Hugh Price Hughes as we knew him

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HUGHES •

IS-WE-KNEW-HIM

Bv
Dean of Westminster.
<it>ertson Nicoll, LL.D.
Henry Sorm

Sister Lily.
W, M. Crook.
J Bimford Slack,
sor Walters.
rick A. Atkins,

I

HORACE MARSHALL & SON.

\ STUDIA IN

THE LIBRARY

of

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Toronto

HUGH PRICE HUGHES.

HUGH PRICE HUGHES
PREACHING AT ST. JAMES'S HALL.

HUGH PRICE
HUGHES

AS WE KNEW HIM.

BY

THE DEAN OF WESTMINSTER.

(The Rev. J. Armitage Robinson, D.D.)

W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, LL.D.
LADY HENRY SOMERSET.
MARK GUY PEARSE.
DR. H. S. LUNN.

SISTER LILY

(Of the West London Mission).

W. M. CROOK.

J. BAMFORD SLACK.

CHARLES ENSOR WALTERS

(Of the West London Mission).

FREDERICK A. ATKINS.

LONDON :
HORACE MARSHALL AND SON.

1902.

BX

S495
H3

HS

1902

EMMANUEL

PUBLISHER'S NOTE.

HUGH PRICE HUGHES was my personal
friend for over twenty years, and he was
also my father's friend. I had the privilege
of being associated with him at Barry
Road, at Oxford, at Brixton Hill, and at
the West London Mission. My first con-
tinental holiday was spent in his company,
and the few leisure hours that remained to
him while conducting his last Mission in
South London — only a few days before his
first breakdown at Manchester — were
passed in my home, where he was always
a welcome guest I owe much to his kindly
counsel, his wise guidance, his stimulating
teaching. It is therefore with a very
mournful interest that I gather from a few
of his friends the chapters of reminiscences
contained in this little book. In no sense
is it sent forth as a mere publishing venture,

but rather as a tribute of affection and
esteem, and any profit arising from its
publication will be immediately forwarded
to Mrs. Price Hughes for the Sisterhood of
the West London Mission.

HORACE B. MARSHALL.

Temple House,
London, E.C.

Nov. 2j, 1902.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PUBLISHER'S NOTE 5

THE DEAN OF WESTMINSTER 9

W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, LL.D. ... n

LADY HENRY SOMERSET 19

MARK GUY PEARSE 23

DR. H. S. LUNN 33

SISTER LILY 41

W. M. CROOK ... 45

J. BAMFORD SLACK 55

CHARLES ENSOR WALTERS 69

FREDERICK A. ATKINS 77

HUGH PRICE HUGHES
AS WE KNEW HIM.

i.

BY DR. J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON

(Dean of Westminster).

The Dean of Westminster has kindly sent the
following for inclusion in this volume, being the
substance of an address he delivered in the Jeru-
salem Chamber on the occasion of a lecture given
by M. Paul Sabatier, on Wednesday, November
igth, 1002.

I WISH to take this opportunity of refer-
ring to an event which has very sud-
denly filled many of us with a sense of per-
sonal sorrow. I have known Mr. Hugh Price
Hughes and his family for a good many
years, having had the pleasure of meeting
him again and again in brief periods of
vacation in South Devon. We have had
many very intimate conversations on sub-
jects of the deepest interest, both spiritual

10

and, if I may so say, ecclesiastical. We
discussed in successive years many topics
which came to be dealt with in the " Free
Church Catechism," and we often talked
over the position of modern Methodists in
regard to the old mother Church. We did
not, of course, always agree ; but we
learned, I am sure, to understand and
appreciate each other in a truer manner
than would have been possible without this
close personal intercourse, and we quickly
became linked in a bond of friendship.
His sudden removal in the midst of his
great activities is not a loss to Methodism
alone. The cause of national righteous-
ness loses by the fact that this eloquent
voice can now be heard amongst us no
more.

II.

BY DR. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL.

IT must be twenty years ago since I first
saw Mr. Hugh Price Hughes. I was
then a minister in Scotland, and had come
up to London for a holiday. Mr. Hughes
was delivering a lecture in the City Temple,
and I saw the bill announcing it. " The
Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, M.A., of Oxford,"
was his style at that time. I got in towards
the close of the lecture and found a crowded
room. The one impression that remains
with me is that of the sharp, keen, almost
fierce face of the lecturer, and the pungent
brevity of his sentences.

Later on, when I came to the Metro-
polis, Mr. Price Hughes was a circuit
minister in the South of London. I was
then editing the Expositor's Bible, and

12

invited Mr. Hughes to contribute a volume.
He wrote saying that his many engage-
ments did not give him the necessary leisure
for study, but that he was deeply interested
in the Johannine theology, and desired to
contribute some papers on the subject to the
Expositor. I wrote welcoming these
papers, and reminded him of his promise
from time to time, but he could never satisfy
himself that he had sufficient time for a
worthy exposition.

It was about the same period that Mr.
Price Hughes commenced the Methodist
Times, and entered on that severe journal-
istic labour which occupied him to the end
of his life. Like many other eager spirits of
that day, Mr. Hughes was immensely im-
pressed by the work that Mr. Stead had
accomplished during his brilliant but too
brief editorship of the Pall Mall Gazette.
Mr. Stead taught many to think more nobly
of the opportunities and possibilities of
journalism. Mr. Hughes was then, as
always, deeply impressed by the compara-
tive weakness of Christian journalism, and
put his heart into the Methodist Times. It

13

was well received, and, as I remember, had
many regular readers among the ministers
of Scotland. Later on, when I commenced
the British Weekly, Mr. Hughes was among
the kindest of the kind. He took frequent
occasion to mention the paper in his ad-
dresses and in his own journal, and I have
never ceased to be grateful. Since then,
we never lost touch, though our direct
communications were infrequent. Mr.
Hughes was the busiest of men, and I was
occupied in my own line of work, but there
was no abatement, but rather a growth of
good will, and I was with him at the last
anniversary meeting of the West London
Mission at St. James's Hall.

As I look back on that period the charac-
teristic of Mr. Hughes that shines out most
eminently in my mind is his magnanimity.
He was ever a fighter, and some of his conr
troversies were difficult and painful. If I
recall the Foreign Mission controversy, it
is to prove the knightly character of Mr.
Hughes. It was a battle from which per-
sonalities could not well be excluded, and
the Wesleyan Methodist missionaries con-

14

sidered that grave reflections had been cast
on them and their work. I took the other
side from Mr. Price Hughes, and was thus
able to judge his spirit impartially. He may
have been wrong, and I think he was wrong
in some of his contentions. He fought
fiercely like a man with his back at the wall,
but I deeply marked that all the time he
refrained so far as it was possible from
insulting and lacerating personal comment.
He did his utmost to make the discussion
turn on points of policy. He may not have
entirely succeeded, but he succeeded to an
extraordinary degree. Having followed
through all those years his various activities,
activities which brought him into constant
collision with others, I am unable to recall
anything mean, anything base uttered by
him either in speech or in print. Certainly
for one I have none but pleasant memories
of him, though he frequently criticised and
opposed my views. I cannot help thinking
that this is the greatest of all testimonies
to the genuinely noble and Christian
character of the man. No one could have
done his work and made so few enemies ;

no one could have fought his battles and left
so little bitterness. He died as it seems to
us too soon, but he lived long enough to
secure from those most at issue with him
the warmest recognition of the integrity, the
simplicity, and the burning earnestness of
his spirit. He said to me the last time I
saw him that when he was fighting his
hardest battles he did not know how much
they cost him, but that he began to know it
now.

Mr. Stead has said that Mr. Hughes was
not a good man to fight a long and losing
battle with. There may be a side of truth
in this ; I do not know. I am sure, how-
ever, that Mr. Hughes came to value the
blessing and the power of united action
more than he did at first, and who can
wonder? Let it be remembered that the
period over which his public life extended
was a period during which almost every
cause that was dear to him was more or less
clouded. The Conservative reaction in
England has had effects the full measure
of which we cannot yet calculate. That
reaction is largely due to the want of unity

i6

among the friends of progress. They have
been impotent because they have been
divided ; they will remain impotent until
they are united. They cannot unite until
they recognize that there must be certain
open questions, and they must combine on
the objects they are agreed in, disregarding
differences whether as to persons or prin-
ciples. Mr. Hughes had an unbounded
faith for years at any rate in public meetings
and demonstrations. He was above all
things a practical man. He wanted to see
things accomplished. He saw that so long
as the all or nothing policy was pursued, so
long as Liberals were busy in excommuni-
cating and ostracising other Liberals, no
progress could be made. He saw that the
rank and file were becoming discouraged
and hopeless. He was, therefore, most
eager — perhaps he may have been some-
times too eager — to maintain the unity of
the associations he was connected with, and
to conciliate the extreme wing of his
opponents. There is a point where diver-
gence is inevitable, where two parties are
making for different goals. But in view of

17

the stern and remorseless battles before us,
it may well seem that our divisions have
been too many, and our quarrels too bitter,
and that we should eagerly seek the
comradeship and strength which comes from
fighting and suffering together in a common
cause.

I look upon Mr. Price Hughes as a
strikingly individual personality, the one
man of his kind in his generation. Such a
man is not to be criticized as to his methods
In the use of his strength he was a law to
himself, and now that he who could never
rest rests at last for ever, who of us will dare
to say that he should have husbanded his
energy? I wish for my part that it were
oftener said of Christian ministers by those
who watch them that they are overworking
themselves. But it is easy to see that such
a nature as his must have had its own
temptations, the temptation to scorn, to
sarcasm, to intolerance, to bitterness. By
the grace of God given to him our friend
resisted these. He was a righteous man,
and the memory of the just is blessed.

III.

BY LADY HENRY SOMERSET.

MY first impression of Mr. Hughes
stands out as clearly and as
sharply as though more than fifteen years
had not elapsed since that morning in St.
James's Hall. I had heard nothing of the
West London Mission, save the fact that
Evangelistic services were being held in
St. James's Hall, and when I went thither
I had everything to learn ; but I had not
listened to him for more than a few minutes
before I recognized that here was a Chris-
tianity applied to the needs of the present
day, that his quick sympathy, his compre-
hensive, inclusive mind had realized that
the interests and the social needs of the
people were an integral part of the ethical
teaching of Christ. At the close of that

20

meeting I had the opportunity of a short
talk with the preacher, and I could not fail
to be among the many who realized that a
reformer had come among us who feared
no one save God. Since that day it has
been my privilege from time to time to be
often associated with him in public, and to
have the privilege of his friendship in pri-
vate, and my regard for him has through
the years deepened as I have understood
more clearly the battle he has had to fight,
not only among those who were enemies of
the righteous reforms for which he stood,
but among many who should have been
his allies in Christian work, but who have
antagonized his ideals and thwarted him in
his methods. He had that quality which
has made all the outstanding figures in
history who have stood against the self-
interest of the few for the amelioration of
the many, an undaunted optimism, an un-
selfish chivalric enthusiasm for the op-
pressed, but he had what was even greater,
that thirst for the salvation of souls which
characterizes the saint. Only those who
have watched him through the years as

21

they came and went with their round of
engagements, the burden of constant
public speech, the unceasing task of preach-
ing and of writing, of dealing with indi-
viduals, of organizing, and above all, the
weariness and sordid anxiety of constantly
collecting money for the work to which he
gave himself, have seen how that life that
never spared itself must burn out, extin-
guished by its own relentless effort to Bfelp
humanity. The outside world has seen,
perhaps, in Mr. Hughes, the militant figure
only, but those who knew him best realized
how single-hearted, child-like and genial
was the man himself, how tenderly kind to
those in need of help, how unsparingly
scathing only to those whom he thought
wronged their helpless fellow-man. No
wonder, therefore, that Churchmen and
Nonconformists alike realize that England
has lost a real reformer, a great citizen, and
Christianity a true and devoted exponent.
Death came to Mr. Hughes, it seems to me,
in the way most to be envied, and I believe
that could he send a message back to those
who sorrow here, he would say with that

22

hopeful ring which has cheered so many
hearts, " If ye loved me ye would rejoice."
The Sunday night before he died saw
him pleading for Christ in that great
assembly at St. James's Hall, the soldier
at his post. The lasj: words he spoke
were to one who that night had turned
homewards from the far country, the last
act to cheer a sorrowing soul and guide
hini to the Father's arms, and then the
happy warrior was called to God, to take
from Him, as we believe, fresh orders for
some wider work. But as I think of him
my heart goes out in sorrow to the one
whom he loved best, of whom we cannot
write but for whom we can only pray, and
I am glad that amongst the many good
things that have come to me I have had
the opportunity of the friendship of Mr.
and Mrs. Price Hughes.

IV.

BY MARK GUY PEARSE.

THE terrible loss which has befallen
us has carried my mind back to a
day in January, 1 886. I had freed myself
from the itinerancy in the hope of settling
with Dr. Bowden in Cornwall, and devoting
the rest of my life to the interests of Cornish
Methodism. Then had come Dr. Bowden's
appointment to an official position else-
where, and I was left uncertain as to my
movements. An engagement in connection
with the Y.M.C.A. brought me to London
for a week of services at Exeter Hall. By
a curious coincidence Mr. Price Hughes had
arranged for similar meetings in the Brixton
Hill Circuit, of which he was then Superin-
tendent. He wrote me asking me if on the
days that I was in London I would conduct
noon services in connection with his meet-

24

ings. With that invitation he wrote what
proved to be a memorable letter.

" I want to have a long talk with you,"
he said, " about a matter which may affect
the whole of your future and mine. At a
meeting of the London Mission Committee
I was asked to undertake a mission in the
West-End of London at the close of my
ministry here in 1887. This is a new idea,
but it is strongly urged on me, and it has so
much in its favour that I'm already disposed
to say 'yes' to the proposal on one con-
dition— that you consent to be associated
with me in the enterprise. I was told some
time ago that you were still willing to go to
Cornwall if I would go with you. The
West-End of London is even more impor-
tant than Cornwall. Why should we not
undertake an analogous task in the West-
End ? I would be responsible for the work
and for the organization ; you would be free
to write and to do anything to which the
Spirit of God led you. Of course we should
be relieved from the yoke of the itinerancy
and the details of circuit work. You would
have that liberty and that permanence of

MR. PRICE HUGHES AS A BOY.

MR. PRICE HUGHES AS A DIVINITY STUDENT.

25

action which you crave. London is the
place in which an author should live, and
you could reserve ample time for using your
pen in Christ's service. You are well-
known outside Methodism, and your co-
operation would be invaluable in the West-
End. Besides the upper classes there are
thousands of young men and young women
in the West-End shops. In different ways
you and I are better fitted for this work
than any two of our contemporaries. A
number of young men and young women
have volunteered to give their lives to this
work if I will undertake it. My wife could
organize a sisterhood of ladies. My lay
evangelist, Josiah Nix, would be simply in-
valuable among the working classes. It
seems to be a unique combination of advan-
tages. The responsibility of decision now
rests with you, for if you say, ' Do all that
is in thine heart ; turn thee, behold, I am
with thee according to thine heart/ I shall
feel that the die is cast, and I am ready to
give the rest of my life to this great work.
Perhaps the Cornish catastrophe in your
case and some unexpected events in my

2

26

own are all a part of the Providential lead-
ing by which you and I are to be thrown
together in the greatest work Methodism
has ever attempted. If, after God and your
friends, you approve of my suggestion, we
could make all necessary arrangements
during the year, and enter definitely upon
the work after the Conference of 1887.
You would edify the saints and I would
pursue the sinners. With the blessing of
God we should have such opportunities as
no other arrangement would secure. I had
a long talk with Clapham about this last
night, and if you and I go into the work he
is prepared to concentrate his remarkable
powers and influence for the Mission, and
' to back us through thick and thin. I pray
Christ with all my heart that in this crisis in
your life and mine we may know and do
the will of God. Amen. Yours affection-
ately, HUGH PRICE HUGHES."

It was a long letter, for I have only given
parts of it I did not then know that it
was when Mr. Hughes was a lad of some
thirteen years that a company of Cornish
fishermen had put into Swansea Bay. They

attended the Methodist services and
brought with them their Cornish fire. It
was in the midst of these influences that
Hugh Price Hughes was led to religious
decision. If I had known of that when I
received his letter it would certainly have
added to the interest with which I read it,
or have prompted me to a more immediate
decision. At any rate, it gives to my asso-
ciation with him an added charm that we of
common Celtic origin should have been
thrown together in this work. The letter
brought before me a matter of which I
could but think with much solemnity. Set
free as I was from other work and wonder-
ing where my path would lead, I could but
feel it was a divine appointment. I knew
nothing whatever of Mr. Hughes, had
preached indeed for him once and shaken
hands with him on that occasion only. My
own heart turned in quite another direction
than London. I had dreams of the miners
and fishermen of Cornwall, of its moors
and cliffs. I had always a shrinking from
prominence and publicity, and would have
vastly preferred a quiet and half-hidden

28

ministry with leisure for such literary pur-
suits as I loved To accept Mr. Hughes'
proposal would mean that I must stand in
the blare and glare of this great new move-
ment in the West-End of London. But
I could give only one answer. It was
very brief : " I will come and see you." I
recollect going to the door of the house in
Clyde Place, Brixton Hill, on a winter's
afternoon. The house was familiar to me
as that in which my Superintendent lived,
Rev. John Haward, when in the early years
of my ministry I was stationed at Brixton
Hill. In his study sat Mr. Hughes. Almost
before he had finished his greeting with his
characteristic eagerness and force, there
came a look of much solemnity, and he
waited for me to speak There was a
minute's silence. " Well," I said presently,
" I am with you heart and soul." At once
he arose and opened the door. "Katie,"
he called, " it is settled ;" and Mrs. Hughes
came in to join us at that memorable meet-
ing. It was an acquaintance that became
at once a friendship, and that soon ripened
into love — to know him was to love him —

-9

none could help it, and those who knew
him best loved him most Others have told
of his gifts, his splendid courage, his fear-
lessness, his enterprise, but the splendour
of these gifts hid from all but those who
knew him most intimately the beauty of
virtues that made him unspeakably dear to
us. Of no man could it be more truly said
that he was " a good soldier of the Lord
Jesus Christ? He rushed to the foremost
place in the fray, and fought till his hand
clove to the sword. But when the battle
was done, there was no breath of malice, no
lingering ill-will. In the true meaning of
that great word he was magnanimous, great
souled. I loved him as perhaps it is given
to few men to love a man.

Of my services he had, I can but think,
an estimate far too high, but the generous
terms in which he spoke of them indicated
even the nobility of the man. I cannot
forbear to tell one incident of his most
generous and utterly unselfish nature.
When we began our work, he said to me,
" We are our own stewards. We can ap-
point our own salary. What shall we

30

take?" "Well," I said, "it is for you to
settle that. You must remember that it is
your livelihood. You might be making your
£10,000 a year," I said, laughingly, " if you
had chosen to go to the Bar." "Well,"
said he, " let us take £200 a year all told,"
and this, apart from the house and furni-
ture, was the sum which this man fixed as
his salary when he entered upon his work
in the West London Mission. The last
time we met was on the Friday before his
death. It was a happy little gathering at
Katherine House for the reception of two
Sisters. Everything about him gave us
abundant hope of his complete restoration
to health. The address on the example of
the Lord Jesus in washing the feet of His
disciples was full of his old freshness and
force. It was followed by the Holy Com-
munion, and it was my happiness to par-
take with him for the last time of that
pledge of the Master's great love, that bond
of our everlasting brotherhood. He is
gone, that brave soldier; he has entered
into his rest. I visited St. Paul's Cathedral
yesterday to look at the monument of
General Gordon. It had come to my mind

as a fitting memorial of our fearless and
devoted friend The left hand, the hand
of love, rests on the Bible, the right hand
had laid the sword aside. So fought
Hugh Price Hughes, ever with the sword
of the Spirit Mistaken he may have
been sometimes, though considering how
much he did and how earnestly he did
it his mistakes were wonderfully few.
But ever he wrought, anxious and eager
to know the will of God, and then he
set himself to do it with all his might. A
phrase was often on his lips when he led in
prayer that he might follow the Lamb
whithersoever He goeth. That was the
prayer of his heart, the steadfast effort of
his life. Now he is gone, and not indeed
the least of God's good gifts to him was the
manner of his going. We cannot think of
that warrior spirit, fretted by a growing
feebleness, worn with old age. It was a
sublime and beautiful thing. Whilst we
mourn our loss far greater than we yet can
know, the heart must glow with gratitude
to God that it was given to this prophet of
fire to go away as in a chariot of fire —
swift, triumphant, glorious.

V.

BY HENRY S. LUNN, M.D.

^ T ^ HE priceless privilege of intimate
JL friendship with one of the noblest
and best of God's servants is only realized
when, as to-day, one stands by a grave-
side,—

"The divided half of such
A friendship as had mastered Time ;
Which masters Time indeed and is Eternal."

For sixteen years Hugh Price Hughes
was my most intimate friend, my confidant
and counsellor, and I have learned more
lessons from him than I could enumerate.

It was in the winter of 1886-7 that I
came to assist him in his ministerial work
at Brixton ; but before that I had learned,
in the first words I ever heard from him,
how absolute was his devotion to the risen

34

Christ who controlled every action and
every thought of his life. A few weeks
after I went to Brixton to be his colleague,
we were travelling back from Lincolnshire
in company with J. E. Clapham and Dr.
Stephenson. It was at the time when Mr.
Hughes's whole mind and heart were
absorbed by his great scheme for the West
London Mission which he was afterwards
so successfully to carry out. Mr. Clapham
and Dr. Stephenson began to talk about
the condition of things at the Wesleyan
Mission House which was then passing
through a financial crisis, and they said,
" Hughes, you and you alone can extricate
the Missionary Society from its present
position." I have never forgotten his
answer : " If it is the will of Christ, and if
the Conference decides it, I will go." This
brief answer expressed, too, the guiding
principles of his life : obedience to the
commands of Christ, and loyalty to the
authority which he recognized.

When I returned invalided from India,
and at once joined him in the work of the
West London Mission, I found that the

35

permeating thought of all his teaching was
the 6th Chapter of St. John's Gospel:
union with the living Christ. The energy
of his teaching, its dunamis, came from the
same source as that which was the inspira-
tion of the Anglican Revival: "Your
fathers did eat manna in the wilderness
and are dead. This is the Bread which
cometh down from Heaven that a man
may eat thereof and not die. I am the
Living Bread which came down from
Heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he
shall live for ever, and the Bread which I
shall give is My Flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world."

His passionate desire for reunion which
sometimes led him into actions and expres-
sions which those most closely associated
with him regretted, arose from his vivid
conception of the Church as the Bride of
Christ, and his desire for the removal of
the divisions which marred the realization
of that conception. He had no patience
with the comfortable, almost smug self-
satisfaction of certain " Evangelicals " who
were represented in the reunion discus-

36

sions, and who said, " We are already
united in spirit." He would reply that
our Lord's prayer was, " That they all may
be one .... that the world may believe
that Thou hast sent Me." A divided
Church, he used to point out, will never
win a rebellious world.

Yet he was loyal to Methodism, no man
more so. When, after certain unhappy
incidents which I need not particularize,
the present Archbishop of Canterbury had
expressed his willingness to ordain me, and
Archdeacon Farrar (as he then was) had
invited me to St. Margaret's, Westminster,
as his curate, I had decided to accept these
suggestions, as I was passionately desirous
of remaining in the active ministry of the
Church of Christ. Mr. Hughes learned
these facts one evening at Lucerne, and
the next day we went for a walk together
and he said, " I have been praying all night
about you, Lunn; you must not take this
step. You have stood before the world as
an advocate of reunion. I know the
motives that are leading you to this deci-
sion, but your action will be misinterpreted

37

by both sides. The High Churchmen will
say, and your Nonconformist brethren will
agree, that you have doubts about the
validity of your orders as a Wesleyan
minister. I know you have not these
doubts, but that does not alter the case.
Reunion, when it comes, will be brought
about in God's own time ; not by individuals
passing over from one side to another, but
by the gradual approximation of the
Churches as a whole to one another. You
had a thousand times better become a
Methodist layman, and serve the Church
of Christ in that sphere."

In the controversy which is now distract-
ing the nation, we have lost not merely a
bold champion on the Nonconformist side,
but one who like our own great general in
South Africa, had the statesmanlike ability
which would have enabled him not only to
carry a war to a successful issue, but to
arrange the terms of peace with due regard
to opponents. He had much in common
with those who believe that no religious
teaching can be effective that is not definite
and dogmatic, and this together with his

38

strong views as to the Scriptural position
of the Free Churches, would have qualified
him to act as a mediator between two
parties equally convinced of the righteous-
ness of their cause.

I well remember one walk we took last
August up the Scheidegg at Grindelwald.
During the two hours' walk to the summit
we had been discussing Methodist affairs,
and at the top we fell in with an English
clergyman, nephew of the late editor of the
Spectator, and a former Headmaster of the
Lower School of Harrow. For three hours
and a half, one hour on the summit and the
rest of the time as we walked back to the
village, he was putting his views before
these two Anglicans, with the passionate
enthusiasm that he threw into everything
he did. The burden of his talk was that if
only they could understand each other's
position, it would not be difficult to come
to an understanding. He was always
ready to recognize Christian devotion and
earnestness in those from whom he differed,
and he once said after a conversation with
Lord Halifax, that " He was sure Lord

39

Halifax knew as well as he did what the
New Birth meant, and he ought to be a
Methodist class-leader."

Space does not permit of any adequate
dealing with the traits that endeared him
to those who knew him in private life, —
his absence of rancour and bitterness, his
admirable generosity, and disinterested-
ness, his warmly affectionate nature. But
it ought to be put on record that his attacks
on the Mammon worship of the day were
borne out in his own life. Out of his com-
parative poverty he gave, during the last
months of his life, £100 to the million
guinea fund, from a small legacy that had
come to him, and also gave back to the
funds of the West London Mission his
year's stipend of £300. He gloried in the
fact that while the great Methodist com-
munion secures an adequate maintenance
to all her ministers, the stipend of her most
distinguished teachers does not exceed the
small sum I have mentioned ; and he loved
to quote the maxim, " From everyone
according to his ability ; to everyone
according to his need."

4o

Lastly, none of those who stood by his
graveside on the gloomy November day
when he was borne to his rest could refrain
from remembering how confident always
was his hope of immortality, and they must
have felt that the noble words of the
Burial Service, " In sure and certain hope
of a blessed resurrection," could never have
been more fitly spoken. It was full of
significance to those who knew him that
the last article he ever wrote for his own
paper, which appeared on the Thursday
after his death, was an earnest setting forth
of the great doctrine of the Atonement,
and bore as its title, " The Death of Christ."
It is not yet perhaps fully recognized how
great a debt the Free Churches owe to his
firm grasp of the great fundamental truths
of the Christian faith, by which he lived
and in which he died.

VI

BY SISTER LILY

(Of the West London Mission).

" They that be wise shall shine as the brightness
of the firmament; and they that turn many /r»
righteousness as the stars for ever and ever"

HAVING had the privilege of closest
association in work for fifteen
years, in my judgment the most prominent
feature of Mr. Hughes' life was his intense
" passion for souls," his eager desire for the
conversion of men and women. As we have
talked of the Mission, as we have walked in
the street, in our public meetings, in our
private gatherings, he has ever said, " Pray,
pray that God may give us conversions."
And how God has heard his prayer, and
what has been the result, the lives of the
people do show. The next feature, most
conspicuous to those who knew him best,

42

was his true saintliness ; he preached and he
lived that which he was never tired of
repeating, " What would Jesus Christ have
done if He had been in my place ? "
Whenever we went to him about any matter
of difficulty, he would never think of dis-
cussing personal or secondary considera-
tions ; he would always say, " What do you
think Christ would have you do ? " That
being settled, with exquisite gentleness he
would go into every point of difficulty,
removing, as far as possible, all unnecessary
effort, until you felt able to " laugh at im-
possibilities " and accomplish them.

But in the few lines I write to-day, I
should like to emphasize the indebtedness
which I and the Sisters feel we owe to him
for the magnificent service he has rendered
to the cause of woman. Mr. Hughes knew
nothing of the disqualifications of women.
This, I think, is largely due to his wife. It
is given to very few to find such a true
"help-meet" as he has found in Mrs.
Hughes.

He treated us always as comrades, as
colleagues ; he was a gentleman of the

43

noblest type. The iniquitous inequality
which allows a man to pass unpunished and
a woman to suffer, called forth the righteous
anger of his soul, and there is no occasion
where Mr. Hughes' gentler qualities were
more seen than when pleading with the
" girls in Piccadilly," or speaking individu-
ally to one who had sinned. I never heard
him without being reminded of that line in
our hymn,

" To those who fall, how kind thou art ! "

And how he appreciated the work of others !
He was always over-estimating what we
did ; little things which seemed of no value
were noted by him, and at the right moment
a courteous recognition of them would be
given. We loved to serve him. " Mr.
Hughes wishes it," was quite enough to
bring forth the most arduous work, and no
one counted anything too hard or too much
to attempt for him. I do not believe the
general public have any idea of the extent
to which Mr. Hughes appreciated kind
words and true sympathy. He valued
them. In hours of stress and strain, when

44

even his best friends misunderstood him, he
would gratefully treasure a kindly word or
deed which some one had shown him.

His judgments were always kind. The
way in which he could forgive and forget
an injury was wonderful. He never
cherished any unkindly feeling towards
any, and the very fact that he was so good
made him liable to misinterpretation.
Again and again have we said, " The truth
is, Mr. Hughes is too good." His absolute
simplicity (he could not act a double part),
his singleheartedness, his uprightness
baffled his enemies. He possessed, in a
remarkable degree, the qualities of " purity
and strength " —

" His strength was as the strength of ten,
Because his heart was pure. '

You could not be in his presence without
feeling the force of that massive personality.
He lived in the constantly realised presence
of God. He feared " no foe with Him at
hand to bless." He was dependent on no
one, but Christ, strong in the strength of
God.

VII

BY W. M. CROOK.

HOW did I know him? As a
journalistic colleague, as a guide,
as a teacher, as a leader, as a friend. I
call him a " journalistic colleague," though
he was editor and I was his subordinate.
But his treatment of me was always that of
a colleague, not that of a superior. If he
had been my superior in titular rank, but
my inferior in ability, in industry, in
journalistic insight, such a relationship
might have seemed very reasonable; but
he was my superior at every point of con-
tact. He owed nothing to his mere titular
priority. But his intellectual brilliancy and
quickness, his amazing industry, his
powerful, lucid style, his large experience,
his wide reading and his hosts of remark-
able friends made one feel at every point

46

his superiority. Yet he always treated me
— inexperienced, duller, slower, less indus-
trious, far less widely read, knowing com-
paratively few people — as a colleague, as
an equal, as one whose opinion was worth
asking and worth listening to. The result
was to me at first quite overwhelming. I
had been used to having to fight to get my
opinions listened to. This man, on whose
words and on whose pen tens of thousands
of people hung, who moulded the policy of
one of the greatest Churches of Christen-
dom, who was one of the mighty factors in
the making of ethical and religious opinion
in England, whose name was known as a
household word in every continent — except
possibly South America — this man listened
to me, sought my advice, weighed it, and
sometimes adopted it, as no other man did,
except a few of my own most intimate
personal friends, men of my own age and
standing. The result would, I fear, have
been to give me an amazingly good conceit
of myself, but that when I went from his
presence into the cold outer world, I found
always I had to fight to get my opinions

47

heard. The world contained very few men
who listened to anything I had to say, as
Hugh Price Hughes did.

Not that I wish to convey that we by any
means always agreed. We did not. He
by no means always adopted the advice he
was so careful to ask for and to listen to.
But he did so sometimes. The most
notable instance of that that I can recall
at the moment was during the controversy
over Dr. Davison's alleged heretical views
on the authorship of the Book of Psalms.
Dr. Davison was tried and unanimously
acquitted by a Committee of the most
illustrious leaders in Methodism. Mr.
Hughes, always a great believer in con-
stituted authorities, thought that ought to
end the matter and strongly deprecated
further discussion. His opinion was soon
put to a practical test. A Yorkshire lay-
man, Mr. Myers, I think, sent a long letter
to both the Methodist papers, the object
of which was to show that not only Dr.
Davison, but the Committee and the Con-
ference, were all wrong. The Methodist
Recorder refused to publish the letter, and

48

Mr. Hughes decided that the Methodist
Times was to do likewise. To this course I
was strongly opposed. I suppose because I
am an Irishman I have very little respect for
constituted authorities of any sort, and I
have an almost passionate belief in liberty.
I agreed with the Conference, and the
Committee and Dr. Davison, and not with
a word that Mr. Myers had to say. But I
thought his letter ought to be published in
the interests of liberty of discussion. Mr.
Hughes gave way to my arguments and the
letter appeared. Mr. Myers telegraphed
for 500 copies of the Methodist Times con-
taining it and distributed them broadcast,
but he did not convince the Methodist
people that the Methodist Conference
and its distinguished Committee and Dr.
Davison had all plunged into heresy. We
heard no more of that controversy.

Mr. Hughes was an exceedingly earnest
Methodist. Many Methodists looked
askance at some of his methods. They
feared he was drifting away from " the old
paths.'' They did not know Hugh Price
Hughes. I never met a more convinced

49

Methodist; I have never known anyone
who gave anything like so good reasons for
believing that Methodism would ultimately
be the dominant form of Christianity in the
world. He firmly believed it would be ;
for the following among other reasons. He
believed in evolution in religion; that
Christ was a living spirit, not a dead man ;
that because He lived, He still guided and
led His people, and that there was no
finality to the revelation of God through
Christ to mankind. He thought all other
Churches were too fast bound by creeds
to follow the guidance of the Church's
head.

Mr. Hughes always triumphantly pointed
to the Methodist conquest of the greatest
State on the North American Continent as
a tremendous fact in the religious history
of the world. He was a great believer in
the future potentialities of America. He
strongly held that the political future of the
world belonged to the English-speaking
races, and that of these the people of the
United States with their inexhaustible
material resources, their restless energy —

3

50

and their Methodism, were the people with
the greatest future. He looked forward to
a time when the inhabitants of this planet
would be overwhelmingly won over to real
Christianity, through the instrumentality of
a living, growing Methodist Church, un-
hampered by traditions or by creeds.

His strong sympathy with all that
seemed to him best in other Christian
Churches helped to make some Methodists
apprehensive as to whither he was leading
them. When he thought any method or
institution good, it mattered not to him
that a Church of which on the whole he
disapproved strongly had a sort of patent
rights in it. He fearlessly adopted it. He
resented the idea that any Church should
have a monopoly of anything that was
good. This mental attitude led to the
foundation of the Sisterhood of the People.
This frightened a good many old-fashioned
Methodists. They thought that a Sister-
hood, the members of which wore a veil
and were called by their Christian names
with the prefix " Sister," showed a Rome-
ward tendency. That was not the stand-

point with which Mr. Hughes, with his
splendid audacity, looked at the religious
history of the world. He thought that the
Latin Church had derived great strength
from the devoted services of good women,
but he objected to their vows of celibacy,
their conventual life, its secrecy, and to a
very great many other things in the Latin
Church. That to him was no reason why
he should not copy what he thought good.
He could see no reason in morals or in his
creed why good women should not devote
themselves as exclusively to religious work
as good men. Only, there must be no
vows, no resignation of absolute freedom
of action. His Sisters were to live in the
world, not out of it, and they were to be
free to marry. The head of his Sister-
hood, the first and only head, was his own
devoted wife, and many of the members of
his Sisterhood have married since its
foundation. The success of the experi-
ment so far has justified Mr. Hughes' judg-
ment, and his daring example has been
widely imitated in Methodism.

But his broad sympathies misled not

52

only Methodists, but those outside his own
Church. Prominent Churchmen in this
country formed the opinion that Mr.
Hughes was tending towards Anglicanism.
Strenuous efforts were made by some of
them — with the most kindly intentions —
to induce him to enter the Anglican
Church. Whether all the facts will ever be
published I do not know. I only know, of
my own personal knowledge, that such
efforts were made. But these men did not
know Hugh Price Hughes. He had no
narrow hostility to the Anglican — or even
to the Latin — Church in so far as he
believed it to be a depository of Christian
truth. But he disliked the establishment
of a single sect, and he loathed and
abhorred the idea of the State controlling
the whole or any branch of the Christian
Church. I sometimes doubted whether he
would seriously have opposed a theocracy,
the Church — provided that it were the
Methodist Church he loved — controlling
the State. But the reverse of that was to
him mere paganism, and dishonouring to
Christ.

53

I have no space to speak of Mr. Hughes
as a man, as a friend, as a guide ; of his
boyish, winsome jollity ; his limpid, sincere,
yet strangely complex and interesting
humanity — for he was very, very human.
I have spoken of him as a journalistic col-
league, as a great religious leader, an
ecclesiastical statesman who moulded, per-
haps, more than most of us realize, the
religious and ethical thought of his time.
But it is not on his brilliant, lucid, literary
style, nor his fearless, biting platform
oratory, nor even on his soaring gorgeous
imaginings of the transcendent future of
a world-conquering Methodism that I look
back with the most longing regrets. It is
on the man —

11 the human,
With his droppings of warm tears " —

it is on that side that I, and I believe all the
inner circle of his friends, will miss him
most sadly and longest. Methodism may
he'reafter, as she has done before, produce
great preachers, great orators, brilliant
writers, ecclesiastical statesmen, but never,
I sadly fear, another Hugh Price Hughes.

54

His brilliant style on the platform and in
the pulpit and in the Press never did justice
to this facet of a many-faceted character.

Some people saw one face and some
another, but there was one side which only
those who were privileged to be closest to
him ever saw, and that view is gone from our
lives for ever. That is the mystery of
death : what a man writes lives after him ;
what a man does lives after him ; what a
man is, goes elsewhere. That strange,
mysterious thing we call personality, the
soul speaking through the body, has lost its
means of communication with its fellow-
men.

VIII.
BY JOHN BAMFORD SLACK.

IT is now twenty-two years since I first
knew Hugh Price Hughes, since he
began to take an interest in me. Twenty-
two years since I was brought under the
spell of that magnetic personality and
recognized his leadership in life and
religion.

I was a law-student in London in 1880.
He had gone down upon a Home Mission
Deputation to Ripley, in Derbyshire, where
he was my father's guest. He had learnt
there that I was in London, and he at once
wrote to me that I must go out to Barry
Road and spend the next Saturday with
him there. I went to lunch, and, though
I little thought it then, that day was to be
the most eventful of my life.

I was only a boy, but the memory of the
kindness of Mrs. Hughes to me, and of the

56

revelations Mr. Hughes opened to me that
afternoon, thrills me yet.

No one has so influenced my life as the
friend I have just lost, and that both
directly and indirectly. What he said to
me as we wandered over Peckham Rye
that summer afternoon about God and
religion, about men and books, about
history and politics, changed my whole
current of thought. I remember his asking
me, the young law-student, in his study
after lunch whether I had ever read any
of Milton's prose. I said " No," and he at
once took down one of the three " Bohn "
volumes and declaimed the passage which
ends with the famous words, " If any law
or custom be contrary to the law of God, of
nature, or of reason, it ought to be looked
upon as null and void." About an hour ago
I saw the book again on his study shelves
in Taviton Street and found this passage
marked. We all know that it has been the
dominant note of all his public work. I soon
bought the " Bohn" edition for myself. From
that day also I began to read The Spectator.
He gave all my Church work a new impulse
and inspiration, and intensely confirmed

57

my Methodism. Thus at the first inter-
view with him the mere force of his person-
ality shot me forth into Methodist work.

He never lost sight of me afterwards,
and occasionally wrote to me during the
ten years I spent in the country. It was
through him, in 1886, when I attended my
first Wesleyan Conference, that I got to
know my wife, and through him, indirectly,
that we came to London in 1889.

No sooner did he know that we were to
reside in Town than he insisted that I
should join the Wesleyan West London
Mission and come to live in Bloomsbury. I
received a list of vacant houses from a firm
of estate agents, who informed me that
Mr. Price Hughes had instructed them!
The first house on that list is the one in
which I am now writing, and in which we
have spent a dozen happy years. Then,
as always, he carried me out of myself and
swept me along with him.

In 1891 again, he insisted that my wife
and I should accompany himself and Mrs.
Price Hughes to America. Of course I
again did as he told me, and a happy visit

58

we had together. During that journey we
learnt to know and love him more and
more. His eager, restless spirit even out-
ran the speed of American trains. He
covered and re-covered vast districts of that
great Continent, and, like his great proto-
type, he preached as he went. Then, in-
deed, it was most conspicuous that he
regarded himself as an instrument in the
hands of God ; he never stopped to pick
and choose his places, he simply did as he
was told and went where he was sent to
carry God's Word, and with it a message
from the Old Country to the Young
Country as to how the people in their
crowded thousands were to be reached by
the Gospel of Christ. This message was
delivered with such force and fire both in
sermon, lecture and debate, that he struck
our advanced cousins over there with
amaze, and made them suppose that in
Methodist economy, in broad religious life,
in social reform and even in brotherly
equality the Mother Country was even
more advanced than her emancipated
daughter.

59

He indeed fired the imagination of the
American people, and to us they expressed
again and again their admiration for and
amazement at this " live man." Especially
did they appreciate him in controversy;
when, armed cap-a-pie, he sprang into
debate and trampled under foot the
enemies of truth, of truth as it was seen
by him. This suggests one of the secrets
of his force. His strength was founded on
a deep conviction of the righteousness of
his cause, of any cause he advocated, and
out of the fulness of this conviction he
spoke with force, he smote with strong
words. This characteristic point of view
of his is well illustrated by a little incident
with my own sister. On the day of the
anniversary of the West London Mission
this year he twice met her going the other
way when he was going to St. James's
Hall, and on the second occasion he said
to her, " It seems to me, young lady, you
spend y6ur life in going in the wrong
direction."

Just in the same way because he had no
deep convictions as to his own need of or

<5o

right to money, and all it represented ; no
deep concern as to whether he was mis-
understood or went unrewarded, he could
not fight for himself, he could not be in the
way of securing the good things of this
life as he might easily have done. I
always felt that he was ever about his
Father's business. He was a wonderful
compound of audacity and shyness, daring
and timidity. In his Master's work he
was ever daring, he never hung back; in
this service, he claimed much from others,
just as he gave much himself, for he gave
himself unsparingly. But in his own inter-
ests he was diffident to a fault, he let slip
golden opportunities.

I have said that, during that, to me,
memorable journey in America he preached
as he went ; and he also learnt as he went.
We should have to refer to the pages of
the journal of John Wesley to find a record
of the strenuous life at all comparable to
that of Hugh Price Hughes. But there
was this difference, that in the former days
time and space and the difficulties attend-
ant upon travel put a drag upon the ener-

6i

gies of John Wesley, and so he lived to old
age. To-day the annihilation of time and
space by modern science in the steam
engine, the telegraph, the telephone, has
been a spur to the consuming zeal of Hugh
Price Hughes, and he has fallen, almost
in the prime of manhood, a victim to his
own vigour, killed by his own vital force.

He was ever a fighter. We know the
saying, " Palma non sine pulvere," but he
shook off the dust of strife from his armour.
The wars he waged and the battles he
fought left no scar upon his spiritual life,
and I never heard him utter a single word
of personal animosity about anyone who
differed from him. His was the large
nature which regretted rather than resented
differences. On that journey he was in-
terested in everything, from the system of
American railway tickets to the Methodist
Theological Institutions, the " Book Con-
cerns," and the Women's Colleges. His
catholic spirit absorbed all the aspects of
that young nation while his keen mind tore
out the heart of their success.

He laughed heartily over the humour, he

62

admired the greatness, he spotted the weak-
nesses, and he gloried in the forcefulness
of a people untrammelled by traditions and
founded upon religious freedom. There
we saw so plainly in those new surround-
ings one of his marked characteristics. He
was for ever taking in and, equally, always
giving out. He assimilated facts and ideas
with extraordinary rapidity. We made a
pilgrimage to Plymouth Rock and to the
cemetery of the Pilgrim Fathers, and there
we had to transcribe for him the words in-
scribed upon the tomb of the first Pilgrim
Father who was laid to his rest. " Let
your country be founded upon religion,"
was the burden of those carven words, and
well do I remember his ejaculation,
" Splendid ! " and the characteristic com-
ments he made on that message from the
tomb. I sadly remember, too, that that
was the first time, thousands of miles away,
across the Atlantic, that I stood in a ceme-
tery with my dear friend, and to-day, eleven
years later, I looked down into his open
grave and tried to realize that he would
never speak to me again. I thought of all

63

he had done that his beloved country might
be founded in religion, and determined
afresh to consecrate my life anew to the
work in which he spent himself, and to
which he gave his life. I have written thus
much of our American visit, because that
journey was typical of his life.

I esteem it one of the greatest privileges
of my life to have lived and worked with
this noble, fearless man. Twelve years ago
he insisted on my taking office in the West
London Mission. My association with him,
and with Mr. Mark Guy Pearse, Mr. Percy
W. Bunting and my other colleagues in this
Mission has been one of unbroken happi-
ness. There never was a man who was
easier to work with than Mr. Hughes. In
public he was a hard fighter, a brilliant
debater and a powerful controversialist ; in
private he was the gentlest of men, and in
the Mission he has always been loved, as
I have never known a man loved by his
colleagues and CQ-workers. Loyalty is far
too weak a word to express the sentiment
which bound us to our leader. He pos-
sessed a marvellous magnetic influence, an.

64

electric force which thrilled everyone who
was brought into sympathetic touch with
him. He lived ever in the spirit of prayer,
and one secret of his success was his belief
in the power of prayer.

The 'Sunday evening- services at St.
James's Hall have always been a wonder
to me. For a dozen years I have heard
him preach there, and every sermon has
been alive with some new idea and impulse,
fresh, vitalizing, helpful and inspiring. In
the "Enquiry Room" I have again and
again witnessed the most marvellous mani-
festations of the power which he possessed
of reaching the hearts and consciences of
men. The miracles of converting power
and of redeeming grace, of which the Holy
Spirit has made him the instrument, will
always be to me an impregnable evidence,
if such were needed, of the truth of the
Christianity he loved and served so well.

He laboured in many spheres of religious
and social activity, but the inmost circle of
all, the religious home of his soul, was the
West London Mission which he called into
being. It was there that he was best
known and best loved.

65

It is needless to say that -he who founded
the Sisterhood as the heart and centre of
the Mission was a strong believer in
women's work as a force making for
righteousness in every department of civil
and public life. He loved to discuss the
various phases and developments of that
work in its many ramifications. He always
seemed to me to stand bareheaded, as it
were, in respectful admiration of the brave
work accomplished in various fields by
good women, whether in religion, social
reform, in temperance or in politics.

He touched life at so many points that
he was ever fresh and very human. He
was so simple in his tastes that the smallest
pleasure was a real pleasure, and it was
most easy to amuse him. Once when he
and Mrs. Hughes stayed with us in a
country cottage he entered so thoroughly
into the spirit of that life that our simple
meals seemed like kings' banquets, and
our cottage garden a grand estate, so that
those days remain a living picture for ever
in my memory. The bicycle rides we then
took stand out in the same way sharply

66

defined by the strong lines of his intense
interest. Indeed, I seldom ride uphill now
without thinking of his remark that he
always felt when bicycling uphill that
Nature was taking a mean advantage of
him. In that, too, as in more serious affairs,
he went full speed uphill, or, as he said,
he could not go at all.

I am profoundly impressed by the fact
that there are hundreds of younger
Methodists who, like myself, have been
inspired by his vitalizing influence, and thus
his work must live and grow. He has
breathed the life of progressive religion
into the dry bones of respectable
formalism, and so has given a new hope
to the younger men. We were constantly
reminded that he had the seeing eye to
recognize ability in the young, the generous
mind to give free play to individual powers,
and the large human charity to appreciate
the least measure of success in work. In
the Mission we all felt sure of his warm-
hearted recognition of our smallest efforts,
his word of approval was worth much be-
cause it was spontaneous and sincere.

He has for so long filled so large a space
in my life and interests that I cannot at this
short interval realize the vacancy which
his sudden removal creates. Words are
but a coarse medium in which to express
the feeling I always had for my lost friend.
We who loved him in the Mission are
determined to carry on his work. In the
words of a letter which I have just received
from the President of the Wesleyan Con-
ference, we " have to keep the work up as
well as on."

IXj

BY CHARLES ENSOR WALTERS

(Of the West London Mission).

HUGH PRICE HUGHES has
always been my ideal Christian
minister. As a schoolboy I admired him
and had a passionate desire to know him.
That desire was not then gratified. But I
have no hesitation in saying that it was the
fervour of his evangelism — for he was at
that time beginning to stir up the dry bones
of Methodism — combined with home influ-
ence, which inspired me with a longing to
become a Wesleyan Methodist Minister (or,
more correctly, as Mr. Price Hughes often
reminded me, a Methodist Preacher}.
When, in 1889, my father was appointed
General Secretary of the London Mission,

the desire of my schoolboy days was
realised. I saw, heard, and came into close
contact with Hugh Price Hughes.

How quickly I learned to love him!
There was about Mr. Hughes an influence
that acted like a magical spell. One could
not resist him. In public — the fiery
evangelist, the stalwart fighter, the fierce
denouncer of shams ; an orator speaking
with a vehemence almost startling, an editor
writing with an intensity of conviction as
welcome as it is rare ; in private — gentle,
courteous, and witty — in short, a perfect
gentleman. I have come into contact with
conspicuous men who have quickly made
you feel yourself a nobody. Not so Mr.
Hughes. I was only a boy of seventeen
when I first met him, yet he talked to
me as to a man, asked my opinion on
various matters, listened to what I had to
say, and uttered words expressive of his
loyalty to Christ and His Church which I
shall never forget. I went from his
presence with head erect, proud to be fight-
ing the same battle as the man whose in-
spiration I had caught. Since then I have

had many conversations with him, but
always with the same result.

When, in 1892, the Wesleyan Methodist
Conference accepted me as a candidate for
the ministry Mr. Hughes was one of the first
to congratulate me and assure me of his
prayers on my behalf. I was delighted the
Conference sent me to his College, Rich-
mond, and felt that somehow his influence
still lingered there. During my three years'
residence — years to Mr. Hughes of extra-
ordinary activity — he found time to write
me many letters, mainly concerning the
books I ought to read He especially urged
me to study social questions, strongly
recommending Ruskin's " Unto this last."
He also advised me to read Professor
Alfred Marshall's " Economics of Industry."
It is impossible to exaggerate Mr. Hughes'
influence on the life and thought of the
younger men of the ministry. He has lifted
us out of the old " ruts," turned our minds .
into new channels, widened our sympathies, .
and kindled our enthusiasm for social'
reform.

In 1 895 I had the unspeakable privilege.

of becoming Mr. Hughes' colleague in the
work of the West London Mission. The
seven years and three months' close associa-
tion with him has been a period of un-
broken happiness. The better I knew him
the more I admired him. He was a noble
chief and loyal friend. He had marked
characteristics. Most of all was I im-
pressed with the intensity of his religious
convictions. He was a man of God. And
his religion was perfectly natural. At the
dinner table — no man was more hospit-
able or more delightful as host — he would
turn the conversation from a discussion on
politics, literature, or on matters of domestic
interest to the deepest "things of God"
There seemed nothing contradictory or
irreverent in this ; the man was so trans-
parently genuine. No questionable stories
— such as those sometimes heard even in
•clerical circles — ever passed his lips; no
-cruel sarcasm and no unworthy sneer. His
words came quickly, but the love of Christ
" constrained " them. Yet he was absolutely
human, sunny in disposition and boyish in
-spirit. How pleased he was to assist in

MR. PRICE HUGHES AT THE TIME OF HIS
ORDINATION.

MR. AND" MRS. PRICE HUGHES BEFORE THEIR
MARRIAGE.

73

teaching me to ride a bicycle! How he
laughed at my blunders, running along at
the side of the machine like a boy to keep
me from falling. With what intense earnest-
ness he instructed me how to mount ! Then
with what delight he started out for a cycle
ride, and how he enjoyed the tea and hot
toast at the confectioner's shop on the top
of Barnet Hill!

Those happy Saturday cycle rides, with
the ride back to town in the cool of the
eventide, when conversation turned on
politics, literature, or on that of which he
never ceased to speak, the privilege of
working for Christ in the West London
Mission, are at end. Shall I ever delight
in cycling again ?

Mr. Hughes' greatness next impressed
me. He was first at all times and every-
where. In Conference, Synod, public meet-
ing, or drawing-room, he impressed you.
He could not help being the centre of
attraction. Some public men disappoint
you in private life ; talk to them face to face
and their greatness vanishes. Mr. Hughes
was great on the platform of St. James's

4

74

Hall ; he was equally great in his little
study at 8, Taviton Street.

But perhaps the characteristics which
most impressed me were his tireless in-
dustry and burning enthusiasm. He was
always at work, yet he was never too busy
to see, converse with, and advise those who
worked with him. He never resented your
intrusion. I have entered his study, and
he has been walking up and down, or sitting
at his desk, dictating a fiery leader for the
Methodist Times. Greeting me with a smile
and pleasant word, he has asked, " Have
you seen to-day's Times or this week's
Spectator?" and handing me one of these
journals he has proceeded to lay down the
law for the readers of his inspiring paper,
or else he has asked his secretary to with-
draw, plunged into conversation, and when
I have left has continued his leader. I have
gone to Taviton Street late at night on
matters of urgency concerning the Mission ;
I have been told Mr. Hughes was in bed,
but had left word I was to go up to his
room. Entering his bedroom I have dis-
covered him asleep. But in a moment he

75

was awake, fresh, lively, frolicsome. I have
told him my business, and before I have left
his room he has been soundly asleep again.
Who can measure his labours? Superin-
tendent of a great mission, leader of the
Free Church movement, and editor of a
newspaper ; he did the work of six men.

Above all, I shall remember his burning
enthusiasm. By nature I have but little
enthusiasm, but I have served under Hugh
Price Hughes, and you may write me down
" Enthusiast" He was enthusiastic about
everything, cycling, walking, reading, but
above all about the Kingdom of God. His
fiery spirit made everything live. No
prayer meeting was dreary, no committee
dull, and no service monotonous if he was
present.

It is hard to write of my last conversations
with Mr. Hughes. I will only mention one.
On the 8th of October last my mother lost
her life whilst saving a little child from
being run over in the crowded streets of
Woolwich. Shall I ever forget the words
he uttered ? "A glorious death," he said,
" such a death as I should like." He com-

;6

forted me, giving me the message in St.
Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians: "O
grave, where is thy victory? O death,
where is thy sting?" "Walters," he
said, "be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, foras-
much as ye know that your labour is not
in vain in the Lord" (i Cor. xv. 55 — 58).
I little knew then that in a few short
weeks he would be called to God. But
when on Tuesday last I looked on him, so
beautiful in death, I seemed to hear him
say, "Be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord."

X.

BY FREDERICK A. ATKINS.

HUGH PRICE HUGHES as I first
knew him was a rising young plat-
form orator, a tall slim figure wearing
clerical dress and old-fashioned spectacles,
with pale face suggesting over study, and a
power of trenchant oratory that pointed to
a brilliant future. He was one of my
earliest heroes, and had full command of
my youthful enthusiasm. I have never
known a man so well equipped for the work
of impressing and winning young men.
The gospel that helps the aged saint is not
the gospel that thrills the impulsive youth.
Tell young men that underneath them are
the Everlasting Arms, and they are not
greatly moved — when they approach the
fortieth birthday and discover grey hairs at
the temples, the message will have infinite

comfort, but in the days of boyish ardour a
stalwart fighter like Mr. Hughes is the man
who can win their loyalty and do pretty
well what he likes with them. So it was in
my experience. Mr. Hughes called us to
valiant service, appealed to all that was
manly and chivalrous in us, and preached
what to me was a new kind of religion — a
Christianity that kept Governments straight,
that enforced civic duty and purified muni-
cipal life, that brought the ethics of Jesus
to bear upon the daily drudgery of the
common people. It was a revelation to me,
and thus to Mr. Hughes I owe a great moral
impulse that remains with me to this day.

The first time I saw and heard Mr.
Hughes was at a meeting of the Peace
Society in the Old Weigh House Chapel,
near the Monument, an ancient building,
long since demolished. The meeting was
deadly dull, and on looking down the list
of speakers I hoped for no improvement.
As I was thinking of making my escape
the chairman called upon the Rev. Hugh
Price Hughes. The .name meant nothing
to me. But within five minutes every man

79

in that chapel realised that a new force had
arisen in England. He roused a dead and
dreary meeting to an almost unbearable
pitch of enthusiasm. He was tingling with
life to his very finger tips, and he fairly
hypnotized his hearers. He held in his
hand a little penny memorandum book with
a black cover, from which he read apt and
well selected quotations from great writers
on the subject of war. He denounced
war as the " crowning insanity," the
" supreme curse," the " diabolical mad-
ness," he poured out a flood of biting
vituperation on the fools who delighted in
war, and his racy, forceful eloquence, his
irresistible Celtic passion made an impres-
sion which I have never seen excelled even
in the most crowded and excited assemblies.
I suppose at that time he was about 33, and
I was about 1 6. From that hour he had me
in his power.

I remember also a remarkable speech on
" Christian Audacity " at an annual meeting
of the Y.M.C.A. in Exeter Hall, a speech
that brought the audience to its feet, wildly
cheering the fervid young Welshman, who

8o

was himself the best specimen of Christian
audacity I have ever known. I witnessed
many of his triumphs in Exeter Hall — one
of the greatest was on the occasion when
he made a daring speech on Christian
Socialism which roused the wrath of the
good Lord Shaftesbury. Mr. Hughes had
the meeting with him, however, and the
indignant chairman had to give way and
allow the speaker to proceed. Dr. Robert-
son Nicoll says he first saw Mr. Hughes in
the City Temple Lecture Hall after a
lecture. I wonder whether it was on the
night when I heard Mr. Hughes give a
memorable lecture on " The Achievements
of Christianity." If so, I think Dr. Nicoli
will agree with me that it was a masterly
piece of work. The curious thing about
that lecture is that although it was obviously
prepared with great care and written in
full, I never heard of its being delivered
anywhere else. If the MS. is in existence
it ought now to see the light. I remember
one other occasion when I heard Mr.
Hughes make a great speech ; it was at a
densely crowded meeting in connection

8i

with the Sheffield Y.M.C.A. He achieved
nothing remarkable in the first ten minutes ;
then a man in the gallery was providentially
led to interrupt Mr. Hughes was imme-
diately transformed. He simply played
with his opponent With humorous exag-
geration and cutting irony he silenced the
poor fellow, and then proceeded to give us
twenty minutes of direct, intense, red-hot
eloquence. He was always at his best
when he had something or someone to " go
for" — it mattered little whether it was a
hard-hearted sweater, a profligate politician,
an idle and selfish church or an unjust Par-
liamentary measure — he was ever a valiant
and resolute fighter, strenuously battling for
purity and 'righteousness. Some com-
plained that he was " cocksure " ; certainly,
but why not call it intensity of conviction ?
It would be a truer description of a not
altogether valueless quality. This at all
events all who knew him will recognize :
if he was violent in denunciation, he was
never vindictive in temper.

I first met Mr. Hughes personally when I
arranged a great anti-gambling demon-

stration one Sunday afternoon in St James's
Hall. It was in connection with the
National Anti-Gambling League, which I
had recently started — and I had no more
sympathetic helper in organizing the new
movement than Mr. Hughes. This was in
the early days of the West London Mission,
when that remarkable pioneer movement
was at the height of its prosperity and
attracted universal attention. They were
grand days. Those who attended the
Sunday afternoon conferences when Mr.
Hughes was in full health and vigour will
never forget them. But as I look back I find
that the deepest impression I received was
not from the crowded gatherings, with all
their moral fervour and political enthusiasm,
but from the series of Bible readings which
Mr. Hughes gave on week nights. They
revealed him in a new light, and I have
seldom heard more stimulating addresses.

But it was my good fortune to see most
of Mr. Hughes when he was on holiday.
Several times we met in Switzerland, at
Lucerne, Andermatt, Davos Platz and
Grindelwald, and I have no hesitation in

83

saying that these were the happiest holi-
days of my life. He was capital company,
full of boyish fun and the wild joy of
life. Unfortunately even on his vacations
there was too little unbending of the bow.
Piles of newspapers followed him about,
and every now and then he would retire to
his bedroom for an afternoon to write
editorial notes for the Methodist Times.
The " leaders " for the whole of the holiday
weeks were prepared before he left town,
for in those days he would dictate half-a-
dozen leading articles without turning a
hair. Even on rambles and excursions he
would enter into long and strenuous discus-
sions which must have made great demands
on his vitality. One day we got up at
4 a.m. and climbed the Rigi. All the way
up we were debating the old question,
Which is the more influential, the press or
the platform ? I pointed out to him that in
half-an-hour he could dictate a leading
article which would influence thousands of
people all over the world, whereas after two
long and tiresome railway journeys, the
absence of 30 hours from home, and all the

84

friction and inconvenience of staying in a
strange house, and the nervous exhaustion
of speaking in a crowded hall, he would
only have addressed one or two thousand
people. But he stuck to it that by talking
to people face to face he could do what a
printed article could never achieve, and I
daresay he was right Coming down the
Rigi he started a discussion on woman's
suffrage. I told him that I had no love for
the " public " woman who, as Barry Pain
puts it, " knows everything about sin and
nothing about housekeeping," and I sug-
gested that as women were born Conserva-
tives, if once they got hold of the vote we
need never hope to see a Liberal Govern-
ment in power again. But he demolished
me just as he had extinguished the half-
tipsy man in the gallery at Sheffield, and
as we descended the mountain path he
talked with the same brilliance and vivacity
that characterized his great public speeches.
I shall never forget our talks and excur-
sions at Davos Platz. One excursion was
specially delightful, for our party included
Sir Walter Foster, Mr. Richard Le

85

Gallienne, Rev. George Jackson, Mrs.-
Hughes and Sister Lily. I took a very
interesting snap-shot of Mr. Hughes seated
on a rock with Mr. Le Gallienne and Sir
Walter Foster on either side. It would not
be easy to imagine two men more entirely
different than Mr. Hughes and Mr. Le
Gallienne, and yet they got on splendidly
together, and I know that the poet and
critic had from that time a deep respect and
an intense admiration for the Mission
Preacher and Social Reformer. He chaffed
him unmercifully— one night at dinner he
told Mr. Hughes that if he were an actor
and had to play Mephistopheles his up-
turned eyebrows would be worth at least an
extra thirty shillings a week to him. Mr.
Hughes took it all in perfect good humour,
and I do not remember in all my holiday ex-
periences a jollier or more interesting party.
Some have thought Mr. Hughes proud and
standoffish. They never knew him. He
was impatient with bores — he had no time
to waste on the frivolous trivialities of mis-
chievous chatterboxes. But amongst those
he knew and liked and trusted, there was

86

no more charming companion, no brighter
talker, no kindlier friend.

I do not think anyone would say that
Mr. Hughes was a great preacher. He
had but little imagination or idealism, and
most of his sermons were topical rather
than expository. But he was a great
driving force, and his dominant individu-
ality, his strenuous enthusiasm and his alert
mind and dextrous wit made him the
prince of platform speakers. His energy
was boundless. He nearly killed his de-
voted secretary, though at the time his own
vitality was so great that he was entirely
ignorant of the demand he was making
on his unlucky assistant. He was starting
for America and a London publisher was
clamouring for a long-promised volume of
sermons. So he dictated to his shorthand
writer the whole volume in two days, and
the weary secretary had to transcribe his
notes on the voyage across the Atlantic
and post the copy when he reached New
York

There are many places which will always
remind me of Mr. Hughes— Lucerne, where

8;

we had such pleasant tea-parties ; Grindel-
wald, the scene of many an interesting dis-
cussion ; Andermatt, where I spent a
gloriously happy holiday with Mr. Hughes
and Dr. Lunn ; Davos Platz, where we had
our final Swiss excursion; and the West
Cliff at Bournemouth where we said good-
bye for the last time. But there is one
other place — a little dairy and tea-shop in
Heath Street, Hampstead, where we met
sometimes on Saturday afternoons, and
which I shall never enter again without
thinking of our departed friend. Mr.
Hughes used to spend most Saturday after-
noons in rambling about Hampstead Heath
• — sometimes with one of the Sisters of the
People, sometimes with Dr. Lunn, often
with members of his family. He always
took tea in this little shop, although he had
scores of friends in Hampstead who would
have been glad of the honour of entertain-
ing him. We were talking there one day
of a distinguished preacher, noted for his
matchless wit and biting sarcasm. I asked
Mr. Hughes why, although crowds flocked
to hear this preacher as he travelled about

88

the country, he had never succeeded in
ordinary ministerial work. He replied,
"You are very fond of salad — you like it
well seasoned. How would you like to live
•on salad for three years ? " I was telling
him of my happy experiences of Cornish
Methodism, and he remarked that to see
Methodism at its best one had to go to the
north — especially to Yorkshire and North-
umberland. " I shall always regret," he
added, " that in my younger days I did not
' travel ' in the north." No man since John
Wesley has done so much to teach rich
men to give generously, and he told me
again and again that the love of money was
the " supreme danger " of Christian people
to-day, and was doing more harm within
the Churches than any other vice. He
spoke once, in tones of bitter distress, of
a wealthy Wesleyan who could not sleep at
night because he feared that after all he
might be unable to leave each of his chil-
dren a clear million of money.

I will bear my testimony that Mr.
Hughes, " as I knew him," was one of the
most forgiving of men. He never bore

89

malice. We disagreed on many questions
— I fought him in print and in conversa-
tion again and again — but after he had de-
nounced me in unmeasured terms, and
when I had told him what I considered
the plain truth, he would laugh and say,
" You impudent fellow," and take my arm
and go for a walk. I had the pleasure of
passing through the Press his successful
and interesting book on "The Morning
Lands of History," and his letters were full
of apologies for any trouble he had given,
thanks for any help or suggestions that
had been offered, and kindly acknowledg-
ment of the efforts of printers, paper-
makers, binders and publishers. I spent
an afternoon in his study discussing this
book, and as we were talking over our tea
he exclaimed, " I hope you'll be rewarded
for all the trouble you've taken." I had
done but little, and this generous recogni-
tion was characteristic of the man. I was,
indeed, richly rewarded in the almost child-
like delight he showed in the production
of the volume. He was specially anxious for
good reviews in two papers, the Spectator

QO

and the British Weekly, and in both cases
his desire was more than satisfied.

Mr. Hughes had his little faults and
foibles, but they never lessened one's ad-
miration for his great and inspiring person-
ality. He was always absolutely disinter-
ested. He cared nothing for money. He
might have made ten thousand a year as a
barrister; if he had gone into Parliament
his rare gifts would soon have exalted him
to Cabinet rank. But he preferred to be
a Methodist preacher with the salary of a
managing clerk. I asked him once to give
me his favourite quotation for reproduction
in a magazine, and he sent it by return of
post : " Thou, 0 Christ, art all I want"
On another occasion I asked him for a
New Year's motto for the readers of a
magazine. He wrote to me as follows :
" There is no saying that has impressed me
more than an old Welsh proverb which is
inscribed, I believe, on the bardic chair of
the National Eisteddfod of Wales. It is
this: 'Without God, withotit anything:
God, and enough! The same truth is ex-
pressed in its definite Christian form in my

91

favourite line in hymnology, ' Thou, 0
Christ, art all I want' I can suggest no
better motto than that for the New Year
and for every year." This was ever the
dominant passion of his life : to convince
men of their need of Christ and to lead
them to Him.

Only one thing remains to be said : Mr.
Hughes would not have been the man he
was but for the beautiful devotion and the
sweet comradeship of one of the strongest,
bravest women I have ever known. " Had
Mr. Hughes been a celibate friar," Mr.
Stead once remarked, " he would have been
a very unlovely person indeed." Mr.
Hughes would have entirely agreed with
Mr. Stead, for he constantly spoke with
profoundest gratitude of the perfect happi-
ness of his home life.

By HUGH PRICE HUGHES, M.A.

THE MORNING
LANDS OF HISTORY.

THE STORY OF

A TOUR TO GREECE, PALESTINE
AND EGYPT.

*** This volume contains careful and vivid
descriptions of Syracuse, Athens, Marathon, Con-
stantinople Jerusalem Jericho, Hebron, Bethlehem,
Cairo, the Pyramids, Memphis, Malta, and Monte
Carlo. Also special studies, on the spot, of the
Eleusinian Mysteries, and the true site of the Holy
Sepulchre.

Fully Illustrated, with Coloured Map showing
Route, and Photographs taken on the Tour.

Bound in Specially Designed Cover. Price 6s.

"A really satisfactory book of travel."— The
Spectator.

"A tempting advertisement to the joys of
Eastern travel. —Christian World.

"This vivid and delightful book."— Western
Daily Mercury.

" Mr. Hughes tells his story so naturally that
his readers seem to be making a personally con-
ducted tour to Greece, Palestine, and Egypt.
There is something to learn from every page of
this book, and those who cannot hope to make
such a pilgrimage may be thankful to see the
East through the keen eyes and still keener
brain of such a student and preacher as Mr.
Hughes." — The I^ondon Quarterly Review.

LONDON: HORACE MARSHALL & SON.

By MARK GUY PEARSE.

WEST COUNTRY
SONGS.

A BOOK OF POEMS.

Beautifully Illustrated by the AUTHOR, J. LEY
PETHYBRIDGE, F. MABELLE PEARSE, N. DEN-
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Cloth, gilt top, 3s. 6d.

*#* A Special Edition, bound in morocco gilt,
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The Dundefe Advertiser says : " Readers who
may have heard the famous preacher and author
lecture on 'The Old Folks at Home,' will have
an inkling of the interest and charm of some of
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The Methodist Recorder says : " It has in it
the music and the passion of a true singer, who
loves his song and makes us love it."

The Scotsman says : " Cornishmen and those
who know Cornwall will read it with unqualified
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THE GENTLENESS
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• AND OTHER SERMONS.

6th Thousand. Cloth gilt, with photogravure
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STUDIES IN TEXTS.

Containing New Sermons, Outlines, Sugges-
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In six volumes. Now Ready, 3s. 6d. each.

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