Part 2 (2/2)

”If any man will do His Will, he shall know of the doctrine”

Few sernificant memorial of a life which lasted only nineteen years

Theservices in the Chapel hat is called ”bright and cheerful”--in other words, extremely noisy and not very harmonious or reverent We had two ser; the assistant-er of repute Dr Butler's preaching I have already described, and also that of Farrar and Westcott Mr Steel's traditional discourses were in a class by themselves But other preachers we had, not less reht, who told us that we did not knoay the world would be destroyed--it h this latter alternative seems precluded by Genesis ix 11) The Rev James Robertson, afterwards Head-master of Haileybury, compared the difference between a dull boy and a clever boy to that between an ox and a dog ”To the ox, the universe coreen beneath; while the dog finds a world of excite, and a de on Trinity Sunday, 1868, thus explained away the doctrine of the Trinity--”God the Father is God in Nature God the Son is God in History God the Holy Ghost is God in the Conscience” And Thring of Uppingham bellowed an exposition of Psalour that he acquired a us the affectionate nickname of ”Old Sheepfolds” It is a pleasure to place in contrast with these absurdities the truly pastoral andsermons of Mr John Smith, whose apostolic work at Harrow I have already coers in my ear--”Be watchful, be prayerful, be very kind” He is thus described on a Me a Father, To friends in joy or grief a Brother, To the poor, the suffering, and the teth

Tried by more than common sorrows, And upborne by more than common faith, His holy life interpreted to many The Mind which was in Christ Jesus, The Proranted to the Pure in Heart

It may seem odd that one should reo, but Bishop Welldon's testireatly struck by the feeling of the boys for the weekly Sermon; they looked for it as an ele that Dr Welldon promptly and wisely reduced the Sunday Sermons from two to one)

But the day of days in Harrow Chapel was Founder's Day, October 10th, 1868, when the preacher at the Commemoration Service was Liddon, who had lately become famous by the Bampton Lectures of 1866 The scene and the sers for Founder and Benefactors had been duly perfor solemnity to that droll chapter about ”Such as found out ” When the preacher entered the pulpit, his appearance instantly attracted attention We had heard vaguely of hireat Oxford swell,” but now thathim we felt a livelier interest ”He looks like a hbour; and indeed it is a better description than the speaker knows The Oxford MA goorn over a cassock, is the Benedictine habit ests asceticism; the beautifully chiselled, sharply-pointed features, the close-shaved face, the tawny skin, the jet-black hair, re by Velasquez or Murillo, or of Ary Scheffer's picture of St Augustine And the interest aroused by sight is intensified by sound The vibrant voice strikes like an electric shock The exquisite, almost over-refined, articulation seems the very note of culture The restrained passion which thrills through the disciplined utterance warns even thequite unlike the ordinary stuff of school-ser ”Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days coh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in thelory of boyhood; the splendid inheritance of a Public School built on Christian lines; the unequalled opportunities of learning while the faculties are still fresh and the mind is still receptive; the worthlessness of all merely secular attainhed in the balance against ”the one thing needful” The congregation still are boys, but soon they will be men Dark days will come, as Ecclesiastes warned--dark in various ways and senses, darkest when, at the University or elsewhere, we first are bidden to cast faith aside and to believe nothing but what can be deans of sense”

Now is the time, and this is the place, so to ”remember our Creator”

that, coet Him, or doubt His love, or question His revelation The preacher leans far out froation, in an act of benediction ”From this place may Christ ever be preached, in the fulness of His creative, redemptive, and sacramental work Here may you learn to remember Him in the days of your youth, and, in the last and most awful day of all, may He remember you”

Five asp; masters hurry past, excited and loquacious Notes are compared, and watches consulted Liddon has preached for an hour, and the school h has now been said about the Chapel and its hter the Mrs Procter, as born in 1799 and died in 1888, say casually at a London dinner-party, when someone mentioned Harrow Speech-Day--”Ah! that used to be a pleasant day The last time I was there I drove doith Lord Byron and Doctor Parr, who had been breakfasting with u” This reminiscence seereed with Mrs Procter Speech-Day at Harrow has been for more than forty years one of my favourite holidays In my time the present Speech-Room did not exist The old Speech-Roo in 1819, was a well-proportioned hall, with panelled walls and large s Tiers of seats rose on three sides of the room; on the fourth was the platform, and just opposite the platforuished visitors There was a triuate, and the presence of the Beadle of the Parish Church, suold, pointed to the historic but obsolescent connexion between the Parish and the School The material of the ”Speeches,” so-called, was much the same as that provided at other schools--Shakespeare, Sheridan, Chatha desire to play the Trial in _Pickwick_ was only attained, under the liberal rule of Dr Wood, in 1909 At the Speeches, one caught one's first glimpse of celebrities whom one was destined to see at closer quarters in the years to coet the radiant beauty of ”Spencer's Faery Queen,”[7] as I saw her at the Speeches of 1869

While I aression frohan, some time Head-master of Harrow and afterwards Dean of Llandaff, was in 1868 Vicar of Doncaster My only brother was one of his curates; the Vaughans asked e, in order that she ht see her son, then newly ordained, at his work; and, the visit falling in the Harrow holidays, they good-naturedly said that she han was always exceedingly kind to boys, and one , on our way back frohte[8] has proposed to break his journey here, on his return from Scotland Do you know him? No? Well--observe Sir Grosvenor He is orthy of observation He is exactly what the hy'” The day advanced, and no Sir Grosvenor appeared The Doctor ca if ”that tiresohan plied him with topics of consolation--”Perhaps he has missed his train Perhaps there has been an accident Perhaps he has been taken ill on the journey”--but the Doctor shook his head and refused to be comforted After dinner, we sat in an awe-struck silence, while the Vaughans, knowing the hour at which the last train froth of time which it took to drive from the station, listened with ears erect Presently the wheels of a fly ca, ”Our worst anticipations are realized!” hurried to the front door Then, welcoed traveller with open arms, he said in his blandest tones--”Now, my dear Sir Grosvenor, I know you o to bed at once” Sir Grosvenor, who longed to sit up tillbrandy-and-water, feebly re captive upstairs It was a triuave me an iuests, even when they are celebrities But all this is a parenthesis

I should be sharateful to a place of peculiar enjoyment if I forbore to mention the Library at Harrow It was opened in 1863, as a Mehan's Head- towards Hampstead, was my favourite resort On whole-holidays, when others were playing cricket, I used to read there for hours at a stretch; and gratified raphies, Memoirs, and Encyclopaedias The Library was also the ho Society, and there I islative Body is incompatible with free institutions; and supported the present Bishop of Oxford in declaring that a Republic is the best for Society leads me to the subject of Politics I have said in a former chapter that the Conservative Reform Bill of 1867 was the first political event which interestedtime all over the world, in France, in Italy, and in Mexico There were rebellions and rumours of rebellion

Monarchical institutions were threatened Secret Societies were in full activity The whole social order seeh a crisis, and I, like the Abbe Sieyes, fell to fra a Republic, with a President elected for life, and a Legislature chosen by universal suffrage But all these dreams were dispelled by the realities of ht lish Republics But in the summer of 1868, Mr Gladstone's first attack on the Irish Church caused such an excitement as I had never before known It was a pitched battle between the two great Parties of the State, and I was an enthusiastic follower of the Gladstonian standard In November 1868 came the General Election which was to decide the issue Of course Harrow, like all other schools, was Tory as the sea is salt Out of five hundred boys, I can only recall five who showed the Liberal colour These were the present Lord Grey; Walter Leaf, the Holish, who edited the ”Harrow Register,” andday I receivedrolled over and over in the attempt to tear my colours from me The Tory colour was red; the Liberal was blue; and ht blue carriage-wheels which my family have always used, was playfully but loudly hissed by wearers of the red rosette A, whom I quoted just noas a Liberal, and a Tory boy called Freddy Bennet (brother of the present Lord Tankerville) covered hi a red strea ”Bill”

In the following year our Politics found a fresh vent through the establishment of _The Harrovian_ I had dabbled in composition ever since I was ten, and had printed both prose and verse before I entered Harrow School So here was a heaven-sent contributor, and oneout of First School, one[9] of the Editors overtook me and said--

”We want you to contribute to _The Harrovian_ We are only going to elish--not such stuff as 'The following boys _were given prizes_'” Purisan my journalistic career For three years I wrote a considerable part of the paper, and I was an Editor during my last year, in conjunction with my friends Dumbar Barton and Walter Sichel

Harrow is sometimes said to be the s have attained a wide popularity I believe that ”Forty Years on” is sung all over the world But, when I went to Harroere confined to the traditional English songs and ballads, and to some Latin ditties by Bradby and Westcott, which we bellowed lustily but could not always construe E E Bowen's stirring, though often bizarre, coan soon after I entered the school, and E W Howson's really touching and melodious verses succeeded Bowens' soreater or lessspell of a Harrow concert has been an experience quite apart fro When you hear the great body of fresh voices leap up like a lark froround, and rise and swell and swell and rise till the rafters seem to crack and shi+ver, then you see” This was the tribute of a stranger, and an Harrovian has recorded the sa like a lark, with a lark's spontaneous delight in singing; with an ease and self-abandonher rose the clear, sexless notes, till two of theled in a triumphant trill To Des, troubled cadences of the first verse; the vindication of the spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh--the pure spirit, not released frole At that er who called to him out of heaven, who summoned his friend to join him, to see what he saw--'the vision splendid'”[10]

I am conscious that, so far, I have treated the Moloch of Athletics with such scant respect that his worshi+ppers may doubt if I ever was really a boy Certainly ames was rendered less bitter by the fact that I did not care about them I well remember the astonishment of e at my first Eton and Harrow match, and I replied that I should not be there

”Not be at Lord's, e! Why?”

”Because there are three things which I particularly dislike--heat, and crowds, and cricket” It certainly was a rather priggish answer, but let me say in self-defence that before I left the school I had become as keen on ”Lord's,” as the best of my compeers

That, in spite of his reprehensible attitude towards our national game, I was still, as Mr Chadband said, ”a human boy,” is proved by the intense interest hich I beheld the one and only ”Mill” which ever took place while I was at Harrow[11] It was fought on the 25th of February, 1868, with round,” now perverted to all sorts of base uses, is iround slopes rapidly, so that the wall of the Yard for-Ground The moment that ”Bill” was over, I rushed to the wall and secured an excellent place, leaning my elbows on the wall, while a friend, as a moment later, sat on my shoulders and looked over my bowed head It would be indiscreet to h I reiant; the other short, dark, and bow-legged

Neither had at all a pleasant countenance, and Itheetting their deserts To-day such a sight would kill e