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CHAPTERS FROM MY LIFE

SIR HENRY LUNN
(From Presentation Portrait hy the Hon. John Collier)

CHAPTERS FROM
MY LIFE
With Special Reference to Reunion

BY
SIR HENRY S. LUNN
B.A., B.Ch., M.D. Trin. Coll. Dublin

In necessariis unitas ; in non necessariis libertas ;
in utrisque caritas

GASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1918

TO MY WIFE
WHOSE SYMPATHY ON ALL GREAT ISSUES
HAS MADE TOLERABLE MANY HEAVY BURDENS

PREFACE
THE earlier chapters of this volume were written for post
humous publication. The growing urgency of the question
of religious unity after the war, and the emphasis given to it
by the publication of the Interim Reports of the English
branch of the Committee on Faith and Order, and the forma
tion of a Joint Committee to promote closer relations between
the Church of England and Methodism, have led me to decide
on immediate publication, and to omit certain chapters which
would have diverted attention from my main subject — the
promotion of Christian unity.
I have left out, for the same reason, the record of my
political activities as Chairman of the New Reform Club,
1900-1905, and as a member of many other political
organisations. I have also omitted reference to my par
liamentary contest in 1910 and tp certain incidents concerning
international politics that preceded and followed it. These
matters are reserved for a later volume.
The Missionary Controversy and its results had such a
direct bearing upon my personal relation to the Church of
England, and my editorship of the Review of the Churches,
and presidency of the Grindelwald Conferences which grew
out of the Review, that the whole record would have been
unintelligible if I had not dealt with it.
A volume, of which ten thousand copies were issued by the
officials of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, was used in a
most damaging way by the defence in a libel action which I
felt obliged to bring during this present war.

vm

Preface

With regard to this libel and many other matters before
and during the war, it has been my fate (if I may adapt
Kipling's words), after years of work for peace between the
Nations and between the Churches,
" . . . . To hear the truth I'd spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools ;
To watch the things I'd given my life to, broken,
And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools. ' '
I have learned, I hope, not only to
"Trust myself when all men doubted,"
but — which is harder — to
" Make allowance for their doubting too."
Although I obtained a verdict with costs, the defence was
greatly strengthened by the use of certain ex parte state
ments inserted by the officials at the end of the volume, after
a judicial and balanced report which had already been signed
by Lord Wolverhampton (Sir Henry H. Fowler) and his
colleagues on the Commission of Inquiry.
I have striven to say nothing which would wound my old
colleagues and friends, or which could rekindle the embers of
a controversy which may have done some harm, though I
hope not without compensation. I trust that this chapter will
not unduly distract the reader from the main purpose of the
volume. I hope that the record of my own experience in promoting
Christian unity, and the conclusions at which I have arrived,
may be of some value in the great movement of the Churches
towards each other which is now taking place. Even in the
present distress there is ground for confident anticipation
that the overthrow of militarism among the nations may be
followed by peace between the Churches, and the recognition

Preface

IX

and expression of the essential unity of all who love our Lord
Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth.
I wish to express my thanks to my son Arnold, who is
incapacitated from military service as the result of a climbing
accident, and has been in Switzerland for the past two years
working among the British and French interned prisoners.
By the permission of the Censor he was enabled to read the
book in MS., and it owes much to his suggestions and careful
revision. I must also thank Miss Dora M. Jones, who has
assisted in the revision and prepared the contents and index,
my friend the Rev. H. Mudie Draper, and my brother Mr.
Holdsworth Lunn, who have read the proofs.
Henry S. Lunn.
Corriebruach House,
Pitlochry, Perthshire. August, 19 1 8.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER pAGE
i. My Early Days (1859-1876) . . . . 1
2. The Call to the Ministry (1879-1881) . . 21
3. Life at a Methodist Theological College
(1881-1883)  28
4. Dublin University (1883-1887) .... 35
5. Hugh Price Hughes (1886-1887) ... 47
6. Missionary Life in India (1887-1888) . . 59
7. Mission Work in West London (1890-1891) . 78
8. The Missionary Controversy (1889-1890) . 88
9. The Aftermath of the Missionary Controversy —
Resignation from Wesleyan Ministry (1893) 112
10. W. T. Stead, Quintin Hogg and the Polytechnic
(1890-1898)  129

11. The " Review of the Churches " (1891-1896)
12. The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences .
13. A Free Church Confession of Faith (1898)
14. Reunion Campaign in America
15. My Visit to the Vatican (1895)
16. The Death of Hugh Price Hughes and After
wards 

142
151
177 185
210 219

xii Contents

PAGE

17. The Harrow Fifty Club (1899 and onwards) . 228
18. The Holy Communion and Confirmation (1910) 241
19. Why I Remain a Methodist .... 256
20. The Will to Love  270
21. Rest in " A Desert Place " (1911-1915) . . 280
22. Welsh Church Disendowment (1911-1915) . 294
23. The Bishops and the Wesleyan Methodist
Conference (1917)  315
24. Federation as a Step Towards Unity . . 332
25. The Movement Towards Unity in 1918 . . 344
APPENDICES
A. Letters on Unity  353
B. The Grindelwald Conference (September, 1892) 362
C. The Conference of 1893  370
D. The Church Congress Reply to Grindelwald 386
Index ........ 401

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Sir Henry S. Lunn .... Frontispiece
From Presentation Portrait by the Hon. John Collier.
The Rev. Hugh and Mrs. Price Hughes . Facing 48
Twenty-five Years After :  108
Rev. W. H. Findlay, Rev. G. Patterson and Sir Henry Lunn.
Quintin Hogg and W. T. Stead  136
Editors of " Review of the Churches," 1892 : . .144
The Ven. Archdeacon Farrar (Anglican Editor) ; Percy Bunt-
ing (Methodist Editor) ; Rev. Dr. Mackennal (Congregational
Editor); Rev. Dr. Lunn (General Editor); Rev. Dr. Clifford.
(Baptist Editor); Rev. Donald Fraser (Presbyterian Editor).
Some Speakers at the Reunion Conference, September,
1892 :  160
Photographed outside the Parish Church of Grindelwald.
St. Peter's, Rome .  216
The Four Generations :  228
Henry Lunn, Senr. ; Peter Northcote Lunn ; Arnold Lunn
and Sir Henry Lunn.
The Wetterhorn Above Grindelwald and the Parish
Church  362
In which the Reunion Conferences of 1892, etc., were held.

CHAPTERS FROM MY LIFE
CHAPTER I
MY EARLY DAYS (1859 — I 876)
Wesley and the " Catholic Spirit " — Lincolnshire Methodism and the
Church of England — The Town of Horncastle — My Father —
Relations with the Clergy — Disraeli and Methodism — A Peasant's
Contribution to Foreign Missions — Methodist Lay Preachers —
Lay Preaching — At Harrow School — My Mother — The Dangers
of Youth — An Anglican Mission — Holy Communion and Fasting
— John S. Stansfeld.
Our fathers trusted in Thee, and Thou didst deliver them ; they put their
trust in Thee, and were not confounded. — Psalms.
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric
acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have
been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and
rest in nnvisited tombs. — George Eliot, "Middlemarch."
THE following, pages express an attempt to record the inner
history of the life that began on July 30, 1859, in the
little Lincolnshire town of Horncastle, in a typical Methodist
home. The object which I have set before myself is to show
that all that I have been able to realise of the faith and practice
of the Universal Church has been mainly due to the catholic
teaching of John Wesley, and his insistence on the revival of
the spirit and practice of the early Christian centuries.
His followers are constantly reminded of, and influenced
by, his two memorable sayings, the first of which is recorded
on his memorial tablet in Westminster Abbey, "The world
is my parish," and "We are the friends of all, the enemies of
none." In harmony with the latter sentence is his striking analysis
B I

2 Chapters from My Life
of the "Catholic Spirit" contained under that title in the
first volume of his published sermons. In this sermon he
says : " Every wise man will allow others the same liberty of
thinking which he desires they should allow him ; and will no
more insist on their embracing his opinions, than he would have
them to insist on his embracing theirs. He bears with those
who differ from him, and only asks him with whom he desires
to unite in love that single question, ' Is thy heart right, as
my heart is with thy heart ?' ... I do not mean, ' Embrace
my modes of worship,' or, ' I will embrace yours.' This also
is a thing which does not depend either on your choice or
mine. We must both act as each is fully persuaded in his
own mind. Hold you fast that which you believe is most
acceptable to God, and I will do the same. I believe the
Episcopal form of Church Government to be scriptural and
apostolical. If you think the Presbyterian or Independent
is better, think so still, and act accordingly. I believe infants
ought to be baptised; and that this may be done either by-
dipping or sprinkling. If you are otherwise persuaded, be
so still, and follow your own persuasion. It appears to me,
that forms of prayer are of excellent use, particularly in the
great congregation. If you judge extemporary prayer to be
of more use, act suitably to your own judgment. My senti
ment is, that I ought not to forbid water, wherein persons may
be baptised ; and that I ought to eat bread and drink wine as
a memorial of my dying Master ; however, if you are not con
vinced of this, act according to the light you have. I have
no desire to dispute with you one moment upon any of the
preceding heads. Let all these smaller points stand aside.
Let them never come into sight. ' If thine heart is as my
heart,' if thou lovest God and all mankind, I ask no more :
' Give me thine hand.' " 1
This teaching has, I hope, influenced my life throughout,
and was still strongly characteristic sixty years ago of the
attitude of the "people called Methodists " in John Wesley's
native county of Lincolnshire. The bitterness towards the
' Wesley's Works, vol. 8, pp. 495 and 499.

My Early Days 3
Established Church which marked the Dissenters was simply
non-existent in the Methodism of my youth. We had our own
standards of importance, and were strangely influenced by
the standards of other churches. There were still living many
whose parents had heard the preaching of "Mr. Wesley," as
he was always called in those days. To be the son or grandson
of one of Wesley's own preachers was a greater distinction
than to be the son of a Bishop. The President of the Con
ference — our governing body — was a greater personage than
the Bishop of the diocese. Whilst Methodism was closely
associated with, and still realised that it was a daughter of,
the Church of England, it was widely separated by its in
sistence on Free Will and the offer of salvation to all men,
from the fatalism of the doctrines of election and final per
severance taught by Calvinistic dissent two generations ago.
Many have written of Tennyson's birthplace, Somersby,
not far from Horncastle, as part of the Fen country. This
is a mistake. It is a picturesque little village on the edge of
the Wolds, a fitting birthplace for a poet. Horncastle, six
miles away, is also on the Wolds, and lies in the valley of
the Bain, hence its Roman name : "Banovallum " — "the fort
of the Bain." It is surrounded by a circle of small hills
which, to me in my early cycling days, or when I was driving
a very swift little pony downhill, seemed almost as dangerous
as the mountains round Grindelwald seemed to my boys in
later years. We were separated from the Fen country by
eight miles of a steady fall, down which the canalised
Bain pursued its way through seven locks, which furnished
opportunities for bathing sufficiently perilous to an over
anxious father.
The town of Horncastle had slept peacefully through tne
centuries, from the Roman occupation — of which some ruins
still are encountered in digging foundations — to the nine
teenth century, save only for the battle of " Slash Lane "
during the Wars of the Roses, and some visits from Crom-
wellian troopers during the Civil War. Only twice a year

4 Chapters from My Life
did it move in its slumbers, and these occasions were the
New Year's Wesleyan Methodist special services and the
great Horse Fair in August. The latter attracted many queer
characters from all parts of the world — Flemish horse dealers,
colonial buyers, gipsies, showmen, and the like. The New
Year's services brought Methodists from neighbouring towns
and villages to enjoy the great annual Love Feast long since
discontinued, and the sermons of some well-known preacher.
My father was born at Aston, near Birmingham, in 1832,
of parents who were members of the Church of England.
He was orphaned at eight years of age, and came to live in
Horncastle with a Methodist uncle. For nearly seventy
years, as a Methodist lay preacher, Sunday School superin
tendent, Circuit Steward, Class Leader, Representative to
Conference, and in many other ways, he has served his
generation according to the will of God, and although more
than eighty years of age, with unabated energy but diminished
strength, he is still doing what in him lies to advance the
Kingdom of God.
The contrast between a mid-Victorian home, dominated
by the teaching of Calvin, and the Methodist home in which
I was born was brought home to me with great force when
I read that remarkable book, "Father and Son," which
relates the struggle between a Calvinistic father and his
son. I felt then, as I now feel, how much I owed to the
catholic spirit of the communion in which I was born, and
to the wider creed of my parents. Although my father is
still alive, and will, I hope, read these words in the printed
page, yet no one who knows him will think that this tribute
is untimely or overstated to-day, when he is more than half
way through the ninth decade. The deep respect of his
townsmen, which he has always enjoyed since he came to
Horncastle, has ripened into an affectionate veneration. No
man has ever known him to do or say anything unworthy
of a Christian or of a gentleman— in the best sense of that
much-abused word. He has always been the friend of

My Early Days 5
the poor without patronage, and of the rich without sub
servience.
I find it difficult to give in a few pages a picture of a
life that has been one long record of quiet and unobtrusive
championship of good causes, and determined resistance to
everything that lowered the tone of public life— a life in
which has been combined a passion for righteousness and a
toleration and breadth of view which enabled him, without
wavering in loyalty to Methodism, to be on friendly terms
with the clergy of the Church of England.
A slight incident indicates his powerful memory and the
use he has made of an education which terminated, so far
as schoolmasters were concerned, when he left the grammar
school at twelve years of age. He was talking to a clergyman
who pointed to a pile of decaying matter, and said to my
father, "A rough and decomposing njass," to which my
father replied with Ovid's words, which were evidently in
the other's mind, "Rudis indigestaque moles."
There was nothing my father resented more strongly than
the occasional visits to the town and neighbourhood of a
Methodist member of Parliament, who once described the
antagonism of the clergy as "my greatest political asset."
He had no sympathy with the tendency of Dr. Jabez Bunting
and other influential early Victorian Wesleyan ministers who
strove to cultivate a "separatist " spirit in Methodism, and to
change her filial attitude towards the Church of England into
that of a rival religious denomination. This was only part of
a natural and cultivated toleration of spirit which manifested
itself in perfect friendliness to ministers and members of all
denominations, whilst refusing to be forced into a line of
battle alongside of the political dissenters of the day. He
was equally tolerant in theological opinion, as became a
disciple of John Wesley, and whilst others around him were
still insisting on verbal inspiration, the literal seven days of
creation, and a material hell fire, he quietly taught us a
broader and better creed.
In those earlier days Methodism was much nearer to the

6 Chapters from My Life
Church of England than it is to-day. As that shrewd
observer, Disraeli, pointed out in his novel "Coningsby,"
Wesleyan Methodists were an uncertain quantity in the
political world, and could in no sense be classed among
political dissenters. There was a corresponding ambiguity
about their ecclesiastical position. The practice of holding
services at hours that did not clash with the hours of worship
of the Church of England had scarcely yet died out in some
of the villages. My father's early training, with a certain love
of reverence and a desire that everything connected with
divine worship should be done "decently and in order,"
created an attitude of mind which made possible such relations
with the vicar of the parish as would be very unusual to-day
in the case of a Liberal Nonconformist.
On the nomination of the Vicar he was appointed treasurer
of an ancient church charity, which was originally a fund
for giving away bread at the church doors-, but had been
converted by the Charity Commissioners into a fund for
apprenticing orphan boys born in the parish. This position
he has held for more than half a century. It is an interesting
fact as illustrating the improved hygienic conditions of life
to-day, and the consequent disappearance of typhus, typhoid,
and other zymotic diseases which mow men down in their
prime, that before the war it was impossible to find enough
orphans born in the town on whom to expend these funds.
My father also still holds the position to which in those early
days he was nominated by the same Vicar, of Treasurer to
the Horncastle Dispensary.
Another instance of his friendly relations with the Church
is preserved in the parish records of High Toyntori, a small
village in the Horncastle circuit, where among the notices
given out by the Vicar during the cattle plague of 1866
occurs one to the following effect :
"Next Sunday being the day of National Humiliation on
account of the present visitation of Providence, the Vicar will
preach on this subject in the morning at the Parish Church,
and Mr. Henry Lunn, of Horncastle, will preach on the

My Early Days 7
same matter in the evening at the Wesleyan Chapel."
The churchwarden who wrote out the notice was himself a
Methodist class leader.
When my father, in 1876, moved from Horncastle to West
Ashby House, two miles away, he found an equally sym
pathetic Vicar, whose day school accounts he made up
regularly every year. Certain pews in the West Ashby
church were regarded as the possession of occupiers of certain
houses, of which ours was one. In those days no one
accused my father of inconsistency because he attended
church occasionally under these circumstances, and com
municated from time to time.
In 1886, when my future wife, the daughter of Canon
Moore, Rector of Midleton, Co. Cork, first visited our home,
nothing surprised her more than the friendly attitude to the
Church of England on the part of our Wesleyan Metho
dists, and the way in which an old Methodist farmer,
spending the evening at our house, spoke of "Our Vicar."
On its ethical side, Methodism has suffered in public
esteem by the high standard of its profession, and the in
evitable inconsistencies to be found in so large a body of
members. When it is remembered that among the twelve
Apostles there was a Judas who could betray his Master, and
a Peter who could deny Him, it is small wonder that a society
of men, avowing as their object " the spread of scriptural
holiness throughout the land," should produce a certain
number of hypocrites. The higher the standard the greater
is the temptation to cover up inconsistencies. And yet I can
affirm without fear of contradiction that in his threescore
years of business life none of my father's employees ever
knew him try to overreach anyone. My earliesf recollection
of him in his business life is of an occasion when I saw him
rebuke an employee for some misrepresentation about the
article which he was selling.
My father, as Circuit Treasurer of the Missionary Society,
represented that sense of a world-wide mission which is
one of the great characteristics of the communion formed by

8 Chapters from My Life
John Wesley. There was no one among the subscribers who
gave him greater pleasure than a farm labourer named John
Brown, of Baumber, and he always enjoyed telling the story.
Some time in the early 'fifties, John Brown, who would then
be earning about fifteen shillings a week as a young labourer,
was subscribing sixpence a week — £i 6s. per annum- — to the
Missionary Society. He found one day on the list of sub
scribers this entry : " Fanny, cook of Mr. Mark Holdsworth,
5s.," and as he was desirous of marrying he called one day
at the kitchen door of Mr. Mark Holdsworth, my father's
uncle. Fanny opened the door and the following conver
sation took place :
"Are you Fanny ? "
"Yes."" I see you are interested in the work of Foreign Missions,
and so am I. I should like to marry someone who feels as
I do about this work for the heathen."
Fanny asked for a year to think it over. At the end of
that time she accepted her suitor and they were married. In
the front room of the little cottage at Baumber, where I have
often been, she started a miniature Whiteley's, and,out of her
small earnings as a village shopkeeper she gave regularly
sixpence a -week to missions. For several decades there
appeared in the list of subcribers the words: "Mr. and Mrs.
John Brown, £2 12s." After Fanny died, the shop was
discontinued and the entry ran, "Mr. John Brown, £1 6s."
This generosity in giving was accomplished in the man's
case by a steady and intelligent study of Foreign Missions.
Who can measure the value of this influence in the life of a
Lincolnshire peasant, lifting him spiritually and intellectually
to a plane which, without such an influence, he would never
have attained. One day, after Fanny's death, John Brown
came to my father and said, " I have been reading about this
terrible earthquake in the West Indies, and the sufferings
of our poor members. I should like to send £1 to the special
earthquake fund."
As his life drew near to a close he came again and said.

My Early Days 9
" I want to make my will. I have saved a little money, and I
have no children, so I should like to leave ^'100 to the Mis
sionary Society." This generosity on the part of a Lincoln
shire labourer, who never rose above his class save in his
religious experience, is worthy to rank with the widow's mite.
My father has been for nearly seventy years a Wesleyan
Methodist local preacher. This term is used to differentiate
the lay preachers of Methodism from its ordained clergy,
who were called in earlier times the "travelling preachers,"
as indicating that they were liable to a change of "station "
every year, and under the poll deed of John Wesley must
change "stations" at least every three years.
Around Horncastle as a circuit town lie twenty villages
constituting the circuit, and these twenty-one chapels are
supplied by two ministers and about forty local preachers.
It is difficult to exaggerate the services rendered by the great
unpaid body of daymen, of which they were a part, all over
England. The farmers and wealthier tradesmen who were local
preachers would drive to their "appointments," but many a
labouring man, after a week's strenuous work, would walk
some miles to preach in a village chapel at a morning service
at 10.30 a.m. and only return home after an evening service
ending about 8 p.m. These men varied greatly in their gifts
and personal culture, but in the days before the influence of
the Oxford movement had reached the villages, they did
much to keep pure the springs of our national life. They
were, many of them, better preachers than the clergy of those
days, whilst their personal character and practical sense of
what religion demanded of them was much higher. It is
contrary to the purpose of this volume to say an unnecessary
word about the shortcomings of another communion, but
the great influence of local preachers would not adequately be
explained if I did not say that within our circuit boundaries
at that time were clergymen who were notorious for drunken
ness and immorality. This fact explains in some degree the

10 Chapters from My Life
influence of the lay preachers who were each, as Wesley bade
them to be, a "homo unius libra." They may have known
nothing of Latin and Greek literature, but they were at least
well versed in that greatest of all moral teaching, the litera
ture of the Hebrew. They were in many cases men of deep
devotional instinct and real practical piety, and although in
literature it may be true, "le style c'est I'homme," in religion
and religious teaching, character and personality are
supreme, and even from the standpoint of culture, this in
stitution of lay preaching by men who knew their Bible
thoroughly had a greater influence on the villages than the
teaching of the elementary schools.
How could it be otherwise? The Bible is the greatest
literary anthology in the world, and a man who knows his
Bible from end to end can never be said to be illiterate. A
Church that through such lay preachers encourages the
peasants of Lincolnshire to desert the ale house for the study
of the Bible and meditations upon the great messages from
the pens of the Hebrew prophets and the writers of the gos
pels, is not only the handmaid of religion, but of culture in
the best sense of the word.
When I think of the lives and characters of the peasants
of West Ashby and other villages around, who had been
drawn away from the petty gossip of the public-house to
their weekly meetings for Bible study, prayer, and exchange
of religious experiences by the teaching of these humble lay
preachers, I feel that the humble red brick chapels of Lincoln
shire have accomplished a work of moral and intellectual
quickening little suspected by many a visitor at the country
vicarage who has never deserted the Gothic churches to see
the inside of these unpretentious " barns " or tried to under
stand the men who worship there.
Perhaps the visitor from the vicarage, if he had entered
one of these chapels, would have been startled — possibly
even shocked — by what he would have deemed the familiarity
of the extempore prayers and of the sermons. He might
even have shuddered at the provincialisms and carelessness of

My Early Days n
aspirates coming from the pulpit. But of him whom the
Roman Church claims as its first Bishop, the cultured
Pharisee would say, " His speech bewrayeth him," and yet his
first sermon on the Day of Pentecost was marked by the
addition of three thousand to the Church.
These men might seem to the formal critic Jacking in
reverence, but as Chesterton, the Catholic^ and Leslie
Stephen, the Agnostic, both point out, in great ages of faith
men have not been so fearful of irreverence. Those who
"commune with God face to face " speak to Him with a sense
of intimacy which cannot mark the prayers of those to whom
the Deity is little more than "the tendency that makes for
righteousness." I have always regretted that many of my lay friends in
the Church of England were not preachers. The gain
would have been great, both to the Church and to the nation .
After the Boer War, when Harrow School Chapel was being
enlarged in memory of the men who had fallen, admirable
sermons were preached in the Speech Room by some of my
lay friends among the masters — Sir Arthur Hort, son of Dr.
Hort, Mr. Howson, son of Dean Howson, and others. When
the chapel was reopened they were heard no more. It is a
far cry from Harrow School Chapel to our Methodist chapels
in Lincolnshire, but an institution that in the providence of
God has done so much for Methodism, and through
Methodism for England, might well be adopted more widely
by our National Church, when the need for men is as great as
it is now and will be after this terrible war.
.Two local preachers living at Hemingby, our neighbouring
village, with whom as a fellow lay preacher my father was
closely associated, deserve special mention. One was Harri
son, the village carrier, and the other Hundleby, the steam
threshing machine man. So much were they honoured in
their neighbourhood for their high character and integrity
that one year, instead of inviting a preacher of repute, the
villagers asked these two men to take the two anniversary
services. My father always enjoyed the dry humour of the

12 Chapters from My Life
carrier, who, commenting on Naaman, as "a great man with
his master and honourable," added, "Some of you are great
with your master, but not honourable." On another occa
sion, speaking of Hezekiah's prayer that his life might be
prolonged, he said, "It is not wise to try to interfere with the
will and purpose of God. He knows better than we do what
is good for us. All Hezekiah did after his life was prolonged
fifteen years was to have a son who grew up to be a public
nuisance." The threshing machine man, Samuel Hundleby, was of
a different type. He began to preach before he could read
properly, and, as he told me himself, his wife used to read
the lessons to him till he had learned them by heart, and then
he recited them in the pulpit. But he was filled with a burn
ing passion for the salvation of men. His transparent zeal
and earnestness roused his hearers to a sense of their sins
and their need of Christ as a Saviour.
An important episode in this man's career reveals in
cidentally some of my father's characteristics.
For some years a certain minister with great dramatic
gifts had visited Horncastle annually, and had given amusing
and often comic lectures in the chapel on Old Testament
characters. Lecturing on Jonah, he described the whale as
saying, "Come in out of the wet, Jonah, we don't often have
a travelling preacher in these parts." The proposals for
Abimelech's marriage to Sarah, under the false impression
that she was the sister of Abraham, gave him great scope for
his peculiar gifts, as also did the long wooing of Rachel by
Jacob. These jests in a place of worship contradicted all my
father's early training in the Church of England, and jarred
on his sense of reverence. He was particularly incensed by
the fact that a very old Churchman whom he had visited and
prayed with had come to hear this popular preacher, and
after listening for a while in our pew, had walked out, mut
tering as he passed my father, "They told me that a
Methodist chapel was a place to get one's soul saved. I did
not expect this kind of thing."

My Early Days 13
Full of indignation at this sacrifice of sacred things to
the needs of church finance, my father went the next year to
the Trustees' Meeting, and moved that this minister, who,
apart from his lecturing, had great evangelistic gifts, should
come and preach instead of lecturing, and that his visit
should be the Thursday of a week's special mission,
Hundleby taking the other days of the week.
I shall never forget the powerful sermons, each about
fifty minutes long, that Hundleby preached on four days of
that week. It was curious to see how, when he warmed to
his subject, his arms moved from side to side, as he moved
when he was putting the sheaves of corn into the machine,
and thinking doubtless at the same time of the message that
he would give in God's name to the people. The Thursday
service, conducted by the minister, was a remarkable justifica
tion of my father's proposal. Getting back to his true mis
sion, the lecturing minister gave a sermon of great power.
My father and another friend had given a joint guarantee
that the collection should be up to the level of the amount
taken at the lecture in the previous year. There was a
deficiency of three guineas to be made up, but I think my
father never gave a contribution to the chapel funds which
afforded him more pleasure.
In the life of home, none of his children can ever forget
the morning and evening prayers which began and concluded
the day. No clouds of doubt intervened between him and
the One Whose blessing he sought as the day began and to
Whom he returned thanks at its close. And in all those
prayers there was a comprehensive intercession for the supply
of the needs of all the children of the Father in Heaven, which
revealed the extent to which his faith widened his horizon and
enlarged his sympathies.
My father was happy in the choice he made, when she
was fifteen and he was eighteen, of the woman who was to
share his life.
My mother was only thirteen when, in the Methodist

14 Chapters from My Life
phrase so true of her, she first "entered into the enjoyment of
religion." With that courage and zeal which always charac
terised her life she at once began family prayers in her home.
More than a quarter of a century has passed since I lost her,
and the memory of her saintly life remains my most precious
possession. I go back to my earliest days, and remember
how passionately she used to plead for the little boy kneeling
at her side that he might ever be "surrounded by the ever
lasting arms of Love." The sense of the great love of God
in Christ was in her a consuming passion.
Her one desire was to attain that holiness which is the
peculiar possession of great saints. Sometimes preachers
would come to our little town who spoke fluently of "Chris
tian Perfection," and it was with a certain silent anger that
I saw her listening to their counsels when they visited her
home. It would have been more fitting that they should have
learned from her that humility which led her always to say
with St. Paul, "Not as though I had already attained, either
were already perfect, but I follow after if so be that I may
apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ
Jesus." She had a great love for the practical teaching of the
Epistle of St. James. Her favourite passage was "Pure
religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep
himself unspotted from the world." In accordance with the
teachings of this passage, she took me regularly to visit cer
tain old and infirm widows. At Christmas every year, cer
tain savings during the year, kept for these widows, were
spent on small purchases of tea and sugar with which we
went to wish them a happy Christmas. The visits during
the year meant much to them in their loneliness, but more to
me as a training in practical Christianity. Sometimes I read
to the old women, and my mother prayed with them. Even
now I seem to hear the voice of one old dame, nearly ninety
years of age, deaf and bedridden, as she murmured after me),
unconscious that she was overheard, the tender words, "Let

My Early Days 15
not your heart be troubled. ... In my Father's house are
many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I
go to prepare a place for you." Amid all the doubts of the
years which followed, the passionate certainty of my mother's
prayers, and the responses of the old women to whom this
world was partly veiled by their infirmities, but the next was
clearly revealed, remained with me as a powerful influence to
strengthen my hold on "the faith once delivered to the saints."
My mother's life was full of love. One thing only she
hated supremely, and that was a lie in any shape or form ;
equivocation, exaggeration, prevarication — all were equally
abhorrent to her simple soul. My father was well inspired
when he chose for her epitaph the words "Her life was
truth." No one can read the "Confessions of S. Augustine" with
out realising how early the great issues of right and wrong
may present themselves to a child. The attitude of many within
and without the church to-day is to minimise the sinfulness of
sin in old and young, but especially to overlook or disregard
the possibility of grave moral injury being suffered in the
very earliest years of life. On the other hand, Methodism,
in its emphasis on the truth of the doctrine of "conversion "
and its omission of the general practice of confirmation, has
created certain special dangers for its young people. There
can be no doubt that Wesley intended his people to be mem
bers of the Church of England with its practice of confirma
tion. But the early Methodists never adopted the rite. They
substituted for it an insistence on conversion at a very early
age, without that systematic training in ethics and doctrine
which is carried out so admirably and thoroughly by many
pastors of the English, Swiss, Swedish and other Reformed
Churches, as a preparation for confirmation.
My own experience has taught me the dangers inherent in
this part of Methodist practice. In my ninth year, I did
truly realise my need of Christ as a personal Saviour, and
believed that I had been converted. The dangers of this

16 Chapters from My Life
position for one so young cannot be overstated. I shudder
to recall certain phases of spiritual pride, certain manifesta
tions of religious conceit, which would seem almost incredible
if recorded. On the other hand, my early membership of the
Society was regarded as an insurance against wrong-doing by
those who loved me.
When I was about seventeen there took place in our little
town a Church mission which affected my life in many ways.
One of the missioners was Canon Bullock, of Spalding, who
expressed such sympathy with the temptations of young men
that he drew me to unburden myself of the story of my past
troubles and present temptations. Of his tender sympathy
and wise counsel I cannot speak too strongly, and for a whole
year I wrote to him every week. This began a friendship
which endures to this day.
At the close of the mission he pleaded earnestly with all
who had received help from his words and those of his fellow-
missioner, Mr. Donald Claughton, to come to the Holy*
Communion on the last morning of the mission. I had been
greatly stirred by his teaching of the presence of Christ at
the Blessed Sacrament, and of the grace granted to those who
regularly obeyed the Master's command to join this feast of
love in memory of Him. My inner life was troubled and
storm-tossed and I longed for this weekly aid in life's conflict.
I asked his permission to attend this service. Whilst he
was anxious I should do so, he felt bound to consult the Vicar,
who said that unless I actually intended to leave Methodism,
it was inadvisable for me, as the son of a well-known Method
ist, to attend. This Vicar was a High Churchman. He
acted conscientiously, but I regretted his decision.
In these years I was driven for help to Wesley's sermons.'
Many times did I read his sermons on such subjects as "Sin in
Believers," which express his insistence on the endeavour
after holiness. Sin, as an indisputable fact in human life,
was so deeply engraven on my mind during those years, that
now, on reading some modern theology, I feel the same
bewilderment at the denial of sin that an .artist would feel if

My Early Days 17
anyone asserted that the colour red was a delusion, or a
musician if he were told that there was no combination of
notes in music that could express sorrow and tragedy. And in
the penitential Psalms I found another echo of my own
experience. I found that another before me had cried to One
Who heard and answered, "Hide Thy face from my sins and
blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, 0
God, and renew a right spirit within me."
The struggle of those years taught me to sympathise with
those who have surrendered under great stress. I remembered
the wise caution :
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.
A few years later I was the colleague of W. T. Stead and
Hugh Price Hughes in religious work, at a time when it was
mainly their influence that drove Parnell into private life and
kept Dilke out of the Cabinet and for a while out of Parlia
ment. Many condemned their fierce attacks upon the private
life of these men which they held made their position as
political leaders impossible. But I knew that it was the
wrong done and not the wrong-doer that roused their
indignation, and that both Stead and Hughes were capable
of great tenderness when dealing privately with those who
had fallen. In my own life as a medical student I was en
abled by these years of conflict to feel and, I hope, to show a
real sympathy with two fellow-students, who, after years of
dissipation, were each won by the love of a good woman from
the grossness of their previous lives.
The teaching of Wesley led me back to the Catholic prac
tice of fasting. In my earliest days the quarterly fast,
which was then a real institution in Methodism but has now
been forgotten, was regularly observed in our little town.
My mother took me at six in the morning, again at mid-day
and in the evening, to the special services of the day. In
c

18 Chapters from My Life
Wesley's teaching I found that he insisted on the duty of a
weekly fast. It was easiest on a market day — Saturday — to
begin this practice unobserved. For a long time I practised
fasting secretly and alone, but later on I invited two fellow
lay preachers to join me on Friday in the mid-day hour for
mutual confession, discipline and prayer.
I found in Wesley's writing that he had realised the need
which the ancient Church supplied in the Confessional by
instituting "Bands," which were not to consist of more than
three persons. I felt, and feel to-day, that Wesley was right
in believing that there were great elements of good in an
institution which has filled so large a place in the spiritual
history of countless thousands since the Apostolic Age. I
knew that multitudes, burdened with the perplexing problems
of temptation and sin, had laid their troubles before some wise
and good priest, and had returned to the work of life
strengthened and comforted.
Wesley, in fact, by his teaching of fasting, and his insist
ence on the importance of "Bands" for mutual confession,
brought upon himself very severe criticism. The history of
later Methodism shows that even during Wesley's lifetime
the habit of mutual confession in these " Bands " led occa
sionally to scandal. This was due partly to the fact that the
superintendent minister had put unsuitable people into
bands together, and also to the fact that some of the members
had not adequately realised the honourable obligations that
lay upon them with regard to this species of religious
confidence. In my own experience as a young man, and also as a
student at a theological college four years later, I was greatly
helped by Wesley's adaptation of this Catholic practice. I
am clear in my own mind that the spiritual life of many to-day
would be strengthened by such mutual confession, or by
asking in confession the help of an older and more experi
enced Christian.
In 1877 there was a small struggling Mutual Improvement

My Early Days 19
Society connected with our Chapel. In those days at the
prayer meeting after the Sunday evening service, it was my
custom to speak to any strange young men whom I saw re
maining for this after-meeting. One evening, I noticed a
complete stranger in the town, and as we were leaving the
chapel I said to him, rather hurriedly and nervously, "May
I introduce myself? You are a stranger in Horncastle.
Will you join our class? " He promptly replied, "Yes, cer
tainly I will." I then inquired, as I might have done at first,
whether he were a member of our society, and finding that he
belonged to the Church of England, suggested the Mutual
Improvement Society as an alternative to the class. "Yes,"
he assented, "but what about the other?" "Oh," I said, "it
is for members of the society only." The next day I felt
conscience-stricken, and, seeing John Stansfeld — that was
his name — in the street, I ran after him and said, "I am
sorry I did not tell you more about that other class. It is
a Methodist class meeting, where we meet every week to give
our experience, and to help one another. Will you come ? "
He at once accepted the invitation, and thus began a friend
ship which greatly influenced both our lives.
The advent of a man trained in London debating societies
into our Mutual Improvement Society created a great sensa
tion, and in the three months he stayed in our town our
membership ran up to over a hundred, consisting of men
between the ages of sixteen and thirty. It was he who first
introduced me to Ruskin and Carlyle and in many ways
opened up the world of thought to me. A few years later,
when I went to Dublin University to become a medical
missionary, he was so strongly interested in my new life that
he got appointed to Oxford, entered Pembroke College and
took his degree in Arts, while still discharging the duties of
his post. Having obtained a transfer to London, he then
took his complete medical course and degree, entered the
ministry of the Church of England, and after many years as
a much-beloved medical missionary in Bermondsey, is now
a Vicar of his own University town.

20 Chapters from My Life
I have recorded this incident because of Stansfeld's in
fluence on my career, and also because the establishment of
this little society was my first little piece of work on behalf of
inter-denominational unity. We framed our constitution so
that the officers were divided between Church and Chapel,
and our membership was drawn in about equal proportions
from both sources.

CHAPTER II
THE CALL TO THE MINISTRY (1879 — l88l)
John Wesley and Riches — My First Business Venture — A Dream and
the " Call " — Theological Problems— Visit to the East-
Examinations and "Trial Sermon" — Accepted as a Candidate
for the Ministry.
David said : " Hear ye, my brethren, and my people : As for me, it was
in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the
Lord and for the footstool of our God ; and I had made ready for the
building. But God said unto me, ' Thou shalt not build a house for my
name because thou art a man of war.' . . . But the Lord said to David,
1 Whereas it was in thine heart to ibuild a house for my name, thou didst
well that it was in thine heart.' " — The Books of the Chronicles.
STANSFELD'S influence on me at this time was very
great, and I needed it. A temptation was assailing me
against which John Wesley spoke in a plainer way than his
followers have done at any time since his death. His denuncia
tion of the love of riches has never been surpassed since St.
Francis of Assisi roused the Church in Italy to some sense
of its danger. But our pulpits in the 'seventies had little
to say on this question. Unlike Wesley, they had largely
lost touch with the Catholic idea of poverty as one of the
great virtues. Some years earlier a much-revered President
of the Wesleyan Conference had written two widely dif
ferent books. One was a powerful assertion of the need for
the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in Christian work. The
other was a glorification of a rich Methodist tradesman.
Both books had a large circulation.
I had been nearly two years in my father's business, and,
not content with its outlets for organisation, had developed
before I was twenty a widely advertised business, which paid
21

22 Chapters from My Life
for six years of college and university education. It was
entirely unconnected with the one which I founded in later
years. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Connaught
purchased from me two articles recently invented, which I
was introducing in this business. My name was already
becoming widely known throughout Great Britain and the
Colonies in a department in which other men, who were
then unknown, have since achieved great wealth. The
career of the successful business man, making a fortune and
dying a Circuit Steward and Representative to the Annual
Conference, seemed to me for a time desirable and sufficient.
Before I was twenty I took my father into partnership with
the object a few months later of handing everything over to
him and leaving the world of affairs.
My decision to abandon the business which I had created,
and in which I seemed likely in a very short time to become
wealthy, for a life in the Wesleyan ministry, and as a mis
sionary to India, was brought about by Stansfeld's influence
and my reading of Wesley. Just when these forces were
most affecting my life, I had one of the very few dreams
which have been worth remembering.
In my dream thirty years had passed by, and Stansfeld
and I were walking along a road, with the slopes of the little
river Waring, which enters Horncastle from the north, rising
on our right. I turned and pointed to a large house, with
lawn-tennis grounds in front, on which some tall girls and
young men were playing. I said : "That is my place. Those
are my children. I have had great success, but there is not
a spark of religion in the place." I woke, but the influence
of the dream remained.
On January ist, 1879, I went to hear a special preacher
at our chapel, little thinking how that hour would affect my
life. The sermon had nothing to do with what follows. I
only remember the text : "The veil of the Temple was rent
in twain from the top to the bottom," and the remark : "It
was rent, not as man would rend it, from the bottom to the

The Call to the Ministry 23
top, but as God would rend it, from the top to the bottom."
This was one of the rare moments when, as the mystics
would put it, we do penetrate the veil which separates the '
eternal from the temporal. The preacher, the sermon, the
surroundings were all forgotten. I only knew that God was
speaking to me, calling me from my present work to other
tasks which ,He willed that I should do. In such moments
the depths of our nature are stirred, what Myers and William
James call "the subliminal consciousness" asserts itself, and
in one hour the choice is forced upon us. The teaching of
months and years must then be hearkened to or deliberately
disobeyed. To those who consider from the standpoint of a
man of the world my position at that moment, it may seem
that there was small sacrifice involved in leaving the career
on which I had entered for that of a Wesleyan Methodist
minister. But that night it was with tears of real regret
and a sense — however mistaken — of sacrifice that I told my
parents I had resolved to enter the ministry.
In accordance with my wish I was put on a year's proba
tion as a lay preacher, this being the necessary preliminary to
my becoming a candidate for the regular ministry. For two
or three years before this date I had been passing through
the inevitable period of doubt which intervenes between the
child's acceptance of parental teaching, and the gradual con
struction of a foundation of belief on which the superstructure
of a life's faith may be built. I had followed in the Nine
teenth Century, which we took in our home, the conflict of
Spencer and Huxley as to whether God was unknowable or
merely unknown, and the parallel controversy between New
man on the one hand and Kingsley and Fairbairn on the
other, as to the basis of authority in religion. But, in the
main, the simple faith of my parents and my own personal
sense of the reality and presence of God, even in the
darkest hours of my youth, remained with me almost
unshaken. One difficulty in matters of belief I could not so easily
surmount. In those days the question of Eternal Punish-

24 Chapters from My Life
ment was widely engaging the attention of men. Dr.
Farrar's "Eternal Hope " not only lost him the chance of a
bishopric for which his learning and abilities marked him
out, but also caused great searching of heart among a wide
circle of readers. In preparing my first sermon, I read a
very gloomy book called "For Ever," by an ex-President of
the Conference, and, fortified by this dreary work, preached a
correspondingly gloomy sermon on the text, "Why will ye
die, O House of Israel ? " I never got back again to the
position of that sermon, and in my second effort I dwelt on
"The mercies of God."
During the whole of this year of 1879 I was very busily
engaged in my father's business and was also developing my
own business. My father would have preferred that I should
attend exclusively to his affairs, and to avoid conflict with his
wishes I would rise at four in the morning to direct circulars,
work until eight at night, and then read theology. The
result of this pressure was that the winter found me on the
verge of a breakdown, and on medical advice I was sent away
to the Mediterranean for ten weeks.
I left England for Constantinople in January, 1880, on a
ship belonging to a friend of my father's, and travelled thence
by an Egyptian mail steamer, calling at Greek ports, to
Alexandria, returning via Naples to Genoa on a French mail
steamer. It was a somewhat perilous experiment to send a
boy of twenty to the Levant, unaccompanied by any older
friend, and with carte blanche to draw on the ship's agents
at each port. Two passengers on the steamer, who took me
to be a rich young Englishman, tried hard to persuade me to
gamble, and Cairo was full of temptations. But I was gener
ally fortunate in the acquaintances I made, and had no worse
experience than the initiation into the delights of some new
temperance drinks — curacoa and vermouth— to which I was
introduced by our captain at Smyrna. I was so delighted
with such an attractive substitute for ginger-beer that I was
most anxious to introduce them widely to my temperance

The Call to the Ministry 25
friends, until a genial Englishman, to whom I confided my
discovery, nipped my new crusade in the bud by informing
me that these new temperance drinks were nearly as strong
as brandy. The most memorable day of the voyage was one Friday
in Cairo, when I accompanied a party to see the Howling
and Dancing Dervishes. A Presbyterian missionary from
India, who was in the party visiting the mosques, noticed
that I had been deeply interested in the ceremonies, and
after our return pleaded long and earnestly with me to
give my life to the Indian missionary work. For the
time being I put the idea on one side, but this conversa
tion was afterwards to change the whole direction of
my life.
On my return to England, I prepared for examination
at the March quarterly meeting of the Horncastle circuit,
which roughly corresponds to a ruri-decanal synod in the
Church of England. I was nominated as a candidate for the
ministry by the senior minister, and sent forward to my
next examination at the Lincoln district or diocesan synod.
On this latter occasion I had to preach my first "trial ser
mon " at seven in the morning to a congregation of about
one hundred, including at least ten ministers, and the Chair
man (or Bishop) of a District (corresponding to a diocese
in the English Church). This was followed by an oral
examination in theology before the whole synod of about
sixty ministers, and a sermon preached before one minis
ter and marked and reported on by him. These marks
were forwarded to a Committee sitting in Manchester, con
sisting of ex-Presidents from the northern half of the
kingdom, two Missionary secretaries, the Professors of the
two Theological Colleges situated in the North, with other
officials and twenty-one ministers in circuit work. This
examination, oral and written, was carried out with great
care and conscientiousness, and the names of the accepted
candidates were sent forward for final approval by the

26 Chapters from My Life
Conference. There was something tragic in the case of
those men who were not accepted, and were sent back to a
secular life.
The whole system is a perfect illustration of the admir
able organisation of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Only
one criticism would I care to pass on the various examinations
that I underwent during my candidature and three years'
training at the Theological College, and the annual examina
tions during the four years of probation. At no point that
I can recall during those seven years of training was I asked
to explain my conception of the relation of Wesleyan
Methodism to the Universal Church, to state what was the
Church, what was the justification for the separation of the
different branches of the Church, what was the meaning of
our own ordination, and why the right to administer the
Holy Communion was denied to lay preachers and those on
probation, and recognised as the right and duty of those
who had been ordained. I have my own answers to all these
questions, but they have been evolved by years of thought
and study, and were never brought before me as a candidate,
a student, or a minister on probation.
After the Conference, meeting in late July, 1880, had in
my case accepted the nomination of the Committee, I was
instructed, as the Theological Colleges were then full of
students, to return to my secular work for one year, unless
any minister, being laid aside, required an assistant. Un
fortunately for himself, the senior minister of the Horncastle
Circuit was taken ill, and I was at . once appointed by
the President to be his ministerial assistant. It proved
an invaluable experience, and was my only opportunity
of studying from the inside the life of a circuit
minister. As it was the rule for candidates for the ministry to
spend three years at a Wesleyan Theological College, and
therefore I could not go to Oxford or Cambridge, I entered
myself as a student at Trinity College, Dublin, where
residence was not compulsory. During these months in the

The Call to the Ministry 27
Horncastle Circuit I preached three or four times a week,
doing a good deal of pastoral work, and simultaneously
prepared for the University. In July, 1881, I passed my
entrance and first term's examination at Dublin, and a few
weeks later began my life as a student in the Theological
College at Headingley, near Leeds.

CHAPTER III
LIFE AT A METHODIST THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE (l88l — 1883)
Headingley College — " Governor Hellier " — Professor Banks and
Professor Findlay — Leeds Methodism in the 'Eighties — College
Life and Training — Offer for Work as an Indian Missionary —
" The Parting of Friends."
Let us live, then, as Christ's servants, under no delusive dreams — for
life will not be easier but harder, infinitely harder, if you are to be His
soldiers, against sin, the world, and the devil. Embrace if you will the
banner of Love — Love flaming, intolerant, revolution incarnate. Follow
Christ to joy, to worship, to exultation and to agony. But never forget
for an instant, never forget — it is not peace but a sword that you bear
and wield. — J. R. Figgis.
HEADINGLEY COLLEGE, Leeds, in 1881 was one of
the happiest places in England. The Governor, Ben
jamin Hellier, in the opinion of all the students, was the best
and wisest Governor of any of the four colleges — Handsworth,
Didsbury, Richmond and Headingley. Stories more or less
apocryphal were told of other colleges where the Governors
were reported to treat their students as boys in many respects.
We were honoured by our Governor's confidence, a confidence
which we repaid by our honour and reverence for him.
Brought up in the Church of England, he had come in
early life under the spiritual influences of Methodism. He
believed thoroughly in the communion of his' adoption, but
never by word or deed did he evince anything of that spirit
which Matthew Arnold had stigmatised a few years earlier
as "The Dissidence of Dissent," a phrase which he borrowed
without acknowledgment from Edmund Burke.
When an unlucky student at college prayers, which were
conducted by the students in turn, concluded the lesson by
28

Life at a Methodist College 29
the not unusual formula, "Here endeth the reading of the
Scriptures," our Governor would say at breakfast in his genial
way, " Brother So-and-So, why did you say this morning the
reading of the Scriptures was ended? God forbid! The
reading of the Scriptures will never be ended so long as the
world exists. You can never improve on the rubric of the
Prayer Book, ' Here endeth the Lesson.' "
No student will ever forget the first weekly devotional
meeting of the college year, when the Governor would ask
each of the new men to relate his personal experience of con
version. Once only in my time did he get the kind of answer
that he cared for, when a friend of mine said, " My mother
told me that the Lord Jesus loved me, and I believed her."
This agreed absolutely with his own personal consciousness
of the Love of Jesus, which made his own life so radiantly
happy, and also with the strong conviction, embodied in a
sermon that he preached all over England on the "Elder
Brother" in the parable of the Prodigal Son:, that it was an
entirely unnecessary experience for any of the sons of God to
feed upon " the husks that the swine did eat " when they
might remain at home with the Father.
In all John Wesley's teaching there was no sentence that
appealed to him more than the statement, "The World is my
parish." Many of his students will remember his great
missionary sermon on "The Field is the World." He had
inherited from John Wesley, Xavier, and other great mission
ary souls of the Universal Church a strong sense of the world
wide mission of his own communion and of Christianity.
Headingley was a Home College, but he was always de
lighted when any of the men designated for the Home work
felt a call to the Mission Field.
We were also proud of our Professors. It was a common
saying of the men that ten minutes with our Theological
Professor, Dr. Banks, was worth an hour with Professor 
of  College. On Dr. Findlay, our Classical Professor,
I find this extract in my diary, "Feb. 5th, 1882. No one
could be long in his company without realising the intimacy

30 Chapters from My Life
of his communion with Christ. No wonder that to him
every word in Colossians [the epistle he was then lecturing
on] is pregnant with meaning. The study of tt/jcbtoto/co? and
irXripuna to him ceases to be mere investigation into the mean
ing of two words in a dead language, and becomes rather a
reverent contemplation of certain phases in the relation to
God the Father of that One, whom., above all others, he loves
out of a pure heart fervently."
We lived in the main a very untroubled life. We had
entered a new world, and although as yet we were only on
its very confines it was the world of scholarship and letters.
Most of the men spent every penny that could be spared from
clothes and vacations upon accumulating a library. In some
cases the sacrifices undergone to buy books would have
astonished the inner world of literary men. In matters
theological we were resting after the early struggles which
preceded candidature for the ministry. The successful attempt
to provide proofs, which at least satisfied our own minds, that
the main doctrinal positions of Methodism were founded on
truth, had been followed by a calm to last for the college
course and, in some cases, for life. We were happy with the
happiness of dwellers in a walled city, entirely unconscious
of the advance of an investing force armed with new weapons
of attack which would soon seriously test the fortifications
which sheltered us.
No doubt disturbed our minds that the orders to be con
ferred upon us were as valid as those of any church in
Christendom. We had an unquestioning faith in the Divine
origin of the communion in which we were to minister in
the years that followed. Our serene attitude on these points
was akin to that which characterised the devout High Church
clergy of the Church of England before the days when the
secession of Newman and Manning and the renewed vitality
of the Church of Rome raised grave doubts in the minds of
such men as to the security of the via media. The spiritual
fervour of early Methodism still remained as a great and vital

Life at a Methodist College 31
force, especially in the country villages, though somewhat
diminished by the growing wealth of the laity in the towns.
The work accomplished in Leeds by Dean Hook, who,
when he came there, found Methodism (as he put it) "the
established Church of Leeds," and by his devoted enthusiasm
largely undermined its position, furnished a grave warning
of what might happen elsewhere if the increasing riches of
our leading men, and their lessened zeal, reacted upon the
ministers and the mass of the Methodist people, confronted
by the new life in the Church of England. Three great
Methodist chapels — St. Peter's, Brunswick and Oxford
Place — once crowded with zealous worshippers, were now
sparingly occupied. I myself in those days preached one
Sunday evening in St. Peter's to a hundred and fifty people
in a building which would accommodate nearly fifteen times
that number. The population was denser than ever, but
Methodism had lost touch with the common people, and
comforted itself with the vain assurance that "our members
have moved to the suburbs." Headingley Chapel itself, a
suburban chapel, which we were fortunately unable to attend
because our Sunday work took us elsewhere, was an appall
ing example of the Arctic spiritual chill which had frozen
the members of some of our rich suburban congregations
into eminently respectable monuments to a dead faith. The
material wealth of some of these churches was represented
by hundreds of thousands, or millions. Their spiritual
poverty was naked and unashamed.
Within the college walls, however, everything was
reminiscent of primitive Methodism. Every Saturday we
went to preach in chapels all over Yorkshire, where the
congregation was not too proud to resent the ministrations
of a "student." On Monday mornings we returned to stimu
late each other with accounts of the week-end experiences.
Great was our mutual rejoicing when one of us was privi
leged to record many inquirers after faith in Christ during
the prayer meetings which followed our services.

32 Chapters from My Life
At this period of its history, Headingley College, under
the Governorship of Benjamin Hellier, was inspired with a
passion for the salvation of men. It listened and responded
to the insistence of Hugh Price Hughes upon the teaching
of Horace Bushnell, that "The soul of all improvement is
the improvement of the soul." It believed with Seeley in
"Ecce Homo" that "the article of conversion is the true
articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesice. When the power of
reclaiming the lost dies out of the Church, it may remain a
useful institution, though it is most likely to become an
immoral and mischievous one. Where the power remains
then, whatever else is wanting, it may still be said that 'The
Tabernacle of God is with men.' "
On Fridays, which, in accordance with Wesley's rules
for his preachers, were observed as special days of abstin
ence or fasting, and especially on the quarterly fast days,
there was a passionate longing expressed by the college
prayer meeting for the Pentecostal power to be manifested
in our work as preachers. And in the most private meetings,
by twos and threes in each other's studies, we sought to
prepare ourselves for the services on the approaching
Sunday. There were unforgettable moments when we
realised the Presence of our Lord and Master.
But just as other Communions have found that the ideals
of self-discipline, poverty, and purity of heart and life may be
broken within the walls of a monastery, and luxury and self-
indulgence may creep in under the rule of St. Francis, St.
Benedict, or St. Dominic, so John Wesley's "Rules of a
Helper " proved no certain safeguard against the dangers of
life in a religious community.
For us young Methodists there was a "society " which
sometimes threatened our zeal and diverted us from our call
ing. To such unsophisticated youths the invitation of a rich
layman, holding high office in the Society, to spend a long
evening at his house, smoking excellent cigars — as harmless
in themselves as a cup of tea to a nervous woman, but pro
hibited by college rules — would exert a weakening influence

Life at a Methodist College 33
in this life of sacred preparation. It might seem a small
matter to return at midnight to the College from such a home
through a window left open by a friend, but such trivial
lapses were as potent in weakening devotion as much more
serious offences would have been in the lives of more ex
perienced men. We were under military training to be
officers in the campaign against evil, and any weakening of
the comparatively easy discipline of our college had a sapping
influence. At the beginning of my third year at Headingley the
direction oPmy life was entirely changed. Subconsciously,
the conversation which I had with the Indian Missionary in
the gardens of the Ghezireh Palace after my visit in 1880 to
the Mosques had been working in my mind. India had often
been in my thoughts in 1883, perhaps because, as the eldest of
a large family, I wished to remain in England. At last, in
October, the conviction that I ought to offer for Indian work
became irresistible, especially as the way was open for me to
take a four years' medical course at Trinity College, Dublin,
thus allowing time for my brothers and sisters to grow older.
My mother, whom I was soon to lose, said in words that I
have always treasured, though I have realised them so imper
fectly, "Where the voice of duty calls you, there I wish you
to go. You are my box of spikenard',, very precious, which
I would wish to be poured out in the Master's service." This
dedication to my new work involved an ideal which, however
far short I have fallen of it, I have never forgotten.
On my return to Headingley I saw our dear Governor,
and he who loved work in other lands so much was greatly
pleased by my decision .
My last night at Headingley stands out among the live
long memories that surround all this period. Bradfield and
Hoyle, who had been my most intimate friends on the reli
gious side of my life during my time in the college, spent the
long hours of the night in conversation with me as to the
future. Bradfield said, "It is false to say that things recur
in life. They never recur. A change like this means that
D

34 Chapters from My Life
we must to some extent grow apart." I am thankful to say
that this prophecy was not realised. Our friendship re
mained a strong link in our lives. The link was the stronger
because of the prayers in which these two dear friends of
mine pleaded, just before we parted, for God's blessing to rest
upon me in Dublin, and afterwards in the work that should
follow my residence in the University. The next morning,
Crosby, who was going to Tonga in the South Seas', left the
college with me. As we drove away amid the cheers of our
fellow-students, we both agreed that we never hoped to know
greater peace and happiness than we had enjoyed in Head
ingley, or to meet with a set of men more definitely con
secrated to the high calling of saving the world from sin.

CHAPTER IV
DUBLIN UNIVERSITY (1883 — 1887)
The College Historical Society — College Friendships — The Divinity
School — Dr. Salmon — Professor Stokes — The Contemporary
Club — W. T. Stead's Visit — Dwyer Gray's Story of a Dinner
Party — The Irish Protestant Home Rule Association — Lord
Plunket on Home Rule — Michael Davitt — Home Rule Campaign
— Loyalist Attack on My Rooms — Dr. Mahaffy and Dr.
Shaw — First Introduction to Journalism.
Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille
Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.
— Goethe, "Tasso."
THE complete catholicity of life in a University, and more
especially in one which was in close touch with a great
city, furnished a startling change from the cloistered routine
of a Methodist Theological College and was the best possible
preparation for my work as Editor of the Review of the
Churches and President of the Grindelwald Re-union Con
ference. Dublin University no doubt loses something of
scholarly calm from its situation in a capital, but it gains
greatly from its association with professional, commercial and
political life. In this respect it has always seemed to me a
better training ground for the actualities of life than our
ancient English universities.
I had taken two years of my Arts course whilst at Head
ingley College, and took the third year concurrently with my
first year of medicine. At the conclusion of my last year
in the Arts course, which was my first year of medicine, I
decided to join the Divinity School and to take the two
courses of medicine and divinity concurrently. The city and
35

36 Chapters from My Life
suburbs with their numerous chapels furnished me with
opportunities of preaching of which I availed myself two
Sundays out of three. The famous Historical Society,,
founded by Edmund Burke, who was its first Secretary, gave
an opening for friendly encounter with students who were
then winning distinction in college, to be followed later on
by greater achievements in different spheres of life. As
Secretary of this Society in my third year of medicine, and as
Treasurer of the College Theological Society, of which the
great theologian and mathematician, Dr. Salmon, was
President, I had priceless advantage of intercourse with my
fellows. The friendships formed in these societies gave that
"universal " note to life which is expressed by the very word
"University." My four most intimate friends were J. J.
Sheehan, a Roman Catholic who took his gold medal in
philosophy ; Dr. Douglas Hyde, an Irish Churchman, a Gold
Medallist in Literature and a distinguished prizeman in the
Divinity School, afterwards known wherever Irishmen meet
as founder of the Gaelic League; W. M. Crook, an Irish
Methodist, Gold Medallist in Classics, afterwards Secretary
of the Eighty Club; and J. O. Herdman, Gold Medallist in
History and Political Economy, a member of an Irish Presby
terian family and himself a disciple of Herbert Spencer. We
represented in our little quintette Ulster, Munster, Leinster,
Connaught and England.
By my decision to join the Divinity School I found
myself confronted with the alternatives of communicating
three times annually in the College Chapel or declaring my
self a Protestant Dissenter. I found np difficulty in decid
ing, as I had always known that, while Methodists were
generally Nonconformists, we had never formally dissented
from the Church of England. Our liturgy was hers and
in every communion service our minister used unchanged
the Prayer of Consecration, and the other prayers from the
Prayer Book. At that time the "Wesleyan Methodist
Society " remained in all its essentials what it had been left
by John Wesley— a daughter of the Church of England,

Dublin University 37
who had unhappily been driven by circumstances out of her
home, and had founded a new home of her own.
The Church of Ireland has seldom attracted Methodists.
If men leave Methodism for the Episcopal Church, they
gravitate naturally to the High Church school of thought
rather than to the Calvinistic Evangelicals. Those who
taunted Wesley with being a Jesuit spoke more wisely than
they knew. If he had been a member of the Roman Church
in the great controversy between Jesuit and Jansenist, the
philosophic principle on which his theology was based would
have led him to take the side of the Jesuits with their emphasis
on Free WTill as against the determinist theology of
Jansenius. The division between Wesley and Whitefield was
no mere personal quarrel, but was founded on profoundly
different conceptions of the government of God. The
Evangelicals of the Church of England were greatly in
fluenced by the teaching of Whitefield; and the Clapham
sect, the Macaulays and Wilberforces and their followers,
stamped Evangelicalism in the Church of England with a
Calvinistic impress by which no follower of Wesley is
attracted. For this and other reasons, the meetings of the College
Theological Society, the lectures of the Divinity School, and
the services in the CoHege Chapel in no way weakened my
allegiance to the Communion to which I owed my spiritual
life. Nevertheless this free intercourse with Churchmen
strengthened and developed a desire for reunion which later
found expression in the Review which I was to edit for some
years, and the Reunion Conferences over which I was to
preside. I cannot leave this reference to the Divinity School
without recalling with gratitude the memory of two men
whose death was a great loss to the whole church.
Dr. Salmon, our Regius Professor, afterwards Provost,
first achieved European fame as a mathematician. At the
age of fifty, he became a professor of Theology, and won no
less fame in theological circles by his great work, "An

38 Chapters from My Life
Introduction to the Study of the New Testament." As
President of the Theological Society, he always invited the
officers and speakers after each debate to take tea in his
rooms. It was no small privilege for callow divinity students
to meet in close personal intercourse a man who combined
great intellectual force with a profound faith in the
Christian verities.
Dr. Stokes, our professor of Ecclesiastical History, was
a man of great breadth of thought. He invited me frequently
to read the lessons in his church at Blackrock. Afterwards,
over a friendly pipe, we discussed theological and
ecclesiastical problems with a freedom impossible in the
lecture-room, and with a corresponding educational value.
A Club, whose success helped to suggest to me the idea
of what took shape in the Reunion Conferences, was formed
in Dublin in 1885 by some Trinity men and some distin
guished men outside the University. The Contemporary
Club (as it was called), of which I was a member, limited its
numbers to fifty, and included T. W. Russell, then a Unionist
Member of Parliament; Michael Davitt and John O'Leary,
Fenian leaders; Dwyer Gray, M.P., a leading Parnellite;
Robert Cherry, afterwards Lord Chief Justice; Professor
Arnold, of the Catholic University, brother of Matthew
Arnold; W. B. Yeats, the poet, and his father the artist,
and other men of diverse opinions.
We met every Saturday evening for free and untrammelled
discussion of any subjects under the sun. The fact that this
group of Irishmen, divided sharply on political and social
issues, could discuss with good temper questions on which
they so widely differedj convinced me a few years later that
it would be possible to bring together in a series of Con
ferences men of the most divergent views.
The Club was visited by many distinguished men. When
W. T. Stead came over to Ireland to write, in his somewhat
pontifical style, his series of articles entitled, "The Truth
about Ireland," he came on my invitation to the Club. This

Dublin University 39
was immediately after the General Election of 1886. The
discussion was throughout a most exciting one. The first
time he came he interviewed everybody in the room and said
little. He then went through Ireland and came back per
fectly certain that he had discovered exactly what was wrong
with Ireland and how to cure it. He said, "I have been
through Ireland. The Crown has failed to govern the
country. Parliament has failed to govern the country. The
landlords have failed to govern the country. The Land
League is governing the country. They are the government
de facto; make them the government de jure."
Dr. G. F. Shaw, my tutor in Trinity, who was also the
leader writer for the Dublin Evening Mail, a Conservative
paper, turned round sharply and said, "What ! I have been
to Sicily. The Crown had failed to govern the country.
Parliament had failed to govern the country. The landed
classes had failed to govern the country. The brigands were
governing the country. They were the government de facto.
Would you make them the government de jure? When I
read the history of my unhappy country, Protestant as I
am, loyalist as I am, my blood boils with the wrongs that
we have suffered. Shall we make these men, animated by
the two strongest passions that can animate mankind —
revenge for the past and avarice for our riches — our
masters ? "
The conversation was then turned rather abruptly by
Stead to the condition of Romanists in the North of Ireland,
who were subject to trial by Protestant magistrates only.
He pleaded for some Roman Catholic magistrates. This
roused T. W. Russell, at that time a Unionist.
Stead said, referring to his trial in connection with the
"Maiden Tribute " agitation, "I know what it is (I do not
say whether I was right or wrong) to stand in the dock and
feel that the whole majesty of the law, which had been used
for my protection before, was now being used to crush me.
This is how the Papist feels in a Protestant Ulster Court."
This was too much for Russell's temper. He looked round

40 Chapters from My Life
the room at Dwyer Gray, and other Fenians and Parnellites,
and said in an angry tone, "How many jailbirds have we
here?" Dwyer Gray, with an Irishman's ready wit, came
to the rescue and said, "That reminds me of an incident
that happened after the Kilmainham treaty. Gladstone had
just released us all, and in honour of the event, I gave a
dinner at my house in London. I had a new butler that
night, and my guests had begun to give their experiences
of plank beds and skilly. This went all right as long as
the men were talking, but when Miss Anna Parnell chimed
in with her reminiscences of prison life, it was too much for
the butler. He thought he had got into a long firm, and
he fled out of the door and I never saw him again." The
tables were dissolved in laughter and the situation was saved.
One chapter in my life was the direct result of these
weekly meetings at the Contemporary Club. Although I
have wished to keep out of this volume all questions of
political controversy, it is impossible in tracing the influences
which have most affected my life to avoid referring to the
question of Home Rule.
I learned in Trinity that the Christian faith was intro
duced into Ireland, alone of all the countries of Europe,
without persecution and bloodshed. To the saints of the
Irish Church the evangelisation of Western Europe had
been due in no small degree. St. Columba, St. Colum-
banus, St. Gall, and others, had carried the message of the
Faith up the Rhine, through Switzerland, and into Germany.
Europe owes much to these devoted confessors and scholars.
In the later political history of Ireland!, I found that the
first Act passed by the so-called rebel Parliament of
James IL, before the battle of the Boyne, was a declaration
that no person should be persecuted for his religious
opinions. *
The history of the early nineteenth century furnished
grotesque illustrations of the fanatical intolerance of the Pro
testants in their opposition to Catholic Emancipation. They

Dublin University 41
had behind them nearly three centuries of political supremacy
and domination. What happened in these centuries was
described in the sentence by my old tutor, Dr. G. F. Shaw,
which I have already quoted.
In their terror lest the position should be reversed after
the emancipation of the Catholics, the Orange orators in
1828 threatened "to kick the King's crown into the Boyne,"
and one of them, more heroic than the rest, finished a speech
with some verses of his own, which concluded :
To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,
Or crushed in its ruins to die.
But the Catholics received the franchise, and these threats
of civil war vanished into thin air, to be revived again in
1868 when the Disestablishment of the Irish Church was
threatened. On this occasion the father of one of my most intimate
friends in Trinity concluded a vigorous speech by saying,
"If we cannot valiantly win, let us nobly die." In 1886
he had neither won nor nobly died. Instead of being in a
noble grave he was Recorder of Dublin, while his son,
who in later years was a respected Land Commissioner, went
over to England during the 1886 General Election, for the
Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, to repeat the same threats
of civil war.
In my visits at this period to the South of Ireland, I
found that whilst the Roman Catholics were in the over
whelming majority, there was a complete absence of that
odium theologicum which marked the North. A Wesleyan
minister, himself a Unionist, told me of a visit he paid to a
dying Orangeman in Belfast, who spoke confidently of his
hopes for the next world for this reason, "I have done my
duty; I have cursed the Pope every twelfth of July." Another
friend told me of a mother, who was asked if her child could
sing any hymns, and replied, "No, but he can say very
nicely, ' To hell with the Pope ! ' "

42 Chapters from My Life
The Catholic population would have too keen a sense
of the ludicrous to return the compliment in kind, but this
temper simply did not exist where the Roman Catholics
were in the majority.
Reverting to the Club discussions of Home Rule, it
happened one night that the importance was suggested of
emphasising to the English nation the existence of a number
of Irish Protestants who believed that Home Rule was a
wise and just policy. To effect this end some of us at once
formed the nucleus of what became the Irish Protestant
Home Rule Association. We arranged for a meeting in
Dublin which proved very successful, and I was then ap
pointed with our Secretary, Mr. Oldham, and Mr. (now Sir)
Thomas Myles, to wait on Lord Plunket, the Protestant
Archbishop of Dublin, who was known to be sympathetic
with the national aspirations.
Lord Plunket received us most courteously, and whilst
declining to join our movement, expressed his strong dis
belief in the possibility of Catholic intolerance as depicted
in the Belfast papers. He also gave me permission, nay,
rather asked me, to state that I had read his official declara
tion on the Home Rule question at the Church synod in
the previous March, which did not contain a trace of terror
or even of the slightest fear of persecution from Rome if
Home Rule should be carried.
It is interesting to note that his grandfather, Lord Plunket,
Lord Chancellor of Ireland, made one of the finest speeches
against the Act of Unions which concluded with this perora
tion : " For my own part I will resist it to the last gasp of
my existence, and with the last drop of my blood, and when
I feel the hour of my dissolution approaching, I will, like
the father of Hannibal, take my children to the altar and
swear them to eternal hostility against the invaders of their
country's freedom."
While these events were taking place in Dublin, the
General Election was drawing very near, and there was a
great demand for speakers from Ireland, especially among

Dublin University 43
Protestants who supported Home Rule. Our Association
decided to send J. G. Swift McNeill, W. M. Crook, myself,
and one or two others as representatives to England.
Our special message was to assure English voters that
Home Rule would not mean the persecution of Irish Pro
testants by their Catholic fellow countrymen. We argued
that self-government is the great enemy of clericalism, and
that, immediately Home Rule was granted, Liberal Catho
lics would unite with Protestants and would form, as in
Belgium, a strong anti-clerical party. Nothing that has
since happened has weakened my conviction that these con
tentions were sound.
On my arrival in London I met Michael Davitt, the most
charming of the Irish Nationalists, who telegraphed to me
later to keep an appointment he had made for me to meet
Parnell at the House. I received the telegram after the hour
fixed, but a day or two later I learned that Parnell wished me
to take one of the seats in Parliament which were then
practically in the gift of the Irish leader. This was out of the
question. My work for India stood before any political
ambitions. The story of the Home Rule movement has led me away
from my life in College. At the end of my second year I was
elected Treasurer of the Theological Society, and had secured
the Oratory Medal and the President's prize essay for the
year; I was elected Secretary of the Historical Society and
President of the University Temperance Society. At that
moment it seemed that the blue ribbon of University life —
the Chairmanship or, as it was called, the " Auditorship/'
of the Historical Society, which corresponds to the " Unions "
of Oxford and Cambridge — was within my reach, but I was
to have a proof of the truth that Thomas a Kempis puts thus :
"They that to-day take thy part, to-morrow may be against
thee, and often do they turn round like the wind." It was a
lesson for life.
What, happened was truly Irish. The well-known son

44 Chapters from My Life
of a very well-known father went to the rooms of the His
torical Society one day and said, "I am going to sit here day
after day and tell lies about Lunn till he is beaten for the
Auditorship." He then started a number of legends which
had no foundation whatever in fact, mainly bearing on my
relation to the Purity Society with which I had nothing what
ever to do, except having given the Inaugural Address. He
depicted me in graphic terms taking a dark lantern to Meck
lenburg Street, a notorious street in Dublin, and turning it
on the faces of men who were going to certain houses. The.
story flew round the University that I had been the means of
the dismissal from the Bank of Ireland of two highly re
spectable clerks whom I had met in this street. A letter from
the Secretary of the Bank of Ireland, stating that no clerks
had been dismissed, did not kill the rumour. As the year
went on the excess of popularity which had led to my being
elected to the posts named above was steadily vanishing. I
was pelted with eggs. My rooms were screwed up one
Saturday night, and I was due to preach on the Sunday. I
descended by a ladder and took my service, putting the
ladder in W. M. Crook's rooms for the day, and returned to
my bed at night. The next day the carpenter came and ex
tracted screws about eight inches long with the heads
knocked off.
Finally, while I was away on the Home Rule campaign,
the loyalist student "moonlighters," as they proudly called
themselves, broke into my rooms, passed a unanimous reso
lution consigning me and Parnell to the Abyss, destroyed
my furniture, broke my pictures up, cut my bedding to
pieces, and poured oil from my lamp upon it. They stopped
when they realised that if they lit it they might burn half
Trinity down.
I heard the news just at the end of my campaign, when
I was staying at Harrow Weald with H. P. Cobb, M.P. for
Rugby. Mrs. Cobb recommended me to go and tell Stead,
and wrote a letter of introduction to him. It was a great event
for the young University student to be given an introduction

Dublin University 45
to the most famous editor of his generation. I went to my
room at midnight, and, in keen anticipation of the event of
the coming day, wrote my first article entitled, "Lessons of
the General Election."
When I saw Stead the next morning he said, about the
wrecking of my rooms, "This is not a question for me; you
must bring it before your Board and, if necessary, I
will support you." He accepted the article which I had
written, and this was my first introduction to him and to
journalism. On my return to Trinity I appealed to the Board for
compensation, and a few days later met the present Provost,
Dr. Mahaffy, who was then my tutor, and has been my
friend ever since. As my tutor, he had presented my case
to the Board, and when I met him in the large quadrangle I
said, "What has happened at the Board, Dr. Mahaffy?"
Just then my former tutor, Dr. G. F. Shaw, came up, and
Dr. Mahaffy turned to him and said, "Here, Shaw. This
man Lunn wants to be compensated for the wrecking of his
rooms." To Dr. Mahaffy's surprise, Shaw, although a
prominent Tory, said, "Certainly Lunn ought to be com
pensated, Mahaffy. It is men who take their own line who
are the salt of the earth. Would you have us all crushed
beneath the Juggernaut of identity ? Would you have us
all like Dr. Poole ? " The point about this was that Dr.
Poole was a venerable old Fellow of the strictest evangelical
type, who believed that there was a Jesuit in every household.
The views of the Tory leader writer were not approved
by the Board. They agreed with Dr. Mahaffy, and I was
not compensated.
It will be judged from these incidents that my candidature
for the Chair of the Historical Society, a position which had
been held by Archbishop Magee, Lord Ashbourne, Isaac
Butt, J. F. Dillon, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Robert
Emmett, and a number of other distinguished loyalists and
rebels in the days gone by, was not successful, and I was
defeated by a considerable majority by a man whom I had

46 Chapters from My Life
beaten by a large majority the year before for the Secretary
ship. The failure to secure the Chair of the Historical Society
left me free to go and help the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes,
who was then Wesleyan minister at Brixton. In my fourth
year of medicine I spent the time from Christmas to Easter
with him in that London suburb, and attended lectures at
St. Thomas's Hospital.
These three months were intensely enjoyable, but it made
my work very heavy when I returned to Dublin to finish my
courses. However, I took my examination for M.B. in the
spring, and at the end of June the examination for Bachelor
of Surgery, and presented a thesis for M.D. which was
accepted. My life at Trinity had been intensely enjoyable but
almost breathless in its activity. In four years I had taken
my last year of Arts and the Degree Examination ; the junior
year in the Divinity School and the examination, and one
term of the senior year ; three yearly theological examinations
for the Wesleyan Methodist ministry; and the four years'
medical and surgical course. During this time I had
preached frequently in Dublin and taken an active part as
speaker and officer in the two College Debating Societies.
I had also gone through a General Election Campaign from
Clapham to Inverness, and had done three months' work as
the colleague of my strenuous friend, Hugh Price Hughes.
It had all passed in "one crowded hour." It is good to be
young. I never understood why the writer of Ecclesiastes
said, "Childhood and youth are vanity," just after he had
said, "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth." That last
sentence was good advice. There was no need to spoil it
with the pessimism of a disappointed old age.
I had now completed my residence at Dublin University,
and my marriage alone intervened between my departure
from the University and my entry upon what I expected to
be my life's work as a missionary in India.

CHAPTER V
HUGH PRICE HUGHES (l886— 1887)
Meeting with Hugh Price Hughes — Attitude to the English Church
— Letter to the Spectator in 1868 — Encounter with Mark
Pattison — His Theology influenced by Westcott — " Social
Christianity " — I become his Assistant at Brixton — My Ordina
tion and Marriage — An Irish Archbishop's Wit — An Oxfordshire
Vicar and the Holy Communion — Archbishop Temple on Non
conformists at the Communion Service.
From the non-Chri9tian standpoint, we are bound to appear irrational,
quixotic, futile. If we do not appear so, it is because we have lowered
the flag, and are striving to fight the world with its own weapons. —
J. R. Figgis.
So in light and shadow the preacher went,
God's erring and human instrument;
And the hearts of the people as he passed,
Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast.
— Whittier, "The Preacher."
THE political events of the last chapter led to my con
nection and intimate friendship for the rest of his life with
one of the most remarkable men that Methodism has ever
produced. Four days after I had begun my three weeks'
election campaign I received a telegram followed by a letter
from the Missionary Secretary to whom I was responsible :
"Stay political action. Await letter. Wesley, London."
This had been redirected from Dublin. On its receipt I
immediately telegraphed for an interview with Hugh Price
Hughes, who was then editor of the Methodist Times, of
which I was the Dublin University correspondent. He
welcomed me at his home in Brixton with great cordiality
and sympathy, but said at once, "You must not sacrifice
your life's work even for this great issue. I will go with
47

48 Chapters from My Life
you to the Mission House." We found the Missionary
Secretary, Dr. Jenkins, away, and we decided that I should
write a conciliatory letter explaining my position, and fulfil
my engagements in Inverness, Cumberland, Lincolnshire,
and various London constituencies until I received his reply.
Dr. Jenkins, with great consideration, waited till the
election was practically over before replying.
As we went from Brixton to the Mission House I
informed Hughes of my wish to spend three months at the
London hospitals and do some work in a London suburb,
and thus get to know London laymen who might help my
proposed work in India. I had already been ordained. He
at once said, "You come as my assistant to Brixton. I am
holding a series of meetings in connection with the proposed
West London Mission, and it will be a great relief to me if
you will preach for me in my absence in the provinces, and
assist in the pastoral work."
He introduced me to his work in the following charac
teristic way. He said: "Well, Lunn, I am going for a
week's rest. You must take charge until the Mission which
I shall hold on my return. You will take the Watchnight
Service on Friday. On Sunday you will preach in the
morning at Brixton." (The church held about 1,200). "In
the afternoon you will conduct the Annual Covenant Service
and administer the Sacrament. In the evening you will
preach at Brixton again. Every night during the week you
will give an address preparatory to the Mission. I am off.
Good-bye," and I was launched into a position of almost
overwhelming responsibility.
Thus began a friendship which lasted with increasing
intimacy until we were separated by his early death in 1902.
Hugh Price Hughes was probably the greatest influence
in Methodism since the days of John Wesley. In many ways
he resembled Wesley. Both were great ecclesiastics, and
both possessed unusual gifts for organisation and discipline.
They shared the keen desire that Methodism should be, not

THE REV. HUGH AND MRS. PRICE HUGHES

Hugh Price Hughes 49
a sect, but part of the Universal Church. Probably no one
realised as I did Hughes's intense eagerness for union with
the Historic Church. Quite accidentally I met in a Dublin
maternity hospital a lady taking out a special course for
Mission work abroad, who had known Hughes intimately in
his college days twenty years before. She was greatly
interested in the similarity of my views with those which
Hughes (whom I had only once met) had expressed in her
home. She told me that Hughes was the author of a remark
able article in the Spectator of August 29, 1868, signed "One
of the Methodist Left" — a fact which I believe no one else in
Methodism knew. The article was written just at the time
when Dr. Pusey had made overtures to the Wesleyans to
reunite with the Church of England. Punch published a
famous cartoon in which Maid Methodist was represented
as going to Conference, and Dr. Pusey as asking her where
she was going. The following lines were under the cartoon :
"Where are you going, my pretty maid?"
" I'm going to Conference, sir," she said.
" May I go with you, my pretty maid? "
"Just as it please you, sir," she said.
In his article Hughes attacked, with his wonderful
vehemence and fire, the Methodist patres conscripti for their
blunt refusal to consider Dr. Pusey's overtures. Claiming to
speak for the younger ministers and for the Methodist Left,
he said, "The Methodist Conference is a far more oligarchical
institution than the Government of ancient Sparta. A man
entering our ministry must 'travel' (i.e. be employed in
the regular ministry) fourteen years before he can vote at
the Presidential elections or possess any legal locus standi in
the Conference. . . Hence, as very few enter our ministry
under twenty, men are considerably past thirty (at which age
even a Spartan was allowed to take part in the public
assembly and was eligible to the offices of the State) before
their opinions are really known. . . . The Conference,
E

50 Chapters from My Life
speaking roughjy, only represents the opinions and wishes
of the Methodist ministers who are on the other side of
forty. . . . The official manifestoes of Methodism always
express the sentiments of the last generation ; the children of
the present are not heard. And yet, it would be well some
times to hear the children, for their opinions will sway
Methodism when our dear fathers have gone to their reward.
"I do not think that most young ministers contemplate
the Catholic faith with a great terror, or pelt Catholic
Christians with opprobrious epithets. They heartily echo
the sentiments of a letter to a Roman Catholic by the Rev.
John Wesley (Dublin, A.D. 1749) in which our revered
founder, then in the full vigour of his ministry, exhorts his
' Catholic ' brother to ' resolve, first, not to hurt one another ;
secondly, to speak nothing harsh or unkind of each other;
thirdly, to harbour no unkind thought or unfriendly temper
towards each other; fourthly, to help each other in whatever
we are agreed leads towards the Kingdom. So far as we
can, let us always rejoice to strengthen each other's hands
in God.' Sir, tears fill my eyes, while my pen almost
incredulously transcribes such sentiments from such a man
in such an age. Is it possible that upon our shoulders has
fallen the mantle of that boundless charity, that devoted
apostleship ? Are these the sentiments of the late Conference ?
' If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of
Abraham.' "In relation to Dr. Pusey, I think no inconsiderable
proportion of ' this generation ' will be found to agree with
the Saturday Review (even that irreverent paper thinks so)
in its opinion that Dr. Pusey was not treated too courteously
by the late Conference. When a clergyman of his attain
ments, sanctity , and position invited a body of Noncon
formists to the consideration of religious questions that
concern both, however widely they may differ from any of
his tenets, they should at least give him occasion to exclaim,
as Sir W. Scott exclaimed of a more secular 'body, ' Things
are yet in the hands of gentlemen,' a result not obviously

Hugh Price Hughes 51
attainable by suspicious shrieks about ' golden baits ' and
highly delicate insinuations that we had better go on to the
order of the day. . . .
"The Rev. T. Jackson's uncompromising dictum, that
' the amalgamation of Methodism and Churchmanship ' — a
curious expression of the old gentleman's — ' is legally,
morally and religiously impossible,' is only a dictum after
all. He not unwisely considers it ' useless to argue the case.'
We all admire Mr. Jackson's character, and respect his
extensive learning and venerable age; but we peremptorily
refuse to permit even his ipse dixit to foreclose an argument
of this importance. The obvious rejoinder, for argument there
is none, to Mr. Jackson is that ' amalgamation may perhaps
in a few years' time be legally, morally, and religiously
possible.' In this conflict of dicta the venerable Dr. Jack
son has the advantage of age, in so much as he is older
and more experienced than we are ; we have the advantage of
age in so much as we are younger and less experienced
than he is, and shall therefore be able to repeat our dictum
after he has been gathered to his fathers. At the age of 45,
speaking generally, a man's intellect becomes stereotyped.
After that period the experience and fixity of his mind
increase his grasp of stationary truth, but he is incapable of
properly appreciating the fluctuating phenomena of transpir
ing events. What was impossible in Father Jackson's day —
which is surely passed now — may not be impossible when
our children have learned that ours is a gospel of peace. . . .
"The best and most God-like spirits of all churches that
worship Jesus of Nazareth are daily yearning and praying
for closer intercourse and a more real community of glorious
toil." This article — a strange forecast of his attitude at Grindel
wald — evoked bitter replies in the Methodist papers of that
day, when the Methodist leaders were probably further
removed in spirit from the Church of England than at any
other period of her history. If the authorship had been
known, judging from the leading articles in the Methodist

52 Chapters from My Life
papers of the day, Hughes would no doubt have been forced
to leave Methodism, and the history of Methodism and indeed
of religion in England would have been greatly affected.
Notwithstanding this passion for unity which caused him
in later years to advocate the re-union of the different
Methodist bodies, an attempt which has already led to great
results in Canada and Australia, he had a deep loyalty to
Methodism which was quite compatible with his appreciation
of the historic position of the Church of England.
On a memorable occasion at a public meeting in Oxford,
presided over by Mark Pattison, the Rector of Lincoln
College, he gave a crushing rebuke to that great figure in
Oxford life. In the course of his speech he said, "I con
gratulate you, Sir, on being the head of a College which
counts among its fellows John Wesley, the founder of a
communion which numbers to-day in English-speaking
countries twenty million adherents." "You mean twenty
thousand, Mr. Hughes," said Mark Pattison. Thereupon
Hughes, in his wrath, hewed Mark Pattison in pieces for his
ignorance, as an English clergyman, of the great work done
by a former Fellow of his own college.
Hughes was never in spirit a Dissenter. It was significant
that the phrase which he made proverbial in the columns of
the Times — "The Nonconformist conscience " — was not "the
Dissenters' conscience." He was much nearer to the Non-
Juror Bishops of the seventeenth century than to their
contemporaries among the Puritans. He never conformed,
but at heart he was in the largest sense of the word a Church
man, and a High Churchman, a title which his friend Berry
always claimed for Hughes and himself.
In one of the Grindelwald Conferences on the Education
problem, he suggested as a solution that the Apostles' Creed
should be taught in all the State schools. This evoked
angry comments in the Times from the old-fashioned leaders
of Dissent, Guinness Rogers and others. Hughes and I
read the Times as we were driving down the valley of the

Hugh Price Hughes 53
Inn to Tirol, and I never forgot his comment. He said
meditatively, but with great emphasis, as though he were
expressing a latent but deep conviction, that if this spirit
triumphed in the Liberal party, he would have to reconsider
his political position rather than surrender the youth of the
nation to secular teaching.
In his theology he was Johannine rather than Petrine
or Pauline. Westcott's commentaries on St. John influenced
him equally with Westcott's teachings on the social duties
of the Church. He was never happier in his preaching than
when expounding the deep mystical truths of the sixth
chapter of St. John's Gospel where Jesus says: "I am the
Living Bread which came down from Heaven. If any man
eat of this Bread he shall live for ever, and the Bread that I
will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world." To him, as to Wesley, it was his indisputable
privilege in the Holy Communion to "feed upon Christ by
faith in his heart." As he stated in one of the Grindelwald
Conferences in a discussion which', unfortunately, was never
reported, he accepted the teaching of Bishop Hooker and the
great Anglican theologians on the affirmation of the Church
of England that "the Body and Blood of Christ are verily
and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's
Supper." Confronted by the increasing gravity of the social prob
lems of the age, he constantly asserted that the great duty
of the Church was "the reconstruction of Society on a
Christian basis." In his teaching of the application of
Christianity to the needs of the people he followed closely
Maurice and Westcott, but he also claimed that his true fore
runner in teaching the duty of the Church in regard to great
issues of social reform was John Wesley. Wesley, he
pointed out, founded the first dispensary for the poor. Wes
ley's last letter was addressed to Wilberforce, urging him to
persevere in his efforts to destroy "that sum of all villainies,
West Indian slavery," and in this matter to go forward, even
though opposed by men and devils, as an " Athanasius contra

54 Chapters from My Life
mundum." In the same spirit Hughes fought on the great
moral issues of the day, and his example was an inspiration
to all who worked with him.
Before the three months of my work at Brixton were ended
our friendship had become the greatest influence in my life,
and I was indeed happy when he said to me one day, " I have
never had a colleague who, I felt, understood and sym
pathised with me as you do. You must go to India, but I
wish that it were possible for you to stay and help me in
founding the West London Mission." His devoted wife said
to me, "You would add ten years to my husband's life if
you could stay." But I had decided on India, and to India I
was to go for a while.
The following extract from Miss Dorothea Price Hughes's
life of her father vividly describes the story of the commence
ment of our friendship. Referring to her father's life at
Brixton, Miss Price Hughes writes :
"He made friends widely as he always did when he had
time and opportunity, and in particular the loved friend of
his life, Dr. Lunn.
"Dr. Lunn was at that time at Dublin, taking a medical
course, preparatory to becoming a medical missionary. The
banner which agitated our household was flapping over the
whole country in that year — 1886 — as Mr. Gladstone had
appealed to the country over his Home Rule Bill. Dr. Lunn,
who shared my father's keen interest in social and political
issues, was a member of the Protestant Home Rule Asso
ciation, and had come over to England to campaign in its
behalf and that of the Bill. He had just started on his tour
when he received a telegram from the Mission House worded,
' Stop political action. Wesley, London,' which left him in
some perplexity.
"My parents had visited the Wesleyan Theological
College at Headingley, while Dr. Lunn was there a year or
two previously, and he had been struck, like everyone else,
with my father's personality. Dr. Lunn saw in him a new

Hugh Price Hughes 55
order of minister — one who was keenly interested evidently
in scholarly pursuits, and the thought of the day, and was
yet an impassioned and popular evangelist. . . . Such a
champion, and one who was a Home Ruler to boot, would
certainly befriend a young minister in his present difficulty,
so Dr. Lunn telegraphed to my father asking if he could see
him, and arrived at Brixton shortly after my father's reply.
" Resistance was felt to be the more legitimate, as it was
undoubtedly believed at the time — though one does not know
with what justification — that the authorities were themselves
actively engaged in backing the Conservative and anti-
Gladstonian party.
"To Dr. Lunn's surprise, he said resistance was not
legitimate. He owed obedience, he insisted, to the Church.
There was a divine right of rebellion against authority in the
Church and out of it, but it was rare — oh, very rare — and the
occasion had to be fully worth it and the rebel the discreetest
of persons. Freedom of speech and opinion, the ventilation
of grievances, was one thing which he had always advocated
in Methodism, as his hearer knew, but to disobey direct
injunction of the authorities was quite another. My father's
advice was quite consistent with his own conduct at college
and after it. He had never disobeyed a direct mandate of
the authorities. . . .
" In the spring of 1887 Dr. Lunn came to take a preaching
appointment in the circuit, and had further intercourse with
my father. They dropped into intimacy at once. ' Here's
this fellow Lunn ! ' my father called out to my mother on
the morning that he arrived. Their buoyancy and joy in
each other's society were quite intoxicating. They would
sit out on the balcony overlooking the strip of back garden
until late in the night, talking of their plans and of the future,
my mother joining with them. Dr. Lunn was considerably
my father's junior, and his contact with him at an impres
sionable period, as well as the special interest and affection
that my father in his turn at once conceived for him, was to
lead to a friendship that was deep and unbroken. . . .

56 Chapters from My Life
" Dr. Lunn's interest in the world at large and in politics
was a quality that appealed to my father. He would go and
listen to debates in the House and describe them afterwards*
to his listener's intense delight. Moreover, he would pull
my father's arguments to pieces and take him by the horns
on all occasions. These horns resembled those in a fable.
You had only to make for them and they vanished in your
grasp; indeed, a lamb looked up at you."
I had been ordained in July, 1886, at the end of my four
years' probation, and I graduated in medicine and surgery
in June, 1887.
On July 12, 1887, I married Ethel, eldest daughter of
Canon Moore, Rector of Midleton, County Cork. This was,
I believe, the first time that a Wesleyan Methodist minister
had married a member of the English Church Union, for
my wife was still a member of that High Church Society.
On our wedding day we both realised that on the great
fundamental truths of religion we were in essential agreement.
The Calvinism of Irish Evangelical Churchmen, by which
she had been surrounded in early life and against which she
had instinctively revolted, was as alien to the teaching of
John Wesley as it was to the teaching of the English Church
Union. An amusing incident occurred in connection with my
marriage, of which I only heard after my return from India
from Mr. H. E. Fox, author of "Why Ireland wants Home
Rule." He had been present in 1886 at a meeting in the
Rotunda, addressed by Mr. John Redmond, at which I also
spoke. I happened to rouse his enthusiasm by speaking in
strong terms of the unlikelihood of Catholics persecuting
Protestants under Home Rule, and he had quoted from my-
speech in his book. On my wedding he wrote, asking us to
visit his country place, and he promised, if we came, to
invite priests from six neighbouring counties to meet
us. However, we felt that the shores of Bantry Bay
and the beautiful solitudes of Killarney and Glandorf

Hugh Price Hughes 57
were more to be desired at that time than the witty
stories of half a dozen jolly Irish priests at his hospitable
board. He planned another surprise for me, which luckily for
my father-in-law's peace of mind did not come off. He wrote
to the parish priest at Midleton and told him that the
Protestant Rector's daughter was about to be married to a
strong Home Ruler and urged that he should get the local
Land Leaguers to decorate the streets. Even now I shudder
to think of what would have been the effect on the Protestant
society gathered that day at the Rectory if this had happened.
However, it did not come off, but some little time later Mr.
Fox was crossing the Irish Channel with Dr. Walsh, the
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, to whom he com
plained that Father Fitzpatrick had not adopted his idea.
"Sure," said the Archbishop, "he's too lazy to have done
such a thing even for the wedding of the Holy Father
himself." Only a genuine Irish Archbishop would have
dared to use such an illustration.
Our very happy and untroubled engagement covered two
Christmases. On the first my fiancee was visiting a cousin
in a little Oxfordshire village, of which the Vicar was Henry
Barter, son of the friend of Newman, Pusey, and Manning.
His wife, daughter of Bishop Moberley, another leader of
the Oxford movement, was her greatest friend at that time.
On my arrival I called with her at the Vicarage, and Mr.
Barter at once carried me off into his study and said, "I
understand you would like to come with Ethel on Christmas
Day to the Holy Communion." I replied that I had not
spoken of it but should be glad to do so. Thereupon he
asked me if I believed the Nicene Creed. I at once said
that it was of course recited in the Methodist Communion
Service, which was identical with that of the English Church.
This was a striking lesson to me which I never forgot, of how
completely the best and most cultured of the clergy of the
English Church fail to realise how near they are in

58 Chapters from My Life
thought and purpose to those who are serving God in other
communions. Accordingly, on Christmas Day we attended Holy
Communion together.
When I returned from India to live in the parish of St.
Pancras as the colleague of Hugh Price Hughes, I met our
Vicar, the Rev. Luke Paget, now Bishop of Stepney, whom
I have the privilege of counting among my most honoured
friends. I asked him if he had any objection to my com
municating on Christmas Day with my wife. He asked if
I would mind his consulting the Bishop. The Bishop (Dr.
Temple) told me afterwards that he telegraphed, "Let Lunn
decide, that is his business." It was a characteristic reply,
but I think Bishop Paget was bound by his own rubrics as
a consistent High Churchman.
I have recorded these incidents because of their
bearing on my later action, and their relation to what
was to be called in a future controversy, "The Grindelwald
Communion ."-

CHAPTER VI
MISSIONARY LIFE IN INDIA (1887 — 1888)
Unity in theMissionField — First Impressions — Madras — Subramanyam
— Medical Missions — Tiruvalur — Views of Educated Indians on
Missions — Indian National Congress — Methods of the Salvation
Army — Lectures at Kumbakonam — Illness — Experiences of a
Salvation Army Captain — Gulf between Europeans and Natives
— The Madras Christian College — Criticisms of Missionary
Policy — Breakdown in Health — Return to England.
While the West was extending its material empire over the East,
the East was permeating at a thousand points the life and thought and
worship of the West ; and in this warfare of religious influences it was no
longer in the main Greece but Asia that was the giver, and Europe the
receiver. — Cuthbert Hamilton Turner.
I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, so, as much as in me
lies, I am ready to preach the Gospel. — S. Paul.
MY life as a missionary in India was to be a short and
chequered one, marked by a series of illnesses which
compelled me to return home. Nevertheless, this year in
the mission field was of great value to me in emphasising
the infinite distance which separates Christianity from the
other religions of the East, compared with which the barriers
that divide Christendom are indeed trivial. "Changing
China," that able record of Lord William Cecil's visits to
the mission stations of that country, revealed the effect upon
a High Church clergyman of those problems of heathenism
with which the missionary work of the whole Church has to
cope, and in this respect the experience of the young
Methodist missionary was similar to that of the High
Church bishop.
As in the Great War we speak of Mongol, Cossack or
Serb as "Our Allies," and realise that the purpose of all
59

60 Chapters from My Life
the nations confronted with a common danger is one, so the
ecclesiastical and social barriers that divide us at home are
largely, and should be entirely, disregarded in the Mission
Field, in our common conflict with superstition and
paganism. I could not have found anywhere one who would have
thrown herself more heartily into her husbaod's work as a
missionary than my wife did. In all the bitterness of the
Missionary Controversy, in all its "tragedy of errors," none
of the Indian missionaries, however much they might distrust
and denounce her husband, failed to recognise that our
compulsory return to England, in consequence of my ill-
health, had robbed the Mission Field of one devoted worker.
In giving herself to work among Indian women she had
looked forward to a life of hard work and complete self-denial,
and we both left England fully expecting a life of consider
able hardship, as I believe practically all missionaries of all
communions do.
On our outward journey we called at Aden, where her
brother, Colonel R. Heber Moore, was stationed. When we
saw his bungalow, which was much inferior to any mission
ary's house I ever entered, I well remember her saying, 'How
delightful it would be to have a nice house like this in India."
On reaching Madras we found ourselves staying at the
Wesleyan Mission House in Royapetah, a fine bungalow
which had very nearly been purchased some years before for
the residence of the Bishop of Madras. The grounds of
several acres contained a chapel, two schools and a bungalow
for two lady missionaries.
This contrast was only the first of many impressions
which led to my writing, on my return to England, the
articles which caused "The Missionary Controversy."
My stay at Madras was valuable because it brought me
into close touch with some of the leading Indians— Christian
and Hindu. About a fortnight after our arrival we dined at
the house of Subramanyam, a Christian barrister of the

Missionary Life in India 61
Brahman caste, a graduate of Madras University, and a
cultured gentleman in the best sense of that much-abused
phrase. He was later one of the Judges of the Supreme
Court. Mrs. Subramanyam was an able woman, the
daughter of one of the earliest Indian ministers of my
church. I found that Subramanyam was a prominent
member of the National Congress which had met twice and
was to hold its third meeting in Madras a month later. I
learned that the object of the Congress was to stimulate a
national sentiment for the whole of India which is at present
a conglomerate of nations of the most mixed description,
only held together by the tie of the British crown .
There was then one great contrast between this movement
and the Irish National movement. The bitterness and hatred
of England which have, to such a large extent, characterised
the Irish movement, were at that time almost non-existent in
India. As Subramanyam said, "The very last thing we
desire is to be rid of English rule. We cannot do without
England for at least two hundred years yet. All we ask is
that England will carry out her principles now that she has
herself educated us into accepting them, and will give us
the right to govern ourselves as we develop the ability to
do so." When we left Madras it was decided that I should visit
various Mission centres before beginning work, especially
the Medical Mission at Arcot and our own famous Orphanage
at Karur. At Arcot I first learned how largely the provision of
excellent Government hospitals and dispensaries all over
Southern India had made the work which we had in view
far less a necessity than our missionary authorities had
given me to understand, and had themselves believed. Dr.
Heckhuis, the head of the American Medical Mission, made
certain statements, which he afterwards repeated in a letter
that he sent to our London committee, from which I will
quote the following paragraph :
"I am convinced of the fact, as I told you in December,

62 Chapters from My Life
1887, that in many districts of India the necessity for medical
missions has passed away. Medical missions formerly did a
good work, and still do so in parts where they are firmly
established and where Government leaves the work to them;
but I believe that the time has gone by for establishing new
missions in places fully or even partly occupied by Govern
ment dispensaries. In my opinion it is a waste of time,
energy and money to try to establish a medical mission
where Government dispensaries are occupying the ground.
Formerly the case was different. But now all this has
changed. Dispensaries have sprung up everywhere, even
within two miles of this hospital, and thus interfere very
much with the' attendance and the usefulness of the work.
I feel sure that under the present circumstances we should
not think of opening a new dispensary here or in any other
part of our mission, and I sometimes feel that it might be
better to give up the medical work and devote myself entirely
to evangelism pure and simple."
When I reached my station of Tiruvalur I found that.
the Government medical provision for the neighbourhood
included a well-fitted and well-managed dispensary at
Tiruvalur itself, with five other effectively equipped hospitals
and dispensaries within seventeen miles.
Shortly after beginning work there I received an urgent
letter from Subramanyam, repeating an invitation to attend
the Third Indian National Congress, which I accepted. All
my fellow missionaries considered it a great opportunity for
studying the character and aspirations of the leading men
of India. On my journey to Madras I travelled with two Indians
of education and great intelligence. One of them, G. S.
Appusawmy, was a Christian delegate from Tinnevelly to
the National Congress, a lawyer and an Episcopalian. The
other, by name Pinto, a Government official of the Revenue
department, was a Roman Catholic from the West Coast
and a friend of Appusawmy. They both seemed to think
that the number of native Christians was largely, on the

Missionary Life in India 63
increase, but that this increase was more from internal growth
than from external accretions. "You see," they said, "there
is nothing to hinder and everything to encourage the rapid
increase of Christians by natural causes, as they are better
educated and more thrifty than their heathen neighbours, and
besides, by their connection with different missions, they are
practically insured against the ravages of famine." They
also said that the difficulties in the way of a man becoming a
Christian were much less than in former years. At the same
time Pinto added that in his opinion there was a great ten
dency on the part of educated Hindus to stand much more
firmly than before by the religion of their fathers. He said,
"You in your Christian colleges and your High Schools
teach them the facts of your religious history without imbuing
them with the spirit of Christian teaching. You cast your
pearls before the pigs and they turn again and rend you.
They go on in your schools and colleges to read Spencer,
Bain and Mill, and they say, ' These are not children ; these
are grown up; and they don't believe in Christianity. Neither
will we. You tell us that our religion is absurd. Not more
absurd than that a fish should carry a man to his port. If
wrong practices have grown up in our religion, we will re
pudiate them and return to the truths of the Vedas.' Then,
because they are armed with the double-barrelled gun of the
facts of your religious history and the teaching of their own
sacred writings, they are too much for the missionaries, who
are at best only one-sided men, and one-barrelled, and only
know the facts of their own religion."
I wrote in my diary at the time, "This was a pretty
strong indictment, not of Christianity, for both men were
Christians, and believed that Christianity must one day
prevail, but of our modern methods of devoting so much of
our missionary energies to education, methods adopted by
Protestants and Catholics alike." As Appusawmy said, "In
former days men were won by the enthusiasm of the mission
aries; to-day that enthusiasm is spent in semi-secular
education and pastoral work."

64 Chapters from My Life
This was the first incident that seriously aroused my
suspicions as to the value of missionary educational work.
The Congress itself was a marvellous assembly. Repre
sentatives of all the many nations that compose the great
Indian Empire were there. In front of the platform sat the
Bengali Babus, dressed in black coats, orthodox trousers and
shoes or boots. In complexion many of them were scarcely
darker than Italians, and the contour of their features was
decidedly of the Indo-European type. To the right of the
platform sat the men of the Punjaub and the North- West
Provinces. They were dressed in truly Oriental style with
many-coloured turbans, and very richly embroidered dresses
cut in native fashion. To the left sat the Bombay representa
tives, also in Indian dress. Behind and between their visitors
sat the men of the Madras Presidency, dressed generally in
native style, but some of the Indian Christians wore English
suits. Amongst these delegates prevailed the Tamil type of
face, with aquiline nose and the other Dravidian features.
The gathering of delegates numbered seven hundred, and
they were surrounded by a thousand spectators. It was a
sight to inspire any Englishman as he realised that this won
derful concourse had been rendered a possibility under
English rule.
The National movement was then in its earlier stages, and
the demands formulated in the official resolutions were ex
tremely moderate. The case for the Nationalists was argued
with a brilliancy of style and a cogency of reasoning which
would have given these debates a high place in the records of
Hansard. The President, Budruddin Tyabjee, was a Parsee
of exceptional ability, whose son passed first into the Indian
Civil Service, but his career was unfortunately cut short by
an early death. Surendra Nafh Bannerjee, Kali Churn
Bannerjee, W. C. Bonnerjee, and other statesmanlike
speakers pleaded their cause with eloquence and dignity.
During the Congress I came in touch for the first time
with the Salvation Army in India. The contrast between our

Missionary Life in India 65
methods and the methods adopted by the Army raised grave
doubts in my mind. The doubts afterwards found expres
sion in the articles which I contributed to the Methodist
Times. The following is an extract from my diary :
" In the evening of the second day we went to the Evangel
istic Hall to attend a demonstration of the Salvation Army.
They are doing marvellous work, or, I should say, making a
remarkable attempt to win India. They are sending English
lads and lasses out here by fifties; immediately on landing
they adopt native dress and native habits. This is no mere
joke or whim. It means walking barefoot on burning roads,
dressed in a single cloth wrapped round the whole body,
and wearing a warm turban as a protection against the sun,
instead of our light pith helmets. It means living almost
entirely on rice at an expense of 2S. 6d. a week each.
"There is a good deal about this movement that is very
doubtful, as, for instance, Commissioner Tucker's way of
marching along, as we saw him to-day, under a canopy sup
ported by four men, dressed like a Hindu Fakir or Dervish,
and preceded by a huge banner on which was written,
' To-night at 6 p.m. Commissioner Fakir Sing (Tucker).'
Nevertheless one could not help remembering that Tucker
had given up an income of ^800 a year in the Indian Civil
Service." At the beginning of the New Year we settled down in
Tiruvalur to what we hoped and believed would be a life's
work. It was all intensely interesting and engrossing. The
native church welcomed us with New Year's greetings of
garlands and presents of oranges, limes, bananas and pome
granates, and they were followed by the Temple band, which,
with a catholicity exceeding that of Grindelwald, played airs
of welcome, while the Hindu visitors at Tiruvalur followed,
bringing more garlands and fruit.
My work was first of all to give some hours daily to
grappling with the difficult Tamil language, to superintend
the dispensary which was awaiting me on my arrival (man-
F

66 Chapters from My Life
aged already by a trained Indian Christian dispenser), to look
after the schools, of which we had several in the little circuit,
and to prepare lectures for educated Hindus, who would
understand me in my own tongue. My wife left me far be
hind in her rapid acquisition of Tamil, and soon became
deeply interested in the girls' schools, in which our mission
in all parts of India does such excellent work.
All was going excellently when, on the 29th of January,
my first serious illness occurred. I had been to Kum-
bakonam, a great University town in Southern India, and
had given a lecture on my impressions of the National Con
gress. The lecture was attended by a large and enthusiastic
audience of young Brahmans. I was overheated and took a
chill on the seven hours' night journey back to Negapatam,
where I was due to preach on Sunday. Instead of being able
to preach, I found myself prostrated with a violent attack of
fever which in a fortnight reduced me almost to a skeleton,
and it was thought desirable for me to go by sea to Madras
for medical advice and sea air.
This illness was a keen disappointment as my reception at
Kumbakonam had been exceedingly friendly, and I had
arranged through Narasimha Iyer, the Brahman Judge of
Tiruvalur, with his Brahman friends at Kumbakonam, to
give the following course of lectures during the year:
"Christianity and the Nation," "Christianity and the
Family," "Christianity and the Individual," "The Character
of Jesus," and "The Claims of Jesus," these to be the five
Teligious lectures. Five secular were to be: "Lessons from
the lives of the three Roman philosophers, Seneca, Epictetus,
and Marcus Aurelius," "The Science of Hearth, The Town,"
"The Science of Health, The Home," "The Science of
Health, The Person," and, lastly, "Subjects with which the
National Congress of 1888 ought to deal."
At the conclusion of my lecture at Kumbakonam I had
explained the need for courage, perseverance, and self-denial.
I then read to them the following extract from a letter which
I had that morning received from my old Headingley friend,

Missionary Life in India 67
Bradfield : " I cannot help feeling sorry for these native
gentlemen meeting in convention to- promote the national
feeling, etc. One cannot but sympathise with their cause,
but they are surely destined to some bitter experience of the
hope that makes the heartsick ; because, unless I am altogether
mistaken in my ignorance, they are more out of touch with
the ' masses,' the millions of their own countrymen, than they
are with English officialdom. England will never give a
caste of educated men power, nor heed much the suggestions
of a little band of professors and theorists, and it will take
them long to lift the dead weight of the millions into an
atmosphere where they can even feel the need for self-
government." I read this extract as an experiment to see what answer
I could educe, and the experiment succeeded. The seconder
of the vote of thanks was a Brahman, Professor of History
at the Government College, M.A. in History and Political
Economy of the Madras University. He spoke somewhat as
follows :
"What is the history of the English Constitution ? Have
the millions of England always understood the great
struggles that have taken place for political freedom ? When
Stephen Langton, on the plains of Runnymede, won the
Great Charter from the tyrant John, the charter which is the
very foundation of English freedom, was it the millions or a
handful of barons that supported him ? In the struggle
during the reign of Henry III. the people were beginning to
make themselves felt, but still only very slightly, and even
in the struggle between the Parliament and Charles I. how
many of the men who struggled for freedom represented
boroughs whose constituents were very few ? " He then went
on to say, "We want Dr. Lunn to come over here again and
lecture to us on co-operation and teach us how to work
together." The hopes of my Negapatam friends that the voyage to
Madras and back would restore me to health proved ill-
founded. On March 8th I had to record another bad attack of

68 Chapters from My Life
fever with suppurating, tonsillitis, and to recognise that the
climate was striving hard to upset me. As the doctor said,
" Whenever any man comes to this country looking specially
robust, the climate seems to say, ' I'm going for that man.'
I've known miserable creatures come out to this country who
could scarcely crawl and never have a day's illness for years,
but it is robust men like you that the climate attacks most
severely." On the invitation of Professor Geden, I decided
after five weeks' illness to go up to his place, Leith Castle, on
the coast of Madras, to recruit thoroughly.
There was one incident which occurred during our short
stay at Tiruvalur, before this illness, which I ought to quote
from my diary, as one of the factors which led me on my
return from India to advocate a Via Media between the
present style of missionary living and that adopted by the
Salvationists. "We were driving out one morning about seven when, as
we passed through the bazaars, we saw two Europeans in
native dress selling newspapers. The natives, thinking we
ought to see them, at once called our attention to them. We
stopped and found that they were two Salvationists selling
the Tamil ' War Cry.' As I wished very much to hear what
the Army was doing in India, we asked them to come and
breakfast with us at 10 o'clock. They at once accepted, with
the proviso that they were strict vegetarians. In good time
they arrived at our bungalow. They were dressed in the
most rigid native costume with salmon-coloured turbans, a
loose-fitting jersey of the same colour with ' Salvation
Army ' worked on it in Tamil, and a cloth of the same colour
wrapped round the loins and legs. They always walk bare
foot, a terrible ordeal in hot weather, as even the natives wear
sandals in the heat of the day. These two were both cap
tains; they had been six months in the Clapton Training
Home, and came out in August in what was called the
' Jubilee Fifty.' One of them was an Australian ; the other,
Captain Maynard, was an ex-Methodist from Tunbridge

Missionary Life in India 69
Wells. He was very willing to give me information, and
told me a good deal about their method and success. He said
that they had adopted the native dress and habits for two
reasons — first, on grounds of economy, and, secondly, be
cause they believed that if Christianity was to become the
religion of India it must be promulgated by men who were by
birth, or by adoption of every native custom, natives of the
country. " In South India they are at present trying an entirely new
experiment. In the North they have aimed at making con
verts of any class they could get hold of, with the result that
none but pariahs and the lowest classes have been converted.
Here they are devoting themselves solely to the Brahmans
and high-caste Sudras. The work at Tanjore has been car
ried on for six months and only one convert from heathenism
has been made. In Trichinopoly they have had better suc
cess, having made about ten converts in three months, of
whom three or four are Brahmans. In fairness to these re
sults it should be said that they are only now learning the
language and have not yet got thoroughly under weigh in
these places. In the North at Gujerat, where they work
among all classes, they are making about a hundred converts
a month. Their expenses are astoundingly low. Twelve of
them live at Tanjore in one house and only spend between
them one rupee a day (is. 5d.) over their food. Imagine
keeping twelve adult Englishmen on ios. a week. When
they are living singly at separate stations they receive five
rupees (7s.) a month pay. I mentally agreed with Maynard
when he ingenuously said, with reference to someone who
had returned from the mission, ' You see it takes a great deal
of consecration to keep it up.' For himself there was no
mistaking the consecration."
My journal of March 26th shows the growing feeling that
many of the missionaries in India were separated from their
own converts, and still more from the bulk of the population,
by a racial gulf that was a terrible obstacle to missionary

70 Chapters from My Life
enterprise. On that particular day I had been invited
to a garden party by a distinguished Christian Brahman,
Subramanyam. Subramanyam said that he had invited
a few missionaries who were " in sympathy with the
natives." A short time after this garden party I dined with Dr.
Jesudasan, a distinguished graduate of Madras University,
M.A. in Natural Science, Doctor of Medicine and Master of
Surgery, who had been appointed Officer of Health in the
Madras Municipality. After returning from his home I
wrote :
" I was very glad to have the opportunity of two or three
hours' talk with such a man. His house and everything
about it were, like Subramanyam 's, thoroughly English in
style so far as a house in India could be. I was sorry to find
in him the same tone of dissatisfaction with the attitude of
many English missionaries towards the natives, though I
am glad to say that he specially exempted Patterson and
Simpson of our mission, and Goldsmith of the C.M.S. from
his strictures. I cannot understand men who come out to
this country to preach Christ and yet are not prepared to
meet an educated Hindu gentleman or native Christian such
as Jesudasan on terms of equality. He told me of an incident
that happened when the old Christian college students were
presenting Dr. Miller with an address on the occasion of his
receiving the CLE. (Companion of the Order of the Indian
Empire). He, as President of the Testimonial Committee, was
receiving a number of invited guests. Though he was in full
academicals, with the M.B. hood on, a well-known missionary
silently declined to shake hands with him. Jesudasan hap
pened to be a native Christian, but supposing he had been a
Hindu, how would he have been likely to feel with regard to
Christianity for the rest of his life ? "
During the first half of April I had rather a bad time with
fever, and noted in my journal that I was 30 lbs. below my
regular weight after all this long period spent in Madras with
the object of recruiting. I was just beginning to recover

Missionary Life in India 71
from an attack of fever when my son Arnold was born on
April 18th.
During the latter part of April I had an opportunity of
seeing a good deal of the excellent educational work done by
the Madras Christian College. I took Patterson's lectures at
the College for a week in Scripture, and my journal records
the stirring controversies which I had with the students who
were evidently well versed in Bradlaugh and Ingersoll, the
two greatest preachers of infidelity in those days, and enjoyed
heckling a new lecturer.
The Madras Christian College was founded in 1837 and
grew rapidly until — at the date of my visit — it was almost the
finest educational establishment in India. The expenditure
at the time I lectured there amounted to about .£7,000 a year,
half the amount being contributed by the students. The
Government grant amounted to rather less than a quarter,
and the Missionary Committee contributed the balance. The
students numbered 1,700, and as an educational establishment
the College was a magnificent institution. No one could visit
it without being impressed by the splendid work that was
being done. I am anxious to record this especially, because
later on I was driven to the conclusion that too much mis
sionary energy was expended generally over educational work
in the different Colleges. Nevertheless, one could not but feel
that a great institution like this was rendering immense
service to our Indian Empire.
On May 9th I had an attack of fever which only lasted a
few days, but was very disheartening as my stay in Madras
was ending and there was very little improvement in my
health. Just after this illness I had an interview with Captain
Maynard, of the Salvation Army, the officer who had stayed
with us at our station at Tiruvalur. In my journal I wrote
what follows of this interview and of my conversation thereon
with Simpson and Goudie, two devoted missionaries,
living in the style ordinarily adopted by Europeans, but

72 Chapters from My Life
just as anxious to see India won for Christ as the
Salvationist. "That the Salvation Army are making headway in India
is clear. Goudie and Simpson were both surprised at their
record for the past twelve months. In the North they have
been working for some time, and are making many more con
verts than in the South, where they have only been working
about a year. But even down here they claim to have made
two hundred converts, of whom twenty have gone as cadets to
their Indian training home. This last is the most important
item, as the Salvationists offer their converts nothing but
maintenance if they become soldiers, about five rupees (7s.) a
month, while we give our catechists from fifteen rupees to
twenty-five rupees. Our friends at home may be kind enough
to believe that our ordinary missionaries are ' offering them
selves up ' in coming out here, but it does not present itself
thus to the average native mind. Taking all the great
English Missionary Societies — S.P.G., C.M.S., Wesleyan,
London Missionary, Baptist and Presbyterian — the average
missionary income is about three hundred pounds a year and
a house. I am sure no one at home will think this is a penny
too much, and from the English standpoint it certainly is not.
But how does it look to the natives ? Three hundred pounds
at the present rate of exchange is four thousand five hundred
rupees, and the average wages of the agricultural labourer
here are four rupees a month. It will be seen at once that our
incomes bear the same relation to those of the working classes
here that ,the Bishop of Lincoln's income does to that of the
Lincolnshire peasants. Great as have been the services ren
dered to Christian theology and apologetics by the occupants
of the English Episcopal Bench, no one looks to the Bishops
to carry out the evangelisation of the masses. And what is
true of England is true of India. The great bulk of the people
will not soon be affected by men as far removed from them
socially as my brethren and I are."
I should like to comment on this statement with further
knowledge of life. S. Francis de Sales when he was Prince

Missionary Life in India 73
Bishop of Geneva was a most successful mission preacher.
It must be remembered, however, that he was a celibate, and
that his generosity was not restricted by ordinary domestic
claims. One day, when his secretary told him that there was
no more money for the poor, he said, "Well, then, sell the
furniture." If there had been a Madame de Sales, he would
probably have been trained to greater prudence. Cardinal
Manning, another Prince of the Church, got very near to the
people in the Dockers' Strike and on other occasions, but he
again was a celibate and an ascetic. The present Bishop of
London has always been most successful in his mission work,
and his published budget of expenditure has shown how
modest is the personal expenditure of the third highest in the
ranks of our spiritual peers, but he again is a celibate.
My journal goes on : "I believe that I have shown often
enough in these letters that the average missionary is really
doing a noble, self-sacrificing work, and a work among the
higher-caste natives that these Salvationists could hardly do ;
but this belief in the mission work of the past does not pre
vent me from acknowledging cheerfully that these men have
realised a standard of self-sacrifice and devotion complete and
entire. However, their system is still on its trial, and it
remains to be seen whether English men and English women
can live in India on one shilling and sixpence a week, and
carry out such a work without a fearful expenditure of life
and health."
On further experience of India I came definitely to the
conclusion, as is here forecast, that the European could not
work successfully under the conditions of life of the Hindu
population. I recommended a Via Media, and (the develop
ment of a much larger and more responsible Indian ministry.
It is interesting to record that during the last few years an
Indian has been consecrated as a Bishop of the Church of
England in India. Although I still hold that the parallel
drawn between the position of an Indian missionary in rela
tion to the agricultural classes around him, and that of the
Bishop of Lincoln, was correct, I am to-day of opinion

74 Chapters from My Life
that the work of many of our missionaries is essentially
"episcopal " in character, that is, that they are overseers of
very large districts and do not occupy "a false position."
Just about this time there occurred an incident in the
Madras Christian College which threatened to shatter the
discipline of the whole institution, and although ultimately
the authorities triumphed, the record of those days furnished
the most vivid illustration of my main contention in my
articles on the educational work of the missionaries. The
missionary higher education, though rendering a great ser
vice to the Brahmans, and aiding greatly in their intellectual
development, was not "evangelistic " in any real sense, and
was not even intended as such by those who carried it on.
The trouble originated in the decision of a Brahman
student named Subroya Sastri to accept Christianity. He
made known his wish to be baptised during the last week of
April. Dr. Miller, the able Principal of the College, was
absent in Scotland on furlough, a most unfortunate thing as
the event proved. It was Dr. Miller's invariable rule to make
any student who wished to become a Christian first face the
persecution of his friends by avowing his decision, and then,
when he had given proof that he was prepared to suffer for
his faith, and not until then, some missionary unconnected
with the College might baptise the student. Patterson, as my
journal records, was very averse from having any other plan
pursued in this case ; but unfortunately some younger men in
sisted on taking the convert to the house of the Rev. N. Rea
before his friends knew anything of his intentions. This was
on Saturday, April 29th. The news spread rapidly among
the students. A meeting was hurriedly summoned on Sunday
evening in one of the temples, and a deputation sent to Rea's
house to request that the boy might not be baptised, or his
caste broken, until his friends had been sent for and allowed
to interview him. Rea gave the required promise, but on
Monday morning the students were still in a tremendous state
of excitement, and the first Arts class of two hundred and

Missionary Life in India 75
twenty men was so disorderly that it was quite impossible for
the work to proceed. At last the uproar became so great that
Patterson and the Acting Principal, Mr. Cooper, went to
gether to the room, suspended the whole class, expelled three
of the students, and fined the remainder three rupees each.
Then followed a great scene of excitement; the students
thus suspended refused to leave the College, and crowded the
corridors, which had to be forcibly cleared by the professors.
At four o'clock in the afternoon a large meeting was held on
the beach, the chair being taken by one of the best students
in the Senior B.A. class, a Brahman named Gurusawmy Iyer.
. Strong resolutions demanding an apology and the remission
of the fine and sentence of expulsion pronounced in the
morning were proposed and seconded in speeches of a very
violent character. About two hundred of the students signed
a memorial stating that they would not return to the College
till all their demands were granted.
The struggle lasted the whole week, and caused the great
est sensation all through India. All the native papers, the
Pioneer of Allahabad, a violent Anglo-Indian anti-mission
paper, and several other journals, supported the students.
The College officials were wavering, and the Senatus would
certainly have succumbed if it had not been for Patterson's
firmness. He, however, summoned a meeting of the Senatus
for Saturday morning, May 5th, and there proposed a series
of drastic resolutions, fining Gurusawmy Iyer twenty-five
rupees, and all the forty speakers at the different meetings ten
rupees each, and giving them the alternative of either signing
a complete apology before the following Wednesday or being
expelled. Thirty-seven of the students signed the apology
and paid the fine, but Gurusawmy and three others stood to
their guns. Altogether the' College authorities scored a tre
mendous disciplinary victory which was enhanced by a
telegram from the Director of Public Instruction, received
on the Thursday after the Wednesday fixed as the last day
for the apology. This message stated that no expelled or
recalcitrant student would be received into any Government-

76 Chapters from My Life
aided college, a decision which would have prevented any of
them from entering any of the learned professions.
So far the professors were victorious, but in the case of
the convert it was a Pyrrhic victory. On Friday, the nth,
Subroya Sastri's parents and wife arrived by steamer. The
interview was a most pitiable scene. The wife threw her
arms round his neck, the mother and some other woman
clutched each an arm, while his father threw himself at his
feet, and with much weeping besought him not to bring
despair on his family and leave his beautiful young wife a
widow and an outcast, for such she would be if he became a
Christian. It was too much for the poor fellow, and after a
few hours of such entreaties he renounced his intention of
becoming a Christian and went back to Hinduism.
We left Madras on May 19th for Tiruvalur, where I was
again attacked by fever immediately on arrival, but recovered
in a few days.
My journal a few weeks later showed the influence exerted
upon me by what I had seen in Madras of the higher educa
tion policy. Speaking of the visit of my Chairman (or
Bishop) and his decision to change one of the schools which
had hitherto been carried on for Brahmans and high castes
into a school for the lower castes and pariahs, I wrote, "Mr.
Little has a very strong opinion that we are doing too much
for the Brahmans and high castes, and that it would be well
to let them pay for their own education more completely and
manage their schools themselves, and devote our energies to
educating the degraded masses. I think he is quite right."
During the whole month of June I was able to work on
steadily, but my son Arnold had begun to have fever and my
own health was very much below par.
In the third week of July my health and Arnold's again
drove me away from my station, Tiruvalur, and this time we
went to Mannargudi to see if the change would benefit us.
Here my health continued most unsatisfactory until the
middle of October, when Arnold's condition became very

Missionary Life in India 77
serious, and for a few hours he was at the point of death,
whilst I had another attack of fever. As Arnold continued
seriously ill, we decided to take him up to Madras and consult
the best medical men about both him and myself. The two
doctors whom I consulted, Dr. Porter, the Senior Physician
of the General Infirmary and Principal of the Medical College
of the Madras University, and Surgeon-Major Branfoot,
both said emphatically that my health would not justify me
in entering upon an expensive medical mission, and the latter
added that my complete breakdown was by no means an
unlikely event.
In face of these opinions there was no course open to us
but to return to England, and we sailed from India .on
November 19th, a year and four days after the date of our
landing in Madras.
Hughes had expressed such a strong wish to have me as
a colleague in the West London Mission that I knew on my
return to England I should go to him. On arriving in
England I interviewed the Missionary Committee, who agreed
to my transfer to the West London Mission.

CHAPTER VII
MISSION WORK IN WEST LONDON (189O — 91)
Characteristics of Hugh Price Hughes — Discipline — Disinterestedness
— Chivalry — Work for Social Purity — Music Hall Campaign —
St. James's Hall Services — Lord Rosebery — Belle Bilton —
" The Sisterhood ol the People " and Mrs. Price Hughes —
Mark Guy Pearse — Charles Ensor Walters — J. E. Rattenbury.
The soul of all improvement is the improvement of the soul. — Horace
Bushnell, quoted frequently by Hugh Price Hughes.
Our aim should be the reconstruction of society on a Christian basis.
— Hugh Price Hughes.
The best modern conscience is to be reached and touched and won
in no way so effectively as by a strong and consistent appeal to the
principle of brotherhood. — Bishop Gore.
IMMEDIATELY after my return from India I began work
in the West London Mission, then centred at St. James's
Hall, Piccadilly, under the direction of Hugh Price Hughes.
Nominally, I was his colleague for some twenty months, but
actually, we were intimately associated until separated by his
death in 1902.
His speeches at the Reunion Conferences show his de
votion to Our Lord's ideal of the unity of the Church. In
this chapter I wish to write of other characteristics which he
shared with the great saints of the Catholic Church.
His enthusiasm for reform greatly alarmed the elders of
Methodism in the earlier part of his ministry, but they little
realised his strong sense of the duty and virtue of obedience
as part of the Christian character. To his young and tur
bulent colleague this aspect of his personality came as a
startling shock in the Home Rule campaign of 1886, and
again and again in later years. Before I went to India, when
78

Mission Work in West London 79
his heart was set upon commencing that great Mission in
West London which he founded, the success of which at
tracted the attention of the whole religious world, I travelled
by train with him and two other ministers — T. B. Stephenson
and Ernest Clapham — who urged upon him the serious
position of the Foreign Missionary Society, and suggested
to him that he should become Missionary Secretary. To my
astonishment he quietly replied to this effect : " If it is the
will of Christ, and agreed to by the Conference, I will go."
He thus showed his willingness to abandon his great idea
of founding a Mission to West London if obedience to the
Conference required it.
Again and again this conception of the essential duty of
obedience, a virtue which is not stimulated by the strong
individualism of Dissent, decided for him great questions
of policy. Nor had he a less keen appreciation of the Catholic virtue
of voluntary poverty. Like John Wesley he insisted pas
sionately that no man had a right to hoard up money with
which to curse his children. By this rule he lived. While
other preachers with his popular gifts would have enjoyed,
and indeed in other communions were enjoying, large in
comes, he rejoiced in the Methodist system of allowing each
minister a subsistence salary only, modified according to the
expenses incident to the district in which he lived. It would
have been an easy matter for him to have accumulated con
siderable wealth by charging high fees for lectures and
addresses on special occasions, and no criticism would have
been incurred by one whom so many men were anxious to
hear. Hughes would have none of it. Excepting a legacy
from his father, and a wealthy layman's gift of a house in
the country — both of which came to him shortly before his
death — he lived and died a poor man. St. Francis of Assisi
was one of the saints whom he most honoured. Great was
his pleasure when I invited Monsieur Sabatier to lecture at
Grindelwald on St. Francis, and his friendship with the

80 Chapters from My Life
biographer of the saint lasted till the day of his death. It
was in harmony with his whole life that his last act should
have been to attend a lecture by Sabatier at Sion College
on "St. Francis and the Twentieth Century."
He had also a profound sense of the value of the Catholic
insistence on the virtue of chastity, although he was the very
antithesis of a harsh misogynist. For him the love of woman
had made lust for woman a hateful thing. To him the song
of the Mother of Our Lord, sung in countless generations by
the Universal Church, was the charter of womanhood : "My
soul doth magnify the Lord. . . . For behold, from hence
forth all generations shall call me blessed, for He that is
mighty hath magnified me, and Holy is His Name." If one
woman had been privileged to speak thus, all women were
to be loved and reverenced. With the Beloved Disciple from
whom he had learned so much, he had stood in spirit beneath
the Cross, and heard the Crucified say, "Behold thy
Mother," and motherhood had become to him a very sacred
thing. In this spirit of reverence for womanhood — the true test
of knightliness — he had, as a young man, plunged into the
fray to aid Josephine Butler in her campaign against the
State Regulation of Vice. For the victims of the traffic he
had the tenderness of his Master, Who said to such a one,
"Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more." But
against the social conditions which had driven women who,
in all their degradation, were still sisters of the Blessed
Virgin, to forget the honour God has bestowed upon woman
hood, he fought with the enthusiasm and heroism of the
noblest of the knights-errant.
For these reasons, because he reverenced motherhood and
womanhood, because with his teacher, Frederick Denison
Maurice, he esteemed the family to be the sacred unit of
national life, his attitude was very definite on two memorable
occasions, when the sanctities of the home and the family
were outraged by the deeds of two great statesmen.

Mission Work in West London 81
One short and decisive campaign which he supported with
great weight was the campaign for the purification of music
halls, initiated on the London County Council by Sir John
(then Mr.) McDougall. Our share in the conflict began in
the following manner :
One Saturday night, in 1889, we were holding a prayer
meeting for the officers of the Mission at Lincoln House.
The conflict in the County Council was mentioned, and
Hughes at once said, "We must have a meeting in St.
James's Hall instead of the weekly prayer meeting on
Friday next." He then instructed me to secure a chairman
at once, the Bishop of London by preference, or, failing him,
Cardinal Manning or Archdeacon Farrar, and I was at once
sent to Fulham Palace.
Bishop Temple told me that the notice was too short, and
that he must consult his clergy before taking the chair at
such an important meeting. I drove over to Westminster
and saw the Cardinal, who replied that he had the profoundest
sympathy with our endeavour to secure pure entertainment
for the people, to which working men might take their wives
and daughters without any fear that indecent interpolations
(popularly called "gag ") would be inserted in the pieces. At
the same time he said, " Whatever reasons Bishop Temple has
for not taking the chair, I have seventy-two." (He was then
seventy-two years old.) He added, J'I will, however, write
strongly to Lord Rosebery, the Chairman of the Council."
During our conversation the Cardinal made one im
pressive reference to W. T. Stead. Referring to Stead's
campaign on "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,"
he said, "I never saw a man more animated by the passion
for the salvation of souls than Stead was during that
campaign." I came away feeling that if a Cardinal Arch
bishop of the Roman Church could thus testify to the high
purpose of a Dissenter of the Dissenters such as Stead, there
was more real unity underlying the efforts of all good men
to save the world than either they or their critics perhaps
realised. G

82 Chapters from My Life
Archdeacon Farrar also refused to take the chair, and I
returned without having secured a chairman.
Hughes, on receiving my report, at once sat down and
wrote a passionate letter to the Bishop of London, in which
he urged him as "Chief Pastor of this great Metropolis" to
take his proper place in this struggle against demoralising
and degrading influences. On Sunday morning I returned
to Fulham Palace with this message, and Bishop Temple
agreed to preside at the meeting.
St. James's Hall was crowded on the Friday evening
with an audience composed of those interested in music-halls,
members of the Mission, and men of the world outside.
London had been stirred to its depths by the conflict within
the County Council. Mr. McDougall had been attacked by
certain baser elements of the secular Press for his endeavour,
as a member of the Council, to secure decent recreation for
the working classes and the young men and women in the
great West End shops. Bishop Temple, who presided, spoke
with characteristic vigour, and Lady Sandhurst, Sir Wilfrid
Lawson and others supported him. A body of muscular
young stewards, directed by a portly evangelist — Josiah Nix
— who had been accustomed to the rough-and-tumble of
actual politics before joining the Mission, expelled with
deft celerity certain persons who imagined that they could
with impunity disturb a meeting of narrow-minded Puritans
and were unprepared for the rubicund faces and muscular
arms of this ex-politician and his allies.
The Rev. Stewart Headlam, who had done good work
with his Church and Stage Guild, tried to move an amend
ment, but was promptly stopped by our vigorous chairman.
I never met Mr. Headlam again until many years after, when
an old clergyman died — "Father Tom" Handcock, of
Harrow — whom we both loved and honoured. Spontaneously
and unknown to each other, we wrote appreciations of our
friend for the Church Times, and I found myself taking the
chair at a meeting at Harrow, when Mr. Headlam spoke on
Mr. Handcock's life and character.

Mission Work in West London 83
After the meeting I took a memorial signed by Cardinal
Manning, the Bishop of London, Hugh Price Hughes, and
others, to Lord Rosebery, Chairman of the Council. Lord
Rosebery received me with an air of amusement, and was
particularly anxious to know how his old Eton friend,
Stewart Headlam, had fared at the meeting.
Under Hughes, St. James's Hall on Sunday afternoons
became a centre for the consideration of great public questions
that bore on the life of the Church. The evils of wealth and
poverty, gambling, militarism, drink and other social cankers,
were dealt with in a manner that made Hughes a leader on
all these questions. "I beheld the City of God . . . come
down from God out of Heaven," was a text he constantly
quoted. This was the vision to which he was never
disobedient. To make London worthy to be called the City
of God was his ultimate goal, and
"Though the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seemed here no painful inch to gain,"
yet nothing ever shook his confidence that some day — far off,
it might be, but still a day to be lived for and worked for —
the great redemptive purpose of his Lord would be fulfilled.
But his power was most vividly shown on Sunday
evenings when he insisted that "the soul of all improvement
is the improvement of the soul."
Lord Rosebery, the ex-Prime Minister, a Duchess, a philo
sophical writer, G. J. Holyoake, the famous Secularist of days
long gone by, and other strange visitors came from time to
time to the anteroom before the service to ask for a seat, but
no thought of their criticism altered his simple message. "I,
if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me," was ever sound
ing in his ears and ringing through his appealing words.
He spoke with the forensic skill of a trained barrister and
the confidence of a prophet, and, as he would have expressed
it, endeavoured all through his passionate addresses "to

84 Chapters from My Life
convince a jury of twelve multiplied two hundred times that
they should bring in a verdict against themselves and for
Jesus Christ." One understood, in listening to the marvellous
logical force of his pleading that sinners should accept Christ
as a personal Saviour, the full force of his father's reply to
his letter, saying that he wished to be a Wesleyan minister,
"I would rather you were a Wesleyan minister than Lord
Chancellor of England." He used the gifts that would have
placed him in a high position on the judicial bench to
"convince men of sin, of righteousness and of judgment."
There was in Hughes a fund of humour, and a real
sympathy with human nature in all its phases, little suspected
by those who regarded him as a mere Dissenting Boanerges,
which the following incident will illustrate.
It was my duty on Sunday evenings to take an overflow
service in Prince's Hall — now Prince's Restaurant— the
attendance at which varied from nil on a rainy night to
eight hundred on a fine Sunday. On that gloomy Sunday
which followed the British defeats at Colenso, Magersfontein
and Stormberg, the elements were in sympathy with the
spirits of the nation, and there was no overflow. Lord
Rosebery came unexpectedly into the anteroom, and after
Hughes had given him one of the workers' seats he came
back to me and, as was his custom, said, "You will take
the opening prayer, Lunn." Never had I felt the task more
difficult. The whole nation was mourning the dead and
looking to the future with the profoundest anxiety and
misgiving. I could not but be conscious of the presence of
the Liberal leader who had supported the policy of the war,
and had carried my own friend in sympathy with him. But
the thought of the stricken families of both British and Boer
peoples soon crowded out all other emotion. As we walked
away from the hall Hughes suddenly turned to me and said,
in his genial way, " I never heard a man go so near making
a political address to the Almighty as you did to-night, but
you just missed going over the precipice."
On another Sunday Belle Bilton, at that time a famous

Mission Work in West London 85
music-hall artist and afterwards Countess of Clancarty, came
into the inquiry room and had a conversation with one of the
sisters, who was gifted with infinite tact and sympathy.
Sister Lily gave her a copy of "The Pilgrim's Progress,"
which she brought back to Hughes the following Sunday
with the comment, " This is one of the most interesting novels
I have ever read." He forthwith invited her to come home
with us to supper. At these Sunday evening suppers he
was always happy. The burden of the two messages for
the day was lifted, and he was free to allow his wit and fancy
full play with the guests of all kinds who gathered under his
hospitable roof. Another guest that evening was a rising
M.P., Junior Lord of the Treasury, and it was with a
certain enjoyment that Hughes asked him to take Belle
Bilton down to supper. I often wonder what the music-hall
proprietors would have thought if they had dropped in upon
that very happy little party at the supper table of their
bete noire.
No account of this year and a half as Hughes's colleague
would be complete that did not refer to the work of the
Sisterhood. He had a strong conviction that Protestantism
had lost greatly in its revolt from Rome by sacrificing the
due claim upon the devotion of the daughters of the Church.
In the series of great meetings all over the country with
which the Mission was inaugurated, he emphasised un
ceasingly the call to cultured women who had not married
to be wedded to Christ in a life of consecration to His Body
the Church in all its manifold activities. "The Sisterhood
of the People," the happy designation which he gave to the
band of earnest women who gathered round his wife,
Katherine Price Hughes, to work in the dark slums of Soho
and Marylebone, undertook tasks of the same character as
those which occupied the lives of St. Catherine of Siena and
St. Catherine of Genoa. The Sisterhood became a centre
of help for the sick and dying, the outcast and the wanderer.
Its dispensary, its cfeche, and its rescue home carried on

86 Chapters from My Life
the work of the Good Physician, the Friend of little children,
and, above all, the Friend of the outcast and the sinner.
It may be well to record an illustrative incident in the
life of the Sisterhood. One Wednesday morning Hughes
and I left his home for a committee meeting at the Mission
House, Bishopsgate Street. Thence we went to the office
of the Methodist Times, where he wrote various editorial
notes on current topics, and we passed the paper for press,
returning in the late afternoon to Taviton Street. In the
evening we went together to the Sisterhood, where he
conducted the service at which one of the sisters "took the
veil" after her period of probation. His address that night,
in spite of such a crowded day, was characteristic in its
theme. It expressed his ideal both for himself and for the
sisters. "I was not disobedient to the Heavenly Vision,"
the Vision of Self, the Vision of Christ, our Saviour from
Self, and the Vision of the World, needing the Redemption
of Christ. Such a subject gave full scope to the" expression
of his passionate devotion to Our Lord as the basis of his
life. To the one who was that night consecrating herself to
the same tasks, his sermon must have come as an unfor
gettable inspiration. The service concluded with the Holy
Communion and the reception of the probationer as a full
member of the Sisterhood.
I have deliberately used the phrase, "took the veil,"
because until this service was concluded the probationer did
not wear the veil adopted by the Sisters, and because, in
the mind of Hughes, there was a definite act of consecration
involved in joining the Sisterhood, which ought only to be
transcended by the sacred call to be a wife and mother, if
that call should come.
Hughes had as his senior colleague a character remarkably
complementary to his own. Whilst Hughes was essentially
an ecclesiastic, Mark Guy Pearse, who joined him in founding
the Mission, cared nothing for ecclesiastical matters, but
shared fully his colleague's passion to make men conscious

Mission Work in West London 87
of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Gifted with great
artistic powers, his preaching was enriched by a wealth of
illustration and parabolic teaching, and a breadth of
sympathy which placed him easily in the front rank of the
preachers of London. His private resources enabled him,
and his spontaneous generosity led him, to give largely to
the Mission from the sums which he received from his
publishers for books which have had readers by the million.
Above all, notwithstanding a slight seniority in years, he
was a most loyal and affectionate colleague to Hughes. Of
his personal friendship to me, and of his steadfastness in the
dark days of the Missionary Controversy, I cannot cherish
too warm a memory. He still lives to help by generous
contributions the Mission which he assisted so largely to
establish on a firm foundation.
The Mission was continued , with conspicuous success after
the death of Flughes by the Rev. Charles Ensor Walters,
who was possessed of great insight into Hughes's ideals and
had many other qualifications for the position.
When the owners of St. James's Hall sold it, to be rebuilt
as the Piccadilly Hotel, the Mission was without an adequate
centre, a difficulty which has only been overcome recently
by the building of Kingsway Hall. From this centre the
manifold work of the Mission is carried on under the super
vision of the Rev. J. E. Ratten bury, a preacher of great
power, and a theologian in sympathy with Hughes's
devotion to Catholic ideals and teaching. Mrs. Price
Hughes still remains, loved and respected by all who know
her, to maintain the traditions of the past as Superior of the
Sisterhood of the People, and might rightly be termed, in
Catholic phraseology, "the Reverend Mother."

CHAPTER VIII
THE MISSIONARY CONTROVERSY (l88cj — 1890)
' ' Mediaeval Methodism " — Position of the Wesleyan Missionary Society
— Criticism of Missionary Methods — Articles by " A Friend of
Missions" published in the Methodist Times — Resentment
of Indian Missionaries — Meeting of Missionary Committee —
Conference Committee appointed — Reports to Conference at
Sheffield, 1 889 — Missionaries request Investigation — Commission
appointed — Report — Retirement from West London Mission —
Offered Post as Chaplain at the Polytechnic — Conference
Debate on Polytechnic Appointment.
Brfller n'est pas repondre. — Camille Desmolins.
And to be wroth with those we love
Doth work like madness in the brain
— Coleridge, " Christabel."
I deem that there is more valour in a. lord that holds his castle when
it is besieged and assaulted by his enemies, and defends himself so
valiantly that he suffers no one of his enemies to find an entrance therein,
than there is in one who lives at peace and suffereth no let. — Brother Giles.
ONE Friday evening in February, 1890, I accompanied
Hughes to a weekly devotional meeting at Prince's
Hall. We had been discussing my missionary experiences
and my conviction that our work was, in certain respects, on
wrong lines, and as we crossed Russell Square he made a
suggestion which was fateful for both of us and for
Methodism. "Why should you not write," he said, "a series
of articles for the Methodist Times on ' A New Missionary
Policy for India ' ? "
The suggestion was characteristically daring. John
Wesley called "prudence," "the wisdom from beneath spring
ing from the bottomless pit, and leading down to the place
88

The Missionary Controversy 89
from whence it came." ' In this matter Hughes was his
true disciple. It was indeed an ecclesiastical " forlorn hope "
to attack the policy of the powers installed at the Mission
House, Bishopsgate Street. In 1849 Methodism had been
split from top to bottom by a bitter schism which commenced
with what were called the "Fly Sheets," anonymous attacks
on the leading ministers, and especially the Missionary
Secretaries. They were supposed to have been written by
Griffiths, Everett, and Dunn, three ministers who were
solemnly expelled by the vote of the Conference. The
nominal ground of their expulsion was that they declined to
sign what was called at that date "Pope Osborne's Test."
Dr. Osborne had carried a resolution in the Conference that
every minister should sign a paper disclaiming the author
ship of the "Fly Sheets." These three men alone had the
courage to stand out against this inquisitorial method. They
were forthwith, if not thrown "into the burning fiery furnace,"
at any rate driven out into the wilderness. But they carried
with them a large fraction of the parent body, and formed
the Methodist Free Church. It was a sad. and tragic illus
tration of the truth that good men will do things in defence
of a corporate Body which they would .never do in their
own interests.
Methodism had its mediaeval history in that quarter cen
tury, from, say, 1848 to 1873, when Dr. George Osborne
dominated the Conference and ruthlessly "dropped " or ex
pelled every young minister who had not a clear and vivid
sense of the reality- of hell. During those years of great
national advance, Methodism, because of schism and
smugness, only advanced in membership in a quarter of a
century from 338,861 to 348,560; but what was much more
serious, it ceased to be a moving camp pitching its tents
daily farther into the enemy's country. Instead, it became
a series of citadels with its immense town chapels beleaguered
by the rising tide of Anglicanism on the one hand and the
growth of materialism and agnosticism on the other. It was
1 Wesley's Sermons, XC.
89

90 Chapters from My Life
sad to see this marvellous force of evangelistic ardour which,
on the testimony of one of the greatest historians of the
century, had decided the history of England, when France
tasted the horrors of the "Terror," now surrendering its
primacy in missionary efforts at home and abroad.
At such a time mediaeval methods triumphed, and Method
ism, like Russia under the Tsar, had its Siberia, which it
found in the Shetland Isles. Thither turbulent young
ministers, and those who had committed such offences as
jilting a fiancee, were ruthlessly exiled to ponder on their
misdeeds. There was a good deal to rouse the envy of other
churches, in which lack of discipline was a scandal and a
disgrace. At the same time it put a dangerous power into
the hands of ecclesiastics.
My ordination in 1886 was, I believe, the first occasion
when Dr. Osborne had allowed any man who challenged the
old-fashioned eschatology to pass without attack through his
examination. My reply to the question on that point was,
" I believe the punishment of the finally impenitent will be
eternal," with the further statement that I found no warrant
in Scripture or otherwise for asserting who, if any, would be
"finally impenitent." This made the old lion stir uneasily
on the platform, but he did not attack me until three years
later in the circumstances I am about to relate.
Doctrinal heterodoxy generally sealed a man's fate, and
he was expelled. Shetland or East Anglia sufficed for bud
ding reformers and minor delinquents. In the year of grace
1889, in which the following events occurred, the penal settle
ment, as such, was becoming a memory, but the idea still
remained sufficiently vivid for some minister to shout out,
when my own case was under consideration : " Why not send
him to Swaffham or Diss ? There are plenty of radicals like
him there." I have never visited either town, but I salute
them in spirit and hope some day to make a pilgrimage to the
two places thus commended.
Since 1849 the Mission House had been regarded as the
Acropolis of Methodism, and the Missionary Secretaries as

The Missionary Controversy 91
the head and front of its official life. The officials dreaded
Hughes's "Forward Movement," and all the new ideas that
he had introduced as a ferment into the old leather bottles of
mid-Victorian Methodism. In clarion tones Hughes had
called the Methodist people to grapple boldly with the new
problems of the new age inaugurated by the Reform Act
of 1885. Just because he was the idol of young progressive
Methodism he was the nightmare of these venerable doctors.
The young man whom Hughes wished to support in an
attack on the policy of this oligarchy was scarcely thirty years
of age — a mere babe from the standpoint of the Fathers of
Methodism. As the event was to show, whatever his argu
ments might be, his own future as a Methodist minister would
almost certainly be wrecked. He had a wife and children,
and no resources excepting what his own health and energy
could discover. But with neither of them — editor nor writer —
did these considerations weigh. There was something wrong
in our missionary work, and to them it had fallen to try to
remedy the evils of the situation.
This impression that there was something wrong was
very widespread, as was shown in an article in the Methodist
Recorder, our official and conservative journal, after the
controversy was over. In that article it was pointed out
that during the fifteen years beginning with 1877 the in
come of the Baptist Missionary Society had steadily increased
from ,£35,633 to £52,758, and that of the Free Church of
Scotland from £21,272 to £36,953. The Church Missionary
Society and the London Missionary Society also showed
increases during the whole of this period. The Wesleyan
Missionary Society had gone down greatly, from .£93,608
to ^75,975- During recent years the laymen of Methodism, ably led
by Sir George Smith, have done much to recreate the old
Methodist passion for foreign missions, and have raised the
income contributed in Great Britain to £158,322 19s. gd. for
the year 1916.

92 Chapters from My Life
The financial figures were not the only statistics available
to make the real friends of Wesleyan missions in India
gravely anxious as to the outlook. There were two great
missionary societies in India working side by side, the
Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society of America and the
Wesleyan Missionary Society of the United Kingdom.
The returns furnished to me by the officials of the
Methodist Episcopal Church showed that this Society had
commenced its operations fifteen years later than the
Wesleyan Methodist Society, and had in the year 1883
3,393 members against 1,767 in the Wesleyan Missionary
Society. By 1892 its numbers had increased to 15,938
against the Wesleyan Missionary Society's number of
3>77°- In Southern India, the chief centre of the educational
work which was the object of my criticism, we were at that
time spending ;£ 13,582 a year, and reported a mere 2,038
members. The Church Missionary Society in the same
Presidency spent ,£3,000 a year more than we did and re
ported 67,533 members. The Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel spent ,£6,000 a year less than we did and reported
46,466 members. The Free Church of Scotland, which had
concentrated on educational work, reported in 1888 78 adults
and 187 children as the total number of its adherents in the
Madras district. The total number received into the mission
since its foundation had been 622, and this result had been
secured by an expenditure running into six figures. This
was a striking illustration of the failure of the educational
policy which I attacked.
The Baptist Mission of the Telugu district, which devoted
itself exclusively to evangelistic work, was advancing by
leaps and bounds, and in one year at one station recorded
twice as many converts as the Free Church of Scotland
Mission recorded in the entire Presidency during the whole
fifty years of its existence.
The bare recital of these figures was sufficient to explain
much of the distrust and dissatisfaction which existed in

The Missionary Controversy 93
Wesleyan Methodist circles before my articles appeared.
There was a yet more serious fact brought out by the Rev.
Henry Little, my own Chairman ("Bishop") in the Nega
patam and Trichinopoly district, in a letter which he wrote
to England, which was published in the Methodist Recorder
a fortnight after my last article had appeared, but which was
posted from India before my series of articles had reached that
country. He gave a very careful analysis of the member
ship in a district where we had been working for over seventy
years amongst three millions of people, with a staff (at that
date) of nine European missionaries, six Indian ministers
and twenty-one catechists. This analysis brought out the
appalling fact that our total membership there was 410, and
that of the total number only 1 1 1 were gaining an indepen
dent livelihood. All the rest were in the employ of the
mission, or dependent for their livelihood on others, and were
largely the converts of other missions.
Mr. Little himself, after referring to the great success of
the American Baptist Mission in Nellore, the American Mis
sion in Madura and the English Church (C.M.S. and S.P.G.)
in Tinnevelly, wrote these drastic words respecting his own
society's work in the same Presidency :
"In my district we have to-day six native ministers; two
of them may be regarded as the fruit of my own work. We
have twenty-one catechists, of whom one was won by us from
Romanism, and the rest were all baptised outside our mission.
With one exception they have joined us for the work and pay
we give them. It is twenty-six years since I landed in India,
and every year has deepened the impression that we were on
the wrong tack."
In my conversations with Hughes I specially emphasised
the comparative failure of our Society, due, as I thought, to
the excessive attention which it had given to higher education
and to the gulf which separates its missionaries from the
natives of India.
These conversations led to his suggesting that I should

94 Chapters from My Life
write a series of articles for his paper, the Methodist Times.
I thought the matter over and ultimately laid before him a
scheme for four articles, on the following lines, which he
approved :
The first article set out the disastrous results of the policy
initiated by Dr. Alexander Duff, the famous Indian mission
ary, which diverted missionaries from evangelistic work to
the promotion of higher education, working amongst the
Brahmans instead of going, as the Apostles did, to the
common people.
The second article, which was called "The Evils of a
False Position," expressed my conviction that it was impos
sible to evangelise India by means of men who stood towards
the natives (in respect of their financial position) much as an
English Bishop stands towards the peasants in his county.
It affirmed that the social position of the missionary consti
tuted a great gulf between him and the Indians who
surrounded him. I definitely expressed my conviction that
the Salvationist extreme was impracticable, and that the true
policy lay in the Via Media between this extreme and
the position of the missionaries of the more highly paid
societies. The third article, entitled "The Untrodden Via Media,"
recommended that the missionaries should adopt a style of
living intermediate between the style of living, of the regular
missionaries on the one hand and that Tjf the Salvation Army
on the other.
The last article dealt with missionary finance, and had no
bearing on the controversy as it developed.
The articles were all written, set up in type, and then
submitted to a number of personal friends, before any one of
them was published. Among those who saw them were
Mark Guy Pearse, the late Thomas Champness, and James
Ernest Clapham, all of them ministers of great influence,
also two of my own ministerial contemporaries in whose
judgment I had great confidence, my father, and some other
trusted friends. The unanimous opinion was that the

The Missionary Controversy 95
articles were a reasonable statement of a policy that at least
deserved consideration. There were only two remarks made
which might have deterred a prudent man from publication.
My father said, " If you publish these articles you will not
remain a Wesleyan minister twelve months," and one of the
eminent ministers to whom I have referred, while feeling it
was time that some of the questions raised in the articles were
considered, added to the expression of this opinion that he
should pity me if I published them. In each case I replied
that I was convinced that these views ought to be expressed,
and that these considerations did not count.
We made one tactical mistake at the outset. It would
have been wiser and better if, before going to the Methodist
public with our criticism, we had gone to the committee and
laid the case before them. If not satisfied with the result
we could then have appealed to the Methodist people. Later
experience has convinced me that reforms are more generally
carried with ease if the responsible parties are dealt with
before their followers are appealed to. This, however, did
not suggest itself to us until it was brought forward as an
argument against us, and in any case was only a question of
tactics. The four articles were published on April 4th, nth, 18th
and 25th under the thin anonymity of the phrase, "A Friend
of Missions." It was at once perfectly well known who had
written them, but in order to make it clear beyond dispute
I reaffirmed my position in a missionary sermon at St.
James's Hall on April 29th, and restated in that great hall my
main contention. The storm then broke with tremendous
violence. The May meetings were just beginning, and a
speaker at Exeter Hall, whose name I will not mention, as
he has no doubt repented of his speech long since, brought
in, amid wild applause from some of the younger and less
disciplined members of the congregation, a reference to the
writer of the articles as one of the men who, like Judas
Iscariot, looked at Mary's alabaster box of ointment and only
saw its commercial value.

96 Chapters from My Life
The bitterness of the situation was unfortunately greatly
exacerbated by a most unhappy but not unnatural mistake
on the part of the Indian missionaries. Before I left India
I had practically concluded an arrangement with one of the
Madras newspapers to send them a weekly London letter.
Without giving me any notice of the fact, the editor of this
paper had decided not to carry through his arrangement with
me, but had secured the services as London correspondent of
a gentleman in a much better position to deal with Indian
questions than myself, viz., Mr. William Digby, CLE., the
former Secretary of the National Liberal Club. At that time
I had never seen or spoken to Mr. Digby. He read my
articles in the Methodist Times, and in his weekly letter to the
Hindu commented on them freely, speaking of Indian mis
sionaries in a way in which I should never have spoken of
men whom I honour and esteem very highly, and generally
dealing with the articles in a fashion which must have been
peculiarly trying to his Indian missionary readers. Know
ing that there had been an arrangement that I should write
those letters, the Indian missionaries unfortunately con
cluded that I was guilty of duplicity and cruel misrepresenta
tion, and, smarting under this supposition, they sent to
England, through the Rev. James Cooling, Chairman of the
Madras District, a formal accusation against me on those
lines. I shall never forget the meeting of the Wesleyan Mission
ary Committee, at which I was invited to be present, when
this strange misunderstanding was revealed. I had never
been asked a single question by any of the missionary
officials, but Mr. Cooling's letter was sprung upon me with
out notice. When Dr. Rigg, who was a real Triton amongst
the official "minnows" of that day, rose to address the
committee, some of the members were looking on me with
an air of combined commiseration and indignation which I
could not understand. Dr. Rigg prefaced his reading of
the letter by saying in the most solemn tones that it was his
painful duty to state facts which would entirely destroy my

The Missionary Controversy 97
character as a Christian minister and a man of honour. He
then stated categorically that he would have to deal with me
in a threefold capacity :
(1) As the Rev. Dr. Lunn.
(2) As the writer of the articles in the Methodist Times.
(3) As the writer of the letters to the Hindu.
Sentence after sentence from the Hindu articles were then
read to the committee, which, if I had really penned them,
would have convicted me of the most miserable duplicity and
the most heartless attitude with respect to my missionary
brethren. At any point a single question would have burst
the bubble and ended the indictment. But not thus was a
young man to be dealt with.
Directly Dr. Rigg. sat down, Hughes jumped up and
said, "I have two questions to ask Dr. Lunn. Did you
write these articles?" "No." "Do you know who did write
them?" "No." Hughes himself in the next number of the
Methodist Times described the scene as comparable for its
dramatic interest with the moment in the Parnell trial when
Sir Charles Russell said to Pigott, the forger of the
Parnell letters, "Spell hesitancy," and he replied,
"HESITENCY "—the way that it had been spelt in
the forged letter. The officials were utterly bewildered at
the collapse of the case which Dr. Rigg, by his opening
remark, had prepared them to believe would blast my
character and career.
After a silence that seemed to, last ages, one of the Mis
sionary Secretaries said, " I move that those replies be taken
down." I rose indignantly and said, "Mr. President, I protest
against this insult offered to a man who is still a brother
minister." There was nothing further to be done or said,
and the committee broke up.
In the Methodist Recorder the next Thursday there ap
peared an article asserting that in spite of my denial I must
be the writer of these articles :
H

98 Chapters from My Life
(i) Because the person who wrote them knew Marylebone
Road, and I lived off Euston Road in Torrington
Square.
(2) The man who wrote them had preached in pulpits in
Ceylon, and so had I.
(3) He had an intimate knowledge of missionary life, and
so had I.
These arguments, scarcely worthy of an ecclesiastical
Sherlock Holmes, were annihilated when, on the following
Thursday, the Methodist Recorder had to publish a column
letter from Mr. William Digby, CLE., the Secretary ofthe
National Liberal Club, who said, first, that he was the writer;
secondly, that he did not know me; and, finally, that when
he wrote the letters he did not know who the writer of the
Methodist Times articles was.
This complete and final vindication ought to have been
followed by a full apology from Dr. Rigg, Mr. Cooling and
others, but no apology was forthcoming. The mischief
that this mistake had caused was done, and could not be
undone. Eight or ten weeks elapsed before the Indian
missionaries knew who was the author of the Hindu letters,
and in that period the passion against the supposed writer
rose to fever heat. This preposterous blunder of presuming
my guilt before I had ever been asked to plead "guilty " or
" not guilty " was only an indication of the attitude of the
official world, and their unreasoned and unreasoning action
in many other respects. One of the Missionary Secretaries
followed up this fiasco by a campaign of erroneous statements
against me in my own native county at the annual missionary
meetings. When Conference assembled a letter was read from the
Rev. James Cooling demanding that my statements should
be carefully investigated and the Indian missionaries assured
of the confidence of the Conference. The personal indigna
tion which had been caused by the Hindu letters still worked

The Missionary Controversy 99
its evil effect. Several ex-Presidents and many other leading
men were appointed by the Conference as a committee to
consider my articles. Hughes and I were present at the
committee and did all in our power to allay the bitter feeling.
We asserted again and again that we had only criticised the
policy of the society and not its agents, the executive at
Bishopsgate Street and not the devoted men in foreign
fields. But I could not and would not unsay the statement of my
convictions. The committee finally drew up a report embodying a
statement by Hughes and myself which disavowed any in
tention to make personal reflections upon the Indian
missionaries. On July 30th, 1889, my thirtieth birthday, this com
mittee's report was presented to Conference. The evening
before, I carefully prepared my speech and read the outline
to W. J. Dawson, at that time a leading Wesleyan minister.
He said to me, " If you deliver that speech you will have to
leave Methodism." With the notes of that speech in my
hand, I took my place in the gallery of Carver Street Chapel,
Sheffield. *
Methodism has long been a great power in Sheffield, and
Carver Street Chapel is one of those great square buildings
erected when Methodism was the "Established Church," as
Dean Hook said, of these rapidly growing Yorkshire towns
seventy or eighty years ago, before Dr. Jobson — an ex-
architect who became President of the Conference — persuaded
Methodists to build more pretentious and less suitable Gothic
or semi-Gothic churches.
It was a perfect place for speaking. From the choir seats
where I sat one commanded the whole building, which held
between fifteen hundred and two thousand people. Imme
diately in front of me was the huge platform built around the
pulpit, and seating the President, ex-Presidents, and Secre
taries of the Conference. In front of them, on the floor, were

100 Chapters from My Life
the rest of the "Legal Hundred," the ministers elected by
their brethren to form the Conference as defined in John
Wesley's poll deed by which all the property of Methodism
is held. Behind them sat the Chairmen of Districts not yet
elected into the Legal Hundred, and the rest of the floor
was occupied by senior ministers. In the gallery were the
younger members of this remarkable assembly governing
Methodism absolutely, in which, until recent years, Methodist
ministers had had no right to speak or vote until they had
been several years in the ministry.
Those who have never sat in the Wesleyan Conference
cannot realise what it meant for a man of thirty to face his
fathers and brethren in such an assembly. The power of
ministerial life and death rested in the hands of the Con
ference, and they could destroy in five minutes the career of
one from whom they differed, if that was the sense of the
gathering. Our disclaimer of personal attacks was read to the Con
ference, whereupon a minister jumped up and said: "Does
Dr. Lunn hold to his opinions in spite of that disclaimer? "
I said firmly : "I do."
"Then," said the minister, "I think Dr. Lunn ought to
speak." The necessity for asserting that it was debatable whether
a man of thirty, fighting for his ministerial existence, ought
to defend himself, indicated something of the autocratic
character of that remarkable assembly. The President turned
round and signified his permission for the "defendant" to
speak for himself.
I had my notes lying before me which I had prepared the
previous evening in anticipation of this scene. I said : "The
word ' luxury ' is the only word in the English language
that will express my meaning " — that was the word that was
particularly attacked. "I went out to India a young man
from a middle-class family, and I found a condition of things
prevailing there which, to me at least, was luxury." Whilst
reaffirming the main contentions of my articles, I claimed that

The Missionary Controversy 101
all through I had been actuated by a sincere desire to promote
the interests of the Missionary Society.
Immediately my speech was concluded the Rev. W- L.
Watkinson, an extreme and brilliant opponent of the pro
gressive policy advocated by Hughes, jumped to his feet
and said: "The matter is now quite clear. Dr. Lunn has
made tremendous accusations against our brethren in the
East. He must substantiate that speech or take the penalty
and go."
With characteristic promptitude Hughes rose and said :
"I entirely share Dr. Lunn's convictions. I resolutely
maintain before God and man that holding these convictions
does not involve personal charges against any of the brethren.
In any case I stand by the side of my colleague, and so does
Mark Guy Pearse, and any blow that falls upon him must fall
upon me also. J greatly regret the Conference does not seem
to realise that neither Dr. Lunn nor I intended to make any
personal charge against our brethren in India. We criticised
the system in the main."
Dr. Rigg, who had great gifts of statesmanship, took a
moderating line and made a powerful speech, expressing his
sympathy with Mr. Hughes in his work, and urging that
the recommendations of the committee should be accepted.
At the same time he strongly protested against the conten
tions of my speech.
Dr. Jenkins disputed the statements made in the articles,
whilst, at the same time, giving me credit for sincerity and
for believing what I said.
The Rev. William Arthur, one of the most venerable ex-
Presidents then living, urged that "The words of Brother
Watkinson be taken back."
After further speeches the Conference adjourned, and
after the adjournment my appointment to the West London
Mission was confirmed, and that phase of the controversy
was ended.
The mischief which had been done by the Hindu letters

102 Chapters from My Life
could not be undone by any pacific resolutions of the English
Conference. The missionaries refused to be satisfied with
the investigations of the Conference committee. They met
in formal conference at Bangalore, and sent home a detailed
reply to my articles, and to a statement issued by Hughes
and myself amplifying and supporting fhe articles by certain
figures. They insisted upon the appointment of a special com
mission to go into the whole matter. The authorities at the
Mission House responded to this demand by the appointment
of the President of the Conference, the Rev. C H. Kelly,
four other ministers, and four laymen — the ministers being
the Revs. H. J. Pope, Wesley Brunyate, George Fletcher,
and Thomas Allen, and the laymen the Right Hon. H. H.
Fowler, afterwards Lord Wolverhampton and Secretary of
State for India, Sir George Hayter Chubb, Mr. John
Clapham, and Mr. H. Arthur Smith.
The Missionary Commission sat for the consideration of
evidence on Tuesday, May 27th, Wednesday, May 28th,
Thursday, May 29th, and Friday, May 30th, 1890.
It is obvious that for several reasons Hughes and I were
placed at a great disadvantage in appearing before this com
mission. We were undeniably two of the hardest-worked
ministers in the Wesleyan Methodist Church. On the other
hand the two missionaries who had been chosen by the
Indian missionaries as their representatives, Professor Pat
terson and the Rev. W. H. Findlay, were set apart entirely
to deal with the question, and to make out their case. The
Mission House expended in all considerably over £1,000 in
this preparation. It is scarcely necessary to say that Hughes
and I did not spend as many shillings.
But these elements in the conflict were of slight import
ance compared to the fact that the issue tried by the mission
ary committee was but a trivial detail, and was not the real
issue involved.
As already stated, I had endeavoured to lay down certain
main lines of policy which I urged should be adopted. I

The Missionary Controversy 103
felt then, as I feel to-day, that a subject nation will never
be evangelised by men who are bound up socially with the
ruling caste. I felt, moreover, that the educational policy
which had been initiated by Dr. Duff, and greatly modified
by his successors, was a tremendous blunder on the part of
the Christian Church.
The latter question was put on one side in order that the
committee might consider how far certain rhetorical expres
sions such as "luxury" and "feudal lord" (the unhappy
constructions placed on them having been already disclaimed
by myself) were justified by the facts of the case. To adopt
the words of the official resolution under which the com
mission was appointed, its duty was "to examine into all the
facts and statements bearing upon the position and character
of the Indian missionaries." The commission affirmed that
it interpreted this instruction as having special reference fo
(1) the charge of "luxury," (2) the influence of their social
position upon the missionaries. Thus skilfully and adroitly
the main issues were avoided, and the controversy was
narrowed down to personal ones, which I had, throughout my
original articles, carefully endeavoured to avoid.
The report stated that the word "luxury " was not jus
tified; that there was no specific difference between the
purchasing power of stipends as expended in India and the
same sums expended in England. It added that "owing to
the recent depreciation of the Indian currency the remunera
tion of the Indian missionaries does not exceed the stipends
and allowances paid to Wesleyan ministers in England."
Further, it found that "the assertion that the manner or the
style of living of the Indian missionaries tends to alienate
them from the native population, or hinder the success of
their native work, is not sustained." The report then went
on to make the following recommendation : " Without ex
pressing any opinion as to the amount of the remuneration
of the Indian missionaries, the sub-committee recommends
that the stipends should be paid in the silver currency of
India rather than as at .present— in the gold currency of

104 Chapters from My Life
England, provided that the rupee is calculated at its par value
in respect of any remittances to England out of ministerial
income." When this report was published I telegraphed to Hughes
from Yarmouth, where I was staying with my family for a
short rest: "This report means victory." When I came
up to London, Sir Percy Bunting's sister, Mrs. Sheldon
Amos, came to see me on the morning on which the com
mittee was to receive the report. She supplied to the
Westminster Gazette an account of her conversation with me,
in which I said the report was a practical endorsement of my
policy. It recommended that the missionaries should hence
forth be paid in currency instead of sterling, which meant
the Via Media, as the sovereign was worth, roughly, fifteen
rupees instead of ten rupees — its par value.
The next morning the officials found that most of the
daily papers had accepted my view of the report, and the
following day the officials denounced my interpretation in
the Methodist Recorder. They claimed that all the report
meant was that a definite number of rupees should be paid,
but how many the report did not indicate.
That morning Hughes had received a marked copy of
the Birmingham Post from Mr. H. H. Fowler, who was the
great financial expert on the commission, having been Finance
Secretary to the Treasury, and being later on, as I have
said, Secretary of State for India. Hughes said : "Go down
and see Fowler at the House of Commons." I went down,
sent in my card, and when Mr. Fowler came out, I said:
"What is the meaning of this recommendation? I have
stated in the Pall Mall Gazette and other papers that it
means so and so, and the Methodist Recorder flatly contra
dicts my interpretation." He replied by taking a copy of
the Birmingham Post out of his pocket and by reading to
me the following passages of the "London Letter" in
that paper :
"The Wesleyan Missions Committee met in London to
day to consider the report prepared by the Special Com-

The Missionary Controversy 105
mittee recently appointed to inquire into the allegations
concerning the Indian branch of the Wesleyan Mission
system brought last year by the Rev. Dr. Lunn and the
Rev. H. P. Hughes. The report referred to declared that
the Special Committee considered that it had no authority
to deal with the question of policy generally underlying the
Indian Missions; that it had, therefore, declined to call
evidence on the point; and that two of the four points sub
mitted to it had consequently not been touched. It em
phatically and without qualification exonerated the Indian
missionaries from any charge of hauteur, luxury, and ex
travagance, but it condemned the policy pursued in the matter
of payment by the Missions Committee at home, which had
justified the allegations that the missionaries were remune
rated on a higher scale than the ministry in England. It
pointed out that whereas all other missionary societies pay
their Indian missionaries in rupees, the Wesleyan paid in
pounds sterling, and that consequently the Wesleyan re
ceiving ,£250 in gold really took, at the present rate of
exchange, 3,400 rupees, while it was intended that his salary
should be 2,500 — which it actually was when it was fixed —
as against 2,700 paid by the London Missionary Society.
There are some detailed recommendations concerning salaries
in addition, but this is the main point, and after to-day's full
meeting it is likely to be early adopted."
After reading this passage he said : "That is my view of
what the recommendation means," and it is scarcely necessary
to say it coincided with my own. I came away from the
House of Commons convinced, on the evidence of its greatest
financial expert, that the Commission had practically decided
in my favour.
After more than a quarter of a century's consideration
I have come to the conclusion which was expressed to
me by the Rev. Wesley Brunyate and George Corderoy,
and is recorded at the end of this chapter. My critics
would have dealt with me more effectively if, instead of
spending so much energy on side issues, they had merely

106 Chapters from My Life
replied that, with my limited experience and my honourable
and comfortable position in the home ministry, I was not a
suitable exponent of a system of self-denial for others. Not
withstanding the appalling blunders of the officials all
through the controversy, I realised that the missionaries,
whom I loved and honoured for their own sake and for their
work's sake, and who to-day hold the same place in my
affections, were not unnaturally angry with the young man
who had attacked a system to which they were committed.
The plea that no attack on them personally was intended
was true, but was no justification for failing to foresee their
interpretation. A year had passed since my speech in the Conference, and
strong pressure was being put upon me to resign my position
in the Wesleyan Methodist ministry. It was felt by many
of the friends of the West London Mission that Hughes's
work would suffer financially if I remained associated with
him. In these circumstances, as I had been invited by the
Regent Street Polytechnic to assist in the religious work of
that institution, I saw our President, the Rev. C H. Kelly,
before Conference met, and told him that I was not prepared
to accept a vote of the Conference involving action of a penal
character, but if the Conference would accept my offer, I
was willing to retain my full status as a Wesleyan minister,
to work at the Polytechnic, and to retire from my position
in the West London Mission.
On reading the debate which took place in the Conference
on this simple issue, it is difficult to understand the intensity
of the feeling manifested. Practically the whole of the morn
ing of July 24th was occupied with the preliminary dis
cussion, which eventuated in the appointment of a committee
of twenty-one members to consider the report on the Mis
sionary Controversy, and to advise the Conference what its
action should be with reference to my proposal. A proposal
that I should be given what would practically have been

The Missionary Controversy 107
a penal appointment to some place in the provinces was
negatived by a large majority, and the committee was
appointed. This committee recommended that I "should be permitted
to labour in connection with another religious organisation,
and be responsible to the Chairman of the Second London
District in all matters pertaining to Methodist discipline."
Dr. Watkinson, in a speech manifesting great feeling,
moved as an amendment that I should be sent to a country
circuit, saying: "Give Dr. Lunn a fitting circuit. Take him
away from the tremendous temptations of London — I may
say the focus of peril — for his own sake and the sake of the
young men there to whom he will minister, for the sake of
Methodism at large, and for the credit of our discipline."
The real difficulty before the Conference was that if they
penalised the writer of the articles it was difficult to avoid
dealing with the editor; and Hughes, with that chivalry
which marked all his relations with me, absolutely refused
to be separated from me. My position was one of compara
tive insignificance; I was a young man whom Methodism in
any other circumstances would have dismissed without
hesitation. It was far otherwise with Hughes, who at that
moment, so far as the outside world was concerned, was the
most outstanding personality in the Methodist communion.
From the time of John Wesley there had always been one
man dominating Methodism — Thomas Coke, Adam Clark,
Jabez Bunting, Dr. Osborne, Dr. Rigg — and it was expected
by all observers that unless anything interfered with Hughes's
career he would come into this line of succession. The fear
was that if I were punished and resigned, he would regard
my resignation as involving his own. I had written a strong
letter to the authorities which, by his wish, was never sent,
but which was published in the Review of the Churches,
offering to take the whole responsibility of the controversy
on my shoulders. This, however, he persistently declined
to allow. The Rev. W. D. Walters, who understood Hughes's

108 Chapters from My Life
attitude, supported the proposal that I should be allowed to
go to the Polytechnic, by saying :
"I believe that Dr. Lunn will not falsely represent us. I
have watched him closely, and I can only say that his influence
in that mission is profoundly spiritual, and without a single
dissentient among 1,200 members he has the hearts and the
affections of the people. He has been instrumental in doing
great spiritual work. Last Sunday night St. James's Hall
was filled, and there were many cases of remarkable con
version. I am now speaking from the point of Dr. Lunn's
exercising an influence over the young men of the Poly
technic. I say no word of-~the past. I deeply regret it, and
no man feels it more than I do, but I am bound to do Dr.
Lunn justice in regard to his private character and his
spiritual influence. Of course Mr. Hughes is not mentioned,
but it is the case of Mr. Hughes as well as Dr. Lunn, and I
urge the acceptance of the recommendations of the committee
because they will be acceptable to Mr. Hughes."
Other speakers followed on the same lines. Dr. H. J.
Pope said that after hearing the remarks of Dr. Watkinson,
who had spoken very strongly, he could not but feel that those
remarks applied quite as much to Mr. Hughes as to Dr.
Lunn. He admired Mr. Hughes, who had so chivalrously
stood by his colleague.
Dr. Osborne attacked Hughes and myself in the strongest
terms in a speech which Dr. Rigg afterwards characterised
as one of his most memorable utterances, congratulating
the younger members of the Conference on having had the
opportunity of listening to it.
Dr. Rigg, in his reply, took the ground of expediency,
and said that he did not feel called upon to say in regard
to Dr. Lunn that he should be expelled. He had voted for
his going to London, and would vote for that now, but the
Conference would do as it pleased.
Dr. Watkinson 's amendment, seconded by Dr. Dallinger,
was defeated. The resolution was carried, and I remained
a Wesleyan minister.

Rev. W. H. Findlay. Rev. G. Patterson. Sir Henry Lunn.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER
Twenty-five years after the publication of the articles which caused the Missionary contro
versy, I was elected for the first time Lay representative to Conference. On arriving at Oxford
Place Chapel, Leeds, where the Conference was held, I accidentally met Professor Patterson
and Mr. Findlay, and one of them happily thought of commemorating the restoration of our old
friendship in this manner, with the aid of the Conference Photographer,

The Missionary Controversy 109
One small incident furnishes at once a good illustration
of the temper of the moment and of Dr. Watkinson's ironical
gifts. He was dining one evening during the controversy
with a family who knew me slightly, and was denouncing
the articles and their writer. "Come, Mr. Watkinson," said
my informant, "give Dr. Lunn his due." "Nay, spare him
that ! " was the acid rejoinder. And I have been spared to
shake hands with my critic.
I have thought it worth while to record so much of this
discussion because in the year 1914, twenty-five years after
the commencement of this controversy, the Conference did
me the high honour of electing me for three years as one of
its forty-eight representative laymen. This has justified the
conviction which I cherished through all the bitterness of the
struggle, that the men who were saying the harsh things
which I have recorded, were saying them under a mistaken
sense of duty, and because they did not understand the man
with whom they had to deal. I never wavered in my belief
that my opponents were good men, and that conviction
enabled me to bear epithets and phrases which would other
wise have been intolerable.
Reviewing the controversy as a whole, I can honestly
say that all the criticisms in the Conference, in the committee,
and in the Methodist papers left my convictions unchanged.
I have steadily believed from the day I wrote my articles
to the present day that, in the main, my contentions were
right. Only two persons, whom I have already mentioned, criti
cised my action in a way of which I felt the force : the Rev.
.Wesley Brunyate, a large-hearted and broad-minded
minister; and my friend, Mr. George Corderoy. Their
position was that a man who was remaining in the home
work at an income of about £400 a year, everything included,
was not the man to lay down the policy of self-denial for
other people. Mr. Corderoy said something to this effect :
"You have no right to calculate on the self-denial of others.

no Chapters from My Life
It is all very well to say that a man ought to do this and
that, but the man who says so ought to go and do it." I
myself feel that only those who are apostles themselves will
have the hearing their case may deserve. if they preach to
others the self-denial of apostles.
At the same time, I was right to express my honest
convictions, and both Mr. Brunyate and Mr. Corderoy
overlooked in their criticism the fact that the critic
had risked his position in a ministry which he honoured
and loved, his entire income, and the future of him
self and his family, that he might express his con
victions on a matter which he and his friend the Editor
held to be of immense importance to the progress of Chris
tianity in India. I am as strongly convinced to-day as I
ever was that I was justified in contending that India will
never be won for Christ until the Indian native ministry, to
the extension and increased effectiveness of which our edu
cational efforts should be addressed, is developed upon a
much larger scale than at present; and that in view of the
Eastern devotion to the ascetic ideal, extreme simplicity of
life for European missionaries is one necessity of successful
missionary enterprise in that great empire. I was invalided
out of the missionary army, but this was my misfortune and
not my fault, and I was not thereby precluded from repeating
what I had written and said when still in the ranks.
Those who know the position occupied by my colleague
may wonder why Hughes himself did not resign and take
me with him. I well remember going to Epping Forest with
him on one of the two days which Conference occupied with
this prolonged discussion. He had made up his mind that
the position might become intolerable, and the question then
was what steps we should take. My own inclination would
have led me to join the Church of England. He felt very
strongly, as he said in that conversation, that the cause of
Christian unity would be hindered by isolated stragglers
going over to the Church of England. "If we are driven
out," he said to me, "what we must do in the interests of

The Missionary Controversy in
Christian unity will be to join one of the minor Methodist
bodies, and endeavour to unite them into one body, as the
first step towards ultimate and complete Methodist reunion."
He ever dreaded schism, and it would have been utterly
abhorrent to him to do what it was feared he might do, i.e.
follow the example of the three leaders of the great schism in
Methodism in 1849, and create a new denomination. He was
prepared, for the time being, to suffer much at the hands
of his brethren, and to urge me to endure everything rather
than take any step that would have a divisive influence upon
the communion to which he was so deeply attached, and of
which he was so faithful a servant.
Why I resigned two years later must be kept for the next
chapter.

CHAPTER IX
THE AFTERMATH OF THE MISSIONARY CONTROVERSY —
RESIGNATION FROM THE WESLEYAN MINISTRY
(I893)
The Decennial Conference of Indian Missionaries — The Resolution
moved at the Wesleyan Missionary Committee — " Another
Church in which to speak " — Interview with Dr. Rigg — Inter
view with Bishop Temple — Letter of Resignation — Invitation
from Dean Farrar — Influence of Hughes — Bishop Vincent and
the Methodist Episcopal Church — Acceptance at Rome into
the Ministry of the M.E. Church — Letters from Bishop Temple,
Canon Barnett and Bishop Moule — Hughes's Comments in the
Methodist Times — Reasons for my Decision.
Individuals sometimes forgive, tat bodies and societies never do. —
Chesterfield's Letters to his Son.
"I pray God to spare my friends a similar clemency." — Sir Thomas
More on his sentence of decapitation.
THE Wesleyan Methodist Conference had failed to
separate Hugh Price Hughes from his young colleague.
Although we were working in different religious centres, our
homes were only separated about 200 yards, and our lives
were lived on terms of the closest intimacy. We shared each
other's purposes and aspirations, and worked together in
every possible way. But another question came above the
horizon which led to a revival of the feeling that had
manifested itself at the time of the controversy.
The Decennial Conference of Indian Missionaries met
in December, 1892, for the consideration of all questions
affecting missionary enterprise in India. A discussion was
opened in the Conference on the question of the opium traffic
in relation to public morals, the liquor traffic and public
morality, and regulated vice and public morals.
112

The Aftermath of the Controversy 113
At the closing session of the Conference the Rev. R. A.
Hume, himself a member of the business committee, proposed
a resolution expressing the horror which the Conference felt
at regulated vice in every form, and the hope that the
Imperial Government would insist upon obedience by
British officials in India to its instructions based upon the
resolution of Parliament of June 5th, 1888. This resolution
was seconded and adopted, a very few voting against it.
The Rev. Dr. Miller, one of the most eminent Indian
missionaries, strongly in sympathy with the Government,
objected to the resolution and stated that the Government
would see that they were divided upon the subject. He was
seconded by Dr. Martyn Clark, who said that medical
missionaries were divided upon the question.
Dr. Miller then moved a resolution that the motion against
regulated vice should be withdrawn, and this motion was
carried by 105 against 102.
Bishop Thorburn, the leader of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in India, wrote immediately to the Indian Witness,
an organ of that church in India, and said, "It was a source
of deep regret to hundreds of the friends of the Decennial
Conference that the final vote taken upon the resolution
offered in support of the abolition of the CD. Act and in
condemnation of the policy of regulating vice was such as to
put the Conference in a false position."
The first English editor to deal with this motion was Dr.
Robertson Nicoll in the British Weekly, and he did not
mince matters. "We have read," he said, "with dismay, a
paragraph which states that when the Rev. R. A. Hume
moved a resolution expressing abhorrence of regulated vice
in every form, and calling for strict enforcement of the law,
Principal Miller of Madras said that he objected to the
resolution, and urged its withdrawal. Dr. Martyn Clark
said the medical missionaries were divided, and in the end
the resolution was withdrawn by 105 to 102 ! If this is true we
venture to say that Dr. Miller has struck the deadliest blow
which has fallen on the missionary enterprise in our time.
I

114 Chapters from My Life
We have always maintained that missionaries must be fully
trusted in the details of their work. But this is a moral
question — one on which the Christian people of this country
have unalterably made up their minds. They will not discuss
it with Dr. Miller and his friends; they will simply conclude
that those missionaries, living amid demoralisation, have
themselves become demoralised. But we cling to the hope
that the whole matter will be explained."
Hugh Price Hughes followed up the campaign in the
Methodist Times in his vigorous fashion, and said, referring
to the Conference :
" In the face of India and the world, that great gathering
of missionaries refused to condemn a system which has
already been abolished in this country, and which is
maintained in India only because we have • not yet fully
succeeded in bringing home to the people of England that
our disloyal and degraded officials in India are dodging, in
the interest of masculine lust, the decision of the House of
Commons." The South Indian Conference and the Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church met immediately afterwards,
and took a line strongly condemnatory of the Decennial
Conference. In the Review of the Churches I appealed to those at home
in the following terms: "We have only one comment to
make on the following facts, and that is to expose the flimsy
pretence that the Decennial Conference could not pass
any resolution upon any subject upon which it was not
unanimous. If the twelve disciples had acted on this principle
immediately after the betrayal of our Lord they would have
refused to condemn the action of Judas in accepting the
thirty pieces of silver until he hanged himself, because it
would not have been a unanimous resolution. If St. Paul,
in carrying out his blessed work in breaking down the middle
wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, had acted on this
principle, Peter's withdrawal from the Gentile converts at
Antioch would have paralysed all their future endeavours.

The Aftermath of the Controversy 115
If unanimity in any ecclesiastical assembly that the world
has ever known had been necessary to enable the assembly
to attack the forces of evil, no single advance that the Church
of Christ has ever yet made would have been carried out. . . .
There is only one course open to those who care for Foreign
Missions, and who at the same time believe that the cause
of Christ can never be furthered by a condonation of gigantic
evils, whether they are associated with the rule of a Christian
nation in a heathen land or not. The Churches at home must
at once, and unmistakably, express their condemnation of
these evils, and their determination not to send forth to the
mission field, or to continue in that work, those who thus
'make compromise with sin.' "
In March I registered in the Review of the Churches a
great advance on this question. A meeting was summoned
at Exeter Hall for Tuesday, March 21st, by Hugh Price
Hughes, Dr. Moulton, Archibald Brown, Dr. Robertson
Nicoll, Dr. F. B. Meyer, Prebendary Webb-Peploe, and other
leaders of opinion. Hughes said in the Methodist Times:
"The solid unanimity of the meeting was as remarkable as
its moral earnestness. It was a sort of Council of War of
the Ironsides of the New Democracy, called to inaugurate
a fresh campaign against the triple tyranny in India of opium,
alcohol and libertinism."
In April further protests came from the mission field,
including a strong missionary statement in the following
terms : " In view of the false position in which Christian
missionaries in India are placed before the whole world, by
reason of the failure of the Decennial Missionary Conference
of 1892-93 to recognise and condemn certain stupendous evils
existing in this land, and to declare our true position
regarding them, we, the Christian missionaries in India,
whose signatures are hereto appended, unite in the following
protest :
"First, we unhesitatingly declare our utter abhorrence of
Regulated Vice in every form.
"Second, we are unalterably opposed to the participation

116 Chapters from My Life
by the Government in the demoralising traffic in opium and
intoxicating liquors; and we record our conviction that these
are sins against God and wrongs to humanity."
This was signed by missionaries of the Church Missionary
Society, the Friends' Missionary Society, the Lutheran
Mission, the London Mission, the Methodist Episcopal
Mission, the American Presbyterian Mission, the Baptist
Mission and others. The British Weekly continued to take
the strongest line.
In these circumstances I wrote to the Wesleyan
Missionary Committee, asking to be allowed to appear
before them to deal with the question. Hughes and I had
been criticised previously for not appealing to the committee.
The committee was held on Thursday, May 13th, and I
proposed the following resolution :
"That this Committee, having had its attention called to
the reports of the late Decennial Missionary Conference at
Bombay, while disclaiming any sympathy with the terms in
which in some quarters the action taken at the closing
meeting of the Conference with reference to the subject of
the State Regulation of Vice, the Government Opium Traffic,
and the Liquor Traffic in India has been criticised, cannot
but express its deep regret that, owing apparently to a mere
technicality or point of order, so large a representative
gathering of missionaries should have refused to pronounce
an emphatic judgment on such momentous topics, closely
affecting mission work, when once they were introduced; and
especially that a strong condemnation of the first of these
having been passed virtually by acclamation should have
been withdrawn by a very small majority, feeling, as it does,
that much injury may result, and that already no little painful
concern among many of the warmest friends of missions has
been called forth."
The officials replied by a resolution declining to take any
action with reference to the Decennial Conference, and the
Rev. C. H. Kelly, a former President of the Conference, said
that he thought the time had come when "Mr. Hughes and

The Aftermath of the Controversy 117
Dr. Lunn should find another platform from which to speak,
and another church in which to speak."
Just at this time those who had resented my criticisms of
the missionary organisation in India found an opportunity of
attacking my position in the Wesleyan ministry.
Although I was still a Wesleyan minister I was receiving
no payment of any kind from Methodism, and my income
was derived partly from editorial and other similar work and
partly from other sources which involved a business element.
Methodism rightly lays down a rigid rule against any of its
ministers being engaged in business, and on this ground
my position was open to criticism. A minister named Joseph
Olphert wrote a letter to Dr. Rigg stating that he should
impeach my position on this ground, and I was notified by
Dr. Rigg of this fact just at the time of the meeting of the
Wesleyan Missionary Committee which I have described. I
went to see Dr. Rigg, and pointed out the ambiguous position
occupied by other ministers in relation to this matter. I
said: "There is the case of one of our most eminent min
isters, a very wealthy man, who tried to float a gold mine
and got into the law courts. I do not want to raise this kind
of question, or to throw mud at anyone and get bespattered
myself, as I hope to remain a Christian minister. I shall
therefore resign my position."
Dr. Rigg summed up, in the following letter to me, his
own attitude at this interview :
"79, Brixton Hill, S.W.,
"May 10th, 1893.
"Dear Dr. Lunn, — I should thus represent the substance
and exact meaning of what I said. I think that in our district
Synod where you have personal friends, and where the facts
as to your real and useful work at the Polytechnic are better
known than elsewhere, there would be no disposition to make
your continued connection with the W.M. Church impossible
or needlessly difficult, but still I think the Synod would not

118 Chapters from My Life
be likely to consent to your being permanently engaged, as
you are at present, in making arrangements as a matter of
business for tours in different parts of the world. And again,
I intimated in reply to some observations of your own on
the subject, that I had no doubt you might confidently expect
to find the way open for you to^enter another church, and in
that church to have a distinguished and honourable career.
— Yours very truly, "James H. Rigg."
I left Dr. Rigg's house and walked across the road, and
on the impulse of the moment telegraphed to the Bishop of
London (Dr. Temple) for an interview. I had had no
previous relations with him on this question. The Bishop
kindly gave me an appointment the next day at the
Athenaeum Club, when I showed him my letter of resignation
that I had drafted to send to Dr. Rigg.
In this letter I expressed my profound regret at having
no option but to place my resignation in the hands of the
President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference. I went
on to say that I had felt it my duty to express my convictions
in strong terms with reference to the failure to condemn cer
tain social evils on the part of the Missionary Conference held
at Bombay the preceding January. I then quoted the remark
from the Rev. C. H. Kelly that he thought "the time had
come for Mr. Hughes and Dr. Lunn to find another platform
from which to speak, and another church in which to speak."
I then summarised the effect of the missionary controversy
upon my position, and went on to say, "So strong are the
ties that unite me to the Methodist Church, and so vivid is
my realisation of the spiritual benefits which I have received
through its channels, that I desired, in spite of the bitterness
which exists against me, to remain in my present relation to
Methodism, receiving no salary or emolument from my
church, but serving that church to the best of my ability,
as I have now done for three years."
I repeated the argument which I had used in conversation

The Aftermath of the Controversy 119
with Dr. Rigg with reference to the position of certain other
ministers, and said : " It is clear that in the cases of those
whom the Conference has specially liberated from all pastoral
charge, the ' pursuit of private emolument ' has proved
incompatible with the regular ministerial duties of a
pastorate. "In contrast with this fact," I said, "I am surely entitled
to point out that I am entrusted with a most important
pastoral charge in assisting Mr. Quintin Hogg in the
spiritual oversight of the ten thousand students and members
of the Polytechnic institute, my duties including the privilege
of preaching to a regular congregation of over one thousand
young people every Sunday evening, and conducting large
Bible classes during the week. But such a mode of defence
is peculiarly distasteful to me."
I concluded the letter by saying : " It would ill become
me, having devoted my energies to the creation of kindlier
feeling between the severed sections of the Church of Christ,
to pursue a course which would injure the Wesleyan
Methodist Church and embitter relations."
Bishop Temple read my suggested letter of resignation
through very carefully, and recommended one or two slight
amendments which I embodied. He then said to me, in his
characteristically abrupt but very kindly fashion : "Well,
that is not all you want to see me about, I suppose ? "
I said, "No, my Lord. I want to know whether, if I
decide to take orders in the Church of England, you will
ordain me."
The Bishop replied, "Certainly," and pulled out his
pocket book. He said, "There are only two Sundays till
Trinity Sunday, our next ordination, and therefore there is
no time for the Si quis, which is read in church the three
Sundays before ordination challenging anyone who has any
objection to the ordination to state it. I am afraid your
ordination will have to stand over until Advent."
My letter of resignation appeared in the Times and other
papers the following Monday. The Rev. A. Boyd Carpenter

120 Chapters from My Life
at once expressed his willingness to give me a curacy at St.
George's, Bloomsbury, and Bishop Perowne offered me
immediate ordination as deacon, and priest's orders in three
months, if I would take a curacy in his diocese of Worcester,
going down one day a week for the three months.
I received the following letter from Archdeacon Farrar :
"May 15th.
"My dear Dr. Lunn, — I am grieved at anything that is
a trial to you. Is it quite impossible for you to enter our
ministry ? If you would like to talk it over I shall be at home
on Tuesday or Wednesday morning, or (better) between five
and six. — Yours very sincerely, "F. W. Farrar."
I went to see Archdeacon Farrar, and had a long
conversation with him, in which he offered me a nominal
curacy at St. Margaret's, Westminster. He said, "I will
give you what we call ' a title ' or nominal curacy which is
necessary for ordination, and £5 or some such nominal sum
per annum which must be put into the title from the stand
point of Church law. You can preach for me occasionally at
Westminster and go on with your editorship of the Review
of the Churches, and the Grindelwald Conferences, etc."
Thinking the whole matter over, I wrote to the Bishop
of London to say that I felt I must give further consideration
to the matter, and he replied in the following terms :
"Fulham Palace, S.W.,
"May 15th, 1893.
"My dear Sir, — I entirely concur in the expediency of
your taking some time to deliberate with prayer on your next
step. — Yours very truly, "F. Londin."
On May 22nd, Archdeacon Farrar wrote again to me
as follows :

The Aftermath of the Controversy 121
"May 22nd, 1893.
My dear Dr. Lunn, — When the time comes there will,
I think, be no difficulty at all. It will be easy to arrange
details later on. I feel no doubt at all that your way will be
made straight before you. — Yours very truly,
"F. W. Farrar."
The Rev. H. C. G. Moule, now Bishop of Durham, wrote
in the following exceedingly kind terms :
"Ridley Hall, Cambridge, "May 26th, 1893.
"Dear Dr. Lunn, — I cannot let your kind letter pass
without at least this brief assurance of warmest sympathetic
interest on reading what you are good enough to tell me.
The thought of your joining our ministry is in itself an
occasion for a sincere word of respectful welcome, should you
see your way clear. Meanwhile I appreciate at a glance the
difficulties which beset your personal action in this matter.
"As to the first difficulty, that relating to your efforts for
reunion, I can offer no counsel. I have no right to do so
and no sufficient knowledge, but I can pray for the Lord's
light on your own judgment.
"As to the second, the other difficulty regarding the
Wesleyan Church, perhaps I may venture to say that it will
be something for the right side that another and a powerful
Voice in the Anglican ministry should be added to those
which already assert the Church position of the Historic
Denominations, refusing to regard church history as closed
at any given point in the past.
"Of course this note is not for reply. — Believe me to
remain, sincerely yours,
"H. C. G. Moule."
I have no copy of the letter that I wrote to the Bishop of
London, but I find a summary of what I thought at the time
in the Review of the Churches where I say : " I shall take the

122 Chapters from My Life
opportunity of a quiet time during the summer to consider
carefully before taking any decided step," and add, "There
are, however, two or three facts and two or three considera
tions which are manifest and will, no doubt, influence my
ultimate decision. In the first place the ministry which I
received from a higher source than the Wesleyan Confer
ence is not affected by my resignation. In the second place
my sphere of service to the Church of Christ at the Poly
technic is also unaffected, and there is nothing in Methodist
polity to hinder my continuing to render such service as I
am able in Methodist pulpits. The considerations which will
weigh very heavily with me in my final decision are, in the
first place, that I must take no step which will injure the move
ment which this Review was founded to represent; and
secondly, that I can never take up a position which would
necessarily involve any expression of doubt as to the validity
of my own ministry in the past, or the present validity of the
ministry of those excellent representatives of the Free
Churches who have worked with me in this movement. I
have ever held to the truth of the great patristic saying, Ubi
Christus, ibi Ecclesia, and whether I find it possible to remain
a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church or am com
pelled to seek another spiritual home, I can never take up a
position inconsistent with this great saying."
Meanwhile I purchased the books which would be the
subjects of examination for ordination. Subject to my ulti
mate decision I provisionally accepted Archdeacon Farrar's
kind invitation to take a curacy under him at Westminster,
preach there occasionally, and continue my other work.
I then went to Switzerland. Hughes and I stayed under
the same roof for a long period. It was one of his peculiari
ties when he did not wish anything to happen, to disregard
its possibility until he was forced to realise it. Although I
had told him that I thought of going into the Church of
England he never took it seriously until one day a Sister of
the West London Mission, who was staying in the same
villa, said to him, "You know, Mr. Hughes, that Dr. Lunn

The Aftermath of the Controversy 123
is intending to be ordained as Archdeacon Farrar's curate,
and is studying with that end."
I learned the next day that he had been awake almost the
whole of the night praying earnestly in his own affectionate
and passionate manner that I might be saved from making
a mistake. We went out for a walk together and he said
to me, as he said also to Mrs. Price Hughes about me: "I
have no doubt that a great career is open to you, but I do
beg of you not to sell the pass in this fashion by being re-
ordained. Charles Berry and I and many others have joined
in these Reunion Conferences which I consider most im
portant. You have originated the Conferences, and if you
go into the Church and are re-ordained, men with whose
ecclesiastical position you have no sympathy will applaud
your action loudly, and you will grieve all your friends."
This was the summary of a long conversation which weighed
heavily with me.
Just at that time Bishop Vincent, of the Methodist Epis
copal Church of America, came over to Lucerne to lecture
on "Chautauqua," the great national summer school which
he had founded in America. Hughes discussed my situation
with the Bishop, and asked him whether it was not possible,
in view of my anxiety to remain a minister, for me to be
received into the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church
of America with liberty to reside in England without any
emolument. This transfer involved nO question of re-ordina
tion. Bishop Vincent said : "If Dr. Lunn will come with me
to Rome, to our Italian Conference, I will arrange this,"
and ultimately I decided so to do.
From Rome I wrote to Bishop Temple, pointing out my
difficulty in being re-ordained. The Bishop replied with the
following magnanimous letter :
" Fulham Palace, S. W.,
"Sept. 14th, 1893.
"My dear Dr. Lunn, — I am obliged by your interesting
letter. I think that with your views you have decided rightly.

124 Chapters from My Life
If you had been ordained in the Church of England there
might, and probably would have remained, 'a root of
bitterness ' in your mind that would have afterwards given
you trouble of conscience. The change that you now propose
to make is free from all such danger, and if by any
possibility you should still fail to secure peace of mind, it
will not be because you have doubts about the step you are
now taking. It may be when you have tried the Episcopal
system that you may have some doubts whether it was not
always the best and always our Lord's intention. But you
will not feel that you have given up old teaching without
necessity, always a very painful thing to feel. And most
likely you will find complete rest in the new position. Under
any circumstances you may feel assured of the deep sympathy
of religious men and especially of men like myself who hold
conscience the most sacred of all gifts that the Creator has
bestowed on human nature. — Yours faithfully, "F. Londin."
I wrote also to Archdeacon Farrar, and I have unfor
tunately mislaid his reply, but it was to the effect that he
thought it probable, in view of the conflicting attitude of
different parties in the Church of England, that I had taken
a course which would give me greater peace of mind.
Another letter that I received at this period from Canon
Hay Aitken I have not retained, but I remember very vividly
his kindness and his remark when he read my letter in the
Times. "There is nothing now to prevent you from joining
the Catholic Church." My reply to that letter expressed my
views at the time. I said something to the following effect :
"It is just because I feel that I am excluding myself from
so large a part of the Catholic Church that I hesitate about
faking orders in the Church of England. The Greek Church
has declared itself the Catholic and Orthodox Church and
has excommunicated Rome on the technical grounds of the
Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Second Person in
the Trinity as inserted in the Creed in the Western Church.

The Aftermath of the Controversy 125
As Dean Stanley puts it in his ' Eastern Church,' to that
Church the Pope is the ' First Protestant.' The Pope in
turn denies the validity of English orders, so that from the
standpoint of the Greek and Roman the sacraments of the
English Church are invalid, and the members of the Church
are excommunicate.
"The English Church in turn is not in communion, as I
am to-day, with the great Presbyterian Churches of Scotland
and America, the Lutheran Churches of Scandinavia and
Germany, the Reformed Churches of Switzerland and France,
the great Methodist Churches of America which to-day —
though bigness is not an argument on the question of truth
— have a larger number of clergy and of communicants than
the Church of England; and the Congregational Churches,
Paedobaptist and Anabaptist, of England and America. All
these churches will welcome me in their pulpits and to the
celebration of their sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It is
contrary to the genius of John Wesley to excommunicate any
one who desires to be saved from his sins by faith in a
personal Saviour."
Canon Barnett, a large-souled Broad ^Churchman, then
engaged in his great work at Toynbee Hall, wrote to me in
the following terms :
"St. Jude's Vicarage,
"Commercial Street,
" Whitechapel, E.,
"Sept. 14th, 1893.
"Dear Lunn, — Let me write at once to say how glad I
am the burden is lifted from your mind. I have often thought
of you and regretted the difficulty of a man to help his
brother. The solution seems to me most satisfactory. As
you know, I was not in favour of your taking English Church
orders, and now you seem to have just the position for your
powers and calling. The chance of getting something like
Chautauqua in Switzerland is a good one, and I welcome
any drawing near of America to England as if it were the

126 Chapters from My Life
prophecy of the century. May God bless you, giving you
both peace and power. — Ever yours, "S. A. Barnett."
Hughes, in the Methodist Times of September 14th, 1893,
published the following editorial remarks :
"We have much pleasure in announcing that Dr. Lunn
has been received by Bishop Vincent and the Italian Con
ference into the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church
with a view to his immediate transfer to the Swiss Conference
of that world-wide community. . . . We are delighted that
Dr. Lunn. has found a suitable and honourable place in
the ministry of the great Episcopal branch of Wesleyan
Methodism. We cannot but greatly regret that he is no
longer a minister of the church of his birth and ardent choice,
but he is now nearer to the parent church he loves than he
would be in any other communion, and he is in full sympathy
with the ecclesiastical system of the sister-church he has
entered. Of course our doctrinal standards are identical,
and Dr. Lunn, like many others on this side of the Atlantic,
heartily approves of episcopacy in the moderate and scriptural
form in which Wesley conferred it upon the Methodism of
the New World. He has, therefore, entered that ministry
without the least strain upon his conscience, but with the
utmost sincerity and heartiness."
This peculiar relation to the Methodist Episcopal Church
of America did not prove practicable. I still took an active
part in the work of English Wesleyan Methodism, and had
no means of keeping in personal touch with the ministry or
the members of the American sister communion. I was
meanwhile debarred from office as a layman in England, and
had no right to attend any church meeting, either as a layman
or as a minister. After three years I accordingly decided to
become technically a layman once more, and with much,
reluctance resigned my ministry.
Some of my friends in the Free Churches will wonder

The Aftermath of the Controversy 127
how it was that I was so nearly accepting ordination in the
Church of England. Perhaps they will wonder less as they
read the earlier chapters, and see how my earliest days had
been spent in an atmosphere in which there was no conscious
antagonism to the Church of England. During my university
life I had been treated in the kindest way by the Regius
Professor of the Divinity School and President of the
Theological Society, Dr. Salmon, in Trinity College, and by
many other of the Irish clergy, including my father-in-law
and my brother-in-law. In my work as editor of the Review
of the Churches I had come into personal touch with several
of the English Bishops and other dignitaries, and had found
men like Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Bishop Perowne, and
Canon Barnett as humble and unpretentious and just as
brotherly as the Methodist students of Headingley College.
There is nothing in the genius of Methodism necessarily
involving antagonism to the Church of England. The true
Methodist is not a dissenter, but at most a nonconforming
member of the Church of England.
Holding, the views on re-ordination, which I have expressed
later, I was convinced that to pass directly from the ministry
of Wesleyan Methodism to the Church of England would be
regarded by extremists in the English Church as throwing
doubt upon orders which had received signal marks of the
Divine blessing, and were held by those then working with
me in the sacred cause of Christian unity. At the same time
I was passionately anxious to retain my position as a minister,
and not to become engrossed, as I was fated to be, in a
business career from which it was to prove too true "sed
revocare gradum, hie labor, hoc opus est."
At such a time it is difficult to act without incurring at
some point or other the charge of inconsistency. The question
then was hard to solve, though I could only follow what I
believed to be the light. In that "to-morrow" on which we
so often build our hopes, but which nevertheless fails to come,
it seemed possible either that the bitterness of this "tragedy
of errors" which had crippled my usefulness to Methodism

128 Chapters from My Life
might pass from the official mind, or that in some far-off
days my ordination to the ranks of the Wesleyan ministry
might not deter me from ordination elsewhere. To-day, as
I look back, I feel that, whilst loyalty to my convictions
compelled the action which I took, I was fully justified in
giving the most careful consideration to the kind offers of
my friends within the communion of the Church of England.

CHAPTER X
W. T. STEAD, QUINTIN HOGG AND THE POLYTECHNIC
(189O— 1898)
Effects of the Missionary Controversy — Financial Problems — My New
Relation to Methodism — Journalistic Colleague of W. T. Stead
— Stead's Friendship with Queen Victoria — Stead and King
Leopold — Stead's Method of Prayer — Stead and the Prince of
Wales — Stead's Generosity — Stead, Hughes and the Parnell
Crisis — Quintin Hogg and the Polytechnic — Quintin Hogg as
Shoeblack — His Work amongst Young Men — Its World-wide
Influence — The Theology of Quintin Hogg — Evangelical Cal
vinism.
Great hearts alone understand how much glory there is in being good. —
Michelet. Servants of God ! or sons,
Shall I not call you? because,
Not as servants, ye knew
Your Father's innermost mind ;
His who unwillingly sees
One of His little ones lost.
— Matthew Arnold, "Rugby Chapel."
I MUST now return to the events which immediately
followed my leaving the West London Mission in 1890.
I found myself practically, though until three years later not
actually, outside the work of the Methodist ministry. My
friendship with Hughes, and my association, to a certain
extent, as a voluntary helper in the work of the West London
Mission, remained as a bond of sentiment between me and
the communion for which I had hitherto lived and worked.
A violent controversy, such as that which was just closed,
is accompanied by such a storm of emotion that it is difficult
to analyse one's motives and actions. Supported by the
sympathy of the St. James's Hall congregation of some two
J 129

130 Chapters from My Life
thousand four hundred people, it was easy for a young man
with all the confidence and dogmatism of youth to be more
fully assured of his own singleness of aim than was, pos
sibly, justified. Many think themselves martyrs when they
are actually enjoying the fight. The Mission workers, as was
natural, unanimously supported Hughes and myself.
It is difficult for anyone outside of Methodism to under
stand how greatly the whole communion was agitated. A
year or two after the fight I went to preach a special sermon
in a little country village in Northamptonshire. The minister
took me to see an old bedridden peasant woman . She said :
"I read the Methodist Times every week during the con
troversy, and I always prayed God for Mr. Hughes and you."
During the days of the Conference, when one did not
know what was happening in the debates, the evening papers
would have on the posters "The Missionary Controversy,"
and we found recorded in the Pall Mall Gazette what so
vitally concerned ourselves.
To us, at the time, the controversy seemed to be between
the forces of reaction and progress; between an officialism
that hampered efforts to get on to right lines, and the spirit
of reform that wished to see results achieved where men
had for generations, with so little effect, devoted so much
labour. It seemed then — strange as it may be thought by those
outside of Methodism — that I had made material sacrifices
in leaving the regular work of the Wesleyan Ministry. If
my opponents thought in this fashion, I, with a wife and
children to support, realised very vividly the difficulties of
the situation. Of one thing I was absolutely sure — that I
must remain in close touch with Hughes. His devotion, and
my response in unwavering affection for him, made it un
thinkable that I should remove far away from the Mission.
I therefore decided to take a house in that neighbourhood,
which meant, at a time when my only assured income was
^250 from the Polytechnic, that I must do something to
justify taking one of the large houses in Bloomsbury or

W. T. Stead, Q. Hogg and Polytechnic 131
St. Pancras. I decided to receive a number of young men
into my house as "pupils," to whom I might stand more or
less in loco parentis and superintend their studies.
The resolution under which I had left the ordinary work
of a Methodist minister was expressed in the "Minutes " of
the Conference in the following terms :
"Dr. Lunn shall be permitted to labour for the following
year in connection with another religious organisation, but
shall be responsible for all matters concerning Methodist
discipline to the Chairman of the Second London District."
In fact I had no relation to Methodism during that year
beyond what was involved in attending the annual meeting
of the Second London Synod, and my voluntary attendance
at the annual Conference.
At the Conference which met twelve months after the
controversy an interesting incident happened, which showed
the desire of the officials to separate Hughes and myself, and
the estimate that Hughes placed on the work that I was doing
at the Polytechnic, so far as Methodism was concerned. A
popular preacher named W. J. Dawson had just left
Methodism to become minister of Highbury Quadrant Con
gregational Church. (Later he accepted a call from America.)
He had been in charge of the Wesleyan Mission at Glasgow,
and the question was who should succeed him there. During
that Conference I was reporting for the Press, and one of the
ex-Presidents leaned over the platform and said to me as I
sat in the Press pew, "You are the man for this position."
I saw at once it meant severing me from all the journalistic
work I was then doing and all my association with Hughes,
and I said : "No, I do not want to go."
Nevertheless, he jumped up and said: "Mr. President,
I move that Dr. Lunn be appointed to this church in
Glasgow." Hughes, with his wonderful readiness, was on his feet
in a moment and said : "Mr. President, if the Archbishop of
Canterbury were in this Conference, he would second that
resolution." Then in his best debating form he set out the

132 Chapters from My Life
reasons why the Archbishop would take that action, and I
was let alone.
When I saw the storm gathering, just before the Con
ference, I thought it wise to make such arrangements as
should secure my wife and children against comparative
poverty, even for a short time. I arranged to become the
Free Church correspondent of the Times, Assistant-Editor
of the Methodist Times, and the Methodist correspondent
of the Daily Chronicle and the Christian World. In this
way, and with the assistance of a scheme that I am about
to describe, I was able, that first year, to make an income
about treble that which I had received in Methodism.
The scheme that suggested itself to me in this difficulty
was to write a weekly syndicated letter with W. T. Stead. I
wrote and asked him for an appointment. . He replied in a
characteristic letter: "Do not trouble about all these things.
It is God's way of stirring us up when we need it. Never
strike sail to a fear. Come and lunch with me at the
Criterion." I laid before Stead the following suggestion. I proposed
to go round England and arrange with twenty provincial
papers, and with one London paper, to take a signed weekly
letter from us. Stead wrote such passages as he chose, and
when he was busy I wrote the letter, which was called "The
Church and the World."
I have never known a man whose friendships included
representatives of more schools of thought than Stead's.
Cardinal Manning, when he was nearly eighty years of age,
used to climb up to Stead's office on the second floor of
Mowbray House from time to time. He was much attached
to Stead, and tried his best to secure him an interview with
the Pope, but in this he was not successful.
At the opposite pole ecclesiastically was General Booth,
for whom Stead wrote the book "Darkest England." They
were on the most intimate terms. Intermediate between the
two was Canon Liddon, who rarely missed a weekly walk

W. T. Stead, Q. Hogg and Polytechnic 133
with Stead. With his marvellous powers of assimilating
something from everybody's creed he was the staunch friend
of Mrs. Annie Besant, the Theosophist leader. Cecil Rhodes
was a great believer in Stead, and made him his sole legatee
and executor. When the Boer War broke out, though he
deleted Stead's name as trustee, he left him in as executor.
Special measures had to be taken with Stead's consent to
remove his name from the trust. It was always Stead's hope
that Rhodes would finance a great daily paper for him, but
on this point they never came to an agreement.
Notwithstanding the public verdict on his attitude during
the Boer War, he was an intense patriot and worshipped the
British Empire with an idolatry that at times brought him
into line with the Chauvinists. He would have rejoiced had
he lived to see the entry of America into the war against Ger
many, for his dream was that the whole of the Anglo-Saxon
race should be one all-powerful federation. It was his idea
that in this federation England should remain a Kingdom
and the United States a Republic.
It would hardly be right to describe him as the friend of
Queen Victoria, but she was his friend. When he was sent
to prison for his action in connection with the Maiden Tribute
campaign the Queen only allowed one day to elapse after
she discovered that he was an ordinary convict. The next
day, by Royal Command, Stead was made a first-class mis
demeanant. He succeeded in securing from the authorities
the broad-arrow suit that he wore on that one day. Every year
thereafter, in his broad-arrow clothes, he held a reception of
his intimate friends in commemoration of that incident of
his life, which, I think, gave him, on the whole, more satis
faction than any other. So strong was Queen Victoria's
feeling of friendship for Stead, that when the Queen died
King Edward ordered an invitation to be sent to him, as one
of the four hundred persons privileged to be present in St.
George's Chapel, Windsor, for the funeral.
It is interesting now to recall among his political activities
his influence upon the Tsar of Russia with reference to the

134 Chapters from My Life
Hague Conference. He told me that in his interview with
the Tsar he was excited by his subject, and said to the Tsar
at the end of the interview : " I think I have kept your Majesty
long enough." The Tsar replied. "It is my custom, Mr.
Stead, to terminate interviews," and smiled genially, and then
went on.
Another monarch whom he interviewed with great effect
was Leopold, King of the Belgians. "I wanted to see the
King on the Congo question" — so he told me — "and I
approached a Belgian whom I knew. He said : ' If you
approach so-and-so, he knows so-and-so, and he has influence
at the Court.' I said : ' I want this interview to be in the
Pall Mall Gazette to-morrow,' and I then walked across to the
nearest telegraph office and telegraphed to the King of the
Belgians : ' I am coming over to see your Majesty on the
Congo International question.'" Next day the interview
appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette.
None who were at his memorial service will ever forget
the remarkable gathering upon that occasion, which included
men and women as diverse from one another as Lord Esher,
representing the King, John Burns, Dr. Clifford, the
Countess of Warwick, Lord Haldane, and Mr. Hawkesley,
Solicitor to the Rhodesian Chartered Company. All sorts
and conditions of men united to do honour to one who had
been a brave apostle in so many good causes.
In the highest issues of life Stead had accepted to the
full F. W. Robertson's contention that underlying every
religious movement, however eccentric, there is some basis
of truth that gives it power in the world. To him a strong
and tolerant faith was supremely important. As he once said
to me : "The people who say proudly : ' I am only intolerant
of intolerant people,' are obviously intolerant of the over
whelming majority of mankind, because there are very few
people who are really tolerant in the world."
In our letter we strove to record, week by week, what was
being done by all good men for the progress of humanity.
I joined him at an interesting moment. He was just starting

W. T. Stead, Q. Hogg and Polytechnic 135
the Review of Reviews, and prior to this he had been to Paris.
He described to me a characteristic incident. He went into
Notre Dame and knelt down and addressed the Almighty
in these strange terms : " It seems to me that You are putting.
a great many eggs in one basket." He believed firmly at that
moment that God was going to provide a millionaire who
would start him with a daily paper and a weekly paper, as
well as the monthly Review of Reviews. To the ordinary
man this is somewhat shocking, but it was Stead's way of
conversing with a Deity who, to him, was very real and
very personal.
It was not exactly English. It reminds me of a well-
known American magazine proprietor, of whom Robert Barr
told me the following anecdote.
Mr. McClure, the proprietor in question, went into his
office, and his clerk said to him : "We require five thousand
dollars to meet a bill to-morrow, and we have nothing to meet
it with." "God will put all that right. Don't you trouble," said Mr.
McClure; and then, as he told Robert Barr, he walked down
Broadway and had a long conversation with God about it.
"I missed my train," he said, "and went back to my club,
and there I met A. B., who had just come back from a
lecturing tour.
" He said to me : ' Well, how is your magazine going ? '
'" Excellently,' I said.
"' Do you want a little money in it? ' he asked; ' because
I could spare five thousand dollars just now.'
" ' Certainly, I shall be glad to let you have stock for
that,' I replied; and he gave me a cheque.
"The next day I went back to my office and said to my
clerk : ' Didn't I tell you that God had this matter in
hand ? '"
This might have happened in exactly the same fashion
to Stead. I vividly remember a certain incident connected with his
article entitled "H.R.H.," when the Prince of Wales had

136 Chapters from My Life
been violently attacked over the "Baccarat case." In re
sponse to the views of some of the Prince's friends, especially
Lady Warwick, Stead wrote this apologia. He had sent
proofs to Percy Bunting and Hughes, and they were greatly
distressed. I went down to write the weekly letter and I
told Stead what had happened. He waved the proofs of the
article in my face and said: "When all my friends are
against me I take it as a distinct signpost from Heaven that
I have got to go that way."
He was generosity itself. It was characteristic of him that
he allowed me, a young and unknown journalist, to share
equally with him the proceeds of the weekly letter which we
wrote. Yet another illustration of his generosity may be
quoted. A lady, who afterwards became a well-known
novelist, wrote to Mrs. Price Hughes asking if I would in
troduce her to Stead, which I arranged to do. I told him the
story. I said: "Miss  has written one story for a
Dundee paper. She now has an offer for another novel."
He came out and said to her : " What do you want ? "
She said: "I want 30s. a week for a year as a typist
instead of living at home."
He took me on one side and said : "Are you sure this is
a genuine case ? "
"Oh, yes," I replied; "I know her brother."
"You want," said he, " £1 10s. a week for a year, that is
;£8o. I am not going to put a race-horse to plough. I will
let you have the money, and you can pay me back when you
make it."
The next novel she wrote was a great success and her
future was assured.
He was always like this, always seeking for some dis
tressed heroine whom he could rescue from difficulties, and
for such he was prepared to risk everything he had.
I was with him and Hughes all through the Parnell
struggle. During, that critical week he wrote the whole of
our weekly letter himself and strongly denounced the idea
that Parnell should remain a political leader. Hughes

QUINTIN HOGG

W. T. STEAD

W. T. Stead, Q. Hogg and Polytechnic 137
followed on the Sunday with an impassioned address at
St. James's Hall. Stead went, and took with him Captain
O'Shea. Hughes's readiness in reply to the various in
terruptions was such that Captain O'Shea turned to Stead
and said: "Were those interruptions planned? " Of course
they were not planned. On that Sunday night I went to
Hughes's house and he wrote a letter to Mr. Gladstone,
which I posted. He came up to London on Monday, as his
biography records, and told Lord Morley that Parnell must
go. This was one of the greatest victories that Hughes and
Stead achieved, working together.
Our work as colleagues only lasted one year, although we
remained friends until the Titanic disaster robbed the world
of this brave spirit. I cannot better conclude this reference
to my association with W. T. Stead than in words, slightly
adapted, which he wrote of one of his friends, whose name
appeared in King George's first list of "honours" a few
months before Stead's death. I can confidently say of him :
"I shall fail signally in the duty which I owe to an old
friend and to the world at large if I do not pay my tribute
to services to humanity which would have given him a well-
merited place in the roll of knighthood. He was one of
those men for whom a knighthood would have been the most
appropriate of all honours, for he was a knightly soul,
constantly riding on some perilous quest, from which he
emerged time after time, bruised and battered and wounded
sore, but never daunted or disheartened." '
There were two distinct aspects in my work at the
Polytechnic. The first concerned Quintin Hogg, the founder
and president of the Institute, and the other aspect concerned
the workers in the Institute. It has been my good fortune
to work with men of striking character, who commanded the
respect not only of their colleagues, but also of the great
world outside their sphere of action.
Quintin Hogg was the son of the Chairman of the East
India Company, who declined Lord Palmerston's offer of
1 Review of Reviews, July, 1910.

138 Chapters from My Life
the Secretaryship of State for Foreign Affairs. When he
left Eton almost any career was open to him. But at Eton
he had been the friend of Lord Kinnaird and a number of
men associated at school in a society for Bible study, who
were destined afterwards to play a large part in the philan
thropic work of the last half of the century. Quintin Hogg
left Eton with a passion for the disinherited and outcast boys
of London. As he himself told me, he dressed in an old
suit of clothes, bought a shoeblack's outfit, and went out
into the streets to learn the language and customs of the
boys in the gutter that he might win them for Christ. From
that day for their sake he was dead to the world to which by
birth and education he belonged. This was illustrated very
vividly in conversation one Sunday evening at dinner after
a week in which the late Duke of Argyll, then Lord Lome,
had visited the Polytechnic for some ceremonial occasion.
We were talking of presentation at Court, and he said, quite
simply, "I have never been to Court. When Lome was
married he invited me as an old Eton friend to his wedding,
and I went. Long afterwards I heard that the Princess
Louise had said, ' Mr. Hogg came to our wedding, but we
have never seen him since. I believe he never comes to
Court.'" He had exchanged Society for fellowship with
those who were farthest removed from the privileges that had
surrounded his youth.
A casual remark to me indicated what his life's work had
cost him. He said, "I sometimes feel that it has been a little
hard on my family that I should have given up my country
house and my carriage to carry on this work. It has cost
me over ,£250,000." He made this up in part to his family
by a very heavy life insurance, but his own personal expenses
were always very small.
His great work began under the railway arches, where
he gathered his fellow shoeblacks and other urchins round
him, and taking a candle and a bottle from one pocket and
a New Testament from the other, he told them of their Elder
Brother and his. Thus began a small Bible class which

W. T. Stead, Q. Hogg and Polytechnic 139
grew rapidly until it numbered a thousand members. Then
he made overtures, as he told me, to the Young Men's
Christian Association to allow his reclaimed street-Arabs
to join that organisation. The committee of the Y.M.C.A.
decided that their clerks, shop-assistants, and other members
would not mix equally with the young fellows whom Mr.
Quintin Hogg had gathered round him.
Just at that time the old Polytechnic came into the market.
It had previously been a characteristically mid-Victorian
compromise between a music-hall and a scientific institution,
to which young Puritans might go with assumed safety when
theatres and real music-halls were forbidden.
Quintin Hogg transformed the place into a technical
school centring round a Bible class on Sundays and various
meetings for religious work during the week. The member
ship grew rapidly, and I believe that to-day it is second only
to the Zurich Gymnasium in the number of its students and
its facilities for study.
On Sunday afternoons, when in London, Quintin Hogg
gave excellent addresses to his "boys," as he always called
them. On Sunday evenings I had a mixed congregation of
1,200. Every morning during the week "Q. H.," as he was
affectionately called, conducted opening prayers in the large
boys' school at 9.30 a.m. and then went to business in the
City. In the evening he sat in his study at 5, Cavendish
Square, which was connected by a passage with the Institute,
and there he was consulted by any of the members who were
in any religious or other difficulty. Every night of the year
when in England he told me that he sent a birthday card to
every old boy whose birthday was approaching, and wrote a
personal letter to each one who was attaining his majority.
Little wonder that, whenever he went on his long travels,
in almost every city of the world he was welcomed by men
who had known him and been transformed by his genius.
Some illustrations I may give from my own experience of
this fact. When I crossed to America in 1895 the assistant
purser on the steamer was a Polytechnic boy. When I

140 Chapters from My Life
reached my hotel in New York a man called on me who
had seen in a newspaper that I was associated with the
Polytechnic. He was a successful estate agent, and he came
to inquire affectionately for "Q. H." A few days later I
lectured at Harvard University. A man came forward at
the end of the lecture and said, "I am an old 'Poly' boy.
How is 'Q. H.'?"
The same thing was always happening to Quintin
Hogg himself wherever he went. All over the British Empire
to-day thousands of men are scattered who owe their start in
life — in many cases their rescue from being part of the
"submerged tenth"— to the kindly words and the warm hand
grip of Quintin Hogg. One of these men, then in receipt
of an income running into four figures, said to me as we
walked down Shaftesbury Avenue one day, "I remember
playing in the gutters of the streets of this district before
this avenue was formed and before I had met ' Q. H.'"
Quintin Hogg was theologically a Broad Churchman, and
his platform in his absence was open to all good men who
had a message for the youth of London. Archbishop
Benson, Archdeacon Farrar, Mark Guy Pearse, Percy
Bunting, General Booth, all spoke from that platform during
my time in the Institute. His view of the different denomina
tions was expressed in a remark he made one evening at
dinner : " I believe that all the sects have had their own
message for the world, but when that message has been
delivered and become the common possession of all the
churches, the necessity for their separate existence ceases."
He once said to me when he was discussing his life at
Eton : " It is very strange how the men who were in our
Eton Bible class have become much more strict and narrowly
evangelical in their views since they left Eton, whilst I have
gone in the opposite direction." I remember one of these
men criticising to me a sermon preached by Quintin Hogg
on "The Word of God is not bound." "Q.H." horrified the
Evangelical by finding in this text the same lesson that
Lowell teaches in his "Bibliolaters," the great truth that the

W. T. Stead, Q. Hogg, and Polytechnic 141
covers of a volume do not limit the revelation of God; that
"God is not dumb that He should speak no more."
" If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness
And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor;
There towers the mountain of the Voice no less,
Which he who seeks shall find."
Quintin Hogg's colleague, who strongly criticised these
views and held that the Word of God was "bound" by a
theory of verbal inspiration, was a typical evangelical
Churchman, nourished on the Christian newspaper. This
episode taught me by practical experience how wide is the
distance which separates the followers of John Wesley from
the Calvinistic disciples of Whitefield who remained within
the Church of England, and created the evangelical movement
in that communion at the end of the eighteenth century and
in the early part of the nineteenth.
In the work of the Polytechnic this Calvinistic note in
the theology of the Christian workers greatly limited their
effectiveness amongst their fellow students. It was a constant
source of irritation to me in my work there.
When General Booth came and spoke to us on "Darkest
England and the way out," the Polytechnic Parliament,
which was an organisation of very good fellows, decided to
do something to help General Booth. "The Christian
workers " of the Institute said they could not work with men
who had not been converted, and I had to talk to them for
a solid hour and explain to them how opposed to the spirit
of Christ such action was.
Apart from this element in the religious life of the place,
the Polytechnic furnished an intensely interesting sphere of
labour. As Speaker of their Parliament and as evening
preacher on Sundays and in charge of different religious
classes on the week-days, I spent eight happy years in the
work of the Institution, and look back with profound
thankfulness that in a time of difficulty the way should have
been opened for me to undertake such congenial work.

CHAPTER XI
THE "REVIEW OF THE CHURCHES " (189I — 1896)
First Suggestion of Review — Sir Percy Bunting — Archdeacon
Farrar, his Position — Becomes Anglican Editor — Co-operation
of Dr. Clifford and Leaders of Other Denominations — The First
Number — Round Table Conferences— Letters from Mr. Glad
stone and Cardinal Manning — Hugh Price Hughes on Reunion
Principles and Prospects — Press Comment — Dr. Robertson
Nicoll's Opinion — Conference on Religious Teaching in Board
Schools — The Church Times Then and Now — Progress of the
Reunion Movement.
One Flock, one Shepherd. — St. John's Gospel.
In Whom each several building fitly framed together groweth into a
holy temple in the Lord; in Whom ye also are builded together for a
habitation of God in the Spirit. — The Epistle to the Ephesians, R.V.
THE Review of the Churches originated in a conversation
which I had with Mr. (afterwards Sir Percy) Bunting, the
editor of the Contemporary Review. One of us, I cannot
remember which, suggested that there was room for a
Review representing the life of the different branches of the
Church of Christ, to be carried out on similar lines to Stead's
Review of Reviews. Percy Bunting was a man of great
enthusiasm-, and before we separated that night we had decided
upon our plan of action. Next day we went to see Arch
deacon Farrar and asked him if he would become Anglican
Editor and write monthly notes on the life of the English
Church and a series of twelve articles on the Great Philan
thropies. He was at that time the most popular preacher and
writer in the Church of England, a former Fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, Fellow of the Royal Society, author of
the best-known "Life of Christ," Chaplain to the King and
142

The "Review of the Churches" 143
to the Houses of Parliament, and Archdeacon and Canon of
Westminster. He occupied a very important position, but
was guilty of one great sin in the eyes of many literary
critics — he had the gift of expressing his knowledge in such
a way as to appeal to the multitude. With a marvellous
memory and a wonderful range of literary knowledge, he
could command a wealth of illustration and quotation which
were almost dazzling in their effect. He could write effectively
and with great rapidity. The result was that his books were
read far and wide. Some years before he had written a book
called "Eternal Hope," which no doubt kept him out of a
bishopric. He once repeated to me a remark of Westcott's about
"Eternal Hope." "You know, Farrar, I have been saying
what you have said for thirty years, and no one has taken
any notice of it."
Farrar rather grimly said, "That was just the difficulty.
I spoke so that men understood, and I suffered."
Notwithstanding, this work and other works had so
arrested the attention of Christian men and women every
where that his accession to the editorial junta was of the
greatest importance. We immediately secured Dr. John
Clifford, undoubtedly the leading Baptist of the generation,
to represent that denomination. Dr. Donald Fraser, an
eminent Presbyterian, recorded the life of the Presbyterian
churches in England and Scotland. Dr. Alexander
Mackennal, afterwards Chairman of the Congregational
Union and President of the Free Church Council, became
our Congregational Editor. Percy Bunting took the position
of Methodist Editor, and I was appointed General Editor.
My journalistic training had been limited to the weekly
letter written conjointly with Stead, the editing of a small
monthly magazine in the West London Mission, my work
on the Methodist Times, and my contributions to the Times,
Daily Chronicle, Christian World, and other papers.
Our first number opened with a poem by a minister who

144 Chapters from My Life
had been President of the Horncastle Mutual Improvement
Society. Some lines of it have always lived with me, and
have strengthened and encouraged me in many a fight.
" Thou hast a brave calling, and therewith we charge thee,
Thy brow bear this frontlet, thy finger this seal,
This think thou and feel :
I am set for the life of the great Commonweal.
That which God hath begun
To fulfil in His Son,
His high purpose to gather together in one
All things both in earth and in heaven, be that,
Tooj thy purpose ; thereat
Work thou, too, with thy God in the light of the sun
Till thy work shall be done."
The Review contained, like its prototype, a series of
"Articles of the Month" on the lines of the extracts given
in the Review of Reviews, but dealing almost exclusively with
religious and social questions. There were also a number
of other features besides the section entitled "The Progress
of the Churches," which was written monthly by the various
editors. Special articles were also contributed from time to
time by Roman Catholics, Unitarians, members of the
Society of Friends, the Salvation Army, and others.
The most striking feature in the Review was our " Round
Table Conference" for the month. The first of these was
on the "Reunion of Christendom," to which Mr. Gladstone
contributed the following letter :
"Dear Mr. Bunting, — Though my hands are too full to
allow of my considering your plan with a view to co-operation,
I think that the prosecution of discussions and plans, for
the union of Christian bodies now severed, is a matter to
be regarded with much interest and desire until and unless
it touches points where real beliefs or great institutions are
to be compromised.
"In your actual plan, judging from what I hear, there

The Ven. ARCHDEACON FARRAR
Anglican Editor

Rev. Dr. MACKENNAL
Congregational Editor

PERCY BUNTING
Methodist Editor

Rev. Dr. LUNN
General Editor

Rev. Dr. CLIFFORD
Baptist Editor

Rev. Dr. DONALD FRASER
Presbyterian Editor

EDITORS OF "REVIEW OF THE CHURCHES," 1892

The "Review of the Churches" 145
are two schemes of union which seem to be of great promise,
that between the severed classes of Presbyterians and that
between Congregationalists and Baptists. Methodism will
be hard to bring in, but this discussion may do good in
softening tempers, even when the subject may seem to be
more speculative than practical. — Yours faithfully,
"W. E. Gladstone."
The discussion included articles by the Bishop of Ripon,
Earl Nelson, Dr. Parker, Professor A. B. Bruce, and the
Rev. James Martineau. Among the most interesting was
the letter which Cardinal Manning wrote to me, in which
he said :
"My dear Dr. Lunn, — It is difficult for me to do more
than listen to the voices which are reviewing ' The Churches.'
In May, 1848, I saw and spoke for the first time with Pius
IX. He questioned me at length about the Christianity of
England and about the multiplicity of good and charitable
works done by Anglicans and Dissenters, ending with the
Quakers and the great prison reformation of Mrs. Fry. He
then leaned back in his chair and said, as if to himself, ' The
English do a multitude of good works, and when men do
good works God always pours out His grace. My poor
prayers are offered day by day for England.' Since that
time every year has multiplied all kinds of good works in
England. There can be no doubt that an especial power of
the Holy Ghost has breathed and is still breathing over our
people. I gladly repeat the words of Pius IX., for I rejoice
over the good wTorks which cover the face of our country.
My daily prayer is for England, and so far as it has been
in my power I have shared your good works and united with
your peaceful and beneficent aims. In the words which
open your first number I heartily agree. You say, 'The
tendency of religion in our day is towards union.' There
has grown up in the last fifty years a vivid sense or instinct
that division is evil and the source of evils. The desire
K

146 Chapters from My Life
and prayers for the Reunion of Christendom have created
movements and organisations both in the Anglican and the
Dissenting bodies, and your Review of the Churches is
its latest and most resolute manifestation. . . . But I must
not go on, for you are seeking union in agreements, and I
have no will to strike a discordant note. You say truly,
' The controversies to which most of our churches owe their
rise- have lost much of their interest for us ; some of them
are hardly intelligible.' I have two great advantages. I can
hope, and embrace you in the soul of the Church, and I can
rejoice in all and gladly share in many of your good works.
"May the Holy Ghost renew His own unity in truth!
"Believe me,
"My dear Dr. Lunn,
"Yours very truly,
"Henry E. (Card.) Manning."
Hugh Price Hughes wrote at great length in this
discussion. In his own vigorous and characteristic fashion
he said : "When we remember how far disunion has been
carried in the past the feature of our own day is very
astonishing. I think all really Catholic Christians may
congratulate themselves that the centrifugal forces have now
spent their strength, and that the centripetal forces are
becoming more and more powerful."
At the close of an article of some pages Hughes describes,
rather on Gladstone's lines, the way in which he thinks
reunion must come: "When all the Congregationalists
are one, and all the Presbyterians are one, and all the
Methodists are one, the problem will be very much modified.
What shall we say of our Episcopalian fellow Christians?
Personally I have no objection to an Episcopal system. On
the contrary I believe that history has demonstrated that it
is the best. I hold with Bishop Lightfoot that some form
of episcopacy was probably established before the death of
the Apostle John, and all through the ages the Episcopal
system has proved its immense efficiency, especially for

The " Review of the Churches " 147
aggressive purposes. We are all realising that the capable
man, rather than the disputatious committee, ought to be
at the head of affairs. We believe with William Jay of
Bath that ' if the Ark had been built by a committee it would
not be finished yet ! ' By all means let us have Bishops of
the right sort. Let us trust them. Let us give them a free
hand and they may accomplish- everywhere what the gifted
Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church have achieved
in the United States.
"There is one other practical observation which I should
like to make. If reunion is ever to take place it must be
brought about by the corporate decision of the great
Christian communities acting as a whole. There are some
exceedingly surprising persons who imagine that they can
restore the unity of Christendom by stealing individual
members of families from other Christian bodies and adding
them to their own. Anyone who reflects can see that this
process of gaining over supposed ' heretics ' or ' schismatics '
one by one is mathematically impossible. All the Christian
communities, which are regarded by some as outside the
Christian Church, are now numbered by millions, and no
one in his sober senses can suppose that the process of
stealing one here and there can ever result in bringing these
millions over. Take, for example, my own communion.
There are now 30,000,000 Methodists on this planet. We
are far more numerous than the Anglican Church or any
other church, except the Greek or Roman. Does anyone
suppose that it would be possible to bring back these millions
one by one, or family by family, to the church of which John
Wesley was a minister? It is simply impossible. . . .
"When we are prepared to subordinate our own pre
ferences and prejudices to facts — patent indisputable facts —
and when we are sufficiently reverent to regard the un
mistakable imprimatur of God as of greater importance than
the dicta of men, we shall say Ubi Christus ibi Ecclesia, and
when that is said the reunion of Christendom is already
practically achieved."

148 Chapters from My Life
The Review was a striking illustration of the Biblical
warning, "Woe unto you when all men speak well of you."
The Times and other papers gave kindly anticipatory notices,
and when the magazine appeared there was a chorus of
praise of our first number in words which found fullest
expression in an article of a column and a quarter by Dr.
Robertson Nicoll in the British W'eekly. He said that he
himself and his friends, having twice discussed the pos
sibility of successfully floating such a Review, "came to
the conclusion some time ago that a sixpenny clerical
monthly review was impossible, save as an expensive act of
philanthropy." The article goes on to say, "Naturally I did
not take up Dr. Lunn's Review with great expectation, and
my judgment must be prejudiced. But I gladly say that it
has shaken me considerably in my opinion, and another
number equally good will turn me completely round. The
first number is a great success, admirable in every way and
readable from first to last. It is a workmanlike magazine,
and only those who know will appreciate the immense amount
of care and thought and toil that have been given to its
preparation. . . . There is no fear of the first number. Dr.
Lunn has a capable team, and I do not believe he will crack
the editorial whip too lightly."
Dr. Robertson Nicoll's first thoughts were best in this
case. Even hostile papers like the Church Times testified
to the value of the Review, but from the first number until
the Review closed the circulation steadily declined. Two
thousand pounds put in by friends was lost. I spent about
as much of my own money in an attempt to save the property
for the shareholders before abandoning it in despair.
It was rather interesting that a Review which had begun
with an olive branch should only twice have increased its
circulation, and on each occasion the rise in circulation
followed a temporary eclipse of "olive branch" policy. The
first occasion was in connection . with our "Round Table
Conference" on Religious Teaching in Board Schools, in
which Mr. Hugh Price Hughes, Mr. Athelstan Riley, a

The "Review of the Churches" 149
Jewish Rabbi, and Mr. Hirst Hollowell entered into the
arena of a fierce theological and ecclesiastical controversy.
The second occasion was when I published in the Review
"The Inner History of the Missionary Controversy." The
downward progress of the circulation was indicative of the
unpopularity of peace in literature and journalism. The
man who advocates war may achieve a circulation of a
million. But although the Review perished it helped on the
movement for Reunion that must ultimately triumph.
During the life of the Review the Church Times published
many commendatory and many critical notices. The first
objection taken by the Church Times and by the High
Church party was to the title of the Review. It is an
illustration of how far we have moved since those days that
in the visit to the Methodist Conference of the Bishop of
London and the Bishop of Chelmsford, described in a later
chapter, these two prelates, with the full approval of their
brother Bishops, definitely addressed the Conference as
representing the Wesleyan Methodist "Church." It is still
more interesting to find that in a recent number of the Church
Times, which in this present distress is showing a most
Christian spirit and a strong desire for unity, there is a
leading article containing the following remarkable passage :
" We are unwilling to speak of ' the Methodist Church '
or ' the Baptist Church ' for two reasons ; first, because it
may seem to imply that a particular church can be properly
organised without the apostolic ministry, and secondly, for
the more important reason that such nomenclature suggests,
and is often meant to suggest, that Christian churches are
independent associations of believers and not merely
administrative divisions of one Catholic Church. But to
those who share our objections to these terms we propose
two considerations. We ask them, first, to examine their
own consciences and ascertain whether they do not themselves
sometimes speak of ' the Church of England ' or more
probably ' the Anglican Church ' in the same objectionable

150 Chapters from My Life
sense. We invite them, secondly, to remember that the
word ' Church ' has more than one or two significations. It
does not stand only for the whole Catholic Church or for a
regular administrative division of the whole. It is permissible
to speak of an heretical church or a schismatic church. But
further, the fundamental constitution of the Church, as the
Body of Christ, is such that any of its members grouped
together for religious purposes may rightly be called a
Church. Indeed there is no other reason for calling by that
name a building in which such a group meets for worship.
Therefore, if any group of the baptised may be so called,
the question of our using the term ' Methodist Church ' or
' Baptist Church ' is merely one of expediency touching
no principles. That being so, courtesy at least will often
demand its use. We shall not quarrel with the Bishops of
Winchester and Oxford for speaking of ' Christian churches
not accepting the Episcopal order.""
Such a statement as this in the powerful paper that
represents the Oxford movement in the Church of England
is a striking demonstration of the distance we have travelled
since the Review of the Churches was founded, and since
the discussions hereafter recorded took place. The war has
done much to make Christians of all communions realise the
importance of the cause for which the Review was established.
The Review was important in my life because it led
straight on to the development of the Grindelwald Conferences
on the Reunion of Christendom.
1 Church Times, April 19th, 1918.

CHAPTER XII
THE GRINDELWALD REUNION CONFERENCES
Forces Tending towards Religious Unity — Social Reform — Cardinal
Manning and General Booth — Letterfrom Dr. Martineau — 'Lead
ing Members of the Conference — Bishop Perowne — Canon Ham
mond — Professor Stokes — Prebendary Greer — Athelstan Riley —
Leading Presbyterians — Dr. Horton — " Berry of Wolverhamp
ton" — Dr. Glover — C. F. Aked — Paul Sabatier — Pere Hyacinthe
— Theodore Mondod — Swiss Representative — Dr. Parker — Pro
posed Visit to Norway — Winter Gathering at Grindelwald —
United Communion Service — Letter to the Times — Appeal
for United Prayer by Earl Nelson and Others — Conference of
June, 1892 — The Grindelwald Fire — September Conference —
The Lambeth Quadrilateral — Views of Bishop Perowne and
Dr. Berry — The Case of Archbishop Spottiswoode — Hugh Price
Hughes on Episcopacy — The Times Controversy on the
Grindelwald Conference between the Rev. Hensley Henson and
Bishop Perowne.
When I see kings lying side by side with those who deposed them,
when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that
divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect iwith sorrow
and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, or debates of mankind.
When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some who died yesterday
and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day, when we shall
all of us be contemporaries and make our appearance together. — Joseph
Addison, "Essay on Westminster Abbey."
Dreamer of dreams ! We take the taunt with gladness,
Knowmg that God beyond the years we see
Shall weave those dreams that count with some for madness
Into the substance of the world to be. — F. W. Myers/
IOWELL'S lines in "The Present Crisis," "How weak
J an arm may turn the iron helm of State," have often
encouraged me to attempt to carry out certain programmes
with a confidence which, to the onlooker, might reasonably
appear presumptuous. The story that this chapter contains is
151

152 Chapters from My Life
recorded with a full sense of the apparent incongruity in the
action of a young man, under thirty-three years of age,
inviting the leaders of the churches to enter into conference
on the gravest questions which concern ecclesiastical pro
gress. None the less, this ambitious project, which might
easily have fallen lamentably flat, was justified by its results.
That my invitation met with such an extraordinary response
was due to many causes.
The eminent men whom I invited to meet in the Alpine
valley of Grindelwald at once agreed to gather together to
consider how far the divisions of Christendom were thwarting
the Divine purpose, and in what way and how far those
divisions could be healed.
As will appear later, I was led, as the result of two ship
wrecks, to change the place of meeting of our first Con
ference from Vossevangen in Norway to Grindelwald. In
one of our discussions in 1894, Professor Lindsay of Glasgow
startled our Conference by telling us of a similar gathering
in the fifteenth century in the same valley. "These Grindel
wald slopes," said Professor Lindsay, "covered with their
chalets, remind me how old is the form of houses and the
civilisation of these upland valleys, and I call to mind an
earlier Reunion Conference at Grindelwald that, perhaps,
we have all forgotten. In the early part of the fifteenth
century Nicholas of Basle, the great ' friend of God,' from
the Bernese Oberland, brought his followers, John Tauler,
the great mystic, Rulman Merswin, banker in Strasburg,
Henry Suso, and Christiana Ebner, prioress of the Convent
at Ulm — for there were women there and they spoke — and
they had letters read from many friends, among whom was
the sainted Queen of Hungary, and these ' friends of God '
met together in "their second and last conference at Grindel
wald wondering who could help them to reform a wicked
world, and how God would lead them to their work. They
met for the last time before the end at Engelberg, and then
Nicholas disappeared — burned, we believe, at the stake at
Vienna because he had controverted some ecclesiastical

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 153
ordinance of the Church. They did not do much, these men
and women, and history has almost forgotten them. But
they did not altogether disappear. The ' friends of God '
lingered in small praying communities, believing in the Holy
Ghost, and in the power of prayer, and they retired just
before the Reformation, and were succeeded by those who
>were called the old evangelicals, the men and women who
prayed in the Reformation. They have no exact lineal de
scendants in these days, but some of them afterwards took
certain views I do not agree with, and if there is any man
in this audience who can trace lineal descent from these
' friends of God,' who met in the old Grindelwald Conference,
it is my friend Dr. Glover. They met, they were few, they
were powerless, but they prayed for the Reformation, and
what they themselves were unable to do, God did for them
through their prayers before a hundred years were over.
May they not be a promise to us, met together here, a
larger company gathered from a wider area, with the same
holy aspirations and hopes in all our hearts ? "
The Conferences were the natural outcome of forces that
had been at work throughout the century. Newman, Man
ning, Pusey, Keble, and their fellow Tractarians had effected
almost as great a change in the religious life of England as
the Great War is certain to cause in the life of the nations of
Europe. These religious teachers brought home to men the
truth that religious division is in itself an evil, and can only
be justified as a passing expedient by overwhelming con
siderations. Men learned anew and with emphasis that there
were certain truths which had been held, to use their phrase,
Semper et ubique et ab omnibus, truths which were the
supreme heritage of the church universal.
Matthew Arnold, thirty or forty years before our meet
ings, had used with effect Edmund Burke's phrase, "the dis-
sidence of dissent." This phrase was justifiable after the great
Presbyterian schism of 1845, and the Secession of the Metho
dist Reformers from Wesleyan Methodism in 1849. But in

154 Chapters from My Life
the later years of the century it had ceased to have any
bearing upon the facts of the situation.
The great leaders of the Broad Church movement, Dean
Stanley, Charles Kingsley, Frederic W. Maurice, and
F. W. Robertson, had declared that the Church included
every baptised Englishman. Robertson had affirmed that
every religious movement had some underlying element of
truth which gave it such power as it possessed.
During the 'eighties these centripetal influences had been
strengthened by the new movement for Social Reform.
Andrew Mearn's book, "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London,"
had aroused social workers to the necessity of combined
effort in dealing with the great problems of the day. The
great dock strike of 1890 had brought together men
of the most diverse schools. Cardinal Manning had taken
a prominent part with the Bishop of London in the settle
ment of this great industrial dispute. On the Sunday of the
dock strike, in the absence of Hugh Price Hughes, I spoke
on the question at St. James's Hall, and in the following
week I was asked by a special meeting of Nonconformists
at the Memorial Hall to go and interview Mr. Norwood,
the Managing Director of the Docks, as one of a deputation
of four representatives of different churches — John MacNeil,
who represented the Presbyterians; Dr. Hannay, the Con
gregationalists; Dr. Clifford, the Baptists; and myself, the
Methodists. This was only one of many instances in which
the churches were beginning to work together as they never
had done before.
For several years before our Swiss Conferences, and for
many years later, Dr. Fremantle, Canon of Canterbury,
and afterwards Dean of Ripon, held a series of conferences
on Christian Unity at Sion College. At one of these meet
ings it fell to my lot to open the proceedings with a paper
on the place of creeds in the life of the Church. Dean Fre
mantle differed from us at Grindelwald in that he invited
Unitarians to his gatherings. In the discussion that followed,
Dr. James Martineau, the venerable and devout exponent of

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 155
what I might almost call evangelical Unitarianism, made the
startling statement that in the Athanasian controversy he
would have been on the side of the Athanasians. This utter
ance seemed such a remarkable one from such an eminent
writer on religion that I wrote a letter to him at the time
asking if he would be kind enough to explain at greater
length what he meant by that statement. The following is
his reply :
"35, Gordon Square, London,
"Dec. 4th, 1894.
"Rev. and dear Sir, — The short categorical answer,
which alone I thought admissible at the end of our Christian
Conference the other evening, was a summary of something
like the following contents :
"In the controversy between the Athanasians and the
Arians, both parties accepted Jesus Christ as the head of
humanity redeemed and regenerate, perfectly realising the
Divine idea in setting man over this world as His colony.
Such as the Head was, such were the members to be, and
such, therefore, potentially, they already were. He was the
perfect representative of our nature in its Divine relation.
"The Arians, ' high ' as well as ' low,' held the Christ to
be one of the heavenly hierarchy. As such, He was a
creature of God, more exalted, no doubt, than the tribes
that variegate this world, but external to God, and fabricated
by him, though it may be out of light and ethereal material
instead of our earthly elements.
"To the Athanasians Christ was not the creature, but the
Son of God, carrying, therefore, in himself, by inherent
continuation, the Divine essence, not belonging, therefore,
to any of the genera or kinds which make up the fullness
of creation, but above all kinds, through direct kinship with
God. "Whoever says this of Christ the Head, says it of all the
members; says it, that is, of man in his inner essence and
real possibilities of his nature. Till he is awakened by the

156 Chapters from My Life
consciousness of this, and by its light reads the moral and
spiritual intuitions and aspirations of his highest moments,
he will never know the sanctity of his calling, or die to
sense and self that he may live in the power of the spirit
and its purer love.
"I am persuaded that in vindicating the sameness of
Divine essence in the Son and in the Father, the Athanasians,
it may be unconsciously, saved this higher and juster, and
surely more encouraging, interpretation of the relation be
tween the human spirit and the Divine. The Arian idea of
an imitation of God on the part of a foreign kind of superior
creature by intelligence, is something far less availing than
the conscious self-identification with his call. This, at all
events, is what I meant in my confession of sympathy with
the Athanasian side of the controversy.
" Accept my grateful acknowledgment of your kind words,
and believe me — Yours very sincerely, "James Martineau."
"Rev. Dr. Lunn."
The temper of the theological world had changed greatly
from the attitude adopted a quarter of a century earlier when
a representative Unitarian could make such a contribution
to a theological discussion in which nearly all tlie participants
accepted the Nicene Creed.
Although this letter was written in the third year of the
Grindelwald Conference, it is illustrative of the ecclesiastical
tendencies and temper which existed at the beginning of
the last decade of the century. I was encouraged by this
state of affairs to initiate the gatherings which I am about
to describe. It may be well, before dealing with our first visit to
Grindelwald and the events that followed, to mention some
of those who took part in these discussions.
Dr. Perowne, Bishop of Worcester, was a worthy occu
pant of the see of Hugh Latimer. He was one of three

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 157
learned and distinguished brothers, the others being the
Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the
Archdeacon of Norwich. He was known to all students
as a great Hebraist by his work on the psalms. But the
characteristic which marked him out in our discussions was
a fearless courage combined with extreme gentleness and
courtesy. Dean Fremantle was the strongest Erastian that could
have been found in England. Whilst Bishop Perowne and
others represented the scholarly evangelicals who included
Dr. Ryle, afterwards Bishop of Winchester; Dr. Moule,
now Bishop of Durham ; Dr. Chavasse, now Bishop of
Liverpool, Dean Fremantle was the only eminent survivor of
the school of which Dean Stanley, who died a few years
earlier, had so long been the exponent. He held with
Stanley that the safety of religion depended upon the Church
being subordinated to the power of the State. In theology
his breadth knew no limit. He once said to Hughes and
myself in an Alpine walk: "I am a provisional Christian
subject to a fuller revelation." Hughes was never provisional
or hypothetical. "This one thing I know," seemed to be
a text that he used for many sermons, and Fremantle 's
remark so startled him that, for the first and last time in
my experience of him, he was rendered speechless.
Canon Hammond, Professor Stokes, Prebendary Greer,
and Mr. Athelstan Riley represented four very different
types of High Churchmen. Hammond was a controversialist
and a casuist by nature. He would have made an excellent
barrister, but his desire to score points was irritating in a
Conference that was anxious to reach agreement.
G. T. Stokes, my old Professor of ecclesiastical history in
Dublin University, was the author of two excellent books
on "The Celtic Church " and "The Anglo-Norman Church "
in Ireland, and had written a commentary on the Acts,
which is the only commentary I ever encountered that the
average educated man might be expected to read straight
through because it interested him. Dr. Stokes was never

158 Chapters from My Life
dull, but was rather too eager for a Tipperary fight to be
exactly the man to advance Reunion by discussion. After
one of our debates, when he had greatly annoyed Hughes
by his witty personalities, he came to me and said, with his
Irish brogue and his jolly laugh : "Shure, ye know it wasn't
my vulgarity Hughes objected to so much as my blasphemy
in attacking him."
Prebendary Greer was a fine type of the cultured High
Churchman who earnestly desires ecclesiastical peace, but
who cannot see how to reconcile peace and continued schism,
Mr. Athelstan Riley was the representative of the fight
ing ecclesiastical layman. He had convulsed London with
a fierce agitation concerning the teaching in Board Schools.
He had a great passion for Reunion with the Eastern
Church, but was not equally interested in his dissenting
fellow-countrymen. They were not so picturesque, and he
loved the picturesque.
This list is in danger of growing out of all proportion or
I should like to say something of that dear fellow — "Esau's
parson," as he called himself — Canon Henry J. Shuttle-
worth and many other delightful Churchmen who are no
longer with us, Canon McCormick and Dean, afterwards
Bishop, Chadwick.
The Presbyterians were ably represented by Professor
Lindsay, of Glasgow, who was a great exponent of the facts
of ecclesiastical history, and has left many scholarly works;
Principal Story, of Glasgow University, Moderator of the
Church of Scotland, physically and in manner overshadow
ing Lindsay, but intellectually dwarfed by him; Dr. Monro
Gibson, who is still the most highly honoured of the ex-
Moderators of the Presbyterian Church of England, and
who was the first Presbyterian Chairman of the Free Church
Congress; Dr. Oliver, Moderator of the United Presbyterian
Church; and last but not least, Professor A. B. Bruce, of
Edinburgh, who, with his friend, Marcus Dods, did so great
a work in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in freeing
Scotland from the narrower influences of Calvin's teaching,

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 159
whilst at the same time emphasising the great positive
truths. English Nonconformists had many spokesmen ; Hughes
and Berry with Dr. Monro Gibson and Dr. Alexander
Mackennal were the first four Presidents of the Free Church
Council, and whilst my guests at Grindelwald matured their
plans for the development of Free Church Federation.
Dr. Horton, who spoke on "Inspiration" at our first
meeting, is happily still using his great powers in his vigor
ous church at Hampstead. No man can read his auto
biography without realising his singleness of aim, and his
devotion to Christ. He might, perhaps, have been a greater
power if he had never gone to Oxford, or if he had chosen
Balliol instead of New College. With his somewhat fas
tidious and sensitive nature the high degree of culture neces
sary to become a Fellow of his college removed him a little
too far from the irritating Philistines who exist in all the
Churches and sorely try a man of his temperament and
training. At New College the motto is "Manners maketh ye
man." At Balliol the rule is that "a man's a man for a' that."
In its disregard for academic tradition Balliol is unique. No
other great college would have had the courage to appoint
as chaplain a cavalry officer without any university degree
like my friend, Henry Gibbon. But the Fellows of Balliol
recognised his great power with young men, his religious
force, and his ability to put into a carefully prepared sermon
of fifteen minutes more than most preachers put into half
an hour. They not only made him their chaplain, and ob
tained for him from the University the honorary degree of
M.A., but also elected him a Fellow of their college, an
academic distinction second only to the coveted Fellowship of
All Souls. It is the characteristics indicated by such un
conventional action that has given Balliol such an illustrious
succession of alumni from the days of Jowett's Mastership
onwards. Charles Berry, of Wolverhampton, described his own pas
sion for Catholicity in the course of the discussions in 1893.

160 Chapters from My Life
Like Hughes, he died in the very prime of life. The incident
that gave him a world-wide fame was the invitation sent to
him by the deacons of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, to suc
ceed the greatest of American preachers — Henry Ward
Beecher. A short time before his death, Beecher was speak
ing at Liverpool, and was followed by Berry. He was so
much surprised by the ability of this young and compara
tively unknown Congregational minister that he invited him
to Brooklyn with the intention, which he carried out, of
suggesting to his deacons that after his retirement or death,
Berry should succeed him. It was a remarkable testimony
to Beecher's greatness that the mere fact of this invitation
and Berry's refusal, expressed by his quiet determination to
remain at Wolverhampton, gave Berry the popularity, the
burden of which induced angina pectoris, and robbed his
church of his services at the zenith of his powers.
The absence of Dr. Clifford, my co-editor on the Review
of the Churches, was a real loss, but Dr. Richard Glover, of
Bristol, was so gentle and courteous that the Baptists could
not have been better represented. He won the hearts of
all Anglicans and Dissenters alike.
France was represented in our discussions by Monsieur
Paul Sabatier, Pasteur Theodore Monod, and that great
orator, Pere Hyacinthe.
Sabatier 's life of St. Francis of Assisi had filled us all
with great expectations which were fully realised in the
personal charm of the author.
Pere Hyacinthe's eloquence in former days crowded
Notre Dame. His orations were wonderful torrents of pas
sion that left his audience breathless. But he was no
ecclesiastical statesman. Stanley, Farrar, and other Broad
Churchmen befriended him when he left the Church of
Rome, but after his marriage to a rich American woman, and
the refusal of the old Catholics of Holland to recognise his
position in Paris, he became a splendid "voice and nothing
more." Theodore Monod, as the head of the Reformed Church of

Pastor Theodore Monod. Rev. Hugh Price Hughes. Mrs. Sheldon Amos. Percy Bunting.
Sister Lilv. J. T. Woolrych Perowne (Secretary). Rev. C. Aked. Professor G. T. Stokes. Sister Dora.

Pere Hyacinthe. Rev. Dr. Berry. Rev. Dr. Stephenson (President ofthe Wesleyan Methodist Conference).
Mrs. Price Hughes. Rev. Dr. Lunn (President). Bishop of Worcester (Dr. Perowne).

SOME SPEAKERS AT THE REUNION CONFERENCE, SEPTEMBER, 1892
Photographed outside the Parish Church of Grindelwald.

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 161
France, and a member of a very gifted family, was a real
addition to our gathering.
Switzerland was well represented by Dr. Weibel, the well-
known old Catholic; Pasteur Eugene Choisy, of Geneva
University; Henri and Charles, the two sons of Dr. Merle
d'Aubigne", the historian of the Reformation;. Pasteur From-
mel, of Geneva; and our poet-pastor, Herr Strasser, of
Grindelwald. In addition to Mr. Athelstan Riley, Sir Percy Bunting,
Mr. Stead, and Chancellor P. V. Smith were amongst the
laymen who took a prominent part in the discussions.
I had nearly omitted one notable figure, in these Swiss
summer gatherings, Dr. Joseph Parker, of the City Temple,
whose telegraphic address was not undeservedly, "Preacher,
London." He came rather as a lecturer than a debater.
As Parker has been frequently criticised for his income
as a preacher, I should like to record an incident illustrating
the large-heartedness with which he treated matters of
finance. He was invited by a friend of mine, who told me
the story, to preach at his church in Lancashire, and he was
to be paid a hundred guineas for the day. Just before the
afternoon service, Parker was opening his letters and threw
one across the table to my friend and said, "What do you
think of that ? "
The letter was from a poor Congregational minister's
widow who had been left in great distress after the death of
her husband. My friend handed the letter back and said,
"I do not know what to say."
"Well," Parker said, pulling his cheque-book out of his
writing-case, "You are giving me a hundred guineas; I had
better send it to her," and he wrote a cheque and put it in
an envelope for the post.
At the end of the evening lecture one of the deacons
stepped forward with an envelope containing the hundred
guineas which was to be paid to the doctor and said,
"Well, Dr. Parker, it is a large sum, but we know that
you  "

162 Chapters from My Life
Parker thundered immediately at the man in his deep
bass voice, " If I choose to buy a keg of sugar with it, that's
my business."
However, I must resist the temptation to anecdotage, and
tell the story of the Conference.
In the autumn of the year in which the Review of the
Churches was founded I ventured to suggest that a number
of men of different theological and ecclesiastical views should
journey together to Norway in winter, to a little village called
Vossevangen, and there discuss our points of agreement
and our differences. I described the Dublin Contemporary
Club, and said that if Irishmen in that time of excitement
could meet together, although they held most diverse views,
and discuss what was for the good of their country, it ought
to be possible for Christians of all denominations to follow
that example.
We were going by a vessel named the Fridtjof and it was
wrecked, then by the Norge, another vessel of the same line,
which was wrecked a few days before the date of our sailing.
Mr. Robert Mitchell, of the Polytechnic, rang me up on the
telephone to tell me of the wreck of the Norge. Knowing
that he sent some of the Polytechnic students to Switzerland
on special cheap tickets, I asked him what the cost of these
tickets would be, and whether he could supply them, which
he did. We changed our plans at once to Grindelwald, and
I announced in the papers the fact that the two vessels by
which our reunion visitors were going to Vossevangen had
been wrecked. The Star headed the paragraph, "Before
Jonah got on board." I was able to make up a small party
of twenty-six persons in all, and we left England on January
6th, 1892.
Our party included the Rev. A. R. Buckland, editor of
the Record, and successor of the famous Dr. Momerie, of the
Foundling Hospital; the Rev. W. H. Stone, a pronounced
evangelical ; Rev. W. S. Swithenbank, a typical High Church
clergyman; three Wesleyan ministers, and representatives

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 163
of other communions. We spent the days in healthful
recreation, and in the evenings discussed various questions
arising out of our points of agreement and difference.
The experience was so satisfactory that I wrote from
Grindelwald to the Bishop of Ripon and Earl Nelson, asking
them if they would support the suggestion of holding a large
conference in the summer of 1892 to discuss such questions.
Bishop Boyd Carpenter accepted the invitation, but was
ultimately precluded by ill-health from coming. Earl Nelson,
who was then himself editing Church Bells, and took an
intense interest in everything that tended to reunion with
other churches and better relation beween the Church of
England and the Free Churches, replied, saying, " I am
convinced that we should all be benefited by meeting to
gether and discussing our various points of difference in a
truly Christian spirit. I have also a great desire that we
should form committees in various centres with a view
to removing those social evils which are a disgrace to our
common Christianity."
During our stay at Grindelwald the resident chaplain re
quested one of the clergymen in our party to assist him at
Holy Communion, and nearly all the members of our
miniature conference attended the communion service. This
was reported in the Record, and immediately raised a storm in
the Church Times and the Times itself.
It is necessary to describe this little tempest because it
foreshadowed the events in September which followed the
Bishop of Worcester's action on that occasion, and also the
controversy which arose in consequence of the Bishop of
Zanzibar's denunciation of the Bishop of Mombasa's action
at the Kikuyu Conference. It is also a warning to all who
are inclined to overlook the difficulties which confront those
who attempt to deal with this question of reunion, thinking
that they can easily be removed, and the barriers of cen
turies broken down in a day.
Canon Body, who had accepted an invitation to take

164 Chapters from My Life
part in the Conference, was influenced by the report which
had appeared, and withdrew his name. He afterwards ex
plained in a letter to the Times that when he realised what
had happened he no longer felt that this incident would have
precluded his attendance had not his other work prevented
him from coming.
Just at this time Dr. Owen, then Dean of St. Asaph, now
Bishop of St. David's, called upon me to ask if I would
request the Bishop of London to preside over a Conference
in England to take place between Churchmen and Noncon
formists in Wales to consider whether it was not possible to
carry on the Disestablishment controversy, which was then
very keen, on more Christian lines. I went to Fulham to
see the Bishop, Dr. Temple, and although he was unwilling
to preside over this Conference he gave me permission to
write the following letter on the question of the chaplain's
action at Grindelwald to the Times: —
"To the Editor of the Times.
"Sir, — The Bishop of London, who has jurisdiction, as
many of your readers will be aware, over certain continental
chaplaincies — Grindelwald amongst the number — in a con
versation which I have just had with his lordship, has given
me his definite ruling upon a matter of great importance to
Churchmen and Nonconformists in their mutual relations
with each other. During the Review of the Churches winter
gathering at Grindelwald several Nonconformist ministers
were communicated by the chaplain at the ordinary Sunday
morning communion. This incident evoked the censure of
certain church papers, and a statement has been widely
circulated that a ' common communion ' would be held at
our summer gathering, and that in consequence of this fact
a leading Anglican clergyman had withdrawn from the
Conference. This statement is erroneous in each particular.
No ' common communion ' will be held, and the clergyman
referred to has not withdrawn.
"The Bishop of London informed me that I was quite

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 165
correct in not regarding the communion celebrated at our
winter gathering as a 'common communion,' and stated
that he did not consider the chaplain had in any way violated
church order in communicating the Nonconformist ministers
who presented themselves in this manner. It was not the
chaplain's business to enquire whether, according to the
wording of the rubric, they had been 'confirmed' or were
' desirous of being confirmed.' His lordship corroborated
my previous view that the term ' common communion ' can
only be applied to a celebration of Holy Communion in
which the celebrants are ministers of different branches of
the Christian church ; and concurred with me in the opinion
that any possible compromise was on the side of the Non
conformist ministers, myself included, who were prepared,
for the sake of unity, to communicate on an occasion when
the celebrants were priests of the Anglican church.
"It only remains for me to say that no effort will be
wanting on my part to prevent any incident occurring which
would compromise on the one hand High Churchmen like
Lord Nelson and Canon Body, both of whom have heartily
supported the proposal to hold such conferences, and old
Catholics like Bishop Herzog, and Pere Hyacinthe, or, on
the other hand, Nonconformists like Mr. Guinness Rogers
and Mr. Price Hughes. — I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
"Henry S. Lunn.
"Review of the Churches Office,
May 17th, 1892."
Immediately after this controversy Mr. Hay Aitken asked
a number of representatives of different churches to unite
to ask for the prayers of the churches on the gathering which
was to be held. The following letter accordingly was issued :
"To the Editor of the Times.
"Sir, — Many of your readers are probably aware that an
important series of meetings will be held this summer at
Grindelwald with the object of promoting Christian Reunion.

166 Chapters from My Life
These gatherings will be attended by prominent representa
tives of the Church of England, the Presbyterians, the
Congregationalists, the Baptists, and the Methodists, and
it is fervently hoped that the discussions may not be merely
theoretic, but may lead up to some definite practical issue.
The promoters of the Conference feel that existing divisions
are a source of danger to our common Christianity, and con
tribute grievously to the spread of unbelief. They, there
fore, are most anxious that there should not only be much
profitable intercourse between men of different schools of
thought at the approaching Conferences and social gather
ings, but that under the guidance of the wisdom which is
from above, such practical suggestions may be presented as
may definitely contribute to the healing of our divisions,
and the removal of all unnecessary barriers that now lie in
the way of godly union and concord. Feeling that this end
can only be attained by the guidance and controlling in
fluences of the Holy Spirit, we ask leave through you to
invite, and indeed to implore, the earnest prayers of all
Christian people on this behalf. That these may be offered
unitedly, perseveringly, and as with heart and voice, we
venture to suggest that this object should be specially inter
ceded for at our public and private devotions on the first
Sunday morning in June, July, August and September.
Earnestly commending the suggestion to the consideration
of all who have at heart the great objects for which our
divine Master pleaded so fervently just before His Passion,
We beg to subscribe ourselves, — Your obedient servants,
" Church of England: Nelson.
J. J. S. Worcester.
W. Hay M. H. Aitken.
W. Barker.
A. R. Buckland.
F. W. Farrar.
W. H. Fremantle.
H. Armstrong Hall.
Basil Wilberforce.

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 167
Church of Ireland: H. Kingsmill Moore.
G. T. Stokes.
Presbyterian: Marcus Dods.
J. M. Gibson.
Congregational: Alfred Cave.
R. F. Horton.
Alexander Mackennal.
J. G. Rogers.
Baptist: C. F. Aked.
J. Clifford.
Methodist: W. H. Dallinger.
W. J. Dawson.
H. Price Hughes.
T. Bowman Stephenson."
When the Conference first met in July, 1892, at Grindel
wald, the Rev. Prebendary Hay Aitken presided, in the
absence through ill-health of the Bishop of Ripon. The
Bishop wrote a letter to the Conference in which he ex
pressed the hope that " Deeper sympathy and loftier elevation
of aim may be given to those who yet agree to differ. It
may be an open question indeed whether federation of
variety is not more advantageous than pale, perhaps insin
cere, uniformity of thought."
Prebendary Hay Aitken then opened the Conference with
a speech dealing with the Lambeth Anglican Conference of
Bishops on the question of reunion, and proceeded at once
to the fourth point in the great "Lambeth Quadrilateral"
which was laid down as the necessary foundation for any
attempts at bringing together the sundered branches of the
Church of Christ. It may be well at once to state what were
the proposals put forward by the Church of England, follow
ing the lead of the Episcopal Church of America, at the
Lambeth Conference.
These four proposals are constantly referred to, in
discussions on Reunion, as "The Lambeth Quadrilateral."
They consisted of the following :
(1) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments

168 Chapters from My Life
as containing all things necessary to salvation, and as being
the rule and ultimate standard of faith.
(2) The Apostles' Creed as the Baptismal Symbol, and
the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of Christian
faith. (3) The two Sacraments ordained by Christ — Baptism
and the Supper of our Lord, administered with unfailing
use of the words of institution and the elements ordained by
Him ; and
(4) The Historic Episcopate locally adapted in the
methods of its administration to the varying needs of the
nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His
Church. The September Conference dealt with this question at
much length, and a report of discussions will be found in
Appendix B.
During the interval between the two Conferences the
great fire of Grindelwald occurred. It was the month of
August, and I had gone with Mr. and Mrs. Price Hughes,
Miss Hughes, my friend's sister, and my wife to the
Wagner Festival-. Hughes and I were spending Friday,
August 18th, at Nuremberg, where we went to see the house
of the Meisterscenger, and while we were walking through
the old castle he picked up a German newspaper. Looking
over his shoulder, I saw "Telegram from Grindelwald." I
said, "What is that?" and he read out, "The village of
Grindelwald has been burned to the ground."
I went to the nearest post-office and telegraphed, "The
Conference at which the Bishop of Worcester and Dean
Farrar were to preside, in consequence of the Grindelwald
fire, will be held at Interlaken."
We then walked down to the hotel, and found a telegram
from my wife : " Perowne telegraphs, ' Children safe, your
chalet, Bear Hotel, Oberland, National, railway station,
English church, and sixty chalets burned to the ground.
What am I to do with the people ? ' "

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 169
I immediately saw from this that half the village was
evidently still standing, as there was no mention of the
Parish Church, and certain other hotels to the east of the
ones named. I therefore telegraphed again to England
stating that the Conference would proceed to Grindelwald,
as the Parish Church, in which the Conference was to be
held, had not been destroyed, and enough hotels remained.
I left Nuremberg by the night train for Grindelwald, and
when I got to Interlaken at five the next afternoon I found
the Rev. Charles Berry and about one hundred and fifty
members of the Conference just getting into the train to go
up to Grindelwald. Berry, in his enthusiastic manner, said
to me on Sunday, "You and Perowne are facing this matter
very well, and I am going to say so this afternoon before my
sermon. You had better take down what I shall say,
and telegraph it to England to reassure them." This I
accordingly did.
Notwithstanding this disaster, nearly five hundred people
gathered together in Grindelwald, and the Conference opened
on the date arranged — Tuesday, September 6th.
The Bishop of Worcester, the Rev. Dr. Stephenson, and
Professor Stokes, of Dublin University, presided at the
different discussions of this Conference, and speeches were
given by the Rev. Charles Berry, the Rev. Hugh Price
Hughes and others. These discussions were so important
that I have thought it right to print them at some length to
gether with the discussions of 1893, in appendices to this
volume. To insert them at this point would interrupt the
record of facts, but they are far too important a contribution
to the attempt to achieve unity to be left out. These utter
ances of some of the greatest thinkers and leaders of English
religious life in the last decade will be regarded by those who
attach due importance to the ultimate unity of the Christian
Churches as the most valuable chapters in this volume.
The Conferences of 1894 and 1895 cannot, unfortunately, be
included in this volume, but were reported at some length in
the Review of the Churches.

170 Chapters from My Life
It was interesting to note the effect upon some of the
Church clergy when they listened to Hughes's speech in
favour of Episcopacy. For a long time he had been to them
a bete noire, and they were amazed that a man whom they
had looked upon as the typical representative of the Noncon
formist conscience could come so far to meet them. One of
them said to me as he left the Conference, "I never could
have believed that Hughes could have made such a speech."
Another said, "I would have travelled across Europe to
have heard that speech."
At the end of that week I found myself in a difficulty.
The English church had been destroyed in the fire. The
chaplain then in charge had gone home, and the Society
responsible for the chaplaincies had sent out no successor for
September. I accordingly went to the Bishop of Worcester
and asked whether he would celebrate Holy Communion, and
whether I could invite the members of the Conference to be
present. He consented and, assisted by Canon Robinson, of
Dublin, Professor Stokes, of Dublin University, and the Rev.
B. Lamb, of St. George's Vicarage, Leeds, administered the
Holy Communion to large numbers of the members of the
Conference, including Pastor Strasser of the Swiss Reformed
Church, Charles Berry, Hugh Price Hughes, C. F. Aked
and myself.
When this was reported in England a great storm burst
of which we had a warning in connection with the incident
that occurred in the winter, described already in this chapter.
What happened should be borne in mind by all who are at
the present time advocating the great and sacred cause of
reunion. The Times, in a long leading article, pointed out the dif
ficulties of the situation. They said that the Evangelical or
Low Church party might hold out a hand of welcome to
Nonconformists and make things easy for their admittance,
but High Churchmen would be less pliant, and would insist
on conditions so strict as to be practically prohibitive. The

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 171
writer referred to the Bishop's action in administering the
Holy Communion to a mixed congregation of Churchmen
and Nonconformists, and then proceeded to point out that the
Bishop's suggestion of recognising the orders of Non-
Episcopal ministers could not be carried out in practice whilst
the Act of Uniformity was in force : " But the Grindelwald
Conference none the less marks a step in the right direction.
Such gatherings are useful, the Bishop thinks, as enabling
persons to come to a better understanding about their differ
ences, and to co-operate in such a way as to leave room for
the cultivation of all the graces of the Spirit. There would
thus be benefit from even so modest a form of rapprochement
as this. It would help to put an end to what the Bishop
terms the jealousies and rivalries and antagonisms of the
present, although on other points it would leave things sub
stantially what they are now. Differences might be better
understood, but they would exist none the less."
Bishop Henson, who was then Vicar of Barking and a
pronounced High Churchman, came forward to threaten with
persecution those with whom he was afterwards to sym
pathise, and asserted in a letter to the Times, " If words mean
anything, Episcopacy is declared to be necessary in the
Prayer Book." He charged the Bishop with "airing a theory
of courageous hypocrisy," and stated that all scholars would
agree that the necessity of Episcopacy was firmly held by all
Christians in the second century.
The Bishop was in Italy at the time, and wrote from Milan
on September 14th, pointing out that the 36th article of
"Ministering in the Congregation" was drawn up at a
Conference between Anglican and Lutheran divines. He
affirmed that the theory that Episcopacy is the only lawful
form of Church government he believed to be an entirely
novel doctrine in the Church of England dating from Oxford
somewhere about the year 1840. He said, "But do I there
fore make light of Episcopacy? Certainly not. I believe it
to be the best form of Church government, though I cannot
say that it is necessary to the very constitution of a Church.

172 Chapters from My Life
I believe it to be the bene esse though not the esse of a
Church." He went on to point out that the Lambeth Com
mittee of 1888 recommended that existing ministers should be
recognised, though this recommendation was not published
at the time, but was afterwards made public by one of the
American Bishops in an address to his Synod. Bishop
Charles Wordsworth, the Bishop of St. Andrews, had urged
strongly that the same concessions should be made to Pres
byterian Churches in order that the way might thus be paved
for the union of the Scottish Presbyterian and Episcopal
Churches. He said that he himself had done no more than
this. Bishop Perowne concluded his letter by saying, "If
nothing else has been gained by the Grindelwald Conference,
this at least has been gained — that we have learned to under
stand one another better. If no step has been taken towards
corporate reunion, a very large step has been taken in the
direction of Christian charity. If we felt that there must be
differences, we also felt that in obedience to our Lord there
was a bond of union greater than our differences. I for one
shall always rejoice that I was invited to take part in the
Conference. Never shall I forget the solemn communion of
last Sunday, when in the Zwinglian Church of Grindelwald,
I, assisted by three clergymen of the English and Irish
Churches, administered the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
according to a form prescribed in the Prayer Book, to leading,
ministers and other representatives of the Scottish Presby
terian and English Nonconformist Churches, all of them
devoutly kneeling. None can have witnessed that scene
unmoved. Such a reunion, I venture to say, stands alone
in the history of Christendom, and deserves, not hostile
criticism or contemptuous pity, but the hearty sympathy, the
ungrudging recognition of all who, weary of strife about the
externals of religion, desire the promotion of true 'godly
union and concord."'
The conflict of views reverberated in the columns of the
Times and the Press generally, but no advantage can accrue

The Grindelwald Reunion Conferences 173
from further placing on record the controversy of September,
1892. It has since been overshadowed by a kindred con
troversy on a somewhat different issue over the proceedings
at Kikuyu. Those who had met at this Conference were not
discouraged when they passed from the stage of good-
humoured toleration to the next stage of violent opposition,
which must inevitably be faced as a necessary stage before
the final and inevitable victory.
It was felt by those present at the second Grindelwald
Conference that so important a gathering should not be
content with mere discussion, but should seek directly to
influence the Churches at home and urge upon them the
importance of combined efforts towards unity. So often it
happens that both ecclesiastics and politicians are content
with discussing their difficulties, and going into committee
thereon, and passing most excellent resolutions, but do not
proceed to action. There is an excellent proverb which
Bishop Gore quoted in the Conference of 1918 between
Churchmen and Methodists, at which I was present, which
expresses the folly of such proceedings: "The foolish man
roasteth not that which he hath taken in hunting." Whilst
the Reunion Conferences helped greatly the movement to
wards Free Church Federation, they also urged the setting
apart of one Sunday in the year for special prayer for unity,
with sermons dealing with the evils of division.
I was returning from Rome in a very crowded train in
April, 1894. At the last moment the stationmaster put on
an extra carriage into which I entered with a friend of mine.
When we arrived at Terontola, the junction for Perugia, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Mrs. Benson and her Secretary,
Miss Tate, joined us. I was reading at the moment the
copy of the Independent, containing the series of articles which
are referred to in the chapter of my American visit, giving
the views of the American Bishops on the question of the
interchange of pulpits. I found the Archbishop interested
in these opinions of the American Bishops, and we had a

174 Chapters from My Life
discussion on what had happened recently at the Regent
Street Polytechnic. I pointed out that in that institution he
himself, Bishop Temple, Archdeacon Farrar, General Booth,
Dr. Mackennal, Dr. Clifford, Mark Guy Pearse and I myself
had occupied the platform on successive Sundays and had
given sermons there in which there was no apparent theologi
cal divergence, no sense of disunion.
Archbishop Benson said, " But the hall at the Polytechnic
is not registered as a place of worship." I replied, "I think
it is licensed as a protection against brawling, but I am not
sure on that point. I think there is a deeper reason, perhaps,
that would appeal more particularly to you, and that is that
we never have the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper adminis
tered." I thought of this reason on the spur of the moment,
but I am still of opinion that the fact that these services
were carried on, subject to the consent of the vicar of the
parish being obtained, was a striking illustration of the
absurdity of the present position. If Dr. Clifford could
preach for Hugh Price Hughes, and Hugh Price Hughes for
Dr. Parker, and Dr. Parker for Dr. Clifford, there is no
sufficient reason for the pulpits of the Episcopal Church being
closed to Christian ministers who held the great doctrines
of the faith. Dr. Clifford would never have dreamed of
using his position in a Methodist pulpit to attack infant
baptism, and Dr. Parker in Dr. Clifford's pulpit would never
have thought of attacking adult baptism.
After this discussion, the Archbishop asked about Grindel
wald, and I told him exactly what had been Bishop Perowne's
action in administering the communion to a number of
Nonconformists presenting themselves on this occasion. "It
seems to me," I remarked, "that the sacrifice was on the part
of Hugh Price Hughes, Charles Berry, C. F. Aked, and
myself, who were all ordained ministers, Methodist, Con
gregational and Baptist, and nevertheless received the
communion according to the Anglican order at a service
exclusively celebrated by priests of the English Church."
The Archbishop agreed with this statement.

The Grrindelwald Reunion Conferences 175
We then discussed the appeal to the Conference for a
Reunion Sunday. The Archbishop said, "Will you write
to me when you return to England, and lay this matter
formally before me, and I will discuss it with the Bishops?"
After his return to England the Archbishop wrote to me
in the following terms : "Lambeth Palace, S.E.,
"April 27th, 1894.
"My dear Dr. Lunn, — I showed your letter, not to Con
vocation, which does not as a rule proceed in such matters,
but to several Bishops. With us the ordering or recom
mending of devotions is diocesan. They were without
exception pleased with the idea, and some of them will, I am
sure, take it up in some form or other, and some at one time,
and some at another.
"I mentioned to you some of the minor differences which
attend our much-valued independence.
"It is only in certain questions that provincial action
comes into use, but there was no lack of sensibility as to the
action which Nonconformist bodies are taking any more than
of confidence in the answer which will be given to the prayer
of sincerity. — Yours sincerely, "Edward Cantuar."
The Archbishop then issued the following encyclical to
his clergy : " Lambeth, "May 1st, 1894.
"I wish to ask the clergy to use in church with the collects
on Whitsunday the Prayer for Unity from the Accession
Service. This is a time when the gift of the spirit of unity
is sorely needed, and the great festival of the Holy Spirit,
on which the ' Confusion ' of Babel began to be done
away, is a day most fitted for special united prayer for Unity
among all Christian people. Many other religious persons
and bodies will, I believe, use this one prayer on the same

176 Chapters from My Life
day. God, who hears prayers, will also answer them, we
know, in His own best way. "Edw. Cantuar."
The appeal of the Conference, supported in this manner
by the Archbishop, elicited a remarkable response, and
special sermons were preached on Whitsunday, 1894, by the
Archbishop of Dublin, the Bishops of Truro, Wakefield,
Worcester, Bangor, and Aberdeen, Archdeacon Farrar, Canon
Basil Wilberforce, and a number of other eminent clergymen
of the Church of England; Dr. Marshall Lang and Dr.
Monro Gibson representing the Presbyterians; Dr. Clifford,
Dr. Glover, Dr. Meyer, Mr. Cuff, and other eminent Bap
tists; Dr. Charles Berry, Dr. Newman Hall and Dr. F. R.
Horton amongst the Congregationalists; the President of the
Wesleyan Methodist Conference, and several ex-Presidents
and Presidents of the minor Methodist bodies.
The Roman Catholic Church in England did not that
year join with us, but in the year 1895 the Archbishop
repeated his encyclical. Similar observations of Whitsunday
took place, and on this occasion, in response to the command
of the Pope of Rome, the English Roman Catholic Church
offered up special prayers for unity.

CHAPTER XIII
A FREE CHURCH CONFESSION OF FAITH (1898)
Inception of the Free Church Council — Its Connection with Grindelwald
— Position of Unitarians — The First Committee — The Free
Church Catechism — Definition of the Catholic Church — Of the
Sacraments — A Protestant Eirenikon — Disuse of Catechising
in the Free Churches.
I cannot make two timepieces agree. — Chables V.
MISS DOROTHEA PRICE HUGHES, in her valuable
record of her father's life, tells us of the beginning of
the movement which resulted in the development of the Free
Church Council. She says : " It was not till he met Dr. Berry
in 1892 that he met one whom he at once recognised as the
constructive genius of the movement, and who was able to
regard it in quite the same full manner as he did. The form
of the rapprochement was undoubtedly shaped on the Swiss
mountains. Without Dr. Berry or my father, if it is possible
to imagine the movement without them, a rapprochement
of some kind would undoubtedly have taken place, so wide
spread was the feeling among ministers of all kinds; but it
would have been on different lines. It would probably have
resulted in a loose yearly gathering of some kind, the import
of which would have come home but slowly, if at all, to the
public mind and the Nonconformist people." '
In an article which Hughes himself contributed to the
Contemporary Review, in March, 1897, he defined, as the
objects of the movement, fraternal intercourse, the organi
sation of local councils, the encouragement of devotional
1 " The Life of Hugh Price Hughes," p. 442.
M 177

178 Chapters from My Life
fellowship, the advocacy of the New Testament doctrine of
the Church, and the promotion of the application of the law
of Christ in every relation of human life.
As the Federation developed increasing influence, the
Unitarians made overtures in 1893 to join it in social enter
prise, and to be admitted within its pale. Against this
Hughes contended with all the intensity and vigour which
he could throw into any great issue. He had a profound
admiration for many of the Unitarians, he numbered them
amongst his personal friends ; but as he declared to me again
and again in our Saturday afternoon walks and conversations,
nothing could move him from the position that whilst they
might be a part of the Kingdom of Christ, they could not
be said to belong to the Church of Christ. For him the Free
Church Council was no mere fortuitous concourse of eccle
siastical atoms. It was a definite part of the Catholic Church,
linked by the closest ties with the ages that had preceded it,
receiving from those past ages a heritage of the faith once
delivered to the saints. This heritage must be preserved.
These considerations led Hughes, in 1896, to urge upon
the general committee of the National Council the prepara
tion of a catechism which should express the Christian
doctrines held in common by all the evangelical Free
Churches. The first committee included the following
leaders :
The Rev. Charles Berry and the Rev. A. Mackennal as
Congregationalists, both ex-Chairmen ofthe Union ; Hughes
as a Methodist; the Rev. Dr. Clifford, the Rev. Dr. Tymms,
and the Rev. G. P. Gould, leading Baptists; the Rev. H. B.
Kendal and Professor Peake, Primitive Methodists; and
Dr. Oswald Dykes and Dr. Monro Gibson, both ex-
Moderators of the Presbyterian Church of England. These
leaders of the Free Churches were summoned by Hughes to
meet at 8, Taviton Street, to formulate in the shape of a
catechism the creed of those who, like the Congregationalists
and the Baptists, would at once have objected to anything
that had been termed articles, or a definite creed.

A Free Church Confession of Faith 179
I remember the almost boyish joy with which Hughes
discussed this point with me directly he had arranged with
Principal Oswald Dykes to compile the draft catechism. "I
shall hope," he said, "to get these dear brethren to agree
to a catechism in which we shall set out the articles of the
faith as definitely as if they were set out in Thirty-nine
Articles, or in the Nicene Creed."
Later there were added to the committee Dr. J. Guinness
Rogers, Dr. Barrett, and Mr. Vernon Bartlett, leading Con
gregationalists; Dr. Banks, Dr. Davison, and Dr. Findlay,
Professors of Wesleyan Methodist Theological Colleges;
Dr. Townsend, ex-President of the New Connexion Con
ference; the Rev. F. W. Bourne, ex-President of the Bible
Christian Conference; and the Rev. David Brook, ex-Presi
dent of the United Methodist Free Church Conference .
The catechism was discussed for two years with the
greatest care, and was finally published in December, 1898.
The exultation of Hughes at such an achievement was justi
fied if we accept his statement in the preface, in which he
said: "The theologians who have prepared this catechism
represent, directly or indirectly, the beliefs of not less, and
probably many more, than sixty millions of avowed
Christians in all parts of the world. Students of history will
be aware that no such combined statement of inter-denomi
national belief has ever previously been attempted, much less
achieved, since the lamentable day when Martin Luther
contended with Huldreich Zwingli. In view of the dis
tressing controversies of our forefathers it is profoundly
significant and gladdening to be able to add that every
question and every answer in this catechism has been fully
adopted without a dissentient note. Deo soli gloria!"
Week by week, as the catechism was in process of crea
tion, we used to discuss the progress made. To him every
sentence in that catechism was of priceless value. It was a
revelation to all concerned of their nearness to one another,
and their essential unity.

180 Chapters from My Life
Although no creed was definitely included in it as a
creed, yet the answer to the question, "How did the Son
of God save His people from their sins? " was an explicit
statement in the words of the Nicene Creed: "For our
Salvation He came down from Heaven, and was incarnate by
the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man,
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He
suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again
according to the scriptures, and ascended into Heaven, and
sitteth on the right hand of God the Father."
I remember when the great question of the statement of
faith in the Trinity had been decided, with what satisfaction
he recited to me the question and answer : " What is the
mystery of the Blessed Trinity ? "
"That the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, into
whose name we are baptised, are one God."
The definition of the Holy Catholic Church ran thus :
" It is that Holy Society of Believers in Christ Jesus which
He founded, of which He is the only Head, and in which
He dwells by His Spirit; so that, though made up of many
communions, organised in various modes, and scattered
throughout the world, it is yet One in Him."
It did not insist, as the article does, on the due adminis
tration of the sacraments, but this was brought in by the
next question: "For what ends did our Lord found His
Church ? "
"He united His people into this visible brotherhood for
the worship of God and the ministry of the Word and the
Sacraments; for mutual edification, the administration of
discipline, and the advancement of His Kingdom."
Throughout, the catechism, although drafted by Dr.
Dykes, bears many indications that Hughes was stamping
it with his own strongest convictions. The definition of the
Catholic Church recalls Hughes's favourite quotation from
Irenasus, " Ubi Christus, ibi ecclesia."
"What is the essential mark of a true branch of the
Catholic Church ? "

A Free Church Confession of Faith 181
"It is the presence of Christ through His indwelling
Spirit, manifested in holy life and fellowship."
Nothing gave him so much satisfaction as his success
in securing a unanimous statement with reference to the
sacraments. Those who remember their church catechism
will recognise the close resemblance between the definition
of baptism in the catechism of the Church of England and
that contained in the Free Church catechism.
" What is the visible sign in the Sacrament of Baptism ? "
"Water; wherein the person is baptised in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
"What inward benefits does this signify? "
"The washing away of sin and the new birth wrought
by the Holy Spirit in all who repent and believe."
The last words definitely exclude the baptismal regenera
tion of infants, and so differ radically from the Church
catechism. "What are the outward signs in the Lord's Supper ? "
" Bread and wine : which the Lord has commanded to be
given and received for a perpetual memorial of His death."
"What is signified by the bread and wine ? "
"By the bread is signified the Body of our Lord Jesus
Christ in which He lived and died; by the wine is signified
His Blood, shed once for all upon the Cross for the remission
of sins." "What do they receive who in penitence and faith par
take of this sacrament ? "
"They feed spiritually upon Christ as the nourishment of
the soul, by which they are strengthened and refreshed for
the duties and trials of life."
There is nothing in the statements concerning the Lord's
Supper that contradicts anything in the Church catechism.
Throughout the whole of this catechism Hughes was
endeavouring to bring home to evangelical Christians, who
had been too much possessed by the idea of the invisibility
of the Church, that this phrase was utterly misleading.
"England," he used to say, "swarms with ecclesiastical

182 Chapters from My Life
vagrants, who flatter themselves that because they believe in
Christ, and are therefore, according to their own notions,
members of the ' invisible Church,' they suffer no loss in
holding entirely aloof from the organised fellowship of other
Christian communions."
In his article on the catechism in the Contemporary
Review he' said, as he said to me in conversation repeatedly,
that he could not imagine anything more entirely opposed
to the original purpose of Christ, or to the best interests
both of the individual and of human society, than isolated
spiritual life. There was something, very characteristic about
the emphasis with which he used to say that "if we have
nothing in existence except the so-called invisible Church,
the powers of evil will not have much to fear."
Bishop Gore realised more vividly the value of these
passages than some of Hughes's own brethren, and wrote :
"The recent repudiation by the Editor, Mr. Hughes, of
' The Evangelical Free Church Catechism,' of the idea of the
invisible Church, as being an invention of the sixteenth
century, and the emphasis laid by both the Catechism and
its editor on membership in the one visible Catholic Church
. . . may well mark an epoch in English religion."'
Hughes declared with great emphasis that he was pre
pared to accept the Church organised by Christ and the
Apostles as a visible, audible, and tangible society, but at
the same time he insisted, as the Grindelwald Conference in
their address to the Pope insisted, that the Unity of the
Church found its highest expression and its headship neither
in Pope nor Sovereign, but in Christ Jesus, its Divine Head
and Lord.
When he succeeded in bringing the three eminent
Baptists, who were working at 8, Taviton Street, with him
on this great theological effort — Dr. Clifford, Dr. Tymms,
and Dr. Gould — into line with himself, he did indeed regard
himself as having surmounted a great difficulty, and this was
justifiable since, for the first time, Psedo-Baptists and Ana-
'The Body of Christ," Gore, p. 320.

1 « r

A Free Church Confession of Faith 183
Baptists had endeavoured to find a formula which should
express their common faith with respect to the sacraments.
Hughes said : " Remembering the terrible controversies
in the past, my fears were not unnatural, but we found a
formula of peace in the statement that the Sacrament of
Baptism signifies ' the washing away of sin and the new
birth wrought by the Holy Spirit in all who repent and
believe.'" It was very strange that the question which raised most
difference between them was not the question of the Sacra
ment of the Lord's Supper, nor the Sacrament of Baptism,
nor the doctrine of the church, nor the doctrine of the
ministry, but the definition of the Resurrection of the Body.
Here is the question and answer which ultimately secured
unanimity :
"What hope have we in the prospect of death?"
"We are well assured that all who fall asleep in Christ
are with Him in rest and peace; and that even as He rose
from the dead so shall we also rise and be clothed with
glorified bodies."
This remarkable gathering owed its significance to the
fact that it was the first attempt made since the Savoy
Conference by a representative body of different Protestant
Communions in Great Britain to join in one expression of
their common faith.
It has always seemed to me that the hopes which Hughes
expressed in his exceedingly interesting article in the Con
temporary Review at that period, as to the great effect of
this catechism, ought to have been adequately fulfilled if the
catechism had been more widely adopted. It practically
remains an academic expression of faith, and although it
was welcomed by men as widely separated as Bishop Gore
and the leaders of Nonconformity, it has not taken that hold
on the life of the Nonconformist Churches which it ought
to have done.
The practice of catechising in the Free Churches has

184 Chapters from My Life
fallen too much into disuse. In Roman Catholic countries
and in Anglican Churches at home, I have been present at
the catechising when the foreign priest, or the rector or the
vicar of the English parish, has walked up and down the
church catechising the children on Sunday afternoon. Our
Free Church Sunday-schools of the different communions
have suffered enormously owing to the decrease in numbers
since that catechism was written, and our membership
returns indicate a decrease almost though not quite as
serious. It is a great question in my mind whether more
might not have been done to arrest this great decline in
Sunday-schools and church members if this catechism had
been more closely studied by Free Church ministers and
adopted more widely and made the subject of more earnest
study by our Sunday-school authorities.

CHAPTER XIV
REUNION CAMPAIGN IN AMERICA
Lady Henry Somerset and Miss Frances Willard— Quintin Hogg on
America — Dr. Albert Shaw — I leave for America — Conversa
tions with General Booth — " The General " and Mrs. Asquith —
" In Darkest England " — Article by Dean Farrar in American
Review of Reviews — Invitations to Lecture— I preach at Ply
mouth Church, Brooklyn, and Lyman Beecher's Church,
Boston — Lectures at Chicago on " Indian Religions and the
Grindelwald Conference" — Dr. Barrows and the World's
Parliament of Religions — Chicago — Washington — American
Characteristics — The Protestant Episcopal Church — Old Di
visions in New Settlements — New Canon Law respecting
Exchange of Pulpits in America — Influence of American
Bishops in Pan- Anglican Synods.
I called the New World into existence to tedress the balance of the Old.
— Canning. /-¦ •f
THE words used in regard to the realm of international
politics by Canning apply still more forcibly to the
ecclesiastical life of the Anglo-Saxon race. When the
Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, Boston, they
did indeed call in the New World to redress the balance of
the Old. Driven from Europe by those who held that the
right of kings was divine and that the claims of the hierarchy
were based on apostolic succession, they were to lay the
foundation of the greatest of all modern states and to realise
more nearly than any other nation in the world's history
Mazzini's ideal of a Free Church in a Free State.
I have visited the States three times, and in this record
shall follow a geographical rather than a chronological order.
This is the more fitting because, unlike European nations,
185

186 Chapters from My Life
America is still on the threshold of its history, whilst its
geographical boundaries are practically fixed.
Citizens of the older nations are sometimes unduly
irritated by the American consciousness of the magnitude
of their territory and its great potentialities. This attitude was
illustrated in a story told to me by Mr. Henry Phipps, Mr.
Andrew Carnegie's partner. He said that an American on
one occasion rose to propose the customary toast which
commences after-dinner oratory in the Republic, and said :
"I wish to propose the toast of America, bounded on the
north by Canada, on the south by Mexico, on the east by
the Rising Sun, and on the west by the Setting Sun." A
rather impatient auditor jumped up and said before the toast
was drunk: "Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the toast of
America, bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, in
the south by the Precession of the Equinoxes, in the east
by the dawn of primeval man, and in the west by the day
of judgment." However exaggerated this last statement may be, one
realises in crossing the American Continent how vast is the
territory of the United States. At a dinner of the Caledonian
Society of St. Louis I pointed out that I had left New York
one day to arrive in their State late the next day, and if I
had travelled so far south from London I might have crossed
the Belgian, German, Swiss and Italian frontiers, and should
have found myself at Naples. The journey I had taken
was only roughly one-third of the journey from New York
to San Francisco.
In lecturing on the Fiscal Controversy to two literary
clubs in New York, I pointed out the essential difference
that exists between the fiscal conditions that are called for
in an island which must necessarily be influenced by every
change in the politics of the world, and depends for its
supplies so largely on the products of other countries, as
contrasted with the condition of things that prevails in the
great country of America, which produces everything from
an iceberg to a banana. If the whole of the rest of the world

Reunion Campaign in America 187
disappeared in some cosmic cataclysm and Great Britain
alone survived the universal ruin, we should be starved in
six weeks. If a similar catastrophe occurred leaving the
United States untouched amidst the general crash, apart
from the incidental ruin of a few financiers, the self-contained
life of America might still go on.
I remember reading many years since an excellent article
by Sir Walter Besant — I cannot remember the name of the
publication — in which he contended that America was a
mighty young giant just realising his powers, and that what
the older nations complained of was the giant's awakening
to real consciousness of his own strength and not the self-
assertion of the parvenu.
On the 1 2th of January, 1895, I leit England by the s.s.
New York of the American Line for the city after which our
steamer was named. Lady Henry Somerset and Miss
Willard, the great American apostle of total abstinence, had
requested me to aid them in organising the arrangements
for American representatives to cross the Atlantic to the
World's Women's Christian Temperance Union gathering
in London in the summer of that year.
Lady Henry Somerset and her sister, the Duchess of
Bedford, had always taken a great interest in all good causes.
She and the Duchess were frequent visitors to the West
London Mission, and had a great admiration for Hugh
Price Hughes. It was in the Mission that I had made the
acquaintance of Lady Henry Somerset and Miss Willard,
and I was carried away with their enthusiasm and undertook
the task which they suggested.
Mr. Quintin Hogg made a very true remark just before
I left. "You are going," he said, "to have the most
interesting experience of your life. You are about to
visit the most remarkable country you have ever seen,
possessing all the charm of a foreign country with this
advantage to an English visitor, that his own language is
spoken."

188 Chapters from My Life
My wife and I crossed the Atlantic on the same steamer
as General Booth.
I had met the General several times. At the request of
Percy Bunting I wrote an article on the General's visit to
Australia for the Contemporary Review, which the General
signed. He had not the patience to write himself, so Bunting
sent me to see him, and whilst he walked up and down the
room like a caged lion I committed his roaring to paper, and
he afterwards corrected my proofs of the article.
On another occasion I had a stormy interview with him.
He had published a military manual for his officers. A copy
came into my hands for review when I was assistant editor
of the Methodist Times. I wrote a rather savage review and
called it "The Law and the Gospel according to General
Booth." I remember describing the volume as a compound
of Jesuitism and Pharisaism.
On the day of publication I received a reply-paid
telegram : "Did you write that article in to-day's Methodist
Times? — Bramwell Booth." I said : "Yes." This brought
the command: "Come and see the General at once." I
obeyed. When I reached headquarters in Queen Victoria
Street I found the old man in a Berserker passion. He
walked backwards and forwards and hurled at me sentence
after sentence like heavy shells from a fifteen-inch gun.
"If you ever get to heaven, Lunn, you'll find a General
there." "There is a General in everything that God does."
"If John Wesley had had more courage and faith he
would have left his powers to one man and not to a committee
of a hundred."
General Booth occupied a private suite on the great
liner, with its own private sitting-room and bathroom, prob
ably as a guest of the company. This seemed at first a
little startling, but when one found him using the sitting-
room with his two aides-de-camp alternately as an oratory,
a council chamber, and an office, and working with demoniacal
energy for the salvation of souls, criticism was silenced.

Reunion Campaign in America 189
Beerbohm Tree had a company of actors on board, and
the General rather annoyed them, not without reason. The
General gave an address in the saloon one evening and spoke,
first, on "Darkest England," and, secondly, on Beerbohm
Tree and his company's need of salvation. They gave a
concert a day or two later and invited the General, which
invitation he declined.
The General was naively delighted with the reception
which he had enjoyed in Canada. He described with almost
childish glee his visit to the Viceregal Lodge, Rideau Hall,
Ottawa, and said : " It was a great thing for my poor people
who are always being jumped on, to see their General riding
in the Viceregal carriage."
One habit the General had which was common with
Methodists when I was a small boy. He lost no opportunity
of kneeling in prayer with those whom fie met in his travels.
I was lying in bed in my cabin, rather out of sorts, and the
General came round to see me and insisted that my wife, who
was feeling the motion of the steamer, should kneel down
whilst he prayed for us both.
There was a certain humour in this spiritual campaign
ing which saved it from being, oppressive. Referring to a
voyage with Rudyard Kipling on a P. and O. steamer
from India, the General said : " I got him on his knees in
his cabin. Rudyard was not very far from the Kingdom
then." ,
On another occasion we were talking about Archbishop
Benson, and the General said : " Has he not a son who has
written a book ? What is it about ? "
The question rather startled me. One did not expect him
to know the latest item of Society gossip. I answered : "You
mean 'Dodo.'"
"What is 'Dodo'?" said the General.
"A caricature of Mrs. Asquith when a girl," I replied
rather carelessly, as of someone whose orbit was entirely
outside of ours. I did not dream in those days, which now
seem to belong to another era, that the author of "Dodo"

190 Chapters from My Life
would ever be a member of one of the Boards of Directors
of which I was chairman. Nor did I foresee that the subject
of this novel would become one of my best and most loyal
friends. I saw Mrs. Asquith a great deal both in Switzerland and
in London. She is a woman of deep feeling, a mother whose
passionate devotion to her children is obvious, even to
complete strangers. There are many ways of becoming
famous, but perhaps one of the least desirable is to do what
Mr. Benson did. Mrs. Asquith's friends disliked, and her
enemies delighted in, "Dodo." She told me that the author
went to see her in Grosvenor Square and began to apologise.
She instantly stopped him, saying : "No one can think your
heroine is meant for me ! I am not beautiful, and I do not
hunt in summer."
When I told the General that "Dodo" was meant to be
Mrs. Asquith, he said : "Mrs. Asquith ; oh ! I know her very
well." "How do you know her?" I said.
"It was in this way," said the General. "I was going
to the West of England, and had a reserved compartment.
The railway companies are very good to me as I give them
so much traffic. Just as the train was starting, in jumped
Mrs. Asquith booted and spurred for the hunt. Before we
got to Swindon we had a wonderful talk, and we knelt and
prayed together.
"Mrs. Asquith invited me to lunch. I sat on her right
and some noble lord on my right. I do not know who he
was, but he tried to tease me. I looked over at Mr. Asquith,
and I said to myself : ' You are the Home Secretary. I do
not wish to annoy you at your own table. I must keep my
temper for the sake of my poor people who may some day
want your help.' At last I could stand it no longer, and I
turned angrily on the gentleman and said : ' You cannot
serve God and Mammon.' Mrs. Asquith took a cigarette
from between her lips and said : ' I can.' "
Many years after I told Mrs. Asquith this story as the

Reunion Campaign in America 191
General had told it to me, and she confirmed it and added :
"Well, Sir Henry, I do try."
My association with General Booth would have been
more interesting and intimate if Percy Bunting had carried
earlier into effect an idea which he suggested to me one day
during my collaboration with Stead in our weekly letter.
Bunting said to me as I was going one day to Stead's office :
"I have a suggestion to make for some work which I think
you will like. General Booth is intending to publish a book
on social development in the Salvation Army, and he wants
someone to write it for him. I think you could do it. You
had better go and see him about it."
I went to Mowbray House, and after we had finished our
weekly letter Stead said to me : "Where are you going?"
"I replied: "To Queen Victoria Street to see General
Booth about some book that Bunting thinks I might write
concerning developments in the Salvation Army."
"You need not trouble about that," Stead replied. "Those
proofs on the table are part of the book which I am writing."
Only Stead could have written "Darkest England and
the Way Out," but it was of great interest to me to watch
this book develop and hear from Stead the inner history of
that eventful change in the record of this remarkable move
ment which turned a purely evangelistic order into a great
organisation for attempting the solution of the many.different
problems which surround the uplifting of the "Submerged
Tenth." The scheme of humanitarian reform which
ultimately came into being was partly the product of
the Booth genius, but was largely shaped and moulded by
the equally remarkable gifts of my journalistic colleague and
friend. General Booth's interesting personality has tempted me
into a rather long digression from the story of my
experiences in America.
I was fortunate in having in New York a great friend and
ally in Dr. Albert Shaw, editor of the American Review of

192 Chapters from My Life
Reviews. Dr. Albert Shaw's career provides yet another
remarkable proof of W. T. Stead's uncanny insight into
character. It was Stead who first predicted Mr. Balfour's
coming greatness. Stead was one of the first to assert that
great Imperial ideals lay underneath all Cecil Rhodes'
commercial enterprises. I might give many other illustrations
of his gift for seeing the latent capabilities of men with whom
he came into touch. His choice of Dr. Albert Shaw was a
case in point.
Dr. Shaw came over to England to' study municipal
questions about the year 1890 when Stead was starting the
Review of Reviews. Percy Bunting was editing the Con
temporary Review, and Dr. Shaw as a contributor was invited
to No. 11, Endsleigh Gardens, Percy Bunting's house, and
the centre of our little colony. Stead was passionately
anxious for a union of the Anglo-Saxon people, and to
further his propaganda he decided that there should be
American and Australian editions of the Review of Reviews.
Those who found institutions often discover that their own
creations take different lines from that which they intended.
Dr. Albert Shaw edited the Review with a striking origin
ality, differing on many points of politics from his colleague
across the Atlantic. The Review quickly obtained a position
of influence in America, more like that of the Times in
England, as far as a monthly and a daily can be compared;
than that of any ordinary monthly magazine. This may
seem a strange comparison, but in America each of the great
cities has its own journals — New York, Boston, Philadelphia,
Washington, San Francisco, etc. — and there is no one
supreme paper. It is possible, however, for a great national
review in no small degree to represent the whole life Of the
Republic. In the case of the American Review of Reviews
the review of monthly articles has become quite subsidiary,
and month by month Dr. Albert Shaw deals with great
clearness and power with the political situation, both
domestic and international.
On hearing of my intended visit, Dr. Shaw asked

Reunion Campaign in America 193
Archdeacon Farrar, then my co-editor, to write a sketch
for the American Review of Reviews which would introduce
me to the American people. "I gladly accede," wrote the
Archdeacon, "to the request of the American Review of
Reviews to say a few words with reference to Dr. Lunn's
visit." He wrote in altogether too friendly terms of me, and
concluded his article by referring to the welcome that he
kindly anticipated for me in America by saying : " Dr. Lunn
for his part will, I doubt not, carry back with him from
America the same feeling of life-long gratitude for the
spontaneity and warmth of American friendship and
hospitality which is cherished as a life-long treasure by
myself and so many Englishmen who have had the good
fortune to visit the United States." This was amply fulfilled.
Invitations reached me from all quarters to speak and
lecture on the Grindelwald Conference and its effect on
English religious life. As I paid my own expenses and
my wife's and accepted no fees for lecturing, I had the
opportunity of choosing centres of the greatest influence. I
lectured at Harvard University, Brown University, Andover
Theological College, and other universities and colleges,
and addressed large gatherings of the clergy of different
communions in New York, Boston, Toronto, Chicago,
Washington, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
Immediately on my arrival in New York I was invited
by the editor-in-chief of the Outlook, Dr. Lyman Abbott, of
whose editorial staff President Roosevelt has been a member
since his term as President, to meet a number of the editors
of religious papers at a lunch. Dr. Lyman Abbott asked
me on the following Sunday to occupy his pulpit in the
historic Plymouth Church at Brooklyn where Henry Ward
Beecher for so many years influenced the religious and
political life of America. It was no small honour to be
permitted to speak in such a church, introduced by one of
the great religious leaders of the day, Dr. Lyman Abbott,
himself a family connection of Henry Ward Beecher.
N

194 Chapters from My Life
The following day I met two hundred ministers of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, which is so powerful an
influence in the religious life of America. At this meeting,
and at all the other meetings which I attended, the keenest
interest was taken in the movement for Christian unity,
represented by the Grindelwald Conference and the Free
Church Cpngresses which were then beginning but had not
yet crystallised into the National Free Church Council.
There is a very keen rivalry between the different cities
of America which recalls the old rivalry between the cities
of ancient Greece. Whilst New York is the commercial
capital, Boston claims to be the intellectual capital of the
United States. A story is told in this connection of a
Boston ian. The conversation turned at a dinner party on
the question of the bombardment of Boston from the sea,
and he remarked: "Sir, you cannot bombard Boston.
Boston is not a place. Boston is an attitude of the mind."
An interesting incident in my visit to Boston was a
meeting of the Twentieth Century Club where I spoke on
the Grindelwald Reunion Conference. The club contained
a considerable number of Unitarians, and there was some
anxiety on the part of my sponsors as to how they would
regard a conference for Christian unity of which Unitarians
were not members. Boston has always been a stronghold
of Unitarianism. I have always found in this as in most
other matters that the shortest way is the simplest, so when
I was asked what was the relation of the Conference to
Unitarians I answered frankly that the Conferences were for
those who accepted the deity of our Lord. The Christian
Church was built upon this truth as its foundation, and
whilst we excluded from our gatherings none who really
wished to come, Unitarians did not express any wish to
join in the gatherings of which this was the avowed basis.
None of the Unitarians present appeared to resent my reply..
A great blizzard raged during our short visit to Toronto,
but after a journey delayed for nearly a day and a half by
the storm we were welcomed at Chicago with great enthusiasm

Reunion Campaign in America 195
by Dr. Barrows, President of the World's Parliament of
Religion. Instead of arriving there at midday on Saturday
we arrived late on Sunday evening, just in time for me to
go straight to Dr. Barrows' church, the leading Presbyterian
church of Chicago, and give an address on "Indian
Religions " in reply to VTvikenanda Swami, who had been
lecturing on Hinduism all over America to large audiences.
On the following day I had a unique experience. The
Americans are wonderful listeners, and a large company of
some four hundred ministers of all communions gathered in
the Methodist auditorium for my address on Grindelwald.
After my address the Rev. R. A. White, as reported in the
Inter-Ocean of the 12th January, rose and said : "I desire to
ask Dr. Lunn whether this attempt at unity in the city of
Chicago will embrace any wing of the Christian Church
not called evangelicals, namely, Liberals, Unitarians,
Universalists, and such other heretics of the city ? " I
replied that I myself had profound admiration for the
religious genius and devotion of Dr. James Martineau and
other representative Unitarians, but at the same time I did
not see'my way to any scheme of ecclesiastical unity for
Christians which shall include those denominations that do
not accept the deity of our Lord.
At each of these gatherings of ministers resolutions had
been carried that the approaching Whitsunday should be
observed as a day of special prayer for unity, and when this
resolution had been carried with acclamation an incident
occurred which I cannot imagine happening anywhere else
but in America. An enthusiastic member of the gathering
jumped up and said: "Mr. President, Dr. Lunn is leaving
this afternoon for Washington. Some of us have read a
short account of his address on Indian Religions last night.
We shall never all meet again, and I move that Dr. Lunn
be asked to give us that lecture now." This was carried,
and I had to continue speaking to them another hour.
Dr. Barrows, who died some years since, was a typical
American of great enthusiasm and organising power, At

196 Chapters from My Life
the time of the World's Congress in Chicago he gathered
together the most extraordinary collection of men of all
creeds, Christians, Roman Catholics, Greek Church, Pro
testant and other communions, Mohammedans, Buddhists,
Brahmins and Parsees, and this great assembly all joined
together at the opening of the Congress in reciting the Lord's
Prayer— one of the most remarkable incidents in the history
of the world's religious life.
The Americans have an admirable custom of allowing
their ministers to take a long rest to give them opportunities
for equipping themselves more thoroughly for their work.
Dr. Barrows was given a year's leave in order that he
might go to Gottingen University and study German theology
on the spot.
Chicago itself has been so often described by my friend
W. T. Stead, amongst others, that I will not say anything
except that it is a city with boundless possibilities. It is
one of the greatest railway centres in the world, and its rail
ways are supplemented by the mercantile navy of the Great
Lakes, the largest fresh-water seas on the face of the planet.
The Chicago people have their own intense local patriotism
which will some day triumph over those municipal evils and
the appalling condition of some of the city's working classes
which Stead so graphically described.
The political capital of America — Washington— is a city
of great beauty, a worthy capital of this great Republic.
It happened that Dr. Milburn, the blind chaplain of the
Senate in Washington, had been a guest at my father's house
in England when I was a boy, and he welcomed me with
great cordiality and introduced me to President Cleveland,
who was at that time at the White House. He then took
me to the opening of a sitting of the Senate.
English and American customs differ in many respects.
Although there is no established church the apparently
impossible happens : religion is recognised daily by prayers
at the opening of the Senate's proceedings, and a Methodist
minister was then the appointed chaplain of the Upper

Reunion Campaign in America 197
House. No set form of prayer is used, but every day the
chaplain offers up an extempore prayer. When I was
introduced to the Vice-President, who acted as President of
the Senate, he asked me to take this opening prayer.
Everything about this incident was characteristically
American. He said: "Now, sir, when I strike the table
with this ivory mallet you will pray one minute — no more."
In Washington, Philadelphia and Baltimore large
meetings of ministers of all communions unanimously
resolved to carry out the Grindelwald suggestion of special
prayer for unity on Whitsunday, and welcomed with
enthusiasm the movement for the Federation of the Churches
inaugurated at Grindelwald.
It is much the fashion in England amongst all com
munions to discount the immense number of members
connected with the churches in America and the strength
of the great religious movements in that country. I think
this is wrong. America is young and animated by amazing
energy. The men who have gone over as emigrants from
Europe have been largely those whose energies led them to
emigrate. In some cases they have been the waifs and
strays, the flotsam and jetsam of the older continent, but the
men of the Mayflower were not the only heroes who were
driven out of Europe to the new country. It would be too
much to say that it is the land of the children of heroes, but
it is not too much to say that a great deal of the best blood
of both the Teutonic and Latin races has crossed the Atlantic.
If the problems of wealth, luxury and corruption in the
national and state legislatures and the municipalities that
confront the churches of America assume greater magnitude
than in our own country, we have no such unblemished record
that we can afford to throw stones. Political corruption in
modern nations has never been worse than when Walpole
declared that every man in a political group opposed to him
had his price, or when Pitt purchased the Act of Union by
methods that have brought down upon his conduct, great

198 Chapters from My Life
man as he was, the censure of impartial historians like Lecky
and others.
To-day it is a commonplace in all political circles that
men of wealth in Great Britain can buy — not, as men buy
in America, a seat in the Senate for four years, but — a seat
in the greatest legislative body in the world for themselves
and their descendants. It would be easy to name men who
have openly boasted of the sums they have paid within the
last few years to party funds to attain such positions.
Therefore no good end would be served by my reciting
certain incidents that happened as I travelled round America.
Charles Dickens, in his description of the adventures of
Mark Tapley and Martin Chuzzlewit, gave an account of
one small side of American life which is no more represen
tative of America than the incidents in a gold rush in
Australia are of the real life of our colonies. W. T. Stead's
description of Chicago was bitterly resented by the best
Americans, not because it was untrue, but because it gave
outsiders a wrong impression of the relation of such evils
to American national life. It is so easy for people to talk
about Chicago as being " Hell with the lid off," but there is
a Chicago just as near heaven as the other side is near hell.
As one of the most thoughtful of Chicago ministers put
it to me on my visit: "Mr. Stead succeeded in learning all
about the dark side of Chicago life, and learned it with a
considerable amount of accuracy, but at the same time he
did not learn all he ought to have learned about the forces
that are working for purity, justice and truth in our midst.
I could in half an hour give you such a picture of the
religious and philanthropic activities of Chicago as would
enthuse you as thoroughly as Mr. Stead's account must have
depressed you."
I found a strong consensus of opinion in favour of
reunion between the different branches of the several great
denominations. This was particularly strong in the case of
Methodism, which is separated into two great churches, the
North and the South. The separation occurred in con-

Reunion Campaign in America 199
sequence of the difference of opinion which existed at the
time of the Civil War on the question of slavery. That
question is now dead and buried, and all seemed agreed
that it is deplorable to the last degree that in hundreds of
cities, towns and villages Methodism should have two rival
organisations separated from one another by no single living
point of difference. The loss of power which ensues has
not even that slight justification of the minute differences in
ecclesiastical polity which separate the English Methodist
churches. The example of the recently united Canadian
Methodism is so near at hand and so striking that the strong
feeling in favour of Methodist Reunion is less to be wondered
at than the fact that this feeling has not yet triumphed over
the divisions which resulted from the War of Secession.
There is, however, one advantage resulting from the
present divisions in American Methodism. As one of the
most thoughtful clergymen I met during this tour — an
Episcopalian — remarked to me : " Methodism is so powerful
in the States, so numerous, so wealthy, and exerts such a
great political influence, that she is in danger of becoming
self-centred and self-satisfied; so fully content with the
splendid work she is doing as to be altogether indifferent
to the value of closer relations with other denominations.
Hence you will find more sympathy with the views expressed
at Grindelwald amongst almost all the other denominations
than amongst the Methodists." To a very great extent my
limited experience goes to support this statement, and if
Methodists were all united in one body the danger of being
content with their own position would be increased.
On the other hand, the position of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in relation to the other churches was of
such a character as to afford much more hope for unity than
in this country. This church is, in proportion to its numbers,
very wealthy, and has a considerable prestige due to its
relation with the powerful Anglican Church. At the same
time, as its communicants are only about one-seventh as
numerous as the Methodists and only about one-twenty-fifth

200 Chapters from My Life
of all the Protestants in the United States, it is impossible
for its Bishops and clergy to adopt that non possumus
attitude which Pope Leo and Cardinal Vaughan adopt
towards the Anglicans, and which the Anglicans in this
country in turn adopt towards other Protestant churches.
I was greatly interested by the astonishment expressed
by two leading New York Episcopal clergymen when I told
them — as illustrative of the territorial claims of the Anglican
clergy — of the incident that happened when first the Arch
bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and other
dignitaries consented to come to the Polytechnic and address
the Sunday afternoon Bible-class. They were promptly
prohibited from so doing by the vicar of the parish, Mr.
Hay Chapman, and it needed considerable Archiepiscopal
and Episcopal pressure to induce this vicar to withdraw his
veto and permit his ecclesiastical superiors to speak from our
inter-denominational platform. These American clergymen
both agreed that such an assertion of claim to territorial
power was unthinkable in the United States. At the same
time there was a very strong ecclesiastical spirit among the
bench of Bishops which manifested itself in their unanimous
declaration in 1894 in the columns of the Independent against
any exchange of pulpits, and this ecclesiastical spirit speedily
infects any new addition to the bench.
With surprising unanimity the Bishops — who had been
appealed to by Dr. Lewis Carroll, editor of the Independent,
to express their opinion on the repeal of the canon of
Church Law, by which the clergy of the "Protestant
Episcopal Church" in America were at that time prevented
from occupying non-Episcopal pulpits and from admitting
non-Episcopal clergymen into their own pulpits — had
declared against repeal. As I shall point out immediately,
since my visit the canon has been modified.
To give honour, however, to whom honour is due, it
must not be forgotten that the American bench of Bishops
first formulated at Chicago the famous basis of reunion,
now known, with some modifications, as "The Lambeth

Reunion Campaign in America 201
Quadrilateral." This fourfold basis — the Holy Scriptures,
the Apostles' and the Nicene Creed, the two Sacraments,
and the Historic Episcopate — locally adapted, represented
a minimum of requirement which, it must be acknowledged,
is considerably less than that which would have been
demanded by the ordinary English layman or clergyman of
that Church.
It would be difficult for me to over-estimate the sympathy
with which the story of Grindelwald was received in America.
The point in the development of the Free Church movement
in England which appealed most to American audiences was,
I was surprised to find, the endeavour made to prevent the
evil of overlapping. In England we have generally been
under the impression that these evils were due to old
divisions which had left their legacy behind them. I found
that the evils were just as great in new American towns.
Far away in the West a new town springs up, with a
population of a thousand, and one church would answer all
the purposes of that population. But, unfortunately, amongst
the thousand are to be found perhaps a pronounced
Methodist, a pronounced Presbyterian, a pronounced
Episcopalian, and a pronounced Baptist, each of these dear
brethren insisting on working his own denominational
church. The result is that rivalries spring up, the work of
God is impeded, and there is a waste of effort which, in view
of the great needs of the population, is deplorable to the
last degree. Efforts were being made in some parts of the
country, by means of the inter-denominational councils, to
arrest these rivalries, and very great interest was manifested
in English attempts to achieve the same end.
Looking back upon my American journey, I felt that the
problems which confronted church life in this country in con
sequence of the divisions of Christendom, save and except in
so far as those problems are influenced by the question of
Church establishment, tend to reproduce themselves across
the Atlantic. At the same time I returned greatly encouraged

202 Chapters from My Life
to believe that the movement in favour of closer unity amongst
those who follow a common Master and own a common faith
is one which is destined in the not far distant future to work
marvellous changes in church organisation.
Since the foregoing pages were written a great movement
had been initiated in America by the Protestant Episcopal
Church. This movement is receiving the, support of other
communions in the United States on a large scale. The
object of it is to prepare for a world conference on Faith
and Order with the intention of promoting reunion. Further
reference is made in the last chapter of this volume to
what has already been accomplished as the result of these
proposals. Another striking fact, which only came to my knowledge
in May, 1918, is that the Protestant Episcopal Church of
America introduced into one of their canons about four years
ago a clause permitting ministers of other churches to give
addresses in their churches on special occasions, and this is
now in active operation. A notable illustration of the work
ing of this canon is the fact that two years ago the Rev. Dr.
Jowett, now minister of the Westminster Congregational
Chapel, conducted the Three Hours' Service on Good Friday
in St. James's Episcopal Church, New York.
The decision of the Protestant Episcopal Church to modify
this canon is one of those instances by which America, almost
unconscious of her own power to affect history, makes
important contributions to the solution of the problems of
European civilisation. American Bishops live in an atmo
sphere which is inconceivable to an Englishman. Bishop
Potter, of New York, once said to me, "When I am in Eng
land people call me ' My Lord,' but when I land on New
York pier any casual acquaintance comes up and claps me on
the back and says, ' Hello, Bish ! How are you ? ' " There
are no Nonconformists or Dissenters in America because there
is no ecclesiastical norm to which they can conform, and no
legal orthodoxy from which they can dissent, and, because
there is no ancient establishment, those who are by nature

Reunion Campaign in America 203
ecclesiastical snobs have no false gods of this kind to
worship. The growing weight in the Anglican communion of the
Pan-Anglican Synods gives increasing importance to these
facts. The Bishops of a great country whose history has
solved many of our insular problems are inevitably a strong
force for reform in a gathering which a hundred years ago
would have consisted mainly of spiritual Peers of Parliament.
In almost all questions the American Bishops find their
brethren from the British colonies in close sympathy with
them. Whilst slow to take any action that affects England
and is contrary to the opinion of the English Bishops, the
American Bishops cannot avoid greatly influencing the
opinion and action of the English Episcopate by such deci
sions as I have recorded.
These facts give a new meaning to the words of Canning
quoted at the beginning of this chapter.
Since this chapter was written, through the courtesy of
the Bishop of New York and other representative members
of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America I am able
to append the following definite statements with reference to
the extent to which interchange of pulpits can now take place.
(1) Letter from the Bishop of New York.
"June 6th, 1918.
"Dear Sir Henry, — In reply to your letter of the 14th
ult. making enquiry about an exchange of pulpits between
clergymen of the Episcopal Church and Ministers of other
denominations, I beg to say that such an exchange of pulpits
is not the rule of the Episcopal Church in this country, with
this possible exception, that the Bishop can give ' permission
to Christian men who are not Ministers of this Church to
make addresses in the Church on special occasions.' That,
however, is not an opening of the door ; it is simply a little
crack, and I hope that the crack may widen out so that
before a great while the door may be opened wide. This,
I believe, will come and is bound to come, as the result of

204 Chapters from My Life
the tragic experiences through which both the Church and
the world are passing at the present time. — Believe me, Very
sincerely yours, "(Signed) David H. Greer,
"Bishop of New York."
(2) Letter from the Bishop of Washington, D.C.,
"June 14th, 1918.
"My dear Sir Henry, — Your esteemed favour of
May 14th duly received, and I have read with great interest
what you tell me of the formation of a Joint Committee for
the promotion of closer relations between the Church of
England and the Wesleyan Methodist Church.
"Before proceeding to answer your question, may I be
permitted to express the earnest hope that this Committee
may be so blessed and guided by the Holy Spirit as to be
able to set forward the great object for which it has been
formed. "The views of Bishop Doane published some years ago,
to which you refer, stated the situation correctly at that time.
However, at the General Convention held in 1907, the fol
lowing addition was made to a Canon entitled ' Of Persons
not Ministers in this Church officiating in any Congregation
thereof ' :
" ' Provided that nothing herein shall be construed
as to forbid communicants of the Church to act as Lay
Readers; or to prevent the Bishop of any Diocese or
Missionary District from giving permission to Christian
men who are not Ministers of this Church, to make
addresses in the Church, on special occasions.'
"This is not, you will see, quite what is understood by
the phrase ' Exchange of pulpits.' It has resulted, however,
in many invitations being extended to Ministers of other
religious bodies, with the approval of the Bishop of the
diocese, to speak in the pulpits of the Episcopal Church.
"At the National Cathedral now being built in Wash-

Reunion Campaign in America 205
ington, we have made some such invitations for preaching
at our Open Air service held every Sunday afternoon on the
Cathedral Close. At present we have only a Chapel of the
Cathedral built, but when we get an Auditorium it will be
our hope to have prominent Ministers of Evangelical
Churches speak in the Cathedral pulpit from time to time on
special occasions. In other words, we are hoping that the
Cathedral may thus fulfil one of the great purposes of its
creation, the promotion of Christian Unity. In the mean
time, there is a fine spirit of co-operation between the various
religious bodies in our country in promoting objects of
common interest — a spirit enlarged and accentuated by the
conditions of this war-time.
"My personal relations with the honoured resident Bishop
of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington are most
cordial, as they were with his predecessor.
"We must, I think, in the approach to Christian Unity,
supplement our prayers by practical effort to know and under
stand each other, and by working together in all ways that
do not require the compromise of fundamental principles.
At this juncture, my judgment is that the plan adopted by
this Church of honouring men with special invitations to
speak on special occasions is more desirable and helpful than
a free interchange of pulpits. Quite recently the Bishop of
Pennsylvania preached in a Presbyterian church in Phila
delphia, at the request of the Pastor, on a special subject — I
think on Christian Unity — and, I am sure, felt it an honour
and privilege so to do. — Very sincerely yours,
"(Signed) Alfred Harding,
"Bishop of Washington."
(3) The Rev. Dr. F. C. Morehouse, editor of The Living
Church, the leading organ of the Protestant Episcopal
Church of America, writes in a letter dated June 4th, 1918, to
say that the impression that the exchange of pulpits is freely
practised is not correct, and goes on to explain its origin in
these terms :

206 Chapters from My Life
"The General Convention of 1907 added to Canon 20, as
now numbered, the words underlined in the following
quotation ; all prior to what is underlined being, the form of
the Canon as existing prior to that date : —
" ' No minister in charge of any Congregation of this
Church, or in case of vacancy or absence, no Church
wardens, Vestrymen, or Trustees of the Congregation, shall
permit any person to officiate therein, without sufficient
evidence of his being duly licensed or ordained to minister in
this Church, provided that nothing herein shall be so con
strued as to forbid communicants of the Church to act as Lay
Readers; or to prevent the Bishop of any Diocese or Mis
sionary District from giving permission to Christian men,
who are not ministers of this Church, to make addresses in
the Church on special occasions.'
"There were a number at that time who interpreted the
new legislation in such wise as to admit the preaching of
sermons by ministers of other communions, and to some
extent that practice began. At once a widespread memorial
to the House of Bishops was circulated for signature pro
testing against such an interpretation and asking the House
of Bishops to state officially whether the new practice was or
was not justified by the new legislation. As a result of that
memorial, the House of Bishops adopted an interpretation as
follows :
" ' The Committee appointed to consider what reply should
be made to the Memorial presented to the House of Bishops
concerning, Canon 19, having considered the matter, respect
fully recommend the adoption by the House of the following
reply :
" ' " In reply to a Memorial signed by over eleven hundred
clergymen, addressed to the House of Bishops, with regard
to the amendment to Canon 19 adopted by the General Con
vention of 1907, the Bishops would assure the Memorialists
of their sympathy with the anxiety expressed lest the clause
in question should be misinterpreted as making light of either
the importance of sound teaching in our congregations, in

Reunion Campaign in America 207
accordance with the Church's received doctrine, or of a
commission to teach in the Church's name.
"' "The clause, which restricts to the Bishop the right to
give permission to those who are not Ministers of this
Church to make addresses in any of our churches on special
occasions, was not intended to alter and cannot be fairly
interpreted as in the least degree modifying the position of
the Church as expressed in the Prayer Book and Ordinal,
which restricts the ministry of the Word and Sacrament in
our Congregations to men who have received Episcopal
ordination." " ' The Bishops are disposed to regard this declaration as
almost unnecessary, except as a matter of courtesy and respect
to the number and character of the Memorialists; since the
Canon, at first popularly misnamed and misunderstood as an
Open Canon, and perhaps in a few instances misused, is
now generally recognised as containing nothing to disturb
the order or disquiet the peace of the Church.' "
From Bishop W. F. McDowell, of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. "22nd June, 1918.
"My dear Sir Henry, — Immediately upon receipt of your
favour of May 14th, I submitted it to Bishop Harding of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, the Bishop of the Diocese of
Washington, in order that the answer might be officially
correct. He sends me a copy of a letter which he has written
to you, to which I hardly need to add anything, except to say
that there is virtually no exchange of pulpits between the
Protestant Episcopal clergy and the other clergy of the
United States such as exists between ministers of other
denominations. For instance, a Presbyterian pastor and a
Methodist pastor may exchange pulpits on the basis of
absolute equality and entirely on their own initiatiye and
arrangements. Neither of them has to get the permission of
any other person. Each goes to the church of the other and
conducts the regular service as though he were the pastor of

208 Chapters from My Life
the church. You will observe in the canon quoted by Bishop
Harding that this permission is not even provided in the
Protestant Episcopal Church. A Bishop may give permis
sion to Christian men, who are not ministers of this Church,
to make addresses in the church on special occasions. That
is a very different matter. Between the clergy of other
churches there are no such limitations as are involved in the
words of this canon. Carefully observe the great caution
involved in these terms, 'permission to Christian men,' not
permission to Christian ministers of other churches, but
permission to Christian men who are not ministers of this
Church. You see the difference. Observe this also, ' to make
addresses in the Church,' which is clearly intended to dis
tinguish the service that such a man may render from the
sacred office of preaching in the church by a minister standing
on an ecclesiastical level with the rector of the church.
Observe also 'on special occasions.' Ministers of other
denominations exchange as ministers for regular services.
"Of course I do not need to tell you that the personal
spirit and attitude of the ministers of the Protestant Episcopal
Church is not uniform. Some of their men are very generous
and liberal in their spirit, as I think Bishop Harding is. We
maintain the most beautiful personal relations with many of
them, but there is a fundamental ecclesiastical difference. The
Protestant Episcopal Church, upon the whole and officially,
regards its orders as it does not regard ours.
"This really is part of the difficulty attending all our
negotiations for Christian Union. There is a great deal of
good spirit in existence among us, but those of us who are
not in the Protestant Episcopal Church feel and are con
stantly made to feel that those who are in that Church regard
their ministry as having a sanction not possessed by ours.
Take, for example, the difference between the episcopacy of
the Protestant Episcopal Church and of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. In the Methodist Episcopal Church we
regard the episcopacy not as a separate order but as an office
held by an elder.

Reunion Campaign in America 209
"I trust you may work out in your own country some
adjustment that may guide us in this. That there is need of
such guidance is perfectly manifest.
"Will you allow me to take advantage of the fact that I
am writing you on this subject to express to you our deepen
ing interest in co-operation with Great Britain ? It will be
worth a good deal to the world if these two countries, which
ought to be such friends, and theoretically are such friends,
should actually be united in a real vital affection and friend
ship one for another. — With very best personal regards, I am,
dear Sir Henry, sincerely yours,
"(Signed) William Fraser McDowell."

CHAPTER XV
MY VISIT TO THE VATICAN (1895)
Pope's Encyclical Ad Anglos — Dean Fremantle suggests Reply by
Grindelwald Conference— Text of the Reply — Letter from
Cardinal Rampolla — My Visit to Rome — Interview with Mon-
signor Merry del Val — Conversation with Father Whitmee —
Roman View of Reunion — Social Intercourse with Roman
Dignitaries.
Ecclesia principalis unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est. — Cyprian.
The apostles founded churches in the revived cities, from which the
churches borrowed the layers and seeds of faith and doctrine, and still
constantly borrow and thus become churches. — Teetullian.
THE first three years of the Conferences had arrested the
attention of all the leaders of Christianity in Great Britain.
The Archbishop of Canterbury and other Bishops of the
Church of England, the Presidents and Chairmen of the
different Free Churches, and General Booth, had all dealt
with the matter in special addresses to their people. In
1895 Pope Leo XIII. issued his important encyclical Ad
Anglos dealing with the question of reunion. The Arch
bishop of Canterbury and his brother prelate of York dealt
at length with this notable communication from the Vatican.
It was therefore inevitable that the Grindelwald Con
ference — the existence of which undoubtedly had been one
of the factors leading to this Encyclical — should carefully
consider the document. It was felt by Dean Fremantle,
after a conversation with the Marquess of Ripon, that it was
incumbent upon the Conference to make some reply to the
Pope. He pointed out that there was no corporate organi
sation in England which had so legitimate a right to reply
to the Pope as this absolutely unofficial, and yet, in a sense,
210

My Visit to the Vatican 211
thoroughly representative gathering, which had now met for
four years in Switzerland.
An influential committee, which included the Dean of
Ripon ; the Archdeacon of Manchester ; the ex-Moderators of
the Presbyterian Churches; the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes,
the then President; and the Rev. Dr. Charles A. Berry, the
ex-President of the Free Church Congress; Dr. Henry J.
Pope, ex-President of the Wesleyan Methodist Church;
and others, drew up the following reply to the Pope's
Encyclical :
"Reply of the Reunion Conference at Grindelwald
to the Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII.
" To the English People.
"Sincere greetings and goodwill in our common Lord.
As a company of English Christians met together to further
the sacred cause of the Reunion of Christendom, we desire to
acknowledge the Christian courtesy and devout aspiration of
your Holiness's letter.
"While we cannot forget the teaching of history that
existing divisions arose in defence of vital elements of Apos
tolic Christianity and scriptural truth, we lament the present
divided state of Christendom, and with your Holiness con
tinually pray for the visible unity of the Catholic and
Apostolic Church.
"We acknowledge with gratitude to Almighty God the
existence of a real spiritual unity underlying our differences,
and manifesting itself not only in common service rendered to
mankind, but in the prayer and praise of a common Christian
life, in the numerous signs of a common Christian experience,
and in the signal blessing which the God of all grace has
bestowed on every fragment of the divided Catholic Church.
"We are persuaded that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is the only possible centre of Christian unity, and that the
indwelling spirit of the Father and of the Son in every
Christian heart not only constitutes a spiritual unity which
man can neither create nor destroy, but furnishes the condi-

212 Chapters from My Life
tions of that manifested unity for which our Blessed Lord
prayed. "We believe that unity must be attained, not by the ab
sorption of Christians in any one communion of the divided
Catholic Church, but by such a union as will conserve all the
elements of Christian truth and practice which, in the provi
dence of God, the various Christian communions have
severally exhibited and defended.
"We gladly and affectionately join in your appeal for
united and continuous prayer to the Triune God, that in His
great power and mercy He would overrule all things to the
end that the visible unity of His Church may at length be
fully manifested according to His purpose.
"And, lastly, we implore the Father of all mercies that He
would in His infinite compassion increase in us the spirit of
brotherly love for our fellow Christians which breathes
through the letter addressed by your Holiness to the English
people." Episcopalian.
F. W. Farrar, Dean of Canterbury and Chaplain
to the Queen.
W. H. Fremantle, Dean of Ripon.
Francis Pigou, Dean of Bristol.
James H. Wilson, Archdeacon of Manchester.
Presbyterian.
J. Monro Gibson, Ex-Moderator of the Presby
terian Church of England.
Thomas M. Lindsay, Professor of Ecclesiastical
History, Free Church of Scotland College,
Glasgow. Congregationalism
Charles A. Berry, Ex-President of the Free
Church Congress.
Alex. Mackennal, Secretary of the Free Church
Congress.
William T. Stead, Editor of The Review of
Reviews.
Urijah R. Thomas, Chairman of the Congrega
tional Union.

My Visit to the Vatican 213
Baptist.
J. Hunt Cooke, Editor of the Baptist Freeman.
J. G. Greenhough, President of the Baptist
Union.
Richard Glover, Ex-President of the Baptist
Union.
Charles Williams, Ex-President of the Baptist
Union. Methodist.
Percy William Bunting, Editor of the Con
temporary Review.
H. Price Hughes, President of the Free Church
Congress.
Henry J. Pope, Ex-President of the Wesleyan
Methodist Conference.
Henry S. Lunn, President of the Grindelwald
Conference.
On October 8th I received the following letter from
Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State at the Vatican :
"Dear Sir, — I received your valued communication dated
September 28th, and from it I notice the office which has been
entrusted to you by the Grindelwald Conference. I am there
fore pleased to hope that the discharge of that office will
procure me the pleasure of making your personal acquaint
ance, and cherish the hope that your desire of being received
in audience by the Holy Father will be complied with, though
I assume that you are acquainted with the customs and tradi
tions of the Pontifical Court, in accordance with which, in
granting audiences with His Holiness, it is usual to com
municate the matter contained in any address which it is
desired to submit to His Holiness.
" Meanwhile I avail myself of this opportunity of express
ing my greatest esteem. «M Card> Rampolla."
As a result of this letter I went to the Vatican on October
19th, accompanied by Count Cassell, one of the Pope's
private chamberlains, to whom I had a letter of introduc-

214 Chapters from My Life
tion, and presented the document, in the first place, to Mon-
signor Merry del Val, the domestic chamberlain of the Pope,
who has since become a Cardinal and has been Secretary of
State. I was at once impressed with the breadth and accuracy of
the information which the Vatican enjoys with reference to
Protestant life and thought in England. Monsignor Merry
del Val was perfectly conversant with the course of the dis
cussions at Grindelwald, and said to me, in a matter-of-fact
fashion which might have been adopted by an English coun
try Methodist, " I see that Mr. Hugh Price Hughes caused a
great sensation at Grindelwald this year by his proposal for a
universal board school system based on the teaching of the
Apostles' Creed; but you have hardly given as much attention
to the question of reunion as in previous sessions of your
Conference." He looked at the address, and commented at once on the
remarkable fact that Dean Farrar, who, he said, "has just
been praising Savonarola and other heretics at St.
Margaret's, Westminster," and two or three other signatories
known as pronounced Protestants should have signed any
address whatever to the Pope.
He went on to say that the document seemed rather to
mean that we must agree to differ. To this I took exception,
saying, "That is hardly so; the document means that for the
first time in history the leading representatives of the great
Protestant denominations in England, and pronounced Pro
testants in the English Church, are prepared in a courteous
and appreciative manner to reciprocate the kindly expressions
of His Holiness the Pope. They also recognise that unity is
the divine ideal ; and though they state so plainly their Pro
testant position as to show that there are now apparently
insuperable barriers to reunion with the Roman Church, and
that they do not see how these barriers are for the present
to be taken down, yet they have felt it their duty to join with
the Pope in prayer for the realisation of our Lord's purpose
concerning His Church."

My Visit to the Vatican 215
It was at that time the duty of Monsignor Merry del Val,
as one of the Pope's four domestic chaplains, to keep him
informed of all religious movements in Great Britain. For
this duty he was singularly qualified. His mother was an
Englishwoman. He had spent long periods of residence in
England, was a man of wide culture, speaking with equal
fluency English, French, Spanish, Italian and Latin, with a
considerable knowledge of German. He was a man of great
personal charm, and this talent and his other great natural
abilities were used by his Church with that skill which con
tributes so much to her power.
He at once arranged for me to have an early interview with
Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State, as a necessary
preliminary to the interview with the Pope if that were deemed
possible. On October 21st I was presented to Cardinal Rampolla by
Count Cassell. He was an ecclesiastic of a very different
type — a somewhat corpulent Sicilian — he quite lacked per
sonal attractiveness, and gave one an impression of some
thing sinister. He was greatly interested in this manifestation
of a Protestant desire for unity, but frankly stated that from
what he had heard of the contents of the document he feared
that it was too controversial to be accepted by Pope Leo.
This opinion was borne out by the event. The address
was translated by English-speaking prelates and submitted to
the Pope, and two days later Count Cassell was requested by
Cardinal Rampolla to inform me that, while the Pope would
be glad to grant me a private audience, he could not receive
me as the President of the Grindelwald Conference and as the
bearer of a document which contained so many doctrines
subversive of the principles of the Catholic Church.
I felt that it was due to the distinguished men who had
signed the address that I should not accept a private inter
view, and I returned to England.
While some extreme Protestants criticised the action of
the Grindelwald Conference in sending such an address to
the Pope, I was much interested to find that representative

216 Chapters from My Life
Protestants in Rome welcomed the address as an exposition
of Protestant principles, and were eager to secure, and suc
ceeded in securing, its publication in the Roman Liberal
daily papers.
My visit to Rome gave me a most interesting opportunity
to see more of the inner working of Catholicism than is pos
sible for most Protestants. After my interview with Cardinal
Rampolla, Count Cassell and I went to the rectory of San
Silvestro in Capite, the church of the English-speaking
Catholics in Rome. We lunched with the Rector, Father
Whitmee (himself an English convert), and two or three mem
bers of the Society of Missions, to which the Rector belonged.
The church was a favourite with the Queen of Italy, who had
a strong bias in favour of things English, and who had break
fasted with Father Whitmee a few weeks previous to our
visit. I had an interesting conversation with Father Whitmee,
who expressed the same view as all the other Catholics that
I met, namely, that Rome could not possibly modify her
position. His statement, however, of the Roman doctrine of
baptism shows how ready Rome is and always has been to
accommodate her doctrines to the necessities of any given
situation. In the early history of the Church, as Father
Whitmee himself pointed out, men were martyred before their
baptism. It was obviously necessary to make the doctrine of
baptismal regeneration harmonise with this fact. Accord
ingly, the early fathers invented the theory of what is termed
"baptism by blood." They taught that anyone suffering
martyrdom previous to baptism enjoyed all the benefits of
baptism by pouring out his blood for his faith. So also
when anyone desirous to become a Christian died in a desert,
or any other place where water was not to be had, they were
held to enjoy "baptism by desire."
As I pointed out to Father Whitmee, if it were possible
for the Roman Church to teach dogmatically a doctrine so
closely allied to that held by the Society of Friends, it might

ST. PETER'S, ROME

My Visit to the Vatican 217
easily be possible for some future Pontiff to invent the doc
trine of "ordination by desire," and thus to get over many
difficulties that now stand in the way of reunion.
On the question of Anglican Orders, I found a very
strong feeling among all these dignitaries that English
Orders could not be recognised. They all said the same thing
with mechanical consistency. "The difficulty is the question
of fact. If it could be conclusively proved that the succession
is absolutely unbroken, and that there has always been the
intention, both on the part of the ordaining Bishop and the
ordained deacon, to receive priestly functions, an intention
which certainly did not exist in the case of the great majority
of English Churchmen for about a hundred years, it would
then be impossible for us to deny the validity of Anglican
Orders. In the case of the Abyssinian Church, which was
one with which we should have been glad to disclaim any
kinship, we were obliged to acknowledge most undesirable
specimens of bishops because they had a valid succession ; and
to-day if any of the Bishops of the Nestorian Church submit
to Rome they are immediately recognised as Bishops and
wear episcopal vestments. It is therefore useless for Lord
Halifax or any other English Churchman to hope to persuade
the Pope to make concessions on this question. The Pope
himself, though he be infallible, cannot affect a matter of
fact. If it could be proved that the unbroken succession had
been maintained ' with intention ' then the whole question
would be settled."
My social intercourse with the Catholic dignitaries was
very enjoyable. I was dining one day at the Irish College as
the guest of Monsignor Kelly, and the dinner party included
Prior Glynn, of the Augustinian Order, and the ex-Prior of
the English Dominican Monastery and several other very
delightful men.
During the dinner, which I may say was an excellent one,
Prior Glynn turned to me and said, "You Protestants have
given up altogether the practice of fasting and abstinence."

218 Chapters from My Life
"Not quite so," I replied. "In the Methodist Theological
College where I was trained it was the custom never to take
meat for breakfast on Friday, and dinner was optional, being
provided for those who desired it, but a number of men would
take a round of dry bread and spend the hour in meditation
and prayer. Perhaps, Prior, you would not call that
abstinence." "Abstinence," he replied, with a twinkle in his eye, "that
was abstinence indeed ! Pbor fellows ! They needed the
guidance of the Catholic Church."
In my many conversations with members of the Roman
Church I was greatly impressed with the absolute harmony of
intellectual outlook, even on points where some divergence
might have been expected. Alike on the question of Angli
can Orders, on the various doctrinal points in which the
Church of Rome differs from the Protestant communities, and
on the many matters of ecclesiastical polity which we dis
cussed together, I found not only identity of thought but
absolute identity of expression. Whether such complete
uniformity is a gain is at least open to question.
I left Rome more profoundly convinced than ever of the
devotion of many individual members of the Roman Church
and of the spiritual unity which binds the best men in it to
the saints of all nations and all ages, but also more clearly
conscious than ever of the wide chasm which separates Rome
as an ecclesiastical organisation alike from the "Orthodox"
East and from the Protestant West.

CHAPTER XVI
THE DEATH OF HUGH PRICE HUGHES AND AFTERWARDS
A Year of Disaster — Sympathy of Friends — Hugh Price Hughes —
Lord Harcourt— Dr. Edward Lyttelton— My Last Swiss Holiday
with Hughes — His Death and Funeral Service — St. Hugh's Day
— *' Holy Boldness " — Rugby Chapel — Prayers for the Dead —
The Watchnight Service of 1903.
We learn only from those we love. — Anon.
I believe it to be a duty to observe, to pray for the faithful departed.
— John Wesley. Lord, make me one with Thine own faithful ones,
The saints who love Thee and are loved by Thee,
Till the day break and till the shadows flee.
— Christina Rossetti.
HPHERE are years of our lives which, as they pass
-¦¦ uneventfully away, leave little mark upon our memory.
Others are crowded with experiences, tragic or joyous, which
can never be forgotten. These years stand out like rocks in
the river of time, where the current has divided and rushed
rapidly by. Such a year in my life was 1902.
In 1901, after the heavy business losses which had been
the inevitable result of my public attitude in opposition to the
Boer War,' I had dissolved partnership with a wealthy man
1 During the war I was Chairman of the New Reform Club, of which
Sir Robert Reid (afterwards Earl Loreburn and Lord Chancellor) was
President, and Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Lewis Harcourt Vice-Presidents.
This Club represented that section of the Liberal party which regarded the
war as an unnecessary evil, and supported the conclusion of an early
peace. I was also a member of the National Reform Union Committee which
organised the dinner to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Lord Morley,
which was the occasion of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 's speech on
" The Methods of Barbarism." On Mafeking Day, as Mr. Lloyd George
was detained at the House of Commons, I took his place at the Exeter Hall
meeting, and moved the first resolution condemning the war. The policy
of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in restoring self-government to the
219

220 Chapters from My Life
and remained alone with my brother Holdsworth, a devoted
colleague at all times, to face a great storm. I was obliged,
through a public disaster, to add to the almost ruinous losses
of the Boer War days, further heavy losses in 1902, which
would have been easily faced with a reasonable capitalist
partner, but which, without such support, were only made
tolerable by the hard work and loyalty of my brother and the
sympathy of my friends.
On June 24th Hughes arrived by the continental boat at
Dover to read in the papers of the illness of King Edward and
the postponement of the Coronation. He left his luggage at
8, Taviton Street and came round to 5, Endsleigh Gardens,
travel-stained as he was, to know whether certain very large
shipping and other contracts of mine for the Coronation
celebrations and Naval Review could be faced without ruin.
I can see him now sitting in my office or pacing up and
down the room wiping his forehead as he asked me his
passionately anxious questions and sighed with infinite relief
when he heard that, great as were the losses my brother and
I had incurred, some thousands at least were covered by
insurance. One other friend I must refer to in this connection. Mr.
Lewis Harcourt (now Lord Harcourt) invited me a few weeks
after the King's illness to dine with his father, Sir William
Harcourt, and a few friends who had worked together through
the Boer War in those days when official Liberalism spoke
with uncertain voice. When I came into the room he wel
comed me in his own characteristically cordial way and said,
" Well, Lunn, how are you coming through all this ? "
I told him briefly what it meant to me, and he said,
" When we heard of the King's illness my wife said, ' I am
thinking of the poor King,' and I said, ' I am also
thinking of poor Lunn.'"
These were not empty words, but in the trying months
Transvaal and Orange River Colony has remedied the disastrous policy of
the Government of those days, and has given us a United Empire and
the services of General Botha and General Smuts and their fellow-country
men in the great European War.

Death of Hugh Price Hughes 221
that followed he and two or three other friends made recovery
possible. There are some acts of friendship such as his
prompt action then which go far to compensate for, as well
as to lessen, the force of those heavy blows of adversity which
had called them forth.
In the late summer Hughes and I spent our last holiday
together on the Swiss mountains. Although there had been
warnings of the danger that threatened him, yet his energy
was amazing. He was only fifty-five and seemed almost
in the prime of life. I remember one glorious day when we
walked from Grindelwald to the Great Scheidegg, and for
three hours during that walk he discussed with an ecclesias
tically-minded layman the problems of English religious life.
He spoke with a vigour that would have sufficed for an
audience of ten thousand, and yet from time to time he would
pause to express the joy he always experienced in the presence
of those great giants of the Bernese Oberland that flanked
our pathway. He had that strange gift which Blackburne and
one or two other chess-players have possessed, of dealing
with a problem with, as it were, one lobe of the brain, and
keeping the other free for another subject or problem. One
other friend of mine, Dr. Edward Lyttelton, the Head Master
of Eton, has the same gift. In those last few happy years
before the present war he used to sit for hours during the
Fourth of June cricket matches discussing all kinds of ques
tions, and then say to me, "Now I have seen every ball and
how it has been played since we have been here and you have
not seen one."
This energy of Hughes was the last outburst before the
catastrophe. On November 16th I had gone to my old home
for my father's seventieth birthday, or I should have been with
Hughes on November 17th when he went to hear his friend
and mine, Monsieur Sabatier, lecture at Sion College on St.
Francis of Assisi. As he came away from that lecture he was
stricken and never recovered consciousness.
On one of those sunny days at Grindelwald which filled

222 Chapters from My Life
the last pages of our friendship he said to me as we sat in
front of the hotel where he was staying, a few hundred feet
above the village, " I want you to preach for me on November
23rd at St. James's Hall."
On that day of perfect fellowship and communion of spirit
it would have seemed incredible if we had been told that at
that Sunday morning service on the date fixed by him for my
sermon two months later I should have been speaking to two
thousand of his friends and followers of the brave life that had
suddenly ended six days before. Yet so it was. On Sunday,
November 16th, he announced in his clear incisive tones,
" Next Sunday Dr. Lunn will preach in this hall in the morn
ing, and I shall be here at night," and the next day he passed
to his reward and left me.
" The divided half of such
A friendship as had mastered Time,
Which masters Time, indeed, and is
Eternal, separate from fears,
The all-assuming months and years
Can take no part away from this."
I have little sympathy with those who try magic methods
to penetrate the veil that shields the world of the departed
from our curious gaze, but I have never doubted the nearness
of the " Cloud of Witnesses." On that Sunday Hughes seemed
to me nearer in spirit — more intimately my friend — than ever
before. So to his friends that day and in succeeding years he
has been a presence to stimulate and encourage them to fol
low him as he followed Christ.
Years after, I found that the day he died was in the Old
English Liturgy, by strange appropriateness, St. Hugh's
Day, and the collect for the day showed how much there was
in common between him and that great Bishop, St. Hugh of
Lincoln. The collect runs thus :
"O merciful Father, Who didst endow Thy servant Hugh
with a wise and cheerful boldness, and didst teach him to

Death of Hugh Price Hughes 223
commend the discipline of holy life to kings and princes, give
us grace not only to be bold, but to have just cause for bold
ness, even the fear and love of Thyself alone."
Never man more commended Christ by a "holy boldness."
It was he who had invented the characteristic phrase,
"Christian audacity." "L' audace, encore de V audace, et
toujours de V audace," might be written across every page of
his life.
John Wesley had held that prayers for our loved ones
should not cease when they were veiled from our vision.
Thus I felt and feel about Hughes that we are still united in
prayer and purpose. I found great comfort during this
period in Matthew Arnold's poems, and particularly " Rugby
Chapel." In the days that followed, as I walked every
morning past Harrow Chapel to the station, I used silently
to repeat that inspiring negation of death and found consola
tion in the thought expressed in the lines :
" O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely has not been left vain !
Somewhere surely afar
In the sounding labour house, vast
Of being, is practised that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm ! "
And further on in the poem there were those words so
true of him :
" But thou would'st not alone
Be saved, my father, alone
Conquer and come to thy goal,
Leaving the rest in the wild.
We were weary and we
Fearful, and we in our march
Fain to drop down and to die,
Still thou turnedst and still
Beckonedst the trembler, and still
Gavest the weary thy hand.

224 Chapters from My Life
" If in the paths of the world
Stones might have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing — to us thou was still
' Cheerful and helpful and firm,
Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd ! to come,
Bringing the sheep in thy hand. ..."
And in those days, when the sorrow of separation was
keenest, I was comforted by the following prayer, given me
by a friend, which I record for those who may read this page,
to whom this terrible war has meant separation for a while
from those they love best :
" O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, in Whose embrace
all creatures live, in whatsoever world or condition they be, I-
beseech Thee for him whose name and dwelling-place and every
need Thou knowest. Lord, vouchsafe him light and rest, peace
and refreshment, joy and consolation in Paradise, in the com
panionship of saints, in the presence of Christ, in the ample folds
of Thy great love.
"Grant that his life may unfold itself in Thy sight, and find
sweet employment in the spacious fields of eternity.
"Tell him, O gracious Lord, if it may be, how much I love
him and miss him, and long to see him again; and if there be
ways in which he may come, vouchsafe him to me as a guide
and guard, and grant me a sense of his nearness in such degree
as Thy laws permit.
"If in aught I can minister to his peace, be pleased of Thy
love to let this be; and mercifully keep me from every act which
may deprive me of the sight of him as soon as our trial time
is over or mar the fullness of our joy when the end of the day
has come.
" Pardon, O gracious Lord and Father, whatever is amiss
in this my prayer, and let Thy will be done; for my will is blind

Death of Hugh Price Hughes 225
and erring, but Thine is able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we ask or think; through Jesus Christ our Lord."
It has always seemed to me a satire on the thoughtlessness
of many dear but bigoted people that forty years ago there
should have been an unreasoning hatred of anything that had
been rejected or merely disused by the Reformers out of the
rich heritage of Catholic faith and practice, and yet that so
many should have delighted in one particular passage of
Tennyson. The favourite passage in manuscript anthologies
of those days was the one from "The Passing of Arthur,"
which begins :
" More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of."
Seldom indeed did any of these mid-Victorian scribes
begin from the words immediately preceding :
" Pray for my soul."
It never occurred to them that the prayers referred to
were prayers for the dead.
The fact is that in hours of great emotion the soul grasps
truths which in the ordinary course of life may be kept out
of our reach by ecclesiastical barriers and religious
prejudices. To imagine that our departed friends convey messages to
us by the media of oscillating furniture, planchettes and
automatic writing by those who never knew them and never
would have known them if they had lived under the same
roof with them for years has always seemed to me to profane
friendship. That in the realm of the spirit it may be our privilege to
be stimulated by the loving sympathy of those we have lost
for awhile, and to respond by our prayers for their peace
and ever-increasing illumination, was one of those certainties
p

226 Chapters from My Life
that grew more definite and absolute out of those days of
sorrow.
It lies outside the purpose of this volume to describe the
vicissitudes of the life in the world of affairs that ran parallel
with the events here recorded. It is necessary, however, to
say that the national catastrophe of the King's illness on June
24th, 1902, left a deep mark upon all my after years.
The losses then sustained prevented my parliamentary
candidature in 1906, for good or ill kept me out of the mael
strom of politics, and necessitated a rigid attention to a
business which was sufficiently engrossing and exacting at
all times. In the anxiety and resulting discipline of those first
months that followed the loss of Hughes from his activities
here, I am not sure that his friendship did not do more for me
than if he had been present with us still. The remembrance
of his passion for Christ, and for all for whom He died, made
the trials of my own life seem of no account as I looked
beyond them to the inheritance into which he had entered.
Day by day, week by week, month by month, through the
strenuous work and grave difficulties of 1903 the sense of
Christ's love providing the discipline of life made tolerable
days of anxiety that might well have crushed out hope and
energy. I was spending the Christmas holidays of 1903 — 1904 with
my wife and boys in Switzerland, but paid a hurried visit to
England at the end of the year. I timed my visit, as I had
done the year before, to spend the last hour of the year at
St. James's Hall with my dear friend, Charles Ensor Walters,
who, with admirable courage and rare gifts of utterance and
sympathy and love, carried on the work of Hughes success
fully during the next few years.
That Watchnight Service was marked by one of those ex
periences which leave a , deep impress on the spiritual life,
but which to a great extent cannot be expressed in words.
The service was pursuing its ordinary course. We were

Death of Hugh Price Hughes 227
all looking back over the dying year and making the usual
resolutions, when suddenly all this was changed for me.
Once again, as on December 31st, 1898, it seemed to me as
though "the veil were rent from the top to the bottom" and
the great facts of God, Judgment, Eternity, were revealed as
the certainties among a myriad uncertainties, the realities
amid all fleeting phenomena. And with this glimpse of
reality there came a vision of the infinite need of an Infinite
Saviour. Words that had long been mere worn counters
suddenly seemed to acquire a new significance that burned
itself into my mind.
I cannot say more. During these midnight hours and
oftentimes in the solitude of night I knew that the Christ
Whom my dearest friend Hughes had loved and faithfully
served was revealing Himself to me that I might serve Him
more faithfully. My friendship with Hughes meant much to
me whilst he lived. It has remained one of the strongest
influences in the years that have followed.

CHAPTER XVII
THE HARROW FIFTY CLUB (1899 AND ONWARDS)
Satarday Afternoon Rambles with Hughes — Harrow — The School—
The " Fifty Club " — Sir Jesse Herbert — Club Discussions —
" Father Tom " Hancock — Visitors to the Club : Lord Lytton,
Sir John Gorst, and Others — Dinner to Bishop Welldon—
Winston Churchill at Harrow — Lady Dorothy Neville and
Mr. Lloyd George — The Harrow Masters — Lay Sermons in the
College School Chapel — Harrow Masters, Past and Present —
Recent School Novels.
We rub each other's angles down. — Tennyson, " In Memoriam."
HUGHES and I made it our rule to go by train a few
miles out of London on Saturday afternoons and take
a country walk, returning from a different station.
On one of these walks we came to Harrow and called
upon the Head Master, Mr. Welldon, whom I knew as a
contributor to the Review of the Churches. Mr. Welldon
showed us over the Chapel, the Vaughan Library, the Fourth
Form room and the Playing Fields. In the course of con
versation we discussed the system adopted by Harrow of
having home boarders. Mr. Welldon said, "These boys con
stitute a house ; they have their own head of the house, their
own football team and their cricket eleven, and in this way
have a corporate life of their own. The system works excel
lently, and the boys have all the advantages of home life with
many of the advantages of Public School life."
After some consideration, I decided to leave London and
reside in Harrow, to send my sons to Orley Farm, the excel
lent Harrow preparatory school, and afterwards to Harrow
228

Henry Lunn, Senr. Peter Northcote Lunn. Arnold Lunn. Sir Henry Lunn.

FOUR GENERATIONS

The Harrow Fifty Club 229
School itself. Arnold went into Owen's house; Hugh
remained a home boarder.
My life at Harrow has been marked by one successful
effort, which though far removed from, is still in a sense
allied to, the Grindelwald Conferences.
After two years' residence it occurred to me that it might
be possible to form a club on the lines of our Contemporary
Club in Dublin, which first gave me the idea of the Reunion
Conferences at Grindelwald, a Club which would meet once a
week on Saturday evenings for informal discussions on
current questions and other topics, literary, historical and
scientific, suggested by the members.
I formed the Club as follows : Taking in my pocket the
Directory of Harrow, I went to the houses of my different
friends and asked whom they considered most representative
of every shade of political and religious opinion amongst our
Harrow residents. I first of all interviewed the three Vicars
of Harrow; Father Graham, the Roman Catholic priest;
Monsignor, now Bishop, Dunn, who was then chaplain of
the Convent of the Visitation and Secretary to Cardinal
Vaughan ; the Baptist minister ; and the Wesleyan Methodist
minister. I then asked those of the Masters who thought
they could spare the time for those discussions, though in
consequence of the hard work of a Harrow Master during
term time, their attendance was always rather irregular.
Our vicar, Mr. Wayland Joyce, made a very sensible
remark to me at this stage. He said: "You will have to
make up your mind whether this is going to be an aristocratic
club or a democratic club. If you do not take care it will
become an overwhelmingly respectable body." It is difficult
to found such a club in the neighbourhood of London which
will not be monotonously respectable and conservative.
In my anxiety to avoid this pitfall, I asked anxiously for
the names of any Liberals.
I was recommended to call upon Mr. Jesse Herbert
(afterwards Sir Jesse Herbert). This was a memorable visit

230 Chapters from My Life
for me. Sir Jesse Herbert became, from that time onwards,
one of ftiy best friends. He died just after Mr. Lloyd George
became Prime Minister. He was a loyal supporter of Mr.
Asquith and believed in his friend, Mr. Lloyd George.
Beginning life as the son of a minister of one of the
minor Methodist bodies, Herbert was handicapped as a
young man because of some strange scruples which his father
had. His father held that it was quite right for single
ministers to be paid for their services, but that when a man
married he ought to earn his own living. He resigned his
position in the ministry and earned his living by his own
hands, but had no money to spend on the education of his
son. Herbert was possessed of great intellectual powers, and
in the poverty of his boyhood began to earn money by writing
for the Christian World and other papers. With this money
he bought his first books, and a little later by some accident
he came to know Auberon Herbert, with whose family he
was distantly connected, and he gave him the run of his
library. Herbert worked hard, took his degree at London
University, and then qualified as a barrister.
During his studies he was attracted by the Society of
Friends and became a convinced member. He settled down
at Birmingham, and rapidly secured a considerable practice
there. He was closely associated with Joseph Chamberlain
and Jesse Collins in their Radical days. When the Home
Rule Campaign began he remained a Gladstonian, and his
practice vanished. For a time he was legal adviser to the
Chinese Government in South China. After his return from
China Mr. Cadbury was asked by Mr. Herbert Gladstone if
he could recommend a man to reorganise the Liberal party
which had just suffered its great defeat of 1895. Mr. Cadbury
recommended Jesse Herbert, and he then entered upon the
work in which he achieved the triumphant success of the
election of 1906 after many years of arduous toil.
There was something of the prophet about Herbert.
When he spoke at the club, which was much too seldom

The Harrow Fifty Club 231
for the taste of the members, he spoke with a passion which
stirred everyone, friend and opponent alike. The views he
held he held very strongly. I may venture to relate one
incident which he told me just before his death. He was
going out to Harrow, with two officers and two or three other
people in the compartment. One of these officers— a captain
— repeated to the other a current lie about the Prime Minister.
"What do you mean by saying that?" said Herbert.
"What the hell is that to you?" replied the officer. "It is
everything to me," said Herbert. " Mr. Asquith is a personal
friend of mine ; I know him and honour him, and I know that
what you have said is a lie. When you get out of this
carriage I shall follow you wherever you go and hand you
over to the police under the Defence of the Realm Act. I
am not sure that you are not a German spy." The officer,
in alarm, said, " Well, what can I do ? " " Do ? " said Herbert ;
"you can say that on my authority you believe it to be a lie,
that you are very sorry you said it, and apologise to everyone
in the compartment," which the officer promptly did. It would
be well if other scandalmongers during the war could have
been dealt with in a similar drastic fashion.
This chapter was written long before the Billing trial of
June, 1918, had flooded the world with a torrent of preposter
ous scandal such as had never deluged a Court of Law since
the days of Titus Oates.
The story which Herbert constructed was mild compared
with the base and baseless attacks upon public men which
are fashionable just now. There is no more misleading
proverb than the one which gives such joy to the talebearers,
"There is no smoke without fire." It is as false in physics
as it is in society.
Mrs. Asquith herself was a victim of these gross rumours,
spread by "men of low intelligence and high credulity," to
quote Mr. Asquith at the Aldwych Club. She ordered food
for her stepson, the present Colonel Asquith, when he was
in the Dardanelles. Our bright spy-hunters overheard the
order for the Dardanelles, and apparently imagined the goods

232 Chapters from My Life
were for Donington Hall and pursued her with Press attacks.
She told me this herself. She sued the Globe for libel and
got ;£i,ooo damages and an ample apology. I was reminded
of my own case when I was in Dublin and of the Barrister
who defeated my candidature for the Chair of the Historical
Society by spreading lies about me. The story is told on
page 44. It is even easier now, in a time of war, to get
home on one's rivals. You have only to tell two old women
of either sex in strict confidence that so-and-so is pro-German,
an alien, a naturalised Britisher or not naturalised — it is
all the same — and then the poison begins to work, anil the
noblest and most loyal of our citizens are persecuted, day in
and day out, till they get broken. It hardly wants a Billing
to do these things. The story of the Russians in England
in the autumn of 1914, although it divided families in
opinion, was perfectly harmless. It damaged no one; but
any thoughtful person just now must wonder if a nation is
fit to win the war as long as it seems to emulate that evil
spirit to subdue which our heroes are facing death and dying.
Let us be true in spirit as well as faithful unto death. We
are living in terrible days. Peace without victory may mean
defeat without peace. We must fight on, but let us fight with
clear eyes and a clean soul .
Another striking member of the Club is an American
citizen who has lived for many years in Harrow. I was told
that he was an exceptionally able man and an agnostic. I
thought that on every ground it was desirable that we should
secure his presence. To the great benefit of the Club, and
I hope he will permit me to say not to his own loss, he became
one of our most valued members.
In the years that followed, it is interesting to note that
one who had been looked upon by the orthodox in Harrow
as a sort of enfant terrible gained the esteem of the Club as a
whole and the special friendship of some of its members.
He was a man of convictions which differed from those held
by most of us, but this did not prevent him from forming a

The Harrow Fifty Club 233
close friendship with a brilliant priest of the Roman Church
who often joined forces with him against those who claimed
to hold their faith by reason and not by authority. The
reasonableness of their position was attacked by the un
believer, and their lack of a basis of authority by the Roman
priest. A purely literary discussion on the religion of Shakespeare
gave a striking illustration at once of the universality of the
poet's mind and also of the varied attitudes taken up by the
members of our club. Our friend, the American citizen,
demonstrated by quotations from Shakespeare that our great
dramatist must have been a veiled unbeliever in a time when
the assertion of unbelief was perilous. A clerical Master
proved equally convincingly that Shakespeare was an
orthodox member of the Church of England. Herbert was
convinced that though Shakespeare could not have been
chronologically a follower of George Fox, he was in essence
a Quaker, whilst the Roman priest proved almost beyond
gainsaying that Shakespeare must have been a secret member
of the Roman Church.
Dr. Wood, the new Head Master, was our first President,
and he occupied that position for seven years, but never
attended. For the next three years the Club elected me to
that position. In the following three years the Presidential
Chair was occupied by one of the Masters, Mr. B. P. Las-
celles, so widely known as "Lascelles of Magdalen," and for
the remaining period up to the beginning of the war, when
the Club was suspended, by one of our most public-spirited
citizens, Mr. Samuel Gardner, the brother of Professor Ernest
and Professor Percy Gardner.
At the early meetings, in the absence of the President, I
took the chair. The contrast between a company of Irishmen
and a company of Englishmen sitting down to a night's
discussion was most interesting. In our Dublin Club of the
same type there was always an overflow of conversation, and
sometimes we did not break up until one or two in the
morning. The first four or five meetings at Harrow were

234 Chapters from My Life
a great problem. No one would talk freely before his
neighbours on any subject. It reminded me of a Methodist
experience meeting when the leader of the meeting finds
things "hard," and has to keep on pleading with "Brother
So and So " to say a word or two. With difficulty we kept
up the discussions to fifty or fifty-five minutes, when I
adjourned the meeting. Later on this was changed, and
members threw aside their reserve as they began to know one
another intimately, and the meeting, which began formally
at a quarter to nine, being prefaced with half an hour's
conversation with tea, coffee and cigarettes, lasted until half-
past ten to half-past eleven, according to the interest of the
subject and the vigour of the discussions.
It was essentially a conversational club in that no one
rose to speak, but it was a debate in that all remarks were
addressed to the Chair, and cross conversations were not
allowed. I must pay my tribute to another late member, the Rev.
Thomas Handcock, affectionately called "Father Tom." He
never held a living because he would not accept any living
unless he was elected by the parishioners. He had the
greatest sympathy with the working classes and an absolute
dread of the smug conventionalism of ordinary society. He
told me with great joy that he had once been invited by a
lady, well known at that time in Harrow, to attend a Bible
class at her house. She was an exceedingly clever speaker,
and gave an address typical of a certain type of evangelicalism
on the children of Israel in Egypt. She dwelt upon Moses
leading them out of the house of bondage as a type of our
Lord. Sitting next to Father Tom was a lady in pronounced
evening dress, who turned to him in the middle of their
hostess's remarks and said: "Isn't it delightful to hear the
gospel under such circumstances?" "I thought," said
Father Tom, "she shbuld hear the gospel for once, and so
when I was asked to speak I said : ' The book of Exodus
is interesting to me because in it we find recorded the first
workings of the two great forces which have since been

The Harrow Fifty Club 235
contending with other two forces in the world's history. In
the story of Moses and the taskmasters of Egypt we have
the first uprising of labour against capital. In the deliverance
of the Children of Israel from the domination of the Pharaohs
we have the first successful revolt in history of nationality
against imperialism.'"
His contributions to our Club discussions were no less
original. In a discussion on the extension of the tramways
at Harrow, against an overwhelming majority of the members
of the Club, he said, referring to the well-known daughter
of one of our members : "Which is it better to see — a young
woman driving a great wagonette along our High Street,
and taking up the whole of the street, or to see a beautiful
tramcar full of honest, working men coming back from their
toil?" My friendship with him was the more remarkable because
I represented two causes which he abominated — noncon
formity and total abstinence. His ideal for Harrow was that
the Vicar and the Head Master and he should sit on the green
in front of the King's Head with tankards of beer in front
of them and long clay pipes in their hands, whilst they
gathered the parishioners round them for conversation. He
shared Chesterton's belief in the essential harmony between
Catholicism, democracy, and beer.
He had given a year of his life to study each year of
the Commonwealth. When Cromwell's tercentenary was
celebrated he was infuriated at what perhaps he had a right
to consider the comparative ignorance of the Nonconformist
preachers, who had been going about the country addressing
meetings — from speaking at one of which I had just returned
— when they knew nothing about Oliver Cromwell.
No reference to the Club would be justified without paying
a tribute to Monsignor Dunn's successor, Father Lionel
Goodrich, a Roman priest whose family were members of
the English Church, but who himself had entered the Church
of Rome and joined the priesthood. He was a man of rare
culture and the highest literary gifts, and at the same time

236 Chapters from My Life
was a very keen politician with strong sympathies with the
working classes. In the earlier years of the Club's history,
when the Liberals were in opposition, he, the American
citizen, Sir Jesse Herbert and myself, were able to put up
some defence for our principles against the overwhelming
majority of the Club. When, however, the Liberals came
into power, he was so much annoyed with their conduct on
the Education question, in which matter he was in favour of
"Right of Entry," that he gradually drifted towards the
Socialist party. Sir Jesse Herbert ceased to attend the Club,"
Mr. Thatcher Clark was not often there, and I frequently
found myself in the difficult position of being the only
supporter of the Government.
The members did not by any means depend entirely upon
their own talent for conversation. When it was possible,
they brought friends from outside. Lord Lytton opened a
discussion on the question of the disinterested management
of public-houses, and Sir John Gorst on measures necessary
for the care of children, both questions that are of increasing
importance as this war draws to its close.
Mr. Percy Molteno, M.P., also came on my invitation
in the early days of the Club's history to speak on the Boer
War. It was a perilous experiment, for the Boer War was
then raging, and if it had been known in Harrow that Mr.
Molteno was at the Club we might have had our windows
broken. No such calamity occurred, and it was good to
discover that even upon questions on which men felt so
warmly as the Boer War in those days, the Club could spend
an amicable evening.
Mr. Spencer Wilkinson, who is now Professor of Military
History to the University of Oxford and whose acquaintance
I had made at the Dublin Contemporary Club, came down
several times to Harrow and spoke to us on military questions
with a great deal of ability. The Club, however, was always
in danger of thinking when he had finished that every War
Minister, up to and including Mr. Haldane, had been a dead
and dismal failure, and that there was only one man in

The Harrow Fifty Club 237
England who understood military questions, and that was
the Club's visitor.
I give an outline of the Club and its rules, because since
it was founded it has had a unifying influence upon social
life in Harrow, the value of which is recognised by all who
have taken part in its discussions.
The effect has not been confined to Harrow. A visitor
from Northwood came over to two or three of our discussions,
and was so much impressed by the utility of the Club that
he decided to start a similar Club at Northwood, which has
also been very successful.
After the Club had been in existence a few years Bishop
Welldon came back from India, and we invited him to be
our guest at a dinner of the Club and to meet him one of
his most famous pupils, Mr. Winston Churchill, and Mr.
Percy Molteno. When the secretary sent the proof of the
toast list and the plan of the tables to Mr. Winston Churchill
he received a sharp letter back to say: "You have put me
next to that notorious pro-Boer, Mr. Percy Molteno. Unless
you reprint your plan I shall not come down." The plan
was reprinted. He came, and a year or two later found
himself sitting in Parliament on the same benches with Mr.
Percy Molteno.
I did not meet Mr. Churchill again for some years, but
one afternoon I was calling at 10, Downing Street when Mr.
and Mrs. Churchill came into the room. Mr. Asquith said :
"Do you know Mr. Churchill?" "Oh, yes," I said, "we
know Mr. Churchill very well at Harrow." I then repeated
to Mr. Churchill two stories which had been told to me by
one of the Harrow Masters. The Master in question one
day gave Mr. Churchill a punishment, and Mr. Churchill
went to Mr. Welldon in great anger and said: "Mr. X.
cannot teach me science. I insist on having another Master,
and I will pay him myself." "Yes," said Mr. Churchill, "and
I had another Master afterwards." The other story was as
follows : A boy, remarkable for his stupidity, one day

238 Chapters from My Life
brought up an essay to his master on poetry. The essay
began, "Poetry is the gilt on the gingerbread of life."
" Where did you get that from ? " asked the Master. " Please,
sir, Churchill dictated it to me," was the answer. "Well,"
said Mr. Churchill, " I have never said anything half so good
as that since."
Mr. Lloyd George, in the days when he and Mr. Churchill
were about equally anathema to all good Conservatives, came
to lunch one day at 10, Downing Street, at the time when the
threepenny tax for servants' pensions agitated great dames
more than a five-shilling income tax does to-day. I was
standing on the hearth-rug talking to Mrs. Asquith and
Lady Dorothy Nevill when Mr. Lloyd George came into the
room. Mrs. Asquith stepped forward and shook hands with
him and returned to us.
" What do you mean by inviting me to meet that man ? "
said the little Tory lady, whose chronicles of the last half-
century are so amusing.
"You would not mind, my dear," replied Mrs. Asquith,
"if I invited you to meet the devil."
"Certainly not," retorted Lady Dorothy; "certainly not,
that would be quite another matter."
Harrow School during my period has had some fine men
amongst its Masters. After the Boer War was over it was
decided to build a new wing to the school chapel, and in
consequence the Sunday evening services were held in
the speech room. This furnished an occasion, as I have
mentioned in the first chapter of this book, for revealing
the gifts as lay preachers of certain of the Harrow Masters
which would otherwise have lain dormant under the rigid
system of the Church of England. As the services were
being held in an unconsecrated place, it was found possible
to extend the list of chapel preachers.
There were at that time only four clergymen amongst the
Masters, the Head Master, my dear friend the Rev. Everard
Owen, who was one of the most thoughtful and delightful

The Harrow Fifty Club 239
preachers it has ever been my privilege to listen to, the Rev.
W. Done Bushell, who has long since retired from the school,
and the Rev. J. W. Coke-Norris, one of the junior Masters.
When, however, the possibility of securing sermons from
laymen came above the horizon, a series of the most
admirable sermons were preached by the following laymen :
Sir Arthur Hort, son of the great Dr. Hort, one of the
illustrious trio, Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort; Mr. Howson,
the son of Dean Howson, who, with Mr. Conybeare, wrote
the well-known "Life of St. Paul" ; and Mr. Somervell.
It is no reflection upon the clerical Masters to say that
the school was a great gainer by some of the remarkable
sermons which were given by these men. I may specially
mention a volume of sermons by Mr. Howson which was
published when, to the school's irreparable loss, he had died
in the prime of life.
It has been, and is still, a complete mystery to me why
the Church of England limits her list of fully licensed lay
preachers in the diocese of London to so few men, and why
she does not enlist all over the country the services of
cultured laymen of deep religious feeling, combined with
the gift of preaching. There were several other friends of
mine in Harrow who, if they had been Methodists, would
have been lay preachers, and would have served the church
and the parish in a most effective manner, but who, because
of the rigidity of the Church of England on this question,
have never had an opportunity of using their natural gifts.
In view of the recent criticism of public schools, I should
like to say, after a residence of seventeen years in Harrow
before the war, that I have never met a body of men in any
profession who, taken as a whole, worked harder and were
more wrapped up in their high vocation than the Harrow
Masters, whom I have had the honour of numbering amongst
my personal friends. One can speak more easily of those
who are gone, and unhappily Harrow has lost prematurely —
i.e. before the age of sixty when Harrow Masters retire —

240 Chapters from My Life
many excellent men since I went to live there. Colbeck,
Howson, Welsford, and Townsend Warner were all men of
great force of character and individuality, who could ill be
spared when they were taken from us. The last named was
the last to die, and my relations with him were perhaps the
most intimate. I owe a great debt to him for the training
in literary expression which he gave to my sons, much of it
done purely voluntarily and outside of his school duties.
The vexed question of home boarders versus boarders is
one upon which diverse opinions will always be held.
Although I yielded to my friend Owen's desire that my son
Arnold should go into his house with a view to becoming
the head — which he ultimately did — I am still of opinion that
the finest education any man can hope for his son to enjoy
is for the son to live at home in Harrow and go to Harrow
School — or to a school like Westminster, where my son
Brian was a King's Scholar — as a home boarder.
Considerable interest has been aroused during the last
few years by the publication of two realistic studies of public
school life at Harrow and Sherborne respectively. The
accuracy of these novels has been questioned by certain
critics. I am afraid that, with my very wide and
intimate knowledge of many masters and old boys of
many different public schools, I cannot agree with the critics.
My hope for this type of education is that in the new world
after the war some means may be found for eradicating some
of the evils which have been depicted in these works with
photographic accuracy.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE HOLY COMMUNION AND CONFIRMATION (igio)
John Wesley's " Companion for the Altar " and Hymns on the Lord's
Supper — The " Plan of Pacification " — Wesley's Teaching on
Constant Communion — Infrequency of Holy Communion in
the 1 8th Century — Effect of the Methodist Revival — Calvin's
Teaching.
The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His
Glory.— St. John. Come ! break thy fast, dear heart,
Poor wearied one. . . .
For Earth's long Lent is done;
The Easter of thy soul hath dawned at last.
Come ! at Love's mystic altar
Break thy fast. — Evelyn Underbill.
A miserable individualism in our thoughts of Holy Communion has
taken the place of the rich and moving thought which in ancient days was
prominent, that through fellowship in the perfect sacrifice of the Son of
Man we ourselves become that sacrifice. — Gore, "The Body of Christ."
IN this chapter I desire to trace those influences which have
led me to an increasing sense of the supreme importance
of the sacramental element of life, and especially of its place
in the development of the spiritual life.
The Mission, conducted at Horncastle in 1876 or there
abouts by Canon Bullock and Mr. Donald Claughton when
I was a boy of seventeen, was a landmark in my life. Then
for the first time I began to understand what the " Eucharistic
Feast," to use Charles Wesley's phrase, was intended to
be to the believer, and, as stated in an earlier chapter, I asked
permission to attend the final communion service of the
Mission. My father in his early days had caught the later echoes
Q 241

242 Chapters from My Life
of Wesley's teaching, and during my boyhood would go to
some country village church, Low Toynton or our own
church at West Ashby or Edlington, where the evangelical
vicars were friends of his, and there communicate. My
father's action in this matter, which furnished an example
to his family, was entirely in harmony with the views and
teaching of John Wesley and his successors during several
decades after his death.
As we shall see, there was nothing out of harmony with
the teaching and practice of early Methodism — the Methodism
of John Wesley and those who carried on his work for many
decades — in the wish that I had expressed as a boy of
seventeen. But to me, not knowing the foundation principles
of Methodism, the teaching by Canon Bullock and Mr.
Claughton (influenced as they were by the second Oxford
movement, in so many ways the child of the early Methodist
revival) came as a new revelation. I longed for the help of
weekly communions, and at the close of the Mission consulted
Canon Bullock on the matter.
When I became a student in the Divinity School of
Trinity College, Dublin, it was the rule that all students who
did not declare themselves "Protestant Dissenters" should
communicate three times annually. Methodists are Pro
testants, but they are certainly not Dissenters, and I
obeyed the rule, and indeed went frequently to Holy Com
munion in the College chapel. My wife's father, Canon
Moore, always welcomed me as a communicant at his
church .
It was not until after my return from India at Christmas,
1890, that I again realised the importance in the minds of
some Churchmen of the rubric in the Prayer-Book which
decides who shall be admitted to the Holy Communion in
the English Church.
"And there shall none be admitted to the Holy Com
munion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready to
be confirmed." No Methodist can complain of this rule, for
it is definitely laid down in our constitution that admission

Holy Communion and Confirmation 243
to this service shall be restricted as follows : " No person
shall be suffered on any pretence to partake of the Lord's
Supper among us unless he be a member of Society, or
receive a note of admission from the superintendent (or from
the preacher administering), which note must be renewed
quarterly. "It is most important that a united and earnest attempt
should be made to secure the presence of all our members,
and the showing of tickets at the Lord's Supper." '
A similar rule exists in the Presbyterian churches of
Scotland, and I myself some years since, when spending a
Sunday at Banff, where the old customs have survived,
was relegated to the gallery with the children whilst the
Communion Service was celebrated according to the
Presbyterian order.
Nevertheless, in the English Church the Bishop of the
diocese can and does relax certain rubrics in cases where he
thinks it advisable to do so. I have recorded already Dr.
Temple's reply as Bishop of London to the suggestion of
the Reverend Luke Paget, Vicar of St. Pancras, now Bishop
of Stepney, that I should be admitted to Holy Communion
on Christmas Day, 1890. On the same occasion Bishop
Temple quite strongly approved of the first Grindelwald
Communion. A little later, on my journey to Florence with
Archbishop Benson, the Primate expressed his approval of
Bishop Perowne's action in administering the communion to
all the members of the Grindelwald Conference. Bishop
Mandell Creighton, who succeeded Bishop Temple in the
See of London, had sanctioned my attending this service
at the parish church of Harrow, where I reside. But there
seemed to me, on very careful consideration, to be a breach
of Christian courtesy in the action of one who, not merely
occasionally but regularly, availed himself of this special
means of grace in violation of one of the rubrics of the
Church. 1 Minutes of the Conference, 1796, vol. I., p. 365 ; 1869, vol. XVII., p. 62 ;
1889, p. 412.

244 Chapters from My Life
During the last half of 1909, and the early months of
1910, the strain had been very heavy. My eldest son Arnold
had broken his leg in a climbing accident on Cadr Idris at
the end of August, and lay at home for months in great
suffering. I was obliged to leave him for hurried visits to
Boston, where I was contesting the seat at the General
Election, and the pressure of life drove me on most Fridays
to special discipline and the help of the Holy Communion
at St. Pancras, which I could just reach from Harrow at
8 a.m. How much those early services, and others of a like
kind in other places and other lands, have meant to me no
words of mine can adequately express. Often the com
municants were few in number, but this fact made possible
a more complete abstraction from all thoughts save the
central thought of the hour, that Christ was here present,
breaking the bread and giving His broken body to me,
pouring out the cup and giving me His life's blood for the
remission of my sins; that as He was broken on the cross
as the crowning act of a life of obedience, so here He
summoned His followers to a like absolute surrender of self
to Him. At these moments I felt that "the minister is no more
prophet but priest. His effectiveness is not prophetic but
priestly. He is the organ of the common priesthood of the
church ... he should have his back to the people because
he is the mouthpiece of the people, of their sins, confessions,
and praise, all of which he shares. He was receiving with
us all the great gift of the broken body and the shed blood
from our Redeemer, who thus gave Himself and His saving
act anew to us as we give ourselves anew to Him in responsive
faith.'" In February, 1916, this Great War touched me most
closely whilst I waited for weary weeks to know what the
word "missing" meant when referring to my second son
Hugh, later announced as a prisoner. Just at that date
1 " The Church and the Sacraments," p. 220, by Dr. Forsyth, Principal
of Hackney Congregational College, Hampstead, and Dean of the Faculty
of Theology in the University of London.

Holy Communion and Confirmation 245
grave telegrams from the East informed me with inevitable
but painful brevity that my third son Brian was coming home
from the Tigris to spend weary months in a hospital on
the banks of the Thames. I understood in my early attend
ances at the Communion Service the meaning of St. Paul's
words : "For whom I have suffered the loss of all things . . .
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and
the fellowship of His suffering." At such moments minister,
priest, celebrant were one with me, and Christ Himself was
present indeed, saying again as He said in that upper room :
"This is My body broken . . . this is My blood shed."
As the years passed by the Holy Communion had clearly
come to mean more and more in my life. I had arrived
definitely at the position of Dr. Forsyth, who in his preface
to his work, "The Church and the Sacraments," says : "As
to the Sacraments, it may be surmised that the writer holds
a mere memorialism to be a more fatal error than the Mass,
and a far less lovely." He expressed my experience at this
early service when he said : " In so doing I have done more
than on any busiest day of the week. I have yielded myself
to take part with the Church in Christ's finished work of
redemption, which is greater than the making of the world." *
And again : "The Sacrament is an act of obedience, but
obedience to Christ, not to a precept of His or to an
institution."2 During the first ten years of the century my personal
relations with the Church of England had been complicated
by my arrangements with the Society for the Promotion of
the Gospel and the Colonial and Continental Church Society,
who usually appoint chaplains on the continent, and I arranged
with them to give me the definite right of nomination in the
winter for certain resorts in Switzerland which I was in the
habit of visiting, and at one or two resorts in the summer.
In 1910 I was nominating about thirty chaplains for appoint
ment by these societies. When staying in Switzerland with
'Dr. Forsyth: "The Church and the Sacraments," p. 220.
' Cit. loe., p. 219.

246 Chapters from My Life
my family I had either to explain fully my position or to
risk hurting the susceptibilities of the chaplains I had
nominated if I presented myself as a communicant.
I had long held that confirmation has its proper place in
the life of the Church. The Lutheran and Evangelical
Churches have both retained it, and I know personally how
highly Swiss and Scandinavian friends of mine have valued
it. The tremendous leakage between the Sunday School
and adult memberships in Wesleyan Methodism would be
greatly lessened if each superintendent were to prepare for
confirmation the young people of his congregations with the
same assiduous care that has marked the preparation of
friends of my own by Swedish and Swiss pastors.
I therefore wrote to my friend Bishop Paget of Stepney,
formerly vicar of St. Pancras, and told him that I should
like to consult him on the matter, and he invited me to stay
with him on the night of June 6th, 1910. We had a long
conversation, in the course of which he said that as I
regularly communicated in the Church of England it would
be a relief to my friends in that communion if I followed the
rubric governing attendance at the service. I accordingly
wrote the next day to the Bishop of London summarising
the facts that I have already given, and saying that I did
not wish to sever my connection with Methodism or to give
up my work as a Methodist lay preacher, but desired to be
privately confirmed for the .reasons given. The Bishop
kindly consented, and I was confirmed on July 8th, 1910.
This was a most unusual action for a Methodist layman
holding the offices which I hold and have held in Methodism.
It is probably an isolated instance in the twentieth century,
but endless analogies can be found for such action a hundred
years earlier, and the action I took was entirely in harmony
with the principles John Wesley laid down, and adhering to
which he lived and died.
Although there is to-day a strong revival in Methodism
of a desire for a realisation of the rightful place of the

Holy Communion and Confirmation 247
sacraments in the life of the Church, this element had largely
passed out of Methodism in the later Victorian period. In
those days Methodism had to a great extent lost the note of
exultant joy in the thought of the Real Presence of her Lord
at the communion table, where His Love is celebrated. This
note is clearly heard in John Wesley's "Companion for the
Altar," which was used regularly about the year 1820 by the
members of Society at Great Queen Street Chapel, the
Methodist West End Cathedral, as is indicated in existing
copies purchased for the whole congregation at that date. In
that little volume Wesley boldly used the words of Thomas a
Kempis, where he says : " How sweetly and graciously dost
Thou dispose of all things with those to whom Thou offerest
Thyself in this holy sacrament." And again later on, the
joy which characterised early Methodism finds expression in
these exultant words : " O happy mind and blessed soul, that
receives Thee, her Lord God, with devout affection and in
receiving of Thee is filled with spiritual joy."
The "Hymns on the Lord's Supper," published by the
Wesley brothers in many editions and used widely in those
early days when the joy of Methodism in her Lord was
winning thousands from the misery of conscious sin, sound
the same glad note.
" All faithful hearts with us prepare,
And eat the Paschal Lamb.
"This Eucharistic Feast
Our every want supplies,
And still we by His death are blest
And share His sacrifice."
The gladness of the Wesley brothers, which inspired
their preaching in an age which had learned to frown upon
all enthusiasm, finds expression in the lines from the same
little volume quoted by Bishop Gore in his "Faith of a
Christian " :

248 Chapters from My Life
"Angels in fixed amazement
Around our altars hover,
With eager gaze
Adore the grace
Of our eternal Lover
" Himself and all His fullness
Who gives to the believer;
And by this bread
Whoe'er are fed
Shall live with God for ever."
The "Plan of Pacification," which appears in the Minutes
of the Methodist Conference held at Manchester in 1795,
signed by Joseph Bradford, President, and Thomas Coke,
Secretary, two greatly revered names, was drawn up largely
to deal with the controversies that had arisen immediately
after Wesley's death on the whole question of the Lord's
Supper. "A complete and happy union . . . contrary to
the fears of many" was reached on a basis that included
the conditions that "The Lord's Supper shall never be
administered on those Sundays on which it is administered
in the parochial church."
More than twenty years later the Rev. James Macdonald,
grandfather of the Rev. F. W. Macdonald, a distinguished
ex-President, wrote to his son, then at Cambridge, under the
date December 14th, 1818, and urged him to be "an orthodox
Churchman, neither Calvinistic nor Arminian." In the same
letter he describes a sermon he had preached in which he
claimed, evidently regarding himself as a Churchman, that
we owe our civil and religious liberty to the Established
Church. It was only very gradually that Methodism was driven,
by the intolerance of the Clergy, towards the Dissenters,
and it was not until as late as 1882 that the Conference
ventured to omit the "Manual rubrics" in the Anglican
Order for the administration of the Holy Communion, which
has always been used in Methodism. It is remarkable that

Holy Communion and Confirmation 249
whilst the rubrics were then entirely altered the only serious
change in the text was the omission of the following beautiful
alternative to the first of the two prayers in the English
Book of Common Prayer, after the administration of the
Sacraments: "Almighty and everliving God, we most
heartily thank Thee, for that Thou dost vouchsafe to feed us,
who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the
spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of Thy
Son our Saviour Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby
of Thy favour and goodness towards us, and that we are
very members incorporate in the mystical body of Thy Son,
which is the blessed company of all faithful people, and are
also heirs through hope of Thy everlasting Kingdom, by
the merits of the most precious death and passion of Thy
dear Son. And we most humbly beseech Thee, O heavenly
Father, so to assist us with Thy grace, that we may continue
in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as Thou
hast prepared for us to walk in; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour
and glory, world without end. Amen."
It was strange to omit this prayer, containing as it does
the essence of John Wesley's teaching on the Eucharist, and
asserting the Churchmanship of all " who have duly received
these holy mysteries, and are thereby assured that they are
members incorporate in the mystical body of the Lord, which
is the blessed company of all faithful people." It passes
understanding to know why these Fathers of Methodism
should have blotted out the title-deeds of such a heritage for
their children. There was, however, one saving clause in the
Minutes of the Conference of 1882 on that question : "The
Conference does not prohibit the use of any forms which
have hitherto been approved by the Conference."
As the Holy Communion became the central act of my
religious life, I realised that I was all the time drawing nearer
to the teaching of John Wesley, who published his views in
his sermon No. CI. on "The Duty of Constant Communion,"

250 Chapters from My Life
and affixed to the sermon this special note : "The following
discourse was written about five-and-fifty years ago for the
use of my pupils at Oxford. I have added very little, but
retrenched much, as I then used more words than I do
now. But I thank God I have not yet seen cause to
alter my sentiments in any point which is therein
delivered."' In this sermon, which was from the text, "Do this in
remembrance of Me," he says :
"I shall show that it is the duty of any Christian to
receive the Lord's Supper as often as he can. . . . Because
it is a plain command of Christ . . . because the benefits
of so doing are so great to all that do it in obedience to Him.
. . . Let everyone, therefore, who has any desire to please
God or any love of his own soul, obey God and consult the
good of his own soul by communicating every time he can,
like the first Christians to whom the Christian sacrifice was
a constant part of the Lord's Day service. And for several
centuries they received it almost every day."
Dealing with the question that the Church only enjoined
it three times a year, he said that the rubric said, "At least
three times in the year," but added, in his own courageous
fashion, "To this I answer, first, that if the Church had not
enjoined it at all, is it not enough that God enjoins it ? We
obey the Church only for God's sake." He went on to
say, " We cannot conclude from these words that the Church
excuses those who only receive thrice a year. The plain
sense of them is that he who does not receive three times a
year shall be cast out of the Church, but they by no means
excuse him who communicates no oftener. This never was
the judgment of the Church; on the contrary, she takes all
possible care that the sacrament be duly administered
wherever the common prayer is read every Sunday and
holiday in the year."
No student of the Church history of the eighteenth cen
tury can deny that Wesley and his colleagues did much
'"Wesley's Works," vol. vii., p. 147.

Holy Communion and Confirmation 251
to bring back the Church of England to a due regard for
the importance of Holy Communion. At the commence
ment of the Methodist revival "one of the worst features of
all was the infrequency of Holy Communion."1
"In 1741, we find Bishop Seeker admonishing the clergy
in the diocese of Oxford that they were bound to administer
thrice in the year, that there ought to be an administration
in the long interval between Whitsuntide and Christmas.
... Of course there were many protests against the preva
lent disregard of the central Christian ordinance. Thus both
Wesley, from a High Church point of view, and the Broad
Church author of the ' Free and Candid Disquisition ' urged
the propriety of weekly celebrations. . . . Previous to this,
when the Methodist organisation became unhappily separated
from the National Church, the sermons of Wesley and his
preachers were sometimes followed by a large accession of
communicants at the Parish Church."2
Whitefield, who was the founder of the Calvinistic
Methodist Communion in 1738, had 300 communicants in a
Manchester church, and in 1748 1,000. These were
churches served by regular incumbents and not by
Whitefield himself. Whitefield writes on October nth, 1750,
describing life at Lady Huntingdon's, "We have the
sacrament every morning, heavenly consolation all day, and
preaching at night." John Wesley records for the twelve
days from Christmas ending on January 6th, 1774, "During
the twelve festival days we had the Lord's Supper daily; a
little emblem of the Primitive Church. May we be fol
lowers of them in all things as they were of Christ."
The political antagonism of the Hanoverian Bishops to
the Non-Jurors, and to the Jacobites who took the oath of
allegiance but remained in their sympathies Stuart and High
Church, had a great influence in the Church of England in
the eighteenth century. It furnished a striking illustration
of the evils which identify the National Church with a cer-
' " The Church in the Eighteenth Century," Overton and Relton.
" "The English Church in the Eighteenth Century," Abbey and Overton.

252 Chapters from My Life
tain ruling caste". Because it was anti-Laudian and appar
ently for very little other reason the Hanoverian Bishops
had deliberately discarded frequent communion. How
strongly these political Hanoverian prejudices were roused
against the frequent communion of the Methodists is
shown by Charles Wesley's bitter complaint, "Every
Sunday damnation is denounced against us for we are
Papists, Jesuits, Seducers and bringers-in in aid of the
Pretender." '
A correspondent of John Byron gives the following sar
castic account of the utterances of Bishop Peploe at Man
chester : "The weekly communion is likewise a great and
grievous innovation, and a heavy charge upon the
parishioners. No matter for primitive practice and ancient
canons. They are all Popish. The Church of England
enjoins her members to receive but once a year."
We see, therefore, that Wesley and Whitefield, repre
senting the Arminian and the Calvinistic schools of
Methodism, both cultivated regular communion. It was
only gradually that the influence of the old Dissenters made
itself felt upon Wesleyan Methodism, especially in the
middle decades of the nineteenth century. Somewhat earlier
than this, great chapels were built in Leeds and elsewhere,
which were called "Brunswick" or Hanover to assert the
loyalty of the worshippers to their Hanoverian rulers. This
was done to avoid any fear of misunderstanding by good
Congregationalists or Baptists. To call their chapels after
the Trinity, or the Blessed Virgin, or one of the Apostles,
might have exposed them to the suspicion of Popery or
Jacobitism. Notwithstanding this tendency to approximate to the
Dissenters, the Conference from time to time in the whole
of its history has affirmed the desirability of frequent com
munion. The last such resolution was passed by the
Conference in 1916.
Wesley's teaching, following closely, in all but the
'Overton's "Evangelical Revival," p. 175.

Holy Communion and Confirmation 253
question of orders, the teaching of Laud, was inevitably
opposed to the teaching of the Hanoverian Bishops, who
regarded it as likely to help the cause of the Pretenders
These political influences in England and the angry feeling
engendered in Scotland by the attempt of the High Church
party to establish Episcopacy in that country, separated
widely not only the Church of England but also the Church
of Scotland and the Dissenters from the teaching both of
Luther and Calvin. All the world knows Luther's insistence
upon the words, "Hoc est corpus meum," but few modern
Presbyterians or Dissenters who imagine themselves to have
inherited Calvin's theology realise how far they have
travelled from Calvin's teaching on the Eucharist. He
would have been astonished at the teaching concerning this
sacrament of those who have imagined themselves his
followers. Let Calvin speak for himself :
"The other Sacrament given and instituted to the
Christian Church is the bread sanctified to the body of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and the wine sanctified in His blood, as
the ancients were accustomed to speak. And we call it
either the Lord's Supper or Eucharist because herein we
are spiritually fed and nourished by the kindness of our
Lord, and on our part we render Him thanks for His
goodness. The promise which is given us herein shows
clearly to what end it has been instituted and to what it
tends. It is to assure us and confirm to us that the body
of our Lord Jesus Christ has been in such wise given once
for us that it is now ours, and will be perpetually. Also
that His blood has been in such wise shed for us that it
is and will be always our own.
"Our souls may take and gather from this sacrament
great sweetness and fruit of consolation because we recog
nise Jesus Christ to be so incorporated in us and we also
in Him that all that is His we may call ours, and all that
is ours we may call His.
"All these things are so fully promised by God in this

254 Chapters from My Life
Sacrament that we must be certain and assured that they
are demonstrated to us as truly as if Jesus Christ were
visibly present to our eyes and sensibly to our touch. For
this word cannot fail or lie. 'Take, eat and drink; this is
My Body which was given for you. This is My Blood which
is shed for the remission of your sins.' By commanding us
to take, He signifies that He is ours. By commanding us
to eat and drink, He shows that He has made Himself one
substance with us.
"And the Body and Blood of Christ are represented
under bread and wine, to teach us that not only are they
ours, but they are ours for life and nourishment.
"As we have said before, it is by the material things
put before us in the Sacrament that we are to be led to
spiritual things. So when we see the bread placed before
us as a sign and Sacrament of the Body of Jesus Christ we
must immediately take in the similitude that just as bread
nourishes, strengthens, and preserves the life of our body,
so the Body of Jesus Christ is the meat, the food, and
preservation of our spiritual life.
"And when we see the wine offered to us as a symbol of
His Blood, we must think of what wine does for the human
body in order to realise that the blood of Jesus Christ is of a
similar profit to us. It strengthens, comforts, recreates and
cheers. "If this virtue of the Sacrament had been sought
and considered as it should be, it should have been
enough for us, and those horrible contentions by which
the Church has suffered so much would not have been
raised." '
It would carry no conviction to my Methodist readers to
quote at length from the early Fathers of the Church whose
teaching Wesley accepted, and whose writings he translated
and published. When, however, the teaching of St. Paul is
accepted by the Fathers of the Church in a certain sense and
"This passage is translated from Chapter XII., " De la Cene" (Of the
Lord's Supper), taken from Calvin's work, "Institution de la Religion
Chretienne," reprinted in 191 1 from the edition of 1541.

Holy Communion and Confirmation 255
that sense not denied by the leaders of the Reformation,
Calvin and Luther, and is confirmed by Methodist formu
laries so often, it would be a matter for wonder that our
Methodist practice should have so far departed from the
wishes and convictions of the founder of our communion
if it were not that this is what so constantly happens in all
religious movements.

CHAPTER XIX
WHY I REMAIN A METHODIST
The Real Glory of Methodism — The Fellowship of Methodism —
Methodist Lay Preachers — Wesley's Repudiation of the
Dogma of Apostolical Succession — Letter to the Bishop of
London — Cardinal Vaughan and the Roman Priest — The
Cable and Wireless Telegraphy — Apostolical Succession and
Divine Right of Kings — Different Methods of Ordination —
The Methodist Brotherhood — The True Catholicity of
Methodism. Methodism is Christianity in earnest. — Chalmers.
The friends of all, the enemies of none. — John Wesley.
MY friends in the Church of England may say as they
read the last chapter, "Why did you not leave
Methodism entirely in these circumstances ? " Those who ask
this question cannot be blamed if they judge Methodism by
the assertiveness which manifests itself in the aggressive utter
ances of certain of its sons on some public occasions. Those
most devoted to Methodism, as they look back on the twelve
years' decline in numbers which have been reported at the
successive Annual Conferences up to 1918, must regard
with grave misgiving many of the utterances which
marked the inception, carrying through, and completion of
the Centenary Million Guinea Fund. The challenge to
the Church of England which characterised some of the
speeches of that period lacked the spirit of John Wesley.
His passionate love for the world stopped at no boundary
but ever sought an outlet.
" Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law,"
256

Why I Remain a Methodist 257
do not and never have represented the real strength of
Methodism. When Rudyard Kipling, the grandson of two
Methodist ministers, wrote those lines in his great poem,
"The Recessional," it is related that he sent the poem to
his uncle, the Rev. F. W. Macdonald, President of the
Conference, and said in the accompanying letter, "You see
the Methodist blood will out."
Those two lines,
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget,
are nearer to the spirit of the dying Wesley than were the
speeches referred to. To the mourners who gathered
round John Wesley as he lay dying after that wonderful
life of eighty-eight years, he said, "The Lord buries His
workmen but He carries on His work," and again, almost
with his last breath, "The best of all is, God is with us."
The first reason which explains my fidelity to the com
munion in which I was born lies in the fact that the real
glory of Methodism is not found in the columns of the daily
Press, but is written in books not made with hands. It
consists in that fellowship of lowly souls, "Not many great,
not many mighty, not many rich in this world's goods,"
of whom the world knows nothing, and will know nothing
"until the books are opened." "These all died in faith," in
a fellowship inspired by their common consciousness that
the Spirit of God bore witness with their spirit that they
were the sons of God. In their lives they quietly and
unostentatiously bore testimony to the truths which inspire
the prayer :
"O Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect in one
communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of Thy Son Christ
our Lord; grant us grace so to follow Thy blessed saints in all
virtuous and godly living, that w6 may come to those unspeak-
R

258 Chapters from My Life
able joys which Thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly
love Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Those who have grown up in village Methodism know
its spiritual power in transforming the lives of lowly toilers
who, apart from its gracious influence, would have known
no ideals other than those of the village alehouse and the
stable, but whose record is one long idyll of love for the
Lord Whom they serve. In the experience meetings of
these little societies men and women tell with a quiet glad
ness of what God has done for them. It is possible to
recall many a face in such gatherings which shone like that
of "one of old," Around the flame about a sacrifice
Kindled by fire from heaven, so glad was he.
It is the River of Life flowing from our Methodist village
homes that helps to preserve from corruption the life of
our towns and cities. From this source come and have come
many of the best leaders of the people. The lay preachers
of Methodism represent the greatest work by unpaid lay
agency in the history of Christianity since Paul the Tent-
maker. Every Sunday morning from hundreds of circuit
towns there go forth thousands of men who on Saturday
were at the plough, in the workshop, behind the counter,
in the office, to preach faithfully the truth as it has been
illumined by their own experience. Many of them walk
three, four, five, or six miles to the little villages where the
superintendent minister has appointed them to preach. Of
no men in the long centuries of the Christian era has it
been more true than of these unsalaried prophets as they
traverse the Wolds of Lincolnshire, the Peak of Derbyshire,
the hills of Yorkshire, Cumberland, and Westmorland :
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him
that bringeth good tidings." When Wesley was persuaded
by his mother — that great woman Susanna Wesley — to allow

Why I Remain a Methodist 259
his first lay preacher, Thomas Maxwell, to proclaim his
message, little did he realise that Maxwell was to be the first
of a long line of faithful lay preachers numbering, before
the close of the next century, tens of thousands in England
and America.
These are only some aspects of the great spiritual move
ment which has made its mark on history as "The Methodist
Revival." No one can understand its essential characteristics
and fail to believe that if Methodism will but be true to
itself it has yet a great work to do for God in the world. In
that ultimate union of all who love our Lord, for which He
prayed in the great Intercessory prayer, there is room alike
for the early passion of Methodism, and for certain parts of
its marvellous organisation. The faithful men who form the
rank and file of the Methodist lay preachers would furnish
much-needed allies to those who fight against sin in the
depleted ranks of the Anglican clergy, and as preachers and
teachers they would be highly esteemed if joined in federal
union with the Church with whose great theological writers
they are conversant.
A second and more vital reason for my remaining a
Methodist lay in the refusal of John Wesley to limit his
conception of the Church and its boundaries by an acceptance
of the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession. His bio
graphers generally attribute his views on this vital matter to
Lord Chancellor King, and Wesley makes this statement
which justifies them in so doing.
On May 20th, 1846, he read Lord King's "Account of
the Primitive Church." "In spite of the vehement pre
judices of my education," as he puts it in his Journal, he
arrived once and for all at the definite conclusion that Bishops
and Presbyters were one order.
But this incident was an accident in the inevitable develop
ment of an ecclesiastic who could write the passage on
"Catholicity," quoted on the first two pages of this book.
Fifteen years after reading King's book he records in his

260 Chapters from My Life
Journal, under the date February 19th, 1761, a letter to the
London Chronicle embodying his reply to a Roman con
troversialist who attacked Methodism for its lack of "a per
petual succession of Pastors and Teachers." His reply in
this case, as always in such cases, follows the example of our
Blessed Lord when the disciples of John came with a friendly
inquiry to know whether He was the Messiah or not, "Go
tell John what things ye have seen." This is Christ's answer
to any who would limit the channels of sacramental grace
by any theory of orders. As a matter of order, not "orders,"
Methodism sets apart certain men to minister in sacred
things, but does not thereby accept a doctrine which would
exclude from the Catholic Church those who, by faith and
deed, give every evidence that they are the children of God.
"Blessed Jesus, they cannot cast me out of Thy true
Church," was carved by some poor prisoner of the Inquisition
into his prison walls, to be seen by none save the jailer until
Rome fell in 1870. This was the attitude of John Wesley
when confronted with the providential teaching of the Divine
Spirit which he was ever ready to follow. Whether he had
read Chancellor King's book or not, confronted by the bless
ings that had attended the work of his followers in the New
World, he would have come to the conclusion that the chan
nels which depended upon the Apostolical Succession were
neither deep enough nor wide enough to convey sacramental
blessings to the Church. He realised that the desertion of
their congregations by the loyalist Anglican clergy in the
time of George Washington's rebellion constituted the call
of God to him to provide a sacramental ministry for America.
The following letter which he wrote to the Bishop of London
records in his own vigorous way the influences which brought
him to this conclusion.
Under date August 10th, 1780, Wesley wrote with refer
ence to certain members of his Society who wished their
Methodist minister to be ordained by the Bishop :
"Those persons did not apply to the Society for the Pro
pagation of the Gospel because they had nothing to ask of

Why I Remain a Methodist 261
them. They wanted no salary for their minister; they were
themselves able and willing to maintain him. They therefore
applied by me to your Lordship, as members of the Church
of England, and desirous so to continue, begging the favour
of your Lordship, after your Lordship had examined him, to
ordain a pious man who might officiate as their minister.
"But your Lordship observes, 'There are three ministers
in that country already.' True, my Lord, but what are these
to watch over all the souls in that extensive country ? Will
your Lordship permit me to speak freely ? I am on the verge
of the grave, and know not the hour when I shall drop into it.
Suppose there were three score of these missionaries in the
country, could I in conscience recommend these souls to their
care ? Do they take any care of their own souls ? If they do
(I speak it with concern) I fear they are almost the oniy
missionaries in America that do. . . .
"I do not know that Mr. Hoskins had any favour to ask
of the Society. He asked the favour of your Lordship to
ordain him that he might minister to a little flock in America.
But your Lordship did not see good to ordain him. But
your Lordship did see good to ordain and send into America
other persons who knew something of Latin and Greek, but
who knew no more of saving souls than of catching whales.
"In this respect also I mourn for poor America; for the
sheep scattered up and down therein. Part of them have no
shepherd at all, particularly in the northern colonies, and the
case of the rest is little better, for their own shepherds pity
them not. They cannot, for they have no pity on themselves.
They take no thought or care about their own souls." '
• Shortly after this letter had been written, Wesley,
assisted by another priest of the English Church, Weight-
man, ordained Coke to be the founder of the Methodist
Episcopal Church of America. This Church to-day is one
of the most powerful communions in the Reformed Churches,
numbering 41,800 clergy, 7,608,284 members and 7,218,463
Sunday scholars. 1 Wesley's Works, vol. XIII., p. 142.

262 Chapters from My Life
In our own theological training too little attention had
been given to any clear teaching on "The Church" and "The
Ministry," but the years have taught me that the real suc
cession was not only that of a narrow line which might be
severed, but also the succession of the Living Church as
defined in the prayer of thanksgiving to which I have already
referred as "The mystical body of Thy Son which is the
company of all faithful people." The Roman theory makes
the blessings of the Sacrament and the life of the Church
depend upon a line which may be broken at any point. This
attitude was made vividly apparent to me in the following
incident, which was told to me by a well-known ex-priest.
At a certain point in his career he was carrying on a Roman
mission in London, assisted by a peeress and her family.
One day he had a visit from his old nurse, who confessed to
him that when she ought to have presented him for baptism
she presented her own illegitimate child, and the priest was
never baptised. On being told this he went to see Cardinal
Vaughan. He told Cardinal Vaughan of the facts, and the
Cardinal said to him at once : " Well, we will put this matter
right now. I will christen you, confirm you, and ordain
you." "Then," said my informant, "you do not regard me as
an ordained priest at the present moment ? "
"Certainly not," said Cardinal Vaughan.
"Then," said he, "if I am not a priest, I am free from
my vows."
The Cardinal assented, whereupon he said : " Then I shall
bid you farewell."
He went back to his friends in the mission and told them
what had happened, and they, with him, left the Church of
Rome and carried on their work outside the Church.
If this had happened to the Cardinal himself and some
like accident to two other Bishops in England of the Roman
Church, on the Cardinal's theory — which is undoubtedly the
doctrine of the Church of Rome, and the belief of a large
section of the English Church — they might have consecrated

Why I Remain a Methodist 263
a whole line of Bishops and thus handed down to following
generations of their Church in these islands an invalid priest
hood. To such a reductio ad absurdum did the Cardinal
reduce this theory. The serious fact is that in this matter the
Cardinal does not stand alone, and that all who accept in
this restricted sense the dogma of the Apostolical Succession
may be at this moment (through some breach in the line of
continuity of which they are unaware) be ministered to by a
ministry invalid on their theory, and recipients of sacraments
which from their standpoint are no sacraments at all.
This story of the priest reminded me of the days when
there was only one Atlantic cable between England and
America, and that was broken. Wireless telegraphy had
not yet been invented, and no messages could cross the
Atlantic until the cable was repaired. Surely God does not
depend entirely for the conveyance of His grace on one
spiritual "cable." As the whole ether is permeated by the
wireless message, so does the Divine grace find its channels
in the whole Church, and not merely in one special conduit
through a narrow line of prelates, to convey its blessings to
the world. The company of faithful people rejoicing in the
universal priesthood of believers recognises in certain men
the call of God to the ministry, and delegates to that order
certain spiritual functions to be discharged on behalf of all
members. The ecclesiastical dogma of Apostolical Succession finds
its counterpart in the political doctrine of Divine Right. A
friend of mine, some years before the war, held these two
allied doctrines strongly, and was at once a High Church-
woman and Honorary Secretary of the Legitimist Society
of the White Rose, which recognises that Prince Rupprecht
of Bavaria is the rightful heir to the British throne.
When the Convention Parliament of 1689 declared that
William and Mary were King and Queen of England, they
did more than recognise a successful rebellion against Stuart
tyranny : they affirmed for all time that the true title of
any monarch to the throne comes from the people through

264 Chapters from My Life
the voice of Parliament. It was no accident that made High
Churchmen Jacobites for the next hundred years. They
maintained in their theory of Kingship a position parallel
with that which they held with respect to the ministry of
the Church. To-day High Churchmen are as loyal subjects
of the Crown as Presbyterians or Evangelicals. The day
may come when they will realise that the call of the Divine
Spirit to the ministry finds its valid confirmation in the
imprimatur of the company of all faithful men, rather than
in the exclusive sanction of a narrow line of prelates.
I once asked a learned Archdeacon of the Church, staying
in my home, to take family prayers. "No," he replied,
"every man is a priest in his own household." This fact
has been recognised in many lands and by many faiths.
Surely the day may come when a like recognition may be
granted to non-episcopally ordained ministers who are true
fathers of great spiritual families.
We may agree that Episcopacy is for the bene esse of the
Church, and may recognise the effectiveness of episcopal
government in the English Church and in the Methodist
Episcopal Church of America, without committing ourselves
to the position that there can be no branch of the Church
unless there be an episcopate.
However good and time-honoured a custom Episcopacy
may be, God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Popes and Cardinals may excommunicate. That is not
the task of Jesus or those who would follow Him. He does
not shut the door of the fold on any of His sheep. "Other
sheep I have which are not of this fold" is His warning to
those who would limit the possibilities of His love. And
this was ever the attitude of Wesley. " Go not only to those
who want you, but to those who want you not," was the
parallelism in his teaching to that of our Lord when He said

Why I Remain a Methodist 265
to the ecclesiastics of His day: "The Son of Man is come
to seek and to save that which was lost."
These two men — John and Charles Wesley — understood
the great Heart of Jesus, broken that a world might be saved
by the breaking. This conception of the Love of Jesus
makes Charles Wesley exclaim :
O for this love, let rocks and hills
Their lasting silence break,
And all harmonious human tongues
The Saviour's praises speak.
Nothing but one great song of praise from all creation
could be a fitting response to the love of the Father revealed
in Jesus Christ — a love shut in by no barrier, limited in
none of its blessings by any frontier or boundary of
nationality or ecclesiastical organisation. This is the
Methodist spirit. Those who really follow John Wesley
may rejoice to be in communion with the Church of England,
but they can do nothing that might cut them off from
communion with any who love our Lord Jesus Christ in
sincerity and truth.
The third reason which should determine a Methodist
who believes in the ultimate federation of the Christian
churches — the ecclesiastical counterpart of the League of
Nations — to remain in Methodism is that in the course of
the years the central position in Christendom has moved
more and more from Newman's early via media, the
Church of England, to Methodism. McCabe's careful
analysis of the changed position of the Roman Communion,
in his book entitled "The Decay of the Church of Rome,"
demonstrates beyond dispute the weakened influence and
diminished numbers of that Church.
During the decades in which this change has been taking
place the growth of the non-episcopal communions has
caused the centre of gravity in Western Christendom to move

266 Chapters from My Life
westward. Statistics show that the Presbyterian, Baptist,
Congregationalist and Methodist Churches in the United
States and Canada have advanced during this period by very
many millions, and Methodism to-day occupies a central
position in polity and doctrine in the religious life of the
Anglo-Saxon race. In Methodism, if it be true to itself, there
are combined those elements which should make it the central
point in any ultimate reunion. It possesses the Catholic note
in its theology, an absolute universality in its message, and a
foundation principle of great value in its genius for friendship
with other communions. Wherever Methodism has lost
this note and degenerated into provincialism and smug self-
complacency, it has ceased to be Wesleyan and Catholic and
become Sectarian.
As the early Tractarians were bound to triumph within
their own communion in the long run because they had their
foundation principles in the teaching of the Prayer Book, and
not, like their Evangelical opponents, in the teaching of
Calvin, so with equal certainty will those within Methodism,
who are claiming the right to follow John Wesley, be
rewarded if they imitate the patience of Keble, Pusey,
Liddon, and Gore, and do not, in restlessness at the slowness
of the "mills of God," make the blunder of Newman and
Manning by an acceptance of re-ordination. The claim made
in this year of grace by a large section of Anglicanism, that
only through Bishops can a valid ministry be maintained,
is not made by a long catena of great authorities in the
Church of England right down to Lightfoot and Benson in
the nineteenth century.
It is a less easy matter to explain to those who do not
know Methodism intimately the weight of another considera
tion which gives Methodism its hold upon its children. "The
Brotherhood," the name inside the freemasonry of Methodism
by which the ministry is designated, is a term which is only
one expression of that fellowship which binds ministers and
people alike in an intimacy which is only saved from be-

Why I Remain a Methodist 267
coming a dangerous corporate selfishness by the missionary
genius of Methodism.
Never since those first days in the history of the Church
when "all that believed were together and had all things
common " has the Koivcovia1 of that first joyous and abound
ing burst of new life found such expression. The original
division of the "Society" into "Classes" of about twelve
members provided mutual guidance and direction in the
spiritual life, and furnished opportunity for the expression
of a common faith, and a common joy in the revelation of
God in Christ. The "lovefeasts," the gathering together of
the class members in each locality, corresponding to the
Agape" of the early Church, extended the closer fellowship
of the smaller meetings to the whole Society in that place.
The marvellous connexionalism of Methodism, which is
one element of its great socialistic experiment of expecting
from every minister his undivided service and remunerating
him according to his needs, has knit together the whole into
an organisation the compactness of which is unsurpassed in
ecclesiastical history. This is strengthened by the removal
of each minister to a new sphere at least once in every three
years. The Methodist people have consequently a strange sense
of ownership in their preachers. It is nearly forty years since
the death of the Methodist orator Morley Punshon and the
missionary advocate W. O. Simpson, but any man to-day
visiting a remote country village who did not understand
familiar references to "our famous preacher, Dr. Punshon,"
and to his friends and contemporaries, W. O. Simpson, G. T.
Perks (father of Sir Robert Perks) and Gervase Smith, would
be like an outsider in a gathering of Freemasons. Judge
Waddy has been dead many years, but stories of his father
and his uncle are still current coin in the treasury of the
Methodist hagiographer. And if Methodism retains its
characteristics, legends of the visits of Dinsdale Young and
' This word John Wesley paraphrases as " that blessed and holy
fellowship." — Sermon xxviii.

268 Chapters from My Life
Sir Robert Perks will linger on in remote Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire villages when great names in the political world
of to-day are only remembered by the student.
Wherever Methodist meets Methodist there is a sense of
unity, a bond of common interest, which is more powerful
than the link which unites old Etonians or Oxford men. "A
loyal Methodist" is a common phrase which expresses this
spirit. This special "loyalty" is a great and a beautiful fact
in the life of Methodism. To have one's "loyalty" un
deservedly suspect through long years of service is perhaps
the heaviest penalty that can befall anyone who has felt the
call to criticise, and has sought in singleness of purpose the
reform of one of the great institutions of Methodism.
Our common "Experience," "Fellowship," "The Brother
hood," "Loyalty to Methodism," are so many golden chains
which bind the members to this great guild. If the chains
of any genuine Methodist be broken some of the links will
cling around him to the end.
The final and supreme reason why, in spite of social and
other disabilities which ought not to count, but often do,
Methodism still retains her children, is because those who
seek true catholicity find it in the genius of the Methodist
Church. Methodists individually may be, and often are,
sectaries. Methodism itself cannot be true to its foundation
principles and be sectarian. "The friends of all, the enemies
of none," was the claim which John Wesley made for his
people. In that passage on "Catholicity," quoted on the first
page, every Methodist has his founder's testamentbequeathing
to him a legacy of love for all men, and a true large-hearted-
ness which he may never enter into or accept, but which is
his lawful inheritance. "The world is my parish," he may
exclaim in his founder's words, and in that spirit, whatever
land he visits, he can hold out the right hand of fellowship
to all who do not deny him brotherhood. To him it has
fallen to share the commission of the seventy, "Into what
soever house ye shall enter, first say, 'Peace be to this

Why I Remain a Methodist 269
house,' and if a son of peace be there your peace shall rest
upon him, but if not it shall turn to you again.'" As each
denomination opens its gates, each church or chapel its doors,
to any outside the ranks of its own people, he is willing to
enter and say, " Peace be unto you and to this house." This
is the Methodist spirit. If we fail to manifest it at all times
the fault is ours and not that of the brotherhood into which
we were born .
Therefore, since love is the supreme joy of life, and
Methodism is love for God and love for man, universal, all
embracing, we find our highest joy in a Methodism true to
itself and its great redemptive mission.
Loyalty to Methodism compelled me very reluctantly to
decline Dr. Farrar's invitation to Westminster and Bishop
Temple's offer to ordain me in 1895. Loyalty to Wesley
encouraged rather than prohibited my decision, in view of
my special relations to the Anglican communion in
Switzerland, to request confirmation in 1910.
Wesley lived and died in the communion of the Church
of England, and nevertheless was the greatest and truest of
all Methodists. The like privilege of being in communion
with the Church of England and yet faithful to Methodism
may surely be granted to one who seeks to follow Wesley as
he followed Christ. 1 St. Luke x. 5 and 6.

CHAPTER XX
THE WILL TO LOVE
" The Love of Jesus " — The Need for Self -Discipline — A Weakness
of Protestantism — Training for the Spiritual Warfare. — The
Call to Sacrifice — The Will to Love — •' ' Validity and Effectiveness
of Sacraments "¦ — An Incident at the Front.
Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher,
nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven
and earth; because Love is born of God, and cannot rest but in God, above
all created things. — Thomas a Kempis.
The. man who loves will never weep that he has no more worlds to
conquer, for Love knows neither end to its sacrifices nor bounds to its
desire. — J. N. Figgis.
The only safeguard of the purity of the Church is its own missionary
passion. — Richard Roberts.
Love and do what thou wilt. — St. Augustine.
MY little book entitled "The Love of Jesus" was written
in the months immediately following my confirmation.
A friend just then gave me a copy of the "Sanctuary," a
small manual on the Holy Communion prepared for members
of the Church of England. It occurred to me that I might
prepare a similar book based on the writings of John Wesley,
and call it "The Love of Jesus."
The pressure of life in the spring of 1910 had become
increasingly heavy. The forces which compelled me to write
sprang from my own pressing necessities. As the swiftest
vessel must be put into dry dock from time to time to be
cleansed from the vast amount of parasites, barnacles, and
seaweed that retard her progress, so I felt that my soul
needed to be cleansed from overgrowth.
The burdens of business, combined with the excitement
of my parliamentary contest at the General Election, had
270

The Will to Love 271
left me exhausted in body and soul. Therefore it was
that the Introductory Letter to my fellow-Methodists was
primarily to myself. In my all too short leisure time I turned
to the lives and writings of those men who, under the
constraint of the love of God revealed in Christ, had
quickened the life of humanity in successive ages when men
were forgetting God. In the inspiration of this love was the
secret which had created the great saints of the Universal
Church. These men had been the divine instruments in the
periodic revivals of the spiritual life which, from generation
to generation, had rekindled the embers of a faltering faith,
because they were constrained to intense devotion by that
love. Jesus taught men with the emphasis of a new revelation
that love in its highest expression is at its best not the mere
indulgence of natural affection but the discharge of a duty
towards God and man. It is not the irresponsible yielding
to an emotion, but a deliberate act resulting from the
decision of the will. In his "Ars Amoris" Ovid described
to a decadent civilisation the pleasures of love of the creature.
Horace offered to men bored with ennui the choice between
the charms of a Chloe or of a Ganymede.
Jesus walks in Galilee, away from the pestilential
atmosphere of the world's metropolis, and gives to the
world from Nazareth, the despised town of a despised
province, a vision of love which it had not entered into the
heart of man to conceive. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself." The
categorical imperative transforms love's ideals from an
embrace to a crucifixion. The love of the vineyard described
in Solomon's Song is changed in the teaching of Jesus to
the love nailed to the Cross, not merely by the order of
Jewish fanatics but also by the compulsion of the Father's
will. "God so loved the world." "My Lord, my Love, is
crucified." The will to love has brought God to man; the
will to love shall lift man to God. The compulsion of the
love of Jesus for us led Him to the Cross. The compulsion

272 Chapters from My Life
of our love for Jesus should lead us to Calvary with its
message of the victory over sin and death.
In this first decade of the new century it seemed to me
that the one hope was that we should get back to the passion
of Charles Wesley when he wrote : "Jesu, Lover of my
Soul "—"Thou, O Christ, art all I want."
I then felt, and every day increasingly the conviction has
grown upon me, that in order to realise the Love of Jesus
we need to resort to that spiritual armoury of prayer,
meditation, study of the Scriptures, self-discipline, and
frequent use of Holy Communion, which gained for the
Oxford students the name of "Methodists."
It has too often been regarded as a final condemnation of
any recommendation to self-discipline, to call it asceticism.
I have felt all my life that until the world is won for Christ
we have no right to shrink from the word "ascetic." The
Greek word, ao-tcno-vi, from which our word is derived,
signifies the training which the athlete undertakes in order
to win the prize at the games. 'A<tkt)ti]<;, the ascetic, was the
trained runner, the trained gladiator, with whom St. Paul
so constantly compares himself. He says, classing himself
with this ascetic : " I buffet my body and bring it into
subjection, lest that by any means, after I have preached to
others, I should fail of the prize."
We need in the warfare of the Church to-day the
asceticism of the soldier and not that of the dervish. To-day,
with four years of this terrible war behind us, the necessity
for training and discipline on the part of the Christian
soldier becomes more obvious than it has ever been in our
history. The life of the Churches at home, in their com
parative luxury and self-indulgence, is condemned by the
deeds of the Army abroad. We are engaged in an infinitely
greater conflict than the conflict with Germany. "We
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Our warfare knows no cessation, and can know no cessation,
until Christ is the universal King.

The Will to Love 273
The Christian Church places itself in a hopeless position
when it depends upon the small army of "regulars," whether
it be monks, or the ministry and the office-bearers, or
anything less than the whole Company of the Faithful.
We are all called to "active service," and active service
involves, from all who take part in it, renunciation. If we
would be disciples we must be prepared to discipline ourselves
for the work that we are undertaking. In the Spectator of
August, 1916, these lines, found on a dead soldier's body,
are recorded :
"Jesus, whose lot with us was cast,
Who saw it out from first to last,
Would I could win and keep and feel
That heart of love, that spirit of steel. . . .
Flog me and spurn me, set me straight
At some vile job I fear and hate ;
Some sickening round of long endeavour,
No light, no rest, no outlet ever;
All at a pace that must not slack,
Though heart would break and sinews crack;
Fog in one's eyes, the brain a-swim,
A weight like lead in every limb,
And a raw pit that hurts like hell
Where the light breath once rose and fell;
Do you but keep me, hope or none,
Cheery and staunch till all is done,
And at the last gasp quick to lend
One effort more to serve a friend."
That is the message that has come to us from one of
the heroes of the battlefield, and yet we here at home have
never dared to set before ourselves and our fellows, as the
universal rule, the Cross of the Crucified. From the trenches
there comes to us to-day in our comfort, protected by these
men, that great word of the Apostle Paul, addressed to
Timothy — HvyKaKOTrdOno-ov, "Suffer hardship with me-" This

274 Chapters from My Life
message comes alike from men on the battlefield, from the
Apostle himself, and from the Leader whom he followed.
We have thought that we could rouse men to heroism
by individual schemes of social reform, and failed to realise
that the higher the call the surer the response. When
Cavour set out to redeem Italy, a work which was completed
in 1870, excepting for Italia Irredenta, a friend said to him,
"Why not begin by reforming Naples?" He answered,
"Men will not die to reform Naples, but they will die to unite
Italy." So with us, men will not die to reform the Poor
Law, but if they understand what it means they will give up
all if need be to unite the Church and save the world. If we
call for the heroic, heroes will be born in a day, but if we
do this we must be prepared to pay the cost.
This cost is summed up in another word of St. Paul's.
The word is avTavanrkvpSi, in the following wonderful and
almost incomprehensible passage in which St. Paul, speaking
of his own "labours more abundant," says: "I fill up on
my part that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ in
my flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church." In
these words is the secret, not of the asceticism of a Simeon
Stylites, but of the self-sacrifice of an apostle.
The Oxford Methodists in the eighteenth century had
deliberately set themselves to induce a revival by systematic
prayer, study of devotional writers of all the ages, meditation
and self-discipline. Tolstoy says: "The first condition
of a good life is self-control, so the first condition of self-
control is fasting." * In this statement he agreed with John
Wesley. It is for us to set ourselves to consider what we
can do to kindle anew by like methods to those of the early
Methodists the passion for the conversion of the world to
Christ. Therefore, this little book urged that we should adopt
the means that the example of our Lord and of His greatest
apostles in every age teaches us to adopt, if we would main
tain the power which was poured out on the Day of Pente-
'" Essays and Letters" {Frowde), p. 79.

The Will to Love 275
cost, that in secret prayer and meditation we should
cultivate the love of God, that we should wait upon
our Lord in the silence to receive' His most intimate
message. The contrast is great between the Methodist of to-day
who passes from the small house to the villa, from the villa
to the great mansion, from a maid of all work to a retinue
of servants, and the great evangelist of England who died
possessing two silver spoons, "one in London and the
other in Bristol," notwithstanding that by his publica
tions he had made and given away tens of thousands of
pounds. In view of these facts I felt that we must ask ourselves
what are we going to do, when the German war is over,
in the greater war that will remain to us? What will we
then do for the love of Jesus? "Will," not "shall"; it is
no question of the future tense. Our volition is in our
own hands. Do we will to love Jesus? The will to power
has almost destroyed civilisation. What is worse than that,
it has destroyed the lives of millions; it has destroyed the
intellectual powers and the physical energy of millions more.
Worst of all — in this shattering of home life, this herding
together of millions of men far away from friends and home,
living in the towns of warring nations, separated from all
the influences of their boyhood, sin has captured multitudes
of souls. What are we going to do in the face of these
facts ?
The will to love Jesus, and in Him the world He has
redeemed, can alone restore all that really matters. The
mind is its own place. What counts is not the rebuilding
of houses, but the restoration of righteousness, law, and
love, and the way to this is by the will to love.
We have been told with passion by those who have
worked in the name of Christ in the trenches that unless we
be united the men from the front will have no use for us.
We have sought union hitherto — if I may use the illus-

276 Chapters from My Life
tration — too much as a mechanical mixture instead of as a
chemical compound. We have thought that by hammering,
bending, twisting, and wresting men's convictions unity
may be achieved, and all the time the true remedy was at
hand. We have acted like the smith who, forgetful of all
the lessons of his life, and the rules of his craft, would
strive to weld bars of cold iron by beating them with his
heaviest hammer. "Force is no remedy," and is only folly
when the furnace is at hand which can quickly achieve the
end. In the furnace of the divine love, souls long sundered
are joined in an inseparable communion. Too long have
they, after some great schism,
Stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs that have been rent asunder.
If the love of Jesus, as St. John understood it, and as
St. Paul, St. Bernard, St. Francis and John Wesley under
stood it, possessed the Churches, we might hope for the
realisation of that unity to which all creation moves, and
which was and is and ever will be the purpose of Him who
prayed "That they all may be one."
This little volume was in its main content a manual of
preparation for the Holy Communion. No one who has
studied the history of the Church can fail to know that the
Blessed Eucharist, which was intended to be the central act
of the Church's life and the great bond of unity between all
the followers of the Crucified, has created wider chasms
and greater conflicts than any other institution of the
Christian faith.
It seemed to me possible that insistence upon the
positive teaching which we as Methodists accept, and is
contained in John Wesley's writings and publications,
would help towards unity. Everything of a negative nature
was outside of my purpose. The materialism of negation
is worse than the materialism of affirmation. Truth is

The Will to Love 277
mightier than error; darkness disappears when light comes
in. Only harm comes through fighting darkness with our
own torches and inventions. Let us leave the dispersion
of the darkness to the rays of the sun. We can only over
come darkness by light; death by life; hatred by love; evil
by good. The supreme test of truth is in experience. This
has always been the contention of Methodism. To quote
again those lines which so express the genius of our
communion : What we have felt and seen
With confidence we tell,
And publish to the sons of men
The signs infallible.
After the Bishop of Lincoln had read this little book,
he said to me, "Do you know that you have never men
tioned the Church of England from cover to cover of your
little book?"
I answered truly that I did not know. I was only con
cerned to express those truths and that teaching about the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper which were in harmony
with John Wesley's life and works. My duty was to affirm
and not to deny.
Since this book was written I have been much encour
aged by the increasing readiness of leading thinkers in
the Church of England who are not prepared to admit the
"validity" of our sacraments, to consider their "effective
ness." Father Herbert Kelly, S.S.M., in his excellent and
thoughtful book on the Church and Religious Unity, lays
great emphasis on the "validity" of the sacraments in the
Church of England. This validity is really a matter of
less moment than he would recognise, if due weight be
given to the "effectiveness " of the sacraments of the
non-Episcopal communions.
Let me illustrate what I mean by two incidents remark-

278 Chapters from My Life
ably akin which have occurred in this present war. The
first was told to me by a High Church dignitary whose
friend, also a High Church clergyman, was the father of
the young officer concerned. This young man and two of
his Eton friends were just going into action. They wished
for the Holy Communion, but they could not find their
own padre. In their anxiety they went to a Wesleyan chap
lain, who conducted the service. The father and my friend
the High Church dignitary discussed the incident and agreed
that such a sacrament was certainly "effective."
The other incident occurred with a Methodist lay
preacher, and was related at the Wesleyan Methodist Con
ference of 1917. Four soldiers were going "over the top"
and wished for the Communion. No chaplain was at hand.
They were all Methodists facing death in the face of Christ,
with the same confident hope as that which inspired the
martyrs of the early Church. One of them, a lay preacher,
said: "We have bread and wine. I will repeat the words
of our service [the Anglican form] and we will receive
together the token of the love, of our Lord."
Who dare deny the " efficacy " of that Sacrament ? I put
this question to a High Church Bishop of the Scottish
Episcopal Church. His answer was, "Twenty years since
I should have denied it. I dare not do so to-day."
Surely of such an incident we can say :
The love of God is broader
Than the measure of man's mind,
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
Such considerations led me to hope that the emphasis
contained in Wesley's teachings on the Sacrament when
brought together in this manual would at once quicken our
people to a sense of the great privilege which they have
inherited from the universal Church, and of which none can
deprive them, and would at the same time help on the

The Will to Love 279
sacred cause of Christian Unity. How far this purpose was
fulfilled was indicated by the kindly reception which was
accorded to this little volume by those as widely separated
as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr. Jowett; Bishop
Gore and Dr. Whyte; the Catholic Times and the Christian
'.World. I had feared many rebukes from extremists on
either side, but my fears were condemned by the result.

CHAPTER XXI
REST IN "A DESERT PLACE" (19II — 1915)
The Need for Retreats — Father Plater's " Retreats for the People "—
Retreat at Swanwick, September, 19 12 — Visit to Mirfield,
November 30th, 1912 — Retreat of Oxford Students at Horndon,
1913 — At Jordans, 1914 — Conference on Retreats at Mirfield,
191 5 — Methods of Retreat — The Ignatian Method — The Ex
pository Method — Dangers of exploiting Religious Experience
— Retreats for Laymen — The Psychology of Retreats — The
Aim of Retreats.
See that thou make all things according to the pattern showed thee in
the Mount.— Exodus.
A ministry that is to impress on the world the very Mind of Christ
ought to have an inner life disciplined by habitual intercourse with the
unseen world. . . . Thirty years of our Blessed Lord's life were spent in
Seclusion, to be followed by only three years of active ministry. — T. T.
Caster, of iClewer, " Retreat Addresses."
Meditate as much while on this journey as if you were shut up in a
hermitage or in your cell, for wherever we are, wherever we go, we carry
our cell with us. Brother, body is our cell, and the soul is the hermit who
dwells in it, there to pray to the Lord and to meditate. — St. Fkancis of
Assisi.
TWO years passed away after I had written my little book,
"The Love of Jesus," in which I had tried tfo make plain
how much the Will to Love meant.
As I thought of all the spiritual adventurers who had
made the great discoveries of the religious life, who from
the mountain-tops of faith had seen the promised land,
I realised that they had one experience in common.
They had strengthened the Will to Love and the Will to
Serve by retirement from the tumult and distraction of
daily life. And there was another feature common to these
religious leaders. They had joined others with them in
280

Rest in "A Desert Place" 281
the quest. Jesus and His disciples exchanged experiences
with the Baptist and his followers. Every great revival
within the Church for fourteen centuries following the
apostolic age was a revival in community. Benedict,
Dominic, Bernard, Francis, Catherine of Siena, Catherine
of Genoa, and Teresa sought to know the will of Christ in
the common silence as well as in the common prayer and
praise of their fraternity, sisterhood, or whatever the
community might be called.
After the Reformation, Wesley had closely followed
the founders of monastic orders, as far as was possible, in
the political and social conditions of his age, and was
frequently mobbed in consequence. The fear of the
restoration of the Stuarts and of the papal power was ever
present. Wesley was thirteen when the Old Pretender came,
and forty-three when the Young Pretender made his attempt.
The zeal of an indiscriminating patriotism which, amid the
terrors roused in the Great War we can well understand and
almost sympathise with, drew no distinction between a
genuine Jacobite and a practical ascetic whose passion to
save the common people led him to obey the commands of
Jesus by the use of methods which saints distinctively Roman
had also adopted. Wesley's division of his people into
"Bands" and "Classes" for self-examination, confession,
and discipline, although it lacked the sacerdotal element, was
like enough to "Popery" to rouse the fury of some ultra-
loyal and Protestant fox-hunting squire as he led the mob
to attack the "enthusiasts."
Wesley was right in learning from the great saints of all
ages the secret of that power which they received from
retirement and communion with God. Therefore the fact
that Ignatius Loyola first systematised the Retreat in that
great masterpiece of spiritual discipline, "The Exercises,"
was no reason for rejecting a method which was used alike
by Moses, Elijah, the Baptist, the Master Himself, and by
His disciples between His ascension and the gift of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost.

282 Chapters from My Life
One day in July, 191 1, I called on my dear friend, J. E.
Rattenbury, of the West London Mission, as in earlier days
I had often called on his predecessor, Hugh Price Hughes, ^
for encouragement in life's conflicts. I suggested to him
that we should go into Retreat with a few of his friends and
mine. He said : "It is strange that you should come to me
with this suggestion just now, for Harry Bisseker and one or
two others have just arranged to go to Swanwick ' in
Retreat.' I cannot get away myself, but I will write to
Bisseker and ask him to invite you."
During the interval which elapsed between this conversa
tion and my retreat at Swanwick, I read Father Plater's very
interesting book, "Retreats for the People,"1 This volume
records a special movement during the present generation to
promote retreats for the laity of the Roman Church. The
work commenced in a retreat for laymen in France in 1874,
and spread rapidly to different countries in Europe and North
and South America. In answer to the natural criticism of-
Englishmen that such a movement was a mere appeal to the
emotions, Father Plater answered, "These Retreats do not
make men sentimentalists or dreamers. On the contrary,
they make men sternly practical." An interesting phrase
constantly used by Father Plater is, "The formation of
Apostles." "This is the chief work of the Retreat House,"
he says, "to produce not a crowd of averagely good
Christians, but a few apostles, men of noble heart and high
ideals, and clear convictions, who will be ' the salt of the
earth.' "
Quoting from another writer, he says: "An elite alone
can save us. To form a nucleus of Christians tempered to
resist the assaults of the foe, impregnated with the apostolic
spirit, ready to waive their personal interests, to penetrate
the masses, to strengthen the faith that totters, to rally the
scattered men of good will — that is the pressing task. It is
on foot. It is being accomplished quietly but surely — by
means of Retreats." ' Sands & Co.

Rest in "A Desert Place" 283
The Methodist Retreat at Swanwick was held on Septem
ber 20th — 23rd, 1912, and was attended by nearly a hundred
ministers and laymen. A deep devotional spirit pervaded
all the discussions, and all expressed their sense^ of the help
fulness of the gathering. The only defect which some of us
felt was the absence of anything approaching to self-
discipline. A motion that we should observe definite hours
of silence was not agreed to, but this question was left to the
individual choice of the members. When one meets the
dearest friends of long years ago in these circumstances, there
is so much to say that silence is almost impossible, unless it
be the rule. One great weakness of the Free Churches and
especially of Methodism lies in the passion for talk, and the
distaste for self-conquest in such matters. I mention these
things in no critical spirit, but because my experiences of the
Swanwick Retreats in following years deepened my convic
tion that we need to learn from the wisdom of the Jesuits and
of the Society of Friends in this matter, or such retreats
merely become delightful religious holidays instead of being
times of hard training for the Christian soldier.
After my visit to Swanwick I decided to prepare the little
manual, "Retreats for the Soul," and with this in view, to
visit an Anglican retreat. I therefore wrote to Dr. Frere,
head of the Community of the Resurrection, and asked his
permission to attend a retreat at Mirfield. This was freely
granted, and on November 30th I passed through Leeds on
my way to Mirfield.
Dr. Frere was at that time in residence at the Com
munity's Theological College in Leeds, and I had a short
conversation with him in which, with that characteristic
breadth of sympathy which marks the Community, he said ;
"The conventions that are increasing so much are with
drawals from the ordinary life of the world, though they may
not be characterised by the exact features of a Retreat."
Nevertheless, when I reached Mirfield and entered the
perfect calm of the Community life, I felt that the absolute

284 Chapters from My Life
cessation of conversation and discussion, which dated from
the commencement of the Retreat on Saturday night to
its termination at supper on Sunday night, was essential.
Between the acts of common worship that took place during
the day, there were periods when, spiritually and physically,
one could "rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him," or
could continue in private penitential prayers and endeavours
after that closer union with the Divine which had marked
the hours of worship. The soldier-like simplicity of the
Brotherhood impressed me greatly. There were no servants
and no lay brothers. One of the Fathers came to my room
to see if any coals were needed for the fire, and I found that
all the household work, including the waiting at table, was
being done by these educated men.
Father Horner, who conducted the Retreat, emphasised
in his first address the fact that the supreme object of the
Retreat was to get alone into the presence of God, and to
realise one's nearness to Him. As in the restful quiet of the
spacious and beautiful Community Church one listened to his
exposition of the Holy Calling in the letter to the Ephesians,
one forgot — as he intended us to forget — the "priest," and
only realised God and the privilege of "dwelling in Heavenly
places." "God is not far away but with us now, he said;
"our prayers have not to travel to reach Him." We were
called, "not to know things about God, but to know God."
So also with reference to the Love of God. We were "not
to know all about it." We were to know "the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all
the fullness of God." "We are called to be saints, and our
response must be to be fruitful and faithful."
The addresses were given by Father Horner, seated, and
speaking in an easy conversational tone, in a manner most
calculated to make us forget the speaker in his message. I
was much impressed by Father Horner's extempore prayers
preceding and following each of his four addresses, enriched
as they were by passages from liturgical forms.
This Mirfield Retreat encouraged me to press on with

Rest in " A Desert Place " 285
my manual and to seek in other ways to cultivate retreats
amongst my own people.
During the following Oxford summer term I was invited
to speak at a dinner of the Oxford Wesley Society, and spoke
to the men of their high calling as followers of that Fellow
of Lincoln College, Oxford, whose teaching had changed
England and evangelised the American colonies. After the
dinner I invited as many as would come to meet me in
Retreat at Horndon-on-the-Hill, in Essex. In this delight
fully solitary place, my old friend Stansfeld, of Horncastle
days, who was now Vicar of St. Ebbs, Oxford, had acquired
thirty-five acres of land. Here his mission boys from the
Bermondsey Mission, of which he had previously been in
charge, had built a very primitive little church to hold
thirty, a dining-room, and thirty wooden bedrooms in the
form of a quadrangle with cloisters. The bedrooms were
furnished with monastic severity, each with a bedstead, mat
tress, khaki blanket and chair. Our retreat was held at the
end of the summer term, June 14th — 17th, 1913, in the most
glorious weather. The Bermondsey lads had planted the
grounds with young trees, foxgloves, wild roses and other
wild flowers. We could not have found a more delightful
place for a retreat.
We were about sixteen in all, and were joined by an old
minister, the Rev. George Lester, who came at my request
that we might commence each day with the celebration of the
Supreme Love of our Lord in the sacrament of His Body
and Blood. After a bathe on those brilliant June mornings
in a pond in a corner of the grounds, we gathered in the
little church — a building which, by the wish of the vicar of
the parish, had remained unconsecrated — and here we bowed
in lowly adoration before the Mystery of God made flesh for
us men and for our salvation.
None will forget the beauty and calm of those summer
days. Silence was observed excepting during mealtimes
and two ancj a half hours left free for recreation. An in-

286 Chapters from My Life
creasing sense of unity and fellowship pervaded our little
company, and after my addresses, one by one the men came
to me, as they were free to do at all hours, to tell me of
their own special difficulties and temptations. The joy and
the blessing of this Retreat cannot be put on paper.
A year later — in 1914 — less than two months before the
outbreak of war, a similar little company gathered at the
Jordans, Beaconsfield, the home of William Penn, who him
self recommends the practice of retreats. The Rev. W. B.
Brash, our Oxford chaplain, took the Holy Communion ser
vices, and again the experiences of the previous year were
repeated. Alas ! we little knew of the storm-cloud gathering
over Europe, and as I look at their signatures interchanged
with me, I see names which have been written for the last
time in an earthly Roll of Honour, but are now written in
the Lamb's Book of Life.
The publication of my little book had been noticed by
the Mirfield Fathers after my visit there. Nevertheless, I
was very much surprised to receive, early in 1916, an invita
tion from Father Cyril Bickersteth to attend a Conference on
Retreats in the House of the Resurrection at Mirfield on
May 1st — 3rd, and to speak on "The Extension of Retreats
amongst Laymen." The Conference consisted of forty
members, mainly Fathers in community life, with a few
Anglican clergymen in parochial work, one other layman,
and myself. Amongst the speakers were Father Longridge,
of Mirfield, who presided; Father Lucius Cary, of Cowley;
Father Seaton, Principal of the Theological College at
Cuddesdon; Father Cyril Bickersteth, Father Figgis, Father
Bull, of Mirfield, and others.
I was very warmly welcomed at the House of the Resur
rection by the Fathers whom I had met previously and by
Dr. Frere, who arrived during the evening, bringing with
him two Serbian monks, an interesting addition to our
company. They spoke a little English, and attended the
services and the Conference. I think they felt very much at

Rest in "A Desert Place" 287
home with the monastic chapel and the regular services,
prime, tierce, sext, nones, and compline, with, of course, the
early celebration after prime. We were each of us given on
arrival a list of speakers and programme with instructions
to observe the Greater Silence from after compline till 10 a.m.
the next day, compline finishing at 10 p.m. This was most
helpful, as it gave time for a little quiet meditation before the
Conference began.
The Conference was opened on Tuesday morning on the
subject, "Methods of Retreat," by Father Longridge, of
Cowley, who is a brother of Father George Longridge, of
Mirfield. He is a great authority on Ignatius, and spoke
of the Ignatian method of retreat in contrast with the exposi
tory method, which latter he held was insufficient, as the
object of the retreat was that the ideas dwelt on should grow
and increase within the soul.
The Ignatian method consists of four courses or weeks —
Purgation, Illumination and Union with God.
The first week is devoted to the consideration of sin and
its consequences. The second to the mysteries and teaching
of our Lord's Life. While we thus meditate on Christ's life
we are led to consider in what way we can best bring our
life into harmony with Christ's. During the third week we
dwell on the sufferings of Christ, and in the fourth week on
our share of the glory of the Resurrection and the Divine
Life. The outline of this course is contained in Hebrews xii.
These rules, he said, were no Procrustean bed on which all
were to be stretched ; the whole plan was modified to suit the
needs of each. The Director kept himself in the background
and allowed the Creator to work immediately with the
creature. Father Seaton, the Principal of Cuddesdon, spoke on the
Expository method, which he preferred to the Ignatian. The
subject of the Retreat, he said, was conditioned by the pur
pose of the Retreat. The purpose was that Christ should
impart Himself to the devout soul.

288 Chapters from My Life
For those in retreat, he held that the normal channel
of the Divine Spirit was through the teaching of the Word.
Nothing could take its place, and all the good results of
meditation were based upon it. In the retreats which he had
attended he had been amazed at the new avenues that had
been opened up, and he believed that this was true wherever
the Holy Scriptures were used faithfully. The great aim
should be to combine the Ignatian and Expository methods.
The best material for a retreat was our own discoveries in
the Christian life.
One felt that these men were the great adventurers of this
age opening up new territories in the spiritual world for us
to occupy. Father Figgis, who is the philosopher of the Mirfield
Brotherhood, said it was dangerous that the conductor should
exploit his own religious experiences. Religion was too
often self-centred instead of God-centred; faith in faith in
stead of faith in God. Our object was to forget ourselves.
Retreatants should be taken away from their work and also
from themselves, not only from the consideration of their
outward life but also of their inner life. We must bring
them face to face with God and leave them there.
The retreat should not be on one note. The conductor
should follow the purgative, the illuminative, and the
unitive path. These should be the notes in his mind; but he
should always aim at leaving the Retreatants "in heaven —
at rest with God."
The afternoon session was devoted to the question of the
extension of Retreats amongst the clergy, laymen and
women. The second subject fell to my lot, and nothing
could have exceeded the cordial sympathy with which the
Conference listened to me for forty minutes.
On Wednesday morning Father Bull opened the Confer
ence with a most valuable address on the Psychology of
Retreats. I should like to have reproduced it in full, but
can only give the following points :
He held that there were the fixed method and the free

Rest in " A Desert Place " 289
method. The fixed method was when we meditated to cul
tivate a special virtue such as humility. The free method
aimed at bringing the soul into the presence of God that He
might surround it with His love. Both were legitimate.
Our tendency was to the free because it was so difficult to
carry out the fixed.
The first exercise in a retreat was silence. He advocated
at least three-day retreats. The effect of silence was (i) a
cultivation of self-restraint and self-control. It had the
effect of the command, "Silence in the ranks," on a lot of
raw recruits. This was the first element in their training and
meant a great deal to them. (2) The next effect of silence
was the recollection of God speaking to them. He greatly
regretted that people did not more definitely expect ministra
tions of angels and the definite speakings of God's voice.
(3) It stopped the leakage of spiritual force. "In the desert
man shrinks and God grows." We could not get much good
from silence until the irritation has passed.
Speaking of self-examination, he said it was possible to
make too much of the more direct form, and we might with
advantage more frequently make our self-examination posi
tive — how far were we showing the fruits of the Spirit in
our lives? Charity, humility, energy, love, joy, peace.
"Ansemia is not a virtue but a misfortune."
In the matter of repetitions they might be psychic or
pneumatic. They might aim at a sort of hypnotism open to
grave objections or they might be spiritual. There was a
real objection to the first part of the "Exercises." It applied
also to some of the methods of English Revivalists. The
same thing applied to Benediction in America, where the soft,
bright transformation scenes with music adapted to this
special end, etc., led to this hypnotic state. He believed that
God meant us to use our reason untrammelled by such in
fluences. At the same time he recognised that repetitions
might have their use in affecting the mind, the heart and
the will.
"The greatest crime," he said, "with which Anglicans
T

290 Chapters from My Life
can rightly be charged is the murder of the imagination.
We begin by giving the babe toy aeroplanes instead of dolls,
by giving all children scientific instruction instead of fairy
tales, and we go on all through life in the same way. We
are right in cultivating the imagination by depicting the
scenes of Calvary. We should add to this the effect of
the senses, by burning the scene into the mind of the
retreatant." He then spoke of Colloquies, which ought to be cultivated
more. "Our people," he said, "do not know how to carry
on conversations with those in the unseen world." Person
ally, I did not know what Colloquies were till I studied the
fourth book of the "Imitation." We Methodists sing,
» " In Him the tribes of Adam boast
More blessings than their father lost,"
but do we realise that as truly as Adam talked with God in
the Garden, and as Jesus conversed with Moses and Elias,
so we may meet our Lord in the solitude and converse with
Him ? And yet we sing,
"Talk with us, Lord, Thyself reveal,
While here o'er earth we rove;
Speak to our hearts, and let us feel
The kindling of Thy love."
Father Bull went on to say that the centre of the Exer
cises was the holy indifference of the Lover to everything
but the object of His love. He always used the visions of the
Revelation as Exercises, in order that people may see Christ
at the head of His army, in His City, on His throne.
The greatest problem, he said, was the one that Sir Henry
Lunn referred to in his speech. How to appeal to the heroic,
how to breed martyrs, how to rouse enthusiasm for God and
His Christ. We had to learn how to eliminate the appalling
vice of lukewarmness. In English theology only did it find

Rest in "A Desert Place" 291
a place. We had baptised it as a virtue which we called
"moderation." Father Figgis expressed his sympathy with what Father
Bull had said about the dangers of hypnotism, but we must
guard the other side in an age of attack like the present.
People were always bound to ask themselves, "Is my
religion, so real to me, anything more than a case of self-
hypnotism ? " We must face the attack and recall such
people to the cumulative effect of the testimony on which the
Church is built. He believed that the danger of hypnotising
the will was real, and under the Jesuits the individual became
a mere instrument, but was the attempt to influence the sub
conscious elements always wrong ? He thought we were
justified in attempting, by a combination of influences, to
control those sub-conscious elements. Ritual, music, and
sights, as such influences had their dangers, but they had
their uses if balanced by the intellectual side, which is the
secondary and more superficial side of our nature.
I was most attracted by the address of one of the Cowley
Fathers who spoke of his own experiences so intimately that
he would, I am sure, desire me to omit his name. He spoke
of the help he had received at his retreat as a novice in the
Society of St. John the Evangelist, when, according to the
rules of the Society, he spent three weeks alone with his
director, and a week with the Society, and of his retreat as a
postulant when he spent a fortnight alone with his director,
and a fortnight with the Society. In the last twenty years
he had attended many retreats, but amongst them all one
stood out pre-eminent as an aid to holiness. It was a fort
night's retreat absolutely alone with God. On this occasion
he celebrated the great love of Christ every morning in the
Eucharist, and based his meditations on the Exercises.
I should perhaps better convey his spirit by quoting
some extracts from a volume of his addresses given to a
Community in Retreat which is amongst my most treasured
possessions: "We realise afresh that the call to retreat, and
all that retreat may mean to us, is but a renewing in divine

292 Chapters from My Life
wisdom of that love which has been revealed to us in our
vocation. . . . Not by thought but by love bringing our
selves before God, and yielding all our faculties to Him in
full surrender. Kneeling thus before Him with eyes closed
and faces veiled, lest the light should be too great, the
thought too overwhelming, we may rest in the presence of
Love made manifest ; and our hearts thus opened will receive
not the thought only but the impress, the reality of His life."
" Regret for what we have left would clearly be impossible
for a whole-hearted lover of Christ, for Whose love, all that
love ever meant to us was but a preparation."
"There are none who may not come to know our Lord
intimately, and through Him the Father, by the experience
of entire consecration to Him. Not by seeing, not by hear
ing, not by learning, but by love do we come to know Him."
"Our Lord would draw us to Himself first, and then
through us, as through His humanity, would send forth
continually the beams of pitying love."
" If we shrink back and cannot bear the Cross, what part
can we have with the Crucified? The world stood by to
mock on Calvary. So our mortification is usually only to
be seen by the eyes of Love. Those mortifications are best
which are interior, the humble, contrite spirit, which bears
not only deserved but undeserved reproof, which accepts
and* cherishes humiliations, which welcomes failure rather
than success, because it knows success has dangers."
"The soul's growth, therefore, is hidden from the world,
and no eye but that of Jesus can really guide and cherish
it. Christ alone knows the true story of the soul's growth,
the self-oblation, the patience, the perseverance, the fire of
divine love, the hidden work of the Holy Spirit day by day,
of which angels and men shall see at last the complete result,
the image of Christ reflected in a perfect character."
"Those only are allowed to learn the heart of Christ most
deeply who are with Him in Gethsemane and on the Cross."
In the course of his address he said : " That which is most
needed is a trained school of directors, prepared not in the

Rest in " A Desert Place " 293
study, but in the oratory and before the altar." Of such
is he. When I left Mirfield I did not wonder that with such
men leading the devotional life of the Church as I had been
privileged to meet in such an intimate way during these two
memorable days, the Church of England had added tens of
thousands to its communicant roll at Easter during, these
same years in which each of the Free Churches had been
marking a grave decline. And yet there are in Methodism a
multitude, trained in experimental religion, who would
respond at once to such teaching as I have quoted if we,
their teachers, had the devotion necessary to summon them
to enter into retreat, and the grace to deliver such a message.
In those two days I realised how near men come to each
other when they rise above the valley with its unbelief and
its distracting cries, to the Mount of Illumination, and on
its summit hear the voices of the Master and of those with
whom He holds converse. Then may the soul indeed say,
"Lord, it is good for us to be here." Thence we may return
to the crowd with a new power to face the needs of men.

CHAPTER XXII
WELSH CHURCH DISENDOWMENT (19II  1915)
The Welsh Bill — Disestablishment and Disendowment Separate Ques
tions — Misgivings as to Disendowment — Dr. Hensley Henson's
Appeal to Nonconformists — My Letter to the Times 191 1 —
Conciliation Committee suggested — Views of Sir Jesse Herbert
and Dr. Clifford — Sir Edward Fry becomes President of Com
mittee — List of Members of Committee — Sympathy of English
Free Churchmen — Memorial to the Government drawn up —
Presented by Bishop Gore and Dr. Scott Lidgett — Mr. Asquith
replies — The Suspensory Act of 1914 — Welsh Church penalised
— Correspondence in the Times — Memorial to Mr. Asquith
— The Duke of Devonshire's Bill — Further Appeal to the
Prime Minister — Mr. McKenna's Attitude — Effect on" the
Government — Mr. Lloyd George's Speech — Accusation of
" Meddling " examined — No Separation between English and
Welsh Nonconformity — Duty of English Free Churchmen —
Disendowment a Hindrance to Unity
The battle is lost, but there is time to win another. — General Desaix
to Napoleon, half way through the Battle of Marengo.
It is only toy. abridging the authority of the State that the liberty of
churches can be assured. That great political idea, sanctifying freedom
and consecrating it to God, teaching men to treasure the liberties of others
as their own and to defend them for the love of justice and charity more
than as a claim of right, has been the soul of what has been great and
good in the progress of the last two hundred years. — Lord Acton.
IN the autumn of 1909 I was greatly troubled by the
provisions of the Welsh Bill. The- further the con
troversy proceeded, the more fatal the conditions as to
disendowment seemed to be to the cause of Christian unity
in Great Britain.
I had always strongly held that the Church, and the cause
of religion generally, suffered much by the establishment of
religion in any country. In my university days I had spoken
294

Welsh Church Disendowment 295
in this sense in the College Historical Society, and in
political speeches from time to time I had taken up the same
position. I believed then and I believe still the truth of St.
Theodoret's comment on the conversion of Constantine,
"This day is poison poured into the Church of Christ." I
never wavered in the conviction that State aid and control of
religion resulted in infinite mischief to the Church. But
during all these years I had never found myself able to make
a speech in support of disendowment.
The Welsh Church Bill was now before the Houses of
Parliament, and I felt it my duty as a member of the Liberal
Party carefully to study the question of disendowment. I
wrote to the Liberation Society for their literature. When I
received their reply I felt with Milton, "The hungry sheep
look up and are not fed." On the other hand, the more I
read the more I found to confirm my own instinctive feeling
that the Free Churches in England were wrong in
supporting the demand for Disendowment.
Day by day, as I followed the struggle in Parliament and
outside, the conviction deepened in my mind that the whole
Church of Christ in our land was being gravely injured by
the bitterness of the controversy. Through all the years the
bitterness had grown. I do not attempt to apportion the
blame, but the fact of the bitterness was indisputable.
In the late autumn of 191 1 Canon Henson, now Bishop
of Hereford, wrote a letter to the Times appealing to the
Nonconformists to make some protest against the measure.
I had never spoken to or communicated with Canon
Henson, and without consultation with any ecclesiastic or
politician, I sat down one Sunday morning at the end of
November, 191 1, to write a letter to the Times and other
papers. In this letter I pointed out that it was a grave matter for
one who had entered the sixth decade of life to take public
action which would separate him (even if on one important
issue only) from those whose religious and civic aspirations
he had always shared, and in whose labours he had taken

296 Chapters from My Life
part. I therefore asked any of those leaders of the Free
Churches who dreaded the struggle about temporalities with
which the religious life of the nation was threatened, to enter
into conference with representative Churchmen, and see if it
were not possible to recommend to the Government and the
nation such amendments to the Bill of 1909 as would clear
the Free Churches from the imputation of attempting to
despoil a Christian community that was doing good work.
I urged them to take this course, notwithstanding their con
viction that it was necessary to free religion from the tram
mels of the State. I pointed out that in 1892 the present
Bishop of St. David's, then Dean Owen of St. Asaph's,
wrote in the Review of the Churches (of which I was the
Editor) a plea that every effort should be made to. keep in
check the asperities of the conflict on Welsh Disestablish
ment. Later on, Dr. Owen came to my house and asked me
personally, as President of the Reunion Conferences which
met in Switzerland from 1892 to 1895, to ca^ together a con
ference of the leaders of both sides to see if anything could
be done in this direction, and to ask the Bishop of London
to preside. Bishop Temple had on another occasion will
ingly consented, in response to a request from me, to unite
with Nonconformists in social effort, but at this time he did
not see his way to preside over a conference on "Civic
Relations and Disestablishment " because he felt that such a
conference would be ineffective.
My letter went on to say that some of my friends might
insist : "You are ignoring the question of principle : you for
get Gladstone's words, ' I have declared again and again that
the funds of the Church are national property.' You ignore
Bishop Gore's statement that 'Disestablishment must be
accompanied by some measure of Disendowment.'" The
answer to this line of argument was that the Bill of 1909 was
itself a compromise, as every measure of disendowment that
does not nationalise the Churches must be. The Bill left
the Church all her church buildings and residences and all
funds allocated to their upkeep, and all private benefactions

Welsh Church Disendowment 297
since 1662. Why should the year 1662, when the Act of
Uniformity was carried, be a more desirable year than 1604,
the year of the Savoy Conference between the Church of
England and the Puritans, or 1558, when Protestantism was
restored by Queen Elizabeth and the Puritan divisions
began ? Since the year 1662 was obviously selected as the
best dividing line, and was only in the nature of an expedient,
why should not the leaders on both sides meet and discover,
if possible, some other expedient which should bring peace
to the nation in its ecclesiastical life, instead of bitterness
and discord?
I therefore suggested the formation of a Round Table
Conference, which should consist of English and Welsh
representatives of the Church of England and the Free
Churches. I concluded the letter as I began, on the personal note,
because I wished to make an appeal to those who had worked
with me in the past. Three of the members of the Govern
ment whose names were on the back of the 1909 Bill had
honoured me with their friendship. This friendship had
been shown to me because I had up to that moment been
faithful to the principles of Liberalism as I understood them,
often at great cost to myself. The letter might have led
some for whose opinion I cared greatly to regard me as half
hearted. But when I realised the great issues involved, the
infinite damage to religion that would come from three years
of bitter strife in which the future of the English Church as a
whole would be believed to be at stake, I felt it an absolute
duty to take action.
Nothing that I had ever written had cost me more. I sat
at my writing-table without touching food, on the Sunday
when I wrote it, until five in the afternoon, when I had
finished the letter. That time had been spent wrestling with
the question in thought and prayer. I felt that I was cut
ting myself off from my best friends and former colleagues.
It was the first time I had ever taken action in criticism of
the general position of the Liberal Party since I began

298

Chapters from My Life

political work with speeches in support of Home Rule at
the 1886 election, delivered all over Great Britain from Nairn
to Clapham, from Lincolnshire to the Lake District.
Having drafted the letter, I went in the evening to call on
my friend, Sir Jesse Herbert, Political Secretary to the Chief
Whip of the Liberal Party. To my surprise, he said at
once, "You are doing the right thing in endeavouring to
form a Conciliation Committee. I do not like our taking the
money. This question ought to be settled by agreement."
With this encouragement I went to work on Monday to form
the Committee,. I saw leading men on both sides and was
surprised by my reception, which was most favourable in all
quarters with the exception of Welsh Nonconformists whom
I asked to join, and who refused point blank. Canon Henson
joined the Committee at once. The next to join were Dr.
Scott Lidgett and Dr. Monro Gibson, ex-Presidents of the
Free Church Council. I went that week to Oxford and saw
Bishop Gore and Canon Scott Holland, both of whom
consented to join.
I called on that veteran Nonconformist, Dr. John
Clifford, who had been my co-editor in days gone by, and
his kindliness of spirit was never more shown than on this
occasion. He said to me, "You cannot ask me to join your
Committee after having been President of the Liberation
Society for twenty-five years, but will you preach for me next
Sunday?" — which I did.
After my letter appeared I heard from the Bishop of
Lincoln to say that he had read it in the Times, and
would like to join the Committee. I interviewed Sir Edward
-Fry, the distinguished judge whose career has added fresh
lustre to the record of that great Quaker family, and he
consented to become President.
The Committee was constituted as follows :

The Right Hon. Sir Edward
Fry, O.M., G.C.B., etc.,
Chairman.
The Rev. Principal W. F.

Adeney, D.D., Chairman of
the Congregational Union.
Mr. Edward Atkin.
The Rev. Canon Barnett.

Welsh Church Disendowment 299

The Rev. S. O. Baumgarten,
Rector of St. George's,
Bloomsbury.
The Rev. J. F. Bradley, author
of "Religious Liberty in
England."
The Rev. Percy Dearmer, D.D.
Sir James Duckworth, ex-Presi
dent of the United Methodist
Free Churches.
The Very Rev. Moore Ede, D.D. ,
Dean of Worcester.
The Very Rev. T. C. Fry, D-D.,
Dean of Lincoln.
The Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D.,
ex-President of the National
Free Church Council; ex-
Moderator of the Presby
terian Church of England.
The Right Rev. Charles Gore,
D.D., Lord Bishop of
Oxford.
The Rev. H. Hensley Henson,
Canon of Westminster.
The Right Rev. Charles Hicks,
D.D., Lord Bishop of Lin
coln.
The Rev. Canon Scott Holland,
D.D., Regius Professor of
Divinity of the University of
Oxford.
Mr. D. C. Lathbury, formerly
editor of the Guardian.
The Rev. J. Scott Lidgett, D.D.,
ex-President of the National
Free Church Council, and
ex-President of the Wesleyan
Conference.

Dr. T. B. Napier, formerly M.P.
for N.E. Kent.
The Rev. G. Campbell Morgan,
D.D., Pastor of Westminster
Chapel.
The Rev. J. H. Moulton, D.Litt.,
Dean of the Theological
Faculty of Manchester Uni
versity.
Sir Charles Nicholson, Bart.,
M.P.
Professor A. S. Peake, D.D.,
Professor of Biblical Exe
gesis, Manchester University.
The Rev. J. E. Rattenbury,
Superintendent of the West
London Mission.
The Rev. W. G. Edwards Rees,
Hon. Canon of Manchester.
The Rev. J. E. Roberts, D.D.,
successor to Dr. Alexander
Maclaren at Union Chapel,
Manchester.
Sir Edward Russell, editor of
the Liver-pool Post.
Lord Saye and Sele.
The Rev. W. B. Selbie,- D.D.,
Principal of Mansfield Col
lege.
The Rev. J. H. Shakespeare,
D.D., Secretary of the
Baptist Union.
The Rev. Canon Simpson, of St.
Paul's Cathedral.
Mr. Robert Whyte.
Sir Henry Lunn, Convener.

The actual membership of the Committee did not fully
represent the strong feeling which existed in Free Church
circles against the Bill of 1909. Several men holding high
official positions in the Free Churches, who did not join
the Committee, expressed to me their strong sympathy
with my endeavour, and their desire to dissociate themselves
from any intention to divert from religious purposes funds

300 Chapters from My Life
which had been dedicated to such purposes by their
donors. On the other hand, the suggestion made by the Bishop of
Hereford that the money taken from the Welsh Church
should be divided pro rata among the Nonconformist
denominations was absolutely intolerable to all Free Church
men whom I knew personally. They were not prepared to
justify the charge that they were seeking the spoliation of a
branch of the Church of Christ for the benefit of their own
communions. Just before the first meeting of the Committee an impor
tant manifestation of feeling occurred. The Church of
Scotland had laid down its reunion proposals for the con
sideration of the United Free Church, on the basis of the
retention by the United Church of Scotland of all its endow
ments, and the obtaining from Parliament of powers which
would liberate the Church in certain important respects from
the control of the State. Eighteen years earlier I had pre
sided at a Conference to discuss Presbyterian reunion, in
which the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Modera
tor of the United Presbyterian Church, and Professor
Lindsay of the Free Church of Scotland were the principal
speakers. At that date it would have seemed entirely impos
sible that the Church of Scotland would ever make such
proposals as have since been laid down for the consideration
of the Free Church, or that the proposal for the Church of
Scotland to retain endowments while rejecting State control
would ever be tolerated by the Disestablished communions.
This was only one instance of the direction in which
thought had moved since the days when Edward Miall was
carrying on his Disendowment campaign. It was another re
markable sign of the times that at the previous annual meet
ing of the National Free Church Council a resolution was
carried in favour of the Disestablishment of the Welsh
Church without one word being mentioned with respect to
Disendowment. If there had been any strong convictions
on the part of Nonconformists that the funds of the Welsh

Welsh Church Disendowment 301
Church should be taken from the objects to which they are
devoted, such a conviction would certainly have found ex
pression in this large, representative, and powerful assembly
of Free Churchmen.
I knew from high official authority that the proposal to
include Disendowment in this resolution would not only have
gravely divided the meeting, but might also have brought
about a serious division in the Free Church life of the whole
country. The situation in a sentence was this. We Liberals were
using our party machinery to carry through a measure for
which there was no strong demand from any but the Welsh
extremists, and which was directly contrary to the feeling
of that large body of voters which represents the Church of
England. The first meeting of this Committee took place on the
21st of December, 191 1, to consider: (1) What amount of
endowments Churchmen would insist on retaining under a
Disestablishment Bill ; (2) if there were to be a compromise,
what form should the compromise take, and (3) the need of
securing freedom of action for the Disestablished Church as
regarding union with the province of Canterbury.
The last meeting took place on May nth, 1912, when a
memorial was drafted and signed by all the members of the
Committee excepting the Dean of Lincoln, the Rev. S. O.
Baumgarten, the Rev. Dr. Campbell Morgan, and the Rev.
J. F. Bradley.
The memorial was in the following terms :
" The members of the Welsh Disestablishment Conciliation
Committee, whilst differing among themselves as to the justice
of Disestablishment and Disendowment, welcome those features
of the present Bill which show greater consideration to the Church
in Wales than previous measures have done. At the same time
they urge the Government to modify the Bill in the following
directions :
" (1) That so far as tithe rent charge is concerned, the prin-

302 Chapters from My Life
ciples of commutation and compounding of life interests in the
Act for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church be followed.
' ' (2) That all glebe and other lands now in the possession of
the Church in Wales remain the property of the Church after
Disestablishment. " (3) That all property acquired out of accumulated income
since 1662 remain the property of the Disestablished Church.
" (4) That the precedent of the Irish Church Act be followed
with reference to the churchyards, provided always that equality
of use is secured to all parishioners.
" (5) That adequate provision for the reasonable protection of
the interests of assistant curates be provided in the Bill."
The Conciliation Committee's deputation was received
on Wednesday afternoon, June 19, 1912, by the Prime
Minister, the Home Secretary, and Mr. Ellis Griffith. The
Bishop of Oxford explained briefly the basis of the
Conference. The Rev. J. Scott Lidgett said that he spoke for a con
siderable body of Free Churchmen who were most anxious
that the task of the Church in Wales should not be made
unreasonably difficult in the near future. They were anxious
that while the principle of Disendowment should be carried
out, it should be interpreted with reasonable elasticity. When
there was a doubt, the Church should have the benefit
of the doubt. Alderman Sir James Duckworth spoke of
the damage which would be inflicted upon the growing
feeling of Church unity if this drastic measure were
carried. Mr. Asquith in replying said: "The present proposals
differ, I think I may say widely, from those for which nearly
twenty years ago I was responsible when I was Home
Secretary, and whatever difference there is between the pro
posals of to-day and of that time is in the direction of
liberality. I quite agree with Dr. Scott Lidgett that
generosity is not a proper term to apply to an endeavour
to secure equity for those who are engaged in the work
of the Church. As I said, in speaking in the House

Welsh Church Disendowment 303
of Commons on the second reading of the Bill, and
have said more than once outside, we are most anxious
to listen to, and so far as is consistent with the general
objects and purposes of the Bill, to give effect to
considerations in that direction.
"I quite agree with what Dr. Scott Lidgett said that the
Irish Church — and that is the governing precedent in this
matter — was a richer body than the Welsh Church, in pro
portion to the population, at the time of Disestablishment,
and had a smaller percentage of adherents, and that, though
I do not lay so much stress upon this, it had not made the
same headway as the Anglican Church in Wales to overtake
the arrears in the years immediately preceding Disestablish
ment. This ought to be taken into account; it determines
the method to be pursued here, and you suggested that in
two respects at any rate, that is, under the headings i and
5, we are dealing less liberally or equitably, if you like the
word better, in the case of Wales than Ireland. I promise
that we will give a most careful consideration to what you
have urged upon these two points.
"The Parliamentary grants stand on a footing of their
own, and they are not mentioned in your memorandum.
"We will consider these two points, and I cannot say
anything more upon them but that my colleagues and I will
take very careful consideration of what you have said, and
give full weight to the points you have brought before us.
I can only repeat what I said at the outset — that our desire
is that this measure, which we believe to be called for by
considerations of high policy, and which is in strict accord
ance with democratic principles, should be carried out with
the minimum of hardship, and without any injustice to the
existing interests, and above all to the spiritual interests of
the Church. There is no one more sincerely desirous than I
am that the operation shall be carried through on these lines
and in this spirit."
Mr. McKenna then discussed various financial points
with the delegation, and after an expression of thanks to the

304 Chapters from My Life
Prime Minister, Mr. McKenna, and Mr. Ellis Griffith for
their reception, the Committee withdrew.
The members of the Conference, after the reception, ex
pressed themselves as greatly pleased with the manner in
which the Prime Minister had received their recommenda
tions, and there was strong hope that considerable results
would follow.
The Conciliation Committee had done all in its power
to convince the Government that a large and influential
number of members of the Church of England and the
Free Churches were prepared to meet on a basis of com
promise. So far as Disendowment was concerned, those who joined
the deputation to the Prime Minister agreed to leave the
Church in Wales in possession of all its glebe and other
lands, and, so far as tithe rent charge was concerned, to
allow the principles embodied in the Act for the Disestablish
ment of the Church of Ireland to be followed. The Prime
Minister had recognised in his reply to our deputation that
in this respect the Government were dealing "less liberally
or equitably, if you like the word better, in the case of
Wales than Ireland." He promised most careful considera
tion to what had been urged on these two points. Unfor
tunately the exigencies of the political situation, and the
pressure on the Government of the situation in Ireland,
added to the uncompromising attitude of Welsh Noncon
formist Members of Parliament, prevented any material
modification of the Bill in these respects.
The long Parliamentary struggle of 191 2 yielded little to
those who shared the views of our Committee, and the Bill
was slightly modified, but not materially altered.
Many of us felt very unhappy about the course matters
were pursuing, but our loyalty to the Government prevented
us taking any further action. When war was declared in
August, 1914, the whole situation was changed, and in order
to achieve the unity of the whole Kingdom, the Government
agreed to a Suspensory Act for both the Home Rule and

Welsh Church Disendowment 305
the Welsh Church Acts, which had just been passed, but
had not yet come into operation.
Unhappily Mr. McKenna failed to realise how entirely
diverse were the effects of the Suspensory Act on the Home
Rule Act and on the Welsh Church Act, and how strong was
the feeling excited in Churchpeople by this injustice. Lord
Crewe had expressed strong sympathy with the Church in
the House of Lords, and the Prime Minister had made a
corresponding statement in the House of Commons, but no
thing was actually done to mitigate what the Archbishop in
the House of Lords, with justice, called "a grievous wrong
. . . largely due to a misunderstanding."
The only protest, as far as I am aware, that appeared in
the Press was made in the Methodist Times by Dr. Scott
Lidgett, who urged that the Government were treating the
Welsh Church with a harshness which they did not show
to the Ulster opponents of Home Rule. The country gener
ally did not understand what had happened, and believed
that the two measures, the Home Rule Act and the Act
for Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church in
Wales, were placed on the same basis. This was by no
means the case.
In November, 1914, a correspondent in The Times re
vealed to me, in common, I believe, with the majority of the
readers of that paper, the difference in the effect of the Sus
pensory Act upon the Home Rule Act and the Welsh Church
Act. I accordingly drafted a letter which, after a month's
consideration, I issued in the first week of January, 1915,
to the ministers and official laymen of the Free Churches.
In this I said :
" I wish now, entirely on my own responsibility, to sub
mit to Free Churchmen a question much more extended than
the purpose of the Conciliation Committee." The question
was, whether at a time when our nation had raised in one
week three hundred and fifty millions to carry on the war
against Germany, we were prepared for a capital sum of
U

306 Chapters from My Life
less than two millions to cripple and weaken the work of the
Welsh Church in its war against the forces of evil. It
seemed to me that there could only be one answer to this
question, and therefore, after weeks of reflection, I had de
cided to ask the ministers and official laymen of the Free
Churches of Great Britain to join with me in appealing to
the Ministers of State that they should immediately intro
duce such necessary modifications into the Act as "shall
liberate the Welsh Church from State patronage and control "
without depriving her of a penny of her heritage from the
past. With this letter I enclosed the following memorial :
"To the Right Hon. H. H. Asquith, M.P.,— We, the
undersigned, respectfully appeal to you as the Head of His
Majesty's Government, in view of the great economic and
financial pressure resulting from the war, felt by citizens of
all religious communions, and amongst them by members of
the Welsh Church, to bring before the Houses of Parliament
such modifications of the Act for the Disestablishment and
Disendowment of the Church in Wales, as shall involve the
repeal of all those clauses which deprive the Church of any
of its temporalities."
I received about 1,500 signatures, including some that
were received after the memorial had been forwarded to
Mr. Asquith.
A little later the Duke of Devonshire introduced into the
House of Lords a second Suspensory Bill, the object of
which was to make the Irish and Welsh measures the same.
Thereupon I issued a second letter on the nth of February
in which I referred to Dr. Scott Lidgett's statement that the
Act dealt much more harshly with the Church in Wales than
it did with the Irish Church. It only postponed the dis
endowment until the 18th September, 1915, or the end of the
war, whichever should be the later date. Already poor

Welsh Church Disendowment 307
parishes, in which the incumbent had died since the war
began, were carrying on their work under conditions of great
financial difficulty ; and the Church in Wales was condemned
at once to make arrangements for dealing with the situation
unless Parliament intervened.
The result of this appeal was about 2,000 signatures in
all, of which 1,389 were sent in to the Prime Minister pre
vious to the first date fixed for the discussion of the Duke of
Devonshire's measure, which was within about a week of the
issue of the memorial.
The persistence with which Mr. McKenna maintained
a position contrary to that laid down by the Prime Minister
in September, 1914, is sufficiently indicated by a letter which
he wrote on the 21st of January, 191 5, as an acknowledgment
of a resolution sent to him in which the Monmouthshire
Presbytery at Pontnewynydd protested "against Sir Henry
Lunn's interference with the Welsh Church Act." Mr.
McKenna's letter was as follows :
" Dear Sir, — I have great pleasure in acknowledging the
resolution you sent me on behalf of the Monmouthshire Pres
bytery adopted at the meeting held on 14th January, at
Bethania Chapel, Bargoed.
"I entirely agree with the conclusion to which the Pres
bytery have come, that there should be no interference with
the Welsh Act. — Yours faithfully, "R. McKenna."
Mr. McKenna, to adopt a famous historical phrase, had
"forgotten Asquith." He had failed to realise that the
Prime Minister would not allow his pledge of 15th Septem
ber, 1914, to be twice disregarded by one of his Cabinet. The
Welsh Nonconformists, in the Press and in church meetings,
had vehemently affirmed that the question was closed and
condemned the reopening of it.
Notwithstanding the attitude of the Welsh Party, the
Government decided that they must bow to public opinion

308 Chapters from My Life
in view of this demonstration of the attitude of the English
Nonconformists. A conference took place between members
of the Cabinet and statesmen who afterwards joined the
Coalition Government, and it was decided that the views of
the later memorialists should be met.1
On March 6th, 1915, Mr. Lloyd George followed up this
private conference with a speech in the House of Commons,
in which, amongst other things, he said :
"I have received telegrams and letters from Wales. The
Welsh people, for the moment, do not understand the pro
posal of the Government. What is that proposal, and what
has prompted us to make it? . . . Under those conditions
I appeal to my countrymen, not merely here, but outside,
and what I say to my friends here I am prepared to say to
any assembly of Welshmen in Wales. I say if you will not
give six months' respite to the people under these conditions,
then you are not an honour to the race to which they and I
belong. ... If the country wants repeal, the fact of its
being on the statute book six months will not make much
difference, if any. What will make a difference will be the
temper in which the House considers the Bill . . . but if
you want to create a public opinion and atmosphere that will
help them, the way to do this is to refuse to deal generously,
fairly, equitably, and in a large way with topics of this
kind. ... I am as attached to my little country as any man
in this House, and I am looking forward to Wales getting
something out of this war. It is her greatest opportunity.
She has shown up to the present what she can do. There
are 80,000 men who volunteered in a country which is as
anti-militarist as any portion of the Empire. Our country
men who have gone have fought as bravely as any others
in this Empire, and that is a high standard. Yes, but she
will have to show more. She will have to show that she is
prepared not merely to take her part, but that there is no-
1 This conference, of which I was aware at the time it took place, was
referred to by Lord Robert Cecil on March 15th, 1915 (" Pari. Proceedings,"
vol. Ixx., col. 1,786), when he referred to "a discussion between the leaders
of the Government and members of the Opposition."

-Welsh Church Disendowment 309
thing mean and small in the way she faces a great situation.
One hundred thousand pounds more, is it? What is the
value of that to the credit of our country ? That is the com
putation. I do not believe it, but take it at that. You will
get more in the credit and honour of Wales, in the fact that
our country has behaved with dignity in the great hour that
has come to it."
This decision of the Government, expressed by Mr. Lloyd
George's speech, was a complete vindication of the action
which I had taken .
It may now be permissible to say a few words with refer
ence to the complaint which has been repeated with painful
iteration by Welsh Free Church Councils and Nonconfor
mist meetings, condemning the action of the Free Church
leaders of the Conciliation Committee and my own later
action as gratuitous "meddling." Since when have English
Nonconformists shrunk from the duty of "meddling " when
they believed that anywhere beneath the sun evil was being
wrought ?
A line had" been drawn in this Act at 1662. Are Welsh
Free Churchmen so influenced to-day by the Act of Uni
formity that they would draw the line at "meddling " from
the time when Cromwell raised his voice and Milton wrote
his impassioned lines on behalf of the Waldenses ? Were
John Bright and the Free Churchmen during the American
Civil War mistaken "meddlers" when they held that grave
moral issues transcend the bounds of nationality, that :
" In the gain or loss of one race
All the rest have equal claim ' ' ?
Were the fathers of the Free Churchmen of to-day mis
taken when they "meddled " in expressing their sympathy
with their great co-religionists John Brown, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, and Henry Ward Beecher ?
Were they "meddling " when they supported Gladstone

310 Chapters from My Life
in his protest against King Bomba's cruelty, the Bulgarian
outrages, and in the last protest of his great career against the
Armenian atrocities and "Abdul the Damned" ?
The obligation to "meddle " }n the affairs of the Free
Churches in Wales is inherent in the constitution of the
different Free Church Communions.
The Congregational Union is entitled "The Congrega
tional Union of England and Wales." Welshmen indivi
dually have an equal voice and equal vote with Englishmen
in that assembly. The Baptist Union is entitled "The
Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland," and here again
there is no division between England and Wales.
The Congregationalists have also "A Union of Welsh
Independents," formed in 1872, having for its object "the
promotion of fraternal relations among the Churches, and
among church members, to afford opportunities for delibera
tion concerning the public affairs of the denomination, and
to exhort one another in things relating to the prosperity of
the Kingdom of Christ." The membership of "The Union
of Welsh Independents is open to ministers, deacons, and
other members of a Congregational church — whether in
England or Wales — who contribute 5s. annually towards
the expense of the Union, or to a minister or a delegate of a
Congregational church which contributes 5s. annually
towards the same object."1
It may be argued, both in the case of the Congregational
and Baptist Unions, that, although the centralising tendency
of the day causes certain powers to be virtually inherent in
them, yet they are really voluntary meetings of church
pastors, and have no legislative control over the churches
represented. This does not apply to the Wesleyan Methodist Con
ference. It is supreme over the whole of the denomination
in Great Britain and the Mission Stations, and has greater
powers than any clerical body outside the College of Car
dinals. The whole patronage of the Church is vested in the
1 Report of the Welsh Church Committee, p. 32.

Welsh Church Disendowment 311
Conference. It controls all questions of discipline, decides
the doctrine of the Church and the interpretation of its for
mularies from year to year. The Wesleyan Methodist Annual
Conference of 1905 sanctioned the creation of a representative
but strictly subordinate body to be called "The Welsh
Wesleyan Methodist Assembly of Wales." The President
of the British Conference attends and presides over the
assembly, and is accompanied by certain other officials of the
supreme governing body.
The Wesleyan Methodist representative, speaking on be
half of Wesleyan Methodism before the Welsh Commission,
affirmed the unity of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in the
most unequivocal terms. He said: "The separation of the
Welsh Wesleyan Methodist Conference from the British
Annual Methodist Wesleyan Conference would be disastrous
to us in Wales. We get such help from them." The
Secretary of the Free Church Council made a similar state
ment with regard to that body. He said that nothing but
good could come of the union of England and Wales in one
solid force. Wales often needed English backing, and
England Welsh backing. What was wanted in the Church
was a great, solid, unmistakable force for both England and
Wales. It is a striking fact that the Free Church Council re
presenting English and Welsh Nonconformists should,
whilst preventing the establishment of a separate Free Church
Council for Wales, have supported at that very time the
forcible separation of the four Welsh dioceses from the
Anglican Church of England and Wales, clean contrary to
the earnest wishes of the members of the Church both in
Wales and England. They resisted the claim of their own
communions to a separate organisation, but wished to im
pose separation on the Welsh dioceses from the English by
Act of Parliament.
Free Churchmen feel that it is necessary to the complete
-efficiency of their Council that it should represent both
England and Wales, and for that reason they have given

312 Chapters from My Life
the policy of the Welsh Nonconformists a support in the
Council which otherwise it would not have secured.
There is no single Free Church community which may be
said to be conterminous with Wales and to limit itself to
Welsh organisations. Even the Annual Conference of the
Calvinistic Methodists, according to their Year Book of
1915, met in London in that year, and in 191 1 met in Liver
pool. The principal offices of the Welsh Calvinistic Foreign
Missionary Society are situated in England, and there is
a special Presbytery of Lancashire and Cheshire which is
united with Flintshire and Denbighshire.
It is, therefore, evident from these facts how complete
is the union between English and Welsh Free Churchmen.
If this be so and proposals are introduced avowedly in the in
terests of Welsh Free Churchmen, which are, in the opinion
of a large body of Christians in the Church of England,
"unjust, unfair, and even sacrilegious," it is not a question
of gratuitous "meddling "; it is a question of the imperative
duty of meddling, and every English Free Churchman ought
to realise his duty in the matter, and express his convictions.
The importance of the subject in its relation to the main
object of this volume — the promotion of Christian unity — has
necessitated so large an amount of space being given to it.
There is nothing more important in the endeavour to arrive
at that unity which all good men hold to be essential at the
present crisis, than that we should have done with this
struggle about temporalities. The struggle will not be over
now if this Act be carried into force. There will then be the
conviction in the minds of all members of the Church of
England that the temporalities of the Establishment in
England are threatened, and the bitterness will be intensified
in proportion to the magnitude of the sum at stake.
There will be many who will say: "Why should Free
Churchmen interfere now? The Act is carried; let it come
into effect or let Churchmen undertake its repeal." It matters
everything to us of the Free Churches whether we are privy

Welsh Church Disendowment 313
to the confiscation of this sum or not. The matter is one of
high import to the future of religion in England. We can
strengthen this root of bitterness by carrying out the Act.
We can destroy the bitterness for ever by restoring this sum
to the Church.
What does a sum like two millions matter to the nation ?
Why should we weaken the work of a number of good men
in Wales for such a paltry stake ? If the estimate of one of
our wealthy men be true, that Wesleyan Methodists in ten
years before the war saved one hundred millions, the ad
ditional savings of those ten years of the whole of the Free
Churches, especially if we include Scottish Presbyterians,
must have represented more than treble that sum. Shall we,
for such a fraction of our accumulated wealth, the amount
expended by us every eight hours in the present war, take
such action as at least shall be believed to be "sacrilegious
and oppressive " by many devoted men in the Church of
England ?
But that is not the main question before us. The question
is : what will be the effect upon those with whom we ought
now to be united in our attack upon evil ? With a great sum
our fathers obtained their freedom. For three centuries Free
Churchmen have suffered the loss of financial emoluments,
social dignity, the prizes of society, and the esteem of the
world, that they might be free to win the world for Christ
by those methods and in that manner which their conscience
dictated. Our fathers in the faith went out not knowing
whither they went. Shall we retain the form of their heritage
and sacrifice its spirit? There are within the Church of
England a number of men who are seeking that liberty which
we enjoy. Many of them are men to whom temporalities
count little. Nevertheless if we compel them to sacrifice their
endowments as the price of spiritual freedom, we shall
hamper those to whom such prizes do not count, in their
struggle after the spiritual realities which they desire.
From the trials and difficulties of the present moment there
comes an urgent call to the unity of all the Churches. The

314 Chapters from My Life
disendowment of the Church in Wales is one great barrier
to this movement. An infinitely greater one will be the dis
endowment of the Church of England. It is possible for us
now to rise to the occasion and to declare that, for the sake
of unity and for the sake of justice, we will do our best to
secure the immediate restoration to the Church of those funds
of which the Welsh Act is in danger of depriving her.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE BISHOPS AND THE WESLEYAN METHODIST CONFERENCE
(1917)
Gradual Separation of Methodists from the Church of England — Grow
ing Sense of the Evils of Division — Initiative of the Bishop of
London — World-wide Methodism — Attitude to the Church of
England — The Wesleyan Conference — The " Platform " — The
" Floor " — Speeches of the Bishops of London and Chelmsford
— How is Unity to be achieved ? — Re-ordination Proposals
Unacceptable — Need for Patience and Charity — Suggestion by
the Bishop of Lincoln.
A serious clergyman desired to know in what points we differed from
the Church of England. I answered, "To the best of my knowledge, in
none. The doctrines we preach are the doctrines of the Church of England ;
indeed the fundamental doctrines of the Church, clearly laid down, both in
her prayers, Articles and Homilies." He asked, " In what points, then, do
you differ from the other clergy of the Church of England? " I answered,
"In none from that part of the clergy who adhere to the doctrines of the
Church." — John Wesley, 1739.
I never had any design of separating from the Church; I have no such
design now. I do not believe the Methodists in general design it, when I am
no more seen. I do, and will do, all that is in my power to prevent such
an event. — John Wesley, 1789.
Happy is he that attains the character of a peacemaker in the Church
of God. Why should not you labour after this? Be not content, not to stir
up strife; but do all that in you lies to prevent or quench the very first
spark of it. Indeed it is far easier to prevent the flame from breaking out
than to quench it afterwards. However, be not afraid to attempt even this ;
the God of peace is on your side. He will give you acceptable words,
and send them to the heart of the hearers. Noli diffidere, noli discedere,
says a pious man; fac quod in te est; et Deus aderit bona turn voluntati :
" Do not distrust Him that has all power, that has the hearts of all men in
His hand. Do what in thee lies, and God will be present, and bring thy
good desires to good effect." Never be weary of well-doing : In due time
thou shalt reap if thou faint not. — John Wesley, " Sermon on Schism."
THE visit of the Bishop of London and the Bishop of
Chelmsford to the Wesleyan Methodist Conference of
1917 was an event in the movement towards unity which no
315

316 Chapters from My Life
historian of the religious influences of this period will here
after find it possible to ignore, and I was glad that I had
the privilege of being a member of the Conference on this
occasion .
It is necessary, in order to understand the meaning and
importance of this visit, to say something of the relation of
Methodism to the Church of England after the death of
Wesley. This event was followed by a gradual drift away
from the Church for the next hundred years, although the
influence of Hugh Price Hughes and the younger ministers
of to-day has done something to restore to Methodism the
consciousness of its rightful place in the Universal Church,
and its claim to the full Catholic heritage.
John Wesley's statement, "I firmly believe that I am a
scriptural episcopos as much as any man in England," and
his action on September ist, 1784, in consecrating Thomas
Coke to the episcopate for the work in America and ordaining
Thomas Vasey and Richard Whatcoat first as deacons and
then as full ministers, were definite steps in separation from
the Church of England, although he did not thus intend it.
Charles Wesley realised the importance of the action and
wrote : " How easily now are Bishops made
By man or woman's whim !
Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid,
But who laid hands on him? "
Coke and his colleague Asbury, in Christmas week, 1784,
at Baltimore, in a general Conference laid the foundations
of the Methodist Episcopal Church of America. At that
Conference, Wesley's abridgment of the Thirty-nine
Articles of the English Church and his revised Prayer Book
with forms for Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the
ordination of the "three distinct offices in the ministry of an
episcopally constituted church," were formally accepted.
American Methodism now includes in its adherents about a
quarter of the population of the United States.

Bishops and Methodist Conference 317
In Great Britain Wesley moved more slowly, but in
the later years of his life he ordained — mainly, but not
altogether for Scotland — twenty-three other men in addition
to the ordinations for America. His ordinations in 1789 of
Alexander Mather, Henry Moore, and others, were definitely
for work in England, though so little did he realise the
divisive effect of his action that they were ordained "to
administer Baptism and the Lord's Supper according to the
usage of the Church of England."
Wesley died on March 2nd, 1791, and the Conference,
confronted with the problem of its relation to the Sacraments,
decided with a naive irony, "We engage to follow strictly
the plan which Mr. Wesley left us." What that plan was no
human ingenuity could define.
Here was the golden opportunity for the Church of
England. If the English Bishops had then urged their
clergy to welcome Methodists to Holy Communion, Metho
dism might have remained a Society within the Church of
England. The Anglican Bishops made no sign, and the
local clergy showed themselves less willing than ever to
welcome Methodists to the Lord's Table.
For three years Methodism was agitated by this question,
and in 1795 the Plan of Pacification on the question of the
administration of the Lord's Supper by Wesleyan ministers
was carried, giving each local society the power of decision
with the special provisions which still showed the longing
of the Methodists to maintain their connection with the
Established Church: "The Lord's Supper shall be always
administered in England according to the form of the
Established Church : It shall never be administered on
those Sundays on which it is administered in the parochial
church." Once Methodism had thus accepted the position of an
organisation outside the Church of England, there were many
influences which tended rapidly to widen the breach. The
Conventicle Act of Charles II., fining anyone who attended

318 Chapters from My Life
a "meeting for religion other than according to the Liturgy
and practice of the Church of England," and the Five Mile
Act, which prohibited preaching by dissenters within five
miles of a parliamentary borough, were only repealed in
1812. During the years 1791 — 1812 the community of
interest with the dissenters thus created led Methodism far
from Wesley's intention concerning it. "Nevertheless, it was
very reluctantly that the fathers of Methodism identified
themselves with dissent, even for the removal of these dis
abilities. Long years after Wesley's death Coke had not
abandoned the idea of dying in the bosom of his mother
Church; and Adam Clark — the great commentator of that
day — declared, in the hearing of many distinguished members
of the University of Cambridge, that he was " a member and
a minister of the Church of England." Benson, another
great commentator and President of the Conference, pub
lished this statement without correction or explanation in
the Connexional magazine.
The most powerful influence in the early nineteenth
centufy in establishing Methodism as a distinct denomination
with its own ministry ordained by the laying on of hands,
was that of Dr. Jabez Bunting, the grandfather of my co-
editor, Sir Percy Bunting. His ministry covered the years
1799 — 1854, but the period from 1814, when he was elected
to "The Legal Hundred," the supreme body in the Methodist
Constitution, to his fourth Presidency of the Conference in
1845, was the time when his influence fixed and defined the
Methodist Constitution.
In 1818 the prefix "Reverend " was formally authorised.
Bunting then proposed that ordination should be by the im
position of hands, rather than as hitherto merely by a solemn
vote and the lifting of the hands of the presbystery, but he
was defeated. Ordination by the laying on of hands was
again proposed when he was President in 1822, but the
resolution was withdrawn. In 1828 he was again President
of the Conference and dealt with the subject, but without
result. On his third election to the Presidency in 1836, a

Bishops and Methodist Conference 319
resolution was carried with but two dissentients, on which
resolution his son and biographer thus comments :
"So at last the rightful claim of Methodist preachers to
ministerial orders, and their competency to confer them,
were formally acknowledged and ratified; as among them
selves and their people it will never be disputed again, doubt
it who may." 1
It is interesting to those who attach great importance to
the "cable theory " of an unbroken apostolical succession to
note that a Presbyterian succession is still traced by some
ministers back to Wesley's action in the matter. Wesley
ordained Thomas Squance. Thomas Squance, whose family
is well known in Sunderland, ordained Charles H. Kelly, who
was President of the Conference in 1891, and Kelly assisted at
the ordination of most of the candidates for the last ten years
of the century. Through other channels" the same succession
can be traced by those who value it.
So great was the ecclesiastical power of Dr. Bunting that,
in the Methodist schism of 1849, W. Everett, the leader of
the Reform Movement, wrote angrily of him, "He is great in
mind and great in influence — too great to be forgiven."
William Arthur, afterwards President of the Conference,
thus summed up in Bunting's defence his work for
Methodism :
"Dr. Bunting has given to Methodism all the ordinances
of a Church complete in itself, so removing it from the posi
tion of a supplement to the Establishment. The opening
of colleges for the training of the ministry; the use of im
position of hands in ordination ; and the placing of the various
Connexional funds on permanent bases, all directly tended
to give Methodism a position wholly independent." 2
During this period the Church of England did nothing
to prevent her daughter leaving home and founding a
separate establishment, but did much to drive her forth. The
saintly Mrs. Fletcher, widow of that pre-eminent saint of
' " Life of Jabez Bunting," by his Son, p. 518.
2 Ibid., p. 710.

320 Chapters from My Life
early Methodism — Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley — was refused
the Holy Communion in her husband's own church after his
death. This kind of incident happened in very many cases
all over England. The Bishops looked on without the faintest
disapproval, whilst peer, squire, and parson poured hatred
and contempt upon the Methodist "fanatics."
It was not until the Oxford Movement had become a power
in the land that any suggestion of the evil of this division
came from the Anglican leaders. In 1868 Dr. Pusey made
his famous overtures referred to in the chapter on Hugh
Price Hughes (pp . 49-50) . It was no mere accident that Hughes,
as a student at college, should have so sternly rebuked his
seniors for their churlish response to Pusey's advances.
No doubt the lines from Punch, which I quoted in
referring to Hughes's early letter in the Spectator, express
the present sentiments of a large number of Wesleyan
Methodists. But even in this contented and united brother
hood — which sometimes suffers dangerously from self-com
placency — there has grown up a sense of the evils of division.
Hugh Price Hughes did not live in vain, and although the
result of his work for the moment is more apparent in the
Federation of the Free Churches, yet his passionate devotion
to the Catholic ideal of unity has left a real impress on
modern Methodism.
These considerations gave a unique importance to the
Wesleyan Methodist Conference which on July 19th, 1917,
welcomed the two Bishops.
The Bishops assembled in Conference at Lambeth had
decided that the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Chelms
ford should represent them in definite overtures for unity to
the Wesleyan Methodist Conference.
It is difficult to make a non-Methodist understand the
power and influence of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference.
With perfect truth Hughes used to dwell, as I have said
already, upon the fact that no ecclesiastical body outside of
the College of Cardinals wielded such despotic and unques,-

Bishops and Methodist Conference 321
tioned- power. It controls the doctrine, the finance, the
patronage, the discipline, and all the varied activities of
Wesleyan Methodism for the year next following.
On one occasion when I was present, the Rev. F. W.
Macdonald, at that time professor at one of our theological
colleges, was transferred by the act of the Conference, with
out consulting him, from a theological professorship to the
position of Wesleyan Missionary Secretary. As he himself
told me, he learned of this appointment when travelling with
his nephew, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, from a paragraph in a
newspaper which he picked up in a Y.M.C.A. in the West
of America. This is only one of many illustrations that might be given
of the powers of this assembly.
The Conference is divided into two parts, the " Platform "
of officials and the "Floor," which is not burdened with the
responsibilities of office. The "Platform " consists of those
who magnify it, and those whom it magnifies. Of the former
number are certain eminent ex-Presidents who arrive at this
distinction by force of intellect, statesmanship, culture, or
pre-eminent saintliness. Sometimes it happens that a man
may be said to be born to become a President. From
his cradle onwards his friends predict for him this supreme
distinction, and such is the reverence for the Methodist Pre
sidents in their communion that as he advances in years he
develops the dignity, and in some cases the dogmatic ortho
doxy, unimpeachable and ever ready to impeach, of the
typical Archbishop of the Nonconformist imagination.
The " Platform " also includes Presidents who have arrived
at that position because they have been skilful secretaries
of Conference committees and of the Conference itself, or iti
other ways have shown mastery of detail, a sense of the psy
chological moment for intervention in debate, and an appre
ciation of what is the exact resultant of the forces agitating
the mind of the Conference. Other officials unduly strengthen
a body which has the same petrifying, stereotyping,, and
V

322 Chapters from My Life
fossilising influence upon the assembly which created it, and
permits its continuance, that would be exerted on the House
of Commons if every ex-Minister sat with the present Ministry
on a raised dais behind the Speaker's chair commanding the
House. For such reasons Hughes and other reforming spirits had
said that after their year of office they would return to the
"Floor"; but as in Dante's vision, so on the front of the
Conference platform one can read the words, "All hope
abandon ye who enter here." There is no return to the
irresponsibility of the " Floor."
It was the " Floor " alone that was responsible for the visit
of the Bishops. The "Platform " was entirely outside of the
preliminary arrangements and knew nothing of the earlier
negotiations. It is true that the majority of the group
of about twenty young ministers who arranged the visit
will ultimately reach the "Platform," but they are not
there yet. They may accomplish a great deal before that
day arrives.
Dean Farrar used to say to me in my editorial days, when
a new Bishop was appointed, "Every Bishop gets ' mitral
disease.' " We have no mitres as yet in Methodism, but our
Presidents have, in common with the Bishops, each a mitral
valve of the heart, and any weakness of that mechanism is
serious. On the other hand, the young men who responded to the
Bishop of London's sermon on Reunion with Methodism
by suggesting that they should meet him are heart whole, and
the Methodism of the next two decades will be largely
moulded by them. Benjamin Gregory, who first spoke to
the Bishop suggesting this visit, is the grandson and the
son of four Methodist preachers, and J. E. Rattenbury,
the Superintendent of the West London Mission, of two.
J. Alfred Sharp, who directs the Methodist Publication De
partment, is technically an official, but is not yet on the
"Platform." Henry Carter, that brilliant exponent of young
Methodism, is in a similar position.

Bishops and Methodist Conference 323
These four, and some sixteen others, met the Bishop of
London at London House one afternoon, and suggested that
he should come and address the Conference which was about
to meet. The adoption of the words "The Wesleyan Methodist
Church" by the Bishop, ensured the success of his speech.
A short time before I had written to a Bishop whom I had
known intimately for twenty years pointing out that it was
useless for him and other Bishops to write letters of courtesy
to the Wesleyan Methodist "Body." Even a Scotsman does
not like — I told the Bishop — to be called a "body," and his
plea that the Church was the Body of Christ was not quite a
fair reply. The correct and courteous answer to this Bishop
was that of Dr. Waddy Moss, who, as President, spoke in
reply to such an address, in which the word " Body " had
been used, and said : " Methodism used to regard herself as
the daughter church of the Church of England. She now
regards herself as the sister church."
When the Bishops frankly adopted this terminology it
would be wrong to say that they came to Canossa, but they
conceded as a matter of courtesy the right of Methodism to
be styled one of the Christian churches, and thus accom
plished a great act of reparation for the exclusion of Metho
dism from the Church in the past. Once that was granted,
welcome by the Conference was assured. It was worth while
for the Bishops to travel "a long, long way," to say those
words for the sake of unity, and they deserve all honour for
so doing. The Bishop of London paid a well-merited tribute to one
member of the Conference who bore an honoured name —
Mrs. Price Hughes. He said that he wished most intensely
to get into closer touch with a Church whose missionary zeal
and reforming power were known throughout the world. He
told an amusing story to illustrate how near he himself was
to Methodism. At the end of one of his services in London
a rich American came up to him and said, "I was quite at

324 Chapters^ from My Life
home in your service to-night, Bishop; I was brought up
among the Wesleyans." He declared that he would like to
ask the Conference whether in this great day of God it was
a law of the Medes and Persians that the Church of England
and the Wesleyan Church should always be separate. With
out going into the mistakes of the past, it was worth while for
them to see if they could not bury the hatchet. He concluded
a very bold and powerful speech which carried the Confefence
a long way with him by saying, "I bring you officially a
brotherly welcome from all my brother Bishops, and wish
you Godspeed in your work."
The Bishop of Chelmsford was an excellent choice to
second the Bishop of London's speech. He told the Con
ference that he had been brought up in a Methodist home.
He was also trained for a while at a Methodist Theological
College. He talked to the Conference like a brother Metho
dist. He declared that he and the Bishop of London were
two of the biggest Methodists in London. He urged the
Conference to search Wesley's sermons and see if they could
find anything there not included in the teaching of the Church
of England. He believed that the Church of England must
approach this question as a prodigal, and the Methodist
Church must also approach it as a prodigal. They had both
made mistakes, and he would that both might come back to
the Father's house, for the nation's sake, for the Church's
sake, and for Christ's sake. Let them approach the question,
not along the lines of theological discussion or of eccle
siastical polity, but upon their knees, simply saying, "Speak,
Lord, for Thy servant heareth."
When the Bishop of Chelmsford finished, I am sure that
all the Conference must have sympathised with my desire
for ten minutes of the Welsh indiscretion and fervour
of Hugh Price Hughes, or, failing that, Dr. Watkinson's
gentle ironip raillery, Mr. Macdonald's literary charm and
felicity of expression, or Dr. Scott Lidgett's statesmanship.
This would have enabled Methodism worthily to answer the
Christian utterances of those two prelates. But the real

Bishops and Methodist Conference 325
response has yet to come, and the Bishops can afford to
wait. The effect upon individual members of the Conference
was interesting. A friend and contemporary of mine ex
pressed to me, just before the Bishops spoke, his opinion that
there was nothing likely to come of it. The whole movement
was based, he said, on a theory of re-ordination, which was
inadmissible. He was cold to the point of being irritated.
When the Bishops had finished he was overcome with
emotion, and wrote for the Methodist Recorder his descrip
tion of the visit in these terms : "The Bishop spoke without
any hesitation of the Wesleyan Church . . . the Conference
heart was strangely warmed. The Bishop might have said
what he would after that."
This is rather typical of the Conference, but after twenty-
four hours their excellent emotions had cooled down, and the
old suspicions asserted themselves. This enabled Sir Robert
Perks, whose religious horizon is bounded by Methodist
frontiers on east, west, north, and south, to carry a toning-
down amendment to a generous resolution proposed by the
Rev. H. A. Scott, and seconded by Mr. Walter Runciman.
Sir Robert Perks went as far as he did in an approach to
courtesy to the Church of England because his belief in a
policy of isolation for Methodism is so strong that a moderate
reply to the Bishops answered his purpose by balancing the
tendency to an alliance with the Free Churches. Years of
political campaigning have given an unhappy twist to the
ecclesiastical views of a layman who has done much good
work for Methodism, for which he would almost "give his
body to be burned."
The following is the resolution as amended :
"The Conference, in response to the addresses of the
Bishops of London and Chelmsford, assures the Bishops that
it will be ready at all times to co-operate with the Church
of England and all other evangelical churches of the country
in every endeavour for the furtherance of the Kingdom of
Christ."

326 Chapters from My Life
It was a poor, jejune .response to an appeal full of Christian
charity and desire for co-operation.
Underlying this resolution was the conviction in the minds
of the ministers and laymen present that, however excellent
might be the spirit which animated the speeches of those two
Bishops, there was behind all the courtesies of the discussion
a latent condition that re-ordination must be the basis of re
union, and on these terms Methodism was not prepared to
"confer " with the Anglican Church.
To accept re-ordination for the sake of unity, in the
opinion of the overwhelming majority (I hope my Anglican
readers will bear this statement patiently) would be propter
vitam vivendi perdere causas. In our view, for I share the
conviction, it would narrow for all future time the teaching
of the Church respecting the channels of God's grace.
Fluman nature being what it is, if the claims of an exclusive
priesthood were granted in these small islands for the sake
of peace, where Methodism is in a minority, what is to be
the position of Methodism in America, where it is episcopal
in form but without the "historic " succession, and numbers
seven to one as compared with the American branch of the
Anglican communion ? ' The Conference, consciously or un
consciously, is compelled to ask itself the question — are we
to recognise the claims of the exclusive to become the uni
versal ? On the other hand, are we not bound, in view of the
signal blessing which the God of all grace has bestowed upon
the Methodist, Presbyterian, and other branches of the
universal Church, to maintain the validity of their ministry?
To our consciousness and in our experience God continues
to give His message, and to convey the grace of the sacra
ments by many messengers called by Himself, and by the
company of all faithful men in those spheres where they
minister. We decline to limit our high conception of the
1 During the last twenty-five years the increase alone of communicants
in American Methodism is over 2,800,000. The total number in this country
of communicants in the Church of England (see the Times, July 6th, 1918)
is to-day 2,337,612.

Bishops and Methodist Conference 327
Church by any act or deed which now or henceforth would
tend to cripple other workers faithfully carrying on God's
work in the world.
These were excellent reasons for moving towards the goal
of the Bishops with deliberation and care. They furnished
no justification for any lack of the manifestation of
cordiality and brotherly love.
When Peter was inspired by his vision and its teaching,
"What God hath cleansed, that call thou not common," he
obeyed the messengers who invited him to the house of the
Roman centurion, "who gave much alms to the people and
prayed to God alway." The response of Cornelius and his
household on that occasion was the due recognition of the
Apostle's spirit, "Thou hast well done that thou art come.
Now, therefore, we are all here present in the sight of God
to hear all things that have been commanded thee of the
Lord." When the uncircumcised Gentiles received the Jewish
teacher in this temper, it is no matter of surprise that while
Peter yet spake, "the Holy Spirit fell on all those which
heard." Confronted with such facts "they of the circum
cision held their peace and glorified God."
To achieve the notable breaking down of the barriers
between Jew and Gentile, the first great assertion of the
catholicity of the Church, and of the universality of the
message of Jesus, it was necessary that both parties to the
transaction should be prepared by Divine revelation in
dreams. We are in great haste to-day to break down barriers, but
there must be a preparation in spirit on both sides. Pride of
Churchmanship is more equally distributed than we of the
Free Churches are generally willing, to recognise, and for
God to work His will concerning us there must be a great
humbling for all.
Let me illustrate my meaning. I was dining in Scotland
three years ago with a High Church Bishop of the Episcopal
Church of Scotland, and he said to me with a smile, "I am a

328 Chapters from My Life
great believer in religious equality here. We are the under
dog. The parish ministers take no stock in a Bishop."
When the war broke out he went to a certain parish minister
in his diocese and suggested that there should be a weekly
intercession in the parish kirk as the largest church in the
parish, and that he and the Established Presbyterian minister
and the Free Church Presbyterian minister, and another
dissenting minister should take the meeting once a month
each. The minister replied, "Well, Bishop, I am quite
willing to take it alternately with you, but I do not wish
to alternate with the others."
We have not travelled far from the old spirit which
separated Jew and Gentile, Roman and Barbarian, bond and
free, and the real difficulty of an adequate response on the
part of Methodism to the amicable addresses of the Bishops
is that the country Methodist knows, by bitter experience,
how little the message of the Bishops is echoed by the parish
clergy. The clergy, like the early disciples, are "of the cir
cumcision," and are in almost complete ignorance of the
Cornelii of the twentieth century, on whom God is pouring
out His spirit. They know too little of the way God is using
what they deem to be an "invalid" ministry in England
and America to preserve the spiritual life of the people.
What is needed is, that just as Peter went from Csesarea to
Jerusalem and described to the Jewish members of the church
the outgoing of the Holy Spirit upon the Gentiles, so the
Bishops should bring home to their clergy the facts of life,
the millions of communicants in the non-Episcopal Churches
who are giving evidence of the power of the Divine Grace
throughout the Anglo-Saxon world through a ministry whose
orders they do not recognise, which, nevertheless, is being
used in a thousand ways ad majorem Dei gloriam.
It is useless for prominent ministers and laymen to be
welcomed as honoured guests in Episcopal palaces, chapter
houses, and deaneries, if the vicar's door is never open to
welcome a Methodist or a Baptist minister across his
threshold.

Bishops and Methodist Conference 329
None who have followed me so far through these pages
will misunderstand my purpose if I relate here an incident
which I mentioned at London House at the preliminary meet
ing to promote closer relations between the Church of
England and Methodism.
In the year 1900 I was summoned home to attend the
funeral of my youngest sister, who had lived an exemplary
life, going about doing good amongst the villagers of West
Ashby. My father's grounds surround the parish church on
three sides, and he has always been on the friendliest terms
with successive vicars, allowing them the use of a private
footpath across his grounds to the church.
When I drove into the yard the groom said : " I am sorry
to say that the vicar will not allow the bell to be tolled for
Miss Amy, as the Wesleyan Ministers are conducting the
funeral, but I am sexton and have the keys and I shall toll
the bell." I said, "Certainly not, until I have obtained the
vicar's permission."
I then walked across to the post office and telegraphed
to the Bishop of Lincoln, and then went on to the Vicarage
and said to the vicar, "My sister has lived an irreproachable
life, visiting the infirm, the sick, and the dying. Why do
you treat us like this in our sorrow? "
He replied, "I shall have to answer for this at the
Judgment Day."
"No, you will not," I said; "I shall be there on that
occasion and I will take the responsibility."
The bell was tolled.
Such incidents, however conscientious one may believe
the vicar to have been, do not promote an atmosphere stimu
lating to unity. One thing is quite clear : if the Archbishop
of Canterbury attends the Edinburgh Missionary Conference,
and eminent Bishops speak in fraternal fashion of members
of the Wesleyan Methodist " Church " at the London Con
ference, it is impossible for them to do other than insist to
their clergy that they cannot treat the members of such con
ferences — either of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference

330 Chapters from My Life
or the Wesleyan Methodist Conference — as living in the open
sin of schism.
The present year, with its insistent call for unity, demands
a clear definition of our relative positions on many points.
It is, therefore, the obvious duty of the Bishops authorita
tively to instruct their clergy on these matters. If unity is to
be advanced they must bid the clergy cultivate the graces
of charity and brotherly love in all matters; and there
are many in which no principle is sacrificed. And they
must make it plain at what point the sacrifice of principle
begins. There must be a like crusade on the part of the leaders
of the Free Churches. Bigotry is not confined to Romanists
and High Churchmen. Arrogance and self-sufficiency are
by no means the exclusive possession of the Establishment.
The Free Churches must urge their people— ministers and
members alike — to Cultivate lowliness of mind, not esteem
ing themselves more than others, and accepting their position
as fellow-servants of the whole body of the faithful.
After the Conference I visited the Bishop of Lincoln, with
whom I had been in correspondence for some time on these
juestions. We discussed at length the way out of the present
unsatisfactory relations of the two communions. The Bishop
has given me his permission to say here that he would wel
come Reunion on the basis of Methodism being united with
the Church of England as the Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.,
are united with the Church of Rome. I raised at once the
question of ordination, and on this point the Bishop said, "I
am prepared for a recognition of Methodism as an order
of the Church, leaving her to continue her self-government in
the Conference, and her ministry for her own people as at
present. But if any clergyman ministers in the chapel or
churches of the Wesleyan order he must accept the discipline
and regulations of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference.
Similarly if any Wesleyan minister takes part in the adminis
tration of the Holy Communion in our churches he must

Bishops and Methodist Conference 331
conform to our discipline, and be ordained by a Bishop
before administering the sacrament in our churches."
Whether unity comes on the lines of Bishop Hicks's sug
gestion or in some other way, the Bishops at the Wesleyan
Methodist Conference were "on the side of the angels." They
were exponents, not merely of a Zeitgeist — the spirit of the
moment — but what is infinitely more important, they were
seeking to advance along the lines of the Divine purpose
as expressed in the great intercessory prayer of the Master.

CHAPTER XXIV
FEDERATION AS A STEP TOWARDS UNITY
Variety the Test of Vitality — Perils of Ecclesiastical Uniformity —
Warnings from the History of the Church of Rome — " The
Balance of Power " versus " The League of Nations " — Federation
based upon Equality — Federal Council of Churches in America
— Its Constitution — Scope of its Action — List of Churches
represented — Its Aim — Comparative Statistics of Membership
— Position of the Eastern Churches.
" Each age of the Church must live its own life, and deal with its own
problems, following to a great extent the lead of circumstances, which offer
in fact a Divine guidance for the shaping of its course. — H. B. Swete, D.D.
" The Catholic Church requires two principles for its development : one
a principle of wild luxuriance, of spontaneous expansion and variation in
every direction ; the other a principle of order, restraint, unification, in
conflict with the former, often overwhelmed by its task, always more or less
in arrears." — George Tyrrell.
THE question that confronts those who are now working
so hopefully for unity is how to combine it with liberty
of development. We are surely justified in believing that
variety is the test of vitality. Man with his rigid machinery
may forge out of dead metal a thousand guns of the same
calibre and power. But the Creator has made all living
organisms to vary from one another. The markings of no
two thumbs are alike. To the Western vision a thousand
Chinamen are all alike— the same colour, the same high
cheek-bones, the same almond eyes. But each Chinaman can
distinguish at once every one of his fellows from the rest.
Diversity is a manifestation of life.
Therefore we find diversities of opinion in all religious
movements. Christianity has no monopoly of sects. Hin
duism is divided into two great cults of Saivite and Vaish-
navite, besides minor bodies. These two great divisions are
332

Federation as a Step Towards Unity 333
subdivided into many sects. Mohammedanism has its Shiites
and its Sonnites. Even the Neo-Buddhists, who regard
Madame Blavatsky as their prophetess, have had their schism,
and the same is true of the disciples of Mrs. Eddy. The
Eastern Church is divided, by more than geographical
boundaries, into the Russian Church, the Greek Church, and
the Churches of Bulgaria, Armenia, etc. Even the Russian
Church has its great Protestant body, "The Old Believers,"
numbering some ten millions, although they differ from
Western Dissenters, because, as Dean Stanley points out,
"They are dissenters on the most conservative principles
which it is possible to conceive. They are Protestants, but
against all reform. They are non-Jurors and Puritans both
in one. . . . They regard the Established Church as
Babylon, and the Emperor as the Great Dragon." '
No devoted member of the Church of Rome would wish
to revert to the condition of the Church which existed prior
to the great awakening — the Counter-Reformation of Loyola
— which followed the protest of Erasmus, Luther, and
Zwingli. Ranke tells us in his "History of the Popes " that
at that period, "while the populace had sunk into almost
heathen superstition, the higher classes were manifesting
opinions of a tendency altogether anti-religious. The priests
at the altar, at the moment when the sacrifice of the Mass was
completed, uttered blasphemous words in denial of its
reality." 2
Ranke's testimony is also confirmed by Erasmus's picture
of the Churchmen of his day, and by the heartbreaking
experience which Martin Luther went through when he first
visited Rome.
Let us contrast with the condition which preceded the
Reformation the condition which followed it, and we shall
see that even the disastrous divisions of the Reformation
brought an infinite blessing to the Church whom they had
deprived of so large a number of her followers.
"'Eastern Church."
'Ranke's "History of the Popes," vol. i., p. 58.

334 Chapters from My Life
We find that in 1538 plans for the Reform of the Church
were entertained by Paul III., the Monastic Orders were re
formed, the Orders of the Theatines (contemplative), and
Jesuits (active) were founded in 1524 and 1543 respectively,
and Catholicism was reorganised by the Council of Trent.
" By the Reformation struggle a new impulse had been
received by Catholicism, and was acting vigorously in Rome
and at the court of her Pontiff more especially. The Catholics
held fast by all the original institutions, and determined only
on renovating all and infusing increased energy, a more rigid
severity, and a deeper earnestness of purpose into each." '
There is a grave peril to religion when a Church is suffi
ciently powerful in its practical uniformity to confine spiritual
activities within the limits of worn ecclesiastical channels
where discipline assumes a supremacy over doctrine and
ultimately over truth itself. This peril revealed itself very
early in the history of the Christian Church, in the letters of
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, in which he deals with heresy.
Speaking of these letters, Dean Milman says : "There appear
the Roman strength and Roman respect for law, the imperial
assertion of hierarchical despotism. Discipline becomes of
equal importance with doctrine, and the unity of the Church
is made to depend upon obedience to its outward polity.
Rebellion to episcopal authority becomes as great a crime as
erroneous opinion, schism as harteful as heresy. Within the
pale of the Church under the lawful Bishop were Christ and
salvation ; without it the world of perdition. The faith of the
heretic and schismatic was no faith, his holiness no holiness,
his martyrdom no martyrdom."2
We must realise that under the pressure of such an eccle
siastical unity as that of Rome, the danger is ever present
of losing the revelation of the truth to the soul, when it
appears, for the time being, to conflict with existing con
ceptions of truth. Galileo, compelled by a tyrannical
Inquisition to deny scientific facts which had become great
'Ranke's "History of the Popes," vol. i., p. 78.
"Milmaa's "History of Latin Christianity," vol. i., p. 65.

Federation as a Step Towards Unity 335
realities to his master intellect, and yet murmuring in spite
of all these inquisitorial powers, "It does move," and
Giordano" Bruno, suffering martyrdom in Rome because his
demand for intellectual honesty, and therefore intellectual
freedom, were three centuries in advance of the age in which
they lived, strikingly illustrate this peril.
Dr. Hatch, in his famous Bampton Lectures, has pointed
out that ecclesiastical government tends to follow the poli
tical developments by which it is surrounded. Uniformity
in the Roman Church was first enacted as a law by the
Emperor Constantine the Great, who strove, as Dean
Stanley points out, to carry out some scheme of comprehen
sion which would include the Arians, and," "when this failed
he still pursued the same end, with the same tenacity, by the
directly opposite means of enforcing uniformity, to us long
familiar, but first introduced by him into the Church — the
hitherto unknown practice of subscription to the articles of
a written creed, and the infliction of civil penalties on those
who refused to conform."
We are not likely to suffer from Imperial Acts of Uni
formity in an Erastian Church again. The whole tendency
of the age is against anything of the kind. The mediaeval
unity broke 'down when absolutism lost its place in the
political life of the world. In the new political synthesis
which will follow the war there is a call to new developments
in the relations of the churches to each other.
Recent political analogies afford a grave warning to the
non-Episcopal communions in their desire to seek unity
amongst themselves that they may strengthen their own
ecclesiastical position, balancing their power in the British
State against the power of the Episcopal Church. This is to
transfer to the spiritual realm that very condition of things
which in the body politic before the present war led to such
disastrous results under the name of the "Balance of Power."
The attempt at a Balance of Power meant great armaments
which ultimately led to conflict.
'Stanley's "Eastern Church," "Everyman" ed., p. 206.

336 Chapters from My Life
Every statesman shrinks to-day from any restoration of
the status quo ante in this respect. There can be no security
against war if the world at the end of this war remains in
the condition of two armed camps. This is absolutely true
of the religious world. It is this conviction that has led
many members of the Wesleyan Conference to regard with
apprehension the endeavours, however admirable the spirit
which animates them, of Dr. Shakespeare, Dr. Horton, and
other Free Church leaders, to form a federation of the Free
Churches with executive powers which shall not include the
clergy and members of the Establishment. To seek to
organise the Free Churches into one great association which
shall balance the power of the Establishment is not the path
way to peace, but to war.
In the political sphere a "more excellent way" is pointed
out to us in the great utterances of President Wilson on the
proposed "League of Nations." In his appeal for the re
alisation of this ideal he is in direct succession from his
great fellow-countrymen, Franklin, Washington, find Jeffer
son. When they devised Federal Unionism they had made
the greatest stride in history towards the Parliament of Man
— the federation of the world. Conflicting colonies became
federated and friendly peoples. To-day nearly fifty sovereign
States live in perfect amity, only needing to call an army
into being to assist in ending the conflict between the States
of non-Federated Europe. Maine does not fear Massa
chusetts, nor Pennsylvania the State of New York. These
facts have given additional force to the statements of
President Wilson at this crisis.
The alliances of this great war furnish a suggestive
illustration. In their determination to defeat the military
tyranny of Germany, those ruled by monarchs in Great
Britain, Italy, Belgium, and Japan have joined forces with
the republicans of France and the United States/ and have
realised that unity of purpose expressed by a common military
council was the way to victory.

Federation as a Step Towards Unity 337
This war has shown that whatever the cost in blood and
treasure, in all the material things that make life worth living,
no one man, be he called Caesar, Tsar, Kaiser, or Imperator,
shall ever dominate the world again.
According to the famous saying of Hobbes, the Papacy is
only "the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting
crowned upon the grave thereof." Pope and Cardinals are
the true successors in temper, method, and purpose — not of
Christ and His Apostles— but of Csesar and his Senate,
and as the world will never again accept a Csesar, neither
will it place its neck beneath the yoke of an ecclesiastical
despot. History teaches us also that Republics may aspire to
empire as well as individuals. Thucydides traces for us the
development in the purpose of the Athenian Republic, of the
desire for the rryenovia (leadership) of the Greek States
into the passion for ap^n (empire, domination, over-lord
ship). This temper may also animate a religious society, and
must be resisted if unity is to be achieved — "One is your
Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren." Therefore we
must approach this problem of unity in real lowliness of
mind. There can be no success in any attempt to federate
that is not based upon the recognition of equality between
high contracting parties. These principles are not difficult of
application, and will help us to achieve unity of purpose in
the religious world.
The objection may be raised that it is a large assumption
to argue that there are common objects which may be pur
sued by those who differ on fundamental ecclesiastical ques
tions. It is clear that a priori there ought to be no obstacle
to the combined working of all Christian men for certain
great ends.
But we have not to depend upon a priori arguments in
this matter. The experiment has been made on a con
siderable scale by what is known as the Federal Council
w ... .

338 Chapters from My Life
of the Churches of Christ in America.1 It only attempts
a partial unity which is a stage of our journey, but it
deserves careful study, as at least an advance in the right
direction .
This Council dates from the year 1908. It differs from the
Free Church Council of England in two vital particulars.
In the first place, it includes the Protestant Episcopal
Church of America which is a branch of, and in full com
munion with, the Church of England ; and, secondly, it is an
officially and ecclesiastically constituted body elected by the
1 Those who desire full particulars of this Society can obtain them on
application to the Rev. Dr. Carroll, 156, Fifth Avenue, New York, as they
are well worthy of the careful study of all who are interested in the closer
union of Christian Churches.
The constitution declares that the following Christian communions shall
be entitled to representation in this Federal Council on their approval of the
purpose and plan of the organisation :
The Baptist Churches of the United States.
The General Conference of Free Baptists.
The National Baptist Convention (African).
The Christians (The Christian Connexion).
The Congregational Churches.
The Congregational Methodist Churches.
The Disciples of Christ.
The Evangelical Association.
The Evangelical Synod of North America.
The Friends.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church, General Synod.
The Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Methodist Episcopal Church (South).
The Primitive Methodist Church.
The Coloured Methodist Episcopal Church in America.
The Methodist Protestant Church.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
The General Conference of the Metmonite Church of North America.
The Moravian ChuTch.
The Presbyterian Church in U.S.A.
The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist or Presbyterian Church.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church.
The United Presbyterian Church.
The Protestant Episcopal Church.
The Reformed Church in America.
The Reformed Church in U.S.
The Reformed Episcopal Church.
The Seventh Day Baptist Churches.
The Swedish Lutheran Augustana Synod.
The United Brethren in Christ.
The United Evangelical Church.

Federation as a Step Towards Unity 339
different churches which constitute its membership. It is
differentiated from other movements for the manifestation
of Christian unity, in the fact that it is the co-operation
of the various denominations for service rather than an
attempt to unite them upon definitions of theology and
polity. It is interesting to note how many subjects there are which
the founders of this remarkable Council have been able to
include in the operations of the Council without interfering
with the polity or autonomy of its constituent members. The
work of the Council is carried on by commissions on the
following important questions : Evangelism, Social Service,
Christian Education, Temperance, International Justice and
Goodwill, Church and Country Life, Interchurch Federa
tions (State and Local), and relations with the Orient
(formerly relations with Japan) ; and Committees on
Foreign Missions, on Home Missions, on family life and
Religious Rest Day, and on Ministerial Relief and Sus-
tentation. The objects of the Federal Council are declared to be :
(i) To express the fellowship and Catholic unity of the
Christian Church.
(2) To bring the Christian bodies of America into united
service for Christ and the world.
(3) To encourage devotional fellowship and mutual
counsel concerning the spiritual life and religious activities
of the churches.
Each of the communions adhering to the Federal Council
is entitled to four members, and to further membership in
proportion to its numbers.
The four members chosen by the Protestant Episcopal
Church of America are two Bishops and two laymen, whilst
in the case of any of the elected members being unable to
attend, an alternate Bishop, two clergymen, and an alternate
layman are elected to take the place of any who may be ill
or absent. The Bishops elected as members are the Bishop

340 Chapters from My Life
of Chicago and the Bishop of South Bethlehem ; the alternate
Bishop is the Bishop of Columbus, Ohio.1
I have given so much space to this review of the work
done by a Federal Council of the Churches in America, be
cause a quarter of a century's study of the need for unity and
the methods of achieving it have convinced me that it is in
work done on these lines that immediate steps towards unity
may be taken.
Should any consider that too much attention has been
given to this religious movement in the great Republic of
the West, and would rather look towards an early rapproche
ment with the Church of Russia and the East, I may be per
mitted on this point to utter a word of warning. The
"Catholic and Orthodox Church" is at the present moment
suffering more than we can realise from the great revolution
in Russia. No one knows what will be the ultimate issue,
but it is important for us in seeking closer unity with that
Church to realise that the differences between the two main
divisions of Christendom — East and West — are great. We
must remember that in the eyes of the Orthodox Greeks the
Pope is not the representative of a faith pure and undefiled,
but is z " the first Protestant, the founder of German Rational-
1 The following figures, taken from many valuable tables contained in .the
Year Book of the Federal Council, set out clearly the total numbers of
those denominational groups of families which are referred to in the con
stitution of the Federal Council :
Denominational groups Increase in
or families. 'o^S- 1890. 25 years.
Methodists (16 bodies)  7,472,108 4,589,284 2,882,824
Baptists (15 bodies) .;  6,402,253 3,717,969 2,684,284
Lutherans (20 bodies) ....  2,434,184 1,231,072 1,203,112
Presbyterians (12 bodies)  2,104,039 1,278,332 825,707
Disciples of Christ (2 bodies) ... 1,293,397 641,051 652,346
Episcopal Protestants (2 bodies), in
communion with the Church of
England  1,051,696 540,509 51M87
Reformed (4 bodies)  502,602 309,458 193,144
United Brethren (2 bodies)  360,387 225,281 135, i°6
Evangelical (2 bodies)  205,255 133,313 71,942
friends (4 bodies)  120,712 107,208 13,504
2I>946,633 12,773,477 9,173,156
Quelque Mots par un Chretien Orthodoxe," 1853, p. 40.

Federation as a Step Towards Unity 341
ism." The Eastern patriarchs speak in their great documents
of the Roman Church as ' "the chief heresy of the latter days
which flourishes now as its predecessor Arianism flourished
before it in the early ages, and which, like Arianism, shall in
like manner be cast down and vanish away."
The Latin Church which represents to us so much that is
medieval — some would say anti-Christian — is, compared with
the Eastern Church,2 "in one word Protestant. It is instruc
tive for the opponents of the Reformation to see that in the
Eastern section of the Christian Church, vast as it is, the
whole Western Church, Latin and German, Papal and
Lutheran, is often regarded as essentially one ; that the first
concessions to reason and freedom, which involve by neces
sity all the subsequent stages, were made long before Luther,
in the bosom of the Roman Church itself ; that the Papal See
first led the way in schism from the parent stock in liberty
of private judgment; that some of the most important matters
in which the Latin is now distinguished from the Greek
Church have been actually copied and imported from the
new churches of the Protestant West."
There is more hope for a unity that shall count in the
conflict with evil that confronts us after the war by making
our first step a federation of those communions in Europe
and America which are found in the constitution of the
"American Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in
America," rather than in sectional attempts to seek recogni
tion from the rigidly conservative churches in the East.
Those who look to the East would surely be wiser to look
Westward and to grasp the spiritual truth which we may
express in the beautiful imagery of Clough's lines :
"And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright ! "
1 "Encyclic Episltle of the Eastern Patriarchs," 1848, 5.
2 "Quelque Mots par un Chretien Orthodoxe," 1853 and 1854.

342 Chapters trom My Lite
We are justified in believing that a Federation of Christian
forces now working in Britain and the United States is
practicable, and if accompanied by a deeper spiritual life,
gives hope of the ultimate achievement of unity.
Our ideal must take time to realise, and we must not
seek the destruction of the distinctive elements which "charac
terise the different communions. We must endeavour to
unite them in as close an alliance in their work as that which
characterises the different orders of the Church of Rome,
giving them great liberty of individual development.
Each of them has been given some special message, some
revelation of the truth which is of value to the whole body
ecclesiastic. Our endeavour must be to seek the develop
ment of those special traits which have given to each its
mission and supplied to each its power for good.
Let us remember Sir Isaac Newton's great saying : "I am
but a child gathering pebbles on the shore, whilst the vast
ocean of truth lies before me unexplored," and let us culti
vate the agnosticism of humility with regard to the beliefs of
others which we do not understand, and the dogmatism of
experience with regard to the truths which we have proved
in our own lives.
In the international life of the world the hope of the future
lies in respect for international law, accompanied by the free
dom of each nation to govern itself by its own laws. In like
manner our purpose in the realm of the spiritual must be to
secure for each order recognition, from the rest, of its own
right to proclaim the special message which it has been given
by the Divine Spirit. We must admit the right of each
order to be governed by its own ecclesiastical discipline,
whilst recognising at the same time in the voice of the whole
church an authority which shall govern the relations of the
several orders.
Thus shall an intelligible and practical meaning be given
to the great sentence which governed Newman's life, but
which was imperfectly realised in his last spiritual home :
Securus judicat orbis terrarum.

Federation as a Step Towards Unity 343
The true ideal of each religious organisation must be to
take its part in building that great spiritual temple of which,
in Peter's bold imagery, every individual Christian is called
to be "a living stone."
The alienation from the "Commonwealth of Israel" of
those who were "called uncircumcision by that which is
called circumcision" was complete. Even within the early
Christian Church the division between Christian Jew and
Christian Gentile threatened to be infinitely more serious, and
based upon profounder differences than any which to-day
separate the fragments of the divided Church of Christ.
The Ephesians to whom St. Paul wrote were once regarded as
outcasts from "the covenants of the promise" more abso
lutely outcast than ever Churchman could regard Dissenter,
or Covenanter, Prelatist. But it is to these one-time "enemy
aliens " (how well we understand that word to-day !) that St.
Paul writes of the reconciliation by Jesus "our peace," "in
one body unto God through the Cross." We can understand
now, as we could not four years ago, what it meant for St.
Paul — a Hebrew of the Hebrews and a Pharisee of the
Pharisees — to say that Jesus had "slain enmity" and
"preached good tidings of peace." These former enemy aliens
are given full citizenship in the kingdom — "fellow-citizens
with the saints." But more than this, they are to be used in
the building of the City of God upon earth "built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Him
self being the chief corner-stone." And here we come to the
final purpose of God in these varied organisations through
which His Kingdom has been and is to be advanced in the
world: "In whom each several building fitly framed
together groweth into a holy temple in the Lord."

CHAPTER XXV
THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNITY IN 1918
Meetings for Prayer, January, 1918 — Conferences at London House
between the Church of England and Wesleyan Methodists —
The Sub-Committee on Faith and Order — Agreement on Matters
of Faith — Agreement on Necessity for " One Visible Society " —
The Moderator of the Church of Scotland at St. Paul's — Pres
byterian Movement towards Unity — The Baptist Union and
Federation — The Congregational Union and the Bishops —
Professor Forsyth on Unity.
Remember, O Lord, Thy Church, to deliver it from al] evil, and to
perfect it in Thy love; and bring it together from the four winds, even the
Church which is sanctified unto Thy Kingdom, which Thou hast prepared
for it. — The Didache.
That there must be wine skins is clear, but when the wine skins
assume a greater importance than the wine we have become curators of
wine skins rather than vendors of wine. — Richard Roberts.
THE year 1918 began with a most hopeful series of
meetings all over the country to pray for guidance and
direction in this time of national distress. These meetings
were hopeful because in many places for the first time clergy
men of the Church of England and ministers of the Free
Churches united in common supplication for the Divine
Blessing upon our nation during the year.
In the month of January, and again in April and July,
Conferences were held at London House by invitation of the
Bishop of London, who presided, to consider the possibility
of promoting closer relations between the Church of England
and the Wesleyan Methodist Church.
These deliberations are continuing, and reference was
made to them at the May Meetings of the Wesleyan Metho-
344

The Movement Towards Unity 345
dist Missionary Society by the Bishop of Winchester, who
spoke of attending "a cabinet meeting of Churchmen and
Methodists." As these meetings are preparatory and exploratory in
character, no advantage would accrue from an account of the
proceedings, although they were marked by an exceptional
and most helpful unity of spirit. It may be permissible,
however, as I was present at these discussions, to say some
thing of the temper which characterised them.
Nothing could have been more helpful to the cause which
all desired to advance than the spirit of brotherly love and the
desire to sacrifice non-essentials, while maintaining the unity
of the faith, which animated these influential ecclesiastics and
the laymen associated with them.
The attitude of the Methodists present was that they
desired the enrichment and not the impoverishment of the
whole Church. They declared, with a frankness that was
appreciated by the other side, that the movement must not
be unilateral. Their loyalty to Christ must be tested, not
only by their attitude towards the Church of England, with
which they were generally in close sympathy, but by a
desire for unity with those who were far removed from the
members of these gatherings. Unity rather than uniformity;
diversity within the one Catholic Church rather than amalga
mation into a rigid and unyielding ecclesiastical system, was
asserted as the principle that should guide the Conferences,
and this expression of opinion was received sympathetically.
At the same time, in view of what I have said in the last
chapter, it is important to state that mere federation of the
Churches was not regarded as meeting the requirements of
the age, either by the members of these gatherings or by
those who met in the Sub-Committee on Faith and Order, of
which I wish to say something in this chapter.
It was recognised on the Anglican side that the existing
social order was undoubtedly going to be changed by events
in the world to-day, and that great theological and institu
tional changes were now taking place. Protestantism was

346 Chapters from My Life
being influenced by Biblical criticism. At the same time
there was a great movement towards Catholic ideals.
1 cannot say more concerning gatherings which were
essentially private in character. It may be that before this
book is published something of the results of our delibera
tions will be known to the world. In any case it is fair to
both parties concerned to say that neither side was prepared
to sacrifice great principles, nor did either ask the other side
to do so.
The deliberations of these gatherings were profoundly
affected by the important interim reports published by the
Sub-Committee on Faith and Order. The object of the move
ment which this sub-committee represents is to prepare for a
World-wide Conference on Faith and Order, with the view
of promoting the visible unity of the Body of Christ on
earth. It was initiated in America by the Protestant Episco
pal Church, and has been widely taken up by the Christian
Churches in the United States. In response to an appeal
from those who are co-operating in America, a Committee was
appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and
Commissions by the Free Churches to promote the same
movement in England, and they appointed a sub-committee
to draft reports.
The first interim report contained a statement of agree
ment on matters of Faith which affirmed " certain founda
tion truths as the basis of a spiritual and rational creed and
life for all mankind." The Committee accepted as a natural
sequence of Christian doctrine "A necessary synthesis of idea
and fact such as is presented to us in the New Testament and
in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds," and stated that "these
creeds both in their statements of historical facts and in their
statements of doctrine affirm essential elements of the
Christian faith as contained in Scripture, which the church
could never abandon without abandoning its basis in the
Word of God."
In a statement of opinion on matters relating to Order,

The Movement Towards Unity 347
the Committee expressed their own conviction that our Lord's
purpose involved "One visible society— His Body with many
members— which in every age and place should maintain
the communion of saints in the unity of the Spirit, and should
be capable of a common witness and a common activity."
It went on to accept as our Lord's ordination the sacra
ments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and affirmed that
these were " not only declaratory symbols, but also effective
channels of His grace and gifts for the salvation and
sanctification of men."
In the second interim report, which was published at the
end of March, the sub-committee proceeded with their con
sideration of a basis for the proposed Conference on Faith
and Order. In this they dealt with all that they held to be
involved in the statement that "It is the purpose of our
Lord that believers in Him should be one visible society."
Throughout their discussions on this question they affirm
that they have been guided by two convictions from which
they could not escape, that "Unity is essential to the pur
pose of Christ for His Church, and for its effective witness
and work in the world, and the visible unity of the Body of
Christ is not adequately expressed in the co-operation of the
Christian Churches for moral influence and social service."
I record these conclusions as a remarkable step in the
development of Christian Unity, and realise fully that they
go beyond the proposals for federation suggested in the last
chapter and already being carried out in America.
More remarkable conclusions were to follow. In the
endeavour to discover if any practical proposals could be
made that might bring the Episcopal and non-Episcopal
communions closer to one another, the Committee agreed to
acknowledge certain facts which represented great concessions
on the part of the representatives of the non-Episcopal
communions. The first fact is "That the position of Episcopacy in the
greater part of Christendom as the recognised organ of the

348 Chapters from My Life
unity and continuity of the Church is such that the members
of the Episcopal Churches ought not to be expected to
abandon it in assenting to any basis of reunion."
On the other hand, the Episcopal representatives acknow
ledged that "there are a certain number of Christian Churches
not accepting the Episcopal Order which have been used by
the Holy Spirit in His work of enlightening the world,
converting sinners, and perfecting saints."
The Committee reached the following large measure of
agreement :
(i) That continuity with the Historic Episcopate should
be effectively preserved.
(2) That the Episcopate should reassume a constitutional
form. (3) That the acceptance of the fact of Episcopacy and not
any theory as to its character should be all that is asked for.
The whole report should be read with care by all who are
interested in this important question, and the signatures
should be weighed as well as counted. It is signed by the
Bishop of Bath and Wells (chairman), the Bishops of Win
chester and Oxford, the Revs. H. L. Goudge, Principal of
Ely Theological College, William Temple and Tissington
Tatlow, and Mr. Eugene Stock, representing the Church of
England; by Professor W. T. Davison and Dr. Scott
Lidgett, representing Wesleyan Methodism ; by Dr. Garvie
and Dr. Selbie, eminent Congregational theologians, and by
the Rev. J. H. Shakespeare, ex-President of the Baptist
Union, and Mr. H. G. Wood, Warden of the Woodbrooke
Settlement. The Moderator of the Church of Scotland has recently
delivered an important address, with the Bishop of London
presiding, in the Crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, on the
relations between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism in Scot
land. There has also been inaugurated in Scotland during
recent months a definite movement to promote union between
the Church of Scotland, the Episcopal Church jn Scotland,

The Movement Towards Unity 349
and the United Free Church of Scotland. In this movement,
as in others to which reference has been made, not compro
mise but a higher synthesis involving no sacrifice ' of
principle is the aim of its leaders.
The same influences are making themselves felt amongst
the Baptists. At the May Meeting of the Baptist Union, the
Rev. J. H. Shakespeare, who has worked with such passion
and earnestness for the federation of the Free Churches,
presented his report. This report is the result of three pro
tracted Conferences held in Oxford, Cambridge, and London,
composed entirely of representatives appointed directly by
the Denominational Assemblies.
Mr. Shakespeare frankly admitted in presenting his report
that some Baptists and Congregationalists would have pre
ferred no declaration of faith. He claimed that it was a
great thing that the Free Churches should present "a united
declaration of Gospel truth, a confession of Christ to the
world," and that it had come about by the blessed influence
of the Spirit of God. He made one remarkable statement
coming from a minister of one of the Baptist group of
what were formerly called "Independent Churches," when
he said that it must be distinctly understood "that this
is a Federation of Denominations and not of particular
Churches." In an admirable passage, he summed up the
influence that was compelling Baptists to forsake their
isolation. He said :
"For years I have watched this Baptist Union. It is not
small or narrow or bitter, and it will not look on this little
promise of Christian Unity with suspicion or distrust. We
have come to a great hour in human history, and nothing
will ever be the same again. Let us not so completely mis
take the temper of the men at the Front as to wait for their
return before we prepare for united action. If we do, they
will have the right to say, ' Did you know so little about us
and what we have been doing and thinking ? ' This move
ment of Christian Unity is sweeping through the world like

350 Chapters from My Life
a breath of God. You can see the flush in the sky. A week
to-day I was in this pulpit with the Bishop of Hereford as he
preached, and the words came into my mind : ' Then was our
mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing ; then
said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things
for them. The Lord hath done great things for us whereof
we are glad.' " He declared that if Baptists wrecked the
movement for the federation of the Churches of Christ, such a
course would wreck the Baptist Union.
Dr. Charles Brown, one of the most eminent English
Baptists, declared that the Union must face the question
whether, after talking for years about unity they really meant
business, and said: "To refuse to federate would be to for
feit our honour and our claim to be a vital part of the Holy
Catholic Church."
The report was adopted and carried with very few
dissentient voices.
The Congregational Union, which also met in May, was
marked by striking events showing the same influences
powerfully at work. The retiring, President, the Rev.
Bernard Snell, described in the British Weekly as "The Last
of the Independents," the last survivor of the band which had
emphasised the independence of every individual church in
the Congregational Order, made this remarkable statement.
He said that he had become convinced that the Congrega
tional Order required the appointment of men, "bishops or
superintendents or whatever they may be called," whose duty
it would be to exercise supervision over the churches and to
supply them with the necessary guidance in their perplexities.
Probably the most memorable of all the public utterances
made during these eventful months was an address given at
the Congregational Union by Dr. Forsyth, Principal of
Hackney College, Hampstead, and Dean of the Faculty of
Theology in the University of London. He affirmed that
they stood for Liberal Evangelicalism which was the true
Catholicism, and not Liberal Catholicism which exalted the

The Movement Towards Unity 351
social above the evangelical. Principal Griffith Jones, the
Chairman of the Union, in his inaugural address, had
affirmed that Congregationalism was the constitution of the
original Church. Dr. Forsyth, on the contrary, boldly
asserted that Congregationalism was only valid when it
aided and magnified the supreme autonomy of the great
Church. He followed the broad lines laid down in the
report of the Sub-Committee on Faith and Order. As he
concluded his address he said in genial irony that he hoped
he might not be mobbed when he asked, "Would Con
gregationalism ever have come into existence if it had not
been for a double fallacy ? First, the fallacy that the polity
in the New Testament was sacrosanct ; secondly, that the
polity was independent Congregationalism." He urged that
they must construe their autonomy by unity, and not unity
by autonomy, and submit their autonomy to the spirit of the
whole Church. That must be the method, but the need for
advance was urgent. What society needed was not first
reconstruction, but a new heart; and the Church alone had
the secret of the new man. But the charm could not be
worked by a divided Church — a Church which was but a
faggot of ecclesiastical egoisms or private pieties. It could
only be done by a Church united enough to be the Great
Sacrament to history of the Kingdom of God.
It was a significant sign of the times that the Union, in
stead of "mobbing" Dr. Forsyth for his courageous declara
tion, carried a unanimous resolution that the address should
be printed and issued by the Congregational Union.
I have been convinced after five-and-twenty years of close
and careful study of these questions that any doubt of the
great things that the Divine Spirit may accomplish in bring
ing about unity amongst the Churches in the near future
would be in direct contradiction to the facts here recorded,
and to the deep spiritual movement of which they are the
outward expression. If the completion of "The Holy Temple
in the Lord" seems to our finite vision to be long delayed; if

352 Chapters from My Life
the harmony of the several parts be slow in manifesting
itself, we may be encouraged by the thought that it has taken
centuries to build one of our cathedrals.
Let us remember the faith of that aged and lonely prisoner
on the Isle of Patmos who in his banishment could courage
ously write of the New Jerusalem "coming down from God
out of heaven." We may take encouragement from the
example of all those who through faith "looked for a city
which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
Of these men is written the epitaph, "These all died in faith,
not having received the promise, God having provided some
better thing for us that they, apart from us, should not be
made perfect."
We each contributing our share to the building are neces
sary to the realisation of the Divine purpose. If we. are
faithful in our unceasing endeavour to realise the ultimate
unity of Christendom, we shall in the great hereafter discover
that none of our efforts, fruitless and unavailing though they
may have seemed to be, have really been in vain ; that
lothing of what we have done in faith has been
' ' Cast as rubbish to the void
When God hath made the pile complete."

APPENDIX A
THE two following letters, the first to a Churchman, the
second to a Methodist, have some bearing on questions
discussed in the last chapter. The recipients had been present
at one or other of the London House meetings, in which I
took part, between Anglicans and Methodists, with the
Bishop of London in the chair : "March 16th, 1918.
" I have read your letter carefully many times before ven
turing to reply. I am most glad that you emphasise the
value and importance of speaking ' heart to heart.' It is only
by absolute frankness on both sides that we shall make any
real and genuine progress towards unity. I am sure, there
fore, you will understand me if I state very plainly the dif
ficulties to a Methodist who desires unity, which should
indeed be the desire of all real followers of Wesley.
" In the first place we should pause at the word schism and
ask wherein does schism consist and who is the schismatic.
St. Paul used the word o-^lo-p.aTa in 1 Cor. xi. 18, 19,
almost interchangeably with dtpecreis and in chapter i. 10, 11
with ept£es. In the third chapter of this epistle he deals
with the same trouble in the Church at Corinth and speaks
(verse 3) of tfiXos xal epis ical St^po-raclai, . Our version trans
lates the word a^ltr/iaTa by ' divisions ' and uses the
same translation for BixoaTao-iai. What is surely meant is
party spirit and not our modern division into denominations.
When the Editor of the  tells me that he would not have
in his house my little book, ' The Love of Jesus,' because it
contains the fourth book of the 'Imitation,' he, although a
clergyman of the Church of England, is surely the schis-
x 353

354 Appendix A
matic. When the Church Association of Mid-Victorian days
persecuted the saints of St. Alban's, Holborn, and when the
fox-hunting parson of the eighteenth century headed the mob
in an attack on the ' enthusiasts ' of the Methodist revival,
these, I am sure you will agree, were the true schismatics.
"Therefore every follower of Wesley who considers the
question will ask himself and us, ' Wherein lies the sin
of schism to-day, and how is the responsibility to be
apportioned ? '
"Every member of our Committee would, I believe, agree
that the mere expression of pious sentiments as to spiritual
unity, which occurs constantly at Keswick and similar gather
ings, does little to end 'our unhappy divisions' or to hasten
the day when we shall all be ' united in one holy bond of
Truth and Peace, of Faith and Charity, and with one mind
and one mouth glorify God.' Unity of spirit is invisible
and has no compelling force ' that they all may believe.'
Our union, as you desire, in one Celebration in each parish
will be the culminating sacrament of our effort, the outward
and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace, which has
subdued the enmities and differences of generations. To
hurry on such an expression of our unity would be to imperil
the whole work we are undertaking. If it is agreed that only
the priest of the Anglican Communion officiates, the question
of Orders is settled on the basis of the definite Tractarian
interpretation of the words 'historic Episcopate' in the
Lambeth Quadrilateral.
"If the right of any non-Episcopally ordained minister to
officiate be granted, the contention of Bishop Perowne,
Bishop Ryle of Liverpool, Bishop Henson, and the Free
Church theologians, is conceded.
"Therefore we must hold a solution of this problem to be
part of our goal, and not a stepping-stone to constructive
measures. It must come last and not first.
"It seems to me quite clear, as you say, that we must
proceed very slowly if we are to build on a sure foundation.
We must educate ourselves and those associated with us in

Appendix A 355
the history of our separation, and the principles which have
guided us as we separated and thereafter, and the extent
to which the God of all grace has blessed us in spite of our
divisions. We shall thus slowly cultivate the ethos and
temper which are essential before we can learn in lowliness
of mind to make sacrifice of that pride and prejudice which
has helped to separate us quite as much as the principles that
have been put forward as the reason of our divisions.
"It is necessary that all should understand how much
sacrifice is involved in various suggestions that are some
times advanced rather lightly on either side. Methodists
need to learn how serious a thing it is from the standpoint of
an English Churchman of your school of thought to suggest
any action, such as common communion, or the recognition
of non-Episcopal communions in Churches, which tends to
widen the breach between the Church of England and the
Greek and other Eastern Churches, and to destroy any hope,
however slender, which exists of an ultimate reunion with
Rome. " On the other hand, it is important that English Church
men should understand that English Methodists would cut
themselves off from communion with the great Evangelical
Churches of the United States, Scandinavia, Germany and
Switzerland, if (by a complete change of attitude, for it would
be nothing less) they agreed to receive the Communion from
those only who had been Episcopally ordained.
"You and your High Church friends regard with anxiety
any action that shall be open to criticism from Greek, Roman,
or Old Catholics, who are not now in communion with you,
and practically in the case of Rome, and at least theoretically
in the case of the Greek Church and the Old Catholics, re
gard you as heretics or schismatics, or both. So strongly is
this felt by the Old Catholics that Bishop Hertzog, of Berne,
told me in conversation in 1893 that whilst he would like to
have met English Christians in conference, he feared censure
from the Archbishop of Utrecht and other Old Catholic
bishops if he joined in our discussions, and he therefore

356 Appendix A
suggested that his Church should be represented by a lay
man, Dr. Weibel, of Lucerne. You must allow for a similar
anxiety on the part of English Methodists, lest they should
do anything, to separate themselves from the great fellowship
to which they now belong.
"Too much importance, I know, can be attached to mere
numbers, but it is difficult to combat the conviction that those
great Christian communions which since the War of Indepen
dence have maintained the religious life of the United
States, are working in harmony with the Divine Will, so far
as they are faithful in following Christ. The Methodist in
England knows that, whilst his brethren in this country
stand to the communicating members of the Church of
England in the ratio of one to about four, in the United
States the proportion is reversed and there are more than
seven million Methodist communicants to one million com
municants of the Protestant Episcopal Church, to use the
official title of the Anglican Communion in America.
" I mention these facts and figures, not because I am hope
less of the task upon which we are engaged, but because I
am most desirous that we shall begin on such lines as shall
at no point increase bitterness and create other divisions, but
shall steadily prepare men's minds for such sacrifices as may
prove necessary to achieve the Divine purpose.
" It is therefore clear that our Committee must be content
to seek for the advancement of its purpose by such joint
action as shall not involve the sacrifice of great principles on
the part of either side.
"You have been good enough to express your sense of
the ' orthodoxy ' of the purely Wesleyan documents which
I have put together in my little book. Can we not go on
steadily teaching our friends how much we have doctrin-
ally in common, and how possible it is for us practically to
co-ordinate our forces in certain phases of religious and social
work? "I have already written at such length that I will not
burden you with any statement of the difficulties which do

Appendix A 357
undoubtedly confront us. These difficulties exist to be sur
mounted. Our brethren in the United States are united in
the ' Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America.'
On the governing body of this Society are two Bishops of
the Anglican Communion sitting in council and acting with
representatives of all the great non-episcopal communions.
This fact gives ground for hope and will, I trust, stir us all
to emulate this unity of action which is slowly evolving itself
across the Atlantic.
" I have just received a letter from a very dear [Methodist]
friend in close sympathy with all our aspirations, who writes
from a health resort where he is recruiting his strength. He
says : ' I have found some interesting Roman Catholic
companions here. They talk much more like early Method
ists than any Methodists I meet to-day. They talk quite
freely about "the Passion of Jesus," "the love of Jesus,"
"getting near to Jesus." One old man staying here has lent
me his prayer book, all blotted with tears and much reading.
He is a successful Irishman and full of charity. But he tells
me how he spends his time at Mass, contemplating the agony,
passion, and death of his Saviour, and how he is able to feel
"My Beloved is mine and I am His." I want more of that
spirit in myself and in Methodism. " ' With what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars.
" ' The wounds of Jesus ! The Blood of Jesus ! The War
makes all that old sentiment intelligible again. What a
freezing atmosphere the nineteenth century was ! How its
wretched negations exhausted the atmosphere of religion !
What fools we were to listen to the prig, who talked in
superior accents about scientific discoveries, and about the
vulgarity of evangelical religion ! What hopeless snobs we
Methodists have been, so fearful of being thought vulgar
that we have lost or nearly lost the very rapture and joy that
made us uncommon.'

358 Appendix A
"In these burning words my friend expresses better than
I could the influence of an experience similar to some that I
have enjoyed, when, as in the Conference on Retreats at the
Community of the Resurrection, and on one or two other
occasions, I have been privileged to learn something of the
hidden springs of spiritual life from which Roman, Anglican
and Methodist, alike, alone derive the power which leads their
fellows to the love of the Crucified.
"We are called by the facts of this terrible war of the
nations to make every effort in our power to act as one
Catholic and undivided Church in all those matters upon
which we are agreed. It will be an adventure worthy of our
heritage as Englishmen if we courageously explore the pos
sibilities which the present crisis affords. I have no doubt
that in so doing we shall have the Divine blessing, even
though we are constantly compelled to recognise that in
building for eternity we must make haste slowly.
"Yours very sincerely,
"Henry S. Lunn."
"March 30th, 1918.
"My dear  , — Your week here was all too short and
I am particularly sorry that you could not remain over Good
Friday to hear the rest of the Holy Week addresses by the
Rector of Christchurch.
"After you left on Thursday morning I went to the eleven
o'clock service, at which, instead of simple Mattins as on
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we had a ' Solemn
Eucharist ' — a high choral celebration such as you enjoyed
so much on Sunday morning. This was the commemoration
of the institution of the Holy Communion on that first
Holy Thursday. Coming as it did in the midst of the
Rector's beautiful and passionately evangelical addresses,
it reminded me of your contention that the evangelical
faith of the Wesleys finds its highest expression in the
hymns which they published in their ' Hymns on the
Lord's Supper ' :

Appendix A 359
* Let all who truly bear.'
' O Thou eternal victim slain.'
' Jesu, at Whose supreme command.'
' Let Him to Whom we now belong.'
"The Rector was also to endorse another remark of yours
contained in the letter from  with reference to the new
meaning which the War gave to the passion of our dear
Lord. To this I will refer in telling you of his Good Friday
addresses. " On Thursday he briefly summarised his teaching of the
three previous days on the ' Head ' crowned with thorns, the
pierced hands and feet, and insisted as against so much
modern teaching that sin is a positive offence — of the head,
of lack of faith, and of intellectual pride ; of the hands, of act
and deeds ; of the feet, of cowardice and sloth ; and then in
this address on the pierced side he spoke of the sins of the
heart, and the wrong use we make of our affections. We
brought that morning before the Cross all the want of charity
that lies lurking in our souls. As we contemplated the
pierced side of our Lord we realised His true human affection
for the multitude, the rich young man, Martha and Mary
and Lazarus, Jerusalem as He wept over it, and St. John at
the foot of the Cross. In the Perfect Man the affections are
not crushed, he said, but used to the full, disciplined and
directed to God as the centre. He urged us to pray for the
true liberty of the affections that came from discipline, and
being God-created could go out safely to all human objects.
"And then the Rector went on, as all these best High
Churchmen do, to speak simply but with deep sincerity of
the need for us to suffer with Christ. If His heart was
pierced, we must expect our hearts to be pierced by true
contrition as well as by human sorrow and suffering. We
were reminded, he said, of Toplady's great hymn, ' Rock of
Ages, cleft for me.' (How near in spirit are the Methodist
and the Catholic revivals.) The riven side represented to us
symbolically but truly that therein was room for the whole

360 Appendix A
world. There was one striking passage in which, whilst yet this
great evangelical's verses were echoing in our ears, he linked
up his Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist and Evangelical
ism : ' The water and the blood represent the flow of grace
which comes from Christ, and lives and abides in us through
the broken heart of Jesus. To us there comes the vocation
that we should be prepared to suffer with Christ, to have our
hearts broken and disciplined for the strengthening and per
fecting of our fajth and love for Him and our zeal for His
service and work in the world.'
" I have only imperfectly conveyed to you the passion and
devotion of the preacher on this Holy Thursday which his
sermons made memorable to me.
"Yesterday I went at noon to the Three Hours' Service
and found the church crowded with a devout and strangely
silent congregation of over a thousand persons. About a
hundred left in the middle of the service, but all the rest
remained in rapt attention until 3.15 p.m. I cannot give
you any idea of the power and spiritual insight of the eight
addresses, one introductory and the others on the ' Seven
Words.' There was a force behind the words that could
only come from the oratory, from the secret chamber. If
we only had lived this last quarter of a century as near to the
Crucified as these High Churchmen, how our Methodist
people would have welcomed our message !
"It was in his introductory address that the Vicar ex
pressed the idea which you felt so strongly at  . He
began by saying that our attitude must be one of adoration
and faith. If Jesus was not truly and in a special sense the
Son of God, there was no sacrifice, no redemption. It must
also be one of gratitude. The Cross as the manifestation of
love was the expression of God's character which never
changed. Then he went on to the passage that reminded me
of your letter, ' We see to-day God's love conquering through
suffering and death. To-day men will not be satisfied with
a religion that cannot be expressed in terms of blood and
sweat. The world to-day has no use for gods sitting on

Appendix A 361
Olympus sipping nectar. The Christian's God covered with
blood and sweat, carrying the roughly hacked Cross onward
to bear the burden of the world's sin, is the God we need.'
He then read a letter from a soldier at the front — I wish I had
known shorthand — of which the burden was : ' For us out
here the God of the Cross alone has any appeal — God dying
that man may live.' Christianity, he said, is the only key
that will fit the appallingly intricate lock which closes the
future. We thank God as we see our Lord Jesus Christ
marching up Calvary through death to victory.
"I cannot tell you of all the messages for the moment
which came in his later addresses from one who in the secret
place of the Eternal had learned to apply unchanging, laws
to the manifold changes of Europe at war.
" On the second word — ' to the thief ' — he said : ' Not only
individuals but whole nations are hanging on the Cross to
day. Fundamentally, it is because the nations have been
thieves — our own nation is not guiltless. We have de
throned God. " Will a man rob God ? " " But ye have robbed
Me." Let us pray that our nation may be like the penitent
thief and say, "We indeed justly receive the true reward of
our deeds."
"The note throughout was in complete harmony with the
purpose of our Lord in ' His Agony and Bloody Sweat, His
Cross and Passion, and His precious Death and Burial,' and
when to-morrow breaks I know that the preacher will under
stand fully the joy of Easter — the ' glorious resurrection ' of
his Lord and ours.
"That is the thought that has oppressed me through these
Holy Week services. We are one with him in faith and hope
and love in all that he has said in these twelve* addresses.
And yet we are divided by the two words, ' historic episco
pate,' or the phrase, 'apostolic succession.' The tragedy of
it! There must be a way out. May God reveal it to this
generation which so sorely needs the full message of ' Peace
amongst men of good will.' — Yours affectionately,
"Henry S. Lunn."

APPENDIX B
THE GRINDELWALD CONFERENCE
(SEPTEMBER, 1892)
THE DOCTRINE OF THE MINISTRY
THE Bishop of Worcester presided at the first session, and
at the opening of his address enumerated the proposals
of the Lambeth Conference of 1888 (see pages 167-8).
He recognised that the first was accepted practically on
all hands. He pointed out that, so far as creeds were con
cerned, there was no real essential difference on great points
of doctrine, in matters pertaining to salvation, between Non
conformists and the Church of England, though he expressly
stated that he could not accept the view held by his Baptist
friends of the Sacrament of Baptism.
His remarks on the two sacraments were exceedingly
interesting. He said: "Here again I am struck by the
extreme moderation of the Lambeth requirements — baptism
and the Supper of our Lord, administered with unfailing use
of Christ's words of institution and the elements ordained by
Him. Can any of us object to that? You see there is not
one word about infant baptism ; there is not one word about
any particular doctrine of the sacraments. It is simply the fact
put before you that Christ did appoint those two sacraments —
baptism with water, and baptism in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and the Lord's
Supper as instituted by Himself and administered with the
elements of bread and wine. Surely Nonconformists ought
not to make an unreasonable demand here; they may well
be content with this large concession. There is not one of
them probably who, if asked by himself, would object to
362

THE WETTERHORN
and the Parish Church, Grindelwald, in which the
Reunion Conferences of 1892, etc., were held

Appendix B 363
the terms of the statement; why then should we make it a
stumbling-block that the Church of England has put forward
a statement in her Catechism (not in her Articles) which
seems to imply a particular belief in a particular doctrine of
the Sacraments ? Even if it were so, still §he does not require
it of the Nonconformist Churches.
"But besides this you have a large section of the Church
of England (I should say quite one half though not the
noisiest half or the dominant half, but at least as honest and
true as the other half) which does put on the documents of
the Church of England a construction very different from
that which is put upon them by High Churchmen, which
does hold a doctrine of the Sacraments not materially differ
ing from that which is held by the great majority of Noncon
formists. Therefore, these things ought to be no obstacle
to reunion." The Bishop felt, as everyone must fully realise who has
had any experience in endeavours after reunion, that he was
now coming to the most difficult question. The whole series
of conferences was to prove that the other conditions could
easily be accepted, so far at any rate as the Presbyterian and
some of the great Methodist Churches were concerned. But
the question of orders was all wrapped up in the phrase,
"The Historic Episcopate." The Bishop said to me, enter
ing the church : " I do not hold with any mechanical theory
of the transmission of orders. Directly the mechanical idea
enters into our view of ordination we are falling into error."
For this reason his statement was much more acceptable to
Nonconformists than would have been the statement of one of
the High Church Bishops.
"I contend," said he, "therefore, and believe that an
Episcopate — I do not say the Episcopate of the Church of
England, and still less that of the Church of Rome— was the
most normal form of Church government. That is all I
should care to contend for — an Episcopal government. The
Rev. Edward White, Chairman of the Congregational
Union, told me that he believed the Episcopate was the

364 Appendix B
original and primitive form of Church government, and that
he should like to see a Bishop presiding over the Church in
every large town. And my friend Mr. Price Hughes — if he
will allow me to call him so — has said something very similar
indeed ; he has said, I am told, that there was no harm in an
episcopate, and that an episcopate is useful, especially for
aggressive purposes. But now, whilst a great many would
not particularly object to an episcopate, especially if they
were sure the Bishop would be of their own way of thinking,
I believe there is lurking behind it that which makes my
Nonconformist friends so averse to an episcopate. Here I
entirely sympathise with them, because they are told by a
great many forward persons in the Church of England that
the episcopate necessarily carries with it the doctrine of the
Apostolical Succession. Well, I believe in an Apostolical
Succession as you believe in an Episcopacy, but then I think
the Presbyterian Churches have got it ! I believe with
Irenajus in a succession of churches and not merely in a
succession of bishops and churches.
"Therefore I will go with you in repudiating this which
seems to me to be a most monstrous doctrine, namely, that
unless you can as a minister trace your succession in un
broken line to the apostolical times, and the apostolical
hands, you have no valid ministry, and no valid sacraments.
With all my heart I repudiate that doctrine. I think it is
something too fearful to contemplate. I look on the Pres
byterian Churches abroad ; I look at the Presbyterian Church
of Scotland, and at the great Nonconformist Churches in
England — the Congregationalists, the Wesleyans, the
Baptists — and I see plainly before my eyes what God has
wrought through them and their ministry. It is appalling
when you see men, who have sat at the feet of Nonconformist
ministers, going forth with their lives in their hands as
missionaries of Christ, and bearing witness for Christ and
crowning their witness with the martyr's death — when you
see how visibly the Lord has set His seal of approval on their
work— it is appalling to say that they are not true ministers,

Appendix B 365
and that the sacraments administered by them are not
sacraments at all.
"Therefore I hope that my Nonconformist brethren will
acknowledge that the Historic Episcopate is one thing and
the doctrine of Apostolical Succession is another, and that
the admission of the one does not necessarily carry with it
the admission of the other, and that looking at the matter
calmly and dispassionately even this fourth article of the
Lambeth Conference — the acceptance of the Historic
Episcopate — will not be a bar to reunion.
"But now one difficulty stands in the way. Supposing it
were so that the Nonconformist bodies generally were pre
pared to concede this point, still this difficulty remains : Are
Nonconformist ministers to confess that they are not ministers
at all? Are they to seek reordination at the hands of the
Bishops of the Church of England ? That is a serious dif
ficulty. It is a confession on their part that they are not true
ministers because they have not been episcopally ordained.
I venture to say that there is not one of them who would
submit to such reordination as implying such an admission,
and I think they are perfectly right!
"But then there was a report made by the Committee
appointed to consider this subject, one part of which, I am
sorry to say, was entirely — well, removed, and not a word
said about it when the report was issued. It was a proposal
emanating, I believe, chiefly from Bishop Barry, then
Metropolitan of Sydney and Chairman of the Committee,
that the Bishops should agree to accept all the existing orders
of ministers in the various churches, and allow them to
minister within the pale of the Church of England for this
special occasion, without any reordination. Of course this
could not apply for the future, because you could not go on
having two forms of ordination. But what was recom
mended by a majority of the Episcopal Committee was that
all existing Nonconformist ministers should be acknowledged
as having had a valid ordination, and that they should be at
once enabled to minister in any of the churches of the

366 Appendix B
Established Church on their consenting, of course, to the
other articles of the Lambeth proposals.
"That, I think, is absolutely necessary if we are ever to
prevail on Nonconformists generally to accept the Historic
Episcopate." Pere Hyacinthe followed the Bishop with an eloquent
address in which he stated that in days gone by the Church
had been saved by her divisions, but the time had come when
the Church would be saved by her reunion.
He was followed by the Rev. Charles A. Berry, the
President of the Free Church Congress and ex-Chairman of
the Congregational Union, who expressed his agreement with
every word that had fallen from the lips of the Chairman. At
the same time he dreaded premature schemes as being a
hindrance to the movement, and held that it was a danger to
agree upon a form of words that might mean and did mean
anything, from one pole to another. Some of the Bishops,
he affirmed, who had agreed with those four points had views
which would violate some of the most cherished convictions.
of Nonconformists. It was not upon a form of words they
could come together, but upon an approximation in respect
of the great verities of the life of the Church. If our desire
for reunion was a desire simply, and wholly, and devoutly,
for the honour of Christ and the spread of Christ's truth, it
would come on right lines, and in proper time, however
fierce and long might be the discussions and differences
meanwhile. If our desire for the reunion of the Churches
arose from any lower motive, then there would be at the root
of it power enough to disintegrate, not it alone, but the
religion it existed to serve.
At the afternoon session, presided over by the Rev. Dr.
Stephenson, ex-President of the Wesleyan Conference, the
Bishop of Worcester asked permission, before the Chairman
gave his own address, to make the following important
references to what he considered to be the recognition by the
Church of England of Presbyterian ordination. The Bishop
said : "You will recollect that I was speaking of the possi-

Appendix B 367
bility of admitting ministers of other Churches into our own
communion without reordination. May I just give you this
historic fact? In the year 1610 Archbishop Spottiswoode
and two other Scotch prelates were ordained and consecrated
by Bishop Andrewes and other English Bishops without
having received any but Presbyterian ordination. That is a
remarkable fact, and more so because Bishop Andrews, him
self a staunch High Churchman, at first objected to any such
acknowledgment of non-episcopal orders, but yielded to the
Archbishop when he pointed out that if he persisted in his
refusal he would be throwing doubt on the validity of the
orders of all the foreign churches which could not have
episcopal ordination. I should like to add that there is a
whole catena of Divines and High Church Bishops of the
Church of England who have held the same view, such as
Richard Hooker, Jewel, Archbishop Whitgift, Bishops
Andrewes, Cosin and Bramhall, all of them decided High
Churchmen ; and later, of Archbishops Wake, Sancroft and
Tenison, one and all of whom admitted the validity of non-
episcopal orders, and not one of whom ever ventured to tie
the grace of the sacraments to Apostolical Succession."
Dr. Stephenson affirmed himself to be a strong believer in
the episcopal system of the Church. He urged that the
frank recognition of the valid ministry of those who were
already recognised as ministers in the Nonconformist
Churches was a necessity in any proposals for our reunion.
At the evening session, in the absence of Dr. Clifford,
who had hoped to preside, Professor G. T. Stokes, D.D., of
Trinity College, Dublin, took the chair.
The principal speech of the evening, meeting of the
Conference was given by the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, who
spoke of the necessity for patience and forbearance in enter
ing upon this work. He said : "I strongly believe that our
present differences greatly hinder our influence, and that
there is no conceivable reform that the Christian conscience
demands that would not be carried at Westminster if we were
all united in the demand." He went on to say with reference

368 Appendix B
to the Conference : " There is one other blessing that would
at once arise from union ; we should avoid on the mission
field that waste of money, time and strength, and that awful
loss of moral power which arises from the fact that the
heathen is perplexed beyond measure when he discovers that
these Christians who speak of the same God and worship the
same Christ are divided one from another."
Dealing with the argument of a great many people that
what we should seek after was spiritual unity, he said :
"Spiritual unity exists in spite of us; we can neither create
nor destroy it, and it could not be a subject of prayer even
on the part of Christ Himself. When He prays, He prays
for something that does not exist, and this conclusion seems
to imply that the object of it all was that the world might
believe that Christ was sent of God. I am of opinion that
the world, the sceptical and unscrupulous world, will never
believe in us until we sufficiently believe in Christ and in
one another to present a united front to evil. Our disunion
has an awful effect on the outside world (that is implied in
the prayer of our Lord), and I cannot imagine anything that
would tend more to convince the world of the miraculous
power of Jesus Christ than such an exercise of self-suppres
sion and humility as would enable us to restore a divided
Christendom to the position which it ought to occupy.
Spiritual unity exists in spite of us all, but our business is
to build up upon that basis such a manifest and visible unity
that the world may believe inJt."
On the question of the Episcopate he declared himself
strongly in favour of the episcopal system, and in reply to
the question that they would be absorbed in the Church of
England, he said : "I am willing to be absorbed in the
Church of England to-morrow if it is for the glory of God."
Mr. Hughes, later on in his address, said : "But someone
might say, ' What do Churchmen mean by the Historic
Episcopate ? ' " To which he replied : "That does not matter
so long as we attach our own meaning to the terms of union."
They must not look behind what was written, and he was

Appendix B 369
convinced that the whole crux of the difficulty, so far as
British Nonconformists were concerned, was that they should
be frankly prepared to be members of the same great com
munion as other Christians who differed from them in their
interpretation of certain rites and ceremonies and sacraments
which they all used in common. Ought the Bishop of
Worcester to leave the Church of England because he re
pudiated Apostolical Succession in a sacramental sense ? He
replied emphatically, "No! " It was his lordship's duty to
remain in the Church to pray and preach for the prevalence
of what he believed to be the more scriptural truth. In like
manner absolute organic reunion would be impossible if it
was demanded that all should accept the same view of the
sacraments. They must carefully distinguish between faith and dogma,
and he could not find a better definition of faith than Pere
Hyacinthe had given, namely, that faith is that which we
find in the Bible, and especially that which we derive from
the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. "All who honestly
accept the divinity of our Lord," he said, "accept the Nicene
Creed when they really understand it. That creed was for
mulated ex necessitate, because it was absolutely necessary to
express truth for the purpose of refuting error. Arius, Nes
torius, and others introduced heresies, and for the purpose
of warding off such deadly delusions it was absolutely neces
sary to express the Christian faith in the Nicene Creed. But
that is not the positive statement of faith ; the positive state
ment is in the ipsissima verba of the Scripture itself. I believe
that the Lambeth proposals were most generous, liberal,
and Christian, but they have never yet received sufficient
recognition from British Nonconformists, either at their
ecclesiastical assemblies, or at the Grindelwald Conference.
I do not know what some of my brethren expect, but I know
that if the Anglican Church had been prepared to make any
thing like those concessions in the time of Charles II. there
would have been no dissent in England."

APPENDIX- C
THE CONFERENCE OF 1893
DEFINITION OF "THE CHURCH "
IT is impossible to give anything but a brief outline of
discussions which occupied many weeks in the three years
of Conferences, over which I presided, following the first
Conference. The reports of the discussions which appeared
in the Press would alone fill a volume quite as large as the
present one.
In 1893 we were fortunate in securing, as one of our
principal speakers, Canon Hammond, a vigorous High
Church controversialist, and a strong opponent of the Free
Churches, whose position he summed up from his standpoint
in the title of his paper, "Polychurchism," which decided the
character of almost all the discussions of that year.
The 1893 Conference was opened by Dean Fremantle,
who complained that the function of public worship had
usurped the name of "Church " exclusively to itself, though
this function was, in fact, only one department of the Church,
and in spite of that fact the officers of this one department
had often become the Church's supreme rulers. Thus Chris
tianity had become denationalised. In view of Dean Fre-
mantle's strong Erastian conviction that the Church should,
be controlled by the State, it was not surprising to hear him
denounce the "so-called church " looking contemptuously on
human society. He noted as characteristic Pope Hildebrand's
saying that temporal rule was nothing but the assertion of
power by successful brigands. He also attacked Hildebrand's
assertion that the ministers of public worship had a right
37°

Appendix C 371
to rule over kings and emperors, and over the whole life
of mankind. The Dean made the following startling state
ment : " I hold that the first step to be taken towards reunion
is to recognise with all modesty our true position. Angli
canism, Romanism, Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, the
body of Baptists or Wesleyans, are not churches but sects,
which have for their function public worship with certain
adjuncts of beneficent action, and, as fulfilling this function,
have an important place in the polity of the kingdom, but
neither singly nor unitedly have the commission or the com
petency to carry on the work of Christ's Church. Their
function is of great importance, both in itself and as bearing
on the welfare of the whole body. But when they assume to
be the whole body they pretend to an overweening position,
from which they must topple over disastrously. The Arch
bishop of Canterbury, at the great meeting to oppose the
Welsh Suspensory Bill, said : ' What is the Church ? It is
the nation itself in its conscious, most thoughtful, most
purposeful service of God and man.' "
Dean Fremantle advanced his programme of five points
which he thought were impediments to the kingdom in our
present ecclesiastical state.
The first was the prohibition of anyone but a clergyman
from preaching in the pulpits of the national churches. He
suggested that it was most desirable that such men as Mr.
Price Hughes should preach at St. Paul's, and that this
would do much to break down false ideas.
He next urged the formation of parochial councils for the
furtherance of Christian work in common, and his last three
points were that Conferences similar to those at Grindelwald
should be held all over England, that common Communion
should be held from time to time, and that Press work should
be carried out for spreading information in different localities.
Finally, he asserted his conviction that if Nonconformists
would join in the task, the iniquity of the Act of Uniformity
of 1662 might be successfully undone.
Professor T. M. Lindsay, of Glasgow, whose personality

372 Appendix C
was as charming as his scholarship was wide, gladly recog
nised the grandeur of the mediasval conception of Christen
dom as one and indivisible, with its twin sides of civil and
religious life, the Empire and the Church, the Empire ruling
the civil side of Christian life, and the Pope the vice-ruler
over the religious life. It was an attempt — rude enough,
perhaps — to realise St. Augustine's dream of the City of
God. Professor Lindsay said that federation was the domi
nating political thought of the day, and his idea was that the
only hope of reunion was in the federation of the Churches.
He believed that federation had been the principle of the first
two centuries, and that it was in use throughout the Reformed
Churches of the Reformation period. Scotsmen and English
men who went to Holland and France were, at that period,
at once recognised as office-bearers and members of the visible
Church Catholic, and therefore of the Churches of Holland
or France. Canon Hammond, who opened the third day's discussion,
challenged the title of the subject which the Conferences were
held to discuss: "The Reunion of the Churches." He sub
mitted that there is and can be no church but one. Conse
quently it was impossible to aim at the union or federation
of the "Churches," for there were no "Churches " to reunite;
but what they had to aim at was the healing of divisions in
the Church, the reconciliation of separated Christians to the
"one body " of Christ. Canon Hammond claimed that the
Holy Scripture knew of no Church, of no local Church even,
which is not God's Church; of no Church which was not
the Church of the city or country; and of no Church other
than the visible community of the baptised. On this last
point he said that happily most Christians were agreed.
Hooker had declared : " Entered we are not into the visible
Church before our admittance by the gate of baptism." "Is
not baptism," says Richard Baxter, "Christ's appointed
means of admission into His Church ? " "By baptism," says
John Wesley, "the Christians at Corinth had been united
to the visible fellowship of the Church of Christ. . . ."

Appendix C 373
Canon Hammond then proceeded to affirm that the
"Churches" mentioned in the New Testament formed one
body, which was described as "The Body of Christ." He
was prepared to prove that absolutely nothing could justify
separation from the Church of God, or from a particular
Church, so long as it was a Church, unless it had become a
synagogue of Satan and God had left it. On this aspect of
the question he affirmed that all the Churches in the New
Testament were more or less corrupt, some of them grossly
corrupt — as corrupt, to say the least, as any national church
of later days. Notwithstanding this, the New Testament
taught in the most emphatic way that whatever might be the
corruptions of the Church, there must be no separation from
it. No dissenting Church was ever mentioned in the New
Testament. The Church's ministers during the last three
hundred years were no worse than the Scribes and Pharisees
whom our Lord had charged His disciples to obey.
Canon Hammond was listened to with respectful atten
tion as he stated the views of the extreme section of the
Church of England with reference to the question of "schism
as they hold it to be."
It fell to me to speak first in reply, and to claim that some
of us accepted many of the arguments advanced by the Chair
man, and yet used the word "Churches" in the way we
had used it. We shared the view that every baptised person
who does not reject the meaning of his baptism is a member
of the Christian Church, and that in that sense there is, and
can only be, one Church of Christ. The word "Churches "
has obviously more than one connotation. Canon Hammond
had shown that it was used in two senses in the New Testa
ment — for the local Church and the Church as a whole.
Many of us felt that it was inevitable that great differences
would grow up, doctrinally and ethically, between the
Churches of different places, and so it would come about
that there would be in the earliest days of the Church's
history, Churches as widely separated as the Presbyterian
and Methodist Churches are separated to-day, though both

374 Appendix C
of them are Presbyterian in their polity. Such divergencies
must have existed, and it must have been possible soon after
apostolic days, to use the word "Church " in the sense in
which we in the Conference used it. When we came to deal
with Canon Hammond's question v/e were compelled to reply
by asking others. For instance, we inquired which section
of tihe Church of Christ was the parent stock. The Estab
lished Presbyterian Church of Scotland would deny the right
in Scotland of the Church of England to be regarded as the
parent stock. They would claim that in their country the
Episcopalian is the Dissenter. The same thing is true in
other lands where other forms of Christianity occupy the
leading position. There were many other points which we
should feel compelled to debate. We should ask, for in
stance, what would the Italian mission say was the parent
stock in England? Is it represented by the Archbishop
of Canterbury or the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster?
Canon Hammond had asked us to bring forward passages of
scripture to show that there were separatist tendencies sanc
tioned by the Lord and His apostles. I had listened with
some astonishment to the assertion that Jesus Christ was,
in any sense, an orthodox member of the Jewish Church. To
my mind He was the first and greatest Dissenter. Instead of
accepting the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees, He
warned His disciples to beware of their leaven, and when they
misunderstood Him He insisted that it was against the teach
ing of the Scribes and Pharisees that He had to warn them.
I could not find any suggestion that the Apostles themselves
ever recognised that unity was better than separation from
error. The Apostle Paul recalls as one of his most praise
worthy achievements his resistance to Peter when Peter was
inclined to sympathise with the Judaising teachers. In like
manner I felt that if the Church at Jerusalem had continued
to deny Paul's ministry — as, no doubt, many members wished
to do, if they had asserted that the twelve apostles alone
were in the direct line of apostolic succession, and that Paul's
orders were not to be recognised, Paul would never have

Appendix C 375
consented to forgo his right to the ministry, and would
never have discarded that great call which came to him when,
on the road to Damascus, he heard the words : " Rise and
stand upon thy feet ; for I have appeared unto thee for this
purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness."
Dean Fremantle expressed his unfeigned surprise that
such a statement as Canon Hammond's should be made of
the history of the early Church. Hooker held that no polity
of the early Church could be found in the New Testament.
Professor Lindsay, two days later, resumed the discus
sion with a scholarly reply to Canon Hammond, whose paper
he asserted to be based on two false assumptions :
(i) That the word "Church " had only one meaning in
the New Testament, and (2) that in every Christian com
munity one historic Church could be found, which repre
sented exactly the " New Testament Church " of Canon
Hammond's idea. Professor Lindsay, excluding the eccle
siastical use of the word, found the term ecclesia used in at
least five different senses to denote :
(1) The whole body of the elect who have been, are being,
and shall be, gathered in through Christ — the Church
Catholic invisible.
(2) The whole body of those who throughout the entire
world profess the evangel of the Lord Jesus, together with
their- children — the Church Catholic visible.
(3) The sum total of congregations belonging to a district
or community. (4) Individual congregations.
(5) On, at least, one occasion it was used to indicate the
Church as represented in its office-bearers.
If Canon Hammond could not deny these five New Testa
ment uses of the word, the whole basis of his argument was
destroyed. Professor Lindsay then proceeded to an even
more vital argument. He declared that the differences of
types of organisation in the Church of the New Testament
were greater than at present existed between Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Wesleyans, etc., and that

376 Appendix C
no one communion could claim to represent historically the
New Testament Church. We found Churches (i) governed
by colleges of presbyters in Lystra, Derbe, and Iconium;
(2) formed under the governmental ideas of the Roman
household; (3) ruled by a government not unlike that which
regulated the relations between patrons and clients (1 Thess.
v. 12, and Rom. xii. 8); (4) fashioned after a model which
still holds good in the East, where the eldest male relation
of the founder is regarded as head of the religious community.
The striking instance of this fourth kind of rule is found in
the mother Church of Jerusalem itself, where James, the
"brother of our Lord," found a unique position, and was
succeeded by Simon, the eldest surviving relation of the
founder. All tlhese churches, so diversely organised, were
nevertheless in one great federation, which was the visible
Catholic Church of apostolic times. This scriptural unity
might be restored, and almost exactly reproduced by some
such scheme of federation as he (Professor Lindsay) had
ventured to lay before the Conference on an earlier day.
Coming lastly to the categorical questions put by the
Canon, Professor Lindsay answered : (1) The word
" Church " is emphatically used in the New Testament in the
same sense as it is in the programme of the Reunion Con
ferences. There are Churches as well as the visible Catholic
Church. (2) The Canon's second question could only be
answered by another question : What example could be cited
in the Apostolic Church of men judicially murdered for their
religious views, as the earlier Baptists were? (3) Scripture
does not use the word Dissenters, but it does recognise the
existence of sects within the federation which is called the
Catholic Church. It was not until one part of the Church
of Christ insisted on a mechanical uniformity suggested by
the centralising policy of the Pagan Roman Empire, that
Dissent in the modern sense could arise, and what was wrong
was mainly the pagan elements in the State churches of the
day. ^(4) The apostles did forbid divisions and quarrels, but
they did not forbid different forms of Church polity. (5) The

Appendix C 377
Church is undoubtedly described as one body, and it is the
High Churchman who departs from spiritual teaching when
he limits the visible Catholic Church to his own communion.
As for the other questions, Professor Lindsay said they
did not concern him, a Scotch Presbyterian, whose ancestors
could justify their reformation on every technical ground of
canon law which could be used by Anglicans to make good
their right to separate from Rome. He thought it a pity
that when a union of English-speaking churches was the
object of discussion, Anglicans could see and speak of no
thing but England, which, however important, was, after all,
but a small corner of the great English-speaking world.
When the Conference resumed its session — which had
opened in July — in September, 1893, Prebendary Webb-
Peploe read the first paper. I am sure I shall not wound the
feelings of this devoted clergyman if I say that great questions
of ecclesiastical policy interested him far less than the
advancement of the spiritual life. He dwelt with character
istic kindliness and earnestness upon the importance of
spiritual union, and spoke in a tone characteristic of Keswick
and its excellent influences upon the deepening of the
spiritual life. At the same time the intense enthusiasm of
that school of thought is so great that to them outward unity
seems a very small matter. It would not be right to omit
to quote one passage which was characteristic and expressed
a great truth. He said that he knew of no higher privilege
that could be given to anyone than to be allowed to help
those present, and those represented there, in getting nearer
to one another, and he added : " When we reach that stage
we may still find that your idea of Christ will not be the
same as mine, because He is so magnificently great, so
wondrous in His being, so all-complete in His greatness,
that we may all have our own views, and at the same time
be receiving the truth as it is in Jesus, and all of us, looking
upon different aspects of our Lord's character and being,
proceed together to the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ. To this let us aspire, for this let us work, and let

378 Appendix C
us begin individually, not seeking great things at once. Let
us start low down, and we shall get nearer and nearer every
day." The Rev. Charles Berry, who was so closely allied to
Mr. Price Hughes in his ideals and purposes, made a most
important confession of faith, coming as it did from a great
Congregationalist. He said: "I stand here to say I have
publicly repudiated the name of Protestant, as I have also
repudiated that of Dissenter and Nonconformist. I, too, am
a Catholic Churchman, and though I cannot expect you to
refer to my Church as other than a Nonconformist body, I,
at least, must claim for it the name, to which I hold it is
entitled, of a branch of the great Catholic Church.
"Before there can be any possible reunion worthy of the
name, there must be what Mr. Percy Bunting expressed so
felicitously last night : a mutual recognition of common
Churchmanship, and of common ministration and service.
I can understand High Churchmen saying : ' Is that not
begging the question ? ' I should prefer to say it is stating
the question, and stating it with a minimum expression. For
if we cannot, as we do not, ask you to relinquish your love
of the episcopate, in whose traditions and by whose services
you have grown up, you must not ask us to deny that Christ
is in our Churches. You must not ask us to deny that Christ
has worked through us. You must not ask us to stand for
one moment in a position which would amount to a blas
pheming of the gifts of God and the baptism of the Holy
Ghost. "If the Church should ask me to undergo the rite of re
ordination, I should be compelled to say, after all my Lord
has done for me, and through me for others, I dare not do it,
lest I create a suspicion that hitherto, whilst having Him
with me and working according to His spirit, I have not been
in the line of His work, and have not enjoyed the blessing
of His presence."
He went on to say : " I speak for myself, and I say that no
criticism shall keep me from those Conferences so long as

Appendix C 379
they are held." He added that he believed that the full ex
pression of our differences, and the discussion of the very
principles which at present seemed to divide us, might,
perhaps, help us to see that what we called principle was only
prejudice, and that what we held as vital to the life of the
Church was, perhaps, only a necessity for a temporary phase
of the Church's life.
He said: "The great things which abide and which
we hold in common, may yet enable us to crush under foot
or to disperse to the four winds of heaven what at present
divide us, and to make the way clear for an outward
and impressive unity which shall be the embodiment of
that inward unity of which we here are all sharers in
Christ." The Rev. Professor Bruce, the great Free Church theo
logian of Glasgow, gave a biographical description of his
experiences of the Scottish Disruption, and the influence
it left behind. He claimed that he owed to the catas
trophe of the Scottish Church that he knew Christ as well as
he did. He said : " Had the Church remained one I might have
been tempted to make it an idol, and to be a Churchman
first and a Christian afterwards. As things stand there is
no danger of committing that mistake. The idol is broken
and I am disenchanted. The fragment I belonged to might
have its due place in my heart, but hardly that hold of the
imagination which one church in a land is fitted to take.
And so I fled from the sorrowful reality to the ideal, from
the Church to the Kingdom of God; from clergymen to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And from the time that I arrived at in
dependent convictions to this day I have been first a
Christian, and only at long intervals a Churchman ; and my
Christianity has been that of the gospels rather than that
which takes its hues from ecclesiastical creeds, services, and
orders." Mr. Price Hughes summed up the discussion on Friday,
Saturday being given to Mr. W. T. Stead's "Civic Church,"

380 Appendix C
which does not come within the scope of this volume. It is
not because Mr. Price Hughes was so great a friend of
mine, but because he was a born ecclesiastic, that I have
felt it necessary to give at some length, in his own words,
the important summary of his own attitude at the close of
these discussions on the attempt to define the "Church."
Furthermore, his speech emphasises the central position
occupied by the followers of John Wesley, and their true
Catholicity, and their acceptance of the great truths which
the General Councils of the 'Church have declared. The
importance which he attached to the declaration of faith
of the first great General Council held at Nicaea, as
modified in the present form of the Nicene Creed, and his
assertion of the relation of the Church of Christ to the
Kingdom of God, should also be noted.
Mr. Hughes said : " I heartily agree with what Mr.
Vernon Smith said with regard to the gross misconception
amongst Nonconformists as to sacerdotalism, and especially
as to sacramentarianism. It is curious in these days to re
member that Martin Luther, who is one of our great heroes,
was an extreme sacramentarian, and that John Calvin also
went very much in the same direction. The fact is, we must
not be frightened by words and must be prepared to face
facts. As Bishop Butler said : ' Things are what they are,'
and what do we gain by ignoring them ? It was said of the
Greek Sophocles that he saw life steadily and saw it whole ;
and it is extremely important that we should look at facts
steadily and see them from every side.
" I wish to say that the distinctive object of this Reunion
Conference is not to promote the fellowship of individual
Christians, not even to promote the return of individual
Christians to particular communities of Christians, but the
organised reunion of Christian communities as such.
Individual Christians are continually passing in Europe
to-day from one Church to another. We have nothing to do
with that. The essential — the vital point we are met to con
sider is this — can the great organised sections of the Church

Appendix C 381
as such come together and restore our shattered ecclesiastical
unity? Dr. Bruce, in his interesting and almost pathetic
address, referred to the time in Scotland before there were
secessions and disruptions, when there was only one church
—the parish church— in every parish, and he longed for the
time when ecclesiastical unity might be restored north of the
Tweed. That is our point, and we must guard ourselves
against the irrelevancy of discussing such questions as the
advantage of cultivating fraternal relations one with another
in our private and personal capacity."
He could not accept Mr. Stead's Civic Church, as it was
not based on any recognition of Christianity, and slurred
over the tremendous difference between a man who has sub
mitted to Christ as the Son of God and his Saviour, and the
man who has not. "We must never forget," he said, "and
never deny the difference between St. Peter before he
had made that confession and after he had made that
confession ."
He went on to say : "This brings me to a vital and funda
mental point. The divinity of our Lord is the essential, the
characteristic, the distinctive article of the Christian faith.
The Bishops in conference at Lambeth have suggested as
one of the conditions of reuniting the Church, the Nicene
Creed. I say by all means. The immense majority of Non
conformists, non-Episcopalians, would say the same thing,
but if any demur to the language of the Nicene Creed, no
doubt the Apostles' Creed might be taken in its place, as yet
more simple; but personally I greatly prefer the Nicene
Creed. "I wish to point out to this Conference the deep and
blessed significance of the fact that all the representative
Nonconformists, ministers and laymen, who have taken part
in our proceedings have declared emphatically for the divinity
of our Lord. I wish to emphasise this because I know that
in some Anglican quarters there is a curious and, I am thank
ful to say, absolutely unfounded suspicion that Unitarianism
is rife amongst English Nonconformists. That has not been

382 Appendix C
the case with respect to the great majority, ancl there is less
ground for the suspicion now than ever there was. I confess
I make this statement with some pain, because I enjoy the
friendship of many estimable Unitarians, men of the highest
character and devotion with whom I am always happy to
co-operate in all such objects as will be set before you to
morrow, but I must unhesitatingly say out of loyalty to my
blessed Lord and Redeemer, that it would be absolutely
impossible for us to combine or co-operate with Unitarians
as such upon other than distinctively social grounds. For all
purposes of social philanthropy, by all means ; but when we
speak of Christian reunion, it must be on the basis of our
Lord's divinity, and on that point I am thankful to say that
this Conference has spoken in the clearest terms. I should
like to emphasise my testimony with regard to the Noncon
formists by pointing out the significant fact that when we
established the Free Church Congress, representing all the
great branches of English Nonconformity, we deliberately
excluded the Unitarians. We were very sorry to do so,
but it was absolutely necessary for the reasons I have
given. " If the Christian Church consists of all those persons who
in various ways have made that great confession of St. Peter,
and have intelligently, deliberately, and practically accepted
Christ as their Divine Saviour and Lord, what, you may ask
before I pass on, is the precise function of the Christian
Church as defined by Christ in its relation to the Kingdom
of God? I say it stands to the Kingdom of God in pre
cisely the same relation as the British army stands to the
British Empire. The Church of God is the living army by
which God intends, providentially and mainly, to establish
the Kingdom of God in all lands ; and while heartily welcom
ing the co-operation of sincere and honest persons for purely
philanthropic objects, everyone knows that the main pro
pelling force of social philanthropy to-day is Christian. You
cannot get the self-sacrifice, the devotion, the enthusiasm
and patient perseverance necessary to success except from

Appendix C 383
Christians, and therefore I am bound to regard the Church
as a visible corporation, as a means to an end, and not an
end in itself."
Dealing with Canon Hammond's address in July, he
said : "Canon Hammond at the earlier meetings propounded
a very short and easy method of settling the whole business.
He described his group the Church — definite article, capital
C — the rest were outside the covenant, and must come in,
not organically, or in a body, but one by one, acknowledging
that they are schismatics, that their ministers are unauthor
ised, and that their sacraments, if not invalid, are at any rate
precarious. That is just the sort of scheme likely to be pro
pounded by a good and honest soul who lives up in a balloon,
far, far away from all the facts of life.
" He adds to the amusement of the situation — although it is
a serious matter — by attempting to justify this theory from
the Bible. I never read any more startling illustration of the
fact that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life. It is an
attempt to apply the teaching of letters written two thousand
years ago to totally different circumstances to-day. How
completely the situation is changed is shown by the fact that
the word ; schism ' as used by St. Paul has not at all the
same meaning as the word has to-day. The word then
meant, not separation from the Church, for there was no
separation at that time, and no one dreamed of it, but it
meant hostile and litigious parties within the visible unity
of the same churches. The truth is that Canon Hammond
and the rest of us have to deal to-day with a totally different
situation, a situation which St. Paul never discussed, because
he never foresaw it. He had no conception— how could he
have? — of the actual condition of Christendom at the close
of the nineteenth century. Christianity does not give us
cut-and-dried rules, but general principles which have to be
variously applied from age to age. We have to deal with
the actual facts in the light of our Lord's teaching, because
we have no express precept on the subject in the New
Testament.

384 Appendix C
"I agree with some of our Anglican brethren that the
overtures of the Lambeth Conference have not been received
as courteously and as heartily as they might and should have
been. They were entitled, I think, to a more generous
response. "It has been pointed out to me that if the Church gave
way on the point of re-ordination, they would be abandoning
all hope of reunion either with the Roman or Greek Church.
But I would ask them — is there any hope of any reunion of
the kind? Rome despises and renounces your orders, and
attacks you in every land. What chance have you of reunion
with Rome? Not the least. Moreover, the future of the
world belongs not to Rome, but to the great Protestant
communities. Even to-day we dominate the earth. A hun
dred years ago we were one hundred millions less numerous
than the Church of Rome. To-day we are almost as numer
ous, and if the same rate of progress is maintained, in two
decades the Latin Church will have been left behind. Fur
ther, when Rome is really willing to consider reunion with
England, she will be so very different from what she is
to-day that she will not object to a great act of concession
by which the rest of Western Christianity may bury the
divisions of centuries. To the vain hope of reunion with
Rome many Anglicans are sacrificing real, inestimable and
world-wide blessing.
"Face to face with the vast union of the different Churches
in the English-speaking world, false hopes will die. Sec
tarian and ecclesiastical claims may still be made, but I am
hoping that a reasonable modification of the Lambeth pro
posals will give universal satisfaction. Meanwhile, let me
beg of my colleagues not to weary of well-doing. What, it
may be asked, is the use of meeting here and talking the
thing over again and again ? I answer, immense, incalcul
able use. The divisions of long centuries are not going to
be healed in a day or in a generation ; but at these conferences
a word has been spoken which will never be forgotten. Let
us be brave, patient and persevering ; let us speak frankly to

Appendix C 385
one another, try to understand one another, bear testimony
to one another in public and in private; let us plead and
advocate peace in season and out of season; and I cannot
doubt for a moment that the day will again dawn when an
astonished and delighted world will exclaim once more, ' See
how these Christians love one another ! ' and when the whole
world will acknowledge that Christ is God to the glory of the
Father."

APPENDIX D
THE CHURCH CONGRESS REPLY TO
GRINDELWALD
THE present Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Charles Gore) occupies
such an authoritative position in the Church of England
that I have thought it desirable to include in this volume,
almost at full length, a striking speech which he delivered to
the Church Congress in 1893, and the speeches made on that
occasion by the Archbishop of Dublin (Lord Plunket), the
Bishop of Worcester (Dr. Perowne), and the present Bishop
of Durham (Dr. Moule), with a speech by Professor Stokes.
The Review of the Churches borrowed the report from the
columns of the Birmingham Post, and I have deliberately re
tained the punctuations of assent and dissent as they appeared
in that paper so as to indicate the attitude of the Congress.
The Rev. Canon Gore (as he then was) opened the dis
cussion after a protest by Father Ignatius in the name of
orthodoxy. Canon Gore said: "No serious Christian can
contemplate the existing divisions of Christendom without
the gravest searching of heart. The evil is so tremendous,
the hindrance to the spread and deepening of Christianity so
profound, that a thoughtful man is apt to resent lamentations
over it, or schemes for remedying it, because they seem
almost necessarily superficial, and to regard it as a burden
to be borne mostly in silence, or to find expression only in
prayer. If he sees no present prospect of corporate reunion,
he remembers that in the old Jerusalem the mark of the
Divine approval was set on those who, if they could not
remedy the social evils, at least had felt them. ' Set a mark,'
says the word of God to Gabriel, 'on the foreheads of the
men that cry and that sigh for the abominations which be
386

Appendix D 387
done in the midst thereof ! ' It may well be that God will
heal our ills, as He healed in a great measure those of Israel,
through the profound humiliation of all parts of Christen
dom. Deeply set evils do not yield to superficial treatment.
But in spite of the peril of superficial treatment, I must try
to approach the subject of ' our divisions ' and their remedies.
When an Anglican Churchman thinks of reunion, two great
classes of Christians from which he is separated present
themselves chiefly to his mind — the magnificent communion
of Rome on the one hand and, on the other, the various Non
conformist bodies. The heart of anyone must beat with
excitement and joy at the mere thought of ministering in any
way to the reunion of the Anglican Church with the great
Apostolic See of Rome" — (cheers and cries of "No, no," and
hisses) — "with its unique traditions" — (renewed cries of "No,
no") — "its world-wide privilege of Christian communion.
The same thrill of joy must come over one at the prospect of
seeing, the breach healed which separates us from Noncon
formists." (Applause.) " All the more because the Anglican
Church will be conscious of how much responsibility for
disunion we have incurred in both directions. But our first
generous impulse towards reunion, at any cost, is checked by
respect for what we know of the truth, and our obligation
towards it. It is ' peace in the truth ' that we are to seek.
We cannot, for the sake of fellowship with Rome, submit to
accept terms which we do not believe to correspond to the
original apostolic truth " — ("Hear, hear ") — "nor for the sake
of fellowship with Nonconformists abandon what we believe to
be a part of the apostolic deposit for which we are respon
sible." (Applause.) "The obligation to drive away ' erroneous
and strange doctrines ' significantly in our ordination service
precedes and controls the obligation to set forward quietness,
peace, and love among all Christian people.
"Here is my central point, then. As one says to an in
dividual : ' You will best do your duty to society and help
others by developing your own faculty of being true to
yourself :

388 Appendix D
"' To thine own self be true.
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man,'
so we say to societies of men ; so we say to our Anglican
Society : ' Do not evacuate thyself, but realise thyself. Pro
mote reunion by being such a church as may make all
Christian men desire thy fellowship.' Now the Anglican
Church has, as all men recognise, a peculiar position and
genius. This, we who believe in Providence know to be
not an accident, but God's gift to us. It has been noted
equally by foreign Catholics and foreign Protestants, who,
because of this special position of ours, have seen in us a
body with remarkable opportunities as a mediating power in
a divided Christendom. Now our opportunities lie in this:
that we have combined the tradition of the Catholic Church
with that special appeal to Scripture which was the strong
point of the sixteenth-century Reformation. We have re
tained the Catholic tradition in creed, in sacraments, in
liturgy, in the apostolic succession of the ministry through
the episcopate, and we have prevented this original Catholic
tradition from becoming corrupted or unduly narrowed,
according, to the constant tendency of tradition, one-sided-
ness, and accretion, by restoring and emphasising the appeal
to Scripture as the unceasing criterion of Catholic faith, ' so
that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved
thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be
believed as an article of faith." (Applause.)
"It is this combination of the two main elements in the
Christian religion — tradition and Scripture — which is the
characteristic distinction of the Anglican Church, and it is
along the lines of fidelity to this characteristic that lies our
duty and our opportunity. Thus, as against Rome, it is
worth while maintaining the scriptural aspect. We could
individually obtain the Roman Communion by submitting
to the doctrine, for instance, of the Treasury of Merits, of
the immaculate conception of Mary, and the infallibility of

Appendix D 389
the Pope. As, in fact, these doctrines did not belong to the
original Christian faith, so no candid inquirer can reasonably
even pretend to find them certified in the New Testament.
Now this appeal to the New Testament, as the final criterion
of what belongs to the faith of our salvation, is the essential
for maintaining the Catholic Church, not only in purity, but
also in its original largeness. Rome has narrowed the
Catholic Church along lines effectual in their own way, but
along lines which are narrower than the original limits. We
are trustees for humanity and the future, to keep open the
Catholic Church, to exhibit her before the eyes of men as
wide and inclusive as she originally was, without the hin
drance presented by dogmas contrary to historical truth,
free inquiry, and legitimate liberty. We must maintain, I
say, the scriptural appeal, though it prevents us from sub
mitting to the claim of Rome.
"We must maintain the whole fabric of the tradition that
is really and historically Catholic. There is an original
apostolic tradition and doctrine, committed in apostolic days
to the Churches, adequately represented in the Nicene and
Apostles' Creeds, verified by frank inquiry in Scripture.
Again, the apostles acting under Christian intention and
in this spirit devoted themselves to the spread of a visible
society or Church, intended to be universal and permanent
to the end, as the house of redemption, grace, and ' the pillar
and ground of the truth.' Once more, as part of this visible
society, the apostles, again acting for Christians, instituted
a system of social worship and sacraments as the only
covenanted means by which the life of Christ was to be
perpetuated in the society; lastly, as the link of continuity in
this society down the ages, the Apostles for Christ instituted
the ' Apostolic Succession,' i.e. that succession in the Chris
tian ministry which secures in each age and part of the
Christian society stewards of the Divine gift of grace and
truth, appointed by succession from the apostolic fount,
representing, so far as their ministerial commission goes,
God the Giver, and not man the receiver. These four

390 Appendix D
elements — the Catholic creed and Scripture, the visible
Church, the sacraments, the apostolic ministry — we are
bound to maintain unimpaired." (Applause.) "Of course I
should think differently if I thought that, for instance, the
Apostolic Succession was, like the papacy, a later accretion
of original Christianity. But I am convinced of the contrary
by the most candid study I can give the matter. I have dis
cussed this at length in an article on the ministry of the
Christian Church. It cannot clearly be discussed as a matter
of historical evidence in twenty minutes. But I would say
this : how anyone who with an open mind reads the Acts,
the Pastoral Epistles, the Epistle of Ignatius, the Epistle of
Clement, and the record of the second-century tradition as
represented by Hegesippus and Irenaeus — a body of litera
ture that can be read through in a few hours — can doubt
the immense strength of the doctrine of the Apostolic Suc
cession, I am at a loss to imagine." ("Hear, hear.") "Once
again, then, we must maintain the four Catholic elements
which I have enumerated above, and amongst these the
apostolic succession of the ministry through the episcopate,
which alone can be shown to have possessed the authority to
confer valid orders.
"Now, as the maintenance of the scriptural appeal pre
cludes a hope of immediate Reunion with Rome, so the
maintenance of the Apostolic Succession precludes the hope
(if it otherwise existed) of rapid reunion with the Noncon
formist bodies as well. We cannot admit Nonconformist
ministers as validly ordained ministers of the word and
sacraments." (Applause.)
Canon Gore then proceeded to deal with some of the
contentions at Grindelwald, and asked with reference to
certain Anglicans, amongst whom, of course, was included the
Chairman of the Congress, the Bishop of Worcester: "Are
they serious in their appeal to the Caroline divines with re
ference to the question of apostolic succession, and the
admission of Nonconformist ministers as validly ordained
ministers?" Canon Gore said that he was not prepared to

Appendix D 391
accept these divines as infallible. If others appealed unto
these Caesars, let them go.
"It is true," said Canon Gore, "that many of these would
have admitted the position of Presbyterian ministers in
foreign countries where ex hypothesi episcopacy could not be
had consistently with an open Bible. The exception to these
general principles of the necessity of episcopal ordination,
which they unwillingly made, does not apply to Anglican
Nonconformists, and, in fact, these very people in dealing
with separated Christians at home assuredly did not take a
view of them which erred on the side of favour. If I were a
Dissenter I had rather be dealt with by a modern High
Churchman than by a Caroline Bishop." (Laughter.) "I
resume then : We cannot admit Nonconformist ministers as
on an equality of title in the ministry with those who have
been episcopally ordained. Granted this, it follows also that
we cannot attempt corporate recognition at all, because to
admit them on an inferior basis is a proposal which they, on
their side, from their own principles, would rightly regard as
an insult." ("Hear, hear.") "For example, it would be felt
as an insult to recognise their ministry as part of the ministry
of the English Church but on an inferior grade, so that
they could not celebrate the communion without Episcopal
ordination to the priesthood — in fact, as a sort of irregular
diaconate. This, I say, or a similar half-measure would
— apart from other considerations of a very grave sort —
only aggravate matters by intruding a fresh element of
exacerbation .
"Positively, then, how are we to work towards reunion?
I reply, primarily by making our Church of England such as
gradually will incline Christianly-disposed people to desire
communion with her."
Canon Gore concluded his remarks with the following pas
sage containing a most generous tribute to Nonconformity :
"We cannot complain if Romans do not recognise our Catholic
character when, for example, we for so long have displaced
the Eucharist from its true position. We cannot complain of

392 Appendix D
Dissenters as if mere schism accounted for their existence,
when, in fact, it was to an extent it is difficult to exaggerate
the sin of our Church which caused separation to seem right
to purer consciences in the past;- when in fact it is to Non
conformists that we owe in many parts of the country the
revival and maintenance of the very idea of religion ; when
once more God's Spirit has so manifestly blessed their
spiritual life." (Applause.) "Let us never forget that
belief in certain conditions of valid Church ministry is not
in any logical connection with the quite unjustifiable denial
that God can act, and has acted, in irregular channels. God
is not tied to His sacraments, even though, as men, if we
know the truth, we are bound to seek this fellowship in
accordance with His covenant, and only so.
" I say, then, let us of the Church of England be true to
our own principles and position ; let us become more truly
the representatives of the Household of God for English
people, and the children will naturally desire the fellowship
of the family. Meanwhile, let us not insult our Nonconform
ist brethren by imagining that evils of long standing can be
remedied at once. They, too, have a history and an experi
ence; they, too, must be true to it. This I can recognise,
though I believe that in proportion as the English Church
on her side comes to represent the Church more adequately,
in proportion as they on their side are led to re-examine the
basis of the Christian covenant, such a spectacle and such an
inquiry will lead in time to a widespread desire among Non
conformists for communion in a church constituted according
to catholic order, and not the mere result of reaction and
protest against admitted evils.
"One word in conclusion. Rightly to estimate the posi
tion of Nonconformists will lead us to respect them. We
ought not to tolerate the least tendency to contempt or ridi
cule. The best remedy for such a peril lies in knowing them.
Let every clergyman regard it as his duty to have, if it may
be so, at least one friend counted among his religious friends
who is a Nonconformist. The thought of him will check the

Appendix D 393
tendency to acrimony which the general attitude of opposition
engenders. Let us know the Nonconformists socially and
personally, as friends and religious friends — none the less
religious friends because we think their religious ideas are
defective, for we in our turn have much to learn from them.
Such personal friendship and occasional intercourse is a far
better means of promoting reunion than attempts at official
recognition on the borderland of religious effort, which is
almost sure to promote heart-burnings where it cannot ex
tend to the inner shrine of ministry. Let us have fellowship
— fellowship in the home, the university, the political plat
form, the social platform, the sphere of private religion; this
will dissipate prejudice and lead us towards, in company
with other efforts, a large development of reunion in the one
Church on the basis, not of our Anglicanism simply, but of
the institutions, the creed, and the worship that are really
catholic, the inalienable heritage of the children of men."
(Loud applause.)
Lord Plunket, the Archbishop of Dublin, having thanked
the President for the opportunity afforded to speak upon the
question of Home Reunion, not merely because he had the
cause at heart, but because he knew of no place where he
could hope to advocate that cause more effectively, said :
Many persons had watched with interest the proceedings at
Grindelwald and Lucerne, and all honour to those who con
ceived the idea of those conferences abroad, and all honour
to the Bishop of Worcester — (applause) — for the brave, wise
and statesmanlike course — ("No, no," "Hear, hear," and
"Yes") — which he thought right to take at Grindelwald.
(Applause.) If, when many of their brethren of other
denominations made so great a concession as to kneel at the
Table of the Lord and partake of the Holy Communion
according to the rites of another Church — if, at that time
their honoured Bishop had driven them from the communion
rails, he would have inflicted an irreparable blow upon the
cause of Christian charity throughout the world, and would
have printed an indelible blot of shame upon the Church of

394 Appendix D
Christ. ("Hear, hear.") He pointed to what had been said
by the Bishops at the Lambeth Conference, who not only in
general terms expressed their desire for home reunion, and
who not only laid down the basis upon which negotiations
for home reunion might be carried, but passed a resolution
calling upon the authorities of every branch of the Anglican
Church throughout the world to let it be known that they were
willing to enter into negotiations for the representation of
other denominations within their Church.
He pointed to something more than this when he observed
the general craving and yearning for reunion which had
manifested itself throughout the world at large. He con
fessed he felt that he stood in the presence of something
more than a mere work of man or the weight of his authority
and opinion, and he contemplated these results with awe, for
he believed he was watching the operations of the very Holy
Ghost Himself, by whom the whole body of the Church was
governed and sanctified. (Applause.)
They must not go to the Nonconformists and ask them to
give up everything when they themselves were not prepared
to meet them half-way. That most interesting paper read
by Canon Gore seemed to deal more with the question of
home absorption than with home reunion. It seemed to
him almost like the invitation of the spider to the fly. ("No,
no," and applause.) It was his definite opinion that it would
be necessary to adopt the course to which Canon Gore had
referred, and that was to allow all those ministers of other
denominations that have been called to the ministry by some
solemn rite in other denominations, to be accepted without
re-ordination. ("No, no," and applause.)
The Rev. Professor Stokes, Dublin University, said
boldly he stood there to advocate rather home absorption
than home reunion. (Applause.) As a professor of ecclesi
astical history, he proposed to adopt the method, but not the
arguments, of the first reader. He proposed to follow the
historical method, but he did not propose to quote from
Father Gasquet, or any other Roman who held a brief to do

Appendix D 395
the Anglican Church all the harm he could. (Applause.)
Nor did he propose to quote from an Erastian like the other
gentleman whose authority had been depended upon.
(Laughter.) Nor did he intend to depend upon scraps of
letters of Hooper, or any other individual Bishop. Because,
just as Churches had erred, so might Bishops have erred.
(Laughter and applause.) He should be very happy to be
bound to accept the dictum even of his own revered diocesan
who had just spoken. (Renewed laughter.) If he had to
joust rather severely on that occasion it would be understood
that it was not his feelings so much as his reason that com
pelled him to do so. First of all, he objected in toto, as
false to the position and claims of their Church, to the man
ner in which the subject had been introduced at Grindelwald
and elsewhere. He objected to such language because it was
contrary to the distinctly expressed mind of the Church of
England and of the Church of Ireland. A Canon of the
Metropolitan Church of Canterbury said at Lucerne that the
Church of England, the Wesleyan Church, the Congrega
tional, the Baptist — none of them were the Church; they
were all sects alike, and the Church was greater than them
all . Was that loyalty to the Church of England ?
The fifth Canon of 1603 — a document which was con
sulted too little — taken in the year 1634, and re-enacted by
the Christian laity of the Church of England and Ireland —
James Usher being Archbishop of Armagh — said on the
subject of the equality of .the Churches that whosoever should
affirm and maintain that there were within the realm other
meetings, assemblies, or congregations than such as by the
law of the. land were held and allowed, which might rightly
challenge to themselves the name of true and lawful churches,
let him be excommunicated — (applause) — and not restored
until he had repented and publicly revoked his error.
(Cheers and laughter.) Further, there were those who main
tained that whilst episcopal ordination was a very nice and
respectable thing it was not a necessary thing, and that
ordination by anyone was just as good. That was what it

396 Appendix D
came to. Such a definition as that was an attempt to upset
the Reformation settlement. He did not mean the German
or Swiss or Scotch Reformation, but the Reformation of the
Church of England and Ireland. If there was any document
that was absolutely and completely a Reformation document,
and a Reformation settlement, it was the ordinal attached to
the Book of Common Prayer. Those provisions were pub
lished in 1549, renewed and reaffirmed in 1552, restated and
reaffirmed and practically embodied in the articles of 1552
and again in 1562. That set forth that from the first there
had been orders of bishops, priests and deacons, and that
those orders should be continued; but that no bishop, priest
or deacon should execute any of the offices unless he be tried,
called, examined, according to the form followed in the book.
(Applause.) In conclusion, he maintained that whilst in
dividual bishops might have recognised Presbyterians, the
Church had never done so. (Applause.)
The Rev. H..G. C. Moule, now Bishop of Durham, reply
ing to Professor Stokes, said that although they were warned
not to touch the Caroline divines, he might appeal to Arch
bishop Sancroft, who in his letter to the clergy in 1688
besought them to cultivate in every way they possibly could
friendly and brotherly relations with their brethren of the
Protestant Dissenters, to lead them, if it might be, by every
lawful means, to see the reasons for their return to the
English Church ; but if that might not be, at least to cultivate
to the uttermost Christian friendship and brotherhood with
them. He (the speaker) knew there were limits to the oppor
tunities for co-operation, and it was to his distress that he
recently found it necessary to decline an invitation to co-opera
tion in certain work. It was not, however, that he thought
those men less members of Christ than he was himself. God
forbid. To those who cheered and clapped at the thought that
dissenting bodies were in no sense churches, he asked that
they would try the experiment of bringing themselves into
close brotherly relations with Nonconformist Christians as

Appendix D 397
individuals in Christ. After all, the New Testament, with
all its great revelations of exterior order, could not fairly be
said to put them in the forefront. It was the man that be
lieved, and the Eternal Master Whom they all worshipped
who was put in the foreground. There were great prin
ciples in the middle distance and in the distance, but let them
try to keep the scale as well as the contents of the New Testa
ment and put the first things first. "The man," said the
speaker, "who believes in our Lord Jesus Christ— Son of God
and Son of man — is not a man for you to turn away from
and wonder if he is within the pale of the Covenant."
(Applause and dissent.)
The Bishop of Edinburgh held that the arguments of Lord
Plunket would split the Church in two.
Chancellor Vernon Smith used the argument which he
had heard from the lips of Mr. Price Hughes at Lucerne
and said that the problem they had to face was not mere
absorption of individuals, because that was an impossibility.
The number of Dissenters throughout the English-speaking
communities of the world had been put down at seventy mil
lions, and the numbers of the Anglican communion at twenty-
three millions. How could they hope to see the twenty-three
millions absorb the seventy millions? He believed that
when the time came that all saw, as they did, that reunion
was a vital necessity, by some inspiration from above, it
would be shown to all the English Christians that there was
one of two alternatives — either that it was the right thing that
the present Nonconformist ministers should submit to epis
copal reordination, or that by direct inspiration from above,
once and once only the dispensing power which he believed
Christ had committed to His Church should be exercised,
not by a single Bishop, but the whole body of the Church,
and that the Nonconformist ministers should be readmitted
without the ceremony of laying-on of hands.
Earl Nelson said that he was pleased to find that a great
advance was being made at the Lucerne Conference. He
believed every speaker prefaced his remarks by the state-

398 Appendix D
ment that there could be no real reunion except upon the
foundation truth that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. Mr.
Hugh Price Hughes, in summing up the work of the Con
ference, emphasised this truth, and stated that in the New
Testament our blessed Lord only used the word "Church"
twice, and one was after St. Peter's confession, "Upon this
rock I will build my church." Now, two consequences came
from this. There could be no doubt that all those who truly
believed this great foundation truth were in one sort already
one. ("Hear, hear.") It was said that baptism made us one.
So it did, because it acknowledged that truth, because they
were baptised in the threefold name. The other consequence
was that there could be no real reunion which left out large
portions of Christians who held that foundation truth.
("Hear, hear.")
The President, Bishop Perowne, said that he hoped they
would bear with him whilst he said a few words on the sub
ject that had brought them together. He had abstained
hitherto from taking any part in the discussion at the meet
ings which he had attended, but there was a special reason
why he should say something that day. ("Hear, hear.") They
knew that he had taken a very active part in this work of
home reunion, and he had no doubt that there were a great
many persons who thought he had acted unwisely in so
doing. ("No, no," and "Hear, hear.") Well, he wished to
say a few words in defence of his action. He was told on the
previous day by one of the speakers, and he had been told
by others, that he was not alive to the evils of Dissent. He
was as alive to the evils of Dissent as anybody in that room.
("Hear, hear.") He thought he gave the best proof of his
feeling in that respect in attending the Grindelwald Confer-.
ence. Why should he have gone all that way to attend
the Conference if it had not been in the hope that he might
do something to get rid of the evils of Dissent ? The way to
get rid of the evils of Dissent was not by abusing Dissenters.
(" Hear, hear.") They must not treat them as he was grieved
to see some Churchmen did, as if they were merely social

Appendix D 399
lepers. (Cries of "No, no," and dissent.) Well, he only said
some Churchmen ; he did not say those in the hall — (laughter)
— but he happened to know some Churchmen who so treated
Dissenters, and kept them very, very far off. ("Hear, hear.")
But if they were lepers, let them do as Father Damien did in
that far-off island — let them go and show their sympathy
with them in their moral degradation — if they chose so to
call it. That was the way to win them to try to understand
one another. He could assure them one result of the Grin
delwald Conference was that they did understand one another
better, and that many of their prejudices were broken down.
Nothing struck him more in the conversations he had at the
Conference than how completely they misunderstood the
Church of England, because the Church of England had
never been fairly put before them. He should be told, "You
did not put the Church of England fairly before them." That
was what Professor Stokes said, and he seemed to think that
he (the speaker) made very light of episcopacy. He most
emphatically said, and he was glad to have the opportunity
of saying it in the presence of that great assembly, that he
loved and cherished episcopacy with all his heart. (Applause.)
Bishop Perowne then boldly pleaded that the Act of
Uniformity must go. Now he would be told, he said, that
the Act of Uniformity stood in the way. He made his good
friends a present of the Act of Uniformity. His dear friends
who hated Erastianism so much seemed to forget it was an
Erastian Act of Uniformity. It was never submitted to
Convocation, and he wished they were well rid of it. ("Hear,
hear," and "No.") He believed it to be a most deplorable
fetter round the neck of the Church. (Cheers and dissent.) He
had only just said these few words to explain his position.
He did not see why, to be a genuine loyal Churchman, which
he claimed to be, he was to take his theology and his views
of Church government from men, saintly and good as they
were, such as Keble, Pusey, and Newman, and why he might
not go back to Andrewes, Cosin, Hall, Sancroft, and Arch
bishop Wake. He should like to know why. one authority was

400 Appendix D
better than another. He claimed his right as a Bishop of the
Church, loyal to his principles, firmly believing that epis
copacy was the best form of government, but not conceding
— he never would concede it — that it was necessary to the
validity of the sacraments. (Dissent and applause.) How
could it be necessary to the validity of the sacraments when
the Church of England herself would admit baptism by a
Nonconformist ? He only wanted to make his position quite
clear to them. Those who thought differently had a perfect
right to their own opinion. All he hoped was that as a result
of that meeting they would learn to see something dearer,
something deeper, something more holy than any church
organisation. ("Hear, hear.") He hoped that they would see'
that to love and worship their one Master Christ was greater
than all their contentions ; and might they be drawn closer
and closer in fellowship to Him ; and then they would rejoice
in the communion of saints, and they would believe in that
which their canons laid down as the true description of the
Church — "The whole body of Christian men dispersed
throughout the world." (Cheers.)

INDEX

Abbott, Dr. Lyman, 193
Aberdeen, Bishop of, preaches on
Unity, 176
Aden, 60
Adeney, Principal, member of Welsh
Church Conciliation Committee,
298
African Methodist Episcopal Church,
338
Aitken, Canon Hay, letter from, 124
and invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conference, 165-6
opens session of Grindelwald Con
ference, 167
Aked, Rev. C F., and invitation to
prayer for Reunion Conference, "
167
and Grindelwald Conference, 170,
174
Allan, Rev. Thomas, views on mission
ary controversy, 102
America, visit to, 185-197
extent of, 186
characteristics of, 187
Quintin Hogg on, 187
Methodism in, 198, 199, 261,
266
problems of, 198
Reunion prospects in, 198-209
Andover Theological College, U.S.A.,
lecture at, 193
Andrewes, Bishop, on non-episcopal
orders, 367
Anglican orders, Roman attitude on,
' 217
Apostolical Succession, Wesley rejects,
259, 260
criticisms on, 262-5

Appusawmy, G. S., and views of Indian
Christians, 62, 63
Arcot, 61
Arnold, Matthew, " Rugby Chapel,"
223-4
Arnold, Professor Thomas, 38
Arthur, Rev. William, speech on mis
sionary controversy, 101
on Dr. Bunting, 319
Asbury, William, and Methodist Epis
copal Church, 316
Asceticism, place of, in the Christian
life, 272-4
Asquith, Mrs., on Mr. Benson's
"Dodo," 189
encounter with General Booth, 190
on the Donnington Hall myth,
231
and Lady Dorothy Nevill, 238
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., receives
deputation from Welsh Church
Conciliation Committee, 202-3
Sir Jesse Herbert on scandals con
cerning, 231
Atkin, Edward, member of Welsh
Church Conciliation Committee,
298

B
Baltimore, visit to, 193, 197
" Bands," founded by Wesley, 18
Bangor, Bishop of, preaches on Unity,
176
Banks, Dr. J. S., Professor at Head
ingley College, 29
member of committee to prepare
Free Church catechism, 179

2A

401

402

Index

Bannerman, Sir H. Campbell-, on
" Methods of Barbarism," 219
Baptism, Richard Baxter on, 372
Hooker on, 372
Wesley on, 372
Baptist Missionary Society, income of,
91
mission in Telugu, success of, 92
Baptist Union, and Wales, 310
Baptists, in United States, 338, 340
Free, 338
African, 338
Barker, Rev. W., and invitation to
prayer for Reunion Conference,
166
Barnett, Canon, letter from, 125,
126
member of Welsh Church Disestab
lishment Conciliation Committee,
298
Barrett, Dr., member of committee to
draw up Free Church catechism,
179
Barrows, Dr., and World's Parliament
of Religion, 195
Barry, Bishop, suggestions for Re
union, 365
Barter, Rev. Henry, and the Holy
Communion, 57
Bartlett, Vernon, member of committee
to draw up Free Church catechism,
179
Bath and Wells, Bishop of, see
Kennion
Bedford, Duchess of, 187
Beecher, Henry Ward, 193
Benson, Most Rev. Edward, Arch
bishop of Canterbury, preaches
at Polytechnic, 140
meeting with, at Terontola, 173
on admission of Nonconformists to
Communion, 174, 243
letters on prayer for Reunion, 175,
176
Benson, Rev. Joseph, President of
Wesleyan Conference, 318

Berry, Dr., at Grindelwald Conference,
159, 169, 366
preaches on Unity, 176
meeting with Rev. Hugh Price
Hughes, 177
member of committee for preparing
Free Church catechism, 178
member of committee to draw up
address to the Pope, 211
signs address to the Pope, 212
on common Churchmanship, 378
on re-ordination, 378
Bickersteth, Rev. Cyril, at Mirfield, 286
Bilton, Miss Belle, afterwards Countess
of Clancarty, 85
Birmingham, Bishop of, see Wakefield
Bishops, Hanoverian, their attitude
to Non-jurors, 251
Bisseker, Rev. Harry, at Swanwick,
282
Body, Canon, supports proposal for
Reunion Conference, 165
attitude on United Communion,
163, 164
Booth, General, friendship with W. T.
Stead, 132
preaches at Polytechnic, 140
interviews with, 188
voyage to America with, 188-91
and Rudyard Kipling, 189
and Mrs. Asquith, 190
suggested collaboration with, 191
Boston, Lines, election contest, 1910,
244
Boston, U.S., visit to, 193, 194
Bourne, Rev. F. W., member of com
mittee to prepare Free Church
catechism, 179
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Rev. W., Bishop
of Ripon, contributes to Review
of the Churches, 145
accepts invitation to Grindelwald
Conference, 163
Bradfield, Rev. W., at Headingley
College, 33, 34
Bradford, Rev. Joseph, 248

Index

4°3

Bradley, Rev. J. F., member ef Welsh
Church Conciliation Committee,
299
Bramhall, Bishop, on non-episcopal
orders, 367
Brash, Rev. W. B., at Jordans Re
treat, 286
Brixton, Dr. Lunn spends three
months in work at, 46, 48
Broad Church, the, position of, 154
Brook, Rev. David, member of com
mittee to prepare Free Church
catechism, 179
Brown, Dr. Archibald, speech on
Indian Missionaries' Decennial
Conference, 115
Brown, Dr. Charles, on Federation of
Free Churches, 350
Brown, John, generosity to missions,
8
Brown University, U.S.A., lecture at,
193
Bruce, Professor A. B., contributes to
, Review of the Churches, 145
at Grindelwald Conference, 158, 379
Brunyate, Rev. Wesley, on missionary
controversy, 102, 105, 109
Buckland, Rev. A. R., and Grindel
wald Conference, 162, 166
Bull, Rev. Paul Bull, C.R., at Mir
field, 286
address by, 288-90
Bullock, Canon, conducts mission at
Horncastle, 16, 241
Bunting, Dr. Jabez, influence on
Methodism, 318, 319
Bunting, Mrs. Percy (afterwards Lady),
her receptions, 192
Bunting, Sir Percy, preaches at Poly
technic, 140
Methodist Editor of Review of the
Churches, 142, 143
at Grindelwald Conference, 161
suggests collaboration with General
Booth, 188, 191
signs address to the Pope, 213

Burke, Edmund, founder of Trinity
College Historical Society, 36
Burns, John, at W. T. Stead's memorial
service, 134
Bushell, Rev. W. Done, preaches at
Harrow School, 239

Cadbury, Mr., and Sir Jesse Herbert,
230
Cairo, visit to, 24-5
Calvin, John, on Holy Communion,
253, 254
Campbell-Bannerman, see Bannerman
Canterbury, Archbishop of, interview
with, 173-5
replies to Papal Encyclical, 210
and " The Love of Jesus," 279
Carpenter, Rev. A. B., offer of curacy,
119, 120
Carroll, Rev. Dr., 338
Carter, Rev. Henry, meets Bishop of
London in Conference, 322
Cary, Rev. Lucius, S.S.J.E., at Mir
field, 286, 291-3
Cassell, Count, introduces Dr. Lunn
to Monsignor Merry del Val, 213
introduces Dr. Lunn to Cardinal
Rampolla, 215
accompanies Dr. Lunn on visit to
Father Whitmee, 216
Catechising, decay of, 183-4
Catholic ideals, movement towards, 346
Catholic spirit, John Wesley on, 2
Catholic Times, the, and " The Love
of Jesus, 279
Cave, Rev. Alfred, invitation, to prayer
for Reunion Conference, 167
Cavour, saying of, quoted, 274
Cecil, Lord Robert, on Welsh Dis
endowment, 308 (footnote)
Cecil, Lord William, on China, 59
Chadwick, Bishop, at Grindelwald
Conference, 158

404

Index

Chamberlain, Joseph, and Sir Jesse
Herbert, 230
Chelmsford, Bishop of, see Ditchfield
Cherry, Lord Chief Justice, 38
Chicago, visit to, 193, 196, 198
Choisy, Pastor Eugene, at Grindelwald
Conference, 161
Christian Connexion, the, 338
Christian World, the, and " The
Love of Jesus," 279
Chubb, Sir George Hayter, 102
Church and Nation, Dean Fremantle
on, 370-1
Archbishop of Canterbury on, 371
" Church," the, and the Churches —
Canon Hammond on, 370, 372-3
Dean Fremantle on, 371-2, 375
Professor Lindsay on, 371-2, 375-8
Dr. Lunn on, 373-4
Professor Bruce on, 379
Rev. Hugh Price Hughes on, 380-5
Church Congress, debate on Grindel
wald Reunion Conference, 386-400
Church Missionary Society, income of,
91
Church of Scotland, endowments of,
300
proposals for Reunion with, 300
Church polity, Hooker on, 375
Church Times, the, appreciation of the
Review of the Churches, 149
on the " Churches," 149, 150
Churchill, Winston, at Harrow School,
237
at Harrow Fifty Club, 237
" Civic Church," the, and W. T.
Stead, 379
Clapham, John, 102
Clapham, Rev. Ernest, 79
Clark, Dr. Adam, attitude to the
Church of England, 318
Clark, Dr. Martyn, speech at Indian
Missionaries' Decennial Confer
ence, 113
Clarke, Thatcher, Member of Harrow
Fifty Club, 232, 236

Claughton, Rev. Donald, conducts
mission at Horncastle, 16, 241
Cleveland, President, interview with,
196
Clifford, Dr. John, at W. T. Stead's
memorial service, 134
Baptist Editor of Review of the
Churches, 143
and dock strike, 1890, 154
invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conference, 167
preaches on Unity, 176
member of committee to prepare
Free Church catechism, 178
declines to join Welsh Disestablish
ment Conciliation Committee, 298
Cobb, H. P., 44
Coke, Dr. Thomas, and " Plan of
Pacification," 248
ordained Methodist Bishop by Wes.
ley, 316
attitude of Church of England, 318
Coke-Norris, Rev. J. W., preaches in
Harrow School, 239
Colbeck, Mr., Master at Harrow School,
240 '
Collin gs, Jesse, and Sir Jesse Herbert,
230
Colonial and Continental Church
Society, nominations of Chaplains
for, in Switzerland, 245
Communion, the Holy, at Trinity Col
lege, Dublin, 242
Canon Moore and, 242
rules for admission to, Anglican, 242
rules for admission to, Wesleyan, 243
rules for admission to, Presbyterian,
243
Dr. Forsyth on, quoted, 244, 245
significance of, 244, 245
Wesleyan modifications in order for,
248-9
practice of Church of England in
18th century, 251, 252
practice of Wesley and Whitefield,
251, 252

Index

4°5

Communion, the Holy, Calvin on,
quoted, 253, 254
Communion Services at Grindelwald,
163, 170
Church Times attacks on, 163
attitude of Canon Body on, 163, 164
Times leader on, 170, 171
Rev. Henley Henson on, 171
defence of, by Bishop Perowne, 171,
172
Archbishop Benson on, 174
Community life practised by the
Saints, 281
" Companion for the Altar," Wesley's,
247
Confession, Wesley's provision for
mutual, 18
Confirmation, accepted, 246
place in the life of the Church, 246
Congregational Methodists, 338
Congregational Union and Wales, 310
Congregationalists in the United States,
338, 340
Constantine the Great, ecclesiastical
policy of, 335
" Contemporary Club," the, 38-40
Conventicle Act, repealed, 317-18
Conversion, Methodist teaching on, 15
Cooke, J. Hunt, signs address to the
Pope, 213
Cooling, Rev. J., letters from, 98, 98
Cooper, Dr., on Church Reunion in
Scotland, 348
Corderoy, George, on missionary con
troversy, 109, 110
Coronation, postponement of King
Edward's, 220
Cosin, Bishop, on non-episcopal
orders, 367
Creighton, Rt. Rev. Mandell, on
admission of Nonconformists to
Communion, 243
Crook, W. M., at Dublin University,
36, 43
Cuff, Rev. W., preaches on Unity, 176
Cyprian, St., on Heresy, 337

D

Dallinger, Rev. W. H., invitation to
prayer for Reunion Conference,
167
" Darkest England and the Way Out,"
191
D'Aubigne, Charles, at Grindelwald
Conference, 161
D'Aubigne, Henri, at Grindelwald
Conference, 161
Davison, Dr., member of committee
to prepare Free Church catechism,
179
signs report of Committee on Faith
and Order, 348
Davitt, Michael, 38, 43
Dawson, Rev. W. J., 131, 167
Dearmer, Dr., member of Welsh Dis
establishment Conciliation Com
mittee, 299
Devonshire, Duke of, introduces Second
Suspensory Bill, 306
Digby, William, letters to the Hindu,
96, 98
Disciples of Christ, the, 338, 340
Discipline, need of, 274
Disendowment, ethics of, 295-6, 312-14
" Dissenter, Jesus Christ, the First,"
374
Ditchfield, Rt. Rev. J. Watts, visit
to Wesleyan Conference, 320,324
Diversity and life, 332
Divine Right, doctrine of, 263-4
•• Dodo," Mrs. Asquith and General
Booth on, 189
Dods, Rev. Marcus, at Grindelwald
Conference, 158
invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conference, 167
Domination, ecclesiastical, 334, 335,
337
Donnington Hall myth, Mrs. Asquith's
explanation of, 231, 232
Dublin, Archbishop of, preaches on
Unity, 176

406

Index

Dublin, examination for M.D. at, 46
Dublin University, residence at, 35
Duckworth, Sir James, member of
Welsh Disestablishment Concilia
tion Committee, 299
Duff, Dr., his Indian educational
policy, 94
Dunn, Monsignor, member of Fifty
Club, 229
Dykes, Dr. Oswald, member of com
mittee to prepare Free Church
catechism, 178

Eastern Church, present position of,
341, 342
Ebner, Christiana, at Grindelwald,
152
Ede, Dr. Moore, member of Welsh Dis
establishment Conciliation Com
mittee, 299
Edinburgh, Bishop of, at Church
Congress on Reunion, 397
Edward VII., and W. T. Stead, 133
postponed coronation, 220
Encyclical, " Ad Anglos," issued, 210
replied to by Archbishops of Canter
bury and York, 210
replied to by Grindelwald Confer
ence, 211-13
Episcopal Church, the, position in
Scotland of, 327-8
Episcopal Government, John Wesley's
approval of, 316
" Episcopate, the Historic," 348
Bishop Perowne on, 171, 363-5
Rev. H. Price Hughes on, 368
Esher, Lord, at W. T. Stead's memorial
service, 134
Established Churches, their dangers,
294-5
Eucharist, the, as the bond of Unity,
276
Evangelical Association, the, 338

Evangelical Synod of North America,
the, 338
Everett, William, and Dr. Bunting, 319
" Expository Method " in Retreat, 287

Faith and Order, sub-committee on,
346
report, first interim, 346
second interim, 347
list of signatories, 348
Farrar, Dean, offers Dr. Lunn curacy
120
letters from, 121, 124
preaches at Polytechnic, 140
Anglican editor of Review of the
Churches, 142-3
and invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conferences, 166
preaches on Unity, 176
writes character-sketch of Dr. Lunn,
193
signs address to the Pope, 212
on Bishops, 322
Fasting, Methodist practice of, 17
Federal Church Council of America
the, 338-40
Churches represented on, 338
Commission of, on social service, 339
objects of, 339
Federation, Ecclesiastical, 336-42
Figgis, Father, on Retreats, 286, 288
Findlay, Rev. Dr. G. G., at Headingley
College, 29, 30
member of committee to draw up
Free Church catechism, 179
Findlay, Rev. W. H., represents
Indian missionaries, 102
Fletcher, Mrs., of Madeley, refused
Holy Communion in her husband's
church after his death, 319
Fletcher, Rev. George, 102
" Fly Sheets," the, 89
Forsyth, Dr., on Holy Communion,
quoted, 244, 245

Index

407

Forsyth, Dr., addresses Congregational
Union on Church unity, 350-1
Fowler, Rt. Hon. H. H. (Lord Wolver
hampton), member of commission
on missionary controversy, 102
opinion on report of missionary
commission, 104
France represented at Grindelwald
Conference, 160
Francis of Assisi and Hugh Price
Hughes, 79
Fraser, Dr. Donald, Presbyterian editor
of the Review of the Churches,
143
Free Church Catechism, committee
which prepared, 178, 179
Eirenical character of, 179, 183
theological definitions of, 180-3
the Catholic Church, 180
baptism, 181
the Lord's Supper, 181
Free Church Council, inception of, 177
first presidents of, at Grindelwald,
177
article by Rev. H. P. Hughes in
Contemporary on, 177
proposals by Unitarians to join, 178
and Welsh Church Disestablish
ment, 300-1
Free Church of Scotland, missions in
India, 92
Fremantle, Dean, and conferences at
Sion College, 154
ecclesiastical views of, 157
and invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conferences, 166
assists to draw up address to the
Pope, 211
signs address to the Pope, 212
opens Grindelwald Conference, 1893,
370-1
Frere, Dr., conversation with, on
Retreats, 283
Friends, Society of, in the United
States, 338, 340
Frommel, Pastor, 161

Fry, Dean, joins Welsh Disestablish
ment Conciliation Committee, 299
Fry, Sir Edward, Chairman of Welsh
Conciliation Committee, 298

Gardner, Samuel, President of Fifty
Club, 233
Garvie, Rev. Dr., signs report of
Committee on Faith and Order,
348
Geden, Professor, in India, 68
George, Right Hon. D. Lloyd, Dr. Lunn
speaks for, at Exeter Hall, 219
Vice-President of the New Reform
Club, 219
Lady Dorothy Nevill's opinion of,
238
speech on Welsh Church Act, 308-9
Gibson, Dr. Monro, at Grindelwald
Conference, 158
invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conference, 167
preaches on Unity, 176
member of committee to prepare
Free Church catechism, 178
signs address to the Pope, 212
joins Welsh Disestablishment Con
ciliation Committee, 299
Gladstone, Herbert, and Sir Jesse
Herbert, 230
Gladstone, W. E., letter from, in the
Review of the Churches, 144, 145
on disendowment, 296
Glover, Dr., at Grindelwald Confer
ence, 160
preaches on Unity, 176
signs address to the Pope, 213
Glynn, Prior, on abstinence, 217
Goodrich, Rev. Lionel, member of
Fifty Club, 235-6
Gore, Rt. Rev. Charles, on Free Church
Catechism, 182
on Holy Communion, 247

408

Index

Gora, Rt. Rev. C, on Disendowment,
296
joins Welsh Disestablishment Con
ciliation Committee, 299
presents memorial to Prime Minister,
302
speech on Reunion at Church
Congress, 386-93
Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John, visits Fifty
Club, 236
Goudge, Principal, signs report of
Committee on Faith and Order,
348
Goudie, Rev. William, mission work in
India, 71
Gould, Rev. G. P., member of Com
mittee to prepare Free Church
catechism, 178
Graham, Father, member of Fifty
Club, 229
Gray, Dwyer, M.P., and his dinner
party, 38, 40
Greek Orthodox Church, attitude of,
towards Rome, 124, 125
Greenhough, Rev. J. G., signs address
to the Pope, 213
Greer, Prebendary, characteristics of,
158
Gregory, Rev. Benjamin, suggests visit
of Bishops to Conference at
London House, 322
Conference between Anglicans and
Wesleyan Methodists arranged,
344
Griffith, Ellis, meets delegation from
Welsh Disestablishment Concilia
tion Committee, 302
Grindelwald Conferences, the, first
Conference in the Middle Ages,
152, 153
conditions favourable to, 153, 154
Norway proposed, 162
winter meeting at Grindelwald, 1892,
162
membership of, 162
Holy Communion at, 163

Grindelwali Conferences, the, summer
conference suggested, 163
opened by Canon Hay Aitken, 1892,
167
resumed Sept. 6th, and opened by
Bishop Perowne, 169
Rev. H. Price Hughes, 170
lectures in America on, 193
replies to Papal Encyclical, 211
committee to draw up reply, 211
text of reply, 211, 212
list of signatures, 212, 213
speeches at Conference of 1892 by —
Bishop Perowne, 362, 366-7
Pere Hyacinthe, 366
Dr. Berry, 366
Dr. Stephenson, 367
Rev. H. P. Hughes, 367
conference of 1893, 370
opened by Dean Fremantle, 370
speeches by Professor Lindsay, 371,
375
Canon Hammond, 372
Dr. Lunn, 373
Prebendary Webb-Peploe, 377
Dr. Berry, 378
Professor Bruce, 379
Rev. H. Price Hughes, 379
Grindelwald, fire at, 168

H
Haldane, Viscount, at W. T. Stead's
memorial service, 134
Hall, Dr. Newman, preaches on Unity,
176
Hall, Rev. H. Armstrong, and invita
tion to prayer for Reunion Con
ference, 166
Hammond, Canon, characteristics of,
157
at Grindelwald Conference, 1893,
372-3
Handcock, Rev. Thomas, appreciation
of, 82
member of Fifty Club, 234

Index

409

Handcock, Rev. T., his opinions, 235
Hannay, Dr., and dock strike, 1890,
154
Harcourt, Viscount, and King Edward's
illness, 220
Harrow School, 228
masters at, 238-40
sermons in speech room of, 239
criticisms of, 240
Harrow, residence at, 228-9
Fifty Club at, 229-38
Hatch, Dr., Bampton lectures of, 335
Harvard University, lecture at, 193
Headingley Chapel, arctic chilliness of,
31
Headingley College, life at, 28-34
Headlam, Rev. Stewart, 82
Heckhuis, Dr., on medical missions, 61
Hellier, Dr. Benjamin, Governor of
Headingley College, 28-9, 32
Hemingby, Methodist local preacher
at, 11
Henson, Rt. Rev. H. Hensley, attacks
tlie Communion Service at Grindel
wald, 171
Letter to Times on Welsh Dis
endowment, 295
joins Welsh Disestablishment Con
ciliation Committee, 299
Herbert, Sir Jesse, member of Fifty
Club, 229
career, 230
loyalty of, to Mr. Asquith, 230,
231
characteristics of, 231
on Welsh Church Disendowment,
298
Hereford, Bishop of, see Henson
Hicks, Rt. Rev. Edward, quoted, 277
joins Welsh Disestablishment Con
ciliation Committee, 299
suggestions for Reunion, 330-1
Hindu, London correspondent's letters,
96
Historical Society of Dublin Univer
sity, 36

Hogg, Quintin, parentage, 137
work among London boys, 138
and Duchess of Argyll, 138
founds Polytechnic Institute, 139
on America, 187
Holland, Canon Scott, joins Welsh
Disestablishment Conciliation
Committee, 299
Hollowell, Rev. Hirst, on religious
teaching in Board Schools, 149
Holyoake, G. J., at West London
Mission services, 83
Holy Week addresses, 358-61
Hook, Dean, and Leeds Methodism, 31
Hooker, Richard, on non-episcopal
orders, 367
Horncastle, description of, 3-4
Methodist local preachers, 4-13
Mutual Improvement Society of,
19, 20
Horndon, Retreat at, 285
Horner, Rev. Bernard, Retreat ad
dresses, 284
Hort, Sir Arthur, preaches in Harrow
speech room, 239
Horton, Dr., characteristics of, 159
invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conference, 167
preaches on Unity, 176
Howson, Mr., preaches in Harrow
speech room, 239, 240
Hoyle, Rev. Arthur, at Headingley,
33, 34
Hughes, Miss Dorothea Price, life
of her father, 54-6
and inception of Free Church Council,
177
Hughes, Mrs. Price, Head of Sister
hood, 87
Hughes, Rev. Hugh Price, his assistant
at Brixton, 46
first meeting with, 47
and Dr. Pusey, 49-50
letter to Spectator, on Methodists
and Reunion, 49-51
retort to Mark Pattison, 52

410

Index

Hughes, Rev. H. P., on religious teach
ing in Board Schools, 52
theology of, 53
reminiscences of, by Miss Price
Hughes, 54-6
reforming zeal of, 78
obedience to discipline, 78
attitude to wealth, 79
sympathy with St. Francis, 79
reverence for womanhood, 80
letter to Bishop of London, 82
preaches at St. James's Hall, 83
founds Sisterhood of the People, 85
suggests articles on Indian Missions,
88, 93
supports Dr. Lunn before Mission
ary Committee, 97
discusses possible resignation, 110,
111
on Indian Missionary Decennial
Conference, 114, 115
dissuades Dr. Lunn from ordination
in Church of England, 122, 123
comments in Methodist Times on
Dr. Lunn's reception into Metho
dist Episcopal ministry, 126
and Parnell case, 136, 137
contributions to the Review of the
Churches on Reunion, 146, 147
on religious teaching in schools,
148
invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conference, 167
meeting with Dr. Berry, 177
defines object of Free Church
Council, 177
attitude to Unitarians, 178
statement in preface to Free Church
catechism, 179
on the Visible Church, 182
member of the committee to draw
up address to the Pope, 211
signs address to the Pope, 213
sympathy in business crisis, 220
last holiday in Switzerland, 221
death of, 221

Hughes, Rev. H. P., parallel with St.
Hugh of Lincoln, 222, 223
Memorial Services in St. James's
Hall, 222
Welsh fervour of, 324
at Grindelwald Conferences, 367, 380
on the Nicene Creed, 369
on Sacramentarianism, 380
on Reunion prospects, 380-5
Hyacinthe, Pere, characteristics of, 160
speech at Grindelwald Conference,
1892, 366
Hyde, Dr. Douglas, 36
" Hymns on the Lord's Supper," 247

" Ignatian Method," the, 287
Ignatius, St., "Exercises" of, 287
India, Dr. Lunn's life in, 59-77
Indian missionaries condemn pro
ceedings of Decennial Conference,
1892, 115, 116
Indian missionary controversy, see
Missionary Controversy
Indian Missionary Decennial Con
ference on opium traffic, 112
on regulated vice, 113
attitude condemned by South Indian
Conference and Methodist Epis
copal Church, 114
Indian missions, claims of, 33
Indian National Congress, Third, 64
characteristics of, 64
Indians on English rule, 61, 67
Indians on missions, 62, 63, 70
Ingram, Rt. Rev. A. F. Winnington,
consents to Sir Henry Lunn's
Confirmation, 246
visits Wesleyan Conference, 1917,
323
meets Wesleyan ministers at London
House, 323, 344
Interchange of pulpits, Dean Fre
mantle on, 371

Index

411

Intolerance of Protestants, 41
Ireland, characteristics of Church of,
37
Irish College at Rome, dinner at,
217, 218
Irish people, 40
Irish Protestant Home Rule Associa
tion, 42

Jacobitism, Methodists suspected of,
252
Jenkins, Dr., correspondence with, 47,
48
Jesudasan, Dr., 70
Jewel, Bishop, on non-episcopal
orders, 367
Jones, Principal Giiffiths, on Congre
gationalism, 351
Jordans, Retreat at, 286
Jowett, Dr., and " The Love of
Jesus," 279
Joyce, Prebendary, vicar of Harrow,
229

K
Karur (India), orphanage at, 61
Kelly, Father Herbert, on Reunion, 277
Kelly, Monsignor, 217
Kelly, Rev. C. H., interview with, 106
suggests resignation of Rev. H.
Price Hughes and Dr. Lunn, 116,
117
ordains candidates for the ministry
in " succession " from John Wes
ley, 319
Kempis, Thomas 4, on Holy Com
munion, 247
Kendal, Rev. H. B., member of com
mittee to draw up Free Church
catechism, 178
Kennion, Rt. Rev. G. W., signs report
of Committee on Faith and Order,
348

Kipling, Rudyard, and General Booth,
189
and Methodism, 257
Kumbakonam, lectures at, 66, 67

" Lambeth Quadrilateral," the, 167,
168
Bishop Perowne on, 362-4
Lang, Dr. Marshall, preaches on Unity,
176
Lascelles, B. P., President Harrow
Fifty Club, 233
Lathbury, D. C, member of Welsh
Disestablishment Conciliation
Committee, 299
Lay preachers, in Methodism, 9, 258
at Harrow School, 11, 239
Leeds, Methodism in, 31
Leo XIII., Pope, 210, 215
Leopold, King of the Belgians, 134
Lester, Rev. George, at Horndon
Retreat, 285
Letter to an Anglican, 353-8
Letter to a Methodist, 358-61
Liberation Society, the, and Welsh
Church, 295
Liddon, Canon, Friendship with W. T.
Stead, 132
Lidgett, Dr. Scott, joins Welsh Church
Conciliation Committtee, 299
presents Memorial to Prime Minister,
302
article in Methodist Times on Sus
pensory Act, 305
statesmanship of, 324
signs Report of Committee'on Faith
and Order, 348
Lincoln, Bishop of, see Hicks
Lindsay, Professor, at Grindelwald
Conference, 1893, 152, 158
signs address to the Pope, 212
and Presbyterian Reunion, 1300
replies to Canon Hammond, 375-7

412

Index

Little, Rev. Henry, on Indian Missions,
93
*' Living Church," letter from editor
of, 205
" Local preachers," see Lay Preachers
London, Bishop of, see Ingram
London Missionary Society, income
of, 91
Longridge, Rev. George, at Mirfield,
286
Longridge, Rev. W. H., address by,
at Mirfield, 287
Loreburn, President of the New
Reform Club, 219
" Love of Jesus, The," introductory
letter, 271
reception of, 279
Lunn, Arnold, born in India, 71
illness of, 76, 77
at Harrow School, 229
accident on Cadr Idris, 244
Lunn, Brian, King's Scholar at West
minster, 240
invalided from Mesopotamia,. 245
Lunn, Henry (of Horncastle), office-
/ bearer in Wesleyan Church, 4
characteristics, 5, 6
relations with Church of England,
6, 7
communicates in Anglican churches,
7, 242
Lunn, Holdsworth, loyalty in disaster,
220
Lunn, Hugh, at Harrow School, 229
prisoner in Germany, 244
Lunn, Lady, in India, 60, see also Moore,
Miss Ethel
Lunn, Miss Amy, incident at the funeral
of, 329
Lunn, Sir Henry, birth, 1
father, 4-9
mother, 13-5
early religious impressions, 15
attends Canon Bullock's mission at
Horncastle, 16
reads Wesley's sermons, 16-18

Dunn, Sir -Henry friendship with Rev.
J. G. Stanfield, 19-21
first business venture, 21, 22
resolves to enter Wesleyan ministry,
23
religious difficulties, 23-4
becomes a lay preacher, 23
voyage to the Levant, 24-5
preaches " Trial Sermon," 25
passes examination for candidates,
26
assists senior minister at Horn
castle, 26
enters Headingley College, 27
volunteers for Indian mission work>
33
enters Trinity College, Dublin, 35
college friendships, 36
joins Divinity School, 36
member of Contemporary Club, 38
takes part in Home Rule move
ment, 42
offered seat in Parliament by
Parnell, 43
candidate for Chair of Historical
Society, 43
rooms wrecked by Unionists, 44
writes for Review of Reviews, 45
assistant to Rev. Hugh Price Hughes,
46
takes B.Ch. and M.D. Degrees, 46
ordination, 56
marriage, 56
goes to India, 60
first impressions, 60
at Madras, 60
Arcot, 61
Tiruvalur, 62
attends Indian National Congress,
64
lectures at Kumbakonam, 66
first attack of illness, 66
birth of eldest son, 71
lectures at Madras Christian Col
lege, 76
return from India, 77

Index

413

Lunn, Sir Henry, joins Rev. Hugh
Price Hughes in West London
Mission, 78
supports Sir John McDougall's music
hall campaign, 81
interviews Bishop Temple and Car
dinal Manning, 81
writes articles on Indian Missions
for Methodist Times, 94
summoned before Wesleyan Mis
sionary Committee, 95-6
defends articles before Conference,
99-101
appears before Missionary Commit
tee, 102
interview with Rt. Hon. H. H.
Fowler, 104
becomes chaplain at Polytechnic,
106
resigns the Wesleyan ministry, 118
declines offers . of ordination in
Church of England, 123
enters ministry of American Metho
dist Episcopal Church, 123
takes house in St. Pancras, 130
joins W. T. Stead in journalism, 132
starts Review of the Churches, 142
reads paper at Sion College Con
ference, 154
initiates Grindelwald Conferences,
162
letter to Times on " United
Communions," 164, 165
visits America, 187
meetings with General Booth, 188
preaches at Plymouth Church,
Brooklyn, 193
lectures at New York, Boston,
Chicago, Washington, Philadel
phia, Baltimore, 193
signs Address to the Pope, 213
conveys letter from Grindelwald
Conference to Pope Leo XIII.,
213
presents letter to Monsignor Merry
del Val, 214

Lunn, Sir Henry, is presented to Car
dinal Rampolla, 215
is offered private audience with
Pope and declines, 215
visits San Silvestro in Capite, 216
and Irish College, 217
preaches Rev. Hugh Price Hughes's
funeral sermon, 222
settles at Harrow, 228
founds Fifty Club, 229
confirmation, 246
prepares " The Love of Jesus," 270
attends Swanwick Retreat, 282
prepares " Retreats for the Sou!,"
283
attends Mirfield Retreat, 283
conducts Retreat at Horndon, 285
at Jordans, 286
attends Conference on Retreats at
Mirfield, 286
writes to Times on Welsh
Church Disendowment, 295
forms Welsh Disestablishment Con
ciliation Committee, 298
takes part in Conference between
Wesleyans and Churchmen, 344,
353
presides over Grindelwald Confer
ence, 370
Lunn, Susanna, her character and
influence, 13-15
Lutheran Church in America, 338, 340
Lytton, Earl of, at Harrow Fifty Club,
236

M
McCormick, Canon, at Grindelwald
Conference, 158
Macdonald, Rev. F. W., and Rudyard
- Kipling, 257
made Foreign Missionary Secretary,
321
literary felicity of, 324
McDougall, Sir John, and the music
Lalls, 82

414

Index

McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald, meets
delegation from Welsh Disestab
lishment Conciliation Committee,
302
and Suspensory Act, 305
letter re Welsh Church Act, 307
Mackennal, Dr., Congregational editor
of Review of the Churches, 143
invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conference, 167
member of Committee to draw up
Free Church catechism, 178
signs address to the Pope, 212
MacNeil, Rev. John, and dock strike,
1890, 154
McNeill, J. G. Swift, 43
Madras, 60
Madras Christian College, lectures at,
71
conversion of Brahmin at, 74
rebellion, 75, 76
Mahaffy, Rev. Dr., at Trinity College,
Dublin, 45
Manning, Cardinal, and music hall
campaign, 81
friendship with W. T. Stead, 132
letter from, on Reunion, 145, 146
and dock strike, 1890, 154
Martineau, Dr., contributes to the
Review of the Churches, 145
letter on Arian controversy, 155, 156
Mather, Alexander, ordained by Wesley,
317
Mearns, Andrew, " The Bitter Cry of
Outcast London," 154
Medical missions in India, 61-2
Mediterranean, voyage in the, 24, 25
Mennonites, the, 338
Merry del Val, Monsignor, 214
on Hugh Price Hughes, 214
on Dean Farrar, 214
knowledge of English affairs, 214, 215
Merswin, Rulman, at Grindelwald, 152
Methodism in Horncastle, 2-3
village, 9-11, 258
its ministry, examinations for, 25

Methodism, its theological colleges, 26,
27
and Dean Hook, 31
in Leeds, 31
" Medieval period " of, 89, 90
spirit of, not aggressive, 256
true glory of, 257-9
characteristics of, 257-9, 265-9
introduced into America, 261, 316
mission of, 266
central position of, in Christendom,
266
and Catholicity, 268
and the Church of England, 316-20
Methodist Episcopal Church, in India,
92
condemns action of Decennial Con
ference, 114, 116
in America, 261, 266, 338, 340
African, 338
coloured, 338
Protestant, 338
Methodist Free Church founded, 89
Methodist Recorder, the, on the
Bishops' visit to Conference, 325
Methodist Times, the articles on
Indian missions, 93
suggested by Rev. H. Price
Hughes, 88, 93
summary of, 94
publication of, 95
on Welsh Church Disendowment, 305
Methodists, not Dissenters, 127
the Oxford, 272
attitude of, to Reunion, 345
Meyer, Rev. F. B., on Indian Mission
ary Decennial Controversy, 115
preaches on Unity, 176
Miller, Rev. Dr., on Contagious
Diseases Act, 113
Mirfield, Retreat at, 283-4
Conference at, 286-93
Mission field, need for union on, 59,
60
Missionary controversy, the, articles on
Indian Missions suggested, 93, 94

Index

Missionary controversy, articles pub
lished in Methodist Times, 95
effect on Indian missionaries, 95
Missionary Committee considers
articles, 96
letter from Rev. J. Cooling, 96, 98
conference appoints committee of
investigation, 99
Dr. Lunn's speech in defence of
articles, 100
other speeches in Conference, 101
appointment of Missionary Com
mission, 102
report of commission, 103
Rt. Hon. H. H. Fowler on report,
104
public interest in controversy, 129
Mitchell, Robert, arranged for the
Conference passage to Norway,
162
Molteno, Percy, visits Fifty Club, 236
Monod, Pastor, at Grindelwald Con
ference, 160
Moore, Canon, 56, 167
Moore, Colonel R. H., 60
Moore, Henry, ordained by Wesley,
317
Moore, Miss Ethel, see also Lunn, Lady,
56
Moravian churches in America, 338
Morgan, Dr., Campbell, joins Welsh
Disestablishment Conciliation
Committee, 299
abstains from signing memorial,
301
Moss, Dr., on Methodism and the
Church of England, 323
Moule, Rt. Rev. H. C, letter from,
121
speech on Reunion at Church Con
gress, 395-6
Moulton, Dr., on Indian Missionary
Decennial Conference, 115
Moulton, Dr. J. H., joins Welsh Dis
establishment Conciliation Com
mittee, 299

415

N

Napier, Dr. T. B., joins Welsh Dis
establishment Conciliation Com
mittee, 299
Negapatam, illness at, 66
Nelson, Earl, contributes to the
Review of the Churches, 145
supports Grindelwald Conference,
163, 166
on Church Congress and Reunion. 397
Nevill, Lady Dorothy, 238
New York, visit to, 193
letter f 10m Bishop of, 203
Nicholas of Bssle at Grindelwald, 152
Nicnolson, Sir Charles, Bart., joins
Welsh Disestablishment Concilia
tion Committee, 299
NicoU, Sir W. Robertson, on Indian
Missionary Decennial Conference,
115
appreciation of Review of the
Churches, 148
" Nonconformist Conscience," origin
of the phrase, 52
Nonconformist representatives at
Grindelwald Conference, 158-60
Norwood, Mr., and dock strike, 1890, 154
Nuremberg, visit to, 168

O
Old Catholics, the, 355
O'Leary, John, 38
Olphert, Rev. Joseph, letter to Dr.
Rigg, 117
Osborne, Dr., and " Fly Sheets," 89
and doctrinal tests, 90
speech on Missionary Controversy,
107, 108
Owen, Rev. Everard, preaches at
Harrow School, 238
Owen, Rt. Rev. John, suggests con
ference between Churchmen and
Nonconformists, 164, 296
Oxford, Bishop of, see Gore

416

Index

Paget, Rt. Rev. H. L., and the Holy
Communion, 58
conversation with, on Confirmation,
246
Parish clergy, the, attitude to Noncon
formists, 328
example of, 329
Parker, Dr., contributes to Review
of the Churches, 145
at Grindelwald Conference, 161
Parnell, C. S., offers seat in Parliament
to Dr. Lunn, 43
Parochial Councils, Dean Fremantle
on, .371
Patterson, Rev. George, lectures at
Christian College, 71
represents Indian missionaries, 102
Pattison, Rev. Mark, and Hugh Price
Hughes, 52
Peake, Professor, member of com
mittee to prepare Free Church
catechism, 178
joins Welsh Disestablishment Con
ciliation Committee, 299
Pearse, Rev. Mark Guy, and West
London Mission, 86, 87
supports Dr. Lunn in Missionary
Controversy, 87, 101
preaches at Polytechnic, 140
Peploe, Bishop, attitude towards
weekly communions, 252
Percival, Rt. Rev. John, suggestions
on Welsh Disestablishment, 300
Perks, Rev. G. T., 267
Perks, Sir Robert, 268
speech on visit of Bishops to Con
ference, 325
Perowne, "Rt. Rev. J. T., offer of
ordination, 120
at Grindelwald Conference, 156, 157,
169
letter on United Communion at
Grindelwald, 171-2
on the Sacraments, 262-3

Perowne, Rt. Rev. J. T., on Apostolical
Succession, 364
on Reunion, 365
on the case of Archbishop Spottis-
woode, 367
speech on Reunion at Church Con
gress, 398-400
Philadelphia, visit to, 193, 197
Phipps, Henry, and after-dinner ora
tory, 186
Pigou, Dean, signs address to the Pope,
212
Pinto, and views of Indian Christians,
62, 63
" Plan of Pacification," and regulations
for Holy Communion, 248, 317
Plater, Rev. Charles, " Retreats for
the People," 282
Plunket, Lord, Archbishop of Dublin,
and Home Rule, 42
speech on Reunion at Church Con
gress, 393-4
Plunket, Lord Chancellor of Ireland,
on Act of Union, 42
Polytechnic boys, the, and Quintin
Hogg, 139, 140
Polytechnic Institute, the, and the
Wesleyan Conference, 106-8
founded by Quintin Hogg, 139
preachers at, 140
Calvinistic tone of workers, 140,
141
Pope, Dr. H. J., member of Commis
sion on Missionary Controversy,
102
speech in conference on committee's
report, 108
member of committee to draw up
address to the Pope, 211
signs address to the Pope, 213
Pope Leo XIII., issues encyclical
" Ad Anglos," 210
declines address from Grindelwald
Conference, 215
Prayer Book, rubric on Holy Com
munion, 242

Index

417

Prayer for the departed, 223-6
Presbyterian Reunion, proposals for,
300
Presbyterian rules for admission to
Holy Communion, 243
Presbyterians, represented at Grindel
wald Conference, 158
in the United States, 338-40
Primitive Methodists in United States,
338
Protestant Episcopal Church in United
States, 338-40
Punshon, Dr., 267
Purity Society, Dublin University,
wild legend concerning, 44
Pusey, Dr., overtures to Methodists,
49, 50, 320

Rampolla, Cardinal, letter from, 213
introduction to, 215
Rattenbury, Rev. J. E., successor of
Rev. H. Price Hughes, 87
and Retreats, 282
member of Welsh Disestablishment
Conciliation Committee, 299
meets Bishop of London in Confer
ence, 322
Redmond, John, speaks at Rotunda
with Dr. Lunn, 56
Rees, Canon Edwards, member of
Welsh Disestablishment Concilia
tion Committee, 299
Reformed Churches, the, in America,
338, 340
Religious Teaching in Board Schools,
Round Table Conference on, 148
Re-ordination, personal reasons against
accepting, 127
proposals inadmissible, 326
Retreats, at Swanwick, 283
at Mirfield, 283-4
at Horndon, 285
at Jordans, 286
2B

Retreats, conference on, at Mirfield,
286-93
methods of, Ignatian, 287
expository, 287-8
psychology of, 288
" Retreats for the People," by
Rev. C. Plater, 282
" Retreats for the Soul," 283
Reunion, difficulties of, 354-6
Review of the Churches, the, on
Indian Missionary Decennial Con
ference, 114, 115
first suggestion of, 142
editors of, 143
first number of, 144
principal features of, 144-9
Round Table Conferences of, 144,
145
criticisms of, 148
ceases publication, 149
Rhodesian Chartered Company repre
sented at W. T. Stead's memorial
service, 134
Rigg, Dr., denounces Hindu cor
respondent's letters, 96, 97
supports Indian missionaries, 98
speeches on Missionary Controversy,
101, 108
interview with, 117
letter from, 117-18
letter to, resigning Wesleyan
ministry, 118
Riley, Athelstan, on religious teaching
in Board Schools, 148
at Grindelwald Conference, 158
Roberts, Dr. J. E., member of the
Welsh Disestablishment Concilia
tion Committee, 299
Rogers, Dr. J. Guinness, invitation to
prayer for Reunion Conference,
167
member of Committee to draw up
Free Church catechism, 179
Roman Catholic Church and prayers
for Unity, 176
doctrinal uniformity of, 218

4i8

Index

Roman Catholics and Methodists, 357
Roosevelt, President, and the Out
look, 193
Rosebery, Earl of, at West London
Mission, 83, 84
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter, seconds
resolution on Bishops' visit to
Conference, 325
Russell, Sir Edward, member of Welsh
Disestablishment Conciliation
Committee, 299
Russell, T. W., encounter with W. T.
Stead, 38, 39
Russia, Tsar of, and W. T. Stead, 133,
134

Sabatier, Paul, at Grindelwald Con
ference, 160
friendship with Rev. H. Price
Hughes, 221
Sacraments, the, " effectiveness " of,
277-8
Sacrifice, need for, 273-4
St. Davids, Bishop of, see Owen
Saints, inspiration of the, 257, 276
Salmon, Dr. George, 36, 37, 38
Salvation Army, demonstration at
Madras, 63
in Tiruvalur, 68, 69
contrast with ordinary missionary
societies, 71, 72
Sancroft, Archbishop, on non-episcopal
orders, 367
" Sanctuary," The, 270
Saye and Sele, Lord, member of Welsh
Disestablishment Conciliation
Committee, 299
Schism, New Testament on, 353
Scott, Rev. H. A., proposed resolution
in Conference on Bishops' visit, 325
Scottish Church, the, disruption of,
379
Seaton, Dr., address by, at Mirfield,
287-8

Seeker, Bishop, on Holy Communion,
251
Selbie, Principal, member of Welsh
Disestablishment Conciliation
Committee, 299
signs report of Committee on Faith
and Order, 348
Serbian monks at Mirfield, 286
Shakespeare, Rev. J. H., member of
Welsh Disestablishment Concilia
tion Committee, 299
signs report of Committee on Faith
and Order, 348
presents report on Federation of
Free Churches, 349
Sharpe, Rev. J. A., meets Bishop of
London in Conference, 322
Shaw, Dr. Albert, and American
Review of Reviews, 191, 192
Shaw, Dr. G. F., at Contemporary-
Club, Dublin, 39, 45
Sheehan, J. J., at Trinity College,
Dublin, 36
Shuttleworth, Canon, at Grindelwald
Conference, 158
Simpson, Canon, member of Welsh
Disestablishment Conciliation
Committee, 299
Simpson, Rev. William, mission work
in India, 71
Simpson, Rev. W. 0., 267
" Sisters of the People" and West
London Mission, 85, 86
Smith, H. Arthur, member of Com
mission on Missionary Con
troversy, 102
Smith, P. Vernon, ChanceUor, at
Grindelwald Conference, 161
speech on Reunion at Church Con
gress, 397
Smith, Rev. Gervase, 267
Smith, Sir George, and Wesleyan
missions, 91
Snell, Rev. Bernard, on Congregational
Order and " Superintendents,"
350

Index

419

Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel, nomination of chaplains
for, 245
Somerset, Lady Henry, 187
Somervell, H., preacher at Harrow
School, 239
Spectator, the, Hugh Price Hughes's
letter to, 49-51
quoted, 273
Spottiswoode, Archbishop, his ordina
tion, 367
Squance, Thomas, his ordination, 319
Stanley, Dean, on the Eastern Church,
125
Stansfield, Rev. J., first meeting with,
19
lends house for Retreat, 285
Stead, W. T„ at Contemporary Club,
38, 39
accepts article on Home Rule, 45
Cardinal Manning's estimate of, 81
and " Darkest England," 132, 191
characteristics of, 132-7
Memorial Service, 134
and " Baccarat case," 136
generosity of, 136
and Parnell case, 136, 137
at Grindelwald Conference, 161
and Dr. Albert Shaw, 192
signs address to the Pope, 212
and the " Civic Church," 379
Stephenson, Dr. T. B., 79
invitation to prayer for Reunion
Conference, 167
presides at Grindelwald Conference
169
on Reunion, 367
Stepney, Bishop of, see Paget
Stock, Eugene, signs report of Com
mittee on Faith and Order, 348
Stokes, Professor G. F., reminiscences
of, 38
at Grindelwald Conference, 157,
169, 367
and invitation to pTayer for Reunion
Conference, 167

Stokes, Professor, speech on Reunion
at Church Congress, 394-6
Stone, Rev. W. H., at Grindelwald Con
ference, 162
Story, Principal, at Grindelwald Con
ference, 158
Strasser, Pastor, at Grindelwald Con
ference, 161, 170
Subramanyam and Indian Christians,
60, 61, 62
Suso, Henry, at Grindelwald, 152
Swanwick, Methodist Retreat at,
283
Swithenbank, Rev. W. S., at Grindel
wald Conference, 162
Switzerland, representatives of, at
Grindelwald Conference, 161

Talbot, Rt. Rev. Edward, on Con
ferences of Churchmen and Wes-
leyans, 345
Tatlow, Rev. Tissington, signs report
of Committee on Faith and Order,
348
Tauler, John, at Grindelwald, 152
Temple, Archbishop, and music hall
campaign, 81
interview with, respecting ordina
tion, 118, 119
letters from, 120, 123-4
and Disendowment, 296
Temple, Rev. William, signs report of
Committee on Faith and Order,
348
Tenison, Archbishop, on non-episcopal
orders, 367
Tennyson, birthplace of, 3
Thomas, Rev. Urijah, signs address to
the Pope, 212
Thorburn, Bishop, on Indian Mission
ary Decennial Conference, 113
Times, letters on Grindelwald Com
munion Service in, 171-2

420

Index

Times, letters on Disendowment,
295-7, 305
Tiruvalur, life at, 65, 66
Toronto, visit to, 193, 194
Townsend, Dr., member of Committee
to prepare Free Church catechism,
179
Tractarians, the, influence on English
religion, 153
'' Trial Sermon," preaching of, 25
Trinity College, Dublin, Historical
Society, 36
Theological Society, 36
friendships at, 36
Divinity School, 36
Truro, Bishop of, preaches on Unityi
17&
Tymms, Rev. Dr., member of Com
mittee to prepare Free Church
catechism, 178

U
Ulster Protestants curse the Pope,
41
Uniformity, Act of, 371
Union, Spiritual, Prebendary Webb-
Peploe on, 377
Unitarians, the, and the Free Church,
Federation, 178
United Brethren, the, 338, 340
United Evangelical Church, the, 338,
340
Unity, the road to, 276
movements towards, 344-52

Vasey, Thomas, ordained by Weslev,
316
Vatican, Dr. Lunn's visit to the, 210-18
Vaughan, Cardinal, and Roman priests,
262

Victoria, Queen, and W. T. Stead,
133
Vincent, Bishop, receives Dr. Lunn
into ministry of Methodist Epis
copal Church, 123, 126
Vossevangen, proposed Conference at,
162

W
Waddy, Judge, 267
Wagner Festival, the, visit to, 168
Wake, Archbishop, on non-episcopal
orders, 367
Wakefield, Bishop of, preaches on
Unity, 176
Walsh, Archbishop, on Dr. Lunn's
wedding, 57
Walters, Rev. C. E., succeeds H. Price
Hughes at West London Mission,
87
Walters, Rev. W. D., speech in Con
ference on Missionary Controversy,
107, 108
Warner, G. Townsend, master ol
Harrow School, 240
Warwick, Countess of, at W. T. Stead's
memorial service, 134
Washington, visit to, 193, 196
letter from the Protestant Episcopal
Bishop of, 204
letter from the Methodist Episcopal
Bishop of, 207
Watchnight Service, 1903, 226-7
Watkinson, Dr., speech on Missionary
Controversy, 107, 108
irony of, 109, 324
Webb-Peploe, Prebendary, at Grindel
wald Conference, 377-8
Weibel, Dr., at Grindelwald Confer
ence, 161
Welldon, Rt. Rev. J. E. C, at Harrow
School, 228
Welsford, J. W., master at Harrow
School, 240

Index

421

Welsh Church Disendowment Bill of
1919, the, 294
a hindrance to religious unity, 294-5
letters on, 295-7, 305-6
Welsh Disestablishment Conciliation
Committee, 298
list of members, 298-9
memorial on Disendowment, text
of, 301-2
deputation to Prime Minister, 302-4
second memorial, 306
Welsh Disestablishment, duty of Non
conformists respecting, 312-14
Welsh Nonconformists and Disendow
ment, 307-9
their accusation of meddling an
swered, 309-12
Wesley, Charles, " Hymns on the
Lord's Supper," 247-8
quoted, 252, 265
criticisms of John Wesley's ordina
tions, 316
Wesley, John, on the Catholic spirit,
1, 2
on fasting, 17
on confession, 18
on riches, 21
" Companion to the Altar," 247
quotes Thomas a Kempis, 247
on " Constant Communion," 249,
250
dying words of, 257
on Apostolical Succession, 259
ordinations of, 260-1, 316-17
letter to the Bishop of London, 260-1
on the Eucharist, 276, 277
accused of Popery, 281
on separation from the Church of
England, 315
Wesleyan Methodist Conference, the,
1916, advocates frequent com
munion, 252
and Wales, 310, 311
of 1791, on the administration of the
sacraments, 317
its authority, 320

Wesleyan Methodist Conference of
1917, 320, 323-6
its constitution, 321
its response to Bishops' visit,
325-6
Wesleyan Methodist Foreign Mission
ary Society, 79
decline in income of, 91-2
Wesleyan Methodist Ministry, ex
amination of candidates for, 25,
26
Wesleyan Methodist Missions in India,
results of, 91-3
Wesleyan Methodist regulations for
Holy Communion, 243
changes in administration of Holy
Communion, 248, 249
Wesleyan Methodists, conferences of,
with Churchmen, 344, 353
West Ashby, Vicar of, and Methodist
burial, 329
West London Mission, founded by
Rev. H. Price Hughes, 78
services at St. James's Hall, 83
the successors of Rev. H. P. Hughes,
87
Whatcoat, Richard, ordained by Wes
ley, 316
Whitefield, Rev. George, on Holy
Communion, 251, 252
Whitgift, Archbishop, on non-episcopal
orders, 367
Whitmee, Father, Rector of St. Silves-
tro in Capite, 216
his views on Reunion, 216, 217
Whyte, Robert, joins Welsh Disestab
lishment Conciliation Committee,
299
Wilberforce, Canon Basil, and invita
tion to prayer for Reunion Con
ference, 166
preaches on Unity, 176
Wilkinson, Spencer, visits Fifty Club,
236
Will to Love, The, 275
Willard, Miss Frances, 187

422

Index

Williams, Rev. Charles, signs address
to the Pope, 213
Wilson, Archdeacon, member of com
mittee to draw up address to the
Pope, 211
signs address to the Pope, 212
Winchester, Bishop of, see Talbot
Wolverhampton, Lord, see Fowler, Rt.
Hon. H. H.
Wood, Canon Joseph, late Head Master
of Harrow, 233
Wood, H. G., signs report of Com
mittee on Faith and Order, 348

Worcester, Bishop of, preaches on
Unity, 176, see also Perowne
Worcester, Dean of, see Ede

Yeats, W. B., 38
York, Archbishop of, replies to Papal
Encyclical, 210
Y.M.C.A. refuses Quintin Hogg's
" boys " as members, 139
Young, Rev. Dinsdale, 267

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