o that he was
constantly misunderstood, and there was a sense of failure, of
disappointment, of perplexity about him.

These things struck me, as well as others, and at first repelled me.
I could see indeed, at the same time, that his conduct was remarkably
methodical, and was guided at every step by an inexhaustible
provision of maxims. He had meditated on every contingency in life,
and was prepared with rules and precepts, which he never disobeyed.
But I doubted whether all this was not artificial,--a contrivance to
satisfy the pride of intellect and establish a cold superiority. In
time I discovered that it was the perfection of a developed
character. He had disciplined his soul with such wisdom and energy as
to make it the obedient and spontaneous instrument of God's will, and
he moved in an orbit of thoughts beyond our reach.

It was part of his religion to live much in the past, to realise
every phase of thought, every crisis of controversy, every stage of
progress the Church has gone through. So that the events and ideas of
his own day lost much of their importance in comparison, were old
friends with new faces, and impressed him less than the multitude of
those that went before. This caused him to seem absent and
indifferent, rarely given to admire, or to expect. He respected other
men's opinions, fearing to give pain, or to tempt with anger by
contradiction, and when forced to defend his own he felt bound to
assume that every one would look sincerely for the truth, and would
gladly recognise it. But he could not easily enter into their motives
when they were mixed, and finding them generally mixed, he avoided
contention by holding much aloof. Being quite sincere, he was quite
impartial, and pleaded with equal zeal for what seemed true, whether
it was on one side or on the other. He would have felt dishonest if
he had unduly favoured people of his own country, his own religion,
or his own party, or if he had entertained the shadow of a prejudice
against those who were against them, and when he was asked why he did
not try to clear himself from misrepresentation, he said that he was
silent both from humility and pride.

At last I understood that what we had disliked in him was his virtue
itself.

J.N.F.
R.V.L.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: There is no foundation for the statement of Canon Meyrick
in his _