Part 5 (1/2)

I breakfasted thiswith Fowler of Lincoln to meet Thackeray (the author), who delivered his lecture on George III in Oxford last night I was much pleased hat I saw of him; his manner is simple and unaffected; he shows no anxiety to shi+ne in conversation, though full of fun and anecdote when drawn out He seeht: the undergraduates seem to have behaved with most unusual moderation

The next few years of his life passed quietly, and without any unusual events to break the s in the lecture-rooms, his afternoons in the country or on the river--he was very fond of boating--and his evenings in his roo for the next day's work But in spite of all this outward calm of life, hisHoly Orders Not only was this step necessary if he wished to retain his Studentshi+p, but also he felt that it would give hiraduates, and thus increase his power of doing good On the other hand, he was not prepared to live the life of almost puritanical strictness which was then considered essential for a clergyman, and he saw that the ireatly interfere with the proper performance of his clerical duties

[Illustration: The Bishop of Lincoln _Froraph by Lewis Carroll_]

The Bishop of Oxford, Dr Wilberforce, had expressed the opinion that the ”resolution to attend theatres or operas was an absolute disqualification for Holy Orders,” which discouraged him very much, until it transpired that this statey He discussed the matter with Dr Pusey, and with Dr

Liddon The latter said that ”he thought a deacon ht lawfully, if he found himself unfit for the work, abstain from direct ministerial duty” And so, with many qualms about his oorthiness, he at last decided to prepare definitely for ordination

On December 22, 1861, he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford

He never proceeded to priest's orders, partly, I think, because he felt that if he were to do so it would be his duty to undertake regular parochial work, and partly on account of his sta He used, however, to preach not unfrequently, and his serhtful to listen to, his extre evident in every word

[Illustration: Bishop Wilberforce _Froraph by Lewis Carroll_]

”He knew exactly what he wished to say” (I a froot his audience in his anxiety to explain his point clearly He thought of the subject only, and the words caht in front of hiuram, and he set to work to prove it point by point, under its separate heads, and then summed up the whole”

One sermon which he preached in the University Church, on Eternal Punishotten by those who heard it

I, unfortunately, was not of that nuine how his clear-cut features would light up as he dwelt lovingly upon thewhose charity far exceeds ”the measure of man's mind” It is hardly necessary to say that he himself did not believe in eternal punishment, or any other scholastic doctrine that contravenes the love of God

He disliked being coood effects that his words had had upon anyme that fact about my sermon,” he wrote to one of his sisters, who told hiood fruit that one of his addresses had borne ”I have once or twice had such inforreat_ coood for one to know It is _not_ good to be told (and I never wish to be told), 'Your sermon was so _beautiful_' We shall not be concerned to know, in the Great Day, whether we have preached beautiful sermons, but whether they were preached with the one object of serving God”

He was always ready and willing to preach at the special service for College servants, which used to be held at Christ Church every Sunday evening; but best of all he loved to preach to children Some of his last sermons were delivered at Christ Church, Eastbourne (the church he regularly attended during the Long Vacation), to a congregation of children On those occasions he told theory--_Victor and Arnion,_ which he intended to publish in course of ti with such deep feeling that at times he was almost unable to control his emotion as he told them of the love and compassion of the Good Shepherd

I have dwelt at soth on this side of his life, for it is, I anored in the popular estiious man in the best sense of the term, and without any of that morbid sentimentality which is too often associated with the word; and while his religion consecrated his talents, and raised hiht which without it he could never have reached, the example of such a man as he was, so brilliant, so witty, so successful, and yet so full of faith, consecrates the very conception of religion, and makes it yet more beautiful

On April 13, 1859, he paid another visit to Tennyson, this tiford

After dinner we retired for about an hour to the s's Idylls,” but he would not let arden with me when I left, and made me remark an effect produced on the thin white clouds by the olden light at some distance off the moon, with an interval of white between--this, he says, he has alluded to in one of his early poearet,” vol i), ”the tender arees with”Grass froination, but extravagant

On another occasion he showed the poet a photograph which he had taken of Miss Alice Liddell as a beggar-child, and which Tennyson said was the raph he had ever seen

[Illustration: Alice Liddell as Beggar-child _Froraph by Lewis Carroll_]

Tennyson told us he had often dreaood at the ti, except four lines which he dreamed at ten years old:--

May a cock sparrow Write to a barrow?

I hope you'll excuse My infantile , but not affording much promise of his after powers

He also told us he once dreaan with very long lines that gradually got shorter, and ended with fifty or sixty lines of two syllables each!

On October 17, 1859, the Prince of Wales came into residence at Christ Church The Dean met hile to welcoraph, in which hope, however, he was doohness was tired of having his picture taken

During his early college life he used often to spend a few days at Hastings, with his e In a letter written from their house to his sister Mary, and dated April 11, 1860, he gives an account of a lecture he had just heard:--