o his insurgent Groom of the Bedchamber: "What's
this I hear? I'm told you go about the country saying that the
Queen is not the Head of the Church. Of course, she's the Head of
the Church, just the same as the Pope is the Head of his Church,
and the Sultan the Head of _his_ Church.'" But this may only be
a creation of that irresponsible romancist, Ben Trovato; and it
is better to take Lord Halifax's account of the transaction:

"I remember certain remonstrances being made to me in regard to
disobedience to the law and suchlike, and my saying at once that I
thought it quite unreasonable that the Prince should be compromised
by anyone in his household taking a line of which he himself did
not approve; and that I honestly thought I had much better resign
my place. Nothing could have been nicer or kinder than the Prince
was about it; and, if I resigned, I thought it much better for him
on the one side, while, as regards myself, as you may suppose,
I was not going to sacrifice my own liberty of saying and doing
what I thought right."

In those emphatic words speaks the true spirit of the man. To "say
and do what he thinks right," without hesitation or compromise
or regard to consequences, has been alike the principle and the
practice of his life. And here the reader has a right to ask, What
manner of man is he whose career you have been trying to record?

First and foremost, it must be said--truth demands it, and no
conventional reticence must withhold it--that the predominant feature
of his character is his religiousness. He belongs to a higher world
than this. His "citizenship is in Heaven." Never can I forget an
address which, twenty years ago, he delivered, by request, in Stepney
Meeting-House. His subject was "Other-worldliness." The audience
consisted almost exclusively of Nonconformists. Many, I imagine,
had come with itching ears, or moved by a natural curiosity to
see the man whose bold discrimination between the things of Caesar
and the things of God was just then attracting, general attention,
and, in some quarters, wrathful dismay. But gradually, as the high
theme unfolded itself, and the lecturer showed the utter futility
of all that this world has to offer when compared with the realities
of the Supernatural Kingdom, curiosity was awed into reverence, and
the address closed amid a silence more eloquent than any applause."

"That strain I heard was of a higher mood."

As I listened, I recalled some word