headship of Rugby, but was 
 rejected in favour of Dr. 
 Hayman, 43 
 
 His foresight and courage 
 were shown in the recognition 
 from the first of the claims of 
 Natural Science.^ The dis- 
 tinguished Science teachers he 
 appointed form an impressive 
 list. One of them, Sir William 
 Tilden, F.R.S., writes : " The 
 world is much indebted to Dr. 
 Percival's insight, for without 
 any knowledge of Natural 
 Science he saw how important 
 some knowledge of that kind 
 was going to be," 33 
 
 Another strong point in the 
 CUfton system from the first 
 was the passing direct from 
 school of candidates for the 
 Indian Civil Service and the 
 Army, 38 
 
 In fostering Music he was 
 equally early in the field, 
 though himself no musician. 
 Besides other schemes for its 
 advancement, both in the 
 School and in Bristol, one — 
 the Sunday evening music and 
 lecture — grew into an im- 
 portant School institution [and 
 gave scope for memorable ad- 
 
 dresses by Brown, Dakyns, 
 Irwin, Vaughan, and others of 
 the Staff, and by visitors — the 
 Bishop of Exeter (Dr. Temple), 
 Professor Bonamy Price, Sir 
 Herbert Warren, Judge Thomas 
 Hughes, Sir Edward Fry, Mr. 
 George Macdonald, etc.], 33 
 
 1872. The making of the School 
 Hymn Book greatly interested 
 him, and drew from him advice 
 to the compilers in which, as 
 usual, he anticipated much 
 later views, 33, 34 
 
 From the beginning he set a 
 high value on games as a factor 
 in education ; in this connection 
 the School motto — " Spiritus 
 intus alit " — may be taken to 
 suggest that the Percivalian 
 spirit had not a Uttle to do 
 with the very remarkable early 
 success of Clifton in athletics" 
 {1867-1887). He was generally 
 to be seen in the Close during 
 " foreign " matches, 35, 36 
 
 The Town Boys, a very large 
 element at Clifton, he organised 
 into " Houses," making them 
 equal sharers with the rest in 
 the disciphne and various ac- 
 tivities of school life (cp. for 
 his views on Day Schools v. 
 Boarding Schools his address 
 to Whitgift School in 191 1). 
 Town parents also submitted 
 gladly to the yoke, 36, 37 
 
 1870. The School Mission in 
 Bristol — the first School Mis- 
 sion — was the result of his 
 deep interest in the great 
 neighbour city, and also of 
 his hopes that the School would 
 derive from it, as the reward 
 of their interest, some training 
 in citizenship, 38 
 
 [In both aspects the enter- 
 prise attracted the sympathy 
 of the veteran author of Tom 
 
 ' Natural Science even at Rugby was not regularly established in the school curriculum till 
 1865, but it had been an alternative subject to German in the Upper School, to French below, 
 since about 1853, when Dr. Goulbum appointed the Rev. B. Compton "Natural Philosophy " 
 Master. He was succeeded by Mr. Highton, in whose absence Dr. Temple during his first half 
 year as Headmaster took all the Natxoral Philosophy sets himself. The present writer treasures 
 his note-book in Experimental Mechanics, the memorial of the first teaching he got from 
 Dr. Temple.— E. M. O.
 
 INDEX 
 
 383 
 
 Percival, John (contd.) — 
 
 Brown, who wrote : " The CUf- 
 ton Register is a noble record 
 of work for England, and 
 Clifton may well be proud of 
 it, and most of all, in my 
 judgment, of the example set 
 in the Mission to the other great 
 schools."] 
 
 His eflEorts in support of 
 social reform were not confined 
 to Bristol. The Life of George 
 Moore by Smiles relates the 
 effect of his letter to Moore on 
 Westmoreland morality, and 
 shows his interest in Moore's 
 scheme to enable clever poor 
 boys to better their education, 
 41, 42 ; Mrs. Basil Johnson, 
 the Bishop's daughter, tells 
 the story of Watts 's por- 
 trait of her father, a me- 
 morial of Mr. Moore's friend- 
 ship, 42 
 1874. He stands again for Rugby 
 (Dr. Hayman having been dis- 
 missed), and is a second time 
 rejected, his friend Dr. T. W. 
 Jex Blake being elected by a 
 small majority, 44 
 
 1878. Inauguration of a Jewish 
 House at Chfton, the first ex- 
 periment of the kind, 43 
 
 The first seventeen years of 
 Clifton produced a remarkable 
 Honours List, 38 
 
 He accepts the offered Presi- 
 dency of Trinity, 52 ; Canon 
 Wilson's impressions of his 
 reasons for leaving Chfton, 53 ; 
 Oxford feehngs of surprise, 65 ; 
 circumstances of the election, 
 66 ; Sir H. Warren on his Presi- 
 dency, 75 ; friction between 
 him and the Fellows and Under- 
 graduates, 74 ; " his rule irk- 
 some to some, but with result 
 indisputable," 74 
 
 1879. His interest in the cause 
 of Female Education ; prime 
 mover in estabhshment of 
 Somerville College, and first 
 President of its Council, 76 
 
 1880. Winter trip to Engadine, 
 and its episodes, 77 ; enter- 
 
 tains Cardinal Newman at 
 Trinity, 77 
 
 1 88 1. Loses his very promising 
 youngest son Frederick, 78 
 
 Appointed Canon of Bristol ; 
 starts there Sunday Evening 
 Nave Services, himself pro- 
 viding a pulpit, 80 ; account 
 of his Bristol activities by 
 Mr. Vaughan Nash, 80 
 
 1882. Enthusiastic work as Pion- 
 eer of the University Extension 
 movement ; urges the Colleges 
 to plant colonies of their 
 Fellows in the great provincial 
 towns ; offers to resign 
 Trinity, and take over the 
 Censorship of the Unattached ; 
 Jowett's advice, 83 ; starts the 
 new buildings at Trinity, 86 
 
 Initiates Sunday Evening 
 Lectures at St. Mary's, 87 ; his 
 Trinity sermons described by 
 Bishop Gore and Canon Galpin, 
 89 
 
 DecUnes to stand for the 
 Eton Headmastership, and, 
 shortly afterwards, for Harrow, 
 89, 90 
 
 1886. Invited by the Rugby 
 Governing Body — which had 
 rejected him in 1869 and 
 1874 — he accepts the Head- 
 mastership of Rugby, 90-95 ; 
 congratulations of friends, 94, 
 95 ; first bright impressions of 
 Rugby (93) darkened by the 
 need, soon reaUsed, of a moral 
 reformation, and by the doubt 
 whether the short span likely 
 to be granted would suffice for 
 its achievement [he was now 
 (1887) fifty-three], loi 
 
 1887. Stamps out idleness ; abol- 
 ishes " unwholesome " athletic 
 distinctions ; revives respon- 
 sibiUty of the Sixth Form ; 
 keenly interests himself in 
 Rugby games — but only as a 
 part of his system, 103 
 
 His choice of masters, and 
 relations with them, 105 ; im- 
 proves the status of Town Boys, 
 making a Town " House," iii 
 
 First day of Term Addresses
 
 384 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 Percival, John {contd.) — 
 
 to School, and especially to 
 new boys, 113 
 
 His absolute control of the 
 School ; symptomatic incident 
 at School House Prayers, 114 ; 
 not merely " popular," but, 
 though feared, yet in the 
 deepest sense loved ; but a 
 terror to evildoers, 113 
 
 Inspires the institution of 
 the Rugby School Missions, 117 
 1890. Writes to the Times, " well 
 knowing how unpopular his 
 action would be," on Welsh 
 Disestablishment, 118 ; preaches 
 at Westminster Abbey, de- 
 nouncing gambling, and lament- 
 ing a racing Prime Minister, 123 
 
 Dr. James's impressions of 
 his Headmastership, 107 ; Mr. 
 H. E. Butler's, 108 ; Mr. A. 
 Davies's, iii ; Mr. W. G. 
 Michell's. 117; Mr. G. F. 
 Bradby's, 124 
 
 1895. " He did what he set out 
 to do, and Rugby will for 
 ever honour him," 114 
 
 Appendix to Rugby Chapter : 
 sermon at unveiling of medal- 
 Uon of Archbishop Temple at 
 Rugby, June 25, 1905, 125-129 
 
 Lord Rosebery offers him 
 the Bishopric of Hereford, which 
 after some hesitation he accepts, 
 132 ; congratulations from Dr. 
 Martineau and others ; con- 
 secrated in Westminster Abbey, 
 136 ; makes his first Convoca- 
 tion speech in favour of Welsh 
 Disestablishment, 137 ; writes 
 to the Times criticising a 
 memorial to Lord Salisbury, 
 in which was suggested addi- 
 tional aid to voluntary schools, 
 178 ; paper at Church Con- 
 gress on the Education con- 
 troversy, 181 ; writes in the 
 Nineteenth Century a " Plea 
 for Mutual Concessions," 185 
 
 1896. Death of Mrs. Percival, 
 138 ; the greatness of his loss, 
 141, 142 
 
 His first appointment to a 
 Canonry ("of a definite Catho- 
 
 lic " — "it is of no moment 
 what people will say "), 145 
 
 1898. His six Visitation Charges, 
 each deaUng with some main 
 topic of the day, 146 sqq. ; 
 correspondence about one of 
 them with Bishop Talbot, 151 
 
 Starts the Diocesan Mes- 
 senger ; gift of books by 
 Thomas Hughes (who died in 
 1897) to Rugby boys, 156 
 
 1899, Jan. 18. Marries Miss Mary 
 Symonds, 157 
 
 Preaches at the Hague Peace 
 Congress, 256 
 
 1 90 1. Comments in his second 
 Charge on the end of the Boer 
 War, and national O/Spts and 
 vifxeffLs, 173 
 
 A " pro-Boer " only so far 
 as judging our pre-War policy 
 mistaken, 248 ; denounces the 
 importation of Chinese coolies 
 to South Africa, 253 ; supports 
 Campbell-Bannerman in his 
 " epoch-making South African 
 policy," 254 
 Proposes in his second Charge 
 " the establishment of a Church 
 Council in every parish," thus 
 anticipating the Enabling Act 
 of 1919, 173 
 
 1902. Moves an amendment on 
 the Education Bill of this year, 
 proposing compulsory Continu- 
 ation Schools, which found 
 little support then, but was 
 enacted in a strengthened form 
 in 1918, 185 
 
 1904. His lifelong interest in the 
 war against Drunkenness and 
 Gambling was displayed in the 
 Licensing Bill controversies of 
 1 904- 1 908 ; he opposed the 
 Bill of 1904 as " designed to 
 benefit the Brewers," 228 ; 
 supported Mr. Asquith's abor- 
 tive Bill, 228 ; moved for 
 Committee to inquire into the 
 increase of betting, 229 ; (hence 
 the Street Betting Act) ; moved 
 the second reading of a Bill 
 (19 1 2) to restrict gambling 
 advertisements, 234 
 
 Attends the Peace Congress
 
 INDEX 
 
 385 
 
 Percival, John (contd.) — 
 
 at Boston, U.S.A. ; preaches 
 there, and addresses 4000 
 hearers, 202 
 1905. Visits Egypt to see his son 
 Colonel Arthur Percival ; his 
 ten days' camel ride, 209 ; 
 account of the tour in extracts 
 from letters to Mrs. Percival, 
 209-223 
 
 His equally lifelong interest 
 in the cause of National Edu- 
 cation, 258-283 
 1868. In 1868 he and Mrs. Per- 
 cival formed a Committee at 
 Clifton to promote the Higher 
 Education of Women, and 
 secured for the cause many 
 eminent lecturers, 258 ; and 
 Bristol University College and 
 Clifton High School for Girls 
 were first projected about the 
 same time (1872), 259 
 1879. He was first President of 
 the Council of Somerville Col- 
 lege, and a prime mover of 
 the Oxford University Exten- 
 sion movement, 265 
 1890. First Chairman of Council 
 of National Home Reading 
 Union, 267 
 1895. Gave evidence before the 
 Royal Commission on Second- 
 ary Education, containing pro- 
 posals involving the abohtion 
 of compulsory Greek, and other- 
 wise anticipating coming re- 
 forms, 268 
 1897. On the defeat, at both 
 Universities, of the proposal 
 to grant degrees to women, he 
 came forward (the day after 
 the Cambridge decision !) with 
 a fully developed scheme for a 
 Women's University, on the 
 ground that " it may reason- 
 ably be doubted whether the 
 mixed education under a tradi- 
 tional system formed and in- 
 tended exclusively for men 
 should be the sole kind of 
 university education accessible 
 to women" {Times letter, 
 dated May 22, 1897), 270 
 1903. Presides at the great Con- 
 
 ference which voted the form- 
 ation of the Workers' Educa- 
 tional Association; Mr. A. Mans- 
 bridge on his influence, 277 
 1905. With the help of his friend, 
 Mr. Andrew Carnegie, he in- 
 augurates the " excellently 
 conceived and widely bene- 
 ficial scheme " of Book Boxes, 
 289 
 
 Becomes Chairman of the 
 Archbishop's Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge Missionary Exhibitions 
 Committee, 294 ; " Father 
 Ignatius " attacks his third 
 Visitation Charge, which had 
 caused much stir in the Press, 
 and was called by the Liver- 
 pool Daily Post " as salutary 
 and sane a State Paper as any 
 Prelate of the Establishment 
 has ever put forth," 288 
 
 1907. Supports Bishop Gore's 
 motion for the appointment of 
 a Royal Commission on the 
 Universities, 278 
 
 Impressions of Mr. Reuben 
 George of his sermon at the 
 inauguration of the Tutorial 
 Class Movement, 281 
 
 Initiates a Social Service 
 Committee to bring home to the 
 Church people of Hereford 
 the nature and importance of 
 " problems about wages of 
 labourers, state of cottages, 
 drunkenness, gambling, and 
 immorality," 295 
 
 1908. Suffers a great blow in the 
 death of his eldest son Robert, 
 296 
 
 The Milton Tercentenary 
 Conference at Hereford ; the 
 " Christian Ministers' Club " 
 there, 313 
 
 1909. Supports Lloyd George's 
 Finance Bill ; sympathises with 
 the aims of the Labour Party, 
 but in a letter to the Times ad- 
 vocates arbitration in Strikes, 
 242 ; opposes the Bill for mar- 
 riage with deceased wife's sister, 
 247 
 
 His natural disappointment 
 at being judged too old for the 
 
 2 C
 
 386 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 Percival, John (contd.) — 
 
 Archbishopric of York, 303 ; 
 plan for a Hostel for Students 
 for Ordination at Hereford, 304 
 1 91 1. Becomes first President of 
 the National League of Workers 
 with Boys ; Mr. J. H. White- 
 house's account, 299 
 
 The United Communion Ser- 
 vice in Hereford Cathedral, 
 315 ; discussion thereon in 
 Convocation and elsewhere ; 
 letters of sympathy from Miss 
 F. Arnold of Fox How, Canon 
 Barnett, Mr. J. L. Paton, Mr. 
 St. Loe Strachey, editor of the 
 Spectator, 322 ; the Bishop 
 defends his action in his fifth 
 Visitation Charge, 330 
 
 1914. He loses his son Guthrie, 
 
 354 
 
 Advocates British neutrality 
 in the threatened European 
 War, but is " suddenly illu- 
 minated " by the German 
 invasion of Belgium, 356 ; 
 writes to the Times on " The 
 Justice of our Cause," 357 
 
 " Spends his eightieth birth- 
 day characteristicalty," 359 
 
 Death of his son Colonel 
 Arthur Percival, who had just 
 been given the Legion of 
 Honour and was about to be 
 promoted to the command of 
 a Brigade, 360 ; he founds a 
 Scholarship at Clifton in his 
 memory, 361 
 
 1915. His sixth and last Charge, 
 mainly devoted to the justi- 
 fication of his policy in making 
 appointments, 362 
 
 1916. Circulates proposals on the 
 question of the Reservation of 
 the Sacrament, with the aim of 
 finding some way of "meeting 
 those who feel a difficulty in 
 regard to communion of the 
 sick and yet are honestly loyal 
 to the spirit of the Prayer 
 Book." 367 
 
 Recollections of the Rev. 
 C. R. Norcock, 363 
 
 The National Mission of Re- 
 pentance and Hope, 367 
 
 Forbidden by his doctor to 
 preach his usual Christmas 
 sermon, 367 
 1917- Resigns Bishopric, and 
 leaves Hereford for Oxford ; 
 letters from the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, Dr. Hensley Hen- 
 son. Dr. David, Mr. W. W. 
 Vaughan, 368 
 191 8, Dec. 3. The End, 370; letter 
 from the Archbishop of York, 
 370 
 Percival. Mrs., nie Louisa Holland, 
 her marriage, 14 ; influence at 
 Clifton, 16 ; at Rugby, 104 ; at 
 Hereford, 143 ; letter from her 
 to Mrs. Wait, 136 ; anecdote of 
 a caricature, 76 
 Percival, John Guthrie, 76, 354 
 Percival, Rev. Launcelot J., letters to, 
 
 229. 355. 361, 363 
 Percival, Mrs., rn^e Mary Symonds, 
 marriage, 157 ; letters to. Chap- 
 ter IX., 200, 202 
 Percival, Robert Hardwicke. 296 
 Percival, William, 2 
 Percival, William, 15 {note) 
 Perry. J.. Clifton Master, after- 
 wards Professor and F.R.S., 32 
 Philps, Rev. F. B.. letter to. 162 ; 
 gives account of Bishop's work 
 for Diocesan Mission, 168 
 Pinder. Rev. N., 66 
 " Political sympathies astray," 
 
 sermon at Chfton (1878), 254 
 Powell. Rev. F. E.. appointed Vicar 
 
 of Bromyard. 340 
 Problems for second Headmaster 
 
 of Clifton. 54 
 Problems of Boy Life, with Intro- 
 duction by Bishop. 302 
 
 Raper, R. W., 67 
 
 Rashdall, Dr. Hastings, Dean of 
 Carlisle, 336 
 
 Rawnsley, Canon, first Chfton Col- 
 lege Missioner in Bristol, 39 
 
 Reinold, A. W., Chfton Master, 
 afterwards Professor, 32 
 
 Revenge, humorous, on twice-erring 
 bicyclist, 30 
 
 Richardson, Rev. J., Headmaster of 
 Appleby School, 4 
 
 Ripon, Bishop of (Boyd Carpenter), 
 207
 
 INDEX 
 
 3^7 
 
 Robertson, Dr. A., Bishop of Exeter, 
 
 describes circumstances of Trinity 
 
 election, 66 ; recollection of Per- 
 
 cival's sermons, 89 
 Robertson, Rev. James, Rugby 
 
 Master, afterwards Headmaster 
 
 of Haileybury, 9 
 Robinson, Mr. W., 3 
 Rosebery, Lord, offers Percival 
 
 Bishopric of Hereford, 130 
 Rugby organisation adopted at 
 
 Clifton, 34 ; Clifton repays, 1 1 1 
 Rugby School, Chapter IV. 
 
 St. James's, Piccadilly, Address, 
 
 Dec. 7, 1918, 373 
 St. Mary's, Oxford, letter to Vicar 
 
 of, 87 
 Scientific Society, Clifton College, 
 
 Scott Holland, Canon, letter of 
 condolence, 140 
 
 Selborne, Lord, offers Canonry to 
 Percival, 78 
 
 Self-promotion justified, 35 
 
 Sermon at unveiling of Archbishop 
 Temple's medallion at Rugby, 125 
 
 Sermons, extracts from, 6, 24, 60, 
 70, 82 
 
 Shaw Lefevre, Miss M., 76, 97 
 
 Short, T., Vice-President of Trinity, 
 67 
 
 Shropshire Diocese Scheme sup- 
 ported by Percival, 1 70 
 
 Sidgwick, Arthur, Rugby boy and 
 Master, Fellow of Trin. Coll. 
 Cam. and of C.C.C. Oxford, and 
 Reader in Greek, sends con- 
 gratulations on the Rugby Head- 
 mastership, 97 ; his School Homi- 
 lies, 20 
 
 Sinclair, Dr., 166 
 
 Sixth Form, Chfton, Resolution of 
 on Rugby election of 1874, 51 
 
 Skelton, John, Clifton School Mar- 
 shal, 27, 31 
 
 Smiles, Samuel, Life of George 
 Moore, 40 
 
 Smith, E. H. C, Chfton Master, 18 
 
 Smith, George, Rugby Master (now 
 Headmaster of Dulwach), 105 
 
 Smith, H. J. S., 53 
 
 Somerville College, Oxford, Per- 
 cival first President of Council 
 of, 76 
 
 South Wales Daily News on " Spuri- 
 ous Sports," 233 
 
 Springfield Republican, editor of, 
 thanks Bishop "as an American 
 citizen," 207 
 
 Spurgeon, Rev. C, 135 
 
 Stanley, A. P., 128 
 
 Staunton-under-Wye School Endow- 
 ment, attempt to turn it to 
 better use, 292 
 
 Stevens, F. H., Rugby Master, 19 
 
 Strachey, J. St. Loe, editor of the 
 Spectator, 323 
 
 Streeter, Rev. B. H., Canon of Here- 
 ford, 342 
 
 Strong, Rev. T. B., Dean of Christ 
 Church (afterwards Bishop of 
 Ripon), 277 
 
 Studies of the Greek Poets, by J. A. 
 Symonds, 32 
 
 Swinburne, A., 29 
 
 Symonds, Dr. J. A., 15 
 
 Symonds, John Addington, 32 
 
 Symonds, Dr. Frederic, 7, 157 
 
 Symonds, Miss Mary, 7, 157 
 
 " Symposium," the Rugby, 9 
 
 " Symptomatic," 104 
 
 Tait, C. W. A., Chfton Master, 19 
 
 Talbot, E., Bishop of Rochester (later 
 Winchester), letter of condolence, 
 140 ; correspondence with, 151- 
 155 ; speech in Convocation on 
 the United Communion Service 
 at Hereford, 319 
 
 Temple, Frederick, Headmaster of 
 Rugby (aftersvards Archbishop of 
 Canterbury), virtually appoints 
 Percival to CUfton, 10 ; advises 
 him to try for Rugby in spite 
 of Jex Blake's candidature, 44 ; 
 regrets result of election, 48 ; 
 " presents " Percival at his Con- 
 secration, 134 
 
 Temple, Miss J. O. (sister to Dr. 
 Temple), letters to Mrs. Percival, 
 
 45. 47 
 
 Temple, William, address at St. 
 James's, Piccadilly, 373 
 
 Tennyson, 29 
 
 Thomas, Rev. Arnold, 312 
 
 Thomson, W., Provost of Queen's, 
 afterwards Archbishop of York, 
 advises Percival to take Rugby 
 Assistant Mastership, 8 ; con- 
 
 2 2
 
 I 
 
 388 
 
 LIFE OF BISHOP PERCIVAL 
 
 gratdlates him on Clifton Head- 
 mastership, 13 
 
 Thomson, Miss, 4 
 
 " Three Trees," the famous Rugby, 
 
 134 
 Thring, Dr., of Uppingham, 38 
 Tilden, Sir W.. F.R.S., 19, 32 
 Times, letters to the, by Percival 
 (Welsh Disestablishment), 118 
 (Voluntary Schools), 178 
 
 (Secondary Education), 193, 196 
 (Spurious Sports), 231 ; (Arbitra- 
 tion), 242; (The Welsh Church 
 Bill), 245 ; (A Women's Uni- 
 versity), 270 ; (" The Justice of 
 our Cause "), 357 
 Tobacco, 73, 105 
 Tom Brown, 27 
 
 Town Boys at Clifton organised, 37 
 Town Boys at Rugby organised, 
 
 III 
 Town parents organised, 36 
 Tribune, The, letter to, 188 
 Trinity Colle^a, Oxford, Chapter III. 
 Turner, H. H., Professor of Astron- 
 omy at Oxford, 19 
 " Tutorial Class " Movement, 281 
 Twymans, The, Newbolt's novel, 21 
 Tylecote, E. F. S., 29, 36 
 
 " U.U.'s," 20 
 
 United Communion Service, 299, 
 309 sqq. 
 
 Universities and Great Towns, Con- 
 nection of the, pamphlet by Dr. 
 Percival, 260 
 
 Vaughan, C. E., CUfton Master, 
 afterwards Professor of History-, 
 Cardiff University College, 18 
 
 Vaughan, W. W., Chfton Master, 
 afterwards Headmaster of Giggles- 
 wick, WelUngton, Rugby, 369 
 
 Vellabro Church, 78 
 
 " Vicar, A," letter in Hereford 
 Times, 337 
 
 Victoria, Queen, 272 
 
 " Vision unfulfilled," 61 
 
 Wait, Mr. W. Killigrew, letters to, 
 
 57. 132, 156, 224 
 Wait, Mrs., 136, 140, 141, 158, 171, 
 
 209, 296, 297 
 Wait, Miss, 210, 297 
 Wabrond, A. P., 118 
 
 Walrond, Theodore, C.B., 103, 117 
 Warren, Sir Herbert, President of 
 Magdalen, account of his school 
 time at Clifton, 27-33 ; of Per- 
 cival's election to Trinity Presi- 
 dency, 65 ; of his general position 
 at Oxford, 75 ; letters from, 60, 
 361 ; letter to, 55 
 Waterfield, Rev. R., Rugby Master, 
 afterwards Principal of Chelten- 
 ham, then Dean of Hereford, 
 105 
 Watson, Rev. H. C, Clifton Master, 
 
 recollections, 25 
 Watson, Mrs. H. C, 16 
 Watts's portrait of Percival, 42 
 Webb, Rev. M. F., 168 
 Welldon, Bishop, 90 
 Wellesley, H. W., first Head of the 
 
 School at CUfton, 31 
 Whitehead, Sir George, 3 
 Whitehead, Sir James, 3, 55 
 Whitehouse, Mr. J. H., on Bishop's 
 work for National League of 
 Workers with Boys, 299 
 WTiitelaw, Robert, Rugby Master, 
 104, 107, 140 ; on Arnold and 
 Temple, 98 {note) 
 Wilhams, Canon, appointed by 
 
 Percival, 145 ; his death, 336 
 Wills, Mr. H. O., 263; makes a 
 
 Bristol University possible, 264 
 Wilson, Rev. J. M.', Rugby Master, 
 second Headmaster of Chfton, 
 now Canon of Worcester ; im- 
 pressions of Percival at Rugby, 
 9, at CUfton, 18-23 ; on the 
 CUfton Mission, 38 ; on Percival's 
 grounds for leaving Chfton, 53 ; 
 on his becoming Headmaster of 
 Rugby, 95 ; sermon after his 
 death (extract), 21 ; his Natural 
 Science teaching at Rugby, 8 
 Wingate, Gen. Sir A., Sirdar of 
 
 Egypt, 216 
 Wingate, Lady, 215. 216 
 Winkworth, Misses S., C, and A., 
 
 15. 258 
 Winnington Ingram, Rev. E. H., 
 
 146 ; letters from, 344, 346 
 Wiseman, Rev. H. J., CUfton 
 
 Master, 15 
 WoUaston, G. H., Clifton Master, 15, 
 
 32 
 Wollaston, Mrs., 15
 
 I 
 
 INDEX 
 
 389 
 
 Woods, H. G., Tutor of Trinity, 
 afterwards President, later 
 Master of the Temple, 67 
 
 Woolner, T., his bust of Percival, 
 26 
 
 Worcester, Bishop of, official invita- 
 tion to take Rugby Headmaster- 
 ship, 93 ; reply, 94 
 
 Wordsworth, 29 
 
 Worthington, A. M., CUfton Master, 
 F.R.S., 32. 69 
 
 Wynne Willson, Prebendary, 137, 
 
 165 ; best man at Dr. Percivars 
 marriage to Miss Symonds, 158 ; 
 letter to, 354 
 Wynne Willson, John Percival, 
 letter to, 359 
 
 York, Archbishop of, see Thomson, 
 Lang 
 
 Zanzibar, Bishop of, " excommuni- 
 cates " Bishop of Hereford, 347 ; 
 replied to, 348 
 
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