7
LIFE OF
WILLIAM EDWARD COLLINS
4 fc.
l-'roiti a photograph by J. Russell & Sons, London
LIFE OF
WILLIAM EDWARD COLLINS
BISHOP OF GIBRALTAR
ARTHUR JAMES MASON, D.D.
WITH A PORTRAIT
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1912
All rights reserved
PREFACE
IN these days, when so many biographies are written, it
seemed wrong not to leave to posterity some record of a
man who was not only in himself a remarkable personality,
but who also had more share in guiding the contemporary
history of the Church than most people were aware of.
Perhaps it was the more necessary in the case of Bishop
Collins, because an account of him had obtained a wide
currency, which might, if not supplemented, have given an
untrue impression of his character. The little book alluded
to is indeed most tenderly and delicately true. From a
single and limited point of observation it portrays the
Bishop not only with deep and reverent devotion, but with
extraordinary insight and fidelity. But it was not, and
was never meant to be, a complete presentation of the
Bishop ; it was only intended to show him as he was in one
beautiful and sacred relationship, during his last pathetic
years. There are other things which it was important to
tell about him.
Bishop Collins was indeed a man of many sides. He
might, from one point of view, be considered as almost
a chronic invalid, with occasional accesses of illness which
cut him off for longer or shorter periods from public work.
He made no concealment of his illnesses, though he made
no parade of them. The sympathy which they drew out
from others he received with unaffected gratitude, and re-
paid with an unmeasured outflow of affection. He came to
be on terms of great intimacy with many different sets of
people. But these intimacies were marked not only by an
unreserved disclosure of his own heart ; they were marked
2067482
vi PREFACE
by two other things. One was an entire reticence about
his relations with other people. He never gave away the
confidence reposed in him, and some of his closest friends
never knew of similar friendships which he had formed else-
where. He was reserved even to secretiveness with regard
to them. The second thing which marked these relationships
was that with all their tenderness there lay at the bottom of
them that element of severity, that constant demand of moral
effort, which cannot be absent from Christian sanctity.
I have greatly failed in the task which I set myself, if
the reader of these pages fails to see in Bishop Collins,
alongside of an almost woman-like power of attachment,
the character of a strong man. His intellect was a strong
man's intellect. He had a vigorous grasp of principles, and
at the same time a most remarkable faculty for amassing
and mastering detailed information. He saw the meaning
of a problem swiftly, and he was not contented until he
had strenuously examined and co-ordinated the facts which
gave the clue to the solution. His was no second-hand
learning, no unverified acceptance of other men's opinions.
Yet the student's passion was never allowed to become
predominant in him. These pages mention a warning sent
to him in early life not to let his " absorbing intellectual
interests encroach " upon his " spiritual and pastoral life."
If the warning was needed, it was heeded. One who knew
him well wrote, after his death, to draw this as the main
lesson from his life " the grace by which he made the
intellect subserve the spirit, counting as nought the things
of the former, where they failed to make clearer and more
attainable the things of the latter." " In that missionary
life," this writer says, " the old pursuits of reading and
research, writing and quiet deep thinking, were renounced,
cheerfully sacrificed to the routine and demands of his
enormous diocese ; but when he became persuaded that
such was the will of God, he turned his back on the life which
offered these dear delights with the cheeriness and whole-
heartedness which he himself would have called in another
' playing the game.' " l We have often heard of a sacrifizio
1 Miss Rolt in the Guildsman, December 1911.
PREFACE vii
dell' intettetto : in this case it was a sacrifice which contained
nothing that was not admirable.
Next to this steady concentration of aim, the most marked
characteristic of the man was his physical and moral courage.
A letter from a layman, who was one of his best friends,
lies before me. The writer says : " The two features of
his character must always be the breadth of his mind and
his extraordinary personal courage, both rooted in a simple
and unassuming confidence in the Almighty's decrees.
Whatever it was to be, it must be right : one only goal in
front of him, to make for it regardless of all, whether on
the right hand or the left, so long as the object aimed at
was reached." The courage of which this friend speaks was
not shown only in crises of imminent danger, but in the way
in which the Bishop at the last deliberately took his life in
his hand, and travelled and laboured and ministered when
any one else would have retired to the sick-room. Yet
even when most venturesome, he took every precaution that
the circumstances admitted, and was never foolhardy or
(in these ways) self-willed. That imperious will of his not
only undertook heroic tasks, but set itself patiently to use
all means that prudence might suggest for their accomplish-
ment.
I have to thank many friends for help of various kinds
in the work which is now offered to his memory. I thank
the Bishop's father, Mr. J. H. Collins, and his sister-in-law,
Miss Steiiand, for much information and encouragement.
I thank his executor, Mr. Wilfrid Barnes, for putting un-
reservedly at my disposal all papers that might serve the
purpose of this memoir. I thank those who have given me,
sometimes unsought, sometimes at my request, accounts of
particular passages in his life ; perhaps I may mention
especially Professor Caldecott and the Bishop's pupils at
King's College, whose names I have mentioned in that
connexion ; Miss S. Boycott, Miss G. M. Bevan, Miss P. M.
Bishop ; those who have written to me about his work in
the West Indies and in South Africa ; the Hon. Mrs. H. N.
Gladstone for her account of his work at Messina ; Bishop
Montgomery, the Bishop of Wakefield ; those who have
viii PREFACE
written to me about the closing scenes. I thank Mr. Lomas,
of Territet, for lending me the volumes of the Anglican
Church Magazine, which contain much information about
his diocesan work. I thank all those who have lent me letters
of the Bishop's ; some of them I may not name, but I may
mention in particular Lord Rendel, the Hon. Madame Wiel,
the Rev. O. Blogg, the Rev. A. T. Barnett, the Rev. J. H.
Toy, Miss Cavendish-Bentinck, the Rev. J. H. Ritson, the
Rev. Dr. Robinson. I thank Lord Northbourne for constant
help and guidance, and in particular for reading all the
proofs for me. I thank His Grace the Archbishop of Canter-
bury for allowing me to use papers in his possession with
regard to the Lambeth Conference of 1908, as well as
utterances of his own. I thank the authoress of the little
book referred to at the beginning of this Preface for leave
to use her materials freely, and for much else besides.
Finally, I thank Messrs. Russell & Co., of Baker Street, for
permission to reproduce without charge their beautiful
photograph of the Bishop as a frontispiece to this memoir.
It may perhaps be not unsuitable to state, in connexion
with the frontispiece, that the Bishop was twice painted.
In one of the two paintings, by Mr. F. Cadogan Cowper,
now in the possession of Lord Northbourne at Betteshanger,
he was represented as St. Francis of Assisi, listening to the
music of an angel. The picture was exhibited in the Royal
Academy in 1904, and drew much attention, though few
people knew whose features the artist had depicted. The
second painting, by Mr. Streatfield, is a grave and impressive
portrait of the Bishop in his cope. Since the Bishop's
death it has been acquired for Selwyn College at Cambridge,
and hangs in the College Hall, as a memorial to the first
alumnus of the College to be made a Bishop.
CANTERBURY,
Nativity of the B.V. Mary, 1912.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. EARLY LIFE - - i
II. ALLHALLOWS BARKING AND KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 8
III. EPISCOPATE 64
INDEX 189
I.
EARLY LIFE.
THE life which is recorded in these pages began in London
on the i8th of February in the year 1867. The Bishop,
whose Christian name was William Edward, was the second
son of Mr. Joseph Henry Collins and of his wife, Frances
Miriam. Mrs. Collins died when William was 21 years old,
but Mr. Collins survives him. There were nine children in
all, including one sister who died in infancy. Mrs. Collins
was of Irish birth, and the Bishop liked to think that he
had Irish blood in his veins, and told people that he could
feel a thrill when he went near the shores of Ireland.
A few months after the Bishop's birth the family removed
into Cornwall. The removal was occasioned by his father's
appointment as Lecturer and Assistant Secretary to the
Miners' Association of Cornwall and Devon ao appoint-
ment in which he succeeded the late Sir Clement Le Neve
Foster. A little later he was also made Secretary to the
Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and County Analyst,
and later still, Honorary Secretary to the Royal Institution
of Cornwall. In the year 1874, Mr. Collins, who had made for
himself a distinguished place among the scientific men of the
West, began also to practise as a consulting Mining Engineer
an employment which soon took him much away from
home, and into far countries.
The frequent absence of the father threw upon Mrs. Collins
a heavy burden of responsibility in bringing up her family.
She was a devoted mother, and received in return the whole-
hearted affection of her children, especially, it may be said,
of William. He cared less for out-of-door pursuits than the
A
2 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
other boys, and made himself her " right hand " in the duties
of the home. The eldest son, Henry, went to the Truro
Grammar School, the school of Henry Martyn and other
famous men, and under his father's tuition obtained at a
very early age a Royal Scholarship at the Royal School of
Mines, and so began a successful career as a Mining Metallur-
gist. William and his younger brothers were placed, as soon
as they were of school age, at the Collegiate School in Lemon
Street, Truro, kept by the late Mr. F. Nuttall, where they
were well grounded in the ordinary branches of education.
It had been intended that they also should pass to the
Grammar School ; but in 1881 Mr. Collins took an appoint-
ment at the Rio Tinto Mines in Spain, and the family, with
the exception of the eldest son, removed to that country.
It was at this time that the connexion between the present
writer and the subject of this memoir began. Bishop Benson
had put the parish of St. John's, Truro, into the charge of
myself and my colleague, the Rev. F. E. Carter, during a
vacancy. The Collins family were parishioners of St. John's.
The boys were rather young to be confirmed, William not 14,
and Arthur only 12, but their parents were uncertain what
opportunities there might be of getting them confirmed
abroad and desired that it should be done before they left
Cornwall. Seldom can a priest have had a more delightful
task laid upon him than it was to prepare the two eager,
intelligent, open-minded, pure-hearted boys for their Con-
firmation and first Communion. A more beautiful tender-
ness of conscience than theirs it would hardly be possible to
imagine.
At this early age began William Collins's connexion with
the country from which in after life he was to take his title.
He was very happy at Rio Tinto with his brothers and sisters.
He edited a little family magazine, full of observation and
humour. He acquired the Spanish language. But it was
found that the climate did not suit him. After several voy-
ages to England and back, he was sent home for good, and
lodged with his eldest brother in London. It was now deter-
mined that he should take up law as his profession. He was
put into the office of Sir Albert Rollit in Mincing Lane. An
EARLY LIFE 3
incident in his career as a lawyer's clerk is remembered. Late
one evening he was told to go and serve a writ upon a butcher
in Wapping. The man was known to be a violent and reck-
less character, and the neighbourhood was not an inviting
one. As young Collins was starting on his errand, the head
clerk said to him : " By-the-bye, I suppose you don't carry
a revolver about you ? " No, he did not. " Perhaps you
have a good strong pocket knife ? " He had not even that.
" Here, then ; you had better take the office ruler with you."
So armed, he went to Wapping. He succeeded in getting
the butcher to come down and open the door, and thrusting
his foot in, so that the door might not be shut, got the writ
into his hand. When the man saw what it was, he aimed a
heavy blow at the young clerk, but Collins managed to ward
it off with the ruler, and fled.
The law, however, was not his vocation. He had set his
heart upon being ordained. His father entered his name for
the Scholae Cancellarii at Truro, founded a few years before
by Bishop Benson, which was under the guidance of Chan-
cellor Whitaker. Just about this time I was called up to
London, to serve the Church of Allhallows Barking, near
Mincing Lane, and was brought again into close relations with
William Collins. It seemed a pity that so fine an intellect
should not have the advantage of a University education.
With a large family growing up and a limited income, his
father was not in a position to give him this advantage un-
aided. The boy had not been sufficiently taught to help
himself by obtaining a scholarship. I was permitted to
enlist the sympathies of a few friends. Mr. Munro, the
editor of Lucretius, and Mr. Wheatley-Balme, an old friend
of my father's and a generous benefactor of Selwyn College,
promised substantial contributions ; and with this assistance
a project which we had for some time discussed was carried
into effect, and Mr. Collins was able to send the boy to
Selwyn, where he began residence in October, 1884.
His undergraduate career was not particularly happy.
The College had only been opened two years before, and the
men had scarcely, perhaps, fallen into the ordered ways of
those in older Colleges. Collins suffered a good deal of
4 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
" ragging." He was determined to be like a Nazarite and
to allow no razor to touch his skin. This was resented by
the others, and long arguments and entreaties from parents
and older friends were required before his natural obstinacy
was overcome and the offence removed. I cannot find that
he made any real friends among his fellow undergraduates,
though he did among the dons. He worked very hard, and
lived very severely, so much, indeed, as to injure his health.
He chose the Mathematical Tripos to work for principally
because he knew more mathematics to begin with than any-
thing else. He thought also that the study of mathematics
would supply what he considered to be a defect in his own
mind. Greek he had never learned till he began attending
classes at the Birkbeck Institution in London with a view to
entering the University, and to the end of his life he had only
a fair working acquaintance with it. At the end of his three
years he obtained quite a creditable place, near the top of
the Junior Optimes.
But while he made Mathematics his Tripos subject, and
treated it with dutiful respect, he was giving his spare time
and thought to other branches of learning. Nothing came
amiss to him. He was an omnivorous reader. Already the
study of history, and especially of history in its bearings
upon religion, had begun to engross him. As soon as he
was set free from the trammels of his Tripos, he began to
read for Dr. Lightfoot's University Scholarship, which is
given for proficiency in Ecclesiastical History, but in Ecclesi-
astical History in its connexion with History in general. I
was appointed to examine for the Scholarship that year,
1888, in conjunction with Dr. Hodgkin, the author of Italy
and her Invaders. Collins showed an extraordinary and
detailed knowledge of the special subjects set ; but his com-
petitor, Mr. Townsend- Warner, a Fellow of Jesus College,
had done brilliantly in the History Tripos of the previous
year, and so had the start of him in general historical learn-
ing. Nevertheless we were unanimous in publishing the
statement that the merits of W. E. Collins, B.A., of Selwyn
College, were very nearly equal to those of the successful
candidate. I declined to examine again the following year.
EARLY LIFE 5
Collins was then elected without any hesitation, and in the
year after (1890) he received the award of one of the Prince
Consort Prizes, for a dissertation on the Conversion of Frisia.
Parts of two letters written at this time by Mr. Lyttelton,
then Master of Selwyn, will show something of what was felt
about him by the authorities of his College. The first refers
to the Lightfoot Scholarship, the second to the Prince Consort
Prize.
" May 5, 1889.
... I cannot refrain from a line of congratulation, most
heartfelt and thorough. It is a real moral triumph over
physical difficulties, and one of which you may be far prouder
than of the intellectual feat, considerable though that is.
I hope you are fond enough of the College to sympathize
with my great pleasure over the credit you have won for it."
" February 5, 1890.
... It is a very satisfactory sort of prize to get, and I
shall look forward to adding the essay to the Library with
great pride the first genuine Selwyn publication. ..."
Collins, however, was not satisfied with the essay, and never
worked it up into a condition to be published.
Meanwhile a bereavement had befallen him which greatly
affected his home life. The family had returned to England
in 1884, and were domiciled in London, the father practising
as a Consulting Mining Engineer, with frequent absences
abroad. At each recurring Christmas, if not very frequently
at other times of the year, William used to join those members
of the family who were in England. There was constant
correspondence between them, even when they did not meet.
On Good Friday, in the year that William took his degree,
his mother died. Mr. Collins says :
" I was away in Transylvania, Arthur in Norway, Harry in
Spain. Will and George were at home, but both were
engaged elsewhere when she died, only the little daughters
and her mother being actually present. It fell to Will to
summon us home by telegraph and to make all the funeral
arrangements. Arthur and I reached home in time for the
6 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
funeral ; Harry could not leave Spain just then, and could
only telegraph his grief and sympathy. He joined me soon
after in Transylvania when I returned there after the funeral.
Will was still more engrossed in his studies after the death of
his mother ; and from that time for several years, although
there were many casual visits and much affectionate corres-
pondence, he had scarcely any part in our family life."
It may be well to say, in reference to this last sentence,
that there was never anything of the nature of an estrange-
ment between the Bishop and his own kinsfolk. To his
brother Arthur, in particular, he was most deeply attached.
Although they met so seldom, for Arthur spent several years
of his life in the service of the late Amir of Afghanistan,
besides prolonged sojourns in Mexico and in South America
the two were devoted friends. Few sorrows touched the
Bishop so profoundly as the death of this able and gallant
younger brother, who was killed in 1902, at the age of 33, by
anarchist miners on strike in Colorado, refusing to listen to any
warnings that his life was in danger. To his father William
always sent everything that he wrote. When his sisters were
married in 1896 and 1907, it was he who married them. He
baptized his nephews and nieces. After his consecration his
intercourse with the family became closer than before. He
paid frequent visits to Crinnis, in Cornwall, where Mr. Collins
had settled, and to his elder brother at the Cordova Copper
Mines in Spain. The ties of natural affection were never
weak in the Bishop ; but in early life his studies and his main
interests lay in a different direction from those which carried
his father and his brothers all over the world, and the death
of his dearly loved mother at what was for him a critical age
served to throw him more and more upon the sympathies
of friends unconnected with him by birth.
In these he was already rich. In the Clergy House of
Allhallows Barking he was surrounded by men who knew
how to appreciate him. The late William Bellars, after-
wards Vicar of Margate, a man of thought and learning ; the
late David Evans, son of the famous Greek Professor at
Durham, and a sharer in his father's genius ; Cyril Bicker-
steth, Reginald Adderley, Herbert Thornton ; these were
EARLY LIFE 7
the first group of associates with whom he was there thrown.
That house, 7 Trinity Square, E.G., was for many years to
be more of a home to him than any other. Before he was
connected with Allhallows, he had been attracted to Christ
Church, Albany Street, first under Mr. Burrows, then under
Mr. Festing, afterwards Bishop of St. Albans. He taught
a class there, and served as a reader in the church. The
attachments there formed were permanent. Bishop Festing
made him one of his Examining Chaplains. His friendship
with Dr. W. J. Sparrow Simpson, then Assistant Curate at
Christ Church, lasted throughout life. At Cambridge, after
his degree, he found a congenial home in the house of Mr.
H. M. Gwatkin, now Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History.
Mrs. Gwatkin became a second mother to the delicate young
man, who stood in such need of loving care, and the sym-
pathetic and stimulating guidance of Mr. Gwatkin was of in-
calculable benefit to him in his chosen studies. Another home ,
not less motherly, was opened to him at Wimbledon. Mrs.
Thurston Holland, the daughter of the immortal authoress
of Cranford, took him into her house. He spent almost
the whole of 1889 there. He used to give " lecturettes " in
the schoolroom to the children and friends of the family. And
he needed the nursing which he received. The long strain of
reading for the Lightfoot had told heavily upon his heart.
One day I was telegraphed for ; the doctor at Wimbledon
thought he had not long to live. He told me that with such
an enfeebled remnant of a heart he did not expect William
Collins to live more than a few months at the outside. But
Dr. Symes Thompson, who was very good to him, gave a
more hopeful account. He said that, with care, he might
live to fifty, but not beyond.
II.
ALLHALLOWS BARKING AND KING'S COLLEGE,
LONDON.
IN the year 1890 Collins was ordained deacon, and priest
the year after, by Bishop Temple. His title was a curacy of
Allhallows Barking. The Bishop was not altogether willing
to admit him on that title. There was little parochial work
for him to do, and the situation was rather abnormal. But
Collins had not the physical strength for an ordinary curacy.
The Bishop soon found that it was no common man that he
had to deal with, and gave way. He made the further con-
cession of allowing Collins, during the Ember week, to stay
in the kind and cheerful home of Mr. and Mrs. Etherington
Smith, at Putney, just opposite Fulham, where he was well
cared for.
The work committed to the clergy of Allhallows, over and
above the service of the venerable church one of the few
which escaped the Great Fire of London and of the parish
attached to it, consisted of Missions and Retreats in various
parts of the country, courses of sermons and instructions, and
lectures of different kinds. Collins took his share in these
duties. We endeavoured to keep the share as small as we
could, but it was not easy to restrain him. Naturally,
lectures on English Church History formed a large part of
his engagements, and courses of this kind which he gave
at Maidstone, at Belvedere, and at Croydon, were largely
attended, and made a great impression. One of his chief
friendships of those days bound him to the house of the
scholarly Dr. Monckton of Maidstone, where he was a
constant visitor, when lecturing at that centre.
ALLHALLOWS BARKING 9
Two of our colleagues at Allhallows record their first
impressions of him there. Dr. Arthur Robinson, the present
Vicar, says :
" My first sight of Willie Collins, as he was then familiarly
called, was in the summer of 1887, at the Mission College on
Tower Hill, not long before I myself joined the staff. He
was then a young layman fresh from Cambridge, making up
his mind as to his future course. I remember the impression
he left upon me of blended modesty and ability, and a talk
we had as to the possibility of combining historical study
with the work of a curacy, perhaps in the East End of
London. The solution of that problem was most happily
found when he too became a member of the College of
Allhallows, which had its old City Church and its little parish,
both of them full of unusually varied activities and interests.
In all of these he took his share. Sympathising heartily
with the parochial side of things, he preached with freedom
and fervour, and early shewed his remarkable gift of winning
the affection of individuals, sparing no pains to be of use
to them. Some of his sermons are well remembered still ;
as for instance, one on St. Paul's dream vision of the man
who beckoned him over to Europe."
The Rev. G. C. Fletcher, now Vicar of Newchurch in
Pendle, writes :
" I recollect Willie Collins, as every one called him, coming
to Trinity Square a lad of 17 or 18, with his pale face, and
his great eyes, and his wondrous knowledge. I remember
how the wonder of his encyclopaedic knowledge grew upon
us. We expected him to know a good deal of Church
History ; but his experience with his father in Spain, and
then his insight into the law, as a clerk to a solicitor,
had given him such a quantity of unusual knowledge. I
suppose it was a good deal later that he undertook the
Bible Class for the elder lads ; but I remember his remark-
able experience coming out in his reply to one of them, who
introduced a Bible difficulty, the shooting forth of the olive
leaf after the Flood. ' Well,' said Willie, ' I remember
perfectly well, after the great flood in Spain in the year
(whatever it was), that I saw with my own eyes that the
io LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
olive was the first tree to shew any leaves ! ' After his
ordination, I remember his sermons, tightly packed with
material for three in each of them, and I remember how
much we were all amused to see how closely he set himself to
imitate [an older man to whom he was attached]."
In the letter in which Mr. Lyttelton congratulated him
on obtaining the Prince Consort Prize, he added :
" I have been hearing about you from Samuel Bickersteth, 1
who is staying with me. He is full of your lectures and the
impression they are making. I hope you find the people
responsive. . . . I seldom have to think of one of my Selwyn
men being ordained with such unalloyed pleasure as I feel
in your case, and my hope and prayer for you is that you
will have strength and health granted you to carry out the
promise with which you have begun. You will, I know, be
alive to the danger of letting your absorbing intellectual
interests encroach upon your spiritual and pastoral life, and
the position to which you are called will be a great safeguard
against this."
A year after this letter was written, the Master wrote
again " to tempt him away from Allhallows," by the offer
of a post as lecturer at Selwyn, which was speedily followed
by a similar offer from St. John's. The double offer was
very flattering, and he had serious doubts whether it did
not conceal a snare for him. He kept a letter from a
wise friend at Cambridge which helped to remove his
doubts :
" Perhaps your health would be better for lighter and more
regular work, with less scurrying after trains. Perhaps you
are rushing at your life's work too hastily, and would be none
the worse for a quieter time just now. Either of these would
be a weighty reason. You need not be modest about your
degree, for you have done quite enough History to go upon.
And as for ' spiritual gifts/ the less we think of such things
the better. If we are doing our duty, our place matters
little ; and, indeed, we are not often wise enough to say
whether one place is spiritually better than another. 'A
1 Then Vicar of Belvedere.
ALLHALLOWS BARKING n
College don's life should be spiritual ' and so should the
grocer's. You will not sink into the rut if you keep the
highest call before you rather than these lower ones of station
and opportunity."
He accepted the invitation, and for the next two years
did excellent work in the two Colleges and in the University.
Besides his teaching in Church History, he lectured on
Political Science and kindred subjects, and his lectures were
highly appreciated. Of this period Mrs. Gwatkin writes to
me :
"All the time he was a don at Selwyn, he spent part of
Sunday with us ; and when he left Selwyn, but still kept on
his Lectureship at St. John's, he stayed every week with us
when he came down for his lectures. No words can tell what
a joy and blessing his love and sympathy were to me all
those years. It is something to thank God for all one's life.
At that time he was in very bad health, suffering so much
from his heart, and I used really to listen with anxiety in
the morning to hear if he was moving overhead, but I have
never known anyone who more resolutely refused to allow
health to interfere with his work."
There was not much to record in the uneventful life of
the University student and teacher ; but he came into close
relations with men who left their mark upon him. Chief
among these was the Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical
History, Mandell Creighton, afterwards Bishop of London.
At a time when many earnest Churchmen saw in Creighton
only a brilliant and somewhat scoffing epigrammatist, Collins
was allowed to see the Christian. He formed a devoted
attachment to him, and if any man could be called his master
in regard to a broad outlook upon history and life, it was
Bishop Creighton. After Collins left Cambridge, Lord Acton
became Professor there ; and common studies then brought
them together and they were friends. But it was Creighton
to whom Collins owed what he became as an ecclesiastical
historian and statesman.
The effect of his teaching upon pupils and fellow teachers
alike was all that his friends expected. At the beginning of
the year 1893, Mr. Lyttelton vacated the Mastership of
12 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Selwyn for the vicarage of Eccles. He wrote to Collins on
February 21 :
" You have been associated so long and so closely with the
College that my thoughts turn very soon to you when I
think over the change. I cannot but thank you very deeply
for all your help, not only in these later years as a Lecturer,
but from the first as an undergraduate, and one who has done
the College so much credit. I am sure that my going will
not diminish your interest in it, and your devotion to it, and
it is a great consolation to me to feel that."
Mr. Lyttelton's departure from Cambridge was followed
at no great interval by Collins's own. The Professorship of
Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London, fell vacant,
and Collins applied for the post. On November 4, 1893, Mr.
Lyttelton wrote again from Eccles :
" I am so sorry for the College, and for your colleagues,
and a little bit for myself in losing one of my chief ties to
Selwyn. But of course you come first, and from what I have
heard from Knight 1 and from the Master 2 I have been
reluctantly facing the probability that the ' experiment '
we made, and which for some time seemed to be really
succeeding with you, must come to an end. Last term,
indeed, I saw that you were all wrong in health again, so your
news came as no surprise. . . . Let me preach to you once
more I shan't venture when you are a Professor about
overwork. Interest in a subject doesn't make it any the less
noxious if pursued when you ought to be in bed, as I have
sometimes found myself, though I have never tried the ex-
periment on your scale. You may do such good work for
the Church and for knowledge that it is a duty to others, as
well as to yourself, to take care of your health."
Collins, though only twenty-six years old, was elected to
the Professorship, which, as he loved to remember, had once
been held by Maurice, though Maurice, to the disgrace of
the history of the College, was ejected from it. His imme-
diate predecessor in the office was the amiable and learned
John Mee Fuller. The Principal of the College at the time
1 Now Bishop of Gibraltar. J Bishop J. R. Selwyn.
KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 13
of his appointment was Dr. Wace, now Dean of Canterbury ;
but during his tenure of the Professorship Dr. Wace was
succeeded, in 1897, by Dr. Robertson, now Bishop of Exeter,
and he again, in 1903, by the present Principal, Dr. Headlam.
It was a period of crisis in the history of the College, and
the part which Collins took in the development of affairs
has been kindly sketched for me in the following paper by
Dr. Caldecott, than whom no man is better qualified to
form an opinion on the subject :
" As last century drew to a close a problem of great
interest had come to a crisis, namely, how far the Church of
England was prepared out of its own resources to maintain
in London a purely Church College. The situation of King's
College, founded in 1829, brought this problem to the
necessity of a decision. For some years the Treasury had
been making grants to University Colleges outside Oxford
and Cambridge, and King's had had its share of them. But
when Sir William Harcourt was Chancellor of the Exchequer,
this share was withheld on the ground that the College was
not an open one ; the consequence of this was that the College
was unable to keep its place in line with the other Colleges
in London and elsewhere. The restriction of the College did
not, indeed, extend to the students : for some years a con-
science clause had been in force, and widely claimed. But
all members of the Council which governed the College were
assumed to be Churchmen, and the principal members of the
staff, with the exception of the Professors of Oriental and
Modern Languages, had specifically to declare themselves
members of the Church of England. This declaration was
liberally interpreted ; it was made on appointment and
nothing further was required. Still it undoubtedly restricted
the range of selection for vacancies ; and it stood there as
a bulwark from one point of view, as a barrier from the
other.
" An appeal to the Church to supply the deficiency in funds
was decided upon. Lord Salisbury came forward and
supported it in a speech at the public meeting which was
called, and it was widely circulated. But the appeal failed.
Some 30,000 was raised, while not less than 100,000 was
14 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
asked for and was indispensable if the College were to be
independent of the Treasury grant.
" Further, as the formation of a teaching University for
London was coming into sight, a fresh need for reform became
obvious, as it was certain that the limited constitution of
King's would bar its admission as a constituent college in
any Faculty except Theology, and that it would cease to be
in any substantial sense a University College at all.
" Dr. Wace was the Principal at this time, and he stood for
the continuance of the original constitution at all costs :
the Council was understood to be divided. It was in this
situation that Dr. Robertson, now Bishop of Exeter, suc-
ceeded to the headship of the College. The members of the
general staff were restless and dissatisfied, especially when
the failure of the appeal was manifest ; but they were un-
willing to take action in opposition to the declared policy of
the Council, and were reluctant to seem to oppose their
colleagues in the Theological department. A movement for
reform that would not break up the College could scarcely
have begun elsewhere than within the Theological staff
itself : if a plan were devised that would not be opposed by
them the general staff would cordially welcome it. Such a
plan was not far to seek since at Oxford and Cambridge
recent legislation had thrown open all governing bodies and
teaching posts both in the University and in the several
Colleges, whilst retaining provision for religious worship and
religious instruction according to the principles of the Church
of England. What was recognised at King's was, therefore,
that a similar method should be adopted in place of the
original close constitution for the Council and the Professor-
ships ; while the Theological department should be con-
tinued on its old lines and the privileges of worship and
instruction be offered to the students in all Faculties. The
continuance of the College as a place of preparation for
Holy Orders would be on the same footing as the Colleges of
Oxford and Cambridge.
" Some members of the Theological staff had for a long time
been convinced that this was the proper constitution for
King's as a London College in the new and more promising
KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 15
circumstances of University Education in London, and would
enable it not only to share in all grants, but to take a high
position in the new University. But no member's opinion
was so important at this juncture as that of Collins, and when
after long deliberation he decided to add the weight of his
judgment to that side, others followed, and the Theological
Staff decided for the reform policy with the approval of the
Principal. This being made known the general staff now
saw its way clear to express their opinion : there only re-
mained the Council. Of this body, Dr. Wace, who had
become Dean of Canterbury, was an active member and he
still advocated persistence in the original constitution, carry-
ing with him some members of the Council. But the majority
decided for the reform and it was promptly carried out by an
Act of Parliament, which limited the requirement of a
declaration of Church Membership to the Professors and
Lecturers in the Faculty of Theology ; a step which was
carried still further when by the Act of Incorporation of 1908
the Council was, except for the Theological side of the College,
replaced by a Delegacy of the Senate of the University.
" What has been the consequence ? There is no longer in
London a College which is in government, teaching and
students a purely Church of England College, maintained
solely by endowments, fees, and the subscriptions of Church-
men. The idea of such a College has many attractions, but
on the condition that its staff and its equipment be at least
equal to those of other Colleges of University rank : to be
inferior in quality could only be mischievous to all
concerned. As we have seen, this idea did not appeal to
Churchmen with sufficient force to produce the necessary
financial support, and the idea remains only as that of what
might have been, but has not succeeded in establishing itself
in actuality. What we have instead is the present King's
College, sharing in the Treasury grants to the extent of
.8,000 a year, sharing also in grants from the London
County Council and other municipal bodies to an increasing
extent ; and, what is even more important, a constituent
College of the rapidly advancing University of London : the
second College in size, the first in the comprehensiveness of
16 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
its range of work. It has already supplied the University
with a Vice-Chancellor in the person of Dr. Robertson, its
Principal ; Professors and Lecturers are prominent in the
work of the University on every level, in the Senate, the
Faculties, the Board of Studies and the Examining Boards ;
and five hundred of its students are enrolled as Internal
Students of the University with all the privileges signified by
that status. The Theological department on its part has
shared in the general advance. By the remarkable organis-
ing capacity of the present Principal, Dr. Headlam, re-
arrangements have been made which have raised the number
of men preparing for Holy Orders from an average total of
about sixty to a hundred and eighty ; and for the supply of
clergy to the three London dioceses especially (London,
Southwark, and St. Albans) the contribution of the College
has become quite indispensable.
"The efficacy of the action of individuals when great
changes are effected affords a subject of perennial interest.
It is possible that the forces impelling the course of Uni-
versity Education in London would have led to the present
situation at King's in any case. But to those who
watched the actual working out it seems as if the decision of
Collins, with all the confidence that he carried with him on
the Theological staff, was an indispensable factor in the
change. If this is so, it was one of the most momentous acts
of his life. And there is no difficulty in discerning in it that
blend of high respect for the past with confidence in the
future amid all changes, which invariably characterised his
mind and guided his action."
The effect which Collins produced upon the students of
the College was immediate. One of them, the Rev. J. Evan
Franks, writes to me :
" Professor Collins came to King's College when the staff
consisted mostly of ' potent and reverend signiors,' . . . and I
remember how startled we were when, instead of our grey-
headed lecturer, there came into the lecture-room a surpris-
ingly young-looking man.
" Our first thoughts were that we should have to teach him,
but after a few lectures, full of research and information,
KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 17
without any of what we used to call padding, and for which
he either had no notes or hardly ever referred to them, we
realised that the authorities had been more than justified in
their choice, and that a higher standard would henceforth
be required of us. We found this to be the case in a change
he made, which was not agreeable to all, when at the end of
term he placed several names under a line as not having
passed in the examination.
" Professor Collins spared no pains to make us learn. I
remember on one occasion his making me jump into a cab
with him, when he was going to the British Museum, and, on
the way, vehemently clearing up some difficulties which I
had about his lecture on Wycliffe.
" Party feeling ran very high in those days at King's.
Professor Collins thus had a difficult task before him, as he
had to endeavour to make his teaching useful to both
parties. He put before us historical facts in such a way
that one felt that there was no special pleading or party-
spirit in his treatment of the subject, but impartiality and
fairness in stating all sides of the question. Thus he could
admire all that was best in the Roman Communion, com-
paring the Papacy to the watching servant in the parable
who was rewarded by being made ruler of his master's
possessions ; whilst at the same time he had an equal
admiration for Puritan earnestness ; but neither of these
considerations in any way militated against his firm con-
viction that the Church of England was the Catholic Church
in this country."
The same writer, after speaking of Collins's accustomed
tact in not arousing unnecessary opposition by using words
which give offence, adds :
" But in dealing with the unintelligent ceremonialist, the
penny-catechism expert, or the prejudiced Protestant, his
gentleness and tender smile would vanish, and we could some-
times see a struggle to overcome a latent irritability of
temper. With Professor Collins things had been so thought
out, and become so clear, that he could not patiently tolerate
the crude dogmatic utterances of those who tried to twist
history to suit their own preconceived notions.
B
i8 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
" Two of his most ardent desires were to improve the
more directly spiritual influence of the College, and the esprit
de corps of the students, which must always be a difficulty
in a non-residential Theological College. The Hostel now,
I believe, is a great help in this direction. Towards this end,
Professor Collins ardently supported the scheme for a day's
retreat for the students, as also the arrangement that on the
Saints' Days, when there was a late celebration of the Holy
Eucharist, the students who practised fasting Communion
should not be urged to communicate.
" I think he found it rather an effort outside the lecture-
room to bring himself down to our ordinary level. His
efforts in this direction were rather like the unathletic priest,
who feels he has to study the cricket and football news, in
order to gain the respect of the choir boys. He never seemed
at home in ordinary small talk and one felt impelled, in talk-
ing to him, to bring up to the front all one's reserves of learn-
ing, when he would be quite at his ease.
" I saw little or nothing of him after leaving King's, but
shall always be grateful for his influence and teaching, which
at a critical time in my life was a great help to me, especially
in making me apprehend the spiritual realities which lie on
the other side of the Sacraments, and the Catholicity of the
Church of England."
Another student, the Rev. G. W. Gillingham, says :
"As to the man. He had a charming personality which
endeared him to all the students at King's, and during the
whole time that I was there, I never heard a single word
spoken against him. We were rather a mixed lot ; high
church, low church, broad church ; but his Christianity was
so transparent that every one loved him ; it was simply
impossible to do anything else.
" He fascinated us all with his lectures upon Church
History, which, owing to the extraordinary faculty he had
for picking out underlying principles, he always contrived
to make interesting no matter how dull the period we
happened to be studying. He held, of course, decided views
on this and other subjects ; but he never allowed his own
predilections to prevent him from placing before us both
KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 19
sides of any given question and he was never bitter or
sarcastic towards the side which was not his own.
" It was not at all an uncommon thing for him to spend
half an hour or more after a lecture, in trying to clear up a
difficulty which had arisen in the mind of a student. This
was only one of the many traits which served to show that
the guiding principle of the man's life was ' to serve others.'
" The Quiet Days which he conducted at King's from time
to time were spiritual delights which will live for ever in the
minds of those who attended them. Indeed, it was largely
due to him that these became a regular part of our college
life. And I don't think I shall be very far wrong in saying
that it was he more than anyone else at King's who inspired
us with a real affection for our daily services in chapel.
" If there is anyone to whom he might be compared, I
think it is the ' beloved disciple,' at least so it struck many
of us at the time. He was brimming over with love for
everybody and everything except sin."
Another, the Rev. C. D. Read, says :
" Like everyone else, I used to enjoy his most delightful
lectures very much. They were illustrated from all sorts of
unexpected sources, and showed again and again the extra-
ordinary scope of his reading. His expounding of History
was a revelation. It was no mere list of facts and party tags,
but a real endeavour to unravel the mysteries of a living
past and to understand the slow yet sure processes by which
the Holy Spirit works. Perhaps the point he emphasised
most was the slow and irresistible working of Providence."
Yet another, the Rev. Albert Smith, writes :
" He carried with him the calm of one used to habitual
prayer. Before his lectures he would lean his head on his
hands for a few moments, and one realised that it was not
merely for collection of thought. Another thing that we
students were conscious of was that his unfailing gentleness
sprang from a heart of unbounded sympathy."
One more testimony may be given, that of the Rev. L. V.
Edwards :
" Not long before my going to King's College in 1902,
Bishop Collins had edited a book with sketches of the lives
20 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
of some great English Churchmen, himself contributing the
last chapter, on F. D. Maurice. This was quite enough for
one who was a hero-worshipper of Maurice to stir excitement
at the thought of sitting under such a teacher. I soon found,
on taking up residence at King's College Hostel, that the
Lecturer on Church History had a great repute amongst the
students. Everyone was full of his praises. In one respect
he had a unique position amongst the Professors. There
was a knot of students of the rather rigid High Church type,
and with them Professor Collins was the one trusted figure.
Everything he said was law. How exactly he obtained this
position it is difficult to say, for when challenged he never
concealed his opinions, but expressed them quite clearly....
" Though the students were all preparing for Holy Orders,
' ragging ' during lecture was not unknown. The Bishop,
however, had no difficulty in this respect. He seemed to
expect perfect discipline, and obtained it quite easily. One
incident in his lectures stands out very clearly in my memory.
He happened to be speaking of Oliver Cromwell, and men-
tioned that if he had broken all the images and coloured
windows with which he was credited, he must have spent his
whole life in doing nothing else. This statement brought
forth a cheer from the ' protestant ' students. A minute or
two afterwards he happened to make some trifling statement,
such as that Confirmation was sacramental, and this in turn
produced a cheer from the ' spiky ' side. Instantly he
stopped lecturing, and said very sternly, ' Never let that
happen again,' and so long as I was at King's it certainly
never did. . . . He would delight in pointing out how
certain things had gradually become customary under certain
conditions, and had passed little by little into unbending
laws. With his lectures there was no nice balancing of two
views, leaving you to form your own opinions. He gave us
his own opinions quite dogmatically. I remember once his
saying that the North Galatian theory was now discredited,
and that everyone knew that St. Paul had not abandoned
the main roads and towns of commerce. This was rather
startling to us who had been spending nearly a whole term
under another teacher learning all the pros and cons of the
ALLHALLOWS BARKING 21
North and South Galatian theories, and trying in vain to
balance the probabilities of the case.
" One of the Bishop's habits was at the beginning of
term to open his lecture with the collect for St. Philip
and St. James's Day, and always he prayed quietly at the
lecture desk before beginning the work for the morning.
His favourite attitude for lecturing was with both hands
in his pockets, his face beaming with eager delight in
his subject. When he touched on some vital truth of the
Christian faith, his voice would imperceptibly change into
deep solemn tones. At the beginning of a year he would
occupy his first lecture with general subjects, trying to
instruct us how to consult books of reference in libraries,
and give us the secret of extracting in a short time just
the information needed. I remember one of his obiter
dicta was to read books by authors who wrote from a different
standpoint to your own (giving as an instance Martensen's
Dogmatics), as likely to teach you more than authors
who wrote from your own particular point of view."
With his return to London in 1893 as Professor at King's
College, Collins's connexion with Allhallows Barking was
resumed. He was again licensed to the church. He became
again a resident member of the House in Trinity Square.
For a while he even attempted to retain his connexion with
Cambridge, and ran thither each week for two days to lecture
at St. John's. About the same time he became an associate
of the Community of the Resurrection, then under the
guidance of the present Bishop of Oxford. About his work
and life at Allhallows, Dr. Robinson, under whose direction
he spent so many years there, writes as follows :
" In the outside work of the House he bore no inconsider-
able part. Besides all he had to do as Professor of Ecclesi-
astical History at King's College, he constantly preached in
London and in various parts of the country. Occasionally
he conducted Retreats, and more rarely Missions ; going as
far afield as the Riviera and the West Indies. Often he
astonished and alarmed us by the journeys he made. It
seemed quite natural to him to arrange to lecture at Croydon
22 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
in the evening, after reading a paper earlier in the day at a
Church Congress in the Midlands. How he got through all
he undertook was inexplicable. It is not an exaggeration to
say that he did the intellectual work of three ordinary men.
Even if that work did not as a rule entail what is called
' original ' thinking, the demands upon memory and the
labour of composition were incessant. Whatever the subject,
the requisite knowledge was always forthcoming, and the
article or the lecture never failed to leave the readei or hearer
with a sense that there was much more behind than had been
expressed. His power of lucid arrangement was most en-
viable, and his judgments were unusually careful and sound.
How the frame of the man could endure the strain was a
perpetual puzzle. He must have possessed an extraordinary
constitution to bear up as he did under his serious physical
infirmities. There can be no doubt that he suffered much.
The toils of the day, he would say, were not to be compared
with the labours of the night. Heart trouble made a lying
position distressing to him, and indeed he made use of his
bed as little as possible, to judge by the hour at which he
could be heard going out in the early morning to post his
bundles of letters. Food was apparently no more necessary
to him than sleep. I used in vain to try to persuade him
that, if only he would eat more, he might be able to do less !
He loved movement, and wrote with ease in a train. It
was always a delight to him to meet people, and to encounter
a new fact. Perhaps omniscience was his foible. Certainly
it was hard to discover anybody or anything he did not know.
When we were doubtful as to a point in the geography of
Heligoland, he at once appealed to the last communication
which he had himself received from the Governor of the
island. If it was a question of seamanship, we were made
aware that he had passed the examination for a mate's
certificate. And it was clear that he felt a real satisfaction
when he could counter a statement with the assertion : ' that
is exactly what it is not.'
" But there was a singular gentleness beneath all the assur-
ance and intrepidity; and we often trembled to think how un-
certain a tenure of life his was. The change which sent him
ALLHALLOWS BARKING 23
away from London, and to the work on the Continent, was
timely and wise. He lived the longer for it, and found yet
wider scope for his manifold gifts. It was not in him to rest
until he was compelled to do so. He had put a full seventy
years' work and experience into his little more than forty.
Of his episcopate I need not tell. Others will bear abundant
evidence to its fruitfulness. I am only anxious that some
justice should be done to the twelve good years during which
he was preparing for it here at Allhallows Barking. During
those years he was the untiring student, to whom a life of
spiritual devotion was more important than all the activities
and achievements of the intellect ; and the sympathetic
teacher, who was never out of touch with the difficulties of
ordinary people, and never too busy to be at the service of
the many who instinctively turned to him for help."
A much valued colleague at Allhallows, the Rev. W. P.
Dott, obligingly sends me a few reminiscences of his life
there :
" I lived under the same roof with him for eight years and
saw him in various moods. Once I remember him stopping
a fight in Trinity Square by throwing himself boldly between
the fighters at the risk certainly of being roughly handled
both by the combatants and the crowd of ' roughs.' He
was returning from a lecture at King's College, and in a
moment his quiet thoughtful mood was changed for one of
equally quiet courage in facing danger. With the American
poet, in little things as in great,
' He saw his duty as a dead sure thing,
And then and there he went for it.'
A few words of reasoning with the two men, and he walked
into the house as if nothing out of the way had happened.
" He would amuse and astonish us at table sometimes by
quoting (and singing) the latest comic song. He had heard
it in the train or the street, and with his unfaltering memory
could give the words as though he had carefully learnt them.
In his lighter moments he was full of quips, and taught the
lesson in these moods of how good a thing it is to throw off
the strain of an arduous life.
24 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
" I persuaded him to occupy a seat in Cheapside to view
the Diamond Jubilee Procession, and never have I seen him
so animated, nor exhibit so much miscellaneous knowledge,
as that day. He knew the records of all the regiments that
passed by ; the attainments of all the prominent officers ;
he recognised most of the visitors from distant shores and
could tell of their reputations ; and his loyalty to the throne
was shown in unmistakable enthusiasm when the central
figure of the procession came in sight.
" It was my privilege to visit him frequently during the
serious illness when he was a patient in Guy's Hospital.
He made light of his sufferings and filled his waking hours
with fresh studies, bearing his ills with astonishing courage
and hardihood, drawing the warm admiration of doctors and
nurses upon himself, so that they were almost sorry when he
left their hands."
Perhaps the first occasion on which Collins came before
a larger public was in connexion with the Missionary Con-
ference of the Anglican Communion in 1894. So far as I can
ascertain, he had no share in the origination of the Conference >
which was mainly due to the late Sir James Erasmus Phillips ;
but Collins took an active interest in it, was one of the
guarantors, and a member of the Executive Committee.
Three times he spoke in the course of the Conference, once
to protest a paper which he considered at the same time
" inflammatory " and " very despondent " about the state
of church affairs in Japan; once to urge that we should
discriminate between the essentials of a Church which desires
to be in Catholic Communion, and those things which may
be left for free development ; the third time to suggest that
not the same standard of intellectual attainment was neces-
sary for clergymen working among very simple populations
as for those elsewhere. 1 The tendency of all three speeches
was against "Anglicising " those amongst whom our mission-
aries are at work. The Conference was very useful at the
time, and it prepared the way for the great Pan-Anglican
Congress of 1908, in which Collins took a more conspicuous.
1 Report (S.P.C.K., 1894), pp. 227, 476, 508.
LAUD COMMEMORATION 25
part. It may be added, in reference to the subject of Collins's
third speech, that when Bishop of Gibraltar he ordained to the
diaconate and to the priesthood an elderly man who had long
laboured with great success among the sailor folk of the
Mediterranean, whose standard of learning was not that of
a home diocese, but whose spiritual qualification was beyond
doubt.
Among the special tasks which devolved upon Collins
during this period was one which deeply interested him, both
for the sake of Allhallows Barking, and as a Professor of
Church History. It was the management of the commemo-
ration of Archbishop Laud, which took place hi 1895.
Laud was beheaded on Tower Hill, just outside the
windows of the house where Collins lived, on January 10,
1645, and was buried on the following day in the Vicar's
vault under the altar of Allhallows, " a church " as Heylin
says, " of Laud's own patronage and jurisdiction," of which
his nephew, Edward Layfield, was Vicar at the time. It
was determined to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth
anniversary of this event. An influential committee was
formed, under the patronage of the President of Laud's
College at Oxford. In the handsome chamber which had
recently been erected over the porch of Allhallows Church
an extraordinarily interesting collection of Laudian objects
was exhibited. It included, besides the parochial registers
of Laud's burial and subsequent removal to Oxford, the cap
which he wore on the scaffold, and his ivory-headed walking
stick, his copy of Bishop Andrewes' Devotions in the hand-
writing of Andrewes himself, 1 one of the shirts worn by King
Charles I. at his execution, many portraits of the Archbishop
and pictures of places connected with him, and a wonderful
assemblage of books and pamphlets relating to him.
On the first day of the commemoration, January 10, a
few minutes after one, the choir of the church, reinforced from
a few neighbouring choirs, came into the snow-covered
garden of the square. No effort had been made to attract
numbers, but a considerable body of clergymen in surplices
1 It lay open at the place where Andrewes refers to his own baptism,
in the church of Allhallows Barking.
26 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
followed the choir. The Te Deum was sung, and Heylin's
account of the last scenes was read aloud to the sympathetic
and reverent assemblage. It was a sight not easily to be
forgotten. Later in the day, Mandell Creighton, then Bishop
of Peterborough, lectured in the church on Laud's position
in the history of the English Church. All the time that the
exhibition was open, that is to the end of the month,
lectures were given on various aspects of the work and
character of the great Archbishop. Collins himself lectured
on Laud as a Statesman, Professor Margoliouth on Laud's
Educational Work, Mr. Hutton (now Archdeacon of North-
ampton) on Laud in Controversy, and Mr. C. H. Simpkinson
of Farnham on Laud's Personal Religion. The commemora-
tion received a great deal of attention in the papers. The
Times, on January n, had an exceedingly fine leading article
on the subject, in which it repudiated " the prejudices of the
illustrious writers who built up the great Whig legend in the
first half of the century."
Collins's labours in connexion with this celebration were
great, and they did not end with the closing of the exhibition.
For months in that year he was hard at work preparing for
the press the valuable memorial volume, entitled Archbishop
Laud Commemoration, 1895. The volume begins with an
account of the commemoration itself ; then follow the
lectures above mentioned ; then an elaborate bibliography of
Laud's own writings, and of books and pamphlets relating to
him, with an appendix of writings of his which were hitherto
unpublished or not easily accessible ; and then the Catalogue
of the Exhibition. It is an admirable example of what such
a volume should be. The research which it indicates is
wonderful, and Collins kept a copy by him, and added to it
from time to time fresh material which he had discovered.
Upon his personal life that commemoration had an effect
which was not foreseen at the time. Among the generous
contributors to the exhibition was Lord Northbourne. He
saw in the papers the notice that was put forth beforehand
requesting the loan of Laudian objects, and lent one or two
rare and curious volumes. He visited the exhibition, and
there made the acquaintance of the erudite young secretary.
CHURCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY 27
What the friendship then formed became to Collins from that
time onwards, no words can tell. His life would have been
wholly different without it.
A work of a wider kind, in which Collins had a large share,
was that of the Church Historical Society. The period in
which he became a Professor at King's College was one of
recrudescence in the Roman controversy. The pushing and
hectoring policy associated with the name of Cardinal
Vaughan had started gaily on its career. A great organisa-
tion for " the Apostolate of the Press " had been formed.
Throughout the country unsleeping enemies seized every
opportunity of injuring the Church of England and lowering
it in the eyes of the people. It was, if I am not mistaken,
the Rev. J. Sadler Phillips, now Vicar of St. Etheldreda's,
Fulham, who first formed the idea of starting a counter
" apostolate." Its duty was to keep an eye on the news-
papers, especially the provincial newspapers, and mark any
false statements about the Church that might be made there,
not only by Romanists, but also by their allies the Libera-
tionists, or others. Too often the cause of the Church of
England had been taken up by zealous men who were in-
sufficiently equipped for their task. They had rashly written
to the papers, and had been gradually dragged into waters
too deep for them. Skilled disputants on the Roman side
intervened, and the weight of argument appeared to be on
their side. This was the state of things which it was desired
to remedy. The new society was to form a centre to which
people all over England might turn for aid if the Church were
assailed in their neighbourhood, with the certainty of finding
expert knowledge to guide them in their defence.
The Society got together quickly and quietly. The Presi-
dency of it was accepted by Bishop Creighton, who held it
till his death, when he was succeeded by John Wordsworth,
Bishop of Salisbury. The first Chairman of the managing
Committee was the Bishop of Stepney, now Bishop of Bristol,
who gave to it ungrudgingly of his time and energy, as well
as his great knowledge. Mr. Phillips was a most active
Secretary. Bishops like Stubbs and Westcott consented to
act as referees. Dr. Bright and Father Puller, and Mr. Dixon,
28 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
the historian, took a lively interest in the work. Well-known
men like Mr. Riley, Mr. Birkbeck, and Mr. Brinckman came
diligently to the Monday meetings of the Committee at Sion
College. But there was no one who threw himself into the
project more heartily than the Professor of Church History
at King's College. He was always at the Committee, of
which he became Chairman when Bishop Browne left London,
full of resource and suggestion, and untiring in listening to
the reports which came in from the members and correspon-
dents of the Society in various quarters.
Besides this "Apostolate of the Press," the Society aimed at
diffusing correct information and establishing right opinions
by means of lectures in different centres. Naturally it was
not possible for a Professor engaged in daily teaching to go
far or often afield during the College terms ; but Collins did
more even in this way than probably any other Professor
would have done. In organising such work by others he was
indefatigable ; and in yet another department of the Society's
work the publication of short studies or papers he took a
very large part. These papers were generously printed and
published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
I have not a complete list of the papers which Collins wrote
for the Church Historical Society, but I find the following :
What was the Position of the Pope in England in the Middle
Ages ? (1895), The Teaching Power of the Church, I. and II.
(1896), The Authority of General Councils (1896), The Internal
Evidence of the Letter " Apostolicae Curae " as to its own
Origin and Value (1897), Unity, Catholic and Papal (1897),
The Nature and Force of the Canon Law (1898) , The English
Reformation and its Consequences (1898), The Canons of 1571
(1898), Four Recent Pronouncements (1899), Queen Elizabeth's
Defence of her Proceedings (1899) , Suggestions for the Study
of English Church History (1900), Church and State in England
before the Conquest (1903), Thomas Becket (1903), Suggestions
for the Study of Early Church History (1903), The Rights of
a Particular Church in Matters of Practice (1904). Besides
the papers which were all his own, he had a share, sometimes
the principal share, in papers or books in which several authors
combined, such as the volume of Typical English Church-
CHURCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY 29
men from Parker to Maurice (1902), The Conditions of Church
Life in the First Six Centuries (1905) , and Hancock's Peculium,
to which he contributed an admirable and erudite introduction
(2nd edition, 1907). The labour of criticising and editing
the papers of other authors fell mainly upon him. He
continued to be Chairman of the Society even after his
consecration to the see of Gibraltar.
Work of this kind naturally brought Collins into con-
troversy with other people in various directions. Cardinal
Vaughan, who, with all his excellent qualities, was not
intellectually equipped for controversy, preached a sermon
on March 14, 1897, in which he ventured to claim the support
" of the Eastern and Russian Churches " for his view that
Anglican orders were invalid because our priests did not
" claim the power to produce the actual living Christ Jesus
by transubstantiation upon the altar." I remember that
in the summer of that year the present Archbishop of Peters-
burg and Ladoga was in Cambridge, where I had the oppor-
tunity of more than one conversation with him. A similar
utterance of Cardinal Vaughan's about the Eucharist was
shown to him. The Archbishop exclaimed in horror, and
said that the words were " more suited to one of Pharaoh's
magicians than to a Christian priest." Collins, conjointly
with Mr. W. J. Birkbeck, exposed the defective information
upon which Cardinal Vaughan's utterance was based, and
showed that the Russian Church had only after important
modifications accepted (in 1838) the articles of the Synod of
Jerusalem (of 1673), deliberately rejecting any approach to
the coarse materialism which the Cardinal supposed that it
shared with himself. An authority far greater than the
Cardinal possessed was summoned to his aid. No less a
scholar than Mr. Edmund Bishop wrote to say that, after all,
the doctrine of the Russian Church on the subject was not so
far from that of the Council of Trent. He did not venture
to say how far it was from the Cardinal's. Mr. Birkbeck
Collins was at the moment out of reach had little trouble
in showing that Mr. Bishop, who had, it must be owned,
been induced to make an excursion into a field that was
hardly his own, was mistaken with regard to the authority
30 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
of the work on which he had relied, and that the language
" deliberately chosen by the head of the Roman Communion
in England " could only be most offensive to Russian
theologians. The correspondence was printed in a little
pamphlet of great value.
The position which Collins held about this time with regard
to matters agitating the Church of England may be learned
from an important Memorandum on Recent Developments
of Worship, agreed upon at a meeting held in London,
May 2, 1898. The Memorandum, which may be found in
the Guardian for May 25, was mainly drawn up, if I am not
mistaken, by Collins and two others of the signatories. " Our
chief difficulties at the present time," they said, " arise out
of a return to certain practices which were explicitly or by
implication abolished at the Reformation, or out of a resort
to certain foreign developments which never had any footing
in the English Church." In the first place they affirmed
that in their view developments of this kind could not rightly
be introduced except under the sanction of authority, sub-
jection to which is a first principle of Catholicism. In the
second place, they set forth the authority by which they con-
ceived that they were bound, and the organs through which
it finds expression. Briefly, that authority is the English
Church, and not any foreign one. No " variable rite or
ceremony " can have valid authority which the English
Church has definitely repudiated. Disciplinary rules or
usages do not become binding upon a National Church, so
that it cannot set them aside for its own members, merely
because they have obtained for a time in other Churches or
even throughout the whole Church. Authority expresses
itself through the Bishops, jointly when they promulgate
canons, after legislation by Convocation, and severally
when within the limits received by the Church of England
they give instructions to those under their jurisdiction. In
the third place, the signatories said how they regarded the
Declaration of Assent made by the English clergy. It is a
pledge to use the Prayer-book, as opposed to neglecting it ;
to consider it as a sufficient rule and order for the ministra-
tions of the Church ; any private prayers that may be
INCENSE CASE 31
introduced in the course of the service are to be inaudible
and confined to the necessary pauses in the rite. They con-
cluded by pointing out the large liberties already possessed
by the English clergy, and by repudiating the opinion that
the Ornaments Rubric sanctions the use of all the ornaments
referred to for all the purposes for which they were formerly
employed. The Memorandum was signed, amongst others,
by Messrs. Bodington and Body, Brightman, Brooke of St.
John's, Kennington, Coles, Currie of Wells, Charles Gore,
H. Scott Holland, Johnston of Cuddesdon, Lacey and New-
bolt, Puller, Villiers and Whitworth.
In the year 1899 Collins was called in to aid as an expert
in a Ritual case. Mr. Westall of St. Cuthbert's, Philbeach
Gardens, and Mr. Ram of Norwich, were forbidden by their
Bishops to use incense in Divine service ; but it was arranged
all parties concerned being desirous of ascertaining the real
state of the law of the Church of England and of conforming
to it to treat the matter as one of those points of doubt
which should be sent, as the Prayer Book directs, " for
resolution thereof to the Archbishop." Mr. Westall and Mr.
Ram, therefore, appealed against the judgment of their
Bishops. Archbishop Temple accepted the duty of hearing
the case and deciding upon it. If he was not qualified for
the duty, like his predecessor, by liturgical studies, he had at
least an honesty of purpose, a clearness of perception, and a
fearlessness in regard of consequences, which gave every
hope of obtaining a judgment that would carry conviction
with it. He invited the Northern Primate, Archbishop
Maclagan, to sit with him and assist in the hearing.
The counsel for the appellants were Mr. H. C. Richards,
Q.C., Mr. Hansell, and Mr. Thurnam. They had the assist-
ance of Mr. W. H. Frere, of the Community of the Resurrec-
tion, and of Mr. T. A. Lacey, as liturgical experts. The
counsel for the two Bishops were Mr. (now Sir Lewis) Dibdin
and Mr. Errington. It might seem strange that Collins
should have been invoked to aid on that side. Probably
his own predilections would have been in favour of the use of
incense, as of other adornments of the church and its services.
There was certainly no gulf of ecclesiastical sentiment to
32 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
separate him on the one side and Mr. Frere on the other.
But his historical spirit was aroused. The contention on the
part of the appellants and their counsel was that the state
of things referred to in the Ornaments Rubric was not the
order established by the First Prayer Book of Edward VI.,
but the order which that book had done away with. Con-
sciously or not, they pleaded that incense was a good and
beautiful thing and therefore ought to be allowed ; they
did not address themselves with sufficient directness to the
legal or historical question, whether, as a matter of fact, the
use of incense is allowed by the existing rules of the Church
of England.
Collins worked hard at the question. Besides reading
books of all sorts, ancient and modern, he examined parochial
registers in many directions, and amassed a great deal of
evidence which he placed at the disposal of counsel. I find
a note from Mr. Dibdin to him a month after the hearing,
in which he thanks him for a " fresh crop of obligations."
At the hearing itself, he made a short but able speech after
the two lawyers had concluded. After reminding the Arch-
bishops that the question at issue was not, whether the use
of incense is desirable, but whether under the rubric it is or
is not lawful, he went on to show that at the time when the
rubric was made, incense whether rightly or wrongly
was held to have no primitive sanction. With as much
humour as learning he exposed the contention that the
symbolism of incense was " transparently clear," and offered
further evidence, of a novel and very interesting kind, that
the reformers under Edward had, as a matter of fact, done
away with the ceremonial use of incense. The judgment of
the Archbishops was in accordance with this view, although
to some extent it was influenced by other considerations than
those adduced in the hearing, 1 considerations which Collins
would perhaps have wished to be excluded.
In regard to matters of wider policy, I may refer to a
deeply interesting paper which Collins read at the Church
Congress at Leicester, in October, 1902, on the subject of
J The speeches on this side were edited by Mr. J. S. Franey, and
published by Messrs. Spottiswoode & Co., 1899.
HOME REUNION 33
Home Reunion. He laid it down that " truth is even more
essential than peace. Truth first, peace afterwards ; such
is the Scriptural order." " We cannot purchase reunion by
giving up anything that we believe to be essential, and we
cannot wish that others should do so either." This point of
principle was followed by a point of practical wisdom. " It
would be futile to remove difficulties on one side by giving
up things non-essential, if we were thereby only causing
fresh difficulties on the other. . . . We may not advance
Home Reunion to the detriment of the reunion of the whole
Church. Not even with a view to satisfying the scruples of
English Nonconformists should we be justified in making
concessions which might naturally give offence to the Roman
and Eastern communions. We cannot forget that we are
guardians of a common heritage ; witnesses to a Catholic
Church which includes both Eastern and Western com-
munions."
The special point to which these premisses led up was
that there could "be no tampering with the historical
ministry of the Church." " We cannot treat the Apostolical
ministry as a thing indifferent : we cannot endanger it by
treating those who do not possess it as though they did. To
do so would be an act of the greatest practical unwisdom. It
would set up a far more serious barrier than any which it
could break down, for it would be a grievous blow to all hopes
of a restored fellowship with our brethren of the Greek and
Roman communions. It may be doubted whether it would
even, in the long run, bring us nearer to the Nonconformists ;
for signs are not wanting amongst them of a yearning after
this very historic ministry. But more than this : it would
involve a very grievous breach with our own past, and a
betrayal of the heritage committed to us. For if there be
such a thing as the grace of the Christian Ministry at all,
and no student of the New Testament can doubt that there
is, it must surely be a matter of the utmost importance
whether a man possesses that ministry or not. Are we to
hold that everybody who feels an inward prompting to
minister possesses it ? or only he who has been chosen by a
congregation ? or only he who has received a laying on of
34 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
hands ? or he who has received the laying on of the hands of
those who have themselves received it by an orderly and
uninterrupted transmission from the Apostles downward ?
We need not attempt to limit that grace, for it is the grace
of God, and God overflows His channels of grace. But at
least it cannot be doubted that that which is transmitted in
the last of these ways, by what we have been taught to call
the Apostolical Succession, is the historic ministry of the
Church.
" I know that it has been urged recently, with no little
earnestness and eloquence, that modern historical study has
exploded the theory of the Apostolical Succession. I can
hardly imagine a more unwarrantable assertion. No doubt
it is true that the Apostolical Succession has often been
stated in a crude and unsatisfactory fashion ; but making
every possible concession and allowance to opponents, we
may assert without doubt that the Apostolical Succession is
not a theory, but a fact. . . .
" I cannot but think that grievous harm has been done
by the rash and ill-considered way in which this subject has
been dealt with. An entirely false issue has been placed
before us. It is not the question whether there were once
ministers who had received no ordination, or had been
ordained by presbyters. If there were, it does not touch the
case of such as derive their ministry from a presbyter who
had expressly received authority to consecrate the Eucharist,
but not to ordain ; or the case of those who have no con-
secutive ministry at all. At the very least, it is clear that
these are not the same thing as the historic ministry ; and
the Church which possesses that ministry must needs hold
it fast. The English Church does not go out of her way to
condemn other ministries, for the Catholic faith does not
consist in negations ; indeed, in her twenty-third article of
religion she pointedly refrains from condemning them. But
she holds fast that which she has, and must needs do so ; she
cannot jeopardise her holy gift in the historic ministry of
the Church by treating those who do not possess it as if they
did. This ministry, therefore, together with the ancient
creeds of Christendom, must needs be the basis of every effort
HOME REUNION 35
after reunion. It does not, of course, follow that she should
repel from it the ministers of other bodies when they are
willing to enter her pale. There is no reason why they should
be required expressly to renounce their former ministry ;
Bramhall was far too wise and charitable to make such a
requirement. . . . But it is necessary that they should recog-
nise and receive the historic call of the Church through her
authorised minister the Bishop."
The paper closed with an earnest appeal for prayerful
efforts after reunion such as had been instituted in Scotland.
" We may not know how reunion is to be effected, but God
does. It is not important that we should know, but it is
important that we should watch and learn and pray, that we
may be ready when the time comes, and that we may be
fitted to do His work."
Collins's view of the position of Episcopacy is expressed
more fully in a lecture which he gave a little later in 1903
in a series arranged by Mr. James Adderley in Marylebone.
The lecture has been published in the volume of sermons and
addresses entitled Hours of Insight, and other Sermons
(Murray, 1912). The precedent of Bramhall 1 to which he
referred in the Congress paper was quoted by him in 1901
in a memorandum which he drew up for Archbishop Temple
on the subject of Moravian Orders. This memorandum was
never published, and it is now superseded by the Report of a
Committee, of which he was a member, appointed by the
present Archbishop in preparation for the Lambeth Confer-
ence of 1908 ; but it shows what was thought of the Professor
at King's College that Archbishop Temple should have set
him to investigate single-handed this delicate question ; and
indeed Archbishop Temple's predecessor, as early as 1895
or 1896, had commissioned the young expert to search for
any sign that Moravian Orders had been recognised by the
Church of England.
Always ready to do what he was asked, Collins added to
his professorial duties at King's College in every direction.
He examined for Triposes and University Scholarships at
Cambridge. For two years at any rate, 1893 and 1894, he
1 Bramhall's Works (ed. Haddan) I. xxxvii f.
36 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
examined in everything at the little Theological College of
St. Alphege, Southwark, then under the direction of the Rev.
A. B. Goulden. When the University of London was recon-
stituted, it fell to him to take a prominent part in organising
the Faculty of Divinity in it, in conjunction with leading
Nonconformist and Jewish scholars in London, and he spent
months of hard labour in drawing up regulations for procedure
in the Faculty. The Honours Syllabus in Church History
was almost entirely his work. Professor W. H. Bennett, in
writing to me on the subject, says how much the Nonconfor-
mist members of the Board appreciated Collins's scholarship
and sound judgment, and that they found him a delightful
colleague. When Archbishop Davidson proposed a scheme
for conferring diplomas in Divinity upon qualified women
teachers, it was to Collins, in the main, that he turned to
work the scheme out in detail ; and it was Collins, in the
main, who did the work of testing the candidates.
As if he had not enough to do in other quarters, Collins
consented in 1899 to tne request of Sir D. M. Wallace that
he would assist in the preparation of a new supplement to
the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, by act-
ing as editor of all the articles in it dealing with religion.
The ninth edition of this work had begun to appear as far
back as 1875, and the twenty-fourth and concluding volume
came out in 1889. The proprietors determined, in con-
junction with the Times newspaper, to publish eleven addi-
tional volumes, containing new matter and information that
would bring up to date the articles contained in the four-and-
twenty preceding volumes. They could hardly have made
a better choice than in asking Collins to act as departmental
editor for theological subjects. He was in relation with all
the most recent workers in those subjects, and able to deal
fairly with men representing very different views. The first
of the new volumes was issued in May, 1902. The advance
which it marked in regard to religious topics may be seen
by reference to Collins's own articles which had nothing
corresponding to them before on the Anglican Communion
and (in a somewhat different field) on the Apostolical Con-
stitutions, and to Mr. Frere's article on Anglican Orders or
LITERARY WORK 37
Dr. Charles's on Apocalyptic and Apocryphal Literature. It
may be imagined how much correspondence was involved
in these editorial duties. His own Prefatory Essay on
Methods and Results in Modern Theology attracted much
attention.
On December 4 of that year, 1902, Collins took the degree
of B.D. at Cambridge, and on November 26 of the following
year proceeded to that of D.D. The works which he sub- *
mitted as exercises for the two degrees were his contributions
to the Reformation volume of the Cambridge Modern History,
entitled " The Catholic South," and " The Scandinavian
North." The bibliography appended to these two chapters
is some evidence of the width and also of the minuteness
of his professional research.
All this while, the Professor was diligently writing articles
and reviews for various periodicals, the Guardian, the Church
Times, Church Bells, the Pilot, the Saturday Review, and
others. Thus, without attempting either completeness or
classification, I find that in these years he reviewed the
following books : Professor Altamira's Historia de Espafia
y de la Civilacion Espanola, Donaldson's Bishopric of Truro,
Gairdner's English Church in the Sixteenth Century, Zimmer-
man's Carmel in England, Van Dyke's Age of the Renascence,
Merry del Val's Truth of Papal Claims, Corvo's Chronicles
of the House of Borgia, Hindobro's Historia del Cardenal
Jimenez de Cisneros, Bowen's Crisis in the English Church,
Robinson's Ministry of Deaconesses, Wakeman's Reformation
in Great Britain, Rainy's Ancient Catholic Church, Henson's
Godly Union and Concord and Cross Bench Views, Taunton's
Thomas Wolsey, the same author's Jesuits in England and
the controversy arising out of it, Lord R. Gower's Tower of
London, M'Cabe's 52. Augustine and his Age, Fairbairn's
Philosophy of the Christian Religion, Oliphant's Rome and
Reform, Mann's Lives of the Popes, J. M. Robertson's Short
History of Christianity, Frere's Relation of Church and Parlia-
ment, Gillow's Bibliographical Dictionary of the English
Catholics, Mortimer's Creeds, Drury's How we got our Prayer-
book, Maiden's Canonization of St. Osmund, Eckenstein's
Woman under Monasticism, Bright's Age of the Fathers and
38 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Kidd's Letters of W. Bright, Merriman's Thomas Cromwell,
Carson's Reunion Essays, Lempriere's Compendium of Canon
Law.
During the same period he wrote valuable original articles
on the Third Order of St. Francis and on Alfred the Great in
the English Historical Review, and the account of his dearly
loved master, Bishop Creighton, for the supplementary
volumes of the Dictionary of National Biography, besides a
noble article upon him in the Pilot for January 19, 1901.
Two independent volumes of his own came out, besides,
during his tenure of the Professorship. One was his Begin-
nings of English Church History, the outcome of lectures
delivered in connexion with the thirteenth centenary of the
coming of St. Augustine. The other was his admirable
book on The Study of Ecclesiastical History in Dr. Robinson's
series of " Handbooks for the Clergy." It is something of an
education to read the list of books suggested or recommended
at the end of this work, at once so full and so discriminating.
His own character comes out on every page.
It will be remembered that the enormous mass of work
that Collins was doing was performed in spite of continual
ill health. In the summer of 1901 matters came to a kind
of crisis. He went down to his friends the Sterlands at
Southgate on July 10, and they saw at once that something
was wrong with him. He told them that the surgeon whom
he had that day consulted at Guy's Hospital said that he
must undergo at the earliest possible moment an operation
for a kind of trouble which had not before been suspected.
Guy's in those days was in very close relation with Allhallows
Barking. Successive Matrons and many of the Sisters were
attached to the ancient church across the water, and the
clergy of Allhallows were frequent visitors to the Hospital.
Within its walls a few years earlier, Edith Sterland, a sister
of Collins's friends, and very dear to him and to others at
Allhallows, had succumbed under an operation. It was,
therefore, no strange place that he moved into, when on the
I3th he took up his quarters in the private room in Stephen
Ward. The next day was Sunday ; and on Monday morning
MISSION IN JAMAICA 39
Mr. Robinson of Allhallows administered the Holy Com-
munion there to him and to Miss Mary Sterland. The
operation was performed in the afternoon. It lasted an
hour. Not till two hours and a half had passed was Miss
Sterland allowed to see him again. He had just opened his
eyes, and knew her. " Deo gratias," he said ; " is it really
over ? " He told her that he had had a vision ; but she could
not allow him to describe it. His heart was so feeble that the
doctor would not permit any reassuring telegrams to be sent
until after eight o'clock that night, and even then said that
for eight-and-forty hours there must still be grave anxiety.
As soon as he was able to be moved, the invalid was con-
veyed to Betteshanger, in Kent. Lord and Lady North-
bourne were not then at home, but had arranged everything
with the tenderest forethought, and Collins and his attendant
had the beautiful place to themselves. There he remained
from August 10 till September 16, when he was thought well
enough to go and spend his holiday in the West, from which
he returned to the usual work of the term at King's College
in the beginning of October. He wrote to a friend on
October 16 : " I am back and at work, and well again,
excepting for a little weakness. As to being able to enjoy
life again, I was well able to do that all the time ; for I don't
think anything was ever more enjoyable than my last three
months have been."
At the close of the year he started on an errand which
took him further afield than he had yet gone. Some years
before, in 1895, he had dashed to Cairo, to conduct the
devotions of Holy Week in All Saints' Church. This time
it was the West that called him. By the invitation of Arch-
bishop Nuttall, whom he had seen just before he went to
Betteshanger, he went out to conduct a series of Missions and
Retreats in Jamaica during the Christmas vacation. He
arrived at Kingston on December 27, and left again on
January 28. The days between were crowded with such a
mass of engagements as makes the mind dizzy to think of
them. A full week's Mission at Spanish Town, beginning
on Saturday, December 28, another at Port Antonio,
beginning the day after the ending of the first (Sunday,
40 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
January 5), a Diocesan Retreat at Spanish Town be-
ginning on Thursday, January 23, were the principal items
in the campaign ; but besides these there were many other
sermons and addresses in different parts of the great
island and to various classes of people. The last im-
portant effort was a sermon in the Cathedral at Spanish
Town on Saturday, January 25, on the combined occasion
of the opening of the Diocesan Synod and of the unveiling
of a memorial to Queen Victoria by Sir Alfred Hemming,
the Governor. The central point of the sermon, which was
on the text Isaiah Iv. 10, n, was that amidst all that passes
away and perishes, the Church of God contains that which
not only satisfies the needs of the moment, but provides like-
wise for the future. The Churchmen of to-day are the
trustees for those who are to come after. It was a sermon
which took deep effect upon all who heard it.
Collins published a few years later some of the impressions
which this work had left upon him. He said :
" The work of a Mission in Jamaica is very much like one
in England, excepting for a few particulars. As the people
come to church whenever the bell rings, the services can be
changed more easily. Whereas in England people are apt
to shrink overmuch from Communion, in Jamaica the tend-
ency is all the other way, and the people can with difficulty
be kept back when they ought not to communicate. All
day long come applicants for interviews, not only of the kind
that one is accustomed to in England, but others who recall
to one's mind the inquirers whom missionaries have to do
with in India. Some, it may be, will bring questions on the
Bible ; others will want information for themselves, or the
means of refuting Seventh-Day Adventist teaching, or that
of the Bedwardites, or one of the other obscure sects that
flourish in Jamaica. . . . Others again will sit and weep, or
sit and smile, and you have to guess as best you can what
it is that they want ; or they will be voluble about the faults
of others and their own miseries, or ecstatic and unintelligible,
and you can do nothing with them until you can make them
kneel down and pray." *
1 The East and the West, vol. i. p. 108.
MISSION IN JAMAICA 41
He doubted beforehand whether he would get on with
the black people :
" The first time one came to see me in the vestry of Spanish
Town Cathedral my heart sank, for I could scarcely under-
stand a word he said, and it was all the harder because he
had only about one tooth in his head. But he understood
me quite well, and before long I found that it came easier
to me too." 1
It was not long before he was quite in love with the warm-
hearted race of grown up children.
Not all his time in Jamaica was occupied in hard work ;
and with his usual power of getting all that he could out of
his surroundings Collins contrived to see and to enjoy most
of the attractions of the island. A few extracts from the
brief journal of a companion may give glimpses of what he
saw :
" Thursday, December 26. Came in sight of Hayti very
early. Got to Jacmel at about 10 and lay to. Crowds of
shouting negroes in boats came around the ship a gruesome
sight quarrelling and snatching for the cargo. After about
two hours we steamed away. All day we coasted along the
island, very mountainous and bare and rocky. Saw a
wrecked steamer which had been run ashore by a Pro-Boer
captain, who wished to destroy his cargo of mules for us in
South Africa.
" Friday, December 27. Up very early. Saw the dawn
from the beginning. Got on deck to see the approach to
Port Royal and Jamaica, a most wonderful and glorious
sight in the tropical dawn. . . . A large deputation of clergy
and others came on board to meet W. . . . The Archbishop
had an ordination at 7, so could not come : he sent his
secretary and his carriage, however. . . . Reception in after-
noon of clergy and their wives. Went to see Theological
College.
" Thursday, January 2. W. went to Hartlands to lunch
with Mr. and Mrs. Wigan, and saw their orange and banana
estate. They sent for him in the morning and drove him
back in time for evening service.
1 P. 107.
42 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
" Friday, January 3. At 2.30, Mr. Lynch called for us and
drove us to the Bog Walk. Stopped to explore the ruins of
the old Spanish Governor's house, and the remains of the
great tamarind avenue. The nice farmer's wife, Mrs. Davi-
son, gave me cocoa, and beans, and a cake of it. Then we
drove on to the power-house, where the water is taken from
the Rio Cobre for Kingston electric works. It was a lovely
drive along the river, through limestone rocks, and beneath
high cliffs clothed with glorious vegetation, enormous bam-
boos, etc. Picked coffee-berries.
" Sunday, January 5. Port Antonio. Torrents of rain
during the night. . . . We had to stay in church for ages
after the service until it slackened a little. The river came
down in flood, and carried away the bar at its mouth, wash-
ing down palm trees and canes, and filling all the bay with
mud.
" Friday, January 10. Fine morning at last. At 12,
Mr. Harty, W. and I drove in Mr. Hopkins's buggy along
the shore, across several streams and a mango-swamp, about
7 miles, to Blue Hole, a curious inlet of the sea surrounded
by hills and cocoanut palms most lovely spot and a glorious
drive. Mountains shrouded still in clouds, but down below
sunny and blue, and vegetation wonderful. The coast and
coral beaches lovely. Had cocoanut water at Blue Hole,
where a boy climbed and threw them down.
" Wednesday, January 15. We went by the morning train
to Montego Bay. Long journey through the mountains
greater part of it very lovely. Most remarkable railway ;
short zigzags up the mountains and down. Cockpit country
very interesting."
The two days before Collins left Jamaica were busy days.
On the Sunday, January 26, he preached in three different
churches, and on the Monday he spoke to a great missionary
gathering of children at the Deaconesses' Home and preached
to men at night at Port Royal. Next day he attended the
Synod, which was sitting at Kingston. Before he entered
the room, the Archbishop, in his presidential address, had
already spoken warmly of the valuable teaching and spiritual
counsel which Professor Collins had given, and added, " We
MISSION IN JAMAICA 43
thank him for the visit. It has been a great help to us and
(as we hope) not unpleasant to him. I think you are now
ready to support, with earnestness and without misgiving,
the design I have long expressed and the plans I have laid
for securing the occasional visits of such spiritual teachers
and leaders from the Mother Church. Besides other benefits,
they will help to save us from the mental and moral torpor
and narrowing influences which our isolation and routine of
labour tend to foster." The whole Synod rose when the
Professor entered. An address was presented to him, in
which the clergy expressed their gratitude, and promised
that they would " treasure in their hearts the wise counsels
so lovingly and impressively given." The Archbishop then
added a few more words, saying that he wished to impress
upon the clergy " the unquestionable value and lightness of
the Professor's method the not relying on isolated texts ;
the not formulating technical rules of conduct ; the not
repeating statements merely because they were orthodox,
but striving to get at and state clearly the broad, deep, under-
lying, eternal principles of the divine word." Then they took
their leave.
The little journal says :
" The Archbishop prayed, and then we said good-bye to
him, and he told me to write to him from Barbados. Said
farewell to scores of the clergy all very kind. . . . We got
off at last and drove down to the quay, our hearts very full
of love to all these kind friends. . . . Went on board. . . .
Heaps of the clergy came."
He never ceased to think with affection of the people of
Jamaica. To Guy's Hospital Gazette on February 15, 1902,
he sent a touching paper on one incident of his mission a
visit to the Lepers' Home at Spanish Town. In the first
number of East and West in 1903, he expressed his sympathy
with the work of the Church in the West Indies in an article
on "The Church in Jamaica, past and present," from
which I have given an extract above. For the Archbishop
he formed the deepest admiration ; he always spoke of him
as " a king of men," as indeed his subsequent conduct at the
time of the great earthquake in Jamaica showed him to be.
44 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Collins reached Barbados on February ist, and spent a
delightful fortnight there, not entirely idle, for he preached
once or twice, and conducted a day's Retreat at Codrington
College, but for the most part resting and reading, walking
and bathing, watching the humming birds and the fire-flies,
and recruiting his forces after the tremendous strain of the
work in Jamaica. As in Jamaica, so in Barbados, all who
heard and all who met him received undying impressions
of love and power. Dr. Bindley, who was then Principal
of Codrington College, says : " He was with us a fort-
night, I think, altogether, and wrote the Introduction to
Typical English Churchmen in my library at Codrington
CoUege.
" I shall never forget his brave resolve to throw off
evident weakness and lassitude after his arduous work in
Jamaica, when he was asked to give us the benefit of his
counsels in Barbados. ' I can do it, and will ; but ask
Mary.' She advised repose, but he persisted and did.
" Nor will my wife and children forget his boyish glee
and delight when we took him down to the coral-reefed beach,
and we were all obsessed with a passion for paddling in the
surf. He was the lightest-hearted of us all. ' Please let us
drop titles,' he said, after a few hours' talk, ' I feel as if I had
known you all my life.' And one felt indeed that his quick,
bird-like glances penetrated to one's soul, and that his
intense sympathy and acumen made him your friend at
once."
Almost from the beginning of his work in London, Collins
was accustomed to put a portion of his time at the disposal
of Bishop Wilkinson for the use of the diocese of St. Andrews.
Again and again he took charge of various congregations in
Perthshire or Fife for longer or shorter periods, and con-
ducted Retreats for different classes of people, and the
devotions of Holy Week. There was in him a combination
of gifts, and a proportion in his views of religion, which
specially commended and endeared him to the saintly
Bishop in the north. Collins in turn was influenced by
the deep spirituality of the Bishop.
WATCHERS AND WORKERS 45
One thing which Bishop Wilkinson did for him was to
bring him into connexion with the Society of Watchers and
Workers. In the year 1893, as a beautiful paper by " E. H."
in the Watchword for May, 1911, informs us, he accepted the
post of Chaplain of St. John the Evangelist's Watch, at the
Bishop's suggestion. He threw himself into the work as if
it had been his main duty. " E. H." says :
" From that time he let all the members of the Watch
take their part in his work by sending to tell them of dates
of the various missions beforehand, and asking their prayers,
and each member felt that he had an interest in them and
prayed for them individually. As an instance of this, I
remember having a pencil line from him on his way to
Southampton en route for his West Indian Mission, saying he
had left his list of the members behind, and asking me to
send him one at once, for ' though I think I know all the
names, I don't like to trust to memory only.' "
In 1904 he wrote :
" I am afraid it 1 must of necessity mean that I must
cease to be Chaplain of our Watch. Badly as I have been
able to do the work, it has at least had a big place in my
thoughts and prayers. But the joy is that this can't un-
make links ; no change of work can undo the personal links
which it has led to."
The Watch to which he belonged started, in the year 1897,
what they called a " Watch Dove," a little manuscript
book, which went flying from one to another, each member
contributing something to it. The Chaplain heartily
approved of the idea. "A written letter seems more real
than a printed one, and a few words of greeting, or advice,
or request for prayer, from each one of us, will come home to
all the others in a way that few other things could. The
book which has passed from hand to hand and gained some-
thing at each passing ought to become rich and eloquent
to all of us." He began the book himself, with a paper on
Illness which well deserved the greater publicity given to it
by being printed in the Watchword for May, 1911. A few
characteristic sentences from it may be quoted here.
1 His appointment to Gibraltar.
46 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
The problem is stated thus :
" We should answer at first sight, ' Of course it [illness]
is from God : it is one of God's good gifts.' But here a
difficulty seems to come in : for if it is of God, surely (so
it might seem) we ought to accept it passively, and acquiesce
in it, without trying to get well. This we at once feel to
be wrong. . . . We know that we ought to try to be well.
" But this makes a difficulty on the other side. If we are
to fight against illness, how can we think of it as coming
from God's hands ? And I know people who have felt this
so strongly that they actually came to the conclusion that
illness was an evil in itself, and the work of the evil one,
and that the fight against it is exactly like the fight against
temptation. Of course we feel at once that this is going too
far the other way."
After showing that illness, as coming from God, must be
the best thing for the sufferer in his actual conditions, even
when it contains an element of punishment, he goes on :
" But now we come to the heart of the whole matter.
A gift is not good in itself, but in its use. . . . And as God's
gifts are manifold, so they are intended to be used in many
different ways. Health is a gift, sickness is a gift, but they
are not to be used in the same way. . . .
" God, then, has given me His gift of sickness : how am
I to use it ? As He has given it me, it is good for me to
have and use ; but it may be that the way in which I am
to use it is by trampling over it. ... I am not meant simply
to lie still and welcome illness. I am meant to long and
pray for fuller life. ... As surely as our Lord healed
divers diseases when He walked this earth, so He does now.
I know it. He does not always give back all the joy of
living, but at least He gives enough to enable His servants
to do their work, and sometimes He gives all. Only, as
when He was on earth, He needs our faith that He should
do this for us. He says to us, ' Dost thou believe ? ' . . .
As Christians, we ought to be laying hold of our Lord by
faith, and calling upon Him to heal us. It may be that there
are more than we know of, to whom, if they would but
do their part, He would say, ' Come, and take up thy bed
GUILD OF THE HOLY CHILDHOOD 47
and walk ' ; and this, we must remember, would be to His
glory."
How much of the writer's own life was a commentary
upon this text !
If his heart went out to sufferers, it went out no less to
children. There never was a more devoted child-lover than
he. He was always perfectly at home in the nursery. It
was natural that when a guild for nurses the " Guild of the
Holy Childhood " was founded, its founders should turn to
Collins. Its object is denned to be " to bind together for
the purposes of spiritual fellowship those who have taken as
their life work the care and training of little children."
Besides rules for prayer and communion and almsgiving,
such as all guilds have, this guild has the characteristic rules
that " members shall endeavour to study continuously some
devotional or theological book," and " shall engage, as far
as they may be able, in some collective or individual work
for Home and Foreign Missions." Miss Sophie Boycott, the
foundress, writes :
" In 1902 a need was felt by members of the Guild of the
Epiphany for a guild to be started for nursery nurses.
Professor Collins drew up the rules, gave it the name of the
Guild of the Holy Childhood, and acted as its chaplain, Miss
S. Boycott being secretary. The first members were
admitted in April and May, 1903. In November of the same
year, Professor Collins gave an address at the Norland
Institute to the nurses on Churchmanship. When Professor
Collins became Bishop of Gibraltar, he decided not to give
up the work, but to be Warden of the Guild, and appointed
the Rev. F. E. Baverstock as his chaplain. The Bishop
always took a keen interest in the work and used to look up
members in his diocese. He was very sympathetic with
them, and entered so into the life of a nurse and the children
under her charge. One of the members wrote : ' Even now,
seven years ago, I can remember the magnetic sort of sym-
pathy which spread around him in one's intercourse with him.
I shall never forget him admitting me into the Guild.' It
was the privilege of one of the Guild of the Holy Childhood
to be able during his last days to help in little ways for him,
48 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
for which she was very thankful. There are now over 50
members in the Guild."
Another work in which he took part, having for its
ultimate object the welfare of children, was that of the
Society of the Holy Family. This is a society connected
with the Community bearing that name, of which my sister
is the head. Collins was the chaplain ; he took the utmost
pains with the preparation of the rule of the Society. He
presided and gave an address at the first meeting of the
Society in 1897, and continued to do so each year until he
was carried away to episcopal work. One of his latest
letters was to express his disappointment at not being able
to attend the annual gathering within a short time of his
death.
It will readily be understood that a man so attractive
and sympathetic, and at the same time so deeply spiritual,
was much sought after as a guide of souls. From the very
beginning of his ministry people came to him as if he had
had a long experience of life. His guidance was marked by
clear insight, by intense affection, and by unhesitating
definiteness. A few specimens of the innumerable letters
which he wrote during his London life may be given here
before we enter upon the account of his episcopate some
of them addressed to his spiritual children, some of a more
general character.
Confession Depression.
Exmouth, April 7, 1894.
I am very glad to know that you received help in Holy
Week. It is indeed a most wonderful time, and it generally
happens, I think, that most help comes when our need is
sorest. For when all is said, far more comes from the
Gospels and Epistles and Lessons, and the prayers, than from
the preacher : at any rate, it all comes from God, and God
gives most when we need most. And I rejoice with you
that He has been good to you now ; for it is always hard to
have to begin a new life, so to speak, and away from any who
gave the old life its chief charm. . . .
LETTERS 49
Now, to answer questions as far as I can.
1. Yes, I should certainly call on the Vicar, if I were
you, and ask him to give you work. Delay is never desirable.
Many things might happen to delay his call ; and more-
over it is always a vast help to a parish priest in his
work when others spontaneously come forward and meet
him half way. So do so as quickly as possible, and God
speed you.
2. It is never easy to make a general statement with
regard to the use of private confession ; for it is a thing
which applies to the individual. Of course, in cases of
special difficulty or temptation or fall it is almost essential ;
and I think, as nearly all who have tried it will tell you,
that it is a vast help in the spiritual life in nearly every case.
It is especially useful in fighting against a besetting sin, or
habitual depression such as you speak of. But, " let every
man be persuaded in his own mind." If you make use of
this means of grace, it must be because you feel that you
need it, not as an experiment, or because others use it.
For a confession carelessly made is not a useful or helpful
thing. You would find, however, that difficulties of
reticence or shyness or the like would be merely minute,
and the counsel of a wise and faithful spiritual father would
probably help you greatly. Do not let yourself be influenced
too much by this, however. The real question is for your-
self, after prayer and careful thought. Do not act in a
hurry.
3. It is not easy to deal with this depression and spiritual
dryness until it comes, otherwise than by setting a watch
over all the little things of life. Nearly every Christian has
to fight with it at some time or other, and nothing is more
terrible : perhaps, too, the worst thing about it is that one
is " alone "in it. And there is the glory of it : because He
was really alone, we can never be. He is there if we will
but open our eyes. We know it, even before we can feel it.
And then there are one or two other things to be said, (i)
The depression in itself is not sin ; only to give way to it is
sin. (2) A little fervent prayer, however hard and seemingly
worthless at the time, is often worth more then than when
50 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
it comes more easily. I am glad that you use a book of
Devotions so sober and really reverent and " unemotional "
as Before the Throne.
A rule of life.
7 Trinity Square, E.G., November 8, 1897.
Yes, this is the sort of thing. But I am sending it back
because I think you will do well to make it much more brief.
To be of service, it should be simply under heads a sheet
or half sheet should hold it all. And it should contain (i)
only what is personal to yourself, as distinguished from what
would apply to any Christian who wished to do right ; (2)
only Rule, not comment or aspirations. Experience will,
I think, show that it will be most useful to you if you have
only the points on paper, and the rest in your mind.
A distressing ailment.
Zennor, August 22, 1898.
I am afraid that your burden is, and will be for some time,
a heavy one to bear. May God of His mercy lighten it to
you and give you those comforts which He alone can give.
Only be very sure of this : that the illness and disappoint-
ment are no sign of God's anger, but just the reverse ; and
that instead of refusing to receive your work He is just giving
you your work to do. For the present at any rate it is clear
what He would have of you. You have to bear with
patience and cheerfulness. Perhaps you may have noticed
in the case of others that the example of one who bears
pain, and especially any disheartening and worrying illness,
with patience, is a greater help and comfort to others than
almost anything else. Well, this is what our Father has
given you to do : will you not endeavour to do it for Him
as unto God and not as unto men ?
I have rather broken down, and have brought my books
down here, trying to rest and work at one and the same time.
For I have too much to do this summer to be able to take
an entire holiday.
LETTERS 51
Cheerfulness.
7 Trinity Square, E.G., December 23, 1898.
It is good, as you say, to be amongst those staunch North
Devon folk, who speak the truth, and are faithful in their
friendships. And be very sure that it is right and good to
appear cheerful as long as ever you can, and that it has nothing
hypocritical in it. To aim at appearing cheerful would be
wrong ; not so to aim at being cheerful. And the only way
to aim at being cheerful is to try to cheer others, to see
the bright side, and to show one's best. Just as we try
to become good by doing painfully what we might perhaps
do easily if we were already good. And God does not leave
us alone, so doing. Joy comes by giving joy, often when
things look most unpromising for ourselves.
Endurance.
Truro, May 31, 1901.
I have only time for a word, for this Retreat has given
me not a moment free, and in fact the addresses have to be
given quite without preparation. . . .
Sometimes all that we can do is to stand still and bear,
and go on bearing as best we can, sure that it all comes from
God's hand and so must be good for us, good for the whole
of His creatures, somehow, that we should bear it all for the
sake of the Lord, who bore the cross and shame, and the
weight of our sins. Try and think of it so, my child ; and
may He of His mercy help you.
Communion in time of depression.
Deanery, Worcester, December 2, 1902.
No, you must not excommunicate yourself because the
struggle is so hard : it would be doing just the wrong thing.
You need Him not less, but more. It would be wilful to
take matters into your own hands and " punish " yourself ;
and even if it were otherwise, that could not be a right way
to punish yourself. Let God punish, if He think good ;
52 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
His holy will be done. Try to accept all that comes from
His hand as comfort when you need it, and penance when
that is necessary, and then you will find (as indeed I know you
have already) that even punishment from Him can be a
means of blessing. For the rest use your communions as
fully as ever you can : and do not fear that it can be too
often, provided you come humbly and in penitence.
And of course you must communicate late, or whenever
you are well enough, and as you can. It would not be really
reverent to do otherwise, would it ? That is one of the good
results of being ill : you get to learn that rules were made
to serve us and not we to serve rules. And it doesn't matter
what has to go of the rules of devotion that one loves,
provided that it only goes so as to make it possible for you
to come nearer to the Saviour.
I am getting very tired, and am very busy. But I have
a week's work to do in Rome presently, and hope to get
another week's rest there, perhaps. And it will serve the
purpose of getting into a warmer climate too.
Limitations in Ceremonial.
Zennor, September 5, 1899.
Just a word or two about Church questions at the present
time. I will only state a few things for you to think over
quietly.
1. You prejudice the whole case when you speak of an
" unholy compact." No doubt, if we have made an unholy
compact, we are bound to break away : but let us be sure
that we are not simply selfish in it. I knew a married man
once who wanted to break what he called " unholy bonds "
because his lot seemed too hard. Why should it be unholy
for the Church to accept things laid before it by the powers
ordained of God ? There are very few things, in externals,
which have not come thence originally.
2. Moreover, in this case l this is not the question.
I can only wonder how many people have really read the
decision itself at all. The Archbishop simply adduces the
1 The decision about Incense.
LETTERS 53
Act of 1559 as evidence of what the Rubric was really held
to mean by all men : not as making a law for us, but as
contemporary evidence of what the Rubric meant. If he
had brought forward as evidence the fact of what was done,
nobody would have thought anything of it : this stands on
precisely the same footing.
3. It is certain, and always has been, that if the English
Church is really agreed in wanting anything whatever, it
will certainly get it : but if a party (the party, if you will,
which expresses best the true Catholic spirit) tries to get its
will, it certainly must fail.
4. Nothing is more clear than that, as at present
constituted, hosts of devout souls would be hurt by things
which are perfectly innocent in themselves and useful to
us. But they would certainly be hurtful to them at the
present time, as we can see by the temper which has been
aroused amongst them. The true Catholic surely is the one
who thinks of human souls, and not who aims at human
privileges.
5. Is there not a tendency to be a little unreal about the
Church ? I mean, to speak as if things ecclesiastical (i.e.
the externals of worship) were holy as contrasted with things
secular. It seems to me that we have not learned the lesson
of the Lord's humiliation fully, if we kick against the con-
ditions of our life. By all means let us work to change them ;
but we must do it by educating those who do not see, not by
exciting those who do. No doubt there is a false patience
as well as a true patience, an easy-going self-satisfaction as
well as a strenuous growth. But it seems to me that if our
Lord obeyed the laws of the order in which He lived, we must
expect to see the Church compassed about and in humiliation
(as He was not otherwise) for us men and for our salvation.
It is always easy for us to say, Let us break away and be
free : the Lord might have called the legions of angels, but
He did not.
Think of these things. It does not follow that what
seems, on the surface, to be most obvious, is therefore most
true : and I cannot but feel that they are to blame who so
fluently speak shame of those who are over them, and so
54 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
readily assume that they are " Erastian," or " truckling to
the civic power." I cannot but fear for the future when
our cause is denied in ways like these, when so much of
men's self seems to champion it.
Form of Admission for Deaconesses.
Guy's Hospital, Aug. 5, 1901.
1 feel that I owe you an abject apology for keeping you
waiting so long ; but it has really been quite unavoidable,
and all the time that work left me has been taken up with
special commissions from those who have a right to direct
me. Latterly, too, I have been ill, and I am now writing
from a couch in hospital, where I am recovering (very
happily) from an operation.
I think, after consultation with Mr. Frere and others,
that the time has come for a definite ruling from the Bishops
on one or two points, and that this must necessarily precede
any healthy revision of the Ordination Service. 1 No
revision of the service could be anything but blind and
blundering without this, for the service must necessarily
reflect the view which is held of the office itself, and if the
latter is vague, the former cannot safely be revised on any
plan.
The main points which call for an authoritative determina-
tion are these :
i. Is this service intended to be a service of Ordination,
or not ? i.e. is it intended to confer character, to constitute
those for whom it is used into a definite Order in the Church ?
Or, on the other hand, are the Deaconesses to be regarded
as members of a Religious Society, admitted with the
blessing of the Bishop, but not part of the clergy, and
having no definite ecclesiastical " character " ?
This is obviously a vital question, and one which can only
be decided by the Episcopate. And it is essential to the re-
modelling of the service, because, in the former case, the
service ought to be on the model of the Ordination Services,
as the present one is, whilst, in the latter case, it ought to be
1 For Deaconesses.
LETTERS 55
a service absolutely different in structure, like the mediaeval
services for the blessing of a nun, or the like.
I know, of course, that Deaconesses claim the former
character, and it is one which, in my opinion, undoubtedly
answers best to the character of the Deaconess-office in
ancient days. But it is unquestionable (in my opinion) that
there has been nothing to give such character to the office
as revived so far ; and it needs to be definitely given, and by
the Episcopate.
2. Is the Deaconess to rank with the Deacon, or as a
Minor Order ? Here I should say that, at first, the men and
women deacons rank together, but that later on, as more and
more definitely ecclesiastical functions were conferred on the
deacon, the deaconess came to rank with the Minor Orders,
and not on a level with them. The importance from the
point of view of the service is this : if the deaconess ranks
with the deacon, the service ought always to be in the
Eucharist, before the Gospel ; otherwise, it should be else-
where, and the analogy with the Ordination of Deacons
should be done away.
3. In any case, all that has to do with the position of
a deaconess as member of a community should be removed
and relegated to a separate service. A deaconess may or
may not be a nun : in the case of your Community of course
she is. But in any case the admission to the community is
an altogether distinct thing from the admission to the office
of deaconess.
I should, then, strongly advise that nothing be done with
the service till a definite settlement of these questions can
be obtained, and that such a settlement should be sought
for. And if nothing can be done yet to obtain such a settle-
ment, I should strongly advise that the present office be
used exactly as it is until it can. It would be a grievous
mistake to remodel the office inadequately on doubtful lines,
and so hamper free development in the future. 1
1 The lady to whom this letter was addressed had been referred to
Professor Collins by Mandell Creighton, then Bishop of London. She
acted upon Collins's advice and sought the ruling of the Episcopate, but
it has not yet been given.
56 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Scientific Theology.
7 Trinity Square, E.G., Feb. 18, 1901.
I entirely agree that, although we speak of theology as a
science, we are usually only too unscientific in our ways of
dealing with it.
To doubt that Theology i.e. our grasp of the Eternal
Truth with regard to God and our relation to Him grows
and expands is surely ridiculous : we have only to read the
books of any earlier day to find that, whilst they may still
be far above us in some ways and on particular points, our
whole conceptions are as much larger and fuller as could
possibly be. That being so, the true position of a Theologian
must be that of a seeker, not of a doubter, but of one who is
at all times ready to test his results and, if necessary, restate
them. And our sympathies must always be with the seeker
rather than with the traditionalist. At the same time, we
must be truly scientific : a science, the chief evidence of which
is derived from a living personal experience, cannot throw over
its life-evidence, and has to test by life, as well as by the philo-
sophical theories which happen, at any particular moment,
to accompany the scientific results of any particular day.
As a matter of fact, we have, I think, everything to gain,
and nothing to lose, at the present day, by the recovery of
the scientific temper. It was not so thirty years ago : then
there was a materialistic temper in much of the science of
the day. But that has passed away, and scientists recognise
to-day (a) that their results are concerned with phenomena ;
(b) that an act of faith is needed to make even such a general
proposition as that twice two makes four : all that we
" know " in the scientific sense is that whenever we have
tried it, we have found it so ; (c) that nevertheless all
science points to an order and a growing purpose in the
universe ; (d) that order and purpose speak to us of mind.
For the rest, it must be remembered that as the natural
science of theologians is generally a little out of date, so is
the philosophy or theology of natural scientists. This must
needs be so : and on neither side must one accept what is,,
after all, merely irresponsible dogmatising.
LETTERS 57
Our duty is plain : to study loyally and fearlessly, to
sympathise and endeavour to understand all sides, to
remember always that if God has revealed Himself in life,
life according to the truth, so far as we see it, is the key
to truth.
As for books, I don't know that particular books help
much, and yet everything that one reads (excepting " cock-
sure " church newspapers) gives one some help. I have just
been giving some lectures at Sion College which might help
a little, reported in the Churchwoman last week, and this,
and next (though I haven't seen the reports). Westcott's
Gospel of Life you know : Maurice's Life, and Robertson's,
you doubtless also know : Professor James Ward's Gifford
Lectures is a really great book. On the strictly theological
side there is less of value, perhaps because the spirit of
traditionalism is so strong amongst us just now. Never
mind ; we need to be large-hearted, yet not forgetting what
treasures we bear in the earthen vessels. For us to try and
exchange them, or reset them, would be ruinous. We only
need to set them forth more faithfully in their reality as
regards ourselves. If we do so, even though our statement
may be in many ways imperfect, God will be working out
a new and truer statement. 1
Devotional reading for a young Clergyman.
(ON A POSTCARD.)
Avignon, March 29, 1895.
S. Gregory, de Cur a Pastor ali.
S. Bernard, de Amore Dei, Sermons on the Canticles.
De Voragine, Legenda Aurea.
Herbert, Country Parson.
S. Athanasius, de Incarnatione.
Geo. Fox's Journals.
Fioretti di San Francesco.
1 The recipient of this letter says that at one time he looked over and
corrected the answers to papers which he set for members of the Guild of
the Epiphany, and this letter came as his comment upon an answer given
to one such paper.
58 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Baxter, Saints' Rest (with care, and an unaltered edition,
it is excellent reading).
Bp. Andrewes, Preces Privatae.
Bp. Wilson, Sacra Privata.
Bp. Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living and Dying (of course).
S. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises.
S. Augustine, Confessions.
S. Thomas a Kempis (of course), in Latin by choice.
S. Francis of Sales, the Spirit, Spiritual Letters.
Revelations of Mother Julian of Norwich.
S. Theresa, Of the Love of God, etc., etc.
Life of S. Philip Neri.
Life of F. D. Maurice.
George Herbert.
Here is a scrappy list of rather unequal merit, which may
serve your purpose. I have put one or two here which
everybody would not, simply because they happen to have
helped me. The great rule is, I think, to read what you feel
(1) either to be giving you fresh, original thoughts, or else
(2) to be quite beyond you. I.e. devotional books, like poetry,
ought to be real makers, and are valuable or the reverse
precisely as they draw one out or the reverse. If a book
feels to be beyond one, or if one has been told to read it,
reading it grimly and desperately is likely to do good, but
not, in general, what gives one nothing in particular.
Dangers of penitence.
St. John's College, Cambridge, Oct. 18, 1894.
Yes, all that part of Dr. Pusey's Life is wonderfully
moving and sacred. I do not wonder that it has moved you
so deeply : it certainly did me. But now let me try to set
down the bearings of it all with regard to what you say
about yourself ; for I want you to think them over.
Sometimes a thing like this, which burns deeply into one's
own conscience, makes all one's past professions seem
almost unreal, and one's righteousness (as it is) filthy rags.
Seen by such a standard, all one's confessions have been
mere lip-confessions, all one's communions seem almost
LETTERS 59
mockeries, and all life hitherto a hideous sham. Thank
God that He does send us such revelations. But then there
is a danger lest we, in the excitement of the moment, forget
how far the Lord hath helped us hitherto how He is the
surety that our life hitherto has not been in vain, a danger,
in fact, lest we should deny the grace that we have already
received. I have known devout penitent souls pull down
their Christian life in the desire to undergo such a self-
emptying, as they think it. You have no desire to do that,
of course : but all the same it is very necessary to learn
one's lessons of humiliation and penance without doing
despite to what God has done in us already.
Blessings on work.
Cairo, Easter Tuesday, 1895.
Everything has gone wonderfully well here : even had I
not felt sure of it before, it is impossible now not to see
that it was in every way right and necessary to come. God
has blessed all that was done most wonderfully with His
grace. It has been most joyous to see so large a number of
men set right or helped in their life, in what is, I believe,
one of the most terrible places to live a godly life in, in which
Englishmen were ever placed. I have been touched, too,
to find " Evangelicals," living and working here, who have
come regularly to services throughout, including the Three
Hours, listened to words which must have at least sounded
strange to them, and helped one with their prayers and
sometimes at least with the most large-hearted sympathy.
And now, as you have helped me with your prayers, so too
you must help me to thank God.
It has been very hard work in some ways ; and the great
heat during part of the time has not mended matters ; so
that just now I am tired out and almost prostrate. And
now that the worst of it nearly all in fact is over, I do not
seem to mend. But the change of air to Alexandria will
probably set me right, and at any rate when I am once at
sea, on Thursday at 10 a.m., I do not doubt that I shall
feel well at once.
60 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
A heavy Sunday.
7 Trinity Square, E.G., Oct. 28, 1895.
Yesterday was rather a heavy day, and with a bad cold
I am feeling the effects of it. I had to preach in the morning
at short notice, near here, as well as in the afternoon and
evening. Deptford was most interesting : a great church
full of men, who behaved very well, considering all things.
To be sure, they said " Hear, hear," occasionally, and I
heard a few other remarks in a quiet tone, all of which showed
they were listening. And one thing that was said delighted
me : a broad, unmistakable Somersetshire voice asked
" Would 'ee mind saying that over again, zur ? " And
outside, I had several questions asked some wise and some
other-wise : among them a well-meaning but puzzle-headed
Roman wanted to know whether I believed in Lourdes
(Miracles was my subject).
" Beloved Italy."
Bordighera, April 18, 1898.
You will be surprised at the address from which I am
writing, but the charm of my beloved Italy was too strong.
So directly Holy Week was over I moved on [from Ste.
Maxime] to Bordighera, and am very much better for the
change. I don't quite know what makes it so different ;
sea and air are much the same, though the people differ not
a little, and here they are far more truly Christian. Nor is
it only the glory of the palms and olives of Bordighera,
though they are most dear. It is simply that the one is
Italy : the other is only France !
Resting upon Christ.
Pitfour, Glencarse, April 10, 1899.
Now we can understand how desperately hard you found
it to rouse yourself, and we can actually see the reason in
this illness. You will not suspect me of trying to make you
slack or careless, but is it not possible that at other times
too you have been anxious and troubled overmuch about
LETTERS 61
your own deadness ? overmuch, because it was really the
result of health and out of your own control all the time.
At any rate I am sure that you have every right to rest
more readily than you do upon the love of our Lord, and His
all-sufficient merit, and His power to renew us when we reach
the other side, and to repair the ravages both of illness and
sin, and to restore to us in new strength the wills which we
have almost lost through our own wilfulness. I know well
that it is hard to learn under pain and anguish, and yet
it is to be learned, that resolute acceptance is as much a
part of the Christian life as strenuous effort is.
A Christmas holiday.
Rome, Dec. 28, 1899.
I am just beginning to feel now how thoroughly tired I
am, scarcely fit for anything. But it is such delightful
weather here, so spring-like, that it cannot but do one good.
There is a good deal of rain between whiles, but the rest of the
time it is very bright and clear. The sun in the Piazza of
St. Peter's on Sunday at midday was so hot that one could
hardly bear it without a covering : in fact many of the
Italians there had up umbrellas.
I hope to get a little work done at Bologna after January
8, at the Inquisition Records ; but here I am going to do
nothing but make a few pilgrimages and enjoy the beauty
of Rome. To-day I went, with the friends with whom I am
staying, to the great Basilica of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, where
it is quite possible that St. Paul's body actually lay. There
I heard Mass the High Mass, with Palestrina's music,
far more reverently sung than is usually the case at St.
Peter's, and then went on to the Abbey of S. Paolo dei
Tre Fontane. This is the present traditional place of his
death : but I should think the three springs were a pagan
holy place centuries before he lived.
Yesterday I went to see the Abbe Duchesne, and found
Cardinal Vannutelli with him, upon whom I am to call
to-morrow. The latter suggests that I should go to see some
of the other Cardinals ; but I don't think I shall.
62 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
The Boer War.
Florence, Jan. 13, 1900.
I can quite understand ail that it means to D., if her
brother is really to go out. In one way one does hate it all
so, and long to see such terrible things impossible. But in
another, it is good to fight in a cause which takes us outside
our own petty likes and dislikes, and spites and quarrels ;
and I rejoice in all the unselfishness and self-devotion that
it calls out. That it is a real duty to go out, for those who
can and have no greater claim, I cannot doubt ; and
certainly not least because it means much of self-denial
and danger. It is like so many more terrible things : you
can see God's hand in it, and God's call in it, simply
because it is sufficiently terrible to drag us out of our
conventions and unrealities.
Kind sternness.
Guy's Hospital, Aug. 2, 1901.
Thank you for telling me about your poor boy. I am glad
there is news of him ; but it is all the more necessary that he
should not be allowed home, or have the way made easy.
God has now opened a new way for him, and to try to reopen
the old would be to close this. He must be sent away
to make his own way as best he can. Hardship is more
likely to help than anything else, and to make him work
and suffer privation is a truer kindness than any other could
be, hard as it naturally is for his poor mother to see it. But
I trust she will try.
I am allowed up on a sofa now, in the afternoon.
His brother's death.
7 Trinity Square, E.G., Dec. n, 1902.
I wonder if you remember my brother Arthur. Probably
you will, the one next to me in age, and always my closest
companion. We heard just a fortnight ago that he had been
shot at and wounded by an anarchist striker at Telluride
LETTERS 63
in the State of Colorado, where he was in charge of large
silver mines, but that he had every prospect of recovery.
And the next day came another telegram to say that he is
at rest ! It seems too sad to believe almost. He leaves a
wife and two little boys, and she, I am glad to say, was able
to be with him at the last. We still await full details, but
we know that he was bright and collected, though in terrible
pain. It will be good to think afterwards how sympathetic
and kindly he always was towards all that could be sympa-
thized with in labour troubles ; and he died at his post as
truly as any soldier ever did, the dear fellow, knowing well
during the last month or so that his life was in danger. We
were confirmed together, and he was always a good true
Christian.
The following letter from a friend who was with him on
an Easter holiday in Cornwall in 1903, brings out a side of
him which was at least as characteristic as any that his
own letters have displayed :
" Hannafore, West Looe.
" I wish you could just see Willie now, in the zest and delight
of holiday time. It is always a joy to me the boyishness
and fun and sweet gentleness with which he makes every-
thing a source of enjoyment. He is so gay and light-hearted,
with all he has to do and suffer. He always reminds me of
those lovely lines of Keble's on St. Matthew ; one is always
catching the melody of the everlasting chime. He is
certainly wonderfully well just now, considering the fatigues
of the last term, and the last fortnight especially. 1 We came
down here on Monday. It is a charming little place, and we
have hit upon delightful rooms with a lovely view over the
sea, standing high on the edge of the cliff. Yesterday was
glorious, and we spent the whole day wandering on the cliffs
amid masses of golden gorse, or in primrose-lined lanes,
so lovely."
1 He had been conducting the exercises of Holy Week at St. Albans.
III.
EPISCOPATE.
IN the latter part of the year 1903, Bishop Sandford of
Gibraltar resigned his office, and very shortly after died.
On November 27, the day after taking his Doctor's degree
at Cambridge, Collins went by invitation to Lambeth, and
the Archbishop offered him the vacant see. It was in many
ways an adventurous appointment. Collins was young for
the position he was now 36 and he was a man of pro-
nounced opinions. But there were also marked qualifica-
tions. He had the learning which would enable him to
move about intelligently amongst the representatives of other
forms of Christianity. He had although people at large
knew less about it at the time than afterwards the deep
sympathy which fitted him for what is largely a pastorate
of individual souls, many of them invalids, and many in
circumstances of solitude and temptation. And, in spite of
his frail health, he was a great lover of travelling, especially
by sea, and less wearied and shaken by it than many more
robust persons are. His acceptance of the office was made
known on December 19. The chorus of just approval with
which, at the same time, his book on the Study of Ecclesi-
astical History was received, gave promise of his accept-
ability as Bishop.
On the evening before his consecration, he preached his
last sermon at Allhallows as one of its clergy. The day
was the eve of the conversion of St. Paul, and he took for his
text the words, " Unto me who am less than the least of all
saints is this grace given, that I should preach among the
Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." These sentences
CONSECRATION AND MARRIAGE 65
are reported to have come in the sermon : " Jesus Christ
loved minorities. He loved the things people were ready to
die for without seeing any results. If the best things we
can think of were to claim success, they would be very poor
things. Christ cares for the infinitely little, and for any one
particular thing to succeed is often a very bad thing. . . .
Men can only see Christ if we show Him in our work and in
our lives. Our duty is not that of trying to ameliorate the
conditions of life, nor that of trying to get people to join our
party, but that of communicating to them of the unsearch-
able riches of Christ."
He was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on the Festival
of the Conversion of St. Paul, 1904, by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, assisted by many other prelates, in the presence
of a great congregation. As one of his oldest friends, I had
the honour of preaching the sermon. He was presented to
the Archbishop by the Bishop of London, his diocesan,
and the Bishop of Bristol, with whom he had worked,
and was still to work, so cordially on the Church Historical
Society.
Early on the day after his consecration, he was married.
The cultured and devoted woman who became his wife was
Mary Brewin Sterland. She had long stood in a very close
and peculiar relation to the Bishop. When first (in 1878)
I became acquainted with her and with her younger sister,
Edith, she was governess to the daughters of Mr. Stanhope
Rashleigh, Rector of St. Wenn in Cornwall. At the time
when William Collins became an inmate of the clergy-house
at Allhallows Barking, Miss Sterland had passed to the
house of Mrs. Thurston Holland at Wimbledon. It was
there that the attachment began between her and the delicate
and engaging boy to whom Mrs. Holland, as I have said,
gave a mother's care. From Mrs. Holland's house, Miss
Sterland moved to the family of Mr. F. A. White, the friend
and treasurer of so many good causes ; though in this posi-
tion she did not live in the house, but took rooms for herself
and her sister. Edith Sterland, whose touching death has
been already mentioned, became governess about the same
time to Margaret Wilkinson, daughter of the Bishop of
66 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Truro, between whom and the Whites there was a special
bond of intimacy.
All these circumstances tended to draw William Collins
and Miss Sterland together, and by degrees he came to be
looked upon as a member of the Sterland family. He began
to spend most of his spare time with them. They went
together for their holidays in Cornwall or elsewhere. A
thorough student herself, Mary was able to help him in his-
torical researches, in examining and copying documents. At
length it was regarded as a settled thing that Mary and he
were brother and sister. The arrangement was unusual and
unconventional ; but even so careful an observer of pro-
prieties as Bishop Wilkinson sanctioned it. In a state of
health like his, and the lady being a good deal senior to
himself, people felt it natural enough. Miss Sterland, after
Edith's death, travelled with him and took charge of him.
She watched over him at the time of his operation in Guy's
Hospital, and during his long convalescence at Betteshanger.
For many years he wrote on the first leaf of his little pocket-
book of engagements, " In case of my death or illness I
ask that a telegram be sent at once to Miss M. B. Sterland,"
and the address. She accompanied him, I believe at
Archbishop Nuttall's suggestion, on his mission to the
West Indies, and was everywhere received as his sister.
In presenting to him the thanks of the Synod for his labours
in Jamaica, the Archbishop made a graceful reference to
the care taken of him by " his sister," without which he
could never have got through all that he had done in the
island.
It was clear, however, that it would be impossible for him
to do in his new office what had been possible while he
occupied a private position. The two felt it best to put their
relationship on a footing more easily understood by entering
the married estate. They were married in the early morning
of January 26, 1904, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in
Lambeth Chapel, with the Holy Communion following. Lord
Northbourne, from whose house she was married, gave the
bride away, and Dr. Robinson was in attendance upon the
bridegroom. Among the friends who sat down to breakfast
MRS. COLLINS 67
afterwards in Lambeth Palace, besides their host and hostess,
were Lord Northbourne and the Bishop's respected father,
Mr. J. H. Collins, and Miss Sterland's elder sister.
No words could express the pathetic beauty and tender-
ness of the relation now relieved of what to some extent had
before been embarrassing. Some glimpses of it have been
given by a little book which, though unpublished, has become
widely known, bearing the curious title, " Especially William,
Bishop of Gibraltar, and Mary, his wife." The writer
describes how she first made acquaintance with Mrs. Collins
at Gibraltar in 1908. " She told me how frightfully tired the
incessant travelling made her, and the crowds of fresh people
at every place. ' We can never go to a quiet inn and rest ;
it is always receptions to meet the Bishop and crowds of
people waiting to see him everywhere, and I can't spare him
any of it ; they want him and I can't see them instead.
When we married, I thought I could save him from being
killed with the life, but I can scarcely help him at all.'"
" In pouring rain," the writer proceeds, " I walked down the
hill with her back to Government House in the evening. I
remember so well, when I said something of what a marvel-
lous marriage theirs must be both so utterly devoted in
the great work of their lives and to each other how she
stopped short, in the middle of the storm, and said with
a sincerity of emphasis which preached a whole Gospel,
' Yes ; but no marriage, no earthly love, can satisfy. One
must have Him Jesus. I could not go on living without
Him, though it's often only just saying His name to myself
over and over again.' "
The day after the wedding, the Bishop was hard at work
upon an article on Early Missions in China ; the next day
was spent in interviews and letters, and the day after that,
the two embarked for Gibraltar, where he was enthroned on
Sexagesima Sunday, February 7. They stayedat Government
House with Sir George and Lady White, and so began their
acquaintance with the diocese under the happiest auspices.
From Gibraltar they went on to Marseilles, Hyeres, and
Cannes, where they were the guests of Lord and Lady
Rendel at Chateau Thorenc, and laid the foundations of one
68 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
of the most delightful of friendships. Then they passed along
the Riviera, meeting all sorts of interesting people. At
Rapallo they parted. She waited there, while he travelled
night and day to Malta to be installed in what might be
called his second Cathedral, and to do some work at Naples
and Rome on the return journey. At Livorno they met again,
and worked their way back by Florence, Genoa, and Turin,
to London, which was reached on March 30. The Quarterly
Paper of the Gibraltar Mission to Seamen, in giving the list
of his engagements for February, headed it with the words,
" What the Bishop can do in one month."
A few lines from a letter of Mrs. Collins gives a picture of
part of that first tour, which may stand for many subsequent
tours :
" Bordighera, Feb. 24, 1904.
" You will like to have news of him, as I don't think he
can have had time to write much. . . .
"We sailed for Gibraltar on January 2gth, and had a dread-
fully rough voyage, which was very trying, coming as it did
on the top of all our fatigue. But we had a splendid week at
Gibraltar, staying with the Governor, Sir George White, who
with Lady White and his family did his best to spoil us.
Charming as it is to see so many delightful and kind people,
it is certainly tiring to have perpetual receptions and dinners.
Still, it is the only way in which the Bishop can meet his
people ; and it won't be so bad another time, when all the
honours have been paid. There are such lots of interesting
people at Gibraltar ; we came away with great regret.
The enthronement on the Sunday was a most stately function,
and the Bishop looked splendid in his scarlet. He is winning
all hearts, as he always does ; and though there are many
difficulties to be settled, and a terrific amount of work, he
is well and happy.
" We had a capital voyage from Gibraltar to Marseilles,
which was our next stopping place. I wish you could hear
the Bishop's Confirmation addresses ; they are simply
beautiful. He has held six Confirmations, and loves them.
... In each place there is much the same round, a recep-
tion of the Bishop, special service in church, Gibraltar
LETTER TO THE DIOCESE 69
Missions to Seamen Meeting whenever possible, and so on.
. . . We have a lot of friends here, and Willie left such a
fragrant memory behind him four years ago, that they can
scarcely let him go. . . .
" On March 2 we travel together as far as Rapallo, where
I am to stay, while the Bishop makes a rapid rush down to
Sicily and then over to Malta. . . . We shall have to be
away from each other for about a fortnight, which is horrid
to think of ; but the travelling is so expensive that I can't
go everywhere with him."
He had prepared the way for this first journey by a printed
letter, from which the following is an extract :
" 7 Trinity Square, London, E.G.,
January i8th, 1904.
" My dear Brethren, I must send you a few words of
cordial greeting before I enter upon the exercise of my
Office. I thank you most heartily for the very kind letters
and messages which have already reached me, and for the
prayers which have been so freely offered on my behalf.
These last are the foundation and the earnest of my hope
that we shall be able to work happily together, to the glory
of God and the furtherance of His Kingdom.
" I am taking up the charge which He has entrusted to me
with many searchings of heart, and with a keen sense of my
own insufficiency ; and this is not diminished when I think
of the good Bishop whose place I am called to fill. But I
rejoice to know that the work which he has done during his
long episcopate (and in particular, if I may single out one
thing, by the agency of the Gibraltar Mission, the founding
of which was an act of spiritual genius) has knit together the
whole jurisdiction of his See as nothing else could possibly
have done, and has made the work of his successor far easier
than it could otherwise have been. And it will ever be to
me a source of strength and comfort to know that he had
heard, only two or three days before his death, that I was
proposed as his successor, and that the news made him glad
and thankful. This I value and prize as in a sense his death-
bed benediction.
70 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
" I cannot but know that, in a task of peculiar difficulty
and intricacy, you must soon realise the difference between
my inexperience and his ripe wisdom. But I ask that you will
give me time, and that you will extend to me your sympathy
and consideration even where my action is not such as com-
mends itself to the judgment of many. I do not think that
you will find me lacking in sympathy when brought into
contact with ways of thinking other than my own, or with
methods of working which I do not myself make use of. I
ask in return that you will trust me, give me credit for a
desire to be just under all circumstances, and allow to me that
same liberty of action and opinion which you claim for
yourselves. . . .
" I am trying to arrange matters so as to be able to cover
the whole ground every year, not indeed visiting every single
chaplaincy yearly, but getting every year to some of the
chief centres in each region, so that chaplains and others who
desire to see me on any matter may be able to do so with as
little difficulty and inconvenience as possible, and that
candidates for confirmation, in cases of need, may be ' brought
to ' me for the purpose."
To the sailors so considerable a portion of his charge
he wrote :
" I can assure you that I had learned to care for sailors,
and work among them, long before I ever thought of coming
to the Mediterranean, that I have many friends amongst
sailors, and that I want to make a great many more. I
shall try, as soon as possible, to pay a visit to all our Insti-
tutes, and shall claim fellowship with all of you whom I can
find there. And I hope that you will come and speak to
me whenever we do meet, and give me the pleasure of a
handshake at any rate. And remember that there are more
sailors than bishops, and that it is easier for you to recognise
me than for me to recognise you. So you must please
forgive me in case I forget, and help my memory by making
yourselves known to me. Be sure that I shall always be
glad to see you."
It was Wednesday, March 30, as I have already said,
MISSION TO SOUTH AFRICA 71
when they reached London, and were welcomed by Lord
and Lady Northbourne. On Saturday, April 2, which was
Easter Even, after two busy days, they sailed for Cape
Town, on the Mission of Help ; Lord Northbourne went
down to Southampton with them and saw them off.
The history of the Mission of Help has been published by
Dr. Robinson. Reference has been made to it by the
present writer in his Memoir of Bishop Wilkinson, with whom,
in a way, it originated. There is no need to repeat the
account of it here. But it ought to be understood that a
very large part of the labour of preparation for it had been
laid upon Collins's shoulders. He had long promised to
take part in the Mission itself, and he did not think right to
beg off in consequence of his appointment to Gibraltar. In
the letter to the diocese from which I have quoted above,
he says :
"As some of you are already aware, I have been engaged
in the preparation for it from the beginning ; and at the
time of my nomination I was already pledged to go out to
South Africa for almost the whole period of the Mission.
Moreover, owing to the accidental circumstance of my being
in London all the time, as Chairman of the Executive Com-
mittee I have had a great deal to do with the arrangements
which have been made ; and it is urged upon me in the
strongest possible terms by those who are responsible for
the Mission that, although my place can very easily be
supplied later on, it is most essential that I should be in
South Africa at the beginning and during the earlier period.
I feel that such a claim is imperative, and have therefore
undertaken to leave England for this work, if God so wills,
on April and, 1904, returning not later than August. The
Archbishop of Canterbury permits me to say that the
course which I am taking in this matter has, under all the
circumstances, his full approval and sanction.
" I am taking this course with a full sense of its gravity
and importance. I ask you, for the sake of our brethren in
South Africa, to bear your share in such inconvenience as
it may cause, and to join with me in making this offering of
our service. And I ask you to invite your people to do the
72 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
same. We shall be the richer, not the poorer, if we can thus
share in the blessedness of giving. There will be, after all,
something very fitting in the fact, if you will send forth your
Bishop across the whole length of a continent to help our
brethren in their need ; if I, who have charge of English
Church people along the north coast of Africa, may be
permitted to go to work amongst their brethren in South
Africa. Already, too, you have taken some part in the
matter ; for I rejoice to remind you of the fact, and to place
it on record, that the fund which has been raised by the
Ladies' Committee in England for the expenses of the
Mission of Help had its beginning in a very large gift which
was raised for the purpose in one of our Chaplaincies, viz.,
by the English Church people at Bordighera."
He arrived at Cape Town on Tuesday, April 19, and was
warmly welcomed by the Archbishop at Bishopscourt.
Between him and Archbishop Jones there had for some time
past been an affectionate friendship. The Archbishop was
one of the many people who had put his learning and his
good nature under contribution, and Collins had spent time
and labour in helping to frame disciplinary canons for the
Church of South Africa. Cape Town, however, and the
diocese of Cape Town were not to be the chief field of his
work in the Mission of Help. During the week that he spent
there, he preached in the Cathedral and elsewhere, held a
confirmation among the lepers on Robben Island, and
attended conferences and addressed meetings of workers.
But as soon as the main body of the Missioners arrived
he preceded them by seven days and had received
the public Benediction of the Archbishop, he left the
Bishop of Burnley to direct the Mission at Cape Town,
and went off with his own contingent to the diocese of
Grahamstown.
His stay in South Africa extended from Tuesday, April
19 to Wednesday, August 10. During that time he preached
regular Missions at Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown, Kimberley,
and East London, and did similar work for shorter periods at
Humansdorp, Sidbury, Alexandria, Cathcart, Jansenville,
Klipplaat, Burghersdorp, Bloemfontein, Wakkerstroom,
MISSION TO SOUTH AFRICA 73
Nottingham Road, Maritzburg, and Durban. To a man with
his historical instincts it was of the deepest interest to visit
the scene of Gatacre's disaster at Stormberg, and to inspect
the ground, where every mile records a tragedy, round
Ladysmith and Colenso. He enjoyed the novelties which
nature offered, the wonderful views from the mountains,
the colouring, the sight of baboons scampering up the hill,
of toucans (if such they were) and secretary birds, and
above all, the glimpses of native life which he obtained.
A priest who was working in Kimberley at the time of
the Mission there, the Rev. C. S. Hill, now Rector of Harri-
smith, writes as follows about the work at Kimberley :
" The Bishop only took a small part and left before the
Mission was over : but this part was perhaps the most
valuable of the whole Mission. He preached on the first
Sunday, and gave four or five mid-day addresses to business
men on the following week days, which were very helpful,
and much appreciated. Besides this, he made it his work
to see personally the leading diamond merchants and busi-
ness men and had a wonderful influence with them. There
was much discontent and controversy in the parish at the
time, and the Bishop's influence did much to steady men's
minds. He specially applied himself to the leading hard-
headed business men, whom most clergymen find it hardest
to get hold of.
" I shall never forget the impression which his mid-day
addresses made. As he stood on the chancel steps in his
purple cassock and pectoral cross, one could not but be
struck with his youthful appearance his bright eyes and
spiritual face reminding one of the figure of ' Christ among
the Doctors ' in Hofmann's well-known picture. He used
to come from the vestry punctually on the stroke of the
clock and speak, watch in hand, very rapidly for twenty
minutes never going a moment over his time. Yet, though
he spoke so rapidly, he spoke so plainly that everyone could
follow and understand. Each address was illustrated by
quotations from Browning. They were very practical and
heart searching, and entirely different from anything which
I have ever heard. . '
74 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
" The following story illustrates what men thought of
his addresses, though the effect is hardly what the Bishop
would have liked. One man who seldom came to church,
attended the Bishop's addresses regularly. When someone
suggested that now he would probably go to church more
often, he surprised him by replying, ' Never again/ He
was asked why he would not. Had he not thoroughly
appreciated the Bishop's addresses ? ' Never again,' he
repeated ' it would spoil the impression ! ' '
The Mission at East London was one which made a
great mark. It had been well prepared for, especially by
the men of the congregation visiting from house to house.
The Bishop won his way at once with the men, and to this
day, I am told, he is spoken of with affection by many,
and his photograph is still pointed to with pride in their
houses. The addresses were of a very high tone, free from
any excitement, yet of a telling and searching nature.
" The part I remember best," says my kind informant, the
Rev. L. Moxon, Vicar of Sibford, " was the Instructions,
after the service, when he would walk up and down the
aisle in his violet cassock, just talking to the people. These
Instructions were deeply spiritual, very plain and direct in
their teaching upon the Sacraments, Confession and the
Church, with a few telling illustrations.
" The congregations increased every evening until the end.
He addressed a meeting of men during the dinner hour at
the large railway works, and also a large meeting in the
town hall on the Sunday night after a full service. He was
also very good with the children ; they loved his stories,
and I remember his making them sing hymns, standing
until they came to a verse of prayer, when we were all told
to kneel."
It was his method on these occasions to ask the local
clergy very little about the parish, and to make little
use of them during the Mission. They were told to attend
the services like any of their parishioners. It was his way to
do everything himself and take over the whole parish for
the time being not always, perhaps, to the liking of the
clergy concerned.
MISSION TO SOUTH AFRICA 75
A lady who was present at the Mission at East London
says :
" His wonderful personality and calm spiritual strength
seemed to attract me most strangely, and I was seized with
a longing to tell him all my heart, which was full of sad
thoughts at that time, and to seek counsel and advice from
him. I was the last to leave the church, and as I stood
in the porch, wondering how I could obtain an interview with
the Bishop, I looked up and saw him standing beside me.
A few minutes later he had taken me into the vestry and I
was talking to him freely and unrestrainedly of all that had
troubled me in the past and in the present, and of the con-
flicting duties which so often came into my life. His
wonderful sympathy and power of understanding made me
tell him more than I could ever have told a stranger. After
he had spoken to me for some time, and we had knelt while
he prayed for me, I left him feeling a great and wonderful
sense of peace and calm, the memory of which I shall
carry with me always. I have tried to follow the advice
he gave me ' If two duties have to be faced, the harder
one will almost invariably prove to be the right one to
follow.' "
The Bishop parted from his wife at Madeira on the return
journey, and went on a tour through Portugal and Spain.
Then, after a short visit to England, they started for Odessa
and the East. At Constantinople, in full canonicals, he paid
his first state visit to the Patriarch, Joachim III., who was
most cordial, and knelt before the altar of the Patriarchal
Church and kissed the Gospels. This was on October 14,
and next day he went over to the island of Halke", to call
on the ex-patriarch, Constantine, and to inspect the great
Theological College, where a week or so later he witnessed
the ordination of an old King's College pupil of his,
Mr. Teknopulos, to the priesthood. The whole st;ay at
Constantinople was full of fascinating interest. Mr. Pears
conducted him over the walls of the city, and everyone
else was most kind. At Smyrna he conducted a kind of
mission, lasting a week ; but he managed to escape for a
day to Ephesus, where Mr. Hogarth showed him the sites.
76 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Such was his first acquaintance with the scenes amidst
which his life was to end.
It would be vain to attempt to narrate the Bishop's
journeyings to and fro during the seven years in which he
governed the jurisdiction of Gibraltar. To the Apostle
Paul it was a trial to " have no certain dwelling place " :
the same trial awaited Bishop Collins and, to some extent,
his wife. They had, it is true, a kind of home at Sliema, in
Malta, where they often stayed for a few weeks together.
During the last two or three years of his life they had a
house of their own at Hampstead, 12 Fellows Road,
which was his headquarters during the summer months,
when there was less to be done in the Mediterranean. But
at the outset of his episcopate he had not even that comfort.
His English address at that time, 24 Steeles Road, N.W.,
was the house of Miss Frere and her sister, who undertook to
forward his letters, and did for him the work of commis-
saries. But what furniture he had, and the bulk of his large
and much-loved library, was warehoused or stowed away,
and he himself was a wanderer. It soon became impossible
for his wife to accompany him ; her health began to fail
under the strain. She had to stay behind at Sliema, or at
the ever-open house of Lord and Lady Northbourne, or
with other friends, or in lodgings ; and he travelled alone.
In spite of entreaties, he would not take a chaplain. Through
the thoughtful kindness of Lord Northbourne, a yearly
sum was raised among his friends to diminish the cost of
these journeys to his pocket, but nothing could save him the
fatigue. He seemed to think nothing of travelling from
Genoa to London to attend a committee and returning the
next day. Often his means of conveyance from one part of
the diocese to another was a cheap trading steamer, with
wretched accommodation and horrible food. Many of his
long-distance runs, to the south of Russia, or across Spain,
were accomplished in trains which had no restaurant car
and no sleeping berths. He had a story of one such run,
when all the food he could obtain for a whole day was a
piece of half-cooked sucking-pig wrapped in paper, which he
DIOCESAN WORK 77
threw into the rack of the carriage until sheer hunger
compelled him to attempt it. A sense of adventure might
sometimes carry him along ; but when he was ill, it was a
serious thing even to climb up into the lofty carriages of a
Spanish railway, where there might be no one to help him.
Wherever he was known, he was sure of help ; but there were
many places where the obvious fact that he was a priest
made the railway people less disposed to be of use to him.
His work took him, of course, to conspicuous places and
into high company. He conducted the services of Holy
Week at Rome, or Florence, or some other centre where
cultured English people assemble. He sat at dinners and
luncheons beside governors and princes of the blood. He
was a welcome guest in the houses of famous scholars, and
authors, and statesmen. But a great part of his work con-
sisted in visiting out of the way places, where a few Cornish-
men were working in a Galician mine, or an English manager
was superintending oil-works by the Caspian, or an English
governess or two were teaching in Roumanian or Russian
families. To cheer a lonely little group of English believers
where there was no English church or chaplain was a great
happiness to him. And naturally, wherever he went along
the sea coast, our sailors obtained his attention. He went on
board the men-of-war or the merchant ships and addressed
the crews. He visited their Institutes ; and a great part of
his time was taken up in holding meetings along the Riviera
and elsewhere on behalf of the Gibraltar Mission, which has
the welfare of the seamen for its object.
He made it his practice, wherever he went, to cultivate
friendly relations, as far as possible, with the native religious
authorities of the place. A Waldensian ordination, the
opening of a place of worship for the Reformed Lusitanian
Church, attracted him. Occasionally he even attended a
service in a synagogue. But he was unfailing in his respect
for the Roman Catholic prelates in whose dioceses he
ministered. He called upon them, and explained that his
work lay solely among English people, and that the English
Church has no desire to proselytise. He seldom failed to
obtain a kindly response. The interview sometimes ended
78 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
by the local Bishop taking the Englishman to the Cathedral,
or sending one of his Canons with him, to show him the
building and the treasures of the sacristy, and escort him
to the station on his departure.
It was not always, of course, that relations of this kind
could be maintained. The opening of a new church for
English services at Barcelona in 1905 brought about a
lamentable explosion of bitterness, the consequence, no
doubt, of complete ignorance with regard to the character and
aims of the Church of England. Except at Seville, where
the church of a dismantled convent had been purchased
for Anglican use, Barcelona was the first place in Spain
where the English congregation were able to worship in a
consecrated building. The municipal authorities passed the
plans for the beautiful church without objection ; but in the
latter part of 1904 an agitation against it was begun. A
Professor of Canon Law in the University of Barcelona
published an article in the following spring, denouncing the
new building as " the greatest monument of shame " in the
city. The Bishop of Barcelona, Cardinal Casanas y Pages,
petitioned the King and the Government against it. The
King replied sympathetically, deploring " this fresh attack
upon the faith of our fathers and the religion of the State."
The Government determined that the two crosses which had
been erected on the building must be taken down. This
was quietly done very early in the morning of Saturday,
May 6, 1905, and the day following the church was solemnly
consecrated by Bishop Collins, according to the form drawn
up by the Bishop of Salisbury and published by the Church
Historical Society. In 1910, with the King's consent, the
order which forbade the display of religious symbols by
" dissident " religious bodies was revoked, and the Bishop
had the pleasure of knowing that the church at Barcelona
had been restored to its original condition, and was no
longer deprived of the sign of our salvation. This was not
the last occasion when he met with official obstruction in
the course of his duty in Spain.
With the Oriental prelates he naturally found it easier to
deal. The Report of the Eastern Church Association for
THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 79
the year 1910 speaks of him as "an ideal Bishop to re-
present the Church of England." " We could always feel
that in the hands of the Bishop nothing would be done
which would in the least compromise the Catholic position of
the Church of England, while his grasp of the things essential
and his intense sympathy made it possible for him to go a
long way in meeting the Eastern Church." It was to him
that the Ecumenical Patriarch expressed his desire that a
few English students might be sent to prepare for the sacred
ministry in the Theological School at Halke", in order that
some among us, at least, might know the Orthodox Church
from inside. In fulfilment of this wish, Mr. P. R. B. Brown,
a former Scholar of Pembroke College, Cambridge, spent
about a year in that institution as the guest of the Patriarch.
It is to be hoped that others will follow his example with
equal profit. Bishop Collins did not hesitate, however,
to tell these great dignitaries the truth. When he visited
the Patriarch in September, 1906, he assured him of the
sympathy with which the Archbishop of Canterbury, and
English Churchmen in general, regarded the distress of the
Christian population of Macedonia, and recognised the diffi-
culties which beset the action of the Patriarchate ; but he
was careful to explain that the Church of England regarded
the matter purely from the religious point of view, and could
not take sides in a political movement.
The Rev. M. R. Swabey, who at that time accompanied
him, has brought to my notice an incident which reveals
the extraordinary promptitude of the Bishop's well-stored
memory. " If the first impression," he says in the Report
above-mentioned, " made by him on the Easterns was that
of youth, the second and abiding impression was that of
knowledge. In the course of a conversation with the
Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, in the year 1906,
a discussion arose on the relationship of the divine and
human natures in the person of our Blessed Lord. The
Patriarch quoted a canon of an Armenian Council dealing
with the question. The Bishop courteously suggested that
the particular canon belonged to another Council, and the
Patriarch acknowledged that he was right."
8o LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
The constitution of his anomalous diocese gave the Bishop
much to think of. In order to promote a sense of unity, he
began to hold a series of Diocesan Conferences or Synods
in London. Conferences on a smaller scale had been held
before in certain fairly denned districts, like the Riviera, and
these were still continued ; but the Bishop aimed at some-
thing much more. The first of these Diocesan gatherings
was held in the summer of 1905, with great success. It
was decided that they should be held periodically, and every
other year was fixed upon for the purpose. A yearly gather-
ing appeared to be impracticable.
The Bishop was determined to make more of a reality of
his See and Cathedral than had hitherto been the case.
After much correspondence and enquiry, on Sunday, Novem-
ber 19, 1905, he admitted the Ven. D. S. Govett, who had
been for twenty-three years Civil Chaplain and Archdeacon
of Gibraltar, to be the first Dean of the Cathedral. This
step was taken " with the advice and consent of our Synod
of Clergy holden in the private chapel of the Dean of West-
minster, July 14, 1905, and with the sanction of the Most
Reverend Lord Randall, by Divine Providence Lord Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and with the approbation of His
Excellency, General Sir F. W. Forestier Walker, Governor
of Gibraltar." All future Canons of Gibraltar were to be
installed in the Cathedral by the Dean or his deputy.
Five or six years later, this strengthening of the Cathedral
centre was followed by a similar action in regard to St.
Paul's Church, Valetta, in Malta. " Ever since its founda-
tion by Queen Adelaide, seventy- two years ago," we read
in the Anglican Church Magazine for March-April, 1911, " it
was intended that the Church should have a collegiate body
attached to it ; and although nothing of the kind has taken
place, the intention has left its mark in the commonly used
description of the church as ' The Collegiate Church of St.
Paul.' When the See of Gibraltar was founded, in 1841,
and the Bishop was given a residence (then known as
Gibraltar Palace) in Valetta, a proper episcopal throne
was erected in St. Paul's ; the church became a second
cathedral church for the Bishops of Gibraltar, and its
GIBRALTAR AND MALTA 81
description as the Cathedral Church of St. Paul has been in
use ever since." On January I, 1911, the Statutes which
the Bishop had prepared were promulgated ; the Bishop, hi
accordance with the Statutes, was himself installed as Dean,
Mr. A. F. Newton as Chancellor, and Mr. H. J. Shaw as a
Canon, to whom shortly after Mr. F. C. Whitehouse of
Constantinople was added. In the communique above
referred to, which evidently comes from the Bishop's pen,
it is contemplated that possibly in the future St. Paul's in
Malta might form the Cathedral for a new jurisdiction.
The Bishop made much of the local Festival of the Ship-
wreck of St. Paul (February 10), and appointed that a
Chapter of the Collegiate Church should be annually held on
that day.
In the year 1906, the Bishop showed his care for the
spiritual welfare of his flock in Malta by arranging for a
Mission, in the special sense of the word, to the fleet and
garrison. The Mission began on Saturday, April 28, and
lasted a fortnight. It was carried on regularly at the Colle-
giate Church of St. Paul, the Military Gymnasium, the Dock-
yard Church, and at Pembroke Barracks, besides other
places. The Bishop was himself the principal Missioner.
He was assisted by Mr. Bernard Wilson of Portsea, and Mr.
Austin Thompson, the Diocesan Missioner at Canterbury,
both of whom had served with the Bishop in old days at
Allhallows Barking, and by Mr. Valentine of Walden, who
had been with him on the Mission of Help in South Africa.
A simultaneous Mission to members of the various " Free
Churches " had been arranged, and was conducted by the
Rev. John M'Neill. It was somewhat unfortunate that just
at the moment of the Mission troubles arose with Turkey,
which necessitated the despatch of three regiments from
Malta, and of a large part of the fleet ; but in spite of these
hindrances, the Bishop looked back upon the Mission with
deep thankfulness.
He wrote a short account of it which was published in the
Guardian, 1 in which he said that no attempt was made in the
Mission to lay special stress upon particular moral perils
1 May 16, 1906, p. 814.
82 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
to which soldiers and sailors are exposed, but to preach the
full Gospel of redemption, which appeals to all human beings
alike, and that the experience gained had deepened the con-
viction of the missioners that this was the right method.
" There has been," he said, " a widespread and touching
readiness to hear and to respond, a reality in facing the con-
viction of sin and the claims of the Lord which has put us
workers to shame, and a courage in facing the unexampled
difficulties of the life of a Christian soldier or sailor which
has made us thank the Lord and take courage." This
was the last time that the Bishop conducted a Mission in
the strict sense.
It has already been mentioned how deeply the Bishop was
concerned for the welfare of the sea-going portion of his
flock. One address of his on behalf of the Gibraltar Mission
to Seamen, delivered at Nice on March 2, 1907, has been
recorded, and gives a vivid sense of the way in which he
understood the men's needs. 1
" Of course, in speaking of sailors, I refer to two quite
different bodies of seamen the ordinary sailor, pure and
simple, and the firemen, stokers, engine-men, mecanicisns,
or whatever else you like to call them, that great division
of sailors which has been called into existence by the growth
of steamships. Fifty, sixty, and seventy years ago the class
which has to do with engineering and stokeholes was un-
known. Now the lot of the engineer, the fireman and the
stoker is far harder than that of any other individual on
board a ship ; and the lot of the sailor has become harder
just in proportion as sailing-ships have gone out, little by
little, and been replaced by steamships. I wonder if any of
you know what the engine-room of a great transatlantic
steamship is like ! It is not a pleasant place at the best of
times. The heat is something tremendous ; and when you
go from the engine-room to the stokehole it is as bad as
going from the deck to the engine-room. Terribly, terribly
hot, and reeking all the time with the unpleasant smell of
'A report will be found in the Anglican Church Magazine for 1907,
p. 51, foil.
THE MISSION TO SEAMEN 83
warm oil. You can hardly keep from fainting. It is all
heat and fire around you, and beneath you, and you are
cramped and confined to a degree. The engine-room is not
a pleasant place to be in, and when you come up out of it,
you are all covered with grease and oil, and get into a row
for being in such a mess. What does it mean to be down
there for four or five hours at a stretch, or perhaps two hours
consecutive work shovelling in coals for all you are worth,
black and grimy from head to foot, and covered with oil
and coal dust from the engines ? I really do not think there
could be any other work so difficult, and at the same time
so unpleasant, as that of a fireman on board a great steam-
ship." 1
" The general standard of comfort in modern civilisation
has increased," the Bishop went on to say, " but the standard
of comfort in a sailor's life remains exactly where it was.
Since the advent of steamships things have become still
worse, if possible, and the comfort has certainly become less.
That part of the ship in which the sailors live is smaller and
more confined, more pointed and narrow, than it used to be
in the old wooden hulks of our forefathers. The modern
narrow steamships, plated with steel, are by no means so
comfortable for the sailors to live in as the old ones used to
be. The fo'c'sle is not a pleasant place to have to sleep in.
There is a movement abroad now to alter all that. . . . Later
on, I think they will succeed."
He then spoke of Sunday labour, discouraged now by
foreign legislatures, but increasing in British ships.
" Take a place like Seville, for instance, a great and
beautiful city, and the chief port of southern Spain. Of
recent years the port of Seville has been greatly improved,
and ships can now come right up the Guadalquiver into
Seville itself. It is only British ships, belonging chiefly to
one important Scottish house, that at the present moment
do any loading and unloading on a Sunday. This is really
a very serious thing, and gives rise to much reflexion. At
the port of Fiume, in Hungary, no working on a Sunday
1 Compare a letter from Lord C. Beresford, in the Times of April 22,
1912, in connexion with the loss of the "Titanic."
84 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
is ever permitted, and there is a fine for those that break
the law. Well, it is only British ships that ever do break the
law there. They find that, though the penalty may be
heavy, it is nothing compared to their loss if they give up
Sunday labour. So, as competition is keen, they find it
pays them well to incur a penalty which is a mere nothing in
comparison with the profit that can be made by breaking
the law. At the mouth of the Danube again, they tell me
the English have become a bye-word. The Mahommedan's
holy day is a Friday, and nothing will ever make him work
on that day. The Jew's holy day is a Saturday, and you
cannot get the Jew to do any work on a Saturday. The
Christian's holy day is a Sunday, and if he is British, you
can easily get him to work on that day. ... It is a terrible
national disgrace."
Upon these facts he based an appeal for the Gibraltar
Mission, with its Sailors' Guild, and its lending library, and
other works, especially its Institutes.
"After all," he said, " most of our work has to be done
in port, when the sailors come ashore. You can prepare
somewhere for them to go to when they land. You know,
yourselves, perhaps, what it is like to land in a strange place
you have never been in before. You have no guide-book, and
you are tired of wandering about, and after two or three
hours of it, with nowhere to sit down, and nowhere to rest,
you begin to wish you were back on board again. But the
restraint on board has been tiring too, so you try to enjoy
yourself on land as best you can. The people speak a
language you don't understand. You are hungry and want
something to eat, and do not know where to get it, or how
to ask for it. What do the sailor and the fireman do when
they come ashore in a strange place ? Suddenly they find
themselves set free from the restraint of shipboard. There
are no officers and captains, and no orders to obey. Our
sailor despises all the lingoes he hears, and is generally very
thirsty. He has been living on the salt water for a long time,
and he would very much like to be able to sit down and have
some amusement on land. But there is nowhere for him to
go, except some horrid, disgusting little beer-shop : there
DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER ACT 85
are always plenty of those, you know the kind, in every port.
He goes there. He is very thirsty, and they give him some
' top shelf,' if he has not the money to pay for anything else.
And so he drinks that ' top shelf,' vile, fiery poison, and it
soon produces the effect it is meant to produce. The man
is made drunk as quickly as possible, and then he is turned
out. These things go on daily.
"About a month ago I received a letter from the chaplain
at Patras we have managed this year for the first time to
have a chaplain there. There landed at Patras, from
Newfoundland, a shipping boat, with salt cod. One of the
crew went ashore by himself. Some three or four men came
and met him. They wanted him to drink with them, and
he refused. They set upon him, and tried to force him, and
at last there arose a terrible struggle, and one of the three
struck him with a stick, which, entering his eye, pierced his
brain, and the man died. The chaplain heard of it, and he
managed to arrange an English funeral. Then the whole
facts of the case came out. Some one had seen it all. ...
This is the sort of thing which may happen any day to any
well conducted sailor, quite as much as to the others who are
always getting into scrapes."
Bishop Collins was always desirous of giving explicit
guidance to those who worked under him, and in the latter
part of 1907 he found it necessary to issue instructions to
the chaplains within his jurisdiction on the subject of the
Deceased Wife's Sister Act, which had recently passed through
Parliament. He prefaced his instructions by a clear state-
ment of the varying conditions under which marriages were
solemnised in the countries under his supervision. He then
pointed out that the new Act made no alteration in " the
law (or rule) of the Church," but only that one particular
" law (or rule) " of the Church could no longer be enforced
by the statute law, a clergyman who solemnises a marriage
of this kind being no longer liable to the penalties to which
he would otherwise have been liable.
" No doubt," he wrote, " a certain element of confusion
has been introduced by the fact that the word ' law ' has
86 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
come to be used by lawyers in a stricter sense than it once
was ; to denote the precepts which are enjoined by the
sovereign power under a sanction, and nothing else. Accord-
ingly, it has been pointed out that the English Church has
not, and cannot have, a ' law ' which is contrary to, or not
answerable to, the law of the land, since it is not, and cannot
be, an imperium in imperio. That is quite true, but it is
only by a confusion of terms that it can be held to have
anything to do with the matter. Nobody doubts that the
Church is bound by the law of the land, like any other
society ; nor yet that this involves, in the case of the English
Church, a position of exceptional privilege, and correspond-
ing restrictions upon our freedom of action. But within
these limitations the Church, like any other society, has its
own principles, its own methods, and its own rules, which
may rightly be spoken of as its ' laws,' in just the same way
as we speak of the laws of cricket, or the statutes of an
order of chivalry, or the rules of a club. As a matter of
fact, a very large part of the ordinary life of the Church
depends upon and expresses a Rule and an Order which
existed before our statute law began, is not based upon it,
and could not by any stretch of imagination be brought
within its terms.
" One such Rule or Law of the Church, which is expressed
in, but does not originate in, the ggth of the Canons of 1603,
forbids the marriage of a man to his deceased wife's sister.
Formerly this was enforced by the law of the land ; now it
is no longer so enforced. But the law of the land, as we
have seen, explicitly recognises the fact that it still exists ;
and it is hard to see how anybody can suppose that it can be
altered but by the action, explicit or implicit, of the Church
itself.
" Yet it is not to be wondered at that the position of the
English Church in the matter has been so largely misunder-
stood ; and, as usual, we are ourselves largely to blame. The
use that has been made in the past of the argument from
Leviticus cannot but seem unreal to those who reflect that
we should never dream of conforming our social life to some
other precepts of the Hebrew ceremonial law. . . i There has
DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER ACT 87
been far too much loose and irresponsible speech about ' the
law of God,' as though, with our partial vision and imperfect
insight, we were able to lay down dogmatically what is and
what is not justifiable for other men, who stand or fall before
their own Master, and not before us. In question-begging
ways such as these we have largely incapacitated ourselves
for bringing home to the consciences of men what are the
real objections to the new law ; and yet we are in no doubt
as to what they are. Briefly, we hold that it makes a
grievous and unnecessary inroad upon the family circle kit
introduces an unfair and unjustifiable distinction in t\e
treatment meted out to women by men ; and it sows the
seeds of future dissension by introducing a contradiction
between the marriage law of the State and that of the
Church.
" Personally, nevertheless, I can think of it as quite
possible that the rule of the English Church in the matter
might be altered in the future in the direction of the new
law. I have the strongest sympathy with what has been
said by the Bishops of Hereford and Carlisle, as to the
extreme undesirability of anything which should narrow
down the position of the English Church into that of a mere
section. We might, of course, be compelled to take up such
a position, in the interests of the Faith, or of morals ; but
I had rather that it should be done in the interests of the
central truths of the Faith rather than of some particular
point of doctrine, to vindicate some great moral principle
rather than to preserve a particular point of practice upon
which, highly as I esteem it, minds after all may differ.
" For it must never be forgotten that it is the man and
woman who actually contract the marriage ; they, not the
officiant, are the ' ministers.' Some such marriages there
are which this or that realm does not recognise as valid.
Others there are upon which the Church will not bestow
its blessing. But in any case, the primary responsibility
rests with those who contract the marriage. There are not
a few marriages which English clergymen and others are
called upon to solemnise, which might occasion us very
serious misgivings but for this fact. ... In all these cases,
88 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
after having done whatever hi us lay to set things right, we
should all hold, I suppose, that only a very clear and decided
conviction would justify us in refusing to solemnise the
marriage, the ultimate responsibility for which must lie with
the parties themselves. It is to my mind quite conceivable
that a similar course of action should be taken here, and
that the Church might come to the conclusion that its
blessing should not be withheld in this case from those
who, contracting a marriage which they hold to be justifiable
in God's sight, humbly and heartily desire His blessing
upon it.
" But whatever the future may bring forth, what I have
said only places in clearer relief the fact that the rule of the
Church against such marriages is at the present time clear
and definite ; and the rule is one which can be lightly
esteemed by no faithful son of the Church."
After applying very clearly the principle thus laid down
to the three different classes of chaplaincies with which he
had to deal, the Bishop went on to say :
" I think it is important that we should dissociate our-
selves entirely from the language which has been used by
some people in this matter, as though marriages of this
description were no true marriages, or even worse. Such
an attitude is surely unworthy and unjustifiable, and would
seem to be based upon a misapprehension of our message.
For here, as elsewhere, the Church is called upon to bless,
not to ban ; not to deny what others have, but to defend
\fhat God has entrusted to us. The function of the Church is
not to appraise marriages, but to proclaim the sacredness of
marriage in itself, and to set before men the ideal towards
which all marriages should be conformed. Moreover, it
does not appear to me that it can reasonably be contended
that they who have contracted a marriage allowed by the
laws of the Christian land to which we belong are ' open and
notorious evil livers ' in the sense of the rubric at the begin-
ning of the office for the Holy Eucharist ; and I must hold
that none are to be rejected from Communion on the ground
that they have contracted marriage with a deceased wife's
sister."
THE BIBLE SOCIETY 89
Among the causes which the Bishop warmly espoused
was to the surprise of some of his friends the cause of the
British and Foreign Bible Society. Of all the resolutions
passed by Societies at his death, none was more appreciative
and discerning than the minute adopted by this Society on
April 3, 1911, in which, after a review of his career, they said :
" On the shores of the Mediterranean his journeyings
brought him often into close contact with the work of the
Bible Society. No greater encouragement has been given to
that work than the knowledge that it enjoyed the confidence
and support of Dr. Collins. He presided regularly at the
meetings of the Auxiliaries in the Riviera, and rendered
valuable help in the negotiations over the Modern Greek
Version. In 1910 he was appointed a Vice-President of the
Society."
Miss P. M. Bishop, Secretary of the Riviera Auxiliary of
the Society, writes to me :
" Four out of the seven years he was our bishop, he presided
at the annual meeting at Cannes. The year 1908 was the
Auxiliary's 2ist anniversary, and he spoke of the occasion
being ' a call to action to new effort to a fuller, larger,
wiser way of doing our duty to see how much more there
is to do, and to think how much more we can do. One
thing in addition to what is already done would be to con-
solidate the work of the Riviera Auxiliary ; that it may grow
geographically as well as deeper in love than in the past.'
A few days later he wrote :
' March 23, 1908.
My idea with regard to it is that if it is made again, in
reality, a Riviera Auxiliary and not merely a Cannes one
(as to all intents and purposes it is now), it will gather interest
which at present is not only scattered, but in effect lost.
And I think that the very fact of all the Cannes Chaplains
and myself being connected with it will help people, and
especially High Church Chaplains, to consider the matter
from a larger point of view and so support it. But I should
not feel it to be right to put pressure upon them to do so ;
one volunteer is worth ten pressed men, and a moving
spirit as contrasted with a law of force, in all but what is
90 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
necessary for order, is the very difference between Christian-
ity and Judaism.'
" Then followed his suggestions in detail suggestions
which afterwards were successfully carried out. In 1909,
when all his plans were changed because of his illness, he
wrote from Bordighera, November 26 : ' I am so sorry that
I shall not be able to be at the first meeting of the Bible
Society under the new system ! it wouldn't have mattered
so much at another time, but now . However it
can't be helped, and we must hope that there may be some-
where at hand, at Nice or elsewhere, some " big gun " that
we can make use of for the purpose.'
" His last message to the Riviera Auxiliary was in February,
1911, about six weeks before his death, from Marseilles,
where he told the deputation how deeply interested he was
in the Bible Society's work, and asked him to say at the
meeting what ' a real self-denial ' it was to him not to be
able to preside and how earnestly he wished them success,
and sent his blessing."
One of the Secretaries of the parent Society, the Rev.
J. H. Ritson, obligingly sends me several of the Bishop's
letters, from which I give the following extracts :
" The Convent, Gibraltar, Dec. 18, 1907.
You may like to know that I was at Etchmiadzin in
October last, and saw the press given by the British and
Foreign Bible Society to the Armenian Church for the print-
ing of the Bible, in good order, and showing signs of use."
" 12 Fellows Road, Hampstead, N.W.,
Aug. 4, 1909.
It is very tiresome that the Foreign Office objects to Mr.
Gardner [the chaplain at Athens], taking up this work. I
have talked with one of their people this morning, who tells
me, as indeed I had supposed, that their objection is not to
his undertaking more work, but to a possible confusion on
the part of the Greeks of the Society's work with official
action. . . . There is need for extreme caution in Greece.
I remember one occasion on which political capital was
THE BIBLE SOCIETY 91
made, or attempted to be made, out of the fact that I went
to the Metropolis attended by a Legation dragoman."
" Train [in Sicily], Jan. 9, 1911.
I am very sorry that the Greek Church authorities have
taken this line, and in a way all the more so because, as I
gather, it is with them (in part at least) only a move in a
great political scheme. For the present, at any rate, I fear
there is no hope of their ' coming down/ and we must just
hope for a change of policy, or, better still [for greater
enlightenment in certain quarters]. Meanwhile, your article
must do good, and I do not think it could be improved
upon in any way. It is right that they should know what
we think of it."
The Bishop wrote to the Rev. J. Gardner-Brown, the
English chaplain at Rome :
" Bishop's House, Sliema, Malta,
Dec. 7, 1910.
In your place I should have no hesitation whatever, and
should certainly go and support the Bible Society. It is
just the kind of work in which, as it seems to me, we can all
join ; and the Society has really been very careful to stick to
its true work : circulating the Scriptures, with every care
to choose versions which are properly authorised by the
Church, wherever practicable, and no proselytising. If
colporteurs are sometimes indiscreet, and not true to their
principles, I am afraid that sometimes applies to Bishops
too ! So I should go, not by way of concession, but as assert-
ing our Churchmanship. That is the only way to help a
good work to be even better done in future. . . .
God be with you."
It was, of course, impossible for a busy traveller like the
Bishop to write any more books like those which came from
his pen before he left King's College. I do not know whether
he continued even to review the books of others. The
Guardian, however, from time to time, received interesting
notes of travel from him. Thus I find articles of his headed,
92 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
" In Servia and Bulgaria," " Trebizond," " Batum and its
neighbourhood," " Nicomedeia and its neighbourhood " J
articles in no way inferior to those with which Mr. E. A.
Freeman was wont to delight the readers of that paper.
They were not the work of a man who had left off reading.
Even if to a certain extent precluded from studies of his
own, he was indefatigable in encouraging the studies of
others. Mention has already been made of one work for
the promotion of theological learning in which he took a
principal share, especially during the central years of his
episcopate. Miss Bevan, the Honorary Secretary of the
Archbishop's Examination in Theology, has favoured me
with the following account of it :
"A movement which was started in 1899 at the initiative
of Miss Margaret Benson for promoting theological learning
owes much to his wise counsel and his active co-operation.
The movement began with the founding of the St. Paul
Association, the members of which met about once a month
in London for the study of some New Testament subject.
The papers read at the meetings were then circulated so
that those who could not be present might follow the course
of study. A library of theological books was also formed for
the use of members. Other movements have grown out of
this, amongst them, in 1903, the Vacation Term for Biblical
Study, which, intended primarily but not exclusively for
mistresses in secondary schools, is held every year for three
weeks at one of the Universities, and has increased till in
the summer of 1910 it numbered three hundred students.
The Bishop from the first gave the Vacation Term his support,
and helped its promoters with advice in the arrangement of
the lectures.
" In 1905 the Archbishop of Canterbury instituted a scheme
for training women who desire to become teachers of theology.
The large and increasing part taken by women in religious
education, the extreme responsibility of such work, and the
special difficulties with which it is beset at the present time,
all these were felt to show that an urgent need exists for
well-qualified teachers who should have received no less
1 Guardian, Oct. 21, Nov. 18, Dec. 30, 1908 ; Jan. 20, 1909.
WOMEN'S THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 93
careful training and preparation than is required for the
teaching of other subjects. It was believed that if the work
of women engaged in Church teaching were to be definitely
recognised by ecclesiastical authority, and accorded a place
of its own in the organisation of the Church, this would
come as a call to many to give their lives to a work so full of
great and sacred responsibility. With this view the Arch-
bishop instituted the Diploma which is awarded to candidates
who are successful in the Examination, and the Licence for
those who, having received the Diploma, desire to devote
themselves to Church teaching. But as comparatively few
would find it possible to go through a complete course of
theological study at one of the Universities, any scheme to
be of general use must be framed on a wide basis, and com-
bine the essential requirement of a course of systematic study
under expert guidance with great elasticity in the manner in
which it might be carried out. To devise such a scheme,
and set on foot an entirely new undertaking of this nature
was no easy matter, but at the request of the Archbishop the
Bishop of Gibraltar threw himself into it, and the lines upon
which it was drawn up were largely due to the determination
in which the Bishop concurred with the Archbishop, that a
high standard of efficiency should be maintained, and to the
Bishop's remarkable faculty of estimating the tendency of
different methods, their practical disadvantages, or their
value in effecting the object to which the work was directed.
" This, however, was but the beginning of his labours, for
having accepted the office of director it devolved upon him
to take the oversight of the candidates' preparation. In the
case of those who presented theses in lieu of examination
the theses were carefully read by him, and to him all applica-
tions and schemes of study were submitted. Every detail
received his personal and thorough consideration. The
length of time which should be given to each subject, the
choice of teachers, the special circumstances of the candidate,
and the possibilities of training had all to be taken into
account. To carry on such a work would in any circum-
stances have been one of considerable difficulty, requiring
very unusual powers of insight and judgment. In the
94 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Bishop's case it had to be carried on, as a rule, whilst he was
traversing his vast diocese by land or sea, somewhere
between Gibraltar and the further shores of the Caspian.
But he never failed to devote to it the most scrupulous care
and attention, never grudging the serious addition it made to
his already immense correspondence, or the trouble which it
involved, even when such trouble might well have been spared
him. During the five and a half years since the movement
began, no less than 114 letters were received from him,
besides numerous shorter notes. All who worked with him
know well the decision with which he was wont to express
his views in all the part of the work for which he felt obliged
to accept the full responsibility. But they will remember
no less his readiness to trust those with whom he was associ-
ated, and his generous recognition of their desire to do the
part assigned to them to the best of their ability. In all
the difficulties and perplexities connected with the work of
the Archbishop's Examination, the sense of possessing the
Bishop's confidence was a continual encouragement.
" During the last two years of his life, notwithstanding the
pressure of trouble and illness, his interest in his labour of
love never flagged, and this, the last letter, returning some
papers, was written from Constantinople when he was
dying. His handwriting, usually so characteristically forcible
and clear, bears the mark of the difficulty with which the
letter was written.
' In Bed, British Embassy,
Constantinople, Mar. 7, 1911.
My dear Miss Bevan,
I'm sorry these are delayed somewhat. I
arrived here in a dilapidated state. . . .
By all means let Miss do what she can after Easter
with Mr. to count towards her preparation when she is
able to fill in the complete course of study. Mr. isja
good scholar and a first-rate teacher.
God bless you ever.
Yours very truly,
W. E. GIBRALTAR.' "
WOMEN'S THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 95
A lady writes from India :
" For some years I was a member of his theological class
in connexion with the Guild of the Epiphany. I should like
to send a few words to express what I, in common with so
many educated women, feel we owe to his sympathy and
guidance at a very critical time in our spiritual lives. I for
one am under a debt of gratitude for his help and counsel
when doubts and difficulties rose which had to be faced and
conquered. We studied Martensen's Christian Dogmatics
under his direction. To-day I was referring to my papers
and his notes and comments on my work, and one or two of
his letters, written ' in the train ' mostly, which were so
inspiring and suggestive.
" I seldom saw him, but when I said good-bye to him before
I first sailed for India, I shall never forget his words, or the
help I found from his letters which he sent regularly, until
he had, through pressure of work, to give up the class."
Besides superintending the studies of the ladies who were
reading for the Certificate and Diploma, the Bishop continued
to watch over the work of other students. He freely lent
them volumes out of his own large library sometimes a
dozen at a time. He took a deep interest in the progress
of Miss Shipley's English Church History for Children, and
Miss Granger's Black Letter Saints, looking over proofs,
correcting, criticising, suggesting, writing prefaces, and tak-
ing as much pains as if the books were his own. And yet
Miss Shipley tells me that she never saw him they only
knew one another by correspondence.
The Bishop's methods with his diocese were not such as
everybody could, in all points, imitate. Wherever he went,
his personal charm dissolved opposition. Difficulties seemed
to disappear when he touched them. Quarrels were made
up, and malcontents were reconciled to the Church. Yet
not everyone found it easy to work with him and under him.
Mr. Bodington tells me that much amusement was caused at
a certain meeting when Bishop Collins said that some of the
clergy evidently thought that the word episcopus meant, not
an overseer, but an over-looker. That was not his view of
96 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
his office. He said to a friend in private, when he was first
appointed, that he intended to rule, and so he did. " He
ruled me with a rod of iron," wrote, after his death, one of
his most willing servants. But undeniably his action was
sometimes autocratic. He came into conflict with powers
that had long borne what looked like episcopal sway in his
jurisdiction. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts has not the reputation of disloyalty to the
bishops of the Church ; but at one moment, if I was rightly
informed, the Society felt almost compelled to go to law with
the Bishop of Gibraltar, and the scandal was only averted
in consideration of the fact that the Bishop's wife was so
ill at the time that a prosecution would have been inhuman.
Yet, in spite of his masterful ways, he never took it amiss
when his own opinion was not adopted. He readily admitted
the right of others to think for themselves. The friend
who wrote about a " rod of iron " added : " and yet he
always allowed me to say my whole say against anything he
proposed. Nearly always he did what he had intended to
do, but smiled kindly at my often strongly expressed opinions.
No one could have invented such a man ; had they tried,
they would have left out his intensely human side, which
made him so lovable. There was to me something most
fascinating in that strange mixture of genius and simplicity,
of humility, and of wonderful powers and charming weak-
nesses, great independence and a yearning for sympathy and
affection."
A correspondent writes :
"His decided views and firm pronouncements never clashed
with his tenderness as a judge. He could come down like
a hammer upon the cowardly or tyrannical. He would not
appear to agree with people against his convictions in order
to save their feelings but he managed to disagree without
hurting them ! Withal he was courtesy and chivalry per-
sonified. Amid the ' care of all the churches ' he yet would
remember to write a letter of comfort or encouragement to
a soul here and there, in need of, but little expecting, help
from an overworked bishop carrying on the intricate corre-
spondence attendant on the working of a huge jurisdiction."
ANECDOTES 97
Miss Emily Bishop, the Secretary of the Society of
Watchers and Workers for the diocese of Gibraltar, writes
about this side of his episcopate :
" The Bishop wrote of a friend : ' A man has time and
strength to do what he loves to do in the way of work.'
And he loved small beginnings, and nursing them. When
he came to the diocese, its branch of the Society of
Watchers and Workers was one of the small things he
at once interested himself in. And when, later, his opinion
was asked on one point, it led to his taking the whole thing
into his personal care. And after that, every detail of the
working he wished to be told, that he might help in it
not during his visitations only, but by letter. Nothing was
too trifling or insignificant in his eyes everything was an
opportunity for taking trouble and being faithful. ' Yes,
our Watchers and Workers Society is a great blessing,' he
wrote. From time to time he sent petitions for diocesan
needs, to be used by the members. And he kept with them
their yearly Quiet Day, wherever he might be. He visited
any invalids he could hear of during his visitations, and
especially the members of the branch when strength
permitted."
A few little anecdotes may help to illustrate some aspects
of the Bishop's character.
An English clergyman, who did not know him, writes :
" In the summer of 1908 I was ill and was undergoing treat-
ment for a bad heart in a nursing-home in Westminster.
I was allowed out for short walks as far as strength permitted.
One afternoon I was walking out, leaning on the arm of a
young assistant curate, who had come to take me out for a
turn. The Bishop of Gibraltar caught us up and passed us.
The situation was obvious. A sick vicar was being taken
care of by a devoted and youthful curate. The Bishop took
it in at a glance, and though he was personally unknown to
me, he turned round, and saluted us courteously and with a
smile of tender and sympathetic encouragement, which
illuminated his whole face, and which I afterwards described
in telling the story, as truly ' seraphic.' I remember being
much cheered by this evident token of tender sympathy
98 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
towards a sick and unknown priest, which must have sprung
out of his personal knowledge of sickness and ill-health.
I remember that I felt as if I had passed under a spiritual
benediction which conveyed a sense of real joy and uplifting
though the incident only lasted a few seconds."
Mr. Blogg says of him :
" He loved children, and they soon took to him. In
October last (1910), two little boys and a little girl were
brought down by their nurse to see the Bishop. The Bishop
explained that I was a sailor and a clergyman. The older
boy turned to his sister, and said : ' And he/ pointing to his
lordship, ' is only a bishop.' The Bishop laughed heartily."
"A. K. C." wrote to the Guardian soon after his death,
and said :
" I have seen him cross the Black Sea in a petroleum boat,
and I have come across the men of the steamer some months
afterwards, and they one and all said, ' What a remarkable
man for a bishop ! He is clever, yet he makes you feel
perfectly at home.' The sick always looked forward to the
Bishop's visits in the various hospitals we visited together :
he always had a word of cheer both to the English and the
foreigner. At the sailors' concerts he made an ideal chair-
man, and even after a tedious journey he always remained
until the concert was over, though some kind lady would
try to persuade him to return with her for a comfortable
rest and dinner."
A former chaplain at a Spanish port writes about one of
his visits :
" His stay was but a short one, but it was long enough
to win the hearts of most of us, even of some of the Spaniards.
Our maid asked if she might attend the Confirmation Service
which he held at our little church. She came in her mantilla
and knelt all through the service, and though she could not
understand any of it, she said she was sure that all he said
was good, ' for he had the face of an angel.' And that was
no doubt the reason why several little Spanish children
came up to him, as we were walking along the quay, and asked
to kiss the cross he wore."
There happened, some one writes, to be a family at A.
A SERIOUS ILLNESS 99
perhaps only husband and wife who were rather overlooked
in the English set. The Bishop heard of it, and although
terribly hard worked at the time, and his throat so bad, he
wrote to them saying he should very much like to dine with
them. Of course, added my informant, their position will
be quite assured in the future.
The year 1907 saw him take the most adventurous journey
of his life, for the promotion of unity among Christians. He
began the year, or ended the previous one, with an alarming
illness. Fortunately for him, it seized him at Costebelle,
where he had the affectionate care of the family of Sir Mark
Collet to help him through. Writing on January 3, 1907,
Mrs. Collins says :
" The Bishop is really improving, though very slowly at
present. He has been up for a few hours for the last three
days, and though he cannot yet stand alone, we are hoping
to be able to leave for Gibraltar on the I2th. He has been
very, very ill. That horrible Spanish fever was followed by
serious complications, causing just as much pain as can be
borne, and for several nights and days we were poulticing
every hour. We telegraphed to Nice for a nurse, and she has
been doing the night work. Now we are able to do without
her, and I hope and trust progress will go on steadily. . . .
The Bishop lay on the balcony for a couple of hours yesterday
morning, enjoying the sun and exquisite view."
They came to England for a few days in February, partly
to consult Dr. Goodhart. Mrs. Collins noted in her diary on
the 22nd :
" He does not think there is anything organically wrong
with W.'s heart : says it is terribly overstrained, and that
he must have six weeks' rest immediately, and a good three
months' holiday in the summer."
Obedient as he always was to the doctors, he went straight
to Corsica, where he had spent a pleasant time the year
before, and did his six weeks most of the time at the charm-
ing and unsophisticated hill-village of Evisa. Then came
work at Florence, Naples, Taormina, Tripoli, Tunis, in Malta,
at Athens, Trieste, Venice, Milan, the Italian Lakes, and so
ioo LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
back to England. The Archbishop lent them his house at
Canterbury, and there they rested the greater part of July.
On the 22nd of that month they went down to Crinnis, his
father's house in Cornwall, for the wedding of his sister
Gwendolen next day. August and September were spent
quietly in England. I find record of only one sermon
preached ; it was at Brampton, on behalf of the Church in
Jamaica. On October 4 he started on the far errand, leaving
Mrs. Collins in London.
The object of the journey was to visit Mar Shimun,
Catholicos of the East, and to help forward the work of the
Archbishop's Mission to the venerable Church over which
Mar Shimun presides. That Mission was first sent by Arch-
bishop Benson in 1886, at the urgent request of the Assyrian
Church, whose very existence, after a long and wonderful
history, was imperilled by the assaults of Kurdish and
Mussulman neighbours on the one hand, and by Roman
Catholic and American Presbyterian emissaries on the other.
Ignorance, born of oppression and poverty, made them unable
to meet their enemies, and they turned to the Church of
England for instruction and spiritual aid. The Assyrian
Church has long borne the epithet of " Nestorian," but there
seems to be no reason for thinking that it is committed to
the form of belief usually associated with that word. In
view of the Lambeth Conference to be held in 1908, it was
thought well that a legatus of high standing should confer
with the rulers of the Church which we had so long befriended,
in order to see whether a closer union were possible or to be
desired. The Bishop of Gibraltar undertook to penetrate
into their mountain fastnesses ; and he hoped by starting
in October to achieve his purpose before the worst of the
winter interfered.
He printed an account of his expedition in the following
year, first in his diocesan organ, the Anglican Church Maga-
zine, and afterwards, with additions, in pamphlet form,
under the title of Notes of a Journey to Kurdistan. But the
pamphlet was not published, and is not easily obtainable.
I have no hesitation, therefore, in reproducing here large
extracts from it.
JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 101
Arriving at Erivan on Tuesday, October 22, the Bishop met
Mr. Wigram, the head of the Archbishop's Mission, and Mr.
F. J. Blamire Brown, who was on his way out to join the
Mission. Erivan is near Etchmiadzin, the Canterbury of the
Armenians. His first steps were turned to Etchmiadzin
and to the venerable Patriarch of the Armenians, Meguer-
dich, of whom he wrote an interesting account a few weeks
later in the Guardian of December II, 1907. This is his
narrative of the expedition :
" Tuesday, October 22. I arrived at Erivan about 7 a.m.
. . . We resolved to drive to Etchmiadzin to-day, it being
impossible to start on our longer journey till to-morrow, no
horses being forthcoming. It was a beautiful drive of about
14 versts (10 miles), first across the old bridge and below the
Persian citadel of Erivan (taken by the Russians in 1826) on
its rocky cliff above the river, then between gardens and vine-
yards bordered by poplars. Then we came out upon the
open plain, and drove over open moors covered with a
beautiful red-brown shrub ; we had the noble snow-crowned
mass of Ararat in sight on the left, rising above a range of
lower mountains which bordered the plain to the south, as
a second but lower range did to the north.
"As we approached Etchmiadzin several churches [came] in
sight, in addition to the great mother church and monastery
of the Blessed Virgin itself. The original cathedral was at
Artaxata ; about 400 A.D. it was removed to Vagharshapad,
now Etchmiadzin ( = the only-begotten Son came down),
where St. Gregory the Illuminator had built a little chapel in
303 A.D., on the spot where he had seen the Son of God
descending in a vision ; afterwards removed again, owing to
hostile invasions, but fixed at Etchmiadzin about 1400 A.D.
About this mother sanctuary many others gathered, some
now in ruins, each formerly with a convent attached :
the great church of the Angels, once the Cathedral, now
ruined (out of sight, on left) ; the church of St. Rhipsime
(close to road on right, finest and most beautiful of all) ;
the church of St. Gayanai (beyond the great church, also
ancient) ; that of Shogagath (the Divine Light), now in
ruins ; and others less interesting and more modern. We
102 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
passed a strange ancient graveyard of the monks, with huge
masses of rock covering the tombs. Presently we came to
the cathedral monastery : a huge courtyard surrounded by
high walls, partly of squared stones from the church of the
Angels, partly of mud ; within this the great church with
its five domes, the monastic buildings, school, printing press,
etc., and, just outside, the guest-houses. Wigram had
written to say we were coming, but the letter had miscarried,
and we were not expected. After a short wait in the guest-
house, however, there arrived the Vartabad Karapet to
receive us, he being not only Librarian, but at present
Secretary to the Catholicos, and indeed the chief person in
the monastery after him. (Vartabad = preacher ; the title
corresponds to archimandrite in the Greek Church). Spoke
French ; told me that the Catholicos had become very
feeble of late, and was confined to his bed, but that he would
gladly receive us if we could wait till later in the day. Mean-
while he himself would show us the monastery.
" So he led us by gardens and vineyards to the huge tank,
over 100 yards long, which secures them water all the year
round, in the midst of a great grove of poplars : then through
the gate into the court of the monastery. In the centre
stands the great church of St. Mary, with fine seventh-
century porch, beautifully carved ; the church itself, with
five domes, is much later, and the effect largely spoiled by the
red paint with which these are covered. By the porch are
alabaster monuments of two Catholicoi, and close to the
west wall of the church the monument of Sir John Macdonald,
a British envoy to Persia in the eighteenth century, who died
there ' from the effects of the climate and over- fatigue.'
Within, the effect is very fine and good. Under the great
dome (like the little church of the Portiuncula in Sta. Maria
degli Angeli at Assisi) is the little shrine said to have been
built by St. Gregory the Illuminator, on the place of his
vision, which has set the type for the porches of Armenian
churches ever since. Here the Catholicos is still consecrated.
In the nave there is a fine throne of walnut, given by Pope
Innocent XI. (another of ivory, given by Armenians of
Smyrna, is at present in the museum for repair). In the
JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 103
sacristy are many interesting things : a huge silver-gilt
vessel, 18 inches across, for the holy oil ; many old and good
vestments, including some in China silk, with figures of Our
Lord and the Apostles in Chinese dress, with long moustaches
and pigtails. . . . We could not see the Treasury, with its
relics, as there are three keys, and the holders of two were
absent. Altogether the monastery gave the impression that
the Long Vacation was still going on, and most of its apart-
ments were empty.
" We also went to the Museum several cuneiform inscrip-
tions, many interesting antiquities and to the famous
Library. The latter is very fine ; there are more than four
thousand manuscript volumes (about fifty thousand separate
writings), mostly Armenian, a few only Greek and Syriac.
I inquired after the newly discovered work of St. Irenaeus
on the Apostolic Tradition (in an Armenian version), and
was delighted to find that our guide was the discoverer of
it. It is now in his rooms, where, later on, he showed it to
us, and he and Erwand gave me a copy of the edition of
it, with a German translation, that they had just published
in Harnack's Texte und Untersuchungen. Then we visited
the printing house. It is interesting, with several good
machine presses ; also a hand press, given by the British
and Foreign Bible Society for the printing of the Armenian
Bible.
"Then after this we paid our visit to the Patriarch, to whom
I had a letter of introduction (official in form and properly
sealed) from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Patriarch
of Etchmiadzin is Catholicos of all the Armenians, and the
present holder of the office, now in his eighty-seventh year,
is a man of very high character and true sanctity, who has
been the real leader of his Church and people ever since the
Berlin Conference of 1878. We found him lying in bed, but
properly arrayed, wearing his hat and veil, with a little cross
of brilliants in front, and a large jewelled pectoral cross ;
a fine venerable man, with a face of great strength and gentle-
ness combined, beautiful eyes, and firm, aquiline nose ; aged
indeed, but showing no signs of mental decay. I presented
my letter, which he received with both hands, and then gave
io 4 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
to the Vartabad Karapet, who interpreted it. He welcomed
us warmly, spoke of his visit to the Archbishop of Canterbury
(Dr. Tait) in 1878, and of the House of Commons, of which
he evidently had a very vivid recollection. He asked many
questions about the English Church, and expressed his great
regard for it. When I spoke of our sympathy with the
Armenian Church he seemed to be moved, but made it clear
that he had been much saddened by the little interest in
his Church that had been shown when he visited England.
When I expressed our affection for, and sympathy with,
his Church, he thanked me, and gave me both hands, saying :
' Yes, I understand, and I believe your Church cares. But
the world is strong, and time will show.' It was clear that
he was very tired, and that his memory was failing ; so we
did not stay longer, and took our leave of the venerable old
Patriarch.
" After this we were summoned to dinner (3 p.m.) with the
Vartabads Karapet, Erwand, Komitas, the headmaster of
the school, and one or two other dignitaries of the monastery.
They gave us caviare and other sakuski, " borch " (or
vegetable soup), meat of several kinds, cheese, and delicious
grapes, and drank our health in their own excellent wine.
There was much questioning on both sides : as to our journey
and as to their life. They have some two hundred scholars
in the schools, from thirty to fifty monks in the monastery
itself, and often many visitors ; whilst the whole colony
dependent upon the monastery is much larger. They
invited me to stay with them as the guest of the Patriarch
on my return journey, told me how gladly their brethren in
the monasteries about Van would welcome me, and urged
me, if possible, to visit the famous monastery of Achtamar,
on an island in Lake Van, the seat of a patriarchate which is
temporarily suppressed. So, with much friendship on both
sides, we parted."
On Friday, October 25, they crossed the frontier into
Turkish territory :
" We arrived at the top of the pass at 9.30 ; an open glade
some 7,000 feet up, with the Russian guard-house and the
cottage of the serjeant in command, and 200 yards further
JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 105
on the first Turkish sentries. Beyond this the ground fell
abruptly, with magnificent views over the plain below, and
out towards the Persian and Turkish mountains. Our goods
were dumped on the ground just outside the frontier line,
and we remained there, cold and hot by turns as wind or
sun prevailed, and I troubled not a little by difficulty of
breathing, which always attacked me at any height,
especially after the least exertion."
When they reached the Turkish Customs Station, he
says:
" Presently the doctor came to examine us, as there is quar-
antine against Russia, letting us through, however, without
difficulty. The Customs' examination was more severe. The
chief officials and their friends, ten or twelve in all, took their
seats on the divan in the inner room, where (as it was Rama-
dan) we gave them tea, and let them smoke, in order to
propitiate them. Every single package had to be brought
in and emptied before them, they making voluble criticisms
and showing the liveliest interest and curiosity. Meanwhile
the outer room was crowded with sightseers, who came in
from the rain outside, and gradually vitiated the air, and trod
our floor into a sticky mass. It was nearly three hours
before we were rid of them ; after which we had our own
supper of tea and coarse bread, unrolled our beds on the wet
stable-floor, and slept the sleep of the just.
" Saturday, October 26. A fine morning after the storm,
but very cold : the plain very wet, but the broken ground
behind us sprinkled with snow, and the mountains covered.
I was up early to see the village, the first Kurdish village we
have come to. It is a large burrow, or warren, consisting
of a series of earth-mounds of large size, some with solid
roofs that can be walked on, others that the occupants
anxiously warn one off. . . . The whole thing strongly
suggests the underground dwellings in Cornwall, at
Chysauster or Treryn.
" Sunday, October 27. This was the first of many Sundays
on which, alas ! we had to do without our Eucharist, and to
travel all day, doing the best we could to keep ourselves in
the atmosphere of Sunday none the less. . . . We started
io6 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
at 6.45, and Wigram, Blamire Brown, and I said Mattins
together as we climbed up the mountains above the village, on
our horses. . . . Our path climbed right into the mountains,
to a steep and narrow ridge over 9,400 feet high ; and as
we were close to the Persian frontier, across which Kurds
can disappear after a raid, our zaptieh had secured a guard
of six soldiers, who accompanied us most of the day. The
climb tired our horses and us ; and at the top, which was
bleak and marshy, with a few patches of old snow, I found it
very difficult to breathe and no wonder, for I had never
been so high up before. Then we descended into a great
open valley, which was the beginning of a huge region,
hundreds of square miles in extent, simply covered with lava-
flows. There were not a few volcanic peaks about, in
addition to Ararat, the queen of them all ; but Wigram and
I agreed that much of the lava must have come from great
horizontal fissures rather than from peaks. In the open
valley which we now followed, in a bitterly cold wind, the
whole surface for miles was covered with great craggy masses
of lava, like a petrified stormy sea, with waves sometimes 20,
40, or even 100 feet high. We ought to have gone on as far
as Bayazid Agha ; but our guides told us that the road did
not go near it, and that there was no other village in front,
so at four o'clock we halted at Terchik, a beautiful Kurdish
village looking out across the plain towards the Persian
mountains to the south and east, which were ominously
covered with newly fallen snow. The people offered us a
very small room, with clean-looking mats, a fire-place, and
a ' port-hole,' six inches across, in the roof. . . . They were
actually able to give us a pilaf (rice cooked with butter)
and eggs, so that we fared well.
" Monday, October 28 (SS. Simon and Jude). Alas ! no
Eucharist ! A hard frost in the night. They covered our
' port-hole ' with turf to keep us warm, and we had it opened
again that we might not suffocate ; but the icy air fell like
a waterfall upon us, and my bed (a i-inch mattress with two
blankets and a rug) was not sufficient to keep me warm.
In the morning I had to break through ice nearly an inch
thick, on a large horse-pond, for my ablutions ; the rest, I
JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 107
believe, contented themselves with the regular Eastern wash.
We started at six, under the stars, through beautiful open
country, but with the great plain of lava never far off,
through which the river has cut a deep bed for itself. After
two or three hours we came to Bayazid Agha, where we ought
to have stayed last night. Our guides were not in the least
ashamed of deceiving us, and I learned afterwards that there
is no word in Turkish for ' a lie,' as distinguished from ' a
mistake."
That night they spent at the large Armenian village of
Kordzut. About 12.30 a.m. they were startled by hearing
several shots outside. They at once turned out. On
inquiry, it appeared that Kurds had attacked the village,
and actually broken down a corner of the sheep-fold in
order to steal the sheep ; but the alarm had frightened
them, and they had made off without any plunder.
" Tuesday, October 29. I was up at 3 a.m., and went to
the stream to wash, where it flows through a deep hollow
some way from the village. As I arrived, a snarl and a
growl, and out there came a large wolf, looking in the moon-
light as big as a donkey. I stood some time, afraid to go on,
for I could not see what had become of him ; then decided
that funk was worse than wolves, so went down and washed.
We could not get off till after 5 a.m., for what they told us
was a ten hours' journey to Van. Crossed two passes, each
of about 7,500 feet, and then at length descended to Lake
Archag, along the east side of which we had to ride. The
lake is very beautiful, deep blue in colour, with a white
margin of alkali-stained sand ; it has a little basin of its
own, within, but unconnected with, that of Lake Van. We
halted for lunch on the north shore, where bands of gaily
dressed Armenians passed us, returning from a pilgrimage
church. Then we made our way along the shore of the lake,
up and down along a sloping path in fierce sunlight, till, at
4 p.m., we left the lake and turned towards Van. By this
time the baggage animals were obviously tired out, and we
found that the men had deliberately taken us somewhat
out of our road in order to stop another night on the way.
So we sent them off with the zaptieh to a neighbouring
io8 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
village, with orders to come into Van as early as possible
next day, whilst we three decided to make a push for it,
although it was already getting dark and the horses were very
tired. ... At length, about 9 p.m., we reached the Mission
House in safety. We had been nearly sixteen hours out, and
I had been actually in the saddle all the time excepting half
an hour for lunch, and about fifteen minutes when we climbed
down a very rough place after dark.
" Our knock was at once answered, and we were received
with joy by the thirty-five boys of the Mission School, who
kissed our hands, seized our impedimenta, and seemed not
to know how to do enough for us. Mr. Bowdon, the Missioner
in charge, received us not less warmly. They had gone out
across the plain to meet us more than once, and had given
us up for the day. But food was quickly ready, after which
we were glad to get to bed, tired out and somewhat chilled,
but otherwise none the worse."
Van was at that time the headquarters of the Arch-
bishop's Mission ; it has since been removed to Amadia, on
the Mosul side of the mountains. There was much to interest
the Bishop in the place and its neighbourhood, and he lost
his heart to the little deacons and others attending the
Mission School. But he only stayed there two nights, and
on Thursday, October 31, he resumed the journey towards
Qudshanis, the home of Mar Shimun. The worst was yet
to come. He had scarcely felt tired thus far with the long
hours of riding ; and though he had found difficulty in
breathing on the high ground, the difficulty was not pressing,
so long as he was on horseback.
" Thursday, October 31. We had our Allhallowmas Eucha-
rist this morning at six o'clock, by anticipation. I celebrated,
wearing mitre and vestments. We used incense, as the
Mission is authorised to do on festivals by the Archbishop,
and sang the whole service, though I could barely manage
my part for lack of breath. (Van is only 5,500 feet above the
sea, but for some reason the rarefaction of the air seems
especially great.) All the boys were there, standing in a
dense mass at the back of the chapel. They joined in the
Creed in their own tongue, and evidently followed the whole
JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 109
service intelligently. I shall never forget their rapt faces
and the look of awe and reverence in their dark eyes.
" Meanwhile, all arrangements had been made for our
journey to Qudshanis. As we were going to return to Van,
we were able to reduce our luggage ... to one horse-load ; my
baggage consisting of a sack, and a handbag with my robes,
etc. After our experience by the shores of Lake Archag, I
thought it wise to guard against the sun, and Bowdon care-
fully prepared a pugaree for my soft felt hat. As it turned
out, I never once needed it ; on the other hand, I was thank-
ful for every thick thing that I had. ... All these, how-
ever, proved quite inefficient to keep out the cold.
"At 8 a.m. on October 31 we started, being accompanied
across the plain for nearly two miles by the boys, with
Bowdon and Blamire Brown and the Syrian priest. The
party consisted of our two selves, Gregor, the Armenian
steward at the Mission-house (who speaks Turkish but not
English), two kartajis, and four horses mine a chestnut.
The zaptiehs who were to accompany us had not turned up,
so we left directions that they should follow us.
" There are several routes to Qudshanis. The shortest
and hardest, impassable all the winter, takes three days ;
another, by Bashkala, takes about five days ; whilst occa-
sionally this also is closed for a time and further detours
become necessary. We took the shortest without misgivings,
for although the weather was doubtful, and the mountains
in sight full of snow, some of the boys had come down
recently bj> it, and it is usually open for more than a month
later. In this case it proved otherwise, and we did not reach
Qudshanis till the eighth day was well advanced.
" The start was rather unfortunate ; we missed our way
when two hours out, and had to retrace our steps for an hour
or more. The zaptiehs had not yet turned up ; so after we
had crossed the first line of hills, Wigram made a detour to a
village to the right to requisition one or more, whilst I went
straight on to the Armenian village of Intosh, beyond which
our path could be seen, climbing up a very steep gorge
between two peaks of the range in front, the pass being about
9,000 feet high. Owing to recent heavy rain, the whole
no LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
marshy plain beyond Intosh was under water, and the ford
of the Norchnk Su impassable ; so I, with the beasts, had
to make for a bridge a huge way off to the left, close to which
was a ruined fort of (I think) Sassanian or Roman work. It
was nearly three o'clock before we met (Wigram having
obtained two zaptiehs, who were to take us to Merwanen only),
and getting dusk before we began to climb to the pass. As
we stumbled on it became quite dark. My horse did his
best, but could not carry me up ; so I got off and walked a
few steps, then rested, leaning against him, then up again.
The others were not much better off, excepting Wigram, who
strode on to the top, and there awaited us. At length,
scrambling among loose stones and patches of snow, panting
and aching, we reached the top, a mere ledge, in darkness.
The descent was more gradual and the path better, which
was fortunate, as we still had a long, dark march before us,
across rough ground, over which our horses snorted and
stumbled, occasionally whimpering in the most pathetic way.
At length, at 9.30, we reached Kaseriki (Kurdish). At the
first house we tried we could not get admittance. ' My
children are with me in bed ! ' was apparently the reason.
We resolved to go on to the Agha's house ; but ere we reached
it we were taken in at another house, and given a fair-sized
room, half for the horses. There was decent ventilation,
however, and the good people produced some eggs. We ate
our suppers as quickly as possible, got to bed at once, and
slept.
"Friday, November i. A strange Allhallowmas Day. Up
at four, but could not get off till nearly six ; the kartajis a
little cross and irritable, as they often are in Ramadan. The
Agha's house is a huge castellated mass with a solid semi-
circular bastion, which might be of any age ; it is now much
dilapidated, and has been added to in modern days. We
did not see the Agha, who was still in bed ; but he sent out
a kind message, and we promised to stay with him if we
returned that way. Again a long march, climbing most of
the way, and at length entering a long and grand defile,
where we saw several magnificent eagles. Much rain and a
little snow, so that we were glad to take shelter in a shepherd's
JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN in
hut at midday (the only sign of human habitation we passed) .
On again, down a steep ravine, and across the Bohtan Su,
which is the main branch of the Tigris ; up the other side,
and on till we reached Merwanen, our first Syrian village,
where the Malik of the district resides. He is a peasant, who
keeps a little store ; and he received us with great honour.
He said that there were about thirty Syrian families in the
village, besides two Armenian and about five Kurdish. I
asked if they had a Qasha (priest) in the village. ' Yes, a
kinsman of mine/ he replied. Presently he came, a fine old
man and a most picturesque figure ; shocks of white hair,
turbaned, about a dark, rugged face of noble expression,
with fine, deep-set eyes. He took us to see the church.
The Qasha told us that not long before a party of nomadic
Kurds . . . had broken into the church, and destroyed every-
thing they could lay their hands on. He showed us a large
recess full of fragments of MS. books, cut to pieces with
swords, or rather knives. The Malik said that they had
stolen some of his sheep at the same time ; that it was
always the same, they could keep nothing, and that if he
could he would sell out, and go off to some other country. . . .
Thus the poor nation is weakened. The old Qasha trembled
with delight at our visit. When he kissed my hand at
parting I kissed his cheek ; and the tears started to his eyes
as he seized my hand and laid it on his head."
It turned out afterwards that Merwanen was right on their
way, and that they might have stopped there ; but they did
not know it, and set off about 5 p.m. for Sekunis, a large
mixed village, mainly Armenian, which they reached after
daik. All seemed promising there ; but gradually their
lodging filled up with Turks and others, who kept arriving
and departing, eating and smoking, drinking tea and talking
nearly all night, so that they got no rest at all.
" Saturday, November 2. Up at three, and off soon after
five. When I went out to wash bathed, in fact, in a large
stream close at hand it was very cold, but the sky was
fairly clear. It was very thick, however, when we started,
with a little rain, which soon turned to wet snow, so that we
began to get very wet. Then came drier snow, and it
ii2 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
snowed and blew worse and worse as we mounted higher.
At length we came out upon the Akarag Dagh, a broad range
of broken craggy peaks, with upland valleys between them,
forming good upland pasture in summer, at a height of
8,000 to 10,000 feet, but now terribly bleak, and deep in
snow. It got worse and worse as we struggled on. The
horses floundered about, and could not see for the snow (nor
could we), and kept coming down. This was quite unavoid-
able : they got their feet into holes in the deep snow, and
were bound to fall ; and the only thing to do was to get free
from the stirrups and throw one's self clear of them into the
soft cushion that lay there ready. Poor Gregor did not
distinguish himself. As a rule, he kept to the rear ; and
whenever things got difficult we could hear him crying out,
' Rabbi, rabbi,' in a voice like that of a sick sheep. He says
that if he gets back safely to Van, nothing will ever induce
him to visit the mountains again.
"As we went on the weather grew steadily worse. The
wind increased into a blizzard, driving the snow before it
into our faces till it cut like so many knives. Gradually it
froze on our eyebrows and ears, and Wigram's beard became
a solid mass. We began to feel symptoms of frost-bite.
Both my ears, one cheek, and fingers of both hands were
frozen, so that after rubbing the latter with snow I had to
keep them in my pockets, guiding my horse as best I could.
At length, when we had hardly strength to face the storm
any longer, and our horses were even more exhausted, and
their feet bleeding from slipping against the rocks, the guide
whom we had taken from Sekunis, and the two zaptiehs who
had joined us there, confessed that they had lost their way
completely. So, as we could not hope to get through, or
indeed to hold out much longer at all, we resolved to make for
a place of shelter, and turned off to one side. It was easier
going now, but we had still a long way before us, down and
up again, until at length our eyes were gladdened by the
sight of some mounds above the level surface of the snow,
which we knew to be a cemetery ! Thus death became a
sign of life to us, and about 12.45, half-frozen and wholly
exhausted, we reached the village of Shinzaga, about 8,000
JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 113
feet up. One of our zaptiehs said that if we had gone on
fifteen minutes more not one of us could have survived to
tell the tale. It was not perhaps so bad as that, but we
were certainly in considerable danger, and most mercifully
preserved. Our men behaved well throughout, and so did
the horses, two of which were simply done, whilst most
were badly cut about the feet.
" Our arrival created no little excitement. We were given
a small ' room/ where we soon had our beds spread and a
fire lighted, and took off some of our wet things. Our host
was the headman of the village, and an officer of the Hamidieh
irregular cavalry. He came in to greet us, wearing his
military greatcoat, medals, etc., and coughing as if he were
in the last throes of consumption. Presently other people
crowded in, too, till we could hardly move, and although the
hole in the roof let in the snow whilst it let out the smoke,
the air was heavy and stifling. . . . We settled down as best
we could to rest and read, and get our bruises and our frozen
fingers healed. I took the opportunity, moreover, of making
a more thorough inspection of the ' house ' than I had been
able to do before, under similar circumstances, when we
generally arrived after dark, and left at daybreak, if not
before. I made a rough plan of it. ...
"As our men were not a little disheartened, as well as
fatigued, and had behaved well, we resolved to make them
a present of a sheep, which cheered them up at once. It was
brought in for our inspection, poor thing ; a nice black
creature with a huge fat tail, and its price two medjids
(seven shillings). Soon after 6 p.m. a strong smell of tallow
told of the roasting of him, so we went into the large living-
room to see what was being done. They had burned wood
and tezek in the tellura till it was nearly red-hot, and half
full of ashes, then put in a layer of wet leaves and grass
(I think), and then the sheep, wrapped up in his own tail-
fat. We sent them a handful of tea to go with it, and they
brought us a portion of the roast sheep, with which, a tin of
soup, and a bowl of yaurt (a kind of junket, a favourite and
very useful Turkish dish) , we fared sumptuously. The men
seemed to be eating the greater part of the night.
H4 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
" There was much discussion as to what we were to do
next. The general opinion was that we could not possibly
get across the pass to Qudshanis, since it was sure not to be
open again this year. Our host, however, talked of another
attempt if the weather was good on the morrow. If it
failed, we should have to go round, which would take much
longer. That is very awkward for me, as I have no time to
spare ; but it would be wrong to go back now, so I must
try to squeeze things together later on.
" Sunday, November 3. Somewhat rested, but stiff and
sore, and the frozen fingers and one ear tiresome. It snowed
most of the night, and was still coming down at 7 a.m. We
said Mattins together, and sang a hymn. Made a start at
eight, as it looked better, with the headman as our guide.
At first the sun shone, and the glare, in spite of our snow
spectacles, was very great ; but soon the sky clouded over,
and the snow and wind began again. It was not so bad as
yesterday, and we were not facing it ; moreover, we had a
guide whom we could trust ; still, it was pretty severe. The
snow was much deeper than yesterday ; in fact, in some drifts
the horses went in right up to their ears, and we came off
more than once. Passed several large cemeteries, relics of
deserted villages, and two ancient hill-forts ; saw several
eagles and vultures. But our attempt at the higher ridges
failed ; we could not get through the snow, and the wind was
still almost unbearable. So when we reached Pagana, about
i p.m., we decided to stay there, on the urgent advice of our
guide and the zaptiehs. The horses had done nearly as much
as they could manage, and we were far from well ourselves ;
besides, there was no other village in front that we could
reach before night, and it would not have done to be exposed
to the bitter wind. . . .
" Here we remained the rest of the day, going out from
time to time into the biting wind and hard frost. . . . Later
on the Agha arrived, on a magnificent horse ; a fine, tall man,
in the uniform of a colonel of the Hamidieh cavalry, with a
gorgeous turban having a jewel in front. About 5 p.m.
there came in many people of the village, including the
Mullah, in his white turban (we were greatly struck by the
JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 115
devout Mahomedanism here ; we saw nothing like it either
before or after). . . . Alter this there followed much talk,
especially on the part of the Agha, who is indeed a jewel
amongst Aghas. He could not imagine why the Sultan
had interfered with the Persian provinces. Everyone knew
that they had been Persian for over a hundred years, and
God gave us our possessions that we might govern them
rightly, not that we might defraud our neighbours. This
province had been ruined by bad government, and did not
need enlarging. . . .
" The Agha asked where we were going, and was much
interested to hear of our errand. . . . He said that he was
great friends with Mar Shimun, and loved him as a father.
He promised also to start with us to-morrow, to show us the
road, and to let us have a guard of four men, who would at
least help to make the road passable. We certainly ought
to get on the better for the fact that so many people are
making it a point of honour to see us safely through !
" During all this, the Mullah had sat alone at the upper
end of the room. Now the Agha arose and went to him, and,
with two or three more, said the evening prayers of the
Mosque ; we saying our prayers meanwhile. After which he
retired, and we went to bed.
" Monday, November 4. A disturbed night. At 1.30 a.m.
they brought in a meal for the Mahomedans, who were
keeping Ramadan. The meal ended in smoke and talk,
and we got little more sleep. They were asleep again by
4.30, when we got up, so as to be ready by 6.30, when we
had arranged to start. We had to wait till 7.45 for the
Agha, who was ready at last, with his fine horse and the four
men on foot ; then, after affectionate farewells to the little
son, we started. The sun shone at first, but it soon got over-
cast, and snowed and blew fiercely, so that the day was a
very exhausting and breathless one, up and down amongst
the high mountains, twice or three times up to 10,000 feet
and never below 8,000. We managed to cross the water-
shed, but all our efforts to get over the pass towards Qud-
shanis failed, owing to the weather and the soft snow. So,
after directing us towards the upper valley of the Zab, the
n6 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Agha took his farewell, giving his gloves to Wigram as a
present. We turned in the direction pointed out, along a
depression which would lead in time to a stream which would
flow ultimately into the valley of the Zab. It was very hard
work ; the snow soft, the streams half-frozen, and covered
with ice. Often our horses fell, the baggage animal especially,
whose load had to be pitched off into the snow, and repacked.
Sometimes they put their feet apart and slid down long
slopes of snow ; one horse which had given much trouble
from the start proved quite an expert tobogganist. We got
very tired, but there was nothing for it but to press on before
the blizzard. We passed a few tracks of wild creatures, but
little else, though we saw signs of human habitation far off
our route. At length, about five, we reached a large mixed
village, Arkinis, with very large flocks and herds, and many
fierce dogs. Here they put us into a kind of loft, with two
small windows covered with cloth, and fortunately a decent
stove ; and they brought us a dinner of bread, yaurt, and
dried apricots. I was about done when we arrived, and
Wigram's hands were in a very bad state. These persistent
high altitudes are trying, and the weather keeps bad. The
wind is roaring outside now. We use the prayer for fine
weather, modified, in our daily Offices.
" Tuesday, November 5. As hard a day as we have had
harder for Wigram. We did not start till 8 a.m., to give
the horses rest, and descended steadily by a precipitous path
for 1,300 feet to the Black River (Awarosh Syr., Karachi
Turk.), the chief of the branches which together make up
the Greater Zab. Here we had actually left most of the
snow ; but we were by no means ' in clover.' Our way lay
at first in the river-bed over large rough boulders, and we had
to cross it twice where it was rather swift, though nearly
covered with ice. Once, and once only, Gregor took the
lead. But the poor fellow slipped off his horse into the ice-
cold water, and had to be wrung out, after which he retired
into obscurity. After following the river through a rocky
gorge (the path by the waterside being flooded), and for
miles along a slippery ledge, we found that we had to climb
up the left bank, several thousand feet, into the snow again,
JOURNEY TO KURDISTAN 117
and on in a snowstorm, which got steadily worse. At this
point a mutiny broke out in the caravan. We had passed
the highest point, near which there is a village, and descended
nearly a mile in the deep snow, when the zaptiehs caught us
up with the news that the two kartajis had flung down their
horse-loads in the snow and refused to go on. (Of course,
the zaptiehs ought to have prevented it ; it was just what
they were there for.) We were at the point where some
remarkable red rocks rise into the air with a cuneiform
inscription, it is said, though we did not see it ; these gave
a little shelter from the biting wind and the snow, which
gradually changed into rain. So we waited there while
Wigram returned on foot after the kartajis, climbing at a
great pace. He found one load in the snow, the other
brought back to the village and deposited there, and one of
the kartajis on the look-out. Taking no notice of him, he
promptly found two new horses, hired them, and brought
the loads on, the whole thing occupying some three hours.
Meanwhile, the rest of us Gregor the Armenian, the two
zaptiehs, the Kurdish guide, and I waited with the horses.
Presently, without a word to me, the three first-named
slipped away, leaving the Kurd and me with the five horses,
and made for the village about twenty minutes below. As
soon as I realised what had happened, I took two of the horses
and the Kurd the other three, and we made our way down,
getting soaked on the way. After much searching I found
Gregor and the two zaptiehs making themselves comfortable
over a tellura in one of the huts. I promptly upset them on
to the ground and boxed Gregor's ears it was the only thing
to be done and made them make room for the Kurd at the
fire and dry such things of mine as I could spare, for of course
we were both wet through. Presently Wigram arrived, even
wetter if possible, with his capture. Finding that the
zaptiehs had announced that we were going to stay there,
we resolved to go on to the next village, the name of which
I forget, some two miles away. It was still raining, and the
half -frozen slush and mud were very slippery ; but we arrived
at last, long after dark, soaked again and fagged out. Our
whole caravan had to share a large ' room ' with a Kurdish
n8 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
family ; but we had one end to ourselves, with a hearth,
and soon stripped and put our things out to dry, partaking
of the ' cup that cheers ' in our beds, upon which the rain
dripped all night in a way that was hardly cheerful. A bad
cough kept me awake for hours.
" Wednesday, November 6. Our things were not nearly
dry. My sheepskin coat was no longer available, as its
padded sleeves were soaked through, and the coat which I
got out of the sack was already wet. So was the burca ;
but I still found it very useful over my knees. During the
night, the rain and melted snow fell freely through the roof.
One of my boots, which had been unfortunately placed, con-
tained nearly enough water to wash with ; while a masterly
attempt had been made to steal my goloshes, which I found,
after much searching, hidden behind a water- jar. It was
still raining hard, and very slippery. But our horses are
really wonderful, whether on ice, or slippery mud, or narrow
ledges, where it seems hardly possible to stand. They are
shod with solid plates of iron covering the whole hoof, with a
round hole about as large as a halfpenny in the middle. . . .
We climbed down to the valley of the Black River, then up
again, with hard rain all the time, by narrow slippery ledges
that one would have hesitated to go by on foot. Passed a
fine vulture on a pinnacle of rock, so near that we could
examine him perfectly. About midday we saw the junction
of the Black River with the other branch, forming the Zab,
and rode on with the most magnificent views on either side.
The Zab has been identified with Hiddekel ; and certainly
this might be the Garden of Eden country. The valley of
the Zab itself is deep and wide, with fine wooded slopes,
and stretches of good alluvial soil here and there at the
bottom. Above there are magnificent precipices, with huge
projecting rock masses and snow mountains at the sky-line ;
and each of the side valleys looks more enchanting than the
last. . . .
"At 6.30 we reached the Syrian village of Kirmi. Wigram
was already well known, and I was introduced as the Bishop
from England. They received us with open arms, and gave
us a good-sized room, with a tellura in a rough, uneven floor.
QUDSHANIS 119
Our only fellows in occupancy were two buffalo calves, a cat,
a puppy, and some chickens ; but it seemed to be on the
way to every other part of the house, and people passed
through more than once. We took care to spread our beds
at the highest point of the rough floor, and partially dried
our wet clothes over the tellura. But we were too tired to
rest much."
The next day the Bishop at last reached the goal of his
expedition.
" Thursday, November 7. A wonderful and never-to-be-
forgotten day ! They had sent on a runner before us to
Qudshanis, to say that we were coming. We started at
7 a.m., with one zaptieh, the baggage coming on after.
One of the horses died on the way of fatigue. We made
our way out of the snow and down a breakneck ridge
into the valley of the Zab. As I had already noticed, it
contains great stretches of fine alluvial land, capable of high
cultivation, full of small trees in their autumn colouring,
many of them laden with berries, and a few flowers. I saw
terebinth, tamarisk, yew, laurustinus, and many varieties of
willows ; and amongst the flowers several species of ever-
lasting flowers, poppies, and various flowering daisies. After
two hours we turned up the narrower and bleaker valley of
the Qudshanis River, and followed it for half an hour to" a
beautiful open glade where three streams met, crossed by a
tree-trunk bridge, which, however, had been swept away,
so that we had to ford the streams. Here there was a large
encampment of wandering Kurds, with their tents (of black
skins across a ridge-pole), their crowds of children, and flocks
and herds and fierce dogs. It was late in the year to see
them, as they usually take shelter in some ruined village as
soon as the snows begin. We followed the stream to the
left for an hour and a half, amid scenery which became wilder
and grander every minute, and by a path which at times was
a mere crumbling ledge, so that we slipped down the sloping
bank more than once. Here, however, two Syrians came
down to meet us, greeting us most enthusiastically. They
now took charge of the proceedings, helping Wigram's horse
and mine (the zaptieh had fallen behind) over difficult places,
120 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
and finding an alternative route where the path was hopelessly
broken ; in fact, I don't think we could have made our way
without them. At length the river divides again, and the
sharp ridge between leads up to the platform on which
Qudshanis stands, up amongst the clouds, like the kingdom
of Prester John. We crossed a bridge formed of one huge
stone, and followed the right branch, which became a series
of torrents and falls as we ascended, and then we turned off
up the rocky pathway to the plateau. Half-way up a crowd
of boys met us, and at the top (where the wind blew keenly
and the ground was covered with wet snow) stood Mr.
Browne and the whole body of the Syrian clergy now here,
who escorted us in triumph across this wonderful little ' alp/
amongst the poplar trees and the great masses of rock
apparently left by glacial action . . . past the new Mission
House, where Browne lives, and not far from the patriarchal
church (familiar to me through many photographs), and on to
Mar Shimun's house.
"At the door he received us with great warmth ; took me
by the hand, then I kissed his ring, and he mine, and then
we kissed on the cheek. Next he introduced his brother
Dawid and his sister Surma (who speaks good English), and
soon we were sitting in his reception-room, still in our wet
clothes, drinking tea and coffee, and receiving the almost
rapturous greetings of these dear people, whilst the wind and
snow redoubled their violence outside. They told us that
when first the bad weather began they hoped that we might
get through ; that then they became anxious lest we should
have fallen ill, or been sncwed up, and that latterly they had
given us up altogether, and prayed that we might have got
back safely to Van. Early this morning, however, Browne's
servant, Shamsha Petros, . . . came to him, saying that in
the night he had seen us in a dream. We were coming up
the river, ' the Abuna i.e. Bishop, ' my father ' wearing a
black hat, and the Rabbi a white one.' Some hours after-
wards came the runner to say that we were on the way, and
then we arrived, I wearing a black fur cap, and Wigram a
white helmet ! . . .
" We sat till lunch at I p.m., which we ate in Eastern
QUDSHANIS 121
fashion, at two low tables, Mar Shimun, Surma, the Arch-
deacon, Browne, Wigram, and I, after which they were
passed on to the others present. Fine thin bread, eggs,
honey in the comb, two vegetable dishes, excellent melons,
yaurt, and kabobs for Wigram and me ; everything that we
ate, so Surma told me, came from the place itself. Then they
left me to unpack my things. These were for the most part
wet through, and I spread them out to dry at the lower end
of the reception-room, which is warmed by a stove and a
fine brazier ; for I was to stay here as Mar Shimun's guest,
and make use of it. Shamsha Abner took away the wettest
things, together with handkerchiefs, etc., for the wash. To
my amazement the latter came back, beautifully done, in
an hour or two. Then I was taken over the patriarchal
house. It consists of an ordinary Syrian house, but of large
size, and not half underground, together with a large room
used for the daily diwan (native in style, with an Eastern
floor and mats), several private rooms for members of the
family, and the reception-room, of which they are very proud.
This latter is a long room, with wooden floor well covered
with rugs, a raised platform at one end, walls plastered in
white and green, and a fine ceiling of walnut. At one end is
a fine painted Syrian cross, at the other a recess painted in
colours on gypsum in the Turkish style.
" At four we went to evening prayers in the cathedral.
It was still snowing, but we were able to see something of
Qudshanis on the way : the great wall of rock, over 2,000
feet high, at the upper end of the triangular plateau ; the
deep valleys on either side, with the steep snow-covered
ranges beyond ; the beautiful little view of distant ranges
beyond the dip at the foot of the plateau ; on the plateau
itself, the little groups of houses here and there, amid the
snow-covered pasture, and the clusters of poplars and orchard
trees. The patriarchal church of Mar Shaliba stands finely
not far from the point, and overlooking the valley, in the
midst of its little cemetery. It is solidly built of large stones,
and dates from about two hundred and twenty-five years
ago, when the patriarchate was settled here, but it is in the
style of a much earlier day. To enter it you cross a sloping
122 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
ladder over a gorge, and climb through a low doorway (less
than 3 feet high, so that it is no easy thing to enter a Syrian
church with one's vestments on !) into an inner court, partly
covered, where the daily Offices are said in summer. Then
through a very low square doorway with a fine sculptured
pattern all round it in low relief, . . . into the church itself
a dark, square building of large stones with only one little
window, I think, and a barrel-roof of stone, supported on
two great round arches. The graves of about twelve former
patriarchs are built into the wall on the north and west
sides. A ladder leads up into the baptistery and treasury.
The sanctuary recess is covered by a curtain, and there is a
vestry, with an oven for baking the holy loaf, on the eastern
side. The service itself, and the singing, were striking ; still
more so the rugged-faced clergy grouped about the reading-
desk, reading by the light of a single twisted wax taper
placed upon the book.
" Then we went into Mar Shimun's daily diwan, at which
we appeared in academical dress, that being the dress of the
missioners or ' apostles/ as they are called by the Syrians
for state occasions, by Archbishop Benson's appointment.
Here I presented the Archbishop of Canterbury's letter of
introduction, and a more formal welcome was given me for
the benefit of all and sundry who were present. I asked if
the Liturgy was to be celebrated on the morrow ; Mar
Shimun answered that it was a dies aliiurgiciis, but that there
should be a special celebration of the Eucharist so that I
might be present with them. Then questions of all kinds
began to pour in upon me, and conversation gradually became
more general. The question was asked in diwan how many
of those present had been in a train. We found that out of
about thirty, two had seen the train at Tiflis, but none had
travelled in it. Surma has been to Van once, but Mar
Shimun has never left his own country. . . .
" Friday, November 8. Called at five, by Qasha Awimelk, 1
for the Syrian Eucharist at six. Still very bleak, and much
new snow on the ground. My cold rather troublesome.
Qasha Ephrem celebrated. Mar Shimun vested me in stole
1 Now Mar Timotheus, Bishop of the Syrian Church of Malabar.
QUDSHANIS 123
(blue) and girdle with over-shoes, and took me into the
sanctuary. In former days clergy of other Churches have
been allowed to celebrate there, according to their own rites ;
Dr. Cutts did so, and Browne has done so. But towards
the end of the late Mar Shimun's life a Roman Catholic
(Uniat) priest who visited Qudshanis was allowed to do so,
and sprinkled the whole sanctuary with holy water by way
of purification. Since this profanation, as they regarded it,
none but Syrians had been allowed to enter, until now. It
is a very small sanctuary, but lofty for its size. It contains a
stone baldacchino, on pillars, with a low altar roughly vested
with a covering reaching to the ground, on which there are
two candles, the Book of the Gospels, and a wooden cross of
peculiar shape, about 18 inches long, leaning against the
wall at the back. Incense is used. The deacon came and
kissed Mar Shimun's hand at each censing, and then mine.
The proper thing to do at the censing is to lean forward and
draw the smoke towards you with both hands. The paten
and chalice are both huge, of silver, and apparently of old
workmanship. The administration of the former took place
at the south end of the curtain, of the latter at the north.
"After the Liturgy we returned for breakfast, and I
thanked Mar Shimun for the opportunity of joining in their
service. I had noticed that once or twice the ministrants
had stopped, and discussed quietly what was to come next.
I mentioned this, and said how much more reverent it was
to wait and settle such a point quietly, if it arose, than to
beckon and whisper and fuss about it as we sometimes do.
He answered that there was a special reason for their un-
certainty to-day. As it was a dies aliturgicus there was no
proper service for it, but he had told them that it was the
Feast of the Visitation of the English Abuna, and that they
were to choose what was most suitable. O that I could have
understood it all !
"After breakfast we had a long and most important con-
ference with Mar Shimun as to the future of the Church and
the work of the Mission, Browne interpreting. We spoke
in particular of the future relations of our Churches. I told
him that the English Church had no desire to lord it over
i2 4 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
other Churches, and, in fact, that our message was the
freedom of Churches, as contrasted with the Papists, who
wished one Church to lord it over all the rest, and the ' Presby-
terians ' (i.e. the American Mission), who practically abolished
the Church. He was so pleased with this that he made me
repeat it, and subsequently wrote it down in his note-book
from my dictation. Then we spoke of the possibility of
intercommunion in the future, and the obstacles on their
side and on our side respectively. He said that he hoped for
it some day, but was sure that his people were not ready for
it yet ; it would rouse much opposition, and cause troubles
with those outside which they were not yet strong enough
to face ; but that he looked forward to the time when the
men trained at Van and Urmi had leavened the Church,
when it would be possible ; it was what he, above all,
desired. I agreed that it was not possible yet, and asked if
there were any other obstacles on their side. No, he said ;
there was nothing against it in the Canons (this he repeated
quite decidedly), and so far as authority went, he could
direct to-morrow that we should be admitted to Communion.
In fact, he had done so in a particular case : a cousin of
Lord Percy's, a devout Anglican, had asked permission to
make his Communion with them, and he (Mar Shimun) had
given the permission, which had been used. I asked if they
had any scruples as to our doctrine or the like. He answered,
very emphatically, No; that such difficulties as his people
might feel were based, not on objections to any particular
doctrines or practices, but simply on the fact that we were
strangers, and therefore suspect.
" Then we spoke of difficulties on our side. I said we
made no difficulty in admitting individual members of the
old Churches of the East to Communion when they were
deprived of the ministrations of their own clergy ; that I
had already given directions for this to be done in the case of
members of the Orthodox Eastern Church and Armenians,
and that I should gladly do it in the case of a Syrian ; but
that when it was a question of permitting members of any
Church to communicate freely with us, we naturally asked
for satisfaction as to their substantial orthodoxy. ... In
QUDSHANIS 125
the case of the Christians of the East their past history gave
ground for seeking such satisfaction. It was natural that
we should ask, ' Is this the faith that you hold ? ' Not that
we should ask them to disavow their Fathers, not that we
should ask them to revise their doctrinal books or to make a
new creed, but simply that we should say, ' This is the Faith
as we hold it. Is this what you believe ? ' I asked Mar
Shimun if they would welcome a letter from us asking such
questions as this. He answered most emphatically, Yes ;
that they could not and would not disavow their past leaders,
but would willingly answer any questions that would give
satisfaction to us or others.
" Then we spoke of the methods that such possible inter-
communion might take, and its natural limits. Ultimately
I suggested : (i) Communion on their part with us on our
Easter and Christmas, and on our part with them on theirs ;
and (2) free admission of any member of either communion
to communicate in the Eucharist of the other when he had
no Church of his own to resort to, provided that he did not
infringe the discipline of his own Church by doing so. ...
With this also he expressed himself in entire agreement.
" Then I told him of the forthcoming Lambeth Conference,
and said that I hoped that it might be possible for some
resolution to be framed which would facilitate such action
on our side. He was much interested, and plainly greatly
struck when I told him that there would be nearly two
hundred and fifty bishops there from all parts of the world.
He said that he would pray for our great gathering, that God
would bless and guide us.
" So much for our conference. It was extremely inter-
esting, and in all ways satisfactory."
The next day the Bishop was obliged to leave Qudshanis
again.
" Saturday, November 9. A cold bright morning, the
ground hardened by frost. Up at 5 a.m., again wakened by
the Archdeacon, and across to celebrate in the Mission Chapel
at six. The Archdeacon and several of the Syrian clergy
present. We sang the Eucharist, and had Syrian anthems at
the pauses in the service ; it was very touching and uplifting.
126 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Breakfast, then across to finish packing ; then a farewell
reception. Mar Shimun gave me two of his own stoles,
woven, with crosses and his name on them, and he and Suite l
gave me a fine pair of gauntlets. I gave him a mitre, with
which he expressed himself greatly pleased, and promised to
wear it. Browne also gave me three Syrian stoles.
" Our farewell was very touching. Mar Shimun promised
to pray for me, and begged me never to forget them. I
promised to write to him, and to remember him and his
Church and people always on the festival of Mar Shaliba
(September 18, O.S. ; October I, N.S.). We could hardly
break away from the dear folk who crowded to take their
farewell. At length we mounted, and rode across the
plateau. Presently we had to dismount, in order to descend
the icy path to the cascade ; then we mounted again, and
were helped by willing hands far along the road. The
venerable Browne, with three more, stood at the edge, and
waved to me till at length we turned the corner, I blessing
them with the Sign as they passed out of sight. It has been
a wonderful experience, and the Missioners are full of what
it has meant to them and the Mission. On the way we more
than once said that the bad weather must have been the
work of the Evil One. If so, his work had been overruled ;
for undoubtedly these dear people have all valued our visit
the more because getting there was not a ' picnic.' They
have become precious to me ; and I have found very real
friends in Mar Shimun and Surma and their little circle.
" I can hardly exaggerate the effect which these people
have made upon me. That they are very ignorant and back-
ward goes without saying ; it could hardly be otherwise after
centuries of seclusion and persecution. The Mission has not
yet done its work of instruction amongst them, and will not
have done it for very many years. But there is a naturalness,
a simplicity, and a spontaneity about their religion which is
very attractive. In many ways they seem to me to illustrate
the life of Christians of very early days, both in its strength
and in its weakness ; and again, whilst they have plenty of
ethnic superstitions of their own, there is a remarkable
1 Mar Shimun's aunt.
ETCHMIADZIN AGAIN 27
absence of modern ' corruptions ' in their religion, or of such
a mixture of pagan and Christian superstition as is to be
found, for example, amongst the Orthodox in some of the
Greek islands. Altogether, I feel that Christendom would be
vastly the poorer without this little Church.
" It was nearly 10.30 when we started. ... As it was
impossible to make a long day's march, the horses being
still very much exhausted, we stopped for lunch in the
glade of the three streams, just beyond the Kurdish camp.
Then on again, and reached Kirmi before 4 p.m., when
we were given the same ' room ' as before, with the puppy,
chickens, two buffalo calves, and a cat ; also the whole
' spread eagle/ i.e, the inner organs of a sheep, hung by
a nail to the centre post of the ' room.' But we were now
dry and rested, and slept comfortably."
The rest of the return journey, though full enough of
discomforts and adventures, was comparatively free from
dangers. The route by Bashkala, which they followed, was
easier. But the Bishop was sorely in need of attention.
Not only were his clothes torn to pieces ; he had a great sore
on his forehead, his feet were frost-bitten, two finger nails
were gone, and there were minor ailments. The trouble in
his feet for some time got worse and worse. He could not
walk, and could hardly stand, without pain. He felt the
effects of the exposure till the following Easter.
He visited Etchmiadzin once more, and condoled with the
monks for the death of the Patriarch Meguerdich, which
had taken place since he had left them.
" After breakfast," he writes, " I was formally received
by the Vice-Patriarch in Synod, the assembly consisting
of four metropolitans and four vartabads, all aged and
fine-looking men, with Vartabad Karapet to interpret.
They received me with great honour, and pressed me warmly
to stay ; and there was much cordial conversation, some
of an intimate kind. I told them that we in England
thought that their methods of agitation were often quite
wrong, and that they were trying to do the Lord's work
with the devil's weapons. The Vice-Patriarch took it very
well, and said : ' Yes, but you must remember that we
128 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
have been a down-trodden Church for centuries, and cannot
act as if things were in our own hands, as you can ' ;
which is all too true. They asked many questions about my
journey, and hoped that it would not be the last visit of an
English Bishop. At the end they told me that as the late
Catholicos had been unable to send a reply to the Arch-
bishop's letter, it would devolve upon the Vice-Patriarch to do
so ; but they would like me to bear witness with how great
joy they welcomed a message from the head of our Church."
In 1910 he sent to the Great Church at Etchmiadzin, as a
memento of this visit, a magnificent chalice veil, which was
worked under his direction by Miss Sophie Boycott.
On December n the Bishop and his wife met again at
Marseilles. She had mercifully been spared the knowledge
of what he was passing through, and had received only
occasional and much-delayed telegrams from various places.
" W. arrived from Mentone," she notes, " at n p.m. It
seems scarcely possible to think he is really here. He is
very tired and battered, and still his frost-bitten feet are
troublesome, and he has a cold, etc. ; but he is better than
I had dared to hope." Their joy in meeting again was
tempered by receiving a telegram to say that the Bishop of
St. Andrews had died that day suddenly in Edinburgh.
The year (1908) which followed that in which he went to
Kurdistan was a busy year for the Bishop. Over and above
all his usual work, it was the year of the Pan- Anglican
Congress and of the Lambeth Conference.
No one espoused with more ardour than he Bishop
Montgomery's great conception of a consultative gathering
of all Anglican Christendom with reference to every topic of
the Church's life and work. In regard to the Bishop of
Gibraltar the difficulty must have been to determine which
topics he was not to touch, when there were so many
which appealed to him. He gave an address on " The
Church and Human Society " at the first meeting of that
section in St. Paul's Cathedral on June 16. He gave another
on " The Church's Call to Prayer " at the last meeting
of the Congress in the Albert Hall, on June 23. But all
PAN-ANGLICAN CONGRESS 129
the rest of his time was engrossed by the section on the
Anglican Communion, of which he was chairman. He wrote
for it one of the " Preliminary Papers," though for some
reason it is not reprinted in the Report of the Congress. He
presided twice a day at the meetings of that section, on June
16, 17, 18, 19, 22, and in the morning of June 20. The
subjects discussed at these meetings were, " The Anglican
Communion, its Place in Christendom," " The Common
Element in Service Books, Ceremonial and Formularies,"
" Things Essential and Things Non-Essential, " " The
Historic Episcopate," " Possibilities of Intercommunion,"
" Possibilities of Re-union," " Local Churches, their Early
Growth and Equipment," " Local Churches, Steps towards
Permanent Organisation," " Problems of a Native Episco-
pate," " Relations between Individual Organised Churches
and the whole Communion," "A Central Authority." It will
be seen that many burning questions were touched which
required both skill and knowledge in the chairman.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has lately referred to
Bishop Collins's conduct in that capacity. "Among the
memorable discussions," he says in his recent Charge, 1
" which make those weeks live and glow in the recollection of
thousands of ordinary people, no debate, if I may judge from
the testimony which has continuously reached me, stands
out more vividly or profitably than the full discussion which
took place under the alert and brilliant chairmanship of
Bishop Collins of Gibraltar upon the topic our topic to-day
' The Anglican Communion. Its place in Christendom.
What is our distinctive message and work ? ' ' It would be
hard to give a better epitome of the Bishop's views as an
ecclesiastical statesman, or a better sample of his powers,
than by reproducing the series of short speeches in which he
summed up the discussions of those six days. 2 This, for
instance, was the close of his speech at the end of the first
session :
" (i) I yield to no one in reverence for the great Empire to
which most of us here belong. But if I am asked to make
1 The Character and Call of the Church of England, p. 42.
2 They will be found in Vol. VII. of the Report.
130 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
empire the criterion in matters that concern the Church of
God, I must decline. (2) What are we to understand by
' English.' The word is a very elastic one, as we soon find
when we go beyond the seas ; for ' they little know of
England who only England know.' It grows as we move
onward ; it comes to express new types of character, new
ideals of life. But even so it cannot satisfy us here. The
Anglican Communion is English in origin, but before our
very eyes it is being shown that it is more than English,
even in the most comprehensive sense of the word. When
I am asked to regard our Communion as merely English,
racially English, my answer must be ' No.' (3) We who
have studied the facts of life in the light of the Incar-
nation have come to see that the centre of all history, and
of nature itself, is to be found in the Life and Person of
the Incarnate Lord ; to that point all converges, from that
point all takes its beginning. But can we regard any other
age, or event, or series of events in this way ? I yield to
none in reverence for the English Reformation ; but if I
am asked to see in it the formative period of our Church
history, to regard it as the norm of our development in
perpetuity, I can only say that I will not do so.
" Turning now to our discussion as a whole, I see one very
significant fact. All our speakers seem to agree that the
right way for us is the way of expression, not the way of
suppression. They do not formulate their ideals for the
Anglican Communion in the same terms, but they are agreed
that our characteristic features are not to be whittled away,
but to be expressed even more faithfully, if possible. This
surely is right. To us the life of nations is a guide, not a
snare ; differentiation is to us the work of God, not of the
devil. We would deal with positives, not with negatives ;
with facts, not with negations. We stand for historic con-
tinuity ; we must be more careful to keep the deposit
committed to us. We stand for liberty ; we must fight for it
more fearlessly.
"And what is our especial danger as a Church ? Surely
it is that which faces us constantly in our every-day life :
our worldliness, our selfishness, our lack of care for all these
PAN-ANGLICAN CONGRESS 131
things. We expect matters to right themselves : we are
moderately earnest, as one has said, instead of being earnestly
moderate. And thus we rest on our oars when we should be
up and doing ; we let opportunities slip which can never
recur. We close open doors, not of deliberate intent, but of
sheer lack of realisation of their possibilities. It is better
to make mistakes than to make nothing ; but we make
mistakes through the very inertia which prevents our doing
what we might do. For all these things the Lord of the
Churches calls us to account : bids us learn and amend even
here and now."
The Bishop of Salisbury said frankly at the morning meet-
ing on the last day, that he was there " not to speak, but to
listen to the summing-up of the Bishop of Gibraltar." Many
must have been in the same position.
A writer in the Anglican Church Magazine, with perhaps
a touch of pardonable pride in his own diocesan, gave the
following as his after-impression of the gathering :
" The outstanding feature of this section it might almost
be said, of the whole Congress has been the personality of
the Bishop of Gibraltar. One looked forward to his sum-
mings-up with a certain anticipation of an intellectual and
spiritual treat, and they were nothing short of masterly.
They showed a grasp of the whole subject and a keenness in
selecting the exact points to emphasise which were simply
delightful ; while the deep earnestness which characterised
his utterances, and the spirituality of his dark ascetic face,
produced an effect which I shall never forget." 1
And it will be remembered that these admirable utterances
were not, like papers, carefully prepared beforehand, but
were the outcome of the actual discussion, which served to
evoke out of his well-stored mind reflexions as incisive and
striking in their form, as they were large and courageous in
their substance.
Looking back upon the Congress from the present time,
Bishop Montgomery writes to me :
'" Bishop Collins was of priceless value in Section F. As
soon as everything was arranged in regard to the various
1 Anglican Church Magazine, 1908, p. 103.
132 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
sections and their general subjects, we approached Bishop
Collins to become Chairman of the Section, and I requested
permission to be Secretary, as it was the subject that
interested me most. From that time we were closely associ-
ated for months. It was he who drew up the details of the
subjects under that head. We had constant correspondence
with him from various parts of Europe. I think I may say
that every point in an exceedingly interesting set of sub-
sidiary questions was his work. I was immensely struck
with the way in which he seemed to touch every important
point in his subject.
" Then came the actual Congress Meeting. We claimed and
obtained the large hall at the Church House. The hall was
almost always filled to the utmost extent, and it would be
impossible to speak too highly of his summings-up at the
close of each session. I sat next to him and therefore had
an unrivalled opportunity of knowing his mind. He was
terribly in earnest, and could not bear anything like a joke.
He was determined, if possible, to have no applause, and
though he did not quite succeed in that, he gave a tone of
intense seriousness to the whole of the week's proceedings.
Naturally, too, his remarks sotto voce to me upon the speakers
at times were delicious. I think his austerity in the chair
would have been resented from anybody else, but his intense
seriousness and his extraordinary ability and complete know-
ledge of all the questions concerned, gave him an influence
over the audience which I shall never forget. Ever since
that time I have always felt very near to him. It is especially
touching to me to remember that almost his last letter was
written to my wife about an article of mine in the Mission
Field in March, 1911, upon the difficulties of a Chaplain in a
Treaty Port. He spoke more than kindly of my attempt.
" On the whole, I think Collins's work at the Pan- Anglican
Congress was the best achievement of the whole Congress,
but perhaps I am biassed, as that was my section, and I
never had any opportunity of even visiting the other sections.
I never saw even the buildings ; it could not be helped."
This popular gathering was followed immediately by the
more august and responsible gathering of nearly two hundred
LAMBETH CONFERENCE 133
and fifty Bishops in the Lambeth Conference. The Con-
ference began with a group of sessions lasting from July 6 to
July n, in which the subjects to be dealt with were opened
by selected speakers, before being considered in detail by
separate Committees. The Bishop of Gibraltar spoke in
these introductory sessions five times. The first of the
five speeches insisted on the importance of holding to the
definite historic facts of our Lord's life, and not slighting
them in favour of the spiritual or metaphysical ideas which
they suggest. The second was on the familiar subject of
Reunion and Intercommunion, the third on Organisation
within the Anglican Communion. The fourth speech was one
of determined opposition to anything like making the Unction
of the Sick a ministerial act of the Church, though the
Bishop desired to leave people perfectly free to use it un-
officially. The fifth, which probably took many of his hearers
by surprise, was a vehement and reasoned argument against
tying the Church down to the use of wheaten bread and the
fermented juice of the grape in the celebration of the Holy
Eucharist. He criticised the resolution on the subject
passed by the Lambeth Conference of 1888. He said that it
was not accurate. " From as early a date," he said, " as
we have any definite account, in the Church in Portugal the
unfermented juice of the grape has certainly been used, even
though it be in a few instances." The Fourth Council of
Braga, in 675, " the whole class of Frankish liturgies,"
Panormitanus, St. Thomas Aquinas, the customs of Upper
Egypt and Abyssinia, the use of " dibs " in Palestine
James of Volaterra and the concessions of Innocent VIII. to
the Church of Norway, Jewell's reply to Harding the book
called Social England, were all laid under contribution.
He asked whether it were more important to do exactly what
our Lord did, without regard to circumstances which might
involve reclining on couches and celebrating in the evening,
or to act in the spirit of His action. "Are we to hold (I
do not myself see how we can) that the history of the Church
is to become a history of ever-increasing bondage that the
number of things we can do is being diminished day by day,
and the number of chains we have to bear is increased day
134 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
by day as the years go by ? A great Russian ecclesiastic
(so great that I would rather not name him) said to two of
us once, that he hoped we in England might come to agree
with them in doctrine, but that we should never place upon
our shoulders the bondage of ceremonies which neither they
nor their fathers could bear."
The Bishop was placed upon five out of the eleven Com-
mittees of the Conference, those on Liturgical Questions, on
the Conditions requisite to the due Administration of the
Holy Communion, on Marriage Problems, on Anglican
Organisation, and on Reunion and Intercommunion. He
was no sleeping partner in the business of those Committees.
When the whole Conference reassembled to discuss their
Reports from July 27 to August 5, the Bishop of Gibraltar
perhaps took a less prominent part in speaking than he had
done in the earlier week ; but there were many occasions
when he intervened with effect. He again combated the
proposal to restore Unction to a place in the Prayer-book,
or to define too closely the material to be used in the
Eucharist. It is clear that he did his best to persuade the
Conference to take the line which it ultimately took with
regard to marriage questions. Personally, as he explained
to the Conference, he was disposed to adopt the more
rigorous line, but he desired earnestly not to carry resolutions
which would give offence to a large and important section
of the Conference. Whether in consequence of his advocacy
or not, the outcome of the discussions showed a certain
hesitation and reserve of judgment in reference to these
matters, which many at the time deplored. His advice was
always in the direction of width and progress. He desired
the Bishops to acknowledge in " the democratic movement "
of our time " a revelation of the mind of God." He thought
it an anachronism now to take " the geographical view " of
a Bishop's office, as the Bishop of an area, rather than of the
people. The Report on relations with the Orthodox Eastern
Church, and with the Separated Churches of the East, was
entrusted to him for guidance in the debate, and was carried
through skilfully and promptly.
If he did not speak so often during this fortnight, his work
LAMBETH CONFERENCE 135
was none the less effective. Those who were behind the
scenes knew that he took an important share in drawing up
the Encyclical Letter which summarised and interpreted the
Resolutions of the Conference. The central conception of
the Encyclical, which made everything turn on " service,"
was due, if I rightly understand, to another eminent prelate ;
but night after night the Bishop of Gibraltar was at work
with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of
Oxford in drafting fresh paragraphs of the Encyclical, to
be put into final shape by the three or four Bishops who
were entrusted with the preparation of the complete
document for the consideration of the Conference as a
whole. Unquestionably the figure of Bishop Collins was one
of those which stood out most clearly in the recollections
of the members of the Conference.
The Bishop of Wakefield, who was one of the secretaries
of the Conference, has kindly sent me this account of Bishop
Collins's part in it :
" No one who was at the Lambeth Conference in 1908 could
fail to be vividly impressed by the personality of Bishop
Collins of Gibraltar. Those of us who knew him well were
not wholly taken by surprise, but to many he seemed to
come quite as a revelation. He sat not far from the middle
of the room, just a little towards the right of the President.
Slight, almost frail, with his pale and delicate features, high
forehead and clear eyes, he seemed the last man to sway an
assembly of this unique kind, which comprised men of
independent minds, tot reguli, as Archbishop Benson used
to call them accustomed to rule and to express themselves
with decision. Yet the moment he rose to speak, and that
clear penetrating scholarly voice began, we all felt that a
master mind had been at work, and the subject assumed a
new importance.
"What struck me most of all, perhaps, was the sure-footed
way in which he intervened in so many problems, some of
them of a difficult and intricate character. His knowledge
was as astonishing in its variety and range as it was accurate
in detail. Facts, dates, names of less known writers, customs
of many lands, came pouring out upon some particular point,
136 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
as if from an erudite article in an encyclopaedia, leaving the
shorthand writer almost breathless in pursuit. And this
remarkable and ready information was matched by a singu-
larly clear and ripe judgment. When the conclusion was
reached, you felt as if the last word on the subject had been
said, and were not surprised to find that he had powerfully
influenced the final resolution or report in question.
"And this surenessof knowledge and judgment were coupled
with a lofty conception and a dignified yet humble spirit,
that held us at times quite spellbound with admiration.
Whether he was laying down great principles or precedents,
or surveying present conditions with profound insight and
sympathy, there was the same decisiveness and quiet con-
fidence, against which there seemed no appeal. And with all
this quietness there was a suppressed fire in him, which was
ready to blaze forth against any unrealities or fantastic
theories, and he could be uncompromising, inexorable and
stern in face of errors. He was extraordinarily clear in his
vision of the Church of England, as combining liberty with
order, and progress with fidelity to Apostolic faith and disci-
pline. He saw her, as Bishop Lightfoot had done, as the
potential mediator between great communions, the rallying
point for different standards of faith. As such he fought for
liberty of custom for her where some would have feared to
concede it, while on the other hand he would not surrender
one single part of the heritage he believed she was intended
to guard in the expression of her faith and worship.
" This is, I fear, a poor account of the impression left on
my own mind by this remarkable man. But it would be in-
complete without one more touch which gave distinction and
grace to all that he said, namely, the evident spirit of prayer
and nearness to God which breathed through it all. His
was a big soul in a delicate frame, a brave undaunted spirit
betraying itself every moment under unusual limitations of
bodily strength. The Church has lost in him a saint, a
scholar and a theologian, of a type which perhaps only our
own Church produces, and that only once in a generation."
This brilliant year closed, for him, in an achievement of
MESSINA 137
another kind. On Sunday, December 20, he preached in
the little English Church at Messina, and met all the members
of the English colony there, numbering about 120 souls.
It was understood that he was to return and spend the last
day of the old year with them. On Monday, December 28,
the great earthquake took place, which destroyed Messina.
The Bishop was in Malta when it occurred, where his wife
was lying ill. He started at the first possible moment for
Sicily. The papers that were read at home said little about
him. A telegram from Malta in the Times of January 5,
1909, said, " The Bishop of Gibraltar has returned here after
visiting Messina " ; another on the nth said, " The Bishop of
Gibraltar is proceeding to Messina." That was all. His
work was not done to be reported. It would be difficult for
those who did not know the Bishop to imagine from these
telegrams what the man was about.
Fortunately, the Bishop himself gave to his friends some
account of his time at Messina not in writing, as he did
when he returned from Kurdistan, but in speech. He did so
mainly with a view to obtaining aid for those who had
suffered in the earthquake, or were in spiritual perils which
the earthquake illustrated. The Hon. Mrs. H. W. Gladstone,
who was staying with her parents, Lord and Lady Rendel,
in their house at Cannes, Chateau Thorenc, when the Bishop
paid them a visit in the following February, has kindly given
me these notes, which she took down at the time :
"The Bishop of Gibraltar has been staying here, and has told
us a great deal about the earthquake at Messina ; in fact, it
seemed hardly possible for him not to talk about it ; it seems
in a way to be a relief from the overstrain and excitement
that he has been through, although his voice and throat are
both affected, and he is conscious that the horror of it all may
be too great for those who have not themselves lived through
this terrible and abnormal experience. He said to me :
' Tell me if you cannot bear it,' and I must confess that it
haunted me a great deal. . . .
" Forty-eight hours after the earthquake he returned to
Messina on board the ' Minerva/ which was at once made
into a floating hospital ; and a little hospital for first aid
138 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
was established on the quay. The sailors themselves
had to undertake the nursing of those men, women and
children who were brought on board ; and when told that a
second bay or mess would be wanted, and that it had been
left to them to volunteer to clear out, they came to the
Bishop and asked him how much more room was likely to
be needed. The Bishop's answer was, ' All the space that
we can possibly get ' ; whereupon the whole of the lower
deck was cleared, scrubbed with carbolic, and made ready.
" Great discrimination was shown among the men them-
selves as to the tending of special cases, the married men
looking after the women and children, etc. One sailor,
presumably the father of a family, made, in the most in-
genious manner, a feeding-bottle for an infant, who had been
born actually during the earthquake and had been brought
on board alive. The child's mother had perished in the
earthquake, or died from the shock. The bottle was made
out of a soda-water bottle, the glass tube of a siphon placed
in it, and a flexible tube, made out of a neatly-sewn piece of
sail-cloth. The triumph was the teat for the baby to suck
through. The sailor came to the deck cabin, and said,
' Have any of you gentlemen got a fountain-pen ? Well,
it's not the pen I want, but the thing you fill it with.' The
Bishop produced a filler, and so the bottle was completed
with the bulb of the filler belonging to the Bishop's stylo
and all in about a quarter of an hour !
" The arrival of the Queen of Italy on board the ' Minerva '
he described as a most touching incident. She had come off
in a cruiser, even before the King. The poor patients on
board recognised her immediately, and held out their arms
those who could crying out, ' Madre, Madre ! ' The
Queen stood there, unable to speak or move, the tears pour-
ing down her face ; then, when she could speak, she went
round to hear their separate tales of woe ' Madre, come to
me, I have lost my husband and my children,' or whatever
sad tale it might be, or to let them show their wounds and
tell of their sufferings and fright. After going round to
each, she visited the hospital on the quay, but was mercifully
not allowed to go further inland, or to leave her cruiser
MESSINA 139
again. The Bishop was most deeply impressed by her
behaviour, and said that no one came out better, or as well,
as the King and Queen. The Archbishop of Messina, and
his brother, the Prefect, had fled after the shock. The
Archbishop returned, but the Prefect did not, and one of the
first actions of the King was to dismiss him publicly.
" The Bishop said much more might have been done in
saving life, had there only been time to organise the work of
excavation. At Reggio, great thoroughness and method
was shown by dividing the work into different areas ; this
was instituted and worked by an Italian naval captain. At
Messina the Italian admiral in command was too old and too
weak a man to carry out such an organisation. The result
was that digging was done wherever groans were heard, and
that work done by one party of sailors was repeated by
another, so that the second party sometimes even undid the
work of the first.
' ' The Russian sailors worked with the English sailors, but
showed more callousness in sometimes leaving their ex-
cavating to go where there was more chance of success. The
English sailors worked on, on the most desperate chance, and
in consequence failed perhaps to save as many lives as the
Russians. The Bishop worked a great deal with the
Russians, as he could speak something of their language ;
and one night he worked on alone, where moaning and a cry
for help had been heard. He felt he could not leave his
task, but he became so exhausted that he finally fell asleep
over his digging, and when he awoke all sounds had ceased.
"But a happier and more successful incident, amongst many
others, was one when he was again working with Russian
sailors. They were digging in between two houses, where
the space became so confined that the Bishop was the only
one who could get down to it on account of his slightness.
After a time he found he could not move or make any progress
because of a heavy mass of masonry, and all he could do was
to scoop out a small hole from underneath in front of him.
But by this means he managed to pull out, bit by bit, a
mattress, and then a small boy, alive, but delirious with
fever. The child said, when given some water, ' I could
140 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
drink up the sea.' He was, poor child, the only member of
his family rescued.
" During this same excavation another slight shock
occurred, and the Bishop had a very narrow escape (he
told me that he had not told his wife about it) . In a mass
of masonry, two beams became loosened, and moved
towards him. All he could do was to stand upright against
the wall, and see them coming nearer and nearer. They
stopped moving when actually against his breast.
" It was the Bishop to whom came the knowledge, or the
thought, that the Consular Office, though not entirely
demolished, was left entirely unprotected. (The Consul had
had his wife killed by his side, and his boy badly hurt, and
had disappeared, with him.) The Bishop knew that most
important cyphers were kept there, so with a few blue-
jackets he went to try and see what could be done. He first
took the precaution of having some pick-axes forged on
board the ' Minerva.' On making their way to the ruined
street, they thought that their task might prove quite
impossible, owing to the condition of the adjoining houses.
Owing partly to his intimate knowledge of Messina, they
were finally able to enter the office, after scaling huge heaps
of rubbish and broken walls. In the office were two safes ;
one they broke open with their picks ; the other, built into
the wall, resisted their efforts, and to force it more would
probably have brought down the wall and the adjoining
house. The safe they had broken open proved empty, and
no keys could be found, but the Bishop thought it possible
that they might be in the Consul's own apartments. These
rooms were in a house at some distance, and the district and
street were in a still worse state. So dangerous indeed it
was, that they were absolutely forbidden to make the attempt.
The Bishop, however, determined to make it, and alone ; but
was persuaded finally to allow a young lieutenant (Kennedy,
I think, was his name) to accompany him. He could not
have accomplished his task alone. Unlike the Consulate,
the rooms were very high up in the house, and on arriving,
after much more difficulty than they had in reaching the
Consulate, they found the staircase had, in many parts,
MESSINA 141
disappeared. To reach the first floor they had to find a loose
beam which they could put upright, and then swarm up
pull it up after them, and again in the same manner reach
the next story ; and so on. After much searching in the
Consul's rooms, where such were the horrors of this awful
time they found the dead body of the Consul's poor wife
lying, they had almost given up their task, when they found
an old wooden box, open. Inside was a cash box containing
two bunches of keys. After a very perilous descent and
scramble, they returned safely to the Consulate, and managed
to secure the precious papers, which included the ' Cypher
Y.' This incident the Bishop told us then in confidence,
and we understood that hardly anyone knew of his action.
He did not wish it to be known, and said that had any
unscrupulous person got hold of the papers, they could have
been sold for a very large sum of money, and caused great
trouble throughout Europe.
" The English chaplain (Mr. Huleatt), his wife, and some
ladies living with them, all perished in the total collapse of
one of these tall houses. It is hoped that they were in-
stantaneously killed, as the rubbish and debris was of such
immense proportions that no attempt could be made to
excavate or dig into it. The Bishop managed to climb down
into the little English church from above, and found nearly
everything destroyed, but, I think, saved a small cross which
had stood on the altar, and one or two fragments, a hymn-
book, and so on. And I know he told me that he actually
picked up a scrap of one of his own notes of the sermon he had
preached there on the Sunday, aoth December."
Another lady adds the following recollections :
" Though not personally acquainted with him, I had often
met him and heard him speak when he journeyed backwards
and forwards on the Riviera. On three of these occasions
he left an impression I shall not easily forget. . . . The third
and last time was when he came in 1909 to where I was
staying, to plead, as was his wont, for the Gibraltar Mission
to Seamen, in which he was so deeply interested. It will be
remembered that the terrible earthquake in Sicily had taken
place at the end of December 1908, and he chose on this
142 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
occasion, not so much to plead for the support of the Mission,
as by his graphic and impressive words to try and convey to
our minds some of the unique and awful experiences gone
through by those on the spot.
" I remember that ... he began by telling us of the
last days he had spent at Messina with the chaplain and his
family, only a week or so before the catastrophe, and how
he had noticed in his room the crack in the wall, the result of
the last earthquake. 1 He left them, to return two days or
so after the event, to find the house in ruins and not one out
of that household of nine persons left alive. With difficulty
he made his way to the little church, of which hardly a
portion was left standing, climbed in by a window, and
found the Christmas carols lying there, which had been sung
on the Sunday night. From there he tried to reach the
Sailors' Rest, also in ruins, and where, looking down among
the debris he saw a shipping guide, which he succeeded in
reaching. On consulting it he discovered that an English
steamer was due to pass through the Straits of Messina in a
few hours, and with the help of the Consul or other officials,
the ship was stopped, and the captain was persuaded to
take 600 destitute refugees to a place of safety. He told it
all so simply and so graphically, and explained to us the
peculiar nature of the small English congregation at Messina,
many of them being the descendants of those English who
came there during the occupation of the island in the early
part of the nineteenth century, and told us of their poverty,
and through it all of their love for and support of their
Church, and he ended up his story by recounting how some of
these faithful members of the Church had spent what was
to most of them their last night upon earth. Evening
service was over in the little church, where the Christmas
hymns and carols had been sung, and four members of the
congregation, two men and two women went on their way
together to their respective homes, where, as they passed the
doors of one of the worst wine shops in Messina, they saw a
sight, too common, alas ! in those parts. Four English
1 It took place in September, 1905. See the account by Mr. Huleatt in
the Anglican Church Magazine for that year, p. 175 foil.
MESSINA 143
sailors, belonging to a ship then in harbour, had been drugged
and robbed of every penny, and turned out into the street.
Instantly these brave men and women determined to save
these men from further ill-treatment, and each taking
possession of one sailor they walked them down to the
harbour, and sent them safely to their ship. 'And/ added
the Bishop, ' I am not going to tell you the name of that
ship. She is far away now, but among the many rescuers in
the morning that followed, none worked so hard or so bravely
as the men of that ship. It was the last act on earth in
the lives of three of those four brave souls/
"So he ended, appealing to us for help to raise the new
church, to be built, not in the doomed Messina, but in the
safer position of Catania. I feel sure that none who listened
to his earnest and appealing words will forget that account
of the earthquake at Messina."
Another kind informant writes :
" His courage and endurance were boundless, and however
ill he was he seldom could be persuaded to cut an engage-
ment or relax in any duty while on his episcopal visits.
" He told me once his nerves did what he told them to ! and
he certainly evinced marvellous control over them.
" During the earthquake at Messina (whither he sped from
Malta among the first), when he was digging with the
Russian sailors to rescue the entombed, he continued to dig
for hours after the sailors left (bound through duty to return
to their ship), until at dawn he utterly collapsed. The
piteous cries of a buried woman had impelled him to his
hopeless task. His behaviour while with the Russian sailors
must have earned him their deep respect and admiration,
for I know that he was received with all honours when later
he visited the ship.
" He did not take a gloomy view of the earthquake or allow
the unspeakable horrors he witnessed to depress him or us.
He made us see the wonderful and beautiful side of the
tragedy : how in most instances, by some token or other, or
by the attitude of the unearthed victims, the self-sacrificing
or protective instinct in man was revealed ; how the suffer-
ing was mitigated further than we could imagine, the lapse
144 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
of time and anguish being minimised for the buried through
merciful stunning or sleep ; how the severe injuries and
wounds were felt less than the scratches and slight hurts
encountered afterwards. Then again, the highest and best
was brought out in the sailor rescuers. The wounded
men, women, and children were nursed and cared for on
the ships by some sailors with motherly tenderness and
tact, and beauty and mercifulness shone through the whole.
"But did not the brave Bishop, caring for his little English
colony of Messina, develop a septic throat through his
indefatigable labours among that ghastly wreckage, which
caused him much after-suffering and ill-health ?
" Through the tales of daring, self-sacrifice and tenderness
(which escaped journalistic ears), he made us, not marvel at
the severity or callousness of powers which permit the
ravagings of Nature and horrors attendant on catastrophes,
but see God's love and pity in a world which produces
heroism ; see divine compensation in loss, separation and
distress ; attribute marvellous escapes to His watchful care ;
acknowledge divine outcomes from calamity and suffering.
"Indeed, I know that the Bishop, by his faith, raised many
from doubt, strengthening by his hope and enlarging souls
by his love and charity."
The horrors of those days at Messina were indeed beyond
description. Not for a long time after could the Bishop
sleep without starting up, imagining that he heard the groans
of buried people. The smell of the place did not leave his
nostrils. On one occasion the Bishop was obliged to hack
away a corpse with his own hands, because, embedded in
the ruins, it got in the way of delivering a live person im-
prisoned within. It would perhaps be hard to picture a
more astonishing figure than that of the frail English Bishop
toiling away by himself all through the night amidst the
dying and the dead in ruined Messina.
His labours in connexion with the earthquake did not cease
when the rescue work came to an end. For a long time he
was engaged in raising a fund for the relief of the British
sufferers, and in administering it. Between 600 and 700
for this object passed through his hands.
HIS WIFE'S ILLNESS 145
He returned from Messina to Malta to find his wife worse.
She had written to her sister the day he left, but she never
wrote again. What was the matter with her was difficult
to tell. She had been in poor health for years, and now the
travelling, and the anxiety for the Bishop, had done their
work. At one moment the doctors spoke of nerves ; at
another they suspected a tumour in the brain. He got her
across to Cannes, where she had the advantage of the advice
of the eminent specialist, Dr. Erd, of Heidelberg. The
Bishop wrote to Lord Rendel on May 3, from Cannes :
" I did not find my wife really better ; and as Dr. Erd
advises that she should have special electrical treatment,
which can be given better at Heidelberg than anywhere else
(though he did not suggest this), I decided to take her there
as soon as possible that it might begin without delay. So I
have ordered a through carriage to Heidelberg for this after-
noon at 5.32, and we set off then, arriving, all being well,
about 9.30 to-morrow (Tuesday) p.m. Her favourite nurse,
Miss Bartlett, is going to stay on with her, and Miss Wells
goes too. I shall be there long enough to see her installed
and the treatment begun, and then shall have to start on
my travels again. She will be there for a month's treatment,
from which we hope great things ; and then, all being well,
I shall be able to take her back to England."
She did not improve at Heidelberg. The Bishop left her
there while he came to England to preach the Ramsden
Sermon at Oxford. 1 He fulfilled engagements in North
Italy, coming back to her at every available moment.
" There has been no sign of loss of memory or perception,"
he wrote in May, " not a sign of irritability or the like, only
weakness and loss of power, and if ever strength was made
perfect in weakness it is with her." 2 But the weakness
increased. At last, in the beginning of July, he came to the
desperate resolve to bring her back to England, to Sir Victor
Horsley. He engaged a special carriage in the express from
Mannheim on the 7th. To join the express with greater
1 Published in Growth through Vision, being the sermon which gives a
name to the volume.
2 Especially, p. 9.
K
146 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
comfort for the invalid, he took a motor from Heidelberg, a
distance of twenty or five-and-twenty miles. It poured with
rain the whole way. The summer of 1909 was a very wet
one, and the road was completely broken up by the rains.
At one place on the journey the car became so firmly stuck
in the mud that the chauffeur declared that there it must
stay. Nothing but the sheer force of the Bishop's will got
that car out and made it reach Mannheim. When they
arrived at Mannheim, the hour of the express was long passed ;
but mercifully the train also had been greatly delayed, and
they were able to put Mrs. Collins into it, with scarcely a
minute to spare. The passage, by night, from the Hook of
Holland, was frightfully rough, and she had always been a
bad sailor. She was so weak that she could not turn her
head as she lay on deck. Hour after hour he sat by her,
supporting her on his arm. The wonder was that she did
not expire a dozen times on the long journey ; but she
reached their house in Fellows Road alive, where the
thoughtfulness of her friend Miss Margaret Rolt had got
everything ready for her. There she was joined by her
sister, Miss Sterland. Sir Victor Horsley came, and per-
formed an operation with his accustomed skill, in the
drawing-room of their own house, but she had no power of
recovery, and on Thursday, July 15, she died, after receiving
the Blessed Sacrament with him. As she passed away, the
Bishop and those who were with him sang the hymn, " How
bright those glorious spirits shine."
The Bishop himself was mortally stricken by her death, but
he bore it, not only with courage and patience, but with a
faith which could be pathetically cheerful. The funeral
took place on Monday, July 19. The first part of the service
was held in St. Mary's, Primrose Hill, the church served by
the Bishop's kind friend, Mr. Dearmer, where there had been
a celebration of the Holy Eucharist at an earlier hour. From
the church the body was conveyed by road to the cemetery
at New Southgate, and buried in a grave close by her sister
Edith's. The Bishop's father, his elder brother, and other
members of his family, and of hers, were present, and Lord
Northbourne and other friends. At Mrs. Collins's own desire,
WIDOWHOOD 147
the widower lifted his poor marred voice to read the words
of committal to the grave.
Here is a little note which he wrote to one of the many
acquaintances who condoled with him.
" 12 Fellows Road, N.W., July 18, 1909.
So many thanks : I value your letter.
It makes the future very dreary : but I had always prayed
that it might be I left alone and not her, and I have so much
to give thanks for that a lifetime is not too long."
Here is another :
" This is only a word to thank you for your letter of
sympathy with me in my bereavement. We have always
been everything to one another, and the blank is the greater.
But I know full well that death and separation are the transi-
tory things, not love ; and now I have to try and live in
that knowledge."
The beautiful little book Especially tells of the visit
to Eden Gate, in Westmoreland, which brought him the
consolation which tender sympathy and the artless affection
of children can minister. He went into Devon and Cornwall,
to some of the old haunts.
" I got back last afternoon," he writes, " from my hurried
visit to her sister at Braunton and her brother at Boscastle,
and brought with me heath to make a cross which I took at
once to the dear grave. She loves Boscastle so, and its sea,
and its moors. . . . So full of interviews and other work.
And Mary, bless her, is very near." 1
Then, all alone, he started for a long journey in the East.
It would have seemed that the utmost that he was capable
of was to drag his own body to the places where he had to
go ; but Bishop Collins was never put off from serving the
needs of others, and he had strange powers of resourcefulness.
The Hon. Madame Wiel has sent me an account of one
incident of this extraordinary journey. She says :
" The following story was told me by the Bishop of one of
his experiences on board a Russian ship, when the cargo was
1 Especially ', p. 30.
148 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
chiefly composed of Russian peasants suffering from an out-
break of small-pox. The Bishop heard of their sufferings,
and went down into the hold to see what he could do. He
found some of the victims with faces swollen to such an
extent as to have lost all likeness to human beings. He
ordered a quantity of mutton fat to be melted down, and as
soon as this was ready he proceeded to daub it over these
wretched creatures, and swathe their faces and heads with
such bandages as he could get hold of. He then had them
removed to another part of the ship and with the assistance
of the captain caused the hold to be scoured out with boiling
water, and disinfected to the utmost. Two victims had died
before the Bishop began his operations, two were so ill that
he obtained leave for them to be taken on shore at some port.
On reaching his destination the Bishop was presented with
a scroll in some language to him unknown, but which on
being presented to the Turkish authorities was found to
declare that his quarantine fees were paid and that he was
free to land forthwith without further ado. He himself
never knew nor found out who had made himself answerable
in this way for him, or if it was an unobtrusive way of
recognising his work among the miserable small-pox victims,
and expressing in a really practical way their gratitude for
all he had done." l
At this point I insert a number of letters written by the
Bishop between his consecration to the office and the last
few months of his life.
Occupation : Past and Future.
San Remo, February 26, 1904.
The time is so fully occupied that I may not attempt more.
At each new place I find not only the regular public work to
be done, and fifty people who want " only a few minutes,"
in which, however, I have to make momentous decisions at
1 1 have followed the authoress of Especially (p. 31), in placing this
incident here ; but I do not feel sure that it did not occur on some earlier
voyage in the Black Sea.
LETTERS 149
a moment's notice, but also a good many sick people who
would like to see me, and some only of whom, alas ! I can
manage to see.
I am so sorry that things are going hardly with you, and
especially when I am far away and cannot help you. But
you must never make the mistake of thinking that all the
past is worthless because the present seems so barren and
unworthy. That is a hopeless thing to do, and just a
temptation of the evil one, who always tries to make us
think that our good aspirations were worthless and unreal.
The mistake is, just starting from the assumption that we
are the centre, and the present time the point from which
things are to be judged ; whereas Christ is the centre, and
He sees things as they shall be. So do not give way. It
was only what was to be expected that you should be dis-
heartened ; and the vital question is whether you will hold
on, and get outside it, so to speak.
The Gospel of Love.
Durban, July 28, 1904.
The new home must be somewhere where you will be at
least within easy reach of the preaching of the Gospel of
Love ; for I am sure, with you, that that is what we want
more than all else. Out here there seems to be nothing else
to preach, hardly ; and certainly things are more wonderful
than one could think or imagine. It is the results which
nobody can tell, and no accounts summarise, which have
been most wonderful, and no part of my work has been more
wonderful than that at Kimberley.
Spanish Travel : To the Lord Rendel.
Santiago de Compostella,
September 26, 1905.
A word would reach me at the British Embassy, Madrid,
on October 7. I am travelling about, and should not be
sure of getting it before. On Sunday I was at Vigo, minister-
ing to some 40 clerks of the Eastern Telegraph Company
150 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
there, who have no chaplain anywhere near ; now, on my
way to Cortina (a seven and a half hours drive by diligencia) ,
I am at the greatest of all mediaeval pilgrimage places,
a strange little granite-built town, in country like Brittany
or Cornwall, with the most glorious Cathedral and not a
few other great buildings. At Corufia we have a service for
the very few English people there, and I go on by Lugo,
Leon, to Bilbao (where we have a chaplain), then by
Zaragoza to Tarragona and Valencia, to Madrid and so on.
My wife is in England during this very rough journey,
but rejoins me at Gibraltar.
To the same.
Malaga, October 23, 1905.
Here everything is in a terrible state owing to the drought,
and there is much illness. The peasants have lost everything ;
and it is not a thing of which the results will pass away, for
by a wretched compact between the emigration agents and
the local money-lenders the peasants are being forced into
emigration. And poor Spain, already weakened to death,
is being yet further drained of its best blood. For here the
peasant blood is the best.
To the same.
Till December i [?igo6],
, The Convent, Gibraltar.
It is good, after all my travelling, to be stationary for a
little while, and the new Governor, 1 with whom I am staying,
is a man whom it is a privilege to know. But although it is
a change after all my journeying, it is not much rest ; for
the arrears of letters have to be made up, and what with
Army and Navy my time is about as fully occupied as it
could possibly be. It was a grievous mistake to leave
Gibraltar and Malta alone so long ; but in one way I reap
the benefit, for they come to me about everything, and treat
me with the most extraordinary consideration.
1 Sir F, Forestier- Walker.
LETTERS 151
Words of Good Cheer.
Le Bocage, Costebelle,
December 12, 1904.
I do not wonder that you lose heart at times and that these
winter months are terrible to face. But they do not go on
for ever, and there is an Eternal Spring which is surely
coming, and which is even now not so far off, hard though
it is to realise that it is so near. . . .
Be very sure that God feels for you far more than any
human friend can. ... It is the grace of God which has
enabled you to bear hitherto, and that has given you such
strength as you have.
The Power of Suffering : His own Work.
Malta, December 29, 1905.
You remember what Shakespeare says about the words
of the dying :
" O, but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony ;
Where words are few, they're seldom spoke in vain,
For they breathe truth who breathe their words in pain."
It is just the same with the thoughts and words, the works
and the prayers, of the suffering. And there must be some-
thing of good in it, mustn't there ? when our powers for good
are made larger. . . .
As you know, we are always travelling. Malta is one of
the places where we stay longest, having an English colony
of some 20,000 people. But we are only here till January 8
(having arrived on St. Thomas's Day), and excepting here
and Gibraltar our stay is never more than two or three days.
We go to Sicily next, then Crete, Greece, Italy, etc. ; in the
middle of February I am in England for about five days,
preaching before the University of Cambridge, lecturing and
giving addresses, consulting with the Archbishop in London,
etc., and then abroad again. It is very interesting, and, I
think, profitable work, but it is tiring, and the opportunities
152 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
for connected study and writing are not great ; and it is
easy to get " dissipated," i.e. to live in a scrappy sort of way,
in a life which is so broken up.
A Pastoral Journey.
The Convent, Gibraltar, December I, 1905.
It has been such a busy time for me first travelling four
or five thousand miles to and in the Spanish Peninsula, then
a very busy time here (I never come here without wishing
that we could be here longer), then back to some of the
Spanish mines, during this last fortnight. Amongst other
things I had a long journey on mule-back in the mountains,
and came back here from Cadiz on a torpedo-boat destroyer,
doing target practice on the way, in the course of which I
aimed and fired one of the guns, making a fair shot too I
To-morrow I am off, this time by torpedo-boat, to Tangier,
and thence, next week, to many places, and so to Malta.
Doesn't it almost take one's breath away ? . . .
They are very anxious days just now in some ways. I
hear much that is terrible from the South of Russia, and
would far rather relieve our chaplains in Odessa and else-
where than merely tell them (as I must do) that it is their
duty to stay there until the Consuls declare it unsafe for our
people to remain. Then there are the perpetual questions
as to the possibility of keeping up chaplaincies in little places,
and helping scattered groups elsewhere.
A State Visit.
Constantinople, St. Matthew's Day, 1906.
I am in the midst of the most interesting things here.
Yesterday I went through the streets in an open carriage,
robed and with decorations (you can do anything in Con-
stantinople), to see the Ecumenical Patriarch, and the
Armenian Patriarch (their chief representative in Turkey).
And to-day the Metropolitan of Chios, the Protosyncellos,
and the Archdeacon, have just returned the call on behalf
of the former. It is so interesting.
LETTERS 153
Alicante.
Fonda Iborra, Alicante, October n, 1905.
This is a strange place by the sea a long double or treble
line of houses on a fine bay, dominated by a great castle on
a high white-grey hill, and with little but palm trees growing
everywhere, bearing dates that are nearly ripe. There are
very few English here, and the Consul is a Roman Catholic ;
but I am going to give some of them their Communion
to-morrow, and also to consecrate the burial ground here,
in which Professor Freeman the historian was buried. He
died here, of small-pox, about twelve years ago. It is very
interesting, though very tiring, going about ministering to
these little knots of our people. I wish it were possible to
do more for them ; but it can only come by little and little.
Work in New Russia.
[Hughesovka, June, 1906.]
The company in question is largely an English one, which
owns large coal mines and steel works here. We have just
arrived, after two nights and a day in the train from Odessa,
and a fourteen-mile drive across the steppe, which is not so
flat as I had imagined it, but perpetually covered with dust
in the summer, mud in the spring and autumn, and snow in
the winter. It grows corn in abundance, with weeds, and a
few beautiful, though not delicate, flowers ; but about here
the smoke from the furnaces has spoiled things entirely, and
there is nothing but bare earth, slag, and a very ramshackle
town. But there are some two hundred English people here
with their chaplain, and when things are quiet and peaceful
there are a hundred more ; whilst things in Russia are so
disturbed, however, most of them have sent their wives and
children home. . . . Everything is greatly disturbed all
over Russia, but it doesn't really make it dangerous for us in
any way. Troubles occur almost daily at Odessa, and yet
people go on living their lives bravely and quietly. They
have grown steadily in spite, if not because, of the troubles ;
and on Ascension Day, out of a colony of some 350 people in
all, I confirmed thirteen adults.
154 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Fasting Communion.
Galatz, Roumania, June 22, 1906.
To answer your question first, just as it stands : I don't
think that you will get any light on the subject from the
practice of the Reformers. That fasting Communion con-
tinued to be a general custom (it would be going beyond the
evidence to say the universal custom) after the sixteenth
century, and indeed after the Restoration, is quite clear. But
the question was not one, if we may trust the evidence (and I
am sure that for this purpose we may), which was consciously
before the mind of the Reformers as of pressing importance,
and they neither made any effort to settle it, nor did they
consciously and deliberately leave it an open question.
In my opinion, the best way to approach the whole question
is this. It is ambiguous and misleading to speak of the rule
of fasting Communion at all. If by rule is meant regula,
precept, law, or even definitive canon, there is no such rule
of the Church. There are rules of the Church about fasting ;
there are rules which set apart certain days of fasting or
abstinence ; but there is no rule of fasting Communion. On
the other hand, there is a custom of fasting Communion, and
a custom of the highest degree both of antiquity and of range.
Now such a custom is to be highly honoured and carefully
observed : no reverent man can treat it lightly. On the
other hand, a custom is not a law : it may be disregarded, or
rather not followed, for a sufficient reason. And further,
the sufficient reason must be relative to the individual case,
and not merely a kind of general exception to a rule. On
the other hand, no Catholic-minded man will lightly imagine
"sufficient reasons," and he will, if he is wise, and the occasion
is one which is likely to recur, seek to make his action regular
by the sanction of authority where possible. I have myself
given a dispensation to a priest who cannot fast for many
hours ; I have also refused one, in one case, where there
seemed insufficient reason. 1
1 The Bishop went on to refer his correspondent to the Introduction to
Dr. Wickham Legg's Papal Facilities for Dispensation from the Fast
before Communion,
LETTERS 155
An Earnest Parliament.
Le Bocage, Costebelle,
March 21, 1906.
How stirring things have been in England ! To see a
House of Commons again consisting of men who are in
earnest, and who realise that God has not said His last
creative word in human life, is a fine thing ; whether one
is in every detail with them or not is so small a point in
comparison !
Father William's " Workless and Starving."
Smyrna, September 18, 1906.
I ought to have written before to thank you with all my
heart for your pamphlet Workless and Starving, which I read
with a full heart and a stricken conscience, and which has
often been in my mind since.
Without doubt you are right ; what is wanted is not
merely measures of palliation or relief at particular times,
. . . but an entirely new conception of the meaning and the
dignity and the duty of labour, a revelation, not a poultice.
That we may make many inadequate experiments if we try
to do something is obvious ; but the terrible evil now is that
most people, who are Christian in their own lives, are purely
fatalistic in all that concerns labour, and take it for granted
that because a struggle for existence in brute beasts follows
out an inevitable course, all that concerns labour is equally
mechanical and dead.
But we are learning, all slowly though it be. And every
trumpet call does good, though it seems to fall on deaf ears.
"Prophet eyes can catch a glory slowly gaining on the
shade " ; but only where we are at least trying to learn,
and to do each thing as we learn it. God speed you all who
are engaged in the battle.
156 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
The Education Bill.
La Pinedo, Costebelle,
January 7, 1907.
You must be greatly disappointed, as I am, about the
Education Bill. The whole thing is a great muddle, and
(as is generally the case) I don't find myself in full agreement
with anybody ; but I was far more in agreement with the
Bishop of Hereford than with any other of the Bishops.
When I come to think of it, I don't want to find myself
in entire agreement with anybody, so far as opinions go.
I value my opinions as much as most people, and should
wish to be prepared to die for them ; but I know too much
about their one-sidedness and narrowness to wish anybody
else to think exactly the same ! There is a broader basis
of fellowship than that.
Work for the Sufferer to do.
At Sea, between Sicily and Crete,
June 4, 1907.
All that you tell me of the difficulty of realising God and
His love, and seeing spiritual things, must make it infinitely
harder ; but I do not think that in themselves they ought
to dishearten you. They must be mainly or altogether the
effect of the disease itself, and God knows all about them too.
You must only try not to let anything slip that can be held
firm, and remember that amongst so much that He has taken
from you, He has still left you the opportunity of work for
Him. Your pain itself helps you to witness for Him, and
every word of hope and thoughtfulness that you can manage
to say to others will tell with them much more than what
others might say. So God has still true and deep work for
you to do ! Aiid if you find that you can't carry your
thoughts beyond the grave to the joy and glory and peace
there, it is only because they are so wonderful and beyond
all our possible experience.
LETTERS 157
Knowledge of his Flock.
Chateau Thorenc, Cannes,
Marth 12, 1908.
Yes, I will gladly tell people at Gibraltar about : in
fact, I am writing to-day to the Dean, and to Mr. Carey, one
of our best Army Chaplains, who looks after the Eastern
Telegraph Company's men. Of course I know them well, and
generally pay a visit to their quarters when I am in Gibraltar.
They live together college-fashion, and are a very good set
of men in all ways. But their hours and their rules make
them keep very much to themselves, and they go out little ;
though they have plenty of games, etc.
Rumour of his Translation to Chichester : to the
Rev. Dr. Robinson.
The Convent, Gibraltar,
December 23, 1907.
Rumours are troublesome things. ... So far as one
can come to a conclusion on a problematical question, I
decided to stay here. As things are, I get opportunities,
perhaps increasingly, of consulting with high people in
England on most of the points that arise ; and it does not
follow that I could do more, were I actually on the spot.
It is my weakness that I too easily get absorbed in the details
of work ; and whereas here, with every community differing
from every other, it perhaps serves a good purpose, in England
it would hardly do so. Then again this work of mine is
gloriously many-sided, and, I hope and believe, really fruitful :
so far as strictly " diocesan " work is concerned, I don't
think that anywhere are the opportunities so great, and the
opportunities of fellowship with other Churches are not to
be despised. On the other hand, I am conscious of having
failed entirely of finding the right permanent basis of work
yet : in a jurisdiction like this it is most important that the
Bishop should come into actual and frequent contact with
places and people, seeing that they cannot get into the
train and visit him when things go wrong ; and yet I
158 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
doubt whether other Bishops would be able to travel so
much. . . .
Yes, we are indeed the poorer for the death of the beloved
Primus, so far as our counsels are concerned. We have his
example still, and surely his prayers. Just as I left England
early in September he wrote to ask me to go and stay with
him, " to take counsel about the movement for unity here
in Scotland, and to think about our duty in the Lambeth
Conference." How I wish that it had been possible, and now
more than ever !
Messina : to Mrs. Collins.
H.M.S. " Minerva," December 31, 1908.
We got in at 9 on Wednesday, and as soon as possible I
got ashore, with a packet of biscuits, my flask, and two ship's
water bottles. Already on the " Chesapeake " a British
ship in the harbour we had found some refugees. ... I
found the Huleatts' house a huge pile of ruins. . . . Then
I went to one or two other houses which I thought might
give news of our people, and soon found X., his wife and
child, in a destitute condition. After helping them as well
as I could, and making arrangements for them to go to the
"Minerva," I attached myself to a Russian rescue party, and
we climbed up and over mound after mound, as people came
and told us that there were sounds below, or as we heard
them. In such cases it meant literally digging them out,
or excavating amongst ruins till we could reach them. In
one case, deep in the ruins, we got to a boy of 12 or so, and
at last, through a deep narrow hole I was able to reach
down to give him water. There were two great beams in the
way ; so the only thing was to reach down with a knife, cut
the mattress below him, and draw out its contents through
the hole, till he sank far enough down for us to get at him
by a new hole below the beams. But we got him out, thank
God, his eyes bright with fever, and bruised, but not much
worse otherwise ; and this was one of six or seven whom we
got out before dark. . . .
I have spent a good deal of time with our sick we have
had two deaths to-day trying to write letters for them in
LETTERS 159
Italian, talking to them, trying to explain to these sailor-
nurses what they want, nursing babies, and so on. They are
so patient and good. As for the sailors, they are magnificent
so gentle and tender as nurses. All the sweets in the
canteen have been bought up by them to give to the children,
and they speak a lingo all their own to them, as relay after
relay has come to us since yesterday morning, which seems
a year ago. . . .
I am well and not too tired. Everybody is good to me
Captain Wake and all his officers, and the men especially,
who make much of me, and ask me to interpret with their
patients, and bring me all sorts of scraps of would-be Italian
to interpret.
The Earthquake at Messina.
H.M.S. " Lancaster," January 12, 1909.
I am here again at this city of the dead, making a few
final enquiries and arrangements for some of our folk who
have been saved, and burying some of the dead who have
been recovered. I came down with the Duke of Connaught
in the "Aboukir," have visited the hospital, and have been
here [in Messina] all day for a heartrending day, digging in
the rain with a party of stokers. We have found four bodies,
greatly decomposed ; but there are many more below.
Personally, I should like to have this work given up entirely ;
for I should prefer any I loved to remain embedded in these
masses of lime, rather than have all this terrible work. But
people feel so differently about these things !
The Earthquake at Messina.
S.S. " Palermo," at Sea, January 20, 1909.
Then came the terrible earthquake, and I set off at once
for Messina and Reggio, and have been there half the time
since December 30, going to and fro in warships. You may
imagine what a heartrending time it has been utterly unlike
the accounts in the newspapers, which appear to have been
written for the most part by people who were nowhere near
the earthquake, but worse by far. Only it was good to be
160 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
there, and to help with the wounded and homeless, and to
dig out one after another of those who were buried under
the ruins. And our sailors were quite splendid, working all
day long under conditions of great difficulty and no little
danger, and ministering like trained nurses to the wounded,
and giving up their berths in order that we might have more
hospital space.
Well . . . these things are certainly not less terrible from
within than from without; but I think that near at hand you
see God's love better than far away, in all the love which
suffering calls forth whence ? And if " love is all and death
is nought " as we know it is, however hard it may be to
live up to it one can understand a little bit that God
is over the earthquake. Only we could not understand
unless the Son of God had come down to suffer and to
die for us.
His Wife's last day : to Miss Cavendish-Bentinck.
12 Fellows Road, N.W., July 14, 1909.
I must send you a word that you may know of God's
dealings with us. You know how ill my Mary has been for
long, and for some little time now we have known that
it was either a tumour or abscess on the brain, and that
there was but little hope of recovery if the latter, none, if
the former, since it was evidently so deep-seated. To-day,
Sir Victor Horsley operated, an operation intended partly
to relieve some of the worst symptoms, partly to see if more
could be done. The operation has passed safely, but they
find that there is a very large solid tumour, much dispersed
in area, and that there is no hope at all. So we are trusting
that at least she may have relief and that God of His mercy
will give her a peaceful passing. She is very weak, but we
trust going on well.
That is all that there is to tell, excepting that she is just
bearing it all and using it all as the saint that she is, and that
we are not unhappy, and are full of thankfulness. I ought
to have nothing but praise for the rest of my life ; and we are
thankful to have been able to bring her safely to England ;
LETTERS 161
and we have had much precious time together lately, and
have been able to speak quite openly and get behind
and above separation and things present and things
to come or any other creature. I wanted you to know
and dear Mrs. Scott, that you may think of us with dear
Mr. and Mrs. Jeaffreson.
Ferrol.
British Vice-Consulate, Villagarcia, Spain,
October 20, 1910.
You remember Ferrol ? The place where there were 300
of our people and a Plymouth Brother ? . . . The people
have now grown to nearly 500. And although they are
mainly Scotch Presbyterians or Nonconformists, before we
left they were keen that I should send them a chaplain some-
how, and I think it may be done soon if we can find the right
man to go there as schoolmaster and chaplain. There are
80 children delightful ones and at present only 40 of
them go to a little school kept by a nice teacher, a girl.
Well, it looks hopeful, and such a " parish " f or a man to
work in. Ever since I landed I have been in telegraphic
communication with our Ambassador in Madrid about a
Naval Cemetery which is to be consecrated here ; the
Spanish authorities have been putting all sorts of difficulties
in the way. Now, the Ambassador tells me, we have
certainly done all that is legally necessary and are quite
free to consecrate ; but they are still making little administra-
tive obstacles. But last night the Vice-Consul, at my request,
sent a message to the local Alcalde (Mayor) to say that I
intend to consecrate it to-day, inviting him to be present,
and adding that I am going to do myself the honour of
calling on him afterwards. He has sent back to say that he
will not be responsible, but evidently realises that he has
neither the duty nor the right of interfering it is always
right enough with these people if you keep within legal limits
and know your own mind ; but this matter has been
dragging on since April between the Vice-Consul, the Spanish
authorities, and our Admiralty.
162 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
Home Politics.
Bordighera, December 16, 1909.
My thoughts are very full of our poor at home, for things
are going to be very bad, I fear, this winter. The worst of
it is that " prosperity " does not help them now ; it only
means that work goes on feverishly for a time, and that then
as soon as it ceases to be remunerative in the highest degree,
they are rather ruthlessly discharged, instead of being kept
on constantly, good times or bad times, as they used to be.
It was time that some effort was made to adjust taxation
more fairly to the rich and the poor ; and whatever faults
in detail there may have been in this Budget, it was at least
a brave and honest attempt to do that. And I hope it has
done it ; for no future government will dare to fall back from
the new order of things which it has shown the way for.
Unction : to a familiar friend.
Bordighera, February 12, 1910.
I should say that Unction is in its essence an Act of Faith,
just like the many others that people make, or ought to
make, in illness. Of course, they don't make them nearly
enough, or there would be less illness ; and it is a very good
thing in such an Act of Faith to have a concrete act, a psy-
chical moment on which the mind can grasp. For most of
us do nothing particular with our lives just because we don't
particularly try ; i.e. have no definite aim or aims, never
come to the point. All that is good, then. But so far it is
not a new thing in kind ; it is what has always been done in
the Church, now in one way, now in another ; and what we
have gained at the present day is a more definite recognition
of a duty and a right which it always belonged to us to
exercise.
When, however, people speak of Unction as the " lost
Pleiad of the Church," or as having a grace peculiar to itself,
they seem to me to be talking nonsense, and a very bad kind
of nonsense. To take an illustration of what I mean : had
the Church been without the Eucharist for centuries, it
LETTERS 163
might have had many gifts and many graces, but it would
have lacked the grace of the sacramental feeding on the
Body and Blood of Christ. Here, it is quite otherwise.
There is no grace which the Church has lacked, in that a
rite which was never strictly a rite of the Church has fallen
into desuetude. The grace of healing has been given all
along, in answer to the prayers of the Church, to particular
prayers, to acts of faith of all kinds. Most priests in
visiting the sick, lay hands on them. Often they call for
special efforts, sometimes even say, "Arise and walk," and
it is done (/ have known cases). All these are different
illustrations of the same thing, healing in the Church
through the power of Christ.
On the Church : to the Rev. J. H. Toy.
Bordighera, February 23, 1910.
The matter about which you write is one which is attract-
ing a good deal of attention, and I think we shall hear more
of it yet. Briefly, there are four things which must be borne
in mind about it.
i. The fact itself is very much exaggerated. Formerly,
people used to speak vaguely and ignorantly about the
Dark Ages, and it was true, as S. R. Maitland replied, that
the main reason why they were so dark was that people were
so much in the dark about them. Now, by a swing of the
pendulum, it is all the other way. People are now as
ridiculously ready to assume that everything was good in the
Middle Ages as they were formerly ready to assume the
reverse ; and on the other hand, nothing is too bad [for
them] to say about the period previous to the Oxford Move-
ment. The fact of the matter is that the slackness of that
period (especially in the matter of Baptism) is very greatly
exaggerated. It is much the same with other things. I
hardly know a single instance of so-called " Puritan " neglect
which is not in reality, and demonstrably so, a survival from
the Middle Ages ; and the neglect of Baptism, and above all
of Confirmation, in times before the Reformation must have
been incomparably greater than most people realise. If I
164 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
were to look for the greatest uncertainties in the transmission
of Holy Orders in times past, I should not find it here.
There are things far more serious elsewhere. But the fact is
that one does not need to look for them. People are starting
from the wrong end when they try to build destructive
arguments on things such as these.
2. They are equally wrong-headed when they base their
theory of the Church on a mechanical idea of a chain in
which a broken link invalidates all that comes after. The
whole point of corporate life is that one weak spot does not,
and many weak spots do not, destroy the body. A truer
image would be that of a coat of mail, in which one broken
link does not destroy the continuity of the rest, or a rope,
which is continuous even though no single fibre subsists for
more than a foot or two of its length. Of course the truest
image of all is a living body, in which the life of all is not only
not destroyed by local failure, but the life of the whole
actually repairs and makes good the need of the part. A
mechanical theory which forgets the solidarity of the body
is hopelessly wrong.
3. And again, Christ is not divided ; the Creed is not a
series of twelve, or a hundred, or a million propositions,
but a whole, of which we see now this aspect, now that. A
theory which separates the ministry from the living Church,
or the particular lives of individual Christians from the life
of the Body, is unchristian and therefore uncatholic. In
their eagerness to assert the Apostolic Ministry, people are
apt to forget that it is a function of the Body, of the Apos-
tolic Church ; and that the life of the Body is in a true sense
the guarantee of the maintenance of the Apostolic Ministry.
(It is the true strength of Scottish Presbyterianism that it
bears witness to this fact.) 7 should not hesitate to say
that the very meaning of the corporate life of the Church is
that it guarantees to us the continuity of the Ministry, and
makes good accidental defects, where the intention of the
Church has been maintained as regards its Ministry, and
where its practical action has been continuous. The idea
is not familiar to us, but it is quite in accordance with
primitive use, and quite familiar in Eastern theology, that
LETTERS 165
that is Holy Order which the Church recognises as such, and
that the Church of its inherent life makes good any defects
which there may be in that which it recognises.
4. But the chief thing after all is that which you speak of
the ever present care of Our Lord for His Church. There
is a mechanical way of talking of the Sacraments, into which
many people fall, which is not only hideously irreverent, but
which " destroy eth the very nature of a sacrament." The
fact is that Baptism is not a kind of curse against the un-
baptised, but a revelation of God's Eternal Will of Love and
the application of that Will to him who receives it. The
Eucharist, and Confirmation, and Orders are of the same
order. In each case, two things are involved, an Act and
a Life : in the language of scholastic theology, an actual gift
and a habitual grace : an act of baptism and a habit of
baptised life, an act of receiving and a habitual (i.e. constant,
continuous) feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ. To
say that he who shares the habitual life of the baptised
but has not received Baptism is outside grace would be an
act of dogmatic negation ; and no negation is part of the
Catholic faith, or can be. Of course, to say that he is in
the same position as if he were baptised would be an act
of presumption, putting our own ideas in the place of that
which we know by faith ; but to say that the life of the body
is null, or that the Body is outside grace because some indi-
viduals who went before had never received Baptism, would
be a return from a Gospel to a Law, from the Life of Christ
to the bondage of the Evil One. At every point, grace rests
upon His Will. It is a Present Christ, who speaks now, not
an Absent Christ, who spoke once, who is the Giver of Grace,
the Minister in every Sacrament.
I am here getting well, please God, from a serious illness.
May He bless you ever, my dear Toy.
A Favourite Motto.
Villa degli Angeli, Fiesole, April 13, 1910.
So my path is clear for the present simply to do all I
can to get well, and try to follow Bishop Hacket. That motto
166 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
of his, " Serve God and be cheerful," has always been a
favourite one of mine ; I wonder if you have ever come
across any of his books ?
Prayer for Health.
Fiesole, April, 1910.
Now let me try to answer your question about the prayers,
(i) I am quite sure that God is to me all that the most
loving Father and Mother is, and infinitely more : all this
in the most complete, ideally perfect fulness. (2) And
because that is so, I ask, and know I ought to ask, for just
the very thing that I feel the need of : not some idealised
picture of it, or what I think it may be proper to ask, but it.
That is the most child-like thing I can do, to take my own
trouble to Him, and really to ask for that which is my
heart's desire. "An infant crying in the night " is most
childlike. I claim a son's rights ; I call for the satisfaction
of a child's needs. (3) I realise all the time, or rather learn
progressively to realise, please God, what a bad child I am,
and how little I know about my own needs ; and the best
thing of all is when I begin to learn that what I really want
is not an it, but Him who with Himself " freely gives us all
things." But this does not in any way modify the single-
heartedness of my asking. Some day I may come to see
that what I asked for was not what I want ; then I will ask
differently : but here and now, because I want this, I ask
for it, and not for something else, and I am childlike in
proportion as I do so. (4) " In My name " certainly isn't
a limitation of the asking, but an enlargement of the spirit
of the asking, so that we know already that the prayer is to
be answered ; that it is His will, and not simply our will,
which is the basis of answered prayer.
And certainly bodily health is not to be excluded from the
asking. I cannot doubt that we have not asked enough,
and that there has been far too little " faith-healing " in the
past. The only pity is that reaction is the least healthy way
of growth. When we learn more about healing in the
Saviour, in an age which is morbidly fearful of pain, there is
LETTERS 167
a danger lest even our good New Light should be received as
a way for our old selfishness to walk in. And they who
realise for the first time that the Gospel is, amongst other
things, a Gospel of Health, are apt to forget that all down
the ages the sick have been healed by the prayer of faith.
You will not think I mean, however, that we are not to use
our New Light.
Forrest's "Authority of Christ " : to a Student
of Theology.
12 Fellows Road, Hampstead,
October 5, 1910.
It is, I think, most interesting, and very valuable. I don't
think I remember any part that is not in accordance with
any specific teaching of ours. The difference, if any, is
rather one of the proportion of the faith, and so far as I
remember I should put it under two heads, (i) We have
learned so much from the new light, and from what is at
present also the misleading glimmer (in parts) of psychology,
that we have for the time lost our orientation, and are all
floundering. . . . We shall get it again in a newer and deeper
way. Just now the tendency is to make Atonement centre
too much in ourselves. No doctrine of Atonement can be
ultimately satisfying which does not in a real sense centre in
God. (2) One needs the doctrine of the Church more ; not,
of course, the polity thereof, of which perhaps we get too
much just now. The fundamental question is between
Westcott and Newman in the Apologia. The former finds
himself face to face with three final existences self, the
world, and God ; the latter God, and his own soul. The
former is the basis of Catholicism ; is not the latter the basis
of most other -isms ? I am not saying that J. H. N.
always occupied this position : he did not. . . , But no
doctrine of the Atonement can be adequate which does not
build upon Ephesians and I St. John.
168 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
The Lisbon Jesuits : to the Rev. Dr. Robinson.
Gibraltar, Allhallowmas Day, 1910.
I came here three days ago from Lisbon, on a Dutch ship
which brought also thirty-one Portuguese Jesuits, priests
and students, who had been deported by the authorities.
We made friends, and I have been able to help them a little
here. But when one of them introduced his fellow to me
as " another of our Confessors," I could not help protesting,
and asked them whether they thought it was justifiable to
use such a description when they had been shut up by the
police to protect them from molestation by their own people.
The feeling is amazingly strong against them, partly on
political, partly on other grounds. (I, too, have seen the
underground passages from the chief Jesuit house in Lisbon,
but of course it is outrageous to give only a bad interpreta-
tion to things such as these.) Of course there is a con-
siderable amount of mere secularism, but most of it is
" anticlericalism " pure and simple, and one cannot but
think, " O f or a Savonarola ! "
Prayer-book Revision : to the same.
Malta, November 16, 1910.
I am so thankful that so far Convocation has done the
right thing, and congratulate you heartily on your share in
it. I only hope that the result will not be frittered away
by either a mere tinkering of details, or a concentration of
attention on the two burning questions of the Quicumque
and the Vesture. I long to see two things more : (a) a
plain recognition of a moderate dispensing power, so that in
particular cases special modifications may be made, within
limits, with the authorisation of the Bishop ; (b) a plain
recognition of the fact that rubrics are not canons i.e. that
a rubric records simply how things are done (i.e. unless there
is valid reason for some other course), and that it is the func-
tion of a canon to prescribe how things shall be done. Of
course each of these opens large questions ; but I don't like
the idea, which seems to satisfy many very good people, of
THE LAST PERIOD 169
first making the directions of the Prayer-book " reasonable "
(according to the ideas of 1910 or 1911), and then saying,
"All these you shall observe to the last iota ! "
It has already been mentioned that at the time of Mrs.
Collins's death the Bishop had partially lost his voice. He
could make himself heard, but with difficulty, and the voice
was painful to listen to, it was so husky. The mischief
began soon after his labours at Messina ; and he was inclined
to believe that he had there taken some septic poison into
his system. He put himself under the best medical direction,
hoping that his throat might be set right. But it did not
improve during the months that he spent in England that
summer. In the autumn the doctors silenced him altogether.
He was not only forbidden to preach or take services ; he
was not allowed even to speak not so much as in a whisper.
Conversation on his part was cut down to what he could
write on slips of paper. Even this was so tiring for him that
it was not much encouraged.
He took up his winter quarters at Poggio Ponente, near
Bordighera. From that place he sent out a printed circular
in December, saying :
" I am unfortunately in the hands of the doctors, who
have forbidden me to travel, or to speak or preach for
the present, and have sent me here for special treatment
for my throat, etc. So the above will be my address till
further notice."
In sending the circular to Lord Rendel, he added :
" What is printed on the other side is for the world at
large : for your own ear, let me add what is amiss. It
turns out that my throat and lungs are tuberculous, and I
am here for proper open-air treatment, which is already
doing good. But my work, and letter-writing, are cut down
to a minimum."
To another friend he wrote on the circular with pathetic
humour :
" The silence is so essential because they are afraid that
one of the vocal chords is destroyed altogether. I make the
doctors laugh by whistling a few bars of The Lost Chord when
170 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
they come ; but of course it is rather serious, for it means that
I shall never be able to sing any more, if so."
In sending the same to Madame Wiel, he said :
" I am particularly anxious that my brethren should not
put off telling me things on the ground of ' not troubling
me ' and so add greatly to work afterwards."
It was obvious to urge him not to travel again without
taking a chaplain with him, or at least a valet ; but his
reply was :
" Nice as it would be in some ways, I don't think it would
be really feasible for me to have a chaplain with me. It
would at times, when I am on the Riviera or in big centres ;
though even then he would often be of more use in London,
amongst my papers and books, than with me. And in the
outlying districts, which after all take more than half my
time, he would hardly help me at all, and in some ways add
to work ! There isn't any Bishop's work quite like this of
mine which is, of course, one of its many charms. Then
again there are times when a man-servant would be a help,
but many more when he would only be in the way ; and I
should dislike it of all things ! And I know that St. Paul
had companions on his journeys : so do I when I go to
Kurdistan ; but when it is a question of travelling by train,
don't you think it would have made a difference ? But I
will try and be good about it I will ; and certainly the
more for your letter."
He wrote to Lord Rendel again on January 13, 1910 :
"All is going on well, and I am decidedly better than I
was, so far as the lungs are concerned. With the throat,
which is of course the centre of the mischief, there is little
or no change as yet ; but that was bound to be a very slow
business. No, the London doctors were quite decisively
against the Alps : they would be as bad for other things as
they might be good for the mischief itself ; and indeed I
have had not a little tiresome heart-trouble as it is. However,
that is better too, I am thankful to say. And in other ways
I am very well off. It is a little awkward at times not to be
allowed to speak, but not really unpleasant, for with it
there comes a very pleasant restfulness too. Everybody is
THE LAST PERIOD 171
good to me, and I have many willing helpers, and a most
delightful nurse ; and it makes it easier in many ways that
she knows all about last year, having taken care of my wife
so devotedly. And God has blessed me with peace of mind.
I am of course setting my will in the direction of getting well ;
but if it were to be otherwise, I own that I should be happy,
for the sake of that which is ' far better/ Of course it
isn't possible to make plans yet, but, though the doctor will
not even look upon it as possible, I dream of being able to
do two months of journeying in the more important regions
before the summer. The chief anxiety, if it can be called
one, is whether I shall have any voice. I could make myself
heard (before I was put to silence), though with difficulty
and the expenditure of about three times the ordinary
amount of energy. But it seems more than likely that one
vocal chord is gone altogether ; and if so I can hardly hope
to sing again, or take a real physical pleasure in speaking.
However, all that is happily not my concern !
"As I can't talk, I am not allowed to see many people ; but
there is a good chaplain here, who is one of my own private
chaplains too ; 1 and kind Mrs. Scott and Miss Cavendish-
Bentinck, in whose garden I spend the afternoon, are old
friends of ours ; and Miss Wells is just coming out to
Bordighera and will be able to work for me, as she has done
before. And I get a certain amount of reading done, and
have a good many books with me, and a capital library near
at hand ; so it is quite a good place to be ill in.
" How critical the state of affairs at home is ! I trust that
all may go well, but there has not for some time been an
election in which it was so hard to foresee the result."
He wrote brightly a few days later to Madame Wiel :
" Poggio Ponente,
Conversion of St. Paul, 1910.
To-day is the sixth anniversary of my Consecration :
to-morrow of our wedding. We had planned, if we could, to
make it in a sense a sabbatical year to travel as little as
we could, and stay longer at Gibraltar and Malta, and possibly
1 The Rev. A. T. Barnett, to whom he was deeply attached.
172 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
to get longer for rest in England this summer. My dear one
rests. . . .
" (January 30.) This place has become almost the centre
of the universe lately ! All sorts of friends of mine are
coming out here to get a glimpse of me, or to hear at any
rate. The Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Davidson
are here now, and come to see me daily ,' and I am rather
expecting the Pope before long, and the Dalai Lama, and
the ex-Sultan, and perhaps Dr. Cook."
At the end of the year 1910 the Bishop sent out a Pastoral
Letter to the people under his charge. After telling them
of the state of his health, he said :
" Limitations such as these are somewhat irksome, but
I am sure that it is right for me to face them, and to try and
do my work under them. I believe that you would wish to
bear them with me rather than that I should give up ; and
every single voice that I can hear on the subject strengthens
this belief. Above all, those who speak with authority are
quite clear that I ought to go on, keeping well within the
limits of what is possible, and doing everything that can be
done to help forward a complete recovery, if that be in
God's providence for me. And you have always shown
me such wonderful loving kindness that I am writing now
with the object of taking counsel with you, my friends, as
to what we can do to make the most of such powers as I
have, and to secure that the Lord's work shall suffer, and
His people be straitened, as little as need be in the
circumstances.
" I think these are the chief points involved, (i) It is,
of course, absolutely impossible for me to preach. To me,
at any rate, this is a very heavy deprivation ; for I have
always been able to enter into the words of George Herbert
with regard to the Country Parson, that ' the pulpit is his
]oy and his throne.' Yet silence may have its advantages.
Long ago, when my dear wife and I used to make plans for
the future, it was one of our dreams that my seventh year as
Bishop should be a Sabbath rest from preaching (at any rate
from preaching in season and out of season), so that I might
have an opportunity of sitting at the feet of my brethren.
THE LAST PERIOD 173
The seventh year has come, and it is to be a year of silence,
but in a very different sense from that which I had thought
of ; and how different in other ways, too ! Well, it is a
privilege to sit among the hearers. And yet I will ask my
brethren of the clergy to believe that it is a matter of real
regret with me that I shall not be able to relieve them of the
strain of having to preach only too constantly. I know well
that there are many who seldom hear any voice but their
own.
" (2) But whilst I am wholly unable to preach, there is
not quite the same difficulty with regard to other services.
Throughout my illness I have been so far blessed as to be
able to celebrate the Eucharist weekly of course in private
every Sunday, with but few exceptions. Now I shall be
able to do so in church, when there are only a few people
present, and where the church is so arranged that they can
come quite near : and when I am going to celebrate in any
church I shall be grateful if the chaplain will ask the people
beforehand to come into the chancel or otherwise to draw as
near as may be. ... I can of course confirm in a very low
voice ; and so many letters have reached me from those who
are or were looking forward to their Confirmation, urging
that if possible they should be confirmed by their own
Bishop, that I have decided to do so wherever I can, writing
a charge that can be read for me by my chaplain or some
other person."
After urging that the cause of Christ and the Church
should not suffer by his restrictions, and in particular the
Gibraltar Mission to Seamen, he concluded :
" I need only add one word more. You see that this is a
business letter ; but that with which it is concerned is the
Lord's business, as indeed all our business is, if we could but
see it. This is not ' the best of all possible worlds ' : it is
marred by our blunders, our failures, and our perverse self-
will. But we Christians have a right to believe and to be
sure that God makes the best of us and of His world, and
takes and uses even these things for our well-being. We
know, if we really think of it, that not things, or even other
people, but we ourselves have been the chief obstacles in
174 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
the way of our own true progress, and that the one thing we
really need is to trust ourselves to, and to follow after, Him
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
and who with Him will freely give us all things. To His
love and care I commit you."
This was the Bishop's last message and testimony to his
diocese and to the Church at large.
To go back a little, after a few months at Poggio Ponente
it was thought, contrary to the expectation of his friends,
that the Bishop might be moved. He was taken to Fiesole,
where Mrs. Jeaffreson, the widow of his loved and honoured
chaplain, Herbert Hammond Jeaffreson, had prepared a
cottage for him hi the grounds of her beautiful Villa degli
Angeli, looking out over Florence. It was there that I saw
him for the last time, in April. At Livorno, on his journey
to Florence, he had seen a famous specialist, who had
examined him before ; the specialist said that the silence
must last till the following October at least, but that there
was marked improvement, and that he might well hope by
the end of the year to have a voice, though not his old
voice, but " una voce raucosa e profonda." This put him
in good heart.
The sea always did him good ; and after a good rest at
Fiesole he was sent, with a nurse, on a long cruise not to
work, but to get the sea air. He started from Venice on
May 19, and went down the Adriatic to the Levant, getting
his first glimpse of the Holy Land. He returned by Genoa,
Algiers, and Gibraltar to England, arriving on June 23.
The improvement was so marked that the doctors were
astonished. One of them told him that if he liked to set the
improvement down to the power of prayer, he was not in a
position to put it down to anything else.
That his mental powers were unimpaired may be seen
by a story which his friend the Archbishop of the West
Indies related to his Synod in February of this year (1912),
in an address which has been published. The occasion was,
no doubt, a meeting of the Consultative Body appointed by
the Lambeth Conference, of which Bishop Collins was a
member. It sat for two or three days at the end of July in
THE LAST PERIOD 175
1910, and he attended the sessions. Archbishop Nuttall
says :
" There were several Bishops discussing a matter of import-
ance on which they had to make a practical recommendation.
Something turned on historical precedent. Bishop Collins was
not able to use his voice, but he had small tablets of paper on
which he could write, and which he could pass on for others
to read what he wished to say. All the other members had
spoken on the subject except himself and myself. I then
ventured to say that I could not agree with the opinions
expressed, for although I could not at the moment recall
facts and dates, I was quite satisfied that in several periods
of Church history long ago incidents had occurred which
furnished the precedents needed to establish my view. While
I was speaking Bishop Collins was writing, and as I sat down
he passed on to me the paper on which he had written and
which I read to the meeting. It contained dates, and names
of individuals, and of places where the facts occurred, sub-
stantiating what I had said, but which I could only refer to as
an impression. He was thus able to recall, in a moment,
details of transactions which occurred hundreds of years ago,
the record of which was to be found in the by-paths of history,
and which he had had no time to look up, and which, when
stated circumstantially, of course shaped the opinion of the
meeting accordingly."
The Archbishop proceeds :
"During this period when there seemed some possibility
and even probability of Bishop Collins recovering his health,
if not sufficiently for diocesan work and public speaking, yet
sufficiently to enable him to carry on his studies and his
writings, I tried hard to persuade him to come to Jamaica to
spend the winter with us, promising him rest in a suitable
climate, and the sympathy and help of a host of friends. I
hoped it would prolong his career. I still think it might have
done so ; but he was bent on returning to the work of his
unique diocese. He did so, and there finished his earthly
course."
The authoress of Especially gives a touching account of
a visit that he paid to Devonshire in the month of August
176 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
a month that was saddened for them both by the death of
General Sir F. Forestier Walker, whom the Bishop regarded
" as the very type of a true and loyal Christian gentleman."
He also visited his friend Mr. W. J. Birkbeck, at Stratton
Strawless. There was no doubt that he was better.
The voice did not return ; but perhaps because it was then
clear that nothing would ever bring it back, the rule under
which he lived was so far relaxed that he was now allowed
sometimes to whisper. He wrote to Lord Rendel on Septem-
ber 21, 1910, from Hampstead, to which he had returned :
" I am still voiceless, and the doctors don't give a very
hopeful forecast in that respect. But in other ways I am
decidedly stronger, and have been able to see a great many
chaplains and others, and so to make up in part for not
having been able to get about last year. Now they are
letting me go to some chief centres for a month or more at
a time and do what I can for them : confirming in a whisper
(with a charge read for me), and at any rate keeping the
reins in my hands. (I personally hope to get about more than
they say, with care as to avoiding bad days, taking a chap-
lain with me when possible, and so on.) So I start for the
North of Spain early in next month, going on thence to
Gibraltar for a fortnight, then to Malta for two months, and
so on. Of course it remains to be seen how far I shall be
able to carry all this out ; and I am to see the ' medicine
man ' again before definitely fixing my plans."
He started. He was accompanied for a good while by his
devoted chaplain, Mr. Oswald Blogg a former pupil of his
at King's College, who obtained temporary leave for the
purpose from the naval authorities. He visited Ferrol,
Corufia, Lisbon, and Gibraltar ; a letter of his has been
already given, describing how the vessel conveyed from
Lisbon a number of Jesuits and other priests who had been
expelled from Portugal. The writer of Especially tells
a little anecdote of a service held on this occasion in the
Spanish Cathedral at Gibraltar :
"A Roman Catholic gentleman who was present told a
friend of mine that he noticed a priest with a very saintly
face come in and kneel down close to him, following the
THE LAST PERIOD 177
service in his book and praying with such devotion, that he
wondered to which of the Portuguese orders he belonged.
While leaving the Cathedral he whispered to a man he knew,
' Isn't that a wonderful face ? which of them is he ? ' and
received the reply, ' That man ? He isn't one of them at
all ; he's the English Protestant Bishop.' ' And if only he
had not been gone by then, I declare I should have liked to
kiss his feet,' concluded the man. My friend said that this
was not the whole of the story, for as our Bishop came out
of the door the people pressed about him, Spanish fashion, to
kiss his hand. ' But I am the English Catholicos,' the Bishop
whispered in Spanish. ' We know who you are,' was their
reply." 1
From Gibraltar he passed to his own house in Malta, and
spent Christmas there. He wrote from Malta to Madame
Wiel on the Holy Innocents' Day :
" We leave here on Monday : we = my chaplain Mr.
Shaw 2 and myself for a fortnight in Sicily, at all the chap-
laincies : then I go to Gibraltar again, and South Spain
(alone), and then probably to Constantinople. But it isn't
easy to make plans long in advance, when one works under
limitations.
" I am writing this at intervals of attending to a little
patient of mine a wee kitten, which turned up in my little
garden here ten days or more ago, absolutely starving and
caked with mud and dirt, and claimed sanctuary. Of course
I adopted it, and directly it had eaten some food the poor
little thing tried to wash itself, but had no soap (i.e. natural
soap), and could not even sit up, but tumbled over. It still
has some bad internal ailment as the result of its privations,
but is getting better, and follows me everywhere, with its
tawny coat and its dear little pinched face, like a baby lion.
It will let me do anything to it in the way of clumsy healing
gives a single little whimper, like a baby, if I hurt it, but
then stops, and will let me do anything so long as I whisper
to it all the time. How dear ' the lower creatures ' are !
and how poor the world would be without them ! Don't
1 Especially, p. 85.
2 Mr. Blogg had been compelled to leave him.
178 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
you think that ' His jewels ' must include the cairngorms
and olivines and beryls and tourmalines, and all those
beautiful stones of Corsica that are too soft to be cut for
the market, as well as all the orthodox ' precious stones ' ?
I'm sure of it."
The year 1911 began for him in Sicily, but before the end
of January he was at Gibraltar. " He was only here for a
week," we read in Especially, " but he used every inch
of his strength in the time. And his Sunday ! Two celebra-
tions and three services ; people to meet him at luncheon, out
to tea at the Colonial Secretary's, and out to supper at the
General's. The only speck of comfort was that church did
really rest and uplift him beyond anything, and I fancied
he had grown more accustomed to hearing his sermons
preached for him." Every week he wrote one or two, to
be thus used.
On the seventh anniversary of his wedding day he left
the loving friends at Gibraltar first for Seville ; then to
meet his eldest brother and his family at Huelva ; then for
Rio Tinto, where his home had been for a while in boyhood ;
then for other places in Spain. He was all alone. He got
through his work, though he confessed that he was so tired
that he hardly knew what to do. At Tangier he met again
the lady who has given so moving an account of his last
years, and her daughter, and after his work there crossed
with them for one last night under their care, and then sailed
to Genoa, took train to Venice, and then sailed again to
Constantinople.
On the voyage he wrote his last letter to Lord Rendel,
looking forward to a visit to Valescure in April, before spend-
ing Holy Week at Bordighera.
" S.S. ' Serbia ' for Constantinople,
February 18, 1911.
Whilst the labour is undoubtedly great, and the limitations
many, I begin to wonder whether, in this altogether excep-
tional diocese, it may not be possible for a voiceless Bishop
to go on and do his work, when under the circumstances
of an ordinary diocese it would be plainly impossible. If so,
CONSTANTINOPLE 179
I can go on cheerfully, though I do not say how gladly I
shall face release when it does come. Nor should I have
said that, but that it slipped out. It is not healthy to think
on those lines. . . .
" The function of realities which we know as worship must
be capable of taking other forms too : the resolute setting our
face towards the highest ideal we can form or seize hold of,
the attempt to realise it in all our dealings with other people,
and the definite drilling ourselves into each of these, must be
one of such forms. But words soon fail us here, and thoughts
go deeper than words. And (you will not see the connexion)
even though the fatigue may not hurt you, I wish you may
not have to take that hurried journey to England. God
bless you all. ...
" ' This is Ancona yonder is the sea.' So I can say,
sitting on deck here."
The Bishop could not have spent his last weeks on earth
in a house where he was more tenderly cared for than in the
British Embassy at Constantinople. A warm friendship
already existed between him and Sir Gerald and Lady
Lowther, and one motive which constrained him to take this
voyage, when he was well aware that it might be his last,
was his desire to confirm Lady Lowther, who was one of the
candidates awaiting him there.
He arrived at Constantinople on Saturday, February 25,
and attended one service in the Embassy Chapel next morn-
ing. After that he only left his room on one day. A chill
contracted on the boat developed into congestion of the
lungs and pleurisy. Although warned by Dr. Clemow, the
Embassy physician, that he ought to do no work, he persisted
in reading and writing, and even in seeing a few visitors.
He lay in bed in a large room overlooking the Embassy
grounds and the Golden Horn ; but his impetuous spirit
would not let him rest, and whenever he felt a little better,
he insisted on getting up, lay on the sofa in his purple
cassock, and jotted down notes for Mr. Whitehouse, the
Embassy Chaplain, to fill out into letters, on every con-
ceivable question of Church order and discipline. After a
few days, his breathing became very laboured, and as he
180 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
expressed it in writing to friends, the doctor put him " on
a nourishing and sustaining diet of strychnine, oxygen, and
milky food." Through it all, he insisted that he meant to
take the two Confiimations at the Embassy Chapel and
the Crimean Memorial Church on the appointed day. " I
shall be better," he repeated over and over again ; "I shall
be better " ; and he literally forced himself to be better,
though it was only for a short while.
The day came. It was Monday, March 13. He got up
and dressed. He was carried to the Embassy Chapel in a
sedan chair by Turks in fez or turban. Usually he wore
cope and mitre in confirming these ornaments had been
presented to him by the diocese in 1905, and he valued them 1
but on this occasion he felt unable to wear them ; he
confessed that the weight of them would be too great for
him. The service was very simple. There were only two
candidates. The chaplain read the service ; the Bishop in a
whisper read the Prayer of Invocation, and performed the
act of Confirmation. There was no Charge ; but the candi-
dates were directed to attend the afternoon Confirmation at
the other church. Once more in the afternoon, he was
carried in the sedan chair. He sat at the bottom of the
chancel steps ; he could not get up them. His Charge, which
he had written during the last few days, was read for him by
Mr. Whitehouse, and then he repeated the prescribed words
two-and-twenty times over the candidates. His bodily weak-
ness was so great that he could with difficulty raise his hands
to place them on the candidates' heads. He looked to be
dying. " The scene," Mr. Whitehouse says, " was most
impressive the spare, disease-stricken form, the whispered
words, the palpable effort of an indomitable will determined
to overcome the frailties of the flesh so impressive that
many present were moved to tears." " To see him stand to
bless the people in a whisper," writes one who was present,
" was the most pathetic sight I ever witnessed."
The chaplain of the Memorial Church, the Rev. R. F.
Borough, says :
" I shall never forget the affecting sight of the dear man
1 See Anglican Church Magazine, July- August, 1905, p. xiii.
THE LAST CONFIRMATION 181
as he sat in his chair while his Confirmation charge was
being read a bowed, shrunken figure, with head bent and
chin sunk on his chest, but the great eyes burning with a
lustre that seemed to look beyond the walls of the church,
his crozier resting over his shoulder with its foot on the ground
and seeming as if its mere inert weight would slowly crush so
frail a thing to the ground. And as he let it rest without
placing his hand upon it, or his arm round it, it was more like
a corpse sitting in state."
The Bishop wrote next day to the .author of Especially :
"Although everything went well yesterday, and I appreci-
ated the eighteenth century feel of being carried through the
streets in a sedan chair, it was a very fatiguing day, and
to-day my breathing is in a poor state, and I am being dosed
with oxygen. Still, it is done, and is a new point to start
convalescing from on a higher level." 1
The Bishop was still looking forward to future work. He
wrote to Mr. Price, the chaplain at Venice, on March 12,
and again on March 14, asking him to meet him at Trieste
on March 30, and to make arrangements for his journey to
the Riviera.
He set to work after the Confirmation to write a Pastoral
Charge to the congregation of the Memorial Church, to be
read to them on the following Sunday. There had been
divisions of opinion and sentiment in the congregation ; and
the way in which he pronounced upon the matters at issue
showed that his judgment was as penetrating and sound as
ever.
" It has been a very sincere grief to me," he said, " that
I have been unable, owing to serious illness, to see anything
of you during my stay in Constantinople, but God's will be
done. You have been very constantly in my thoughts, and
I have endeavoured so far as it was possible, to consider and
to weigh not only what I had heard already about the
difficulties as to the Services, but also the many letters which
I have received during these weeks specifying particular
points on which they ask for change, or for the restoration of
something formerly used. May I ask each and all to believe
1 Especially, p. 121.
182 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
that I have considered and much value their letters ? and
that I do not write to everybody concerned simply because
I have not the strength for it. ...
" In case of any differences arising on the subject [of the
Church Services], it is the plain rule of our Church that the
Bishop is to hear and consider the whole matter, and to
resolve them to the best of his ability, for the good of all
concerned. It is this which I have endeavoured to do ; and
I would ask and call upon you, as your Father in God, to
accept my ruling in the matter (made in weakness and some
pain), not with any jealous scrutiny, but with a willing
resolve to accept for the good of all what may not be pleasing
to each individually, and thus to make it the basis of a new
and fuller life."
With the special points in question we are not here
concerned.
Noting further unfavourable symptoms, those around him
begged that his friends in England might be communicated
with, but he absolutely forbade Mr. Whitehouse to write.
" I am prepared for any and every eventuality," he said,
and would discuss the matter no further. The Ambassador,
however, took steps to inform the Archbishop of Canterbury
of the state of the Bishop's health.
" The keynote of the Confirmation charge," Mr. White-
house writes, " had been, ' Go on/ and it was evident that
he was urging himself, in spite of the bonds of weakness and
suffering, to ' go on ' until the very end. He did not even like
being asked how he was ; but he admitted to one of his
nurses that he felt the end could not be long delayed. The
Holy Sacrament was borne frequently to him straight from
the altar of the Embassy Chapel."
His death was expected daily by his flock at Constanti-
nople, and every effort that loving hearts could prompt was
made to keep him at the Embassy to the last. But he
would take no advice. He had made up his mind that if
he were alive he would confirm at Smyrna, as he had con-
firmed at Constantinople. Nothing could shake his deter-
mination. The utmost that he could be prevailed upon to
concede was that he should take a nurse with him. He would
HIS DEATH 183
not hear of being accompanied by anyone else, though many
offered to go with him. Fortunately, a kind nurse had been
found for him in Constantinople, a Greek lady of the name of
Bolas, who had had three years' training in the London
Hospital, and who was in Constantinople for a holiday.
Tickets were bought for him and Miss Bolas, and in the
afternoon of Thursday, March 23, Lady Lowther drove with
him down to the port, and he was carried on board the
" Saghalien " of the Messageries Maritimes. " His spirit
was as bright and shining as ever," says one who was there,
" and his marvellous smile as radiant and ready. His ' God
bless you/ whispered fervently, I shall always carry with me
through life." The tears were in his eyes as he said good-
bye to the friends who saw him off. Some of them thought
that they saw a change come over his face as they left him,
which betokened the nearness of the end.
The boat left the port at 4.30 p.m. The Bishop, who had
been lying down, seemed to enjoy his tea at 5. In spite of
the nurse's entreaties, he insisted on getting up and dressing
for dinner soon after 6. He ate well ; but at 7.30 the oppres-
sion upon his chest grew heavy. His cough became very
troublesome. At midnight oxygen was administered. Soon
after, when the nurse felt his pulse, he saw that she looked
anxious and alarmed, and assured her that there was nothing
amiss, and that he only wanted to rest. But before long he
began to be unconscious, occasionally rallying for a while.
Once or twice Miss Bolas heard him murmur to himself the
words, " The fellowship of loneliness." The Greek nurse
and the ship's French doctor did all that could be done, but
at 7.50 in the morning of Friday, March 24, the breathing
ceased, and the indomitable spirit passed to Him who
gave it.
" The nurse performed the last offices," Mr. Whitehouse
writes. " ' I permitted no one but myself to touch his holy
body,' she said with tears ; ' and I called in the captain, and
made him seal up all the Bishop's luggage.' " With flag
at half mast the French vessel proceeded on her way past
Mitylene, and up the Gulf of Smyrna, until she cast anchor in
the port.
184 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
At Smyrna the " Saghalien " was anxiously expected. The
Confirmation candidates were assembled in the Church of
St. John the Evangelist, awaiting the arrival of the Bishop.
Mr. A. S. Hichens, a devoted chaplain of the Bishop, and
Mr. Brett, the chaplain of St. John's, knowing how ill
the Bishop had been, had procured the loan of a steam
tug, and arranged to bring him straight from the
" Saghalien " to the nearest point for the church, and take
him back immediately after the Confirmation. Accom-
panied by two other English priests, they went out to
the vessel, only to find that the Bishop lay dead on board.
Returning to St. John's, Mr. Brett announced to the
congregation what had happened, and Mr. Hichens read to
them the charge which the Bishop had sent him a few days
before.
The Bishop's body, clothed in his purple cassock, was con-
veyed, at the Consul's desire, to the British Seamen's
Hospital. There it lay until the Sunday. Information had
been telegraphed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to
Mr. Johnson, the Bishop's brother-in-law, whose address was
found in his pocket-book ; and on the instruction of the
Archbishop, who had communicated with the Bishop's father,
arrangements were made for burying the sacred body at
Smyrna. The hospital is near the church, and on the
Sunday the coffin was removed to the chancel, awaiting
burial on the morrow. The grave was prepared in the vault
below the west window of the nave, the marble floor of the
nave being taken up that the body might be easily lowered
to its place.
On the Monday, March 27, the funeral took place at 3.30
p.m. It was attended by the Consul-General and his staff,
in uniform, the clergy of the three English churches of
Smyrna, Bournabat, and Boudjah, with a great many
members of their flocks, and some other English priests
residing there. It was further attended by the Greek Arch-
bishop of Smyrna, and the Greek Bishop of Tralles, who came
attended by several of their priests, and by the Armenian
Bishop, the French and German Protestant pastors, and
several members of the American Mission and College. An
BURIAL SERVICES 185
address was given by Mr. Hichens. After the body had been
lowered to its resting-place, the Archbishop of Smyrna gave
an address in Greek, in which he spoke sympathetically of
the interest which the Bishop had taken in the work of union
between the Churches.
There, then, his body lies, in the bosom of that Church
of Smyrna, to whose Angel St. John was bidden to write,
" Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of
life." To the first known Bishop of that Church perhaps
already Bishop when the Apocalypse was written the
martyr Ignatius wrote, praising his " resolution in God, settled
as upon an immoveable rock," congratulating himself upon
having had the privilege of seeing his " blameless counten-
ance," which he hoped would be a never-ending joy to him
in God, and urging him to " extend the course " which he
had already run and to " exhort all men, that they might be
saved." "Assert thy position with all diligence, fleshly and
spiritual. Take thought for unity, which is the best of all
things. . . . Devote thyself to unceasing prayers. Ask for
even more understanding than thou hast. Be watchful,
possessing a spirit that never slumbers. . . . Where work
is hardest, great is the gain. . . . The time demands thee
. . . Stand firm like an anvil under the stroke. It is the
part of a great athlete to receive blows and to conquer. . . .
Study the times, looking for Him who is above time, eternal,
invisible, who was made visible for us intangible, im-
passible, who for us was made passible and for us in every
way endured." If St. Ignatius could have foreseen the
career of the English Bishop who is buried at Smyrna, and
desired that there should be a likeness between him and St.
Polycarp to whom he wrote, could he have traced the features
better ?
On the same day that the Bishop was buried at Smyrna,
a memorial service was held in the chapel of Lambeth
Palace. It was attended by prelates who leant upon his
counsel, by Lord Northbourne, his well-tried friend, by
his father, Mr. J. H. Collins, and all the other members
of his family in England, by many of the Bishop's spiritual
children, and a large company of those who loved and
186 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
honoured him. A writer in the Watchword for May, 1911,
said :
" In the early Keltic Church in lona, he used to tell us
that when anyone ' passed to the Lord in the Heavenly
Fatherland/ the others were told, ' You must chant praise
to-day for . . .' The echo of that praise rang through the
service that morning. We sang his favourite setting of the
Twenty- third Psalm by George Herbert, ' The God of love
my Shepherd is,' and ' Now the labourer's task is o'er,' and
when the five-fold Alleluya of the last beautiful hymn
' Ye watchers and ye holy ones,
Bright seraphs, cherubim and thrones,
Raise the glad strain, Alleluya ! '
wafted down to us from the organ loft, it was difficult to
believe that one could not catch his voice in the Alleluya."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who was only just re-
covering from an illness, gave the following address :
" May I say a very few words here and now about the friend
and brother, the guide and teacher, whom we have lost ?
I may have at present no other equally appropriate oppor-
tunity. There are very few men in the Church of England
to-day whose call to pass into the larger life beyond would
leave such a blank as that which we are now conscious of, at
the core and centre of our Church's thoughts and plans and
energies. It is well that in this ancient chapel, at this spot
of all others, we should together quietly and deliberately
thank God for him to-day. He loved this place. At this
altar-step he was married seven years ago. Here in his last
days in England, not yet six months since, he joined with us
in prayer and Sacrament. It was appropriately so. For,
little as the world saw and knew of it, he has for years been
one of our central forces of inspiration and counsel, and in
several different fields of thought and difficulty those
especially in which we deal with Churches other than our
own it was to his mature knowledge of past and present,
and to his devout and chastened vision, that many of us had
learned to look. In some of the gravest labours of the
Lambeth Conference of 1908 he bore a leading, sometimes
BURIAL SERVICES 187
even the foremost, part. His broad and accurate learning
historical, literary, and ecclesiastical was of the unusual
sort, which is readily, almost momentarily, available when
it is needed, and its contributions to the common good were
quietly given with a deep and solemn reverence for the
Church's living Lord, which was, perhaps, its most obvious,
as it was its profoundest, characteristic. I have felt again
and again in him the living reality of each severally of the
seven Pentecostal gifts the spirit of wisdom and under-
standing, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of
knowledge and godliness, and of holy fear.
" And now he has gone. They tell us that it was his
indomitable courage which kept him with us even so long.
With Pauline tirelessness he worked in Pauline and other
lands, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of
robbers (as Kurdistan can show), in perils in the city (let
Messina tell), in perils in the sea, in weariness and painful-
ness, in watchings often. And now, from those things at
least, he is at rest. We shall no more on earth be stimulated
by the eager look, or wait a few quiet moments for what has,
of late, been the whispered counsel, or the swiftly written
sentence of epigrammatic force, and go away with a fresh
lesson as to the power of mind over matter, and the influence
of a personality so vivid in its buoyant spring. None realised
better than he latterly did himself the perils which belong
to that masterful spirit which dominated both his own life
and sometimes the wills and the wishes even the reasonable
wishes of other men.
" We shall not easily see his like again. We are here as
those who knew and loved him nay, rather who know and
love him still, the women whose studies he has guided, the
Societies in whose counsels he has taken part, the pupils he
has trained, the colleagues with whom he has ministered in
word and Sacrament, and, most of all, the men and women
who, through his love, learned more about the love of God.
What his loss means to me I cannot easily express.
" He is in the presence of the Lord Whom he served and
loved with an intensity which was in itself a potent influence
upon us all. In that eager service he spent and was spent to
i88 LIFE OF BISHOP COLLINS
the last hour, taking his final Confirmation only a day or two
before the characteristic close of his earthly life upon the
sea which he had traversed with such persistent and effective
zeal. Our thoughts to-day yes, and his are three :
Love, Joy, Peace.
Let us give thanks unto our Lord God,
It is meet and right so to do.
' Nor dare to sorrow with increase of grief
When they who go before
Go furnished ; or because their span was brief,
When in the acquist of what is life's true gage,
Truth, knowledge, and that other worthiest lore.
They had fulfilled already a long age.
For doubt not but that in the worlds above
There must be other offices of love,
That other tasks and ministries there are,
Since it is promised that His servants there
Shall serve Him still.'" 1
Archbishop Trench's Poems, p. 102 (ed. 1874).
INDEX.
Africa, Mission to South, 71 foil., 149.
Allhallows Barking, 3, 6, 8, 21, 25.
Apostolical Succession, 33 foil., 164.
Barcelona, church at, 78.
Barnett, Rev. A. T., 171.
Bartlett, Miss, 145.
Bennett, Rev. Professor W. H., 30.
Benson, Archbishop, 2, 3, 35, 100,
122, 135.
Bevan, Miss G. M., 92.
Bible Society, 89 foil.
Bindley, Rev. Dr., 44.
Birkbeck, Mr. W. J., 28, 29, 176.
Bishop, Miss E., 97.
Bishop, Miss P. M., 89.
Blogg, Rev. O. W. C., 98, 176.
Bolas, Miss, 183.
Borough, Rev. R. F., 180.
Boycott, Miss S., 47, 128.
Brett, Rev. W. H., 184.
Browne, Bishop G. F., 27, 65.
Caldecott, Rev. Dr. A., 13.
Cavendish-Bentinck, Miss V., 160, 171.
Church Historical Society, 27 foil.
Collet, Sir M. and family, 99.
Collins, Bishop W. E. ; his parentage
and early life, I foil. ; gains the Light-
foot Scholarship, 4 ; death of his
mother, 5 ; of his brother Arthur, 6,
62 ; ordination to Allhallows Barking,
8 ; Lecturer at Selwyn and St. John's,
10 ; Professor at King's College,
London, 12 foil. ; Missionary Con-
ference of 1894, 24; Laud Com-
memoration, 25 ; Church Historical
Society, 27 ; on developments of
worship, 30; case of Incense, 31;
on Home Reunion, 33 ; on Episco-
P ac y> 35 5 tne Encyclopaedia Bri-
tannica, 36 ; proceeds B.D. and D.D.,
37 ; publications, 37 foil., 64; serious
illness, 38 ; mission in the West
Indies, 39 foil. ; " Watchers and
Workers," 45; "Guild of the Holy
Childhood," 47 ; "Society of the Holy
Family," 48 ; spiritual guidance, 48 ;
letters, 48 foil., 148 foil.; consecration,
65 ; marriage, 65, 66 ; enthronement,
67, 68 ; pastoral letters, 69, 70, 172 ;
Mission of Help to South Africa, 71
foil.; Constantinople, first visit to,
75 ; Roman Catholic prelates, rela-
tions with, 77 ; Orthodox do. , 79 ;
diocese, organisation of, 80 ; Mission
at Malta, 81 ; seamen, care for, 70,
77, 82 foil., 173 ; marriage questions,
85, 134 ; Bible Society, 89 ; women's
examinations in theology, 92 ; anec-
dotes, 96 ; illness, 99 ; Kurdistan,
journey to, 100 foil.; Etchmiadzin,
first visit to, 90, 101 ; second visit,
127 ; Pan- Anglican Congress, 128
foil.; Lambeth Conference, 133 foil.;
Messina, the earthquake at, 137 foil.,
158, 159 ; his wife's illness, 145, 160;
and death, 146 ; ministry to small-
pox patients, 148 ; on Fasting before
Communion, 52, 154; the Education
Bill, 156; Unction, 133, 134, 162; the
Church, 163 ; Prayer-book Revision,
INDEX
1 68; his loss of voice, 169 ; beginning
of fatal illness, 169 ; attends Consul-
tative Committee of Lambeth Con-
ference, 174; Gibraltar, last visit to,
178 ; Constantinople, arrival at, 179 ;
last Confirmation, 180; leaves Con-
stantinople, 181 ; death at sea, 183 ;
burial, 184; memorial service at
Lambeth, 185 foil. ; portraits of him,
viii.
Collins, Mr. A., the Bishop's brother,
2, 5, 6, 62.
Collins, Mr. H., the Bishop's brother,
2, 5, 146, 178.
Collins, Mr. J. H., the Bishop's father,
i, 5, 6, 67, 146, 185.
Collins, Mrs., the Bishop's mother, I,
5-
Collins, Mrs. W. E., the Bishop's wife,
66 foil., 68, 99, 100, 128, 145 foil.,
160.
Communion, the elements for Holy,
133-
Confession, 49.
Constantinople, Joachim III., Patriarch
of, 75. 79-
Creighton, Bishop, II, 26, 27, 38, 55.
Davidson, Archbishop, 36, 64, 65, 66,
71, 92, 93, 100, 129, 135, 172, 182,
184, 186.
Deaconesses, 54.
Dibdin, Sir L., 31, 32.
Dott, Rev. W. P., 23.
Eden, Bishop, of Wakefield, 135.
Edwards, Rev. L. V., 19.
Episcopacy, 33, 35.
" Especially William, "etc., v., 67, 147,
148, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181.
Etchmiadzin, 90, 101, 127, 128.
Testing, Bishop, 7.
Fletcher, Rev. G. C., 9.
Forestier Walker, Sir F. W., 80, 150,
176.
Franks, RCT. J. E., 16.
Frere, Miss, 76.
Frere, Rev. Dr. W. H., 31, 36.
Gibraltar, Cathedral of, 80.
Gillingham, Rev. G. W., 18.
Gladstone, Hon. Mrs. H. W., 137.
Guy's Hospital, 24, 38, 62.
Gwatkin, Professor and Mrs., 7i n
Hichens, Rev. A. S., 184, 185.
Hill, Rev. C. S., 73.
Holland, Mrs. Thurston, 7, 65.
Incense, Lambeth hearing on, 31.
Jamaica, 39 foil.
Jeaffreson, Rev. H. H. and Mrs., 161,
174.
Jesuits, the Portuguese, 168, 176.
Jones, Archbishop W. W., 72.
Karapet, the Vartabad, 102 foil.
King's College, London, 12 foil.
Lambeth Conference, 133.
Laud, Commemoration of Archbishop,
25-
Lowther, Sir G. and Lady, 179, 182,
183-
Lyttelton, Hon. and Rev. A. T., 5, 10,
II, 12.
Malta, 76, 80.
Marriage questions, 85, 134.
Meguerdich, Armenian Patriarch, 101,
103.
Messina, earthquake at, 137 foil., 158
foil., 169.
Monckton, Dr., 8.
Montgomery, Bishop, 128, 131.
Moravian Orders, 35.
Moxon, Rev. L., 74.
Northbourne, Lord, 26, 39, 66, 67, 71,
76, 146, 185.
Nuttall, Archbishop, 39, 41, 42, 43, 66,
174.
INDEX
191
Pan- Anglican Congress, 128.
Phillips, Rev. J. S., 27.
Qudshanis, 1 20 foil.
Read, Rev. C. D., 19.
Rendel, Lord, 67, 137, 149 foil., 169,
170, 176, 178.
Ritson, Rev. J. H., 90.
Ritual questions, 30, 31, 52.
Robinson, Rev. Dr. A. W., 9, 21, 38,
39, 66, 71, 157, 168.
Rollit, Sir A., 2.
Roll, Miss M., vi, 146.
Sandford, Bishop, 64, 69.
Seamen, Gibraltar Mission to, 69, 70,
77, 82 foil.
Shaw, Rev. H. J., 81, 177.
Shimun, Mar, Catholicos of the East,
IOO, 1 2O foil.
Shipley, Miss M. E., 95.
Smith, Rev. A., 19.
Sterland, Miss H. G., 146, 147.
Sterland, Miss M. B., 38, 39, 65, 66.
See Collins, Mrs. W. E.
Sunday labour, 83.
Swabey, Rev. M. R., 79.
Temple, Archbishop, 8, 31, 35.
Thompson, Dr. E. Symes, 7.
Toy, Rev. J. H., 163.
Unction of the Sick, 133, 134, 162.
Vaughan, Cardinal, 27, 29.
"Watchers and Workers," 45, 95.
Wells, Miss C., 145, 171-
White, Mr. F. A., 65.
White, Field Marshal Sir G., 67, 68.
Whitehouse, Rev. F. C., 81, 179, 180,
182, 183.
Wiel, Hon. Mme., 147, 170, 171, 177.
Wigram, Rev. Dr. W. A., 101 foil.
Wilkinson, Bishop G. H., 44, 45, 65,
66, 71, 128, 158.
William, Father, 155.
Wordsworth, Bishop John, 27, 131.
GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
