parson's son is the natural beginning of an
adventurous career; and, if we owe no greater debt to the Church of
our fathers, there is always this argument in favour of the
Establishment, that most of the men who have done something for our
Empire have first opened eyes on this planet in some sleepy old
rectory where roses bloom and rooks are blown about the sky.

[Illustration: Professor Baden Powell.
From a Painting by Hartmann.]

Mr. Baden-Powell, the father of our hero, was a man of great powers.
He was a renowned professor at Oxford, celebrated for his attainments
in theology and in physical science. But the peace-loving man of
letters died ere his boys had grown to youth, and, alas, the memory of
him is blurred and indistinct in their minds. They remember a quiet,
soft-voiced, tender-hearted man who was tall and of goodly frame, yet
had the scholar's air, about whose knees they would cluster and hear
enchanting tales, the plots of which have long since got tangled in
the red tape of life. He had, what all fathers should surely have, a
great love of natural history, and on his country walks would beguile
his boys with talk of animals, birds, and flowers, implanting in their
minds a love of the open and a study of field geology which has since
stood them in excellent stead. I like to picture this learned
professor, who was attacked by the narrow-minded Hebraists of his day
for showing, as one obituary notice remarked, that the progress of
modern scientific discovery, although necessitating modifications in
many of the still prevailing ideas with which the Christian religion
became encrusted in the times of ignorance and superstition, is in no
way incompatible with a sincere and practical acceptance of its great
and fundamental truths,--I like, I say, to picture this Oxford
professor on one of his walks bending over pebbles, birds' eggs, and
plants, with a troop of bright-eyed boys at his side. One begins to
think of the scent of the hedgerow, the shimmering gossamer on the
sweet meadows, the song of the invisible lark, the goodly savour of
the rich earth, and then to the mind's eye, in the midst of it all,
there springs the picture of the genial parson, tall and spare,
surrounded by his olive-branches, and perhaps with our hero, as one of
the late shoots, riding triumphant on his shoulder. It was his habit,
too, when composing profound papers to read before the Royal Society,
to let his children amuse themselv