Chapter VII: Appendix: 241 (6)

“You have intimated your willingness to withdraw the book of
which complaint has been made, and I think reasonably, and to
prepare another to be used in its place. I trust that the new
one will be less liable to misconstruction than the one you are
using now. While I have neither the desire nor the right to
arrogate to myself an infallible interpretation of the Church’s
standards, it is my plain duty to counsel, and even admonish,
where it is made plain to me that there is a divergence from
them. If this is not a Bishop’s duty, one of the most solemn
of his consecration vows becomes a hollow verbiage. I have no
sort of intention of withdrawing from you the countenance and
support which hitherto I have readily given to your work at S.
Agatha’s. To be consciously unjust to you is, I assure you, an
impossibility for me. But justice to you implies some sort of
justice to myself. You have never expected nor asked me to say
that with all your methods and teaching I can profess sympathy.
It is but straightforward for me to add that it is your
self-denying life, with the manly, generous activities behind
it which God is so manifestly blessing, that makes me more than
ready to condone what I and others would with satisfaction find
to be eliminated from your public services; and, in renewing an
expression of my good-will and personal affection, I desire not
to be thought to be acting inconsistently with the principles
and aspirations of a ministry of 44 years.

“Sincerely yours, A. WINTON.”

Nothing could exceed his kindness to us ever afterwards, and as his eye ever had a twinkle in it, so his kindness had ever a delightful playfulness. This letter of November 30th, 1893, will show how ready he was to meet our wishes at personal inconvenience to himself.

“THE DEANERY, WINCHESTER.

“MY DEAR SIR,

“In reply to your letter of the 27th instant, the Bishop of
Winchester desires me to say that he has never yet fixed a day
that suited you, and never expects to be so fortunate. But, of
course, your confirmation shall be put off.

Faithfully yours,
“G. E. HITCHCOCK, _Chaplain_.”

This of March 28, 1894, was in answer to a request of mine for a general licence in his diocese, as I had none, and, as I had been elected to the Conference, it was supposed I might be objected to on those grounds.

“FARNHAM CASTLE, SURREY.

“MY DEAR MR. DOLLING,

“A free lance will be wise to keep his freedom.

With all good-will,

Yours, A. WINTON.”

And this, of May 11, 1894, in explanation of a mistake he had made about Mr. Dowglass, whom I had asked him to license as our curate.

“FARNHAM CASTLE, SURREY.

“MY DEAR MR. DOLLING,

“I receive your rebuke with becoming meekness. But if you had
so many things of all sorts in your head as I have, and were
continually on the drive, away from all books of reference, you
would be merciful to me for not always recognising the identity
of curates with not uncommon names.

“Mr. Dowglass has been excellently reported to me, and I am only
too glad to have him in the diocese, and, of course, I will
license him when his papers are ready, and sent in.

With much contrition,
“I am, always faithfully yours,
“A. WINTON.”

I might just add one proof of his real liberality. On the death of my friend and neighbour, Mr. Shute, who had created, with wonderful energy and untiring zeal, S. Michael’s, the church next to ours, the Bishop offered the incumbency to my fellow-priest Osborne, who had so ably defended the little book which the Bishop had condemned.

He took, too, a continual interest in the building of our new church. He saw all the plans, and himself suggested that it would not need a new licence, so that all formality and red tape might be prevented. Above all he urged us to move in all our memorials, and to make the church as homely as we possibly could for our poor. A passion for the poor consumed his heart, and he seemed to have kept them and the outcast always in his mind, often asking me about someone whose story I had told him perhaps a year before, and not only treating me in his own house with the greatest tenderness and affection, but on public occasions like the Diocesan Conference, when I felt it my duty to say things about the Establishment and Social Questions, which few of my brethren agreed with, he always gained for me a patient hearing, and often said kindly things afterwards. Alas! if he had lived a little longer, I should have been still at S. Agatha’s; and yet who could wish him to live, when every hour was but an agony, and only an intense sense of duty enabled him bravely to bear the burden of his flesh, which he was so willing to surrender at any moment into his loving Master’s hands.

I am only sorry that my own angry passions and bitter way of looking at questions have, from time to time, moved me to say and write unkind and unworthy things about him. But from the first day I ever saw him I was conscious of a real love and affection, which deepened, until God took him, and which will ever remain in my mind as a special grace and gift of God, granted to me through four of the most difficult years of my life.

I had often talked with Bishop Thorold of a fitting time for me to leave Portsmouth, and he had agreed with me that, as soon as the people were accustomed to the new church, I might resign. We had hoped that the church might be opened on the first Sunday in October. It was the anniversary of my taking full charge of the Mission, and the progress of the parish had been marked each year by the dedication to the glory of God and the use of our people, of some special piece of parish machinery. I was greatly in need of rest, for my work, with its threefold responsibility at Landport, Winchester, and begging, was beginning to tell upon me, and for the last four years I had not had one single day’s holiday. If the church were opened on the first Sunday in October, I thought it would be quite permissible for me to leave the following Easter, and I had told Dr. Fearon of this intention. When I announced this to our own people, they at once began to make every effort to induce me to alter my determination.

But in the meantime two circumstances had happened which disarranged all our plans. First, Bishop Thorold died; and secondly, we discovered the church could not be opened till quite the end of October. It had been my boast that the whole fabric of the church was completed by Portsmouth men, and I can never speak too highly of the punctuality and excellence of their work. The builders, Messrs. Light and Son--Portsmouth is mourning now the head of the firm, one of the most useful, honoured, and respected of its citizens--Townsend, the foreman, indeed all down to the men who mixed the mortar, and the boys who ran the messages, had striven to make the church the enormous success that it is. But we had employed a London firm to do the wood flooring and the marble work. Their workmen were Italians; and Light’s men, all Trade Unionists, almost refused to work with them, because they said that they did not work for a proper rate of wages. However, the arrangement had been made, and so, though the foreman told me he was sure I would suffer for employing them, the work had to go on. They had a row amongst themselves their first Saturday, and one got stabbed in the hand, but, be the cause what it was, we found that the opening of the church must be delayed a month. On September 28th I wrote to Bishop Davidson, telling him that the church would be opened on October 27th, and saying that Dr. Thorold had thought that no new licence would be needed, as the old and the new church were practically joined together by the vestry. I heard from him on October 4th, saying that though he himself thought that it would be better that a new licence should be given to the new building, yet Bishop Thorold’s opinion would justify us going forward with our arrangements, and that he would let us know later on. On October 17th we heard from him that he had considered the question of the new licence, and it seemed clear to him that it ought to be granted, and that the Rural Dean would visit us for the purpose of inspecting the building.

In the meantime a dear friend had told us that the Bishop was hurt at not being asked to take part in the opening services. The friend, I afterwards discovered, was perfectly mistaken in his judgment; but acting on that information, I wrote to the Bishop to explain why I had not asked him to be present at the opening, and I thought the best way to show him that no disrespect was intended was by telling him that I had not intended asking Bishop Thorold, because I knew that our manner of service would pain him very deeply.

On October 24th, I received a long letter from the Bishop, the purport of which was that he could not grant the licence, until a question so important as the third altar had been submitted to the proper authorities, or the altar itself had been removed, but saying that he would be glad to see me the next morning. And so on October 25th, I spent the morning at Farnham.

Nothing could exceed the Bishop’s kindness and straightforwardness during that interview. He is a man of most delightful manners. A theologian at Oxford said of him, soon after his appointment to the Deanery of Windsor: “He is a Nuncio already,” though he slily added, “but not from Peter.” But I felt a good deal more than the mere charm of his manner. He was evidently conscious that we were both in a very difficult position. He seemed most desirous to do his duty towards me and my people, and deeply felt the responsibility that was resting on him. At the very outset of our conversation he said, “This is no red-tape question of three altars, but of the services said at those altars.” When I proposed to him that we should continue in the old church until his judgment was pronounced, he seemed to feel that it would be a mistake to upset the existing arrangements, and that it would be better to screen off the third altar for the present and proceed with the opening. I gave in to his desire at once, though I had brought with me fifty-two telegrams ready for despatch should the opening be delayed. When I got home, those who worked with me were very distressed that I had not put off the opening, and I feel now that they were certainly right, and that much pain and a certain amount of scandal to the Church might have been saved if I had pursued this course.

So we opened the new church on October 27th. Dr. Fearon had arranged for the masters and men at Winchester to come down on the Monday after the opening, and I had asked the Bishop of Southwell, the founder of the Mission, to come and preach to them. He not only consented to do this, but offered to preach the first sermon in the new church on the Sunday morning at 11 o’clock. When he came down on the night before, he kindly sent word to say that he would celebrate at 8 o’clock the next morning. There were more than four hundred communicants at the four early services, and at 11 we started to take possession of the new church. I, who remembered the hooting and stoning of ten years ago, could hardly believe it was the same place. Mr. Dyer-Edwardes, a great benefactor to the Mission, had lent us a magnificent silver crucifix to be carried in front of the procession, but everything else in the procession belonged to the Mission. Dear Barratt, the truest friend a priest has ever had, with the incense, and then our little choir lads, and our choirmen, such loyal and earnest supporters of the Mission; then the acolytes in red, most of whom had been with me ever since they were little children, directed by Pennell, our ceremoniarius, then the Bishop in his convocation robes, who, not desiring to pontificate, walked before the unworthy priest who was to sing the first Mass in the new S. Agatha’s. Directly behind me, leading the congregation, Mr. White and Mr. Claxon, who have acted as churchwardens during the ten years, and then an innumerable number of parishioners and old friends, who had come home for the day. There was, I think, through the whole of that crowd, blocking up all the streets and making it difficult for us to pass through them, but one attitude of respect, I might even say of affection, and a realising, too, that a great act of worship was being offered to that God, Who is our common Father. If, when the procession entered the building, there was a little unseemly rush, that was not to be wondered at. Even at S. Peter’s, in the presence of the Pope, English people do not always behave reverently and well. But long before I had gained the altar there was a hush of reverent devotion, and the wonderful beauty of the church made itself, for the first time, manifest, its dignity and simplicity, its fittingness for magnificent worship, and, above all, its excellent acoustic properties--a proud moment, indeed, for Mr. Ball, the architect, and if it had not been for the shadow which the covering of the third altar threw over my troubled heart, a proud moment for me.

Many letters, which will be found in an appendix, passed between the Bishop and myself. On November 15th, at his kind invitation, I spent a long morning at Farnham. I was suffering from a bad attack of influenza at the time. The Bishop’s position and mine were naturally very difficult, for he had to discover matter for judgment out of the mouth of the accused. I am quite conscious of not being a theologian, and I answered as plainly and as simply as I could all his questions, and I am since aware that I used an expression, which he afterwards quoted in his judgment, which may be very liable to misconstruction. My intercourse with Dr. Thorold had been so very different. There had been perfect freedom in all conversations between us, nay more, I had often volunteered information which he had not asked for. A hundred times the memory of him flashed across my mind, and his many words of prayer came back again and again to my remembrance. I was sitting in the same study, but now I was accused, and I was conscious that my own and my people’s happiness, nay, perhaps the safety of weak, timid souls, was hanging in the balance. I pray that none of my readers may ever have such an hour and a half as I passed at Farnham.

Meanwhile, until the Bishop’s judgment was pronounced, only one duty lay before me--to go on as if nothing had occurred. My mind, however, since the opening of the church, had altered upon one point. If the Bishop permitted it, I should be forced to remain much longer than Easter. I was told of a petition of over 5000 people, signed by all classes, and by people of all shades of opinion, wanting me to stay in Portsmouth. I discovered that the debt upon the church would be much greater than I had anticipated, so many things having to be added at the end. But, above all, I felt that it would take a considerable time to make new S. Agatha’s really the home of the people. I knew, of course, that other priests could work much more consistently and successfully than I had done. That I never doubted for a moment. But I knew, too, that I was the only one who had ten years of experience teaching me how to deal with these particular people. On December 7th the Bishop’s judgment came, and it left me, I conceived, no alternative but to resign, which I did the next day. I believed directly I read it that the judgment forbade us to say our Mass for the Dead, or to have Celebrations without Communicants. The surrender of these two points I felt it impossible to make. An error has largely arisen that I left because I could not have a third altar in my church, but this is quite incorrect. The Bishop, at the very commencement, said it was not a red-tape question of a third altar, but a question of the services said at that altar, and I myself, and my communicants, and a magistrate in the town, who thought that I had not been explicit in making it, made the offer that the altar should be moved, but the services maintained. I am condemned also, by many, for having been disobedient to the Bishop. Indeed, I think this was the reason why the Bishop of Durham prevented me preaching a Mission in his diocese. But I am sure that the Bishop of Winchester would be the first to say that this was not the case. In one sense, if I had wished to stay, it would have been very difficult to put me out. For I have created almost everything that exists at S. Agatha’s, and I am either joint or sole trustee for all the property; and I am, even now, responsible for £3000 incurred either on the church or on property which has been recently acquired for the Mission purposes. I say this in no spirit of boasting, but only to set myself right with the public. If I were to express my private opinion, I should say it would have been much wiser for a Bishop just entering on his diocese to have let S. Agatha’s, at any rate for a year or two, be ruled by the decision of his predecessor; but Bishop Davidson had every right to take a different view of the case, and, doubtless, he only put into action what is the mature judgment of many English Churchmen. One of the most learned and devoted of the High Church school has said that it is for the good of the body that excrescences should be cut off. I am an excrescence, ergo, when an opportunity arises, it is wise to lop me off. But, if mine is intended as an object-lesson, I fear it will hardly be so accepted by the other excrescences. They are all well sheltered by their freeholds, and few bishops to-day would like to undertake the odium of a ritual prosecution, far less the expense it entails. After all, too, the excrescence is not so unlike the healthy limb. It differs more in expression than in fact. By my resignation the Bishop gains two points. First, though my successor will, every Friday, say Mass for the Dead, he will only use outwardly the words of the Book of Common Prayer. Secondly, he has asked the communicants to arrange amongst themselves that there shall be three communicants at both the 10 and 11 o’clock Masses on Sundays. And this being so, he will say the part of the service relating to communicants. But he requests that they will come fasting, and give him notice beforehand. His desire to obey the Prayer Book has, I think, landed him rather on the horns of a dilemma. If no one gives him notice, will he have the Celebration, using the Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution, knowing that no communicants will be present? Or, will he give up the 10 and 11 o’clock Celebrations? The same difficulty will apply to the week-day Masses. We condemn as a fundamental error the idea that men were created for the sake of the Sacraments. We believe that the Sacraments were created for the sake of men. But it seems that, by this new theory, men were created for the sake of the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer. I make no complaint whatsoever. I have no right to make a complaint. And if, on the one hand, my conscience would have allowed me to say, for instance, this week the service for the second Sunday after Lent, in black vestments, or to have used a collect from the Visitation of the Sick, or from the Burial of the Dead, either saying them in a sense not intended by the Book of Common Prayer, or interpolating words of my own, and secretly to say the rest of the Office for the Dead; and, on the other, to invite people to make the most solemn of all our public confessions, and to pronounce Absolution over them, when I knew that not one of them was going to receive that Communion, which necessitated such a confession and warranted such an absolution, I should be still at S. Agatha’s. There is one solemn question which I should like to ask those who lop us off. Do they wish that we should go into lay-communion, and our work, as priests, be lost to the Church of England? Or do they want us to exercise our priesthood in another Communion? Before the old diocesans gaily commence their course of lopping, or a new diocesan, refusing to walk in the safer paths of his predecessors, proceeds to lop, I pray them pause and consider.

XII.

=Our Money-Grubbing.=

You so often hear it said now, “Only a rich man can afford to take that living.” I doubt if there could be any more dangerous idea about the position of the parish priest. Once let the parishioners, and the Church at large, imagine that the Vicar is going to pay everything out of his own pocket, and you destroy that most needed of all Christian duties--systematic giving. The false idea, so largely believed--that the clergy are all State-paid, and, therefore, well paid--is one of the reasons why, in so many places, members of the Church of England are utterly wanting in the duty of almsgiving. When Dr. Fearon chose me, he chose the poorest man in England. As I have told you, I had to pawn my watch on my first visit to the Bishop. And I believe that this is the very reason why God has so wonderfully blessed us with money. If we lived in mediæval times, people might almost believe of the Mission the old legends of the miraculous multiplication of food and money, for there have been many occasions when we were literally without a penny; but those were the very times when money came to us the most strangely. And why should we doubt that miracles are wrought to-day? Though I could nearly always make a shrewd guess as to where the money came from, even if it came anonymously, still I know it came in answer to those two powers by which all miracles have been wrought--faith and prayer; not my own, indeed, for that often failed, but those of my helpers and my own people. I think the Bishop of Winchester must have felt something like this when he kindly came and saw round the Mission the week before we left. I could not, of course, show to him our real treasures--men and women, clothed, and in their right mind, sitting at the Saviour’s feet, a few years back lost to all sense of shame and decency. I could not show him our Communicants’ Society: it would have been putting too great a strain upon my people’s patience. But I could show him the outward signs of our success--the changed streets, and the unmurmuring attitude of those who at once saw that he was the Bishop. Many years before I had helped to save his predecessor, when he was Bishop of Rochester, from being stoned in Lorimer Square; but I had no fear that even one rude word would be spoken to him. This, at any rate, was a discipline that our people had learned. I was able to show him, too, our wonderful gymnasium, the parsonage, the day-schools, the alms-houses, the Mission-house, old S. Agatha’s, and new S. Agatha’s, nearly all of which had been built by my begging. I wonder if any thought passed through his mind that he was actually, at that moment, killing the goose that had laid the golden eggs--truly a goose, for was it wise to lay out ten years of one’s life in effecting all this; indeed, to entail upon one’s self future years of begging, without any assurance more than the implied consent of the Bishop for the time being that I should be permitted to finish it? But, surely, it is only the faithless who would think it was foolish. For to labour, and to know that others will enter into your labour, is but a necessary consequence of being the servant of a Church whose work is one and continuous, whomsoever it is done by; and our part is only to be as grateful as our niggardly natures allow us, because we have been permitted to share, ever so little, in the glorious work by which, to-day, the Church of England is restoring to herself her lapsed children. Whether it is prudent of rulers to kill the goose, is a different question; they know their own business best, and, at any rate, one admires those who have the courage to act upon their convictions. They, too, who see the poor at second-hand--that is, through the appeals which come to them--can hardly be expected to realise the awful burden and difficulty of begging. I calculate that I have devoted one day out of every week that I spent at Portsmouth to this work alone.

You will notice in the accounts, which I hope you will read, a very large item for postage and for travelling. This represents my begging machinery. Every quarter I sent out to every subscriber, and to every man at Winchester, an account of the quarter’s work. Few duties were more irksome than the writing of these reports. One was bound to tell the truth, and to tell it so as to interest. The days of writing these reports will be remembered by every inmate of our house. I have often heard new inmates told by old ones, “I would not ask him anything. He is in a raging temper to-day.” At meals we all sat perfectly silent; even George Kerr, drinking his cod-liver oil between meat and pudding, or the antics and blandishments of the latest Buddha, could not make us smile. And if Mary heard a piano-organ coming anywhere near, she would run out with twopence to bribe them to go away. Everyone knew I was writing the report; everyone knew how much depended upon its success. I expect lots of the subscribers never read them; I am sure the majority of Winchester men did not. But, still, I believe they were the great means of keeping alive the knowledge of the Mission, and interest in it.

Then the begging by word of mouth. How extraordinarily kind people have been to us in this respect. I have got offertories in no less than eighty-one churches, and have spoken in drawing-rooms and public halls; I have been sandwiched into classical concerts and comic concerts; I have lectured in boys’ schools and girls’ schools, and have collected in this way £3137, and yet this sum does not all represent the actual amount received, for many a cheque came afterwards. I remember once preaching at a little church at Nice, and being very much annoyed with the clergyman for asking me, as there were only about ten people present; and yet there I discovered Mr. Dyer-Edwardes, who has been one of our greatest helpers, not only giving us money but supplying most delightful holidays for the clergy in his beautiful home in Gloucestershire. People at the meetings have always been so kind, but they generally remarked, “Oh, it evidently gives you no trouble to speak, you require no preparation.” They little knew the sleepless nights which evolved perhaps one single joke, and the tremendous difficulty of speaking time after time on the same subject without getting exaggerated or inaccurate. This living in the train, too, is terribly distressing, especially if you always want to get home at night, and I never felt that I slept at ease away from home. A house like ours was a responsibility, even greater than getting the money to keep it going. In Lent preaching seven or eight courses in London besides all my sermons at home, I have come home two or three times a week by the midnight train, so much so that at last I found it cheaper to have a season ticket. Yet even this was a reproach, for people seeing me travel second class thought I was proud and extravagant; as was also a fur coat, which one of my sisters gave me, as I suffer greatly from the cold when travelling at night, for I heard a lady, who passed me when coming out of a vestry, say, “If I had known he had a coat like that, I should not have put five shillings in the collection.” Then think of the moral deterioration of oneself. You look at everyone from the point of view, What shall I get out of him? Sneaking in at the vestry door you look round the corner to see if there are any carriages. And yet one does not grudge all this, for it means the larger part of £50,000 collected for the Church of England during ten years.

Of course in all this collecting Winchester has been our chief contributor. The men and masters were responsible for £150 of my salary. There is an offertory three times a year in chapel. The balance goes to a Central Wykehamist Fund, which is managed by a committee of members elected by present Wykehamists, with the Headmaster as chairman. This committee has sent me £11,292. But this does not represent at all what I have received from Wykehamists, past and present. Looking over the names of subscribers I should say I have received £15,000 more. I cannot be grateful enough for this money. Much of it has come from those, whom I know gave with difficulty. Much of it came from those who did not agree, some with my social, some with my religious, some with any of my opinions. But they gave it because they believed that a good work was being done in Landport, which reacted even upon the school itself.

A great deal of it has come, far more than one would believe, from the people of S. Agatha’s. Gold is an unknown quantity almost in S. Agatha’s offertories. When White and Claxon, who always counted the money, discovered a five-shilling piece, they nearly had a fit. And yet mostly in coppers, threepences, sixpences, and a few shillings, we averaged over £4 on general Sundays, with a considerable addition on any special day. Four years ago we started a parochial fund, every regular communicant subscribing to it each quarter any sum they liked, some a penny, some threepence, and some a half-crown. There were 286 members, and their subscriptions amounted to £380 in the four years. The benefit of this fund does not consist in the amount of money, but in the sense of having a stake in the parish, the possibility of using with reality the word “my,” as “my church,” “my service,” “my clergy.” The number would have been increased, but in many cases whole families are communicants, and the father would give for all, or at any rate for his wife, even if the children who were in work gave themselves.

Then the special funds were mostly collected in the parish; for a poor scavenger who was killed, £130; for Mr. Osborne, when he left us, £123; for the _Victoria_ catastrophe, £114, the mothers giving up their treat that year; in the parochial sales also, both in the buying and selling departments, parishioners were largely represented. The last fund that they collected, amounting to £100 14s. 6d. in six months, was to buy a new altar for the church, and when, on leaving, I asked them whether I might use this for paying off part of the beautifying of the Lady Chapel, every subscriber but one willingly gave me leave. If the widow, who cast her mite into the Treasury, brought joy into the heart of the great Watcher of all men’s deeds, surely that heart has received joy over and over again in our poor Landport slum, for His eye saw the self-denial entailed. There are some who give that which costs them nothing. There are some who give that which costs them their pleasure. There are some who give that which costs them their daily bread. At that cost over and over again many of our people have cast into the Treasury of God.

On the day before I left, and they had only been collecting about three weeks, they gave me £175, making me promise to spend it upon myself. I need not say the great Godsend it has been to me, for I left S. Agatha’s as poor as I went there, even poorer, for once, when in dire necessity, I had to sell all my books. And so, as I am now without salary or employment, I am living on that money. I remember their generosity at every meal I eat, and every time I lie down in bed, and it is a joy to me beyond all joys that I owe this, as very nearly all else during this last ten years, to their love and forethought. For I still have to be very busy. You will see by this account that I have a debt of over £3000 to pay. I thought at one moment of his interview that the Bishop would have said something about this debt, for I am paying for the church in which I shall never minister again, for an increased playground for the school in which I shall never teach again, for the bad house next the parsonage, so that it may be enlarged, though I may never live there again, for an organ for the new church. And then there are some boys whom I am still bound to help, and one or two other cases, which I consider depend on me. At any rate, the practical question arises, the builder, the lawyer, and the architect must be paid. I am specially anxious about the builder. The head of the firm is just dead, and of necessity they must arrange business matters. They have been most upright and honourable, completing their business in a most satisfactory manner. I have overdrawn my bank account, I have borrowed from friends, I have even borrowed from money which was given me to spend upon myself, and by these means I have paid £800 more than I have received. I still owe them £1200. I am preaching ten courses of sermons a week this Lent to try and raise this money.

An old Wykehamist, overcoming his shyness, penetrated into the vestry of a church where I was preaching, and asked me if he could do anything for me. He had only just left school, so he could not give me money, but he proposed that his mother should get up a drawing-room meeting. Lord Encombe kindly came and took the chair, and Mrs. Burton sent me £58, the proceeds of the meeting. I think I am proudest of all that her servants, who hear me preach in London, all contributed to that result. A kind friend has taken the Pump-room at Tunbridge Wells, to give me an opportunity of lecturing, as well as preaching at S. Barnabas there. A lady is giving me her drawing-room in Chester Street early in May. I cannot take the holiday which I need so much, far less think of undertaking any new work, even if anybody would offer it me, until I have collected this £3000. And I am afraid that it will be very hard for me to get this money. The action of the Bishops of Durham and Worcester, and of the Rector of Croydon, not only prevent me getting money in these actual places (though I have just heard from the Vicar of Evesham, where the Bishop inhibited me, that the good people there, whom I have never seen, are going to send me their Lent savings), but have a tendency to prejudice me in the minds of other people. But I am sure if anybody would go down to see S. Agatha’s, walk round the parish, examine our buildings, etc., they would discover that there has been no waste in our expenditure, and that we have taught our people not only to give, for they subscribe to all our funds, but, however mistaken I may be myself in my own opinions, to be loyal and dutiful members of the Church of England. Of course, if I had left after another two years there would have been no difficulty about the money; indeed, I do not think that, even if I had left at Easter, there would have been much. At any rate, everything that is there now belongs to the Church of England. The Bishop has approved of the priest-in-charge. If I wished it, I could not interfere in one single ceremony, or give one single instruction, and so I do think that, if there is anyone who admires our work, or thinks it has been useful and done good, now is the time that they should prove it by helping me to pay these debts. A meeting was once held to sympathise with a poor woman, who had lost her husband. Two gentlemen delivered very eloquent speeches, which drew tears from the eyes of those who heard them. The third speaker said, “I have no eloquence, but I sympathise £10,” which he put down upon the table. The kindest things imaginable have been said about me by all sorts of people, and written in all sorts of papers. I am extremely grateful and gratified, but I think I should now appreciate a little of the other kind of speaking.

BALANCE SHEET.

RECEIPTS. £ _s._ _d._
Central Wykehamist Committee 11,292 3 0
Church Societies 1,074 7 1
Diocesan Societies 759 12 6
Special Funds 899 12 4
S. Agatha’s Offertories 3,032 13 11
Sales and Collections in Parish 1,786 1 11
Profit of Shop 646 1 0
Rents and Club Dues 499 4 11
Debts Repaid and sums under £1 471 16 1
Winchester Houses 121 17 11
R. R. D. 313 7 0
Offertories, Meetings, Concerts, etc. 3,137 0 8
Anonymous Donations 6,428 1 9
Subscribers 17,352 14 8
Debt (for which Rev. R. R. Dolling is
responsible) 3,090 0 0
----------------------
£50,904 14 9
======================

EXPENDITURE. £ _s._ _d._
Travelling 446 6 5
Postage, Stationery, Bank Charges 863 16 7
Clubs 984 3 7
Mission 5,530 18 0
Charity 3,258 13 8
Salaries 5,591 17 9
Chapel Expenses 1,317 10 7
Buildings Bought 5,325 14 1
Special Offertories 1,226 13 7
Penitentiary 1,360 9 0
Emigration 1,115 5 1
Building Schools 3,384 11 10
Sunday Schools 397 1 10
Special Funds 662 11 4
Building Parsonage 1,381 17 1
S. Agatha’s Orphanage 4,500 0 0
New Church 11,308 11 4
Endowment 1,300 0 0
Remitted to J. G. Talbot, Esq., _re_
New Church 948 13 0
----------------------
£50,904 14 9
======================

XIII.

=Winchester.=

In this book, which tries to tell of the Winchester College Mission, you will perhaps be disappointed that so little is said actually about Winchester; but that was the most distinctive part of their method; from first to last they never wanted to intrude. They put me in charge of the Mission, they paid me my salary, they entrusted me, as you will have seen, with large sums of money; but they never from first to last desired to dictate methods, or to hinder even when my methods were not quite at one with their own. It was an extraordinary generosity, and I am afraid that I have oftentimes put it to the test.

Placing the Mission at Landport was a stroke of genius on the part of the late Headmaster, Dr. Ridding. It enabled the men to become quite familiar with the work which was being carried on in their name. Prefects could come down from Saturday to Sunday night, and on leave-out days any man in the school could come down. Recently some change as to leave-out days has made this more difficult, but it is a matter of great congratulation to me that most of the elder men, both present and past, do not know the Mission merely by hearsay. Bedrooms were always kept ready for them, and I think, as a rule, they enjoyed themselves when they stayed with us, or, at least, they had the grace to appear to do so. When I speak of this, people always say, “What did they do?” I am afraid I have to answer, they did not do anything. Someone used to take them round the parish on Saturday night, and show them the different clubs, or they stayed in the gymnasium, or they came up to my own room and talked. Sometimes, if there was a great stress of work, they would help us in directing envelopes, or copying circulars. On Sunday they went to church, and took their meals with us--a plain breakfast of bread and butter, which we have to have on Sundays because so many breakfast with us, was never objected to by them; and the Sunday dinner was shared with thirty or forty other people, mostly of a different rank of life to which they were accustomed. Writing it down now in cold blood it does not seem anything, but I am sure it was everything--a liberal education, a discovery that all men are pretty much the same, that even the grossest sin, the direst poverty, has not the power of annihilating true manhood--above all the lesson that true worth consists not in what a man has, but what a man is; and perhaps they just guessed at the higher lesson that union with God is not only the power of a perfect cleansing, but the power of a renewed life, which renders him who possesses it true and beautiful. Of course, some men grasped all this easily, others saw things only as they were; but I do not believe that any man ever stayed with us who did not go away better for the visit.

I have been astonished oftentimes, when men came back long after they left school to stay with us how much more deeply such thoughts had penetrated their souls than I at the moment had believed. It seemed to them very difficult to realise that almost all our inmates were of what are called the lower, oftentimes of the degraded, classes; but men are strangely imitative, and our inmates naturally adopted the customs of those amongst whom they lived. The boy, too, of the lower class is generally wanting in self-consciousness. He talks freely and easily. The things he talks about are generally matters of experience to him. He seldom theorises. He is desirous of making those in his company feel at ease. I have seen Winchester men coming to us very anxious to condescend, to be polite, and I have seen them utterly nonplussed at the extraordinary good manners, simplicity, and powers of conversation of the fellows sitting round our table. Practically they came to teach, they remained to learn. I do not suppose that they were conscious of their intention, or of the result of their visit.

Then, too, their coming down gave me an opportunity of speaking plainer and straighter than I well could at Winchester. It was a great gain, having this opportunity with the leading men and heads of houses. It is very wonderful that they never seemed to resent this at all; sometimes I even flatter myself they liked it. They saw, too, the awful havoc which sin makes in character. Their lives at Winchester are so happy and so employed that they have little time or, perhaps inclination, to imagine the lives of those who are the very opposite of themselves, and, I think, seeing these lives did impress them very much. I judge this not only from what they said, but from the fact that several, I might say many, of them have privately helped me not only with money, but by taking pains in getting lads situations. And this interest has not been merely for a moment, just quickened by the sight of the poverty or distress, but has lasted after they left Winchester. Men did me even the honour of making me their confidant about themselves, or about some other man in the school for whom they were anxious. I grieve to-day, now that the chance has gone from me, over many opportunities wasted, sloth and pride so often preventing one, and one’s own selfish nature continually supplying the excuse, “This is not the proper moment to speak,” or, “You might lose your influence by speaking.”

These days spent with me gave me the right to ask for hospitality in return. At first I only went to College, Joseph, my first Prefect of Hall, making this a very easy matter for me; and where Mrs. Richardson, the second master’s wife, is, there can never be embarrassment. And so under her hospitable roof I began my venture of spending one day a week in Winchester. Then Harold Bilbrough, head of Mr. Kensington’s house, asked me to go there. And soon the kind hospitality of the House Dons enabled me to visit every House in the school. I arrived in time to dine with the men in their hall. Then in the afternoon we watched cricket or football, or whatever was going on; in the winter the House Prefects giving me tea up at the House, in the summer ices, or an equivalent, at Louisa’s. Alas! Louisa’s is now no more; there is a school shop instead. The House Don usually asked four or five men in to dinner in the evening; sometimes I was asked to say a few words at “_Preces_”; then the head of the House would take me into each gallery, and I saw all the fellows in bed, got to know, if possible, the younger ones, saw if there were any clothes I could take down to my people at home; a chance often arose of saying in jest a word that went deeper, or sometimes a word of comfort, but at any rate it broke down all shyness. I cannot for one single moment flatter myself that I exercised much influence, certainly not a religious influence strictly so-called. That was not my business. My religious mission was to Landport, not to Winchester, and I should have been utterly disloyal to the Winchester authorities and the parents of the boys if I had even tried to exercise such influence. On the other hand, I do believe that I was able to help many a man in the crisis of his school life, and to say many a word which would last after he left Winchester, and I judge from many letters received long after men have left the school, and from kind words which Dr. Fearon and the masters have said to me, that they thought the influence which I had at Winchester was really helpful to the school life.

Though it is difficult for me to speak of this, it is very easy for me to speak of the extraordinary help Winchester has been, personally, to me. The days spent there were days of perfect relaxation. In the summer watching cricket in Meads was a pure joy, one after another, men and Dons coming up to tell of all the news, and to discuss what was going on. There is, perhaps, no playing-field as beautiful in the whole of England; in front of you S. Catherine’s Hill with its crown of trees, on one side the College Chapel, on the other S. Cross; everywhere gleams of beauty, and even on the sultriest day a delightful breeze. Then the most restful of all surroundings, a perfectly smooth green sward, and to give life the extraordinary excitement of the game, when the one thing that one desired most was that a man’s batting or bowling in a foreign match should entitle him to get into Lord’s; on the less sacred sward games innumerable, the anxiety of House captains about the younger men coming on, and dear Fort coaching and encouraging everybody. Beautiful as it all was, I am not sure that the intense excitement of Sixes or Fifteens, our Winchester football, was not even greater; the endeavour to fathom the mystery why commoners have a special go and _verve_ of their own, the discussing it over and over again with House men and College men and with Dons. Sometimes people talk as if too much is made of games, that they are altogether Philistine, destroying refinement. At any rate, at Winchester this was never the case. From an experience of ten years, I would say that the vast majority of men in the Eleven and the Football teams were the nicest men in the school, and I have grown to know most of these men extremely well. My first year I did not; men were shy of me. Perhaps they thought that, because I was a parson, I was likely to be a “smug.” But I remember well my second year, when the Captain of Lord’s, I think it was Thesiger, walked arm in arm with me across Meads, I felt I had won a final victory. And the real beauty of the whole thing was, these men never guessed what they were doing for me. Their pure kindness was so modest, so unassuming, it was like eating and drinking new life. Age has nothing to do with years, the Winchester Missioner never can become an old man. Living amongst my own boys at home one did not gain this, there is so much of tears and sorrow, so much that is sordid mixed up in their lives, they are often so very old themselves. But to see these, one succeeding to another, ever young, ever enthusiastic, with literally no cares, and just as much work as was good for them, and to be allowed to enter into their life, to become part of the school, this rendered possible by their wonderful generosity, was to realise all the liberality of their environment and the beauty of their homes. I have come to Winchester oftentimes with a heart almost broken with sorrow; that heart-break has never lasted out one hour. Of course there is another side. We English deem that because a system suits eighty out of every hundred boys, it must suit the other twenty, and so the other twenty have to come to school. It is an atmosphere where they do not develop, where what is best and truest in them seems to be for ever driven back into their own hearts, until the best ceases to be good and sometimes becomes the worst--boys timid in will, weak in body, real cowards in spirit, they cannot help it. If parents, discovering such a one in their family, would devise some other method of education for them, it would be better for them and better for schools, for it is these boys who bring out in others whatever is vulgar and cruel, and there is latent vulgarity and cruelty in most boys from fourteen to sixteen. The best set of Prefect’s eyes cannot be everywhere, and consequently little eyes are sometimes dimmed with tears, and little hearts are broken. And then there are bad boys. Take any four hundred men, women, or girls, and you will find bad ones amongst them. And badness has a strange way of impressing itself on others. Thank God, at that age it does not sink very deep, the bad is very superficial, and leaves little or no mark behind it. Oh, the blessed power of recovery in the young!