Life of Bishop John Wordsworth

LIFE QF BISHOPi
JOHN WORDSWORTH

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LIFE OF
BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

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BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH
(1905)-

LIFE OF BISHOP
JOHN WORDSWORTH

E. W. WATSON, D.D.

CANON OP CHRIST CHURCH, REGIUS PROFESSOR OF F.CCLESIASTICAL
HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

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PREFACE

This book could not have been written without the
unstinted help and generous confidence of Bishop Words-
worth's family, among whom I must especially name
Mrs. Wordsworth and Subdean Wordsworth. Those who
have supplied material are so numerous, and their assistance
has been so valuable, that it would be cumbrous to specify
all and invidious to name some. They are duly named at
the points where their contributions find place, and grate-
fully recorded in the index.

Bishop John Wordsworth was so copious in authorship
that the bibliography appended to the volume, though I
hope that it contains all his writings that are landmarks in
his life, that deal with topics on which he spoke with
special knowledge, or that are of permanent importance,
is but a small selection from the mass, A full catalogue
would have filled a volume in itself. There has been no
thought of criticism ; certainly no serious student will
dispense himself from the task of seeking in the Salisbury
Diocesan Gazette for a full and wise comment upon events
and thoughts in the English Church during Bishop
Wordsworth's Episcopate. But it would be an unprofitable
task to make a calendar of his contributions to that
Gazette ; and his sermons, dozens of which he printed
separately in small numbers and with no view to their
general circulation, are quite inaccessible and therefore,
with many pamphlets of temporary interest, have been
omitted. The task of selection, if necessary, has been
ungrateful.

vi PREFACE

Though I have been entrusted with the duty of writing
a life, yet as it is that of a man who had a share in
important events, I have tried to make it contribute in
some measure to the history both of the University of
Oxford and of the Church of England ; and if there are
pages with which dwellers in this country might dispense,
I may plead that I have been counselled to write also for
English-speaking readers beyond the seas.

It must be recorded here that Bishop Wordsworth's
papers on some important subjects, such as his notes during
the Bishop of Lincoln's trial and his collections for the
history of the Swedish Church, have been placed at Mrs.
Wordsworth's desire in the Archbishop's Library at
Lambeth. For obvious reasons they are on the reserved
list, and will not be accessible in this generation to the
public.

This book was finished before the outbreak of war, by
which its publication has been delayed. Certain sentiments
and some modes of expression which it contains have been
antiquated by the course of events, though they represent
the mind of thoughtful men at a very recent date.
Assuredly no one would have been more outspoken on
behalf of patriotism and public righteousness, had he been
living to-day, than Bishop John Wordsworth.

E. W. W.

October^ 191 5-

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Early Life i

II. New College, Harrow, and Wellington 20

III. Brasenose College — Latin Scholarship 39

IV. Brasenose College — Marriage — Theological Work —

Personal Influence 64

V. Brasenose College — The Latin Vulgate — Bampton

Lectures — Oxford Controversies 108

VI. Oriel College and Rochester Cathedral — Election

TO Salisbury 128

VII. The Vulgate New Testament [by Dr. H. J, White] . 140
VIII. First Days at Salisbury — The Idea of the Episcopal

Office 157

IX. Salisbury, 1885-1894 173

X. New Zealand and Jerusalem 208

XI. Legal and Constitutional Questions 231

XII. Pastoral and Liturgical Counsels . 269

XIII. Relations with other Churches 315

XIV. Sweden and America — Last Months 349

Bibliography 397

INDEX 403

ILLUSTRATIONS

TO FACE PAGE

Bishop John Wordsworth (1905) Frontispiece

Great Guns at Oxford (John Wordsworth as Proctor, 1874) 80
Portrait as Oriel Professor 128

From a photograph by J. J. Eastinead

Mrs. Wordsworth {1885) 160

From a photograph by Elliott £r= Fry

Tomb at Salisbury by Sir George Frampton 396

From a photograph by G. Sands

CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE

Bishop John Wordsworth was born at Harrow-on-the-
Hill on St. Matthew's Day, 21st September, 1843, his
father being then head master of Harrow School. He
was the third child in the family of seven of Dr. Christopher
Wordsworth, and the elder of his two sons. The history
and characteristics of the Wordsworth family have been
studied in every aspect,^ and it must suffice to say that
the youngest brother of William Wordsworth, the poet,
was Christopher Wordsworth (1774-1846), who was
successively Dean of Bocking, Rector of Lambeth, and
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, an ofhce which he
resigned in 1841. He married in 1804 Priscilla, daughter
of Charles Lloyd, banker, of Birmingham, and sister of
Charles Lloyd, the poet and friend of Charles Lamb.
The lady had been bred a Quakeress, and was baptised
just before her wedding. To his Lloyd ancestry John
Wordsworth attached considerable importance. In some
notes of his early life, written for his children, he says : —

" The Lloyds were a sensitive, eager, and affectionate
family, with a good deal of business shrewdness and capacity,

1 E.g. in Christopher Wordsworth's Life of William Wordsworth,
his uncle (1851), and Professor Knight's Life of the same (1889). Sir
Leslie Stephen appends a good bibliography to his article upon the
poet in the Dictionary of National Biography. Bishop Charles Words-
worth wrote two volumes of Annals of his life (1891 and 1893), and his
Episcopate was narrated by his nephew, Bishop John Wordsworth.
Miss Elizabeth Wordsworth (his daughter) and Canon Overton have
written the life of Bishop Christopher Wordsworth. Glimpses of the
Past, by Miss E. Wordsworth, 1912, should be read.

B

2 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

tempered by a taste for poetry and a strong sense of reKgion.
... I suspect that what facihty for verse-writing your aunt/
and (in a far less degree) I, have comes far more from the
Lloyds than the Wordsworths ; and I might add that my
father probably owed to his mother a good part of the power
of hymn-writing which he showed in his Holy Year. There
is a certain amount of metrical prose in that book, but there
are also hymns which are likely to last as long as hymns are
sung in the Church of England, and touches of poetry even
in the less poetical ones which ought to keep the book alive
as a book."

The gift for verse, of which he speaks so modestly,
was employed throughout John Wordsworth's life,
though naturally its chief exercise was in his earlier days.
Well-wrought sonnets, thoughtful and devout musings
in the manner of Cowper, dashing descriptions of scenery
and travel in the metre of the Lady of the Lake, poems
evidently inspired by A. H. Clough, might be printed
without inflicting, to say the least, discredit upon their
author ; but since he chose that they should remain
unpublished, it is best that they should only be used
incidentally in these pages, less for their own sake than
as illustrations of the life.

The three sons of the Master of Trinity and Priscilla
Lloyd were all scholars of distinction. John, the eldest,
(1805-1839), was a Fellow of Trinity, and devoted himself,
like so many Cambridge students of his day, to the Greek
dramatists. He would undoubtedly have ranked high
among English scholars had not weak health and an
early death disappointed expectation. He died unmarried,
and his papers passed to his nephew and namesake.
Bishop John Wordsworth, who always cherished a pride
in this uncle, and had certainly been stirred to emulation
by his example. The second son was Charles (1806-1892) ,

1 Miss Elizabeth Wordsworth.

EARLY LIFE 3

brilliant in cricket and all athletic accomplishments and
equally brilliant in classics, whose elegiac epitaph on his
first wife in Winchester Cathedral is perhaps the most
admirable of its kind in modern times. He was a Student
of Christ Church, and as second master of Winchester
had begun what might have been a great career in England,
when Tractarian enthusiasm, and the influence of Mr.
Gladstone, his personal friend, carried him off to Scotland,
to be the first Warden of Glenalmond. There, and
afterwards as Bishop of St. Andrews, he lived a long life
marked by many trials and disappointments. Distance
kept him and his nephew, the Bishop of Salisbury, apart
till in the later years of the uncle they came together
through that interest in ecclesiastical reunion which was
the absorbing interest of the elder man's life and was also
a passion with the younger. In what has been the least
read of the nephew's larger books the Episcopate of
Charles Wordsworth is narrated.

The youngest son of the Master of Trinity was
Christopher (i 807-1 885), whose career at Winchester
and at Trinity was extraordinary in its scholarly and
athletic successes. With him scholarship was more than
the traditional accomplishment of English schools and
colleges. He had insight into the spirit of Greek poetry.
Many of his emendations of Theocritus and other writers
are universally accepted.^ But his chief contribution
to classical knowledge was in the field of inscriptions and
of exploration. As a young Fellow of Trinity in 1832-33
he visited Southern Italy, where he was the first to note
and to decipher the graffiti of Pompeii. In later years
Mommsen, who gave him full credit for the achievement,

1 One of the most astonishingly ingenious of emendations was made
by him in the Martyrium Poly carpi, § i6. It has been admitted into
the text by such editors as Zahn and Funk, but is rejected by the cold
common-sense of Lightfoot {Apostolic Fathers, III., p. 393). Whether
it be right or wrong, it is memorable.

4 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

requested as editor of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
the use of his notes of travel. He passed on to Greece,
just liberated, where he had his adventure with brigands,
and ascertained the site of Dodona. His Greek journeys
are described in two books, which themselves have become
classics, his Athens and Attica and Greece, Pictorial
and Descriptive. But, like his father and his brother
Charles, he soon turned away from pure scholarship.
At twenty-nine, without previous experience, he accepted
the Mastership of Harrow, where he spent eight years.
Though he left his mark upon the system and the buildings
of the school, and earned the lasting gratitude of many
pupils, some of whom became distinguished men, he had
reason to be thankful when he was promoted to a canonry
at Westminster by Sir Robert Peel. While at Harrow
he had married Susanna Hatley, daughter of George
Frere, of Lincoln's Inn and Twyford House, Herts, head
of an eminent firm of solicitors, and his three eldest
children were born at Harrow. The youngest of these
was the future Bishop of Salisbury.

The Freres were a numerous and versatile family, on
his connection with whom John Wordsworth would
dwell with pride. John Hookham Frere, the diplomatist
and friend of Canning and the translator of Aristophanes,
was his mother's uncle; Sir Bartle Frere, the Indian
and colonial statesman, her first cousin. Seven of the
family, all of whom passed some part of their life in the
nineteenth century, are commemorated in the Dictionary
of National Biography, and one or two more might justly
have been included. ^ Those nearest to the Bishop of
Salisbury hold that many of his own characteristics

1 Among living cousins, the Rev. Walter Howard Frere, historian of
the Prayer-book and Superior of the Community of the Resurrection,
must be mentioned. He gave valuable assistance to Bishop John
Wordsworth in the researches of his later life.

EARLY LIFE 5

were those of a Frere rather than of a Wordsworth, and
that the pecuHarly close sympathy and mutual under-
standing between his mother and himself was an influence
of decisive importance on his life.^ His interest in
scholarship must have been strengthened by the circum-
stance that her sister, and his godmother, was the wife
of Charles Merivale, the Dean of Ely and historian of the
Roman Empire. 2

Into such a famUy John Wordsworth was born on
the 2ist September, 1843, a precocious child who could
observe and judge before he gained the use of his tongue.
To the end of his days he remembered how he formed
the resolution, " So soon as I have learned to speak I
will tell what that naughty nursemaid was doing with
the jam in the cupboard." It is just to say that this was
not a temper that followed him through life. The removal
to the Little Cloister at Westminster took place in his
infancy, and his home for the next seven years was under
the shadow of the Abbey. Unlike the other canons.
Dr. Wordsworth held no further preferment, and it
was an innovation that he occupied his official residence,
instead of letting it and making some temporary arrange-
ment for his two months of necessary attendance at the
Abbey. His son grew up as an active and fairly healthy
child, tUl he suffered like many others from the " drain
fever " as it was then called, due to the reckless amateur
sanitation of Dean Buckland in opening the immemorial
cesspools of the Abbey precincts.^ This was in 1848.

1 Mrs. Wordsworth has been delineated by her daughter in the
Life of Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, Ch. III.

* His other sponsors were his uncle John Frere, who died as Rector
of Cottenham, Cambs., in 1851, and Francis Martin, Senior Fellow and
Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, of whom Mr. A. C. Benson
has drawn a quaint and attractive portrait in the life of his father,
the Archbishop.

^ For this calamity, which caused the temporary ruin of West-
minster School, see Thompson's Memoir of Dean Liddell, p. 117.

6 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

In 1850 followed the death of WilHam Wordsworth, and
the Canon of Westminster, his nephew, undertook the
task of writing his memoir. For this purpose he moved
with his whole family to Rydal, where many months
were spent. John Wordsworth records that it was his
" first conscious and full enjoyment of natural beauty."
A permanent home more suited for a large family of
young children was gained by Dr. Wordsworth's accept-
ance, on the presentation of the Chapter of Westminster,
of the vicarage of Stanford in the Vale with Goosey. It
was a parish large in acreage and with a scattered popula-
tion, lying not very picturesquely as to its immediate
surroundings among the meadows of the Vale of White
Horse, with Faringdon as its nearest town. The value
was not great, and as the Vicar had always the assistance
of one curate, and usually of two, the incumbency did
not increase his income. The family moved there early
in 1851. From this time the father made it his custom
to live at Westminster four months in the year, and thus,
though the annual visit to London and the opportunities
of meeting distinguished men were landmarks in the
children's life, their true home and their chief interests
were at Stanford, where they remained till Dr. Wordsworth
became, eighteen years later, the Bishop of Lincoln.
The place was —

" exceptionally well provided with field-walks, over stiles
which were rather trying to our governesses and to us children ;
and we had early to learn not to be afraid of horned cattle,
to know something of field flowers, and to acquire a taste for
jumping brooks and a modest kind of fishing."

If the interest in fishing disappeared, that in nature grew
stronger and more informed throughout Wordsworth's
life. The study of plants was encouraged at Winchester
by Moberly, and, as a Bishop, John Wordsworth promoted
the formation of wild-flower classes in the schools of

EARLY LIFE 7

his diocese, which disclosed new habitats for many
rarities and brought to hght many local names. The
columns of the Salisbury Diocesan Gazette will furnish
material when a more perfect dialect dictionary than has
yet appeared is undertaken. He also had a working
knowledge of geology, could talk of soils and of the surface
of the land, and would discourse learnedly of the product
of the quarries in his diocese, Box and Chilmark, Port-
land and Purbeck. If in passing a house he caught sight
of an unusual stone, he would return and ring the bell,
to inquire of the astonished maid whence her master
had procured his door-step, and he has been seen climbing
wistfully over a railway-truck of sarsen kerb-stones in
the hope of finding one small enough to be conveyed home
in his motor. He formed, indeed, a very complete cabinet
of specimens of such local materials. It is true that
his eye for country may have been trained by his experi-
ence as a young man in the hunting-field, and his know-
ledge of stones by his zeal as a builder in later life, but
his love of observation and power of acquiring and
retaining facts concerning all visible and tangible things
were developed from this early training. They had their
fullest scope in his travels through Australia and New
Zealand, when his notes were full of the strange flowers
and stones he was seeing for the first time.

As was to be expected in such a home, the children
received a careful religious training. The father's most
successful work, as regards influence and world-wide
circulation, was his Theophilus Anglicanus, composed
at Harrow and published in 1843, the year of John's
birth. But the parents refrained from stimulating the
feelings of their children. One of the daughters, Mrs.
Steedman, writes : —

" They were alike in being very reserved and unemo-
tional. They had a great dread of making us morbid and

8 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

introspective. They never worked on our feelings or preached
at us, and they never reproached us with want of affection and
never uttered a word of self-pity when we were naughty.
We were early taught reverence and respect for authority
in Church and State and home, and implicit and instant
obedience. It was not so much what they said to us as what
their example taught us. They were always loving and
coiurteous to each other, and we learned from our earliest
years never to interrupt or to speak when our elders were
busy. I never heard them say an unkind word, and they
always imputed the best motives and were ready to make
excuses for every one. They were both full of courage, and
if they beUeved a thing to be right they did it, however painful
it might be. ... I think on looking back that what impressed
us most was (i) their sense of duty. We felt without their
saying it that they were always sensible of God's Presence.

(2) Their absolute sincerity ; they hved their rehgion.

(3) Their tenderness and ready sympathy, which was not
shown by endearing words or much praise. I think they were
afraid of petting and spoiling, and they never repeated our
childish sayings or talked of us to others before us. Still we
felt their love, and were never afraid to tell them anything."

John Wordsworth's first lessons were naturally at
his mother's knee, and when, at ten years, the future
Bishop was sent to his first school, it was they that were
found to have had the most effect. Mrs. Wallace, of
Brighton, the mistress, " was much pleased because I
knew the connection between the rebellion of Korah
and the chapter which follows about Aaron's rod that
budded." The young divine had clearly profited by
his mother's practice of reading the lessons verse by verse
with her children after breakfast. At Brighton he began
both Latin and Greek, and the triumph of construing
his first sentence in the latter language was a landmark
in his life. But his chief cause of gratitude to Mrs.
Wallace, whom, with some of her assistants, he bore in
his memory through life, was that she implanted in him

EARLY LIFE 9

a sound knowledge of the Bible and of Church principles.
Her text-book was Bishop Gastrell's ^ Faith and Duty
of a Christian, " which I have often recommended as a
type of what we want our children to know."

In spite of the lady's corporal severity, of which he
has left a vivid description, Wordsworth's residence
at Brighton was happy as well as profitable. So much
cannot be said of his second school. In 1854 he was sent
to the Ipswich Grammar School, to be under the Rev.
S. J. Rigaud, afterwards Bishop of Antigua, whom his
father had known as second master of Westminster.
There was a feud between the boarders and the day-boys,
some of whom were of a rough class ; but since Words-
worth, like Tom Brown, was roasted before a fire, the
amenities of the inner life cannot have been great.

" The morals of the school, both inside and out, were —
when I now think over them — unwholesome. I did not get
as much harm from them as I might have done, but I got
a good deal. I was greatly protected by one or two good
friends."

But, as he acknowledges, the teaching was thorough, and
he was grateful for the Propria quae maribus and As in
praesenti. " I am convinced," he wrote in 1907, " that
both are most useful as helps to accuracy in Latin writing,
both prose and verse." 2 in the latter accomplishment
he had attained some proficiency, for he attributes his
success in entering Winchester to some " rather decent
Alcaics " that he wrote in competition for the exhibitions.
It was not intended that he should stay long at
Ipswich, though the boy was too loyal to tell his parents

^ Francis Gastrell, Bishop of Chester and in commendam Canon of
Christ Church, where he was buried in 1725.

* But he may have learned these verses at home. They are to
be found in his father's Latin Grammar, the profits of which paid for
his children's education.

10 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

the Ml facts of his situation. Dr. Wordsworth at first
thought of the foundation at Eton, but soon turned to
Winchester. He wordd not have his sons scholars on
Wykeham's foundation, for he did not regard the children
of a canon of Westminster as falling within the class of
pauperes indigentes ; but just at the right time, in 1857,
exhibitions were instituted for which the only condition
was intellectual abihty. To one of these John Words-
worth was elected, and so entered Winchester as one of
the first exhibitioners in Commoners. " I shall regret
to lose a pupil who, by God's blessing, would do us much
credit. I shall also be sorry not to have your son under
me," wrote Rigaud.

For John W^ordsworth's career at Winchester we can
quote a sketch by Mr. A. O. Prickard, his contemporary
there and at New College and his lifelong friend, ^ which
shall be supplemented from notes by the Bishop himself
and by others : —

" John Wordsworth came to Winchester in September,
1857, ^s a Commoner, i.e. an inmate of ' New Commoners,'
built by Dr. George Moberly in 1843, and, in theory, part of
his house, though structurally separate ; just as his uncle
and father, John and Christopher Wordsworth, had been
inmates of ' Old Commoners ' under Dr. Gabell and Dr.
Wniiams. He was placed at once in ' Senior Part of Fifth
Book,' the lower of the two divisions (60 or 70 boys in all),
which were the head master's personal charge. This was an
unusual place for a new-comer ; it carried immunity from
general fagging, and rather later on questions rose upon this
point, which somewhat sharply divided our small society.
No such question was raised against John Wordsworth. He
was an exceptional person, if only because of the wonderful
learning which he brought with him, coming to him partly
by inheritance and from home atmosphere, partly through

1 Contributed, with others of which we shall make use, to the
Salisbury Diocesan Gazette, 1911, p. 186.

EARLY LIFE ii

school training at Ipswich under Dr. Rigaud. Besides this,
there was so much nature, and good nature, in him, loyalty
to his fellows and absence of any sort of pretence, that he
was at once accepted, and, as he became better known, beloved
all round. He was tall for fourteen, large boned, and loose
of limb, very light in hair and complexion, with the strongly-
marked face-features of his race, more rugged and apparent
then than they were in middle and later life. As I look back
on what he was, intellectually, then and afterwards, it
seems as if there were all the while two natures, or two horses
of the soul bearing the one nature forward with unequal pace.
There was the neat, precise scholarship, corresponding to
the beautiful handwriting which never much varied at any
part of his life. Thus he came to school with a knowledge
of the finer points of the Greek Iambic Metre, which amazed
us, and was a delight to Dr. Moberly. Again, he had (hke
his uncle Charles) a charming hand in Latin Elegiacs, an
accompHshment which, perhaps, had not very free scope in
the Winchester course. This side of him admitted of steady
accumulation of knowledge and orderly advance, and he
became a ' good scholar,' such as Conington would welcome,
and indeed did welcome and value later on. On the other
side, there was the strong, wayward brain, always amassing
strange discoveries from likely and unlikely sources, brooding
over and correlating them, but also freely pouring out to
hearers, who never thought of pedantry because it was all
so natural. I dweU on this double development, because it
was, I think, the cause of comparative want of success in
examinations— comparative, I mean, in view of his acknow-
ledged powers. He carried off many prizes, and was elected
to a scholarship at New College a year before he was ready
to accept one ; but it was not till 1867, when he gained a
Craven Scholarship, that his friends felt that his gifts had
met with an adequate reward. Nor did he at once find an
Oxford Fellowship open to him, until a happy train of cir-
cumstances brought him to Brasenose in 1867. But, above
and beyond any temporary retardation of a career, it would,
perhaps, not be untrue to say that he was all his life criticising
and harmonising his vast stores of material, working out their
true bearings on the world of Nature or of men. Things were

12 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

to him what they were, not what people might think them to
be. Thus he would at times seem not to heed the limitations
of his hearers — they ought to be interested ; they will be
interested some day ; the hnks of thought will become clear,
at least to some of them. Only, perhaps, when he was deeply
moved, as he readily was, by moral, or patriotic, or civic
enthusiasm, were the mists whoUy rolled away, and he spoke,
heart to heart, with fervid simphcity. However this may be,
the effect upon schoolboys of so much learning and such
strange inconsequence was the natural one : —

' Some called it madness — so indeed it was.
If prophecy be madness.' ^

When he gave out, in all good faith, that his soul could and
did travel abroad, leaving his body at home (Hke Horace's
Democritus, but I think the source of the legend was really
a less familiar one), he easily earned the title of ' mad/
always one of honour and affection among boys. In his early
time his study, one of some twenty cells, seven feet or so by
five, opening directly upon the Court, was exposed to frequent
sieges by curious juniors. I do not think that any harm to
property or temper was done ; such fun as there was lay in
the spirited defence of his hearth by the owner. Of course,
such inroads ceased when he became a praefect ; he held this
office for three years, during the last months of which he was
' Senior Commoner Prsefect,' a responsible post in a somewhat
turbulent commonwealth. Nothing sensational marked the
period, and his rule was firm and sensible. He never seemed
to be attracted to cricket, in which his father and uncle
(Charles) had great reputations. He was short-sighted, and
opportunities, for others than those in or near ' Lords ' or
the Commoners' Eleven, were not what they are in modern
times. He was a strong and useful football player. I do
not remember exactly what position he reached ; but in
Oxford, where Winchester football had a vigorous but inter-
mittent and rather cloistered existence, presided over by two
' Deans ' elected in New College, he filled one of these offices
with great efficiency."

^ Wordsworth's Prelude, Book III.

EARLY LIFE 13

Wordsworth entered Winchester as a strongly-built
boy, healthy save for a slight rheumatism which hung
about him for life, after an attack of rheumatic fever
at Ipswich.

" I was never a great athlete at Winchester, as my father,
to some extent at least, had been.^ I was unhandy at
cricket, partly from shyness, partly from short sight. But
I played better at football and got into Twenty-two in Com-
moners, and either into ' Second Six and Six ' or into ' Dress '
for it. In our days Commoners was still rather rough. For
parts of two winters our studies were without hot -water pipes,
owing to some failure of the apparatus. Our seats in Cathedral
were without backs, and we turned our backs to Hsten, as
much as was natural to boys to do, to the sermons. I do not
remember with any distinctness or pleasure any one sermon
in the Cathedral. But we enjoyed Dr. Moberly's in the chapel,
and we loved the simplicity of Warden Barter, himself a
sort of grown-up boy. He was always most kind to me, and
I was generally at his house when not elsewhere on leave out
days."

Of the education he reports that —

" Moberly's preparation for Confirmation was very good, and
he made the Prayer-book interesting.^ I was confirmed
by Bishop Sumner, of Winchester, but do not recoUect the
occasion as particularly impressive. The teacher we boys
generally loved most was John Desborough Walford, the sole
mathematical master (at first) unless ' Peter the Whaler,'
as we called him (his name was Whale) could be so called.
J. D. W. was a master, I think, for about forty years and
latterly was Bursar. He knew exactly how to treat boys
and to get something out of even idle ones. I never could
reaUy keep trigonometry in my head, though I ploughed
through a good part of it somehow." ^

1 This is an understatement. See Sir J. E. Eardley Wilmot in the
Memoir of Christopher Wordsworth, Ch. I.

2 For an account of his method see Miss Moberly's Life of her
father, Dulce domum, p. 124.

^ Yet Miss E. Wordsworth (Salisbury Diocesan Gazette, 191 1,

14 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Among his contemporaries he names especially Herbert
Stewart, afterwards the general mortally wounded at
Abu Klea in 1885 —

" a good cricketer and a popular boy, of bright, frank, manly
character, but very idle. I remember Moberly saying to
him when we were up to books, ' You gentlemen in the Eleven
think yourselves great men,' when I suppose he made some
blunder in construing or failed to answer some easy question."

Friends outside the school were Mrs. Lyall, widow of
the Dean of Canterbury, and the Heathcotes of Hursley,
from whose house —

" once or twice we were allowed to go and see Mr. Keble,
and to have some kind of meal at his house. I carried away
an impression of him, though I could not put it into words."

Dr. Moberly himself was the dominant force at Win-
chester. He knew how to apply every stimulus to his
more promising pupils, and not least that of sarcasm —
" the terrors of his quick and unexpected wit," as Dean
Church called it — which he employed to a degree that
modern teachers might not approve. Wordsworth
remembered the special enjoyment with which he taught
Theocritus and Pindar, an enjoyment which he succeeded
in imparting to his class, though Wordsworth, who recog-
nised the charm of the lesser poet, was refractory in
the case of Pindar. " I never got over the sense of
strain and farfetchedness," he says. But one of Moberly 's
chief merits was that he encouraged his boys to read
for themselves. Their interests expanded beyond the

p. 124) tells us : " He had quite a fair amount of mathematical ability
and an excellent head for figures. Almost the last time I ever saw
him, only a few months before his death, he was trying to explain to
us some ingenious experiments in the powers of numbers with which
he had amused himself during his long motor drives." His interest
in the art of building is also proof of a mathematical bent ; and at
Winchester he actually won the Duncan prize for mathematics.

EARLY LIFE 15

traditional studies ; we hear of an ambitious boy aware
of the new realm of philology, and reading Donaldson's
New Cratylus at his meals. At Oxford Wordsworth threw
himself into the same pursuit in a more scientific way.
At Winchester his curiosity was to cost him the chief
prize of the school, the Goddard Scholarship, which he
lost, it is believed, because he was tempted to read the
Trachiniae when he should have devoted himself to
books more fruitful in marks. But he says that the
lessons which made most impression upon him and his
contemporaries were those on Scripture. Coming from
such a home, he had a predisposition for divinity ; on
the 27th November, 1858, writing to announce that he is
just confirmed, and is to receive the Holy Communion
on the approaching Advent Sunday, he tells his father —

" I have lately got a Septuagint. It is printed at Cambridge
by Field, 1665, and I believe it is a good edition. There
are a good many rather curious abbreviations in it, so I cannot
read it very well."

The bibliographical touch is thoroughly characteristic of
the future scholar. But Moberly's success in awakening
this interest was not confined to one member of his class.
When Wordsworth and his companions were gone to
the University, he would recall " my theologians," in
a reproachful comparison between them and their less
appreciative successors.

So Wordsworth grew in knowledge, and also in cha-
racter. He became Head Prsefect of Commoners, and
made vigorous use of his prerogative of " funding " for
the suppression of such mischief as had repelled him at
Ipswich. Poring over his books with his single eyeglass,
he rose in the school so rapidly that in i860, in his seven-
teenth year, he was elected to New College. His father
declined the election for him on the double ground of

i6 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

youth, to which Moberly assented, and of a preference
for Cambridge, shared by father and son, with which
Moberly had no sympathy. Next year he was again
elected, and this time, in spite of John Wordsworth's
renewed petition for Cambridge, his father decided that
he should go to Oxford. The older man was in the habit
of seeking guidance from the course of events, and it
seemed, his daughter says, a sort of flying in the face of
Providence to refuse so good a prospect a second time.
The son left Winchester in the summer of 1861, and
matriculated from New College in the October. He was
always a grateful son of his ancient school, and was
doubtless thankful that he had no small share in the
remarkable succession of academical triumphs which
illustrated 1866 and 1867, the last years of Dr. Moberly's
mastership.

This chapter must close with some words as to the
home influences to which the boy was subjected as his
talents and character developed. Undoubtedly Dr.
Wordsworth's children grew up under a strenuous rule.
He did not spare himself or his family. They learned
industry and simplicity of life ; nothing, to the end of
his days, was more repugnant to Bishop John Words-
worth than either indolence or luxury. But they were
rewarded by being taken into their father's confidence.
If he expected an answer when he inquired into their
work, he discussed with them his own, and it is remembered
as a proud, though sometimes terrifying, experience that
he would ask them, when he was at work upon his Com-
mentaries, how they would interpret some knotty passage
of Scripture. He would reward their answer, such as it
might be, by pouring out his own information and thoughts
upon the topic. This he called making them his anvils ;
and in later life the son has been known, with a change of
metaphor, to advise the clergy of his diocese to employ

EARLY LIFE 17

their wives and children as whetstones. There must
have been a powerful stimulus in this interchange of
thoughts, and in the granting of a share, however modest,
in a real work. For the boys were set definite scholarly
tasks in their holidays, in aid of their father, and the
sense that this was work done for a definite purpose,
and not a mere exercise, must have heightened its interest
and awakened an honourable ambition. Nearly at the
end of his life, in his Easter sermon in Salisbury Cathedral
in 1910, Bishop Wordsworth describes the literary side
of his early home.^

" There rises before me the vision of a small room in a
country vicarage — a room of rather irregular shape, with a
large bay window on its southern side. Its waUs are covered
by books and bookshelves, and in the centre is a table loaded
with open books, while books in all positions cover the floor
and furniture. At the table is a black-haired, spare-framed,
bending figure, writing rapidly, with eager quick- moving
eyes, sometimes raised to look at the text which is inscribed
in large letters all around above the bookcases. The words
are the Greek original of this verse of St. Paul's ; 2 the writer
is engaged upon a Bible Commentary, which is filled from end
to end with the thought that the Old Testament is trans-
formed and transfigured in the New. He sees aU things in
Christ. This verse is the motto of his Commentary, and he,
in his own person and character, is a Hving example of the
penetrative power of the life of his Saviour — a fife which has
so caught hold of him that he lives in the world as not of the
world."

The books, which doubtless overflowed into every
room of Stanford Vicarage as they afterwards did into
the corridors of the Salisbury Palace, played no small part
in the education of John Wordsworth. Access to what
was already one of the noblest of working libraries of

^ Diocesan Gazette, 1910, p. 135.

^ 2 Cor. V. 17, the text of the sermon.

i8 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

classics, history, and theology was an inestimate privilege.
Originally formed by the Master of Trinity and augmented
by the elder John Wordsworth, in the hands of the Bishop
of Lincoln, it must have contained some 15,000 volumes ;
and though it was diminished by sale and division at
his death to the extent of at least 5000, it had exceeded
its former dimensions when the Bishop of Salisbury died.
All that was essential has been retained for the service
of a fourth generation of Wor ds worths. ^

But the hfe at Stanford was not that of a family of
book-worms. There were the inevitable experiments
that schoolboys will practise in the stable with chemicals
and test-tubes. The sons were allowed to entertain the
parish with home-made squibs and crackers and Roman
candles, and the times were so primitive that when they
played football with the village boys it was with a
bladder procured from the local butcher and covered by
the cobbler. There was also a training, which left perma-
nent marks, at forge and lathe. Of the carpenter's art,
especially, John Wordsworth had considerable knowledge.
When, in 1898, he paid a flying visit of two days to Cairo
on his way to Palestine, the carpentry of ancient Egypt
was the one subject to which he paid a detailed attention.
In his diary he described, with working drawings and
in technical terms, the joints employed in making the
mummy-case for a Pharaoh. One further art he learned
at Winchester and practised usefully, if roughly, to the
end of his days, that of the bookbinder. 2 But the life
at Stanford was not lived unduly indoors. There were

1 Perhaps the proof-sheets of William Wordsworth's Lyrical
Ballads are the most valuable element.

2 His sister Mary (Mrs. Trebeck), who was his special ally, enume-
rates among the objects of his knowledge, " locks, springs, compasses,
gardening, the habits of animals, engravings, etchings, genealogies,
derivations, even needlework in all its branches." He taught her " the
names of ferns and flowers, map-drawing, perspective, and carpentering."

EARLY LIFE 19

always horses or ponies, and the sons learned to ride and
drive ; and though the steeds were perhaps as sedate as
those of most parsonages — one of them was named
Denis after the patron Saint of the parish, because he
was as steady as a church — they also came to hunt, a
practice continued by John Wordsworth till his ordina-
tion. He took his exercise on horseback for some years
after his consecration.

One final and powerful influence of the home must be
mentioned. The family was united in affection and also
in a sense of mutual responsibility, not only for each other's
welfare but for the maintenance of an honourable tradition.
It is clear that this feeling, never allowed to degenerate
into vanity, was a source of strength to the household
which cherished it ; a household in which the birthdays
were never forgotten.

CHAPTER II

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON

John Wordsworth matriculated from New College in
October, 1861, being just eighteen years of age. In some
notes of his earlier life, written in 1891, he says : —

" New College was, when I first went up, probably the
smallest College in the University, having less than thirty
undergraduates ; just as Commoners at Winchester was at
its lowest ebb when I entered, having less than the number of
scholars (70). When I left Oxford in 1885 New College had
risen to be one of the largest Colleges, and in some points
the most respected in Oxford. There was always a certain
coldness of tone about the reUgion of the College, which
was a disadvantage to it. Dr. SeweU ^ was not an enthusiast
Hke his brother WiUiam, though he possessed quahties which
the latter lacked ; and I cannot remember any pronounced
Churchman of any party ever being on the tutorial staff.
In my days this coldness was the more depressing as we were
a small body for our buddings, and there were elements of
old-fashioned roughness and coarseness both amongst under-
graduates and junior Fellows, which made it not altogether
a wholesome society. I have always thanked God that
my experience at Oxford was not limited to one College, and
that rather a pecuUar one, in which undergraduate FeUows
still existed when I went up, and which had only recently
rehnquished its right of granting graces for degrees without
submitting its students to University examinations. My
tutor was Edward Fox.2 Faber and Austin (afterwards

1 James E. SeweU, Warden 1860-1903. His brother William
was Fellow of Exeter and Founder of Radley Colleges.

2 Rector of Heyford Warren, Oxon., 1878-1888.

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON 21

Austin Gourlay) were also tutors. The most active tutor
was E. C. Wickham,^ who was one of the first, I suppose,
in Oxford to do a really large amount of private work with
undergraduates. Through his advice I, with others, went to
Professor Jowett with essays and compositions. His criticism
was severe, and I do not think he encouraged us much, perhaps
not enough, but no doubt he was familiar with generations
of clever undergraduates and with the conceit habitual to
the species. He seemed always anxious to poke the fire
when you read any particularly interesting or rhetorical
passage. Certainly we learnt from him something of the
spirit of the old motto, m^e koI /Ae/Avao-' dTrto-Tetv, " Keep your
head clear and be sceptical," at any rate as regards rash
assumptions and second-hand evidence. I do not remember
anything directly tending to religious doubt, though one was
naturally conscious of being in the company of one who was
then considered an heresiarch, and who certainly seemed to
me to have done injury to the faith of many men who had
passed under his influence. I am inclined to think that his
chief faults were coldness of temperament and a desire to
have things his own way. But he certainly set a much
needed example of professorial activity and of readiness to
help young men. It was not creditable to the other studies,
especially Theology, that the two Professors who saw most
of younger students were those of Greek (Jowett) and Latin
(Conington). All this changed afterwards when Bright,
Liddon, King, and, in his own way, Mozley, became Professors.
Pusey had always influence as a preacher and as a teacher
over the few who really studied with him, of whom I regret
to say that I was not one."

John Wordsworth lived a strenuous life at New College,
and a full one. He breakfasted before chapel, at which
his attendance was regular. As we have seen, he played
football, and he served in the University Volunteers.

1 See his Memoir, by Lonsdale Ragg, p. 55, for Wordsworth's
estimate of the future Dean of Lincoln. He was " a trifle severe and
slow to praise or encourage. I remember with gratitude a neat pencil
remark on one of my compositions, ' O si sic omnia.' "

22 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

But above all things he was a student. His lifelong friend.
Chancellor Bernard/ writes : —

" My first recollection of Bishop Wordsworth is a character-
istic one and still a clear picture in my mind. I was in a
room in New College ; I think it was that of another scholar,
Edgar Jacob, now Bishop of St. Albans. Wordsworth came
in and without a word or look to the company went straight
to the bookshelves and peered into them, taking out first
one volume and then another."

Yet he was no recluse. His taste in friends, we are told,^
though not indiscriminate, was catholic. He belonged
to the " Dressing Gown and Slipper Club," which met
on Saturday evenings for whist at sixpenny points and
had rules composed in the mock medievalism that was
then in fashion. He was one of the founders, and since
he carried off and retained its minute book, the club seems
not to have survived more than one undergraduate
generation. His chief friends and rivals from Winchester
were J. T. Bramston, W. Moore, and A. O. Prickard.^

" In New College," says the last, "there were the present
Warden and W. J. Courthope, C.B., author of the Paradise of
Birds and also of the History of English Poetry, the first volume
of which bears the Bishop's name in its dedication, and every
volume of which in succession was an interest and a pleasure
to him. Of outside friends I wiU only name (by their then
familiar names, if I may) E. R. Bernard, Edward Talbot,^
J. L. Strachan-Davidson, and C. T. D. Acland."

His heartiness was indicated by what a friend called
the "bone-cracking grip" of his hand, and he was

1 E. R. Bernard, of Exeter College, afterwards Fellow of Magdalen,
Canon'^and Chancellor of Sarum.

2 By Mr. A. O. Prickard, Salisbury Diocesan Gazette, igii, p. 187.

* Mr. Bramston is now retired, after many years of mastership
at Winchester. Mr. Moore, sometime Fellow of Magdalen, has recently
died as Rector of Appleton, Berks. Mr. Prickard, Fellow of New
College, has resigned his tutorship in the College.

* Bishop of Winchester.

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON 23

fortunate in the nearness of his home in the Vale of
White Horse, at which his Oxford friends were welcome
guests. There also he enjoyed an active life. In one
Christmas vacation from New College eight dances and
several good runs are noted in his diary, and he also
practised singing. On one occasion he sang "The people
that walked," from the Messiah, before an audience of
two hundred at a Stanford concert.

" I did not sing it well, but do not despair of improving
— of learning music and drawing, German, Hebrew. Perhaps
the desire for self-culture is selfish. The answer is of course
just, that though God has no need of human knowledge he
has no need of human ignorance, and perhaps too the use of
the intellectual faculties to their fullest extent, not merely
m the daily work of life, may be a duty."

Another of his recreations gives Wordsworth a modest
place in the history of lighter verse. Towards the end
of his days at New College, but while he was still in
statu pupillari, he was visited by his brother from Cam-
bridge. They went to play pool at a billiard-room in
Holywell, and one of the company, missing a stroke,
used an expletive for which John Wordsworth suggested,
" What the digamma," as an alternative. The fame
of this reproof spread abroad ; it had reached Wellington
before Wordsworth arrived there, and gave him a reputa-
tion for readiness of wit which perhaps was not quite
sustained. Mr. J. D. Lester, ^ a Wellington Master with

^ Joseph Dunn Lester, of Jesus College, Oxford, B.A. 1865, became
master at Wellington in 1867, and wrote verses on Herodotus and other
classic authors in the same spirit as those on Homer. He died at
Wellington in December, 1875. Mr. A. D. Godley handed on the torch
from Lester in 1891 (see More Echoes from the Oxford Magazine) ; it
is remembered that Mr. C. L. Dodgson was so shocked that he pro-
posed that the Christ Church Common Room should no longer subscribe
to the peccant magazine. There are several variae lectiones, though none
in the sixth line, and the author burdened his poem with two further
lines, which do not appear in Mr. Godley's edition, which is used here.

24 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

some of Calverley's gifts, borrowed the phrase for one
of his jeux d' esprit on the classical authors : —

" Poluphloisboisterous Homer of old
Threw all his augments into the sea,
Although he had often been courteously told

That perfect imperfects begin with an e ;
But the poet repUed with a dignified air
' What the Digamma does any one care ? ' "

It is needless to say that Wordsworth was a diligent
student, and that he was interested in the classics to
be read for Moderations. The minute and accurate
scholarship of Wickham, with his interest in grammar
and philology, then popular through the writings of
Max Miiller, had a lasting influence on Wordsworth's
mind.i He competed without success for the Universit}'
scholarships in classics, but was placed in the first class
in Moderations. By this time he had become one of the
" Coningtonians," as he calls them. Professor Conington
took pleasure in the friendship of the abler undergraduates,
taking them on reading parties and writing them long
letters, in which it must be said that he put himself on
their level, his topics being their comparative merits in
composition and their prospects of success in Hertford
or Ireland or Fellowship examinations. Wordsworth
joined his reading party at Ilkley in the Long Vacation of
1863. " I think I am learning a good deal from Coning-
ton," he writes to a friend. " He works very hard with
us and has plenty of information of various kinds, besides

1 Chancellor Bernard records an unusual attempt at classical
proficiency — " A Latin dinner party, at which Latin only was to be
spoken, which Wordsworth and I gave in our joint lodgings in New
College Lane on ist December, 1865. The idea, I think, was his, but
the invitations, of course in Latin, were from us both. The only
survivor of the company is Mr. R. W. Raper, of Trinity. I do not
remember the conversation, but I think we got on pretty well, after
a first blank and hopeless endeavour to greet one another as the guests
arrived."

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON 25

actual scholarship." They read the Agamemnon, which
he hopes will be of use for the Ireland scholarship, though
he confesses that it wiU not help him for Literae
Humaniores. After the party had broken up, Conington
writes (9th September, 1863) : —

" I hope you are in good heart about your work. I shall
be surprised if it does not produce something in the way of
prizes or scholarships before your Oxford time is over, and
I am quite sure that if you eventually fix on scholarship as
your metier, you may do something really effective."

Of him Bishop Wordsworth wrote in 1891 : —

" At Oxford my kindest friend was John Conington, to
whom with his large circle of undergraduate and younger
graduate friends I owed a great deal. He was a man of
wonderful memory for all sorts of things, something like
Albert Watson,^ but surpassing him in verbal memory.
He was perfectly simple and unpretending, religious yet full
of common sense and criticism, most stimulating as a talker
without being unsettling. Originally, I think, like the rest
of his family, he was strongly evangelical, then liberal and
somewhat sceptical, then converted again (I believe by fear
of death and eternal punishment) and living with a sort of
cloud upon him which perhaps was premonitory of his early
and somewhat strange and sudden death. He was not exactly
a poet. There was something heavy and ungainly about his
verses, naturally I mean, that there was about his own person
and manner. But he had such a command of language,
through his wonderful memory and constant habit of versifying,
and put such strength of will into all his work, that he forced
all that he did to be good up to a certain point. His trans-
lation of Horace shows this power. He was naturally fondest
of Greek, especially of Aeschylus, which he ought to have
edited rather than Virgil. Friendship with him brought
me the friendship of W. J. Courthope, of P. F. Willert, J. L.
Strachan-Davidson, of Raper ; of Alfred Robinson and T. H.

1 Fellow of B.N.C. 1852-1886; Principal, 1886-1889. Fellow from
1 890 till his death in 1 904 . Editor of the well-known Select Letters of Cicero .

26 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Green among graduates, and of others, including to some
extent older men like Goldwin Smith and Henry Smith the
mathematician, who was also an excellent scholar. L. G.
Mylne (Bishop of Bombay) was also a great friend of his as
an undergraduate."

Conington's influence led to an active exercise of
classical versification on the part of his young admirers,
and Wordsworth has preserved many specimens in many
metres. His pen was also busy with English verse during
his undergraduate years. An Oxford influence was that
of A. H. Clough, to whom some friends saw a resemblance
in Wordsworth. Certainly for a time Clough tinged his
imagination. More significant for the future was a
long poem after the fashion of Cowper on the service
for the Visitation of the Sick, composed in 1862. Words-
worth's first appearance in print was poetical. In 1864
the National Society published a little anonymous volume
of Ballads from English History, with a preface by
Dr. Christopher Wordsworth. The Ballads have been
communicated to him in manuscript, and he commends
them to the public as " presenting to the minds of young
persons some interesting events of English history in a
manner which appears to be well adapted to promote
their growth in sound principles of religion, loyalty, and
patriotism, as well as to supply an agreeable exercise
to their memory and imagination." The authors were
John Wordsworth, his eldest sister, and an aunt. Miss
Frere, and it may be said that the order of seniority is
also the order of merit. The youngest poet wrote on
St. Alban and St. Gregory and the Angles. It may suffice
to quote one stanza from the former ballad : —

" Then, like Cornelius, Alban lived
A Roman soldier true ;
But heathen still, for nothing he
Of Christian teaching knew,

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON 27

Till to his door, one night in fear

A Christian priest did come,
And prayed for shelter from his foes.

And for that night a home."

Before and after this time he wrote many better verses
than these. But it is strange that there is no evidence
that he ever composed a hymn.

Browning was the dominant poetical influence of the
day, and the interpretation of poetry as serious a business
as the composition. The abler undergraduates gravely
analysed such poems as James Lee's Wife and others
of the Dramatis Personae, and interchanged their views
by correspondence or at essay clubs. Ruskin also was
influential. We find Wordsworth working carefully at
an essay for the " Old Mortality " club on the grotesque
in art, in which he argued that the highest art must have
an element of the grotesque ; and he studied architecture
and sketched prettily after the custom of the day. But
if he followed Browning and Ruskin (though there is no
trace of his being drawn towards the social programmes of
the latter), he paid no heed whatever to Carlyle, the third
oracle of the time. Nor does he avowedly submit to William
Wordsworth, or quote his poems, at this stage of his life.
Yet there is found a Words worthian sympathy with nature,
and occasionally an experience that suggests certain pas-
sages in the Prelude. On the i8th August, 1865, he records
that he has slept at an hotel high up on the Wengern Alp.

" It was a beautiful evening, and I enjoyed one of those
quarters of an hour which one values for their rarity, such as
once I had in Buckland Cover and once riding home from
hunting ; times when you do not feel so much to belong to
yourself as to the things about you."

In regard to this, Professor J. A. Stewart writes : —

" John Wordsworth's experience is, indeed, Words-
worthian. It is an experience which, so far as I can gather.

38 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

is more common in youth than later ; and youth is the time
when a poet must begin his career if he is to begin it at all. I
think that J. Wordsworth probably had both the poetic and
the prosaic sides of the family inheritance, but, of course,
all would depend on the way in which the two sides helped
and hindered each other. In his great uncle the prosaic
side actually helped the poetic sometimes. In J. Wordsworth
it seems to have at last suppressed it." ^

He had, in fact, the making of a moralist, but not of
a philosopher in the Oxford sense. It may have been
misgiving about metaphysics that had excited his desire
for Cambridge. Though he read diligently, philosophy
was a toil, and throughout his life he doubted the value
of such reasoning. I remember his criticism, not of the
substance but of the method, of the present Bishop
of Oxford's book on the Eucharist. ^ Metaphysical con-
siderations, or what Wordsworth regarded as such, were
introduced in the theological discussion. This was
unwise. It would alienate " sensible " people, the very
class most worth conciliating. Sensible people instinc-
tively suspect a case so presented. They feel that this
is a last resource ; the reasoner, by adducing such argu-
ments, confesses his lack of solid grounds. And when
Wordsworth himself had to lecture on the doctrine of
grace, he lamented the uninteresting character of the
subject and the difficulty of finding enough to say. After
a few obvious remarks, he says, he could think of nothing
more that was worth utterance. The subtlety of thought
lavished on that immemorial controversy repelled him,

1 Professor Stewart continues : "I have an idea that the poetic
side came to the Wordsworth family through the Cooksons. A little
girl who was a Cookson wrote poetry which her cousin W. Wordsworth
thought highly of. It has been published, and is certainly very remark-
able. W. Wordsworth's mother was a Cookson." [Mary Ann Cookson,
Poems on Various Subjects, 1829. There were three editions in that
year, but the book has not been reprinted.]

^ Charles Gore, The Body of Christ, 1901.

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON 29

or at least failed to stimulate his attention. Perhaps,
if Oxford ethics rose above the foundations of that science,
and if psychological observation were encouraged, a course
attractive to such a mind might be devised : but Oxford
is a stepmother to psychology. Wordsworth, at any rate,
was uninterested in the philosophy set before him. The
epithets which in his maturity he would use to express
his satisfaction with an argument were " sensible " and
" fair " ; not the terms that would be chosen by one who
wished to push reasonings to a conclusion. When he
was describing the character of his uncle, Charles Words-
worth, in the Dictionary of National Biography, he
wrote, " His religious faith was serene and rational, while
he had little sympathy for the philosophical and mysterious
elements of religion " ; and the description was designed
as praise. But he did not spare himself in this uncon-
genial study. Only in one term does he confess to " not
much reading," and it was the term in which he read
privately with Walter Pater, his future colleague at Brase-
nose. Pater, he says, was profitable for essay writing : —

" he wants me to study the writing of Prose. He puts it as
composition above Poetry, confessing that he had himself
failed to succeed in the latter. His prose style is certainly
very good and finished."

Probably Pater's was not the tuition best suited to
the case ; there is no indication that any other teacher
in the second part of his course awakened special interest
in Wordsworth. It is not surprising that he was placed
in the second class in 1865 ; and he felt more his father's
disappointment than his own. Writing in 1870 to his
brother, who had just taken an aegrotat degree at Cam-
bridge in classics, he prophesies that this misfortune
will not hinder his prospects of a fellowship.^

1 Mr. Christopher Wordsworth, scholar of Trinity, was elected to
a fellowship at Peterhouse in 1870.

30 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

" It is a severe trial, but one which you will know how to
bear ... at any rate, it will not be worse than getting a
second class, which I have scarcely found to be any obstacle
to myself, and which I have always subjectively thought rather
a good thing than otherwise."

His future career was as yet undecided. His Oxford
friends seem to have assumed that he would take Holy
Orders, and he was too reserved to discuss his plans with
them. It was his father's hope that he would be ordained,
and he had no mental difficulties, while he was keenly
interested in many sides of clerical life and in subjects
germane to the calling. He had busied himself at New
College with sacred studies that were of no service for
the schools, as when he devoted much labour to a careful,
old-world scheme of Biblical chronology, on the lines of
Jerome and Usher, which he carried more than halfway
through the Old Testament. ^ But he was not clear as
to the line of duty, and he had a horror, says a sister, of
becoming a clergyman " because it was the way of the
family," But his scruples were his own. Those who
knew him best are sure that he was already too resolute
to be deterred by the noisy anticlericalism then prevalent
in Oxford, which proclaimed, as Creighton has told us,
that the man of ability who took Orders was either a knave
or a fool.

For Wordsworth the difficulty of deciding was increased
by the wish that he had formed, and confided to his
diary, before his twenty-first birthday, to marry the
lady who after six years became his wife. He had to
keep the desire to himself for several years, and had
frequent anxieties, but he did not allow this interest to
distract him from his work. It necessarily affected his

^ It was vitiated by ignorance of mathematical conditions. He
tried to work the problem out from the text of Scripture, accepted as
it stood.

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON 31

plans. He was born to be a scholar, and the path to a
life of learning lay through a fellowship. A fellowship,
however, in those days was of brief tenure unless the holder
took Orders, and it was vacated by marriage. College
teaching as a life career was hardly imagined ; men
taught, more or less patiently, to fill the years till their
living reached them. The prospect was not attractive
to Wordsworth, who had to depend on his earnings, and
as yet had not felt himself justified in mentioning his
wish to the parents of Miss Coxe. Other plans of life
were equally disheartening. He thought of the bar ;
he was offered his articles as a solicitor, with the prospect
of a partnership, by his uncle, who was head of the firm
of Messrs. Foster and Frere. But though he had a legal
mind, as his studies and successes as a Bishop were to
show, either branch of the profession exacted years of
patience. He also thought of becoming an architect,
a calling for which his tastes fitted him. But for the
present he took a course which was more usually adopted
then than now, at least for a time, by young men of
ability ; he became a schoolmaster.

His first adventure was at Harrow, where he spent
six months, from January to the end of July, in 1866.
He went as assistant in his form and house to Edwyn
Vaughan, a brother of the famous Master of the Temple.
He confesses that " he does not think he was much good
to him " ; and the judgment of a contemporary at Harrow
is that his pupils could do what they liked with Words-
worth, whose talents lay in other directions than the
teaching of boys. His shortness of sight and his deliberate,
or even slow, procedure must have given the boys an
advantage. Still, he speaks of " getting into the swing
of his work " ; he played football and made —

" some warm friends among the boys of the house ; C. B.
Heberden (now Principal of B.N.C.), R. G. Tatton, whom I

32 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

made a Coningtonian afterwards, Reginald Digby, Sydney
Pelham, son of the Bishop of Norwich."

He had gone to Harrow under the stipulation that he
was to be free to continue his studies and to compete
for fellowships. In the latter pursuit he was as yet
unsuccessful ; but under the date Tuesday, 27th May,
1866, he makes the entry^ —

" ' Digna dies nullast candidiore nota.'
" For to-day New College has obtained the three Chan-
cellor's Prizes.

" G. Cremer : Latin Verse. ' Virgil reciting his poem to

Augustus and Octavia.'
"A. 0. Prickard : English Essay. 'Autobiography.'
" John Wordsworth : Latin Essay. ' Comparison of

Thucydides and Tacitus.' "

The last, entitled " Erasmus, sive Thucydidis cum
Tacito Comparatio," was recited at the Encaenia on
the 13th June, 1866, and is introduced by the author
as foUows : —

" The dialogue is supposed to be written by Sir Thomas
More in 1535, the last year of his Life, and dedicated to his
daughter, Margaret Roper. The scene is laid in the garden of
Lambeth Palace in the year 15 13, in which Sir Thomas More
finished his history of Richard XXL as far as it remains to us.
The persons presented are William of Warham, Archbishop of
Canterbury, who died in the year 1532 ; Colet, founder of
St. Paul's School, who died in 1519 ; and Erasmus, then on
one of his frequent visits to England, who died, about a year
after the execution of Sir Thomas More, in 1536."

Wordsworth's own opinion, before the decision, was that — ■

" according to the judgment of partial though discerning
friends it is written in good Latin, but wants severity of
treatment, and does not sufficiently get the two historians
side by side. I think this is true ; and it rather vexes me,

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON 33

as I feel that I know a good deal more of them than I have
put into the essay."

It is a good piece of work in its kind, readable and thought-
ful and well worthy of the recognition it obtained.

But the chief importance for Wordsworth's life of his
residence at Harrow was in two friendships that he formed
there. His relation to the Vaughans became very close.
Vaughan was preparing in middle life to take Holy Orders ;
he was labouring under a prolonged and depressing illness,
which ended fatally in 1868 at Bath, where he was serving
as assistant curate at Walcot Church. For the first time
Wordsworth was brought into close contact with suffering,
and had the opportunity of exercising his great powers of
sympathy. Numerous letters of even passionate gratitude
show how he helped Vaughan and his wife to bear the
burden, and his friendship to her and her child continued
long into her widowhood. The episode is perhaps chiefly
remarkable in showing an early maturity. Not many
men could have taken the lead in such a case in their
twenty-third year. But it is also an anticipation of a
very effectual part of his pastoral activity in later life.
It was at Harrow also that he formed the friendship
of Westcott, then a house master in the school, through
whom he became engaged in his first important literary
work, his series of articles in the Dictionaries of Christian
Antiquities and Christian Biography. For some years
he was to find his chief alliance in the Cambridge group
of which Westcott was one of the heads. Yet though
he grew intimate with the Westcott family, the philosophy
of that divine was less to his mind than the scholarship.
He could enter heartily into the patristic interests of
Lightfoot, with whom a lifelong friendship began through
Westcott, and he was soon to share the churchly aims
of Benson ; but he was cool towards Westcott's exegesis
and his social schemes.

D

34 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

On the 23rd May, 1866, John Wordsworth received
from the Master of Wellington a letter which was to have
important results for both, and for the English Church.
Dr. Benson's opportunities as yet were those of a teacher
in a public school. He had not begun that study of St.
Cyprian which was to mould his ecclesiastical thought,
and his friendships were with schoolmasters or with
academic students. When, on Conington's recommenda-
tion, he offered Wordsworth a place on the staff of Wel-
lington College, he was opening to himself a new world
of interests. Through the son he made the acquaintance,
which quickly ripened into a filial affection, of Christopher
Wordsworth, and so was led to Lincoln, and thence to
Truro and to Lambeth. All this began in Benson's letter,
written to one who was as yet a stranger : —

" The duties would be to teach the Lower Sixth Form,
and to take part of the Composition of the Upper Sixth, as
well as to take the whole Sixth during such examinations
(this would not imply extra hours) of the whole school as the
head master has to conduct. While the work is more im-
mediately connected with my own, the position as regards
the boys and the rest of the staff is as independent in all
respects as any other mastership. I mention this because it
is not, I believe, always the case. The work is agreeable, and
not excessive in amount. The boys, I am sure I may say, are
thoroughly pleasant to deal with, and would work heartily
for any energetic master, who would be firm with them, and
in earnest about his own work. In their position in the school
boys are never averse to taking life easily, while yet they
thoroughly approve of being made to work."

Wordsworth accepted the post, to which a liberal
stipend was attached, on the terms that he was still to
be at liberty to compete for fellowships. He was not dis-
heartened by his experience at Harrow, nor considered
himself unsuited for the work of a schoolmaster. Indeed,

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON 35

among the schemes he was soon to consider for hastening
his marriage, none was more often to be discussed than
the appHcation for a head mastership. He began work
at Welhngton in September, and received from Edwyn
Vaughan (who was now at Bath) —

" a line of friendship and sympathy in your commence-
ment in a new place of a work (I fear) not wholly congenial.
Perhaps none the worse for you on that account. You will
perhaps be feeling a little depressed amongst so many strangers.
I hope there are many who will appreciate your work with
them and for them as they ought to do, and I am sure any
who are really desirous to improve will find you very ef&cient
to help them, and very kind and encouraging also. I am
sure there were some in the house at Harrow who could bear
testimony to your help and patience with them, and it will
be long, I hope, before I forget all your considerate kindness
to myself at times of great depression, when a kind friend at
hand was worth a great deal."

Wellington, when Wordsworth began work there on
his twenty-third birthday, was not at its best. Mr. E. K.
Purnell writes : —

" The pecuUar vigour, or rather rigour, of the head master's
methods did not render easy his work, which was practically
that of understudy to the future Archbishop. With Words-
worth's predecessor — a very brilliant scholar of the type of
C. S. Calverley, but hopeless as a disciplinarian — the two
divisions of the Sixth had been taking a rest-cure, and the
new ' Sixth Tutor's' placid disposition and gentle ways
scarcely provided a sufficiently bracing tonic. The head
master himself at this time was finding ' the Sixth a dead
weight which it was impossible to struggle against ' {Life, by
A. C. Benson, i. 207)."

But Wordsworth was pleased both with the place
and the boys. He writes in 1891 : —

" I enjoyed footbaU and hare and hounds, and no doubt
the sandy soil and heathy and firry surroundings of Welhngton

36 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

College were very helpful to me. It was the only time in
my life that I have lived in such country, and I have always
had an affection, nay, a craving, for it since. E. W. B. was
of course most stimulating, and there were other masters who
were well worth knowing."

Of the boys he says at the time —

" they are most dear creatures ; such gentlemen, but all but
four or five capable of using the accusative for the nominative
in an exercise. With one of them, by name Verrall, I have
formed a friendship. He is wonderful in the variety of his
interests and would please Conington much."

The future Professor Verrall was, in fact, the one really
great scholar reared by Wellington in Benson's time.^
He was somewhat delicate, and was favoured, very
wisely, both by Benson and by Wordsworth, who speaks
of him as —

" a very clever boy with a lower lip Hke Dante's, untidy, and
to many people a bore, but I do not find him so . . . sits
generally in my room, and promises really great things,
performing even wonders for a boy."

At this time Verrall was sixteen. Wordsworth preserved
many of his exercises, and corresponded regularly with
him for several years. Nor did Verrall cease to be
grateful. When the Times, in its obituary notice of
the Bishop, said that " it may be doubted whether John
Wordsworth was quite the sort of teacher to inspire
boys," he wrote ^ that in a sense this might be true, but
that—

" he did for me during his tenure of the mastership and even
afterwards all that man could, opening the field of scholarship
by free and fascinating talks, directing me to books and giving
me the run of his own, and in short by every means applicable

^ See his contribution to Benson's Life, i. 115 ff.
^ Times, 17th August, 191 1.

NEW COLLEGE, HARROW, AND WELLINGTON 37

to the case. When he went to Brasenose he invited me there,
and gave me, though a mere boy, opportunities and intro-
ductions invaluable. I had no personal claim on him what-
ever, and have no doubt that he did for others likewise
according to their needs."

But there were others beside Verrall in Wordsworth's
class who were worthy of instruction. Eight or ten
among them won scholarships at Oxford or Cambridge,
and friendly memories remained on both sides.

He had meanwhile competed for four fellowships,
leaving Harrow or Wellington for the purpose. In each
case he had been unsuccessful. Twice it had turned
out that philosophical subjects were those on which
stress was laid ; on the other occasions the fellowships
were awarded to W. Sanday of Corpus and E. L. Hicks
of Brasenose, and it was no reproach to have been defeated
by the present Margaret Professor and Bishop of Lincoln.
Wordsworth had made up his mind, with his father's
approbation, that he would not try again, but accept
the career of a schoolmaster as that of his life. He
recognised its drawbacks in a narrowing of interests and
in the necessity, at least in his own case, of devoting the
whole attention to the duties of the office. At a moment
of despondency he speaks of " the frozen monotony of
a tyrannical life which some schoolmasters lead." On
the other hand, he was " dreaming dreams " about
matrimony, and as a master he had better hopes of
speedy marriage than he would have with a fellowship ;
and Benson was thanking him for his services, saying
that it was long since he had had so little trouble with
his Sixth.

But such dreams were to come to nothing. At a
late hour on Saturday, 26th January, 1867, Wickham
learned that Brasenose College was looking for an exact
scholar, like Wordsworth, in a fellowship examination

38 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

which was to begin on the following Monday. The
post would not serve, but a friend volunteered to convey
the message to Wellington College. It reached Words-
worth just before morning chapel. He hired a dogcart
for Reading, told the Master as he emerged from chapel,
who raised no obstacle, and reached Stanford in time
to read the afternoon lessons for his father. Dr. Words-
worth approved the venture, and on Monday morning
his son went in for the examination. The papers lasted
four days, and were devoted almost entirely to classical
subjects. On the Friday, after a viva voce examination,
Wordsworth was elected to a Founder's fellowship, took
the necessary oaths in chapel, dined in hall, and had his
health drunk in common room.

What he had learned from Benson he described in
the memorial sermon he preached after the Archbishop's
death in Salisbury Cathedral, on the i8th October, 1896.

" I was a master under him only for two terms ; but my
relation to him, as composition master, was a very close one,
and those terms made a great change in my life, and were not
without their effect on his. I cannot describe the kindling
and exhilarating feeling which his friendship gave me, fresh,
though not indeed quite fresh, from the somewhat cold and
sceptical atmosphere of Oxford as it then was. Our home
interests were always deeply involved with the fortunes of
the Church. My father, I may almost say, hved for nothing
else. But his mind inclined rather to the sadder and more
solemn aspects of the present, and still more of the future.
To know intimately one who shared to the full our traditional
love for and loyalty to the Church of England, and yet was
inspired with buoyant hope and fired with visions for her
future still greater than her past, was a help to me then, and
when I returned to Oxford for eighteen years of tutorial work,
and again since, such as nothing else perhaps could have
been."

CHAPTER III

BRASENOSE COLLEGE — LATIN SCHOLARSHIP

John Wordsworth had headed his diary for 1867 with
the words, " Conabor, Te adjuvante," But in spite of
his fellowship his plans were unsettled. Just before his
election he had written : —

" Absence from Oxford for a year and the prospects of
independence and honourable work have naturally modified
my desire, never very intense, for a fellowship : still I cannot
help wishing to succeed this time, when I suppose I have a
better chance than on any former occasion. It will give me
time to travel and to attend divinity lectures ; to lay some
foundation for a Uterary work perhaps. My present idea is
a church history. This might modestly air itself at first in
an etude on some person or period. But this is all at present
airupov.

After his election : —

"It is still doubtful whether I must reside at Easter or
in October ; when I do it will be for some time. I don't feel
thoroughly happy at it : ' medio de fonte leporum surgit
amari aliquid.' Not at having to give up New CoUege,^ nor
entirely because I have to leave this place [Wellington], but
avT^ fwotSe Twv iriKpuiv t] KupSia.^ Still, to have given my father
and some others pleasure is a great thing."

The fellowship, which would cease with marriage,
and which as yet was not augmented by a lectureship

^ Where he had twice failed of election.

2 This must be Wordsworth's own rendering of Prov. xiv. lo, " The
heart knoweth his own bitterness."

40 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

or tutorship, threw back his prospect of matrimony,
though it was a comfortable provision for a bachelor.
Official fellowships were as yet unknown, but under the
Ordinances of 1863 the Principal and Fellows of Brasenose
had large powers of enforcing residence, and Wordsworth
had clearly been elected with a view to his taking a share
in college work. He was not to have the respite of which
he had dreamed.

He was summoned into residence for the summer
term of 1867 with an easy lectureship in classics and a
small remuneration. At the end of the term he won his
last junior distinction, being elected with E. L. Hicks
of Corpus to the Craven scholarship. He was still
unsettled in mind, and for a moment formed the plan
of claiming a College living. Gillingham, in Kent, a
suburb of Chatham with some 7000 inhabitants, was
vacant in June, and he thought of having it kept for
him till he was qualified by Orders to take it. The tempta-
tion was strong, for as yet he had no hope of settling with
a wife in Oxford. But it was promptly and wisely dis-
missed ; it certainly would not have had his father's
sanction.

The Long Vacation was chiefly passed in Germany.
A visit to Berlin with his sister Elizabeth as his companion
was spent in hard work in the University Library upon
the Roman Emperors for the Dictionary of Christian
Biography, and in intercourse with the Professors.
Mommsen unfortunately was absent, but several interest-
ing acquaintances were made. Dorner, the historian
of Christian doctrine, was —

" a very fine character, slightly dreamy perhaps, but full of
good sense and also of humour. He belongs to the Ober-
kirchenrath, and is all for the United Church, agamst Hengsten-
berg and the ultra-Lutherans. I made him a present of my
father's edition of Job, which he seemed much pleased to have."

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 41

With Dorner Wordsworth several times attended the
worship of the Moravians. There were also Hiibner,
engaged on the Corpus of Latin Inscriptions and in parti-
cular upon its British volume, to whom Wordsworth was
able to render services in England, Kiepert the geographer,
Weber the Sanskrit scholar, Hengstenberg, Lepsius, and
Ranke, who " was very civil and talked about Oxford.
He was odd, however, and seemed to have had a Troll
among his ancestors." At Berlin he also came to know
two young French students who were working in the
Library, Gabriel Monod, the future historian of early
France, and Samuel Berger, who was to be the author of
the Histoire de la Vulgate, and a lifelong friend. From
Berlin Wordsworth and his sister travelled for four weeks
of laborious sight-seeing in South Germany and the
adjacent parts of Austria. Though they had worked
conscientiously, he notes with penitence that they might
have seen more in the time. On his return to England
he settled for the last month of the vacation at his father's
house in the Westminster cloisters to continue his work
on the Emperors, and especially on their coins in the
British Museum.

The Michaelmas term found him in better spirits.
" On the whole I have every reason to be satisfied with
my position," he writes in his diary. A new interest
was a brown cob which he bought for £35, the first luxury
of his independence and the earliest of a succession of
riding horses which he kept for more than twenty years.
Though he gave up hunting, they were not wanting in
spirit, for Wordsworth rejected the cautious advice of
Burgon.

'•' One day," said the future Dean of Chichester, " I put
my hand on his arm and said, ' John, do you remember how
Bishop Bull used to say : When I choose a horse for myself

42 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

I always try my best to choose one that is as much of an ass
as possible ? ' " i

The College did not engross his time, though he had a
promising class for Honour Moderations. One Saturday
he led a Brasenose football team to Wellington, and they
enjoyed the game. He spent the Sunday with the Bensons.
On the following Sunday he was in Cambridge, improving
his acquaintance with Lightfoot, whom he already knew
through Westcott. Lightfoot is " a shortish man, not
handsome, partly bald. He has something of the activity
and humility of Westcott, with rather less momentary
enthusiasm and readiness, but perhaps more exactitude.
I hope I may see more of him." This was the beginning
of a very hearty and helpful friendship. Wordsworth,
in fact, through Benson, Westcott, and Lightfoot, came
to be for some years quite as much at home in Cam-
bridge modes of thought and work as in those of Oxford.
But one great Cambridge figure did not attract him.
On Sunday, 17th November, F. D. Maurice was preach-
ing before the University on Christian Unity. The
sermon —

" began by being fluffy, but got more decided before the close.
I found that others had the same difficulty in attending to it
as I had, though my thoughts were more distracted than
usual by my talk about books with Lightfoot."

It is just to say that his esteem for Maurice increased in
later years.

Meanwhile Wordsworth was preparing for his ordina-
tion. Among the motives that had drawn him for a time
towards other callings neither speculative doubt, which
was quite alien to his modes of thought, nor indifference
to religion had held a place. He had passed, so far as

^ From Canon R. G. Livingstone, through Archdeacon Bodington.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 43

can be seen, through no crisis of feeling at any point in
his life. From childhood he had believed, simply and
seriously, as he had been taught, and had consistently
aimed at carrying out the doctrine in practice. When,
as Fellow of Brasenose, he had in the course of duty to
enter into Holy Orders, he could do so without any reserve,
as the natural development, and even completion, of his
career. How natural it was appears from the continuance
of his ordinary pursuits and studies, duly noted in nis
diary, during the preceding term. The verse that he wrote,
and it is abundant, bears no relation to his impending
ordination. On Sunday, 22nd December, 1867, he was
ordained deacon in Christ Church Cathedral by Bishop
Wilberforce. Wordsworth has left an account of the
ceremony and of its antecedents, which shows how far
short Wilberforce's reforms fell of modern practice. On
the Thursday before the ordination the candidates
{20 for priests', 23 for deacons' Orders) assembled at
ID a.m. at Cuddesdon Palace. After chapel there were
four papers. After dinner came chapel again, with an
extempore address by the Bishop. The procedure was
the same on the Friday, with a viva voce examination
by Archdeacon Pott and a short interview with the Bishop
thrown in. The evening addresses were excellent. On
the Saturday morning — for two nights the candidates had
slept at Cuddesdon — there was chapel with Holy Com-
munion and an address, followed by breakfast at 11.
Then another paper, which was not looked over, dinner
about 5.30, declarations, signatures, payment of fees,
and chapel. The candidates left Cuddesdon for Oxford
about 9 p.m. "If the weather had been better and
punctuality more kept, everything would have been
pleasant ; as it was, it left us very tired, but in my
case thankful for the three days." On the Sunday the
Ordination Service began at 10, Liddon preached for

44 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

an hour, from 10.45 to 11.45, o^^ "the text, St. John
XV. 16 —

" giving a passage to College Fellows, for which I was grateful.
The service ended about 2.30, and after about twenty minutes
more we got our letters of Orders at the Archdeacon's, and I
went up to meet my people at luncheon." ^

He officiated for the first time on the Christmas Day
in his father's church at Stanford in the Vale, and there
on the following Sunday, 29th December, he preached
his first sermon on St. Luke x. 23, 24, comparing the
heathen and the Jewish hopes with the Christian. He
was ordained priest at St. Luke's, Maidenhead, on Sunday,
2ist February, 1869, but has left no account of the day.

On the Tuesday following his ordination as deacon
he accepted from the Principal of Brasenose the office of
tutor in the College, vacant through the unexpected
resignation of Mr. Albert Watson, who remained in
residence and succeeded to Wordsworth's lectureship.

" I shall have Mods work, pass and class, and a Divinity
lecture and compositions : about eleven hours' lectures, and
compositions much as at present. With my fellowship it
will bring me in an income more than I could have expected
or deserved."

To his classical work there was soon added that of
tuition in Theology. The University in 1868 instituted
an Honour School of Theology, the first examinations in
which were held in 1870. Wordsworth was appointed
by his College to instruct its members who might read
for the School. He retained his work, both classical
and theological, and also his tutorship till he became
Oriel Professor in 1883.

In his lecturing Wordsworth was deliberate and

^ His mother, three sisters, and brother were present.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 45

detailed. Dr. Way,^ one of his most distinguished
classical pupils, says that he " would lecture on a com-
paratively small section in considerable detail rather than
attempt to cover the whole ground. He was not a
sophist." Evidence to the same effect might be adduced
in abundance from pupils reading classics and theology
with serious attention. But not all the undergraduates
of Brasenose were devoted to the pursuit of knowledge
for its own sake. There were those who wanted to learn
as much as would be useful in the Schools, and to learn
it in a form that might be reproduced in examination.
These found his lectures unpractical. There were others,
seeking Honours it is true, yet starting at too low a
level of knowledge to profit by his instruction. And there
were passmen who too often were merely perplexed by
his erudition. It must be borne in mind that, forty
years ago, the art of lecturing had not been carried to
such a pitch of efficiency as has been reached to-day, and
that in the election to fellowships weight of knowledge
and capacity for promoting its advance were the sole
consideration, while now practical usefulness in the
business of teaching is taken into account. Under the
old system, if grotesque failures, such as Wordsworth's
case was not, were sometimes incurred, there was, at
any rate, a better chance for exceptional scholarship to
find a home in the University. But he had the draw-
backs of his qualities, and the memory of his pupils often
recurs to the less effectual side of his teaching.

" I should not like to say," reports one, " that he was a
great success as a tutor. The ordinary undergraduate did
not understand him, and as a lecturer he was often much
above the intellectual capacity of the average man. Men
thought his lectures duU ; a friend of mine, in fact, complained

1 J. P. Way, Scholar of B.N.C., B.A. 1874, late head master of
Rossall.

46 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

that they were dull. The complaint somehow got round to
John Wordsworth, who characteristically remarked, ' I thought
they were about the level of the men who came to them.'
There was often a dreaminess, or what seemed to us a dreami-
ness, in his lecturing. On one occasion, after a somewhat
obscure lecture, he walked to the window, and looking out into
the quad said, ' Perhaps you will write me an essay on the
Ark as a type ' ; then came a pause, during which we waited
somewhat curiously, and then he added, ' as a type of other
things.' I have no recollection of any essays on the subject
being produced. But the fact was he was far too great on
intellect to be a help to the average and somewhat idle under-
graduate. He could not reaUse that other people did not know
as much as he did himself."

Another, and a very competent pupil, the Archdeacon
of Wilts, ^ writes : —

" As a lecturer (I can only speak of his Greek Testament,
his Cicero and Latin composition lectures) I can only use
about him his own words about some one else, ' He knew too
much about it to be a good lecturer.' ... No ! it was only
his bye-products that were good for the Schools."

He soon began to give advanced instruction outside
the routine of classical teaching. He took a hereditary
interest in inscriptions, and at his home there was a fine
library of the standard works on the subject. He was
himself a subscriber to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
and its auxiliary the Ephemeris Epigraphica. His concern,
unlike that of the older scholars of his famil}^, was with
Latin rather than with Greek learning. He was gaining
Conington's approval for his scheme, somewhat bold for
a man of twenty-five, in the Long Vacation of 1868. It
was to be a course on Latin literature. Conington
thought that it would be of the usual type : —

" I suppose you will be tolerably miscellaneous, here a
fact, there an opinion. The great thing to aim at is to be
1 E. J. Bodington, Scholar of B.N.C., B.A. 1885, Rector of Calne.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 47

tolerably interesting and salient, so that men shall not feel
that they could get it all as well by looking in the Dictionary
of Biography. I don't think £1 too much to ask, though I
suppose any fee acts as a deterring force."

But in Michaelmas term the lectures had come to
deal with the very beginnings of Latinity. They were
assisted by a printed abstract and lithographed facsimiles :
" What wouldn't I have given," wrote Benson, " when
I was an undergraduate for instruction of this kind, all
thrown into shape ! " In the summer of 1869 he formed
the plan of " a little book on Early Roman inscriptions,
to popularise Mommsen and Ritschl," and for the next
three years continued to lecture on Early Latin literature
and the inscriptions. It is of one of these lectures that
the incident has been recorded, ^ how " when one of his
emendations in an Early Latin inscription worked out
at last in the form dedrot (= dederunt), he neither under-
stood nor heeded the general smile." But very possibly
he did understand, and he had great control of his features.
The present Warden of Keble, who attended these early
lectures, says : —

" I think that he impressed me, as an undergraduate, more
than any other lecturer that I attended with his extraordinary
learning. He had none of Max Miiller's power of making a
philological subject interesting, or of Professor Scott's (after-
wards Dean of Rochester) charm of exact exegesis. These
are the two lecturers who attracted me most, but John Words-
worth awed and impressed one with his combination of know-
ledge with a kind of tentative humility which was feeling its
way in and out of the very corners, and which was willing to
listen to any suggestion from a pupil."

The pecuniary gain of such work was small, and in
1871 and 1872 his lectures on " Latin Inscriptions "

1 By C. B. H. and F. M., Salisbury Diocesan Gazette, 191 1, p. 188.

48 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

and " Inscriptions of the Republic, especially the frag-
ments of Laws," were announced as " advanced combined
lectures," and therefore without fee to the Colleges which
shared lectures with Brasenose.

Meanwhile the Delegates of the University Press had
invited him to write a book on Comparative Philology.
Max Miiller was at the height of his influence, and additions
to knowledge were expected as confidently from that study
as they are to-day from excavation. Wordsworth was
master of the current knowledge, and had made a special
study, as we have seen, of Early Latin. He consulted
Benson, who sketched out a plan for the work, and was
eager that it should be undertaken. But he was dis-
appointed to find that Wordsworth had changed his
purpose, and was contemplating a volume of Monu-
ments, which was ultimately published as the well-known
Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin. Benson would
have had him publish on both subjects, and vigorously
urged him to do do. Probably the younger scholar
was right. His decision was not due to any doubt of
the value of Comparative Philology. Strange as it must
seem to an Oxford that is content to know little of the
results of that science, and nothing of its methods, he
proposed in a paper read before a club of younger tutors,
on 23rd February, 1870, that philology should be intro-
duced into the final School of Literae Humaniores as an
alternative for either philosophy or ancient history. ^

Wordsworth's activity was not lessened by his engage-
ment to Miss Coxe in May, 1869, a topic which belongs
to the next chapter, but its course was changed by the

^ More practical suggestions in the same paper were that the members
of the club should study subjects in ancient history and philology not
recognised in the Schools, and offer free instruction in them ; and that
there should be founded " a museum of classical antiquities, historical
rather than artistic, consisting of typical specimens, such as Ruskin
proposes to found for art." This has now been accomplished.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 49

death of Conington, one of whose most favoured pupils
he had become, on the 23rd October. To his memory he
composed and printed the following elegiacs : —

" AVE ANIMA PI A SIMPLEX DESIDERATISSIMA.

" Johannes Conington, Bostoniae natus anno 1825,
Latinarum litterarum quindecim annos professor Oxoniensis,
Bostoniae obiit ^ Octobris die 23°, 1869.

" Tene, caput carum, supremum vidimus, eheu ?

lingua silet ? cessat scribere prompta manus ?
non iterum in dubiis tua limina adimus amici ;

non iterum nostras veneris ante fores,
non dulci alloquio cenam celebrabimus una,

non matutini munera grata foci,
non pariter tecum notos lustrabimus agros,

vicinasque urbi despiciemus aquas.

" Heu pietas animi pectusque immune malorum
et pudor et virtus et sine labe fides,
Mensque ad prima tenax mira et prudentia rerum,
Sinceraque nitens simplicitate lepos,

" Tam docilem Musae frustra lugetis alumnum,
tu tamen (at frustra) solve Camena comas,
unus cum latia nostram componere linguam,
calluit ante alios unus utramque lyram.

" Cum quinto steterat vix quadragesimus annus ;

lux brevis : an tantis plenior ulla bonis ?
lux brevis : at puro non improvisa nee alto

flenda supervenit mors necopina viro.
at partem nostri tecum tu detrahis ipse :

noster eras ; sine te nos queror esse parum,
quos igitur tali junxisti foedere amantes,

nos non fiere decet sed bene velle magis,
et colere atque alios simili pietate fovere

quos et amaturus tu modo vivus eras.

" B.N.C., Nov. 7, 1869."

^ Obiit was altered to obdormivit in Christo in Wordsworth's hand
in some copies. It will be seen that he still uses the traditional English
spelling.

E

50 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Conington had been " a dear friend whose place I can
never hope to see filled by another, and a most real loss
to the University." Wordsworth went, with a large
party from Oxford, to the funeral in Lincolnshire, but
was unable to follow the professor to the grave. " As
I had a bad cold, I had the privilege of reading the service
to Mrs. Conington (the mother) and the other ladies."
Young as Wordsworth was, the feeling among Conington's
disciples was that he should be his successor. It is easy
to conjecture the thoughts of their seniors when a tutor
of twenty-six claimed one of the prizes of the University.
His justification in the eyes of his friends was, in the first
place, the extent of his knowledge, well known although
as yet he had published nothing ; in the second place,
that his knowledge was of a kind new to Oxford. It was
a challenge to the old learning. The successful candidate,
Edwin Palmer, Fellow of Balliol, was an expert in the
traditional arts of composition and translation, and
doubtless skilled to extract their full educational benefit
for his pupils. He, rather than Wordsworth, represented
Conington's line of teaching. There was a conflict of
methods and interests rather than of persons, and it was
felt that Wordsworth was guilty of no presumption in
standing against a man much his senior, a chief tutor of
the most distinguished College in Oxford.^

To support his candidature Wordsworth ventured into
print. This was by the advice of W. C. Sidgwick, of Merton,
given through Benson ; though Sidgwick warned Words-
worth that the electors would vote " for the most ancient
candidate." He therefore published his Lectures introduc-
tory to a History of the Latin Language and Literature, the pre-
face being dated 26th January, 1870. They were, he says —

" part of a course which I have nearly completed, on the

Literature of Rome in the pre-Augustan Age. Only one of

^ So I am assured by Mr. A. O. Prickard and other contemporaries.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 51

these, however, has been actually delivered, namely, that on
the Elementary Age ; and it has now been subjected to con-
siderable revision. I have not had time to do the same for
the rest. Should leisure and opportunity be allowed me, I
shall hope to continue and enlarge the work that I have begun,
of which I now offer this specimen to the University."

The " Introduction " which follows the preface con-
tains a trenchant criticism of " our traditional method
of wide general reading without a definite object, and
of giving much of our time to verse composition and to
elegance of translation."

" It is not enough," he says, " to point to the great public
men who have felt their obligations to this system. It does
not suffice to connect our peculiarly English qualities of a
reserve of force and a power of rising under pressure with a
training of this kind that is peculiarly English. It has been
our practice, we may say in our defence, to read widely,
especially the best models ; to endeavour by original com-
position in the classical languages to throw ourselves into the
spirit under which those models were produced ; ^ to attempt
by translations of various kinds to acquire a mastery of
language, and to train the ear and lips to an instinctive pre-
ference for what is just. Our scholars have thus learned to
combine freedom of style with accuracy ; and to carry into
the business of the world the aristocratic spirit which they have
imbibed from Greece and Rome. But the time has passed
when this result could be accepted by itself. We must confess
it, however highly we may prize the individuality fostered
by the old tradition."

The time has come for reform, and England must
take its place in exploring the field of knowledge which
has now been mapped out. Other nations are claiming
their share, and we may be content to leave to them

^ Conington's letters are full of lively denunciation of foreign mis-
apprehension of the classics, due to the unfamiliarity of editors with
the actual task of classical composition.

52 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

comparative grammar and the philosophy of art and
" generally things abstruse and minute and alien from
our conceptions of social life." But there are studies
for which we have a natural aptitude.

" In the domain of practical archaeology ; in all that
relates to religion, and especially to Christianity ; in appre-
ciating the morality of ancient teachers, and generally in the
details of biography and national history, we may, it is believed,
be found to have special capabihties for success. There is
some truth, probably, in Niebuhr's dictum that the Enghsh
have more natural historical sense than other people."

Teaching, then, is to be combined with serious research,
and —

' ' it will evidently be the duty of every one of us who take
up teaching as a profession to direct his labour to this end,
and to endeavour to serve at once his country and the whole
cause of education in Europe. Even so simple a matter as the
teaching of the history of Latin hterature may have its influence
to help or hinder the cause ; even the labour of a single man
may be of some use if conceived aright, however it may fail
in execution."

This manifesto, contradicting Jowett's theory of
education and accepting the new notion of a University
career as one for life, introduced three lectures. The
first, on " The Place of Rome in Aryan Civilisation/' con-
tained all the theses which the scholars of that day
asserted with as much vigour as our present ethnologists
devote to their denial. The second was on " The Latin
Race in Italy," and dealt in a summary way with the
evidence from inscriptions and philology as to the relations
of the various Italian peoples. The third, on " The Elemen-
tary Age of Latin Literature," was devoted to the laws,
the annals, the Saturnian metre, and so forth. The
lectures were followed by appendices on the evidence

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 53

from language for the kinship between Celts and Italians,
and on the Italian alphabets. They were published, as
we have seen, in haste, for an immediate purpose, and
were meant as specimens of the author's workmanship and
examples of the way in which such topics should be treated.
They had not, and were not meant to have, a general
circulation, and must not be taken as evidence of Words-
worth's full powers. But probably few in England could
have shown such various knowledge in so interesting
a form, or have indicated with such foresight the lines
of coming advance in education and research. No one
can be surprised that Palmer was elected.^ When the
post was next vacant, in 1878, by the resignation of Mr.
Palmer on his appointment to be Archdeacon of Oxford,
Wordsworth was not a candidate. In the interval he
had published the Fragments and Specimens of Early
Latin, and had in other ways established his reputation
as a Latin scholar. But he had definitely turned aside
from the study of that language and literature to theo-
logical pursuits ; or rather he was applying his classical
knowledge to problems of BibHcal and Ecclesiastical
history.

Since Wordsworth's career as a classical scholar ends
in 1874 with the Fragments and Specimens, it will be
convenient here to speak of that book, to which many
students, now in middle life, look back with gratitude.
It has, indeed, never been superseded. No selection of
Fragments and Specimens so comprehensive and well-
chosen has been attempted in England since 1874, and
if the philology and the history of grammar must some-
times be corrected in the light of later knowledge, the
commentary upon the texts, like the texts themselves,

^ In the Dictionary of National Biography, Supplement II., it is
stated that the professorship was offered to, and declined by, F. W.
Walker, Fellow of Corpus, the future High Master of St. Paul's School,

54 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

is of permanent value. Mr. S. G. Owen ^ has kindly
contributed the following appreciation of Wordsworth's
classical work : —

" John Wordsworth was of the generation now passing
away one of the few distinguished classical scholars. Though
he had not the briUiancy of his able father, he possessed, on
the other hand, profound learning and sobriety of judgment.
His taste was for the Latin language and literature : the title
of his early work, Lectures introductory to a History of the Latin
Language and Literature (Oxford, 1870), exactly describes the
sphere to which his labours were directed not only in that
book but later. These lectures, which deal with the earhest
literature, and are of an extremely philological character,
feU rather flat. But they served to prepare him, and to turn
his thoughts into a channel in which he afterwards achieved
success. The earher volumes of the great Corpus Inscrip-
tionum Latinarum had recently appeared, making possible
the systematic treatment of Early Latin on the basis of the
inscriptions. Also the study of Comparative Philology, then
a new and enchanting subject, was enthusiastically prosecuted
in Oxford, where it flourished through the inspiration of that
brilliant genius and attractive personaUty, Max MuUer.
Wordsworth's knowledge of Early Latin was profound, and
he possessed a no less fundamental knowledge of Comparative
Philology. He was well acquainted with the works of
Schleicher, Corssen, and Ritschl, and of other continental
philologists ; and with the historical researches of Mommsen.
After years of patient toil he published in 1874 his important
work. Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin, which was
intended ' to render the study of Early Latin more methodical
and comprehensive.' In an interesting preface he reviews
the numerous materials which he used. This book is still the
best introduction in Enghsh to the study of Early Latin. It
contains a wide selection from the materials ; it is admirably
clear in its arrangement ; it is accompanied by a full and
learned commentary ; and it is prefaced by a lucid gram-
matical introduction, in which the Latin pronunciation and

1 Student of Christ Church.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 55

the philology of the Latin forms are discussed at length. This
introduction was in its time a considerable performance.
It was thoroughly up to date, and was most helpful to the
many undergraduates who then in numbers (now unfortunately
attenuated) took up Comparative Philology as a special
subject in the School of Honour Moderations. In those
days there were giants. There were Max Miiller and Sayce ;
and we got our general knowledge from the admirable CoUege
lectures of Mr. H. F. Tozer, of Exeter, whom as a lecturer
it would be difficult to match. Further, we found in Words-
worth's book a scholarly and trustworthy treatise, which
contrasted favourably with some other handbooks in vogue.
" Wordsworth's Introduction has been superseded by other
and, alas ! more complicated works, the most valuable of
which is Lindsay's important and imposing volume on The
Latin Language. But it must not be forgotten that Words-
worth's book is marked by a lucidity and conciseness (combined
with great accuracy) that is less apparent in modern treatises.
I would especially appeal to his discussion of the Latin accent,
which is made completely intelligible by Wordsworth's precise
exposition. The text of the book itself consists of selections
from the early inscriptions, fuU enough for their time, but which
require to be supplemented by later discoveries ; Fragments
of Early Laws, among which the complete extant fragments
of the Twelve Tables are printed and elucidated by an excellent
commentary, which is stiU of great value ; and lastly, the
chief Fragments of the early poets and prose writers. The
commentary on these last is particularly interesting, as it
goes beyond mere notes and comprises what is practically
a succinct history of Early Latin Hterature. Of the English
works on Latin belonging to this period few can be compared
with Wordsworth's for accuracy and thoroughness. It is
the production of an exact and sympathetic scholar, who, if
he had devoted his life to scholarship, would have done work
of the highest order. He was tempted to choose another line,^
the difficult office of a bishop, in which it was harder to attain
to the pre-eminence which in Latin was already assured to

1 Mr. Owen has forgotten the edition of the Vulgate, which was
a classical and philological work in the strictest sense.

56 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

him, and where the quiet hfe of research that he loved was
practically impossible. In his choice he gave evidence of
the modesty of his character and his devotion to duty. His
Fragments and Specimens have been widely read and still
are read ; in them his work as a scholar hves after him."

Mr. T. C. Snow, writes from a more technical point
of view : —

" Wordsworth's work in ' profane learning/ as our fathers
used to call it, was only a beginning, early broken off by the
more absorbing interest of theology. It is contained in
the very small volume of Introductory Lectures (1870) and in
the larger Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin (1874) . The
lectures give no details of grammar, but a rapid summary,
first of Early ItaHan ethnology and anthropology, then of
Early Latin literature. To the ethnology and anthropology
he was never able to return, except so far as they are treated
incidentally in the notes to the Fragments and Specimens,
and, on the religious side, in his Bampton Lectures. These
incidental excursions are enough to show his wonderful power
of running through vast masses of literature and picking the
essential out of them, which is one of the first necessaries of
the anthropologist. Whether he would have gone on to
any creative work, is more than we can say from the evidence
before us.

" While he had thus to forsake anthropology, he repeated
and expanded the literary history in the Fragments and Speci-
mens. To the same work he prefixed a grammatical intro-
duction, giving a sketch of the comparative philology of Latin
phonetics and inflexions. He wrote at a rather unfortunate
time, just before the first of the discoveries which made a
greater change in our knowledge of Indo-European grammar
than anything that happened since Bopp created it in 1818.
The Fragments and Specimens was published in 1874 ; in
1875 Verner put the coping-stone to Grimm's Law ; in 1876
Leskien's announcement that ' phonetic laws are invariable '
laid down the ideal of scientific precision instead of the old
genial latitudes of statement with their ' sometimes ' and

1 Late Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 57

' exceptionally ' ; in 1876, also, Brugmann's discoveries of
the Indo-European epsilon and the vowel-nasal estabhshed
the polychromatic nature of Indo-European phonetics, and
incidentally dethroned Sanskrit from its pride of place in
Indo-European grammar ; in 1879 De Saussure put the
theory of gradation on a systematic basis which enabled his
successors to transform it almost beyond recognition. But
Wordsworth was cut out of all this by his date. His grammar
is the grammar of Corssen and Schleicher, so far as the origin
of forms and the progress of sounds is concerned. But it will
always retain its own value, because it has Wordsworth's
special quahty of careful and verified statement of facts.
When he gives a form, he always tells you what grammarian
quotes it, what inscription contains it, and what objections
there may be to that particular quotation and that particular
inscription.

" There is no such drawback to the more substantive
part of the Fragments and Specimens. Even now, there is
no collection of material so useful for the study of Early Latin.
Of course it is a selection ; it does not profess to reproduce
the whole of the Corpus Inscriptionum, or of the extant frag-
ments of tragedy or comedy or satire, down to the single
words which do duty for so many of them. But the selection
does contain everything of any importance in the way of
language, or history, or law, or reHgion, or poetry, or rhetoric.
And it happens that very Httle of such material has accrued
since Wordsworth wrote. Latin has produced no finds of
manuscripts hke Bacchyhdes or Herodas, no finds of inscrip-
tions hke the Ode of IsyUus or the Code of Gortyn. (I do not
under-rate the Lapis Niger and the Quirinal Urn, but Greek
produces their equals every two or three years, and there is no
sensation about them.)

" The great value of the book is in Wordsworth's notes.
They are full of the most varied and compressed information.
Their mastery of all the relevant authorities up to his time
is astonishing, especially at his age. One would think that
the "mere reading of them must have taken all his time from
his degree in 1865 to the publication of the book. On any
one of the 280 closely printed pages there are at least a dozen
references, which may be anywhere in antiquity from Homer

58 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

to Prudentius, anj^vhere in the modern world from Scaliger
to Lucian Miiller, and one can be sure that he has always
read them for himself. And the collection is no mere com-
pilation. On everything that he puts down he exercises a
close and vigilant judgment, even on such an apparently
ahen field as Roman Law.

" In my first year as an undergraduate I heard Words-
worth's lectures on Latin Grammar. They contained practically
the same matter as the introduction to the Fragments and
Specimens, which were published three years later. It is
hard to imagine what a revelation the lectures were to a school-
boy who had been brought up, as schoolboys were then, in
the atmosphere of Max Miiller's lectures, to think of Compara-
tive Philology as a thing of poetical and mystical enthusiasms
founded on details which were quite inaccessible to anybody
who was not familiar with Sanskrit and German. Here were
the details plain to see, aU worked out in the field of the famihar
Latin and capable of being verified by one's own immediate
observation. For the first time one was admitted into the
inner circle of Comparative Philology, to be no longer a mere
admirer of the results but a fellow-worker in the processes.
After that, my knowledge of him was very sUght. I held a
short and very friendly dialogue with him across the table of
the Schools in Honour Moderations (at that time that exami-
nation included a viva voce), in which he began by asking me
to ' speak a little louder, because it was so hot,' and went on
to ask where I had learned Comparative Philology, and I had
to answer, ' From your lectures,' and then we discoursed a
httle on the classification of stems. And then, unhappily,
I very rarely met him. I am afraid that neither of us was ever
in the other's rooms, but when we did meet he was always
friendly, and generally had something to say about our common
study."

To quote one more authority on the same work,
Fragments and Specimens, Dr. Sanday ^ says that —

" at once it showed its author's full cahbre. It is tempting
to speculate what would have happened if John Wordsworth

^ Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. v., 1912.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 59

had continued on these lines and had spent the rest of his days
as a rival in erudition to Professor J. E. B. Mayor at Cambridge.
We can imagine how such a par nohile fratrum would have
been fitted to speak with the scholars of other nations in the
gate. But this was not to be. The young tutor felt keenly
his obligations for the religious training of his pupils ; and
his steps were more and more deflected in the direction of
theology."

But the change can be more precisely dated than
Dr. Sanday's words indicate. One of his Brasenose
colleagues, Mr. Humphry Ward, remembers that he
congratulated Wordsworth on the completion of the
Fragments, and asked wnat his next undertaking was to
be. He was told that it would be theological. The
transference of interests was not half-hearted. Chancellor
Bernard, speaking of the change, says : —

" there was a time when, in the words of the Ordinal, ' he
drew all his cares and studies that way.' No half -measure
would have enabled him to achieve what he did achieve in
sacred learning, textual, liturgical, and historical. It is
therefore not to be regretted, though worth remarking, that
he appeared in later years to have entirely lost interest in
classical literature, at any rate on its literary side. I do not
remember his ever quoting a classic or betraying that delight
in the beauty of Greek or Latin poetry which clings throughout
life to those who have tasted them in youth."

Perhaps the Chancellor has somewhat overstated the
case. Yet from 1874 onwards, though Wordsworth
was busily engaged in classical tuition for nine years,
he did not go beyond the routine of duty in that pursuit.
He had been Classical Moderator in Honours from 1870
to 1872, and was Craven Examiner in 1870 and 1871,
but he filled no such positions afterwards, nor did he
take such part in the academic debates of the time,
especially in regard to the important examination statute,

6o LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

as might have been expected of a tutor fully employed
in the practical teaching of Oxford. In what small
share he took, he was from time to time on the side of
what was regarded as academic liberalism, repugnant
though that side of Oxford thought was to him in matters
more serious than the machinery of education.

A visit to Italy in the Easter vacation of 1868 may
serve as occasion for giving a specimen of his descriptive
verse. He was alone, and worked very conscientiously
at the sights of Parma, Bologna, and other cities. He
sought out objects of interest that were not easily acces-
sible ; his historical studies had already developed in
him that iron resolve to see everything worth seeing that
was sometimes in later years to be disconcerting to bashful
or weary companions. It was natural that Ravenna
should impress him, and he addressed a long descriptive
poem from thence to his friend, Mr. W. J. Courthope,
of which part is as follows : —

" Brown Ravenna, and the shade
Of her unnumbered pines, that ancient wood,
Her noble rampart from the treacherous flood.
All round is sand and marsh and dullest plain
Rice-sown, with dykes between, and coarser grain.
Straight dusty roads, old Rome's imperial lines
Ruled for her legions : rows of rusty vines
Bound to short close-clipped elms. Ravenna, where
The weak slave-prince Honorius made his lair.
And strong Theodoric ruled : where Dante lies
(A poor cell decked with tasteless artifice)
A sad deserted city, shrunk and bare.
With nought of commerce but the common ware
That her dull citizens use, who spend their days
Smoking and lounging in the grass-grown ways.
Leave the hot pavement and the rough-set street
And o'er Vitale's threshold lift your feet :
We seem (no more in Italy) 'neath the dome
Of Saint Sophia, far in Asian Rome.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 6i

Above the altar still, on either hand,

In robes of state Emperor and Empress stand,

The vain Justinian and his courtly throng.

His vicious zealot-queen her maids among,

As fresh and living as upon the day

Great Charles stood here before them, on his way

From Rome, a crowned emperor, grave, and filled

With thoughts of high tradition : soon to build

Like this at Aix a chapel of his own.

Soon in its centre 'neath a simple stone.

With but his name as epitaph, to lie."

Though Justinian did not fall within the period he
was treating for the Dictionary of Christian Biography,
it was by a natural extension of interest that he turned
to an age which afterwards grew very familiar. The
Dictionary work was now making good progress.
Ammianus, Constantine, Julian, and the rest called out
his powers, and his articles are some of the fullest and
most workmanlike in that very unequal assemblage.

Meanwhile, the father had become Bishop of Lincoln.
It was at Wellington College, where he was preaching
on Sunday, 15th November, 1868, and where his son
was also a guest of the head master, that Dr. Wordsworth
first asked for counsel, in regard to Disraeli's letter
" written pleasantly and courteously," ^ which opened
to him the prospect of the episcopate. He had just
received it at Stanford, and now disclosed it to Dr.
Benson and his son. The story of the complications
which preceded his election to Lincoln has already been
told. His son was all for acceptance : —

" for him I think it is a thing to be thankful about. He is
sixty-one years old and not very strong, but generally quite

^ See Chap. VII. of the Bishop of Lincoln's Life. Here, however,
John Wordsworth is wrongly described as a Wellington master at this
time.

62 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

well. He has finished his commentary on the Bible nearly
to the end of Jeremiah and Ezekiel ; Isaiah was pubUshed
some weeks ago. And I am really glad that he should have
some duties, not too laborious, I hope, to occupy him when
this work of his hfe is over, as it must have been in a few months'
time (probably the year after next). He has, I think, qualities
in dealing with men and things which befit a man in authority ;
and he has many noble plans, which it will be worth many a
sacrifice to effect."

For John Wordsworth the change meant the loss of
both his homes, the one so pleasantly near to Oxford,
the other giving him access to London life and to the
British Museum. He felt deeply the departure from
both.

At his son's suggestion the Bishop designate appointed
Dr. Benson one of his chaplains. Benson was grateful.
"It is indeed due to you in the first instance that I was
appointed, and I am very happy in it indeed. Nothing
could more delight me." The friendship, already warm
and confidential, rapidly extended to the whole Words-
worth family. It was cemented by Benson's appoint-
ment to the prebend of Heydour in Lincoln Cathedral ;
an honorary post, but one which his vivid imagination
fiUed with historical and practical interest. His letters
to John Wordsworth grow increasingly long and intimate.
He states to him the reasons for and against his leaving
Wellington for Rugby, and unfolds the secret history of
the unhappy events there after Temple's departure, his
own sympathy being with the assistant masters. ^ Words-
worth is informed of the progress of his Cyprianic studies,
and has elaborate schemes of Pauline exegesis submitted
for his criticism. But the most anxious part of the
correspondence is that in which Benson justifies, for the

1 " S. Oxon and Mansel," Benson learned, had procured the unfortu-
nate appointment.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE— LATIN SCHOLARSHIP 63

Bishop's reading, his own championship of Temple,
now Bishop designate of Exeter, against Dr. Pusey's
protest and Bishop Wordsworth's suspicion. John Words-
worth was in his father's counsels, and approved his
appeal to Temple to disclaim sympathy with his partners
in Essays and Reviews ; on the other hand, he had acted
as examiner at Rugby, and so knew Temple, whom he
describes in 1869 as having —

" something curious in manner, which is hard to define — a
kind of arbitrariness which finds vent in organisation, but
might be petty and unpleasant. I did not dislike him at all
even from the first ; in fact, I seemed to have known him
long."

There was, indeed, no serious ground for Benson's fear
that Bishop Wordsworth might " take away his scarf."
The two men were of one spirit, and a friendship which
was to be of great value to both the Wordsworths, and
to the whole English Church, was now firmly established.^

1 See Mr. A. C. Benson's Life of his father, passim, and especially
Chaps. VII. and IX. Benson's address to his younger friend was
usually " Dearest John." His less demonstrative correspondent was
commonly content with " My dear Friend."

CHAPTER IV

BRASENOSE COLLEGE — MARRIAGE — ^THEOLOGICAL
WORK — PERSONAL INFLUENCE

Henry Octavius Coxe, Bodley's Librarian and one of
Dean Burgon's " Twelve Good Men," was, in Burgon's
words —

" at the time of his death (8th July, 1881) perhaps the most
generally known and universally beloved character in Oxford ;
and may be declared to have carried with him to his grave
a larger amount of hearty personal good will and sincere
regret than any of his recent contemporaries."

Susan Esther, his only daughter who survived child-
hood, born i6th November, 1842, was pre-eminent in the
general judgment among the younger ladies of Oxford
for gifts and charm. An old friendship connected the
family of Frere with that of Mrs. Coxe, who was the
daughter of General Sir Hilgrove Turner, and the homes
of the Coxes in Beaumont Street and at Wytham Rectory
were open to John Wordsworth from his days as a fresh-
man. He had interests in common with the Librarian,
and with his elder son, William, who entered the British
Museum and would have become a distinguished orienta-
list had he not died young in 1869.

The friendship with the family had grown into the
wish to marry the daughter before Wordsworth was of
age : the lady was ten months his senior. But, as we
have seen, the uncertainty of livelihood had prevented

MISS COXE 65

him from revealing his wishes. Of his own family he took
at first only one sister into liis confidence, and he suc-
cessfully concealed his design from even the closest of
his friends. Benson, for instance, himself so communi-
cative, was left in the dark, and also Conington. In
spite of various anxieties, reticence was maintained till
Wordsworth was appointed tutor of his CoUege. Mr.
Coxe, whom he then informed, was sympathetic, but
forbade him to open the matter to his daughter. The
problem of maintenance was, in fact, further from solution
than ever, for the young tutor was coming to the con-
clusion that residence in Oxford, even at the cost of
celibacy, was his duty. There was, however, no coldness
in his affections, and though the path to marriage was
not yet clear he was allowed to state his case after a
year's restriction, and John Wordsworth and Susan Esther
Coxe were betrothed. The lady, announcing the event
to her future brother-in-law (loth May, 1869), describes
herself as —

" frightened out of myself at the notion of belonging to such
a clever family. I wonder what a butterfly would do in a
beehive. I think bees just as pretty as butterflies, so don't
think this a conceited simile."

The engagement was evidently a very happy one.
The lovers were constantly meeting, and Wordsworth
was inspired to salute the lady not only with much grace-
ful English verse, in which the influence of Matthew
Arnold is apparent, but also in an Italian sonnet after
the manner of Petrarch. It was also approved by his
friends. One of them, who deservedly had the right to
be frank, wrote to him : —

" You were a person who ought to marry, and all your
student ways and inclinations, which are my admiration, would
without a wife have turned you into a dry, rather uncouth and
rather eccentric recluse."

F

66 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

But this approbation did not bring the prospect
of marriage nearer. For Wordsworth and his friends
regarded it as his duty to stay in Oxford and take
a share in the impending conflicts, both religious and
administrative. It was a time of anxiety and bitter-
ness, and (as it seemed to them) the younger men were
called to take the lead. Westcott, a dreamer of noble
dreams, added exhortation to his congratulations ^ : —

" I rejoice at the prospect of your own ' complete life ' :
I rejoice that you have determined to continue your work at
Oxford ; and I rejoice not less at what you tell me of the general
spirit of the younger Oxford residents. May you indeed have
every blessing in your life and work. The time seems to be
' short,' but if only we can realise the strength which is ours
it is long enough to vindicate for the Church of England her
mission to the world. Argument seems to have fallen now into
the second place, and what we want is action. Nothing else,
I think, will win men but Ufe, and will keep them and even
strengthen them. I do not think you will really suffer from
the want of an older leader. As the work is social, I believe
that your strength wiU really be greater from the completeness
and sympathy which springs from equality of standing. It
was so with the last great Oxford movement, and it may be
so now. Faith can still do all things ev Xpto-rw, but we ."

In the same spirit wrote Benson ^ —

" I never dreamed that any Aurora but Philology had been
making you so abstr actions by times. However, I am delighted.
But I stiU should have moaned a little for Theo-Philo-logy
had there not been exceeding auguries for your continued
devotion to her in the fact that it will be possible for you
to live in Oxford, and that associations with all Learnedness
wiU form part of the furniture of your Bride's early recol-
lections as well as your own. . . . ' Marriage is honourable
in all,' but it is grievous to see what sacrifices most scholars

1 Harrow, loth June, 1869.

* Master's Lodge, Wellington College, ist June, 1869.

BETROTHAL 67

make to it. Mind you do not disappoint ras Trpoayova-a^ i-n-l o-e

7rpo</)i7Tetas.i As to Coll. Aen. Nas., I hope you will succeed
in holding it as a citadel. I suppose people arriving at
40 are apt to croak and think their reasons are better than those
of former croakers. But if some people do not somewhere
go in for Theology determinedly and occupy positions and
throw up entrenchments I think our English Church-Land
will be lost. If you are helped to hold Brasenose by marrying,
as a post of vantage, your marriage will be blest indeed."

But marriage meant the forfeiture of the fellowship,
and some substitute had to be found. Mr. Coxe thought
he had discovered it in the little vicarage of Ferry
Hinksey, and at his suggestion this living was offered to
Wordsworth by the patron, Mr. Harcourt of Nuneham.
Wordsworth was strongly attracted, and did his best to
win the assent of the Principal of Brasenose.

" I feel," he wrote to Dr. Cradock, " and others who know
me feel, that I should be personally better for some work
amongst the poor, and indirectly a better teacher. ... I
believe that I should be able to manage the two (the vicarage
and tutorship) without detriment to the College. I believe
that if I have a work of this kind on the spot I am less likely
to be drawn away to other places, and so far shall be a more
permanent worker. I have not anything of my father's
strength and perseverance, but I have at least an example
in his case how much may be combined with the management
of a large and difficult parish. As to the moral strength to
be gained by parochial work I have no doubt that it is great,
and I would gladly have this opportunity of -self-improve-
ment. But above all I feel the duty to go on in the work which
I have in hand in the College, which grows clearer before me,
and therefore, if you think this cannot be combined with
Hinksey, I shall decidedly give it up."

Its nearness to Oxford, the smallness of its population,
and the ease with which clerical assistance could be

1 I Tim. i. 18.

68 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

obtained, all made Hinksey a suitable place for the
experiment. But the Principal was inexorable ; a
lectureship, he said, might be held with the living, but
not a tutorship, and his opposition was fatal. This was
the only occasion when Wordsworth came near to taking
a parish. After ten years a pleasant living in Sussex
was offered him by the College, but he refused it on the
ground that he still had work to do in Oxford. Yet
parish work would have been thoroughly congenial
to him, and as a Bishop he seized every opportunity of
exercising the more spiritual functions of the clergy.
He may even be regarded as having been in a remote
sense a founder of the Oxford House at Bethnal Green.
In 1872 he urged the Warden of Keble and other friends
to settle with him at Nottingham for part of the Long
Vacation that they might study Church work in a great
town. The plan broke down, but was renewed next
year, when Lincoln was suggested as the scene. But
by this time St. Saviour's, Hoxton, where Mr. Oakley,
afterwards Dean of Manchester, was vicar, had drawn
the attention of Wordsworth's group of friends, and a
course of sermons there in Lent, 1873,^ was the beginning
of the connection between Oxford and the East End of
London. Wordsworth himself did not take part in
the visit to Hoxton, and the projected residence at Lincoln
in the following summer was abandoned. Yet he had
had his share in initiating the movement.

Meanwhile, he was doing his best to gain religious
influence in Brasenose. Before he had been tutor a year
he vainly proposed that occasional sermons should be
preached in the chapel ; in the summer term of i86g
he got permission to hold a late evening service on Sundays
with an address by himself. It is not clear whether

1 By R. S. Copleston, H. S. Holland, R. C. Moberly, E. S. Talbot,
and other members of Mozley's graduate class.

RELIGION IN COLLEGE 69

this was in addition to the lectures he was giving on
Sunday evenings in that term, which he thus described
to his brother ^ : —

"... I go on with my Sunday evenings successfully
enough. On Trinity Sunday I shall read on St. Paul and
Philo, having spent three evenings on the text of the first
four chapters of i Corinthians. I am reading Philo de
Monarchia as a specimen treatise. My idea is to write a
lecture taking for the text i Cor. i. 22-24. Here you have
the contrast between the a-rmeta and SvVa/Ats on the Jewish
side and the cro<^ta on the Greek ; thoughts exemplified very
strongly by the two words aHhv or aiwves and koo-jU-os— the
world looked upon as a succession of ages in which the pro-
vidence of God is displayed by miracles and by the ordering
of events in an historical and spiritual progress (aiaJves) ;
the world conceived as a whole in time — the Jewish thought.
On the other side the world conceived as a wonderful order,
a work of art, a harmony of parts of which the individual
man is the centre or at least the proper spectator (koV/xos) ;
the world conceived (you may say) in space — the Greek idea.
Now the reconciliation of these is a problem which must always
be interesting, but was then particularly imder discussion,
especially at Alexandria, the confluence of East and West.
Philo had the problem well before him, and made use of the
Jewish Scriptures to solve it. Naturally he hit upon many
truths, many likenesses of phrase and thought with the N.T.,
but his failure, where Christianity (especially interpreted
by St. Paul) has confessedly succeeded, is at once a great
proof of the divine origin of the Christian solution, and adds
a great interest to it historically, as we see that it came when
it was needed by mankind and was addressed to them not as
a mere miracle to attract attention but as a grace vouchsafed
in answer to the demands of their heart and their intellect."

If such an address were open to the College, and not
confined to a smaller and more intellectual audience, he
was putting a severe strain on the attention of the normal

^ 12th May, 1869.

70 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

undergraduate. As might have been expected, he was
soon urging the Principal to sanction changes in the order
of service. It was characteristic that he wished to adopt
the Christ Church custom of using daily the second
Ember Prayer, on the ground of the large number of
candidates for ordination. It was his pride in his later
days at Brasenose that on the average four-ninths of the
graduates of the College had entered Holy Orders during
each year of his tutorship.

But if he had evidence of usefulness which made it
worth his while, even at the cost of postponing his marriage,
to stay where he was, the instinct of combat encouraged
this resolve. Already in 1868 he had told his friends
that the ideal of many of the fellows was not his own.
They were for changes in the University and the Colleges
which offended his strongest feelings. He was convinced
that the ancient ways were best, and the more so that
they were clerical ways. His family, not in a merely
obstructive sense, was conservative ; he preserved a
touching letter from his mother, written on his election
to Brasenose, in which she urged him amid the general
defection of the time to be loyal to ancient truth and order.
The University was a Christian institution, pledged to
inculcate a specific form of Christian belief and to require
its acceptance from those whom it taught ; the Colleges,
by the intention of their founders, were still more definitely
Christian. This view of the case was being assailed with
extraordinary vigour and pertinacity, and the language
and methods of its opponents were such as to irritate
its upholders ; perhaps, indeed, they were designed to
irritate them. There is a touch of absurdity to-day
about the ideas, practical and philosophical and religious,
of those who thought themselves emancipated, and leaders
of progress, forty-five years ago. Their notions have not
worn well. But they were formidable adversaries, and

OXFORD CONTROVERSIES 71

the causes they promoted were often better than their
arguments. On the other side, there was a good deal
of despondency, and a tendency on the part of earnest
men to draw together, to emphasise their peculiarities
by way of protest, to be an influence for good rather
within the circle of their own adherents than by a diffused
activity. The outburst of hopefulness among Churchmen
which followed upon Oxford's acceptance of the teaching
of T. H. Green only began as Wordsworth was leaving
the University. His was a time of bitterness, social
too often as well as argumentative. And the issues were
confused and tempers sharpened on either side by a
certain hollowness in both positions. The aggressors
promised that they would do great things if the University
were set free, while in fact their men, moulded by the
old traditions of Oxford, were no better qualified to work
a beneficent revolution than their opponents ; it would
be idle to say that the change which they achieved,
inevitable and even desirable as it may have been, pro-
vided more efficient or more distinguished teachers than
Oxford had before possessed. On the other hand, their
adversaries, proclaiming the value of clerical fellowships,
were confronted by the obvious fact that many clerical
fellows did not share their enthusiasm or illustrate the
advantage of the existing system.

Into this sea of conflict Wordsworth made an early
plunge. He addressed a public letter to the Warden
designate of Keble College, the Rev. E. S. Talbot,^ en-
titled " Keble College and the present University Crisis," ^
dated 4th December, 1869. In it he covered the whole
ground of dispute. Were religious tests any longer to
exist in the University ? If the University were thrown
open, should the Colleges maintain the exclusiveness

1 Now Bishop of Winchester.

2 Published by Parker & Co., Oxford, 1869.

72 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

of their present statutes ? What, if the worst came to
the worst, were Churchmen to do ? The first question
was answered by the Act of 1871, the second, after long
controversy, by the statutes of the Commission of 1882.
Meanwhile, Keble College had been designed, not only for
the benefit of those who should study there, but that it
might " react upon the rest of the University," being
secured by deed of trust for the sole service of the Church
of England.^ The admission of the College to the
privileges of the University as a " new foundation " was
bitterly opposed, and even after it was sanctioned the
unfledged institution was still pursued with animosity.
The impending triumph of the academic Liberals would
be marred by this standing reminder of the ancient ways,
and the curious passion for uniformity which led that
generation to abolish so many gracious and harmless
peculiarities of Oxford life was offended by this con-
spicuous exception. On the other hand, the friends of
the Church had high expectations not only of the practical
usefulness of the College, but also of its value as a protest
and perhaps as a refuge. In this spirit Wordsworth
wrote to congratulate the Warden and to survey the
scene. Keble College was starting with the principles
with which the older Colleges had started ; those —

"with which, it seems to me, a College should reasonably
start — the maintenance of a life suitable to poor scholars,
and the preservation and propagation of a distinct Christian
faith."

So it had been with Brasenose : —

" It has always been in our power to appeal to the double
character of our College, as a place for poor men to work in,
and as a place for Christian men to become better Christians,
better Churchmen, and generally more religious and devout."

^ See Pusey's speech at the laying of the foundation stone in his
Life, iv. 204.

OXFORD CONTROVERSIES 73

But Oxford is now looking to Parliament, and expecting
an answer to the question, " Is any religious profession
to be any longer a necessary part of our institutions ? "
It is generally believed that tests imposed at degrees
and upon taking University office will be removed, and
Wordsworth welcomes this : —

" In Oxford we hate the sound of the word ' Tests ' ; we
hate the insincerity which has followed them, and the slur
that has been cast on official professions of faith."

But the case is different with the Colleges, where
association is so much closer. Their inward bond of
union is being threatened —

" by the widespread jealousy of dogma, and the tendency all
over Europe to secularise and destroy all foundations that
stand up above the common level."

Not Nonconformist hostility to the National Church,
but a wider and less palpable movement is the danger : —

" ' Let us get rid of all our prejudices, and try if we cannot
make the civilisation of the world sufiicient for universal
happiness.' It is a grand thought, I own; and it is being
put in practice on a grand scale in Germany. Are we ready
to make Oxford the theatre for a like spectacle ? "

If we do so, Oxford will inevitably become less religious
than it is.

" How," he asks, "will it be possible, in fairness, to reject
any man as a teacher, whatever his opinions, if only he is
competent to teach ? "

There will be inward strife, CoUege tutors striving to
win adherents to their own theories ; or else the teachers
will be mere specialists, caring only for their own studies ;
or again, in the interests of peace, they will " confine
themselves to inculcating an undogmatic morality." But
dogma is necessary for education : —

" the distinctively Christian doctrine of the resurrection of
the body, resting upon the resurrection of Christ, is the only

74 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

foundation for a morality that is to be really successful and
reproductive. . . . For the sake of such a doctrine, and for
the power it gives us of kindling life in others, we are ready to
sacrifice present communion with much that is attractive and
beautiful in itself. It is for this that we wish to retain our
Colleges, not from an envious or sectarian spirit. And for
the sake of this it is that I congratulate you, as heartily as
I do, on being called to inaugurate an institution that is to
be a nursery of the Christian life."

Without a definite principle of association, the Colleges
had better go.

"If we are set merely to teach every one his particular
study, why should we Hve together at all? Of what use,
in such a case, is the College system ? It becomes, you will
agree, an anomaly, without a rational cause for existence.
We shall have hardly any other motive for living together
than that of being paid by a common Bursar."

He is willing to make large sacrifices to maintain his
ideal. Let the Colleges surrender great part of their
income to the secular University, and let them survive
under such a government as that of the great public
schools, with a council chiefly composed of their own
most distinguished former members. There will be a
corporate spirit and an intelligible principle. Yet he
has little hope that such a scheme will be accepted. If
the " so-called act of justice " is to be done, they must
submit. " For you, however, my dear Talbot, there will
be this melancholy consolation : while we are lying
mutilated and spiritless, you will be rising." As the
monasteries were the refuge of the dark ages, so such
foundations as Keble must be now.

" The barbarism we have to contend against is the bar-
barism of civilisation. It is gradually but surely rising roimd
us, and we must strengthen our towers and trim our lamps if
we are to give any light above the flood."

OXFORD CONTROVERSIES 75

In this tone of despondency he concludes, a tone which,
in those days of Positivism and other forgotten aggres-
sions, was that of Pusey and of Liddon, Liddon main-
tained it to the end of his Oxford career, as in the famous
sermon of 1882, when he bade the faithful abandon
Oxford for Zanzibar. Wordsworth, employed in the
practical work of the University, was to learn hope from
experience. In later controversy his note was not so
plaintive. It is not probable that this published letter
attracted much attention. Certainly its proposals would
not be welcome to the champions of the College system
as it was then, and still is ; he had obviously ignored some
of its advantages and stated others in brighter colours
than they actually wore. But for its author it had an
important result ; it brought him into contact with
Dr. Liddon, and so gave him his first opening for University
work.

Liddon and he were strangers when he sent the great
preacher a copy of the letter and received an approving
reply. Six months later, on the nth June, 1870, Liddon
was elected to the Ireland Professorship. He had just
become Canon of St. Paul's, and he wished to make that
ill-endowed chair as serviceable as possible to the School
of Theology which had lately been founded, largely
through the influence of his master, Dr. Pusey. Pusey,
indeed, was at first adverse to his going to London —

"on the ground that I should be taken away from Oxford,
and ought to remain to work the Theological School and
prevent its getting into the hands of the Rationalists. He
became very pathetic and emphatic." ^

What Liddon could not himself do, he entrusted to
Wordsworth, as to one who was not only a competent
scholar, but had just shown by his published letter that he

^ Liddon's Life. p. 120

76 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

favoured the maintenance of clerical teaching in Oxford as
a safeguard of orthodoxy. On the i8th June, 1870, a week
after Liddon's election to the Professorship, Wordsworth
accepted his offer of the post of his " Assistant Lecturer."
Liddon was generous in his confidence, making no condi-
tions save that the lectures were to be on subjects appointed
for the School. Once or twice he suggested topics, and
often he expressed his gratitude for Wordsworth's aid.
The lectures at first were given thrice a week ; before
long Liddon, knowing the extent of Wordsworth's labours,
insisted that they should only be given twice. They
began in the Michaelmas term of 1870, and continued,
except for the two years (1876-78) in which Words-
worth acted as deputy-professor for J. B. Mozley,i till
Liddon's resignation of the chair in October, 1882. ^ The
School was as yet somewhat rudimentary, the subjects
of examination fewer, and the treatment perhaps more
homiletical than it is at present. Certainly no lecturer
to-day could expect an audience to spend a year on one
of the shorter Epistles of St. Paul. Beside the lectures,
Wordsworth in his later tenure of the office held small
evening classes for discussion at his own house, the last
two being on the Canon of the New Testament in 1881,
and on Westcott and Hort's Greek Testament in 1882.
These must have been among the earliest experiments
in the German method of the " Seminar " to be made in
Oxford.

As a guide to those who followed his lectures he printed

^ For these two years the assistant lecturership to the Ireland Pro-
fessor was held by Mr. Charles Gore of Trinity, now Bishop of Oxford.

' Wordsworth's subjects were Ephesians (twice), Colossians,
Philippians, i Corinthians, St. Mark, St. John. He also lectured on
the History of the Kings of Israel and Judah, the English Text of
Jeremiah, the Life and Epistles of St. Paul, Some Difficulties of the
Gospel History, the Life and Ministry of our Lord. Each of these
courses lasted for a year. He drew largely on the patristic commentators,
such as Jerome and Theodoret.

GOSPEL STUDIES ^^

in 1876 Some Elements of Gospel Harmony, a tract of
fifty-six pages which he never pubhshed. Dr. Sandaj'
thus notices it ^ : —

" It would be wrong to attach too much importance to
this pamphlet, which does not profess to be more than a
collection of notes. And yet it is (to the best of my belief)
the only direct treatment by him that we have of the central
question of the Gospels ; and there is some significance both
in what it contains and in what it does not contain. The
strong point about it is the scholarly presentment of external
data ; the most notable omission is that of any attempt at
internal critical analysis. In regard to the origin of the Gospels
the writer's mind appears to be in a state of suspense ; the
authority that he seems most inchned to follow is Bishop
Westcott's Introduction to the Study of the Gospels — one of
the least satisfactory of its author's works, and calling for
criticism all the more because it is so full of ingenuities.
Throughout his hfe Wordsworth appears to have maintained
a considerable reserve on the deeper questions of criticism ;
he was naturally conservative, and yet he moved with the times
in a restrained and sober way."

Gospel study has so changed since 1876 that it will
suffice to say that the Elements are a full and accurate
discussion of the principal dates in the Gospels, and of
the designs of the four Gospels as revealed by their own
statements, as discovered by comparison of contents,
and as recorded by tradition. The author subjected his
work to careful revision, and began to print a new edition,
taking cognisance of the literature down to 1879. This,
however, was never completed, and there is no evidence
to show whether he meant to publish it in this more
perfect form.

The first years of his work for Liddon mark the climax
of Wordsworth's activity. He was taking his full share
of the Moderations work, Honour and Pass, in his College ;

Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. v., ut supra.

7^ LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

he was giving advanced lectures on Latin subjects, and
laboriously preparing an important classical book ; he
was, for a while, giving the whole theological teaching
in Brasenose, for the College did not enter into a combined
scheme till 1872. He was also busy, as we shall to some
extent see, in other ways. It is no wonder that the
burden of his friends' letters at this time is the danger
of overwork. In this anxiety Liddon shared, but though
they quickly became intimate, walking together and con-
stantly exchanging views, his warnings had as little
effect as those of others. Yet to Liddon, Wordsworth
became deeply attached ; the smallest scraps of his
writing, invitations to a lunch or a walk, have been
treasured. Dr. King, the late Bishop of Lincoln, is the
only other correspondent of Wordsworth to whom he has
shown the same honour. And when Liddon resigned his
professorship he made unavailing efforts to secure the
office for his assistant.

Liddon's payment for his services was a welcome addi-
tion to Wordsworth's income, but though Brasenose paid
its tutors better than most Colleges, ^ it did not seem as
yet that he could marry. However, in the summer of
1870 the problem was solved. The two fathers agreed to
make up the amount of the fellowship that would be
forfeited, and the College was glad to retain the services
of the tutor. The marriage took place at Wytham Church
on Innocents' Day, 28th December, 1870. Miss Elizabeth
Wordsworth says of the bride : —

" We gained in her one of the most charming and affectionate
of sisters-in-law. She brought to him just the qualities which
he wanted in a wife. It was like ' the setting of perfect
music unto noble words ' of which Tennyson speaks, and our
whole family, his Oxford pupils, and later the whole diocese

^ See Replies to Circulars of Oxford University Commissioners^
188 1, Appendix, p. 97.

PERSONAL INFLUENCE 79

of Salisbury, had reason to bless the day which made them man
and wife." ^

The husband, as he was about the same time, has
been described 2 thus : —

" In person Wordsworth was thin and spare, with a very
pale complexion, and he had a curious habit of often appearing
abstracted and half asleep, when in reality his attention was
actively concentrated on the subject in hand, as his remarks
would show. For pupils and friends of more ordinary mould
than himself, ' Jacky ' Wordsworth was full of surprises.
At a Welsh reading party, in the midst of a conversation out
a-walk, he would suddenly leap a stone wall —

' Apollo
Mortales medio aspectus sermone reliquit.'
Or if a pupil who had just got through Honour Moderations
asked him what study he might best take up for a livelihood
after his degree, Wordsworth, after a pause, would suggest
EgjTptian hieroglyphics. Like a true scholar he would assume
that his pupils also had a genuine interest in study. . . ."

The writers go on to describe his wife : —

" His partner and helpmeet throughout his Oxford life
was that most amiable, bright, and sympathetic of ladies,
Susan, the only daughter of ' Bodley Coxe.' The shyest
freshman felt at home in her presence ; the fourth year man,
now a hardened misogynist, felt misgivings when she talked
with him, and the faces of her College friends, in later life,
would light up with enthusiasm at her name."

The marriage was, indeed, a remarkable union of
mutually helpful gifts and characteristics. Evidence
much fuller than can be printed in these pages has been
furnished of the extraordinary and lasting influence
exercised by the Wordsworths upon Brasenose men

1 Glimpses of the Past, p. 127. There is a description of young
Mrs. Wordsworth in Chap. V. of that book.

* By C. B. H. and F. M., Salisbury Diocesan Gazette, 191 1, p. 188.

8o LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

when they had, after a year spent with the Coxes in
Beaumont Street, taken up their home at i, Keble Terrace.
The husband's quaintness in manner and language was
itself an attraction, and though it was not in the least
a pose he must have been encouraged in his uncon-
ventionality by the knowledge that it helped to win the
heart of his pupils. The attempt that is made here to
describe this lighter side of his life, though it is illustrated
only by the memories of Brasenose men, is coloured by
my own reminiscences of his first years at Salisbury, when
he and his wife were still what they had been at Oxford
and when, among some of the younger clergy, they still
exercised their Oxford charm. One of his most striking
qualities was a capacity for silence, even (or perhaps
especially) when speech would have been helpful. His
wife has been known to complain that he would rather
read Bradshaw upside-down than talk to her. In such
a difficulty she was at her best. She would not only
fill the void by her own bright conversation, but would
effectually waken him. This, which was part of the
entertainment expected in Keble Terrace, has often
saved the situation at parochial and even diocesan
meetings which were in danger of failure through the
muteness of the Bishop.

But he was most impressive through the high demands
he made upon all who came under his influence. He
assumed that they had ability and the will to use it, and
he would take for granted, without evidence and some-
times against all probability, that they had some such
knowledge and interest as his own. I once heard him
gravely advising a little workhouse boy, who had been
set to weed his garden at Salisbury, to keep up his Latin,
for it would be useful to him in regard to the scientific
names of plants. A similar, if less heroic, assumption
was habitually made in his advice to Brasenose men.

\ \ ' .

O-liCATOUmOfdAfi

JOHN WORDSWORTH AS PROCTOR
(1874)-

PERSONAL INFLUENCE 8i

This overrating of their powers, and also of their strength
of will, was doubtless sometimes amusing and sometimes
irritating. But if his geese were apt to be swans, it is
certain that this expectation of great things from men
was not without effect. Never, at Oxford or in later life,
would he suggest, or even sanction, the idea that com-
fortable acquiescence in ignorance or ineffectiveness
was a pardonable thing. Yet with this high standard
there went a wide, sometimes a curiously wide, tolerance.
In a good sense, he was a man of the world, and very
patient with the sallies of high-spirited youth. As
Proctor, in 1875, he not merely attained the common and
qualified success that the undergraduate world did not
dislike him ; there is evidence that he was actually
popular. He took, indeed, an unfeigned personal interest
in those with whom he had to do, and though the manners
of his day were far from the unrestrained familiarity of
modern Oxford, he took a step towards less formal relations
by addressing his pupils by their surname only. This was
new in Brasenose, as in the Colleges in general, and at
first provoked some resentment. Wordsworth had learnt
the use at New College, where the combination in a small
society of graduate and undergraduate fellows, which
lingered into his time, had made it natural. The general
result of this treatment of his men was that without any
devices for the gaining of influence he succeeded in gaining
it, aided by the special gifts of his wife ; and numbers
who would have resented the suggestion that the discipline
lauded in his letter to the Warden of Keble was being
exercised on themselves did in fact unconsciously submit
to it. It was a frequent event that young men, who
were passing through Oxford without any definite plan
for the future, came to regard the ministry of the Church
as their proper sphere.

The evidence for his success may begin with a

G

82 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

statement whose genial exaggeration is so obvious that
it cannot offend : —

" In the seventies Brasenose was a huge practical joke,
and we all enjoyed ourselves amazingly. But all but John
Wordsworth and those whom he influenced were frankly
pagans, save for the remembrance of pubhc school memories
of better things."

Another writes more specifically, with reference to the
hospitality which was known among Brasenose men as
" Crumpets and Corinthians " : —

" There was no one on the College staff whom the men
respected more, not merely for his great intellectual gifts, but
for his unbounded kindness and the high standard of Hfe which
he set before us. His house in Keble Terrace was in the truest
sense a home to any B.N.C. man who cared to come there.
The present writer cannot exaggerate the help and happiness
of those Sunday evenings. Sometimes heroic efforts were made
to begin with some Greek Testament reading in the dining-
room, but we soon moved upstairs where Mrs. Wordsworth
was ready to give us tea and coffee and the fullest share of
that wonderful personal charm and S5anpathy which were so
pecuharly her own. There one often met men and women of
mark and interest, and John Wordsworth never failed to
introduce us as if we ignoramuses were people well worth
knowing. I think this was one of his many wonderful cha-
racteristics that, being so great himself, he always seemed to
treat you as if you were his intellectual equal. This had its
embarrassing side, as when he turned to you and said, ' Of
course you have read so and so,' mentioning some obscure
and learned ancient writer, of whom probably you had never
heard, and seemed quite surprised that you were not familiar
with him. Another mark was his great generosity. He spared
neither trouble nor money to help those who, he thought,
needed help. The present writer owes his first visit to the
Lakes to his generosity, being taken with him one Long
Vacation as his guest ; a visit the memory of which, though
nearly forty years old, is still fresh."

PERSONAL INFLUENCE 83

The fullest and most idyllic account of the Wordsworths
has come from a later pupil, Archdeacon Bodington. It
is curious to note in it how the love of music, which had
been strong when his courtship took in part the form
of a devotion to Beethoven, seems to have disappeared ;
and it is clear that the harshness, doubtless due to anxiety,
of which a friend had complained during the same period, ^
has also vanished.

" The two things that stand out in my memory are first
a kind of affectionate domesticity, of truly Wordsworthian
quality, so that he seemed to show the same sort of interest
in your life that your mother would ; desiring your comfort
and happiness in little ways almost equally (so it really seemed)
with your welfare in big things, and consequently giving you
advice about your meals and all your living arrangements
as if he wanted you (and I am sure he did) to make a bit of
real home about you in College, because he thought you
would be happier and that it was a good thing for your cha-
racter. It was really just like his well-known interest in after
years in the engagements and marriages of his friends and
clergy. It was founded on his own intense love of simple,
elemental human nature and life, which I suppose he derived
from his ancestry and the influence of his mother and of his
intensely happy marriage.

" Then, secondly, his insight was striking — optimistic
but realistic. He seemed to see all the possible tragedy of
life, and equally its possibilities of success. In chapel he
impressed me, and I think all of us in greater or less degree,
intensely. It was his reality. With others, forms might be
formal ; never so with him. That was why Evangelical and
High Church folk equally believed in him, if they had any
reality in themselves. I remember Canon Christopher's
respect and confidence in, and affection for, him, expressed
when I first went to see him. And I am sure that the typical
Brasenose undergraduate of those days in his heart had some
such combination of feelings for him, however much he might

^ See p. 65.

84 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

dread an arm-in-arm conversation with ' Jacky,' as we called
him, round the quad. I remember Mrs. Wordsworth more
than once telling us of his passing sleepless nights from anxiety
and sorrow over some pupil who was doing wrong. Innocent
and simple as in those days he seemed, without (at that time)
the rather rugged Gothic humour which experience of life
afterwards developed in him, he was always influencing us
by his unworldliness and moral earnestness. He was good for
our souls.

" The first time I saw Mrs. Wordsworth was on my first
Sunday evening in Oxford. It was their practice to keep open
house after 8 p.m. on Sundays for Brasenose men. I remember
finding her entertaining a drawing room full of them. No
one who ever saw her in those circumstances is Ukely to forget
it. Her large dark eyes, sparkling with fun, wit, and intelli-
gence, were the feature which expressed most fully the brilliance
for which she was distinguished. She was as quick as lightning
in perception, in mental and spiritual movement, in talk.
She sat in the middle and fairly poured forth floods of brilliant
talk, but also a great deal of knowledge too. Rarely, in the
case of a new acquaintance, did she fail to seem to know him
before he had said anything or done anything to make himself
known. Soon her wondrous S5mipathy and kindness drew us
out of our shell. I never heard her say an unkind word. Yet
she did not spoil, but educate us, and meant to. She chaffed
us aU and each, dons included. We loved it, and it did us
no end of good. No thought of arousing admiration or of
self at all ever entered her head, although she was so sensitive
and reaUy, I think, desirous of the affection even of us, raw
and self-centred as we often were. She poured out a mother's
interest, if not a mother's love, upon us, without one touch
of patronage, without one failure of tact. She, only less than
her husband, had the domesticity I spoke of beautifully, if
sometimes oddly, dove-tailed in with idealism. They expected
us to have the same, and helped to give it us.

" On one of those Sunday nights, in the middle of a letter-
game, a servant announced with a long and startled face, ' If
you please'm, the kitchen boiler has burst.' But no one
seemed surprised. Our host and hostess resolutely refused
to be troubled, nor would they visit the scene of ruin, but

PERSONAL INFLUENCE 85

begged one of us to go and report. Every Friday evening
also Mrs. Wordsworth was at home. I remember how Mr.
Wordsworth, who was not musical, used occasionally from
his chair and book to protest politely and affectionately against
the very loud noise that he said she was making, though it
might be an adagio. But another time it would be her turn
against him when, seized with the desire to make the most of
his opportunities, he would read us a sermon, say of Dr.
Mozley, and she, feeling as usual to a nicety the pulse of the
assembly, would after a time begin to fidget with her foot,
until she could bear it no longer and cried, ' Oh ! really,
John, we have had enough.' Often Mr. Wordsworth's pupils
would be invited to dine, and then there was her sketching-
class for the more favoured few ; really a lasting benefit
through Ufe. In all these and other unselfish ways Mr. and
Mrs. Wordsworth did for us more than perhaps either we
or they knew ; it was indeed no small part of our Oxford
education.

" I think we were more afraid of him in those days than
we were ever afterwards as clergy in his diocese. WhUe
deep in books and MSS., it was through his wife chiefly that
he best understood young men's hmnan nature. He had a
quaint way of making remarks about one's clothes. ' Why
do you wear such a briUiant waistcoat ? ' ' Before you touch
that book, are your hands quite clean ? ' He put alarming
questions to us, and seemed astonished and even grieved at
our ignorance ; ^ so when somebody translated yAwo-o-oKo/tov 2
* with an impediment in his speech,' amid our roars of laughter,
he quietly said, ' I thought every Christian man would have
known better.'

" In those days his interest was much more of the bookish
order than it was afterwards. He disHked, or seemed sus-
picious of, mathematics and science. Mrs. Wordsworth used
to tell us that books were her rivals, and that she had to lead
him past the bookshops as if they were pubHc houses. I
remember weU this vein in her when seven additional tons of
books arrived at SaHsbury from his father's hbrary at Lincoln.

^ Cf. Archbishop Benson's Life, i. 222.
2 St. John xii. 6.

86 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

" In my second term I had a severe illness. It was then
I first knew the extraordinary tenderness of the man. Every
morning after chapel he used to come round to see me. He
would pray the most beautiful simple extempore prayer, with
the tears running down his cheeks. I shall always cherish
many of the strength-giving words of manly and childlike
faith and trust and piety which he spoke. He would surely
have made a great pastor of a country parish, which indeed
was his and her chief wish at this time. His Wordsworthian
qualities of quiet strength, faith, simplicity, piety, and tender-
ness would have made country people rest on him, and through
him on God."

Another pupil ^ records a kindness, o± special value
when there was no Acland Home ^ for members of the
University in sickness : —

" When I had been up about a year and a half I was taken
seriously ill in the insanitary buildings in the back quad.
When John Wordsworth [Mr. Kinder's tutor] became aware
of this, which was not for several days, he sent a cab to the
College and had me removed to his house at Keble Terrace,
and also asked my mother to stay there. This kindness of
keeping us there was continued for a fortnight, until I was
convalescent. It enabled me to keep my term."

But instances of his kindness, ranging from help in
serious emergencies to the loan of a few pounds to carry
an improvident youth to his home at the end of term,
might be multiplied ad infinitum.

Reading parties counted then for more than now, and
Wordsworth made a practice of conducting one, usually
to the Lake District, each Long Vacation. There was
plenty of work, and plenty of entertainment. Among
the accounts that have reached me is one of a party

1 The Rev. E. H. Kinder, B.A., 1880, now Rector of Kirby Bedon,
Norwich.

* The Acland Home is the Northgate House where the Librarian
and, after his death, his widow, Mrs. Coxe, resided.

PERSONAL INFLUENCE 87

at Newlands, near Keswick, in 1874. ^ Of the afternoon
rambles it is said : —

" Wordsworth was, it must be confessed, a somewhat
aggravating companion on a long expedition. For the first
hour or so he hung back, as a rule, rather behind the others,
crawled slowly up-hill, complained that he didn't feel up to
a long walk just then, and generally gave one the impression
that he would never attain the goal. This mood lasted until
the summit of the first considerable eminence was reached
and other people were getting rather blown. Then on the
edge of the descent into the next valley his whole demeanour
changed. He suddenly seemed to wake up, ceased to sigh, and
without waiting for anybody started at full speed down the
slope. No matter what sort of going it might be, boulders,
bracken, heather, screes, rocks, and streams, his long legs
bounded over them, his arms waved wildly, and he never
stopped his headlong course till he reached the bottom. Why
he didn't break his neck we never could understand. It
was, indeed, an article of faith with us that he had no feeling
in his legs. Moreover, the absurdity of the proceeding was
apt to deprive his companions of aU power to control their own
legs, and they ended, as often as not, in a headlong plunge into
bracken or over a boulder, in helpless and inextinguishable
laughter."

But he furnished an abundance of intentional, as well
as unintentional, amusement, and took care that the
hours of work were kept sacred, while his tact and good-
humour easily overcame the minor difficulties that arise
on such occasions.

He had a keen and quick sense of incongruity in things
great and small, and his humour consisted in giving it
a pointed expression, sometimes sardonic yet never
cynical. "It is wise to speak to freshmen in their first
term, before they have learned to know us and to

1 From the Rev. E. H. Goddard, B.N.C., now Rector of Clyffe
Pypard, Wilts.

88 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

despise us," was a characteristic utterance.^ He was also
to the end of his life addicted to plays upon language,
often laborious enough, of the kind that was more
practised and admired in the days of Mansel than it is
now. It has to be confessed that his unconscious quaint-
ness, of which numerous stories are current in Oxford,
did not always add to his impressiveness. Still, these
lighter qualities reinforced the impression made by his
solid gifts, and did nothing to weaken the expectation,
current among his friends and pupils from an early date,
that he would rise to high office in the Church.

A College tutor without a fellowship was rare in the
Oxford of 1870. There were not more than a dozen men
who were giving their whole time to College, as opposed
to University, work on such terms. The position was
regarded as abnormal, and had the obvious incon-
venience that the holder had no voice in College business,
and that his suggestions might be rejected by the vote
of non-resident Fellows, or Fellows taking no part in the
work of the College. But though John Wordsworth
felt this disability he was thoroughly loyal to Brasenose,
declining more than one offer made to him of work
elsewhere ; ^ and it is clear that he was not made unplea-
santly conscious of his dependent position. There were
instances where tutors without fellowships were spoken
of as " College servants." At Brasenose men were more
gracious.

Though Wordsworth had his full share of Oxford
work, he had also his share in Church interests outside.
In 1870 his father made him an examining chaplain,

' A reminiscence of Dr. H. S. Holland, Commonwealth, 191 1, p. 271.

^ Soon after his marriage he was offered a tutorship at Keble ;
he was also offered the headship of a projected " College Hall," to be
founded on Church lines at Manchester in connection with Owens
College. There is more than one indication that his father wished to
see him settled in a Lincolnshire parish.

CONTROVERSY 89

a duty which he shared with Benson, and collated him
to the prebend of Leighton Ecclesia in Lincoln Cathedral.
John Wordsworth naturally became touched with the
same enthusiasm as his brother prebendary Benson, and
took his honorary duties at Lincoln very seriously. At
Oxford also he did his best for the Church, as he under-
stood its interests. He strove to draw together men of like
mind, and he has preserved from this date a " list of
junior fellows who care for religious and collegiate educa-
tion, and who ought to be made to realize the conditions
under which it is possible." The list is remarkable for
some names that it contains, and some that it omits ;
and a certain change in the connotation of words is shown
by the use of " clerically minded " as a laudatory term.
But if alliances were hearty, opposition was keen and
became necessarily personal. Among the leaders of
thought that regarded itself as advanced was Mr. Walter
Pater of Brasenose, who printed certain philosophical
remarks in the first edition of his chief work which excited
Wordsworth to reproof. He wrote as follows ^ : —

" You will, I think, hardly be surprised at my writing to
you in reference to a subject which has been much in my
thoughts of late. I mean your book of studies in the History
of the Renaissance. No one can admire more than I do the
beauty of style and the felicity of thought by which it is
distinguished, but I must add that no one can be more grieved
than I am at the conclusions at which you represent yourself
as having arrived. I owe so much to you in times past, and
have so much to thank you for as a colleague more recently,
that I am very much pained in making this avowal. But after
a perusal of the book I cannot disguise from myself that the
concluding pages adequately sum up the philosophy of the
whole ; and that that philosophy is an assertion, that no
fixed principles either of religion or morality can be regarded
as certain, that the only thing worth living for is momentary

1 17th March, 1873.

90 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

enjoyment [of course of a high and subtle kind] and that
probably or certainly the soul dissolves at death into elements
which are destined never to reunite. I beUeve you will
acknowledge that this is a fair statement of your position.
If it is not, I shall be only too happy to be disabused of my
misconceptions. I am aware that the concluding pages are,
with small exceptions, taken from a review of Morris's poems
published in 1868 in the Westminster Review. But that article
was anonymous, whereas this appears under your own name
as a Fellow of Brasenose and as the mature result of your
studies in an important period of history. If you had not
reprinted it with your name no one would, I presume, have
had a right to remonstrate with you on the subject, but now
the case appears to be different ; and I should be faithless
to myself and to the beliefs which I hold, if in the position in
which I find myself as tutor next in standing to yourself I
were to let your book pass without a word. My object in
writing is not to attempt argument on these conclusions,
nor simply to let you know the pain they have caused me and
I know also many others. Could you indeed have known the
dangers into which you were likely to lead minds weaker than
your own, you would, I believe, have paused. Could you have
known the grief your words would be to many of your
Oxford contemporaries you might even have found no ignoble
pleasure in refraining from uttering them. But you may have
already weighed these considerations and have set them
aside, and when they are pressed upon you you may take your
stand on your right under the University Tests Act to teach
and publish whatever you please. I must then, however un-
willingly, accept the same ground. The difference of opinion
which you must be well aware has for some time existed
between us must, I fear, become pubhc and avowed, and it
may be my duty to oppose you, I hope always within the limits
of courtesy and moderation, yet openly and without reserve.
It is a painful result to arrive at, but one which I hope you
will not resent as unfair. At any rate, before it goes any
further, I think it right to let you know my feeling and to ask
if you have any reply to make to my letter. On one practical
point perhaps you will allow me to ask a favour. Would
you object to give up to myself or to the other tutors (if they

THE OLD CATHOLICS 91

will take it) your share in the Divinity Examination in
Collections ? This is probably the last time in which the old
system will be in force, and it would be, I confess, a relief
to my mind if you would consent to do so."

It must be added that in his next edition Pater
removed much that had offended his colleague.

If Oxford was a place of warfare, which might be
illustrated by other incidents than this, John Words-
worth was also drawn into the wider controversies of
the Continent. They had been among the chief interests
of his father, who was always ready, as his Miscellanies
show, to protest against Roman peculiarities of belief
and observance. Many Englishmen who had not been
so ready as Dr. Christopher Wordsworth to proclaim their
repugnance were stimulated by the Vatican Council
to open hostility. Liddon, for instance, became an
active sympathiser with the Old Catholic movement,
for which its English friends anticipated a numerical
importance that it has failed to attain. The Old Catholics
and their allies were to be one of John Wordsworth's
interests throughout his life. He first came in contact
with them during a prolonged journey through Southern
Germany and Austria in the Long Vacation of 1871. As
yet it seemed doubtful whether the mass of the German
Catholics would submit to Rome, as their Bishops (however
unwillingly) had done, or would for conscience' sake share
the excommunication of Dollinger, who had been excluded
from his Church four months before Wordsworth wrote,
in August, that he was trying to discover —

" what is going on in the minds of the leaders of thought
among German Catholics. They are, in fact, our brethren
by race and temperament, though in many circumstances
of education and present temper different from us. A national
Cathohc Church in Germany in communion with the English
Church, if such a vision were possible, might by its moral and

92 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

intellectual strength almost dictate terms for the reunion oi
Christendom. Probably it is impossible, but the vaguest
chance of it is something to make the heart leap ; and it is
a great thing to think that the first Diocesan Synod held in
England for nearly two hundred years has done its part towards
such an end by empowering the Bishop to address a letter
expressing sympathy with the movement."

The journey, made in company with Mr. Coxe, who
had access to every library, was a valuable part of Words-
worth's education as a palaeographer. But Mr. Coxe
taught other lessons than the dating of manuscripts.
He shared the Bishop of Lincoln's prejudice against
Rome, as did Benson, ^ and these three influences en-
couraged John Wordsworth's repugnance, and his
sympathy with all who, from disinterested motives,
detached themselves from that communion. Such separa-
tion awakened in him an active theoretical interest in
the constitution of the Christian society as well as in
the problem's of ecclesiastical government and the possi-
bilities of reunion. Just before this, in 1870, extra-
ordinary enthusiasm had been excited among those who
shared the churchmanship of the Wordsworths by the
visit to England of the Greek Archbishop of Syra and
Tenos with his suite. It was a new thing that an Oriental
prelate should show his respect for the Church of England
by attending in his pontifical attire at our services and
taking part in the consecration of one of our Bishops.
He was made an honorary D.D. of Oxford, and nowhere
was he welcomed more heartily than at Riseholme, where
he singled out John Wordsworth as the " deep thinker."
And in the following year an experiment, from which

^ One of Benson's letters has the characteristic heading :—

9th December, 1869.

Fest. Immac. Concept. ! ! !

fV To7s (TToixfiois and

1800 years old.

THE OLD CATHOLICS 93

great things were expected, was made by the Bishop of
Lincoln. Since 1683, when a diocesan synod, in the
strict sense, had assembled in the diocese of St. Asaph,
no gathering of the whole clergy of an English diocese
under the presidence of its Bishop had been held till
the synod of Lincoln, which met on the 20th September,
1 871. Its principles and procedure were described at
length by John Wordsworth in a letter to the Times of
the 6th October, under the signature " Synodicus."
More than once the Bishop of Salisbury was to follow the
example of his father in the assembling of such synods.
In spite of their impressiveness such gatherings have
disappointed the high hopes of 1871, when they seemed
to offer the prospect of a government for the Church,
sound ecclesiastically and constitutionally. But the
English experiment bore a certain resemblance to the
graver venture that was being made in Germany ; and
the assembly at Lincoln sent, through its president, a
synodical letter of sympathy with the Old Catholics.
It was natural that a party from Lincoln should take
part in the first Old Catholic Conference, which assembled
at Cologne in September, 1872. John Wordsworth had
been visiting the English lakes in that summer in company
with the Bensons. He was always taken for the senior
of the party, and Benson " used to delight in addressing
him as ' Bishop/ rather to the confusion of strangers." ^
Thence he travelled to accompany his friends to the Con-
ference. With the Bishop of Lincoln and the members
of his family there was, among others. Canon Meyrick,
an able and attractive man who had been appointed at
the same time as Benson prebendary of Lincoln and
examining chaplain to the Bishop. Meyrick, in 1853,
had been the chief founder of the Anglo-Continental
Society, and was from that year to 1899 i^s honorary

^ Mrs. Trebeck.

94 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

secretary. This little organisation had for its purpose
to proclaim the orthodoxy of Anglicanism, to point out
to members of the Roman Communion the errors of their
system and to give such guidance and support as might
be advisable to seceders who should maintain what to
Anglicans seem right practices and beliefs. It must be
confessed that it has had little influence, and that Meyrick's
usefulness was impaired by the excess of zeal which he
threw into the cause. But in 1872 it seemed that there
was ample scope for the Society in fostering the new
movement, and the Words worths shared in its activities.
At Cologne John Wordsworth first made himself master
of the German language.

" He was able to speak it with considerable accuracy,"
writes Mrs. Trebeck, " and this was the beginning of his lifelong
interest in the Anglo-Continental Society. We made acquaint-
ances with all the Old Catholic leaders. The Dean and Lady
Augusta Stanley were with us and Mr. and Mrs. Edward
Talbot. I remember my father sa5dng, ' If only they [the
Old Catholics] are as wise and zealous in building up as they
are energetic in pulling down, they will do well.' John's
powers of organisation were much developed on this occasion,
as he had to make all the arrangements for the meetings and
services." ^

These foreign interests, it is well to bear in mind,
were shared by such men as Liddon, who himself took
part in the Bonn Conference of 1874. In fact, Liddon 's
letters to Wordsworth show that he regarded the years
between the proclamation of Infallibility, which made
approach to Rome inconceivable, and the troubles of
the Public Worship Regulation Act, as the most satis-
factory within his experience of the English Church. His
mind did not change in regard to the Old Catholics till

^ This can only mean those in which the English-speaking visitors
took part.

THEOLOGICAL TEACHING 95

he detected in them a certain declension from their
original principles, and his approval of English effort on
their behalf only ceased when it was extended to an
Italian revolt with which he could not sympathise.

Meanwhile, Wordsworth's task at Oxford was lightened
by his College's accession in 1872 to a combined scheme of
theological lecturing. From the Michaelmas term of
that year his College lectures were moderate in number. '•
His work for Liddon gave him sufficient opportunity
for Biblical teaching, and his combined lectures were for
the most part on historical subjects, in which he was keenly
interested. Of his success as a teacher the best evidence
is perhaps that fourteen of his pupils were placed in the
second class in the Honour School of Theology. Two ^
attained to the first. One difficulty of the time was that
of books for undergraduates. Wordsworth was the first
to overcome it in Brasenose. One of his services, writes
a pupil ^ —

" was the starting of an Undergraduates' Library, because
the College Library at that time (1873) was not open to the
junior members of the College. As the beginning of a
theological library for those who were reading for the Final
School, he got some of the fellows to lend standard works of
reference, which were placed in his lecture-room, and proved
to be a great help to the men. Personally, I owe much to
this arrangement."

1 Between 1872 and his resignation in 1883 he gave lectures (for
the most part courses of three terms) on Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., Socrates,
Justin, Irenaeus, Origen, Contra Celsum, thg Doctrine of Grace with
Select Treatises of St. Augustine, the Pastoral Epistles, the LXX of
Exodus. Some of these courses were repeated. His classical lecturing
for Honours was usually three hours a week, with tuition as well.
B.N.C. had three members of its staff engaged in Moderations work.
Honours and Pass.

* C. L. Dundas, B.A., 1869, afterwards Fellow of Jesus and now
Archdeacon of Dorset; G. G. Monck, B.A., 1872, now Vicar of Stoke-
sub-Hamdon, Somerset, and Rural Dean.

^ Canon Clayton.

96 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

From what has been said of his interest in men, it
will have been clear that he would not shrink from
responsibility in giving advice to pupils or other friends,
sometimes not younger than himself. The two following
letters show this readiness to exercise authority, and dis-
play by anticipation what may be called an episcopal
mind. It need not be assumed that Wordsworth's
diagnosis of the case was complete or altogether accurate.
Written to a young clergyman restless in his first curacy,
when Wordsworth was himself little more than thirty
years of age, they sufficiently explain themselves.

" It seems that you have a distinct call to stay at X for
the present, if you can do so without knocking up. As to
the last I don't quite know what to say. I should suppose it
was a question rather mental than physical. . . . Can you
throw aside your personal troubles and all but the most
necessary thoughts about yourself, and just realise that you
have to act as an instrument for a particular purpose for nine
months or a year to come ? I am glad, very glad, to have
your full confidence, and would not for the world throw it
back ; but your letter just gives me the feeling that you are
still too introspective, too scrupulous in searching into motives,
open still in some degree to the danger of describing emotion
for the sake of description rather than for practical good.
The mind is like a piece of delicate clockwork, that a very
little dust will disarrange. ... In telling me what you did
I believe you fulfilled the apostolic precept sufficiently, and
I believe you are not in a sufficiently clear frame of mind to
do more at present. Confession (strictly so called) would, I
think, in your case be a strong medicine too much upsetting
to your system. Yet, I frankly own, if you were living in
Oxford I should get you to talk to King, who would, I believe,
give you that sort of quieting mental tonic which you seem to
want. But I would not distress myself further -n-epl to. oma-d),
but rather seek to a deeper and clearer knowledge of God
in the present. May He bring you to peace and rest, and
help you to see your way clearly to serve Him best."

COLLATIO CUM WESLEYANIS 97

" I should, I confess, feel sorry if you were to leave your
Vicar under two years, but if you find the work too distracting,
or if you are not strong enough for it, or if you want to earn a
larger income, you would, I suppose, be quite justified in leaving
at the end of one, or as soon as he could get another curate,
and you another position. But if the difficulty (if there is
one) is only one that can be got over with patience, and at
the sacrifice of tastes and habits not absolutely vital, there
seems to be much to be said for stajdng. It must be good (I
am sure it would have done myself good) to learn to under-
stand the difficulties of quite simple people and to stretch
one's self to their measure. Perhaps it is equally good to be
denied such accessories of parochial work as you might have
elsewhere. I must confess I am afraid sometimes of our think-
ing certain things necessary which are not necessary. Univer-
sity men (such as I may still consider you) seem to have a work
to do in keeping up the cohesion between Churchmen of
different schools. I do not know whether this has any point
in the present case."

In 1874, while Wordsworth was serving as Proctor,
an office in which his senior colleague, Mr. H. Salwey of
Christ Church, remembers that he showed sound business
capacity, there was held on the 9th October a Collatio
cum Wesleyanis, at which the Bishop of Lincoln advanced
considerations which were to guide his son's efforts
thirty years later. The Bishop, ^ moved by the prevalence
of Methodism in Lincolnshire, invited leaders of the
Wesleyans to meet representative Churchmen in con-
ference, to consider the possibility of reunion. The Con-
ference was held on neutral ground, in the London house
and under the presidency of one of his Quaker cousins,
Mr. J. B. Braithwaite. John Wordsworth, as his father's
chaplain, served as secretary ; the representatives on
the one side were Dr. Benson, Mr. F. Meyrick, and the
Bishop himself; on the other. Dr. Moulton, Dr. Osbom,

1 See his Life, Chap. VIII., where a very brief account is given.

H

98 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Dr. Jobson, and Mr. W. Arthur. With these clergy sat
Mr. J. G. Talbot, M.P., as a Churchman, and as lay
Wesleyans, Mr. Alexander MacArthur, M.P., and Mr.
T. Percival Bunting. The proceedings, carefully recorded
by John Wordsworth, were not very satisfactory. The
Bishop strove to keep to matters of principle ; the other
side was apt to wander off to the title of " Reverend,"
the use of which on the tombstone of a Wesleyan minister
was then under litigation, and to the demand for the
opening of Anglican pulpits. Discursive and incon-
clusive as the debate was, the Bishop did not believe
that it had been held in vain ; and the suggestions which
he brought forward were such as always seemed feasible
to his son. He advanced the precedents of Archbishop
Leighton and Bishop Simon Patrick, consecrated to the
episcopate, though their commission to the ministry was
such as Methodist ministers might be regarded as holding,
and of Bishop Bramhall, in conditionally ordaining
ministers of the Commonwealth period, with a saving
clause lest their dignity be wounded. In 1874 the
Wesleyan leaders, satisfied with their own position, would
make no movement. For them " Ordination Problems,"
to use the title of one of Bishop John Wordsworth's
latest volumes, had no existence. For the Wordsworths
they were a topic of unceasing interest.

Just at this time, on the 3rd August, 1874, the Public
Worship Regulation Act became law. Strong Churchmen
were incensed, and were anxious as to the measures which
Archbishop Tait might take, now that he was armed with
this new weapon. No evidence that the Wordsworths
had taken part in the counsels of those who opposed
the measure has come into my hands, ^ but the Bishop
of Lincoln was invited to a meeting of leading Churchmen

1 For his public utterances see Chap. VIII. of the Bishop of
Lincoln's Life.

THEOLOGICAL POSITION 99

summoned for the 15th October at Dr. Bright's lodging
in Christ Church. He could not attend, and his son wrote
on his behalf : ^

" My father thinks the situation very critical. He beheves
the only way to avert a probable schism is to work upon the
Archbishop of Canterbury by a deputation from important
men of all sections of the High Church party, and to obtain
■from him in writing some assurance of what he will do or not
do. He represents the Archbishop as keeping down the other
Bishops, or rather they have no strength to stand against
him, and as having (as no doubt he has) great weight in Parlia-
ment. But he thinks he is quite aHve to public opinion if
brought directly to bear on himself. . . . This really seems
a time when Churchmen in the University are called upon to
have a policy, and if possible one of mediation."

From this time onward John Wordsworth took his
side in public with Pusey and Liddon, joining in the
protest against the prosecutions under the recent Act,
and being asked for counsel on critical matters, such as
the troubles between the Bishop and the Church Missionary
Society in Ceylon. In principle he agreed with the Bishop,
but his advice was in favour of moderation in language
and action. But if he acted with them, we must not
assume a perfect inward agreement. It was his conserva-
tive tendency that ranged him on their side, and perhaps
the public, and even he himself, thought the unison more
perfect than it was.

" I don't think," writes Dr. Jayne, Bishop of Chester, who
was then a tutor of Keble, " that John Wordsworth was ever
much tinged with Tractarianism proper. He went, I should
think, on his scholarly (classical and theological) way with
a certain aloofness, though intimate with the Keble group,"

A Brasenose man, no longer a member of the English
Church, who was a pupil of Wordsworth about 1870,

^ To the Warden of Keble, from Riseholme, 22nd September. 1874.

100 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

agrees with Bishop Jayne in regard to < his theological
position. He contrasts the '■ old-fashioned Anglicans "
of that day, among whom he ranks Wordsworth, with the
more conspicuous groups at either extreme of Church-
manship.

" John Wordsworth," he says, " stood out from the rest
[of the tutors of Brasenose] as the students' friend, exempli-
fying in his person the purest type of the orthodox, old-
fashioned AngUcan Churchman, never parading religion or
talking about it, but preaching it everywhere by his own
modest actions and suggesting it as the source of aU his virtues.
The old-fashioned Anglicans made much less outward fuss
[than the rival schools] and carefully avoided singularities.
Their endeavour tended towards taking the Prayer-book as
it stood, turning the collects and psalms and daily lessons in
it into a reality, and conforming their lives to a consistent,
if unobtrusive, rectitude and kindliness of manner. Openly
to discuss or even mention religion would have been an
impertinence. ... A young man at Oxford, without any very
fixed principles or religious ideals, was practically secure
the moment a kind Providence drew him within the sphere
of the Wordsworths' home. At the same time there is nothing
extraordinary to record, nothing very tangible to lay hold of
as distinctive. The method was so simple, and the life so
uneventful ; successful perhaps because so free from eccentri-
city or excitement. Religion was behind the scenes ; never
obtruded or discussed, as it was in Evangelical or Ritualistic
circles ; it was, however, powerfully suggested in the very
sweetness and light of the whole atmosphere and by the gentle
lives of its professors."

The writer goes on to say that the first rift between
himself and the tutor was caused by his silence in regard
to his making a first confession to Dr. King at Christ
Church.

" Was it not indeed," he asks, " a logical result of a three
years' friendship, spent in such close alliance with a spirit

THEOLOGICAL POSITION loi

so good, so beautiful and so true as theirs ? And yet reserve
as to a confession to Dr. King seemed imperative in view of
their attitude at that time on this most important question." ^

It may be only a coincidence, but this active partici-
pation in the conflicts of Oxford, whether or no it were
in complete interior sympathy with the leaders on the
Church's side, was accompanied by a cessation of Words-
worth's active intercourse with his Cambridge friends.
Hitherto it had seemed his mission to interpret them to
Oxford ; henceforth they apparently sink below his
horizon, with the exception of Benson, who was now
settled at Lincoln. On Christmas Eve, 1872, he had
written to the Warden of Keble, rejoicing in the coming
of " our new Chancellor " to Lincoln.

" It will be a most excellent thing for my father to have
him on the spot ; and though he gives up a much larger income
I think in the end it will be a good step for him. It is a great
thing to stop after twenty years of incessant schoolmastering
toil with such a very fresh spirit and in the midst of success ;
and he has, you know, a great natural devotion to Cathedral
work and particularly to work at Lincoln, so that I think he

1 This gentleman tells how his tutor hurried from Scotland to
Scarborough to arrest, if possible, his entrance into the Roman Church.
This was some years after he had taken his degree. " Again, nothing
was directly said, though much was suggested. The fact of the long
journey undertaken at so much cost and trouble, the pathetic sadness,
making quite apparent that afEection was being strained, if not broken
outright, the very abstention from reproach or discussion, were the
more appealing. Indeed, all this did more than many words to make
the meeting a powerful protest and a dif&cult argument to contradict.
. . . Passing in our walk the open door of the old church which crowns
the hill near the castle above the harbour, Mr. Wordsworth and his
errant disciple entered, as if led by a common instinct, and then, without
controversy or blame, the master said, ' Let us kneel down together
for the last time and pray for guidance, that neither of us may ever do
aught but the Divine will or ever believe a lie.' . . . No more was
said, and soon after we parted for very different spheres of real work."
I wish I had space for more of these reminiscences of an acute and
sympathetic observer.

102 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

will have a great field before him. Of course one looks to
all sorts of future possibilities."

It was John Wordsworth who was charged, in 1876,
to convey to Benson the offer of the bishopric of Calcutta,
as is recorded in the Archbishop's Life. ^

In 1876 and 1877 he held the almost honorary post
of Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint. He had stood
for the ofhce but had withdrawn his candidature two
years before, deeming that it was incompatible with
the labours of the proctorship. This news had drawn
a remonstrance and a characteristic disquisition from
Dr. Pusey, who addressed Wordsworth through Liddon.
The letter was evidently written in haste.

" Feb. 26, 1874.

" My dearest L.,

" I should be very glad to hear of Wordsworth's
Proctorate but for what you say about his feelings about the
Grinfield Lectureship.

" The LXX Lectureship ought to bear on the N.T. It was
to form the language of the LXX that God so combined the
far-seeing ambition of Alexander, which saw the value of
the site of Alexandria, and the rebellion of the Jews in going
down to Egypt, and so wonderfully unites the accuracy of
the Greek language and the depth of the Hebrew to form the
language of His last revelation of Himself. It is for this
[? relation] of the language of the LXX to the Greek of the N.T.
that the study of the LXX is mainly valuable. Now and then the
LXX gives valuable testimony as to the meaning of a Hebrew
word in their times, as in the rendering of Trap6evo<; in Isaiah
or Siacf)6opd in Ps. xvi. But after all this is only an argumentum
ad hominem, and lies on the surface. In the main we know
more Hebrew than the LXX. Nor are the LXX mostly so good
as Aquila or Symmachus, except where anti-doctrinal pre-
judices influence these last. I think, then, that Wordsworth's
eminent Greek scholarship would be of far more avail than
any Hebrew. Hebrew scholarship mostly avails to account

1 Vol. I.. 398.

THEOLOGICAL LECTURES 103

for the LXX rendering and very often to explain the source
of their mistakes. The school which would correct the Hebrew
text by aid of the LXX was a mistaken one and has passed
away, though I should not be surprised if it were revived by
those who would innovate in everything. Cui bono to com-
ment on the blunders of ^ ? I earnestly hope that W.
will not resign his candidature. I heard the V.C. say . . .
mentioning names which I must not repeat. Do urge him
not to resign his candidature. It might put us in a great
strait.

" Your very affectionate

"E. B. PUSEY."

As Grinfield lecturer Wordsworth issued in June,
1877, a four-paged List of Selected Books to ilhistyate
the Alexandrian Dialect, as a guide to his audience.
It is noteworthy in that half the volumes included are
collections of inscriptions or of papyri. In his attention
to the latter he anticipated a fruitful line of modern
research.

A more important undertaking was that of acting
as deputy to the Regius Professor of Divinity, Dr. J. B.
Mozley, who fell into ill-health in the autumn of 1875,
and till his death on the 4th January, 1878, was unable
to resume his lectures. Mozley had returned to Oxford
as Regius Professor in 1871. It does not appear how
soon Wordsworth attached himself to him, but it was he
who first conceived the idea of the famous graduate
class. ^

" In the autumn of 1873," Wordsworth writes, " Dr.
Mozley came to meet a party at dinner in my rooms in College
— invited for the purpose — and after dinner we asked him to
give us some lectures in the ensuing term. This he did on
Mondays at 4, giving six or seven in the Lent term 1874,

^ A blank in the letter.

^ The list of members is in The Letters of J. B. Mozley, p. 343.

104 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

and this same number in Michaelmas term 1874, and Lent
term 1875. The two Summer terms of 1874 and 1875 were
similarly occupied with essays contributed by members of the
class in turn. Amongst others Bishop Mylne's article on
Theodore of Mopsuestia, published in the first volume of the
Church Quarterly Review, was read on two Mondays. Bishop
Copleston, I believe, and Messrs. S. J. Fremantle, Holland,
and myself also read, as well as others." ^

When Mozley's health broke down, it was natural
that he should turn to Wordsworth for assistance. " James
testifies to the fixity of purpose in Mr. Wordsworth ;
inexorable in keeping up the meetings through all the
distractions of this term," runs a family letter cited by
Miss Mozley.2 At first the task assigned was the modest
one of reading lectures composed by the Professor.
But as the gravity of his case became more clear it was
seen that a deputy must be appointed, and Wordsworth
pressed Liddon to use his influence with Mozley for the
nomination of Edwin Palmer, his successful rival in the
contest for the professorship of Latin. Mozley, however,
preferred Wordsworth, who delivered three courses in
this new capacity, surrendering, as has been said, his
similar work for Liddon. At first he lectured for a term
on a familiar topic, the ministry of our Lord after the
death of John the Baptist. Then, as the disciple and
representative of Mozley, he launched upon more
adventurous courses, lecturing upon " The Being and
Nature of God and the future life as revealed in natural
religion," and " The idea and method of revelation, or
truth, mercy, and peace, as manifested in the Kingdom of
God." These two courses were to be the germ of Words-
worth's Bampton Lectures.

Mozley's selection of his deputy had been the strongest

1 To Miss Mozley, nth February, 1878.
^ Letters of J. B. Mozley, p. 342.

THEOLOGICAL LECTURES 105

testimony that distinguished man could bear to Words-
worth's fitness for the Regius Professorship. There were
many in Oxford of the same opinion, and the post would
have been thoroughly congenial to Wordsworth. But it
was a time of bitterness. Wordsworth was an ally of
Liddon, who was making England ring with his denun-
ciation of the Turks. Wordsworth himself had recently
used strong words in St. Mary's : " We see the sorrows
of whole provinces of Europe and Asia, under Ottoman
tyranny." 1 It was thought that the Minister, in his
ecclesiastical and University appointments, was not
uninfluenced by considerations of political friendship or
hostility. Wordsworth was passed over, and continued
his College work, to which Liddon again added his
assistant lecturership. In the Memorial Sermon which
he preached in Lincoln Cathedral on Palm Sunday, 1885,
after the funeral of the Bishop, John Wordsworth mentions
as the greatest personal disappointment of his father's
life his failure to obtain the Regius Professorship of
Divinity at Cambridge. The same words might have
been spoken of the son.

Some interest attaches to the procedure of the last
generation, and it seems worth while to give the letter
in which Wordsworth informed Mr. Ince of Exeter College,
whom Lord Beaconsfield had nominated, of the methods
he had adopted. 2

" I think it right to tell you the changes I introduced into
the system of lecturing which was in vogue,^ in case you
may think it wise to continue them. They were principally
three.

" I. Instead of giving the lectures six days a week for a
fortnight or so, I gave them three days a week for a month,

1 University Sermons, p. 35, preached 12th November, 1876.

2 8th May, 1878.

' The lectures were given in the Latin Chapel of the Cathedral.

io6 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

and I have every reason to believe that this change suited
the men's convenience as much as it did that of the lecturer.

" 2. I introduced the custom of using a prayer (after the
lecture) sometimes one of Bishop Pearson's, in Latin or
English, sometimes one of Thomas Aquinas, sometimes one
of Charles Marriott's. I beheve that as so many of the men
go to almost no other theological lectures before they are
ordained, it is a great opportunity for impressing them, and so
I used this and other means to make them feel like real candi-
dates for ordination, and constantly addressed them as such.

"3. For the last year, when I was reading my own lectures,
I gave a different course each term, thinking it bad for the
men to suppose that the lecture was chiefly a formahty to be
gone through. My idea was to have a course which would
take two years to deUver, and cover in a rough way the whole
field of dogmatic theology, in the hope that some men at least
would attend several courses. In this last I had some partial
success.

" I know that this scheme would have taxed my own powers
severely, and it might be too much for you if you are still in
weak health."

In this same year, 1878, Wordsworth published a
little volume of University Sermons, ^ seven in number.
They had been preached at St. Mary's (with the exception
of one which he had been unable to deliver there, and
so had used in Lincoln Cathedral) in his turn as Select
Preacher, an office which he held from 1875 to 1877.2
The sermons are very practical, impressing such points
as the power of innocence and the duty of maintaining
it, the religious doubts of the time, the responsibility of
Oxford tutors towards their pupils, and the importance
of missionary work. It is remembered that on one
occasion he was so regardless of custom as to insert
the name of St. Stephen's House in the Bidding Prayer

1 Oxford and London, Parkers. Preface dated 20th November, 1878.

2 He was Whitehall Preacher, " much against the grain," in 1879,
and Select Preacher at Oxford again 1888-90.

SERMONS AND PRAYERS 107

before his sermon. But we must return to his interest
in missions when we come to the Bampton Lectures
of 1881. The Sermons, except for a certain naive
ingenuit}^ in deducing his moral, were such as Words-
worth delivered throughout his life ; but in later days
he would not have cited Petavius De Angelis as an autho-
rity to be accepted without criticism. Canon Clayton
singles out two of the sermons, " The First Miracle and
the First Temptation," and " The last sixteen verses of
St. Mark," ^ as deserving more attention than they have
received.

" There was," he says, " a clearness and vigour and an
incisiveness about J. Wordsworth's sermons which was very
welcome to the hearers. I can remember an excellent sermon
of his on the death of Principal Cradock in Brasenose College
Chapel which was very striking, for it showed how ' the old
chief,' as we called him, corresponded with the account of
' the wisdom which is from above ' in St. James iii. 17, 18."

With the same practical purpose he printed for his
pupils. Prayers for Use in College, in 1879. This little
pamphlet of eleven pages was replaced in 1883 by a fuller
work, with the same name, containing not only a valuable
collection of prayers, but also thoughtful counsel for
the religious life of undergraduates. ^ Of this a second
edition, with some new matter, was published in 1890,^
in the hope " that it may be useful to some young men
outside the Universities, as well as to those for whom it
was first intended." Such manuals must have their day,
but these sixty-four pages speak with an authority and a
freshness that might have saved them from oblivion. They
are still used and valued by some of the older generation.

^ The traditional text is defended.
* Published by Parkers, Oxford.

' Parkers, Oxford : reprinted and published by Longmans,
London, 1893.

CHAPTER V

BRASENOSE COLLEGE — THE LATIN VULGATE — BAMPTON
LECTURES — OXFORD CONTROVERSIES

John Wordsworth, after he had determined to abandon
pure classics, did not at once decide on his future work.
He still from time to time published articles on Latin
or Anglo-Saxon inscriptions, and in his vacations made
careful notes and drawings of objects of antiquity,^
such as brasses and details of architecture. In 1876 he
formed his first plan of historical theology. His magnum
opus was to be a fully annotated edition of the great work
of Origen, the Contra Celsum. It would have given ample
scope for his varied erudition, and would have made a
more general appeal than his technical labours upon
the Latin Vulgate of the New Testament. The Contra
Celsum was also one of the subjects on which he lectured
for the School of Theology, and he had accumulated much
material that would serve for the purpose of an edition.
It does not appear why he forsook this task, nor is there
any evidence that he actually began to compose his edition
of the Contra Celsum.

We do not know what first led him to prefer the Latin

1 He was capable of an ingenuity equal to his father's. An obscure
and imperfect inscription at York ends, according to Hiibner, Arimanio
[posuit]. Wordsworth satisfied himself that the last letter was v,
not o, and conjectured, marmoreu[m posuit], after Horace, Carm.
iv. I, 20, te . . . ponet marmoream sub trabe citrea. But this he did not
publish.

THE LATIN VULGATE 109

Vulgate as the chief scholarly interest of his life. It
may have occurred to himself as a fruitful study ; it may
have been suggested to him, perhaps by Westcott.
The subject was in his mind in 1877, at first in the form
of an edition of Jerome's text of the whole Latin Bible.
On the 25th March, 1878, he took the definite step of
offering to the Clarendon Press, through Professor
Bartholomew Price, its secretary, an edition of the New
Testament. As yet he had made no preparations, and
did not even know what were the materials on which he
would have to work. For in his next letter, after an
encouraging reply from the Press, he says that he has
his father's approval — he is writing from Riseholme, on
Easter Monday, 1878 — and will ask the advice of Westcott
and of Ronsch ; ^ he then continues : "I will look into
Vercellone when I get back, and see what MSS. there are."
He was already a competent palaeographer and a master
of the Latin language ; it is noteworthy that even as an
undergraduate he had collected forms and idioms of
decadent Latinity as well as those of the pre-classical
period. But he needed, for his special purpose, not
only to collect material, but to create his method of
working. As yet the English Universities provided no
such instruction. Our present difficulty is that our
students often attain to technical dexterity without
acquiring the mass of knowledge which is needed if their
skill is to be profitably employed. Thirty-five years ago
there was at least as much erudition in Oxford as to-day,
but few scholars had the resolution, or perhaps the oppor-
tunity, to train themselves in the systematic use of the
knowledge they had acquired. Wordsworth, then, had
the double task of collecting his material and of mastering

1 Hermann Ronsch, of Lobenstein, was the author of the excellent
study of the language of the Latin Bible, Itala und Vulgaia, of which the
first edition appeared in 1868, the second in 1875.

no LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

his method, and he wisely abstained from premature
publicity. Yet tidings got abroad : —

" I am talking about editing the New Testament Vulgate
(from MSB., of course)," he wrote to his brother,^ " but nothing
is settled about it, so a paragraph in the papers which some
tiresome person has put in is quite premature. Do you know
of any one at Cambridge who has taken up this Hue at all ?
G. WiUiams began, but I beheve did not go very far. Of
course I must work with Bentley's collations."

The authorities of the Press were, in fact, cautious.
They gave no definite commission to Wordsworth, and
no formal agreement for the publication of the work was
executed till 1890. He was disappointed with the vague-
ness of their sanction, but he had no occasion to complain
of their failure to support him. In November, 1878,
he made his first application for the payment of travelling
expenses to be incurred in Italy during the Christmas
vacation ; in the following March he made his first report
to the Press of the results he had attained. From this
time onwards for the next seven years sums were regularly
voted for the travelling expenses of Wordsworth and his
assistants, for the labour of collation in several countries
of foreign scholars, and for the purchase of books and
manuscript material. Of the last class the most important
acquisition was that of Tischendorf's Latin collections,
made through his literary executor. Dr. Caspar Ren^
Gregory, of Leipzig.2 But it was not till November, 1882,
that Wordsworth published a detailed prospectus of
The Oxford Critical Edition of the Vulgate New Testament.

'^ 20th August, 1878.

* Dr. Gregory lectured for Wordsworth ist May, 1883, on " The
way to use and describe Greek MSS., especially of the New Testament ;
illustrated by MSS. in the Bodleian." He was Wordsworth's guest in
B.N.C., and has contributed an appreciative sketch of his career to
the 1913 supplement of the Reakncyclopadie fur Theologie imd Kirche.

BAMPTON LECTURES iii

Meanwhile, the routine of his life was interrupted
by an unsuccessful candidature for the post of Public
Orator, which his father had held at Cambridge. It was
vacant by the death of T, F. Dallin of Queen's, and Words-
worth was nominated by the Principal of Brasenose, the
Warden of New College, and H. Nettleship, Professor of
Latin. He withdrew in a week, as he had " not received
sufficient support to justify him in putting his friends
to the trouble of a journey to Oxford," and Mr. W. W.
Merry, now Rector of Lincoln, was elected. It was a
more serious event that he was invited by the Heads of
Houses in 1880 to deliver the Bampton Lectures of the
following year. He had applied for the honour in 1879,
submitting the same scheme as was approved a year later,
but Edwin Hatch was preferred. Of Hatch's memorable
course, which has deeply influenced thought on the
history of the Church, Wordsworth wrote with strong
disapproval while it was being delivered ; but Hatch's
suggestions came in time to have weight with him, as
with all other serious students. An unexpected and
unusual honour was paid when the electors, passing over
the candidates whose names were before them, chose
Wordsworth, who had not renewed his application.

The title of his course was, " The One Religion ;
Truth, Holiness, and Peace desired by the Nations, and
revealed by Jesus Christ." It was, as he said in his
preface : —

" a contribution to the comparative study of religion from a
Christian point of view. ... I offer it more particularly
to those who have an interest or a share in foreign missions,
from association with whom I have derived constant help
and encouragement, for which I should wish in some degree to
make a return. It is not too much to say, that without the
Oxford Missionary Association of Graduates, of which Dr.
Mozley was the first President, and without the free use of its

112 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

library and the stimulus of frequent intercourse with foreign
missionaries, of which it has been the centre, this book would
never have been written."

The lectures, then, had a definitely missionary purpose.
Among the Churchmen of Oxford the missionary interest
was very keen. The martyrdom of Bishop Patteson
had taken place on the i6th December, 1871 ; on the 20th
December, 1872, was held the first general Day of Inter-
cession for foreign missions, which had remarkable
results. Among them was the foundation in 1874 of
the Oxford Society mentioned above, which was followed
by the establishment of St. Stephen's House, primarily
for the training of graduates for missionary work. No
one was more actively interested in the cause than John
Wordsworth, though there is no evidence that it occurred
to himself, or was suggested to him by others, that he
should undertake work abroad. As early as 1873 he had
founded a College Missionary Society, which, says Canon
Clayton —

" did excellent work by meetings in the College hall and inter-
cessions in the chapel, a daily prayer to be used by the members
and a subscription according to their means to one of the great
Societies.^ . . . The Missionary Library was J. Wordsworth's
delight. It belonged to the Graduates' Missionary Associa-
tion ; it was formerly housed in a room at the top of High
Street, afterwards moved to St. Mary's Parish Room, and now
is partially dissolved and taken elsewhere. J. Wordsworth
was librarian for many years."

In 1876 he was making elaborate notes concerning
the religious thoughts and practices of primitive peoples,
such as the Eskimo, but it does not appear whether he
was already planning a course of Bampton Lectures.

1 He insisted that the members must be communicants, and pressed
upon them that they ought to join in the corporate communions of
the College Society.

BAMPTON LECTURES 113

He followed the spirit of the time when his studies turned ^
as they had already done in his lectures for Mozley, to
the topics which Max Miiller had popularised. He had
attended Max Miiller 's lectures on the history of religion
while still an undergraduate. That famous teacher had
sketched a development of religious ideas which later
research has rejected, and had cast a glamour over the
comparative study of religions which is now faded. But
in 1880 the freshness remained and doubt had not arisen.
It was an honourable challenge that Wordsworth uttered
when he resolved to take the wisdom of the day and turn
it to orthodox account, employing both its methods and
its treasury, the " Sacred Books of the East," for his
own purposes.

" It is rather a critical undertaking," he writes to his
brother,^ " and one for which I was not prepared this year,
but I must take it as a great compliment that I was elected
without having renewed my candidature. ... I shall be
glad to know of any books that you may come across treating
of the ideal side of heathenism. I want to put this in the
best light and then to show its unsatisfactoriness. This was
the subject of a course of lectures which I gave for Dr. Mozley
in 1878, just after his death, so that I have the materials
at hand ; but I must recast them in rather a different form."

But Wordsworth was not to give the whole of his
spare time to the composition of his Bampton Lectures.
He was moved by public utterances of the time to plunge
into the controversy concerning the future constitution
of the Oxford Colleges. His father, as Bishop of Lincoln,
was affected by the proposed abolition of episcopal
visitors, and was making a vigorous, and in the long run
successful, attempt to maintain certain special rights in
Lincoln College. On general as well as personal grounds

1 7th May, 1880.

114 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

John Wordsworth was a champion of the same cause.
He was tempted into print by a speech dehvered in
Parhament on the gth July, 1880, by a typical Whig
of that generation, Mr. C. S. Roundell. Mr. Roundell had
been a pupil of Christopher Wordsworth at Harrow and
a Fellow of Merton ; he represented the Lincolnshire
constituency of Grantham. He was moving that the
House " deems it inexpedient that, save in the case of
the Deanery of Christ Church, any clerical restriction
shall remain or be attached to any headship or fellowship
in any College of the Universities of Oxford and Cam-
bridge," and he was supported by a petition from a
large number of the most distinguished residents in
Oxford, many of them in Holy Orders and some of them
men with whom Wordsworth would generally have been
in the closest sympathy. It might have been thought
that conciliatory language would have been in place
when a project, so supported, was being advocated ; and
good-humour would have been graceful in the champions
of a cause which was certain, on the main issues, to be
triumpnant. But the acrid eloquence to which Matthew
Arnold has given an unenviable immortality was then in
fashion, and Mr. Roundell's manner of stating his case
came near to insolence. It so happened that about
the same time Mr. James Bryce, then Regius Professor
of Civil Law and more recently our distinguished Ambas-
sador to the United States, spoke at " a breakfast of
the friends of Religious Liberty." He won applause by
saying, concerning the proposed retention of clerical
fellowships in three Colleges : —

" Now this is felt by the Liberal Party, and by those
whom we ought more particularly to pity, the Liberal members
of those Colleges, who are going to be handed over, bound
hand and foot, to the mercies of a clerical majority, to be a
grievous wrong."

OXFORD CONTROVERSIES 115

This with some other utterances of Mr. Bryce, and the
general tone of Mr. Roundell, provoked Wordsworth to
address a printed letter, entitled " The Church and the
Universities," to the latter gentleman. In it he argued
especially against three propositions, the abolition of
clerical restrictions upon fellowships or headships, the
introduction of " lay " ^ teaching of theology, and the
substitution of lay for episcopal visitors. The arguments
are those of the day, and need not be recapitulated ; they
were seized upon and used for a vigorous sermon in
St. Mary's by Dean Burgon a fortnight after their publi-
cation. ^ Wordsworth was not entirely pleased at being
exploited by so inconsiderate a champion of his cause.

The matter might have ended here, had not two brisk
controversies arisen. Mr. Bryce was well within his
rights when he protested against " mercies " being
expanded by Wordsworth into " tender mercies " in
the passage cited above ; he also denied that certain
sentiments attributed to him in a report of his speech
by the Nonconformist newspaper, and repeated in the
Guardian, were his. Wordsworth issued a second edition
of his pamphlet with the necessary corrections. He
had also chosen Exeter as an example of a College whose
founder's purpose was being thwarted by the new legis-
lation, and this brought Mr. Ingram Bywater, afterwards
Regius Professor of Greek, into the dispute. It is clear
that much could be said on both sides, and that Exeter
was not the strongest case that might have been chosen
in proof of the clerical case. Perhaps Mr. Bywater's
suggestion, in his printed reply, that Exeter was designed
for a College of deacons by its second founder may be

1 The inverted commas are Wordsworth's.

* "The Disestablishment of Religion in Oxford, the Betrayal of a
Sacred Trust : Words of Warning to the University." Preached on
the 2ist November, 1880.

ii6 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

set against Wordsworth's claim that it was a College of
priests, and the battle be regarded as drawn.

If Wordsworth's first essay in University politics,
his Letter to the Warden of Keble, had excited no atten-
tion, his second had a gratifying reception. It may be
said to have made him a public man. Letters of gratitude
poured in from allies and of courteous appreciation from
adversaries. At Liddon's suggestion it was sent to Mr.
Gladstone, who took it down with him to Ha warden;
whether he found time to read it does not appear. Lord
Salisbury sympathised with the author, but was not
hopeful ^ : —

" I convinced myself during the passage of the University
Bill through Parliament that clerical fellowships had to struggle
with too strong a prejudice to be effectively maintained for
very long. It is a prejudice of the same kind as that which is
producing such startling results in France, and is not amenable
to any kind of argument. I regret to say that it is not wholly
confined to the Liberal side of the House."

Wordsworth was to be the first Bishop recommended
to the Crown by Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister.

It was quickly evident that protests were unavailing,
and the best had to be made of the new position. To a
clerical colleague in Brasenose, some years his junior,
who had taken the opposite side,^ Wordsworth wrote
the following letter a year after his pamphlet was pub-
lished : —

" I wish you could have some of the experience which is
necessarily forced upon me as a Bishop's Chaplain — such
for instance, as I have had during the last week. You
would, I am sure, understand better my feeling as to Divinity
lectures, the Missionary Association, etc., etc. Men come from

1 1 8th November, 1880.

* The Rev. C. A. Whittuck ; dated Riseholme, 21st December,
1881.

BAMPTON LECTURES 117

Oxford and Cambridge (and elsewhere) with the most rudi-
mentary ideas as to work and the smallest amount of know-
ledge, and one feels the terrible responsibility of sending them
out into the world to take important places where they will
have absolutely no time for reading, according to all accounts.

" The College and the Commissioners have decided (and
I am afraid the decision will be the law of the future) to destroy
the character of Brasenose as a clerical society. We who are
clergy have therefore a greater burden upon us to do the work
which in old days would have fallen upon a number of shoulders
besides ours. We must not feed ourselves (by special study,
etc.) and neglect to feed the sheep with the rudiments of
Christian knowledge, especially if they are candidates for Hol}^
Orders. We have so little of bearing the cross that surely we
ought not to grumble if men are slow to hear us or dislike some
of the forms in which our teaching is necessarily bound by
rules which we individually have no power to alter. It is a
cross (let us say) to lecture on Pass Divinity, but ought not
one to be glad to bear it ? It is hard to preach plain sermons
on old truths. Ought we not to try to do it ? "

Before this letter was written his Bampton Lectures
were delivered and published. The One Religion may
be left to speak for itself. The book, which attained
the distinction, not too common in the case of Bampton
Lectures, of a second edition,^ was dedicated " to the
memory of my friend and teacher, James Bowling Mozley,
who has been constantly in my thoughts in writing these
lectures." Mozley 's manner of thought is perceptible
throughout, though the width of reading upon which the
generalisations are based is Wordsworth's own. It is,
indeed, scarcely the less extraordinary in that the Oriental
learning was of necessity at second-hand. The author's
knowledge of languages did not range eastward of the
Hebrew and Syriac, the latter being an acquisition of
after years ; this is the only volume of his to be largely

1 First edition, Parkers, Oxford, 1881 ; second edition, 1887,

ii8 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

based upon translations. It suffers not only from this
disadvantage, but also from being an experiment in a
novel line of research. Dr. Sanday ^ speaks of it as —

" chiefly noticeable as an early appHcation of the new science
of Comparative ReUgion. Its attraction for the lecturer
probably lay in the scope which it gave for his remarkable
power of rapid assimilation. This is the most striking feature
of the book ; at the same time the categories with which it
dealt were too vague to make a very deep impression."

The lecturer introduced a new subject ; he also made
the sensible innovation of placing a synopsis of each
lecture in the hands of his hearers at the time of its delivery.
This was much appreciated. ^ But the course was memor-
able, apart from its merits, as having called into existence
a book which was not only a singularly successful novel,
but an impressive religious manifesto. Mrs. Humphrey
Ward has told ^ how she came to write her Robert
Elsmere.

" It was in the spring of 1881 that the Reverend John
Wordsworth, Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose CoUege, as he
then was — now the Bishop of Sahsbury — preached the
Bampton Lectures in St. Mary's. A personal recoUection
with regard to the first of those Lectures may be given here,
as it was, in fact, to the indignant reaction excited by that
sermon in the mind of one of Dr. Wordsworth's hearers that
Robert Elsmere may ultimately be traced. The syUabus
of the Lecture had been circulated beforehand. It contained
the following : ' The present unsettlement in rehgion.- — Its
relation to the movement of civihsation. — Sense of injustice
often felt in a time of transition. — Book of Job. — Christ,
however, connects unbelief and sin. — Moral causes of unbelief,
(i) Prejudice ; (2) Severe claims of rehgion, (3) InteUectual
faults, especially indolence, coldness, recklessness, pride, and

1 Proceedings of the British Academy, igta.

2 From Canon Clayton.

^ Introduction to the Library Edition, 1911.

BAMPTON LECTURES 119

avarice.' These headings were developed in the sermon
itself with a good deal of vigour and rigour. I remember
gazing from those dim pews under the gallery, where the
Masters' wives sit, at the fine ascetic face of the preacher, ^
with its strong likeness to his great-uncle, the poet of English
pantheism ; and seeing beside it and around it, in imagination,
the forms of those, his colleagues and contemporaries, the
patient scholars and thinkers of the Liberal host, whom he was
really — though perhaps not consciously — attacking. My
heart burned within me, and it sprang into my mind that the
only way to show England what was in truth going on in its
midst, was to try and express it concretely — in terms of actual
life and conduct. Who and what were the persons who had
either provoked the present unsettlement of reUgion, or were
suffering under its effects ? What was their history ? How
had their thoughts and doubts come to be ? And what was
the effect of them upon conduct ? It was from this protesting
impulse, constantly cherished and strengthened, that, a few
years later, Robert Elsmere took its beginning. It found
immediate expression, however, in a pamphlet called Un-
belief and Sin — a Protest addressed to those who attended
the Bampton Lecture of Sunday, March 6. I wrote it
rapidly ; it was printed and put up for sale in the windows
of a well-known bookseller's shop in the High Street."

Mrs. Ward must tell the story of the brief and interest-
ing career of her pamphlet. It is written with force,
and with a candour that recognises the existence in
Oxford of " the jejune and reckless free-thinking of the

* Archdeacon Bodington, who saw John Wordsworth for the first
time at one of these lectures, says of it : "I remember thinking how
Wordsworthian it was. I remember also being struck by what I
thought the beauty of the high curve of the head, of the unbroken
straight line made by the brow and nose, and also of the searching blue
eyes, the most spiritual, true, and sincere it was possible to see." In
the following year Dean Lake {Memorials, p. 262) describes a Lincoln
Ordination : " Christopher, in a gorgeous cope, laying hands on these
youths with that suave but ascetic face of his, and with the fervour
and solemnity peculiarly his own. John Wordsworth holding with
motionless rigidity a pastoral staff, the crook turned outwards, blazing
with jewels."

120 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

self-indulgent undergraduate or young feUow." That
was the aspect of the ferment of thought that was con-
spicuous to Wordsworth. To Mrs. Ward the prominent
figures on the scene were —

" men in our midst ... in whom the highest points of
Christian character are combined with a slowly formed and
firmly held conviction of the hoUowness of the claims made
by the popular Christianity upon the reasonable faith of men."

There was a clear and important issue, and had a con-
troversy ensued it would have been conducted with
becoming dignity. Not unwisely, both sides abstained.
In the midst of his course Wordsworth was struck
down by an accident which for a time seemed to endanger
his life. While riding in the fields near Chalgrove during
the Easter Vacation, he opened a gate which swung
back, and the ironwork wounded him in the leg. He was
carried to Pyrton Vicarage, the home of his brother-in-law,
Mr. Hilgrove Coxe, and was long detained there. He
was unable to walk till July, and did not resume his full
work till the beginning of 1882. Three of his lectures
were read for him by the Warden of Keble in the Summer
term, and the two final discourses were delivered by
himself in Michaelmas term, just before the publication
of the book, the preface of which is dated 7th November,
1881. During his illness he had resumed the practice
of writing English verse, turning out an abundance
of pleasant descriptive and narrative lines in the metres
of Scott. Dr. Bright, in a letter to Mrs. Wordsworth,^
expressed the general sense of his friends concerning the
value of her husband to the University : —

"It is a matter of the truest and most well-grounded
thankfulness to see your husband physically so much himself

1 Christ Church, 12th December, 1S81.

CHAPLAIN-FELLOW OF B.N.C. 121

again. Setting apart all personal considerations, and trying
to put one's self simply in the position of Christian and Church-
man resident in Oxford, one would be sure to feel that a more
prolonged illness, perhaps involving a yet longer absence on
his part from Oxford and its work, would have been one of
the sorest blows which the Cause could have received in what
was once its stronghold and sanctuary. Such a trial we have
escaped, and it is an escape indeed."

On the 7th June, 1882, he was re-elected to an official
fellowship in Brasenose. He had hesitated about accept-
ing the post, which was that of chaplain-fellow, with the
sole responsibility for the religious life of the College.
He was to have the assistance of a stipendiary chaplain,
and his task was lightened by the circumstance, very
important in his eyes, that some of his colleagues were
in Holy Orders, though he could not expect with any
confidence that this would continue. Brasenose, in fact,
had come to have a majority of " Academic Liberals,"
for the most part young men, on its governing body.
But though their policy was not his, Wordsworth suffered
no ungenerous treatment, and the novel position of a
Fellow without life-tenure, which had its discomfort in
some Colleges, was not irksome in Brasenose. Writing
to his brother, just before his formal election, ^ he says : —

" I am glad, of course, to have a vote, and glad to have a
more or less secure position (ten years, subject to re-election),
but I feel the responsibility of being the only (statutable)
clerical member of the body, and having the sole responsibility
of religious teaching. In many ways I thought the College
would have done better to have chosen a younger man with
whom I could have worked and whom I could have educated,
so to speak, to take my place when I go. What I feel is that
if I should be called away to other work there would be a
gap, and no security for permanence of the same sort of
relations which we have had with the men. But there was

1 3rd June, 1882.

122 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

no security either (if I had refused) that any man would be
chosen with whom one would have been thoroughly satisfied,
and this among other things led me to think it right to take
the place."

At once he began to increase his spiritual work in the
College. He writes to his father, rejoicing that he is —

" getting leave to use the chapel on Saturday evenings for
devotional addresses. I shall give six this term, beginning
at 9.30 and leaving off at five minutes to ten, when the bell
goes for Evensong ; subjects, PubUc Prayer, Private Prayer,
Holy Communion in general, H.C. a consecration of nature,
a preparation for work, a preparation for death. I have given
three as yet. The attendance began with about 12, and has
increased to 16 or 17, which is encouraging. I begin with
reading a Psalm from the Bible, and end with a prayer. There
was some opposition to this proposal, but the Principal and
one or two others kindly supported me, and those who opposed
it I feel sure wish me weU."

Wordsworth was again in the full swing of his work,
classical and theological. In 1882 and 1883 he was an
examiner in the Theological School, and he was from time
to time reading before the Oxford Philological Society
papers of classical and palaeographical knowledge as
applied to the study of the Latin Bible. After much
thought and the collection of much material, in which
his vacations were now regularly employed, he was able
to formulate his scheme for " The Oxford Critical Edition
of the Vulgate New Testament." The prospectus was
published on the 2nd November, 1882, and in a revised
form on the 25th May, 1883. No serious change has
been found necessary, and the work has proceeded to
the present day on the lines then laid down. Words-
worth wisely made a complete collation of each foreign
manuscript, and revised it at once, so that no second
visit to the library might be necessary. Thus, even

SPANISH JOURNEY 123

before the First Gospel was in print, a great part of the
material for the whole New Testament was collected, and
his partners and successors in the task will be working
to the end, in large measure, upon his collations or on
collations made for him in the earlier stages of the under-
taking.

On his journeys in search of manuscripts he was
usually accompanied by his wife, and her bright letters
record their adventures. The hardest work was, perhaps,
at La Cava, near Naples, in January, 1879, where he
worked daily from eight to half-past four. But the most
interesting visit was to Spain in the Easter Vacation of
1882. His purpose was not simply that of collating
known MSS., but of seeking in old libraries for possible
MSS. of the first importance. While Mrs. Wordsworth
was sketching and sight-seeing at Toledo, her husband
was hard at work. He writes to his brother ^ : —

" I should have asked if you wanted anything looked up
in the libraries, but I am afraid if you had wanted anything
I should not have had time for it, as my own work on the
Toledo Bible is heavier than I expected. It is nominally
to revise a collation, but this is little less than making a new
one, as I have to read the whole N.T. and constantly to correct
Palomares' work, which is not surprising, as it was done in
1588. It was rather hard on him, after all the trouble he took,
that it was not in time to be used in the Sixtine Revision."

But elsewhere Mrs. Wordsworth was able to help.
It is unfortunate that the MSS. with which her story
deals turned out to be of the common Spanish type, and
unworthy, in spite of their age, of full collation. She
wrote to her mother ^ from Avila : —

" John asked a gentleman in the train who was the most
learned man in Leon, and he named a Seiior Don Urena ; so

1 i2th March, 1882. ^ 23rd March, 1882.

124 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

John called on him on Sunday afternoon and he agreed to
take John to the library of San Isidoro on Monday morning
at eight. John came back at twelve, furious. There was the
MS. and Don Ureiia had taken him into the monastery, but
the Canonigos wouldn't let him look at it. They summoned
a chapter, for John of course made a great row — said he had
come all the way from Oxford, showed his letter to the Arch-
bishop of Toledo, etc., etc. I do so wish I had seen it. I saw
the old vaulted cloister, and it must have been a splendid
sight. The Canonigos were all fine, big men, like the Dean of
Christ Church, with their great three-cornered hats, and John
in the middle. At last they let him see it with a Canon stand-
ing over him— one hour in the morning and half an hour in
the afternoon. Don Ureiia was most kind, helped John,
took us out for a drive with his own carriage and horse, and
was far the most intelligent man we have yet met in Spain.
But, oh ! the strain of understanding his Spanish. John
asked him to dinner, so that from two till nearly nine we
were hard at work, talking a language I had never heard a
word of a month ago. The most awful moment was when
John left me to fetch his collations at the hotel. Both Don
Ureiia and Canonigo Pascual took possession of me, shouting
away Spanish at me at the top of their voices. I was surprised
to find how well I got on considering what the strain was.
They showed me such lovely things — the Pantheon of the
Church, a sort of Galilee Hke that at Durham, only far more
beautiful, with such carving and such coloured columns.
Then John joined us and we went up to the library. John
said, ' Keep them amused if you can for as long as possible,'
and I did work hard. They showed me the standard of
San Isidoro, which I suppose no woman had ever seen before
— old missals — I talking hard all the time and John in despair
collating for dear life, but they wouldn't give him more than
half an hour. The Canonigo then took us on to the old city
walls, where more Canonigos were walking up and down
and smoking ; such a lovely view. They all bowed, kissed
my hands and were at my feet ; the usual Spanish greeting.
Then they walked us up and down, John like a child who has
had its doll taken away from it, very cross and feeling horribly
de trop, but it was beautiful, and the Canonigos so curious

THE LATIN VULGATE 125

about us. Tuesday morning we dashed off up to the Cathedral
and found a most interesting MS., very mutilated but more
like the Codex Cavensis than any we have yet seen. It was
even more difficult to get a sight of than the other. I would
have given anything to sketch the two figures — John working
away hard, writing notes, absorbed in his work, with his fair
hair and English look, and the great Spanish Canon, dark,
scowling, double John's size, standing over him with his arms
folded, smoking of course, but looking so handsome. He would
only allow us half an hour, and then off we ran to catch the
train which left at half-past ten, Tuesday morning, and got
us into Avila at half-past two, Wednesday morning. It
sounds much worse than it was. The train crawled along,
we could have walked as quick, through miles and miles of
dreary waste land without grass and without a tree, something
like the Holy Land, I fancy ; only dry, brown, and yellow
sand, cold wind and dust."

The published prospectus was well received. Dr.
Hort gave it his full approval ; good results ought
certainly to be obtained from " so wide and carefully
chosen a range of materials." He suggested that the
Old Latin readings should be fully incorporated, a counsel
which unhappily was not followed in St. Matthew and
St. Mark, though his advice has been taken in the later
books. Dean Burgon also wrote with his accustomed
emphasis ; he recognised, as no one else as yet did, the
seriousness of the task.

" I must not deceive you. You cannot make an edition
of the Vulgate a Trdpepyov. It must occupy you ten years
of hard work. It must become the business of a hfe. To
fit it in with lectures and University business is (in my view)
a simple impossibility, if the product is to be a Kx^^a ets det
— a work worthy of your Father's Son." ^

In the autumn of this year Archbishop Tait lay dying,
and Wordsworth wrote to a friend who had confidential

^ Deanery, Chichester, 4th December, 1882.

126 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

access to Mr. Gladstone in recommendation of the Bishop
of Truro as his successor ^ : —

" We want, in my opinion, a man who can acquire such
freedom for the throne of Canterbury that it can take the
patriarchal relation to the Colonial churches, without offence.
The Archbishop's design in this respect, I think, was right,
though his method of execution, especially his disregard of
Convocation, was not reassuring to the clergy, and so set many
good Churchmen against him. I beheve E. W. T. might find
a means of conciliating both clergy and laity, and so keep us
from the break-up which seems now and again to threaten.
I confess I don't beheve in S. Africa being quite independent ;
lay people and others out there won't stand it and they
themselves are not fit for it. But we must have a sympathetic
Archbishop before they will consent to anything hke appeal
to England."

Dr. Liddon resigned the Ireland Professorship of
Exegesis on the 30th September in this year, 1882. As
we have seen, he wished Wordsworth to be his successor,
and Wordsworth was a candidate. His opponent was
Edwin Hatch, and in the curious phase through which
the University was passing the contest inevitably took a
quasi-political form. The question was, how many among
the Heads of Houses, who were the electors, were
" Academic Liberals." Wordsworth took it for granted
that they would vote against him. However, at the last
moment Dr. Sanday was induced to come forward, and
was elected by general consent. ^ Three weeks before
this election Dr. Hawkins, the aged Provost of Oriel,
had died, and a new office, the Oriel Professorship of the

1 7th September, 1882.

* Writing to his father on the 30th November, Wordsworth says,
" the election will be on December 8th. The day is the same on
which my Bampton Lectures came out last year. What do the augurs
say to that ? " This is one of the few signs that he paid any of that
Laudian attention to coincidences which marked his father and Arch-
bishop Benson.

ELECTION TO ORIEL 127

Interpretation of Holy Scripture, came into existence,
to be endowed with his Canonry at Rochester. Words-
worth at once came forward, though he was warned by
Bishop Benson, now Archbishop designate, that his chance
was small : " there seems a consensus that you are to
have the Margaret Professorship." That post did not
fall vacant till Wordsworth had been ten years a Bishop.
He persisted in his candidature, and on the 8th March,
1883, was elected ^ to the double office in Oxford and
Rochester. The approval was general, and the rejoicing
of Liddon and his other friends was hearty.

Wordsworth retained his teaching work, both classical
and theological, till the end of 1883. He then resigned
these duties, but continued to hold his chaplain-fellowship
in Brasenose till he left Oxford. Being now a residentiary
canon of another cathedral, he also resigned in 1883 his
Lincoln prebend. He had now a new range of interests,
and the next two years were to be the sole period of his
life that he could devote without distraction to scholarship,
though, as we shall see, he took his duties at Rochester
very seriously.

1 The electors were the Archbishop of Canterbury (who had been
confirmed on the 3rd), the Bishop of Rochester (Thorold), the Vice-
Chancellor (Jowett), the Provost of Oriel (Monro), the Regius Professor
of Divinity (Ince).

CHAPTER VI

ORIEL COLLEGE AND ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL — ELECTION
TO SALISBURY

John Wordsworth's active work as Oriel Professor
began in the Michaelmas term of 1883, ^ his subjects being
dictated by the purpose of his chair, and limited by the
character of his own studies to the New Testament.
Beside lecturing, he held a seminar on " Subjects of
Interest in Biblical Archaeology and Criticism," and
founded, for senior students, a Society for Biblical
Archaeology which met regularly at his house. There
he read papers on topics connected with his Vulgate
work, such as " An edition of the New Testament pro-
jected by Bentley and John Walker," ^ and " The Corbey
MS. of St. James and the light thrown by it on the
original language of the Epistle." Among other readers
of papers occur the names of Bigg, Ramsay, Sanday, and
Gore. Part of the same activity was his publication,
in November, 1883, of the first of the series of Old Latin
Biblical Texts. The series was meant to serve as pro-
legomena to the Edition of the Vulgate, and this volume
dealt with the St. Germain MS. of St. Matthew. Words-
worth was jointly author of the second ; the later numbers

1 Between this term and the Summer term of 1885 he lectured
successively on St. Mark, the Acts, St. James, and St. John's Gospel.

^ He contributed an article on Walker to the first supplement of
the Dictionary of National Biography, in iQog.

^0^-92^ /^t</cU/,i<yi^c . CM^yiev" Cy^ia^e-::i-d<i^

PASS LECTURES 129

are by other hands. ^ But the most striking act of the
new Professor, and one that showed his originality, was
the institution of a lecture for candidates in the examina-
tion in the " Rudiments of Faith and Religion." That
examination, now happily extinct, was notorious for its
encouragement of irreverence and cramming ; but Words-
worth saw in it an opening for the religious instruction
of some who would otherwise have no occasion to study
sacred subjects at Oxford, and resolved to turn it to
account. In spite of the novelty of a Professor lecturing
on a Pass subject, and of the excellence of his motives,
the course cannot have been successful, for it was not
repeated.

Among his voluntary activities was that of lecturing
from 1884 for the Association for the Education of Women
in Oxford ; and he showed his regard for Dr. Mozley by
helping his sister to compile the volume of his Letters,
and to select the Essays, Historical and Theological,
both of which works were published in 1884.2 The latter
was dedicated by Miss Mozley to Professor Wordsworth.
In the new constitution of the University, which was
just coming into force, he found some opportunity of
action. Boards of Faculties came into being in January,
1883, and Wordsworth was one of their original members ; ^
as a Professor he had an official place on the Board of

1 O.L.B.T. ii. bears the names of Wordsworth, Sanday, and H. J.
White ; it deals with the Bobbio MS. (k). Vols. iii. and iv. are by
Dr. White, joint-editor of the Vulgate ; v. and vi. by Mr. E. S. Buchanan,
a scholar from New Zealand who was ordained by Bishop Wordsworth
in 1897, and has settled in England.

2 He formed a very close friendship with the ladies of the Mozley
family, and from them learned much of the inner history of the Oxford
Movement. To the posthumous Essays from Blackwood of Miss
Anne Mozley, 1892, a memoir by Bishop Wordsworth was prefixed.

^ He was nominated by his College as a member of three Faculties,
Literae Humaniores, Modern History, and Theology, but sat on the
Board only of the last. He never seems to have lectured on Modern
History.

K

130 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Theology. In October, 1884, he also became a member
of the Hebdomadal Council, defeating his friend Dr. King
of Christ Church by two votes. ^

Though his activity was unimpaired, Wordsworth's
recovery from his accident of 1881 was not complete.
He was to suffer from it at intervals throughout his life,
and when he became chaplain-fellow he found the daily
walk from Keble Terrace to Brasenose and back to his
breakfast so tiring that he had to seek a fresh home. He
found it in a picturesque old house facing the west end
of St. Mary's Church and almost surrounded by Brasenose,
to which it belonged. After some negotiations he obtained
a lease, and was able for the first time to indulge his
passion for architectural restoration and antiquarian
reconstruction of the past. Writing to an old pupil ^
he describes its state : —

" This house is very nearly in ruins, but is being rebuilt and
repaired fast enough to give us the expectation of getting
into it at Michaelmas. We have found several old Jacobean
fireplaces of rather rudely carved stone — some looking earlier
— all which we shall use when possible. On one carved door-
way (which is to be our front door) we find the Magdalen College
arms, and below, the fleur-de-lys. This we think proves that
the house belonged to Magdalen College and is to be identified
with a Hall called ' Little St. Mary's Entry.' On the other
doorway to the drawing-room are the rose and thistle. This
we think a compliment to James I., who among other things
sent his son. Prince Henry, to Magdalen, about the time when
we suppose this house to have been built. General Rigaud
has also an idea that the house was inhabited by a bookseller
called Joseph Barnes, so I have promptly bought Bryan
Twyne's Antiquities of Oxford : Oxoniae excudehat Josephus

1 This was really a defeat for his side and a victory for the Academic
Liberals. There were three professorial vacancies and each party
put forward two candidates. The voting was, Markby 131, Bywater
128, Wordsworth 127, King 125.

^ 14th May, 1884, to C. W. Holgate, afterwards his legal secretary
and Chancellor.

ORIEL COLLEGE 131

Barnes anno Dom. 1608, which I shall say was printed in
my house till Madan ^ disproves it. We have had a great
many changes of plan, much to the worry of the architect,
who has, however, been most angehcally patient."

He was not the last architect to find in the future
Bishop a masterful client ; but it must be said that the
client's suggestions were often practical as well as
ingenious.

The Oriel professorship was endowed with a canonry
which Queen Anne had attached to the provostship of
the College, but which had been put to a new use now
that the Provost might be, and indeed was, a layman. It
was still attached to the College in that the holder was
officially a Fellow, with a vote in its government. The
Rev. L. R. Phelps, 2 one of his colleagues, writes of him : —

" The Commission of 1882 made many changes in Oxford.
Not the least important in its effect upon our social life was
the attaching of Professors ex officio to various Colleges.
Thus by his election in 1883 to the chair of the Interpretation
of Holy Scripture, Wordsworth became Fellow of Oriel and
Canon of Rochester. He was admitted on March 9, 1883,
and remained a Fellow until his appointment as Bishop of
Salisbury in 1885.

" The position was not altogether free from difficulty.
Over and above the dichotomy of life involved by residence
at Rochester and professorial duties in Oxford there was a
certain anomaly in his being a Fellow without emolument.
He sat at College meetings and took part in College business
without the material interest of a share in College dividends.
Nor, again, is it altogether easy for a man trained in the ways
of thought and manner of life of one society to adopt those
of another. In short, there were endless opportunities for
misunderstanding and even friction, and a College might well
feel a little nervous for the result. Happily any doubts on
the subject were soon set at rest. Wordsworth threw himself

1 F. Madan, Fellow of B.N.C., now Bodley's Librarian.
* Fellow of Oriel 1877; now Provost.

132 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

whole-heartedly into the life of the College in all its aspects.
He cultivated the friendship of its members, he made himself
famiUar with its history and traditions, he welcomed every
opportunity of doing it service. In after life he spoke warmly,
nay, generously, of his connexion with it and the debt he
owed to it. To the last he was a regular visitor at College
celebrations, always ready to propose or acknowledge a toast.
His speeches on such occasions were full of matter and often
threw light on the course of his own studies. In short, he
was a loyal member of Oriel, and brief as was his actual
connexion with us it left a lasting memory behind."

The life at Rochester, where the Chapter agreed that
the Professor-Canon should take his residence during
the Long Vacation, was one of great happiness for the
Wordsworths. The Dean was Dr. Scott, joint author of
the Greek Lexicon, a former Master of Balliol and a
friend of Mrs. Wordsworth from her childhood. The
Canons were Archdeacon Grant, who was in failing health
and died on the 25th November in this year, 1883, and
Messrs. Jelf and Burrows, with both of whom the new
Canon formed a close friendship.^ At the end of his first
residence he describes his experience to one of his
sisters ^ : —

" We go back to Oxford to-morrow, having wound up our
residence here to-day. . . . Our Chapter may not be so
grand as yours and our cathedral is certainly inferior, but I
will back our Chapter against any in England for kindliness
and affection up and down, from the Dean to the choir-boys
and vergers. Susie and I are in danger of getting quite spoilt,
and it is lucky that we have got Oxford with its knocks and

1 Canon Jelf preached at his consecration ; the Memorials of
Canon Burrows (1894) were written by Miss E. Wordsworth, with an
introduction by the Bishop of Salisbury. After Canon Burrows' death
in 1892 his widow (the mother of the present Bishop of Truro) and her
daughters took up their residence in Salisbury. The Memorials well
illustrate the Rochester life of the Wordsworths.

* Mrs. Leeke, of Lincoln, 30th September, 1883.

ROCHESTER 133

its clavers to give us a tonic after the sweetness of Rochester.
Perhaps this gentleness is due to the absence of books. I was
never, I think, in a town of such a size — about 90,000 people
all told in the group of towns — ^without a single bookseller's
shop above the rank of a Christian Knowledge depot. What
I should have done without the Provost "s hbrary, I cannot
think." 1

But if he found much that was good, he was bent
upon improvements. With the successful example of
Chancellor Benson at Lincoln before him, he threw himself
into the life of Rochester and Chatham, holding classes
for the artisans of the dockyard and evidently exciting
a genuine enthusiasm among them. He anticipates " a
little beginning of Dr. King's Friday Bethel evenings,"
and his wife writes ^ : —

" John says they [the dockyard men] make him nervous,
they are so anxious to know when he preaches, and evidently
discuss and criticise. He says it makes him more careful with
his sermons."

Mrs. Wordsworth, for her part, collected a great
mothers' meeting and found in that and other ways full
scope for her powers of influence. Altogether, there
was something lyrical about this episode of two years
in their life.

It may seem strange that among the desires that were
satisfied in his new position was that for business to trans-
act. To many he seemed, and seems, the scholar and
recluse ; in reality he had a passion for administrative
work. His marriage in 1870 had shut him out from any
share in the business side of College life. He was not
re-elected till 1882. In 1883 he became Fellow of Oriel,
and as we have seen took a hearty share in the business

^ Dr. Hawkins had bequeathed his library to his successors.
^ 26th July, 1884, to her mother.

134 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

of a second College, But the crown of his enjoyment
was evidently the canonry. He made and kept elaborate
notes of Cathedral proceedings ; few Deans would have
taken such trouble in recording details of merely passing
interest. There was no side of Cathedral life with which
he did not strive to make himself familiar. He found
inevitably that there were points which needed amend-
ment, and at once he bestirred himself. It was an old
custom to close the Cathedral for cleaning during a part of
the summer. In 1883, during his first residence, this was
stopped, and since then service has been continuous.
At the same time he began an agitation for an evening
service. Dean Scott belonged to an older school, and there
were the inevitable objections ; " unsatisfactory things
taking place in the nave," and so forth. The great age
of Archdeacon Grant was another obstacle, but it was
not valid for long. In May, 1885, the Canons (for Words-
worth had enlisted their support) gained their will, " the
Dean making no objection."

Rochester was an ill-endowed Cathedral, with two
schools (the King's School and the Choir School) under its
charge, beside the cost of restoration, not yet completed
in Wordsworth's time, of the fabric. Dean Scott set a
high example of generosity, and the Canons followed his
example, as may be seen in the Introduction to Canon
Burrows' Memorials, where the writer is silent as to his
own share of the expenditure. It was largely to Canon
Wordsworth that the acquisition of the cricket-ground
for the King's School was due ; his contributions to the
purchase did not cease even after his election to the see
of Salisbury.^ He had a considerable share in designing
the Choir School and its surrounding buildings ; and also
large opportunities of reconstructing Oriel Lodge, his

1 I learn this from his friend and ally at Rochester, Mr. Stephen
Aveling.

ROCHESTER I35

official residence, where much needed to be renewed
after Dr. Hawkins' long tenure of fifty-five years. He
was the more ready to improve it that he meant it for
the residence of his father's old age. But the Bishop of
Lincoln lived only six weeks after his resignation, and
eight months after his father's death John Wordsworth
was Bishop of Salisbury. At Rochester, as at St. Mary's
Entry, he received little return from his architectural
expenditure.

Wordsworth's third residence at Rochester was his
last. He had advertised his Oxford lectures for the
Autumn term, he was carrying on his usual employments,
he had his reading party at Oriel Lodge — having a house
away from Oxford, he no longer took lodgings with his
pupils but entertained them in his own home — he had
his Bible classes for the Cathedral choir boys and for the
men of the dockyard, and was taking his share in the
social and religious life of the city. He was acting on
the assumption that he had found his permanent work,
and was making himself thoroughly a man of Kent.
It is characteristic that he not only became a subscriber
to the Archaeologia Cantiana, but bought a set complete
from the beginning, and continued his subscription to his
death.

This active and happy life was suddenly interrupted
by the offer of the Bishopric of Salisbury, made by the
Marquess of Salisbury, who succeeded Mr. Gladstone
in office on the 23rd June, 1885. It had been publicly
known for more than a month before this that Bishop
Moberly was on the point of resignation, and there is
strong reason to think that had Mr. Gladstone continued
in office the see would have been offered to Dr. Liddon.^
But Dr. Moberly, physically incapable of executing the
deed of resignation, lingered on till the 6th July. Canon

^ See Liddon's Life, p. 317.

136 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Wordsworth was one of those who had pleaded with
Liddon to accept the see, if it were offered. He had no
expectation that it would be offered to himself ; it had
neither occurred to him that it was possible, nor had any
friend suggested it. In fact, he never knew what were
the special considerations which induced Lord Salisbury
to recommend him to the Queen, as his first episcopal
appointment, at that time and for that particular see.

Lord Salisbury wrote as follows from Hatfield House
on the 13th August, 1885 : —

" Reverend Sir,

" I have the Queen's permission to propose to you
that you should undertake the Bishopric of Salisbury. I
earnestly hope that you may be able to accept it. Your
position in the Church and your well-known erudition are
a sufficient pledge that you will adorn an office the importance
of which one bearing the name you have the happiness to
bear is not likely to underrate.

"It is right I should tell you that many difficulties have
concurred to keep the vacancy open very long — too long for
the good of the diocese ; and if you do not accept, though
it may not be easy to find a better candidate, it may not be
easy to escape a worse one.

" Believe me,

" Yours very truly,

" Salisbury."

The letter was addressed to Brasenose, and as it
happened Wordsworth had left no instructions for the
forwarding of his correspondence. Mr. Pelham, after-
wards Camden Professor and President of Trinity, by
chance entered Brasenose Lodge and saw the letter lying
on the table. From the signature "Salisbury" in the
corner of the envelope he recognised its importance,
and it was at once dispatched to Rochester. It reached
its destination on the evening of Saturda}^ the 15th

ACCEPTANCE OF SALISBURY 137

August. For the reason given in his answer, Wordsworth
felt that he must reply at once. He accordingly wrote
on the next day from the Precincts, Rochester.

" My Lord,

" The important communication which you were
good enough to address to me at Brasenose has been forwarded
to me here, where I am keeping my residence till the end of
the month, and only reached me late last evening.

" The proposal contained in your Lordship's kind letter
was so wholly unexpected that I should gladly have asked
leave to reflect on it for a few days, but, knowing that the see
of Salisbury has been some time vacant and that your Lordship
is leaving England this week, I have endeavoured to consider
it and reply to it in the few hours that have elapsed since the
receipt of your letter.

" If Her Majesty is graciously pleased to recommend me
for election to the Bishopric of SaUsbury I shall be willing to
accept the appointment and shall endeavour, with the help
of God, to do my best to serve the Church in that place. I
write this, nevertheless, with a heavy heart, knowing how
unworthy I am in His sight of so great a charge.

" May I beg your Lordship, should occasion offer, to present
the assurance of my loyal duty to Her Majesty and of my deep
gratitude to her for this mark of her confidence and favour ?
May I also beg you to accept my sincere thanks for the kindness
of the terms in which you have been good enough to couch
your proposal ?

" I have the honour to be, my Lord,

" Always your faithful servant,

" John Wordsworth."

The cases can have been but few in which a bishopric
has been accepted by return of post, and without the
consultation of even the most intimate friends.

Among the many messages of good will that he received
the most interesting was Liddon's.^

1 3, Amen Court, 19th August, 1885.

138 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

" Do not, dear friend, distress yourself in any way on my
account. There are many reasons which make it impossible
that Lord S. should ever have offered me the see of Salisbury ;
among others this, that although he has been for years the
kindest of friends, he probably knows me too well to think
that I should make a good bishop. And (to get out of the
region of second causes which in these matters are always
apt to be misleading) we can, I think, recognise a Higher Hand
in an appointment which places the diocese in the keeping
of one who has still, as I trust, his best years before him, and
a good heart to make the best possible use of them for God's
glory.

" I hope that you will be able to put the Vulgate into the
hands of some younger man, sufficiently trustworthy and
accomplished, to relieve you of the painful sense of abandoning
a truly great work."

Others were more hopeful in this respect. The Arch-
bishop wrote quite lightl}'^ of the double work ; Dean
Church ^ was more doubtful.

" I suppose that after the contradictory notices in the
papers I may now believe that you are to succeed my dear
old friend and elder brother at Salisbury. I am very glad
that so good a man is to be in his place, and one so much in
sympathy with all that was nearest his heart. I fear there
may be some hindrance and delay in the work which you have
been hitherto doing for the Church, and which no one can do
as you would do it. Ceriani,^ I know, will tear his hair. But
Lightfoot and Stubbs have found time for their special scholars'
work, and I hope you will, too. And for all the rest, there is
nothing but matter of congratulation to us all. And I think
you will find it a very encouraging diocese to work in. It is
a diocese which is at peace, and very loyal."

Bishop King's letter ^ does not allude to the Vulgate.

1 Deanery, St. Paul's, 19th August, 1885.

* The famous scholar and librarian of Milan.

* Hilton House, Lincoln, 17th August, 1885.

LEAVING OXFORD 139

" It wiU be a great support and comfort to the Bishops
of the Southern Province. When Winchester and Gloucester ^
go there will be Uttle learning left. Now you will just come
in at the right time to supply the want."

He was not allowed to leave Brasenose without a
public recognition of his services. A fund was collected
which, by his own wish, was devoted to the foundation
of a Wordsworth prize in the College ; it is now given
annually for an essay on a theological subject. The
letters which accompanied the contributions testify to
his influence and to the gratitude of his pupils. ^ It was
the conclusion of a happy and successful work, saddened
towards the end by the death of some of those dearest
to the Words worths, 3 but hardly impeded by the frequent
infirmities of the wife, which her high spirit enabled her
to overcome in term-time, though there is a sad record
of lameness and other infirmities which beset her in the
vacations. In 1891 the College showed its regard by
electing him to an honorary fellowship. To Rochester
he bade farewell on the 29th August, and in October he
presented to the Cathedral a silver-gilt paten and chalice,
copied from those of Brasenose. His Rochester friend-
ships he retained through life.

1 Bishops Browne and Ellicott.

* The testimonial was organised by Messrs. E. H. Goddard, now
Rector of Clyffe Pypard, G. Longridge, now of the House of the Resur-
rection, Mirfield, and G. W. Sandford, now of Liphook, Hants.

* Mr. Coxe died in 1881, Mrs. Wordsworth, the mother, in 1884,
the Bishop of Lincoln at the beginning of 1885.

CHAPTER VII

THE VULGATE NEW TESTAMENT [bY DR. H. J. WHITE]

The circumstances which led to Mr. Wordsworth's under-
taking to bring out a critical edition of the Vulgate New
Testament have been related elsewhere ; ^ it remains
here to give some account of how he approached the task
and successfully performed so much of it.

The need was undoubted. The Bull attached to the
Clementine Bible of 1592 ordered that all future editions
of the Vulgate were to agree word for word with the
Papal edition, while the insertion of any notes or variant
readings in the margin was strictly forbidden. ^ These
measures undoubtedly provided the Roman Catholic
Church with an edition of the Bible which would always
be one and the same, but it stifled all attempts at revising
the text, and Dr. Sanday could write of the editio minor
of the Oxford Vulgate in 1912 that it was " the first
completely critical edition of the Vulgate New Testament
on modem lines." ^ Mr. Wordsworth, therefore, had
very little organised material before him when making
his preparations and planning out his work ; in the

^ See above, p. 108.

^ Quite a literature has sprung up in the last few years round the
Sixtine and Clementine editions of the Vulgate ; see especially Le
Bachelet, Bellarmin et la Bible Sixto-Clementine, Paris, 191 1 ; Baum-
garten, Die Vulgata Sixtina von 1590 und ihre Einfuhrungsbulle, Miinster
i. W., 191 1 ; Amann, Die Vulgata Sixtina von 1590, Freiburg i. B.,
1912.

* Oxford Magazine, 29th February, 1912, p. 244.

THE VULGATE NEW TESTAMENT 141

admirable little pamphlet entitled The Oxford Critical
Edition of the Vulgate, published in 1882, he drew attention
not only to " the enormous number of Vulgate MSS.
which crowd our libraries/' but to the fact that in spite
of this —

" there exists no edition based upon a sufficiently wide exami-
nation of MS. authorities, much less one that exhibits their
variations with accuracy and clearness. The earlier revisers,
with the honourable exception of Robert Stephens (1538-1540) ,
and to some extent of Lucas Brugensis, mostly refer to their
authorities in general terms, and so vaguely that their evidence
is of little value as an assistance to the judgment. The
Benedictine editors are, for the most part, equally reticent
and disappointing. Bentley's collections for a critical Graeco-
Latin Testament happily still exist, and are a noble monument
of his labour and genius. His plan was finely conceived,
and, generally speaking, on the right lines ; but those who have
examined his papers carefuUy agree that he was not an
accurate collator, and that he was himself not satisfied with
the result of his work as a text for publication. Lachmann's
Latin text (1842, 1850), so far as it represents the Vulgate,
is based chiefly on two codices, Amiatinus and Fuldensis, and
on a faulty and imperfect collation of the first and most
important of them. Tischendorf's little manual text (1864),
though useful to the student, has a very slight apparatus
criticus, and was obviously Uttle more than the by-work of
a life devoted mainly to Greek MSS."

He himself set to work with characteristic thoroughness,
and the succeeding pages of his pamphlet gave a list of
the most important Vulgate MSS., with a division into
families and an estimate of their respective values, which
subsequent study has not seriously modified. He grate-
fully acknowledged the assistance which he had received
from Dr. Westcott's article on the Vulgate in Smith's
Dictionary of the Bible, and from personal consultation
with that scholar ; but in addition he carried on a large

142 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

amount of pioneer work himself. His correspondence
at this time (1882 and onwards) shows that he was in
communication with many scholars and libraries, British
and foreign, and that he was making systematic inquiries
as to the most valuable Vulgate MSS. in almost every
country in Europe. Letters are preserved from Dr.
Abbott and Dr. Gwynn, of Trinity College, Dublin ;
from the Rev. J. Fenwick, with regard to the MSS. in
the Phillipps Library at Cheltenham ; from Canon Green-
well, of Durham, who has lately enriched the British
Museum with a page from the brother MS. of the Codex
Amiatinus ; ^ from Dr. Hatch, who, as early as 1882,
was convinced of the late date of the Amiatinus ; from
Dr. Hort as well as from Dr. Westcott, at Cambridge ;
from Bishop Lightfoot ; from Baron Friedrich von Hiigel,
who in those days was working at textual criticism, and
who kindly collated a considerable portion of the Harley
Gospels {Harl. 1775) in the British Museum ; from Mark
Pattison, who was consulted about Erasmus ; from Dr.
A. W. Streane, who kindly collated the Corpus MS. of
the Gospels at Cambridge ; from Dr. Scrivener ; from
Dr. Sparrow Simpson, who was consulted as to the possi-
bility of tracing any of the Vulgate MSS. once belonging
to the Cathedral Library at St. Paul's ; and from Dr.
(now Sir G. F.) Warner, of the British Museum. Abroad,
there was a band of scholars at Paris, unrivalled for the
thoroughness of their learning, and for the generosity
with which they placed it at Mr. Wordsworth's service ;
it is enough to name Samuel Berger, Leopold Delisle,
Paul Fabre, Ch, Kohler, Paul Meyer, Henry Omont ; in
Germany there were Dr. C. R. Gregory, Dr. Brambach
of Karlsruhe, Dr. Gardthausen, Dr. Ernest Ranke (the

1 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 3777 ; full description and photographs
are given in the New Palaeographical Society's facsimiles, part vii., plates
158. 159 (1909)-

THE VULGATE NEW TESTAMENT 143

editor of the Codex Fuldensis), Dr. Roensch (whose
Itala und Vulgata, and Neue Testament Tertullians, were
to be so constantly used), Dr. Spitta of Bonn, Dr. Watten-
bach ; in Austria, Dr. J. Meister of Vienna ; in Switzer-
land, Dr. Sieber of Basel ; in Italy there were at Milan
Dr. Ceriani and Padre F. Villa (who transcribed the
valuable Milan MS. of the Gospels), at Rome Padre
Sergio, Padre Gatti (who, with Dr. Mau, transcribed
the Corredorium Vaticanum) , Dr. Gnoly , and Dr. Meyncke
(who collated MS. Vatic. Regin. 9 of the Epistles), at
Turin Signor Gorresio ; and in Spain there were Senor
M. de Goicoechea and Sehor J. F. de Riaho. These
names represent a fairly large circle of European scholars,
and we may take it as certain that no one who was known
to be an authority on Vulgate MSS. at the time was
passed over. The correspondence naturally varied in
amount with different people ; but with such friends as
Dr. Gwynn, Dr. Hort, Dr. Westcott at home, and Samuel
Berger, Leopold Delisle, and Henry Omont abroad, the
interchange of letters was frequent and increasingly
cordial, till death cut off one or other of the correspondents ;
certainly few students, on beginning a great task, have
been helped more willingly or more wisely than was Mr.
Wordsworth.

In addition to these friends must be named, as helping
him by collation of MSS., Miss E. and Miss J. Johnson,
the Rev. W. C. Bell,i the Rev. J. C. Roper, 2 and the Rev.
W. Marsh. 3 Two other young friends, both of whom he
had examined in the Honour Theology School in 1883,
began an acquaintance with him soon after that date,

1 Scholar of B.N.C. ; B.A. in 1882 ; now Vicar of Norland, in the
Diocese of Wakefield.

2 Keble Coll. ; B.A. in 1881 ; now Bishop of Columbia.

2 Hasker (Hebrew) Scholar of Exeter Coll. ; B.A. (ist in Theology)
1887 ; ordained in 1889 ; was afterwards Vice-Principal of the Theolo-
gical College at Gloucester ; died in 1894.

144 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

which ripened not only into the warmest friendship, but
also into a permanent co-operation in the work ; these
were the Rev. G. M. Youngman ^ and myself. Mr.
Youngman collated MSS. in London and Paris and tran-
scribed the whole New Testament from the famous Book
of Armagh at Dublin ; ^ as years went on he was more
and more consulted as to the types of text exhibited by
the various families of Vulgate MSS., and his careful
study of their relations and characteristics made his
advice most valuable ; the fasciculi containing the Romans
and Acts bear marks of his care on every page, and as
the work progresses now his share in it becomes ever
larger.

As regards my own share in the work I may be per-
mitted to speak at some length. I was introduced to
Mr. Wordsworth through the kind offices of Dr. Sanday
in 1884 ; and after some instruction in palaeography, in
which the present Bodley's Librarian, Mr. F. Madan,
helped me much, I started collating Vulgate MSS. in the
British Museum — an occupation so fascinating that at
first I could hardly believe it to be sober reality. The
variant readings in all the Vulgate collations were noted
in interleaved copies of the Codex Amiatinus, in Tischen-
dorf 's edition ; ^ the blank pages were divided vertically

1 Worcester Coll. ; B.A. (ist in Theology) 1883 ; now Rector of
Porton, in the diocese of Salisbury.

2 The beginning of the present year (1914) has at length seen the
publication of this MS. in a splendid form, under the editorship of
Dr. Gwynn. Dr. Gwynn has conferred a lasting obligation on students
of the New Testament by giving an exact transcript of the text, with
a most valuable Introduction ; it is the fruit of many years' strenuous
and wise work {Liber Ardmachanns : the Book of Armagh, edited,
with Introduction and Appendices, by J. Gwynn, D.D., D.C.L. Dublin,

1913)-

^ Novum Testamentum Latine interprete Hieronymo. ex celeber-
rimo codice Amiatino . . . nunc primum edidit Constantinus Tischen-
dorf. Lipsiae, 1850 (second edition, with a few corrections, 1854).

THE VULGATE NEW TESTAMENT 145

into three columns, each of which would contain the colla-
tion of one MS. in coloured ink ; blue, red, and black
were regularly employed and sometimes, in addition,
brown and green ; these latter, however, were not often
used, partly because the pages would become too crowded
with collations, partly because there was danger of con-
fusing the colours on a dull day or by artificial light.
Indeed, notwithstanding the heroic programme of the
first few years, it soon became evident that work at
the edition could not be safely carried on except by
daylight.

Mr. Wordsworth always collated in Latin ; a practice
which I have continued, as it is clearer and more concise
than English. He collated rapidly and wrote a good
clear hand ; and so far as I have been able to test his
work, he attained a very high level of accuracy, though
he himself wrote in 1883, " I know by experience that
absolute correctness, if not unattainable, is hardly ever
obtained." ^ But I have hardly ever detected him in a
mistake, and very rarely in an omission ; only those
who have worked much at collating MSS. know what
high praise this is. A tendency to make his notes too
short, and to abbreviate when writing, interfered a little
with the clearness of his work ; for a collation may not
be used for ten or twelve years, and by that time even the
collator himself, let alone his assistant, may well have
forgotten for what his signs or compendia stood.

By the summer of 1884 enough material had been
collected to make a beginning with the text of St. Matthew,
and by Canon Wordsworth's invitation I came to stay
with him at Rochester for that purpose. I arrived there
one hot afternoon in August (if I remember right) ; he
and Mrs. Wordsworth were out, but he came in soon
afterwards, greeted me with his bright smile, and after

1 Old Latin Biblical Texts, No. i, p. xxx.

L

146 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

inquiring whether I wanted any tea, said, " If you have
got your notes with you, we may as well begin at once " ;
and so we did. We worked together till dinner-time, and
after dinner till about ii p.m. ; in the midst of dinner
he suddenly remarked, " Oh, by the by, do you know
which is your bedroom ? " but fortunately I had already
been shown it. For a fortnight of summer weather we
worked between six and eight hours a day, and finished
about ten chapters of St. Matthew ; then I left for the
Continent, to collate the texts of the St. Gall fragments
{n, 0, p) and the Munich Gospels {q) for the second and
third volumes of Old Latin Biblical Texts. The next
summer I was ordained in Rochester diocese, and had no
time to spare away from my curacy at Oxted ; but the
following letter, written to Dr. Talbot, ^ and dated " St.
Peter's Day, 1885," shows that Canon Wordsworth's
methodical diligence had not slackened : —

" Monotonous but happy. Breakfast at 8 ; letters and
news till 10 ; Cathedral till 11 ; Vulgate ii-i ; dinner 1-2 ;
Vulgate 2-5 ; tea 5-5.30 ; Cathedral 5.30-6.30 ; ride or
drive 6.30-8.30 ; supper, such light books as one can digest ;
bed. ... I have got Marsh of Exeter with me now for
a month, acting as a sort of Vulgate secretary. We are
nearing the end of St. Matthew, and hope to make a serious
impression on St. Mark before he goes. Then Roper comes
for August to continue the impression, and I hope to complete
St. Mark. Farther I do not expect to get at present, for
5 hours does not suffice for more than 20 or 30 verses, and
sometimes not so much, when there is any peculiarity in the
problem."

As a matter of fact, so far from St. Mark being com-
pleted, it was not even begun that year, and the work
did not proceed beyond the 20th chapter of St. Matthew.
Soon came his appointment to the see of Salisbury,

^ Now Bishop of Winchester.

THE VULGATE NEW TESTAMENT 147

and " the busy silence of the study," as Dean Church
called it, had to be given up for practical work. Early
in 1886, however, he wrote to me proposing that I should
join him at Salisbury, devoting the greater part of my
time to the Vulgate, but also helping in the diocese as
a member of the Society of St. Andrew ; ^ and on Easter
Monday in that year I went down to Salisbury to complete
the necessary arrangements. My companion for that
day was Dr. Peter Corssen, who had been engaged for
some years on Vulgate studies in Germany, and was then
collating MSS. in the British Museum ; he naturally wished
to make the acquaintance of the Bishop of Salisbury, and
to ascertain what progress was being made with the English
edition. The result of his visit was another pleasant
friendship, which tended to co-operation rather than to
rivalry ; but ultimately Dr. Corssen, drawn away to more
classical studies, gave up his project of an independent
critical edition of the Vulgate. ^

In August, 1886, I came to take up residence at Salis-
bury and to give myself, under the Bishop's guidance,
to that delightful study at which I have worked ever since,
and hope to work till the end of my life. For the first
year I lived in the Palace and was able to give a consider-
able amount of time to the Vulgate ; then the Bishop
appointed me Vice-Principal of the Theological College,
and from that time onward College duties were a first
charge upon me. Still I managed, as a rule, to get more

1 See p. 200.

2 Dr. Corssen's contributions tothe study of the Vulgate and Old-Latin
versions have been numerous and valuable ; they comprise the Epistula
ad Galatas (Berlin, 1885); the dissertation on the text of the Trier er
Ada-Handschrift {Publikationen der Gesellschaft fur rheinische Geschichts-
kunde. No. VI.; 1889) ; Monarchianische Prologezu den vier Evangelien ;
ein Beitrag zur Gesch. des Kanons (Texte u. Untersuchungen, XV. Band,
Heft I.; Leipzig, 1896); Bericht ber die lateinischen Bibeliibersetzungen
[Jahresbericht iibev die Fortschritte der class. AUertumswissenschaft ;
Leipzig, 1899) ; etc., etc.

148 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

than half the morning at the Vulgate in Terra time,
and nearly all in Vacation ; but the rate of progress
dropped from the original twenty or thirty verses a day to
an average of five or six. One room was reserved, as far
as could be, for the work ; and every table in it and
most of the available chairs were covered with books,
collations, and manuscripts. The Palace library was
large and well selected ; self-denying as the Bishop was
in most ways, he spent lavishly on books ; second-hand
catalogues always had an irresistible attraction for him,
and he seldom returned from a foreign holiday without
two or three Early Latin Bibles ; books of reference too
were bought as soon as the need for them was felt. I can
speak feelingly on this point, for in his kind forethought
he bequeathed to me by his will any of his books that
I might find useful for continuing the work ; and I have
nearly all I want. More important, he showed me what
books to consult and how to use them ; to work with
him was indeed a liberal education ; and perhaps the most
valuable lesson I learnt from him was never to take the
references in a footnote for granted, but always to look
them up and see whether they really said what they were
supposed to say. The books which were the greatest
help to us from the beginning were Goelzer's Latinite
de Saint Jerome, Draeger's Historische Syntax der latein-
ischen Sprache, Neue's Formenlehre der lateinischen Sprache,
Hand's Tursellinus, Roby's Latin Grammar, Kaulen's
Geschichte der Vulgafa and Handhuch zur Vulgata, and
Roensch's Itala und Vulgata ; but naturally Dictionaries
and Concordances were constantly consulted, and the
Bishop knew that the most valuable instrument in the
hands of a scholar is a good Concordance. ^

1 I am glad to bear testimony to the excellence of Dutripon's
Concordance to the Vulgate ; I have used it now for many years and
have hardly ever come across an omission or a mistake in it.

THE VULGATE NEW TESTAMENT 149

A division of labour was soon decided on. Any one
who has studied the large critical edition of the Vulgate
will have seen that in the majority of cases there is
practically no doubt as to the reading, and that the business
of the editors is to give the authorities for each variation
as clearly as possible, with such references as may throw
light on the subject and vindicate the reading adopted.
This part of the work was the more laborious ; it does
not indeed take long to arrange the variations of MSS. in
a verse ; but to collect and verify the Patristic quotations
would be slow work even if the Fathers were all well
indexed ; and as most of them are very badly indexed,^
the performance of this most necessary task takes up an
amount of time out of all proportion to the visible result ;
" Augusiinus (semper) " does not take long to read, or to
write, after a word ; but it takes a great deal of research
to be able to write it with any confidence. This collection
of data became the part of the work for which I was
responsible ; it was, as I have said, the more laborious
part ; but it was also the easier, the more elementary,
the more mechanical ; it could be soon learnt, and was
just the proper work and training for a beginner. Far
harder was the task of deciding on the right reading where
the authorities were evenly balanced, where MSS. of the
same family parted company, or where the vast majority
of MSS. favoured a piece of impossible Latinity. This
was the Bishop's share ; I would prepare the case, and
he would decide on the reading. This would usually
mean re-writing the whole note, in any important case ;
and it would be fairly correct to say that in the earlier
fasciculi all the short notes are mine, and all the long ones
are the Bishop's. Yet the division was not absolute ;

1 This is true not only of the early editions but of some quite modern
work ; e.g. the index to Cyprian in the Vienna Corpus Scr. Eccl.
Latinorum leaves much to be desired.

150 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

constantly his eye for literary neatness and his sound
scholarship would suggest a better arrangement in a short
note or add just the one reference to a classical author
which would make it complete ; while he would always
listen with patience and attention to my views on questions
of reading and the general arrangement of the work.
Throughout our long and happy partnership he was abso-
lutely frank, whether in pointing out mistakes, and
mistakes which I ought not to have made, or in giving
credit for anything good in what I did ; at times, indeed,
he would adopt my suggestions with an alacrity that was
almost embarrassing.

Most of the Praefatio and of the Epilogus to the
Gospels was written by the Bishop or, more strictly
speaking, dictated. In Latin composition he would
sometimes dictate as rapidly as I could write, while
at other times he would hesitate for long until he
had found exactly the right word or expression ; and he
never despised the use of an English-Latin dictionary,
if it would save time.

So the work went on for nine happy years. It was
perhaps inevitable that it should grow as it proceeded ;
the footnotes became longer and longer, mainly by the
inclusion of the Old-Latin readings, and (in Acts and
Romans) of quotations from the Fathers ; the readings
of the Old-Latin MSS. were introduced sparingly in St.
Matthew and St. Mark, more fully in St. Luke, and com-
pletely (I trust) in St. John. I think, though I am not
certain, that this was one of the oases in which the Bishop
yielded to my pleadings, and that he himself would have
preferred a less exhaustive apparatus criticus ; and there
is no doubt that the edition would have progressed more
rapidly had the other New Testament book;s been done on
the same scale as St. Matthew and St. Mark. But on this
point I am impenitent ; the later fasciculi are, for purposes

THE VULGATE NEW TESTAMENT 151

of reference, much more useful than the earher, and I
rarely consult the first two Gospels without wishing they
had been treated on the St. John scale.

Even with the smaller apparatus the work took much
longer than the Bishop anticipated. When I came to
Salisbury he was hoping that the Gospels might be com-
pleted in a year's time, and the rest of the New Testament
at an even quicker pace. Yet St. Matthew was not
published till 1889 ; then followed St. Mark in 1891 ;
St. Luke in 1893 ; St. John in 1895 ; the Epilogus,
completing the first volume, in 1898. This first volume,
containing the Gospels, was dedicated by permission to
Queen Victoria ; a copy was also presented to Pope
Leo XIIL, and was acknowledged by him in a letter so
gracious that it aroused the alarm of the more Protestant
Church newspapers. But the progress of the edition was
further delayed by other calls upon the Bishop's time
and energy; the later chapters of this biography will
show how constant and increasing these calls were. It
is true that as years went on I became able to do more by
myself ; but still his supervision and correction were
always needed. He would come into the Vulgate room
whenever he could, and at a moment's notice throw the
best of himself into the work. Knotty points were also
discussed during country walks ; and sometimes when he
was in the midst of other business he would surprise his
companions with a remark or question which showed
where his mind was. One day on going to service in
the Cathedral he suddenly asked a country rector if he
could remember any cases of ellipse of the predicate in
the Latin New Testament. The following extracts
from a speech delivered as late as 1903 collect and express
conclusions which had been gathering in his mind during
many years, and had often been discussed with me and
with other friends :—

152 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

^ " The Bishop said that reference had been made to the
work which Mr. White and himself had been doing for some
years. That study had certainly brought home some general
principles to his mind. No two persons could have a greater
respect or regard for St. Jerome than Mr. White and himself ;
but St. Jerome constantly irritated them by his superficiality
and his neglect of that principle of using the same word in
Latin for the same word in Greek. ... If St. Jerome had
followed it his version would have been a very much better
one than it actually was. He did not, as he ought to have
done, fe-translate the New Testament. He was afraid of his
contemporaries, and that timidity on his part had cost the
Church more than he (the Bishop) could possibly say. If he
had re-translated the New Testament with that power of
expression of which he was a great master, he would have done
a service to the Church higher than we could easily estimate.
He would not say that the Reformation would not have been
necessary, but he would say that St. Paul would have been
understood by the early Christians in the Western Church,
and would have been appreciated and loved and used when,
owing to the fact that St. Jerome only used a very imperfect
translation of St. Paul's Epistles, and did not properly revise
the translation so made, St. Paul was never properly under-
stood in the Western Church until the Reformation. He
did not mean to say that there were no great men who under-
stood him ; but St. Paul's arguments and ideas did not
penetrate into the masses of the people as they might have
done. There was another thing, suggested to him by what
Mr. Bebb said, ' Oh, if we could only interrogate St. Jerome
for a few minutes ! ' That was a feeHng Mr. White and
himself often had. If he had only made it unnecessary for
them to interrogate him, by not using vague generahties,
by telling them plainly what he had done and what he had
not done, and further by informing them not only that he
had used old manuscripts, but where they came from, and the
dates, and the rest of it ! "

Still further delay was caused, I am afraid, by my

^ Speech at Bristol Church Congress, i6th October, 1903 ; see
Salisbury Diocesan Gazette, 1903, p. 200.

THE VULGATE NEW TESTAMENT 153

removal to Oxford in 1895, when I was appointed Chaplain
and Tutor of Merton College. From that time onwards,
and when I left Oxford for King's College, London, in
1905, we could only meet together for work in the Vaca-
tions. In the summer I would come to Salisbury, stay
at the Church House, collect the necessary books round
me, and get through a respectable amount of the text ;
and the Bishop would escape from letters and Diocesan
business at the Palace, and join me whenever he could.
His memory and powers of concentration were wonderful ;
when he came into my room he seemed always to remember
the exact spot at which we had left off the last time, and
I have known him leave the Church House with a half-
finished sentence on his lips and come back the next day
finishing it. During Term time, I continued the work at
Oxford or in London and sent him the copy, chapter
by chapter, to Salisbury ; this he would read very care-
fully, paying especial attention to passages I had marked ;
and he would return it with a promptitude not always
shown in his general correspondence ; arguments or
explanations which had been put forward in rather
clumsy English came back, if he approved of them, in
most excellent Latin. Similarly with the proof sheets ;
he would leave the verification of the data and references
to me ; but he had an eagle eye for misprints, awkward
punctuation, uneven type, etc., and he had an instinctive
sense of how a footnote ought to run, and how it could be
corrected with a minimum of disturbance to the type.
Printers are not immaculate, even at the Clarendon Press,
and occasionally some sheet would contain a really
awkward blunder. On such occasions the Bishop was, I
think, genuinely happy. He loved to calculate the
number of lines and letters, and utilise the space to be
saved or filled up to the best advantage ; and more than
one piece of valuable information in the notes owes its

154 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

position to the fact that three or four lines had been can-
celled, and the space could not be left vacant.

But it was slow work ; the Acts were not published
till 1905, and the Epistle to the Romans appeared in 1913,
two years after his death ; the large amount of prefatory
matter to the Pauline Epistles in Vulgate MSS. took
years to collect and arrange ; but it was so valuable that
it could not be neglected in any edition aiming at complete-
ness. The Bishop spent many an hour over the proofs,
though he did not live to see the fasciculus published,
and the Romans represents a great deal of his work, indeed
of his very best work.

Another circumstance delayed the publication of this
fasciculus by two years ; this was the preparation of the
editio minor. In 1907 and 1908 the British and Foreign
Bible Society began negotiations with the Bishop and the
Clarendon Press for the issue of a hand-edition of the
Vulgate New Testament, the text of which was to be
that of the Oxford critical edition ; it was not, however,
till 1910 that the work was definitely taken in hand.
The edition was to contain our text, as printed in the
editio maior, up to the end of the Romans ; after that,
it was decided to form a provisional text on the basis
of some eight or nine of the MSS. which experience had
taught us to consider most valuable ; and short footnotes
were to be added throughout, giving the authorities for
the more important variant readings. The preparation of
this edition lay almost entirely in my hands, though I must
acknowledge with thanks the help given by Mr. Youngman
and other friends in the correction of the proof sheets. ^

^ The editio minor was published both by the Bible Society and by the
Clarendon Press ; Novum Testamentum Latine secundum editimiem
S. Hieronymi ad codicum manuscriptorum fidem recensuerunt f Joh.
Wordsworth, S.T.P. . . . et H. J. White, A.M., S.T.P. Editio minor
curante Henrico J. White. Oxonii : e typographeo Clarendoniano.
Londini : apiid Societatem Bibliophilorum Britannicam et externam
MDCCCCXI.

THE VULGATE NEW TESTAMENT 155

The Bishop was also consulted on all the harder questions
of reading, and he took the deepest interest in the work,
reading the proofs regularly and expressing himself with
all his wonted decision on every unnecessary comma or
capital letter. He had promised to write the Latin
preface, and in the second week of August, 1911, I
forwarded him the material ; but on the morning of the
1 6th his chaplain returned it with a note to say that the
Bishop was too tired to undertake the task ; and before
the note was delivered in London I had received a telegram
with the news of his death.

No chapter on the Vulgate can close without some
reference to the enterprise now undertaken by the Bene-
dictine Order, in the preparation of a critical edition of
the whole Bible ; though the new Catholic Encyclopaedia
prints a full account of that enterprise without a word
of reference to the work of the Bishop of Salisbury.

In the spring of 1907 it was announced that Pius X.
had determined to begin preparations for a critical edition
of the Latin Bible ; the need for such a revision had been
recognised in the Church of Rome for some time, and
in fact it had formed one item in the programme of the
Biblical Commission established by Leo XHI. In May,
1907, the Benedictine Order were formally requested by
Pius X. to undertake the first stages of the revision ; and
the Order accepted the arduous but honourable task ;
Abbot (now Cardinal) Gasquet was appointed the head of
a small Commission of Benedictines to organise the work.
They have, in accordance with the Pope's wishes, begun
an exhaustive examination of the European libraries, so
as to get, as far as may be, a complete catalogue of all
existing Vulgate MSS. ; and they are systematically
collating or photographing the most important of them.
The results of their work are stored in the College of

156 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTFI

St. Anselmo at Rome, which must now contain the finest
collection of Vulgate material in Europe. No revised
text of any book of the Bible has, however, been published
so far ; and considering the colossal scale on which the
work is being planned, it is not likely that much can be
published in the way of results for many years to come.

CHAPTER VIII

FIRST DAYS AT SALISBURY — THE IDEA OF THE EPISCOPAL

OFFICE

The offer of the see had been quite unexpected, and the
Wordsworths had spent the Saturday, on the evening of
which it reached them, in contradicting the news of the
appointment, which the Standard had somehow obtained
and announced. The spirit in which he accepted it is
shown in his letter to the Warden of Keble.^

" You can judge with what a weight of anxiety it was
done. My heart was in a tumult and the services and sermon
had to be gone through as usual. One's own utter worth-
lessness so oppressive, and yet the consciousness of never
having wished, much less moved a finger to bring it about was
a relief. And God has been so good to me all my life in the
midst of many sins that I could not think Him failing now ;
but perhaps it is only that the punishment, when it comes,
may be more severe — the punishment of failure and the
remorse for taking a place that some one would have filled
better. I think this is what I most dread, and most should
want you to pray may not be the case, for the sake of the
Church even more than mine. The break-up of old ties is
terrible. We never know how much we draw from our
surroundings. The wealth of love and sympathy here and
at Oxford has enabled us to wear a greater show of strength
than we really possess ; and then to have to direct and to
decide difficult points without you at hand to talk it over
will be very hard. You are like a book on the shelf — a comfort
even when not read."

1 Now Bishop of Winchester. Dated 17th August, 1885.

158 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

By the same post Mrs. Wordsworth wrote to Mrs.
Talbot :—

" I don't think I ever felt so miserable, so utterly and
entirely inadequate. I know it sounds faithless, and John
keeps saying, ' As thy day, so shall thy strength be,' but then
one thinks one must have been acting a part even to get into
the danger of such a position. You will, I know, pray for us.
I don't think you ever saw two more deplorable beings. The
people here are all so good and kind ; there is a perfect wail
at losing us. But how shall I leave Oxford ? . . . How shall
I ever manage a dinner party ? Or a man servant ? "

Such fears sound strange in view of her success as a
leader and a hostess in the diocese and the palace. In a
somewhat lighter mood she wrote to a sister-in-law :• —

" Surely this is one of life's mysteries. Here am I, totally
unable to dechne a position for which I know I am most unfit,
physically and mentally, not to say morally. It is very
strange, and yet I have to look at it as a call. I hope, as
Mr. Sewell ^ used to say at whist, ' Do give your partner credit
for some good cards, Susie, and trust to his play to pull you
through,' that John will be enough for both of us. At present
I fear I shall only pull him down."

The future Bishop presents another aspect of the case
to a Brasenose colleague, Mr. C. A. Whittuck ^ : —

" Your most kind and generous letter is a great help to me.
I cannot answer it at length as I could wish. You can easily
imagine how strange and weak and unfit I feel, yet I venture
to throw myself on God's mercy in undertaking this heavy
charge. I know from the inside what it is, and at least, I
trust, have no feelings of elation about it. When a man has
neither parents nor children he estimates Hfe perhaps more
honestly and simply as a small space of probation in which

1 Either the founder of Radley, or his brother, the Warden of
New College.

* Now Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford. Dated " in the train," 24th
August, 1885.

CONSECRATION 159

God is disciplining us for something better. If I had children
I should probably be very ambitious or at least anxious.
Now we feel (for you know what my wife is) that we have
merely to do the best we can, with God's help, and take no
thought for the morrow. I have written more than I wished
about myself, but your kind letter seemed to draw it."

He was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on the day
of St. Simon and St. Jude, the 28th October, which was
the first anniversary^ of his mother's death. ^ Canon Jelf,
he records, preached " a good sermon, ^ in a clear, nice
voice, and every one was most kind and loving."

On the 30th October he did homage to Queen Victoria
at Balmoral.

" With his sense of the fitness of things and dignity of
of&ce he sent in a request to her Majesty that he might come
and pay homage in his robes. The usual custom, I beheve,
was that after dinner the Bishops went in in evening dress,
which he thought unseemly. The Queen quite hked and
approved of the idea. Probably they always do that cere-
moniously now." ^

At Balmoral he began to copy his father's book of
private devotions. This volume, which he copied again
in 1890, recorded names of kinsfolk and friends whom the
younger man can never have known and distant incidents
in the lives of Wordsworths and Freres. In prayer and
intercession it was often quaint and even strained, and
it contained many apophthegms, original as well as
borrowed. Altogether it was characteristic of Christopher

1 By Archbishop Benson, Bishops Temple of London, Browne of
Winchester, Thorold of Rochester, Ridding of Southwell, King of
Lincoln, and Trollope of Nottingham, his father's suffragan.

2 The Strength of the Bishop and the Church (Isa. lii. i). A
sermon preached ... at the consecration of the Lord Bishop of
Salisbury by George Edward Jelf, M.A., Canon of Rochester and Rector
of Chatham. Published by request. London, Walter Smith, 1885.

s From the Rev. G. F. Hooper, St. Oswald's, Worcester, a very
intimate friend of the Bishop. His homage was at 10.30 a.m.

i6o LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

and not of John Wordsworth. All was dutifully copied,
and a corresponding record of the son's own life and
interests made on the opposite page, which was being
enriched till the end of his life. The most important
part of the father's book was a list of " Agenda avv 0e(o,"
which the son loyally took for his own guidance. None
of them is more significant than the last ; —

" N.B. never to say ' my diocese,' ' my clergy.' They
are not thine, but Christ's. Say 'Diocese of Lincoln,'
etc."

This direction was scrupulously followed by Bishop
John Wordsworth, sometimes even at the cost of awk-
wardness or circumlocution. In his last public letter to
the clergy and laity, on Ascension Day, 1911, he spoke
of " our examining chaplains " ; the plural here is not
of majesty.

The Bishop went down to Salisbury and was enthroned
on the 4th November. Mrs. Wordsworth's letters to
her friends picturesquely describe the scene.

" The weather was most unkindly, but a bright gleam
shone upon him as he entered the throne. It was a very
impressive service, and he looked grand in his great scarlet
robe.^ It was very toucliing to hear his father's hymn,
' Hark ! the sound of holy voices,' come nearer and nearer up
the nave,2 and it was very wonderful to see him kneeling
at the altar. ..."

There was an unexpected ceremony in the service.
As a son of Christopher Wordsworth and a friend of
Bishop Benson he had naturally studied the statutes of
his Cathedral, and he found himself directed by them to
perform an act that had long been pretermitted. He did
not flinch.

" The kiss given by Bishop to Dean and Chapter in the

1 His father's Cambridge Convocation robe, which is really a cope.
' It was sung again at his funeral.

MRS. WORDSWORTH

(1SS5).

From a photograph by Elliott & Fry.

FIRST PASTORAL i6i

Chapter House I am almost glad I did not see," writes Mrs.
Wordsworth. " It must have been so very funny, but you
can hardly realise how delighted they all were at getting it.
Generally it has been confined to the Dean, but as the instruc-
tions are ' Dean and Chapter,' he went bravely through.^
Then came the great Mayor's lunch ; every one charmed with
his speech, and he had no notes even, and when he got up
he didn't in the least know what he was going to say, but
as you will see it was very good. Then a tremendous gathering
to meet him in the old Church House, and then it was time to
think of the Pastoral for the next day, so he went back to the
Palace and I grieve to say sat up till 2.30 writing it."

The " Pastoral " was to be the chief topic of his
address to the Greater Chapter, a body which he took very
seriously throughout his episcopate. The revival of this
" Consilium Episcopi " was, indeed, one of the " Agenda
avv Ge^) " which he borrowed from his father. He sum-
moned them to meet in the Chapter House on the day
after the enthronement.

" As many of them came from many miles away," Mrs.
Wordsworth wrote, " he thought he could not ask them to come
again, and so consulted them then. The sight had not been
seen for over a hundred years of a Bishop addressing his
Greater Chapter. Forty-eight, I think they were, dear old
things from all corners of Wilts and Dorset."

He submitted to them the letter he proposed to address
to the diocese. It was cast in the form of a Pauline
epistle.

" To the Reverend the Clergy, the Churchwardens, the
Synodsmen, and the whole brotherhood of Christian people
within the Diocese of Salisbury, John, by Divine per-
mission, Bishop of Salisbury, greering. Grace to you and
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost be multiplied. I thank God
always. Brethren beloved in the Lord, for your steadfastness
1 At the enthronement of Dr. F. E. Ridgeway, 8th November, 191 1,
" Welcome was given by shaking of hands."

M

i62 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

in the faith and union in works of love of which I hear in every
quarter, so that now for many years you are an example to
the flock of Christ."

So it began. It dealt, in view of an impending General
Election, with the right use of the pulpit at such times,
with the questions of establishment and endowment,
with the restoration of churches, giving a warning, more
necessary then than now, of —

" the danger lest anything that does not suit the taste of the
day should be sold or even destroyed as of no account. We
must not despise the last century because it is not the
thirteenth century, much less must we destroy the work of
the period of the Reformation and Restoration."

But the most characteristic announcement was that of
his views concerning patronage ; views which he had the
satisfaction of seeing generally approved, and ultimately
embodied in legislation. But, though others sympathised.
Bishop John Wordsworth was the first to take the risk
of action.

" I think that further restriction of the rights of patronage,
whether pubUc or private, is absolutely essential to the well-
being of the Church, and that this is a proper time to claim it.
I would not abolish patronage, or give it to the dioceses or
parishes, but I would give them at least the right to make
representations and to be heard in opposition to an appoint-
ment of which they disapproved. ... I myself see difficulties
in wholly forbidding the sale of advowsons, but I would require
such sales to be always publicly registered, and if I had the
power I would not allow a patron to present himself. I would
wholly forbid the sale of next presentations or of the life
interest in advowsons, and I would of course make all donatives
presentative. As a proof of my own willingness to act and
to take responsibility in this matter, I will mention what I
intend to do in the case of every clerk presented to me for
institution. I shall defer institution in all cases for the twenty-
eight days in which a Bishop is allowed by the canon to make

PATRONAGE 163

objection to a patron's nomination. I shall equally do so
in cases when I myself collate to a benefice. I shall endeavour
in this period to acquaint myself with the whole past history
of the clerk, so presented to me, since his ordination. If I
have reason to doubt his fitness I shall make free use of my
legal right to examine him as to the sufficiency of his knowledge
and the soundness of his faith. I shall endeavour also to
devise some plan for giving the communicants of the parish
to which he is nominated an opportunity of making any valid
legal objection, since their interest in the matter so far surpasses
that of any other persons, except indeed that of the Bishop.
For, my Brethren, I need not remind you that Institution is
a very solemn act by which a Bishop delegates to another a
portion of the spiritual jurisdiction and oversight committed
to himself ; and if he admits an unworthy man he is responsible
in the sight of God.^ I feel sure that most Patrons only need
to be reminded of this once for all, and that when once they
understand it they will do their best to help a Bishop in bearing
the heavy burden laid upon him. For my own part, I am
prepared, if need be, to suffer loss in resisting improper appoint-
ments if any such should be attempted, feehng sure that, even
if I should be mulcted by a Civil Court the Church will be a
hundredfold the gainer, and that, according to our Master's
promise, I should not be a loser even in this world."

It was a bold step for a new-fledged Bishop to
announce a course of action, the necessity of which
was not yet generally recognised, even among the well-
disposed, and there was a real danger, as will appear,
both of unpopularity and of litigation. In a footnote
to the Pastoral Letter he assumed responsibility for its
contents, though he says that " its spirit is generally,
and I believe heartily, approved by the Chapter." Their
share is more precisely indicated in a letter of the Bishop
to his friend the Warden of Keble ^ : —

1 There was something very impressive in the way he said, " Accipe
curam meam et tuam " at an Institution.
' r4th November, 1885.

i64 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

" Some things I had put more strongly, but modified them
in deference to friends in the Chapter, where I succeeded in
convincing them that I wanted not compHments but counsel.
Of course I kept the result in my own hands by putting nothing
to the vote. ... I have constantly to repeat Marcus Aurelius'

words, pXiire. fir] airoKaicrapoi6ys (or a.TroeTTLcrKOTrwOrj';) fxr] ^a^^s.

ytveTat ydp.^ But the sensc of goodness and brotherly kind-
ness all round us happily overpowers everything, and there
are the scandals and weaknesses of the Church as well as one's
own bad thoughts and blunders to keep one humble."

At this point it may be well to consider the Bishop's
conception of the office on which he was entering ; and,
since his views never changed, it shall be illustrated from
utterances of all periods of his episcopate. It was a very
high one. On the doctrinal side it was that of St. Ignatius
of Antioch ; on the practical, there seemed to be no limit
to its scope. For he had a profound belief not only in
the opportunities of the office, but in the gifts of its
occupants. He was convinced of their wisdom, knowledge,
and energy, and also assured that they had a common
outlook, which they shared with the prelates of the past.
The confidence, indeed, with which he assumed that
medieval Bishops, who were statesmen or soldiers, had
the same range of interests as himself was sometimes
astonishing. In this loyalty to his order there was some-
thing of heroic illusion ; but when he could not admire
their conduct he was sterner against Bishops than against
other men. If a Bishop fell short of the standard, or if
a person unequal to the task accepted the office. Bishop
Wordsworth's censure was grave.

Bishops for him were a class, and must behave as a
class. His ideal for the government of the Church was
that of Archbishop Benson, not that of Archbishop Tait.

1 Comment, vi. 30. " See that thou be not transformed into a
(mere) Emperor — or Bishop — lest thou be stained. The thing happens."

THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE 165

They must take counsel together/ and act together. In
the words of the present Archbishop of Canterbury, " a
Bishop's position in the Church of England of to-day is
not a local one." ^ Holding this national position, and
consulting together for the welfare of the Church, they are
a cabinet, 3 and therefore must be few in number. Bishop
Wordsworth certainly regarded an English diocesan Bishop
as a figure equally conspicuous with a Cabinet Minister,
and would express surprise and sorrow when a layman,
or even a schoolboy, was ignorant of the name of one
among the less prominent members of his order.

If diocesan Bishops must be few, their dioceses must
be large. This he regarded as a thing desirable in itself.
A Bishop ought to have behind him the weight of an
important portion of the Church, that he may speak
with its authority as well as his own ; and if it be large,
it will furnish him with an adequate field for the exercise

^ In his earlier days Bishop Wordsworth had not fully learned this
lesson, and the Archbishop vigorously inculcated it.

" Lambeth Palace,

" 8th May, 1887,
" Dearest Bishop,

" You can't come to Bishops' meeting, because of engage-
ments sometime made. But do let me remind you that the Bishops'
meeting was fixed last July, and that you were supplied with a printed
sheet — stating the same.

" And that if the Bishops set aside these solemn Church engagements
for diocesan ones — there is no wonder that the Church is lacking in
corporate life, and that the Parishes follow the example of the Diocesans
— and live for themselves.

" Do excuse me for saying that I think it very sad indeed and fraught
with evil omens.

" Ever your most affectionate,

" Edw. Cantuar."

* From a letter in Dr. Mason's Life of Bishop Wilkinson, II., p. 4.

* I owe this illustration to a late honoured friend, Mr. J. R. Williams
of Chester, and of Treffos in Anglesey, sometime representative of the
diocese of Bangor in the House of Laymen. Though I do not remember
the Bishop using it, it exactly describes his view.

i66 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

of his function as a teacher. England is happy, he thought,
in having dioceses which are both considerable in area
and graced with historical associations. He was not
averse from a moderate increase in their number. He
preached, for instance, on behalf of the revived see of
Bristol, but he did his best to detach from it and restore
to Salisbury the 8i parishes and 80,000 souls of North
Wilts whom the Ecclesiastical Commission had separated
from their original see. In 1892 he printed for private
circulation a " Memorandum on the possible reunion of
the deaneries of Malmesbury, Chippenham, and Cricklade
in the County of Wilts with the Diocese of Salisbury,"
in which he sets forth his reasons. They are more briefly
given in some private memoranda written in 1890 : —

"In his [Bishop Denison's] days the diocese underwent a
great change. Up till the reign of Henry VIII. and the
foundation of the Bishopric of Bristol in 1542 the diocese
consisted of the three counties Berks, Wilts, and Dorset.
Henry VIII. detached Dorset and united it to Bristol. In
r837 Berks was attached to Oxford, carrying with it, as many
think unfairly, the Chancellorship of the Garter, and Dorset
was reunited very properly to Wilts. The great mistake was
to separate the deaneries of Malmesbury and Chippenham
in North Wilts from the rest of the county. I beHeve that
this has injured the life of the diocese much more than would
at first sight be easily conceived. The distraction of county
interests from diocesan is a lamentable cause of coldness
among those who look to the more secular side of things,
and especially the loss of a great town like Swindon, as a
training place for clergy and a sphere for all sorts of diocesan
works of piety and mercy, can never be too much deplored.
That Malmesbury and Lacock should be separated from
Salisbury is miserable, i^ not to say humiliating. We have
lost much too in losing Berkshire, and perhaps Berkshire
has never thoroughly been united to its new allies. It will
no doubt some day have a see of its own to make up to it,
^ Both have important monastic remains.

THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE 167

but I fear that there is no hope of recovermg our Alsace and
Lorraine, as Bishop Moberly used to call them, in North Wilts.
Nor do I wish to see a county see in either Wilts or Dorset
by itself. Dorset has, however, thank God ! become firmly
united to the see."

Even in 1904 he resumed the topic in a sermon in
his Cathedral,! and had found a, fresh reason for regret.

" Bishop Denison, in his first Visitation Charge, delivered
in 1839, referred to this severance as one for which he saw
' no adequate reason,' and stated that he, in common with
all parties locally concerned, endeavoured to preserve the
integrity of the county and the old ecclesiastical organisation,
but in vain. Bishops of Salisbury have, I think, always had
the same feehng since on this subject, and the recent develop-
ment of local government, and the stimulus given to county
patriotism,^ have increased the regret which Churchmen
may naturally feel at this dismemberment of the county."

He was willing, then, even to welcome an increase of
his responsibilities. When, towards the end of his life,
it was suggested, perhaps rather irresponsibly, that steps
should be taken for the creation of a diocese of Dorset,
his dislike for such a scheme was so well known that its
authors, discreetly if not quite courteously, launched
it without informing the Bishop. He had no mind to
be what " S. G. O.," himself a Dorset incumbent, had
called a " gig-Bishop," busily engaged in perambulating
a narrow district, a great man in small matters, lost in
a crowd of prelates none of whom carried decisive weight
in the counsels of the Church. The outcome of such a
system would be an almost papal predominance of
Canterbury ; and against what seemed encroachments
from that quarter he was, we shall see, quite ready to
protest. But he did not take the burden lightly. He

^ Diocesan Gazette, 1904, p. 204 : sermon of i6th October.
* By the County Councils Act.

i68 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

recognised that it was his duty to acquire a full personal
knowledge of parishes and clergy, and thanks to assiduous
visitation and an excellent memory he did in fact attain
it. He could also, in hi? detached position, turn his know-
ledge to account. He would imperturbably insist, in
spite of local outcries, upon the union, which he knew to
be desirable, of two small parishes. The greatness of his
station enabled him to disregard the prejudices of the
moment and the agitation of local celebrities. The same
detachment led him (sometimes not without inflicting
hardship) to prefer the interest of a parish to that of an
elderly incumbent who wished to retire from his work.
He was apt in such cases to refuse or to diminish the ex-
pected pension. He looked at such problems broadly,
regarding the general and not the particular interest.

But he also attempted with much seriousness what
seemed to him the higher duty of moulding his diocese,
and giving it a corporate conscience and a common ideal.
That was a task not rendered more difficult by the numbers
to whom he made his appeal ; the number only made
the appeal better worth making. He made it the more
earnestly because he idealised the relation between
Bishop and people. Addressing his Synod of clergy in
1888 he gives his reason for not making a formal oration : —

" We meet to-day as quite old friends — old and attached
friends, I think — and, as you all know, it is the privilege
of friends not to talk very much when they meet. Our
friendship, of course, is very different from the friendship of
men of the world, or of persons who are united only by the
ordinary ties which join man to man. It is not a friendship
which comes from early associations and similarity of taste
or unity of interests in business associations, or social expedi-
ency ; it is a friendship which comes to us from a sense of
being under a law and principle of discipline, which principle
of discipline is part of the eternal fitness of things. We are
naturally lifted above the concerns of this life into the life of

THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE 169

God, and therefore our friendship in meeting on this occasion
is not like a mere shell or husk which will be thrown off as soon
as we leave this place, but it is something which has an abiding
presence with us and accompanies us when we enter into our
chambers and kneel down before God, or when we kneel side
by side, as dear Mr. Barnes ^ said, ' the knower speechless to
the known.' "

Twenty years later he gave to the Synod of Clergy,
assembled after the Lambeth Conference of 1908 to
consider its resolutions, a reasoned exposition of the
relation between Bishop and clergy as he conceived it,
and drew a vigorous moral. He is explaining why, for
the third time, he has summoned such an assembly : —

" This regular consultation of the clergy is not merely
an accident or a tradition. It permeates, as a principle, the
conception which I hold of our office, and which I have endea-
voured to inculcate on yourselves. It has been one of the
principal aims of my episcopate to make new clergy feel when
they come to be instituted to a benefice or licensed to a curacy
that they are, of their own free will, joining a religious society
or brotherhood. This thought I am in the habit of con-
necting, as many here will remember, with the oath of
' canonical obedience.' According to my interpretation that
oath is taken to the Bishop, as superior of the Society of which
the beneficed and licensed clergy are members, in one word,
are canons or canonical persons, not monks. ' Canonical
obedience ' is a moral and personal thing Uke ' true obedience.'
It is obedience such as befits a canonical person. It is not
obedience to the rules or canons of the Church, as some, rather
trivially, explain it. These rules are binding on the clergy,
whether a man promise to obey them or not. The word
' canonical ' is, in this sense, derived from Kavwv, signifying
a roll or register, rather than from Kavwv in the sense of a rule.
Canonical obedience is that due from a man on the clerical
roU to him whose name stands at the head of it, under whom he
chooses to place himself. No doubt many come into the

1 The Dorset poet.

170 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Society in an accidental and almost careless way, though
others, thank God, do not. It is my business to see that,
however they come, they know what they are doing as soon
as possible, and realise the duties and responsibihties of this
holy fellowship. Much may be done to illustrate this reality
through careful visitations, through the constant brotherly
activity of Archdeacons and Rural Deans, through the
Diocesan Gazette, and many other hke ways. But surely no
way is so sure — though from the nature of the case it cannot
be a very frequent opportunity — as a Synod such as we hold
to-day, when all have the right to come, when we meet for a
common Eucharist, common prayers, common counsel, and
as far as possible for a simple, common meal.

" If time allowed I should hke to develop this thought
of our diocesan brotherhood and its relation to other ties. Such
ties, of course, exist, binding us all to the Province, the
National Church, the Anglican Communion, the Cathohc
Church of Christ. But the best way generally of reahsing these
ties is to be true to the immediate claims upon us. ' He
that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.'
To be unjust in regard to our diocesan brotherhood at the
bidding of party societies, large or small, or in the interest
of some theory, is to be unjust to the whole Church. Partisan
societies, partisan religious publications have become the
noxious solvents of clerical brotherhood and the enemies of
united progress. Such societies may have once served some
purpose in organising opinion with some energy when a sense
of corporate life in the Church was decayed. Now that corpo-
rate Hfe is visibly growing they are an anachronism, and I
beheve that many of the younger clergy perceive this, and are
wisely abstaining from joining them. I wish some of the elder
ones would cease from blowing their old-fashioned trumpets
and waving their worn-out banners. I wish also that some of
the younger clergy did not now and then claim exemption from
obedience to the plain directions and the yet plainer traditions
of the Church of England, and defend themselves by appeal to
what they call Cathohc rule and custom. Immediate Church
authority — speaking in a reasonable and fatherly manner —

THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE 171

is to us the voice of the Catholic Church, unless, indeed, we
are believers in Vaticanism."

That " immediate Church authority " was himself.
He conceived that he had the duty, and also the ability,
to guide the minds of clergy and also, so far as their case
demanded it, of laity, and that on them lay a correspond-
ing duty of accepting the guidance. Hence his hostility
to journals and organisations which furnished the clergy
with ideas inferior, he was sure, to those which he was
supplying. If the double task, of supervision and of
instruction, might seem overwhelming, as much might
be said of other exacting offices. A diocesan Bishop,
like an Attorney-General, by the act of assuming his
functions asserts that he has the physical strength needed
for their execution. Bishop Wordsworth would not have
asked for pity, or have made over-work an excuse for
ineffectiveness. His ideal was perhaps impossible of
attainment. Perhaps also he did not take into account,
in a scheme of governance which he deemed might be
universal for the Church of England, of defects of know-
ledge in some cases and of failure in health or energy in
others. The comfort which Dr. Pusey is said to have
given to a clergyman distressed by some utterance of
Bishop Blomfield, that the theology of one who for many
years has spent eight hours a day in business need not
be taken too seriously, may still have its relevance. Grave
difficulties may arise if dioceses, or even provinces of the
Church, be moulded too perfectly after the pattern imposed
upon them by some resolute leader. In spite of all, Bishop
Wordsworth's was a noble ideal, religiously conceived
and courageously attempted.

But the Bishop was not, in his earlier days, content
to guide the judgment of the clergy ; he wanted also
personally to supervise the morals of their flock. In
drawing up the articles of inquiry for his first Visitation,

172 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

that of 1888, he consulted various forms in use elsewhere,
and in one of them, that for the Lincolnshire Archdeaconry
of Stow, he found a question that had been put in 1827,
but which sounds thoroughly Jacobean. As adapted
by the Bishop it ran : —

" Are there any persons in your parish of scandalous life
and conversation, whose cases should be reported to the Bishop
[Canon 109] ? Detailed answers to this question should be
written on a separate paper and presented to the Bishop in
a sealed envelope at the time of the Visitation."

The question, when it was distributed among the church-
wardens, excited quite a storm. The Bishop might have
foreseen this, for his Chancellor, Sir J. P. Deane, had
warned him. But he had not been convinced. He wrote
to Sir James Deane ^ : —

" I am now pretty well acquainted with the churchwardens
of this diocese, and I feel sure that in their answers they wiU
be careful not to stir up bad blood. A Visitation is useless
unless it tends to a better state of discipline than at present
exists among us. I do not expect to get much on a first
Visitation which is of value in reply to a question like this, but
I believe, if God gives me strength to go on for a certain
number of years, a gradual reform in public opinion may
be worked in a small diocese like this where there is no town
of over 15,000 people, except Salisbury, which is, I believe,
under 16,000."

The experiment was not repeated.

1 gth February, 1888.

CHAPTER IX

SALISBURY, 1885-1894

Bishop John Wordsworth entered on his office at the
early age of forty-two. He combined a settled conser-
vatism in serious matters with an almost boyish readiness
to make experiments. We have seen him improving
upon Queen Victoria's custom in receiving the homage
of her Bishops ; nothing could have been more cha-
racteristic. When his seal had to be designed, he would
have it unlike others. Normally a Bishop's seal bears
his own arms and those of his see in pale, or side by side.
For his, the Virgin of Salisbury was liberated from her
shield ; the Sistine Madonna stood with the three bells
of the Wordsworths beneath her feet. The design was
not less original and beautiful that there were certain
medieval precedents. The Bishop worked the subject
out, and made it the theme of a learned paper read
before the Royal Archaeological Institute at its Salisbury
meeting in 1887.^ But his desire to initiate was not
confined to matters of detail. At his enthronement he
asked all who were present " for their counsel as to found-
ing something which would be an inheritance for the future
to fit in and correspond with their inheritance in the
past." He wished to be the rival of medieval founders,
and he was, in fact, to have his measure of success.

He sought a stimulus in the history of his diocese.
From the first he identified himself with it. He never

1 Archaeological Journal, xlv., pp. 22 ff. ; reprinted, 1888.

174 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

spoke of Hooker but as " our great Salisbury theologian,"
and took an equal pride in calling to mind the fact that
Jewell had been his own predecessor, and that Pearson,
Barrow, and Butler had been prebendaries of Sarum.
Perhaps at times he even combined their teaching with
his own into something which might seem a characteristic
local mode of thought. George Herbert, whose portrait
he added to the Palace collection, had also this merit
of a local connection, as had in the more distant past
Hubert Walter and Robert Hallam, Bishops of Salisbury ;
and it was with special pleasure that in later life he
deciphered at Jerusalem the tombstone of a crusader
who had been castellan of Devizes.

This interest extended to all corners of the diocese,
their forgotten worthies and their memorials of the past.
He studied them with zeal during his visits, which were
so actively pursued that within six years there were only
sixteen churches and parishes with which he was not
personally acquainted, and these small places annexed
to others or else, in one or two cases, parishes so involved
in difficulty that he could not wisely appear in them. The
roomy carriage, drawn according to the dignified tradition
of the see by two grey horses/ was a second home to
both the Words worths. Of the friendships formed with
clergy, connected with him by the canonical bond he
rated so highly, the Bishop's notebooks give a record.
The number of the children, their complexion, their
schools, are constantly entered after a visit to some rectory ;
and I think that an increasing interest may be marked
in his later years in those of modest fortune. The diocese
when he entered it had, perhaps, a larger number than
now of clergy whose estate was that of country gentlemen,
and though it could not be said of Salisbury, as of another

1 Constantine and Julian, named after his most important articles
in the Dictionary of Christian Biography.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 175

diocese in the previous generation, that an honorary
canon meant a clergyman who kept Jersey cows, the
standing and the services of such men were worthily
recognised. But Bishop Wordsworth came to note with
special satisfaction in his private memoranda the successes
of boys and girls who had won their way through difficulty
and through sacrifice on their parents' part. His interest
in parishes and in clergy was heightened by his old-world
attitude of mind towards them. For him parish and priest
formed an intimate combination. As to former genera-
tions " Jones of Nayland " or " Sikes of Guilsborough "
had been significant terms, so was it with him.

But the centre of his interest was naturally his own
home and its surroundings. A Bishop with a Cathedral
of the Old Foundation has but a limited authority within
its walls. Bishop Wordsworth, as it happened, was
most happy in his relation with successive Deans and
Canons. But the Cathedral rose, on one of its sides,
directly out of his garden, and his Palace was worthy to
be its neighbour. Miss Elizabeth Wordsworth has
contributed a sketch, which will be of interest to readers
who do not know Salisbury, of the home where, as she
says, " it was his fate, as it is that of many other Bishops
who have beautiful and venerable abodes, to spend
comparatively little time."

" The Palace is a curious architectural patchwork, and
illustrates what Ruskin said of the medieval builders, that
when they wanted to make additions to, or alterations in,
their houses, they just made them as it suited them, without
any regard to symmetry. In fact, while the Cathedral is
exceptional among EngHsh Cathedrals as having been the work
of one period and being all, practically, of one style of archi-
tecture, the Palace is exactly the reverse. Here we find, in
one fabric, the old Norman hall of Bishop Poore, the Late
Gothic tower of Bishop Beauchamp, the chessboard-like
fragments of old flint masonry here and there in the walls.

176 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

the handsome modern staterooms as restored by Bishops
Sherlock and Barrington on the first floor, the antique and
somewhat comfortless stone-paved servants' quarters below,
the picturesque Jacobean staircase of Seth Ward which leads
to the principal bedrooms, including one called the Queen's
Bedroom ^ because once occupied by the then Princess
Victoria. Approximately to the same date belongs the wood-
work of the chapel, a building interesting in itself, and especially
as having been the scene of the ordination of Bishop Butler
to the diaconate. The north front of the house is somewhat
unattractive, unless we people it with the events of some
busy moments of arrival or departure — the Bishop's carriage
and pair of greys — or in later days his motor — waiting,
usually until the last moment, while he has that final interview
or hastily subscribes that one last note or letter ! Then in
all haste he is whirled off to the railway station for the London
train, or more Ukely to a church opening or confirmation at
some remote point of the diocese.

" But if the northern front of the house is somewhat
forbidding, the southern more than atones for it. The whole
wall of the house is covered with magnolias, myrtles, pome-
granates, pyrus japonica, and other creepers. The magnolias
and pomegranates in particular flower here as they only do
in very favoured corners of England. A flat terrace runs
the length of the house, and is bordered on both sides by turf,
in which are beds of the richest and most brilliant flowers
expanding in the sunshine. Stone steps, stone balustrades,
here and there a hchen-grown stone vase give an old-world
air to the spot ; as does a httle fountain, with water-Hlies and
goldfish, in a stone basin beside the path and close to the
balustrades. Beyond is a field, and a good-sized piece of water,
the joy of winter skaters, and to the east a spacious kitchen
garden. The starry celandine may be seen at the beech-
tree roots in the early spring, and the garden never loses its
loveHness till the last autumn rose has yielded to November
frosts. Various quaint little staircases run up to the house
from the terrace ; there is a porch covered with pale clustering
roses and the doves may be seen and heard in its neighbourhood.

" Among the windows which look out on the terrace and
1 In this room Bishop Wordsworth died.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 177

garden are those of the Bishop's study. If we had approached
it from that side, we probably should have seen the big head
surrounded with a halo of Hght, feathery hair, and the big
black-coated figure, with its back to us, bending over the
writing-table — a pile of books of reference on either side and
the right hand hastily tracing in that familiar writing a few
brief but carefuUy considered lines. Every bookcase was full
to overflowing, but all was in careful order. Here were modern
theological works ; there patristic ones ; here a large con-
tingent of lexicons and encyclopedias ; here classics ; there
history or helles lettres. In later years an entire bookcase
was given over to Swedish and Scandinavian Hterature. The
large central writing-table, an heirloom from Bishop Hamilton's
days, having been a present to him from his uncle, ' Single-
speech Hamilton,' was covered with methodically arranged
papers ; and many more were carefully stowed away in
receptacles under the table. A sofa faced the fire, probably
occupied by a couple of worn leather traveUing bags, which
were generally primed with the hterature or maps necessary
for diocesan visits. Other interesting souvenirs were old-
fashioned chairs which had belonged to Dr. Pusey and Bishop
Moberly. A cupboard fuU of pigeon-holes, the gift of Mr.
Gladstone to Bishop Hamilton, was near the further door.
On the top of the bookcase, facing the study chair, was a
bronze helmet with an archaic Greek inscription — ' To
Olympian Jove ' — which had belonged to the Bishop's father.
The drawing-room, a large and handsome apartment, is, Hke
the dining-room, fuU of portraits of earher bishops, most of
them wearing the insignia of the order of the Garter, which
have now passed to the see of Oxford. Among these Burnet's
handsome, dark-haired, and somewhat florid countenance is
sure to catch the spectator's eye. Bishop Guest, to whom
we owe a clause in the XXVIIIth Article, is also there in the
attenuated lawn sleeves of his period. Henry Lawes, Milton's
friend, though a layman is also represented, as weU as Bishop
Jewell, Bishop Davenant, George Herbert, and others ^ ; and
Sir W. Richmond's fine portrait of Bishop Moberly holds a

^ The best is Beechey's portrait of Bishop Hume, who used the
patronage of the see for the advancement of his family. The Bishop
would often point out his keen and acquisitive features.

N

178 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

conspicuous place. The elder Richmond's portrait of Bishop
Hamilton also deserves special notice ; and to these in later
5^ars was added Sir George Reid's masterly portrait of Bishop
John Wordsworth himself, painted for the diocese. In the
dining-room was a copy of Pickersgill's portrait of the poet
Wordsworth, an admirable Hkeness by Eddis of the Bishop's
mother, and an oil-painting by W. Logsdail of the South Porch
of Lincoln Cathedral with minute but very cleverly hit-off
portraits of Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln and the artist's
own father attending him as verger. The dining-room, Hke
the drawing-room, extends the whole width of the house :
in either case one window overlooks the garden, the other
gives an unforgettable view of the Cathedral spire and the
Chapter House, with a foreground of rich turf and cedar
trees. To the spectator's left, as he gazes through this window,
is the door into the cloisters ; the door which in his last
illness tradition says Bishop Hamilton saw in a dream, with
our Saviour standing there and calling him in. Along the
gravel walk which leads from the garden into the cloisters,
the late Bishop might habitually be seen at 7.25 every morning,
when at home, on his way to early Mattins, and on Sunday
at 10.30, preceded by a choir boy, known as the ' Bishop's
boy,' whose office it was to summon him. The black-robed
figure with white sleeves and rochet and scarlet hood made a
striking point of colour among the soft greens and greys of
the garden and the weather-stained architecture, especially
when accompanied by the boy in surplice, bare-headed, and
with the ruffle round the neck which is a distinctive character-
istic of the SaUsbury chorister.

" The most interesting feature in the Palace will always
be the chapel, which seems scarcely to have been touched
since the seventeenth century. The old quarto leather-bound
prayer-books contain prayers for our most gracious King
George and Queen Charlotte. The skilful fingers of Miss
Edith Moberly, the gifted daughter of the Bishop, have,
however, lined the bare walls with paintings copied from
early Italian masters and with tasteful embroidery. The
chapel is arranged choirwise with ' return stalls ' facing the
altar for the Bishop and reader. Within the altar rails,^ were
^ Now in the chapel of St. Nicholas Hospital, Salisbury.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 179

two plaster casts of the two sides of the Runic cross which
marks the graves of Christopher and Susanna Hatley Words-
worth at Risehohne. A plain pastoral staff, with pohshed
brass crook and oaken shaft, also belonging to his father,
stood by the Bishop's stall, and there were other reHcs of
Riseholme in the ante-chapel. It was in this chapel that
Institutions were sometimes held and doubtless many other
religious services of a pubhc or private kind. In the ordinary
household services, at morning prayer some admirable prayers
written and selected by the Bishop for the various days of
the week were used ; in the evening the Prayer-book form
of Evensong. It is to be regretted that none of the Bishop's
short expositions after the morning or evening lesson have
been preserved. They were always suggestive and never
commonplace, singularly free from that banaUty which so
often accompanies such utterances."

These pleasant surroundings harmonised with the
quiet ideals, akin to those of Miss Yonge, and with the
standard of beauty in which the Wordsworths had been
trained.

" There is certainly a blessing on this house," wrote the
Bishop, 1 " I suppose from the good people who have lived in
it, and I often feel that it is especially the case with this study
and Bishop Hamilton's table, at which I am now writing —
where, by the by, Liddon wrote his beautiful memoir of him."

And he regarded his occupancy as a trust. He made it
his business to restore the undercroft, which had long been
doomed to base domestic uses, and it was with pride that
it was thrown open at the first Cathedral Commemoration
of benefactors in 1889. "It is very moving to have the
honour of taking up Bishop Poore's work," he wrote, ^
"if it be his, as we suppose." Great hopes were enter-
tained of diocesan usefulness for this low hall, but it was
soon evident why the ancient Bishop had raised his Palace

' To the Warden of Keble, 14th January, 1887.
' To the same, 13th July, 1889.

i8o LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

on such a substructure. A flood came, the new floor burst
up and the wooden blocks of the pavement were swimming
in a melancholy fleet on stagnant water. They were soon
more firmly fixed, but they have rebelled again, and
Bishop Poore's hall has not fulfilled the expectations of
its restorer.

The life within the home has been described for this
book by a lady ^ who was closely associated with Mrs.
Wordsworth in her good works. Her memories cover
the whole period down to Mrs. Wordsworth's mortal
illness in 1893.

" The earliest impression made upon my mind with regard
to the Bishop's appointment to the see is that it was said
that he would be the youngest Bishop on the bench. Certainly
his vigour showed itself at once in the wonderful way in which
he threw his energies into every kind of diocesan work, large
and small. The Palace soon became a true home for the
diocesan clergy and their families, as well as for the many
men and women who were devoting their lives to the work of
the Church. The happy home life there, brightened as it was
by the loving-hearted gaiety and sense of humour of Mrs.
Wordsworth, can hardly be understood by any who did not
share in it, while those who took part in it wiU ever hold it in
loving remembrance. In those early days life at the Palace
was very informal, and after some meeting or diocesan gather-
ing those staying in the house would share in the ' high tea '
at which Mrs. Wordsworth presided, at which she would often
give a racy account (with plenty of fun but never a word of
malice) of what had been taking place, for the benefit of the
Bishop and others who had not been at the meeting.

" From the first, the Bishop attached great importance to
the work of women for the Church. The Girls' Friendly Society
and Women's Union were very close to their hearts, and it
is impossible to estimate how much both Societies in the
Salisbury Diocese owe to their loving care. When the G.F.S.

1 Miss Beatrice Milford, daughter of Canon R. N. Milford, formerly
Rector of East Knoyle, Wilts.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 181

was being strengthened and its influence increased in 1888,
the Bishop took keen interest in the matter ; and at a later
date, in writing to the diocesan secretary, Mrs. Wordsworth
says, ' I send you the form of admission the Bishop prefers,
with his comments and alterations scribbled over it. He
would Hke to have it in proof before it is circulated.' The same
care over small matters was shown when the Bishop and his
wife were starting the Diocesan Women's Union. Not only
did the Bishop write both the beautiful prayers for the card,
but he was most particular as to the red lines with which
the face of the card was ornamented.

" Many who came to Sahsbury to take part in diocesan
meetings will remember those quiet services held in the Palace
chapel, when it would be filled with guests and when at times
the Bishop would give a simple yet profound address upon
the Gospel for the week, or perhaps upon one of the Lessons
for the day. Those happy gatherings at Salisbury were an
untold help and refreshment to those who took part in them.
Mrs. Wordsworth's loving and understanding sympathy won
all hearts, and it was an inspiration to workers for God to
know that their Bishop valued and cared for what they were
trying to do. He was generous in thanking others for what
they did, and, by expecting people to do great things, obtained
them.

" The Bishop's power of work was extraordinary. He
worked so unceasingly that his wife in her letters often alluded
to her anxiety. For instance :■ —

" ' You will be sorry to hear that the Bishop is tired out
and feverish and far from well. I only wonder he is as well
as he is, when one considers all he has been doing lately. A
new edition of his father's Church History, so he has had to
go over all the proofs and write a long appendix of recent work ;
his own Vulgate is now in the press, and the proof-sheets come
constantly. Those Italians and their pastors in London give
him no end of trouble and writing. He has been reading
all the law and precedents that can be found for the Bishop
of Lincoln's case, and, worse than all, this tiresome school
business is taking the heart out of him. When you consider
that all comes on the top of sixty-eight Confirmations and
ceaseless correspondence, the only wonder is he is as well as

i82 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

he is. But I am very anxious, and chafe at my fetters,^
which prevent my nursing him as I am accustomed. ... It
always depresses me to have him ill.' "

Most of the causes of overwork mentioned in this letter
will r-eappear. Overwork, in fact, was constant in those
years, and sometimes not without nervous strain. There
were days, as when the Bishop was assessor in the Lincoln
case, when diocesan work was postponed till midnight,
and I remember the legal secretary telling me of his fear
lest letters written in the small hours about a difficult
case of discipline might end in a suit for libel. But almost
always the work was faced with buoyancy, and always
with an extreme conscientiousness. Sometimes this ran
to an excess ; in his zeal for technical perfection the Bishop
was reluctant to let proof-sheets pass beyond his control,
and his fellow-workers, especially in the Vulgate, had to
resort to devices of smuggling to remove them beyond
his reach. This was but one symptom of an interest in
processes rather than results. He wished to retain the
power to improve. I remember venturing to urge him
to complete a modest piece of diocesan business by having
a trust-deed executed. He would not, on the ground that
we are " always happiest when struggling." As a matter
of fact, no struggle was going on ; he wished to be able,
when he might be in the mood, to resume the subject,
and that particular transaction remained unfinished till
his death, after more than twenty years. There was
similar delay in many other instances, though in the long
run most of his tasks did get completed, and completed
well. Yet his satisfaction was, as I said, in watching the
process ; in regard to his favourite industry of building,
he was happier in climbing ladders and explaining the
work to others who might be less at home on dizzy planks,

1 Mrs. Wordsworth was laid up at the time with aa injured
knee.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 183

or in suggesting alterations in the plan, than in knowing
afterwards that the fabric was complete and paid for
and fulfilling its purpose.

There was an unfailing interest in the work that was
being done, and a personal touch in everything. The day
began with the plain Cathedral prayers at 7.30, when
the Bishop's loud responses could be heard from the
Lady Chapel far down the nave. For elaborate services
he had little love, and during a long Te Deum or anthem
there was no concealment of his inattention. He kept
a small library of books of reference in his throne, and
might be seen consulting, perhaps, a Hebrew lexicon;
or if his thoughts suggested something worthy of record,
there would be a struggle with his robes, his fountain-pen
would emerge and a note would be made. It was part
of his natural simplicity. At the Palace, too, all was
natural. There was plain fare and silver plate, as in
the home of St. Augustine ; and the tone of conversation
was plain and natural too. Archdeacon Bodington
writes : —

" I think Dorset humour and American humour appealed
to him most, but the homely details of life seldom failed to
draw smiles and laughter from him every day. He was
always cheerful and always hopeful, if he was not humorous.
He was quite free from strained intensity. His Wordsworthian
simplicity saw the waste of valuable tissue that comes from
attempting to live life at an unnatural level, just as it revolted
from self-consciousness as a form of selfishness, though he
was shy himself from a certain self-consciousness."

Of the work that was done in this spirit a record
has been furnished by one who served as domestic chaplain
a little after these first years. ^ Though the first light-
heartedness was gone, with some of the idealism and

1 The Rev. W. A. Crokat, chaplain 1 894-1901 ; now Rector of
Muizenberg, Cape Colony.

i84 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

enthusiasm, Mr. Crokat's account would be true of any
period during the episcopate. He writes : —

" One of the things that made the deepest impression at
the time was his absolute trust in a man when he once accepted
him into his confidence. It was such as would make any man
ashamed even to seem to come short of it. Trust in money
matters, and trust in confidential matters where others were
concerned, seemed at times almost greater than they ought to
be. But it arose so evidently from the simple goodness of
the Bishop's heart, his sense of the greatness of the work
entrusted to himself was so real, and his wish that others
younger than himself should take their full share in their more
limited sphere was so strong, that one's own ideals of work
were unconsciously raised to a higher level. No one could
live near him and be associated with him in work without
recognising, sometimes somewhat painfully, what a tremendous
worker he was. The wide range of subjects in which he was
interested was equalled by the thoroughness with which he
carried each forward. But it was not always easy for others.
As no obstacles seemed to deter him from what he felt ought
to be attempted, so he seemed to think others, with not half
his mental power, ought to be equally willing to attempt what
seemed the impossible. It used to be said that he expected
others to run their head against a brick waU, but that, when
it came to his turn to do what others had failed to do, somehow
the wall gave way and he was on the other side. The ability
to concentrate his whole attention on one subject at a time to
the exclusion of all else, enabled him to work with a thorough-
ness and speed which left his subordinates far behind. On the
other hand, to speak from a secretary's point of view, this
mental thoroughness was scarcely a characteristic of the Bishop
in ordinary matters. One could hardly call him methodical.
Although it was his frequent, almost beseeching, request to
his secretaries to tear up letters and papers, he rarely destroyed
one himself, and never attempted to sort them. Every return
from a journey brought into the study bundles of letters,
important and unimportant, wliich had been forwarded to him
during his journey, to remain untouched, perhaps, till another
absence from home gave some one an opportunity to deal

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 185

with them. Accumulations of ancient correspondence of
various dates were at times to be found under every book or
heap of books on the study table. . . . There was, at any rate,
one advantage to be had from this state of affairs, that it gave
a man of vastly inferior powers an opportunity of being really
useful to him. A long time might elapse, and the Bishop's
mind would be so full of other matters that he seemed quite
unmindful of this, and then suddenly he would say something
which would show that he was, after aU, quite aware of it, and
a few words of appreciation would give the keenest pleasure.

" Another picture of those days, and not an uncommon
one, remains vividly in one's memory. The Bishop in his
chair at the study table, the table covered with the morning's
letters, stylograph pen in hand, notepaper, or more often
foolscap paper, on his knee, without pausing to choose words
or phrases, writing rapidly some letter or paper of unusual
importance, the morning's correspondence waiting idly till
this weighty matter was off his mind. It is thus that one well
remembers him writing sections of the Archbishops' reply to
Pope Leo XIIL In connection with the English version of this
I remember his asking me the right word for ' cut out,' which
he could not think of at the moment ; and on my suggesting
' eUminate,' he said that word was ' my contribution ' to the
Letter. In later years I am afraid I used to conceal letters
concerning the more lengthy extra-diocesan matters, when
possible, until the more numerous but more easily disposed
of diocesan letters had been attended to. If the Bishop was
first in the study, he had a perverse way of picking out the
lengthy subjects, and leaving the secretary with no letters to
write till a good part of the morning had passed. On the other
hand, if one got him in a diocesan frame of mind, a great pile
of correspondence would be worked through in a wonderfully
short time. Certainly the diocese was not allowed to suffer
on account of outside interests.

" These few reminiscences are those pertaining to a
secretary's duties. The very large part in the life at the
Palace occupied by the services in the Cathedral and the
chapel of course affected all the routine work of chaplains
and secretaries and others. The Bishop's genuine deep piety
and his faith in prayer formed the basis of all work in the

i86 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

study, of diocesan correspondence as well as of work for the
larger interests of the Church. But of these matters it is for
others to speak. It only remains to be said that there could
be no better training for after-life for any man than to be
associated with one so large-hearted, so strong in loyalty
to the Church, so untiring in his labours, so full of faith, and
therefore so inspiring to others, as our late Bishop."

When Mr. Crokat entered upon his ofhce, the Bishop
gave him metrical instruction in his duties : —

" You that would learn the secretary's art
May take some lessons from an apple tart.
The cook that makes a crisp and wholesome paste
Must mix the ingredients to the eater's taste ;
Yet such is nature that the common voice
Makes four at least the universal choice.
The base of all's the fine white flour of fact
Unmixed with inference, minute, exact,
Brought to consistency by common sense
Like water clear, and plain without pretence.
Be very very sparing of your spice !
Few relish wit, though some may think it nice.
But two more things are needed, sir, for all.
However scattered on this earthly ball.
Whether they're poor or wealthy, old or young,
Divided far in habits, home or tongue.
Sugar and butter are their magic names.
Their presence in your pastry no one blames.
The young require them because Ufe is new.
And often opens with an anxious view ;
The middle-aged because its course is rude,
And their best purposes misunderstood ;
The old since death has robbed them of their friends
And there is sadness in the brightest ends.
I would not have you flatter rich or poor.
But life to both is often dull and sour.
Our tastes, too, foreigners all share in this :
Italian, French, or German, Greek or Swiss.
In fact, remember all mankind have hearts,
And all are schoolboys in respect of tarts."

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 187

In the Bishop's literary work, apart from the Vulgate,
there could be little system. He was employed so con-
stantly on inquiries bearing on the circumstances of the
day that he had no leisure for methodical reading. The
range of literature on which he habitually drew was so
wide that those who did not know him might think that
he garnered passages which struck him in his notebooks.
He did nothing of the kind. Unlike Bishop Stubbs, he
had no shelves laden with exquisitely kept manuscript
volumes of annotation. His notes were for the immediate
purpose, and not for future reference. But somewhere
in his mind was everything that he had read, and it
appeared when it was needed. Yet he carried his know-
ledge lightly ; he had such an infallible instinct for the
likely place in literature that his mind was not burdened
with an excessive weight of facts. And so accurate was
his knowledge of his own library that the least literary
of chaplains could be informed by letter, from a confirma-
tion tour, where to seek for abstruse information of which
the Bishop was in need. To this absence of annotation
there was one exception. The duodecimo Greek Testa-
ment of Tischendorf's edition, which he had bought at
Berlin in 1867, was his constant companion. It was a
marvel of brief comment and reference, growing ampler
throughout his life. Except in the second half of the Acts
and the whole of the Apocalypse, where the notes are
scanty, its well-worn pages and margins are covered with
exquisitely neat annotations and underlinings. For his
sermons the Bishop employed a peculiar method. He
wrote them in cheap small-octavo notebooks, which came
to number nearly eighty. Some of the sermons were
fully written out, some were skeletons, and in the same
volumes were notes of addresses which he had heard on
various occasions. There can be few, however modest
their capacities, to whom he listened of whose utterances

i88 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

he made no record. The sermons are extraordinary
in the variety of their illustrations. In one there are cita-
tions from Shelley and from Suetonius a few lines apart.
Many were printed in small numbers in a duodecimo
form for gifts rather than with the thought of sale ;
and many of these were pasted for further use into his
volumes. It was so that he prepared for his American
journey ; all his sermons, save one or two, such as that
to the General Convention, were adapted from earlier
addresses in print. Often, when printed, they were
fortified with learned notes, as was one to the troops at
Tid worth Camp, preached in his last days, on the organi-
sation of the Roman Army and the lessons to be learned
from it. A selection, which is fairly typical though it
cannot show the wide range of his topics, has recently
been published, and many more may be found in the
Diocesan Gazette. It may safely be said that he was
always deeply interested in what he said, and that he
habitually spoke with impressive weight. There was no
rhetoric in the sermons, and there was often the assump-
tion that his hearers knew more, and were more keenly
interested in the subject than was actually the case.
Perhaps, though he was often powerful in the pulpit,
and though spiritual things were prominent in his teaching,
justice is best done to him by regarding his sermons as
part of his literary production. This, again, was astonish-
ingly varied. Wherever precedents were applicable, he
sought and found them, and he was always ready to
derive principles from precedent and experience. His
width of reading furnished him with a rich supply of
analogies applicable, more or less perfectly, to modern
circumstances. But his ultimate convictions were so
firm that he took no interest in the criticism or defence
of first principles, and with his strong sense of the binding
force of authority he sought truth through research rather

SALISBURY. 1885-1894 189

than through reasoning. Scripture, perhaps, was too
sacred for critical examination ; certainly his study of
it aimed directly at edification. Modern conclusions con-
cerning the New Testament he never accepted : with the
Old it was otherwise. In his first days as Bishop he shared
Liddon's repugnance for all departure from tradition.
I remember listening with consternation in 1888 to his
prophecy that, should the accepted date and authorship
of the Pentateuch be abandoned, public faith in the Gospel
would fail. In later life, though he had made none of the
inquiries of the specialist, he adjusted himself to his
environment and accepted the current opinion of educated
men ; but it is needless to say that he never took a
naturalist view of the Old Testament. As time went
on, the range of his scholarly interests widened. To
patristic knowledge in all its departments he added that
of liturgiology. To this he was led by his practical
duties as a Bishop, but he soon became a devoted specialist,
yet one who would warn others against being engrossed
in so technical a pursuit. One of his chief treasures in
later life was a York Missal, on whose bibliographical
peculiarities he would expatiate as a true disciple of Coxe.
His wide knowledge, in particular, of forms of service
for the consecration of churches has enabled him bene-
ficially to influence current practice, and his strong
opinions on the due conduct of Divine Service were always
fortified by examples from the past. The Lincoln case
drew him to canon law, and the constitutional problems
which the Lambeth gatherings have suggested were a
further incitement to research for answers to them in
history. Finally, questions of reunion, in Scotland and in
many lands as well as at home, always shaped themselves
for him in a historical guise, and there were few centuries
in which he did not seek to know how men had faced
such difficulties as confront the Church to-day. Especially

190 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

in his latter years he devoted much attention to what are
called the Dark Ages, a period with some aspects of which
his palaeographical studies in the Latin Bible had long
made him familiar. This manifold work, pursued in
the intervals of his other duties and interests, engrossed
so much of his time that he had little space for recreation.
He would, in fact, often say that a change of work was
a sufficient rest. On the confirmation tours there were
hours in the open air ; at other times there were rides
on horseback, none too frequent and abandoned in later
life. Usually there was but a brief walk, often in de-
pressing circumstances, as when in the dusk of a winter
afternoon he would snatch an hour to plod, with pounds
of wet chalk adhering to his soles, over rude paths at the
back of Harnham Hill. But he was not discontented.
Mrs. Wordsworth told a friend that when she cried out
for the mountains of Switzerland the Bishop replied that
he would never think of criticising nature, as seen from
Salisbury Race Plain.

With such interests and capacities for work he entered
on his task. There were arrears to be overcome, for
Bishop Moberly, with keenness of mind unimpaired, had
been for some time physically incapable. He was at
once faced by a serious difficulty. The ecclesiastical press
was never more reckless, in flattery and in vituperation,
than in 1885.^ Misled by his association with Liddon
and other Oxford friends, the journalists on both sides
had leaped to the conclusion that the new Bishop was an
extreme partisan. He was acclaimed with an embar-
rassing fervour which awakened unreasonable hopes in
some quarters and (what was more serious) equally un-
reasonable fears in others, especially in Dorset, where
Evangelicalism was strong. Soon, for a reason that is

1 At his Lent ordination in 1885 Bishop Stubbs, of Chester, definitely
bade his candidates to read neither the Church Times nor the Rock.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 191

not worth recalling, he was being gibbeted in the Rock
as a " narrow-minded Bishop." He had to explain with
infinite patience to one suspicious clergyman after another
how harmless were his practices and how central his
position. One was told, " I adopt the Eastward Position
myself, as the most usual in Christendom, Protestant as
well as Papal, Eastern as well as Western," To another
he wrote : —

" We cannot agree on everything, but we may certainly
agree on a great number of important subjects, and not only
agree but act together upon them with a sense of deepened
responsibility. Have you considered how much a sense of
partizanship (where it occupies a large space in a man's
thoughts) interferes with his proper influence ? "

There can be no doubt that this painful experience
— some Evangelicals in their alarm proposed to withdraw
from all diocesan organisations — deepened the Bishop's
repugnance to party spirit on either side.

If there were difficulties, the Bishop had great advan-
tages. He heartily admired the typical country clergy-
man : in his first home at Stanford he had learned to know
what the work and the life were. To him they were real
and normal, giving full scope for all good faculties. He
expressed his admiration in his funeral sermon on Arch-
deacon Sanctuary,! g, man after his own mind, though he
had not the scholarly instinct : —

" As the son of a country gentleman, he inherited those
tastes for outdoor life and pursuits in which many English-
men find almost a full satisfaction of their ideal of life. His
physical strength and robust, manly, genial temper fitted him
for fuU enjoyment of material things. He might have wasted
his energies or fallen into slothfulness and ease. But God

^ Thomas Sanctuary, Archdeacon of Dorset and Rector of Power-
stock ; died 27th May, 1889. The sermon was preached in Salisbury
Cathedral, 2nd June.

192 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

had better things in store for him. The influences of a good
home, of good fellow-students and of good teachers — one ever
tenderly valued by him being my own father, his master at
Harrow School — stamped upon him the sense that the service
of God in the ministry of the Church was to be the business
and the pleasure of his life in one. I say distinctly the business
and the pleasure of his life, the one thing for which he really
cared. There are many men who do their duty well enough,
but who are always looking beyond it and behind it to the
relaxation which is to follow, to the weekly or yearly hoHday,
the pleasant engagement which is to set them free to be their
real selves. This was not so with him. Our brother was his
real self in his work, and he was so because the self-conscious,
ease-loving self in him was deliberately kept in the background.
I know not whether it was by effort or temperament or the
result of both, but he was, as far as my experience goes (and
I beheve that it was generally noticed), unknown ever to
murmur or complain, unknown to put his own personal
ambitions or tastes or projects forward, unknown to speak
in any self-conscious or sentimental manner of what concerned
himself. His hfe was brightened with many blessings, but
it was chequered by not a few sorrows, and those not easy to
bear. He was brave and he was simple, and therefore he was
able to be diffusive and sympathetic. He had an open eye
for the enjoyment of nature and for the enjoyment of human
nature — and of both as God's work. His was a manly
sympathy, and it had a special power with men, particularly
with the men of that county which he had so entirely adopted
as his own."

So also, after twenty years* experience, he spoke in his
triennial charge of 1906 : —

" It is the type of the Christian English gentleman, enriched,
in the case of the clergy, by the quiet daily performance of
pastoral duty. Such men showed themselves simple in faith
and plain in living, upright and unblemished in character,
unquestioning in loyalty to the Church and loyal to loving
personal authority, but faithful in counsel and independent
in judgment, generous and unambitious in public spirit.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 193

founders and restorers of schools and churches and parsonages
and pubhc institutions, and conscious that power, influence,
and wealth are a trust from God. It is a fine type for which
the nation as well as the Church has cause to thank God.
A type that wears well and will never be out of date, one which
gives confidence to all those who have the faintest perception
of what is meant by character."

Valuing the clergy as he did, and loyal to them as he
was, it is not wonderful that he was soon welcomed. Arch-
deacon Bodington, who began his career in a Dorchester
curacy, writes how the people as well as the clergy —

" gave him their friendship in a few months. They felt that
he was perfectly simple, free from party, and sincere. He also
won much affection by his kindness to the young people of the
rectories and country houses. But also his quick success
was undoubtedly due to Mrs. Wordsworth's interpretation of
him to the diocese. People saw him not only through their
own but also through her eyes. She made, indeed, an extra-
ordinary impression on the diocese. She understood rural
churchwardens as nicely as she did Oxford undergraduates.
I remember a lunch when a deadly, icy silence prevailed, and
could not be broken till at last she exclaimed, ' You frighten

me and Mr. so much that I think we shall both run

away in a minute ! ' Of course the ice was broken, the
Bishop leading the laughter, and everything went beautifully.
In those days I often had amusing experiences. When he
visited Dorchester or the neighbourhood,^ it was his habit to
take me with him as his chaplain. Mrs. Wordsworth used to
protest : ' He needs some one who can keep him in order, and
what's the good of you for that ? ' Indeed, it was dif&cult.
When it was wet, robing at a vicarage he would walk to church
with a large cloak over his robes and an umbrella over his head.
On more than one occasion he walked thus up the church, and
in spite of all entreaties hung his cloak over the altar-rails.
Sometimes he would get up during an anthem (which he
never Hked) and look out of the windows. Another time he

1 Between 1886 and 1889.

O

194 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

would insist on going the wrong way to the pulpit, only to
find himself disappointed of entrance. When he did arrive
there, as often as not there were surprises. He loved to warn
us how some cherished Protestant principle or practice might
lead up to Papalism or Mariolatry, and how full of private
judgment was the Catholic mind. As the newspapers said
at the time of his death, he always said something you never
forgot. He was not eloquent, he was not logically cogent,
but there was always some one thing or more, it might be
sometimes a whole sermon, that you remembered. If you
had the imagination to realise the man's greatness, the
sympathy to understand why he was saying what he was
saying, the sense of humour to enjoy the delightful quaintness,
the education to enjoy the allusions, the simphcity to wish
to be instructed, he interested you intensely.

" It has always struck me as remarkable how the local
press of the two counties changed from hostility, or at least
hostile criticism, in the earliest months of his episcopate to
an extraordinary confidence in his justice and wisdom. At
first they did not like his blunt straightforwardness. He gave
much offence in one small town by saying that it was the
black spot in his diocese ; they have not forgotten it now,
after twenty-five years. They did not Hke his walking about
the streets in his robes. They thought some of his remarks
unpractical. They thought him ' very High Church.' But
he never took the sHghtest notice of what was said except
to be rather more than usually kind to those who said it.
Gradually they came to think he was almost certainly right
on his own subjects, that he always had a reason for what he
said, that he was never wrong in his facts, and that some of
his unpractical remarks had a way of fulfiUing themselves.

" When I was with him, always when he came into the
house after a confirmation he would kneel down by the bedside
and pray audibly for those he had confirmed, asking with
tears in his eyes pardon for his own sins. He would pay an
extraordinary number of visits on these occasions. ' Who is

Mr. ? Where does he live. Take me to see him. Who

else have we time to go and see ? ' Then he never forgot the
names and history of those he had seen on a former occasion.
Perhaps he would succeed in paying fourteen or fifteen calls

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 195

(they were very brief) on these one-day visits, beside confirming
once or twice and possibly reopening some church or church-
yard or attending some meeting. In walking about he would
invite expression of difficulties and give you his help : ' Turn
wandering thoughts themselves into prayers,' ' Often difficulty
in prayer is due to want of blood in one's brain,' ' When you
think of a thing do it, and when begun finish it if possible in
order to avoid waste of time in getting out the apparatus
again.' Perhaps this was why he would ask for paste or
gum, say at 8 p.m., when dinner and fellow-guests were waiting.
I think it was the universaUty of his interest that was the
foundation of his sympathy. Just as I have known a smoking
chimney or an inconvenient coal-hole make him late for a
confirmation (and I once found him in his bedroom with his
head covered with soot from such an investigation) till he had
satisfied himself as to causes and remedies, so it was with
every man's work. What was the cause of its defects ? He
would trace them to their source in helping you."

Mrs. Wordsworth was inseparable from her husband
on his confiimation tours. Their earliest experience was
also their worst. After describing various difficulties,
including the loss of their road in the snow somewhere
between Ashmore and Tollard Royal, she continues^ : —

" I am sure you ought to have an account of this week's
proceedings, they have been so adventurous. We started
Monday morning from Blandford in thick snow — what a
wretched day it was ! I never spent quite such a one ; in and
out of cold, dull parish churches, with the carriage damper
each time we got into it, incessant cold rain and sleet all day,
ending in dense, raw fog. We were indeed glad of the bright,
warm welcome we received at the end of it all at Milborne.
I did ache with rheumatism. Tuesday, such a day ! Bright
summer sunshine, pretty Httle church and charming service.
We had quite a holiday that bright day, and it did us both
good. So far I told you before. Did I tell you that John
took our host's carriage and drove off in thick snow, it being

1 To Miss Susan Wordsworth, 6th March, 1886, from Abbotsbury.

196 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

much lighter than ours ? He got to Puddletown all right, and
confirmed at 11, and I beheve got to Cerne Abbas after con-
siderable trouble at 3, but after that, trying to get over the
down, the carriage stuck fast in the snow, the springs broke,
the portmanteau rolled out, etc., etc. John had got over into
a field and descried his next destination (Buckland Newton,
confirmation at 5) lying about a mile beneath him, so he caught
hold of the pastoral staff with one hand and the robes with
the other, and ran down through the snow, arriving only ten
minutes late. He had another wild day, Thursday, at Bishop's
Caundle and Haselbury Bryan, but joined me at Milton Abbas
at 6, wonderfully bright and little tired. On Friday morning
(yesterday) when we woke, imagine our dismay ; over a foot
of snow and snowstorm continuing ! Every one tried to
dissuade him from going on. They said the drifts in the lanes
were five or six feet deep, but Hamlin ^ said if they would
lend him a leader they would do it, so off they set — three
horses and our carriage. John wouldn't take me. The
weather got worse and worse. I was very anxious about John ;
and how was I to get away, for the snow was still falling ?
And though we had telegraphed for a fly and two horses from
Dorchester to fetch me, how could I be sure that we should
ever get through eleven miles of snow, when the postman
could not come and the lanes were full from drifts ? But
I did, and here I am in the loveliest spot in England, with
bright sunshine sparkling and hardly any snow, and I shall
feel very thankful and content when John comes in, as I hope
he may, in half an hour's time."

But adventures came in London as well. Writing
to Mr. Holgate from the pleasant rooms in Lollards'

1 This shrewd and faithful servant deserves mention. He was a
true humorist, and in his journeys had acquired an extraordinary
knowledge of the two counties. After the return from an expedition
he would impart to a secretary or chaplain an unofficial, but enter-
taining and sometimes instructive, view of the state of the parishes.
And he would keep his employers up to the mark. " There are several
calls you ought to make, mum, the people looking very hard at you
as we pass," Mrs. Wordsworth records him as saying. Searle, the loyal
friend and chauffeur of later years, must also be named.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 197

Tower in which, through Archbishop Benson's kindness,
the Wordsworths in 1889 had succeeded Bishop Lightfoot,
she says ^ : — .

" The sermon at Westminster Abbey came off all right,
but it was written under difficulties. One of your lunatic

friends, , came to sit hours with him, and then the Lambeth

church bells took to practising, for some reason best known to
themselves, and literally for more than two hours pealed in
our rooms. . . . Our Bishop more than furious. However,
it got written somehow, but I didn't hear it as I felt unwell
and tired. ... I never heard John come in, but when I
came out of Lambeth Chapel there I found him learning
Armenian — ' tch, hah, etc' — with that man who burst on us
at the Synod, and there they went on till nearly midnight,
the Bishop rapt. Do all Bishops sit down to learn Armenian
after preaching tiring sermons in Westminster Abbey, I
wonder ? . . . But yesterday was the day. We left Lollards'
Tower at g.30 in a steamer. The air, the clouds, the banks, the
water just lovely. I did enjoy it. Whiting 2 and the robes
gave respectability, but the Bishop would imagine there was
a landing-stage just past Chelsea, which he said was nearer
St. Mark's than Chelsea Pier. So on we went, the Chelsea
clocks as we steamed by pointing 12.20, and the service at
12.30. On we go, leaving Chelsea behind us, and find that
the next stage is the wrong side of the river a long way higher
up. Whiting and the robes, the Bishop and I at unequal
distances scamper through back lanes till a hansom is found,
and we really arrive at St. Mark's only ten minutes late and
no one seems to have expected us before."

The whole picture of activity, and, it must be said,
of unpunctuality, is thoroughly characteristic of the pair,
and the high spirits in which it is described of Mrs. Words-
worth. Whether it was well that one whose health was
never strong should share in such constant hurryings and
in such occasional hardships, is a question that need not
be asked. Certainly she would have refused to abstain ;

1 26th March, 1891. » The butler.

igS LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

certainly also she heartily enjoyed the varied ex-
perience and brought light and help to many a secluded
home.

In i8go the Bishop put some of his impressions of the
diocese into writing. They were meant only for private
reading.

" Dorset," he says, " is a much more ' homey ' county than
Wilts, with no tracts of cold chalk downs or plains separating
its valleys from one another, and with many more resident
gentry, who are either closely connected by marriage or at
least take an interest in one another's families. The common
people have more of Celtic blood, perhaps, and are more easy
to make friends with. They are, perhaps, slightly less truthful
than the Wiltshire peasants and possibly not such fast friends
as the latter when the latter are won. There is more of
Puritanism in Dorset of a certain Idnd, though I do not think
it is so hard to overcome as in parts of Wilts, where Non-
conformity is of older growth — e.g. round Trowbridge and in
some of the parishes near Pewsey and Marlborough, where the
farmers are active in making complaints if not in propagating
schism. Not that I have personally received many ritual
complaints against the clergy from any parts of the diocese.
I cannot recall after reference to my letter -books more than
five or six, and nearly all of these were quite trifling and indeed
rather of the nature of incidents in personal quarrels or expres-
sions of cantankerousness on the part of the complainants,
than serious charges."

A similar, but fuller and more picturesque appre-
ciation of Dorset may be read in his sermon to Dorset
men in London, preached in 1908 in St. Paul's
Cathedral.^

He was always eager to draw attention to the natural

features and historical associations of his diocese, that

so he might heighten the zeal of its living inhabitants for

the maintenance of their inheritance. Thus in his last

^ P. 164 of the posthumous volume of Sermons.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 199

triennial charge, delivered in 1909, he spoke of Wiltshire
in the past : —

" Surely it gives an extraordinary interest to our diocese,
and to the neighbourhood of our cathedral city, that our
Avon connects us so intimately with the most ancient reUgious
and pohtical history of our land. It is now but a sinuous
silver streak ghding through green meadows in the midst of
its old course. In those old days it was a stronger and broader
current, taking the most direct line from Salisbury Plain to
the sea at Christchurch Bay. It was doubtless the highway
up which the most ancient stones of Stonehenge, of Welsh
or Irish origin, were brought when that great monument was
first begun. It bore on its breast many a war- vessel, many a
barge of state, many a merchant ship. Up its channel came
the salmon, as they still do when they are permitted, but
doubtless in far greater numbers. Its upper southward
course is still protected by camps or fortified villages, of which
the traces still remain from Broadbury and the Casterley
entrenchments on the West and Chisenbury on the East.
Amesbury was doubtless an important point on this river, and
Old Sarum must have been the capital of the district, and so
placed as to control the entrance to the upper valley. Three
miles below Old Sarum hes Britford — the British outpost
when Briton and Saxon for a time rested from the struggle
for defence and conquest — evidently an old religious centre,
which still retains some remarkable Saxon work of the eighth
century."

And so he traces the course of the Avon downwards
to the sea. But he was not content to reconstruct the
past ; he wished to mould the future, and at the Synod
of 1892 he drew a brilliant picture of Salisbury as equally
suited to be a manufacturing centre and a University
town.

In this spirit he began at once to frame projects for
religious work. The first, mooted at the Synod of 1886,
was for a body of mission preachers, which was established
in the following autumn. Writing to the friend whom

200 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

he designed to make its first Warden, ^ he describes his
hopes : —

" Salisbury once (about 800 years ago) gave a ritual to
England. I see no reason why it may not start something
which may be of as practical importance in the organisation
of the reUgious life of its priests, nowadays, and be at least
an example to the whole Anglican Church. I have no wish
to put the matter in an unreal Kght, but I know that there
is a great want, and that being a Bishop with a large house
and no family I have some opportunities for making the
attempt which others have not. Another reason is the great
harmony of feeling in the diocese and the readiness of our
clergy, with scarcely an exception, to accept such a plan coming
from the Bishop of the diocese."

The society came into being under the title of " Mis-
sionaries of St. Andrew " ; it still lives and has had a
modest usefulness, rather in taking charge of vacant
parishes and in similar forms of help than in the conduct
of parochial missions, though that work has not been
neglected. It has also more than once provided a home
for clergy who have been drawn towards scholarship,
and to them the Bishop's library was always open. The
Bishop regarded himself as a member of the Society,
found it a home in the Palace till its dwelling in the old
Church House was restored for it, and provided for its
permanence by collecting a moderate endowment. He
was scrupulous in his respect for its constitutional rights,
whether formulated with his consent or informally
developed ; he watched over its spiritual life, and was
sometimes very tolerant towards its shortcomings.

But his most characteristic work was the foundation
of the Bishop's school. At the Mayor's lunch which
followed his enthronement he asked for suggestions from

^ The Rev. G. F. Hooper, now Chaplain of St. Oswald's, Worcester ;
written on the 21st May, 1886.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 201

those present for some work that he might initiate, and
so follow the example of the founders among his pre-
decessors. He soon fixed upon a middle-class school
for boys as the chief need of the city of Salisbury. In
1889 he built a handsome school of red brick, with a
seemly chapel, close to his Palace. He took an unceasing
interest in its welfare. Archdeacon Bodington says —

" it was the first place he went to on arriving at home, and
he thought all his visitors would like to see it too. Once he
spent much time in considering the provision of pepper and
salt for the boys who brought their dinner to school. Such
details to him were always as important as great principles."

The carpentering and smith's work were naturally
watched with special interest, and in his ambition for his
school the Bishop wished to make it the centre for technical
teaching in Salisbury. He protested in a printed pamphlet
against the city's design to found a technical school of
its own " in opposition to mine, or at any rate to my plans
for the city." The city took its own course, and the
Bishop formed new plans as the national system of educa-
tion developed and grants were more liberally bestowed.
More highly trained teachers were engaged and fresh
branches of science were taught. Then the school was
opened to girls. The Bishop had planned to build a
school for them, but finally preferred a scheme of co-educa-
tion of the two sexes. Next, a boarding-house was built,
that the school might not benefit the city only. Finally,
in 1898, though the Bishop till his death took care to main-
tain his control, he vested the school and certain adjacent
houses which he had bought in the Diocesan Finance
Board as the " Wordsworth Educational Trust." It was
a noble benefaction, though the cost of modem education
endangers the permanence of schools which stand outside
the county system without considerable endowments

202 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

to maintain them. For some twenty-five years the school
has provided a sound Church education for children who
now number about two hundred. Some of the boys
have won an honourable place in the world.

No assistance was asked by the Bishop for his own
effort. But while he was taxing his means to establish
it, an unexpected educational storm drew the eyes of
England to Salisbury. It was a time when the strife over
elementary schools was bitter. In Salisbury there were
none but voluntary schools, the cost of which, though
Nonconformists paid their share, mainly fell upon the
Church, which had its National schools in every parish.
Public opinion was in favour of things as they were. At
each election a majority of the School Board was returned
pledged not to establish schools of its own. Thus the
denominational system seemed secure. But the militant
Nonconformists devised a plan by which they expected
to obtain their desire of introducing undenominational
education into the city. By closing their own schools
they would create such a demand for places in the National
schools that the voluntary system would break down.
Churchmen would fail to provide the needed accommoda-
tion, and so Board schools would become a necessity.
To obtain this end the Nonconformists closed in succession
several schools, financially solvent, with an honourable
history and providing a good education. The scheme,
which was doubtless promoted by politicians outside
Salisbury, was ingenious, but it was based on a miscal-
culation. Pecuniary fears were the last motive to deter
the Bishop. The case became national. He subscribed
heavily himself, money flowed in from all England, a
Sisterhood from London for some time undertook the
conduct of a school ; and when, with dramatic suddenness,
a British school in Scot's Lane shut its doors the Bishop
at once opened a substitute in his own Palace. The

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 203

scheme collapsed, for the Church provided all the space
that was needed, and on the 24th September, 1890, the
Bishop was able to write to Archbishop Benson : —

" We opened the last of our schools yesterday in a quiet,
simple way, and since the collapse of Mundella's attack in
the House of Commons I have heard of no recrudescence of
Dissenting feeling here."

Mr. Mundella was, in his eyes, the leader of the attempt,
and some of the methods employed in it the Bishop
regarded as unscrupulous. The political Dissenters, he
thought, were making Salisbury a test case. It was the
harder for him, because he valued their schools, and
actually volunteered help from the Church if only they
would enlarge their buildings instead of closing them.

But if there was victory in 1890, the struggle through-
out the diocese continued till the peace of 1902. In its
course the Bishop became an expert in all the techni-
calities, now half forgotten, of that transitional period in
educational policy. He had some disappointments, and
his plans were not accepted by all those who sympathised
with his aims, but nowhere in England was greater
success achieved in maintaining Church schools than in
the diocese of Salisbury. When the controversy was
resumed under a new government in 1906 the Bishop
was as vigorous in argument as ever against new schemes
which, as yet, have not been brought into action. But
he was always candid in debate, as when he refused to
sanction one of the most popular arguments used on the
side of the Church : —

" Surely Nonconformists are right in saying that the system
of general religious education which they advocate is not
an endowment of Dissent out of the rates. It does not
assist the Baptist or Wesleyan cause in the way that the
teaching of the Church Catechism and the Prayer-book assists

204 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

the cause of the Church of England. It may weaken the
Church, but in my opinion it also weakens the special tenets
of Dissent. On the other hand, Churchmen are right in
calling the system, as now administered, precarious, Erastian,
and tending to Unitarianism. What is needed to make it
better is an alliance between Churchmen and religious Non-
conformists, based on a perception of the true conditions and
drawbacks of the present system." ^

It was in regard to education that the Bishop made
his one serious attempt at legislation. He had taken his
seat in the House of Lords on the 12th June, 1890, and
in 1893 he introduced his " Elementary Education
(Religious Instruction) Bill." It provided that if the
parents of five or more children, belonging to two or more
families, petitioned for it, a School Board was to appoint
a religious instructor of their denomination, who should
give them separate teaching of not more than three hours
a week, and not at the cost of the Board. Bishop Temple,
of London, refused to support the Bill, on the ground that
its ultimate tendency was to bring about universal secular
schools, with ministers or others selected by the parents
giving the religious instruction. However, the BUI, which
had Lord Salisbury's approval, was introduced and read
a first time on the i6th March, read a third time, passed
with amendments and sent down to the Commons on
the 5th July, 1893. In the Lower House it made no
progress.

But the House of Lords was not the most appropriate
scene for Bishop Wordsworth. One of his brethren
writes :■ —

" I should not have said that dear J. S. was a man suited

for the House of Lords. And I remember having a feeling

of uneasiness when he got up. But I don't remember that

he justified it ; and his mastery and masterfulness had a way

1 I regret that the reference for this^passage is missing.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 205

of impressing, on occasion, even people who, one would
a priori have said, would treat him with little attention."

A strong will had been needed if the school difficulty
at Salisbury was to be overcome. The Bishop in his
earlier days was even masterful. There are many
instances of his insistence upon having his way. A clergy-
man of some dignity and of many years' standing in the
diocese had, the Bishop thought, outlived his usefulness,
and was told that he ought to resign. He refused, and
was so incautious as to visit Salisbury in order to expostu-
late. He was not allowed to leave the Bishop's study
till his resignation was signed. It was natural that one
of such antecedents as the Bishop should at first show
traces of the don and even of the schoolmaster. When in
1888 he founded the Salisbury Diocesan Gazette, which will
be indispensable to all students of Church affairs in the
nineteenth century, so thoughtful and comprehensive
are his surveys of the movement of the time, he naturally
desired that the clergy should keep and bind their copies.
He publicly advised them to do so, and after a year he
wished to know how far his counsel had been taken.
In the diocesan synod of 1889 he asked all those who had
bound their Gazettes to hold up their hands. No hands
were raised ; but in justice to the clergy it must be said
that bound copies were kept and valued in many a
parsonage.

But this masterfulness, which was almost conquered
in later years, did not cause resentment. It was one of
the ways in which the Bishop, of whom all were proud,
was unlike other men. It even helped him in the enthu-
siastic course in which he, aided by Mrs. Wordsworth,
swept everything before him. It was a singularly happy
time, when administrative, devotional, scholarly, theolo-
gical, antiquarian interests jostled with one another,

2o6 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

yet did not impede a bright and unceasing hospitality.
No one could have had less reason to desire a changed
position. Yet, with a certain quixotry he wrote to
Archbishop Benson at the end of 1890 ^ : —

" I can't help feeling troubled about Worcester. I some-
times wish I might offer to exchange with the Bishop designate,
but I don't really feel that it would be right to do so."

The time was one when intercommunion with Dis-
senters was in the air, and Dr. Perowne had provoked a
storm in his future diocese and in the ecclesiastical press
by his advocacy of that course. Salisbury might not
have welcomed a Churchman of that colour ; but the
diocese of Worcester then contained Birmingham, and
the Bishop of Salisbury craved for the rule over a great
city, and had no doubt of his fitness for the task. There
is no reason to regret that the opportunity did not come.
It would have lessened his leisure for works of scholarship.
His learning received its first honorary reward in 1890,
when he was made LL.D. of Dublin.

Over this life of busy and happy service a shadow
was now to be cast. Archdeacon Bodington, speaking
of 1890, says that he found Mrs. Wordsworth then —

" as brilliant as ever, but it did strike me that she was not
well, and that the pace of the life was too much for her. There
were times when her nerves were undoubtedly strained, and
she suffered from them. But I am quite certain that nothing
would have ever persuaded her to desist from giving herself
to the full. When I said good-bye to her in the autumn, to
go to South Africa, she seemed to anticipate that we might
not meet again. We did, in 1893-94, but the end was already
drawing near. This much more ought to be said, that the
Church and diocese can never exaggerate the debt they owe
to Mrs. Wordsworth for inspiring him. He knew his indebted-
ness. It was in consequence an ideal home. She was an
^ 15th December.

SALISBURY, 1885-1894 , 207

intensely happy woman, but I shall always think that to love
and service she sacrificed, though gladly and wiUingly, mere
length of days."

Malignant disease became evident in 1893, and for a
year Mrs. Wordsworth was on her death-bed. Ample
records remain of the thoughts and feelings of the time,
such as in many instances have been printed for edifica-
tion. Here no more shall be said than that her husband
noted in her " a growth in grace, as certain as any fact
of mathematics," and that after her death Bishop
Durnford, of Chichester, wrote : —

" What a light and joy she brought to our little company
at the Lollards' ! How different was that dingy Tower
when she was there ! Those days are not to return, but the
memory of them is bright and sweet and will never pass
away."

Mrs. Wordsworth was commemorated by the Bishop
and a few of her friends in an exhibition to be held at
Lady Margaret's Hall or St. Hugh's College at Oxford
by girls born or educated in the diocese of Salisbury.
It was also in her memory that the Bishop purchased the
wretched court facing his School across Exeter Street,
which he repaired and made into a row of cheap and
healthy cottages. He afterwards gave it as part of the
School's endowment. A public subscription was raised
for the establishment of a " Wordsworth Home of Rest "
for women. This was at first at Weymouth, was moved
in 1905 to Swanage, and now occupies a handsome build-
ing, with forty beds, at that place. A multitude of
touching letters assured the Bishop of the gratitude and
affection she had earned at Oxford and Salisbury.

CHAPTER X

NEW ZEALAND AND JERUSALEM

Mrs. Wordsworth died on the 23rd June, 1894. The
Bishop's visitation had been carried out at the six usual
centres between the 29th May and the nth June, and he
had been able to deliver the addresses himself. It is
not wonderful that they were slight, and limited to the
topics of the day. They were published with a prefatory
letter to the clergy and churchwardens, dated the day
before his wife died, in which he said : —

" God has shadowed this house with a great sorrow ; but
it has made me feel more than ever the opportunities of
religious life in our English homes, and I trust that you will
also use them to the full while you are, by God's mercy, stiU
permitted to do so. Let each family strive to be a little Church
in itself, united closely with the Catholic Church of Christ,
but realising its own educational functions and duties and its
own blessed interior peace and holiness."

The Bishop resumed his work on the nth July, but
it was manifest that he was unequal to it. It happened
that at this very time Mr. Frederic Wallis, one of his
chaplains, was elected to the bishopric of Wellington,
New Zealand, and it —

" was suggested to the Bishop that he might offer to take part
in the consecration of his friend and fellow-labourer in his new
home, and at the same time derive great benefit from the
voyage there and back at a time in his life when such a break
seems most desirable."

NEW ZEALAND AND JERUSALEM 209

The Archbishop approved. ^ Dr. Yeatman Biggs,
then Bishop of Southwark, now of Worcester, undertook
the episcopal work, careful arrangements were made
for the diocesan business, and on the i6th November
Bishop Wordsworth sailed, accompanied by the Bishop
elect and his wife.^

He has given so full and lively an account of his
experiences in the Diocesan Gazette,^ that little need
be said here. The narrative is better told and more
full of matter than most volumes of travel. In days
to come it will be an authority on the state of those new
countries at the end of the nineteenth century. The
diocese was thoroughly interested in the story, and the
Gazette was read as never before. The public was admitted
into the writer's intimacy ; it was all natural and con-
fidential without being trivial. On the outward voyage
there was a Greek Testament class, a Dante class, a Bible
class for the less educated. There were, as occasion
offered, services for passengers of all ranks and much
personal intercourse. And always, with his extra-
ordinary memory and interest in individuals, the Bishop
was finding points of contact. People or places formed
the link ; to him it was real and he tried to turn it to
account. There is a note of natural sadness in some of
his reflections : —

" I cannot help thinking again and again what a blessing
my dearest wife would have been to this party,* how she

1 His letter (24th August, 1894) 'was somewhat Spartan. " You
must not think much of not sleeping above five hours at your advancing
age. I have scarcely ever slept above ten minutes more than that since
I was thirty."

* Mr. Wallis had just married Miss Margaret Williams, a sister of
the future Mrs. Wordsworth.

* His letters run from January to August, 1895. Some of them were
printed in numbers issued after his return.

* On the S.S. Ormuz, in which he sailed to Australia.

P

210 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

would have given spirit and fun to them all and helped many,
perhaps for life, by a few serious words now and then. I feel
wretchedly inadequate, but I go on with my sermons and
Bible class. The Bible class is interesting, as being that sort
of chance gathering that suggests such numberless possibilities.
The constituents are held together by external pressure, but
when they separate will scatter very wide. God grant they
may carry some of His seed ! "

He had resolved that in his travels he would not only
see as much but also do as much work for the Church as
possible ; and he undertook it in the belief that, repre-
senting the experience of the Mother Church, he was
offering more than his own individual services. He was
not sparing of his suggestions for the strengthening of the
social, the ecclesiastical, and even the political life of the
young communities which he was visiting. He was an
imperialist, if a sane one, and was thankful for what he
saw. But he found something to criticise. In New
Zealand he notices —

" the attempt to make every one more or less comfortable on
purely civil lines. I seem to see something like Switzerland
growing out of it — an intelligent but hard society of small
people. But of course the conditions and especially the close-
ness of surroundings are very unlike."

Two drawbacks which forced themselves on his
attention were secular education and religious rivalry.
He wrote to Archbishop Benson ^ on these aspects of
New Zealand life : —

" The great defect is the working of the secular system in
elementary education. The result is lamentable ignorance,
and much indifference to religion and magazine agnosticism.
I have done all I could to help on the movement for some
recognition of religion on the Sydney plan, and I believe it
might be carried if Churchmen were accustomed to act together
1 At sea, 13th March, 1895.

NEW ZEALAND AND JERUSALEM 211

strenuously in elections, local, municipal, and parliamentary.
But they have gone in for protests and petitions, and largely
shirked doing their part in making what they could out of the
status quo. It makes me miserable and indignant to hear
good men speak as if they had served God by having nothing
to do with the secular system. If they had sat on School
Committees from the beginning they might have almost
transformed it by this time. But they have let these Com-
mittees get into Presbyterian and Wesleyan or indifferent
hands, and these see that the Bible in schools means an
opportunity at any rate of teaching Church doctrine, and out
of jealousy and fear they often prefer to keep things as they
are, and even forbid teaching out of school hours in the school
buildings, which the law contemplates. It is a miserable
result of sectarianism, which in New Zealand means four
or five ministers trying to get a hving out of a parish which
can only comfortably support one or two. And this touch
with the commercial element of calculation is degrading to
religion all round. There is little bitterness and personal
hostility, but much jealousy."

But he found more pleasure in making suggestions
than criticisms. Thus, for instance, after his return he
wrote to Bishop Wallis on a problem which was exercising
the Church in New Zealand, that of women's share in its
government ^ : —

" I wish I could help you in regard to the woman's franchise
question. It seems to me that household suffrage is the right
thing, and that the Christian family is the true (Church)
elemental unit. I could readily go so far as to sanction a
woman householder having a vote, but not at present further.
Among us a woman householder may be a churchwarden and
has a municipal franchise. I have had several female church-
wardens, and have one now. Why should you not propose
this as an experiment — that every woman, being a member of
the Church, who is also a ratepayer should have the vote ?

" The Scriptural authority, to which attention has no

1 4th August, 1895.

212 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

doubt been called again and again in your debates, appears
to be chiefly in two passages of St. Paul's Epistles, i Cor. xiv.,
33, 34, and i Tim. ii. I2. (i) It is not improbable that the
last part of v. 33, ' as in all the churches of the saints,'
belongs to this subject and is the authority of precedent on
which St. Paul relies in laying down the principle, ' Let the
women keep silence in the churches,' i.e. the assemblies,
whether for worship or debate, ' for it is not permitted unto
them to speak, but let them be in subjection, as also saith
the law,' the reference being apparently to Gen. iii. 16. (2) In
I Tim. ii. 12, 'I permit not a woman to teach nor to have
dominion over a man, but to be in quietness,' it is a question
whether ' to teach ' is absolute or means ' to teach her husband.'
It would in any case, I think, forbid pubhc ministry of the word
in the congregation, since her husband might be one of the
number, and a fortiori I suppose other women's husbands
would be excluded.

" Throughout I think it is clear that by ' women ' we are
to understand married women. It does not seem to have
been a practical suggestion that unmarried women, who
were clearly stiU regarded as being under parental control
(see I Cor. vii. 36), should take up such a position. The other
clearly was thought of and debated, and decided adversely
to their claims at that time.

" I am inclined to think that we have not advanced far
enough to break down the barriers of control, under which
women living in a family, either as wives, daughters, or
servants, or single women living in lodgings at present are,
as regards taking part in the government of the Church.
I think that the Church cannot afford to try experiments,
as the State in a small community like New Zealand appears
to be able to do. Our work is for eternity, and we must
go slowly and surely.

" But there is a new class of women called forth by civili-
sation — heads of families, ratepayers, and the like, whose
case St. Paul obviously did not have before him. They may
have existed, e.g. Lydia at Phihppi, in a small degree, but
with nothing hke the frequency of modern life. To such
women I would give the franchise, but not allowing them
either to ' speak in church,' i.e. to be members of the Synod,

NEW ZEALAND AND JERUSALEM 213

or to ' teach,' i.e. to be ministers of the congregation. It
seems to me that the Synod is an assembly of the Church
for purposes of doctrine, and that all members of it are
potentially clergy. On the other hand, so far as Church or
State assembhes are not concerned with doctrine, precedent
is rather in favour of their having a position."

The chief events of the journey were an ordination
at Adelaide before Christmas, the consecration of Bishop
Wallis on the 25th January at Wellington, and a confirma-
tion at Suva, in Fiji, on the homeward way across the
Pacific. But the interest lay in great part in the obser-
vation of things and of people. Plants and birds and
building stones, the art of erecting a dome as exemplified
in a new English church at Port Said, the principles of
Maori architecture, the structure of the Maori and Fijian
languages were some of the objects of attention. The
Bishop was sure that he would soon have become proficient
in colloquial Maori. In the leisure of his voyages — he
travelled on no less than eleven vessels, for distances long
or short — the Bishop resumed the composition of poetry.
Of several sonnets which he published in his Diocesan
Gazette one may be repeated here. It was addressed to
his friend Miss Yonge. He belonged to the generation that
had been touched by her stories, and for him, as for her,
the deeds of Selwyn and of Patteson and the early history
of the Melanesian Mission were among the most stimulating
of Christian achievements.

To Miss C. M. Yonge.
The " Daisy Chain " and Mission Buildings at Kohimdrama.

" Blest is the power that can inform the heart

Through imaged scenes or forms ; can so impress
The gazer's eye, that he doth straight possess
What time or space by distance long dispart.

214 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

But yet more blessed is that writer's art
Who fills the minds of readers numberless
With noble thoughts and aims of saintliness.

Such, Lady, was and is thy happy part

To trace the beauties of an English home.
To teach our children how their lives may set

To help each other upward and become
Like Guy or Felix, Richard, Margaret,

Ethel or Norman. Hard it were to sum
The debt we owe to thee, and harder yet

'Neath these gray buildings which to far-off men

Proclaim the consecration of thy pen."

The long journey had improved his health, though the
exertions he had made and the damp heat of the voyage
across the Pacific lessened the benefit. The last stages
were a rapid journey in the railway from Vancouver to
New York and a passage to Liverpool. Thence he went
to Oxford, " still more like home than any place on
earth," on a visit to old Mrs, Coxe, and reached Salisbury
in time for the Diocesan Synod, which had been summoned,
before he sailed, for a date a week later than was usual.
It was held on the 2nd and 3rd May, 1895, and the Bishop
immediately entered upon his confirmation tour, punctual
to the days arranged. But there was still a pensiveness
about his thoughts, as when he discoursed to a friend ^
on the problem of pain : —

" Pain seems to me to be connected with limitation, the
squeezing up of anything either in space or time. It will
not belong to the future life, because there will be liberty
there, that is, power of indefinite growth on all sides, though
there will be (as St. Irenaeus well says and St. Paul implies)
still faith and hope, i.e. always something unattained but before
us as attainable. Hence, while it is difficult to accept James
Hinton's point of view, I think we need not consider pain
in itself an evil thing. If it could be spread out and expanded

' The Rev. G. F. Hooper, 31st October, 1895.

NEW ZEALAND AND JERUSALEM 215

it would probably be a good thing, and religion helps us to
do this to a great extent. Death, for instance, is a necessary
thing so long as we are in the body. It is only in its mode that
it is a curse — at least if I read Scripture right. I always like
Hesiod's description —

dvrjCTKOV S' (JS VTTVO) BeSlXTjfJ.ivOl.

' They died as men o'erpowered by sleep lie down.'

To some it is little more than a ' translation,' as Miss Durnford
said of her father 1 recently."

And so he wrote to his friend Bishop Wallis 2 : —

" God seems graciously to bless our thoughts and to let
us carry them out, but of course we feel that it is always
a matter of daily permission which He may think fit at any time
to withdraw."

He was at once involved in two tasks, one pressed upon
him by public duty and the other by family affection,
which compelled him to dwell upon the specific qualities
of the Anglican Church. Just before his voyage there had
begun those negotiations (if that be the right term)
between the Abbe Portal and Lord Halifax on the one
side and Archbishop Benson on the other which led to a
widespread discussion of English Orders and a Roman
decision on the subject. In that debate, as will be seen,
the Bishop took his share. While he was engaged in it,
he was also employed in studying the problems of reunion
in Scotland. He had undertaken to complete the
biography of his uncle, the Bishop of St. Andrews, whose
life had been devoted to the reconciliation of Episco-
palians and Presbyterians in the country of his adoption.
This work also finds mention hereafter. The considera-
tions thus brought before his mind led him to emphasise,
quite in the spirit of Bishop Creighton, the special powers

'■ Bishop Durnford, of Chichester, had just died on the 14th October.
' 4th August, 1895.

2i6 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

and opportunities of his Church. Thus at the Norwich
Church Congress in 1895 — no Bishop took more frequent
part in such congresses than he — he expounded his views : —

" At the Reformation in England the way was prepared
for exhibiting such a new type of Christianity as was necessary
for the further development of the Universal Church. The
revolt against errors, and the return to primitive and Catholic
truth, were both necessary — but mainly as the prelude to
this higher and more worldwide mission. Without criticising
Greek or Roman, Protestant or Reformed, we may say that
the Anglican Church has a call to be something different from
any of them, and for their sakes almost as much as for our
own. If only we could realise the Lord's word when He was
taking up His Cross, ' For their sakes I sanctify myself that
they themselves also may be sanctified in truth ' (John xvii. 19) .
We have work to do which they cannot do, which would other-
wise be left undone, which our previous history and discipline,
and our present opportunities, give us facilities for doing, and
which no other Christian society can reach. It would be
treason to the whole of Christendom to falter or turn back
in this work."

He was soon to enter upon a new domestic life. His
home had been governed for him since Mrs. Wordsworth's
death by his sister. Miss Susan Wordsworth, afterwards
Head of the Southwark Diocesan Society of Grey Ladies. ^
On the 2nd January, 1896, he married Mary Anne Frances,
eldest daughter of Colonel Robert Williams, of Bridehead,
M.P. for West Dorset. Of this marriage were born in
due time four sons and two daughters. The Bishop, as
many families in the diocese knew well, was devoted to
children. From his own experience he was able to tell
a friend, 2 " Children are certainly a great blessing ; not
only a tie to the world but a detachment from it, for each
has an eternal side very manifest."

^ Miss S. Wordsworth died in 191 2.

* The Rev. G. F. Hooper, 22nd August, 1906.

NEW ZEALAND AND JERUSALEM 217

The next two years were fully occupied by literary
work, especially the life of Bishop Charles Wordsworth,
by the Roman controversy, the current phase of which
ended in March, 1898, with the reply of the Archbishops
to Cardinal Vaughan's Vindication oj the Bull Apostolicae
Curae. Amid these labours came the Lambeth Con-
ference, in which the Bishop took a large part. He was
charged by Archbishop Temple to translate its Resolu-
tions into Latin. Whether, as he had done in 1888,
he translated them also into Greek I do not know. In
any case he was commissioned by the Archbishop to
present them ceremoniously to the great prelates of the
East, and left England for the purpose on the 30th
December, 1897.^ He reached his home again on the
28th February, having visited Alexandria, Cairo, and Port
Said, Cyprus, where he spent a week, Beyrout, Damascus,
Galilee, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Alexandria once more, Athens
and Constantinople, whence he returned by land. He
presented the Resolutions to the Greek Patriarch at
Alexandria, a venerable pontiff whose age was variously
given as 104 or 108, and the Coptic Patriarch at Cairo,
in whose Church he was already deeply interested. There
he formed plans, of which only a small part has been
executed, for the education of the Copts and especially
of their clergy. His recorded impression of Egypt was —

" in this country the power of persevering human labour, the
great influence of the instinct of worship, and the expression
of sympathy with human mortality are felt perhaps more
deeply than in any other part of the globe, and felt all three of
them with something hke equal force. Our Lord may have
been a child of over a year old when brought into Egypt, and
may have been intended to receive impressions as to His
human soul from the wonderful sights about him. Certainly

1 Letters describing this journey ran in the Diocesan Gazette from
March to July, 1898.

2i8 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Egypt has lessons for all of us, especially perhaps for English-
men."

In Cyprus he found a rural clergy " intellectually
about on the level of our English parish clerks, and
socially on that of our very smallest farmers," Here
again he framed schemes for clerical education, and
suggested that, after the pattern of England in 1836, an
Ecclesiastical Commission should be appointed to redis-
tribute the revenues of the local Church. In Syria he
carefully examined the various missions with which he
came in contact, and interviewed several Bishops, one of
whom was —

" something of a theologian. I talked with him about our
Baptism. He argued, ' We cannot say that Western Baptism
is valid ; only that it is valid when a person is willing to join
the Orthodox Church.' "

On his way over the mountains towards Damascus
the train was stopped by snow, and the Bishop, who seems
not to have had his luggage with him, spent St. Paul's
Day at Baalbek. That he might celebrate the Holy
Communion he borrowed the robes of the Greek priest
of the place.

From Damascus, where he could not fulfil his commis-
sion, the patriarchal see being vacant, he made his way
through the Hauran and by boat across the Lake of Galilee
to Nazareth, observing Jewish colonies and Christian
missions as he passed. At Nazareth he wished to see a
brightening of the austere services of the Church Missionary
Society. A surpliced choir and a more liberal use of music
would, he thought, impress and stimulate the local Greeks.
The general result upon his mind of his observation of
Palestine was expressed in a very Wordsworthian
passage : —

"It is evident that its people must be chiefly frugal

NEW ZEALAND AND JERUSALEM 219

mountaineers, shepherds, and most careful and laborious
cultivators of vines and olives in order to earn a living from
the soil. Such men naturally become hardy, warUke, and
thoughtful. They are sufficiently near the world to know
its thoughts and its ways ; sufficiently far from it to be able
to criticise and to estimate them at their true worth."

At Jerusalem visits of state were paid to the Greek
and Armenian Patriarchs and to other dignified clergy,
and a careful study of the antiquities, so far as time
allowed, was made. Then, by way of Jaffa, Port Said,
Alexandria, and Athens, Constantinople was reached, and
a visit, the most important of all, was paid to the (Ecu-
menical Patriarch, to whom the Resolutions of Lambeth
were presented and with whom converse was held on
the relations of the Churches. Soon afterwards, as a
practical token of sympathy, the Bishop and other English
friends gave to the see of Constantinople a press for the
printing of an edition of the Greek Testament.

A sequel to this visit to the East was a lecture at
Oxford to the Summer School for Clergy on " The Church
of England and the Eastern Patriarchates." ^ It shows
a profound knowledge of detail, much of it of his own dis-
covery, on the famous Cyril Lucar, the English chaplaincy
at Aleppo, Greek students at Oxford in the seventeenth
century, and so forth. It had a practical purpose ; it
ends with " Blessed are the peacemakers." In this
singularly busy year the Bishop issued his Considerations
on Public Worship, which was thrice reprinted within
twelve months, and is his most important contribution
to the subject of ritual. In 1898 also the edition of the
Vulgate Gospels was completed by the publication of the
fifth fasciculus.

It had been hoped that in the journey to Jerusalem
two objects might be accomplished. One of them was

1 Not published till 1902 (Oxford, Parker) and still in print.

220 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

disappointed. St. George's Church, which was being
built as a Cathedral for the English Bishop in Jerusalem,
was not ready for consecration. The Bishop of Salisbury
had been appointed by Archbishop Temple to act as his
representative for this purpose as well as for the visit
to the Patriarchs. During the summer the building was
finished, and the Bishop arranged to consecrate it on St.
Luke's Day, the i8th October. ^ The occasion was one
after his own heart, and he did not grudge the time and
cost. It enabled him to display in action the results of
his long study of the history and the principles involved
in the consecration of churches. On his former visit
he had been careful to invite the chief ecclesiastics of
Jerusalem to the ceremony, and when it was held the
representatives of many Churches and the consuls of
eight nations were present. The service, at which the
Bishop preached and took the chief part, was worthy of
the occasion. The Bishop's throne, modelled on St.
Augustine's chair at Canterbury, was his own gift to the
Cathedral, and it was at his suggestion that four episco-
pal canonries were established in it. Of one of them he
was the first occupant. He was at home on the loth
November ; his whole absence, during which he had re-
visited Alexandria and Cairo as well as Jerusalem, had
been only for three weeks.

During these two Eastern journeys he had been as
observant as ever. Inscriptions, ancient as well as those
of the crusading time, were diligently copied and inter-
preted. He made a beginning of Arabic, written and
colloquial, and was able to confirm in that tongue at
Nablous. He studied the fishes of the Lake of Tiberias
and noted many natural phenomena. The architecture
of the country, the vestments of the Oriental clergy and

1 This journey is narrated in letters to the Diocesan Gazette from
December, 1898, to March, 1899.

NEW ZEALAND AND JERUSALEM 221

the comparative merits of the missions at work in Pales-
tine were examined and described ; and in particular
a detailed record was made of the persons employed in
religious work, their characteristics and their circum-
stances. It was very natural that the knowledge so
acquired, together with previous familiarity with Euro-
pean conditions, should have led the Anglo-Continental
Society ^ to elect him its President in place of Dr. Maclagan,
Archbishop of York. This was on the i6th November,
immediately after his return from the East, and the office
was one which he took very seriously. In everything
except the number of its members it throve in his hands.

In this same year, 1898, he bought the beechwood and
the steep hillside below it on the slope of Harnham Hill
nearest to Salisbury. On the ridge there had been a
rough sheep track to which, though the land was private
property, the public had had access. The Bishop
broadened it out to a convenient path, which he extended
to join the older " Dean's Path " to the west. He
wished his work to be known as the " Bishop's Path,"
and in a letter to the Mayor of Salisbury made known
his desire that the people should freely enjoy it, with its
unequalled view over the city and Cathedral, so long
as good order were observed. This freehold enabled him
to indulge in his favourite pastime of building. First
one, and then a second house was erected ; and soon he
was planning the acquisition of his cottage, to which he
added by degrees as his household increased, on the shore
of Lul worth Cove. This retreat in Dorset came to be not
only a home but a centre of hospitality.

The next few years, though busy, were uneventful.
The interests which filled them, apart from the routine of
diocesan work, fall within the scope of the chapters which
follow this. A few incidents and utterances are chosen,

' For its history, see p. 93.

222 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

almost at random. On the igth February, 1899, he
preached at Oxford, and wrote to a sister ^ : —

" I enjoyed my sermon to undergraduates on i Peter ii. 21,
showing that the application of the idea of partaking in
Christ's sufferings was made to the slaves and household
servants because they formed a class specially needing help
in those days. The class which specially needs help now
is one which does not suffer oppression, but needs to be drawn
out of its comfortableness and self-suf&ciency. The side of
the mystery of the Incarnation now needed is not so much
the actual picture of the sufferings of Christ as the remembrance
who He was (and is) that so stooped to a narrow and patient
life."

In 1 90 1 he wrote the inscription for the piece of plate
presented to the present Archbishop of Canterbury by
King Edward after the death of Queen Victoria : —

" RANDALLO WINTONIENSI

REGINAE VICTORIAE

IN AEGRITUDINE IN MORTE IN EXEQUIIS

FIDELI MINISTRO

E. R. I.

A. S. MDCCCCi"

On the 22nd February, 1902, he preached, being the
first person outside the communion of the Church of
Scotland to do so for 230 years, in King's College, Aber-
deen, and delivered the Murtle Lecture before that
University. His subject was, " The bearing of the study
of Church history on some of the problems of home
reunion," and in it he suggested " a common catechism,
a book of instruction on the Bible and on Church history
with the elements of Christian doctrine, drawn up by
leading men of England and Scotland," which might be
introduced into State schools in England, Scotland, and

^ To Miss Susan Wordsworth, 22nd February, 1899.

CHURCH CONGRESS AT WEYMOUTH 223

the Colonies. He was about this time paying frequent
visits to Scotland in search of material for the life of
Bishop Charles Wordsworth and for suggestions towards
the reunion to which his uncle had devoted his efforts.
On these visits he preached, and printed, sermons on
occasions more or less memorable. ^ In 1902 he was
threatened with a serious illness. He recovered after
a course of German waters and a visit to the Engadine,
which prevented his attendance at the Coronation of
King Edward. In 1903, he ministered, as Bishop King
of Lincoln did in a like case, to a convict under sentence
of death in Devizes gaol. He paid him more than one
visit, confirmed the man, administered to him the Holy
Communion, wrote to him before his execution, and was
able to think with comfort of his state.

In 1905 the Bishop presided over the annual Church
Congress, which was held at Weymouth. It was well
organised and all passed happily. He wrote his impression
to Bishop Wallis ^ : —

" The papers say it was a success. Certainly it was a very
pleasant and devotional time, unmarred by any bitterness or
bad taste or personal jealousy. The stalwarts made out that it
was dull, and both extremes abused the Bishop of London's
sermon, and (for all I know) my presidential address, which
was somewhat on the same lines. . . . The Revivals meeting
was fuU of inspiration, and must have done good to all who
were present at it. That on the devotional study of the Old
Testament was too apologetic in parts. The devotional
meeting did not tackle the real problem, how to deepen the
consciousness of sin, etc. We ought to have been told how
people come to be indifferent to sin, and how they should be

' On the loth October, 1900, at the annual meeting of the Scottish
Episcopalian Church's Representative Council, in St. Mary's Cathedral,
Edinburgh ; on the 30th July, 1901, at the dedication of the Chapter
House of St. Ninian's Cathedral, Perth, built in memory of Bishop
Charles Wordsworth.

' 20th October.

224 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

made to care more. The subject is worthy of a good deal
of deep thought. But the whole impression of the meeting
was excellent."

In 1905 the Bishop completed twenty years of episco-
pate, and on the 8th November he was presented with
a service of plate and with his portrait for the Palace,
painted by Sir George Reid. There were nine hundred
subscribers, and speeches of gratitude.^

The death of Mr. Clifford Wyndham Holgate, barrister-
at-law, a Brasenose pupil and from 1885 the Bishop's
legal secretary and close friend, had happened in 1903,
soon after his promotion to the Chancellorship of the
Diocese. He was succeeded in the secretaryship by Mr.
Carnegy Johnson, barrister-at-law, with some of whose
reminiscences this chapter may end.

" It needed some months' knowledge of the Bishop to
find that, as no one ever quite came up to his expectations,
he had become so inured to looking for more than he got that
it came as no surprise to him to find gaps. At first one felt
mortified, and he probably wished it as a salutary incentive.
Later on one was more apt to wonder how much ignorance
the Bishop would stand. For he was wonderfully tolerant
of stupidity, unless he thought you were complacent ; then
he did not puncture your vanity, but disembowelled it. I
remember on our way back from Marlborough once deliberately
challenging his remarks on a subject on which I ' fancied
myself.' An article in a popular magazine had been written
from notes and materials which I had supplied. I had not
seen it till I was at the bookstall : bought it, and in the
course of the wearisome journey showed it to the Bishop. He
was quickl}/ on the warpath with ' Why ? . . . Why ? . . .
Why ? ' and because I was rather uppish he did not drop the
subject till he had demolished all my defences. But to show
vexation over one's own mistakes was almost certain to gain

1 Sir G. Reid painted a second picture, whicli was given to Mrs.
Wordsworth. The Bishop had a copy made for his school.

REMINISCENCES 225

prompt forgiveness. Sometimes I would have to go to the
Bishop with, ' My Lord, I have got into a tangle with so and
so,' and without a grumble he would bring all his mind to
bear upon the matter so that the man or place should not suffer.
' If we have got him into this hole we must get him out again.'
How generous he was of that ' we ' in identifying himself with
the mistakes of his agents ! Once I said, when in difficulty,
' I come to you for advice about this ; not to get you to say
it was your fault.' He smiled and said, ' My shoulders are
broader than yours, dear fellow. Write " The Bishop much
regrets, etc." '

" Once, when I was in attendance, the Bishop was with a
person who, when I was introduced to him, cross-examined
me on my qualifications, or lack of them, for my position. I
came off badly in the matter of shorthand : ' Surely it would
be of the greatest use to take down the exact words of such a
master of English as the Bishop.' I was uncomfortable, as
there was a great deal of truth in it, but I was consoled by
knowing the Bishop was worse off than I. The flattery was
gross and inartistic, and he was equally unwiUing to accept
it and to seem disloyal to a subordinate. At last he said in
those curiously hard, dry tones which meant discomfort of
some kind, ' He has a quick brain and generally grasps my
meaning accurately enough.' However, the man was quite
right ; I often wished I could take down the exact words for
a difficult letter, so lightly hit off by the Bishop, even though
it were in parenthesis and he had been interrupted when deep
in some other subject. At times I had to go back to the
Bishop and tell him that I could not get the phrasing of some
document right : ' Oh, very well, I will dictate it.' I never
remember his grumbling at these failures to catch his expres-
sions as well as his general intention. A draft or a proof-
sheet seldom, if ever, escaped some revision, especially if it
were his own work. But he was usually very merciful to a
final letter unless the correction were on a point of importance.
Then, ' May I use this as a draft ? ' Every sentence was
rewritten, new-born additions festooned the margins and were
asterisked on to the back of the sheet.

" Those who have known the Bishop better and longer
than I will be more competent to say what appreciation he

Q

226 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

had of things beautiful. I should suggest that it was almost
subordinate to higher considerations. He wrote, for instance,
the most beautiful prayers and therefore could no doubt
appreciate the beautiful prayers of others, found in the httle
book used in the Palace chapel. But he would often utterly
destroy their balance and rhythm by special petitions, lists
of places urgently in his mind, and so forth. The beauty of
his pastoral staff went for nothing as soon as he reaUsed a
symbol on it that offended him doctrinally. But another
staff which he possessed had no such drawback, and it had
the first place in his esteem because it had been his father's,
though to my mind it was simple even to meanness.i

" The little prayer with which he inaugurated all kinds of
proceedings impressed from its sheer naturalness. If one was
not expecting it, was not in the vein for it, or was looking for
something purely secular, one glance at his face as he stood
there was enough to make one feel that a prayer to him at
least, then and there, was essential, not the mere form appro-
priate to a high ecclesiastic. In the same way he could invest
a little ceremony with real dignity of ritual, though the acts
in more self-conscious hands would have bordered on the
ludicrous. He once blessed a mission van in front of the
Palace door. It was a garish green thing, and the people
concerned looked awkward and anxious. The Bishop sent
out several of his household to the door, and then appeared
with his chaplain. A suitable hymn was got through some-
how, with depressing rather than sobering effect, and then
the Bishop mounted the steps of the van. Big man as he
was, he seemed in his robes to overflow the Httle stage, absurdly
disproportionate to his needs. But he was so intent on his
set business, so clear as to what he wanted to do, and so clear
how to do it, that all fear of ludicrousness passed away, and
one was left at the end with the single thought what a helpful
service it had been. Not how well he had stage-managed it,
for that was just what he never did. He left that to others
to do if they liked, and thanked them for their care, trouble,
and it may be success. And, in the main, he took the place

^ This was the staff buried with the Bishop. The other is the staff
that came from Radley ; see p, 296.

REMINISCENCES 227

assigned him and carried out the arrangements made for him
in services involving large numbers. But in his own services,
arrangements seemed to evolve as things went on. ' Keep
your eye on the Bishop ' was my advice, when doubtful as
to what exactly was going to happen, to some one who was
to take part in it.

" I need not touch on the Bishop's boundless kindness and
sympathy with those in trouble. There will be an army
of witnesses to this if gratitude exists. People who have
experienced it will be anxious to get it recorded if only to
correct the idea that the Bishop was a hard, austere, absent-
minded scholar, too much wrapped up in abstruse problems
to be able, or to care, to see the thousand things which make
up modern practical life. I would like people with these
notions to have seen him mending the lock on the kitchen
door, approving, correcting, or objecting to proposed sales
of glebe, sanitary improvements in benefice houses, or
exchanges of patronage ; teaching his children their lessons
or his clergy their business, secular as weU as religious ; hitting
the nail exactly on the head with some remark which showed
that this absent-minded dignitary had heard every word of
an earlier conversation when he had seemingly, at some
distance, been wrapped in a learned tome or in a reverie ;
checking biUs, planning fresh buildings, or paying his servants'
wages ; catechising every visitor who had special knowledge
and amazing him with the amount the Bishop already knew
on the subject. I do not mean merely learned matters,
but up-to-date topics, agricultural, scientific, political, or
economic.

" Among outsiders it was commonly held that of course
the Bishop had no sense of humour. This of a man who could
refer at a pubhc meeting to the General Manager of the local
Bank as ' Our friend to whom we all owe so much — at least
I do.' Or, to quote a really discreditable utterance for the
sake of the illustration — [but here Mr. Johnson records a
pun which would certainly have been immortalised by Dean
Burgon in his Twelve Good Men] . I have chosen an instance
of this kind in preference over those of the dry humour with
which he would delight a Diocesan Synod, because I know that
a certain grim humour is conceded to Scotsmen and other

228 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

intellectuals, without any admission that the charge of
austerity is thereby rebutted.

" No one was more devoid than the Bishop of an episcopal
' manner ' on great occasions. At the end of a long procession
he would walk along, sometimes a little lame, with his hands
clasped behind him. At times he would turn and give an
order to one of those attending him. But with all his natural,
unself-conscious ways, he was the big man of the ceremony,
and though at ordinary functions he would have been the
despair of a Master of Ceremonies, that officer (nowhere needed
more than at Salisbury) would have been repaid tenfold
by the Bishop on special occasions. Nothing could be more
graceful than the attention which he paid to some high foreign
dignitary, some Eastern Archbishop or Patriarch, and yet it
was never overdone or fussy. He would escort him to the
Sanctuary before ascending the throne, but after that, mindful
of the dignity of his own Cathedral Church, he would tell off
the Precentor or some other persona as a guide to the Oriental
guest, or send him a book or a message by one of his chaplains.

" There were other times when he would assume the
episcopal manner. One was when he was doing a kindly
action, and perhaps wanted to carry it off quickly. When the
Lord Chancellor and the two Archbishops, the Committee
who had the statutory power to do so, reduced ecclesiastical
fees in 1908, several of the Bishops, whose sympathy with the
poverty of their clergy did not bHnd their eyes to the hardships
brought upon the officials, wrote to see whether a general
agreement by all the Bishops could not be arrived at, by which
they should make up part, if not all, of the income of which
their officials had thus been deprived, especially as it was not
urged that the fees were too large, but simply that the clergy
were too poor. Our Bishop replied that ' he did not see his
way, considering the existing calls on his income as Bishop,
to burden it further against himself and his successors.' A
week or so later he sent for me to his study, and as soon as
he began to speak I thought there was something seriously
wrong : ' Mr. Johnson, in future I must ask you to render
me a very careful account of all the fees you receive. I shall
of course make up the deficiency, to the amount I told you
the place was worth when I asked you to come here. I could

REMINISCENCES 229

never look you in the face if I brought you here on one under-
standing and then let your income be reduced for outside
reasons by £100 a year.' And every half-year, when I pro-
duced my statement, he, who ordinarily looked over accounts
so carefully item by item, would glance at the total and at
once say to his chaplain, ' Make out a cheque to Mr. Johnson,'
for whatever was the amount of the deficit. It was only from
thought for his successors that he let himself appear to the
other Bishops in this rather hard and unsympathetic light,
while acting with both generosity and forethought.

"If at one of the Palace ' hotel-lunches ' the haphazard
collection of guests settled down together fairly well, the
Bishop, after a hard and long morning's work, would often
be rather silent and abstracted, though it was safest to assume
that he heard every remark made round the table. But when
the company, ranging from the family itself and clergy who
were to be instituted to benefices or had come in from the
country for advice to ladies of the Girls' Friendly Society or
the Women's Union, appeared a httle depressed, the Bishop
would rouse himself to be conversational. At the end of
one lunch with rather sombre guests, teetotal, demure, or
nervous, the Bishop said to several successively, ' Will you
have some wine ? Will you ? Will you ? ' All refused, and
looked so abstinent and almost pained by the suggestion that
the Bishop as he rose remarked, ' At times a wave of temper-
ance comes over the diocese which really makes it very
difficult for me to get my wine drunk at aU.' Another time
at the end of a lunch every one had folded up his napkin
tidily except one who had crushed it down in a heap beside
his plate. The Bishop, while waiting for coffee, was moving
about, talking and discussing the portraits on the walls. He
caught sight of the crumpled napkin and looked at it severely.
And each time it caught his eye it seemed to check what he
was sa5dng, so that soon everybody noticed it, and none more
than the offender. The rest looked amused, well satisfied
and thankful that they were not as this pubhcan, till the
Bishop finally looked at the dehnquent and said, ' I am glad
to see that there is at all events one who is wilUng to come and
lunch with me again.' He could at times dispel gloom, if
he could also create it."

230 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

At this point it seems best to forsake the order of
time, and devote special chapters to the Bishop's acts
and views in regard to the constitution and law of the
Church, then to his pastoral and liturgical works and
interests, and finally to his efforts for the reunion of
Christendom.

CHAPTER XI

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS

With the translation of Bishop Burgess from St. Davids
in 1825 began a Hne of Bishops at Sahsbury, all Oxford
men, all scholars and all leaders in the Church, of whom
John Wordsworth was the fifth. For a century before
Burgess the Bishops, though some of them were eminent
in various ways, had not been active as administrators.
The last whose career could be compared with that of the
Bishops of the nineteenth century had been Gilbert Burnet,
a prelate whose pastoral merits have been concealed by
partisan hostility. Bishop Wordsworth was his pro-
fessed admirer. The modern organisation which Burgess
had initiated was unusually complete and efficient, and
Bishop Moberly had added the finishing touch by founding
the Diocesan Synod. This was a representative body,
elected from each Rural Deanery, of clergy and laymen ;
though the suggestion was made that the name should
be changed to the conventional " Conference," Bishop
Wordsworth, after consideration, retained that which
Moberly had chosen. It was, and is, one of the most
successful bodies of its kind ; the attendance is larger,
the debates brisker, and the spirit warmer than in some
more populous and less scattered dioceses. The Bishop
was proud of it. In 1893 he was visiting a Conference
elsewhere, and says of it : —

" This Conference is nothing like ours in effectiveness and
dignity. Of course ours was moulded into its present shape

232 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

by the late Bishop and Archdeacon Sanctuary and the
secretary, Middleton.^ I have done nothing for it except
to carry on its good tradition."

He did, however, of his own responsibility at once add
to it as unelected members the quattuor personae of the
Cathedral, viz. the Dean, Precentor, Chancellor, and
Treasurer. Its value, things being as they are, was
chiefly that it enabled thought to find expression, and not
least that it gave the Bishop, in his addresses as president,
the opportunity of surveying the whole field of Church
life for the instruction of his audience. It caused him
at times acute disappointment, for resolutions, passed
perhaps unanimously, seemed to him to pledge the
members to a definite course of action, while many of them
were apt to consider that they had simply expressed an
abstract opinion which bound them to no specific efforts.
And he did not succeed — indeed, he did not make the
attempt — in carrying out a scheme of his earlier days for
giving the Synod financial authority : —

" I may be wrong, but I believe that one of the most useful
functions of such a body as our Synod is to consider what
public appeals for money should or should not be sanctioned
as Diocesan works. ... As representatives of the Church-
people of the diocese it seems to me that they — especially the
lay Synodsmen — ought to perform something like the function
of the House of Commons in voting money biUs. Only,
inasmuch as the money is to be given voluntarily, they would,
by such a vote, pledge themselves to personal exertion in the
cause of getting the requisite sum together. Of such exertions
you have shown, with others, an admirable example. . . ." ^

Something has been said already of the Bishop's
respect for his Greater Chapter. He called this body

1 Mr. H. B. Middleton, of Bradford Peverell, Dorset, was Lay
Secretary to the Synod from 1871 to 191 1.
* To Earl Nelson, 12th December, 1887.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 233

together annually for consultation at Whitsuntide and
at the annual Commemoration of Benefactors of the
Cathedral in November, which he instituted in 1889,
after the pattern which was first set by Peterborough
in 1881 at the suggestion of Westcott. Archdeacon
Carpenter describes the procedure at these meetings of
the Greater Chapter : —

" The questions discussed were mostly brought forward
by the Bishop himself ; generally schemes of diocesan action
which he was anxious to launch. His own personality and
exhaustive treatment of the subjects he introduced left little
to be said by anybody else, and I don't think, as a rule, the
Chapter discussions helped him much, but with characteristic
simplicity he generally wound up with grateful thanks for
support, so that he could proceed ' after consultation with
the Chapter ' to take this or that step. One used to smile
rather, but it was quite real to him, and I am sure he was
right to call the Greater Chapter together in this way."

A more important assembly was the Synod of Clergy
which the Bishop, following his father's example, sum-
moned in 1888. The Bishop of Lincoln was the first
since medieval times to collect all the clergy of a diocese
for counsel, and it was his vigorous language, contrasting
a Synod of the totus clerus with a " counterfeit assembly,"
a mixed Conference, that led the son at first to desire a
change in the name used at Salisbury. ^ The procedure
at both places was the same ; the clergy in surplices met
in the Chapter House of the Cathedral, and there debated.
The purpose at Salisbury was that they should sanction,
and so make personally binding on themselves, the reso-
lutions of the recent Lambeth Conference. The assembly
was repeated in 1897 and 1908,^ and after full discussion

^ Life of Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, 1878, pp. 230 f.
* The attendance at the three Synods was 440, 384 and 406 respec-
tively.

234 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

the resolutions of the successive Conferences were, with
one exception, afhmied. In 1908 the recommendation
that the Prayer-book should be revised received 254
votes, while the opposition (a curious coalition) numbered
72, and " as this was not the proportional majority
required by the standing orders, the resolution did not
become an Act of the Synod."

The Bishop took care that his constitutional visitations
of the diocese should not become a formality. Though
he did not, after his experiment of 1888, attempt a detailed
investigation of the morals of the laity, he took care by
precise questions to discover from the churchwardens
what went on in the churches ; in his preliminary address
to the wardens and sidesmen before the visitation of 1903
he oppealed more suo to history, quoting Archbishop
Edmund Rich, sometime Treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral,
who had ordered the " public excesses " of Bishops and
other clergy to be denounced to him at his Provincial
Visitation in 1236. A more novel visitation was that of
the Cathedral in 1888. Here the Bishop was imitating
not only his father, who in 1873 visited the Cathedral
body of Lincoln, but also Bishop Moberly, who had done
the same at Sahsbury, in 1870. He was asserting a
right which his medieval predecessors had maintained
against fierce opposition, and had sometimes used to
effect necessary reforms. There was no opposition in
1888, and in so decorous a corporation no reforms could
be needed. The Bishop expressed the hope that the
visitation would be the first step towards a revision of
the Cathedral statutes. The hope remains unfulfilled.

The Bishop had clearly shown at his entry into the
diocese that he meant to make full use of his powers in
regard to the admission of the clergy to benefices. Thirty
years ago patrons, even of the highest principle, were apt
to regard the exercise of their rights as a private matter

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 235

into which Bishops should not pry. There was a little
resentment at first over the publicity on which the Bishop
insisted. He was in advance of opinion. But the general
recognition of the value of full inquiry into the legal
transaction and into the character of the presentee is
largely due to Bishop Wordsworth's enterprise. He anti-
cipated the law by several years, and his success convinced
Convocation and Parliament that greater strictness was
needed. Among other recent provisions of the law, the
advertisement of a presentation on the church door is
borrowed from his practice. When he was not satisfied
with the presentee he used the weapon of examination.
He appears to have been the first to employ it systemati-
cally ; the famous examination of Mr. Gorham had been
an exceptional measure in a doctrinal struggle. To take
one instance ; a clergyman had long been living a blame-
less and unclerical life as a gentleman farmer. His
son grew up and graduated, and the father, through his
wife, bought an advowson, where the incumbent was
very aged.^ Soon, but certainly without any illegal
bargain, the incumbent resigned. The lady then pre-
sented her husband, who intended — he made no conceal-
ment — to occupy the benefice only till his son was qualified
to take it. The Bishop wrote searching letters, appealing
to the couple to examine their motives and put the welfare
of the parish in the first place. They were of no avail ;
the lady persisted in her presentation. The Bishop fell
back on his canonical right — " No Bishop shall institute
any to a Benefice . . . except he . . . shall appear,
on due examination, to be worthy of his ministry." The
gentleman was told that it was so long since he had
exercised his ministry that he must come to Salisbury
and show that he was still competent. He demurred, but

1 It may be of interest to note that in the eighties an advowson
was worth between four and five years' purchase.

236 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

was legally advised to submit, came, was examined by
the Bishop's chaplains, and rejected. The Bishop was
soon able to make a satisfactory arrangement as to the
patronage, the first presentation naturally falling to him-
self after a vacancy of many months. In another case,
a young fellow of a College, who had taken the first living
that came to his turn, was startled at hearing that he must
answer questions in Curteis' Bampton Lectures and
Blunt's Church Law. A little later, in 1888, in reporting
to a Committee of the Canterbury Upper House, the Bishop
has slightly changed his plan. He writes : —

" Personal examination of presentees in learning and
doctrine : I have made it a rule to examine, under the 39th
canon, whenever a presentee was only a short time in Priest's
Orders, or when the patronage of the benefice had recently
changed hands and the clerk was presented by some relation
or family connection ; whenever, in fact, I was aware that
money had passed in his interest. I have had four cases of
the former kind and two of the latter. In regard to the method
of this examination and in reference to the words of the canon,
' and lastly shall appear upon due examination to be worthy
of his ministry,' I took my Chancellor's [Sir J. P. Deane]
opinion. He was of opinion that the presentee was supposed
to be aware of the provision of the canon, and therefore could
not profess surprise at an examination, but that it was not
wise for the Bishop to require him to prepare certain books,
and that, if rejected, a presentee should be rejected within the
28 days allowed by the canon. I have therefore in nearly
all these cases contented myself with setting two papers,
one on Pastoral care and the other on the Prayer-book,
including a few elementary questions as to Church law, such
as an incumbent would be certain to have to answer. Should
there be anything like a grave case, I should of course examine
more explicitly in doctrine. These papers have been set
and looked over by my ordinary examining chaplains, and
I have acted on their recommendation in admitting presen-
tees. I have found these examinations useful in eliciting the

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 237

opinions of men who would otherwise have passed almost
as strangers through my hands ; and I have reason to think
that the knowledge that examination is a reality makes
both patrons and presentees more careful."

The Bishop also incurred the risk of litigation in regard
to more prosaic questions of patronage. Perhaps the
most interesting case was that of an ancient corporation
which, a generation ago, contracted to sell a certain
advowson while the benefice was full. The contract
contained a stipulation that if it became vacant before
the purchase was complete the society should present the
nominee of the purchaser. It became vacant at once,
by the institution of the occupant to another benefice in
the gift of the vendors, and a gentleman was presented
by the society, which did not state in what right it pre-
sented. This admission that something was wrong
opened a grave question.

"They have tried, so to speak," said the Bishop, "to build
a bridge over the vacancy by beginning the sale before the
vacancy and holding it in suspense till after the vacancy
had occurred."

And he divined the motive. It was —

" clearly an evasion, if not a direct contravention of the statute,
since the society knew that the living was to be immediately
vacant, and in all probability covenanted to receive a higher
price in consequence."

He felt the danger —

" if a custom grows up of persons or corporations presenting
the nominees of others and concealing the facts, it will be almost
impossible for a Bishop to be certain with whom he is dealing."

If the law be defied in such a case, the punishment is
that the presentation for the turn falls to the Crown.
The Bishop appealed to the law officers of the Crown to

238 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

claim its right, but they declined, not being sure of success.
The Bishop persisted. He refused to institute, asserting
that —

" it has been abundantly proved to me that the course taken
by the society is one unworthy of so honourable a body, and
is nothing less than an evasion of the well-known rule of law
that an advowson cannot be sold during vacancy so as to
carry with it the sale of the next presentation."

The vendors began a suit in the High Court, but the
Bishop was not dismayed. The action was then with-
drawn, and as more than six months had been spent in
the debate the presentation fell to the Bishop, who
appointed, after careful inquiry, a member of the society.
It is still the patron, and doubtless profited morally by
the powerful homilies which the Bishop addressed to it
through its Head.

On an important matter of conscience concerning
patronage the Bishop wrote a letter which unfortunately
has not been preserved. The facts, however, are
accurately remembered. A body of trustees had offered,
and a clergyman had accepted, the presentation to a
benefice on condition that the services should be conducted
after a prescribed fashion. This came to the Bishop's
knowledge, and he told the clergyman in question that
he had been wrong in making the promise and the patrons
wrong in exacting it. They had had no right beyond
that of presenting a nominee in priest's orders to the
Bishop ; he was bound only by the general law of the
Church and by his oath of canonical obedience, and had
no right to bind himself further. He was, therefore,
free in conscience from the promise he had given, and in
the execution of his duties must consider only the welfare
of the parish and not the desires of the patrons.

In one important respect the Bishop had twice to

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 239

maintain his rights against the Crown. The question in
dispute was as to the character of the deanery of Sahs-
bury. To understand it the history of Salisbury Cathedral
must be explained. It is a Cathedral of the " Old Founda-
tion," descending unaltered in its constitution from the
Middle Ages, while Cathedrals of the " New Foundation "
were established by King Henry VIII. , and provided with
such statutes as he chose to give them. In them the Dean
is directly appointed by the Sovereign, who sends his
mandate to the Chapter, bidding them instal his nominee.
The Bishop has no voice in the matter. But in Cathedrals
of the Old Foundation the Dean was originally the Head
elected by the Canons to preside over them, just as the
Fellows at a College in Oxford or Cambridge elect their Head.
The Chapter, after making their choice, presented their
future Dean to be instituted by the Bishop as to the benefice
of the deanery. In course of time the Crown deprived
the Chapter of their right of choice. But this did not
affect the Bishop's rights. The Dean was still presented,
though by the Crown as patron, and was instituted by the
Bishop. This process continued till the middle of the
nineteenth century. When Dean Hamilton was nomi-
nated by the Crown in 1850, he was duly instituted by
Bishop Denison, and the fact and date were endorsed
on his letters testimonial. A change was made when
Dean Boyle came in 1880. The grant to him was made
in the ancient form, with mention (among other things)
of fisheries attached to the office — the Dean can catch
trout at the bottom of his garden, and the mention
has proved of value for the maintenance of his right —
but nothing was said in it about institution. For all
that, Bishop Moberly instituted him. In Bishop Words-
worth's time a further innovation was made. In the case
of Dr. Webb, late Bishop of Grahamstown, a bald and
curt document was sent, merely bidding the Chapter to

240 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

instal. In fact, a Cathedral of the Old Foundation was
being treated as if it belonged to the New. The Bishop
naturally protested ; he wrote to the Crown Office
pointing out the error. The Crown Office refused to
modify its formula, whereupon the Bishop conferred,
and the Dean received, institution in spite of the defect
in the letters patent. So again in the case of Dean Page-
Roberts the Bishop made a protest which was ignored,
and again he treated the nomination as a presentation
and instituted the new Dean, describing the Crown by
the ambiguous title of " Grantor." Perhaps in this
strange conduct of the Crown Office there has lurked an
Erastianism surviving from the time of Lord Westbury ;
but I have high legal authority for saying that more pro-
bably the mischief began in the careless choice of the
wrong precedent, and has continued through official
unwillingness to confess that a mistake had been
made.

In the Benefices Act of 1898 the points which most
interested the Bishop, who had taken a large share in
the preparation of the Bill,^ were the conversion of
donatives into presentative benefices, and the reform of
University elections to livings. The Universities were
empowered to appoint committees for the choice of pre-
sentees instead of electing by vote, and the inconvenience
of limiting the choice to men unbeneficed, however small
the living might be and however desirable that it should
be held in plurality, was abolished. University patronage
often arises from the incapacity of Roman Catholics to
present ; the Bishop was ready, like Archbishop Temple,
to remove this restriction, provided that the Bishop of
the diocese were free to refuse the presentee without
assigning his reason. This, however, is a reform that has
not yet been enacted. The Bishop was the first to make
1 See the Life of Archbishop Temple, ii. 332.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 241

use, again with risk of litigation, of that provision of the
Pluralities Acts Amendment Act, 1885, which enables
a Bishop, after receiving complaint that a parish is
neglected, to appoint a Commission, one member of which
is nominated by the accused incumbent, to inquire into
the way in which his duties are being discharged. A case
soon arose. After repeated warnings the Bishop enforced
the Act. The incumbent met him with an able and dogged
resistance, but the facts were clear. It was shown that
parochial duties both in church and among the people
were persistently neglected. The Bishop appointed a
resident curate, whose stipend under the Act was to be
paid by the incumbent ; it had to be exacted by proceed-
ings in the County Court. The novelty of the occasion and
the subtlety with which the opposition was maintained
imparted to the case a difficulty and an importance which
led the Bishop and his advisers to pay it a greater attention
than its intrinsic seriousness might seem to deserve.
But they were able to set a precedent of lasting value,
and the labour was not wasted. As regards lay help in
parishes, the Bishop took an active part in the efforts of
Convocation to add regularity and dignity to the office
of Lay Reader. He presided over the Joint Committee
of Convocation which reported in 1905, addressed an
open letter on the subject to the Archbishop in the same
year, and did his part in drawing up the rules that were
laid down on the subject.

But more important were the results attained in a
stubbornly contested case, in which he won the victory
and bore the cost, concerning a Bishop's powers during
his visitation. The law was ascertained on several points
which hitherto had been undecided. The circumstances
were as follows. At Easter, 1900, there was a contested
election for the office of churchwarden at Winterbome
Came, a village near Dorchester. The Rector nominated

R

242 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

one warden, and then a poll was taken for the other. The
Rector was in the chair. He voted as a parishioner,
and when it appeared that the numbers for the two candi-
dates were equal he turned the scale by giving his vote as
presiding officer for one of them. The Bishop's triennial
visitation was being held in 1900, and the authority of
the Archdeacon had been suspended by the usual episcopal
inhibition. Both candidates came before him at Dor-
chester, each claiming to have been lawfully elected.
One said that he had a majority of the votes ; the other
that the Rector's vote was invalid, since he had exhausted
his rights when he nominated one warden and had
exceeded his powers when he voted also as a parishioner.
Both presented their cases in legal form, and the Bishop
reserved his judgment. On the 21st June he gave it.

"It is urged," he said, " that I have no discretion in the
matter, but ought at once to admit Mr. Vine.^ I might also,
of course, entirely escape responsibility by admitting both
parties and leaving them to take action in the civil courts.
But neither of these courses appears to me consistent, I will
not say with the dignity, but with the proper purpose and
function of a Bishop's visitation court. I am here to prevent
litigation, not to promote it, and to settle questions at once
if possible. Nor do I think it is in the interests of the
parish that two persons should be in the uncomfortable
position of jostling against one another in the performance
of duties which ought to be for the good and well-being of
all. I believe also that it is recognised by the civil courts
that the Ordinary may be expected to satisfy himself which
of two claimants is really elected, and to admit the proper
person, leaving it of course to the other, if he thinks fit, to
prosecute his claim in the civil court."

The Bishop found that the question of the legality of
the Rector's vote was one that had never been decided

^ The candidate with the majority of votes.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 243

either in the civil or ecclesiastical courts. He therefore
sketched the history of the office of churchwarden and of
the duties attached to it, from the Constitutions of Arch-
bishop Gray, of York, in 1250 down to the Canons of 1604,
taking account also of certain legal decisions affirming
the right of the Rector to preside at the election. His
conclusion was that the Rector ought to preside but ought
not to vote as a parishioner. " Parishioner " is clearly
a relative term and exclusive of the minister. It does not
mean persons residing in a particular area, but persons
under the ecclesiastical charge of a particular " parochus "
or " minister." This he showed from Peckham's Con-
stitution 27. The best method of election, according
to the Canons of 1604, is a joint one. In a separate
election the minister chooses one warden, the parishioners
the other. The Rector was therefore going beyond his
rights when he elected for himself and then shared in
the election made by the parishioners. Hence the Bishop
disallowed his vote, and so reduced the candidate he had
favoured to a minority. The Rector's second vote,
given as presiding officer, fell to the ground, there being
no longer an equality, and the Bishop refrained from
pronouncing an opinion as to its validity, had the votes
been equal. He directed the surrogate to admit the
second candidate to the office.

The Rector being dissatisfied, he and the warden whom
he had supported required the Archdeacon (Mr. F. B.
Sowter) to do what the Bishop had refused. Had the
Archdeacon consented, he would have ignored the inhibi-
tion. He therefore declined, and the discontented party
applied to the Queen's Bench for a mandamus to compel
him to execute his office. That court was so ill-advised
as to issue the order, an error which was duly corrected
on appeal. On the 22nd January, 1901, the Master of
the Rolls (Sir A. L. Smith), Lord Justice Collins, and Lord

244 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Justice Romer upheld the Archdeacon's contention that
his jurisdiction to admit churchwardens —

" was an inferior jurisdiction, and that the Bishop had, during
his visitation, according to custom, inhibited the Archdeacon
from exercising his spiritual and ecclesiastical jurisdiction
concerning, inter alia, the admission of churchwardens."

The Court was unanimous.

Having failed with the Archdeacon, the Rector and
his warden once more turned to the Bishop, and applied
for a mandamus to require him, as having superseded the
Archdeacon at the date in question, to admit. This
raised all the questions to which the Bishop had given
answer in his original judgment of the 21st June, 1900,
and on the 8th February, 1901, the Divisional Court,
Justices Wills and Channell, decided them in the Bishop's
sense, though not entirely on the same grounds as the
Bishop. The matter was thus settled, for no further
appeal was made, and points of lasting interest and
importance were decided. The cost was considerable.
The Bishop had shown his courage by persisting against
the advice of his Chancellor, Sir J. P. Deane, whom
Mr. Holgate, his legal secretary, found, just before the
final trial —

" very infirm but wonderfully clear in mind ... he wished
you luck and thought it plucky of you to raise the point . . .
but thought the law was decidedly against you." ^

The Bishop was vigorous in maintaining what he
believed were his rights as a Diocesan. When, at the
beginning of 1888, the Bishop of London gained the services
of a suffragan in Archdeacon Earle, the new Bishop was
compelled by an Act of Henry VHI. to take as his title

^ From a letter of C. W. Holgate to the Bishop, 7th February, 1901.
Sir J. P. Deane was then 89 years of age, and died on the 3rd January,
902. The present Sir L. T. Dibdin was the Bishop's counsel.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 245

the name of one among certain towns, none of which was
within the diocese of London. The title chosen was that
of Marlborough. This seemed to the Bishop an encroach-
ment on his see, and he was the more affronted because,
as he wrote both to Archbishop Benson and Bishop Temple,
neither he nor his Chapter had been consulted and he had
been left to learn the fact from the public press. He
urged that it would have been easy, as courtesy required,
to obtain a private Act empowering a title to be given
from some place within the diocese of London ; Benson
himself had recently obtained such an Act for the con-
stitution of the Chapter of Truro. He told the Archbishop
that he had a right to expect an expression of regret
from Temple. Perhaps it is not surprising that he did
not obtain it ; but two years later a public Act was
passed, which rendered lawful such titles as those of the
Bishops of Stepney and Kensington, with which we are
familiar.

A few years later he protested, and this time success-
fully, against a claim made by no less a person than
Archbishop Temple himself to invade the domains of the
Bishops of his Province. He wrote 1 : —

" I was very glad to read in the Times of Saturday, 20th,
your reply to the Duke of Newcastle and others in defence of
your decision, given on 31st July last, on Incense and Pro-
cessional Lights,

" With the substance of your decision and your defence of
it I should like to express strong agreement, and I should
never have thought of objecting to the final words of the
decision, expressing a hope that the clergy would accept it.
But as you have put your defence of those final words in a
broader form, for which you have challenged criticism, I
venture to ask whether there is any known precedent for an
Archbishop of Canterbury addressing a letter officially and

^ 22nd January, 1900.

246 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

immediately to all the clergy of his Province in order to tell
them their duty ? To send a pastoral (letter) is a formal
act, implying, it seems to me, immediate jurisdiction, and such,
I have always held, the Archbishop of Canterbury neither has
nor claims in the dioceses committed to his suffragans. I
am afraid that such a claim does challenge comparison with
the third chapter of the constitution Pastor aeternus of the
Vatican Council. Of course you explain what you mean
below, but the phrase remains and will, I fear, give trouble.
You will, I am sure, understand my motive in writing this."

The great constitutional event of the Bishop's life
was his share in the Lincoln trial. He took part as an
assessor in two of its stages, and on two important points
he was of a different mind from the Archbishop. The
story has been so fully and clearly told by Mr. A. C. Benson
in his Life of his father that only these differences of
opinion need be dwelt on here. That they should have
arisen was doubtless a grief to both, so strong was the affec-
tion between them. It was manifest during the actual pro-
gress of the trial. The Bishop was urging the Archbishop
to come to Salisbury to take part in the laying of the
foundation stones of the first church to be built in that
city since the Middle Ages. The Archbishop resisted ;
he had too many employments ; the burden of all the
Churches lay upon him ; were it in the Canterbury diocese
he would not spare the time for such an engagement.
The Bishop was inexorable. Among his pleas one was
touching ^ : —

" Personally, I very much long to show you our home, as
I now quite feel it to be. My father had, of coiurse, never been
here (not since Bishop Hamilton's time) as he had to Rochester,
and the absence of such interest as he would have taken in
our affairs can only be supplied by an old and elder friend
like yourself. We have no children to transfer our impressions

' 24th September, 1890.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 247

to. I think you will understand why we want you, above
others, to come here."

A few days later he again writes to the Archbishop ^ : —

" I hope I quite realise the importance of the outside work,
and the strain which it puts on the see of Canterbury, though
of course no one can feel the burden in the degree you yourself
do. I would only plead for the old centres of the home Pro-
vince as having a claim upon the arrangement of journeys,
etc., when you are able to move about, and specially now that
the Lincoln case exhibits a relation of the Archbishop to his
suffragans which had almost faded from the memory of the Church,
at any rate as a practical thing."

The Archbishop has surrounded the words in italics
with a broad line of red pencil, and doubtless they
influenced him to give a conditional promise of a visit
to Salisbury. But it was not till the 27th April, 1892,
that the Archbishop came, and performed the ceremony
in pouring rain, after addressing the Synod, which was
then in session.

The proceedings in Read v. The Bishop of Lincoln
began with a petition from the Church Association to
the Archbishop that he would hear the case in his Court.
This was on the 2nd June, 1888 ; on the 26th the Arch-
bishop stated that he was not sure whether he had
jurisdiction. That point was referred to the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council. Five judges sat with
five episcopal assessors, of whom the Bishop of Salisbury
was one, and on the 3rd August it was unanimously
decided that the Archbishop had jurisdiction, and the
case was remitted to him to be heard and decided.

The trial was to be " in the Court of the Archbishop
of Canterbury." But what, for the trial of a Bishop
was this Court ? There were grave differences of opinion.

1 7th October, 1890.

248 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

The Archbishop was sure that he alone was judge in such
a case, and determined so to act. Bishop King was of
another mind, and made a public protest in a letter
to his diocese. Bishop Wordsworth, who had much
sympathy with him, wrote to reconcile him to the Arch-
bishop's action. 1 He was discussing the address to the
diocese of Lincoln : —

" If I may say so, its spirit is admirable and worthy of
the occasion. I like the beginning very much, and you have,
of course, quite a right to quote my father's words about the
Ornaments Rubric, representing, I think, his mature judgment
on the subject. I have myself ventured to say a few words
in something of the same spirit as your own about the ' out-
of-dateness ' of a rigid uniformity, in addressing our Synod
of Clergy on All Saints' Eve. There are, however, one or
two points in your printed letter on which I should like to
offer suggestions. Is not silence as to your loyalty best in
the face of such weak assailants ? You know, of course, if
it has ever been seriously doubted or impugned. . . . Could
you not recognise rather more fully that the Archbishop has
a heavy burden of responsibility in the matter, and has to
think of issues and probabilities which may not be so evident
to his suffragans ? In fact, that in deciding to use his dis-
cretion to hear the case he has possibly decided rightly ? . . .

" In writing as I did, I tried to represent what I supposed
to be the Archbishop's point of view, and to keep my own
opinions in the background. I think that, now he has decided
to hear the case, the loyal course for me is to support him by
stating what I believe to be his reasons for so doing. But you
know, I think, without any expression in words, how strongly
I sympathise with your trouble, and I believe enter into the
feelings that compose it. I am very glad to hear that you
have instructed three good lawyers to uphold the legality
of the somewhat trivial points on which you are attacked. I
think that is better than pleading yourself, which might
(if you are unsuccessful) involve you in a direct conflict with

* 27th November, 1888.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 249

the Archbishop. Even on St. Hugh's Day one would shrink
from such a contingency."

If Bishop Wordsworth wished Bishop King to submit
with a good will to the inevitable trial, it was not because
he was himself satisfied that the tribunal was the right
one. He did not say bluntly with Bishop Stubbs, " It
is not a Court : it is an Archbishop sitting in his library,"
but in fact he was of the same opinion. There were, in
his judgment, cases in which the Archbishop had the sole
power of judging his comprovincial Bishops, but this was
not one of them. He states his view briefly to his
brother ^ : —

" My view at present is that (i) the Archbishop has some
direct jurisdiction over Bishops, e.g. in the cases given in
Canon 33, etc. ; (2) he has jurisdiction, as in the Watson case,
for criminal offences, such as simony, immorality, etc., sitting
with assessors ; (3) but by the Privy Council judgment in
the Colenso case he has not jurisdiction in cases of heresy,
which ought to be tried before a Synod ; {4) that this ritual
question is on such debateable ground between the two that
no assertion or denial of his jurisdiction by himself ought to
stand without appeal or reference to the Queen's Bench ;
(5) the cases of trials of Bishops by Convocation are weak."

A few days later he argued the question at length in
a letter to Bishop Stubbs 2 ;_

" I. It seems to me that the most solid ground, from an
English point of view, is to be found in the Canons 33, 35, and
36 of 1603. In reading these I take it that 36 is to be inter-
preted and governed by 33 and 35. These Canons seem to
prove two things : —

" (i) That the Archbishop has a Court independent of
those in which he has delegated his judicial authority to the
Dean of Arches and the Vicar-General or other subordinates ;

1 4th April, 1889. ^ 20th April, 1889.

250 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

" (2) That the argument from Archbishop Sheldon's silence
is not so weighty as at first seemed probable.

" On the other hand, I am not aware of any recorded cases
of suspension by the Archbishop in the manner contemplated
by these Canons.

" II. It seems to me that the precedent of Bishop Watson's
case/ agreeing as it does with the dictates of common sense,
would justify an Archbishop or Metropolitan in trying moral
offences, such as those of which the Bishops of St. Davids
and Clogher ^ were accused, in person with assessors, and not
in Synod.

" III. The Privy Council judgment in the case of Bishop
Colenso seems to me to have decided, and to have decided
rightly, that an Archbishop or Metropolitan has not such a
jurisdiction over his suffragans in cases of heresy. ... I
do not think that such a case can be tried except by a Synod
of Bishops of the Province. If the Archbishop's judgment
in this case should establish this great principle, the battle
will not have been fought in vain.

" IV. As to ritual offences committed by a Bishop. These
naturally divide themselves into those that touch doctrine,
such as the omission or addition of words in the sacramental
offices or hturgy, and the use of additional ceremonies which
can be shown not to be heretical. If a Bishop is accused of
heretical pravity in regard to ritual, the case should be judged
as a case of heresy ; but if he is accused of mere variation of
ceremonies to which no such heretical colour is attributed,
I see no precedent for trjdng him either in the Court of the
Archbishop or before the Bishops of the Province. For (as
you know better than I do) (i) such variation of ceremonies
was no offence before the Reformation in a Bishop ; (2) it
has never been made so since by Statute Law, which has done

^ Thomas Watson, Bishop of St. Davids, deposed for simony in
1699. There is no doubt that his conduct had been unsatisfactory,
but he was a Jacobite and had not a fair trial. He was judged and
sentenced by Archbishop Tenison with six coadjutors, or assessors.
Bishop Wordsworth's argument deals merely with the constitution of
the Court.

- Deprived in 1822 for a misdemeanour by his Metropolitan, the
Archbishop of Armagh.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 251

so in regard to Priests ; but in the Public Worship Regulation
Act it has specially kept Bishops out of its provisions, as
previous Acts of ParUament did ; (3) the Preface to the Prayer-
book ' concerning the Service of the Church ' recognises, to
some extent at least, the jus liturgicum in the Bishops.

" V. I should be glad if the Archbishop could see his way
to a judgment embodying I. -III. and pointing out that he
is not convinced that he has jurisdiction in ritual cases.
The argument might then be resumed on this point — taking
as its basis the assumption that he has jurisdiction in moral
cases, but not in cases of heresy except with his compro-
vincial Bishops. I should be still more glad if he would decline
jurisdiction in ritual cases ; but I very much doubt if he would
consent to do so, having gone so far, without at least
hearing the argument on both sides. He might, however, ask
whether anything of heresy is attributed to the Bishop of
Lincoln in this matter."

He ended the letter with the suggestion that the
Bishop of Winchester (who, he assumed, was in agree-
ment with them) should join the Bishops of Oxford and
Salisbury in a representation to the above effect to the
Archbishop. It does not seem that this was done. In a
few days, on the nth May, the Archbishop, after hearing
arguments, decided this constitutional point. The Court
was to be himself, but he would have assessors to help
him. But the Bishop of Salisbury still held that a Bishop
charged with heresy should be tried by a Synod, and that
a Bishop has a jus liturgicum of his own which exempts
him from such conformity as is required of the other
orders of the ministry. In this spirit he wrote to the
Archbishop after the preliminary decision ^ : —

" I was very sorry to have to differ from yourself and from

others in this matter, but I cannot honestly give any other

advice, nor do I see any reason to change my mind. I confess

tnat I do not see how the two parts of the judgment of the

1 26th July, 1889.

252 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Cotirt hang together. It may be that ' minister ' in the Holy
Communion rubric includes a Bishop, but that does not
prove that ' minister ' in the Act of Uniformity does so, nor
that the law has made any provision for tr5dng a Bishop for
a ritual offence. The Prayer-book is attached to the Act of
Uniformity, but it derives its coercive force from the Act,
not the Act from it. Holding this belief I am very much
distressed that the judgment of the Court should be open,
as it seems to me, to very damaging criticism. The fact that
one of the assessors really agreed with me ^ certainly goes far
to confirm me in my opinion, which otherwise I should have
naturally distrusted."

This difference did not hinder the Bishop from throw-
ing himself with zeal into the labours of the trial. He,
like Stubbs, was one of the assessors in the great hearing
which began on the 23rd July. Mr. Benson quotes a
letter from Bishop Stubbs, written in 1896,2 in which he
says that —

" all the historical work done in the Lincoln Trial, saving of
course what was done by the Counsel of the parties, was the
work of the Archbishop himself, who collected the materials
and drew up the judgment."

This is doubtless strictly true in regard to the judgment,
but it needs to be modified, as concerns Bishop Stubbs,
by what Archdeacon Hutton has recorded of his share in
the case. 3 There we learn how much that Bishop did
while the hearing was in progress. To it Bishop Words-
worth was equally attentive ; but his notes on the case,
accumulated during the sixteen months between the
beginning of the hearing and the delivery of the judgment,
are now deposited in the Library of Lambeth Palace, and
show what further labour he devoted to a task which came

^ This must have been Bishop Stubbs. See his Letters, edited
by Archdeacon Hutton, pp. 315 f.

* Life of Archbishop Benson, ii. 378,

* Letters, p. 324.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 253

to be, for the time, his chief employment. For through-
out the long interval during which the Archbishop was
maturing his judgment he was exacting from Bishop
Wordsworth a toil as severe as his own. He plied him
with questions, and demanded from him precis of facts
and opinions on specified points, and yet (very properly)
gave him no share in shaping the actual result. During
that strenuous year, 1890, Archdeacon Bodington was
residing in the Palace at Salisbury and has contributed
his memories of the time : —

" When the Bishop asked me to live at the Palace as
chaplain it must have been out of kindness, for I was so much
out of health as to be of little use to him, but the six months
I spent there were an immense revelation to me of power in
life. Those were the days of the Lincoln trial. Archbishop
Benson got all he could out of Bishop Wordsworth. The
Archbishop's own sleep, he wrote, had been permanently
reduced to some four hours a night. He seemed to be prepared
to reduce the Bishop's to the same quantity ; rather, I thought,
in the style of the Wellington master towards his assistant.
Bishop Wordsworth, not always the most patient of men,
bore it like a lamb. He was remarkably devoted to Benson,
and was invariably pained by hearing him adversely criticised.
This was due, no doubt, partly to his idealistic conception
of the loyalty owed by a Suffragan Bishop to his Archbishop.
Like Sir Walter Scott, he had something of the feudal mind.
But this patient loyalty was also undoubtedly due to a very
great confidence in, and reverence for, the Archbishop's
abilities, character, and ideas about the Church. Bishop
Wordsworth, like his father, had a horror of papalism ; and
yet, curiously, he had great sympathy with those ideas of
Benson's about the relation of the see of Canterbury to the
rest of AngUcan Christendom which to many people, especially
to those beyond the seas, to Bishop Webb of Grahamstown,
for instance, seemed to go beyond a hegemony of Canterbury
and to have a papalising tendency. At all events, he worked
like a slave for the Archbishop at this time, more, I think, from

254 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

loyalty than from any vivid hope of solving permanently the
difficulties of the English Church, But he had deep sympathy
with his old friend, Bishop King, and I think there was
a hope in his mind that the facts of history might be found
to come to his help. Yet I scarcely think that he anticipated
such a general acceptance of the Archbishop's judgment as
would bring peace. His view, then and alw,ays, was that the
points in dispute were of little importance. But law is great,
and the keeping of the law in the smallest points is worth a
great deal of sacrifice. If only we could ascertain what the
law is, we ought all to be content to give up our own
predilections for the sake of the great principle of obedience
to the Church. Accordingly he went to work, and his methods
were characteristic. I do not know how much of the subject
was referred to him for research, but I remember that the
questions of the legality of the sign of the Cross in absolution
and blessing, and of the two lights at the time of celebration,
were included. We never knew at what hour he would start
on his researches. Once, I remember, after a particularly
hard day, he started at lo p.m. with Clifford Holgate,
myself, and a third, each with his appointed task. We were
told what to look for, and where we might expect to find it.
What a search through St. Augustine I had for some subsidiary
point ! From his chair he would suggest particular chapters,
or even particular pages, of particular books. He seemed to
know them aU by heart, and his power of accurate quotation
from a general memory of them was astonishing. Charac-
teristically, his trust in us seemed complete, but I fancy it
was always with one eye open. If you made a shp, he seemed
to know it beforehand. On this night he was as mighty as I
have ever known him. One by one we were sent to bed because
we looked exhalttsted. I was the middle one to go, and most
reluctant I was, but he was inexorable. Holgate, his always
faithful henchman, remained with him till the end, which
came at 2.30 a.m., when the Bishop retired to bed. But he
caught the 6.30 train to London next morning."

To this I can add my own testimony, as a modest
partaker in these tasks. The Bishop was interested.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 255

before the trial began, in Canon Law. Already in i
he had suggested to Dr. Bright of Christ Church that
efforts should be made to found a professorship of the
subject at Oxford, and had received the discouraging
reply that the attempt was useless, for no one in England
knew enough about it. When occasion to study it came
in the course of duty, the Bishop threw himself heartily
into the pursuit. He collected almost a library of the
relevant books, and they were such as gratified his scholarly
instincts. Gratior et pulcro veniens in corpore virtus ; he
liked Lyndwood and Van Espen and Barbosa the better
for their folio shape. He not only bought but read,
and set others to seek for answers to questions which he
framed, or gave them roving commissions to collect
passages which might seem to the point. His share in
supplying material for the judgment was assuredly not
small.

When the judgment was given, on the 21st November,
1900, it had the full approval of Bishop Wordsworth.
Preaching after the death of the Archbishop in Salisbury
Cathedral, 1 he said : —

" It is a mistake to say that this judgment was not unani-
mous. The only point on which one of his assessors differed
from him was the application of the Act of Uniformity to a
Bishop. That preliminary point being settled at a separate
sitting (23rd, 24th July, 1889) the judgment on the details
of ritual, given 21st November, 1890, was agreed to by all
the assessors."

And in a private note, dated the 4th December, 1890,
he gave his own opinion of the judgment. He spoke of
it as —

" fit to stand by the strong work of his two school-feUows,
successively Bishops of Durham. Character of their work :

1 1 8th October, 1896, Diocesan Gazette, p. 239.

256 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

constructive and uncontroversial, seeking for the great abiding
elements in the past yet not shrinking from minute details
and patient study— not always without a certain idiosyncrasy
and quaintness, inherited from Prince Lee."

With the Archbishop's judgment the Bishop's share
in the case came to an end. He was not an assessor in
the hearing before the Privy Council in 1891, and therefore
had nothing to do with the dismissal in 1892 of the
appeal against the Archbishop's decision.

At this point it may be well to mention the Bishop's
view of the character of the episcopal office, in regard to
certain irregular claimants who have perhaps excited more
curiosity, and certainly have given more trouble to those
in authority, than their intrinsic importance can justify.
Specific reference to such cases, even were the material
accessible, would lie outside the scope of this book. But
no one had a larger share in these matters than the Bishop
of Salisbury, and he had come in his later years to the
definite conclusion that a Bishop is necessarily the Bishop
of a certain see within a certain communion, and that
were any one (if the term may be used) to be consecrated
in vacuo on speculation he would not be a Bishop at all.
There would be no need, as is sometimes supposed, to
keep him in a kind of quarantine lest he should irregularly
transmit what he had irregularly received ; for since the
necessary conditions, viz. a definite Church to accept
him as its officer and a definite sphere in which the office
should be exercised, were absent, he could not be regarded
as being in any true sense a Bishop at all. I can only
testify to this from his conversation ; but much earlier
he had held that jurisdiction and ordination are in-
separable. Writing to the then Bishop of Stepney, ^ he
says : —

1 The Right Rev. G. F. Browne, afterwards Bishop of Bristol,
dated 13th November, 1895.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 257

' Originally the presbyter was ordained as presbyter of a
particular church, and still he has a title as a necessary
precedent condition in the Church of England. But in the
common idea he is ordained a priest, and licensed to a parti-
cular cure afterwards. The two parts of his office, the order
and the jurisdiction, have become separated. So it is with
Bishops. They are first confirmed and then consecrated. I
do not myself, however, see that it is possible to separate the
two things as theologians. My idea is that a Bishop is conse-
crated Bishop of the Church of N., and that his confirmation
beforehand is only accidental, for the sake of convenience."

On the value of a National Church to the nation and
to its citizens the Bishop held the views that, with his
training, were inevitable, and he frankly accepted the
limitations involved in establishment. About one of
these he wrote ^ : —

" I suppose the Royal Supremacy represents in its good
form the power of Christian laymen, and all the elements
of jurisdiction and influence in the Church which they may
properly be supposed to exercise — ^patronage, assignment of
dioceses and provinces, and gift of temporal honour and
authority. The idea that there is a virtue in elective repre-
sentation which is Christian {e.g. election of a clergyman by
the communicants), as against another exercise of lay power
which is unchristian, seems to me a Free Kirk and Puritan
exaggeration. Both may act well and both badly.

" The fact is that royal power is one of the Old Testament
ideas which belong to a patriarchal view of society, and that
representative government belongs to the New Testament
circle of ideas which suited small societies growing up from the
bottom. But though the two are in this way historically
contrasted I do not think that either is essentially wrong or
essentially right."

In regard to wider questions of policy, the Bishop

1 To the Rev. E. J. (now Archdeacon) Bodington, 7th September,
1895.

S

258 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

was chiefly interested in providing the Church at home
with a more adequate representative system than it now
possesses, and in giving greater coherence to the whole
Anglican communion. The former matter was rendered
pressing by the want, which he fully recognised, of a
proper judicial system. The series of ritual prosecu-
tions had had a scandalous result ; there was disobedience
because the Courts were not respected. The Bishop
proposed a remedy in a learned paper on " The Reform of
the Ecclesiastical Courts, Diocesan and Provincial," ^
which he read to his Greater Chapter on the 7th November,
1899. That body " without dissent passed resolutions
generally encouraging the policy described in the paper."
The scheme proposed need not be detailed here ; perhaps
the most interesting point in it was the recommendation
of Bishops as judges on the ground of their cautiousness.
He illustrated it by the moderation of the Upper House
of Canterbury, as contrasted with the fervour of the
Lower, in the matter of " Essays and Reviews." But it
was vain to propose reforms unless there were some con-
stitutional organ powerful enough to insist that they
should be carried into effect. Therefore he wished for
a " National Council " of the Church, and laboured hard
for some years at a project which has in a certain measure
been carried out.

He was led to make his plan public by a protest
against what they regarded as disloyalty to the Church,
made in 1899 by an important body of Dorset Evangelicals,
headed by Mr. Mansel Pleydell. These gentlemen vaguely
believed that in some way, if they would, the Bishops
could suppress " Sacerdotalism and Ritualism." The
Bishop pointed out that they had no such powers, nor
yet the Courts. The latter were failing because they
were not respected. The Church needed a new Assembly,

^ Salisbury, Brown, 1900.

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 259

co-ordinate with Parliament, for the latter, no longer
consisting of Churchmen, would not find time for such
matters as Ecclesiastical Courts or the law of patron-
age. He sketched a constitution for the proposed
Council : —

" Such a governing body might be found in the Convoca-
tions of the two Provinces sitting together — with such reform
in their constitution as the changed conditions of life in this
country may make desirable — and having by their side a House
of Laymen much like those already existing. I will not enter
into detail as to the safeguards necessary to the constitution
of this body, so that any revolutionary changes in doctrine
or ritual or polity may be avoided ; but I will observe that
the concurrence of Parliament might be secured, in matters
of moment touching its proper sphere, by laying Statutes or
Canons which it was proposed to enact, on matters involving
the temporahties of the Church, for a certain period on the
tables of both Houses. The right of the Crown to sanction
Canons on matters of ordinary character would, of course,
remain, and would no doubt be exercised much more
readily if lay opinion were ascertained to be favourable
to them.

" It appears to me that if the laity of the Church were
thus secured their proper influence in its Councils at all stages,
there would be an irresistible claim on our part for such a
Court of Final Appeal as would be acceptable to Churchmen.
I have expressed my own opinion that we cannot consider the
present Court of Final Appeal as satisfactory. I am convinced
that any attempt to enforce its judgments as creating, by
interpretation, laws of the Church binding generally on the
consciences of the clergy and people, is impracticable. Any
endeavour to do so would be resisted by a very large body
indeed, both of clergy and laity, and certainly not by extreme
men alone. Yet it is right that decisions in a Final
Court should be of the nature of precedents and not merely
decisions ad hoc. It is necessary, in fact, to the peace of
the Church to have a Final Court which can be brought
under the Fifth Commandment."

26o LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

In 1 90 1 an important Joint Committee of the Canter-
bury Convocation was appointed to consider the position
of the laity —

" with reference to legislation in matters ecclesiastical, elections
of Church officers, and judicial functions in the early Church
and under the constitution of the Church of England,"

The Bishop of Salisbury was chairman, and had a
large share in guiding the Committee and shaping its
report, which was published in 1902. The report, which
is of great value as history, ended with the recommen-
dation that " a National Council should be formed fully
representing the clergy and laity of the Church of
England," and suggested the constitution, powers, and
limitations appropriate for such a Council.

The Bishop anticipated the publication of the report
in his address to the Synod of 1902 at Salisbury. Dwelling
chiefly upon the embittered controversies of the tkne,
he said : —

" The methods of party agitation and of boycotting are
unlikely to find favour with any instructed Churchmen. They
are too unintelligent and unspiritual, and altogether too
rough, for the Kingdom of God. They may produce schism,
they will not produce unity or promote progress. Irresponsible
and amateur societies have to be tolerated ; but they are
offensive, often in a very high degree, to those who have a
conception of what the ideal life of the Church ought to be."

He went on to speak of remedies for the confusion.
Litigation was discredited, the Bishops w^ere powerless,
the Royal Prerogative was unworkable. He proceeded : —

" Then there is the method of consulting the Bishops, and
calling upon them to take united action. This has a certain
force ; and I think I may claim for the body to which I have
the honour to belong that we have done not a httle both
to promote unity and loyalty, and to encourage progress in

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 261

the Church, in the broadest sense. No one can look at the
history of the four Lambeth Conferences, presided over by
Archbishops Longley, Tait, Benson, and our present Metro-
pohtan, without being struck by the unanimity and faithfulness
and breadth of view of the Anglican Episcopate throughout
the world. But neither a Lambeth Conference, nor a meeting
of Bishops of the Church of England proper, can do more than
advise. Neither has constitutional authority. And though
our Bishops at home have made, and I think are making, every
effort to show themselves worthy representatives of their flocks,
they cannot claim to represent both clergy and laity as directly
as the Bishops of the first four or five centuries could do, and
as the Bishops of the Colonial and foreign churches of our
communion actually do. This primitive representative cha-
racter of the episcopate, and also of the presbyterate and other
orders, is one of the points which have impressed themselves
much on my mind in the study to which I have referred. You
will find examples of it in the lives of SS. Cyprian, Athanasius,
Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, Paulinus of Nola, and
Martin of Tours, to name only a few of the most conspicuous.
You cannot wonder that such men had a popular influence
not possessed by others, who were only the nominees of a
portion of the clergy or of the Court. I do not forget that
Crown appointments in the country are made by a Sovereign,
who is assisted by a Prime Minister chosen by the whole
country. But he is chosen for many other reasons than the
performance of this duty, and by many others besides Church-
men. Nor can I look upon the tendency of English law to
make the nomination of the Sovereign absolute, to be very
satisfactory to the consciences either of Bishops themselves
or of the clergy and laity of the land. There is very great
practical advantage in the way of nomination as opposed
to election, but it needs some checks, and the fact that it is
almost unchecked makes it difficult for Bishops to assume the
fulness of representative character.

" The opening of Parliament to men of all or no creeds, and
especially the large number of Presbyterians and Roman
Catholics which it contains, make it obviously unfit to treat
details of Church policy or internal management. The experi-
ence of the last half-century in the Colonies (since 1850),

262 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

and since 1869 in Ireland, have shown us that, where members
of our communion are left to themselves, they organise Church
government on very nearly the same lines everywhere, and
that elected lay communicants sit with Bishops and clergy
in council, to the great advantage of the community, and that
they generally form a conservative element in this governing
body.

" For my own part I have come to the conclusion that the
time is now ripe to press for the establishment of such a body
among ourselves. The existence of the General Assembly
in Scotland, and, I may add, of the Ecclesiastical Council in
Sweden, show that such bodies are not inconsistent with estab-
lishment. Nor do I think that it ought to lead to the disso-
lution or absorption of the Provincial Convocations. But I
believe that the power of summoning a National Council has
never been taken away from the Church, since it was not
mentioned in the " Submission of the Clergy," or in the Act
of Parhament of 1534 (25 Henry VIII., c. 19, Gee and Hardy's
Documents, p. 195) founded upon it. Such a National Council
is what we need, and we may take a precedent in its compo-
sition from so high a Churchman as St. Anselm, who in 1102
specially asked the King that the chief men of the realm might
be present at a Council of Westminster, in order that whatever
was there resolved might be observed firmly by the agreement
of both clergy and laity (Wilkins, Cone, i., p. 382).

" How such a Council should be related to Convocations
and Parhament, and to the Crown, I do not now wish to con-
sider ; but I will point out that it is quite possible for it to
sit in different years from the Convocations, or for the latter
to meet only formally in the years when the National Council
was summoned."

So also, in a sermon in his Cathedral, on the 26th
October, 1902, after the publication of the report : —

" We want, in fact, a National Church Council in which
Bishops, Clergy, and Laity should be fully represented, which
should legislate for the Church in place of Parhament. of
course with the consent of that body and of the Sovereign.
Such a Council exists in the Established Church of Scotland

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 263

in the General Assembly consisting of 371 ministers and 333
lay elders. There is no reason why one should not be created
in England, with such differences as the different history of
the two countries and the different constitution of our Church
make reasonable. I do not venture to say that, if such a
Council were created, all our differences would disappear, but
I do believe that it is the one instrument of reform which the
Church first needs, if it is to provide things honest in the sight
of all men, and as much as in it lies to be at peace with all
men."

And in a letter to a sister ^ he speaks of his own share
in the matter. The Council is now taking the name with
which we are familiar.

" I was much occupied with the business of the Joint
Meeting of Convocations and the Houses of Laymen, which
was considering my special subject, the proposed National
Council, or, as I think we shall now call it, the " Representative
Council." I had to open the subject, and spoke for over forty
minutes. My motion, slightly amended, was carried with only
three dissentients. This was a great satisfaction to me. The
whole meeting was on a high level — good speaking and nothing
disagreeable or unworthy of the occasion, and the Archbishop
made an excellent chairman. The general result was all right,
but the initial franchise of laymen was expressed in very
lumbering language and is needlessly restrictive, and the carry-
ing it out will cause great trouble. I am to be on committee
to draft further details. . . .

" You will be thinking of the realisation of E. W. Benson's
plans and hopes on Wednesday ^ with great thankfulness.
It is a wonderful evidence of the blessing that attends a good
desire, reasonably and yet warmly advocated. I only hope
my plan of the National Council may have as good success
after I am gone."

Finally, he was able to proclaim to his Synod on the
13th April, 1904, " it is my happy duty to announce

1 Mrs. Steedman, 13th July, 1903.
' The completion of Truro Cathedral.

264 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

to you that this Council is now substantially in being."
The six constituent bodies, the Bishops, Clergy, and
Laymen of each of the two Convocations, had held a
joint meeting, and all the six had separately, but in
identical terms, requested the Archbishops to assemble
a meeting of the Representative Church Council in July
of that year. Such meetings have been regularly held
since then, and if to the unimaginative it may merely
seem that a seventh tributary has been swelling the
river of words, there certainly are in this assembly
the potentialities of future usefulness. If occasion
should arise, it is ready to make its weighty pro-
nouncement.

If a Council were desirable for the Church of the one
nation, the Bishop felt that it was even more necessary
to hold together the scattered elements of the Anglican
Communion. Though his views remained unchanged
till the end, the subject shall not be carried in this book
beyond the Lambeth Conference of 1897. Canterbury,
to Bishop Wordsworth, was the centre. Archbishop
Benson, like Mr. Chamberlain, magnified the dominions
and colonies. The interest he took in them naturally
led to the magnifying of the metropolitan side of his office.
Appeals of every kind and petitions for guidance flowed
into Lambeth. Many of them were passed on with un-
hesitating confidence by three successive Archbishops to
Salisbury. Many requests also were sent from divers
quarters directly to Bishop Wordsworth. Among the
letters of gratitude which followed his death none are
more striking than those of Bishops in many lands who
had profited by his counsels. But all this was somewhat
unofficial. Canterbury had not the public status that
corresponded with its real position. By 1893 Archbishops
were beginning to be multiplied, and the Archbishop of
Canterbury grew anxious that the honour should not be

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 265

lightly or irregularly conferred. He consulted the Bishop
of Salisbury, who replied in haste ^ : —

" I am sorry that I can throw no light on the powers of a
provincial Synod to create an Archbishop. I should be
inclined offhand to say that ' Archbishop ' was now little
different from Metropolitan, though at one time it had more
the sense of Patriarch. I think if the title is going to be taken
all round {e.g. Cape, Austraha, etc.) it might lead naturally
to the revival or adoption of the Patriarchal title at Canter-
bury. Some kind of distinction is desirable, and perhaps it is
advisable to denote the unity of the Anghcan communion in
some such way."

This jealousy for the dignity of Canterbury was shown
also, at the end of his life, in a suggestion that the Arch-
bishop should display his superiority to the only see that
could possibly be a rival to his own. He wrote to Arch-
bishop Davidson 2 : —

" I hope you will at least consider the gift of a palHum
by yourself to the Archbishop of York under 25 Hen. VHI.
c. 20, § 4, which is still on the Statute Book, and which was
repeated for Ireland, 2 Ehz. c. 4, Ireland, in 1560."

His wish was for a definite constitution of the whole
communion. He desired that no steps of importance
should be taken anywhere without the previous assent
of a Central Council, over which the Archbishop of Canter-
bury would naturally preside. The Lambeth Conferences
had done good work, but they were informal. They had
but prepared the way. Writing to his diocese from New
Zealand, after a wide survey of Church life at the
Antipodes, he sketched his plan for an Anglican Council
and suggests the date for its execution : —

" Would it not now be almost time to go a step further,
and does not the commemoration of 1897 — thirteen hundred

1 29th October, 1893. * nth January, 1909.

266 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

years from the landing of St. Augustine — offer a fitting oppor-
tunity for it ? What is wanted, I think, is a voluntary compact
on the part of the scattered Anglican Churches, from which
the American dioceses might or might not desire to be formally
exempt, acknowledging their submission in really important
matters to a Council representing the whole body. We must,
I venture also to think, beware of confusing judicial and
conciliar business. The system of appeals to Rome has
hampered, if not ruined, the Papacy as an organ of true
Church government after the mind of Christ ; and we must be
careful also to emphasise the fact that reference to such a
Council would be made, if made by our different Provinces,
on the basis of ' voluntary consensual compact,' and not as
a matter essential to faith or life. The orthodox Eastern
Churches furnish us with examples of Churches holding the
same faith, yet under Synods with very distinct powers and
wholly independent of one another. But during the process
of growth, and certainly as long as we are all subjects of one
Sovereign, the Anglican Churches ought to have something
like a common governing body, for purposes of united strength,
authority, and comfort."

This letter was written just before the Bishop started
on his voyage of return. He reached England before it
appeared in print, and continued the subject in his address
to the Synod on the 2nd May, 1895 : —

"If we are to rise to the height of our mission it must
be by making our unity secure and preserving intact our
Catholic inheritance in the Ministry and Liturgy, in the doctrine
and discipline of our Church. At present there is no desire
or thought of improving it ; but with a growing organisation
of General and Provincial, as well as Diocesan Synods, of
Primates, Metropolitans, Archbishops, and the like, will
probably come a desire to strike out into new paths and to
grapple with some of the problems which are manifestly set
before us in possibly an impatient manner. It is as indica-
tions of such a possible movement that the action of the Arch-
bishop of Dublin in consecrating Sefior Cabrera, and of the

LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS 267

Church of Canada in assuming for two of its Metropolitans the
title of Archbishop, become more significant than they would
otherwise be. In themselves, there is much to be said for both
actions. I have never been one to judge hastily of the act of
the Archbishop of Dublin, whom I know well and love and
honour much, and I can see that his act has had the double
advantage of all5nng to our communion a body of Spanish
Christians, who appear to have more merit than is often con-
ceded to them, and who might otherwise have drifted into
Presbyterianism, and of proclaiming in a very forcible way to
ah the world the value which we set on the vahd succession of
the Episcopate. Personally I have always doubted the expedi-
ency of the act more than its moral and ecclesiastical pro-
priety. I mention it now partly to give you my own judgment
upon it, which I think you are entitled to have, partly as an
example of the need of consultation before any Province or
branch of our Church takes steps in the way of union or inter-
communion with other Christians, which manifestly in some
degree involve the whole body. The act of the Church of
Canada is, I think, abundantly justified by their own local
position, especially as regards the established Roman hierarchy.
But I should have thought it happier if it could have been
carried out in consultation with the rest of the Anglican
Episcopate. I was glad to find that this was decidedly the
feeling of the General Synod of the Church of New Zealand,
both as regards its own possible action and that which is
actually contemplated by the Provinces of South Africa and
Australia. The time, therefore, seems to have come when it
would be wise to put into some concrete form the under-
lying principle of unity of action in regard to more important
matters, which is implied and involved by our calling ourselves
members of one great Anglican Church. The time seems to
have come when not only the Bishops meeting at Lambeth
in 1897, but the General and Provincial Synods or governing
bodies of different groups of dioceses, should consider under
what conditions true conciliar action should be taken by the
Bishops of the different branches of our Church throughout
the world, and how far they would think it right voluntarily
to limit their own powers of making changes apart from such
supposed councils."

268 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

It was natural that, having great knowledge and great
enthusiasm, he should take the lead in a committee of
Bishops appointed in 1895 to consider the " organisation
of the Anglican Communion." It presented a report,
which he had drawn up, to a meeting of Bishops held
early in 1896. His note on his own copy runs : —

" This was never published. It led to my being chairman
of the committee of the Lambeth Conference on the subject,
where I had a difficult team of Archbishops, Primates, etc.,
to drive."

So strong was that spirit of independence to which
Archdeacon Bodington has alluded. ^

Finally, after the Lambeth Conference had broken
up, having taken steps which fell far short of the Bishop's
hopes, he reviewed at the Nottingham Church Congress ^
the progress made. A " Central Consultative Body "
and a " Tribunal of Reference " had been established,
useful from the start and the earnest of greater things
in the future. For in his eyes this machinery had a truly
spiritual value. At the Synod of Clergy which followed
the Lambeth Conference of 1897, and accepted its resolu-
tions as binding, the Bishop commended them to the
imagination as well as to the reason of his hearers : —

" The Anglican Communion, very largely by the successive
action of these Conferences, is growing to be much more than
a convenient name. We begin to see what a part it may play,
as a whole, in the conversion of the world, in the discipline of
the nations, in the reunion of Christendom. Our conceptions
of loyalty, of duty, of responsibility, may be wonderfully
enlarged by placing it constantly before our mental vision.
We feel that it is right to give time and thought to its organi-
sation, that is to its effective embodiment as an instrument of
God's glory. Organisation is no mere cold and dry thing ;
it is the raiment of brilHant needlework in which the Bride
of Christ is arrayed."

1 See p. 253. ^ September, 1897.

CHAPTER XII

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS

A SKETCH of the Bishop's relation to the clergy of the
diocese must begin with a word about his interest in
his Theological College. It was very close. He took his
share in lecturing and in many ways tried to make his
influence felt. And he was satisfied, on the whole, with
the results achieved. In 1897 he wrote to the Vice-
Principal ^ : —

" I like much the type of men we send out from the College,
and think they are distinguished generally by a manly simplicity
which is not always a characteristic of Theological College men.
But I should like to see a greater tenderness about them — in
fact, a greater love of souls — and a greater elevation of hope,
both for this world and the next. I feel my own deficiency
in both very constantly." 2

As an instance of his individual dealing with the

1 The Rev. H. F. Stewart, now Dean of St. John's College, Cam-
bridge, 30th July, 1897.

^ It may be worth noting that he did not regard such Colleges
as substitutes for Universities. In 1887 he wrote to Canon Sir James
Philipps : " Last year a number of former students of our Salisbury
Theological College petitioned me for a distinctive hood for non-
graduates. ... I do not myself think that our Diocesan and Missionary
Colleges are sufficiently strong and independent bodies, either as
regards teaching or examining, to grant quasi-degrees. For a hood
which does not imply something of the nature of a degree is a kind of
fraud upon the public." This position he maintained to the end ; but
in his last years he was planning the affiliation of Salisbury College
with Durham and Bristol Universities. Since his death it has been
accomplished.

270 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

students, one example must suffice. One of them, in the
last year of the Bishop's life, tells how he was in serious
anxiety and needed counsel. Not only did the Bishop
grant him a prolonged interview, allowing him to tell
the full story and giving him the guidance he required,
but he also wrote him several letters of advice. The
help so given has been of lasting value, and the words,
" Try to cultivate a broad back ; I have had to do so,"
are well remembered. ^ In the Warminster Missionary
College the Bishop also took due interest, and was justly
proud of the services rendered by its students in many
lands. But with a Warden so masterful, and so ready to
take responsibility, financially and otherwise, as Sir
James Philipps, he could not share so actively in the
management.

After his success in gaining recruits for the ministry,
and in guiding their lives during their Arts course at
Oxford, he naturally had views of the place of the
University in the training of candidates. He was not
satisfied with the existing want of system. Speaking
in 1901 of a state of affairs which is still unchanged,^
he said : —

" What is really needed is that the moral and spiritual
training of candidates should become much better organised
than it is at the Universities. No doubt the intellectual
training has received a great impetus. The opportunities
given of instruction in theology in the last thirty years have
been wonderfully increased. But the spiritual training of
candidates at the Universities is left too much to chance.
There are, of course, excellent professors and friendly tutors
ready to receive men who come, but definite provision is not
made everywhere to find out whether a man is a candidate
for Orders or not, or whether he is likely so to become. There
is no general list kept of such persons, and though opportunities

^ From the Rev. G. R. Channer, student in 1910.

* Speech in the Upper House of Convocation, 8th May, 1901.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 271

are freely given, yet it sometimes happens that most Hkely
men fall through, and at the end of their time are able to say,
' Nobody ever spoke to me at all about it.' What I think is
wanted, at any rate, is this, that when a man comes to us from
the University be should come provided not merely with
certificates of having attended a few courses of lectures, but
with a single divinity testimonial certifying that he has not
only attended a sufficient number of lectures, either profes-
sorial or collegiate, to make him sufficiently well equipped
intellectually, but that his moral and spiritual conduct has
been such as to qualify him to seek Holy Orders. This would,
of course, throw a much greater strain upon the professors
and tutors, but I beheve it is a strain which they now see that
they must be called upon reasonably to bear. I think that it
would have a good effect, and I do not think that they would
at all resent it. This is my small contribution, which has been
in my mind, as you may naturally suppose, a great number of
years, and I hope that it may reach those whom it is intended
to reach. Its two points are — one organisation, one testi-
monial."

Here he was speaking of the old Universities. He
valued also men whose training had been only at a
Theological College ; in fact, his sole prejudice (and it
had its exceptions) was against those who had left a
University without a degree. But in his last days he
cherished those ambitious ideals which the English
Bishops tell us they will try in a few years to bring
into action. In his sermon in 1910 to the Cincinnati
Convention he sketched a plan which was not alto-
gether consonant with views he has been known to utter
elsewhere : —

" In England we feel more and more the need of a com-
bination of University and seminary life in our preparation
for the priesthood. We perceive the need of both, and are at
least seriously considering how to provide means for it. Some
of us think that for ordinary men vocation should be first
tested by a preliminary year at a theological college. Then

272 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

students should be sent, under supervision, if possible in a
college or hostel, to one of the Universities, and there take a
degree in Arts, which could probably be accomplished in two
years more. Then they should return for a final year of
training at the theological college. On the whole, we should
prefer to have our seminaries for clergy away from the great
centres of population, and, if possible, in touch with our
Cathedral life. . . . There can be no doubt that the College
of Cuddesdon, to name only one of them, under the influence
of so saintly yet thoroughly practical a man as Edward King,
late Bishop of Lincoln, has produced a type of men who are
the strength of the Church of England — men of whom it may
be said, ' In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness
and confidence shall be your strength ' — men who know why
they believe and what they believe — loyal, regular, and
obedient, self-denying and happy in their ministry, ready
and resourceful, not worn out or crushed by premature
practicality, yet ready to express in our city life, as well as in
our country towns and villages, the vision which they have
seen on the Mount of God."

Of his care for the younger clergy one example must
again suffice : —

" I write a few lines on an important subject. I mean your
own self-discipline in regard to early rising and punctuahty
at schools and services. I regret to hear it reported that you
have not yet found means to conquer the difficulty about which
I spoke to you before your ordination as Deacon, and I think
also since on one occasion. I do not know how often you fail
in this respect, but I have heard of sufficient cases to make it
clear to me that you require a helping hand to point out the
real importance of improvement. ... As you are a candidate
for Priest's Orders you will understand that it is a solemn duty
for me to warn you in time that I shall require evidence
of a real change in your habits before I can admit you to the
Priesthood. You will, I know, take this letter just as it is
meant by me, that is in all kindness."

Of the Bishop's methods of gaining knowledge of

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 273

the clergy and their parishioners, Canon Inman ^ writes
that the chief points were : —

" (i) That he originated the idea of a Bishop making a
short stay in each of several centres in his diocese, and thence
visiting every parish in turn. The Bishop of Worcester does
this, but Bishop Wordsworth would have been before him,
had not circumstances prevented it. (2) The careful and
original thought he gave to any parochial difficulty, (3) The
remarkable way in which he could find time and energy to
explain to an ordinary priest httle difficulties in Holy Scripture
or Liturgy. (4)' His extraordinary generosity to the clergy.

You will see a letter giving me carte blanche in Mr. -'s

case. I could tell you several more instances of his
unbounded munificence. But they were always, if possible,
secret charities. (5) His powers of observation while on his
travels. (6) How full of fun he was when he felt he might
* let himself go ' safely. Note the pun on my name in one
postcard."

Canon Inman says that the letters he received from
the Bishop show his " extraordinary versatility of mind
and unwearied industry, even when suffering a good
deal." Unfortunately, there is space only for one of
them, in which he plans an exhaustive inspection of the
diocese which was interrupted by Mrs. Wordsworth's
death. He writes with regard to one Rural Deanery ^ : —

" I think the best plan would be to come to you for the
last fortnight in August. Of course, this is not a very good
time for the clergy and the schools, but harvest, I suppose,
will be over then this year. I might have the following pro-
gramme for each day : —

" Quiet morning at Potterne.

" Lunch with some neighbour, clerical or lay, at one.

" Inspect school, church, etc.

" Hold children's catechising at three.

1 Formerly Vicar of Gillingham, Dorset ; afterwards Vicar of
Potterne, Wilts., and Rural Dean.
* 1st July, 1894.

T

274 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

" Tea for village people at five.

" Evening prayer and sermon at 6 or 6.30.

" Home about eight.

" I think I would draw up a printed list mentioning the
subjects of the catechising beforehand, and asking all parents
(of the upper and middle classes as well) to send their children
to it. Perhaps the subjects of the sermons might also be
announced. Could you favour me with some hints, topics,
difficulties ? "

The Bishop then gives the names of twelve parishes
he proposes to visit from Potterne, and continues : —

" I name httle places which do not often see a Bishop.
Could you get your brethren in whose Deaneries they are to
arrange days, etc. ? There is a fortnight's work here."

At the end of his life he was contemplating a remarkable
modification of this plan. In the visitation that would
have been held in 1912, had he lived, he proposed to follow
a precedent set by Burnet, his great predecessor. Preach-
ing in the Cathedral on the 5th February, 191 1, he
suggested this novel procedure : —

" A whole Deanery might be visited in a fortnight. I
should propose at these parochial visits to induce each incum-
bent, even of the smallest parishes, to give an account of his
stewardship, his aims and efforts, in the presence of the Bishop
or Archdeacon and the Rural Dean, and especially his own
parishioners. Such an account, extending for a whole incum-
bency or for some ten years past, would be a valuable historical
document. It would help many an incumbent to think more
clearly of his life in relation to his work, and to judge himself
more fairly. It would reveal to many of our people what
we clergy were aiming at, and why we do this or that or refrain
from something else. It would promote sympathy ; it would
be an opportunity for official encouragement ; it would perhaps
draw out expressions of dissent or criticism. Yet it might
give occasion for explanation and reconciliation, such as
are sometimes needed in this world of fallible men,"^

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 275

When the sermon was published in the Diocesan
Gazette it was read by many of the clergy almost with
consternation, and so many protests and appeals were
addressed to the Bishop that he let it be known that this
stringent investigation should be modified, if not
abandoned.

Like all pastorally minded Bishops, he took a peculiar
interest in his Confirmations. He followed his father's
example in insisting that the rite should accompany
morning or evening prayer, and perhaps the length of
the combined service, and sometimes the subjects of
his address, which was apt to deal with the topics upper-
most in his mind, rendered the occasion a little difiicult
for the young. But usually his words were spirited
and likely to catch the attention. The children must
have listened eagerly enough during the spring tour of
1904, when he wrote to Bishop Wallis : —

" I have generally begun with a motto I saw in the school-
room at Sturminster Marshall. * Our motto this week is
Be Thorough ' — the difference between gilt and gold, veneer
and solid wood, etc. On the ' idle word ' I have emphasised
' give account,' and shown the value of merry talk (cf. Grosse-
teste's tria necessaria ad vitam, cibus somnus et iocus) if
kept within the four lines (like a game of football) of rever-
ence, purity, truth, and kindness."

Among the sermons that he printed were several,
especially those preached on Easter Days in the Cathedral,
that had been addressed to the newly confirmed ; they
were usually dedicated " To my young fellow-workers in
Christ, and especially to those who were confirmed ..."
— the occasions being specified.

In his Easter Day sermon in 1898 he laid stress on
Confirmation as peculiarly characteristic of the English
Church. The notion was not so common then as it is

276 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

to-day ; and certainly Bishop Wordsworth has influenced
thought by drawing attention to this consideration : —

"It is not a mere accident that the bent of the Greek
mind is specially towards making much of Baptism, the bent
of the Roman mind towards the theology and ceremonial
of the Eucharist, but the bent of the English mind is rather
towards dignifying and thinking much of the rite of Confirma-
tion. There can be no doubt that it has grown to be of special
interest and importance to ourselves, in the natural course
of God's providence, dealing with a practical and personally
religious people. Indeed, the feeling in this country dates
back several centuries before the Reformation. England is
perhaps the one country in Christendom where the laying on
of hands has longest existed as the outward sign of Confirma-
tion. What, then, does Confirmation mean to us especially ?
It is being consecrated and ordained to the lay-priesthood,
or rather, to put it still more broadly, to a share in the three
Messianic of&ces of our Saviour, those of Prophet, Priest, and
King."

The following letter deals with a practical difficulty.
A clergyman had excited ill-will in his parish by refusing
to present for Confirmation certain children who would
not promise never to go to the chapel : —

" As to the children refused for Confirmation, I am very
unwilling to interfere between a clergyman and his flock in
such a part of his work. Had you taught the school regularly,
as you ought in my opinion to have done, you would have
probably had no need to make any conditions with your
children. It is, of course, most desirable that Confirmation
should be felt as a definite tie to the Church. But I cannot
think it a good thing to exact special pledges from children on
a matter in which they find their parents so very lax, and
where the guilt of schism varies so enormously under different
conditions. In some cases to attend a chapel is merely a way
of filling up vacant hours which would otherwise probably
be ill spent, and is far from being any token of disloyalty to
the Church. In others it is distinctly schismatic. What are

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 277

the conditions in your case it is difficult for me to determine.
... I shall probably be having a Confirmation in November
somewhere in your neighbourhood. I hope you will kindly
give notice of this, and open the door to those whom you
before refused to become candidates. Teach them their duty
thoroughly, but do not make them take vows other than those
imposed by the Church."

As a last illustration of his teaching on such occasions,
a letter may be given, written to a niece, who was also
his God-daughter, in the time of his sorrow in 1894 : —

" I am sorry that you are not to be confirmed here to-
day, but as it cannot be, the next best thing is that it should
be at Lincoln. Confirmation day is in some respects the
most important day of fife. Baptism would be, I suppose,
if we could remember it, but Confirmation is the completion
of Baptism, and neither can be repeated. You have much to
thank God for, my dear Godchild, and I hope that this will
be the uppermost thought on Saturday and the keynote of
your life. ' Giving thanks always for all things unto God
and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ ' is a
text I often speak about at Confirmations. ' Always,' i.e. in
all tempers and moods, ' for all things,' sorrows and disappoint-
ments as well as joys and pleasures, ' unto the Father ' Who
has made us for Himself, and sometimes treats us with Fatherly
reserve in His Fatherly love, doing with us, and by us, some-
thing greater and more strange than we can conceive in our
ignorance. ' Through our Lord Jesus Christ,' Who was
perfected by suffering, and through Whom we are, after Con-
firmation, specially to offer the sacrifice of praise and thanks-
giving in Holy Communion. If ever we find it hard to give
God thanks, let us say ' through our Lord Jesus Christ.'

" You know how much we are suffering this Holy Week
through your dear aunt's illness. It fits in very beautifully
with the thoughts of our Lord's Passion. She is so brave and
bright and yet so sad to think of leaving us, as we fear it is
God's will that she must do. Some day you will loiow, perhaps,
what the mixture of joy and sorrow is that we feel. Of joy,
because she is able ' through Jesus Christ ' to bear her sufferings

278 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

as the work He gives her to do for Him, and to keep her faith
without wavering. Of sorrow, because we know that no person
can take the place of another, and that when she is gone
we shall feel the want of her presence all the rest of our lives.
" I must not write more as I have to go to the Cathedral
in a few minutes. We shall think of you on Saturday, and
pray that God Who has begun a good work in you may confirm
it even unto the end at the day of the Lord Jesus. Let me
know if there is any book you would like to have."

It is perhaps worth nothing in regard to Confirmation,
that he gave no sanction to the custom of taking a new
Christian name on that occasion ; yet once, in the case
of a girl whom her parents had burdened with the name
of " Tulip," he relaxed his rule.

Of the Bishop's guidance to the clergy in regard to
marriage problems a few examples shall here be given.
He writes to one ^ : —

" I hope I feel very deeply with the parochial clergy ; but
I have to do a duty to all whom this matter concerns, and
especially to try and think clearly. Marriage is only so far
in the hands of the Church as it exists among Christians
under the law of Christ. What then, I ask, is the law of
Christ ? He seems to me clearly to accept thus much of the
law of nature, that a man cannot be expected to cohabit with
a woman who is unfaithful and who brings him illegitimate
children. He must, for the sake of his other children and of
his home, put her away either temporarily or permanently ;
to live in such confusion is impossible. The separation a
mensa et ihoro is not carrying out the object of marriage ; it
is, in fact, alien to it ; it exposes a woman to nearly all the
dangers of a feme sole. It is an ecclesiastical invention based
on a theory of marriage which has (as far as I can see) no
sufficient warrant in Scripture or reason, viz. that it is absolutely
indissoluble ; and the temptation thereby imposed on both
parties is also a very serious element in the case.

" Is it not wiser for the Church to say in such a case, * I

' Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, 12th September, 1896.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 279

will, however unwilling to advise such a course, draw a
real distinction between the parties, and admit one to the
blessing of a second marriage, without any special facility
such as a licence gives — if he claims it as a member of the
Church ' ? "

And to the same ^ : —

" My point is : Our Lord's answer (recorded by St.
Matthew) was given on the basis of the Mosaic law, which
expressly provided that a woman divorced by her husband
might remarry. Her remarriage (though it may not be
sanctioned by the Church) is not a ' perpetual adultery.'
An act of adultery is (perhaps) her first sin ; but it is not
suitable to the ' gentleness of Christ ' to invent new terms of
reprobation to describe a state which she has entered into
with His implied permission. Our Lord knew that women
need home life, bad women as much as good.

" I do not think the possible omission of the clause about
marrying her that is put away a matter of great importance.
The point is that in Matt. xix. 9, as far as I know, all MSB.
read koI yafirja-rj akk-qv. This is really what is questioned now
among us. It lies in a nutshell, so to speak. Such remarriage
is not adultery ; is it so unworthy of a Christian man as to
be visited with a penalty, and possibly with excommunica-
tion ? I only raised the other point because I thought that
you were not quite giving sufficient credit to a man who might
say, ' For my erring wife's own sake I will dissolve the marriage
between us, because things have gone too far for a return
to be possible, and I wish her to have a settled domicile.'

" As to the poor. My own experience is naturally mostly
at second-hand, but it is not altogether small. When they wish
for divorce they desert one another and take care to be ignorant
of each other's whereabouts till three years have elapsed,
which is now, I think, the time fixed by the judges after which
an action for bigamy will not lie. This the poor are generally
well aware of : only they think that it is an actual law instead
of being judge'-made law, as it is in regard to the time. I am
writing simply, of course, from memory."

» 1 8th October, 1896.

28o LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Similarly, to the Bishop of Wellington, New
Zealand ^ : —

" I imagine that those who hold -n-opveia to be ' un chastity
before marriage ' would (though I think our law would not)
allow a man to divorce his wife for this cause. You know,
however, that this view was put out first by DoUinger in an
appendix to his First Age of the Church, to which J. Coning-
ton well replied in the Contemporary Review of May, i86g.
DoUinger is arguing against a view that no one of us, I think,
would hold, viz. that an act of adultery ipso facto dissolves
marriage — a German scholar's view, not an English one.
We should hold that the marriage was only dissolved on appli-
cation of the injured party, through a court of law ; much
in the same way that Moses required a carefully prepared
' writing of divorcement,' and did not permit marriage to
be dissolved in a fit of temper.

" I have practically no doubt that our Lord meant by
TTopveia grave unchastity after marriage, whether habitual or
a single flagrant act, and that He gave a husband the power
to set aside a wife who was guilty of it and to marry another.
ITopveta is the generic term, and includes [loix^ia, as is seen
by the Epistle of Clement to James (which stands at the head
of the Clementine Homilies), § 8.

" Our Lord was speaking to the Jews of his own generation,
and therefore to those who in a bill of divorcement gave power
to the divorced woman to marry another. Buxtorf, Syn.
Judaica, p. 644, and Surenhusius, Mischna, III., pp. 324, 325,
give the form. I quote from the latter. It includes the phrase
* Quae fuisti antehac uxor mea, nunc dimitto, derelinquo,
repudio ut in tua potestate tuique iuris sis deinceps et nubas
cuicumque valuer is viro.' There can be no doubt that the man
intended to use the power of remarriage himself.

" On the other hand, I think it is certain that a man has
rights in this matter which a woman has not in the same
degree. I should hesitate to talk of this in public, but it is
clear to me (i) that to a man is committed the duty of handing
on the family inheritance, whether it be moral or material,
much more than to a woman. It may come to be a duty
1 i2th July. 1898.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 281

to a man to get rid of a woman who would bring him an illegi-
timate offspring, and under such circumstances it may be no
wrong in him to remarry ; (2) A man has much greater diffi-
culty in making a home than a woman. A woman can always
get other women to live with ; not so a man, and women are
necessary to the making of a home ; (3) a man's temptations
are much greater than a woman's. For these three reasons,
I do not think it follows from our Lord's permission that a
woman has the same right, as a matter of Christian con-
science, to put away her husband that an injured man has
to put away his guilty wife. She has it under the English
law.

" Looking to the practical aspect of things, I am in favour
of preventing remarriage in church of either party : (i) because
of the character of the marriage service ; (2) because of the
very frequent instances of collusion — and, where collusion
does not take place, of something wrong in the attitude and
behaviour of the so-called innocent parties. I have therefore,
as far as I can, forbidden the issue of licences to either party,
and if a clergyman comes to me and asks what he is to do as
to marriage by banns I should say, Dissuade the innocent
parties from seeking marriage in church. If they insist and
threaten legal proceedings, you must use your discretion. You
are not bound to go to prison, but short of that you had better
avoid having anything to do with it. This practically is our
advice in Convocation, as you will see. On the other hand,
we hold fast to the Lambeth Conference of 1888, as to not
ordering clergy to refuse communion to ' innocent ' parties
remarried, if they are not otherwise under suspicion.

"As to penitence. If a man or woman commits adultery
and does not marry the associate in guilt but remains for a
time penitent, I think it would be generally agreed that he
or she may be received to communion after a period of, say,
five years. But if the two guilty parties marry they cannot
be admitted to communion as long as they live together,
unless the former husband and wife are dead — and then
only on proof of penitence. I have, alas ! a case of this
kind now, in which I have directed (of course) the refusal
of communion."

282 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Concerning the marriage of the unbaptised he
wrote 1 : —

" It is, I think, clear that if both parties are unbaptised
the clergy cannot be called upon to marry them any more than
they can be called upon to bury them. Further, the P.B.
up to the last revision provided that the parties must receive
Holy Communion. In 1662 this rule was altered into the
present final rubric which presupposes that they are not only
baptised but confirmed. . . . The difficulty begins when one
of the parties is baptised and confirmed, and the other is
not. As a matter of law, the question was apparently raised,
at least to some extent, in the case Reg. versus Moorhouse-
James, quoted in Hammick's Marriage Law, p. 212, in which a
clergyman refused a man because he had not been confirmed,
nor was willing to be confirmed. The judges before whom he
was indicted decided in his favour on a somewhat technical
ground, adding that even if his refusal to marry on the ground
of absence of confirmation was wrong it was only an ecclesi-
astical offence, and ought not, I presume, to have been tried
at the assizes.

" On the whole, I think that a clergyman who refused
to marry, when either party was unbaptised, would be sus-
tained in his refusal, because there is another mode of legal
marriage freely open to such persons. Nor do I think that he
could be forced to lend his church for such a marriage. . , .
I should tell them that their marriage at the Registry was
perfectly lawful, and that I should admit the Church member
to Communion and the other to Baptism and Confirmation,
as soon as he or she desired it, and would then give them both
a blessing in church.

" The matter is, hoM^ever, one for serious consideration,
and I should desire to take counsel with theologians. The
early Church — ^which had no fixed marriage service — did not
consider marriages between Christians and heathens unlawful,
though it held them inexpedient. Our unbaptised persons
are not generally heathens, but Baptists."

In regard to Nonconformists it may here be said that
1 To the Rev. Chr. Wordsworth, 4th November, 1899.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 283

the Bishop had a high sense of the value of organised
religion and of the value of loyal adherence to a definite
society. The date and place shall not be disclosed, but
the following letter was provoked by the action of a
politician, not a Nonconformist, who took conspicuous
part in a Nonconformist service, and explained his action,
after remonstrance from the Bishop, in singularly ill-chosen
terms : —

" As I look with equal tolerance upon all religions which
have the Bible as the foundation of their belief, I regret that
I am unable to share your view of what I have done."

The Bishop replied : —

" It may save some trouble if I make it clear that my
only object in writing was (i) to help you personally at a time
when the line of duty may be somewhat obscured by the excite-
ment of a contest and the pursuit of an immediate end, and
(2) to do what I can, through you, to keep up the standard
of religious life in , of which you are now the represen-
tative. I should say, then, that this is not a question of
' tolerance,' of which I may claim to have a considerable
share, but of the claims of religious profession upon the con-
science and upon the conduct of life. Religion is the service
of God, and, as such, necessarily involves a certain amount
of discipline and of submission to order, not of one's own
making. In order to get the full benefit of religion, and to
grow strong in character, we have to belong to a Church.
The unattached Christian, who is always patching at his
religion, ends generally by having very little. He has no
religious habits to speak of ; he has no companions, between
whom and himself mutual confidence exists ; there is no one
whose advice or reproof he acknowledges as having a claim
upon him. If a man is not a Churchman, let him at any rate
be an attached Presbyterian, Wesleyan, or Congregationahst.
In that way he may reahse something of what our Lord
means by ' the Kingdom of God.' That kingdom, when it
comes, will no doubt be broader and more comprehensive than
any present Christian communion, but it will be at any rate

284 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

a state and place of discipline. The further point, of the
occasion chosen by yourself for this display of ' tolerance,'
is one on which I will say no more than that I hope you will
see on reflection that it has justly given pain to those who,
like myself, have a high personal esteem for you."

Similarly, he advised a lady of fortune who was sub-
sidising an undenominational mission in a market-town
of his diocese to transfer her support to the Wesleyans,
since she was not content to confine her gifts to the Church.
Among the Wesleyans she would find a continuous life
and a corporate conscience that were lacking in undenomi-
national efforts.

In regard to burial, the troubles of the diocese of
Salisbury and their solution were in no wise peculiar to
it. But the Bishop, following his father, used all his
influence against the practice of cremation, and (once, at
any rate) used his knowledge to discourage it. Applica-
tion was made to the Chancellor of the diocese for a
faculty for the fixing of an urn containing the ashes of a
deceased person within a church in view of the congre-
gation. The Chancellor consulted the Bishop, and received
his reply 1 : —

" Christian custom understood the placing of remains
above the floor of the Church as an act of canonisation. It
was, in fact, the method adopted for so doing up to the ninth
century ; see Mazochius, Kalendarium, pp. xxx. f . (Naples,
1744), on the words levare, levatio. We do not honour our
dead generals above other Christians."

The consecration of churches, its history and the
mode of its performance, were topics in which he was
deeply learned, and in which his practice has influenced
general usage. His attention was called to it by the
ceremony which he had to perform on Michaelmas Day,

^ To Chancellor Bourne, 13th November, 1907.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 285

1886, at the consecration of the stately chapel of Marl-
borough College. He drew up the service, and from that
time onwards devoted himself to the perfecting of an order
for the purpose, of which many successive editions have
been published. It has been adopted, with or without
change, in many other dioceses. But his great oppor-
tunity came when, at Archbishop Temple's request, he
consecrated the Collegiate Church of St. George at Jeru-
salem. That ceremony, as has already been narrated,
was on the i8th October, 1898, and shortly after his
return to England the Bishop published a learned discourse
on the general subject. ^ Among the notes for this work
which he jotted down during his journey occurs the
following passage, of which he made only a partial use
in the published text : —

" The further ancient ceremonies both in the East and West
have to do with a temporary ' craze,' we may almost call it ; —
the desire to treat every church as the burial place of a martyr ;
a desire which grew up in the fourth century, when this kind
of hero worship was prevalent in the now dominant Church,
which contrasted its peaceful comfort with the struggles of a
generation not very far distant, and when the intrusion of a
number of half-converts from heathenism made it natural
to fiU the space between God and the soul with a number
of intermediate beings, like the lower gods of polytheism.
Any one looking at the old service must see that this element
has a very unfortunate prominence and leads to a continuance
of superstition, while it is demonstrably a mere accretion.
We have, of course, entirely to break with this materialist
view of the kingdom of God, which attaches virtue to fragments
of bone or dress as if they brought us nearer to holy company.
This is one reason for preferring a wooden and movable holy
table to one made of stone ; — that there may be no idea of a

1 ' ' On the Rite of Consecration of Churches, especially in the Church
of England, together with the Form of Prayer and Order of Ceremonies
in use in the Diocese of Salisbury." London. S.P.C.K., for the Church
Historical Society, 1899.

286 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

burial place in the altar. In place of it we have to bring out,
what is very suitable to the Anglican conception of priesthood,
the many ways in which the Church is to bring human Ufe
nearer to God. It was the thought of this that led many of
our medieval teachers to count consecration of churches not
only as a sacrament, but as one of the greatest of sacraments,
because by it provision was made for the due celebration of all
other sacraments ; and I confess that there seems to me great
truth in this view. If we do not limit the term to sacred and
significant rites actually ordained by Christ Himself, we shall
think very highly of it among the number. For nothing can
be clearer than that He thought highly of the Temple and
its consecration, since at the beginning and the end of His
ministry He cleansed it, and since He made it so constantly
the centre of His teaching."

In connection with the consecration of St. George's,
I find one of the very few notices of an interest in music
in the Bishop's later life. Archdeacon Carpenter, who
was Precentor of Salisbury Cathedral in Bishop Words-
worth's day, tells how the Bishop, when he was preparing
to start for the consecration of St. George's, one day came
to see him at his house in the Close, and walking to the
pianoforte surprised him (who had an impression that the
Bishop did not know a note of music) by saying, " Car-
penter, I am wanting to have a litany for the occasion.
Can you make me something out of this ? " And suiting
the action to the word he struck half a dozen notes. The
Precentor says that they perfectly conveyed the motive,
for which he was able to supply the harmonies. The
litany was played and sung at the dedication of the church,
to the gratification of a musical critic, who, seeing the
Precentor afterwards, asked him where that litany could
be found, and who was its composer. The Archdeacon
adds that though the Bishop's intoning of the litany at
the assembling of Convocation, which he made a point
of undertaking as Precentor in the Provincial College of

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 287

Bishops, was not such as would have been approved by
St. Osmund or other of his musical predecessors in the
see of Sarum/ yet his criticisms and remarks on the
Cathedral service were always just and quite correct.

From 1898 onwards the Bishop came to be more and
more interested in liturgies, and acquired in time a pro-
found knowledge of the technicalities of that department
of antiquarianism, perhaps with a certain loss as well as
gain. In 1899 he published his annotated translation
of Bishop Sarapion's Prayer-book, a collection used by
an Egyptian Bishop of the fourth century which had just
been discovered and printed by a German scholar. In
the same year Mr. Horner published the Coptic rite for
the consecration of churches from a manuscript given to
the Bishop by the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria. This
edition was made at the prompting of Bishop Words-
worth. His studies came to have a practical effect
upon public worship in three respects. The first was in
regard to the Lord's Prayer, where exegetical considera-
tions led him to insist upon the reading, " Thy will be
done, In earth as it is in heaven." He held that the latter
clause qualified its three predecessors, and that it was
an error to connect it only with " Thy will be done."
This interpretation of the prayer is being widely adopted.
Next, his division of the Te Deum into three paragraphs
is coming to receive ofiicial recognition. He was entrusted
with the article on that anthem in Dr. Julian's Dictionary
of Hymnology, which was published at the end of 1891,
and while working for it he discovered the structure of
the poem. He saw in it not only three sections, but a
double Gloria, and he insisted, and illustrated by his
own practice, that both (vv. 5, 6, and 11-13) should be
said or sung, not antiphonally, but by the full choir or

1 But he usually had a minor canon kneeling with him at the desk
to support his voice.

288 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

congregation. This was from 1899 onwards. He had
his difficulties, for musicians, he said, were stubborn,
but in 1900 he was able, in advising the clergy to accept
the new arrangement, to tell them that it was in use at
Early Mattins in the Cathedral. ^ In 1902 the division
into paragraphs was introduced into the new Accession
Service for King Edward VII. and is retained in that for
King George V.

A more laborious task than that in regard to the
Te Deum was the revision of the translation of the
Quicunque vult. The subject came before a Committee
of the Lambeth Conference of 1908, to which the Bishop
addressed a memorandum : —

" I am one of those who not only desire that the Quicunque
vult should be retained in the Prayer-book, but that it should
continue to be recited (with some emendations) in the services
of the Church. As to the days on which it is recited, I am in
favour : (i) of reducing their number ; (2) of changing their
date, so as to avoid the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and
Whitsuntide. I believe that nearly all would agree as to this
amount of relief to conscientious objectors.

" I feel, however, that the best solution of the difficulties
felt in regard to the Quicunque vult is to be found in the braver
course of amending the English version of the monitory clauses
in a manner which I shall presently explain, and I should
desire that this might be done even if the Creed were retained,
as in the Irish Prayer-book, without any rubric directing its
recitation. It would be much more useful, as a document
for instruction of catechumens and others, if the monitory
clauses were paraphrased so as to bring out their fundamental
and abiding meaning, that, namely, in which we ourselves now
accept them, and in which we wish our flocks to accept them.

" If, indeed, the Committee only wished to give relief in
the recitation, and shrunk from suggesting a change which
would require alteration in the text of the Prayer-book by
Act of Parliament, I would remind it that such relief might

^ Diocesan Gazette, May, 1900.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 289

be secured by a very slight alteration in the Act of Uniformity
Amendment Act of 1872, which could, I imagine, easily be
passed through Parhament. All that would be needed is an
extension of leave to use the Shortened Order for Morning
Prayer (in which the Quicunque vult does not occur) to Sundays
and the four holy-days hitherto excepted, and to Cathedrals
as well as to parish churches. ... I do not think there would
be anything undignified in such a course. The introducer
of the Bill might easily explain the purport of it, which would
be received with sympathy in such an assembly as our Parlia-
ment. . . .

" But what I should now prefer is the braver course
of amending the text of the monitory clauses in the way of
paraphrase of the English Version. The proposed emendations
are based on the principle that paraphrase sometimes better
expresses the meaning of a document than a word-for-word
rendering. They are intended : (i) to declare these valuable
warnings in a way that would draw and guide, rather than
seem to force the conscience ; (2) to render the Latin in some
places more exactly ; (3) to keep more closely to the language
of Holy Scripture, especially in verse 41."

The Bishop then gave specimens of emendation, some
of which appear in the revised version that was subse-
quently published, and proceeded : —

'' I am aware that this proposal will be criticised on the
ground that we have no right to touch an ancient document .
To this I would reply : —

" (i) That this document has no such unquestioned
authority as the ' Apostles' ' or ' Nicene ' Creed.

" (2) That I do not propose to touch its substance, but to
restate the meaning of its outer setting in a way which would
certainly conduce to the acceptance of both setting and sub-
stance in many quarters where they are now suspected, and
that without diminishing the value of either.

" (3) That our Communion has power to do this if it made
clear by a note that the verses in question are a paraphrase,
not a verbatim rendering.

" (4) That a somewhat similar change was made when a

u

290 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Creed was introduced into the Liturgy. The Creed chosen
was either an amended form of the Nicene Creed or a local
Creed amended by use of the Nicene Creed — ^it is not quite
certain which. But it is certain that the anathemas of the
Nicene Creed were not considered a necessary part of the
Liturgical Creed.

" (5) That a remarkable change has been made in the text
of the Te Deum. It seems to me fairly certain that the original
of verse 16 was that preserved in all the Irish MS. texts, now
a considerable number : ' Tu ad liberandum mundum sus-
cepisti hominem : non horruisti virginis uterum.' This was
changed, apparently to avoid the suspicion of Nestorianism,
into ' Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem,' etc. — ^which
we render, though it is contrary to Latin idiom, ' When thou
tookest upon thee to deliver man,' etc.

" For these and other reasons I trust that the Committee
will give favourable consideration to these proposals."

The Committee reported to the Conference, which in
its 29th resolution requested the Archbishop of Canterbury
to appoint a Committee " to make a new translation of
the Quicunque vult based upon the best Latin text."
The Archbishop appointed six scholars, with the Bishop
of Salisbury as their chairman,^ to perform the task.
It was, perhaps, discouraging to be told by the Bishop,
on a higher authority than his own, that the chief result
of the work would be to dispel the illusion, discreditable
to the learning of the English clergy, that a fresh trans-
lation could render the Creed more acceptable to its
critics. But the task was accomplished with scrupulous
care for accuracy, textual, philological, theological,
and literary ; it was a privilege to be present at
discussions conducted on so high a level of scholarship.

1 H. B. Swete, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge ;
A. J. Mason, D.D., Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge ; A. F.
Kirkpatrick, D.D., Dean of Ely ; W. Lock, D.D., Warden of Keble
College, and Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis, Oxford ; C. H.
Turner, M.A., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford ; E. W. Watson.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 291

The new translation — it was a translation, and not, as
the Bishop had proposed, a paraphrase — was published
by the S.P.C.K. in the course of i88g, and if it has received
no official sanction, it has at least put to silence the
thoughtless clamour to which, in some measure, it owed
its origin.

The Bishop's general view of Prayer-book revision
at the end of his life was given to a friend ^ : —

" I don't think you need be worried about revision. I
think whatever changes are made will be for the better, but
they will, I think, certainly be few. I don't suppose we shall
get much further with the Ornaments Rubric. It may be
that some compromise will be arrived at, tolerating existing
varieties, and requiring certain conditions and circumstances
for further changes. But I do not see how that can be ex-
pressed in a rubric. Some general resolution of the Convoca-
tions which would guide Bishops in administering the practice
of the Church might suffice, if it were fairly unanimous."

In regard to public worship, the Bishop never gave
clearer expression to his views than in his New Year's
Letter to the diocese for 1899, written just after the subject
had become in his eyes a pressing one. He is speaking
of the importance of simplicity, with reference to such
giving as he deemed " a form of religious selfishness "—

" giving to what suits our own convenience or promotes our
own ends, and especially indulging our taste or our pride —
local or artistic— and neglecting more pressing needs. We are
all familiar with the arguments drawn from the magnificence
of the Temple and the splendid waste of the ointment of spike-
nard. But each was expended on a unique centre — on the
Temple which was a type of the one Lord and on the Lord
Himself. Each diocese may claim to have a magnificent
Cathedral, and no one would grudge expense on the ancient
shrines of Sherborne, Wimborne, Milton Abbey, Edingdon,

1 The Rev. G. F. Hooper, 2nd April, 191 1.

292 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

and Malmesbury. But I do not see why every parish church
should be magnificent. The synagogues in which our Lord
preached so much were, I suppose, humble buildings. If
we wish to spend lavishly on Him we must spend it in the
education of children, the care for the sick, poor, and aged,
in improving our workhouse chapels, our hospitals, and our
prisons, and in a wise generosity to foreign missions and mis-
sionaries. Our Lord gives us a special Beatitude for these
latter days : ' Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have
believed.' But He has told us also how to see Him even in
absence. We do not perceive His presence or see His face
so clearly in organs, painted windows, bells, reredoses, etc., etc.,
as in the children whom we train to be good and strong or
save from misery and vice, the poor, the sick, the unhappy,
the ignorant, the heathen from darkness to light — whose very
faces may become like those of angels instead of blank and
hopeless."

Similarly, a little earlier, in a published letter to the
laity 1 :—

"It is the duty of Englishmen to respect the best cha-
racteristics of Englishmen, such as unpretentious simplicity,
self-reliance coupled with respect for order, and reserve in
expressing emotion. It is no small fault either in clergy or
laity to irritate such feelings by artificiality, exaggeration,
or affectation, by sudden or obtrusive gestures and postures, by
seeming in any way to despise or make light of the Prayer-book.
Respect one another and respect the Prayer-book, both in
what it teaches directly and in its reserved and sober spirit."

And again ^ :—

" The principle of continuity, of keeping to what we have
received from our forefathers, and so going on from strength
to strength, is of essential value in Christian worship ; and
nothing of mere beauty, or dramatic effectiveness, or impres-
siveness of symbolic teaching, will make up for the breach of

1 4th July, 1898.

* Sermon in the Cathedral, Easter Day, 1898.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 293

unity in a congregation caused by the intrusion of personal
or popular taste and sentiment into the region of devotion."

The decision of the two Archbishops in 1899 on
Incense and Processional Lights led the Bishop to issue
a letter to clergy and laity in which he pleaded for diocesan
unity and said that he expected universal obedience.
Two of the clergy affected had loyally accepted the
decision —

" perhaps there may be two or three others to whom it
definitely applies. But if there are more, let them not hesitate,
but remember the adage, Bis dot qui cito dot. Acceptance
of an unwelcome position gains greatly in force by being
prompt."

The result was less than he had hoped, but as the
weary controversy went on the loyalty of the diocese
became ever heartier, and at the Synod in the spring of
1903 an impressive vote of confidence in the Bishop's
treatment of ritual troubles was passed. Meanwhile,
the horizon was darkened by the storm which led to the
appointment of the Ecclesiastical Discipline Commission
of 1904, in the proceedings of which exaggerated accounts
were given of services in the Salisbury diocese and false
assertions made that the Bishop's sanction was extended
to them. He was concerned only for the good fame of
his diocese ; for attacks on himself he had no need to
care. He was emphatic in his defence of the loyalty of
the clergy and vigorous in his effort to remove causes
of offence. In a public letter to the clergy and church-
wardens of the 28th November in that year he went
over the ground, giving not only directions but reasons ;
and in 1904 he also published a pamphlet in which he
argued learnedly against the title " Queen of Heaven "
for the Blessed Virgin, showing inter alia that it is false

294 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

heraldry and contrary to medieval precedent for her
to be depicted with a crown in the arms of his see.

After long consideration he issued directions to the
clergy on the conduct of public worship at the beginning
of 1905, and at the same time asked them for an assurance
that they would obey him : —

" With regard to the subject as a whole, I should wish
you to understand my reasons for issuing these directions and
for asking for this assurance. I desire to show in the first
place that the clergy of this diocese, some of whom have been
rather roughly attacked, are a loyal and united body, and
worthy of public confidence. If this confidence is not earned
by voluntary submission to episcopal authority in this and
other dioceses, two things will almost certainly follow :
(i) A violent agitation will be stirred up in Parliament, wasting
an immense amount of time and temper and strength, and
ending, it may be, in violent legislation ; (2) The position of
the clergy as teachers of the young, especially in the day schools,
will be most injuriously affected. It is notorious that the
introduction of the Kenyon-Slaney clause into the Education
Act of 1902 was due to the conduct of a few clergy who had
misused their opportunities as teachers ; and there are evident
signs of the likelihood of an agitation, similar to that which
you will then remember, being revived on account of two of
the points touched in my directions, viz. undue pressure put
upon children to ' attend ' the communion service as non-
communicants, and the distribution among them, in church
or in school or elsewhere, of manuals of a particular type and
colour. I plead with those who may have adopted practices
of this sort, I doubt not in good faith, but without the experi-
ence which we now have, to change their methods for the sake
of the general good of Christ's Church and people in this land.

" My second reason for issuing these directions is the wish
to make the services, in our different parishes, so homogeneous
and harmonious as to render it easy for worshippers to pass
from one church to another without discomfort and without
excuse for absenting themselves from the house of God.
To hear it said : ' I went into such and such a church and I

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 295

hardly knew where I was or what was going on ' is a very
painful experience. Yet it is, I am sorry to say, not an
unknown one.

" My third reason is the wish to establish such a simple,
beautiful, reverent, English type of worship as may conciliate
general love to the Church, and by the force of good example
draw into line those who are negligent or slovenly in ritual,
and may tend to take away the excuse that is now made by
some of them : ' I do not wish to be Hke so-and-so. He is
clearly going too fast and too far, and I should be sorry to
be in any way identified with him.' I wish, therefore, by no
means to justify bareness or coldness or carelessness, but that
all things should be done ' decently and in order ' by all our
clergy.

" Will you, then, dear Brother in Christ, aid me in this
effort ? Surely it is worthy of a Christian Bishop and of
Christian Priests, I know that to do so may involve you in
some sacrifice, perhaps in regard to practices to which you
attach importance. I know, too, that it may require you to
teach a certain amount of self-denial to some of your people.
But what is good for you is good also for them ; and your
teaching will, I trust, have already prepared them to defer,
on proper occasions, to a living authority superior to your
own."

As to his own practice, the Bishop was deeply impressed
with the duty of his order to preserve the equilibrium
of the Church, and to set the example of a worship that
should be generally acceptable. For a Bishop to be a
partisan in practice was in his eyes equivalent to his being
an adherent of one of those private Church Societies
which he so heartily distrusted. Some notes which the
Bishop made in 1891 concerning his own usages may,
perhaps, be of more interest in the future than they are
to-day. They may be prefaced by words of his own,
which show his temper in regard to these matters : —

" I find that A. has introduced vestments into B. chapel
without my knowledge, which rather vexes me. I so hate to

296 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

have divisions between one church and another, and the love
of vestments makes people often discontented when they
can't have them. Personally, I don't care one way or the other
whether people use them, but I do care for unity."

His description of his own practice is : —

" As I have drifted into the subject of ritual, I may as
well say that my own practice has been as far as possible
everywhere uniform. My father had been accustomed for a
number of years always to wear the cope in 'celebrating at
the Cathedral (though never, as far as I remember, elsewhere).
I should naturally have followed his example, and for this
purpose recovered the white cope, of easy folding stuff, which
he much preferred for convenience to the stiff red velvet one
with its more elaborate ornaments. I recovered it, I say,
from Bishop King, of Lincoln, to whom I had given it when
he was made Bishop. A Mrs. Walrond also gave me a beauti-
ful white satin or brocaded silk one on the occasion of my
first confirmation at Parkstone in 1885. But I have never
worn either pubHcly, finding from Archdeacon Sanctuary
that it would create a sort of schism in the Chapter, and this I
found would be the case when I put the matter, as one of
obedience to a definite rule of the Canons of 1603, to the Dean
and Chapter at the Cathedral visitation in 1888. I asked them
to join me, and found that some at least would not do so, and
so I thought it better to drop it. In 1893 I began to wear
a white poplin chimere given me by Mrs. Stilwell, which reached
me at Bromham and was first worn at the confirmation there.
On the other hand, I have generally taken the light pastoral
staff, my father's ebony and silver gilt one given him by the
Rev. Fred. Sutton, of Brent Broughton, with ivory figures
in its head of our Lord giving the charge to St. Peter, ^ to
all public gatherings outside the Cathedral, especially to
Confirmations and Consecrations of churches and churchyards,
church openings, and the like. In the Cathedral I of course
use a pastoral staff at Ordinations and on days when there is
a processional hymn, using in this case the large silver rococo
one given by Mr. Hubbard to the Bishops from the treasures

1 This staff was buried with the Bishop.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 297

collected by William Sewell at Radley.i It is, I believe, of
Flemish or Spanish workmanship. The oak and brass staff
by my seat in chapel here is an ornament from the chapel at
Riseholme, which always stood by my father's seat there after
he did up the room. The only person who has asked me not
to take the pastoral staff is Mr. X. of Y. These things are
trifles, but such as interest us when we come across them in
the history of the past. I have always worn a silver cross,
generally one given me by the four Johnsons 2 (Ebbie, Amy,
Carry, and Janet), with the two mottoes of my father and
Bishop Smyth, founder of B.N.C.^ On Saints Days in the
Cathedral I generally wear the scarlet Convocation robes, and
also in the octaves of the great festivals and on the choral
festivals, on Synod days, Chapter Meetings, etc.

" I have always taken the ' Eastward position ' since I
became Canon of Rochester in 1883, standing at the north
part of the west side at the beginning of the office and at the
centre for the Creed and onwards. I have only once heard
this objected to, and that not directly to myself. ... Up
till the Archbishop's judgment, 21st November, 1890, I
accepted the mixed chalice, just as it was (or was not) brought
to me, or rather I should say up till the beginning of the case
of Read versus the Bishop of Lincoln in his court, which was
a good deal earlier. During the trial I took care not to
prejudice the matter by my own action, and since the judg-
ment I have directed the cup to be mixed beforehand. But
I do not see my way yet to forbid what is a reasonable
method of unceremonial mixture, much more convenient
than previous mixture, viz, the putting water in the cup
beforehand.

" I have not had much occasion to discuss the question of
Lights, but I remember giving directions to Mr. B. to use them
only at the early celebration at A. and that in the darker
months of the year ; from Michaelmas, it may have been, till

1 On the 27th October, 1909, Canon Charles Myers presented
another, and a very beautiful, staff to be used by the Bishops of Salisbury
within the Cathedral.

2 Daughters of Manuel Johnson, the Radcliffe observer and friend
of Newman.

' Veritas in caritate and Delectare in Domino.

298 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Easter. This was, of course, long before the Archbishop's
judgment in Read v. the Bishop of Lincoln.

" 29th July, 1893. Since this was written the Archbishop's
judgment has been confirmed in all points, absolutely in four
out of five ; but as regards the Lights on a ground differing
somewhat from that which he laid down. My own opinion
on these points will be found in the Preface to the second
edition of my Holy Communion, Four Visitation Addresses,
1892."

In that work, which reached its third edition in 1910,
will be found the best exposition of the Bishop's views
on the Eucharist. But a little may be added : " The
value of the Sacraments to those who use them depends
on the reality of the prayers. Sacraments are prayers
with illustrations." So he said in a sermon. ^ And
writing to a friend ^ :—

" The more I read about the Eucharistic controversy the
less I wish to discuss it, except to bid people keep silence.
It seems to me that the terms ' virtue and efficacy,' ' effect
and power,' mean very much what transubstantiation, rightly
interpreted and freed from its scholastic dress, was intended
to mean, viz. that the identity of the Body and Blood of Christ
with the elements was mysterious and spiritual. But most
people take these words by the wrong handle, i.e. the one which
turns them into a whip or goad for an adversary. Of course
the practical identification for the purposes of extra-sacra-
mental adoration is what prudent people are afraid of.

" There is also a failure to recollect the doubleness of the
mystery— that it consists of the Blood of Christ as well as the
Body. This Bishop Westcott has brought out lately in con-
versation. Our Lord would not, I think, have divided the
mystery if He had intended the ' Body ' alone to represent
His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity as Romanists say. The
division into Body and Blood implies a certain restriction of

1 Diocesan Gazette, 1903, p. 75.

2 The Rev. G. F. Hooper, 22nd August, 1900.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 299

the identification of either part with Himself. That is to say,
we must consider each part as having a special meaning, as,
e.g., I have tried to do in the Sarum Guild Manual.

" My motto is, in the words of Bishop Beveridge, ' How
can I see my Saviour Christ coming to me and offering me His
Body and His Blood, and not fall ^own and worship Him ? '
Christ in the Sacrament is greater than either part of the Sacra-
ment, and is the true object of worship, just as the Priest is
greater than the victim, the Master of the House than the feast
He makes."

And again ^ : —

" Forbes and Cheyne taught that ' supreme adoration was
to be paid to Christ's presence in the gifts ' ; if not, you were
a Nestorian or a rationalist or something very bad ; and that
the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is identical with the Sacrifice
of the Cross. My solution is that : (i) Eucharistic adoration
is mainly and properly due to the Father through the Son ; and
{2) that to give supreme adoration in such a service to one
Person of the Trinity, at a special moment, is distracting to
proportion of faith, and in any case it is to Christ as Priest
rather than as Victim that we ought to look ; to Him as
Giver more than to the gifts. (3) As to the Sacrifice it is a
repetition of that of the Upper Room, not of that of the
Cross."

It was inevitable that the Bishop should be involved
in controversy on Eucharistic subjects with some of the
clergy. Concerning one such debate he writes 2 : —

" I have had a good deal of correspondence with X. on
Eucharistic doctrine. My last position to him was as foUows :
Is it not sounder to interpret together our Lord's two great
sayings, ' Where two or three . . . there am I in the midst
of them,' and ' Take, eat, this is My body which is for you,'
rather than so to press the second as to make the pr-esence of
which it speaks practically imply a previous absence of our

1 To Bishop V^allis, of Wellington, N.Z., 15th July, 1896.

2 To his brother, 3rd October, 1898.

300 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Lord, even though the condition laid down in the first saying
has been for a long time abundantly fulfilled ? And again,
if you come to the comparison of the two, ' There am I ' is
a stronger promise as to the presence of our Lord's ' soul and
divinity ' than ' This is My body.'

" I cannot see how any reasonable man can allow such
language to be taught to children or adults in Eucharistic
manuals as ' Jesus is coming ' just before the consecration,
and then ' Jesus is come ' at or after it, in cases where neither
Body nor Blood is sacramentally to be used by them, but
only adored ab extra. Why should our Lord say ' which is
for you ' or speak of the ' covenant,' if the Sacrament was to
be treated as a mode of His presence in itself, outside its use ?
Christ comes, indeed, in a special sense to communicants, but
not, I think, to onlookers any more than to others in public
worship.

" I am very much afraid that with his undoubted power X.
is likely to be a dangerous influence (unless restrained by
having such considerations as these brought home to him)
on eome minds. Clearness and precision are very attractive,
but in mysteries of this kind certainly lead to false, because
incomplete, conclusions. I know he feels something of the
truth of. what I say, but I do not think he has grasped it
thoroughly, or is willing to sacrifice the convenience of Roman
formulae for the purpose of teaching. I hope I am mistaken."

An example or two of his treatment of points in con-
nection with the Eucharist may be given. The first shall
be in regard to what he called the " pious and reverent
custom " of fasting communion, which was being treated
as obligatory by some of the clergy. A certain grim
humour appears in his treatment.^

" The only passage in the Bible that seems to bear upon
it is Leviticus x. i-ii, where the priests are taught, by the
terrible fate of Nadab and Abihu, not to drink wine or strong
drink before their public ministry. This was, it may be
alleged, a good reason against communion after breakfast,

^ Diocesan Gazette, 1898, p. 184.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 301

when breakfast included wine or strong drink, as it did in the
first ages of Christianity and up to the seventeenth century.
But, now that our breakfasts are what they are, this text,
at any rate, does not apply to communions in the morning
hours, except as a general caution to reverence."

In regard to reservation of the Holy Communion, a
practice which he would sanction only within narrow
limits, the Bishop met with persistent opposition from
certain of the clergy. He stated his belief and policy
to Bishop Wallis ^ : —

" There are certain clergy . . . who give me a good deal
of anxiety. They have got their people to value a ' mass '
at II o'clock and have made it a popular service, at which few
or none communicate, and when I tell them they ought to
have it at g, they say they can't get the people then. I believe
they could. I shall not desist from insisting on the rule about
three communicants. I am afraid my predecessor did.

" As to reservation, I think there is a considerable practical
difference between taking the sacrament straight to absent
members of the congregation who have been following the
service in their rooms, and local reservation. There are three
dangers in the latter : (i) profaneness or superstition ;
(2) raising bitter controversy ; (3) deprivation of the sick
of their certain right to a celebration (if they have two fellow-
communicants). If my men are obstinate I shall issue a
formal order to them which will be entered in the registry of
the diocese, and a copy sent to the churchwardens."

A little earlier he had written to one of the clergy
in question as follows : —

" I regret to receive your letter, which is practically a
request that I will permit you to do what you know is, in my
opinion, contrary to the law of the Church of England. I am
bound to make this law respected in every parish of the diocese,
and I cannot divest myself of this responsibility in the sight

^ i6th May, 1901.

302 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

of God by any tenderness to individuals. You hold, I under-
stand, a different opinion from myself in this matter, but that
again does not relieve me from the responsibility.

" I have therefore to ask you once again as a Priest of the
diocese who has taken the oath of canonical obedience to myself,
to obey what I hold to be a ' legal and honest command,' viz.
to desist from the practice of reservation of the Blessed Sacra-
ment in the church of or elsewhere, and to promise me

that you will not renew the practice so long as you minister
in this diocese.

" I much regret to have to put my direction in this formal
way, but no other course is open to me."

A minor point on which he laid frequent stress was
the inappropriateness of the service of boys at the altar.
One example, out of many, of his treatment of this subject
is given here : —

" In regard to the practice pf employing boy-servers, I
think it is dangerous as being the use of the wrong instruments
for a great work. The servants of the sanctuary should be
men, not younger usually than eighteen years of age, who have
some sense of the responsibilities of life, and who can be
naturally regarded by the congregation as their representatives,
as far as the work they do may be fitly done by those not in
Holy Orders. What those duties should be has never been
defined in the Church of England, and it is desirable that they
should be made clearer. In the mean time, such duties as
belong to the churchwardens and sidesmen, either by law or
custom, which on any occasion they cannot discharge in person,
should be done by persons of sufficiently mature age to be
fairly considered their deputies. When these duties are done
by children the sacred mysteries are apt to be despised, espe-
cially if there are no men at all in the congregation, and the
difficulty of bringing men to Holy Communion is increased.
This is one of the ' moral reasons ' which constitute to my mind
the danger of the practice.

" Then there is the danger to the clergy themselves of
relying on such instruments as come easily to their hand, and
being satisfied with an insufficient hold upon men. Sometimes

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 303

this is accompanied by an indiscreet favouritism which creates
jealousy in other boys and injures the influence of the clergy
concerned.

" But the chief danger is to the boys themselves, that of
over-familiarity with holy things and premature advancement
to spiritual privileges. This may result, as you know, in an
overweening confidence in the Tightness of certain details of
ceremonial and the wrongness of others, and an undervaluing
of the unseen meaning of the Sacrament consequent on an
overvaluing of its outward expression. It may also lead to
contempt and scepticism, and to a feeling of having used up
all the treasures of the Church."

His reasons were given in one instance to the Arch-
deacon of Dorset ^ : —

" As regards the age of ' servers,' if they do the duty of
Acolytes it should not be less than that of Acolytes. This
has varied, and I shall mention the variations, and probably
fix on 17-18 years as with us the accessus adolescentiae.
Some put it as low as 14, others as high as 20. National
feehng and custom and racial pecuharities make it variable,
but a young fellow may plausibly be said to be fit to represent
the Church when he is about 18 years of age.

" I have some other things to say on other points, but this
is the one that has caused most excitement. It is curious how
habitually careless people are — I cannot help thinking almost
intentionally (as otherwise they would not be able to exercise
their gifts of indignation) — in reading formal documents.
They approach a letter written by a Bishop with the hope of
finding in it something to make them angry, and snatch at
the first chance. It is an unfortunate temper caused, I greatly
beheve, by the loose writing of certain * Church ' newspapers."

On another practice of people of the same school of
thought, the use of incense, he addressed a long letter
to a clergyman of the Province of York, who certainly
had no claim upon him. It was characteristic of the

1 20th December,''i904.

304 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Bishop that he would, with the utmost care and patience,
meet the questions or difficulties of those who wrote
to him for their own instruction. He covered many
pages, for instance, with replies to the Baptist Pastor
in an obscure village, to whom he cited Justin Martyr,
Irenaeus, Origen, and the Pilgrim's Progress. A personal
appeal always met a courteous response ; but he was
infallible in detecting the attempts of those who attempted
to inveigle him into a public correspondence for the
advertisement of their cause or themselves. The gentle-
man who wrote to Bishop Wordsworth about incense
did so in protest against a published statement of the
Bishop's that —

" the obligation of custom is, strictly speaking, of much less
stringency than that of doctrine, and National Churches have
the right to their customs where they do not interfere with the
Catholic faith or the fundamental institutions of the Church."

To this the correspondent retorted that he considered
himself bound to use incense as a Catholic custom, in
spite of his Diocesan's objection. He gave his reasons
and asked the Bishop to discuss the case. The reply
was : —

" Before I touch your special reasons, I would point out
that no individual incumbent can be obliged in conscience
to use incense, however much he may consider it to be a
laudable custom, because in a great part of the Western Church
to this day there is no such use in far the largest number of
Eucharistic celebrations. See on this point Dr. Krieg's
article, Weihrauch, p. 971, in Kraus' Real-encyclopddie der
Christl. Alterthiimer, 1886. The Latin Church has shown
itself singularly indifferent in the matter. There is nothing,
e.g., in the Council of Trent to assert the necessity of the use,
although incidentally ' thymiamata ' are mentioned as exterior
helps to worship instituted by the Church. The anathema
appended only touches those who coarsely malign such

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 305

ceremonies. (Sess. xxii., de sacrificio missae, cap. v. and
canon vii.) As regards pre-Reformation use in this country,
the figures given by Mr. St. John Hope in the Case for Incense,
1899, show that in 1552 censers are noted as existing in 27 per
cent, only of the churches of twelve counties. A clergyman,
therefore, who, from whatever cause, does not use incense is
only doing what presumably three-fourths of his predecessors
were doing before the middle of the sixteenth century. He
may hold, as much as he pleases, that it is a laudable custom,
but he is not in conscience bound to adopt it.

"As regards the Greek Church, there is, I believe, an
universal custom ; but no dogmatic teaching in the Councils,
except in reference to a use of incense, which I trust you would
yourself not feel bound to. This is to be found in the Acts
of the Seventh General Council, a.d. 787 (Labbe, Concilia,
vii., p. 555)> which describes the reverence due to images as
(partly) consisting of burning incense and lights before them
after the same manner as they are burnt before the Cross and
the Gospels.

" The positive arguments that you use are intended, I
presume, simply to prove that the use of incense is a laudable
custom permissible to yourself in the exercise of your liberty
as a Priest in the Church of England. . . . These arguments
appear to be three : (i) drawn from a parenthesis in the
Preface to the Prayer-book of 1662 ; (2) one from the Orna-
ments Rubric ; (3) one from its value as a help towards
unity.

" As regards (i) I would point out that the parenthesis
in question, ' as secretly striking at some established doctrine
or laudable practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the
whole Catholic Church of Christ,' is a historical reference
to what happened at the Savoy Conference in 1661. The
reference is to the Puritan objections to the Prayer-book,
and especially, I presume, to the ' exceptions ' against the
Book of Common Prayer printed by Cardwell, Conferences,
pp. 303-335. The ' laudable practices ' would be such obser-
vances as those of Lent and Saints' Days, which are discussed
in the ' exceptions,' p. 306, and in the Bishops' Answer, pp.
339-341. There is nothing whatever to show that the framers
of the Prayer-book of 1662 felt themselves bound to uphold

X

3o6 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

any practices which were not those of the Church of England,
as practices which men were bound to follow. Their language,
at the most, impHes that they would have resented harsh
censure of them. Most Churchmen would feel aggrieved if
any modern Puritan denounced the foreign use of incense as
impious ; but few could think it necessary unless it were
prescribed by the Church of which they were more particularly
members,

" (2) As regards the Ornaments Rubric, I have myself
no doubt that as the words are drawn from an Act of Parha-
ment (2 Eliz. c. 2, sec. 13) where the words are, as you know,
' retained and be in use,' not ' used,' as in some inexact reprints,
they are to be interpreted as they would be in an Act of Parlia-
ment. The reference is clearly to the First Prayer-book of
Edward VI., which alone provides a standard by which an
offender could reasonably submit to be judged. The supposed
reference to a transitory state of the law, covered by the Com -
munion Order of 1548, which must even in 1558-9 have been
laboriously recovered by experts, and much more so in 1662,
is to me inconceivable. I pass over the well-known arguments
about the method of citation of Acts of Parliament by the
year when the bill was introduced, and other like considerations
which to me are perfectly satisfactory. If you reply that they
are not satisfactory to antiquaries and experts, I can only say
that not they but lawyers are the proper interpreters of what
the words of an Act of Parliament mean. But supposing the
antiquaries to be right, they could only prove that incense
might be used, not that it must be used. My object in this
letter is not to prove that you are breaking the law, but that
you are not bound to disobey your Bishop.

" (3) The value of the use as a help to unity with foreign
churches under present conditions is highly problematical ;
its value for promoting unity at home is clearly nil. It is
destructive of unity. Intelligent members of the Greek Church
have spoken strongly to me of the disobedience of certain of
our clergy as lowering the Church of England in their eyes,
even though they are promoting a custom which might be a
link of outward approach to Greek usage.

" I will not repeat what I have already said as to the
value of a variety of custom when the faith remains one.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 307

You, I gather, do not agree on this point with St. Irenaeus
and St. Gregory the Great.

" I have written this letter rather hurriedly, but I would
beg you to consider it not as controversial, but as a brotherly
attempt to help to reconcile an earnest fellow-worker to the
system of the Church of which he is a minister. ' Blessed are
the peace-makers,' but their task is hard."

The practice of Invocation of Saints and Angels was
one which the Bishop discouraged to the utmost. His
efforts against it began in 1898, but he did not enter
upon the literary controversy till 1907, when he con-
tributed an introduction to the learned Doctrina
Romanensium 1 of the Rev. H. F. Stewart, which had
been written at his instigation. In the next year he pub-
lished his own Invocation of Saints and the Twenty-second
Article.^ A certain amount of criticism was directed
against his work by advocates of the medieval practice,
but he was quite unconvinced. When the author of
a would-be refutation of his paper sent him, in 1908,
the proof-sheets of his reply, the Bishop answered
thus : —

" I do not think you would be the gainer argumentatively
by publishing this tract, and I deprecate your doing so for
your own sake. My experience is larger than yours, and I
know better than you do the suffering you might have to bear
if you put yourself forward before all the world as an obstinate
opponent of your Bishop's authority in such a matter. My
care for your reputation and happiness and consequent useful-
ness to the Church is a very real one. As regards the results
of the doctrine and practice of Invocation, I judge by the
broad facts which are matter of common observation and
historical experience. You judge by a somewhat narrow

^ Doctrina Romanensium, being a brief inquiry into the principles
that underlie the practice of the Invocation of Saints. London,
S.P.C.K., 1907.

2 S.P.C.K., 1908; second edition, with a new preface, 1910.

3o8 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

circle of cases where the doctrine and practice have been
guardedly admitted in the view of the criticism to which they
have been exposed. You even suggest that those ' who
denounce Invocation ' are guilty of heresy. I cannot permit
this liberty to you, and I believe that this teaching is erroneous
and that it is disloyal to your Mother Church of England for
you to give it. I am bound to check you in fulfilment of
my own vows. I must ask you in all brotherly charity to
believe that I have conscientious convictions as well as
yourself and that I am in no degree actuated by personal
prejudice."

He admits, in another letter to the same, that —

" such teaching is given both in the Greek and Latin Churches,
but I hold that, in both these communions, experience shows
that the result is injurious. The instinct of prayer and devo-
tion is largely diverted from the Creator to the creature, and
the glory of Christ, the one Mediator, is obscured by the dis-
tinction that is drawn between mediators of intercession and
the Mediator of redemption. I recollect, of course, what is
said by yourself and others in reply ; but (as you know)
I do not accept these replies and distinctions as of practical
value, particularly in the case of unlettered persons."

To the same : —

"I think ' Comprecation ' undesirable on two grounds:
(i) it has been excluded by our Church from the liturgy and
collects ; (2) it is, historically and naturally, the first step
towards direct Invocation. At the same time I have always
said that Article XXII. is aimed at direct Invocation, and I
am aware that the objections to direct Invocation do not all
apply to Comprecation."

To the same : —

" You heard what I said in Synod in regard to any one of
our clergy whom I know to be teaching the practice of Invo-
cation, viz. that I shall let the parishioners know my dis-
approval of such teaching. Before taking the necessary
steps in your case I think it right to give you an opportrmity

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 309

of voluntarily submitting to my direction to cease from such
teaching."

A little later the Bishop has somewhat modified his
plan. He writes to another correspondent : —

" I should have to write two letters, one to the church-
wardens and one to the school managers, since the priest in
question teaches it both from the pulpit (as I understand)
and in school. I am not contemplating a prosecution."

He had, in fact, defined the doctrine to the clergyman
implicated as "plainly erroneous and unwise, though not
heretical."

It was unhappily unavoidable that time should be
spent on such controversies. The clergy opposed to the
Bishop were very few in number, their parishes were
unimportant, and it would be flattery to say that, apart
from their occupation of parishes, they were important
themselves. But they were persistent ; they refused to
reason with him as divines with divine, or as priests with
their Diocesan. In obedience to some occult authority
they were disobedient to him. Two days before his
death, on the 14th August, 1911, he wrote a long letter,
which would occupy some three pages of this book,
going patiently over the familiar arguments on behalf of
reason and loyalty, to a clergyman who had long taxed
his endurance.^ It is pitiful that such patience and such
knowledge should have been expended on topics and
occasions so inadequate.

But he felt it to be his duty, however small the prospect

1 The subjects were : " Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament
over the altar with a light burning before it ; the use of processional
lights ; the cultus of a sacred picture or pictures by placing lights and
flowers before them, and, in the case of one of your staff, doing reverence
to them, — I am glad to hear that you have forbidden this action on
his part, and I therefore need give no further directions about this detail ;
the censing of persons and things in Holy Communion."

310 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

of success, to continue his protests. When his struggle
had already lasted for some years, he wrote to the Arch-
deacon of Dorset ^ : —

" It seems to me that it is only by action of this kind that
one can obtain the right to interfere (as I may probably have
to do in Parliament or elsewhere) to defend the liberty of the
Church to regulate its own affairs. If Bishops do nothing
to check manifest irregularities — and in my opinion all intru-
sions of ceremonies, however highly authorised elsewhere, into
the Prayer-book service are irregular — Parliament may well
say, ' You are unfit for your office ; we wiU lay down how
you must act.' . . . The difficulty of united action among the
Bishops is a real one. I fear that any pronouncements made
by a Bishops' Meeting at Lambeth would be at once fiercely
attacked as irregular ; and you know what uphill work it is to
get the Representative Church Council to do anything which
requires deliberation. I hope to get some of my brethren to
work with me, and I have had some encouraging letters from
them. ... I think some action might possibly be taken by
the Bishops of the Province in Convocation, who after all
are most directly concerned."

He was convinced that the English Church has its
own witness to bear. He worked steadily to " level up "
the conduct of services ; but he had no tolerance for an
undignified and thoughtless imitation of another com-
munion. He could give strong expression to his feelings.
Speaking of the Liverpool Church Congress, in which he
had just taken part, he writes ^ : —

" We had last night an excellent meeting on the training
of candidates for Holy Orders, where I presided and had to
keep order while J. A. Kensit fulminated against theological
colleges. It is a pity that that side should not be better
represented. For there is a real Romanising spirit which
hardly conceals its Roman tendency. I have just examined

1 5th January, 1905.

« To Bishop Wallis, 8th October, 1904.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 311

a man for institution who claims liberty not only to use but to
recommend the ' Hail Mary ' as a private devotion. This
consists, as you probably know — though I confess I have only
lately definitely ascertained it — ^not only of words of Scripture,
but ends, ' Holy Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour
of our death.' I shall probably reject him (unless he gives
in) and run the risk of an action which I do not think he would
win. I think I sent you my paper on * The Queen of Heaven,'
also caused by a practical experience."

And on a cognate topic, ^ the symbolism of vows as
constituting a marriage : —

" I shall probably have publicly to fight against it. It
presses the old (but unscriptural) metaphor of the bride of
Christ, applying what belongs to the whole Church to an
individual woman in a most misleading manner, so as to
make any lapse into marriage after leaving a sisterhood an
adultery. Such cases, no doubt, are very rare, but antiquity
met them, when the metaphor was used, by raising the age
of profession or by giving the Bishops power to remit penance,
i.e. practically by giving them a dispensing power. You
will see what I say on this when you get my fifth chapter 2
on the ministry of women.

" I am afraid that hitherto Bishops have been weak about
it — perhaps not having studied the subject — and have generally
gone on the line that, having to do with women, you must
admit a good deal of unreal sentimentality. This seems to
me injurious to the women themselves. It reminds me of
the discussion in the Talmud whether women should lay
hands on the sacrifices. It was decided that it made no
difference whether they did or not, but it was admissible,
' to soothe the spirit of the women,' if I recollect the
Hebrew rightly."

This chapter may end with a subject which has been
of late forced into some prominence. In reply to the

* To the same. Undated, but in 1901.

* Of the Ministry 0/ Grace.

312 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Bishop of London, who had consulted him on the unction
of the sick, he wrote i : —

" If any encouragement is to be given, either by general
or diocesan authority, to the revival of this practice, we ought
to avoid, not merely the limitations of the Roman rite of
extreme unction, but (i) any appearance of locally and per-
manently transferring Divine power and presence into the
creatura olei ; (2) the consequent requirement that the Bishop
should be a sort of spiritual apothecary, keeping a store of
unguents of divers kinds. The oil should be blessed in the
immediate presence of the sick person for whom it is intended,
and by the Bishop or Presbyter performing the rite, and,
in fact, in the prayer in which he prays for the sick man's
recovery. This would follow the wise method of our Liturgical
prayer of consecration ' that we receiving these thy creatures
of bread and wine . . . may be partakers,' etc. There seems
no sufficient precedent or reason for restricting the benediction
to a Bishop, and, in the Roman Church, the Benedictio olei
simplicis, to be used where there is hope of recovery and not
as an extreme unction, is permitted to be said by a Presbyter.

" No doubt our Prayer-book is defective in this point, that
it contains no strong and definite prayer for recovery from
sickness, even that in the Communion of the Sick being some-
what wanting in force. Personally I am in favour of using
such a strong prayer, with laying on of hands, and I constantly
do it . But I understand how strongly this Scriptural precedent
appeals to many, and I can conceive that it may be right to
give it further weight and to concede more to it than we
have done. If, therefore, such a rite be anywhere and anyhow
introduced, I recommend that it should be very simple, and
consist perhaps of Psalm 23 and a short lesson from St. James
and such a prayer as the following : —

" ' O Lord God Almighty, Maker of all good creatures and
Giver of all good gifts for the comfort and service of man, the
Dispenser of hfe and health, the great Physician of soul and
body, look graciously upon this thy servant N., now lying
before thee. Give him faith to trust in thy mercy, and give
us confidence to minister to him according to thy will. Bless
^ 9th January, 1906.

PASTORAL AND LITURGICAL COUNSELS 313

this oil with which we shall anoint him and the hands which
we shall lay upon him, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Give insight and skill to the physicians [and surgeons] who
shall attend him, and watchfulness and tenderness to those who
nurse him. Bless all the means used for his recovery, to the
ease and prevention of pain and the restoration of health and
strength, if it be thy holy will. And if he have committed
sins which have brought this sickness upon him, grant that
they may be forgiven him. All this we ask in the Name and
for the sake of Jesus Christ, thy only Son our Lord. Amen.' "

When he was asked, at a later time, for specific
directions, he gave the following rules 1 : —

" I think that two or more Presbyters should be present (if

possible), and if the Bishop of can be with you, so much

the better. I direct that (i) the anointing should take place
as part of the service for the Visitation of the Sick, after the
confession and absolution, if it be used on this occasion ;

(2) that the following prayer 2 be used before the anointing,
and after the Psalm and antiphon ' O Saviour of the world ' ;

(3) that the anointing be on the forehead, or on the forehead
and the palms of the hands ; (4) that all the oil be consumed ;
(5) that the hands of the Presbyters present be laid on the

•head of the patient when the blessing is given, ' The Almighty
Lord who is a most strong tower.' . . .

" You will see that in the prayer mention is made of
other means used. I think it most important that the clergy
should co-operate with the physicians, and not seem to slight,
much less to supplant, the skill which is God's gift to them, and
which they constantly use with so much piety."

Similarly, when, a few weeks later, Archdeacon Lear
drew his attention to the want of a prayer for the medical
profession, he drew up the following : —

" O merciful Father, who hast wonderfully fashioned man
in thine image, and hast made his body to be a temple of the

1 To Canon Dugmore, of Parkstone, 17th January, 1909.
* Given above.

314 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Holy Ghost, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify all those whom
thou hast called to study that body in health and sickness,
and to whom thou hast given gifts of power to prevent disease
and to restore health and soundness. Strengthen and support
them in body and soul, give them prudence and discernment,
patience and confidence in thee, that they may themselves live
as members and servants of Christ, and have joy in comforting
those whom he lived and died to serve, through him who now
liveth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God
world without end. Amen."

CHAPTER XIII

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES

The present chapter must range over many lands. An
inherited interest in efforts made abroad for freedom from
Rome led Bishop John Wordsworth to follow the fortunes
of Old Catholics with sympathy ; as a Bishop he was
charged by successive Archbishops with the duty of
examining into the cases of many communions, and giving
them, as might be needful, counsel or support. Wherever
in Christendom there was a Church that had, or professed
to have, the historical episcopate, his interest was
awakened ; and a Church, even though it were un-
episcopal, that could claim to be national was also in
his eyes worthy of regard.

We have seen that in the earliest days of the Old
Catholic movement he had been brought by his father into
contact with its leaders, and had come heartily to admire
them and to cherish hopes, for the English Church as
well as for them, from their success. He was therefore
frankly opposed to Rome. Bishop Christopher Words-
worth, as his published writings show, was vigorously
hostile to that Church ; no one who interpreted the
Apocalypse as he did could fail in such repugnance. It
is needless to say that the son rejected that exegesis ;
yet he also strongly disapproved of Roman teaching and
Roman methods. At times he was led into emphatic
utterance in debate, but only when that curious division
of labour in the Roman communion, where the scholars

3i6 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

abstain from controversy and the controversialists are
not scholars, brought some divine upon the scene who had
to eke out his deficiencies by arguments that seemed to
be lacking in candour. Then the Bishop could be
trenchant in his criticism.^ But this did not lessen his
admiration for the scholars of that communion ; some of
them were his friends and with many there was a courteous
interchange of ideas and of information. And he did his
best to remove one real grievance under which Roman
Catholics labour. Before the Coronation of King
Edward VII. he took part in the debates of the House
of Lords on the oath to be tendered to the King, and pro-
posed that, instead of the offensive emphasis given to
the rejection of transubstantiation, the form —

" I humbly and sincerely profess my faith in the Gospel of
Our Lord Jesus Christ, as taught in the Reformed Church of
England as by law established, and do reject the doctrines
of the Church of Rome on the supremacy, infallibility, and
dispensing power of the Pope, and on transubstantiation."

In a letter to the Times ^ he explained that since the
Vatican Council of 1870 the infallibility and other attri-
butes of the Pope are articles of faith, and to omit them
from such a declaration is nothing less than ludicrous.
Transubstantiation is no longer the most obvious and
appropriate distinction, as it was at the time of the Test
Act in 1673. It was then the only doctrine that was to
the point, for a dispensation could be had for taking,
e.g. the oath of supremacy, but not for a denial of transub-
stantiation. Infallibility is now a barrier equally insur-
mountable. It is needless to say that this suggestion of
the Bishop was not more successful than those made by
others. The desire for courtesy was not accompanied by

^ E.g. in two letters to the Guardian of the 9th and 30th December,
1896, headed, "A Bogus Document" and signed by "A Lover of Truth."
* 25th July, 1901.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 317

any wish for the minimising of differences between England
and Rome. The Bishop, in fact, wished them to be con-
spicuous, and one of the reasons why he desired the clergy
to deny themselves some indulgences in the revival of
ancient usage was that the distinction ran thereby the
danger of being obscured. His general attitude towards
Rome may be illustrated by this letter, 1 in which he urged
Archbishop Benson to protest against the opening of
diplomatic relations with the Roman Court.

" It is easy to see why the Government is bidding for Papal
support. But is it not also easy to show — and is it not our
duty to show it ? — (i) that to treat the Vatican as a court to
which embassies should be sent is to do Roman CathoHc
Christianity really a great injury — to stereotype in it the
worldly spirit of intrigue and grasping at secular dominion ;
(2) that such recognition abroad must inevitably carry recog-
nition at home, and react unfavourably upon the dignity
and establishment of the Church of England. We already
begin to hear of the ' Rector of Hounslow,' etc., as well as of
the ' Archbishop of Westminster ' ; (3) that politically it is
a great mistake to act contrary to the interests of the Italian
Government — the only country, except perhaps Greece, whose
interests on the Continent are identical with our own. . . .
This is a topic on which we ought, I venture to think, to have a
brave and decided and if possible united policy."

It so happened that the Bishop's first duties in regard
to movements for reform within the Roman communion
were in Italy itself. In 1886 he was charged by Arch-
bishop Benson, as his delegate, to inquire into the state
of the Italian body of which Canon Count Campello was
the leader. He was empowered to give letters of com-
munion to seceders dissatisfied with Roman doctrine, and
was asked generally to show sympathy, to make himself
acquainted with the men and the circumstances, and

» I2th January, 1888.

3i8 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

report to the next Lambeth Conference, after which his
task would be at an end. He threw himself with zeal
into the work, offering his aid to Count Campello in the
difficult task of governing his little communion. In
some English quarters there was great confidence in the
Count, and high hope of his success. Two Monsignori
were among his adherents, and he had several congre-
gations, at Rome and in Umbria. But the Bishop from
the first had his doubts. He wrote that Count Campello
was " a good man, but too much of an orator to be a great
leader." And, in fact, there were dubious characters
among his adherents ; the Bishop used a startling frank-
ness in the questions he put concerning their history and
their motives. He was disappointed, but he had not been
deceived. Little money was expended, and no licence
or other official recognition was granted. Campello
himself was above suspicion. In 1892 the Bishop was
engaged in revising an Italian liturgy for his congre-
gations, and so long as the cause was maintained, though
with increasing feebleness, his interest in it continued.
But before long Count Campello had returned to his
allegiance to the Vatican, and the whole movement
collapsed.

The Bishop took also a great interest even in the
smallest details of an attempt made to retain for Christi-
anity a numbei* of Italians in London who were alienated
from their own Church. The Rev. William Dawson,
Rector of St. John's, Clerkenwell, found that many,
especially those who had married English wives, were
under no religious influence, and from 1886 to 1889 he
supported a mission among them. It did a substantial
work in the hands of Signor Mola, an Italian who had
long served the Church Missionary Society in India and
Ceylon and was living in retirement in London when he
was invited to undertake this task. The Bishop was

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 319

drawn into the effort as part of the charge which the Arch-
bishop had imposed upon him. Unhappily Signor Mola
soon died : " both a patriotic Itahan and a devout and
instructed Christian. Sit anima nostra cum illo in die
iudicii," wrote the Bishop after his death. ^ No fit
successor could be found. Experiments were made, but
in spite of careful regulations provided for their life and
work, the Italian clergy who were imported proved un-
worthy of trust, and at the end of 1889 this attempt also
was abandoned.

Yet the Bishop was sure that the principle on which he
acted was right. To him this was a particular case
exemplifying, less vigorously than others^ a legitimate
revolt. An injudicious partisan had described the under-
taking as an " Italian mission " —

" which looks," he wrote,2 " as if I were directing a mission
from England to convert Italy, which as you know is far from
my wish. On the other hand, to describe Count Campello
as an ' Apostate Priest,' or to parallel the Old Catholic position
on the Continent to that of Wesleyans and other Dissenters
at home is very misleading in another direction. I am quite
alive to the danger of seeming to countenance schism. . . .
This is how I view it.

" (i) Schism is not a question of numbers ; the few may
be right where the many may be wrong. In the year 359-360
the majority of Bishops, both of the East and West, accepted
an uncathoHc (Homoean) Creed. ' In the East (says Mr.
Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 186) the Homoean Supremacy
lasted for nearly twenty years.' St. Hilary and St. Athanasius
might have been called schismatics and apostates if numbers
went for everything or anything.

" (2) In this case the Old Catholics are standing their
ground and doing their best to draw others to act with them.
They are not innovators. They are not introducing new forms
of doctrine or ritual or discipline. They consider episcopal

1 To the Guardian, 3rd March, 1888.

2 To the Rev. G. F. Hooper, 26th February, 1888.

320 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

orders essential. They hold the Catholic creeds, etc., etc.
They do not set up a standard of doctrine of man's devising
as the Wesleyans do in Wesley's Sermons and Notes on the
New Testament. In all matters of principle they agree with
ourselves.

" (3) The Old Catholics have a far stronger reason for
breaking away from Rome than we had. They see the out-
come and development of the Papal pretensions, of which our
fathers only saw the first stages. Our Reformation is justified
after the fact, in a way which our Reformers could only con-
jecture, by the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and of
the Vatican Council (the Universal Bishopric and personal
Infallibility of the Pope).

" (4) The question of heresy is very important. Heresy is
hard to define, but it is, I suppose, such grave error in doctrine
as makes Christian communion impossible. There are degrees
of heresy and therefore degrees of communion. Some heresies,
such as those of an immoral kind, e.g. the Mormon, make all
religious communion impossible. Others (such probably
as the Armenian, viewed from the standpoint of the Easterns)
are now so involuntary that we should unite in almost all
ways, except, it may be, the mutual reception ^of the Eucharist,
and even this would be permissible in cases of necessity. I
hold that the Roman Church is heretical in a way to make it a
duty to separate from its rulers, and to protest against its
heretical teaching of demonstrable errors under pain of
eternal damnation, without making it necessary to deny the
validity of its Sacraments or to call upon all Roman Catholics
to break with the system under which they have been brought
up. I should much rather worship in a Roman Church than
in none at all, but I would far rather worship in a conventicle
with those who felt the sacredness of truth if (being a Roman
Catholic) I were refused the communion as the Old Catholics
everywhere are — unless I acknowledged Roman errors.

" (5) The Old Catholics may fairly say with our own
Reformers, schisma patimur non facimus. It is, I think,
cruel on our part to hold this as true for ourselves, and then
to look upon them with coldness. Their fewness, and com-
parative insignificance, is a proof of the weakness of principle
in the Roman communion, where not one Bishop has remained

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 321

outwardly faithful to the cause of truth. I believe a sense of
the sacredness of truth can only be restored in that communion
by the creation of a strong Catholic body in all lands of the
West and in all our Eastern dependencies, independent of
Rome."

The Bishop, in 1887, renewed his acquaintance with the
Old Catholics, which had begun in his visits to Germany
in 1871 and 1872, in the latter of which years he had,
with his father, attended the Conference at Cologne.
He wished to make some useful contribution to the
Lambeth Conference which was to assemble in 1888,
and it occurred to him that accurate information concern-
ing the present state and doctrine of the Old Catholics
would be acceptable. The Bishop of Lichfield (Dr.
Maclagan) had a like design, proposing to visit Italy to
study the movement there. Bishop Wordsworth knew
too much to be hopeful in that quarter. He suggested,
and the Bishop of Lichfield agreed, that they should
visit the Old Catholics in Germany, Switzerland, and
Austria, " where we knew that there were communities
of some standing, led by men of power and learning."
They arranged to meet Bishop Reinkens at Bonn, Bishop
Herzog at Olten, near Basel, and Dr. Czech, the adminis-
trator of the Austrian Old Catholics, who had not
succeeded in obtaining the permission of his government
for his consecration, at Vienna. The Bishop of Salisbury
wished to gain authority for the inquiry.

" I laid the matter of our proposed journey before the Arch-
bishop, and drafted a short Latin letter, which he was good
enough to adopt and sign, with some alterations, so as to give
an official sanction to our visit and to make it almost an
embassy from the English Church."

The two Bishops took each a chaplain, to add to his
state. The conferences ranged over faith and practice,

y

322 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

and careful notes were taken by the Bishop of Salisbury ;
but since the story has been told in the Life of Archbishop
Maclagan ^ it need not be repeated here.

In the following year a similar visit was paid to the
kindred Church of Holland, from which those of Germany
and Switzerland had obtained their episcopal orders.
This time the Bishop's companion was the Bishop of
Newcastle (Dr. Wilberforce), and again there was a com-
mendatory letter from the Archbishop, setting forth that
they were come —

" with the view of obtaining some trustworthy information
as to the present conditions, tenets, and practice of the Old
Catholic Church of Holland, and to give such information to
the Bishops about to be assembled in Conference at Lambeth."

There seems to have been more aloofness in this meeting
with the conservative Galileans than with the modern
Old Catholics. The two Bishops, with two clergy, ^ met
Archbishop Heykamp, of Utrecht, and three of his priests,
and put to the Dutchmen a series of questions which
covered history, doctrine, and practice. Their relation
to Jansenius, irresistible grace, the Council of Trent and
the Creed of Pope Pius, their Sacraments and their mode of
administering them, their Service Books and text-books
of theology were some of the topics on which inquiry
was made. Rarely can a body of dignified clergy have
been subjected to so rigorous an examination. It came
out in the course of the investigation that —

" the question of the Anglican succession has never been
formally examined or determined by the Church of Holland,
but they were inchned to acknowledge it on the authority
of Fleury, tome xxxi., pp. 97-99, which was produced from
the Library. They promised to examine it synodically."

1 Chap. XXIII.

« Mr. R. S. Oldham, Rector of Little Chart, Kent, and Mr. P. H.
Ditchfield, Rector of Barkham, Berks.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 323

Much courtesy and personal kindness was shown to
the Bishops in their visits to the various congregations ;
but perhaps there was a certain poetical justice in the
deliberation with which the Dutch ecclesiastics proceeded
in their side of the inquiry. They have not even yet
arrived at a conclusion concerning the validity of English
Orders. The Bishop has left a full record of his attempts
to enlighten them in his Appendix to the Life of Arch-
bishop Temple. 1 It must suffice here to say that he
wrote two learned tracts for the resolution of their doubts ;
doubts that were not shared by Dollinger and the Old
Catholics. The first of these papers was the De Successione
Episcoporum in Ecclesia Anglicana, published in 1890. ^
He records in his own copy that " it has been revised by
W. Oxon,3 and indeed was written very much from notes
made after a conversation with him, so that I hope it is
fairly correct." Archbishop Benson corrected it in proof.
For a time the Bishop had hopes that the Dutch were
being convinced by his plea ; but a new Archbishop arose
at Utrecht, and the tone hardened. They were, after all,
a body who represented Galilean Churchmanship of the
days of Louis XIV., and it was not very strange that they
should repeat objections that Bossuet might have urged
against the Anglican position. Amid the sorrow of Mrs.
Wordsworth's mortal illness the Bishop again took up
his pen and replied in his De Validitate Ordinum Anglica-
norum Responsio ad Batavos.^ From this time onwards
this special debate was lost to sight, and the controversy
took a wider range, the Roman Church itself sharing in
the discussion.

1 Vol. II. 388-397.

* In Latin and English : republished in English only, 1892
(S.P.C.K.).

' Bishop Stubbs.

* Dated i8th October, 1894 ; Mrs. Wordsworth had died on the
23rd June. Second edition, Brown, Salisbury, 1895.

324 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

The time for that story has not yet come. We are
still in 1888. After his return from Holland the Bishop
welcomed a party of his foreign friends to Salisbury.
Bishop Herzog came from Berne, the Administrator from
Vienna was there, and Count Campello, with various
clergy, including some from Holland. All, including
these last, communicated with the Bishop in the Palace
chapel. In the next year, 1889, Mrs. Wordsworth's
health compelled her to visit Marienbad. The Bishop,
who accompanied her, took the opportunity of increasing
his acquaintance with these allies. He spent three days
with the Bohemian Old Catholics, of German nationality,
at Warnsdorf. On Sunday, the 13th September, he
received the Communion at their service and gave the
benediction. He is loud in his praise ; of one of their
congregations he says : "I have seldom or never seen a
more attractive body of people, and I rather longed to
apply for the post of Pfarrer there myself." Many were
engaged in the Bohemian glass industry, and he charac-
teristically thought that it might be introduced at Salis-
bury. On his way home he met Bishops Reinkens and
Herzog at Crefeld, where again he found a large and
hearty congregation of Old Catholics. His judgment on
his whole experience was —

" It is no small result surely of the Old Catholic movement
even now that a chain of Christian communities, agreeing
with ourselves in most important points of Church discipline
and doctrine, is firmly established from Rotterdam to Vienna,
and that in all of these English Churchmen are welcomed as
friends and brethren, though the degree of intercommunion
between us and them is not absolutely the same in all."

In the following year, 1890, he took part in the Old
Catholic Congress at Cologne, and in 1891 at Lucerne.
The latter was peculiarly cosmopolitan. Easterns as
well as Anglicans were still full of hope from the new

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 325

movement. During the proceedings the new church of
the Old Catholics was consecrated, and the Bishop gave
an address on the occasion in German and received the
Holy Communion. This was on the 15th August. Mrs.
Wordsworth has described her share in the events in
a letter written next day to a friend : —

" Madame Weibel (the wife of the Pfarrer) was standing
by her husband receiving her guests in her black silk dress,
a little hot and flustered, partly shy and partly from her
cooking, which she had just left and returned to the moment
we were seated at the table. I soon felt that I should be far
happier waiting on the guests with her and her girl than sitting
at table, the only woman. ... It was such fun running in
and out of the kitchen (next door to the dining-room) fetching
clean plates and bringing in dirty ones, etc., that I was quite
sorry when it was over, and Madame Weibel, rather tired and
breathless, but quite self-possessed and enthusiastic, came
and had a long quiet talk with me in the salon, sending the
children off to bed. The lights below us and the stars above,
and just the outline of the lake and snow mountains behind,
made a beautiful picture and made me think, ' Here we see

darkly, but there ' John and I walked home soon after

ten, talking about our party with its many nationahties and
different characters. The next morning, as we were getting
up, came a note from the Archbishop of Patras asking if we
were going up Pilatus and if he might come with us. John ■
answered it in Greek as well as he could under the circum-
stances, and after breakfast Pfarrer Weckerle from St. Gall,
Mr. Isaacs from Armenia, who is just going to Calcutta, and
the Greek Archbishop of Patras met us at the steamboat,
where we also met the American Consul and others. ..."

Again, in 1892, the Bishop went to the Congress at
Lucerne, and was well satisfied. There were present
not only Bishops and others from Holland, Germany,
and Austria, but also Count Campello from Italy, and
the Czar's confessor, Archpriest Janyscheff, from Russia.
Again he gave a German address, at a devotional meeting,

326 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

when, in regard to the scruples of his friends from Utrecht,
he said : "I expect to live to see the day when, on Swiss
and German ground at any rate, Anglicans and Dutch
may freely join in communion." On this occasion he
received the honorary degree of D.D. from the Old
Catholic faculty of Berne. The Conference in which he
took part followed closely upon that at Grindelwald,
famous in its day. Of it he wrote ^ : " I rather fancy that
that Conference, too, may have done some good."

The illness of Mrs. Wordsworth in 1893 interrupted
this intercourse, which was not again resumed with much
frequency, though the Bishop was a regular contributor
to the Revue internationale de Theologie, the quarterly
organ of Old Catholic scholarship. But the knowledge
he had acquired — his notebooks contain information
about their constitutional and financial problems, the
education and mode of thought of their clergy and kindred
matters which would be of value to a future historian
of the movement — enabled him to the last to keep in
touch with their leaders and to follow their fortunes.

The public interest in the subject of English Orders
was awakened by the efforts of an excellent French priest,
the Abbe Portal. The story has been fully told by Lord
Halifax, 2 and its later phases described with much skill
by Mr. Arthur Benson, in his Life of his father, the Arch-
bishop.^ When the Abbe, writing under the name
" Femand Dalbus," formally denied the validity of our
Orders, but obviously stated the case in their favour as
strongly as he could, it was natural that the Bishop
should express his view. In January, 1894, " Femand
Dalbus " published his Ordinations Anglicanes ; the Bishop
wrote him a letter on the subject in May, and addressed
two letters in later months of the year to an unnamed

1 To Mr. Bodington, 21st September, 1892.

^ Leo XIII. and Anglican Orders. London, 1912.

» Vol. II., Chap. II.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 327

French ecclesiastic who shared the same charitable
desire of inducing the authorities of his Church to take
a first step towards reunion by recognising English Orders.
A scholar who was at the very time busily enlightening
the Dutch had the arguments at his fingers' end, and on
the 9th November, the Bishop's first public contribution
to the debate was issued : Trois lettres sur la position
de I'Eglise Anglicane, of which he wrote on his own
copy, " the French of these letters is more courageous
than accurate, . . . But the arguments, I think, are
sound." It was but a slight sketch of the argument ^ ;
simultaneously there was published the learned De Hierar-
chia Anglicana dissertatio apologetica of Messrs. Denny and
Lacey,2 for which he wrote a preface in excellent Latin,
pleading for charity and candour and expressing his con-
fidence in the position of his own Church and his hope
that the discussion might be a first step towards peace.

This is not the place to narrate the events which led up
to the Papal bull of i8g6. Lord Halifax has described
them, and there is a whole literature on the subject. The
Bishop of Salisbury has also said something of his own
share in the matter in his contribution to Archbishop
Temple's Life. There he tells us that it was Bishop Creigh-
ton who proposed to the Archbishop that they two, with
the Bishops of Oxford and Salisbury, should draw up the
necessary reply. The real work was done by the last,
who at once threw himself into the task. He wrote to
Bishop Creighton ^ : —

" I am glad to be associated with yourself and W. Oxen *
in this responsible task.

^ 22 pp. 8vo.

* London, 1895 ; preface dated gth November, 1894.

^ From the Chancery, Lincoln, 29th September, 1896.

* Bishop Stubbs' letters to Bishop Creighton on this occasion are
printed (after extraction of the sting) in Archdeacon Button's Letters
of William Stubbs, pp. 346 f.

328 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

" I only got your letter to-day and have had to spend the
day in the train. I found my thoughts flowed best into a
Latin reply addressed directly to the Pope ; which I have
written down roughly and without books of reference.

" I think we should take this Bull by the horns ; if it
is a Bull.

" I will send you my draft to-morrow — to-night I send you
a short summary of it. I could stop on my way back to
Sarum if you think it of any use. I thought of going on from
here on Friday. I could come for Thursday or Friday night
or for an hour or two en route. Let me hear here."

The draft composed in the train is as follows. The
lacunae can be supplied from the printed reply : —

" Draft of Answer to Pope's Letter Apostolicae cume.

" Great responsibility taken on himself by the Pope.

" It is not fitting a Christian Bishop should act in this way.

" We are not disturbed by his decision, except with
sorrow that he has missed so great an opportunity and has
been deceived by his own persuasion of infallibility to act
contrary to Christian prudence and ecclesiastical comity.

" Our Lord's law of Matt, xviii. 15, binding on him as
on all Christians, to give those against whom offence is taken
an opportunity of replying to censure.

" But love constrains us to reply (notwithstanding the
threat that those who do so will not be heard) ; and our duty
to our flocks as Bishops.

" Discussion of the letter.

" He has done well to narrow the controversy by throwing
over Eugenius IV. and the fallacy about Parker, and neglecting
Barlow.

" Hope we shall hear no more of all that.

" His letter turns on two points, the praxis curiae and the
Anglican form, with the subordinate question of intention.

" He apparently feels somewhat doubtful about the XVIth
century praxis. [This I leave to others to treat in detail.]

" He rests more upon Clement XI. and Gordon, but that is
weak because (i) Clement gives no particulars of defect of

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 329

form and intention. [Is not this so ?] (2) Gordon asked to be
reordained.

" He has therefore done well not to acquiesce simply in
these precedents.

" Nor do we much differ on the principle that the matter
and form of ordination are imposition of hands with suitable
prayer, and that the intention of a Church (as distinct from an
individual) is fair matter of inquiry.

" Of course we do not hold absolutely to the scholastic
doctrine that each Sacrament has an absolutely certain matter
and form. Only Baptism has : and for a good reason .

" Give instances of other Sacraments.

" What is his authority for a certain form in Orders ?

" The obiter dictum [Is it so ?] of the Council of Trent
which he alone quotes would not be sufficient even if it were a
text of Holy Scripture.

" His conclusion seems to be that the essence of the form
for the priesthood is mention of the power to offer sacrifice,
and for the episcopate some phrase about summum
sacerdotium or pontifical dignity.

" Treat the latter first. African canon against use of
the term summum sacerdotium, even of a primate.

"To us the name ' Bishop ' suffices to describe what we
mean. Explain what that is. [This should be guarded so as
to conciliate, or at least not alienate, Presbyterians.]

" Meet his argument about the addition of the words
' for the office and work of a Bishop or Priest ' : (i) these
words were added to correct Presbyterian misinterpretation ;
(2) Any doubt of our fathers as to the fulness of the formula
could not invalidate it, if it were per se sufficient (the intention
being otherwise clear). That it is sufficient is proved by the
decision of Pope as to Ethiopic ordinations.

" This part of the letter is unfair. It leaves the reader
to draw a conclusion which the Pope (knowing this decision)
does not dare himself to formulate.

" His second and principal argument is that we have
removed whatever most sets forth the dignity and office of
the priesthood and what ought to be essentially there. [I
have treated this in my letter to Abp. Gul, which perhaps you
have. I have not got it with me.]

330 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

" This is a marvellous objection, and implies that the
pastoral office and the power of the keys and of discipline,
of which our Ordinal speaks so fully, are of no importance
compared with the power of sacrificing ; and practically of
no importance at all.

" Quote Scripture [e.g. as in my sermon at Norwich Church
Congress]. The Pope is glad enough to quote Pasce oves
meas, etc., to support his pontifical claims when convenient,
yet he treats this Whole side of the priestly office as of no
account.

" The reference to the power of sacrifice was cut out
naturally with the dropping of the traditio instrumentorum.

" It is, however, implied in the commission to minister
the Sacraments and in the Communion Office, as well as in
the statement of English theologians from the beginning.

" Absence of any definite reference in old Sacramentaries,
especially the Gelasian.

" Thirdly, as to intention. The preface to the Ordinal
shows our intention to continue the three Orders as derived
by perpetual succession from the Apostles.

" Summing up.

" We regret the Pope's decision, but accept it as a sugges-
tion of Divine Providence to follow out our own line of duty
in regard to the whole English-speaking race throughout the
world.

" A few words for the benefit of outsiders.

" J. s.

" Michaelmas Day, 1896."

In less than a fortnight the Responsio was ready,
substantially as it was published. On the loth October
Bishop Wordsworth was able to write to the Bishop of
Peterborough : —

" I sent off my tentamen to the Archbishop at Hawarden
yesterday in a registered envelope, so I hope he has it by this
time. My being at West Lul worth (where we have a charming
rough cottage) has in some ways delayed my doing so, though
in some ways expedited it, as I had three clear days to revise
and copy it. I have kept a rough copy and sent him a

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 331

smoother one. It would have been a great misfortune to
send him a piece of work which, as I found on re-reading, was
full of holes. Even now I find points which must certainly
be added, e.g. from the decrees of Trent putting the power of
remission of sins on an equality with the offering of sacrifice.
Yet the Pope says we have cut out quidquid dignitatem
sacerdotii plane designat. Of course if you emphasise the
prayers this is so. But there is nothing about either sacrifice
or remission of sins in the Pontifical of the Vllth century used,
I suppose, by St. Gregory. Augustine, I imagine, was con-
secrated by Gallican rites which were (and became more so)
very different from the severe simplicity of the old Roman.
My task has been, I think, specially to work out this point.

" Canon Carter writes that he is distressed by what I
have said about Presbyterians. The words ' ulterior conse-
quences ' were perhaps misjudged ; but I mean, of course,
on Catholic lines."

The history of the Responsio, published in four lan-
guages and in some 13,000 copies, is given by the Bishop
in the Life of Archbishop Temple. The profits, granted
to the author by the Archbishops, amounted to more than
£225, almost all in 1897 (publication began on the 9th
March) and 1898. They were devoted to the foreign
work of the Church. On his own copy the Bishop has
written : —

" The Latin of the Responsio is the original. The English
was, to a considerable extent, the work of Hugh Eraser
Stewart, Vice-Principal of Sarum Theological College,^ but
constantly revised by myself. The whole of the Responsio
was written by my pen ; 2 but certain crucial passages were
much discussed both in committee (with the Archbishop of

1 Now Dean of St. John's College, Cambridge.

^ " It was said that when the Pope read a Latin letter of the Bishop's
he uttered the wish that his Cardinals could write Latin as well." So
said the Bishop of Winchester in his Funeral Sermon on Bishop Words-
worth (Salisbury Diocesan Gazette, 191 1, p. 159). The story was widely
circulated ; I cannot trace its origin . Dr. Talbot is sufficient authority
for its insertion here.

332 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

York and the Bishops of Peterborough {i.e. London) and
Oxford ^) and privately with the Archbishop (Temple) of
Canterbury. I also had communications with my brother.
Father Puller of Cowley, Dr. Bright, Mr. Brightman, and
W. H. Frere on points on which they were specially authorita-
tive. Chapters XL and XIX. were the most difficult to
formulate. The Archbishop paid special attention to gentle-
ness and equitableness of style {iiruiKeia) , and to him the
Responsio owes much of its force in this respect.

" Several faults of style in the Latin were pointed out
(with very little gentleness) by a Belgian Professor whose
name I forget. But they were not real faults with one excep-
tion, in which the Archbishop, however, thought there was
no fault, viz. p. 9, line 13 from the bottom, where in later
editions we added errores ; the grammars say quos, referring
to a masculine and feminine impersonal antecedent, should
be quae. The other points censured were. . . . These are
only faults to a man who does not know Latin as it is in books,
and takes his ideas solely from grammars or oral teachers of
narrow experience,"

The appearance of Archbishop Maclagan was due,
it is almost needless to say, to the death of Archbishop
Benson at Hawarden on the nth October, 1896. He had
not lived to open the registered packet containing the
draft of the Responsio, and his death caused the delay of
publication till the 9th March, 1897. The reply was
again published in the English version, with some pre-
fatory matter, in 1912, after Bishop Wordsworth's death.
On the disputed question whether the failure of the effort
for peace was due to unreadiness, on one side or the other,
to seize a providential opportunity, the Bishop agreed
with Archbishop Benson that the Pope was at fault. And
it must be noted, as regards the method of the debate,
that it was no discursive search for truth, but an attempt,
sincerely and successfully made, to show that the Roman

^ Maclagan, Creighton, and Stubbs.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 333

reasoners, their own premisses being accepted, were in
the wrong.

An opportunity for attempting reunion in another
quarter had already arisen. Bishop Charles Wordsworth,
of St. Andrews, had died in 1892, and his nephew, the
Bishop of Salisbury, had been asked to complete his
memoirs. The good old Bishop had devoted two ample
volumes to his own experiences down to 1856, and it
was a somewhat desperate venture to dedicate a third to
what had not been a very eventful life. But the nephew
took up the task as an effort for union quite as much as
in the interests of biography. Home reunion was a topic
which he had long taken seriously. Among the " Agenda
(Tvv Qet^" of 1885^ had been: "To prepare for either
issue as to the establishment. If it remains, to make it a
lever for union with foreign Churches, Old Catholics, etc. ;
if abolished, to establish Home reunion." Mrs. Words-
worth's illness and his own subsequent ill-health and
journey to the Antipodes postponed the work, but
he began to arrange the formidable mass of material
before the end of 1895. He took it very seriously. He
made great efforts to "localise" forty-nine pamphlets,
many of them anonymous, that had been published in a
furious Eucharistic controversy in the Episcopal Church
of Scotland during 1858 and 1859, ^^'^ ^^^^ was typical
of his thoroughness. The seriousness of the questions
under debate gave importance in his eyes to faded fly-
sheets and forgotten speeches. It was all living and
present to him ; perhaps he did not succeed in giving it a
vivid interest for his own readers. At any rate the book,
published in 1899, is a model of conscientious industry
and a mine of information hardly accessible elsewhere.
There was gain, as well as loss ; undoubtedly the Vulgate
suffered by this absorption.

^ See p. 160.

334 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Among the new friends whom the Bishop acquired
through this undertaking were Professor Cooper, of
Glasgow, and Bishop Dowden, of Edinburgh, with whom
he formed a close alliance ; they had many interests in
common. To this Bishop he wrote, when his plan was
taking shape ^ : —

" I am going to write my uncle's memoir and shall make
it more a review of the different controversies and subjects
in which he was interested than a personal book. This has
led me already to treat the question of the validity of Presby-
terian orders, which has interested me more than I expected
— and to give some account of his three sermons on Holy
Communion, which are worthy, I think, of more notice than
they have received. I shall have to go more, no doubt, into
later phases of Eucharistic controversy, and also into the
question of ordination. But this will be, though dif&cult
and dangerous ground, not unuseful. Incedere per ignes may
be an ordeal good for myself as for the spectators."

And a little later to the same ^ : —

" I hope to come to Scotland for a few days just after the
middle of September. ... I want specially to see any leading
Presbyterians who may have ideas on reunion. Of course
my idea is to find out how they regarded my uncle's work —
not to propose schemes of a practical nature, which your
Bishops may some day, perhaps, see their way to do."

Disappointment at the Pope's conduct was a further
spur to zeal in the interest of union at home. The Bishop
took the diocese into his confidence, told it that he was
engaged on his uncle's life, and proceeded ^ : —

" The decisive utterance of the Pope on Anglican Orders,
which is in one sense a distressing rebuff for all who have
laboured for a future unity of Christendom, and which seems
to me a misuse of the fairest opportunity that a man has ever

^ 27th June, 1896. ^ 29th August, 1896.

' Diocesan Gazette, 1896, p. 220.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 335

had since the sixteenth century for promoting that unity,
has in other respects its good side. It sets us free to do the
work that lies nearest to hand without so much regard to
ulterior consequences. We are free to follow out the path
opened to us by Divine Providence to create an independent
and worldwide communion, and in that effort we are bound,
I think, first of all to consider the Established Church of
Scotland."

A little later i :—

" I have suggested a conference between leading men of
our Church and leading Presbyterians for the purpose of draft-
ing a common Catechism on the fundamentals of the faith
. . . not in any way to substitute something for our own
Church Catechism where it can be used, but where it cannot.
My main object is to influence education in the Colonies,
where the foundation of the faith is often not taught at all
in elementary schools. My second object is to supply some-
thing which may be taught in Board Schools, with a reasonable
prospect of being acceptable without infringing the Act of
1870."

Such interdenominational Catechisms were in vogue
at the time. More than one was printed, but the Bishop
did not add to the number, nor does the projected con-
ference seem to have taken place. But his increased
familiarity with the Presbyterian point of view, and further
study which bore fruit in his Ministry of Grace in 1901,
led to a certain modifidation of his theories concerning
the growth of the ministry. Thus he writes to Bishop
Wallis 2 :_

" I hope you will agree with my sketch of the rise of the
monarchical episcopate. I find some of the Welsh clergy 3
had been accustomed to knock down their opponents by telling
them that the episcopate was instituted by our Lord in the

1 Diocesan Gazette, p. 236, 24th October, 1896.

^ 1 2th September, 1901.

' The Bishop had just been giving some lectures at Lampeter.

336 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

great forty days, and they do not at all like being deprived of
so cogent an argument. They were rather ready to take the
line that, if what I said was true, there was no harm in being
a Dissenter — but it was probably untrue, and I was therefore
more or less heretical. So we must be careful of offending
weak brethren. Of course we really do not know what St.
John may have taught, but I cannot think that St. Peter or
St. Paul would have disagreed with my chapter, judging by
Clement's reference to their teaching in the Epistle to the
Corinthians, § 44, and his own usage, especially in the chapter
just preceding.

" I hope you will study further the whole subject, and con-
sider what doubts and difficulties may be created on our own
side : e.g. how would you answer (i) the obvious objection
that the Presbyterians have possessed a succession of the
one order ? (2) that, if there is any development possible in
such a matter, we have no right to limit its period, and
the dissenting ministry may be a development, under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, suitable to the times in which
we live ? It brings in (they may say) a greater variety of
service, poorer men are admissible to it, it is less worldly and
compromising, etc., etc. The second seems a more difficult
topic to treat than the first, though I suppose we should answer,
there was a distinct period of development, answering to the
charismatic period to which I have referred.^ This was in
some places longer and in some shorter, just as some people's
faith grew quicker than that of others even in the human
ministry of our Lord, but it was practically over by a.d.
200-250.

" It seems to me providential that the monarchical epis-
copate grew slowly at Rome. Had it not done so, we should
have had great difficulty in meeting papal claims. What would
have happened had Ignatius written in his usual style about a
Bishop of Rome ? We should never have heard the last of it.

"It is also a great blessing not to be obliged to treat
Dissenters as disobedient to a command or revelation of .our
Lord. To them we apply His words, ' He that is not against
us is for us,' and dare not apply the others, ' He that is not
with me is against me.' "

^ Ministry of Grace, ed. i., pp. 146-148.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 337

And a little later he replied to a critic of the Ministry
of Grace ^ : —

" My view of the relation of the Episcopate to the Presby-
terate is that in the East, e.g. Jerusalem, Antioch, Asia Minor,
the ministry was established in three orders in the lifetime of
St, John ; that in the West, e.g. Rome, Corinth, Alexandria,
there were at first two orders, but the superior order, the
Presbyterium, always had a President, or Presidents, and that
these were the predecessors of the Bishops of those sees. As
regards the necessity of the Episcopate as the normal form of
Church government, I expressly say on p. 124, after describing
the threefold need which led to the monarchical or independent
authority assigned to Bishops in the West : ' In aU this we
are to see the hand of God, gradually building up an institution
necessary for His Church.' The only way, I think, in which
my point of view differs from that which has usually been held
from the time of Archbishop Bancroft in the Church of England
is that the division of the ministry in every part of the Catholic
Church into three orders does not rest on the same fundamental
order, so to call it, as the acceptance of the Bible, the Creed,
of the Sunday and of the two Sacraments. [See Preface,
p. vi.] We can, therefore, treat Presbyterians as less wil-
fully in the wrong, and tolerate, if need be, a return to a less
monarchical form of episcopacy in some countries. Other
consequences might follow if any widespread movement for
reunion were to become popular. My object has been to
exhibit the facts of early Church history with absolute im-
partiality. The conclusions stated above are the result of
long study, and I was certainly not prejudiced in favour of
the view which I have now adopted, but rather against it.
If it is wrong, I shall welcome better knowledge from whatever
quarter it comes."

And finally one of the Bishop's latest sermons, preached
in the Cathedral on the 5th February, 1911, may be cited
in this context : —

" The value of such episcopal oversight of the clergy as the
two great Apostles exercised could not be missed or forgotten.

1 8th February, 1902.

338 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

It was not for one age only, but for aH time. It was almost
a necessity for unity of faith, for unity and continuity of order
and practice, for discipline of persons. But, on the other
hand, these same Apostles were conscious that their office
was not of a different kind from that of the other clergy. St.
Peter speaks as a fellow-presbyter to other fellow-presbyters.
St. Paul, as I have said, refers to their choice by the Holy
Ghost. ... If, then, we are to speak of a doctrine of Apos-
tolical succession, it must include both Bishops and Presbyters
as partakers in it. Their office is fundamentally the same,
whether it be called a sacerdotium or priesthood, a presbyterate
or eldership, or a ministry of the word and sacraments. It is
in both cases as really concerned with the great duty of feeding
and of tending the Church of God. It is equally a ministry
to which the call comes from the Holy Ghost, both within and
without, and to which the commission is given by those who
have held like office before — and thus both Bishops and
Presbyters are successors of the Apostles. I believe this
inference from Scripture and Church history is becoming
increasingly clear — so clear that some of you younger students
of theology may perhaps think it a commonplace. We shall
not then, I think, be right in trying to conciliate those who
differ from us in polity by denying the reality of Apostolical
succession, but by extending it in the direction in which the
Apostles seem to extend it. We must also surely let this
widening of our theory have its influence upon our practice."

This interest in Presbyterian Orders led the Bishop
to the discussion in his learned Ordination Problems ^
of the question of reordination. He reviewed in it the
erudite work Les Reordinations of the Abbe Saltet,^ and
adds modern instances, especially the episcopal consecra-
tion of Scottish ministers in 1610 and 1661, to his medieval
precedents, ending with practical suggestions for the
application of the principle he has deduced to the case of
Scotland to-day. There were other cases, which cannot
be publicly named, in which he was hopeful that these

1 London, S.P.C.K., 1909. * Paris, 1907.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 339

examples might be followed with success. But in regard
to the general question of the development of the ministry
it is unfortunate that the Bishop has never discussed the
recent developments of thought. In particular, he has
ignored, like other Englishmen, Dr. Rudolf Sohm's
important Kirchenrecht.

His last effort in the cause of the union of Christendom,
that with which he, among others, was charged by the
Lambeth Conference in regard to the Church of Sweden,
has been so fully narrated in the official report 1 and
elsewhere that it may be omitted here. On its personal
side the Bishop's intercourse with his Swedish friends is
described in the last chapter of this book. His final
judgment on their Church was that it—

" may claim to be an integral part of Catholic Christendom
in any restoration of Church unity on other lines than those
of simple subservience to Rome . With a very different history,
it has arrived at a position very Uke our own."

To no part of Christendom was the Bishop more
closely drawn, by historical and also by inherited
sympathy, than the ancient Churches of the East. Almost
the last sermon that he preached was at the consecration
of his friend and chaplain, Dr. H. J. C. Knight, to the
see of Gibraltar. Addressing him, he said^ : —

" The old Churches amongst which your work Ues are full
of wounds and sorrows, of vague movements, desires and
impulses. You will know how you can best minister to their
wants. We are not called to active propagation of reforms,
for the leverage of which we have no sufficient fulcrum, and
which we have no power of overseeing and directing ; we
are not called to make converts to our own communion, though

^ The Church of England and the Church of Sweden. Report of
the Commission appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. London,
Mowbray, 191 1.

* 25th July, 191 1, in St. Paul's Cathedral.

340 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

to many a poor soul it may be a self -sought haven of rest.
We are called to maintain a high and strict standard of Church
life and Christian conduct among our scattered congregations,
to make known our principles and to exhibit them in action,
and to show helpfulness and sympathy to all who are willing
to accept our help. Anglican sobriety, without Anglican
stiffness and reserve, nay, rather with a Christlike longing to
be of service to all good men and all good causes, is the temper
which I know you wiU strive to promote, and which your
wonderful opportunities will give you scope to make effective
for the realisation of the Kingdom of God."

Much of Bishop Wordsworth's work in regard to
Eastern Churches does not lend itself to narration. It
was often confidential, and in the course of it he acquired
an extraordinary wealth of knowledge, and also a sym-
pathy, which sometimes took the form of tolerance,
for the officers of Churches which had endured so much.
Some of his experiences were strange. Wishing to please
one remote prelate he attached an impression of his
signet-ring to a letter of introduction given to a clergyman
who was visiting his region. The dignitary was wounded ;
there must be an occult reason why the seal was not
larger, and that reason must be a purposed affront to
himself. Such misunderstandings taught our Bishop
to be tender to the self-consciousness of the Oriental
Christian, and to recognise his want of the sense of
humour. He had occasion also to guide the agents,
often travelling at their own charges, who were commis-
sioned, more or less officially, to approach these Easterns.
To one young clergyman he gave the counsel : —

" Please write to ... to tell him what has happened,
saying as little about myself and yourself as possible. In
these matters we must keep self as much as possible in the
background and the general interests of the Church in the
foreground."

RELx\TIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 341

His efforts were not without success, real though it cannot
be registered in precise terms, in drawing the Churches
together. This was in part due to his discountenancing
the attempt to make proselytes and his unwillingness to
approve the reception of such as offered themselves. He
rejoiced when his cousin, Mr. H. C. Frere, Chaplain at
Beyrout and Archdeacon in Syria, ^ induced a discon-
tented body of Greek Christians to return to their alle-
giance ; but when a body of members of the Roman
communion was wavering towards the Greeks, not without
a certain willingness to join the English Church if some
encouragement were shown them, he wrote : —

" It seems a very good opportunity of gaining reasonable
influence, even if we do not accept the whole congregation
permanently. ... As regards ritual, I should not desire an
acceptance of the Anglican, but a purgation of the native
Syro-Arabic, which might in time to come be accepted
by the rest of the Maronites. And as regards dogma, I think
a rejection of the decrees of Trent and of anything imposed
by Rome since 1182 would suffice."

Nothing came of this, and there is no reason to think
that the Bishop was sorry. His interest extended to
the separated Churches of the East, of whose doctrinal
isolation, caused as it has been by historical circumstances
of ancient date, he was a very benevolent interpreter.
He took part in discussions, necessarily private, which
aimed at the formulation of terms by which the orthodoxy
of some of them, of which he was assured, might be made
technically as well as substantially manifest. And he
was always ready to defend them in cases of need, as when
he denied 2 a rumour, which he traced to an attempt to
induce the Christians of Malabar to accept the Papal
supremacy, that his " venerable friend " the Jacobite

1 1901-1906. ' The Times, iSth January, 1909.

342 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Syrian Patriarch Mar Ignatius Abdallah II. had joined
the Church of England.

He made two literary efforts to spread a knowledge of
the English Church in the East. Cyprus was a country
in which he was deeply interested, striving behind the
scenes to settle its ecclesiastical disputes and protesting
in public against the financial burdens which England
has laid upon it. For Cypriote use he procured the
translation into modem Greek of his additions to the
Church Catechism. 1 As early as 1889 he wrote to Arch-
bishop Benson ^ : "I propose consultation about a
manual of Anglican Church matters for foreign inquirers."
In 1900 it appeared as " Some points in the teaching of
the Church of England, set for the information of Orthodox
Christians of the East in the form of an answer to ques-
tions." The Bishop was the chief but not the sole author.
The little book bore the imprimatur : " Approved.
F. Cantuar, 27th June, 1900." It was translated into
Greek, Russian, Italian, and Arabic.^ Direct results
from these varied efforts were hardly to be expected.
But they have certainly diffused a spirit of mutual under-
standing and good will, of which there have been from
time to time such tokens as the blessing given in Greek,
one Sunday in 1889, by the Archbishop of Cyprus to the
congregation of Salisbury Cathedral.

This chapter may end with the memories of a learned
Frenchman, Monsieur Alexis Larpent, who was a fellow-
worker with the Bishop in some of his efforts for the union
of Christendom * : —

" Souvent I'Archeveque de Canterbury m'avait parle

^ See Bibliography. Kar^xi^''^ iKSoOelcra eV rfj SioiK-^o-ei rrjs 'Sa\i<T$ovplas
• . . iu AevKoiffiq.. 1899. Translated by the Rev. H. T. F. Duckworth.

^ 24th January, 1889.

' See Bibliography.

* M. Larpent, whose position may be defined as having been that
of the old Gallicans, for some years lived in England, assisting

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 343

de son ami le Dr. John Wordsworth. A Addington j'avais
remarque une photographic des Benson et des Wordsworth
reunis comme s'ils formaient une seule famille. L'Archeveque
avait ecrit le mot ofjioOv/xaSov au dessous du groupe. Au
British Museum je demandais de temps en temps les oeuvres
de John Sarum et celles de son pere Christopher Lincoln.
Je me preparais a une rencontre que je desirais et pressentais.
Un jour, pendant le printemps de 1895 j 'arrival a Lambeth
avec mon paquet d'epreuves corrigees. — ' Non,' me dit
rhistorien de St. Cyprien, ' nous ne ferons rien aujourd'hui ;
allez dans la salle a manger ; I'Eveque de Sahsbury vous
attend.' L'accueil fut cordial mais sans formahtes ni pre-
ambule. — ' Si vous voulez, nous allons lire ensemble les
notes que vous avez envoyees a Sa Grace sur le manuscrit
de St. Cyprien prete par Lord Crawford. Leopold Delisle
a vu le codex, je I'ai etudie aussi et I'accord n'est pas fait sur
la date. . . .' Mon tour vint ensuite de dire ce que j'avais
cru voir ou deviner et de justifier mes opinions. Je me sentais
petit et novice en presence d'un pareil maitre, mais je prenais
confiance en regardant la t^te pensive qui etait devant moi.
II savait ecouter. II etait desireux de donner toutes les chances
possibles a celui qui I'interrogeait. II charmait par son atten-
tion. La conversation technique dura assez longtemps.
Lorsque les points relatifs a I'age, a I'ecriture et a quelques
IcQons du document furent discutes, I'Eveque tira un calendrier
et un stylographe de sa poche. ' Je rendrai compte a Sa Grace
de notre entrevue. . . . Pouvez vous venir passer quelques
jours a Salisbury la semaine prochaine ? ' Voila quel fut le
premier contact.

" Je ne suis jamais alle au vieux palais sans quelque raison :
etudes speciales, recherches, verifications; mais I'affection
etait nee, et le travail poursuivi sous une direction stimulante
etait un bienfait. Quand I'Eveque pouvait s'arracher k ses
occupations, il etait le plus interessant des compagnons. Je
me rappelle une promenade a Bemerton et une visite k la
petite eghse. Ce jour-li I'homme g^neralement absorbe se

Archbishop Benson in scholarly work, especially in regard to St. Cyprian,
and also in confidential correspondence with many foreign Churches.
He is now in France, and a member of the French Church, but
entirely, so he writes, outside controversy.

344 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

revela avec un esprit frais et vivace d'un jeune etudiant.
Quelle memoire il avait ; comme les citations coulaient
naturellement de ses levres ; quels gracieux souvenirs il
evoquait ! Ces heures de longue detente etaient tres-rares
et pendant une periode de onze ans je n'ai eu qu'une fois mon
pelerinage a Bemerton.

" La mort de I'Archeveque nous prouva que la douleur
est le plus puissant des liens. Des preoccupations nouvelles
s'imposerent. L'Eveque me fit lire la Reponse a la BuUe
Apostolicae Curae avant la publication, et me communiqua
aussi les 6preuves du Ministry of Grace. Ceux qui ont
consult e cet ouvrage savent quels tresors d'informations
exactes sont accumules dans les notes dont quelques unes
ressemblent a des articles de dictionnaire. J'aurais voulu
que ce livre fut complete par The Means of Grace.
L'Eveque me promettait de faire cette seconde partie, mais
tant de choses encombraient la route que le projet ne fut
jamais realise. II est regrettable que I'oeuvre reste sans
sa conclusion formeUe. Nul n'etait plus capable que I'auteur
de donner I'idee exacte des doctrines sacramentaires de
I'Eglise Chretienne. Son erudition etait sure et sa critique
etait delicate.

" L'Eveque me proposa d'etre secretaire de 1' Anglo-
Continental Society ^ et de 1' Association for the furtherance
of Christianity in Egypt. Les deux corporations furent
reunies sous le nom d' Anglican and Foreign Church Society.
II s'agissait surtout de faire connaitre I'Eglise Anglicane,
car elle est une terre incertaine pour ceux qui n'ont pas mis les
pieds sur un sol Britannique. L'occasion se presenta bientot
de publier un tract important. Les rapports entre les Grecs
de Jerusalem et le Dr. Blyth, Eveque Anglican dans cette
ville, etaient excellents. Le prelat Anglais avait meme eu
le merite de ramener la concorde dans une eglise orthodoxe

1 The early history of this society is mentioned on p. 93. It will
suffice to refer for details to Mr. Meyrick's Memoirs of Life at Oxford
and Elsewhere (London, Murray, 1905). The title was changed to
"Anglican and Foreign Church Society" in 1904, when the Egyptian
Society was amalgamated with it. Its annual report is still the best
source by far from which Englishmen may gain accurate and sympathetic
information about ecclesiastical movements abroad.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 345

dechiree par les discordes intestines. A Alexandrie, le Patri-
arche manifestait une vive sympathie aux clergymen qui
s'approchaient de lui. A Constantinople le Patriarche
(Ecumenique etait aussi tres favorable. Cependant ces
personnages n'avaient que des notions vagues et confuses sur
TEglise d'Angleterre qu'ils consideraient comme une secte
protestante, moins heretique peut-etre que les autres, mais
sans traditions historiques. L'Eveque fit un opuscule, que
M. J. Gennadius traduisit en grec, sur quelques points de
doctrine pour montrer que Tenseignement dogmatique de
son Eglise est conforme a I'orthodoxie. C'etait le vrai moyen
d'eclairer les theologiens des pays des Patriarchats. II est
inutile d'offrir de gros livres et des traites systematiques.
La pensee occidentale reste encore et restera suspecte a ceux
qui quelquefois ne lisent rien en dehors de leurs livres sacres.
Pour se rendre compte de cet etat de stagnation il suffit de
Jeter les yeux sur le Nouveau Testament publie par autorite
du Patriarche de Constantinople. Les collations de manu-
scrits faites par les editeurs modernes sont ignorees et le livre
est compile d'apres les codices inferieurs. Ces Grecs sont
nos ancetres dans la Foi. Nous venerons leurs saints. Nous
cherchons notre inspiration dans les ceuvres de leurs docteurs.
Leurs liturgies nourrissent notre piete. Sommes-nous destines
a vivre toujours loin les uns des autres ? Ne pouvons-nous pas
nous comprendre et nous reconcilier ? Ces pensees revenaient
constamment dans les entretiens de I'Eveque. II voulait
non seulement dechirer les voiles qui cachent I'Eglise Anglicane,
mais aider les Grecs a sortir de la routine dans laquelle ils se
trainent depuis tant de siecles.

La situation des Coptes est encore plus pathetique. Nous
desirions que les Anglais comprissent leurs responsabilites
et nous aidassent a repandre I'instruction dans cette terre
d'Egypte soumise a leur influence. Les appels adresses a nos
amis et a nos souscripteurs ne donnerent pas les ressources
necessaires aux campagnes dont nous avions fait les plans.
Le Tract sur les points de doctrine fut traduit en Arabe. Les
Coptes instruits ecouterent avec satisfaction quelques con-
ferences, mais aucun resultat important n'a encore ete obtenu.
A Londres, nous celebrions tons les ans un service d'inter-
cession auquel nous invitions les membres de notre Societe.

346 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

L'Eveque avait choisi les prieres, et, guide par son amour
de I'unite chretienne, il avait insert la coUecte du Missel
Romain pour la vigile de la fete des Saints Apotres Pierre et
Paul. En void le texte latin que je mets ici comme
temoignage de Foi commune, avec I'espoir du ' Salut Commun,'
et pour prier encore avec celui que j'ai aime : ' Praesta, quae-
sumus, Omnipotens Deus : ut nullis nos permittas perturba-
tionibus concuti, quos in apostolicae confessionis petra
solidasti. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.'

" Ces desirs de reunion ont quelquefois ete ajjprecies
par les representants des autres Eglises. En 1898 I'Ev^que
fit un voyage en Orient. II alia voir le Patriarche Kyrillos,
chef religieux des Coptes, au Caire, qui le re9ut avec honneur
et lui donna un manuscrit du service pour la 'Consecration
d'une Eglise et d'un Autel ' selon le rite Copte. Quelques
annees plus tard I'office fut edite a Londres par le Rev. G.
Horner et un grand nombre d'exemplaires fut offert au
Patriarche. A Jerusalem, I'Eveque consacra I'Eglise Cathe-
drale de St. Georges. Dans cette ville, comme dans les
autres cites qu'il traversa, il fut traite comme un frere par
les dignitaires orthodoxes. Ainsi se renouvelaient entre les
Grecs et les Anglicans des courtoisies qui datent de I'epoque
de Cyrille Loukar. Ainsi les corehgionnaires de I'Archeveque
Lykourgos rendaient au fils de I'Eveque de Lincoln les amenites
de Riseholme.i

" II etait du reste impossible a I'Eveque de refuser sa
sympathie aux hommes voues au service de Dieu. Separe
de I'Eglise Romaine par ses convictions deliberees, il etait
heureux de rendre justice et service aux membres de cette
communion. A la fin de la reponse a la bulle Apostolicae
Curae, on trouve un eloge des encychques de Leon XIII,
Les prelats remains L. Duchesne et P. Batiffol ont connu
I'hospitalite du palais de Sarum. Apres mon retour en France,
en 1906, j'appelai plusieurs fois I'attention de I'Eveque sur
les travaux des pretres cathohques. II donna son approba-
tion a I'ouvrage de M. I'Abbe E. Mangenot sur la Resurrection
de Notre Seigneur. M. E. Bodin, de la Congregation de la
Mission, ayant demand^ la permission de se servir de certaines

^ See p. 92.

RELATIONS WITH OTHER CHURCHES 347

notes de la Vulgate d'Oxford pour I'edition du Nouveau
Testament Grec et Latin qu'il preparait, regut immediatement
une reponse favorable.

" J'etais dans un coin du Berri lorsque j'appris la mort de
I'ami venere qui avait tenu une si grande place dans ma vie

. . . McTO, TTvevixaTOiv SiKttt'cov TCTeXctw/Aevwv T'^v \l/v^v Tov SovAou
(Tov Swrep avairavcov' fjivXdrTwv avrr^v €ts t7]v fxaKapuav ^Mrjv, T'^i/
irapa <tov, <j)tXdv6pwTre.^

" Je voudrais dire maintenant quelle fut, selon moi, une
des qualites maitresses de ce savant. Je crois ne pas me
tromper en disant que I'originalite de I'Eveque consistait
en sa predilection constante pour les questions difficiles. Ses
livres, ses articles, ses revues sont pleins de suggestions in-
attendues. II evitait les sentiers battus, mais il n'^tait pas
paradoxal, car les problemes les plus ardus prenaient toujours
pour lui un aspect pratique et moderne. Voici un exemple.
Lorsque nous nous occupions de TEgypte, I'Eveque me faisait
remarquer que nous ne savions pas quelle est exactement la
croyance des Coptes. ' Est-il juste de les accuser d'heresie ?
Sont-ils encore Monophysites au sens theorique attache a
cette expression ? Et les Armeniens ? Rejettent-ils reelle-
ment la foi qui nous est chere ? Et ces Assjnriens, restes d'une
communaute autrefois si ardente pour les missions Chretiennes,
sont-ils restes Nestoriens comme nous les appelons ? II faut
savoir si ces Orientaux se rendent compte des opinions que
nous leur attribuons. Les textes des historiens et les decrets
des Conciles ne nous sufiisent plus.' Combien de fois ai-je
ete le confident de perplexites semblables ! C'est meme, a
mon avis, cette recherche des voies nouvelles qui donnait
quelquefois a I'Eveque I'air un peu detache de ce qui I'en-
tourait. II entendait les banalites sans impatience et jamais
il ne perdait le fil d'une conversation, mais son esprit etait
en proie k un labeur que personne ne soupgonnait. Rien
n'arr^tait I'activite d'une intelligence qui, au milieu des pro-
pos varies d'un salon ou pendant les discours plus ou moins
eleves d'un meeting, fixait peut-etre la date du Concile de

^ " Give rest, O Saviour, to the soul of thy servant with the spirits
of just men made perfect, keeping it unto the blessed life that is from
thee, O Lover of men." From the Order for Burial in the Orthodox
rite.

348 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Sardica ou disposait un arrangement plus methodique des
Canons d'Hippolytus.

" Comme I'Archeveque Benson, I'Eveque John Words-
worth etait predestine pour I'etat ecclesiastique. En Orient,
il serait devenu Patriarche ; a Rome, il aurait ete la gloire
du Sacre College : hyevrjOrj Upevs, to iriraXov Trecj)op€K(i)s." ^

^ " A priest, wearing the ephod." Polycrates, speaking of St. John
the Divine, in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., v. 24, 3.

CHAPTER XIV

SWEDEN AND AMERICA — LAST MONTHS

The last years of the Bishop's life, in which, to the
very end, there was to be no diminution of activity,
were marked by an increase of directly spiritual under-
takings. Such were the " effort of united prayer " for
the winter of 1905-1906, which he urged the diocese to
make in a public letter, and the Convention of Com-
municants held at Salisbury in May, 1907. It was an
impressive assembly. The Bishop presided, and during
three days addresses were given by the Bishop of Oxford
and other religious leaders. These were printed and
published.^ Similar measures for the promotion of
personal religion were taken under various forms in the
years that followed.

But the entrance into power of a Liberal Government
in 1906 revived the controversy on elementary education,
which had been asleep since 1902. There was no conceal-
ment of the fact that the Bishop did not belong to the
Liberal Party, but hitherto, except in regard to Home
Rule which he regarded as a subject transcending politics,
he had made no attempt to influence political thought
in his diocese. From 1906 onwards, happily or unhappily,
he conspicuously supported his side, in speeches and public
letters stating the reasons which, as he thought, ought to
determine the vote of Wilts and Dorset. In regard to

1 Tht Christian Life. Addresses. Salisbury, Brown, 1907. 58 pp.
8vo.

350 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

education he had no choice. The new Government at
once undertook to remould the system. He had been
hopeful that they would produce an acceptable scheme,
for he was convinced that a method of satisfying all
just claims could be found, and he recognised the equity
of some of the demands that were being made. But when
the Liberal plan appeared he was constrained to write * : —

" I am much cut down by Birrell's failure to produce (as
most of us hoped) a reasonable Education Bill. It is clearly
dictated, half of it by Dissenters and half by the Labour
Party, and people threaten us, 'If you don't accept these
terms you wiU have a purely secular system.' The Bill is
really very much that already. It does away with all religious
management, puts reUgious teaching outside regular school
hours, and forbids regular teachers giving denominational
teaching. In fact, we are on our way to be even as you are.2
The indignation is very great, and if the Bill passes in anything
Uke its present form, all hopes of friendly relations with Dis-
senters are at an end for many a year. I sometimes think
that God intends His Church to shrink to a small body with
a much more intense life. But I think I am too old to square
myself to it."

This last anticipation was contrary to the Bishop's
normal mode of thought ; he liked to dwell on the diffused
influence of Christianity.

He took his part in argument by delivering and pub-
lishing three lectures 3 on " The Place of Religion in Educa-
tion," " Religious Liberty and the Law of Trusts," and
" Practical Proposals." As was his wont, he went much
deeper than the needs of the moment required ; in parti-
cular, he discoursed learnedly on the influence of his
predecessor in the fourteenth century. Bishop Waltham,
on the development of the English law of trusts. He

1 To Bishop Wallis, 20t]i April, 1906.

^ 7.1?. in New Zealand.

* The Education Question. Salisbury, Bennett, 1906. 75 pp. 8vo.

EDUCATION 351

also took an active part in the proceedings in Parliament.
On the 2nd November he wrote to Bishop Wallis : —

" I have spent great part of the last fortnight in the House
of Lords. I hope some of our work will stand. The first
clause was enlarged to make it a condition that some portion
of the school hours of every day must be set apart for religious
instruction — ^we could not say ' Christian ' because we wished
to include Jews. We have passed other amendments fixing
the time to at least a clear half-hour for our own teaching, and
opening the schools which are at present our own to such
teaching ^ daily, and making some improvement in rural
schools. Lord Balfour of Burleigh delivered a fine speech in
favour of universal facilities, but the Whig feeling on the
Unionist side displayed by the Duke of Devonshire and Lord
St. Aldwyn and Lord Jersey prevented us from carrying it ;
i.e. it was withdrawn for fear of being lost or carried only by
a small majority. ... I should not be quite surprised if
after aU the BiU were withdrawn and a simple Bill to relieve
passive resisters substituted for this year. I have got an
amendment (for Monday) to keep alive Voluntary Schools
Associations as Associations of Managers. I don't see how
or why the Government can oppose it, but I am afraid they
will."

The clause of which he speaks was actually accepted
by Lord Crewe and passed by the Lords on the 3rd
December ; but the Bill came to nothing. Of an equally
unsuccessful Bill two years later he writes to the same
friend, Bishop Wallis 2 : —

" There is httle, I suppose, since you left except the
throwing out of the Licensing Bill by the Lords (though about
nineteen Bishops voted for the second reading) and the with-
drawal of the Education Bill — an event of which I am credited
with being the author, though by others scouted as a traitor
to the sacred cause. Of course, Runciman and Asquith
took up my amendments (not proposed or debated, but simply

1 I.e. by Nonconformists. * 31st December, 1908.

352 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

tabled) at the Representative Church Council as an excuse
for dropping what they could not get Dissenters and (I fear)
teachers to agree to. However, some progress has been made
towards a settlement on a reasonable basis."

After this time education, as far as the Bishop is
concerned, falls into the background, and the acceptable
solution of the problem has not yet been discovered. Of
practical difficulty there had been none in his diocese ;
in no part of England was there so little " passive
resistance."

In 1907 he was convener of a sub-committee of
the Upper House of the Canterbury Convocation, which
was appointed to draw up a " Historical Memorandum
on the Ornaments of the Church and its Ministers." This
grew into a substantial pamphlet,^ of which just half
was composed by the Bishop. He wrote Chapter I.,
" Historical Sketch of the Origin, Development, and
Symbolism of Liturgical Costume " ; Chapter III., " The
Ornaments of a Bishop in the Church of England " ; and
Appendix B, "Chronological List of Effigies of Anglican
Bishops from a.d. 1547 to 1907." Of these, from Goodrich
of Ely to Ridding of Southwell, he succeeded in dis-
covering exactly a hundred. The whole report, in which
he revised the parts he did not write, is a work of practical
and antiquarian usefulness. In 1908 he received the
honorary degree of LL.D. at Cambridge. 2

1 Westminster National Society, 1908. 120 pp. 8vo.

* The Public Orator, Dr. (now Sir John) Sandys, presented him as
follows: " Londinium linquimus ; ruris remoti ad urbem episcopalem
deinceps properamus, cuius a nomine quondam nuncupabatur vir quidam
doctissimus, episcopus Carnotensis, loannes Saresburiensis. loannem
Saresburiensem alterum, episcopum doctissimum, hodie iubemus
salvere, qui ordinum sacrorum Anglicanorum validitatem oratione
Latina quondam eruditissime defendit, ecclesiae Christianae in historia
exploranda Ennii olim sui laudatione non indignus : — ' multa tenens
antiqua sepulta.' Idem abhinc annos plus quam viginti Testamenti
Novi Latinam editionem Hieronymianam edendam sumpsit, partemque

PAN-ANGLICAN CONGRESS 353

At this point it will be well to mention his guidance
of the efforts for the spiritual and moral welfare of the
soldiers, whose settlements on Salisbury Plain and, on
a smaller scale, on the heaths of South Dorset, have done
much to change the character of the diocese. Successive
Governments have not been generous, though they have
relieved voluntary subscribers, who were Churchmen,
of the cost of maintaining the soldiers' institutes, after
these, founded at the cost of the benevolent, had proved
their usefulness. But the work of church building has
fallen, in the main, on the diocese of Salisbury, and the
erection of St. Michael's Church at Tidworth was Bishop
Wordsworth's last exertion in that kind. Since his
death it has been completed in his memory. The life of
the soldier, ideally regarded, with its discipline and its
self-surrender, was one after his heart.

In the summer of 1908 came the Pan-Anglican Con-
gress in which the Bishop took part. He wrote about it
to a cousin ^ : —

" The Pan- Anglican Congress was really helpful and im-
pressive. There was something to criticise as to the defect
of previous introduction to speakers, so as to make them keep
to the prescribed subjects and make them work in to one
another. But all the other details were well arranged. The
meetings in the Albert Hall and in St. Paul's were extra-
ordinarily impressive, and the general tone and kindliness of
the speaking very delightful. An absence of the sense of
sin was, I think, observable ; but no undue magniloquence
as to the Anglican Communion. In fact, we realised its

priorem postea felicibus auspiciis Victoriae Reginae dedicavit, opere
in tanto adomando etiam Bentleii et aliorum philologorum nostrorum
laboribus diligenter usus.

" Duco ad vos dominum admodum reverendum, Ioannem Words-
worth, alumnorum nostrorum illustrium et filium et nepotem, CoUegii
sui inter Oxonienses quondam socium insignem, episcopum Saras -
buriensem." [Orationes et Epistolae Cantabrigienses, p. 221.) Dublin
had given him the LL.D. degree in 1890.

^ Sister Charlotte (Wordsworth), 28th June, 190S.

2 A

354 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

smallness rather than its greatness. Our diocese, thank God,
did well in the money thankoffering ; more than 5^^. per
head of the total population. I doubt if any other did so
well in proportion."

The Congress was followed by the Lambeth Conference.
In it he was appointed convener of a committee of fifty-
seven Bishops on " Reunion and Intercommunion."
Of seven sub-committees which it formed to carry out its
task he was convener of three, those on the Scandi-
navians, the Presbyterians, and on " General Questions."
The work was laborious, and must have needed tact as
well as industry. The Bishop's fitness for the second and
third of these inquiries is obvious ; the first was not new
to him, and it was to be the chief employment of his last
years. The Church of Sweden had already attracted
attention in England. There had been courteous
approaches on both sides, and a constitutional experiment
had been made in Sweden which furnished an instructive
example of what might be possible in England. In 1863
the authority of the State over the Church, which is
general in Lutheran countries, had been surrendered.
The Church, retaining its endowments and its national
position, became self-governing. A Church Council,
consisting of sixty members, half clerical and half lay, is
the governing body. The twelve Bishops are officially
members, and the Archbishop of Upsala is president.
The other clerical members and all the laymen are elected.
The Bishop of Salisbury had not stood alone in drawing
public attention to this scheme, as he had done in 1902.
But there was a further reason for English interest. While
the three Scandinavian Churches are equally Episcopal,
only one has retained the ancient succession of its Bishops.
In Sweden the Bishops derive their orders from Petrus
Magni, who had been confirmed and consecrated at Rome
in 1524 by the authority of Clement VII., and afterwards

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 355

took part in introducing into his country the Lutheran
reformation. If the episcopate has been continuous, its
maintenance has been due quite as much to constitutional
as to theological considerations, and the Swedish Bishops
have recognised those of Norway and Denmark as equally
authoritative with themselves. And in general, though
the Swedish Church has marked characteristics and a
history peculiar to itself, it has never disclaimed fellow-
ship with other Lutheran communions and its theology
has been coloured by that of Germany, for Swedish
students have in large numbers resorted to the German
Universities.

The Primate of this Church, the Archbishop of Upsala,
sent a Latin letter of greeting to the Lambeth Conference
of 1908 by the hands of the Bishop of Kalmar, Dr. H. W.
Tottie, himself of English descent. Bishop Tottie was
received by the Conference, and is the only speaker, not
an Anglican Bishop, who has ever addressed it in full
session. Thus the subject of the Swedish Church came
prominently before the Conference, and it was necessary
that some public step should be taken. It was not enough
that a Committee (necessarily in private) should examine
witnesses, the Bishop of Kalmar and others. Though
important evidence, which served as the starting-point
of further inquiries, was collected, the Conference deter-
mined that there must be a public and formal exchange
of information. Its 74th resolution was : —

" This Conference heartily thanks the Archbishop of
Upsala for his letter of friendly greeting, and for sending his
honoured colleague, the Bishop of Kalmar, to confer with its
members on the establishment of an alliance of some sort
between the Swedish and Anglican Churches. The Conference
respectfully desires the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint
a Commission to correspond further with the Swedish Church
through the Archbishop of Upsala on the possibility and con-
ditions of such an alliance."

356 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Of this Commission the Bishop of Salisbury doubtless
anticipated that he would be a member. He was already
engaged in mastering Swedish Church history, and was
doing his best to awaken public interest in England and
to show the Swedes that English feeling toward them was
warm. In July, 1908, the Bishop of Kalmar came to
Salisbury and addressed a meeting at the Palace on the
past services of England to his country. He told how
Siegfrid of York, about the year 1000, had settled as a
missionary in Sweden and founded the see of Wexio.^
In September he was followed by Professor Soderblom,
now Archbishop of Upsala in succession to Dr. Ekman,
who had written the letter to the Lambeth Conference.

The Commission was appointed in March, 1909, and
none of its members can have been more active than the
Bishop of Salisbury. 2 After meetings in England, and
the accumulation of further knowledge, the party pro-
ceeded to Sweden in the autumn of 1909.^ They were

* Bishop Wordsworth's youngest child, born on St. Andrew's
Day, 1 910, was christened Andrew Siegfrid.

^ The Bishop of Winchester (Dr. Ryle) was chairman. The others,
beside the Bishop of Salisbury, were Bishop Mott Williams, of Marquette,
U.S.A., Dr. A. J. Mason, Canon of Canterbury, and then also Vice-
Chancellor of Cambridge University and Master of Pembroke College,
and Chancellor E. R. Bernard of Salisbury Cathedral. Dr. Ingram,
the Bishop of London, was appointed, but did not act. The report
of the Commission, dated 25th January, 191 1, was published in that
year under the title The Church of England and the Church of
Sweden. London : Mowbray.

^ The share of the Bishop in the visit to Germany paid by a number
of clergy and other representatives of various religious bodies in the
summer of 1909 deserves notice. The party went in the interest of
national good will, and were most heartily welcomed. The Bishop,
among others, was received by the German Emperor ; they had already
met and conversed at Jerusalem in 1898, when a great German Church
was being consecrated at the same time as the English Cathedral of
St. George. At one of the meetings at Berlin, on the 13th June, the
Bishop gave addresses both in German and English. He was deeply
impressed by the great institutions for the epileptic and afflicted
founded by Pastor Bodelschwingh at Bielefeld.

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 357

accompanied by ladies, including Mrs. Wordsworth, and
were everywhere welcomed. They entered the Scandi-
navian countries at Copenhagen, where on the 19th
September, a luncheon was given in their honour, at
which the Bishop spoke briefly, saying that their object
was " an alliance against rationalism and Roman
autocracy." In the evening he addressed a meeting of
about two hundred : —

" I spoke about three-quarters of an hour slowly in English.
After introduction I spoke of our Church as being like theirs
as episcopal, liturgical, evangelical. I explained that with
certain differences there was much similarity. I insisted on
the value of Confirmation in our way as bringing the Bishop
into personal touch with so many parishes and people every
year. All agreed that there is an objective gift of the Holy
Ghost to faithful receivers. No controversy with us as to
requirements from young people, since it is voluntary. [There
is such a controversy in Denmark, where Confirmation is
practically obligatory at fourteen, which has led to the adop-
tion of an alternative form in which no question is asked of
the children ; only the Pastor explains the Creed.] We also
dwell on two sides of the rite : (i) it is an ordination to lay
priesthood ; (2) a consecration of the body. I spoke of the
value of our Prayer-book catechism and collects. I always
desired our young clergy to have a copy in their pockets.
As to ' evangelical,' I explained that it meant trying to
respond to new needs in new Gospel ways ; e.g. we had
frankly adopted the method of the Salvation Army in our
Church Army ; poor men and women preach and minister
to the poor. Also our C.E.M.S., W.U., G.F.S., etc."

The Bishop's impression of the Danish Church was that
it was " generally orthodox, but not much leaning to
' Catholic ' doctrine or practice. Grundtvig's party has
weakened respect for Bishops." ^

^ Extracts from the very full diary kept by the Bishop during
this expedition.

358 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

From Copenhagen they passed to Upsala, postponing
further visits till the Conference with the representatives
of the Swedish Church should have been held. The story
of the meeting and the names of the Swedes who were
present may be read in the published report. The Swedish
Church is eminently a scholarly one. The Archbishop
and six of the twelve Bishops had been University Pro-
fessors ; all the chief speakers on the Swedish side in the
discussion could speak English. The debate at Upsala
lasted for three days. It was found that of the four points
in the " Lambeth quadrilateral " three were clearly held
equally by either side. The inquiry, therefore, was con-
fined to the ministry of the two Churches. The Swedes
had questions to ask. They wished to know about Barlow
and Parker, and the reasons why Rome rejects English
Orders. On the other hand, the English divines wished
to be satisfied as to the Swedish succession, and the inten-
tion of the Swedish Church in conferring episcopate and
priesthood, together with the method and form of their
ordination. There were ambiguous points, but they were
successfully explained, and the Conference ended, in
Bishop Wordsworth's words, " with many mutual expres-
sions of gratitude, affection, good will, and hopefulness."
On the last day the Bishop of Winchester laid a wreath
on the grave, before the Cathedral altar, of Laurentius
Petri, the first Protestant Archbishop of Upsala, who had
been consecrated in 1531 by Petrus Magni, himself con-
secrated at Rome.

When their immediate task was over the English
party broke up, and the Bishop of Salisbury applied
himself to learn as much as possible in eleven days. The
Swedish Church and its ancient customs, its chasubles
and altar-lights, its collects drawn from the old service-
books, and its stately music ; on the other hand, its
Lutheran peculiarities, its abandonment of the diaconate

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 359

and of Confirmation ; its tendencies of thought, sometimes
such as the Bishop preferred, sometimes dogmatically
Lutheran or evangelically undenominational ; all these
points were observed and recorded. Conversing with
Bishops and pastors at every opportunity and visiting
parishes in town and country, he made himself acquainted
with the financial state of the clergy, their methods of
work, their advantages and their difficulties. He visited
both Universities, Lund as well as Upsala, and it is need-
less to say that at Stockholm he examined the famous
manuscripts, the Aureus and the Gigas. After a tour
through much of Southern Sweden, in the course of
which acquaintance was made with members of the royal
family and many other persons of distinction, the Bishop
and Mrs. Wordsworth left the country for England on the
4th October.

Three months later the Commission had drawn up
and published its report, and the Bishop must have
thought that his work in regard to Sweden was at an end.
In fact, it was only beginning. There had been good
reason for the inclusion of a Bishop whose diocese lay on
the banks of Lake Superior in the Commission. In his
State of Michigan and in those contiguous to it almost a
quarter of the Swedish race is resident, and problems in
regard to their relation with Episcopalians are pressing,
Swedes of one type, that which values the historical pre-
sentation of the Christian faith, had often, and for many
generations, been drawn towards our Church, which
actually has congregations in the United States which once
were Swedish, and others, of more recent foundation, in
whose services the Swedish language is used. But the
great majority of the American Swedes are less churchly
than their countrymen at home. They have never had
Bishops, and do not, it seems, wish to have them. They
could only obtain them from Sweden, and the request

36o LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

would seem an act of subordination to which they are not
willing to stoop. Hence, though the American Swedes
regard themselves as in communion with the Church of
their home, there is a certain difficulty when the leaders
of our Church in the United States have occasion to
co-operate with those of Churches — for the Swedes there
are divided into several bodies, though all profess allegiance
to the standards of the Church of Sweden — which are
contentedly unepiscopalian. Nor is this difficulty confined
to Anglicans ; it is felt in Sweden itself, where, by a curious
compromise, a clergyman in the orders of one of these
Lutheran Swedish bodies of America is allowed to serve
as an assistant curate, but may not hold a benefice.

In the prairie States, then, there is a practical difficulty,
and there was reason for thinking that a clear statement
of historical facts might help to clear up an ambiguous
situation. Obviously no one was more competent to
make it than the Bishop of Salisbury, and there was a
convenient occasion for inviting him. In 1900 Bishop
C. R. Hale, of Cairo, Coadjutor of Springfield in the State
of Illinois, had endowed by his will a lecture at the
Western Theological Seminary in Chicago, the duties of
which resembled those of the Bampton lecturer at
Oxford. One of the topics that might be treated accord-
ing to the terms of the trust was " National Churches."
The authorities of the Seminary used the opportunity to
ask Bishop Wordsworth, on the loth December, 1909,
to lecture on the subject he was making his own. He
accepted at once, and was soon able to write to Bishop
Wallis 1 :—

" I have got quite a big Swedish library, and only want
concentrated energy and time to work at it. I am getting a
good idea of the Swedish character, which is a comparatively
simple one to describe if not to comprehend — proud, sensitive,

1 24th March, 1910.

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 361

and self-contained, disliking pretence but somewhat con-
ventional, courteous and hospitable, and ready to take in
foreign ideas, but very tenacious and conservative, somewhat
sensual and materialistic, but loving country ways and country
life and homeliness ; in fact, having many qualities which
seem rather opposite to one another and yet are very natural
and spontaneous with it all ; practical at once and dreamy,
loving peace and war alike.

" But how to summarise their religious history in six
lectures ! The idea rather oppresses me, and I shall get tired
of it before I have done."

The lectures were to be delivered in the last week of
October, and it was from the first intended that they should
form a book, or at least be its groundwork. Speed,
therefore, was necessary, for though the Bishop had
worked out for himself a sketch of Swedish Church
history for the purposes of the Lambeth Committee and
of the visit to Sweden, it was in the form of rough notes
and was incomplete and unverified. He set to work
systematically to acquire a working library on the subject,
and made himself for reading purposes familiar with the
language. The rapidity with which he picked it up was
remarkable in a man past middle life, but the striking
thing was not the achievement in itself but rather the
grasp of language m general that made it possible, and
even easy. It would, indeed, have been strange if a
Teutonic tongue had held difficulties for him. The pre-
paration for the lectures could not, from the nature of
the case, include any research, in the strict sense of the
word. Yet it would be untrue to describe the result as
a compilation. The Bishop had no time to do more than
ascertain what were the most authoritative books upon
his subject, to master them and select what he needed,
and verify doubtful points either by inquiry from com-
petent scholars or else (though rarely) by investigations

362 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

of his own. This work was successfully done, for his
wide knowledge of history taught him what were the
questions that needed to be asked ; and he not only
secured accuracy, but actually in some cases added to
knowledge by the inquiries he instituted. The collection
of his books was itself an undertaking of some moment.
Since the Bishop's death this portion of his library has
been given to that of the Archbishops at Lambeth Palace.
There were greater libraries that were very willing to
receive it.

Before the Bishop left England, a great part of
his lectures was in print. This was far from the whole
of his literary work for the year 1910. He edited again
his Bishop Sarapion's Prayer-hook,^ he revised for a
second edition his Invocation of Saints,'^ and published
the third edition, revised and enlarged, of his Holy Com-
munion.^ It was inevitable in the circumstances, but
most unfortunate, that he should fail to do justice to
this important work. The additions are valuable, and
the original text has lost nothing of its merit, but he could
not fully incorporate the recent accumulations of know-
ledge nor so recast the work as to give it the symmetry
it deserves. One more event of the year must be men-
tioned. An Ordinatorum Conventus was held from the
6th to the gth June, when most of those whom he had
admitted to Holy Orders during the twenty-five years
of his episcopate assembled at Salisbury for religious
intercourse. Among those whom he had ordained were
Dr. Pollock, the present Bishop of Norwich, Dr. West-
cott, lately Bishop of Lahore, the Archdeacons of Brecon,
Warwick, and Wilts, ^ and Father Dolling.

The Bishop sailed from Southampton on the 15th

1 In the series " Early Church Classics," of the S.P.C.K.
^ S.P.C.K. ^ Longmans.

* Messrs. Bevan, Peile, and Bodington.

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 363

September and landed at New York on the 21st, his
sixty-seventh and last birthday. He had come with a
double duty. Knowing that he was to lecture at Chicago,
the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church had
invited him to preach at the Annual Convention which
was to be held at Cincinnati at the beginning of October.
He therefore landed in the United States in a public
capacity, and his name also drew attention to his visit.
But among the journalists who buzzed around him were
some to whom his name and style were unfamiliar. ' ' Lord
Bishop John Wadsworth of Salisbury " was one descrip-
tion ; in others his city was " Salesbury." But the lord-
ship was an obsession of the reporter's mind.^ " The Lord
Bishop " would occur in sentence after sentence ; " Lord
Bishop comes to Boston " was conspicuous in one news-
paper. " Newspapers without news " was one of his
list of "Things different in U.S.A.," together with
squirrels in city parks, dark churches always needing
artificial light, and general politeness and universal
helpfulness to strangers. Many strange things were
alleged about him ; for instance, that he was the greatest
Latinist in Europe, the evidence being that he had once
written a letter in Latin to the Pope. He was perhaps
a difficult case, for he was not submissive to the reporters,
one of whom was reduced to commenting on the incon-
gruity of steel rims to the spectacles of a Lord Bishop.
But none of them equalled that secretary of an English
Free Church Council who in 1909 addressed him as
" John Salem, Esquire."

The Bishop was accompanied to America by the last and
most gifted of his domestic chaplains, Mr. J. S. S. Johnston ,2

1 I am told that there is an impression in America that "Lord
Bishop " is a grade in the Anglican hierarchy between Archbishop and
Bishop.

2 John Samuel Spence Johnston had taken the highest honours at
Trinity College, Dublin, and was ordained in 1905 to the Curacy of St.

364 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

from whose notes the record of this American journey will
chiefly be made. Mr. Johnston, after mentioning the
two objects of the Bishop, writes : —

" The purpose of the tour would not be adequately described
without some reference to a deeper motive which touched and
fired the Bishop's imagination and gave to this invitation from
the New World almost the nature of a Divine call. All through
his life, but much more in his later years, he had come to
regard it as a special vocation that he should be a minister of
' unity and fellowship ' among the nations and Churches of
the world. In this office of ambassador and peace-maker
he had made many journeys and visited many countries ; it
was his conviction that only through personal contact and
mutual knowledge would the Christian peoples throughout the
world gradually move towards some form of reunion. He
often spoke of this dream and desire, so deep in his heart,
of drawing the peoples of the world together and of helping
them to furnish their own special contributions to the common
fund of humanity. To one who so felt his own vocation it
may easily be imagined how this call from America would
appeal. His casual words would often reveal the imaginative
framework in which he viewed this undertaking. It was to
him no pleasure trip or exchange of ecclesiastical courtesies ;
it was a step towards his ideal. He felt himself the bearer of
a message from the Old World to the New, the representative
of a historic Church and an ancient see carrying a benediction
to a land of hope. Throughout his tour he seemed to be
always viewing his labours and travels in this light. He felt
the responsibility of his mission, and saw his own brief sojourn
against a background of larger meaning.

" During the first nine days of our tour we stayed at New
York, where we made our home at Trinity Rectory, and all
that kindness and thought could do for our comfort and
enjoyment was done by our kind host and hostess. Dr. and

Peter's, Croydon. In 1909 he became resident Chaplain at Salisbury.
After Bishop Wordsworth's death he was collated by his successor to the
Vicarage of Broadstone, Dorset, where he died in 1914 at the age of 36.
He was author of The Philosophy of the Fourth Gospel, 1909, and would
have made his mark as a thoughtful theologian had he lived.

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 365

Mrs. Manning. From there we paid short visits to Philadelphia
and Washington. On our first Sunday in America the Bishop
preached in the historic Trinity Church in New York. There
was an immense congregation, many of the general public
being attracted by the magic name of Wordsworth. The
Bishop's sermon did not aim at producing any dramatic effect ;
indeed, throughout the tour he seemed almost deliberately
to throw cold water on would-be honisers and hero-worshippers,
and he must thereby have produced some disappointment in
lovers of the picturesque and dramatic. Yet he could not
spoil the natural impressiveness of his bearing and utterance,
and he was listened to with marked attention in Trinity
Church by a congregation which included many of the leaders
of American life. The sermon ^ showed that though he was
the bearer of a message from the Old World he had already
grasped some salient characteristics of the New. He uttered
wise and teUing words of warning against the impatience of
modern life, the love of ' short cuts ' which showed itself in
so many ways ; in the devices to avoid pain and labour, in the
desire rapidly to attain wealth by speculation. He showed
the same tendency at work in those who, not content with
the conviction of a patient faith, try by a short cut to pierce
through to the unseen by means of spiritualism or theosophy.
'We want,' he said, 'to bring everything from the moon
downwards within the reach of a single effort.' This was
his first public utterance in New York, and many of his dicta
were quoted and requoted in the American press."

In New York the Bishop was met with almost an excess
of hospitality. Eminent men in all departments of life
met him at dinner ; among others Admiral Mahan, to
whom he discoursed about the nautical experiences
of Synesius. He lectured on his special topics at
several Colleges, and of course viewed the great libraries
with peculiar interest. He had a long interview with
Archbishop Platon, the head of the Orthodox Church in
North America. From New York he went to Boston,

1 Its subject was " Christlike discipline of the will."

366 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

and thence to Albany, where he found the Cathedral
" really beautiful ; fine pink stone, Lombardic in archi-
tecture." Bishop Doane of that city was an old and dear
friend.

" From Albany," Mr. Johnston continues, " we travelled
with a party of Bishops in great luxury, on the late Mr. Pier-
pont Morgan's special train, to Cincinnati, where the General
Convention of the American Church was to be held. At
Cincinnati we were guests of Mr. Charles P. Taft, brother of
the late President. ^ The Bishop delivered the opening address
to the Convention in the Music Hall, to an audience of 5000.
The Cincinnati Times-Star described the service as ' the
most solemn, convincing, and triumphant of aU the many
historic events which the old Hall has sheltered.' While
the general public might have preferred something rather
more racy and highly spiced the delegates were deeply im-
pressed. The subject was our Lord's cleansing of the Temple.
Perhaps rather too much time was given to the textual exposi-
tion of the incident, but the application to present-day con-
ditions was penetrating and practical, especially when the
Bishop came to deal with the serious problems of family life
and divorce in America. He had been staggered by the con-
dition of things he found, and in the most earnest way he
pleaded with this great and representative congregation to
throw their influence into the task of ' re-creating the family
and making it an image of the Church.' There were cha-
racteristic passages such as this : —

" ' Women, we are told in the old fable, love power most
of all. But I believe they love far more to be joint-partners
with a will more powerful than their own. Give way to your
wives in little things, but let your will prevail in great ones.
You will not lose, but gain their love.'

" The question of the reunion of the various Christian
bodies was perhaps the dominant subject discussed at the

^ The Bishop made careful notes of Mr. Taft's collection of paintings
by the Masters, and of the methods employed in printing his newspaper,
the Times-Star. At Mr. Taft's home, as at Trinity Rectory, he met
many distinguished Americans.

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 367

Convention, and the matter was pressed forward with great
enthusiasm. The Bishop gave wise counsel in his opening
address : —

" 'We must labour to clear away barriers that separate
Christians from one another, but must prepare the way with
caution and gentleness. The Church is not a single building
on a small plot of ground, but, like Heaven, it has many
mansions. All who have had to do with the housing problem
know how much mischief may be done by the sudden removal
of small and narrow dwellings, which yet are familiar homes,
and the substitution for them of a great block of tenements
with the most modern sanitary appliances. Our Church life
is too domestic, too intimate, too sacred to be suddenly
transformed into a vast international, interdenominational
club-house. We must, therefore, work at the problem with self-
denial and reserve. But we must give our energies definitely
and decisively to those parts of it where opportunity seems
most to lead us on.'

" In spite of these counsels of prudence and reserve the
Bishop took a very hopeful view of the prospects of Christian
reunion in America, especially since a Comtoission was
appointed by the Convention to organise a Conference ' for
the consideration of questions of Faith and Order,' and a
resolution was carried that ' all Christian communions through-
out the world which confess our Lord Jesus Christ as God and
Saviour be asked to unite in arranging for and conducting
such a Conference.' The Bishop felt very strongly that the
Episcopal Church in America had a great part to play in this
movement ; for with its historic basis and its solid institutions
it seemed to be a natural rallying-point amid the fluctuations
of many denominations. Further observation convinced him
that the moral position of the Episcopal Church was much
stronger than the small number of its adherents might lead
one to suppose."

The Bishop's own account of the day runs : —

" Wednesday, 5th October, Cincinnati. 7.30 a.m. Holy
Communion at St. Paul's Cathedral, a poor building for such
a purpose, full of Bishops and delegates. About ninety-seven

368 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Bishops and seven hundred delegates attend the Convention ;
four clergymen and four laymen from each diocese.

" 10.30 preached after short Morning Prayer at the Music
Hall in Elm Street. Intensely hot. The rain continued nearly
all day. Slipped off chimere and scarf in the pulpit. Preached
on ' Our Lord as a Reformer.' I had finished the MS. on the
previous day. Mr. Taft had it printed and sent me a proof
in slips, to which I added a little, and the whole was being sold
as an evening paper at 11.30, while I was preaching. I cut
out a good deal in delivery, but it took about an hour. Of
course in such a place it had to be slowly dehvered."

The damp heat which the Bishop mentions prevailed
during most of his visit. Before he had been a week
in the United States he was feeling weary. He was
preaching every Sunday, he delivered learned lectures in
several Colleges, and an impromptu address seems to have
been expected whenever he examined some institution.
He was travelling constantly by train, seeing all that he
could and entering into conversation with all from whom
he could learn or with whom he found some link of associa-
tion. Most tiring of all must have been the hospitable
dinners at which, night after night, he had to hold his own
with men gifted in many ways. It is no wonder that a
friendly physician had insisted that a considerable share
of the few hours he devoted to Washington should be
given to rest. References, continuous though not em-
phatic, to his weariness and the discomfort of the heat
are found throughout the Bishop's notes.

" From Cincinnati," Mr. Johnston continues, " we tra-
velled to Sewanee in the State of Tennessee. At Sewanee
is the University of the South, which the Bishop had been
urgently pressed to visit. This visit he regarded as the most
delightful part of his American tour. The University of the
South is a Church institution, planned before the Civil War
broke out and finally brought into being by Bishop Quintard
in 1866. It is rich in memories of the great leaders of the

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 369

South, and Dr. Du Bose, the most famous of its teachers,
fought in the Confederate Army and had many perilous
adventures before he settled down to a professorship. The
little University has had a romantic history. Unhke many
others in America it has had no large endowments. It has had
to fight its way through great difficulties ; it has only lived
through the loyalty and self-sacrifice of its members, both
teachers and students. Many of its lecturers have given their
services almost for nothmg, and have refused offers of lucrative
work elsewhere. In this mountain retreat there lives on the
spirit of the old South, purified and refined through years of
hardship and struggle.

" Though it lay far out of his route and meant a long and
trying journey, the Bishop had resolved to visit Sewanee. The
little town is set on a spur of the Cumberland Mountains,
some two thousand feet above sea-level. We looked forward
to our visit to this bracing altitude after the rather close and
relaxing climate of Cincinnati. The latter part of our journey,
from NashviUe to Sewanee,^ was slow but full of interest,
and we had the pleasant company of Bishop Gailor to while
away the time as we steamed through cotton-fields and passed
the quiet graveyards of the Civil War. There is a wonderful
succession of glorious views as the little railway climbs round
the shoulders of the hills. At last we reached Sewanee, and
the Bishop was amply repaid for the tedium of the journey
by the charm of the place and the welcome of its residents.
The home of the University is one of the most picturesque
spots that can be imagined. The buildings of red sandstone,
dotted here and there among the trees, are a pleasant relief
after the painful monotony of the typical American city.
Unhappily the mosquitoes to some extent spoiled the charm.
Sleep was difficult ; the heat had been taxing the Bishop's
strength and he was growing very tired. He lectured on the
Baptismal Creed in the Theological School, and celebrated
the Holy Communion in the College Chapel, being, I beheve,
the first Enghsh Bishop to perform that of&ce in Sewanee. He
found himself in cordial sympathy with the ideals of the place.
Its air of peaceful industry and quiet culture were after his

1 A private car had again been put at the Bishop's service.

2 B

370 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

own heart, and long conversations with the veteran theologian,
Dr. Du Bose, added greatly to his pleasure,

" Next we visited Nashville, where the Bishop preached
on the Sunday in a crowded church. There, as elsewhere in
the South, the Bishop was almost overwhelmed by the warmth
of the welcome he received. The attachment of the people in
the Southern States to English traditions, religious as well as
social and civil, was a revelation to him, and drew forth the
remark on more than one occasion that he feared our dis-
tinguished English visitors had treated the South with less than
due respect in confining their tours almost exclusively to the
great cities of the Northern States.

" From Sewanee we went to Chicago, where we were guests
in the friendly home of Bishop Anderson. Here began the
Bishop's special opportunities of making acquaintance with the
Swedish settlers who are numerous in the States of Illinois,
Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In company with Bishop
G. Mott Williams, of Marquette, he visited the Augustana
College, Rock Island, on the Mississippi, about two hundred
miles west of Chicago. It is the spiritual centre of the greatest
Swedish Church in America, the Augustana Synod, which is
generally regarded as the daughter Chruch of the National
Church of Sweden. After a very pleasant visit to the beautiful
city of Minneapolis, the Bishop returned to Chicago, where two
Sundays were spent, and the lectures on the Church of Sweden
were delivered on the six nights of the intervening week."

These Western journeys, made by night, were a further
strain, but private conference with Swedish leaders was
a primary purpose of the whole visit to America. At
Rock Island the theological professors were found in
lay attire, while the clergy of Sweden are scrupulously
professional in their clothing. And this external differ-
ence seems to have symbolised an interior difference of
sympathies. Rock Island was less ecclesiastical than
Upsala. A long and candid discussion was held, and the
Bishop thought at the end that " we had done some good."
Minneapolis, a great commercial city with large Swedish

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 371

congregations, was also visited with the purpose of making
acquaintance with their leading clergy. The Hale Lectures,
delivered in the evenings of the week from the 24th to
the 2gth October, to an audience which ranged between
seventy and a hundred, were a further strain. The
weather was sultry and rain was continuous. St. James's
Church, Chicago, in which they were given, was so near
to trains and tramways that not a window could be
opened. On Sunday morning, the 30th, the Bishop
preached in Chicago Cathedral. He spent the night, much
exhausted, in the train on the way to Buffalo. Next
day, in the company of Bishop Walker, he visited Niagara,
and in the evening addressed the annual council of the
Girls' Friendly Society of the United States, then in
session at Buffalo. Again he spent a night in the train
to New York, and after two busy days, during which he
inspected institutions and granted many interviews, he
embarked on the Oceanic for Southampton.

It is no wonder that Mr. Johnston should record that—

"the Bishop was clearly much exhausted by the incessant
strain. We had met with spells of excessive heat, and this,
added to the fatigue of night travelling, told very much on
the Bishop's strength. He seldom seemed to have had
refreshing sleep, and the continual rush of American Hfe did
not give opportunity for those quiet spaces of meditation by
which he had always been able to refresh his spirit in his
own land. In the earher part of the tour he was wonderfully
vigorous, and in the long railway journey from Albany to
Cincinnati he rather amazed his episcopal companions by
writing the greater part of his Convention sermon ; certainly
no one who reads it will find much to suggest hasty prepara-
tion. But m the later part of his tour the Bishop was con-
tinually tired, and almost on the verge of physical collapse.
Yet he would not give in, and he carried out his programme to
the last detail.

" What impression the Bishop made in America it is not

372 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

easy to say. He would not speak of himself or his own
scholarship, or tell anecdotes of the poet. But those who came
into close contact were clearly impressed by his absence of
self-consciousness, his childlike humility, his interest in the
details of household life, his transparent sincerity and warm-
heartedness, and above all by his distinction and natural
dignity. Once, at a dinner where a great number of American
Bishops were present, the Bishop who sat next to me said,
' I cannot define or analyse the quality your Bishop has. No
one in the room is making less effort to shine than he. Yet
if any one looked round the table, without knowing any of us,
he would not have a moment's hesitation in saying, " There is
the great man in this assembly." '

" As to the Bishop's impression of America and its people,
the testimony is ample and unmistakable. What impressed,
and indeed surprised him. was the kindhness and courtesy
of the people he met in the streets and the trains. His verdict
was that they were not only hospitable, generous, and con-
siderate, but also a lovable people. It is surely a proof of
his large -heartedness that he should have felt this towards
a nation with whom one would have expected him, with
his tastes and training and traditions, to have had little in
common.

" The other outstanding feature in the life of America that
impressed him is one that may best be described m his own
words, from an address delivered soon after his return : —

" ' 1 think that every one would admit that the most
remarkable feature of America is its growing homogeneity.
Although there are still large isolated and rather reluctant
nuclei of Germans and other foreign nationalities, parti-
cularly Slavs of various kinds, as a rule they are becoming
rapidly assimilated. The most obvious agency in this process
are the " Public Schools," a term which includes both elemen-
tary and high schools, which often lead up to State Universities
where tuition is given free. This system of education has the
great drawback of being in most cases purely secular,^ but it

^ The Bishop was grieved to find that the State of Illinois had just
pronounced the Lord's Prayer a " sectarian formula," and forbidden its
use in the public schools.

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 373

is difficult to see how any other system could have produced
the desired effect of creating a nation under such circumstances.
The results, however, in the looseness of the rehgious tie and
in the consequent lack of respect for religious authority, are
very grave. The Roman Catholics are credited with promoting
this secularity in the State schools in order to justify their own
position in keeping up separate schools. What is the cha-
racter which is thus produced ? The formative and most
influential element in it has been, on the whole, happily for
the country, that of the Eastern States ; that is to say, an
English character tinged with Puritanism, but now washed
free from bigotry and prejudice. It stands for keenness in
business and directness in speech, fairness especially towards
differences of opinion, love of liberty and love of comfort ;
and just now there is appearing a great passion for philanthropy
as a substitute for religion. Material prosperity and a per-
ception of the value of liberty in the formation of character
have endowed the nation with remarkable good humour.
Almost the last place we visited in America was Niagara.
We both felt glad we had left it to the very end, for it seemed,
better than anything else, to sum up the total impression.
As one looked first at the turbulence and confusion and mad
rush of the great waterfall, one seemed to see the true image
of American life in its superficial aspect. But as one looked
more closely, there were seen in the thick of the spray myriads
of rainbows when the sun shone through. So, too, as one
looked closer into the noise and confusion of American life,
there might be seen also rainbows of hope and promise. . . .
I can only say, in concluding my account of my visit, that I
have come back to my own country with a heart deeply moved
with thankfulness to dear friends on the other side of the
Atlantic. I have found them courteous, generous, and lovable
in the highest degree, and profoundly desirous of building up
a great fabric of national hfe and national Christianity.' "

The Bishop had travelled some 4500 miles in the train,
and sorely needed rest. He found it in his ship. There
seemed to be not merely recovery to his former state,
but actually an advance beyond it. He landed at

374 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Southampton on the gth November, spent the night at
home, and the next two days in Convocation, where, the
Bishop of London said in welcoming him, he " burst
upon them with the breeziness and enthusiasm of a boy."
From this time onward his thoughts and utterances were
full of the lessons he had learned in America. But for
the present he was still immersed in his Swedish labours.
His book was not published till the beginning of 1911 ;
the preface is dated Christmas, 19 10. Before the volume
appeared he had explained to his diocese ^ the possibilities
of the future in regard to the Swedes of Europe and
America : —

" There are, I believe, about two million Swedes in the
United States. The Swedes are a most valuable set of
colonists. Their honesty and diligence, their love of religion
to a certain point, and their many virtues make them most
welcome citizens, and they amalgamate very swiftly with the
Anglo-Saxon population ; but only one-quarter of them are
attached to any religious body as actual members. If an
alliance between the Church of America and the Church of
Sweden in the mother country, and that of the Augustana
Synod in U.S.A., could do anything to bring the great mass
of these valuable colonists into closer Church fellowship it
would be a most excellent work for the United States. It would
bring our own Churches into touch with a most important
body of Christians, equal in numbers, probably, to all other
Evangelical Christians put together — namely, the Lutherans.
It is estimated by Dr. Lenker, of Minneapolis, the translator
of Luther's works and a great authority on Lutheranism, that
there are about seventy million Lutherans in the world. If
the Anglican Churches and the Swedish Churches could enter
into a thorough and intimate alliance, we should be in touch
with a body of persons who had preserved a very strong hold
upon Christian truth, a hold stronger, perhaps, than that of
any other Evangelical rehgious body, except the Scotch

^ In an address to a Conference of Diocesan officers, 17th November,
1910. Diocesan Gazette, p. 284.

SWEDEN AND AMERICA 375

Presbyterians, and we should be able, in that way, to do a very
great work for the Church universal. Here might be a door
open for a much greater movement than any other which had
been possible for centuries. The getting into touch with the
enormous body of Lutherans is a matter which had occupied
the attention of many of our predecessors in the reigns of
James I. and Charles I. I have only recently become
acquainted with the steps which were taken in the matter by
Archbishop Laud and other Bishops, including my predecessor,
Bishop Davenant. The death of Gustavus Adolphus put an
end to an opportunity for alliance which never arose again. ^
May we do something to take up the task under happier con-
ditions."

The National Church of Sweden was at once translated
into Swedish. It is read in the Universities of that
country, and also, as I am told, in the University of
Christiania. The introduction to the Swedish edition,
written by Professor Soderblom, who has since become
Archbishop of Upsala, will show in what light it appears
to a competent native critic. ^

" This work is destined to be for a long time to come the
medium of knowledge about our Church in foreign lands. She
(the Swedish Church) is to be congratulated that she is indebted
for this to an author so well informed, so personally eminent,
and so impressed with her history and possibilities. But most
of all the book owes its peculiar fascination, its suggestive
character, and its permanent worth to the English prelate's
vigorous outlook on our history, and on the position of the
two Churches in general. Subjects are brought before us
in a new light and with an unaccustomed background. We
encounter a lofty conception of the task of the Church, and at
the same time a warm and wide affection flowing out of a
truly episcopal spirit, which would have Bishops to be ^

^ See The National Church of Sweden, pp. 290-298.
2 The translation is made by Chancellor Bernard.
^ See National Church of Sweden, p. 420.

376 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

* not Inspectors but Fathers in God.' When Bishop Words-
worth desires, with, an eagerness which is a Httle surprising
to us, that the Bishop should lay his hand on the head of every
person confirmed, it is not that he regards it merely as a cere-
mony, but as an expression of close personal relation. So
at least at that time in his life will every member of the Church
necessarily come in contact with his Bishop. Here in our land
at the present day the different classes live more apart from
one another than formerly, as it were in separate strata. It
would be for our welfare if both in Church and State, in the
Army and other employments, those above and those below
had more real contact with one another. The author's view
of our ecclesiastical conditions is realistic, not fanciful or
romantic, but at the same time it is unalarmed and full of
confidence. His widely extended survey should help to inspire
somewhat of a consciousness of fellowship in place of that too
frequent superficial, short-sighted, irresponsible attitude which
under a pretence of zeal embitters our inevitable difficulties
and controversies. His closing words refer primarily to a
good understanding between his Church and our own, but may
well be applied to our Church's inner life. May He who gives
His servants the power to see visions, also help us to make them
realities."

The session of Convocation upon which he had burst
gives occasion of reference to a lack of which he was some-
times conscious. Of its debates he writes ^ : —

" We have done a good deal of business with Prayer-book
revision, though I could not get my points carried. I wish I
was readier in argument and more persuasive, as I am often
right when others are wrong and cannot get enough votes to
carry things."

As to this difficulty the Bishop of Winchester writes : —

" There was a very strong individuahty about the way in
which the Bishop formed and expressed his opinion. Partly
from his special knowledge on certain subjects, but also from

1 To Mrs. Wordsworth, loth November, 1910.

LAST MONTHS 377

temperament, it was his way to put forward an opinion dog-
matically, and not to seem, as he did so, much affected by
indications that it was not welcome, or might not be shared
by others among his brethren. He would not mind dividing
in a minority of one ; but, having done so, he would cheerfully
accept the result without any annoyance or bitterness ; and
what might have been mistaken at a particular moment for
indifference to others' opinion went in reality, if one watched,
with a very careful attention to the thoughts and suggestions
of men whom he respected, and indeed of those with whom he
was called to act."

This comparative failure was in great measure physical.
As Dr. Sanday, speaking especially of his appearances
in the House of Lords, has said,^ perhaps too emphati-
cally : —

" He had none of the orator's skill in taking his cue from
the audience. This may have been partly due to the short-
sightedness which prevented him from seeing his audience.
But his speeches were apt to be rather of the nature of solilo-
quies in which he followed the course of his own thoughts."

Similarly his chaplain, Mr. J. S. S. Johnston, speaking
of his more private attempts to influence the conduct of
some of the clergy, says : —

" The Bishop sometimes seemed keenly aware of his own
hmitations. Once he said to me (\vith a good deal of feeling),
' I can prove a thing, but ah ! I can't persuade, I can't
persuade ! ' . . . It was true enough."

But in such cases he was reasoning with partisans,
with whom it was a point of honour not to be convinced.

The Bishop, at the beginning of 1911, addressed a
New Year's Letter to the clergy and laity. It was in
part political ; he wished to give counsel in view of the
second General Election of 1910. He recognises that the

1 Proceedings oj the British Academy, Vol. V., as before.

378 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

" merely hereditary principle " in the House of Lords is
generally abandoned ; yet heredity has its value, and
" England, the centre of a great scattered empire, parti-
cularly needs these conservative forces." He advocates
the election of a certain proportion of the Upper House,
This will make possible the retention of some Bishops in
it. He continues : —

" I confidently assert that the presence of a certain number
of Bishops in the House is of real and permanent value to the
country. It is a defence against hasty legislation on religious
matters and a security that the religious point of view lq social
matters shall not be overlooked. No one who has followed
the action of our Archbishops can doubt this. On the other
hand, it would be an advantage if representatives of other
religious bodies could find a place in the Upper Chamber."

If Bishops were excluded, he asserted that it " would
be absolutely necessary for the Church to have a legal
representative body of its own, side by side and in some
degree co-ordinate with Parliament." He finds in Sweden
an example that might serve our turn.

As the last months of Bishop Wordsworth's life have
now been reached, months through which he was to con-
tinue his labours, till their sudden end, under worse con-
ditions of health than he knew, or at least would recognise,
it will be well first to give the summary record made by
the one who was nearest to him, and then to amplify it
from other sources. Mrs. Wordsworth writes : —

" He had overtaxed his strength through and after the
last Lambeth Conference. The visit to Sweden had been an
immense pleasure to him, opening as it did enticing ideas
for further unity and giving him the opportunity for many
new interests and friendships. He felt strongly drawn to
efforts to understand and help that Church, and so could not
bear that the invitation to America to give the Hale Lectures
should be refused, though he did greatly wish that some one

LAST MONTHS 379

else, especially Canon Bernard, might undertake the task
instead of himself. He accepted it with distinct misgiving,
which we shared and openly confesed. And his letters to
me all the time showed that he was feeling it as too great an
effort. So I too was amazed when he came back, hterally
hke a boy coming home for the hohdays. I think he was
thankful to have it all behind him ; and he threw himself into
the diocesan work with greater zeal than ever. He had a
breakdown in January, 1911, which ought to have had more
time given to it, but he seemed to recover rather remarkably.
Then he spent a Lent of quite extraordinary work, with his
Confirmation tour ; often three services a day, preaching on
Sundays, celebrating the Holy Communion, paying pastoral
visits, arranging for new efforts in the Visitation he was plan-
ning for the autumn. But he did show signs of unusual
fatigue. On Good Friday he took the Three Hours' Service
in the Cathedral. This was a very great effort to him. It
had weighed on him all through Lent. It was not a service
that appealed to him, and he had never taken one, but he
did not want to refuse the Dean. On Easter Day he celebrated
at 8 — we were never out of Cathedral much before 9.30 on
that day — he then went, fasting, to take the service at St.
Edmund's as the Rector was ill. There he preached and
celebrated, and then before coming back for lunch he went
up the hill in answer to a request that he would visit one of
the clergy, who was supposed to be dying. He came back,
tired out, and then preached in the Cathedral that afternoon.
But in the evening he collapsed with high fever, and it was
no surprise to hear that he was willing to stay in bed the next
day. That was the beginning of a long, mysterious low fever
at Salisbury and Bridehead, where he saw three doctors who
all made light of it, except that they agreed in insisting that
it pointed to the urgent need of a complete rest. I was very
uneasy, and sure that he was more ill than any one thought ;
and he himself was very depressed and talked of resigning
or having definite suffragan help. But he shrank from that
idea, as he always maintained that the diocese was not more
than a Bishop in full health and strength could manage.
However, we went to Lulworth and South wold, and he cer-
tainly seemed to make a real recovery ; and on the 28th June

38o LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

we returned to Salisbury for the Trinity Ordination, which had
been postponed and which he held with his usual vigour, I
think. And he took up life again with such thankfulness
and eagerness ; promising to go slowly and take things easily
— a promise which it was impossible for him to keep. We
were a good deal at Lulworth, but there were various camps in
the neighbourhood and he took long walks, visiting them and
preaching. It was, of course, a very hot summer, and I am
sure the heat exhausted him. We had some Copts to stay
with us ; he preached at the Bishop of Gibraltar's consecra-
tion ; he took the Asylum duty at Sahsbury on Sunday, the
3rd July. Then he had the great blow of the Bishop of
Oxford's death on the 2nd August, which he felt deeply.
And he was worried by events in the political world, especially
the passing of the Parliament Bill. He preached in the
Cathedral on the 6th August, but that day had sharp pain in
his chest. The following Tuesday he was very ill with pain,
and was advised complete rest in bed. Again he surprised
every one by seeming to recover ; but he did several things
against the doctor's orders, and on Tuesday, the 15th, took a
long service of licensing and had interviews with several of the
priests. On Wednesday, i6th August, I asked the doctor
to be more firm in telling him that nothing but a long and
entire rest could possibly restore him. So he did, indicating
that no work should be undertaken till January, 1912. The
Bishop felt this very much, but he recovered his spirits and got
up and came down to lunch in the garden with all the children.
He specially encouraged the boys to say what they would be
and do when they grew up. From a game of halma with one
of the girls he came upstairs soon after lunch with a return
of the pain. It was extreme for more than an hour, and then
quite suddenly all was over. I think it had almost literally
broken his heart to hear that he must give up work for a second
time that year."

So far was the Bishop, at the beginning of 1911, from
thinking that his work was nearly done, that he was
contemplating, at some time in the future, a journey
to Khartoum in the service of the Church, which was to

LAST MONTHS 381

be the last of his expeditions. Beside his ordinary work,
he was, as Mrs. Wordsworth says, labouring at what was
for him a novel task, the preparation for the Three Hours'
Service. He wrote to her ^ :—

'' I have done a little to my Three Hours, but it is very hard.
Trying to see a little deeper than others have done into our
Saviour's heart cannot be wrong, but it seems to have in it a
little danger of curiosity and vanity if we think we know more
than others. ' I am not worthy, O Lord,' sounds much in
my ears."

His preaching on that Good Friday was " remarkable
for the freshness and originality of his treatment of the
great theme," writes one who was present. ^ At his last
Synod, as at his first, he urged the importance of diocesan
history ; but this time his topic was the danger lest the
work of the good men who had revived the Church in
country parishes within the nineteenth century should
be ungratefully forgotten. But he was not allowed to be
present on the occasion, and his address was read for him.
Meanwhile, he was planning that Visitation, strange and
alarming to the clergy, ^ which he was not to hold ; and
doubtless he was also arranging for the future when his
work should have passed out of his hands. His chaplain,
Mr. Johnston, says : —

" Though he had a strong love of hfe, death was never long
out of his thoughts. With that instinct for continuity
(' days bound each to each in natural piety ') he was always
thinking how he might prepare successors to take his place
and carry on his work when he was gone. In each of his many
departments of activity he was always looking out for some one
on whom his mantle might fall. This was a characteristic
so deeply rooted and so constantly seen at work that it deserves
mention among his leading habits of mind."

1 1 6th March, 191 1. ^ Canon E. E. Dugmore.

^ See p. 274.

382 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

An incident of his illness is recorded by one of the
Cathedral clergy who was often with him : —

" It was on the evening of Low Sunday, or that of the
second Sunday after Easter, that he sent for me to sit with
him. He was in unusually low spirits and very weak. After
ordinary talk he asked me to pray and lay my hand on him in
blessing. It is a recollection which I naturally cherish, though
at the time it seemed an embarrassing reversal of our normal
relations. I dare say others had a like experience with him,
and I think he valued personal sympathy more than people
generally knew. The points which stand out in my memory
as chiefly impressing me in this period are my sense of the
wealth of his affection for his friends and of his own realisation
of the nearness of the eternal world. I think that he was con-
scious that his life-work was nearly over, and in his outlook
on the future of the Church and nation he was feeling acutely
anxious on account first, of symptoms of an increase of doubt
on the historical character of the Gospel history, and secondly,
of certain outbreaks of unusually grave immorahty. But that
anxiety was strictly in accordance with his habitually intense
realisation, throughout his twenty-five years' rule as Bishop,
of the awful responsibility which rests on the collective
episcopate for the welfare, spiritual and temporal, of the
Church and the world."

But soon his illness took a turn for the better, and he
began to speak with characteristic hopefulness. On the
5th May he wrote to the Bishop of Winchester : —

" I wish I could teU you how I am by any positive standard,
but every other day the doctor tells me I am better, and I can
see by certain signs (appetite, sleep, etc.) that I am. I am
beginning to get more hopeful, but I don't expect to be fit for
work till the end of the month. ... I am content to let day
follow day as God wills. Of course you understand that they
have dug me up all over and find every organ and function
perfectly sound."

On the 25th May he published a letter to the diocese

LAST MONTHS 383

in which he said : " I am now, thanks be to God, con-
valescent, but I am still advised, or rather commanded,
to do no work until the end of June."

This compulsory rest, as Mrs, Wordsworth shows,
was irksome to one who had schooled himself into constant
work and over-work. Believing, as he did, that he had
suffered from weakness rather than from any specific
disease, he threw himself as a relief from the tedium of
idleness into an excess of activity. To mention only some
of the tasks of the last three weeks of his life, on the 25th
July he preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, in itself a con-
siderable effort, a sermon which shows no diminution
of power. 1 On the 2nd August there appeared in the
Times a long and vigorous letter on " the morality of
special creations." After the Bishop's death that journal
asserted that no one had made his special point with
so much force and accuracy. Part of the letter is as
follows : —

" Let me venture to remind your readers of some of the
terms in which bribery is defined in the Corrupt Practices Act
of 1854, which are repeated in the third schedule of the
Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883, where we read,
inter alia, ' The following persons shall be deemed guilty of
bribery and shall be punishable accordingly : i . . . 2. Every
person who shall directly or indirectly . . . give or procure
... or offer, promise, or promise to procure, or to endeavour
to procure any office, place, or employment to or for any voter
... in order to induce such voter to vote or refrain from
voting,' etc. The principle of this section is clear, and it is
surely in equity applicable to the case before us. For why
should a man who offers a voter to try to get him a gardener's
place, in order to induce him to vote for a particular person,
be considered a criminal, and another who offers to make a

1 At the consecration of the Bishops of Gibraltar, Taunton, and
Corea. An extract is given on p. 339- The sermon is printed in the
posthumous volume.

384 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

man a Baron, in order to induce him to vote for a particular
measure, be held to be guiltless ? The voter may have no
objection to vote for the particular candidate ; there is no
proof required that the offer of the gardener's place has changed
his mind ; what the law forbids, and treats as criminal, is
the suggestion of advantage to be gained by the vote, even if
no promise be given by the elector. The words ' in order to
induce such voter to vote ' do not necessarily imply that a
promise has been secured. So that even if Mr. Asquith has
secured no promise, the offer of a Barony, under the circum-
stance, becomes, according to this analogy, a corrupt practice."

On the 4th August he wrote ^ : — ■

" I have not been idle these last few days. I keep well,
but find the heat trying. I generally get a little siesta in the
afternoon."

On Sunday, the 6th August, he preached his last
sermon, again a vigorous one, in Salisbury Cathedral.^
Canon Dugmore writes : —

" It was dehvered with more even than his usual earnest-
ness, and the impression on me was such as to cause me to
say to several friends that I thought he would not be long
with us."

A long and learned letter, which shows familiarity
with recent as well as ancient literature, on the place of
miracles in the Christian revelation, was addressed on
the 13th to Canon Douglas Macleane, as Warden for the
Diocese of the Central Society of Sacred Study. On the
14th was written another long letter, on the endless subject
of ritual observance, to one of the less amenable of the
clergy.^ On the 15th was held a service which Mr.
Carnegy Johnson shall describe : —

1 To the Rev. J. S. S. Johnston.

^ On the Transfiguration. Printed in the posthumous volume of
his sermons.

* For this letter see p. 309.

LAST MONTHS 385

" On the day before he died, the Bishop held an institution
and hcensing of eleven clergy. When the men were ready,
I went up to the study to ask him to allow the Registrar,^
as Notary Public, to take the oaths and declarations, usually
made before the Bishop himself. He got up from the sofa
where he was resting and said, ' No. Why is Maiden here
at all ? ' I replied that I had asked him to help me through
with an unusual number. He took the service in Lady Chapel
vigorously and with determination, and gave a longer address
than usual at the end. Finally he said, ' I should hke to
have a separate interview with each of you, but my doctors
require me to husband my strength. I will, however, see

[naming three] in the Vestry.' He knew well that,

once back in the Palace, he would not have been allowed to
make this further effort, and, masterful as he was, he never
provoked opposition if he could achieve his end quietly.
And so even in the dry, formal, official Act Book which it was
my duty to keep as secretary, there stands against his name on
August 15th a long record of work done by him on that day,
and on August i6th the record of his death. * Occupy till I
come.' Who ever obeyed this order better than our dear
Bishop ? "

During the last days of his life he was carefully weighing
again the evidence of St. Matthew's Gospel for our Lord's
teaching on divorce. He was no longer so confident
as he had once been upon the subject. But the last
topic on which he was engaged was that of the Swedish
Church. By his bed was found lying a full and learned
answer to some criticisms on his Hale Lectures that
had been addressed to him by Professor H. E. Jacobs,
of Philadelphia. The only relaxation he had allowed
himself was that the greater part had been dictated,
the last paragraph being in his own hand.

Amid these varied activities he passed away. The

1 Mr A R Maiden, the distinguished antiquary, was in the Bishop's
last years Registrar of the Diocese. He died soon after Bishop Words-

worth.

2 C

386 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

death was unexpected. A house had been rented for the
summer holiday on Dartmoor, and beyond that immediate
enjo5nnent the Bishop was looking forward to the closer
society of his brother, who was soon to be his neighbour
at Salisbury, and of his brother-in-law, Bishop Wallis,
who had resigned the see of Wellington and had just
been instituted to the archdeaconry of Wilts, In the
fulness of his powers he was removed from service on
earth.

He was buried on Saturday, the 19th, in the beautiful
churchyard of Britford, by the side of his first wife.
The railway strike which had spread over England made
it impossible for many of his friends to be present. Next
day his old friend, the Bishop of Winchester, preached
his funeral sermon in Salisbury Cathedral.^

In attempting a final estimate of Bishop John Words-
worth's character, it will be well to draw attention first
to the quality which most marked him in the judgment
of those who could not appreciate his special gifts. To
the general mind his kindliness was conspicuous. The
evidence is so plentiful that only a few examples can be
selected. At the last moment the story has been furnished
how he would never fail, at a little railway-station, to
climb to the box of a one-armed signalman who sang
in a village choir. His attention to the widows of poor
clergy in Bishop Seth Ward's College of Matrons at
Salisbury, his aid to young men struggling towards Holy
Orders, his help to clever boys in his school by which they
reached the University — one, the son of a railway-porter,
attained to the Indian Civil Service — his reception of a
family of young children into the Palace that their father,
a poor clergyman in a sickness where quiet was essential,
might have the better chance of recovery, the delicacy
of his inquiries into the circumstances in which the family

^ It will be found in the Diocesan Gazette for September, 191 1.

FINAL ESTIMATE 387

of an incumbent had been left by his death ; such are
a few of the instances of his kindhness. If a Sunday
were free he would devote it to the service of some little
church that otherwise must be closed, and the opportunity
would not be lost of learning the circumstances of the
parish. He had the gift of gaining the confidence of
churchwardens, and his knowledge of even the smallest
details of parochial work was astonishing. A lady ^
writes of the Bishop's preaching in a village church after
the funeral of the Vicar : —

" In his sermon he gave testimony to my dear father's
work during his incumbency. I was amazed at his accurate
knowledge of the details of our Church life in the parish and
of the various improvements that had been effected during
that time. It seemed almost incredible that, even had he
known of things at the time they were done, he could have
kept the memory of what went on in such an unimportant
little village."

But this kindness was not sentimental. It was apt
to have at times a certain touch of hardness, which his
life-long friend Chancellor Bernard explains : —

" The deepest impression which I retain from my long
relations of close friendship with him is that of his affectionate
heart. I wish to emphasise this characteristic, because it
was perhaps not generally realised, at any rate not until the
later years of his episcopate, when there were many who
could testify to it. One reason was that his manner was some-
times brusque and apparently unsympathetic. A deeper
reason was that he had a profound conviction that life was
not meant to be smooth, but must bring, for all, trials and
sorrows, a truth of which he had special experience. He would
sometimes give expression to this in a way that seemed almost
harsh to those who were not intimate with him."

1 Miss Henderson, daughter of the Rev. T. J. Henderson, Vicar
of Farley and Pitton, Wilts.

388 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Nor was he always willing to edify. His chaplain,
Mr. Johnston, tells how —

" the Bishop was disappointing to those who came to him
expecting to hear ' some great thing.' I was present when
an impressionable young man came to receive a valediction on
going up to the University. The Bishop did not strike the
idealistic note ; he neither gave grave warnings as to the
temptations of the new hfe, nor did he hold up any ideals of
scorning delights and living laborious days. The only advice
he saw fit to give to the youth was to be careful not to ruin
his digestion by drinking too much tea. The young man went
away, if not sorrowful, certainly mystified."

But his true self was shown in the words which end
the preface of his Ministry of Grace : " To God, the Giver
of the great gift of human friendship, be thanks and
praise."

His manner of life and thought was so uniform that
the memories of his last chaplain do not vary from those
of Mr. Crokat and Archdeacon Bodington. But a few
extracts may be given from the notes of Mr. Johnston : —

" Continuity and solidarity were two notes of his mind,
the one expressing the historic sense, the other the social
sense, but both finding their root in a common instinct.
' Fellowship ' was a word always on his lips ; it realised itself
in the communion of saints and the brotherhood of man .

" He did not inherit the poet's love of nature, but he did
inherit his mental aloofness, his love of elemental things, his
affection for child-nature, his deep love of the simplicities
and sanctities of life. In spite of his love of detail and fact,
he was a confirmed idealist . Nothing else could have made him
take so patient and faithful an interest in the possibilities of
eccentric and doubtful sects and persons.

" His thrift in trifles, e.g. removing unused stamps from
envelopes, saving pieces of twine from parcels (in this resem-
bling the poet), and his almost reckless generosity in great
things. His subscription list was a marvel.

FINAL ESTIMATE 389

" The intellectual difficulties of the day never touched
him ; they were outside his vision altogether. He hved too
much in a world of his own to realise by sympathetic imagina-
tion what were the doubts or the hopes strong in the minds of
younger men . Practical sympathy he was always ready to give ;
intellectual sympathy he could not often bestow. He accepted
the truths of the Gospel, and he was convinced that they rested
on sufficient authority. He distrusted philosophy, though in
his Bampton Lectures he had shown a decided interest in
speculative thought. But this avenue in his mind seemed
later to be entirely closed.

" The Bishop's mode of reading, at least in his latter days,
was curious. He would, apparently in the most aimless way,
pick a book out of the shelves and read for two or three
minutes, perhaps carrying on a conversation in the meantime ;
he then would restore the book to its place. It would seem
that nothing could be gained by so desultory a method, but
in those few minutes every fact was seized and arranged and
laid in place for future use.

" His habit of asking questions was disconcerting, but it
was chiefly due to his habit of thinking aloud. The question
was meant as much for himself as for his companion. When
we were driving or on long journeys, at intervals of about a
quarter of an hour he would ask a question, but I soon found
that he was quite indifferent whether he were answered or not.
He would dive mentally for another quarter of an hour, and
then rise to the surface with a question as before.

" When he laid himself out to preach an important sermon
he was generally too laboured, but when he spoke on the spur
of the moment, or threw out some unconsidered suggestion,
then it was worth while to be all attention.

" He would never shift drudgery on to a subordinate (he
ought to have done so more) nor ask him to do what he was
not ready to do himself. It was a matter of principle with him
to refer to his staff as ' colleagues.' "

Chancellor Bernard's impressions are similar : —

" Those who had occasion to see him often could not
fail to be surprised at the readiness and patience with which

390 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

he would endure interruptions. Indeed, patience is not the
word to use, for there was generally such a willingness to turn
aside from what he was doing and attend to something quite
different, that all the excuses and apologies of the interrupter
were silenced. The recovery of the thread of study or reflec-
tion seemed to cause no difficulty. This characteristic had
its good side for those who came to him from all quarters for
help and guidance, but it was sometimes rather trying for
those who had already secured his attention for something else.
It must not, however, be supposed that he could not or did
not deny himself to those who wanted to see him when other
serious business was in hand. There was a natural capacity
for readily turning from one subject to another, but I feel sure
that it had been developed into a habit under a sense of what
he owed as Bishop to all his flock who needed him. He would
be accessible to all.

" I often had occasion to wonder at the confidence and
readiness with which almost on the spur of the moment he
would sit down at the table and write off an important letter
or formulate a plan of action without any previous sketch,
and with hardly any erasures. It seemed as if all took shape
in his mind without effort, and came to the birth clearly
arranged and in logical order, although the subject could
hardly have been in his thoughts more than a few minutes.

" In conversation a marked feature was his assumption that
what he spoke about was already familiar to his hearer ;
or rather it was that he took for granted that his hearer knew
in some respects more than he did himself. Again and again
I have had to reply, ' I cannot tell you ; my opinion on this is
worth nothing.' Combined with his stores of learning, of which
he must in some degree have been conscious, there was a
modesty and a trustfulness in the knowledge of others which
quite confounded them. There was something of the same
characteristic in his talk to children, whom he supposed to
know and understand things quite beyond them. It was not
till he had children of his own that he fully learned to measure
their intelligence and to enter into their thoughts, instead
of expecting them to enter into his."

His store of learning being what it was, naturally he

FINAL ESTIMATE 391

made the most of it. But it would be unjust to say that
he over-valued precedent. Mr. Johnston says that—

" the Bishop's mind was overweighted with learning ; he
too often went to the Fathers or the Reformation divines
for light on matters which he could have decided as well or
better by his own unaided common sense."

This might create the impression that his loyalty was
simply to the past, as was that of the Caroline divines,
and perhaps of his own father. But in fact he held that
the gift of wisdom to the Church is cumulative ; that
though we must learn from the past we can also, in some
measure, improve upon its teaching. For instance, in
regard to the Christian ministry and its history he was no
transmitter of a conventional and inherited doctrine. He
had studied for himself and come to his own conclusions.
His citation of authorities may sometimes have been
excessive ; but often they were adduced not as absolutely
binding, but rather as being the evidence which it was
easiest for him to bring forward, though he would have
allowed that equally valid considerations, of a less learned
character, might suggest themselves at once to others,
and as a second thought to himself.

But in regard to the substance of theology he was most
conservative. His writings are sufficient evidence ; but
Archdeacon Bodington notes some points of interest : —

" He emphasised the importance of a Trinitarian religious
worship as against a one-sided adoration of the Second Person
of the Holy Trinity in His human nature, on the one wing of
the Church or the other.

" People got a curiously false idea of him when they
inferred, because of his attitude towards Prayer-book revision
and Church reform, that he was latitudinarian or compro-
mising in his beliefs. He felt the imputation very keenly.
What was moving him was the desire not to drive out any
whom God had not driven out. It was chanty. But in his own

392 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

beliefs he was almost more unchanging, more unsympathising
with Modernism, more simply conservative of what he had
learned as a child, than any scholar we have ever known.
But it is true that, in comparison with the great topics of faith,
questions of vestments and the like, though they might interest
him archaeologically, were trifling indeed."

Perhaps, in regard to the great questions which will
trouble the next generation, we may say that the Bishop
was felix opportunitate mortis. No one could state with
more weight or fuller conviction the position in which
he had been trained. But in a day when the danger is
lest a rising school of thought should be misunderstood
by one that is still strong and in possession of the ground,
as Wesley was misunderstood by Bishop Butler and Keble
by Bishop Sumner, it is not likely that Bishop Wordsworth
could have taken up with success the part of a mediator.
As to the less grave disputes which grieved his spirit
and yet prompted him to devote an ever-increasing share
of his time to those liturgical studies that were one of the
chief interests of his later life, it is needless to say much.
He was one of the most competent ecclesiastical anti-
quaries in England, and was in his right place as President
of the Henry Bradshaw Society, a post which he held
from its foundation in 1891 till his death. But what
might have been a healthful relaxation was made a burden-
some duty by the recalcitrance of some of the clergy,
and it is impossible not to regret the thought that was
diverted, however necessarily, from more serious learning.

But the work on the Latin Vulgate suffered in the main
from a nobler impediment. From the day in 1886 when
Archbishop Benson bade him watch the progress of a
reforming movement in Italy, Bishop Wordsworth was
never released from duties in regard to foreign communions.
There is no continent save (as it seems) South America,
certainly there is no country in Europe, with which he

FINAL ESTIMATE 393

was not, at one time or another, closely concerned. The
scenes of interest changed, and it was not his fault that
he was unable to maintain a continuous intercourse
throughout his episcopate with any of the Churches that
came within his range. It was not that he grew forgetful,
or was unprepared, should occasion arise, to resume corre-
spondence. Yet often some opening came to nothing,
there was some disappointment with regard to persons,
and the only memorial of the negotiation was an addition
to the Bishop's books. His collection in many languages
of liturgies, confessions of faith and ecclesiastical codes,
often rare and curious volumes, was a library in itself.
He did not regard his work, small though its visible result
was, as in any sense a failure. Some good had been done,
some seed sown ; and he was able, in his idealism, to
magnify the significance of the bodies he had approached.
Either the possibilities of their future or the greatness of
their past or some principle for which they stood gave them
dignity in his eyes. Bishop Wordsworth lived in a wider
world and worked on a broader scale than Archbishop
Wake, but the two were one in spirit, and when the archives
of Lambeth can be opened to future generations it will
be known that the exertions of the younger prelate were,
to say the least, comparable with those of the elder. That
Archbishop, who had the merit of being a Dorset man
as well as a negotiator of ecclesiastical union, was in fact
one of Bishop Wordsworth's heroes, and he was never
tired of suggesting to younger scholars that they should
write his life.

But other Churches, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran,
were not his whole interest, apart from episcopal duty
and sacred scholarship. He was the referee, it may be
said with little exaggeration, of the Anglican episcopate.
Questions of the most varied nature were submitted to
him, sometimes directly, sometimes by way of successive

394 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

Archbishops of Canterbury who passed them on to
SaHsbury. Some specimens of such inquiries, and of his
answers, have appeared in these pages. He welcomed the
task.

" We ought to have all new colonial Bishops to Salisbury,
as I know they feel lonely often, and want help from home
from some one with more leisure than the Archbishop " ;

so he wrote to Mrs. Wordsworth. ^ He was, indeed, as
Bishop Stubbs called him, the Doctor (Ecumenicus of
the English Church.

But if his days were worthily spent, it was to the loss
of sacred learning. The Book of the Acts in the Latin
Vulgate was published in 1905. In the same year, as
a fitting recognition of his scholarship, he was elected to
the membership of the British Academy. It must have
seemed that he was pledged to continue this work, but
no further portion appeared in his lifetime. It is im-
possible to abstain from regret that he was not rewarded
by seeing the completion of what is, beyond doubt, one
of the master-works of English scholarship.

But the manner of working forced upon him by his
many engagements, especially those in which successive
Archbishops involved him, had an unfortunate effect.
Dr. Sanday, in his graceful paper read before the British
Academy, alludes to it : —

" The stream of the Bishop's publications never ceased,
and did not even slacken, but I believe that in all the rest of
his life [after he became Bishop] he brought out only three
more books in full library form — the Life of his uncle. Bishop
Charles Wordsworth, in 1899, The Ministry of Grace in 1901,
and the Hale Lectures in 1911.2 The other products of

^ I regret that I have not the date of this extract, but it was after
the Lambeth Conference of 1908.

* Dr. Sanday might have added The Holy Communion in its second
and third editions.

FINAL ESTIMATE 395

his pen would make a most untidy regiment ; they came out
in every possible shape and size, many of them in the modest
Httle i2mo of the S.P.C.K. There could be no more striking
testimony to the complete absence of anything Hke Hterary
foppery in the man."

But, with deference to Dr. Sanday, this random publi-
cation has inflicted serious injury upon the cause of
scholarship and on the author's reputation. Often,
buried in occasional and ephemeral pamphlets, are frag-
ments of his best work, published at first in very small
editions and now quite inaccessible. Even comparatively
substantial books, such as the Ordination Problems and
Unity and Fellowship, are likely to miss in future years
the attention they deserve. Yet, in spite of this injustice
to himself, he has earned the high praise which Dr. Sanday
bestows upon him : —

" Looking at the Bishop's work mainly as a scholar, he
would perhaps find his nearest counterpart in Isaac Casaubon
(1559-1614). If he could have led undisturbed the life of a
student, there is little doubt that he would have rivalled the
literary output of that famous scholar ; and if we could con-
ceive of Casaubon as a bishop, he would have been a bishop
on John Wordsworth's lines. And yet the assignment of
parts was really appropriate ; because Wordsworth possessed,
what his prototype did not, that commanding force and quiet
energy of character which carries with it the qualification for
rule."

This book, then, shall not end on a note of regret.
We must be thankful that the English Church has been
adorned in our generation by one whose great gifts were
devoted in singleness of heart to the search for Christian
truth and the union of Christ's people.

Bishop Wordsworth has been commemorated by Sir
George Frampton's noble recumbent effigy in Salis-
bury Cathedral, with the appropriate inscription, bonus

396 LIFE OF BISHOP JOHN WORDSWORTH

DISPENSATOR MULTIFORMIS GRATiAE DEI, which was dedi-
cated by the Archbishop of Canterbury on the gth June,
1914. Choir stalls are being erected in the Cathedral as
part of^^the memorial.

The Bishop's widow and children have dedicated a
tablet in his memory in West Lulworth Church.

In St. Mark's Church, Salisbury, consecrated by him,
a small standing effigy has been erected, designed by
Mr. Arthur Reeve, facing that of St. Osmund, Bishop
of Salisbury.

Lastly, five of his Swedish colleagues have set up a
silver plaque in Salisbury Cathedral: unitatis christi-

FIDELIUM VINDICI, ECCLESIAE SUECANAE AMICO, FATORUM
Eins ENARRATORI.

o <i

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Penitence. Salisbury : Brown. 8vo. Pp. 79-
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Second edition (with a note), August.
Third edition (with a second note), September.

400 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1898. NoYum Testamentum . . . latine . . . epilogus [with

H. J. White]. Oxford : Clarendon Press. 4to.
Novum Testamentum . . . latine . . . {ut supra). Pars
prior — Quattuor Evangelia. 4to. Pp. xxxviii. -f 779-

1899. The Episcopate of Charles Wordsworth, Bishop of St.

Andrews, 1 853-1 892. London : Longmans. 8vo. Pp.
xxvi. + 402.

On the Rite of Consecration of Churches, especially in the
Church of England. A Lecture. Together with the
Form of Prayer and Order of Ceremonies in use in
the Diocese of Salisbury. London : S.P.C.K. (for the
Church Historical Society). 8vo. Pp. 57.

Bishop Sarapion's Prayer-book. An Egyptian Pontifical
about A.D. 350. Translated . . . with Introduction
and Notes. Salisbury : Brown. i2mo. Pp. 40.

Second edition. London : S.P.C.K. (Early Church
Classics.) 1899. i2mo. Pp. 104.

1900. Bishop of Salisbury's Visitation, June, 1900. Contains

the Te Deum in paragraphs, verses, and responses.
Some Points in the Teaching of the Church of England,
set forth for the Information of Orthodox Christians
of the East in the form of an answer to questions.
London : S.P.C.K. i2mo. Pp. 29.

Greek translation, by John Gennadius (now Greek

Ambassador in London) . S.P.C.K. 1900.
Russian translation, by Prof. N. Orloff. S.P.C.K. 1903.
Italian translation, by L. P. di Castelvecchio.

S.P.C.K. 1909.
Arabic translation, by the Rev. Simon Stephen.

S.P.C.K. 1904.
Revised edition [English and Greek parallel].
S.P.C.K. 1901. Post 8vo. Pp. 34 + 34.
The Reform of Ecclesiastical Courts. An Address to the
Chapter of Salisbury Cathedral. Salisbury : Brown.
8vo. Pp. 16.
The Testament of Our Lord. An Early Christian Church
Ordinance. Two articles in the Chtirch Quarterly
Review, January and April.

1 90 1. The Ministry of Grace. Studies in Early Church History

with reference to Present Problems. [Addresses at the
Fifth Triennial Visitation, 1900.] London : Longmans.
8vo. Pp. xxiv. + 486.

Second edition. Ibidem. 1903. Pp. xxvi. + 507-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 401

igoi. Further Considerations on Public Worship. Salisbury:
Brown. 8vo. Pp. 32.
Liturgical Development. A Paper read at the Church
Congress, Brighton. Derby : Bemrose. 8vo. Pp. 6.

1902. Dictionary of National Biography. Supplement. Lives

of Dr. John Walker and Bishop Charles Wordsworth.

London : Smith, Elder & Co.
The Church of England and the Eastern Patriarchates.

A Lecture delivered at Oxford at the Summer School of

Clergy, 27th July, 1898. With three Appendices.

Oxford : Parker. 8vo. Pp. 38.
The "Te Deum," its structure and meaning . . . with

revised Latin text, notes and translation. London:

S.P.C.K. i2mo. Pp. 24.

Revised edition. Ibidem. 1903. Pp. 30.

1903. Egypt and the Coptic Church. An Address. Salisbury :

Brown. 8vo. Pp. 12.
A Representative Church Council. Speeches by the Bishop

of Salisbury and Bishop Barry. London : S.P.C.K.

8vo. Pp. 36.
Translations and Versions of the Scriptures. Speech at

the Bristol Church Congress. In its Report.

1904. The Representative Church Council. Part of the Address

to the Synod, 13th April, 1904. Salisbury : Brown.

8vo. Pp. 8.
The Baptismal Confession and the Creed. A Sermon.

London : S.P.C.K. 8vo. Pp. 24.
A National Church Council. A Paper read at the Church

Congress, Liverpool. Derby : Bemrose. 8vo. Pp. 6.

1905. The Power of the Bishops to license Laymen to preach and

read prayers. A Letter to the Archbishop of Canter-
bury. London : Longmans. 8vo. Pp. 22.

Novum Testamentum . . . latine . . . Actus Apostolorum
[with H. J. White]. Oxford : Clarendon Press. 4to.
Pp. xvi. + 228.

Appendix to Memoirs of Archbishop Temple : " Arch-
bishop Temple and the Responsio Archiepiscoporum."
Vol. ii. Pp. 388-397-

1906. The Education Question. Synod Address and Three

Lectures. London : Longmans. 8vo. Pp. 75.

1907. Proposals for Reunion between Anglicans and Presby-

terians. A Letter to the Archbishop of Melbourne.
Salisbury : Brown. 8vo. Pp. 8.

2 D

402 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1908. The Ornaments of the Church and its Ministers. Speech

in the Upper House of Convocation. Sahsbury :
Brown. i2mo. Pp. 16.
The Law of the Church as to Marriage of a Man with his
Deceased Wife's Sister. London : S.P.C.K. 8vo.
Pp. 56.

Second edition, revised. Ibidem. 1909.
The Invocation of Saints and the Twenty-second Article.
London : S.P.C.K. Svo. Pp. 64.

Second edition. Ibidem. 1910. Svo. Pp. xiii. + 64.

1909. Ordination Problems. London : S.P.C.K. Small Svo.

Pp- 137-

1 910. Unity and Fellowship. Visitation Addresses, 1909.

London : S.P.C.K. Small Svo. Pp. 15S.

191 1. The National Church of Sweden. Hale Lectures, 1910.

London : Mowbray. Svo. Pp. xix. -f 459.
Novum Testamentum Latine secundum editionem Sancti
Hieronymi. Editio minor curante Henrico I. White.
Oxford : Clarendon Press ; and London : British and
Foreign Bible Society. i2mo. Pp. xx. + 620.

191 2. Den Svenska Kyrkan. Authorised translation by E.

Silen. With introduction by Dr. (now Archbishop)

Sdderblom. Stockholm : Norstedt. Svo. Pp. xxxii. +
472.

1 91 3. Novum Testamentum . . . latine . . . Epistula ad

Romanos. Oxford : Clarendon Press. 4to. Pp. 152.
Sermons preached in Salisbury Cathedral Church and else-
where . . . together with Selected Prayers . . . with
Portrait. London : Longmans. Svo. Pp. xviii. + 307.

INDEX

All asterisk indicates friends of Bishop Wordsworth who have in different ways
contributed to this book ; it also pi'ecedes the names of persons deceased whose
representatives have kindly lent letters by him or have alloived quotations to
be made from documents which are their property. The heirs of A rchbishop
Benso7i must especially be thanked.

A

Aberdeen University, 222
"Academic Liberals," 114, 121,

126, 130
Albany, U.S.A., 366
American Episcopal Church,

367 f-
Anglican Church, organisation

of, 264 f .
Anglo-Continental Society, 93,

221
Archbishop, limit of his powers,

245
Archbishop's jurisdiction, 247 f.
Archdeacons, law concerning,

243

Athanasian Creed, 288
Augustana Synod, 370
*Aveling, Mr. S., 134

B

Barter, Warden, 13
Beaconsfield, Lord, 105
Bell, Rev. W. C, 143
Benefices Act (1898), 240
♦Benson, Archbishop, 34 f., 38, 48,
62 f., 66, 92, loi f., 126, 165,
197, 246 f., 255, 263, 317, 323,

332
Bent ley, Richard, ♦141

Berger, Samuel, 41, 142
Berlin in 1867, 40 f.
*Bernard, Chancellor, 22, 24, 59,

387, 389
Biggs, Bishop Yeatman, 209
Bishops irregularly consecrated,

256
Bishops, office of, 164 f.
" Bishop's Path," 221
Bishops, trial of, 249 f .
*Bodington, Archdeacon, 46, 83 f.,

119, 183, 193 f., 201, 206,

253 f-. 391
Brasenose College, 39 ff.
, Wordsworth prize at,

139
♦Bright, Dr. W., 120
Brighton, school at, 8
Browne, Bishop G. F., 256
Bryce, Mr. J. (Viscount), 114
Burgon, Dean, 41, 115, 125
Burial questions, 284
Burrows, Canon, 132
Bywater, Professor, 115

Cambridge influences, 33, 42
Campello, Count, 317
Canonical obedience, 169
Canterbury, see of. 245 f., 253,
265

404

INDEX

♦Carpenter, Archdeacon, 233, 286

Carter, Canon, 331

Ceylon, troubles in, 99
*Channer, Rev. G. R., 270

Chicago, 370 f .

Christopher, Canon, 83

Church, the National, 216, 257 f.
*Church, Dean, 138

Churches, colonial, 265 f .

Churchwardens, law of, 241 f.

Cincinnati, 366

Clarendon Press, 109 f.
*Clayton, Canon, 95, 107, 112, 118

Clergy, education of, 270 f.

Clergy, relation to the Bishop,
168, 174

Comparative Philology, study of,
48

Confimiation, 275 f.

Conington, Professor, 24 f., 46,

49 f., 51

Consecration hf Churches, 220,
2841

Cookson family, 28

Coptic Church, 217

Coronation oath, 316

Corssen, Dr. Peter, 147

Courthope, Mr. W. J., 22, 60

Courts, Ecclesiastical, 258

Coxe, Mr. H. O., 64, 92, 139

Coxe, Miss S. E., 30 f ., 64 f .

Cradock, Principal, 67, 107
*Creighton, Bishop, 327

Cremation, 284
*Crokat, Rev. W. A., 183 f.

Crown Office, 240

"Crumpets and Corinthians," 82

Cyprus, 217, 342

D

Davidson, Archbishop, 222
•'Dawson, Rev. Wm., 318
Deane, Sir J. P., 172, 236, 244
Denmark, Church of, 357

Dictionaries of Christian Anti-
quities and Biography, 33, 40,
61

" Digamma, what the," 24

Dioceses, extent of, 165

Doane, Bishop, 366

" Doctor CEcumenicus," 394

Dorner, Professor, 40

Dorset, county of, 198
*Dowden, Bishop, 334

Du Bose, Professor, 369
*Dugmore, Canon E. E., 381, 384

Dundas, Archdeacon, 95

Eastern Church, 218, 339 f.
Education, undenominational,

202 f .
Egypt, 217

Ekman, Archbishop, 355 f.
Episcopal office, the, 164 f.
Episcopate, development of,

335 f-
Evangelical Party, the, 190, 258
Examination of the Clergy, 235 f.

Fragments and Specimens, 53 f.
Frere family, 4
"Frere, Rev. H. C, 341

Gailor, Bishop, 369
Gastrell, Bishop, 9
*Goddard, Rev. E. H., 87
Gregory, Professor C. R., no
Gwjmn, Professor, 142 f., 144

H

Hatch, Dr. Edwin, in, 126

Hamilton, Bishop, 177 f.

Hamlin, Mr., 196

Harnham Hill, 221

Harrow School, 4, 31 f.
*Heberden, Dr. C. B. (Principal of

B.N.C.), 31, 47. 79
♦Henderson. Miss, 387

INDEX

405

Henry Bradshaw Society, 392

Hicks, Bishop, 37, 40

Holgate, Chancellor C. W., 196,

224
Holland, Church of, 322
Home Reunion, 333 f .
*Hooper, Rev. G. F., 159, 200, 214
Hort, Professor, 125
Hubbard, Mr., 296

lace, Dr., 105
Incense, 304
*Inman, Canon E., 273
Invocation of Saints, 307
Ipswich Grammar School, 9
Ireland Professorship, 126
Italians, Reform among, 317 f.

J

*Jayne, Bishop, 99

Jelf, Canon, 132, 159

Jerome, St., 152

Jerusalem, 219 f.
*Johnson, Mr. Carnegy, 224, 384

Johnson, the Misses, 143, 297
♦Johnston, Rev. J. S. S., 363,
371 f". 377. 388 f.

Jowett, Professor, 21

Jus liiurgicum, 250 f.

K

Kalmar, Bishop of, 355 f.
Keble College, 71, 88
* Kinder, Rev. E. H., 86
King, Bishop E., 78, 100, 130,

138, 248
Knight, Bishop, 339

Lambeth Conferences, 261
*Larpent, Mons. A., 342 f.
*Leeke, Mrs., 132

Lenker, Dr., 374

Lester, Mr. J. D., 23

♦Liddon, Dr., 43, 75 f., 78, 91, 94,
116, 126, 135 f.
Lightfoot, Bishop, 42
Lincoln, Synod of, 93, 233
Lincoln trial, 246 f., 297

♦Livingstone, Canon R. G., 42

♦Lock, Dr. W., 47
Lollard's Tower, 196, 207
Lord's Prayer, 287
Lul worth, "West, 221, 330

M

Maclagan, Archbishop, 321, 332
Macleane, Canon D., 384
*Madan, Mr. F., 47, 79, 144
Mahan, Admiral, 365
Maiden, Mr. A. R., 385
Manning, Dr. (New York), 364
Maronites, 341
Marquette, Bishop of, 356, 359,

370
Marriage, 278 f.
Marsh, Rev. W., 143
Maurice, F. D., 42
Merivale, Dean, 5
Meyrick, Canon, 93
Middleton, Mr. H. B., 232
♦Milford, Miss Beatrice, 180
Ministry, the Christian, 335 f.
Moberly, Bishop, 6, 10, 13, 135,

190
Mola, Signer, 318
Monck, Rev. G. G., 95
Mozley, Dr. J. B., 68, 103 f., 117.

129
Miiller, Max, 113
Mundella, Mr., 203
Myers, Canon, 297
Mylne, Bishop, 26, 104

N

Nashville, 370

" National Church Council,'

260 f.
Nelson, Earl, 232

2 D 2

4o6

INDEX

New College, Oxford, 20, 32
New Zealand, 208 f.
Nonconformists, 282 f.

O

Old Catholics, 91, 93, 315 f.,

319 f.
*" Old Latin Biblical Texts," 128
Old Mortality Club, 27
Orders, English, 322, 326 f .
Ordinatorum Convenius, 362
Oriel College and professorship,

126, 131
*Owen, Mr. S. G., 54 f .
Oxford controversies, 66, 70 f.,

891
Oxford House, Bethnal Green,

68
Oxford Missionary Library, 112
Oxford, St. Stephen's House, 106,

112

Pallium, the, 265

Palmer, Dr. Edwin, 50, 104

Pan-Anglican Congress, 353

Pater, Walter, 29, 89

Patronage, ecclesiastical, 162 f.,
234 f., 238

Pelham, Professor, 136

Perowne, Bishop, 206

" Peter the Whaler," 13
*Phelps, Rev. L. R., 131

Philipps, Canon Sir J. E., 269

Platon, Archbishop, 365

Pleydell, Mr. Mansel, 258

Pluralities Act Amendment Act,
241

Portal, Abbe, 215, 326

Prayer-book revision, 234, 291,
391

Presbyterianism, 222, 329 f ., 333 f .
♦Prickard, Mr. A. O., 10, 32

Public Worship Regulation Act,
98
*Pumell, Mr. E. K., 35
*Pusey, Dr., 102

Q

" Queen of heaven," 293
Quicunque vult, 288

R

Ranke, Prof., 41
Representative Church Council,

2581
Responsio Arckiepiscoporum,

327 f.
Rigaud, Bishop, 9
Robert Elsmere, 118
Rochester, 132 f.
Rock Island, U.S.A., 370
Roman claims, 315 f., 326 f., 334,

336
Roper, Bishop J. L., 143
Roundell, Mr. C. S., 114
" Rudiments of Faith and

Religion," 129

St. Andrew, Society of, 147, 200
St. Mary's Entry, 130
Salisbury, see of, 173

Palace, 175 f.

, deanery of, 239

Greater Chapter, 161, 232,

258
— ■ — Synod of Clergy, 233

Diocesan Synod, 231 f.

Cathedral commemoration,

233

Theological College, 269

, Bishop's School, 201

, education in 1890 .. 202

*SaIisbury, Marquess of, 116, 135 f.
Salisbury Plain, camps on, 353
Sanctuary, Archdeacon, 191, 232

*Sanday, Dr., 37, 58, 118, 126,

394
Scotland, Episcopal Church in,

333 f-

, reunion in, 215, 223, 333

Scott, Dean, 47, 132, 134

INDEX

407

Searle, Mr. 196

" Seminar," method of, 76, 128

Sewanee, U.S.A., 368

Sewell, Warden, 20

Sidgwick, Mr. W. C, 50
*Snow, Mr. T. C, 56 f.

Soderblom, Archbishop, 355, 375

Sowter, Archdeacon, 243

Spain, travels in, 123

Stanford in the Vale, 6
*Steedman, Mrs., 7, 263

Stewart, Gen. Herbert, 14
*Stewart, Rev. H. F., 269, 307,

331
♦Stewart, Prof. J. A., 27
Stilwell, Mrs., 296
Stubbs, Bishop, 249, 394
Supremacy, Royal, 257
Sweden, Church of, 339 f ., 354

, visit to, 356 f.

Swedes in America, 359 f .
Syra, Archbishop of, 92

Taft, Mr. C. P., 366
Tait, Archbishop, 98
*Talbot, Dr. (Bishop of Win-
chester), 71, 120, 146, 157, 163,

331
Te Deum, 287
Temple, Archbishop, 63, 217, 245,

332
Tottie, Bishop, 355
*Trebeck, Mrs., 18, 94

U

Unction of the sick, 312
Undenominationalism, 283
United States, visit to, 362 f .
Upsala, Archbishops of, 355. 375

V

Vaughan, Mr. Edwyn, 31, 35
Verrall, Professor, 36 f .
Victoria, Queen, 159. 176

Visitations, purpose of, 171
Vulgate, Benedictine edition, 155

, editio minor, 154

, the Latin, 109 f., 128,

140 ff-. 394

W

Wake, Archbishop, 393

Walford, Mr. J. D., 13

Walker, Bishop, 371

Walker, John, 128

Wallace, Mrs., 8

*Wallis, Bishop, 208, 223, 275,
335. 386

Walrond, Mrs., 296

Ward, Mr. T. H., 59
*Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 118

Watson, Mr. Albert, 25, 44
*Way, Dr., 45

Wellington College, 34 f .

Wesleyans, 97, 284
*Westcott, Bishop, 33, 66

Westminster Abbey, 5

Weymouth Church Conference,
223
*White, Dr. H. J., 140 £f.
*Whittuck, Rev. C. A., 116, 158

Wickham, Dean, 21, 37

Wilberforce, Bishop E. R., 322

Wilberforce, Bishop S., 43

Williams, Bishop. See Mar-
quette.

Williams, Mr. J. R., 165

Wiltshire, 166, 198 f .

Winchester College, 10, 16

Winterborne Came, 241

Women, position of, 211, 366

Wordsworth, Bishop John,
family and schools, i ff.

, at New College, 20 f . ; Har.

row, 31 f. ; Wellington,

34 f.

, election to Brasenose, 37

, work in Brasenose, 39 f.

, literary plans, 39, 46, 108 f .

, ordination, 43

, as a lecturer, 45 f., 76

4o8

INDEX

Wordsworth, Bishop John, as a
Latin scholar, 47 f .

, Fragments and Specimens

of Early Latin, 48, 53 f .

, Lectures introductory to a

History of the Latin Lan-
guage and Literature, 50 f .

, betrothal and marriage,

64 f., 78

, influence in College, 68 f.,

79 f., 82 f .

, as a theological scholar,

59 f., 76 f., 109 £E.

, assistant to Liddon, 75

, assistant to Mozley, 103

, Some Elements of Gospel

Harmony, 77

, Bampton Lectures, 104,

III f., 117 f.

, University Sermons, 106

, Prayers for use in College,

107

, the Latin Vulgate, 109,

122, 128, 140 ff.

, as Proctor, 81, 97

, share in Oxford contro-
versies, 70 f., 89 f., 118

, Letter to the Rev. E. S.

Talbot, 71 f .

, Letter to Mr. C. S. Roundell,

M.P., 1141

, his theological position, 99 f .

, election to the Oriel pro-
fessorship, 127

, at Rochester, 132 f.

, election to Salisbury, 135

, consecration and enthrone-
ment, 159 f.

, his idea of the episcopal

office, 164 f.

, his episcopal seal, 173

, relations to the clergy,

174 f., 191 f.

, knowledge of the parishes,

273 f-. 387
, educational efforts, 200 fE.,

210, 349 f.
, visit to New Zealand, 208 f .

Wordsworth, Bishop John, visits

to Palestine, 217 f.
, legal and constitutional

matters, 231 ff.

, the Lincoln trial, 247 f.

, attempts to organise the

National Church, 258 f.
, attempts to organise the

Anglican Communion,

2651

, his Confirmations, 275 f.

, teaching on marriage, 278 f .

, relation to Nonconformists,

97,202, 282 f. ; and efforts

for reunion, 367, 374
, consecration of churches,

284 f.
, liturgical studies, 189,

2871, 352
, ritual controversies, 98,

291 f., 352

, ritual practices, 296 f .

, Eucharistic teaching, 29S f .

, invocation of saints, 307 f .

, unction of the sick, 311 f.

, Italian reformers, 317 f.

, Old Catholics, 91, 93, 315 f.,

319 f-
, visits to Holland and

Germany, 321 fi.
, De successione episcoporum,

323

, De validitate ordinum, 323

, Rome on English orders,

326 ff.
, Responsio Archiepiscopo-

rum, 327, 331
■ , Scotland and the Presby-
terians, 333 f.
, Episcopate of Bishop Charles

Wordsworth, 333
, relations with Eastern

Churches, 339 f .

, the Swedish Church, 354 ff.

, visit to Sweden, 356 f .

, visit to U.S.A., 360 f.

, convention at Cincinnati,

366 f.

INDEX

409

Wordsworth, Bishop Jolm, The
National Church of Swe-
den, 375

, illness and death, 378

, funeral, 386

, memorials, 395

-, honorary distinctions, 206,

326, 352, 394

, personal characteristics,

II f., 28, 70, 80, 205, 349,
376, 3861

, habits of life and work,

182 f. , 224 f., 2531, 342 f.,
3881

- — -, literary methods, 145, 187,

394
, estimates of his scholar-
ship, 54 ff., 140 ff.
, interest in books, 15, 17,

85, 255, 360 f., 393
, interest in languages, 197,

213, 220
, attitude to philosophy, 28,

389
, interest in nature, 6 f., 213,

220
, interest in mechanics and

architecture, 18, 130, 134,

179, 201
, interest in business, 133,

227
, interest in music, 23, 83,

286
•, recreations, 12, 14, 18, 23,

41 f., 190
, as a writer of verse, 2, 26,

49, 60, 65, 186, 213
, as a preacher, 106 f.,

187 f., 389
, in the House of Lords, 204,

351, 377

, kindliness, 386

, impartiality, 170, igo, 295

Wordsworth, Bishop John, remi-
niscences : by Mr. A. O.
Prickard, 10 ; by Arch-
deacon Bodington,83, 193,
253; by Dr. H. J.White,
144 f.; by Miss E. Words-
worth, 175 ; by Miss B.
Milford, 180; by the Rev.
W.A.Crokat, i84;byMr.
Carnegy Johnson, 224 ;
by Mons. A. Larpent,
342 ; by the Rev. J. S. S.
Johnston, 364, 368, 371,
388 ; by Mrs. Words-
worth, 379 ; by Chan-
cellor Bernard, 387, 389
Wordsworth family, i
Wordsworth, Andrew S., 356
Wordsworth, Bishop Charles, 2,
215, 223, 333
*Wordsworth, Sister Charlotte,

353
Wordsworth, Bishop Christopher,
3, 5, 7, 16 f., 38, 61 f., 93 f.,

97, 113, 135. 159
*Wordsworth, Rev. Christopher

(Subdean of Sarum), 23, 29,

no, 121, 123
*Wordsworth, Miss Elizabeth, 2,

13. 40. 175 f-
Wordsworth, John, senior, 2
"■"Wordsworth, Miss Susan, 216,

222
♦Wordsworth, Mrs. M. A. F., 216,

378 f.
♦Wordsworth, Mrs. S. E., 78 f.

82 f., 123, 158, 180, 193, 195,

207, 325
Wordsworth Home of Rest, 207

Yonge, Miss C. M., 213
Youngman, Rev. G. M., 144

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For Lenten Reading, 1915.
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